Tag: Labor Martyrs

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 4, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Garment Workers Strike Continues, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of January 1911:

Chg Garment Workers Strike Police v Strkrs crpd, ISR Cv Jan 1911

BY ROBERT DVORAK

[Part II of II.]

The most admirable and contagious strike meetings were held in thirty-seven various halls in the city and money was pouring in from all parts of the country, with letters of encouragement and promise of further aid when another blow, again from union headquarters, once more nearly demoralized the strikers.

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Hellraisers Journal: Butte Daily Bulletin: “Second Bloody Wednesday Victim Dead” -Young James Sullivan Dies in Ireland

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 9, 1920
Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland – Young James Sullivan Has Died

From the Butte Daily Bulletin of December 8, 1920:

ACM Anaconda Road Massacre, James Sullivan Dead, BDB p1, Dec 8, 1920ACM Anaconda Road Massacre, James Sullivan Dead in Ireland, BDB p1, Dec 8, 1920
James Sullivan, known to thousands of miners in the Coeur d’Alenes and Montana mining camps as “Jimmie,” one of the victims of the murder-list of the Anaconda Copper Mining company as exemplified by the actions of the company’s gunmen on Anaconda road, Butte, Bloody Wednesday, April 21, 1920, is dead. Jimmie died yesterday at the home of his parents, Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland, where he had been taken last September, a helpless cripple, to spend the remaining days of his life with his parents and sisters and brothers. 

News of young Sullivan’s death, the second resulting from the wanton brutality consummated by the Anaconda company’s gunmen on Anaconda road during the last miners’ strike, under the direction of Roy S. Alley and D. Gay Stivers of the company’s general staff, and under the personal observation of Sheriff John K. O’Rourke, was received in Butte today by cablegram from Ireland to J. V. Watson of Butte, a close friend of the unfortunate Sullivan.

The message merely stated that Jimmie had succumbed to his wound-a bullet in his spine-fired there by one of the company’s gunmen as Jimmie, with several hundred other unarmed strike pickets fled down Anaconda hill to escape the rain of lead from the riot guns, rifles and revolvers of the company’s gunthugs and city policemen.

The death of Sullivan, added to that of Thomas Manning, who died a week after the murderous attack on the pickets, marks the second actual death resulting from that occasion. Others of the more than a score of unarmed, peaceful pickets who were shot in their backs as they fled, are living deaths, cripples who will go through life without even the consolation of an early death to relieve them of their sufferings.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Class War in Irwin Coal Field by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Brutal Ruling Class, Cnc Pst p7, May 31, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 22, 1910
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Class War Continues in Irwin Coal Field

From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:

PA Miners Strike, Class War by TF Kennedy, ISR p141, Sept 1910

[Part I of II.]

Letter T, ISR p828, Mar 1910

HE Strike” are the words most appropriate to designate an article dealing with the situation in the Irwin coal field, because it is the strike of the year if not of the decade. There was nothing out of the ordinary about any of the other strikes that have occurred so far this year. The biggest strike in point of numbers and duration is that of the Illinois miners. It has been since its inception strictly orthodox, including the conflict of authority between the district organizations and the National Board and President Lewis. In Illinois both sides were, and had for years, been organized. All of the arts of diplomacy and bargaining were exhausted before the strike was declared. It is warm, pulsing stomachs against steel safes full of gold. 

The Irwin strike is rashly unorthodox. Excepting the formal declaration it has all of the characteristics of a violent revolution.

More persons have been killed, injured and taken prisoners than in many of the bloody uprisings in the Balkans or South America which are so regularly exploited on the front pages of the “Joinals.”

Fifteen persons, two of them women, have met violent bloody deaths. Some of these were killed in open conflict, others in skirmishes, but most of them were brutal, cold-blooded murder of men who dared to tell a prospective scab that there was a strike on.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Class War in Irwin Coal Field by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Memorial Planned to Honor Labor Martyrs, Organizer Fannie Sellins and Miner Joseph Starzeleski

Janet RayeFannie Sellins
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Quote M. Robbins, for Fannie Sellins, Wkrs Wld p4, Nov 28, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 29, 1920
United Mine Workers to Honor Fannie Sellins and Joe Starzeleski 

From The Pittsburgh Post of August 26, 1920:

Memorial Planned
—–

Organized Labor to Honor
Mrs. Sellins and Strezleski.

Fannie Sellins in Jail, crpd, Hgtn WV Lbr Str p1, May 22, 1914

Organized labor in the Allegheny valley is planning to observe the first anniversary of the deaths of Mrs. Fannie Sellins, organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, and John Strezloski, a miner, which occurred August 26, 1919, during a battle between strikers and deputies at the mine of the Allegheny Coal Company in West Natrona, by the dedication of a granite monument in New Kensington, Monday, September 6, it was announced yesterday by J. H. Munn of Tarentum, president of the Allegheny Valley Trades Council.

The dedication of the memorial will be preceded by a parade in which more than 8,000 workers from various Western Pennsylvania towns are expected to march. The monument, which cost more than $2,500, was bought by members of the United Mine Workers of America throughout the United States.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Reward Offered for Slayer of Fannie Sellins, UMW Organizer Who Lost Her Life in Freedom’s Cause

Janet RayeFannie Sellins
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Quote M. Robbins, for Fannie Sellins, Wkrs Wld p4, Nov 28, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 26, 1920
Reward of $5,000 Offered for Apprehension of Slayer of Fannie Sellins

From The Pittsburgh Post of July 23, 1920:

Slayer of Woman In Riot Sought
—–

Reward Offered For Apprehension
of Guilty Person.
—–

Fannie Sellins in Jail, Hgtn WV Lbr Str p1, May 22, 1914
Fannie Sellins in Marion County Jail at Fairmont, W. V.
-from the Huntington Labor Star of May 29, 1914
———-

A reward of $5,000, thought to be offered either by the United Mine Workers of America, or by Fred Broad of New Kensington, a son-in-law of the slain woman, will be paid for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the slayers of Fannie Sellins, labor organizer, who was killed in a mine strike riot near Brackenridge almost a year ago. The reward has been advertised in the local papers.

The circumstances surrounding the death of the woman leader was a subject for discussion at recent labor meetings in Montreal, and it is said that the campaign for a solution will be continued this summer.

Mrs. Sellins was shot down the night of August 26, 1919, during a riot between guards and strikers near the pit mouth of the Allegheny Coal and Coke Company at Brackenridge. The guards were arrested after the riot but they were released because of insufficient evidence. Since then there have been no new developments or arrests in the case.

[Note: there was no riot. Company gunthugs attacked picketers who were peacefully assembled, as was their right.]

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review, Volume I, Issue 1: The St. Louis Streetcar Strike and Posse Comitatus

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, re St Louis Streetcar Strike Massacre, LW p1, June 23, 1900———–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 2, 1900
St. Louis, Missouri – Strikers Slaughtered by Posse Comitatus

From the International Socialist Review of July 1900:

The Chicago and St. Louis Strikes

[Part II of II.]

Labor Martyrs, St Louis Streetcar Strike copy, StL Rpb p1, June 11, 1900
St. Louis Republican of June 11, 1900

The St. Louis street car strike, like the one just described, started with various subjects of dispute and soon narrowed down to a question of the recognition of the right of the men to act together. From the beginning this strike was marked with acts of violence. However much this may be deplored the fact remains that so long as capital exists it is impossible for any large strike to continue for any length of time without the accompaniment of violence. This is especially true when lines of transportation are concerned.

When non-union men are so conspicuously engaged in treason to their class as they must be when they run street cars or railroad trains in time of strike it would require a stage of human development far above that of capitalism to produce the sort of human beings that will stand idly by and see their means of living taken away and not resort to violence. But before commenting further on the subject of violence during strikes a few observations are necessary. In the first place it is well to remember that the press is in the control of the present ruling capitalist class and always exaggerates any violence that may take place and in a great many instances, notably during the great railroad strike of 1894, manufactures out of whole cloth long and elaborate stories of acts of violence that never occurred at all. This in itself is sufficient proof of which class it is that deserves violence, “The wish is father to the thought.”

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Hellraisers Journal: St. Louis Streetcar Strikers Shot Down by Sheriff’s Posse; Eugene V. Debs on Law and Order

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, re St Louis Streetcar Strike Massacre, LW p1, June 23, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 24, 1900
St. Louis, Missouri – Streetcar Strikers Shot Down Returning from Picnic

From the Duluth Labor World of June 23, 1900:

ST. LOUIS OUTRAGE HOMESTEAD
—–

HOMESTEAD AND HAZELTON PALE
INTO INSIGNIFICANCE.
—–
Street Car Men Returning Home From a Picnic
Cruelly Shot and Murdered by Posse of Deputy Sheriffs-
Debs’ Strong Letter-Says No Strike is Ever Lost-
The Lesson is Worth the Cost.
—–

Labor Martyrs, St Louis Streetcar Strike, StL Rpb p1, June 11, 1900Labor Martyrs 2, St Louis Streetcar Strike, StL Rpb p1, June 11, 1900—–

The St. Louis street car strike is still on and will be, perhaps, for some time, as the St. Louis Transit Co. have positively refused to accept any proposition for arbitration whatever. Since then the St. Louis Central Labor Union has determined to fight the street car company to the bitter end, and adopted the following proposition for the election of a committee of 50 to form immediate organization and proceed to raise a fund of at least $100,000 to carry on the strike until it is won, the fund to be raised by an appeal to organized labor throughout the world, by personal appeals to every kind of organized bodies in St. Louis, and by such other means as may be deemed proper, closing with an appeal to the people of St. Louis to refrain from riding on the Transit cars, and to organizations, societies and associations of every kind in St. Louis, in sympathy with the movement, to make the street railway strike a special order of business at all their meetings, and to appoint committees to raise funds and continue to maintain an iron-clad boycott until the victory is won.

Mr. E. V. Debs was requested to come to St. Louis, but on account of illness was unable to do so. He however sent a very strong letter, which sums up the situation in a true light. The following from his letter will not be without interest:

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Hellraisers Journal: Company Gunthugs Beat Up and Shoot Down Union Coal Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 14, 1920
Harlan County, Kentucky – Company Gunthugs Shoot Down Miners

From the United Mine Workers Journal of May 1, 1920:

HdLn Harlan Co KY Gunthugs, UMWJ p4, May 1, 1920

Reports which have reached the Journal indicate a terrible condition of affairs in the Harlan coal field of Kentucky. Gunmen and thugs in the employ of the coal companies run wild in that section, without fear or hindrance. They are shooting down innocent and helpless miners and members of miners’ families. Three members of the United Mine Workers were shot down in cold blood by these ruffians and murderers on March 20 at the Banner Fork Coal Corporation Mine No. 2. The following are the names of the victims:

K. S. TAYLOR, instantly killed. Leaves a widow and seven children without any means of support.

JAMES BURK [John Burkes], deputy sheriff, fatally wounded. Died the next day in a hospital at Harlan, leaving a widow and family without support.

GENERAL GIBSON, fatally wounded. Died on an operating table in a hospital at Harlan, leaving a family without support.

One of the gunmen, Jim Hall, was severely wounded and was sent to a hospital at Harlan [has since died]. Banner Fork Local Union No. 3319 has adopted resolutions of condolence to the families of the deceased brothers, all of whom were good men and highly respected. They gave their lives to uphold the principles of the United Mine Workers of America.

Since the shooting the membership of Banner Fork local union has reached 100 per cent, and the coal company has locked out its employes.

According to reports from Harlan county, Jim Hall, the thug, beat up and disfigured a young son of K. S. Taylor, afterward locking him up in a boarding house. When attempting to give bond for the release of his son the father was shot down. The thugs suddenly appeared from the office of the coal company and ordered the miners to throw up their hands. There was a hailstorm of bullets for ten minutes. Hall is said to boast that he kills a miner a month. He and five other thugs are said to receive $10 a day for their bloody work. Hall wore a steel breast plate as a protection against bullets, but it did not save him.

Following the shooting, the sheriff searched the company boarding house and another house and found three machine guns and two cases of high-power rifles with an ample supply of ammunition ready for instant use.

[One of the reports said:]

This is what they use on American citizens whose only offense is their effort to protect themselves and their families. Everything is peaceful at present, but the miners are greatly stirred up over the outrage.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Irish Rebel James Connolly, Executed at Kilmainham Goal on Friday May 12, 1916

Janet RayeWe Never Forget
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It was a good clean fight.
The cause cannot die now.
-James Connolly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Irish Rebels, We Never Forget James Connolly, May 12, 1916

——

JAMES CONNOLLY
—–

Irish Rebels of 1916, James Connolly

During the Easter Rising, James Connolly served as Vice-President of the Irish Republic and Commandant-General of the Dublin Division of the Army of the Irish Republic. He was severely wounded during the fighting at the General Post Office and was carried from there on a stretcher. He was taken from his hospital bed on May 12, 1916, placed in chair because he could not stand, and executed by firing squad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Recalls James Connolly

That fall [1910] James Connolly came to say goodbye to our family. He had been called back to Ireland and was glad to go. He said he was not sorry he had come to America and not sorry to leave. Movements were on foot to organize industrial unions in Ireland. We sat and talked quite a while. The baby was very fretful that day. Connolly, who was well experienced with babies, having had seven, took the baby from me, laid him face down across his knees and patted his back until he burped soundly and then went to sleep. We all felt very sorry to see Connolly go. His family left shortly afterward-the older children not too willingly. This was the last time I saw this good friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Hellraisers Journal: Fellow Worker Thomas Manning Laid to Rest in Butte as Thousands March in Funeral Procession

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Butte Striking Miners re ACM Massacre Butte, BDB p1, Apr 28, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 29, 1920
Butte, Montana – Fellow Worker Thomas Manning Laid to Rest

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of April 28, 1920:

ACM Massacre Butte, Manning Laid to Rest, BDB p1, Apr 28, 1920———-

FIRST OF VICTIMS OF A. C. M. MURDERERS
TO DIE SHOWN LAST HONOR
———-

This morning, a week to the day, since Thomas Manning fell on Anaconda road, riddled with bullets fired from guns in the hands of the notorious Roy Alley and his gang of hired murderers of the Anaconda Copper Mining company, the mortal remains of that martyr to the cause of the rights of workingmen were laid at rest in Holy Cross cemetery. And though his mangled body lies beneath six feet of cold earth, the dauntless spirit which impelled Manning, unarmed except with the conviction that he was in the right, to face the hordes of killers on the hill last Wednesday [April 21st], is still with his fellow workers and fellow victims.

In Ireland, an aged father waits in vain for the return of his son from America-reputed land of the free, where justice is supposed to dwell and where the workingman is presumed to have equal rights with the millionaire.

In Ireland, also, a loving wife, who as yet does not know that she is a widow, waits patiently for the letter from her man whom she thinks is working in this land of unexampled wealth to amass the nest-egg on which her husband and herself will be enabled to keep the wolf from the door. And, perhaps, she is awaiting that letter which will tell her that Tom has saved up enough money to bring her to the United States to make anew their home in glorious, free America.

It is also possible that Mrs. Manning, as she hears of the killings and riotings in British-ruled Erin breathes a silent prayer that her loving Tom is in America, where British soldiery with their guns are now unknown, and where, as she mercifully believes, such despicable creatures as armed company gunmen have no existence.

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