Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions

3rd February 20243rd February 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote re Annie Clemenc at Mass Funeral Calumet, Day Book p4, Jan 6, 1914 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 3, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions

From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:

[Part II of II]

We have seen how the copper country is governed by an “invisible government”; from the judge on the bench, to the grand jury in session; from the national guard of the state of Michigan, on “duty,” since July 24, 1913, to the sheriff with his hundreds of imported professional strike breakers whom he swore in as deputies. The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, Calumet, is the invisible government of Michigan.

This poor-little-rich corporation was “created” in the early fifties. According to a statement given out by Attorney Peterman, and endorsed by General Manager W. F. Denton, and General Manager C. L. Lawton, we find this devout confession: ”The profits of the Calumet and Hecla have been large, but they were due solely to the fact that the Creator put such rich ore in the company’s ground.”

However, Congress in the year of our Lord, 1852, seems to have been in total ignorance of this little gift on the Creator’s part to the copper crowd, for we find that “it gave to the state of Michigan 750,000 acres of public land, to aid it in building a ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary. The state in turn bargained this land to the contractors who built the canal, at a dollar and a quarter an acre. The lands thus disposed of at so beggarly a price were supposed to be swamp, or overflowed lands, but somehow, and strange to say, a part of them are now the rocky matrices from which the Calumet and Hecla has long been extracting shot-copper,-that company having in some way got hold of them. Years later a man named Chandler, who claimed to have bought the same land over again from the State of Michigan, brought a suit to dispossess the copper company,-charging all sorts of fraud in the switching of swamps so as to be quarries of copper-bearing rock. But the Supreme Court ruled against him, on the ground that as he got his deed from the state, he was in no better plight than the state, and that the state could not go back on its first deed to the canal contractors: so the Calumet and Hecla people kept it.”

This “good thing” was capitalized for $2,500,000 in shares of $25 each, instead of $100-note that. Of this $25 a share, only $12 was paid in. A total cash investment of $1,200,000. According to the Mining and Engineering World of December 27th, Calumet and Hecla has declared dividends on issued capitalization to December 1, 1913, amounting to $121,650,000, or $1,216 a share or $101 profits for each dollar invested.

Dividends for 1900 amounted to 320 per cent; for 1906, 280 per cent; for 1907, 260 per cent. In the Boston market, the stock was quoted on the day before New Years, at 427, bid price. Bearing in mind that the par value of the shares is but $25, this figure means that the stock is now worth more than 1,700 per cent, and bearing in mind also that only $12 a share was actually paid in, it means more than 3,400 per cent, market value. The president of the company receives a salary greater than the president of the United States.

Not long ago, when dividends threatened to be unusually enormous, the company purchased an extensive island in Lake Superior, stocked it with the finest game, and it is now used by stockholders of the company as a hunting preserve.

And the capitalists, who have never seen the inside of a mine shaft, who have stolen and defrauded to gain possession of the Calumet mines, have refused to permit their wage slaves, who produce all the wealth brought out of the mines, to organize into a union. They have denied the right of these workers to organize to demand more wages and better working conditions. Their arrogance is summed up in the words “We have nothing to arbitrate.”

These capitalists want MORE labor from the laborers. They are not satisfied with having stolen hundreds of millions from the men who have dug the wealth from the dangerous recesses of the earth. They demand still MORE.

* * * * * * *

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II-Profits, Wages and Working Conditions” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

2nd February 20242nd February 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote re Annie Clemenc at Mass Funeral Calumet, Day Book p4, Jan 6, 1914 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 2, 1914
“Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns

From the International Socialist Review of February 1914:

[Part I of II]

SEVENTY-TWO copper miners, with their wives and children, met death at these doors on Christmas Eve in Calumet, Michigan.

A brief hour before this little company of silent ones had passed up the stairs into the Italian Hall to join hundreds of other strikers and their families. A Christmas tree had been arranged by the Women’s Auxiliary of the Western Federation of Miners to put a bit of cheer into the hearts of the kiddies and perhaps to encourage the men and women in their struggle against the copper barons for more bread and better working conditions.

But “Peace on earth and good will toward men” is not down on the capitalist program. For months past imported thugs and gun-men, in the pay of the copper companies, as guards, had gone about shooting up strikers, breaking up union headquarters, disrupting meetings and otherwise “establishing law and order.”

It should surprise no one then to learn that upon this occasion a “mysterious” stranger appeared suddenly in the doorway of Italian Hall with a false cry of “fire!”

Comrade Annie Clemanc [Clemenc] had just finished her address of welcome; the toys were still on the tree-when forty-eight pairs of little feet arose at the alarm and ran down the stairway. They were met by “deputies,” who blocked the doors to escape. In the crush and panic that followed seventy-two human beings were killed.

* * * *

A bleak mining region and the rigors of a Lake Superior winter, with the hardship of five months’ strike, made still more poignant the crushing sorrow. Over the two miles of road from Calumet to the bit of ground owned by the Western Federation of Miners marched the procession with hearse, undertakers’ wagons and an automobile truck carrying a few coffins, followed by 480 miners, in squads of four, carrying 67 coffins. They lowered them into two long trenches that yawned in the snows of the copper country. Behind them came fifty Cornish miners chanting hymns, their voices thick with emotion. Thousands of miners with their wives and children formed the procession. All but a dozen of the burials were in common graves dug by members of the union.

Came the Finns to the fair state of Michigan about sixty years ago-to spend their lifetime and labor time in the mines.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Calumet” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I-The Fighting Finns” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part III

6th June 20236th June 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 6, 1913
Clarksburg, West Virginia – Comrade Kintzer’s Plea for Help

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

Hatfield’s Challenge to the Socialist Party

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part III of III]

The National Committee received the following plea for help at its meeting held in Chicago, May 10th, and it is up to the rank and file of the party to force immediate action in this crisis. The conditions are so well known that investigating committees are only an insult to the intelligence of the comrades in West Virginia and elsewhere. What they ask for is regular or volunteer organizers. Why should not their request be granted immediately?

The Plea for Help

Clarksburg, W. Va., May 9, 1913.

To the National Committee, Socialist Party, Chicago:

Dear Comrades-Owing to the temporary absence of State Secretary Houston, the State Executive Committee motion following was instituted by myself, asking that the four comrades send their vote upon the motion to Executive Secretary Work, so that in the event it carries it may be properly put before you at the annual convention. The committeemen are widely scattered, and there is a possibility that their votes upon the motion will fail to arrive in time.

Following is the motion and comment by myself:

“That the National Committee, in session of May 11, be requested to furnish a number of regular or volunteer organizers to be routed through West Virginia, for the purpose of apprising the people of the outrages upon life, liberty and constitutional right, perpetuated and practiced by government officials, with Hatfield’s consent. That the financial deficit, if any, be borne by the national organization.”

COMMENT:

Comrade John W. Brown, National Committeeman, is now held incommunicado, in the county jail at Clarksburg, by order of Governor Hatfield. When I last saw him we spoke of this plan of reaching the people of West Virginia.

We all are aware of the subsidy of our state press, and now that Governor Hatfield has set the gauge of battle for the Socialists, having eliminated every other element, we must accept the fight or be conquered.

“In this state issue is involved the greatest violation of constitutional guarantees the American labor movement ever experienced. If we submit tamely we deserve the galling chains of slavery. If we fight as a united working class, we mark another mile post on the road to economic freedom.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part II

5th June 20236th June 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 5, 1913
Huntington, West Virginia – Comrades Expose Military Despotism

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

Hatfield’s Challenge to the Socialist Party

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part II of III]

The following letters from comrades tell the story of the suppression of Socialism in Huntington:

I inclose a picture of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star’s force with its fighting clothes on. During the flood half our population was homeless. Two companies of militia, withdrawn from Paint Creek strike zone, where they had been on duty seven months, were quartered on the helpless city. They showed us what military law in the Kanawha county had been. They confiscated whiskey and with their hides full of rot-gut, and their hands full of deadly weapons, they staggered about fighting both the citizens and each other, stealing everything that was not nailed down, and breaking into homes and carrying off what they wanted. The Socialist and Labor Star exposed the outrages of these scab-herders, who formed a plot for the destruction of the Star plant. Fortunately, the comrades were tipped off in time and when, in the night, 150 soldiers started out to demolish our machinery, they found the shop had been converted into a fort. Comrades living near had been summoned and the building was in the hands of twenty determined workingmen armed with Winchesters. The gallant warriors decided to delay the attack. The picture inclosed shows the mechanical force with their tools taken the day after the attack.

———-

Huntington, May 5, 1913.

At a mass meeting being held by the Trades and Labor Assembly, May 5th, to protest against the Russianizing of West Virginia, the crowd was fired into by Baldwin-Feltz mine guards sent from the strike zone for that purpose. Comrade W. R. Taylor, aged 60, was shot through the head, while several others, including women and children, narrowly escaped death in the rain of bullets. Comrade George W. Gillespie, member of the S. P. State Executive Committee, had just started to speak to the 3,000 people when the firing began. Although the names of the detectives are known, the authorities have made no attempt to arrest them.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part I

4th June 20236th June 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 4, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Governor Hatfield Vows to Jail or Deport Socialists

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

Hatfield’s Challenge to the Socialist Party

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part I of III]

Governor Hatfield has declared that every active Socialist in West Virginia shall be jailed or deported. Wholesale arrests of Socialists without warrants have already been made; trials by jury denied; our papers confiscated; presses wrecked and Editors jailed. Shall we stand for our comrades being absolutely within the power of this tool of the Coal Trust and the tin soldiers whom he commands?

AFTER a reign of terror and absolute lawlessness on the part of the mine owners and some of the constituted authorities in West Virginia for many months, the United Mine Workers of America have signed a truce with Governor Hatfield.

The representatives of the miners on Paint and Cabin Creeks and Coal River, after a stormy session, acceded to the Governor’s recommendation as a basis for a settlement of the strike.

The convention roll was made up of ninety-three delegates, of which eighty-five were native West Virginians. At no time until the fourth day could those who favored the Governor’s recommendation have secured a majority vote. In fact, many of the delegates came to the convention instructed to vote against the recommendation. On the final ballot a number of the delegates requested to be recorded as having voted against adoption, despite the fact that the sixteen representatives of the United Mine Workers, both state and national, with the exception of two, exerted their influence in favor of the recommendation, as did the attorneys of the organization. They yielded to the Governor’s demands with great reluctance.

In accepting the proposition of the Governor, the miners called his attention to the fact that each of the promises made by him, with the exception of the nine-hour day and semi-monthly payday, to which the operators acceded, are statutory rights granted the miners by law.

The Governor promised that the guard system should be abolished under his administration.

The recommendations were as follows:
Rights of miners to select check weighman.
Nine-hour day, at same scale of wages as now paid.
No discrimination.
Prices at commissary stores same as elsewhere.
Semi-monthly payday.

There are many who do not believe the Governor will carry out his promises, but in the meantime the miners have gone back to work.

War on the Socialist Party.

Socialists in West Virginia write that nearly all of the imprisoned striking miners, who are not active in the Socialist Party, have been released. Mother Jones also has been set at liberty.

In writing Senator Kern, she says:

I do not yet know that I am free, but I am inclined to think it was none of his (the Governor’s) good wishes.

In the meantime Governor Hatfield has waged a relentless war against all active Socialists. No other one has been released. The Governor has sworn to DRIVE SOCIALISM from the state.

John F. Parsons, A. D. Lavender, E. B. Vickers, Tom Miskel, Charles Kenney, Cleave Vickers, John Sachrist, G. W. Lavender, Nelson Treadway, John Brown, National Committeeman of the S. P ., Charles H. Boswell, editor of the Labor Argus, all Socialists, are still held incommunicado.

Fred Merrick, editor of the Pittsburgh Justice, who was filling Boswell’s place on the Argus, was seized, thrown into prison by the Governor’s orders and the paper confiscated.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part IV

19th April 202321st April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 19, 1913
Akron, Ohio – Big Bill Haywood Visits City, Speaks to Strikers

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part IV of IV]

On Friday, Feb. 28, Haywood stopped off a day at Akron and several thousand strikers met him at the train and paraded through the factory and business districts of Akron. Haywood spoke to two immense strike meetings. He said in part:

The greatest weapon you can use against the rubber robbers just now is to keep your hands in your pockets. When you have your hands in your pockets, the capitalist can’t get his there, and unless the capitalist has his hands in your pockets, he has got to go to work. So during the time of this strike, let there be no violence on your part, not the destruction of one cent’s worth of property, not one cross word. You have got this strike won if you will but stand together in One Big Union.

If the boss starves you back to work then you know how to win this strike on the inside of the factory. Don’t use the speeding up, but the slowing down process. This is an up-to-date organization, and we are fighting with modern weapons. The workers who understand the program and the policy of the I. W. W. will never again be defeated. We are organized now and fighting this battle for an eight-hour day.

As I said to you this morning, if you work only eight hours that is going to make room for more men and more women, and as the unemployed come into work, then the wages are going up. Your wages are going up anyway, because you are going to stand together until we force them up. Four dollars per week, or four and one-half is altogether too little for a girl to try and live on, and live decently, and. every girl, or a large per cent of them, would live decently if they got wages enough. But it is not a question of girlhood or womanhood with the rubber trusts. What they want is cheap labor. Cheap labor means to them more profits.

Just remember, men that we are the working class and it doesn’t make any difference what our nationality may be. My father was born in this state, I was born in this country and am an American.

There are no foreigners in the working class except the capitalist. He is the fellow we are after and we are going to get him. We are going to get Mr. Seiberling. If he is too old to work, we will get his son, and put him right in the rubber factory alongside the rest of ’em.

You simply get back enough to keep alive and in shape to work. If any of you fall by the wayside, and the undertaker visits your home, it doesn’t make any difference to Mr. Seiberling. Now workingmen, it is for you to organize. This strike is your strike. The success of this strike depends on you. There is no one else to fight.

If you had a picket line out every morning representing a crowd as big as this there would not be anybody going to work. You can influence enough to prevent them going to work. Get on the job in the morning in the picket line and visit these friends of yours at night in their homes.

Get this organization so that it will be 100 per cent strong. We will try, as we did at Lawrence, to raise money enough to carry you through.

[He further said:]

I have a warning to issue here. Those in authority must forget this proposition of wearing out their clubs on the strikers’ heads. They made the laws and there are proper processes for them to follow. Let them live up to it. If a striker violates law, let them arrest him and bring him before the court.

But I want to appeal to you strikers to conduct this strike along the peaceful lines you have been. You built this city and the rubber barons are realizing that you are necessary to its prosperity. They are realizing that until you are getting better pay and better hours, their profits won’t increase.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part IV” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part III

18th April 202321st April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 18, 1913
Akron, Ohio – The Story of Annie Fejtko, Goodrich Striker

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part III of IV]

The following story printed by the Akron Press, a paper which has tried to give the strikers’ side some showing in this bitter struggle, is the general answer of the women and girls who joined the strike:

Annie Fejtko, eighteen, joined the Akron rubber strikers Friday. She’s all alone in Akron-her own provider, housekeeper, washerwoman-and a mere child.

This is Annie Fejtko’s own summary of what she pays and how she spends it:

Average weekly pay, $4 to $4.50.
Weekly board bill, $3.
Left for dress, amusements, etc., $1 to $1.50.

She came to Akron about a year ago and has been working for the B. F. Goodrich Company ever since. She started to work on 10-hour day work, for $1, a day.

“I only worked that way three weeks,” said Annie. “Then they put me on piece work. My average two weeks’ pay is $8 or $9. I can’t save anything and I haven’t seen papa or mamma or the little brothers and sisters since I came here.

“They only live in Pennsylvania, too, but I can’t save enough to go and see them.”

The last day Annie worked she made 75 cents. Lots of days she said she made less.

“Some days I can make $1.25 and once in a while $1.50, but that’s only when I work on certain kinds of work, and just as fast as I can all day, without resting.”

The highest Annie has ever been paid for a day’s work, was $2. She never made that much again, she says. That day she was cutting paper rings to hold the rubber bulbs in packing. When Annie went home that night her hands were blistered from the scissors.

For some time before the strike Annie had been working in what is known as department 17-B, of the Goodrich. This is the rubber bulb branch. Her work is constantly changed, but for the most of the time she has been inspecting the hard rubber stems for the bulbs, she said. She is paid 9 mills a hundred for this work and makes around $1 when kept doing this all day.

But there’s stamping of time cards to be done, and the work is passed around. “Two mills a hundred is paid for this work,” says Annie, “and if you don’t work all day you couldn’t make over 25 cents.”

“In some of the departments the girls make more,” Annie states. “The buffers (a line of rubber bulb work), make as high as $2 a day when they get to work all the time, but lots of times there isn’t enough to keep them busy. Sometimes they are sent home and other times they stay around all day expecting more to do and only get about 25 cents worth of work.

“But I can’t make that much,” the girl says. “I suppose I’m not fast enough or something. But I work hard, ten hours every day and I have to do my own washing in the evenings, and skimp awful.”

When the strike started Annie didn’t quit. It ran from Tuesday until Friday. She wanted more money for her work, but she didn’t have anything saved and thought she couldn’t afford to lose a day.

“Friday Charlie, one of the pickets talked to me at noon. I decided I couldn’t be much worse off so I laid down my tools and four other girls in that department followed me out,” she explained.

“I haven’t any money and I have to pay board and-” she looked seriously out of the window, “but I suppose they’ll help me.”

“If I don’t get any more, though, when I go back, I don’t see how I can ever catch up out at Santo’s where I board.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II

17th April 202321st April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911 —————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 17, 1913
Akron, Ohio – The Speeding-Up System and the Akron Rubber Strike

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part II of IV]

One of the strikers informs us that very recently the Speeding-Up System has forced the tire builders to produce 2,000 more than the regular output of tires in a single night. The same man reported that while it formerly took three hours to “cure” a tire, the time had been cut to 55 minutes in one plant. And that the “curing process” depends altogether upon the quantity of rubber used in the compound.

Five hundred to six hundred pounds of compound are made up at a time. In the good old days THREE POUNDS of actual pure rubber was used in a batch; much less is used now. A gum plant is one of the ingredients, also old rope, rags, alkali and shoddy (old rubber, such as worn-out tubing, worn-out rubbers, etc.). Although the price of pure rubber is lower than it was a few years ago, the rubber companies have cut down the quantity used steadily. Formerly tire curers earned $5.00 for curing five tires. They are now forced to cure 50 tires for the same sum. And there is NO LET UP IN THE SPEEDING UP SYSTEM. And the pay per worker goes steadily down.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I

16th April 202321st April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 16, 1913
Akron, Ohio – 20,000 Workers on Strike Against Rubber Barons

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part I of IV]

THE Rubber Aristocrats are having “tire trouble” in Akron, Ohio. Their mammoth 75-acre, 25,000-man-power, profit-making machines-known as the Goodrich-Diamond, Goodyear, Firestone and Buckeye rubber factories, have been badly punctured by a strike of 20,000 wage slaves.

The workers who have slaved for years laid down the bosses’ tools, rolled up their greasy working rags and walked out unorganized, on February 10, as a protest against tyrannical working conditions and repeated cuts in wages.

They are standing shoulder to shoulder and their arms are folded. There is no fire under the boilers; nor smoke issuing from the hundreds of industrial spires; the belts are on loose pulleys and even the wheels refuse to run.

The Rubber Barons refused to arbitrate with the state officials and threatened to move their plants from the city. Meanwhile the strike was rapidly being organized by militant members of the Socialist party working with the Industrial Workers of the World. The Socialist headquarters became the home of the strike committees while larger halls were secured for mass meetings, where thousands of workers hear the message of Revolutionary Socialism and Industrial Unionism. Comrades Frank Midney, “Red” Bessemer, George Spangler and fellow-workers George Speed, William Trautman, Jack Whyte and several more “live ones” are on the job speaking daily, organizing committees and strengthening the picket lines.

The home of Comrade Frank and Margaret Prevey was thrown open to the strikers and became a busy center of strike activity-sending out appeals for support, press notices and planing the work of taking care of those who were in need. Here was a hive that hummed twenty hours out of the twenty-four. Of course the Capitalist hirelings suddenly discovered that this was “an Agitators’ meeting place,” and made dire threats.

But the Rubber Barons in their palaces out on West Hill were also busy moulding public opinion through press and pulpit against this “foreign devil” called a strike. Were not collections dwindling on Sundays and business becoming “bad” during the week, and is not idleness the devil’s workshop?

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike” by Leslie H. Marcy, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: One Big Union Wins Great Victory at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Part IV

6th April 20225th April 2022 Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912

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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 6, 1912
Lawrence Textile Strikers Win Great Victory with I. W. W., Part IV of IV

From the International Socialist Review of April 1912:

ONE BIG UNION WINS

By LESLIE H. MARCY and FREDERICK SUMNER BOYD

In the eighth week of the strike the bosses made an offer of five per cent wage increase. The A. F. of L. scabs accepted it and went back. The I.W. W. strikers turned it down flat. The offer was made on a Thursday, and it was hoped that thousands of strikers would break ranks and stampede to the mills on the following Monday. When the mills opened they had actually fewer scabs, and looked out on a picket line numbering upwards of twenty thousand.

At the end of the following week the bosses discovered they meant an average increase of seven, and later seven and a half per cent, and that they would amend the premium system, paying fortnightly instead of by the month as had been the practice, resulting in the loss to a large part of the workers of the entire premium. Again on the following Monday the mills had still fewer scabs, and the picket line was stronger than ever.

When the Committee of Ten left for Boston on March 11th, for the fourth and final round with the bosses, every one realized that the crisis had been reached. Led by the indomitable Riley the Committee forced the mill owners to yield point by point until the final surrender was signed by the American Woolen Company.

The Committee reported at ten o’clock at Franco-Belgian Hall the next day. The headquarters were packed and hundreds stood on the outside. Words are weak when it comes to describing the scenes which took place when the full significance of the report became known. For the workers, united in battle for the first time in the history of Lawrence, had won. The mill owners had surrendered—completely surrendered.

A great silence fell upon the gathering when Haywood arose and announced that he would make the report for the sub-committee in the temporary absence of Chairman Riley. He began by stating that tomorrow each individual striker would have a voice in deciding whether the offers made should be accepted. He said:

Report of Committee.

The committee of 10 reported in brief that the workers will receive a 5 per cent increase for the higher paid departments and 25 per cent for the lower paid departments. There will be time and a quarter overtime and the premium system has been modified so that its worst features are eliminated.

Your strike committee has indorsed this report and has selected a committee to see all the other mill owners who will be asked to meet the wage schedule offered by the American Woolen Company. In the event that the other mills do not accede to the demands, the strike on those mills will be enforced.

You have won a victory for over 250,000 other textile workers, which means an aggregate of many millions of dollars each year for the working class in New England. Now if you hope to hold what you have gained you must maintain and uphold the Industrial Workers of the World, which means yourselves.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: One Big Union Wins Great Victory at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Part IV” →