Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 13, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – 15,000 Striking Silk Workers Cheer the I. W. W.
From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:
On the Paterson Picket Line
By William D. Haywood
[Part II of II]
Industrial Worker May 8, 1913
The night preceding this silent manifestation of protest against capitalist brutality the wildest demonstration of the strike took place in Armory Hall, where John Golden and Sarah Conboy, of the American Federation of Labor, escorted by manufacturers and policemen, came to try to repeat the infamous strikebreaking tactics they attempted a year ago in Lawrence. They came heralded by the local press, by the civil authorities, by the clergy, and the employers as the instruments through which the great silk strike would be settled. The armory had been obtained for them through state officials. The state militia had been called out and stood in the ante-rooms with guns loaded for action. Chief of Police Bimson and his entire force were on hand. The fire department had been ordered to hold themselves in readiness and had their hose attached to hydrants in the immediate vicinity.
The striking silk workers were invited to attend this meeting. It had been previously arranged that they would attend in a body and listen to what the A. F. of L. had to say, providing that they would be given a chance to reply to state the position of the strikers and the principles of the Industrial Workers of the World.
15,000 Cheer for I. W. W.
When organizers of the I. W. W. appeared in the hall, the 15,000 people present went wild. For minute after minute they yelled and cheered with ever-increasing -volume. The floor and gallery was a waving forest of the red membership books of the I. W. W. held aloft by what seemed to be countless thousands. After a time Organizer Ewald W. Koettgen of the I. W. W., appeared on the platform and announced that the I. W. W. speakers would not be allowed to present their side. Or rather, he intended to announce this, but he got no further than “I. W. W.”-when the audience leaped to its feet, and for perhaps fifteen minutes drowned every utterance with frantic cheers. Koettgen at last managed to make himself heard and said: ”Let’s all go home.” As one man the audience arose and began to file out. As these departed thousands on the outside who had not been able to enter, rushed in and soon the armory was again filled. Those who left went to their own halls where they greeted every utterance of their speakers with roars of applause.
For an hour and three-quarters Golden and Mrs. Conboy tried to speak, only to be drowned down by the unceasing cheers that the audience sent up for the I. W. W. In desperation Mrs. Conboy tried the appeal-to-home-mother-and-patriotism stunt and seizing an American flag, waved it from the stage, which act was greeted by another outburst of derisive cheers. When Golden finally made himself heard about 300 persons stayed to listen, the hall having been cleared by police clubs.
It was the funeral of the A. F. of L., so far as Paterson was concerned. It was remarked afterward that it was indeed fitting and appropriate that the A. F. of L. should choose an armory, the training quarters of the bayonet-carrying murderers of the capitalist class, as its own burying place.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 15, 1913
“Sunday” -Drawing by Maurice Becker, Poem by Louis Untermeyer
-On Sunday September 29, 1912, at Lawrence, Massachusetts, a parade, led by Carlo Tresca, was attacked by police. The I. W. W. marchers were on their way to the cemetery in order to place flowers on the grave of Anna LoPizzo, martyr of the Lawrence Textile Strike. Tresca was seized by police, but freed by his Comrades.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 5, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part III of III]
Unlike the Lawrence strike, the strike of the New York garment workers is from the top DOWN; that is the union officials ordered the strike and have held the reins in their hands ever since. Without doubt they are trying to serve the strikers, but it is our opinion that they would build more permanently in permitting the strikers themselves to have the deciding voice in their own affairs; in teaching them self-reliance and class solidarity.
But the workers are finding out many things for themselves. They are thrilling with a new sense of power; they are learning the joy that comes when workers of whatever race or creed fight side by side in a great class struggle. The hope of victory and achievement is in the air and it is doubtful whether they will obey any orders from the union officials if their employers do not grant them appreciable benefits.
The heart of every true Socialist is with the strikers in this fight. We believe that the strike is a valuable form of direct action that teaches working class self-reliance and solidarity better than anything else. It teaches the workers to conduct their own fights. It brings out the class character of all existing social institutions. It teaches above all things, the necessity of revolutionary class unionism.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 4, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part II of III]
The thugs employed by the shop bosses have proved very energetic and reliable. They have worked early and late beating up strikers whenever possible, starting trouble and blaming it on the workers, while the police stood by (or took a hand) to see that nobody attacked or injured them.
During the first week in January the union officials conferred with the employers relative to a settlement of the strike, but the New York Call reports that all negotiations were broken off when the employers insisted upon a return of the strikers to the shops pending an investigation of the conditions in the trade by a special commission to be appointed for that purpose. The union officials declared that under no circumstances would “they order the men to return to work” pending an investigation or arbitration of their demands.
As the pickets began to suffer at the hands of the company guards, it was decided to take a lesson from the strikers at Lawrence, Mass., and chain picketing was employed for the first time in New York City.
Ten thousand pickets were asked to report each day, starting to work on the “Chain Picket Line” at 5 :00 o’clock in the morning, to pass constantly in a steady stream of pedestrians before the strikebound shops.
On the day of the inauguration of the Chain Picket plan, the unions held various meetings which were well attended by the strikers. Hugh Frayneurged a general strike in every branch of the needle and garment industries, promising the support of the A. F. of L. while Abe Cahan closed one meeting begging the strikers to be true to the American Federation of Labor. He urged them to carry an A. F. of L. card in one pocket and a Socialist party card in the other (that is to work for class organization on one side and craft division on the other.)
This is very different from the calls of the Industrialists, all of whom insist upon a CLASS UNION card on the industrial field and a Socialist party card to represent their class interests upon the political field.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 27, 1912 Salem, Mass. – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: “It is a foolish court that will try to fool an awakened people.”
From The Tacoma Times of October 26, 1912:
BY H. P. BURTON.
SALEM, Mass., Oct. 26.—There is just one spot of light in the shadowy Salem court house where sit, in their iron-meshed cage, Joseph Ettor, Arturo Giovannitti and Joseph Caruso, on trial for their lives and their cause. It is the grave, pale face of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Madonna of the women who slave.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is only a slip of a girl, 22. But she has been living a life for six years. She has gone from coast to coast, speaking for “the cause,” and suffering abuse, want and imprisonment, that the burden of the beaten-down may be lifted a little.
For a year now, with her baby clinging to her skirts, she has fought capitalism in the woolen trust town of Lawrence, regardless of winter cold or summer heat, picketing, helping, cheering and speaking.
And today she sees what this trial means not only to Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso, her comrades-in-arms, but, as she thinks, all of us, and indeed to all the world.
As she let her gaze float over Gallows hill, where they hanged the witches, she said:
They will not see, I fear—these cogs in the machine of justice—in just what sort of a way they are. They will not understand that they are not trying our leaders, but they are putting Justice itself on trial.
It is a foolish court that will try to fool an awakened people. It is a foolish court that does not release quickly those wrongly indicted men. For the anger of the American working man is awaken, it cannot be held in leash much longer, even by the strongest, leaders.
I wish I did not have to say it, but I have seen how in the past few weeks we have failed to hold the workers of Massachusetts and New York in check-how they have struck “in demonstration” against our advice and pleading. If we cannot hold these few thousand, how shall we be expected to keep calm a nation of them if they are aroused, as they surely will be if they are not given back their “lost leaders”?
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s pale face was even whiter than when she began speaking. She snatched up the little baby that had sat at her feet as she talked, and pressed him close to her.
[And she said:]
It’s for his sake and the other little ones like him that I hope it will not happen, that they will not make it HAVE to happen—babies are so helpless!
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
