Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 6, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Giovannitti Speaks to Silk Strikers at Turn Hall
From the Passaic Daily News of March 5, 1913:
The first move toward a settlement of the silk strike in Paterson came last night, when, at a meeting of delegates from dyers and broad silk weavers, demands were formulated for presentation to manufacturers today. These demands, in brief, are:
Abolition of the four-loom system and and eight-hour day at the same price now paid per week for the dyers…..
Arturo Giovannitti, I. W. W. leader, who was recently tried and acquitted in Lawrence, Mass., on a charge of murder in connection with the strike riots in that city, arrived in Paterson this morning shortly after 11 o’clock. He went at once to Turn Hall where he addressed nearly 5,000 strikers, speaking first in Italian and then repeating his speech in English.
Giovannitti urged the strikers to stand by their action in walking out, saying that they were bound to receive their rights and that their demands would be granted. He was received as a hero of the “cause,” with much applause. He was introduced by Carlo Tresca, the I. W. W. leader who was arrested last week with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Patrick Quinlan. He did not advocate violence.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 23, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Workers Vote with Great Enthusiasm for General Strike
From the Paterson Morning Call of February 20, 1913:
GENERAL STRIKE DUE NEXT WEEK? ———- Labor Committee Will Decide on Date at Tonight’s Meeting. ———-
Newark Evening Star February 20, 1913
Two meeting rooms were necessary in Turn hall last night to accommodate all the silk workers that attended to take action on a proposed general strike throughout the industry in this city. When more than a thousand had crowded into one hall and the police prohibited any additional people there, the committee from local 152, Industrial Workers of the World, under whose auspices the mass meeting was conducted, opened a smaller hall, where between two and three hundred stood while they listened to urgent appeals on the part of the labor leaders to join the walkout, which they claimed to be inevitable now. Men and women continued going and coming during the entire evening, so that it is safe to assume there were more than two thousand who heard all or part of the speeches at least.
After all the speakers had concluded, the chairman of the meeting asked what decision the people had arrived at and what they considered doing in the matter of the movement to do away with the three and four-loom system in Paterson. One man to the rear of the hall yelled “strike” in no uncertain tones, and the hundreds applauded.
“How many vote to have this striker?” asked the chairman, and then requested that all in favor of going out raise their right hands. The people had been worked to a white heat of enthusiasm by the addresses and many of them raised both hands and then jumped on chairs to make their approval the more pronounced. After joining in huzzas for the period of a minute or more the people filed out.
Whether this spirit is a lasting one will remain to be seen when the executive committee of the local 152 call upon the workers to strike. It was evident last night that the men were more than interested in the matter, but even sanguine labor leaders would not vouch for their support. Such action by the people was expected after the oratorical fireworks that had been presented, but there was no indication that the same line of action would be adhered to when the privations consequent to the loss of work and wages are met with.
Between 500 and 600 of the workers that crowded the two halls last night did not wait until the vote was taken, and their presence might be accounted for by assigning curiosity as the cause. They made no expression of their opinion one way or another, and while their support is banked upon, there is no positive assurance that the support will be there when wanted.
A Polish speaker named Lauer, an Italian speaker, Organizer Kaplen, who spoke in Yiddish, and Miss Elizabeth Flynn made up the list of talkers that had been brought into the city for the meeting. When it became necessary to open the second hall, several of the local leaders jumped into the breach and made addresses on the situation as they sized it up.
One thing is certain, a general strike will be called.The executive committee of local 152, I. W. W., will hold a closed meeting this evening in Turn Hall, where manifestos will be brought up and translated into several languages. As soon as they are taken from the press they will be distributed directly to the silk workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 30, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Weavers Revolt Against Four Loom System
From The Paterson Evening News of January 29, 1913:
Where Three and Four Loom Systems Are Being Operated -Big Mass Meeting Arranged for Tomorrow. ———-
Yesterday afternoon about five hundred striking weavers, who have quit their work in the Henry Doherty mill at Lakeview, proceeded to the Samuel Aronsohn mill at Tenth avenue and East Eighteenth street, in an effort to get the weavers at this place to go out on strike against the four loom system. In order to spread their fight in mills where four looms are operated, the striking Doherty weavers propose to try and get all other weavers who operated four looms to go out on strike with them. When the five hundred strikers made their appearance in the vicinity of the Aronsohn mill, police headquarters was notified, and Sergeant John Ricker dispatched the automobile patrol with reserves to the scene.
Aronsohn brothers complained that the strikers who gathered on the outside were trying to attract the attention of their workmen and in this way their business was interfered with. When Sergeant Sautter and the police reserves arrived the strikers made their way to a nearby hall with the intentions of holding a mass meeting, but the great crowd which had marched from Lakeview to Tenth avenue were too tired to hold any meeting. In order to prevent all other weavers of the city from running four looms the Doherty strikers hope to carry their fight into every mill where this system is carried out, for they are opposed to the four loom system.
Tomorrow night at Helvetia Hall the Doherty strikers will hold a large mass meeting. It has been decided by the officials of the I. W. W. that any weaver who runs four looms shall be considered a strike breaker. In order to accomplish this, however, it will be necessary to conduct their strike along peaceful and orderly lines.
It is to expected that Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who took such an active part in the waiters’ strike in York city, will come to this city and make her headquarters here so that she may take an active interest in the fight against four looms. Miss Flynn is just twenty-two years, and her success in holding together for almost a month 4,000 striking waiters, whom nobody has ever been able to handle in a harmonious manner, has amazed labor agitators with far more experience. They haven’t been able to understand how this young woman could dominate the situation for nearly a month.
With her assistance the Doherty weavers hope to secure the sympathy of other weavers who are now operating four looms in a number of mills in the city. Organizer Edward Keettegen [Ewald Koettgen], the I. W. W. organizer who is conducting the strike at the Doherty mill, will preside at the mass meeting tomorrow evening.
Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 30, 1917 New York, New York – Feds Seize Flynn, Tresca, & Giovanitti
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Carlo Tresca, and Arturo Giovanitti, heros of the Lawrence and Paterson Strikes of 1912 and 1913 were arrested late in the day yesterday and their homes ransacked by federal agents.
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From today’s Pittsburgh Gazette Times:
Elizabeth G. Flynn Taken For
Activities With I. W. W.
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Two Associates Also Taken in New York-
Two Pittsburghers in Custody.
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NEW YORK, Sept. 29.-Three of the most prominent I. W. W. leaders in the United States were arrested here tonight by agents of the government. They are Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, militant I. W. W. agitator; Carl [Carlo] Tresca, her associate, and Arturo Giovanetti [Giovannitti].
Prison bars do not frighten when
one has truth and right
deep in the heart.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 15, 1917
Seattle, Washington – Miss Flynn, of Mesabi Fame, Coming Soon
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has barely had time to visit her family and her little son in New York City since the long struggle up on the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota came to a close, when now comes the call from the fellow workers of Washington state for assistance to save the 74 imprisoned free speech fighters locked behind the bars of the Snohomish County Jail on charges of first degree murder. She is preparing to answer that call, and her arrival in the the city of Seattle, where the Everett Prisoners Defense Committee is headquartered, is expected soon. This story and further news regarding the Everett situation can be found below.
From The Seattle Star of January 12, 1917:
ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN
WILL SPEAK HERE
FOR I. W. W.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the well known I. W. W. leader, and reputed the best woman labor speaker in America, is coming to Seattle to assist in the campaign for the defense of the 74 men in jail in Everett. Miss Flynn has just concluded a long campaign in Minnesota in connection with the strike of the iron ore miners on the Mesaba Range.
One of the usual subriquets applied to Miss Flynn by her admirers is that of “the Joan of Arc of the Labor Movement.” She has been a speaker in the working class movement since her 15th year and has since become prominent thru her activities in the Lawrence strike, the Paterson, N. J., strike and other great labor upheavals.
Miss Flynn is billed to speak at a meeting at Dreamland on Sunday, the 21st.
A dance in the evening will be given to raise funds for the defense of the accused.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 27, 1916
From the Appeal to Reason: Newly Released, Quinlan Describes Prison Life
Unspeakable Horrors of New Jersey’s
Bastile Exposed by Quinlan
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“Political Prisoner”, Recently Liberated After Serving Unjust Sentence, Tells Appeal Readers of Atrocities Practiced on Helpless Victims of Social System-Quinlan’s Remarkable Training as Labor Agitator Combined With His Terrible Experience in Penitentiary Brings Forth This Unprecedented Story of “Crimes Against Criminals.”
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BY PATRICK L. QUINLAN
My experience in New Jersey’s penitentiary compels me to say that I am not prepared to accept in full the statement so often made that our public institutions reflect the spirit, the mind of the people. If it were entirely true that institutions were the mirror of a people, then the state of New Jersey and its two and a half million inhabitants would occupy the largest place in Dante’s Inferno of lost souls. One would be compelled to conclude that the people of New Jersey were fiendish in their cruelty, diabolical in their oppression, medieval in their conception of their duties toward the inmates of their state prison, located within the shadow of their capitol at Trenton. But they are not, I am sure, more cruel, not more oppressive, nor more medieval than the people of other states; they are, only, perhaps, more indifferent and, I hope they will pardon me, more ignorant. Their social soul, their public conscience, is not formed to harmonize with the spirit of the times, nor is it developed to work sympathetically with its progressive sister states.
If New Jersey’s penitentiary reflected the people of the state, then we would be prepared to disagree with Edmund Burke’s famous dictum that one cannot indict a whole people, and proceed to charge the two and a half million people of the state of New Jersey with murder, robbery and graft.
Pictures the Bastile.
With this brief apology for the citizens of New Jersey, I will, in the following lines, give the readers of this paper an unexaggerated picture of New Jersey’s bastile, with the hope that the same good results will be accomplished for its unfortunate inmates as were done for the victims of Fort Leavenworth federal prison.
Men who had been in every big prison in the United States told me in language that was emphatic as well as picturesque, that Trenton’s “Big House” was the worst prison in the country, and the study of prison reports and the literature of penology convince me that the convicts told the truth. Personally, I cannot imagine anything worse except the contract prison camps of the south and the Siberian dungeons, where the victims of the Russian autocracy are buried alive.
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