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Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 23, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers “Disciplined”
From The Pittsburg Press of July 19, 1909:
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Tag: July 1909
Hellraisers Journal: At Mass Meeting, McKees Rocks Strikers Cheer Speeches of Socialists J. W. Slayton & Rose Maritzer
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 22, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers Cheer Socialists at Mass Meeting
From The Pittsburg Press of July 19, 1909:
“NO SURRENDER” IS SLOGAN OF THE STRIKERS
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American Workmen Are Not Fooled by Ruse and
Refuse to Take Places of Men Who Quit
—–CHEER ADDRESSES MADE BY SOCIALIST LEADERS
—–While the Pressed Steel Car Co.’s attempt to resume work in full this morning at its McKees Rocks plant failed utterly, the strikers held a rousing meeting of several hours’ duration, at which they agreed to stick together and fight indefinitely.
An impressive scene was presented on the Indian Mound, which from the beginning of the strike has been used as the meeting place for the workmen. Between 4,000 and 5,000 men and women of many nationalities congregated there and were addressed in stirring manner in their own languages by speakers of more than local repute.
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Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Strikers Issue Proclamation: “We shall fight to a finish, as it is our right.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 21, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers of Pressed Steel Car Co. Issue Proclamation
From The Pittsburg Press of July 18, 1909:
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Proclamation by Strikers
——In refutation of the repeated statements of the officials of the Pressed Steel Car Co., that no strike exists at the Schoenville plant, the organized strikers yesterday issued a formal proclamation. It affirms in the strongest language that a strike is in progress and cites examples of the company’s alleged wage scale under the “pool system.” The proclamation, issued in behalf of the employes by William B. Remay and K. Nagy. is as follows:
Citizens Workingmen:
We talk to you, the oppressed workers, banished by the strike:
Public opinion is not sufficiently informed of the situation, and according to the statement of the directors of the Pressed Steel Car Co. there is no strike existing at McKees Rocks.
We call this statement an untruth. Yes. there is a strike and we proclaim it openly before the public that the bad conduct of the directory of the company is the direct cause of it. We complained numerous times but our complaints have never been listened to, and after complaining again last Monday, we got for our answer: “Your services are no longer required,” and we have been driven out of the works.
Citizens and workingmen, would you have acted in any other way than we did?
Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Strikers Elect Committee of Four, Seek Settlement Through Socialist Attorneys
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 20, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers Seek Settlement
-As the Pressed Steel Car strikers seek a settlement through Socialist Attorneys, we learn that “one a day” is the death toll for the workers within the plant.
From The Pittsburg Press of July 16, 1909:
From page 1:
PEACE MOVE BY STRIKERS
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Committee of Four, One from Each
Nationality, to Confer, Through
Socialist Party Attorneys,
With Officials
—–RENEWAL OF RIOTING IF OFFERS ARE SPURNED
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Attorney Piekarski Offers His Services to
the Sheriff-Undercurrent of Excitement
in Schoenville This Afternoon
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Rioting at McKees Rocks has for the present given place to an effort at compromise, and a committee of four, representing the striking employes, is now conferring with attorneys of the Socialist party, who will take up the matter of settlement with officials of the Pressed Steel Car Co.
“We demand pay by the hour-no other way,” is the only demand made by the strikers.
Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Strikers and Sympathizers Battle Pennsylvania’s Mounted Constabulary
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 19, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers of Pressed Steel Car Co. Battle Cossacks
From The Pittsburg Press of July 15, 1909:
4,000 RIOTERS ATTACK POLICE;
MANY ARE HURT
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Desperate Fighting Takes Place at Noon,
a Pitched Battle Raging Over Most of
McKees Rocks for Half Hour
–Sergeant of Constabulary Badly Wounded
—–FOUGHT LIKE DEMONS AGAINST OFFICERS
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Desperate fighting took place at noon today between 4,000 of the Pressed Steel Car Co. strikers and their sympathizers and the State Constabulary, a pitched battle raging over most of McKees Rocks for half an hour.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1909: “The President Gave Me an Audience.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 13, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1909, Part II:
-Hard at Work for Release of the Mexican Political Refugees
From St. Louis Labor of June 26, 1909:
Washington, D. C.,
June 17, 1909.Editor [G. A.] Hoehn,
St. Louis, Mo.
Dear Comrade:
I have been hard at work for a week, working for the release of the Mexican Political Refugees. Yesterday the President gave me an audience. I presented a sworn statement from Gue[r]ra, who has been sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. Warden McCloughery was extremely courteous and sympathetic in every way.
T. V. Powderly, one of the early fighters for Labors’ rights in the stormy days of the past, arranged a meeting with the attorney of the Board of Pardons; he gave me a very respectful hearing, and promised to send the papers to the President as soon as possible.
When the President and I met, his salutation was: “Mother Jones, it seems to me that you are always working in behalf of the friendless?” I replied:
Well Mr. President, those who got many friends do not need my assistance.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June 1909: Found Meeting with President Taft
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 12, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1909, Part I:
-Meets with President Taft on Behalf of Mexican Refugees
From Oakland Tribune of June 24, 1909:
Hellraisers Journal: Speech of IWW Organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at Spokane on June 29, 1909, Part II
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 11, 1909
Spokane, Washington – June 29th Speech of Gurley Flynn, Part II
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 8, 1909:
ELIZABETH G. FLYNN ADDRESS TO WORKERS
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Address of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Organizer and lecturer of the Industrial Workers of the World, given at Spokane, Wash., on Tuesday evening, June 29, 1909 [Part II].
The Slave Market.
Go look down the street to these employment agencies and what do you see? You see, “Men wanted-a dollar and a half, two dollars, two dollars and seventy-five cents per day.” And a lot of these men work for two dollars and a half, because they must; and if you want two dollars and a half, there will be probably the together fellow that will cut you down to two dollars, and the man gets the job, takes a wage upon which he can barely exist and hold body and soul together, and he does not know after his job tonight where his supper is to be had a week from tonight! And that working man and men is the type that forms the average worker in this country, these “Jobless” are the man that is so anxious for a job at two and half dollars or a dollar and seventy-five cents a day.
And what comes of the rest of the labor’s production; where goes the millions upon millions that labor produces? Surely the dollar and seventy-five cents, the dollar and a half, or even three dollars a day does not represent the sum total of the product of labor; for if it did, the worker would not be getting his wage. The employer does not take us for love; he does not like us and he does not give us a job because we are going to be brothers in heaven. That does not interest him a bit. The only thing he worries about is, can he make a profit on our labor and if he cannot, surely we won’t get the job. And so it stands to reason, no matter how high or how low our wages, there is something over and above, that goes to the master for himself and the bargain that we make is simply divvying up with the men that employ us and saying to them we will work in your factory and I will give you the bulk of the product, work the first two hours for myself, produce my wage, ad then pay you for being a good boss and giving it to me; and then the rest of the day put in producing enough to pay for the raw material, the wear and tear on the machinery and reward you for allowing me to produce it for you; and of course the capitalists say to such a bargain as that “Absolutely delighted,” and accept. (Applause.)
Hellraisers Journal: Speech of IWW Organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at Spokane on June 29, 1909, Part I
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 10, 1909
Spokane, Washington – June 29th Speech of Gurley Flynn, Part I
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 8, 1909:
ELIZABETH G. FLYNN ADDRESS TO WORKERS
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Address of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Organizer and lecturer of the Industrial Workers of the World, given at Spokane, Wash., on Tuesday evening, June 29, 1909.
This meeting as you well know, is held under the [auspices?] of the Industrial Workers of the World. The organization is a new form of labor organization, one that stands for the industrial working class and that class alone. We are not interested in the welfare or the ideas of any other class in society; and we who are the members of the tolling class have in these sufficient of our own interests that need looking after, that we have no time to bother with other classes.
The working class of this country look out upon a situation where there are natural resources present to supply the entire world with plenty; they look out upon an industrial situation which has invented machinery capable of getting these natural resources with but little labor expenditure into finished commodities of necessities or luxuries. Yet in spite of that and in spite of the productiveness made possibly by men who labor and the natural abundance of the earth itself, in spite of that, we have people starving in this country and five million idle; over a million child laborers in the United States; seventy thousand children in New York City and fifty thousand in Chicago that go to school without a breakfast in the morning we have a condition in which the majority of the people are a propertyless class, are a class that own no land, that control none of that productive machinery, that control absolutely nothing in this land of the free and home of the brave but their own labor power, their own abilities to work. Just the same as the mule can pull a big load, so a worker can handle his labor power, muscular energy; and is the only thing he has; and if some trust could have been organized to separate us from that, to divide us from ourselves. I suppose even that would have been done long ago.
Hellraisers Journal: John Murray, Secretary Political Refugee Defense League, Visits Mexican Revolutionaries
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 9, 1909
From Chicago, John Murray Reports for Political Refugee Defense League
From San Antonio’s El Regidor of July 1, 1909:
