Tag: Joe O’Brien

Hellraisers Journal: Unemployed of New York City Seek Shelter in Blizzard; 200 Arrested Including Frank Tannenbaum

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Joe Hill, Poor Ragged Tramp, Sing One Song, LRSB 5th ed, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 7, 1914
New York City – Police Attack and Arrest Unemployed Men Seeking Shelter 

200 Unemployed Men Held after Arrests
at St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church

UE Storm Church, Frank Tannenbaum, NY Tb p1, Mar 5, 1914

Some 200 unemployed men were arrested during a blizzard on the night of March 4th as they sought shelter at St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church. Frank Tannenbaum is being held on a felony charge with his bail fixed at $5,000. The others could be bailed out at the cost of $1000 each, were that amount available. The men are being held at four different prison: the Tombs, Jefferson Market, West 57th Street, and West 53rd Street.

At the Jefferson Market prison, the men are being kept in a large pen without cots and with only eight blankets for 50 men. Conditions at West 57th are much the same. At the Tombs and the West 53rd Street prison, the men have been crowded five and six to cell, and are being kept in unsanitary conditions described as vile.

Mary Heaton Vorse explains how the arrests came about:

Frank Tannenbaum, [Frank Strawn] Hamilton and [Charles] Plunkett had asked Father Schneider of St. Alphonsus if they might have shelter in his church. Father Schneider had refused on the ground that the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of our Lord was exposed and it would be sacrilege to allow men to sleep in the church at such a time.

The crowd of unemployed had not understood their instruction to wait outside and had started going inside to sit down in the back seats. A police officer told Tannenbaum to go into the church and bring the men out. Tannenbaum obeyed. The doors were closed and locked on him as soon as he went inside. The arrest followed before he could speak to the men. The papers had been told that the Catholic Church was going to stand for no nonsense and there was a battery of reporters and cameramen ready for the trouble.

It so happens that the newly formed Labor Defense Conference was holding its first meeting at the home of Mary Heaton Vorse and her husband, Joe O’Brien, the same night that the men were arrested. The Conference was organized by Big Bill Haywood of the Industrial Workers of World, and has attracted what Vorse calls “a strangely assorted group.” All of them are committed to defending workers, whether currently employed or not.

In the middle of the meeting, Heber Blankenhorn entered the room, and said, “We have your first case for you. Frank Tannenbaum and a crowd of two hundred men have just been arrested down at St. Alphonsus’.”

The Labor Defense Conference launched into action immediately. Justus Sheffield was contacted and will act as the attorney for men.

Note: Newsclip from New York Tribune of March 5, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: Harper’s Weekly: “The Trouble at Lawrence” by Mary Heaton Vorse-Men, Women, Children v Bayonets

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 17, 1912
“The Trouble at Lawrence” by Mary Heaton Vorse

From Harper’s Weekly of March 16, 1912:

Lawrence Trouble by MHV, Harpers Wkly p10, Mar 16, 1912

A few weeks ago a company of about forty children of the Lawrence strikers, bound for Philadelphia, were forcibly prevented from leaving Lawrence by the order of City Marshal John J. Sullivan. He was led to this act by the belief that some of those children were leaving town without the consent of their parents. Before this, several groups of children, to the total of nearly three hundred, had been sent out of town to the strike sympathizers in various cities, and public opinion against the departure of the children had been aroused. As Congressman Ames said: “The people here feel that the sending away of these children has hurt the fair name of Lawrence since it is a rich town and capable of caring for all its needy children without the help of outsiders.”

Lawrence Trouble w Bayonets by MHV, Harpers Wkly p10, Mar 16, 1912

The forcible detention of these children had an extraordinary response throughout the country. It was one of those things that cannot be done in America without stirring up public opinion from north to south and east to west. There had been earlier aggressive moves on the part of the authorities: Joseph J. Ettor, one of the first to take charge of the strike on behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World, and Arturo Giovannitti, his chief lieutenant, were arrested and committed to jail without bail, as accessories to the murder of a woman [Anna LoPizzo], shot by a deflected bullet during a clash between the strikers and the police. Both men were two miles away during the conflict. Their imprisonment caused comment in the press, as did other episodes of the strike- for instance, the railroading of twenty-three men to prison for one year each, during a single morning’s police-court session, on the charge of inciting to riot; but in the minds of the country at large these things have been simply incidents. The abridgment of the right of people to move from one place to another freely was at once a matter of national importance. It had for its immediate sequel the sending of that touching little band of thirteen children of various nationalities to Washington to state their grievances and to testify as to what occurred at the railway station on that Saturday morning.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Muckrakers” at Lawrence Include Cora Older, Charles Edward Russell, and Mary Heaton Vorse

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote Lawrence Strike Committee, Drunk Cup to Dregs, Bst Dly Glb Eve p5, Jan 17, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 1, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Prominent Magazine Writers Visit Strike Zone

From Boston Evening Transcript of February 29, 1912:

MUCKRAKERS ON THE SCENT
———-
Party Including Russell, White, Baker, and Others
Spends Day Gathering Material at Lawrence
———-

HdLn Lawrence Revolution Unbroken, IW p1, Feb 29, 1912
Industrial Worker
February 29, 1912

A group of prominent magazine writers visited Lawrence yesterday for the purpose of gathering material. Among those in the party were Charles Edward Russell and Mrs. Russell, William Allen White, Ray Stannard Baker, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mrs. Freemont [Cora] Older, wife of the San Francisco publisher, and Miss Frances Jolliffe, also of San Francisco. The party came in on the midnight train from New York and left last night after spending a busy day going over the city. They first visited the county jail, where Ettor and Giovannitti are confined, and though they tried hard to see the two men they were unsuccessful. They were however allowed to talk to the Polish women pickets who refused to pay their fines and are serving out their sentence.

The members of the party were held up by the military guard in their attempt to go to the mills through Canal street, as they were wearing the strikers card, “Don’t be a scab.” Then they visited some of tho homes of the strikers, and later dined at a Syrian restaurant as the guests of William D. Haywood. There were also present other strike leaders, several newspaper reporters, Miss Emma Goulain and two more Franco-Belgians.

Just as they reached the restaurant the guide happened to catch sight of patrolman Michael Moore, the Syrian policeman who was prominent in the Saturday morning incident at the station [see Hellraisers Journal of Feb. 26th]. He was pointed out to the visitors as the policeman who clubbed a woman. He was still nearby when the party cams out from the restaurant and stood for a moment on the sidewalk before starting downtown. They stopped, and Moore came up and ordered them to move.

“All right, well go,” said one man, but the women were not so complacent. Mrs. Older said to the patrolman: “So you’re the man who clubbed a woman, are you?”

“Now don’t stand talking to me,” replied the patrolman. “You’ve got to go along.”

Some of the men tried to argue that they were under no compulsion to move, and in the end the policeman all but arrested one of the young Franco-Belgians who was in the party.

———-

[Newsclip, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Children of Lawrence Strikers Receive Enthusiastic Welcome from Socialists of New York City

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote NY Lawrence Strike Com Welcome Children, NY Call p1, Feb 10, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 12, 1912
New York, New York – Children of Lawrence Strikers Welcomed by Socialists

From The New York Call of February 10, 1912:

NY Lawrence Strike Com Welcome Children, NY Call p1, Feb 10, 1912

From The New York Times of February 11, 1912:

150 STRIKE WAIFS FIND HOMES HERE
—————
Great Throng Waits in Cold to Give Warm
Welcome to Children from Lawrence, Mass.
———-

BANNERS OF RED WAVE
———-
And Crowd Sings the Marseillaise

–Children Answer with Strikers’ Cry
–Homes Offered to Many More.
———-

The Grand Central Station was the scene of a great demonstration last night when 150 boys and girls, ranging in age from 2 to 12 years, arrive here from Lawrence, Mass. They are the children of the striking textile workers, and they come here to be cared for by working people of New York, who have promised to feed and house them until peace has been restored in Lawrence and the great mills there are again in operation.

More than 700 persons applied for one or more of the children. Among them, it is said, were Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Miss Inez Milholland and Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant. The children, however, were all given into the care of the families of laboring men or members of the Socialist Party.

To greet the children a crowd of 5,000 men, women, and children packed the Grand Central Station concourse, singing the “Marseillaise” in many tongues. They waved red flags, some with black borders, and all bearing Socialistic mottoes. It was noticed that not one in that crowd waved aloft the Stars and Stripes.

The men that waved the big red flags said they were not anarchist but Socialist flags, but, whatever they were, they were red everywhere except the lettering and the black borders. The black borders, it was said, were marks of mourning for those of the strikers who have lost their lives in Lawrence. Besides the flags, there were banners, also red, on which were displayed in big type what the crowd called “mottoes.” One painted in gold letters on a long, red streamer, read:

Ye exploiters, kneel down before the of your victims.

Another banner announced that the “libertarians of New York affirm their solidarity to the strikers of Lawrence.” Still another banner bore the same message, except that instead of “libertarians,” it read “the Liberians of New York,” &c. There was also another flaming piece of bunting on which was painted the information that certain Harvard students favored “a free country.”

Long Wait For the Children

 The train on which the children were expected to arrive was due at 3:30 P.M., but it was an hour late, and it came in without any of the Lawrence Children. When it did roll in a brass band was playing in the concourse, and the crowd was lined up against ropes that were stretched for the purpose of preventing a too hearty welcome being given to the children.

The crowd did not understand why the children were not on the 3:30 train, and so great did the excitement become that the police had an inquiry made all along the New Haven line to Boston. It was learned that the children missed their train in Boston, and it was announced from the bulletin board that they would arrive on the train that was due at 5:42 P.M., but which would not get in until 6:50 P.M.

It was about 4 o’clock when the unwelcome information was bulletined and the crowd, which had stood for two hours in the bitter cold waiting for the train, dispersed to gather again about 6 o’clock in still greater force. At 6:30 P.M. the Grand Central concourse was packed to capacity, and the reserves of the East Fifty-First Street Station formed lines behind which the crowd was forced to stand until after the children had come out of the station.

At 6:50 the searchlight of the electric engine that pulled the train from Highbridge was sighted coming into the train shed. Then the excitement started in earnest. Slowly the hum of the “Marseillaise” started, gradually gathering in volume. It ended when the train came to a stop and then ensued a series of frantic shouts and yells in a dozen languages. In all the medley there was not heard a single English word except the sharp commands of the police and the station men who were assisting.

Announce Themselves as Strikers

 Orders had been issued that the children were not to leave the train until the other passengers had left it and were safely out of the shed. When the children were escorted from the cars they were in charge of fourteen men and women from Lawrence, one of whom was a trained nurse. The children were formed in columns of twos, and at a signal from a young man who was one of those in charge they announced their arrival with a yell.

This is the way the yell goes, and the children shouted it all the way out of the station:

Who we are, who are we, who are we!
Yes we are, yes we are, yes we are.
Strikers, strikers, strikers.

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