Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 28, 1913 New York, New York – Frederick Boyd Issues Financial Report on Paterson Pageant
From The New York Times of June 25, 1913:
DEFICIT OF $1,996 FROM STRIKE SHOW
———- Instead of Making Rumored $6,000 Profit, Paterson I.W.W. Lost by Pageant at Garden. ———-
MANY LOANS STILL UNPAID ———- But All Who Cannot Afford Loss Got Their Money -Good Seats Sold for Almost Nothing. ———-
Despite the statements, made after the Paterson strike pageant in Madison Square Garden, that it would net $6,000 to the strike fund, the Executive Committee of the strike announced yesterday that when all expenses were paid there would be a deficit of $1,996.45.
The greater part of this is due to sympathizers who advanced money to help the show, but the committee says that the loans still unpaid were furnished by people in comfortable circumstances who could afford the loss, while the loans from actual strikers had been paid back already.
Frederick Sumner Boyd, Chairman of the Executive Committee, had a conference yesterday with Miss Jessie Ashley, a lawyer, of 27 Cedar Street, who was Treasurer of the Entertainment Committee, and others, and a statement of the receipts and expenditures was prepared to show the Paterson strikers where all the money went to. The Socialist Party has nothing to do with the Industrial Workers of the World, but individual Socialists are members of the I. W. W., and Miss Ashley is one of these.
In discussing yesterday’s criticisms of the managers of the pageant and the questions which had been asked as to what had become of the rumored $6,000 profit, she said it was outrageous to hint that there had been dishonesty on the part of the strike leaders, unless figures could be produced to show that there had been irregularities.
Frederick Sumner Boyd, after the conference in Miss Ashley office, said for the committee:
“Miss Ashley was the first treasurer of the pageant, but becoming tied up with other duties, Mrs. Florence Wise of the Women’s Trades Union League took her place. At first it looked as if the pageant would be a source of profit, when the expenses began to pile up, and we were uncertain of a paying audience, we began to be afraid of a breakdown. At one time we had practically decided to abandon the pageant, but as we had made contracts and had incurred expenses we should have to meet in any case, we decided to pull the entertainment through.
“We had to raise $3,000 for expenses, so we called a meeting of the entire committee and of five delegates of the New York silk strikers. We told them the entertainment could not be brought off-but the delegates insisted that it must be. It was decided to raise the $3,000, and within twenty-four hours John Steiger brought in $1,600 and Miss Mabel Dodge collected $600. About $1,000 more was raised from various sources. Then we went ahead.”
Boyd then went on to explain the deficit, he said that neither Haywood, Reed, Miss Dodge, or others associated with them directly had anything to do with handling the money, except to sell a few tickets.….
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 15, 1913 New York, New York – Detachment of Paterson Children Arrive in City
From the Paterson Evening News of May 13, 1913:
WILL CARE FOR MORE CHILDREN ———-
“New Yorkers are anxious to take care of your children until the strike is over, and help you win your battle,” said Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in a recent address at Helvetia hall. This seems to be true if the following dispatch from New York is to be believed:
New York, May 13 [Tuesday].-Seven or eight hundred men and women pushed and shoved and almost came to blows on Saturday [May 10] for the possession of sixty-five frightened little boys and girls. They were the third detachment of children of the striking Paterson silk weavers sent here to be farmed out to board among strike sympathizer, and the men and women who almost mobbed them were fighting for one of them to care for.
Industrial Workers of the World followers, their friends and few curious people began to gather early yesterday afternoon at the Labor Temple. They came because the Paterson strike committee had sent out 250 postcards asking volunteers to board and lodge 150 children, who would be allotted to their temporary guardians at five o’clock. Twice before in the last ten days this appeal had been sent out, and already 175 children have found homes in New York. A special committee, of which F. Sumner Boyd is chairman, and Mrs. Anna M. Sloan director, has had charge of the distribution.
When children arrived by auto truck from Paterson at 5.30 o’clock there were only sixty-five of them. They ranged in age from four to fourteen years, and when Miss Jessie Ashley and Miss Ethel Byrne, Paterson nurse, the others who had brought here had seated them in rows at Labor Temple hall and announced that only sixty-five, instead of 150, would be assigned, trouble began…
[Mr. Boyd declared:]
We shall probably bring 100 or more over the middle of the week, and we already have more than twice as many applications for the children as we have children to be cared for. We will bring them all, though.
Like the 175 children that have already been brought here, those who came yesterday were all found on examination by physicians in Paterson to be below normal from malnutrition.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 14, 1913 The White Slave Traffic for Sex Commerce in Free America
From The Progressive Woman of April 1913:
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THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC by Agnes H. Downing
WHILE all can see that women are sold for sex commerce, until very recently it was believed that the women were themselves the sellers. It was thought that either for love of luxury, or discouragement after seduction, or through their hunger needs women have consented to sell themselves promiscuously. But in late years and through accumulated evidence, it has been proved that the great business of supplying inmates for evil institutions has been and is carried on by persons who make a business of securing the girls for this traffic…..
In 1907 the United States government, through a special committee of the Immigration Commission, made an investigation of the importation and harboring of women for immoral purposes. The report says (Senate document 196, pages 8 and 9):
“…..The procurer may put his woman into a disorderly house, sharing the profits with the madam. He may sell her outright; he may act as an agent for another man; he may keep her, making arrangements for her hunting men. She must walk the streets and secure her patrons, to be exploited, not for her own sake, but for that of her owner…..”
They secure such power over the girls, first, because the girls are young and ignorant of their legal rights, and again because a girl is always suspicioned for being led into such a place. Though she be perfectly innocent, people are not ready to believe her. Lastly, when the punishment is beating or death, girls and men, too, can be forced into almost anything…..
It is just as much the duty of Socialists here and now to combat the white slave traffic as it is to strive for higher wages, rights of asylum, universal peace, or any of the other measures for which we all contend. It is in this broadness of spirit that our best good is to be found.
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WHO ARE WHITE SLAVES? by Jessie Ashley
TODAY the whole country talks and writes unceasingly of white slavery. As a descriptive title it is striking, and this fact helps to give it publicity; it attracts attention and sticks in the mind. But it is not wholly accurate. Slaves there are, but they are not always white; many black women and little yellow ones are also slaves in a world that should be free.
Slaves! What is a slave? A human being who has no freedom of choice, one who must live according to the will of another. Technically, when we speak of white slaves, we mean unwilling prostitutes. It is this phase of the matter that is arousing the just rage of a slowly awakening world. No rage can be too great for the crime, it must indeed become so great that it will sweep the horror from the face of the earth…..
Slaves, every woman of them today, whether prostitutes held unwillingly, or prostitutes gone willingly “astray,” whether submissive wife or rebellious virgin. Slaves every one, because there is no freedom of choice, but only a blind, cruel, stupid master, the social system, that without reason and without sympathy enslaves its womanhood.
But the cure is on its way. Women are becoming thinkers and are testing for themselves the chains that bind them. They are learning how to break them. They are at last beginning to realize that they are slaves, and that this is not a necessary condition; just as the working class is beginning to see that wage slavery is not necessary.
So on with the fight against white slavery and black, on with the working class rebellion against wage slavery, but let women especially keep up the rebellion, demanding fearlessly and incessantly sex freedom and economic freedom.
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.
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