Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 21, 1912 Photograph of Anna Rudnitzky of the 1910 Chicago Garment Makers’ Strike
From The Progressive Woman of November 1912:
From Life and Labor of April 1912:
Time Is Passing
[by Anna Rudnitzky]
Anna Rudnitzky
I HAVE so much I want to say. What bothers me most is time is passing. Time is passing and everything is missed. I am not living, I am just working.
But life means so much, it holds so much, and I have no time for any of it; I just work. Am I not right?
In the busy time I work so hard; try to make the machine run faster and faster because then I can earn some money and I need it, and then night comes, and I am tired out and I go home and I am too weary for anything but supper and bed. Sometimes union meetings, yes, because I must go. But I have no mind and nothing left in me. The busy time means to earn enough money not only for today but to cover the slack time, and then when the slack time comes I am not so tired, I have more time, but I have no money, and time is passing and everything is missed.
Romance needs time. We can think about it, yes, but to live it needs time. Music I love, to hear it makes me happy, but it is passing. The operas and the theatres and the dramas, they are here but for me they are just passing. To study, to go to high school, to the university, I have no time and I have no money.
Then the world is so beautiful. I see the pictures of the trees and the great rivers and the mountains,and away back in Russia I was told about Niagara Falls. Now why if I work all day and do good work, why is there never a chance for me to see all these wonders?
I have been thinking. First we must get a living wage and then we must get a shorter work-day, and many, many more girls must do some thinking. It isn’t that they do not want to think, but they are too tired to think and that is the best thing in the Union, it makes us think. I know the difference it makes to girls and that is the reason I believe in the Union. It makes us stronger and it makes us happier and it makes us more interested in life and to be more interested is oh, a thousand times better than to be so dead that one never sees anything but work all day and not enough money to live on. That is terrible, that is like death.
And so now the Women’s Trade Union League has helped me so much, and the Union has helped me so much, and I want to help others, and so we must have “Life and Labor” written in Yiddish too so that all the Jewish girls can understand. And then I think we ought to have it in Polish and Bohemian and Lithunian and Italian. Can you do this? How can I help you to do it?
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911 “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II
From Life and Labor of May 1911:
The Triangle Fire
By Martha Bensley Bruere
Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?
Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:
NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify their customers that they are in good working order. HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.
The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 5, 1911 “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part I
From Life and Labor of May 1911:
The Triangle Fire
By Martha Bensley Bruere
The Triangle Shirt Waist Shop in New York City, which was the scene of the great fire on March 25th, when 143 [146] workers were killed, was also the starting point of the strike of the forty-thousand shirt waist workers in 1909.
The girls struck because they wished to stand together for decent shop conditions, wages on which they could live and reasonable hours, and neither Mr. Harris nor Mr. Blanck, both of whom were members of the Manufacturers’ Association, would allow their workers to unite in any way at all.
It happened that I did picket duty morning and night before that shop and saw the striking girls go up to the strike-breakers and ask timidly:
“Don’t you know there’s a strike by the Triangle?”
It was before this Triangle Shop that the girls were clubbed by the police and by the hired thugs who assisted them; and it was in the streets around it that a large number of arrests were made. The girl pickets were dragged to court, but every one from this shop was discharged. The police and the government of the city had banded themselves together to protect the property of Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Shirt Waist firm.
The six hundred girls who worked at the Triangle Shop were beaten in the strike. They had to go back without the recognition of the union and with practically no change in conditions. On the 25th of March it was these same policemen who bad clubbed them and beaten them back into submission, who kept the thousands in Washington Square from tramping upon their dead bodies, sent for the ambulances to carry them away, and lifted them one by one into the receiving coffins which the Board of Charities sent down in wagon loads.
I was coming down Fifth Avenue on that Saturday afternoon when a great swirling, billowing cloud of smoke swept like a giant streamer out of Washington Square and down upon the beautiful homes in lower Fifth Avenue. Just as I was turning into the Square two young girls whom I knew to be working in the vicinity came rushing toward me, tears were running from their eyes and they were white and shaking as they caught me by the arm.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 8, 1911 Women March in Cold Rain for Unidentified Victims of Triangle Fire
From the New York Tribune of April 6, 1911:
There was majestic silence and sullen rain. But it was a silence that spoke. Their fellow workers to the number 145 had been launched into eternity as the result of the Asch Building fire on March 25. And so [thousands] marched in murmurless protest through the principal streets of the city yesterday.
The steady downpour did not divert girls who were without umbrellas, without hats, without overshoes and rubber coats from their determination to show public honor to fellow workers who had perished…..
If the day had been filled with sunshine the funeral procession would have been impressive. Perhaps, however, there would then have been the chance to minimize the intensity of feeling existing among the marching members of the sympathizing unions. Only a high devotion and sense of duty could be responsible for yesterday’s protest.
Low hanging clouds and fog shrouded the tops of buildings. The Metropolitan tower was invisible above its clock. There was the suggestion of smoke in the atmosphere. The streets were filled with puddles of water. Women in lamb’s wool coats, accustomed to ride in automobiles, were splashed by passing vehicles as they trudged along in the beating rain, anxious to demonstrate the sympathy felt by the Woman Suffrage party. Hundreds of thousands stood on the sidewalks, their umbrellas appropriately indicating unbroken borders of black. Policemen, mounted and afoot, wore regulation black raincoats.
There was no playing of plaintive music, no muffled drum beat. The spectacle was without ostentation, flourish or display. Banners bore the legend “We mourn our loss” in black and white. There was a solemn expression on the faces of those who marched and those who watched from office buildings, stores and private houses. Flags on public buildings were at half-mast; thousands of other structures were draped in funeral decorations.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 25, 1911 Miss Agnes Nestor Speaks on Behalf of Chicago Garment Strikers
Columbus, Ohio-Convention of United Mine Workers of America -Monday January 23, 1911, Sixth Day-Afternoon Session
President Lewisstated that Miss Agnes Nestor of Chicago was in the convention and desired to address the delegates in behalf of the striking garment workers in that city.
President Lewis stated that Miss Nestor had credentials from the Chicago Federation of Labor and the Woman’s Trade Union League.
Delegate Walker, District 12—
I move that an invitation be extended to Miss Agnes Nestor to address the convention. (Seconded and carried by unanimous vote.)
President Lewis-
I take pleasure in introducing the young lady spoken of in the credentials received from Chicago. Miss Nestor will address the convention in behalf of the striking garment workers in that city.
Miss Agnes Nestor—
Mr. Chairman and Delegates to this Convention: I am here to tell you something about the garment workers’ strike now going on in Chicago and to make an appeal for funds. This is an extraordinary strike. It is a wonderful strike, it is a strike of unorganized workers. It began with the unorganized workers in one of the shops of Hart, Schaffner & Marx and spread to every shop of that concern and every other unorganized garment factory in Chicago until it reached 40,000 garment workers. It began the latter part of September and spread to the greatest extent in October. These people have been on strike now nearly four months.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 12, 1911 Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Women Stand with Striking Garment Workers
From The Progressive Woman of January 1911:
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The Chicago Garment Workers’ Strike
ANNA A. MALEY
Workers of the world, unite! This is in deed the golden rule of labor—a rule that in the fullest application will give us one day a united workers’ world
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 7, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part III
From Life and Labor of April 1918:
HOW LIFE HAS BEEN BROUGHT
INTO THE STOCKYARDS
A Story of the Reorganization of the Packing Industry
William Z. Foster
Secretary Chicago Stockyards Labor Council
The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.
[Part III]
THE SHORTER WORKDAY
A big battle raged around the question of the eight hour day. In this measure’ the packers saw typified the victory so earnestly sought by the workers. They bent every effort to defeat it. Although compelled to admit the justice, economy and inevitability of the eight hour day as a general proposition, they exhausted every pretext to prevent its consideration, for very obvious reasons, till after the war.
Their strong argument was that, due to the irregular supply of cattle, sheep and hogs, and the limited capacities of the plants, introduction of the eight hour day could only be brought about after months and years of rebuilding and other preparation. To establish it suddenly now would be disastrous. It would reduce the production of vitally necessary foodstuffs full 20 per cent. This would involve starvation for the boys in the trenches and very possibly the loss of the war.
To establish this contention the brainiest superintendents in the packing business piled complexities upon complications. But their efforts were in vain. The workers met and defeated them at every point. Samuel Gompers and Victor A. Olander made the general argument for the shorter workday, and a masterful one it was. Dennis Lane, John Kennedy, Martin Murphy, Tim McCreash, John Joyce and Joseph Selkirk, all skilled butchers, applied it to the packing houses. These union workers destroyed every technical objection raised by the superintendents, checking them one by one. Once, in the midst of the arbitration, they even went to Kansas City to ascertain the exact capacity of certain departments of the packing plants in that city. They routed the experts, horse, foot and dragoons, and proved beyond all question of doubt the practicability and economy of immediately establishing the eight hour day in the packing industry. At the first hour, seeing they were defeated, the packers urged the administrator in case he saw fit to shorten the workday, to make it apply only to the skilled trades—an insidious attack on the unions that did not pass without thorough exposure.
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday April 6, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part II
From Life and Labor of April 1918:
HOW LIFE HAS BEEN BROUGHT
INTO THE STOCKYARDS
A Story of the Reorganization of the Packing Industry
William Z. Foster Secretary Chicago Stockyards Labor Council
The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.
[Part II]
DRASTIC ACTION TAKEN
The cup was full. It was evident that the packers had no intention of living up to their agreement, but were seeking openly to destroy the unions, let the consequences be what they might. The unions accepted the issue. They at once broke off negotiations with the packers and sent the committee away to Washington again to demand that the President take over the packing houses, as the only way to guarantee their operation during the period of the war.
On January 18th the committee met with President Wilson, explained to him the imminent danger of a great strike in the packing houses and asked that he take steps to seize the industry. The President replied that the proposed remedy involved a big issue, that he would take it under advisement, and that in the meantime another, effort would be made to get a settlement through arbitration.
Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 5, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part I
From Life and Labor of April 1918:
The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.
[Part I of III.]
EIGHT MONTHS ago the vast army of packing house workers throughout the country were among America’s most helpless and hopeless toilers. Practically destitute of organization, they worked excessively long hours under abominable conditions for miserably low wages. Hope for them indeed seemed dead. But today all this is changed. Like magic splendid organizations have sprung up in all the packing centers. The eight hour day has been established, working conditions have been improved and wages greatly increased. From being one of the worst industries in the country for the workers the packing industry has suddenly become one of the best.
The bringing about of these revolutionary changes constitutes one of the greatest achievements of the Trade Union movement in recent years. A detailed recital of how it occurred is well worth while.
Since the great, ill-fated strike of 1904 the packing trades unions had put forth much effort to re-establish themselves. But, working upon the plan of each union fighting its own battle and paying little or no heed to the struggles of the rest, they achieved no better success than have other unions applying this old-fashioned and unscientific method in the big industries. Complete failure attended their efforts. No sooner would one of them gain a foothold than the mighty packers, almost without trying, would destroy it.
The logic of the situation was plain. Individual action had failed. Possibility of success lay only in the direction of united action. Common sense dictated that all the unions should pool their strength and make a concerted drive for organization. Therefore, when on Friday, July 13, 1917, exactly thirteen years after the calling of the big strike, Local No. 453 of the Railway Carmen proposed to Local No. 87 of the Butcher Workmen that a joint campaign of organization be started in the Chicago packing houses, the latter agreed at once. The two unions drafted a resolution asking the Chicago Federation of Labor to call together the interested trades and to take charge of the proposed campaign.
The bosses ride fine horses
While we walk in the mud,
Their banner is the dollar sign,
Ours is striped with blood.
-Aunt Molly Jackson
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 31, 1916
Immigrant or American-Born, Neither Matters When Workers Strike
Today’s Hellraisers presents two stories of striking workers driven from their homes by company gunthugs. The strikers in Utica, New York, are mostly Polish immigrants. In Hardin County, Illinois, there are very few immigrants, most of the strikers are second or third generation Americans. But we find from these two stories that neither the striker of foreign birth nor the native-born striker can expect any mercy from the gunthugs hired by the companies and deputized by the county sheriff.
From the Duluth Labor World of October 28, 1916:
2,700 POLISH TEXTILE STRIKERS DRIVEN
FROM HOMES IN NEW YORK
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BRUTAL GUARDS ASSAULT WOMEN
TEXTILE WORKERS
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By DANTE BARTON.
Member Industrial Relations Committee.
NEW YORK, Oct. 26.-Right in the heart of central New York, prosperous and boasting of its wealth, there is now an example of cruelty, incompetence and lawlessness against striking workers which rivals the things done in Colorado by the Rockefeller interests, or on the Mesaba range or in Pittsburgh, by the Steel trust.
Just outside of Utica, in the little town of New York Mills, 2,700 Polish men and women, industrious and peaceful, are being thrown out of company houses, terrorized and assaulted by armed thugs and guards, their children sickened and in many instances killed by the diseases of exposure; themselves and their families subjected to starvation and sickness.
These things are being perpetrated against them by their employer, the New York Mills corporation, of which A. D. Juilliard, New York city, is the responsible president, because they have struck for a 10 per cent increase of wages that are too low, by any standard, for decent living.
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