Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 5, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part III of III]
Unlike the Lawrence strike, the strike of the New York garment workers is from the top DOWN; that is the union officials ordered the strike and have held the reins in their hands ever since. Without doubt they are trying to serve the strikers, but it is our opinion that they would build more permanently in permitting the strikers themselves to have the deciding voice in their own affairs; in teaching them self-reliance and class solidarity.
But the workers are finding out many things for themselves. They are thrilling with a new sense of power; they are learning the joy that comes when workers of whatever race or creed fight side by side in a great class struggle. The hope of victory and achievement is in the air and it is doubtful whether they will obey any orders from the union officials if their employers do not grant them appreciable benefits.
The heart of every true Socialist is with the strikers in this fight. We believe that the strike is a valuable form of direct action that teaches working class self-reliance and solidarity better than anything else. It teaches the workers to conduct their own fights. It brings out the class character of all existing social institutions. It teaches above all things, the necessity of revolutionary class unionism.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 4, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part II of III]
The thugs employed by the shop bosses have proved very energetic and reliable. They have worked early and late beating up strikers whenever possible, starting trouble and blaming it on the workers, while the police stood by (or took a hand) to see that nobody attacked or injured them.
During the first week in January the union officials conferred with the employers relative to a settlement of the strike, but the New York Call reports that all negotiations were broken off when the employers insisted upon a return of the strikers to the shops pending an investigation of the conditions in the trade by a special commission to be appointed for that purpose. The union officials declared that under no circumstances would “they order the men to return to work” pending an investigation or arbitration of their demands.
As the pickets began to suffer at the hands of the company guards, it was decided to take a lesson from the strikers at Lawrence, Mass., and chain picketing was employed for the first time in New York City.
Ten thousand pickets were asked to report each day, starting to work on the “Chain Picket Line” at 5 :00 o’clock in the morning, to pass constantly in a steady stream of pedestrians before the strikebound shops.
On the day of the inauguration of the Chain Picket plan, the unions held various meetings which were well attended by the strikers. Hugh Frayneurged a general strike in every branch of the needle and garment industries, promising the support of the A. F. of L. while Abe Cahan closed one meeting begging the strikers to be true to the American Federation of Labor. He urged them to carry an A. F. of L. card in one pocket and a Socialist party card in the other (that is to work for class organization on one side and craft division on the other.)
This is very different from the calls of the Industrialists, all of whom insist upon a CLASS UNION card on the industrial field and a Socialist party card to represent their class interests upon the political field.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1912 Kalamazoo, Michigan – Union Women Jailed Include Josephine Casey and Bella Yount
From The Coming Nation of June 8, 1912 -“A Familiar Strike Story” by Gertrude Barnum:
Josephine Casey, General Organizer International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, seated, and Bella Yount, member Executive Board, Corset Workers’ Union No. 82 in jail at Kalamazoo, Mich.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 13, 1911 “Echoes from the Triangle Fire…Americans Need Big Shocks”
From The Ladies’ Garment Worker of September 1911:
Echoes from the Triangle Fire.
Dr. Price Suggests Co-operation Between
the Waist Makers’ Union and the
Board of Sanitary Control.
The whole community is responsible for the safety of its workers.
Parents and friends of the 145 victims who were in the Triangle fire, says the New York “Call,” and of the scores of workers who saved their lives but were maimed and injured, have written, telephoned and appeared in person at the office of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, in the last two days, calling upon the union to see to it that Harris & Blanck, the owners of the Triangle shop, be brought to trial.
The parents and friends of the victims also called upon the union officials to demand an account from the Red Cross as to the manner in which $100,000 collected for the benefit of the families of the fire victims, has been disposed of, if it had been disposed of.
As a result of these numerous calls the Executive Board of the Ladies’ Waist Maker’s Union stirred up the committee of three which has been appointed some time ago to look into the Triangle case, to immediate, vigorous activity.
The committee, which consists of Sam Spivack, A. Silver, and Sam Gusman, met last night at 151 Clinton street to decide upon plans to co-operate with the parents and friends of the fire victims, and to determine upon ways and means of improving conditions in the shops where the lives of workers are daily exposed to the fire panics.
Several of the parents and friends of the Triangle victims, who called at the office of the Ladies’ Waist Makers’ Union, said that they will either get up a petition or will write personal letters to District Attorney Whitman calling upon him to bring Harris and Blanck to trial.
Dr. George M. Price, M. D., the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Cloak and Suit Industry of New York, has written to the “Call” suggesting a way in which the Board might co-operate with the Waistmakers’ Union.
Americans need big shocks, says Dr. Price.
Because several meetings have been held, because a “safety committee” has been appointed, because the papers devoted a few pages to factory fire damages, it is not to be expected that the 30,000 shops in the city should have suddenly become improved, that new fire escapes should have been put in where needed, and that workers should have become interested in protecting their lives from fires instead of devoting their whole time to the most important question of election of business delegates?
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911 “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II
From Life and Labor of May 1911:
The Triangle Fire
By Martha Bensley Bruere
Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?
Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:
NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify their customers that they are in good working order. HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.
The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 4, 1911 Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:
THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY
BY LOUIS DUCHEZ
Photographs by American Press Ass’n.
[Part II of II.]
Violations of the law? Yes, enough to hang half a dozen rich exploiters and politicians. But these men won’t hang.
The owner of the building claimed he lived up to the letter of the law. So did the owners of the shirtwaist concern, Blanck and Harris. They blame the city officials. The State Commission of Labor also blames the city officials. On the other hand, the city officials are hunting for someone to point to. One of these gentlemen divides the guilt between God and the “public conscience.”
The more important facts, however, are as follows: While the holocaust was taking place the superintendent of public buildings, Rudolph P. Miller, was on a pleasure trip to Panama. Under questioning conducted by Fire Marshal Beers he admitted that the Asch building, in which the fire took place, had not been inspected since it was built, ten years ago. He said he was not even sure that he passed on the building before it was occupied. Miller is not an architect; he is simply a civil engineer-with a “pull.” In his testimony he also admitted that he knew of “graft” from building owners being accepted by inspectors. Miller blamed the police department.
According to the state law, “fire-proof” buildings need not put up more than one fire escape. And that’s all the Asch building had. And this one was useless. When the flames heated the flimsy iron work. it bent like wire. Besides, the scaling ladders were not fit to use and the extension ladders reached only to the 6th floor. The hose, too, was rotten, and the fire apparatus was only so in name. Then iron shutters blocked the fire escape, such as it was.
The locked doors have been mentioned. There was no fire escape to the roof. The machines were so closely packed together, in order to save space. that a panic resulted when the fire first started. Large piles of combustible goods obstructed every aisle and opening, also, if the building and conditions had been deliberately planned for the cremation of human beings, it could not have been more perfect.
To look at the Asch building since the fire one could not tell from the outside that anything had happened to it, were it not for the broken windows. As a matter of fact, the damage only reached $5,000. Everything was insured-but the slaves.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 3, 1911 Louis Duchez on Murder of Shirtwaist Makers in New York City, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:
THE MURDER OF THE SHIRT WAIST MAKERS
IN NEW YORK CITY
BY LOUIS DUCHEZ
Photographs by American Press Ass’n.
[Part I of II.]
TRUTH is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
As I write this story of the bold, brutal and cold-blooded murder of one hundred and twenty-five [129] girls, averaging nineteen years of age, and twenty [17] men, here in New York, I wonder if what I have seen and heard and felt is real.
It was Saturday evening, March 25. Only five minutes more and the slaves at the sewing machines would be hurrying to their “homes,” carrying their starvation wages for the week. More than 500 of them were employed by the Triangle Waist Company, the non-union concern which led the fight on the shirt waist girls more than a year ago. The slave pen was located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a “fire proof” building in the very heart of the congested section of the city.
In some corner unknown on the eighth floor highly inflammable materials caught fire. Before anyone had time to look around big tongues of flame were licking up everything in the room.
A general rush was made for the elevators and stairways. The elevators did their best, but during the few minutes in which the tragedy occurred only fifty girls were lowered.
The stairways were the principal ways of escape—and the doors leading to these stairways were locked. For it was the custom of this firm, as it is the custom in other shirtwaist factories in New York, to lock the doors after work begins in the morning and to keep them locked all day, so that the employes may be searched before going home for pieces of goods, thread or buttons, and so that they may be prevented from going out and “stealing time” during the day.
Everywhere throughout the three floors silk and cotton goods hung from racks or were piled up on tables, and the little blaze which started in the unknown corner was like a spark in a powder magazine. In ten minutes the three floors were all afire. Huge clouds of flame belched from nearly every window.
Finding the doors locked to the stairways, the girls rushed to the windows. With their hair and clothes afire, they leaped from the eighth, ninth and tenth story windows. Some were seen climbing upon the sills and deliberately plunging to the pavement. Others, it is said, were pushed out by the pressure behind. In one instance two girls came down from the ninth story in each other‘s arms. Others were seen embracing and kissing each other before making the fatal leap.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 3, 1911 International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union in Mourning
From The Ladies Garment Worker of April 1911:
When ready to go to press we learn of the awful calamity at the Triangle Waist Company. While most of the garment manufacturing establishments in New York City are not any better as far as fire protection is concerned, it is significant that the worst calamity happened at the Triangle, known among the workpeople in the trade as the “prison.” The name is probably due the extraordinary discipline with poor earning for which the firm is famous.
It is not strange that in this most democratic of all countries in the world the employers can so easily use the arm of the law to protect themselves against any inconveniences which their workpeople may cause them, but the law is nowhere when the life and limb of the worker is to be protected.
The writer of these lines, when approaching the factory some two years ago in an attempt to organize the workpeople of that firm, was pounced upon by two plain clothed policemen and taken to the police cell. No one, however, knows whom to blame for this calamity.
It is evident that the worker can expect next to nothing in the way of protection from the legal authorities. Whether it is the Supreme Court or the good people who are interested in the architectural beauties of the city, nothing will be done until the workers will begin in earnest to attend to their own business. They must declare a strike at all such fire traps until adequate protection is provided.
Pickets should be posted at the entrance of such places with sign boards bearing the following inscription: Please do not go to work in this place until proper fire protection is provided for the workpeople.
Let the authorities find our action contrary to the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws or any other of the innumerable laws provide to safeguard the interest of the capitalists, and which the authorities are ever ready to guard jealousy. We will cheerfully go to prison but there will be no more fire traps. Such a strike will put an end to such a state of things within 48 hours.
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There are in the same building a number of cloak shops, who before the general strike, worked until 6 o’clock on Saturdays. Thanks to the change in hours all these left at 1 o’clock, otherwise the victims would have been more numerous.
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