Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Rip in the Silk Industry” by Bill Haywood, Part II

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Quote BBH re Capitalist Class, Lbr Arg p4, Mar 23, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 3, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Bill Haywood on the General Strike of Silk Workers, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of May 1913:

The Rip in the Silk Industry

By William D. Haywood
———-

[Part II of II]

The Red Badge of Toil

Paterson Strike, EGF, ISR p786, May 1913

In this connection it is worth while to relate an incident-one of the most dramatic of the strike. The Paterson bosses lost no time in injecting the “patriotic” issue after the fashion of Lawrence, Little Falls and Akron. The red flag, they howled, stood for blood, murder and anarchy-the Star Spangled Banner must be upheld, etc., etc. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was on the platform at a big strike meeting one day explaining the significance of the red flag when a striking dyer sprang up from the middle of the audience crying:

“I know ! Here is the red flag!”

And aloft he held his right hand-stained a permanent bloody crimson, gnarled from years of toil, and corroded by the scarlet dye which it was his business to put into the fabrics worn by the dainty lady of the capitalist class as well as by the fawning prostitute.

For an instant there was silence and then the hall was rent by cries from the husky throats as all realized this humble dyer indeed knew the meaning of the red badge of his class.

Ribbon weaving is largely done by men and women. In this department the bosses have developed a speeding up system with reductions in pay, overlooking no opportunity to introduce improved machinery. Thus they increase production, at the same time they lowered the pay, until the workers are now demanding a scale which 19 years ago was imposed upon them! That is, the weavers now ask a wage that prevailed two decades ago

The significance of this demand makes it plain that in the evolution of industry and the introduction of new machinery the workers have obtained no benefit, while the bosses have reaped ever increasing profits. 

Many children are employes in the silk industry, most of them being between the ages of 14 and 16. However there are few violations of the child labor law, not because. the manufacturers care anything about either the law or the children, but because the making of high grade silk requires the careful and efficient work that only adults can give. However the Paterson capitalists have begun to set up plants in the southern states as well as in the mining regions of Pennsylvania, installing there new style looms which can be operated by girls and children.

Meeting For Children

Paterson Child Strikers, ISR p787, May 1913

One of the best and most enthusiastic meetings held during the strike was that for the benefit of the children of the mills. They packed Turner Hall and listened eagerly and with appreciation as speakers outlined to them the development in the manufacture of silk from the cocoon to the completed fabric lying on the shelves of the rich department store.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Rip in the Silk Industry” by Bill Haywood, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Rip in the Silk Industry” by Bill Haywood, Part I

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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 2, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Bill Haywood on the General Strike of Silk Workers, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of May 1913:

The Rip in the Silk Industry

By William D. Haywood
———-

[Part I of II]

Paterson Doherty Mill Workers, ISR p783, May 1913

WHEN the broad silk weavers in Henry Doherty’s mill in Paterson, N. ]., left their machines last February they inaugurated what has proved to be the closest approach to a general strike that has yet taken place in an American industry.

They revolted against the 3 and 4 loom system which until recently has been confined to the state of Pennsylvania. This system is restricted to the lower grades of silk, messaline and taffeta.

There are almost 300 silk mills in Paterson. Doherty was the first manufacturer to introduce this system there and later it was carried into 26 other mills. The silk workers soon realized that unless this scheme for exploiting them still further was checked, it would in time pervade the entire industry in the Jersey city.

The silk workers of Paterson are the most skilled in the United States and the employers thought that if there was anywhere in the country where this system could be successfully adopted it was in Paterson. They thought that their workers would stand for it. The workers themselves were not consulted, as the manufacturers afterward realized to their sorrow, when a general strike was called embracing the industry in all its branches and extending to all states where silk is manufactured.

At present no less than 50,000 silk workers are on strike in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, including those in the preparatory processes, the “throwster” mills, dye houses, broad silk making in all grades, as well as in nearly all the ribbon mills.

In many respects this strike is hardly less significant than that at Lawrence. It involves nearly as many workers and the conditions are just as bad. But the Paterson revolt has attracted less public attention than did the woolen fight. This is due to several reasons.

Paterson Socialist Editor Scott, ISR p784, May 1913

In the first place, the manufacturers, through their control of outside newspapers, were able to bring about a general conspiracy of silence. The New York papers, for example, after the first few days in which they gave prominence to the strike, were warned through subtle sources that unless there was less publicity they would be made to suffer through loss of support and advertising. Then the Paterson strikers were fortunate in having among them several trained veterans in the labor movement, such as Adolph Lessig, Ewald Koettgen, and Louis Magnet, who had been members of the I. W. W. since 1906, and knew what to do towards putting the strike on an organized basis. For a time they were able to take care of themselves without relying much on outside help. Besides, the authorities kept their hands off for a time, after their first fright in which they threw Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Carlo Tresca and later Patrick Quinlan and Alex Scott, the Socialist editor, into jail. These organizers got on the job instantly and have done excellent work.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Rip in the Silk Industry” by Bill Haywood, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part IV

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Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 19, 1913
Akron, Ohio – Big Bill Haywood Visits City, Speaks to Strikers

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part IV of IV]

Akron Strikers Listening to Speakers, ISR p723, Apr 1913

On Friday, Feb. 28, Haywood stopped off a day at Akron and several thousand strikers met him at the train and paraded through the factory and business districts of Akron. Haywood spoke to two immense strike meetings. He said in part: 

The greatest weapon you can use against the rubber robbers just now is to keep your hands in your pockets. When you have your hands in your pockets, the capitalist can’t get his there, and unless the capitalist has his hands in your pockets, he has got to go to work. So during the time of this strike, let there be no violence on your part, not the destruction of one cent’s worth of property, not one cross word. You have got this strike won if you will but stand together in One Big Union.

If the boss starves you back to work then you know how to win this strike on the inside of the factory. Don’t use the speeding up, but the slowing down process. This is an up-to-date organization, and we are fighting with modern weapons. The workers who understand the program and the policy of the I. W. W. will never again be defeated. We are organized now and fighting this battle for an eight-hour day.

As I said to you this morning, if you work only eight hours that is going to make room for more men and more women, and as the unemployed come into work, then the wages are going up. Your wages are going up anyway, because you are going to stand together until we force them up. Four dollars per week, or four and one-half is altogether too little for a girl to try and live on, and live decently, and. every girl, or a large per cent of them, would live decently if they got wages enough. But it is not a question of girlhood or womanhood with the rubber trusts. What they want is cheap labor. Cheap labor means to them more profits.

Just remember, men that we are the working class and it doesn’t make any difference what our nationality may be. My father was born in this state, I was born in this country and am an American.

There are no foreigners in the working class except the capitalist. He is the fellow we are after and we are going to get him. We are going to get Mr. Seiberling. If he is too old to work, we will get his son, and put him right in the rubber factory alongside the rest of ’em.

You simply get back enough to keep alive and in shape to work. If any of you fall by the wayside, and the undertaker visits your home, it doesn’t make any difference to Mr. Seiberling. Now workingmen, it is for you to organize. This strike is your strike. The success of this strike depends on you. There is no one else to fight.

If you had a picket line out every morning representing a crowd as big as this there would not be anybody going to work. You can influence enough to prevent them going to work. Get on the job in the morning in the picket line and visit these friends of yours at night in their homes.

Get this organization so that it will be 100 per cent strong. We will try, as we did at Lawrence, to raise money enough to carry you through.

[He further said:]

I have a warning to issue here. Those in authority must forget this proposition of wearing out their clubs on the strikers’ heads. They made the laws and there are proper processes for them to follow. Let them live up to it. If a striker violates law, let them arrest him and bring him before the court.

But I want to appeal to you strikers to conduct this strike along the peaceful lines you have been. You built this city and the rubber barons are realizing that you are necessary to its prosperity. They are realizing that until you are getting better pay and better hours, their profits won’t increase.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part IV”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part III

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Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 18, 1913
Akron, Ohio – The Story of Annie Fejtko, Goodrich Striker

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part III of IV]

Akron Striker Annie Fejtko, ISR p719, Apr 1913

The following story printed by the Akron Press, a paper which has tried to give the strikers’ side some showing in this bitter struggle, is the general answer of the women and girls who joined the strike:

Annie Fejtko, eighteen, joined the Akron rubber strikers Friday. She’s all alone in Akron-her own provider, housekeeper, washerwoman-and a mere child.

This is Annie Fejtko’s own summary of what she pays and how she spends it:

Average weekly pay, $4 to $4.50.
Weekly board bill, $3.
Left for dress, amusements, etc., $1 to $1.50.

She came to Akron about a year ago and has been working for the B. F. Goodrich Company ever since. She started to work on 10-hour day work, for $1, a day.

“I only worked that way three weeks,” said Annie. “Then they put me on piece work. My average two weeks’ pay is $8 or $9. I can’t save anything and I haven’t seen papa or mamma or the little brothers and sisters since I came here.

“They only live in Pennsylvania, too, but I can’t save enough to go and see them.”

The last day Annie worked she made 75 cents. Lots of days she said she made less.

“Some days I can make $1.25 and once in a while $1.50, but that’s only when I work on certain kinds of work, and just as fast as I can all day, without resting.”

The highest Annie has ever been paid for a day’s work, was $2. She never made that much again, she says. That day she was cutting paper rings to hold the rubber bulbs in packing. When Annie went home that night her hands were blistered from the scissors.

For some time before the strike Annie had been working in what is known as department 17-B, of the Goodrich. This is the rubber bulb branch. Her work is constantly changed, but for the most of the time she has been inspecting the hard rubber stems for the bulbs, she said. She is paid 9 mills a hundred for this work and makes around $1 when kept doing this all day.

But there’s stamping of time cards to be done, and the work is passed around. “Two mills a hundred is paid for this work,” says Annie, “and if you don’t work all day you couldn’t make over 25 cents.”

“In some of the departments the girls make more,” Annie states. “The buffers (a line of rubber bulb work), make as high as $2 a day when they get to work all the time, but lots of times there isn’t enough to keep them busy. Sometimes they are sent home and other times they stay around all day expecting more to do and only get about 25 cents worth of work.

“But I can’t make that much,” the girl says. “I suppose I’m not fast enough or something. But I work hard, ten hours every day and I have to do my own washing in the evenings, and skimp awful.”

When the strike started Annie didn’t quit. It ran from Tuesday until Friday. She wanted more money for her work, but she didn’t have anything saved and thought she couldn’t afford to lose a day.

“Friday Charlie, one of the pickets talked to me at noon. I decided I couldn’t be much worse off so I laid down my tools and four other girls in that department followed me out,” she explained.

“I haven’t any money and I have to pay board and-” she looked seriously out of the window, “but I suppose they’ll help me.”

“If I don’t get any more, though, when I go back, I don’t see how I can ever catch up out at Santo’s where I board.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part III”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II

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Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 17, 1913
Akron, Ohio – The Speeding-Up System and the Akron Rubber Strike

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part II of IV]

Akron Rubber Worker, ISR Cv, Apr 1913

One of the strikers informs us that very recently the Speeding-Up System has forced the tire builders to produce 2,000 more than the regular output of tires in a single night. The same man reported that while it formerly took three hours to “cure” a tire, the time had been cut to 55 minutes in one plant. And that the “curing process” depends altogether upon the quantity of rubber used in the compound.

Five hundred to six hundred pounds of compound are made up at a time. In the good old days THREE POUNDS of actual pure rubber was used in a batch; much less is used now. A gum plant is one of the ingredients, also old rope, rags, alkali and shoddy (old rubber, such as worn-out tubing, worn-out rubbers, etc.). Although the price of pure rubber is lower than it was a few years ago, the rubber companies have cut down the quantity used steadily. Formerly tire curers earned $5.00 for curing five tires. They are now forced to cure 50 tires for the same sum. And there is NO LET UP IN THE SPEEDING UP SYSTEM. And the pay per worker goes steadily down.

Akron Rubber Workers Packed in One Room, ISR p716, Apr 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I

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Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 16, 1913
Akron, Ohio – 20,000 Workers on Strike Against Rubber Barons

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part I of IV]

Akron Rubber Plant, ISR p711, Apr 1913

THE Rubber Aristocrats are having “tire trouble” in Akron, Ohio. Their mammoth 75-acre, 25,000-man-power, profit-making machines-known as the Goodrich-Diamond, Goodyear, Firestone and Buckeye rubber factories, have been badly punctured by a strike of 20,000 wage slaves.

The workers who have slaved for years laid down the bosses’ tools, rolled up their greasy working rags and walked out unorganized, on February 10, as a protest against tyrannical working conditions and repeated cuts in wages.

They are standing shoulder to shoulder and their arms are folded. There is no fire under the boilers; nor smoke issuing from the hundreds of industrial spires; the belts are on loose pulleys and even the wheels refuse to run.

The Rubber Barons refused to arbitrate with the state officials and threatened to move their plants from the city. Meanwhile the strike was rapidly being organized by militant members of the Socialist party working with the Industrial Workers of the World. The Socialist headquarters became the home of the strike committees while larger halls were secured for mass meetings, where thousands of workers hear the message of Revolutionary Socialism and Industrial Unionism. Comrades Frank Midney, “Red” Bessemer, George Spangler and fellow-workers George Speed, William Trautman, Jack Whyte and several more “live ones” are on the job speaking daily, organizing committees and strengthening the picket lines.

The home of Comrade Frank and Margaret Prevey was thrown open to the strikers and became a busy center of strike activity-sending out appeals for support, press notices and planing the work of taking care of those who were in need. Here was a hive that hummed twenty hours out of the twenty-four. Of course the Capitalist hirelings suddenly discovered that this was “an Agitators’ meeting place,” and made dire threats.

But the Rubber Barons in their palaces out on West Hill were also busy moulding public opinion through press and pulpit against this “foreign devil” called a strike. Were not collections dwindling on Sundays and business becoming “bad” during the week, and is not idleness the devil’s workshop?

Akron Women ag Goodrich, ISR p712, Apr 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Editorial on the Report of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission

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Quote Clarence Darrow re Tears of RR Pres for Breaker Boys, Chg Tb p2, Feb 13, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 4, 1903
Editorial by Algie M. Simons: “The United Mine Workers’ Victory”

From the International Socialist Review of April 1903:

The United Mine Workers’ Victory.
—–

Anthracite Coal Commission, Deseret Eve Ns p1, Oct 27, 1902

At last the long delay and deliberation are over and the arbitration committee has brought forth its report, and the capitalist press unanimously hail it as a victory for the miners.

The main point on which this cry for victory is based is in the 10 per cent rise, in the reduction to eight hours for a few favored laborers, the right to have check weighmen and a few similar articles. That this is a gain no one will deny, that it is in many senses of the word a victory is also true, but the further conclusion which practically every one of these papers draw, that the victory was attained through the methods of arbitration, we are unable to see.

Some months ago when the arbitration committee was first elected we pointed out that the miners would receive just what the proletariat has always received in a contest with its masters,—what it was able to take. There is, at least, some doubt if in this case the United Miners have not received even less than they could have taken had the fight gone on. We now know that there was nearly a million dollars still remaining in their treasury with funds pouring in from all over the world. We now know that a few weeks more of the strike would have brought on a coal famine that would have paralyzed the industries of this country. The great capitalists probably knew this at the time the arbitration committee was appointed. They must have known something of the probable effect of such a coal famine on the permanency of exploiting institutions. It is pretty safe to say that in view of this knowledge they would have been willing to have conceded the full demands originally made by the strikers rather than to have permitted the strike to have gone on to much greater length.

Every day that passed during the closing weeks of the struggle gathered new converts for the miners’ cause. At the same time the Socialists were using the material which was developing from day to day with tremendous force as an indictment against the entire system of capitalism. Under these conditions it is at least questionable whether Mitchell showed good tactics, considered from a trade union point of view, in accepting a Committee of Arbitration whose membership was so decidedly capitalistic. While considering what they have granted to the miners, the question comes up, could they have given much less and had any surety that another strike would not at once follow? It seems hard to believe that men living in the conditions that it has been shown the miners of Pennsylvania were living, and who had just been able to show such marvelous solidarity and organized resistance, would have remained quiet had they received much of anything less than what the Commission awarded them.

On the other hand, it must be at once admitted that the investigation of the Commission has not been without its value. Its proceedings when published will throw a flood of light upon industrial conditions in one of the greatest of American industries. This information will be of the greatest value in every battle which is waged against exploitation.

It is certain that the Pennsylvania Socialists who have shown such remarkable growth during and since the strike will derive new ammunition from this report for future battles. But neither of these things offers any argument in support of the arbitration of industrial disputes.

———-

Just how sincere the capitalist press have been in declaring the decision to be a great victory for the strikers is seen by an extract from a private telegram which has come into our hands, which was sent out by a well known firm of Wall street brokers to their customers. After giving the terms of the Commission report they say of the demands: “All of these, particularly five, six, eight and nine, are absolutely in favor of operators. The first and second clauses were offered by Mr. Baer three months ago. This looks like favorable news for PENNSYLVANIA, ERIE FIRST and D. & H.

The “five, six, eight and nine,” which they favor, are the clauses concerning check weighmen, directing the payment by operators directly to mine laborers, condemnation of boycott and of blacklist. So much for the present. When we come to consider the future we are confronted with the proposition stated above that the contending parties will get exactly what they are able to take. There is no power outside of either of the parties to enforce the decisions of the Commission. In so far as governmental power will be called into use it is upon the side of the operators. There will undoubtedly be another fight before this recognition is granted.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Editorial on the Report of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part III

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 3, 1913
Ralph Chaplin Travels with Comrade Rumbaugh to West Virginia Strike Zone

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

WV Paint Creek Strike by Ralph Chaplin, ISR p729, Apr 1913

[Part III of III.]

When the Leaves Come Out by Ralph Chaplin, ISR p736, Apr 1913

A brief account of a trip made by Comrade Rumbaugh, of Hurricane, W. Va., and myself to the danger zone, might be of interest to readers of the REVIEW. We rode into Charleston “on the front end” and found that city to have the appearance of a place preparing for a siege. Martial law had been declared but a short time previously and the streets were full of soldiers. Yellow-legged sentries were stationed in front of the state house and the governor’s residence. It was rumored that machine guns were mounted in the upper windows of the former building, commanding both entrances to the capitol grounds.

A sentry was also stationed in front of the office of the Labor Argus to guard Comrade W. H. Thompson, who is editing that paper while Comrade Boswell is being “detained” in the bull pen. Comrade Thompson is an ex-Kanawha county coal miner and is unblushingly ”red.” He is the editor of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star and he has put up as staunch a fight for the cause of the miners as any man in the state. At the city jail we witnessed the interesting spectacle of a bunch of “tin horns” bringing a prisoner from the military district to the city lockup. As the great iron gates swung open to receive them, the spectators commenced hissing the soldiers, calling them “scab herders” and other expressive names. Some of the “yellow legs” glared at these people brazenly but, may they be given due credit, others of the soldiers hung their heads with shame, as if such condemnation from members of their own class was more deadly to them than bullets.

From Charleston we took the labor train that was to carry us into the martial law zone. At Cabin Creek we were almost arrested with a bunch of miners in the car who were poking fun at the grave and ludicrous antics cut by some of the would-be man-killers in khaki. At the Paint Creek junction we remained for several hours, ostensibly to visit some soldier boys of our acquaintance, but in reality to secure information and photographs for the REVIEW and the Labor Star. Comrade Rumbaugh was afterwards arrested and relieved of his camera for attempting to take photographs to illustrate this article. We spoke with dozens of the soldiers, and one of them, an ex-mine guard, admitted that the guards use dum-dum bullets against the miners. He told of two miners who had been killed with these proscribed missiles, one man who had the top of his head completely shot off and another who received a death wound in the breast large enough to “stick your fist into.”

The freight house at Paint Creek has been converted into a bull pen, and over fifty men are now incarcerated there, only three of whom are not native West Virginains. The interior of this place would make a Siberian prison pen look like a haven of refuge. The sleeping accommodations are inadequate, ventilation poor and the floors filthy beyond description. Even with two or three men sleeping in the coal-bin there is no room for the others. The only papers the prisoners are permitted to read are the reactionary local rags and the National Socialist. Mother Jones, Charles Boswell and John Brown have somewhat better quarters elsewhere in town. A sentinel is constantly measuring his paces before the door of each. Dear old Mother Jones in the bull-pen and guarded by armed mercenaries of the Mine Owners! The very thought of it makes blood boil, here in West Virginia.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part III”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 2, 1913
Ralph Chaplin on the Attack by the Bull Moose Special Upon Strikers’ Colony

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

WV Paint Creek Strike by Ralph Chaplin, ISR p729, Apr 1913

[Part II of III.]

The operators, realizing that violence has always been their big trump, thought they would have everything their own sweet way when trouble started. Everything was in their favor-armed guards and regiments of militiamen-so why should they not feel confident? But it is evident that the miners have fooled them. The miner knew the hills better than the blood-hounds that were sent to track them down. After a few months of it, the odds are just about even, and the fight is not half over. Soldiers in the strike zone are becoming uneasy and are using the slightest excuse to make a getaway. Many of the guards have deserted their posts of duty in a panic. One hundred and fifty of them have paid for treason to their class with their lives! They are in mortal fear of the time when the bleak hillsides will be covered with greenery-when “the leaves come out!

The miners have been hounded into the using of violence. Just an instance in which the above-mentioned armored train figures conspicuously: This train is called, for some reason or other, the Bull Moose Special. Needless to state, it is thoroughly hated by the miners. The engineer and fireman and others of the train crew are reported to be extremely proud of the union cards they carry. This hellish contraption was a lovely plaything to put into the hands of the cut-throat, coyote-hearted guards and, like children with a new pop-gun, they were simply aching for an opportunity to use it against the strikers. The opportunity soon presented itself. Just how it came about nobody seems to know. The guards claim that some of the miners had fired into an ambulance carrying wounded mine-guards to the hospital. The strikers claim that the train was first used to avenge the death of a couple of guards who had been held to account for insulting some of the girls in the tent village. I, myself, have spoken with miners who claim to have been eye-witnesses to the insulting of these girls.

Mine guards are noted for their inhuman and brutal treatment of the women of the miners. Their authoritative positions often gave them advantages over the helpless women, especially in the absence of the men, and the full record of their unrestrained animal viciousness will never be written. Between the miners and the guards there is an open war to the knife. More than once these Kanawha cossacks have evicted mothers, in the pangs of childbirth, from company houses, and children have been born in the tents of the strikers while the murderous bullets of the guards were whistling and zipping through the canvas. At all events these cut-throats of the coal operators had the long wished for chance to use the Bull Moose special. They would have their revenge.

So in the dead of night, and with all lights extinguished, the Death Train drew up over the sleeping tent village at Holly Grove and opened fire with machine gun and rifle. Miners’ huts were torn to splinters and tents were riddled with bullets. One woman had both legs broken by the murderous rain of lead; and a miner, holding an infant child in his arms and running from his tent to the shelter of a dugout, fell, seriously wounded. The baby was, by some miracle, unhurt, but three bullet holes had tattered the edge of its tiny dress. Men, women and children ran hastily through the dark night seeking the cold security of the woods. The miners, as could be expected, were desperate enough to do most anything and returned the fire as best they could. Bonner Hill, sheriff of Kanawha county, who was only elected by a small and suspicious majority over Tincher the Socialist, candidate, was on the train, and it is claimed by the train crew that it was he who gave the order to fire the first murderous volley.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part I

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 1, 1913
Ralph Chaplin on Striking Miners and Military Despotism in West Virginia

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

WV Paint Creek Strike by Ralph Chaplin, ISR p729, Apr 1913

[Part I of III.]

“THEY got my gun when they run me out of the creek, but I done borried my buddy’s, and I’m goin’ back.” This is what a slender, grimy lad of sixteen told me one night in the freight yards of a town not far from the martial law zone. He was picking coal for his mother and sisters at “home” in the tent. His father was in the bull-pen at Pratt. The boy had a bullet wound on his shoulder and numerous bayonet holes in the seat of his ragged breeches. “Took seven of them to run me out,” he boasted, with a grin.

“What are they doing to you all down there?” I asked.

“It isn’t what they’re doin’; it’s what they’re trying to do. If they had their way about it, they’d give us hell-but we won’t let ’em. It’s a whole lot better living in a tent than in a company shack, and we’re just goin’ to stick there until we win. Just wait till the leaves come out, so they cain’t see us. Buddy, we’ll show ’em!”

After spending four or five days in the strike region and talking with hundreds of miners, I can say that the boy summed up the entire situation in his few words. The strikers have “kicked over the traces” and have made up their minds to win at all costs. They are determined to do this all by themselves, if necessary-and in their own way.

In spite of the “heart throb” articles in some of the daily papers, these people are not objects of pity. They are doing pretty well in their tents. There is no atmosphere of martyrdom about these fighting West Virginians-nothing but a grim good humor and an iron determination. There is no pretense about them-no display. They are in deadly earnest, and they mean business. Lots of kind-hearted people who would shed tears for the “poor miners” living in tents would probably think these same miners in their right places if they were picking away at a coal bank in some black pit. The fact that many of the strikers seem to rather enjoy the situation and rest from the mines makes some of the local respectables furious with rage. It isn’t just what one would expect of a striker to see him holding his head high and walking around as if he owned the whole valley.

Of course, there are sufferings and hardships. Many men wear mourning on their hats and many women have husbands, brothers or fathers in the bullpens-but they are going to win this strike; they are sure of it, and this fact makes them feel equal to anything.

It is true that they have tasted of hell since the strike began, but before that time they lived in hell all the time. Conditions in West Virginia are and have been without parallel in the United States. Peonage and serfdom have flourished under the most brutal forms. West Virginia is the one state that has tried to make abject slaves of its miners-that has herded them in peon pens without a vestige of “constitution” liberty, with cut-throat mine guards to protect them from the contaminating influence of organizers and agitators.

For many years the grisly vampire of Greed has fluttered its condor wings and fattened on the very heart’s blood of these men-helpless for want of effective organization. Miners are working in company towns who seldom see money-nothing but paper script-men who dare not speak a word of criticism of the intolerable conditions under which they labor, or even hint that organization is desirable. The blacklist and the brutal mine guards are every ready to punish such indiscretions.

Women have been beaten on the breasts and kicked into convulsions while in a state of pregnancy-men have been shot up and man-handled, all because they had dared to raise their voices in protest. Indignity after indignity has been heaped upon the workers in the hell-holes of this state,  until they have united into one big Brotherhood of Revolt. They are standing shoulder to shoulder with the only weapons available in their hands, fighting to overthrow the dismal industrial despotism that is crushing them. These miners are remarkable in many ways. In spite of all they have endured, their spirits have not been broken. They have been hoarding their hate for many years and biding their time. At present they are waiting for the leaves to come out.

WV Tent Colony, ISR p730, Apr 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part I”