Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 2, 1913 “On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York” by Big Bill Haywood, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of January 1913:
On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York
-by William D. Haywood
[Part II of II]
Victims of Law and Order. Members of the I. W. W. in Jail at Little Falls. Red Banner Shown in Picture was Made in a Cell.
The many arrests, the brutality shown the prisoners after they were thrown into jail and other outrages by the police and hired thugs of the company, caused a state of excitement among the strikers that was only subdued by the arrival of Matilda Rabinowitz. She came from Bridgeport, Conn., formerly Russia. It was she who reorganized the shattered forces and got the committees in working order, electing others to take the places of those imprisoned. Miss Rabinowitz is as small in person as the smallest striker, yet disciplined as she is in the Industrial Workers of the World principles, she is shaping the mighty force that means victory. A book could be written about Matilda.
Others came, among them Jessie Ashley, a lawyer and sterling friend of the oppressed. She came from New York City as counsel to prepare for the legal end of the battle, paying her own expenses and contributing $100 to the strikers’ fund, making $1,100, and more, that she has contributed to the strikers at Lawrence and elsewhere.
The Socialists of Schenectady, Mayor Lunn, Robert Bakeman and John Mullin and others were on the job from the beginning. Comrades Kruise, Wade and Mullin came early, rolled up their sleeves and entered the culinary department, known in the strike quarters as the soup kitchen.
Money, supplies, groceries and clothing have been abundantly contributed by the Relief committee organized among the Socialists of Schenectady. The Citizen, a Socialist paper, has given publicity to the disgraceful conditions at Little Falls. All of which the strikers deeply appreciate and, while they cannot vote, as most of them are women and children, still they are in the vanguard, and on the picket line. They are marching to the music of the Marseillaise, onward to industrial freedom.
M. Helen Schloss, who is shown behind the bars on the cover, is a woman of Spartan mold, a Socialist of four years’ standing; well known at the Rand school in New York. She came to Little Falls and took a position with the Twentieth Century Club, a fashionable charity association, to investigate tuberculosis, which is prevalent among the mill workers. When the strike began, she took up the cause of the women on the firing line and joined forces with them. This lost her a salaried position and landed her in jail where she was held for eleven days. She was charged with inciting to riot and is only now enjoying her freedom under bond of $2,000.
Recently she has been arrested again while investigating the cases of some strikers who had been thrown into jail without warrant. Her unusual activity on behalf of the oppressed caused her to be looked upon with suspicion by the authorities who are under the control of the mill owners. A board of physicians, appointed by the chief of police, known as “Bully” Long, discovered nothing more serious the matter with her than a brilliant mind, a sterling character and a warm heart.
In spite of all the bitter persecution, which Miss Schloss has endured, she is still lending her strength to the strikers’ cause.
Out of the West comes the young blood of the revolution, ever willing to fight for the political right of freedom of speech, always giving more than they take, but willing, if broke, to live providing Algernon Lee will permit them on a one 7-cent meal a day until they are privileged to go to jail for the cause of labor.
After all it is the strikers themselves who are making the real struggle. They revolted against a reduction of wages that came when the 54-hour law went into effect, reducing their meagre incomes from 50 cents to $2.00 a week. As a direct result of the firm stand made by the Little Falls strikers, wages of other men, women and children employed in similar industries at Utica, Cohoes and other knitting mill centers have been restored and even the strikers at Little Falls have been promised 60 hours’ pay for 54 hours’ work, but they are demanding a 10 per cent increase and a 15 per cent increase for night work. This is what the employer gets when he drives his workers to organize in the Industrial Workers of the World.
If you want to help the mill slaves at Little Falls in this struggle for better condition, follow the example of Helen Keller, Jessie Ashley and Helen Schloss. Send your contributions to Matilda Rabinowitz, Box 458, Little Falls, N. Y.
Later, Chief of Police “Bully Long” has closed up the strikers’ soup kitchens in order to force them back to work. This wrought great hardship on the women and children. But Schenectady threw open her municipal doors and buildings and gathered in some of the children. These and more will be cared for by Socialist “strike parents” till the strike is won.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 1, 1913 “On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York” by Big Bill Haywood, Part I
From the InternationalSocialistReview of January 1913:
[Part I of II.]
WITH facts for a fulcrum and sentiment for a lever, we can move the world!
The world of labor is being slowly moved by economic conditions such as present themselves at Little Falls, N. Y., where women and children and men are struggling for bread. The facts regarding the situation there inspired Helen Keller, the world’s prodigy, to give voice to the heart pulses expressed in the letter printed on the opposite page.
By the rarest good chance John Macy, whose wife is the teacher and companion of Helen Keller, came to Little Falls. A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, he took up his part of the battle by getting the books and accounts of the strikers in shape, by writing articles and reports.It was through him and other mediums that the details of the strike and its attendant miseries reached the blind girl at her pleasant home at Wrentham, Mass. Sitting at her desk and surveying the mysterious lines in “The Hand of the World,” she sees what philosophers, politicians and priests cannot see; have never seen. She reads unerringly the destiny of labor. Understanding the need of toil, she reaches out and puts in the hand of the world, not a dole of charity but a token of love-part of labor’s own.
John Macy read her letter to the strikers at a regular meeting held at Slavoc Sokel hall. Helen Keller has never spoken to such an audience before. There were none but workers there, men and women, boys and girls, who knew but little English and were of many tongues.
It was explained to them that they were listening to the words of a girl who was deaf and blind; one who had overcome afflictions more severe than their own. They could not understand the meaning of many of her words. But they were like a mother’s crooning, soothing a wounded child. The letter was a heartfelt greeting from a sincere friend. They felt the sentiment and the sympathy it contained. Their eyes streamed with tears. They burst into a hearty cheer. Helen Keller will get a set of resolutions signed by the strikers in many languages.
She may never see the embossed words or names attached to the resolutions, but she will know their meaning-they are written by “The Hand of the World.”
Other remarkable letters were received by the strikers, one from a “friend” who had been saving his money to buy an overcoat. He had laid by ten dollars. He sent it all to the strikers saying he could get along without an overcoat if the money would help the strikers to win more bread. It is such sentiment and support that has instilled in the Little Falls strikers the spirit of solidarity that knows no defeat.
Some who sympathize with the Industrial Workers of the World principles and methods have sent letters with money and others have come in person to render what assistance they can to the strikers.
After the trouble precipitated by the police on October 30th, last, the organizers on the ground, Ben J. Legere and Phillipo Bocchino, with nearly all the members of the strike committee, were thrown into jail where they have been held ever since, awaiting the action of of the grand jury.
After a farcical hearing, Legere and Bocchino were committed to jail and held for bail of $15,000. Murlando, one of the strikers, was held in the sum of $10,000 and the others in some instances ranging from $50 to $5,000. The story of the so-called riot was told in the following proclamation issued by the strikers:
The blood-thirsty, murderous cossacks have shown their hand.
Police thugs of Little Fall throw off the mask and do the dirty work for the gang of bloodsuckers who own the mills in Little Falls.
Today in Little Falls was seen a spectacle which has not been witnessed before anywhere outside of Russia.
Today the gang of fiends in human form who wear the disgraceful uniform of the police in Little Falls, deliberately went to work and started a riot.
It was the most brutal, cold-blooded act ever done in these parts. Nothing under heaven can ever justify it and the soul of the degenerate brute who started it will shrivel in hell long, long before the workers will ever forget this day.
The workers in the mills of Little Falls have been on strike for four weeks against an inhuman oppression of the mill-bosses. An incompetent law has been used by these mill-owners to reduce the wages of the workers from fifty cents to two dollars a week.
Hundreds of these workers were already existing on a starvation wage averaging about $7 per week.
They resisted this robbery by the mill-owners.
They went on strike.
The police showed at the beginning that the filthy money of the mill-owners can corrupt all authority by attempting to suppress free speech in Little Falls. Several speakers were arrested. Then the strikers organized in the Industrial Workers of the World.
They began peaceful picketing at the mills where many American workers, mostly girls, were playing the part of scabs.
The strikers, with a band and banners bearing appeals for support, began to parade each morning before the mills to encourage the other workers to come out. They did not interfere with the scabs in any way and by this means of peaceful demonstration the strikers won over every day some of those who were working.
The mill-bosses were baffled. They could not understand this new and peaceful mode of picketing. As the strikers kept moving at all times the police could find no excuse to interfere. But today the craven brutes MADE an excuse.
Every day more workers joined the picket-line. The first day one of these blood-thirsty police animals tried to start a riot by slugging a girl who stepped from the line to speak to a friend. He was number three who showed his cowardice and animal ferocity today by cruelly clubbing helpless prisoners and defenseless strikers.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 29, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Women Working in Textile Mills Live on Slave Wages
From the Binghamton Press and Leader of December 27, 1912:
ARBITRATORS HEAR HOW WOMEN SLAVE IN LITTLE FALLS MILLS ———- Eating While Working, Wool Winder Has Made as Much as $7 in a Week ———-
Little Falls, Dec. 27.-Three members of the State Board of Arbitration, acting as mediators in the Little Falls textile strike, which has lasted for months, began taking testimony today.
The strikers were heard first, all witnesses being members of the union. They declared they had quit work because their wages were hardly sufficient for them to live on.
Mary Sroka, two years in America, testified that by working from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m. and taking very little time for luncheon, she had once made $6 in a week of five days. Sometimes, she said, she made only $2.50 and $3. She was an inspector in the finishing room of the Phoenix Mills.
Mrs. Suie Mizerak, a winder of wool, testified that she worked from 6 a. m. to 8 p. m., eating her meals as she worked, and made from $5 to $7 a week.
Stanislawa Cououn, an 18-year-old girl, testified that she received $1 a day for her work as a folder.
Agnes Kalolaka, a spinner, said she received $7 a week before the 54-hour law went into effect; thereafter, she received $6.37.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 28, 1912 New Pamphlets Now Available from I. W. W. Headquarters in Chicago
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 26, 1912:
On the Firing Line
Extracts from the Report of the General Executive Board to the Seventh Annual Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World Held in Chicago, Ill., Sept. 17 to 27, 1912 -I. W. W. General Executive Board: Thomas Halcro F. H. Little, Ewald Koettgen, George Speed
Ettor and Giovannitti Before the Jury at Salem, Massachusetts, November 23, 1912
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 16, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Strikers Seek Protection; Insanity Case Fails Against Nurse
From the Grant County Socialist (Medford, Oklahoma) of December 14, 1912:
STRIKERS APPEAL TO GOV. DIX FOR STATE MILITIA ———- Only Resort Little Falls Workers Can See ———- Bosses Would Establish Case of Insanity to Incarcerate Helen Schloss. ———-
Binghamton Press and Leader (New York) December 5, 1912
Little Falls, N. Y., Dec. 6.-“Send the State militia to Little Falls!” is the appeal to Governor Dix that the striking textile workers of this city sent out today.
This is the only avenue of escape from the inhuman and brutal persecution of the local police and the company’s hired thugs that the strikers think they have left.
The strike is now in its eighth week, and the solidarity of the workers is second only to that demonstrated by the 22,000 textile workers in the historic Lawrence strike. There’s nothing that can break the united spirit of the men and women and children that are fighting for bread except the atrocious activities of the hirelings of the mill owners. It is their high-handed methods in stifling the rebellious spirit of the workers that have driven the strikers to appeal for the state militia.
[…..]
How Miss Schloss Was Hounded
Helen Schloss, the city nurse, who, after seeing the condition of the strikers, decided to give up her position in order to be better able to help the strikers, today told the story of how the special police persecuted her in an effort to discourage her activities in the strike.
Not being able to persuade her to withdraw from the strikers’ ranks, they determined to find out some way of getting her out of the way, at least till the strike is over. Without knowing anything Miss Schloss was subjected to an examination of her state of mind by 3 local physicians. For two long hours they questioned her in a manner that would put the much heard of third degree to shame. All this in an effort to establish the fact of her insanity.
Miss Schloss, however, stood the test, and at times it looked as if the doctors who investigated her mental status were not er rational themselves. They finally gave up the job in disgust.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 14, 1922 Bars and Shadows, Poems by Ralph Chaplin, I. W. W. Class-War Prisoner
From The Nation of December 13, 1922:
Ralph Chaplin and 58 of his fellow agitators for industrial justice are behind Federal prison bars because they dared to tell the truth about the war while the war was in progress. Chaplin has spent five consecutive Christmases behind the bars…
“Bars and Shadows’ [is] an ideal Christmas reminder, and one of the most effective documents for amnesty that has appeared.
DEMAND THE RELEASE OF ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
Do Ralph Chaplin a good turn by ordering six copies of “Bars and Shadows” and using them for holiday gifts. The book is privately published. Every penny above the actual cost of manufacture, advertising and distribution goes to Mrs. Chaplin and her son…..
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 3, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of December 1912:
[Part II of II]
Shortly after [the October 30th] affair the strikers and the strike committee were holding a meeting in The Slovak Sokol Hall, the principal social center of the working population, when the door was thrown open with a crash and the police and hired guards burst in. Women, who composed the majority of the audience, were hurled right and left. Men who protested were struck on the head. Furniture was overturned. The musical instruments of the Slovak Band were broken and battered. One cop who happened to notice the framed charter of the local textile union of the Industrial Workers of the World, drove his club through the middle of it. It hangs in the hall now, its broken glass held together by an edging of red ribbon with a knot of red covering the hole made by the club. All the members of the strike committee and all persons suspected of being connected with the strike were arrested and dragged to the local lock-up, a place so vile that the State Prison Inspector has threatened the town with mandamus proceedings unless it is cleaned up.
Legere, however, could not be found. The building was searched for him and the police, not wishing to investigate the dark cellar, fired three shots into it at random, any one of which might have killed Legere had he not already been taken to a place of safety by a devoted band of workers. He went to Utica that night, got some needed printing done, sent off some messages, and then returned to Little Falls where he was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail at Herkimer, another place that has been condemned by the State Prison Inspector.
Bakeman, Hirsh, Bochino and George Vaughan of Schenectady, were already there, along with thirty-nine others, strikers and sympathizers. When visited later, some of them were still wearing the bloody shirts that they wore when arrested. They were joined by Miss Helen Schloss, a young Socialist woman of New York, who for several months had been a tenement investigator for a club of the well-to-do women of Little Falls. Despite warnings from her lady employers, Miss Schloss cast her lot with the strikers, gave up her position, joined the relief committee, and went out on the picket line with the workers. For this she incurred the enmity of the police and her spectacular arrest by Chief Long himself followed. She was put in Herkimer jail on a charge of “inciting to riot” and as a special honor was given the cell occupied by Chester Gillette, electrocuted for the murder of his sweetheart. She was finally released on bail and went right back to work in the relief kitchen.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 2, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part I
From the InternationalSocialistReview of December 1912:
[Part I of II]
ON October 1 of this year a law went into effect in the state of New York making it illegal for female industrial slaves to work more than 54 hours a week. Some employers immediately took advantage of the situation and paid their workers what they call “pro rata”-that is, they punished the beneficiaries of this law by reducing the contents of their pay envelopes to correspond with the reduced number of hours. Departments of industry are so closely connected nowadays that the men were affected in an equal degree with the women.
Slaves in most parts of the state seem to have received the reduction with submission, but not so the employes of the knitting mills in Little Falls. When their second pay day came around and they found their $7 envelopes short from 60 cents to $2, they did what the mill workers of Lawrence did in a similar situation-they rebelled.
On October 10more than 1,500 workers, embracing nearly all the departments in the Phoenix and Gilbert Knitting Mills and four nationalities-Polish, Slavish, Austrian and Italian-walked out and poured into the streets to the sound of “The Marseillaise.” The Americans stayed and scabbed.
The revolt was entirely spontaneous and most of the workers were uncertain what to do next, but a few of them knew. They appealed to the one organization that can handle such a situation-the I. W. W. Organizers Fillippo Bochino and Fred Hirshcame hurrying from Rochester and Schenectady respectively, and the battle was on.
The first few days were quietly spent in putting the strike on an organized basis, and then as the need for a good chairman for the strike committee became evident, Benjamin J. Legere, a fighting Socialist and graduate of the Lawrence school was sent for. Though he was just entering on a short vacation after several months of exhausting work agitating for the Ettor-Giovannitti defense, he arrived promptly. He showed the strikers how to form a mass picket line that moves in an endless chain and helped to get all the different committees in working order.
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