Tag: Peonage

Hellraisers Journal: The Crisis: The System of Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot” at Phillips County, Arkansas, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Claude McKay, Fighting Back, Messenger p4, Sept 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 8, 1919
Phillips County, Arkansas – Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot”

From The Crisis of December 1919:

ARKANSAS
[-The Cause of the “Race Riot,” Part I of II]

THE Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has never been enforced thoroughly. This means that involuntary servitude is still wide spread in the southern United States. There are even vestiges of the slave trade in the convict lease system and the arrangements for trading tenants. On the whole, however, the slavery that remains is a wide spread system of debt peonage and a map of the farms operated by colored tenants shows approximately the extent of this peonage.

WNF Elaine Massacre, Black Belt Map, The Crisis p57, Dec 1919

The Arkansas riot originated in the attempt of the black peons of the so-called Delta region, (that is the lowlands between Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana) to raise their income. The center, Phillips County, Ark., has 692,000 square miles of land and its chief city is Helena. In 1910 there were 33,535 inhabitants in the country, of whom 26,354 or 78.6% were Negroes. The county is predominately a farming community with $9,000,000 worth of farm property, and two-thirds of the value of all the crops is represented by the cotton crop. Of the 9,835 males of voting age, 7,479 are Negroes, and of these 5,510 could read and write; nevertheless, all the political power is in the hands of the 4,000 white voters, Negroes having no representation even on juries.

The Negroes are the cotton raisers. Of the 30,000 bales of cotton raised in 1909, they raised 25,000. Most of the Negro farmers are tenants. In the whole county there were, in 1910, 587 colored owners and 1,598 colored tenants. These tenants farmed 81,000 acres of land and raised 21,000 bales of cotton. For the most part the method of dealing with these tenants is described by a local reporter, as follows:

All the white plantation owners had a system whereby the Negro tenants and sharecroppers are “furnished” their supplies. They get all their food, clothing, and supplies from the “commissary” or store operated by the planter, or else they get them from some store designated by him. The commissary or store charges from twenty-five to fifty per cent. interest on the value of the money and supplies advanced or furnished. If any one doubts this statement, let him ask any planter or storekeeper. As a whole, they admit it. They boast that the commissary is the safest and best paying department of the plantation.

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Hellraisers Journal: From New York Age: Mass Meeting Will Raise Funds to Fight for Lives of Martyrs of Elaine, Arkansas

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Claude McKay, JAccuse, Messenger p33, Oct 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 7, 1919
New York, New York – Equity Congress to Fight for Condemned Union Men

From The New York Age of December 6, 1919:

TO AID FIGHT FOR NEGRO RIOT MARTYRS.

WNF Elaine Massacre, HdLn AR Gz p1, Oct 3, 1919, wiki
Defamatory Headline
from Arkansas Gazette
of October 3, 1919

To raise funds to assist in the fight for the lives of the twelve men sentenced to death on account of the Elaine, Ark., riots, the Equity Congress of New York City is arranging to hold a mass meeting on Sunday, December 7, at the 15th Regiment Armory, 132nd street and Seventh avenue, at 5 o’clock.

A number of prominent citizens will speak and good music will be given. The people are urged to be present and give tangible aid in this important matter.

Of the twelve men convicted and sentenced to death, six were to be executed on December 26 and six on January 2, but Governor Brough of Arkansas has announced that he would postpone the executions to make it possible for appeals to be filed in behalf of the condemned men.

Counsel must be secured to take the appeals lo the Arkansas Supreme Court and funds must be provided with which to pay the counsel fees. The Equity Congress hopes to make a substantial start in this direction on Sunday afternoon.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

From the Kansas Trades Unionist of November 21, 1919:

ARKANSAS RACE RIOTS COME WHEN NEGROS ASK
JUSTICE IN LAND LEASES FROM COURT

Not Insurrection But Attempt to
Bring Test Case Into Court.

(By A. B. Gilbert)

St. Paul, Minn.-Investigation of the Elaine (Ark.) race riots by a correspondent of the Chicago Daily News brings out facts more noteworthy than the severity of punishment meted out to the alleged negro revolutionists.

Back of the outbreak is the report that two white men opened fire on a peaceable negro meeting. Back of the meeting is an attempt of some negroes to organize and collect funds to bring a lease-testing case into the courts. Back of this desire to bring a court case is the plantation store system [debt peonage system] found in many parts of the South.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Victory at McKees Rocks” by Louis Duchez, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD to McKees Rocks Strikers, Aug 25, Butler PA Ctzn p1, Aug 26, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 9, 1909
Louis Duchez on Victory of McKees Rocks Strikers, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of October 1909:

IWW McKees Rocks, Victory by L Duchez, ISR p289, Oct 1909

[Part I of II.]

—–

Letter I, ISR p289, Oct 1909N this article the writer is not going to give much space to a recitation of the crimes of the capitalist class at McKees Rocks and the other strike points in Pennsylvania. It is unnecessary. The capitalist press has done that more effectively—regardless of the motives that may have prompted them—than he is able to do. The class struggle is a historic fact and the diametrically opposed interests have long ago been proven. Such practices as were exposed during the last few weeks are only the logical result of the capitalist system of society at this stage of working class activity.

Readers of the Review want something more than a mere account of the cruelties of the Pressed Steel Car Company. They want to know something about the spirit and growth of solidarity and industrial organization among the striking wage slaves in Pennsylvania.

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Hellraisers Journal: Strikebreakers Return to New York City from McKees Rocks with Tales of Imprisonment and Abuse

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 2, 1909
Strikebreakers Return to New York City from McKees Rocks with Tales of Abuse

From The New York Times of August 28, 1909:

RETURN FROM McKEES ROCKS.
—–
Strikebreakers Who Enlisted Here
Come Back with Tales of Abuse.
—–

McKees Rocks Strike, Stockade, Loco Fmen Mag p715, Nov 1919 —–

Five white-faced, sunken-cheeked men got off a train at Jersey City yesterday and disperse, wearily and in silence, to their east side tenement homes.

They were James Gottfried, Alexander Friedman, Joseph Diamond, James Graden, and Joseph Bredes. They had been taken to Schoenville, near Pittsburg, with more than a hundred other machinists from this city two weeks ago to break the Pressed Steel Car Company’s strike [at McKees Rocks]. They had been hired for the job through the activity of Leo Bergoff’s “Service Bureau” ” of this city.

According to the story told by the five men yesterday, they spelled out an advertisement for “machinists” in the “help wanted” columns of a Manhattan newspaper about two weeks ago. All five had recently come to this country and wanted work. They went over to the basement at 205 West Thirty-third Street, as the advertisement directed. They were met there by Bergoff, “Sam” Cohen, and their lieutenants. Cohen told them that he wanted ” 1,000 railroad car truck builders,” and that he was willing to pay $3 a day. He said the “job” was in Pittsburg, and that it was a “good one.” To impress the men with its excellence he had them sign their names to a piece of paper, on which there was some writing which they could not see, because, the men said yesterday, his hand was in the way.

The men agreed to go, and on July 16 they were taken to Jersey City by Cohen and put on a train. Getting off at Pittsburg, they were herded on a big transport and taken up the river to the Pressed Steel Car Company’s works. Here they were set to work immediately without being given even a chance to rest after their journey. For the next nine days and nights the five men worked, ate and slept in big, barn-like structures inside the stockade with 2,000 machinists and other laborers who, they say, were kept at work inside the stockade against their will.

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Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Plant Called a Prison; Imported Strikebreakers Held in Stockade

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 1, 1909
Sensational Testimony Given Concerning McKees Rocks Steel Car Company

From The New York Times of August 28, 1909:

STEEL CAR PLANT CALLED A PRISON
—–
Strikebreakers Testify They Were Held
in Stockade Against Their Will.
—–

FOOD, UNFIT AND SCARCE
—–
Threats of Violence and Confinement
In Box Car Kept Men in State of
Terror, Witnesses Say.

From a Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

McKees Rocks Strike, Stockade, Loco Fmen Mag p715, Nov 1919 —–

PITTSBURG, Aug. 27.-The testimony presented before the Government investigation to-day in continuance of the conditions existing at the Pressed Steel Car Company’s works at McKees Rocks was the most sensational that has ever been heard so far.

Nathaniel Shaw, a strikebreaker from New York, was the star witness. He testified that he wanted to leave the plant the day after he arrived, but was intimidated and prevented from doing so.

His accusations were brought chiefly against Sam Cohen, the man who is immediately under Leo C. Bergoff, in charge of the strikebreakers. He said that Sam Cohen has surrounded himself with about thirty-five men, whom he has installed in the positions of company guardsmen, and that these men back Cohen in all his acts of tyrannical control. He told about gambling within the work and of winning $50 from a Deputy Sheriff.

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Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Company Charged with Holding Strikebreakers in Peonage

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 31, 1909
McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Company Faces Charges of Peonage

From The Pittsburgh Post of August 28, 1909:

McKees Rocks Strike, Fed Investigation re Peonage, Ptt Pst p1, Aug 28, 1909—–

BRUTALITY, POOR FOOD, DAILY DIET
—–
Witness Collapses at the Inquiry.
—–

NIGHT SESSION
—–

Testimony of a startling nature tending to prove that imported workmen were held in restraint within the Schoenville stockade by clubs, blackjacks and riot guns, was brought out yesterday at the Government inquiry into the charges of peonage against officials of the [McKees Rocks] Pressed Steel Car Company.

Beginning yesterday morning and continuing until late last night, witnesses told in harrowing details of terrible times within the big Schoenville enclosure.

Mute evidence of the condition of the company’s food supply was furnished at the night session in the Federal building, when James Morris, one of the strike-breakers, fainted as he was about to be put on the stand. Willing hands carried the poor fellow out of the judge’s chamber and into the corridors, where a physician diagnosed his ailment as ptomaine poisoning. He was taken away in an ambulance.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for April 1909, Part II: Found in Western New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Injunction Shroud, Bff Exp p7, Apr 24, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 10, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1909, Part II:
-Found in Speaking and Touring in Western New York

After being disappointed by her missed visit last February, the working men and women of Olean, New York, were pleased to welcome Mother Jones into their midst for a speech given Tuesday evening, April 20th.

From the Olean Evening Times of April 19, 1909:

Mother Jones, Dnv Pst p2, July 19, 1908

Reception Tonight-This evening Mother Jones will arrive in Olean, and will be given a reception in the Trades and Labor Council hall at 8 o’clock, at which time those who desire will be given an opportunity to meet her. Tomorrow evening she will deliver an address in the opera house on “Peonage in Mexico, and what it means to the American workingman.” The meeting will be called to order by Elmer E. Evans and August Klenke will act as chairman. An invitation has been extended to the officers of all the local labor organizations to take seats on the platform. Music for the occasion will be furnished by the Red Mens’ band. It is anticipated that the opera house will be filled, and those desiring seats are advised to be early.

[…..]

Peon Labor and Its Effects on American Workmen, will be the subject of Mother Jones’ lecture at the opera house Tuesday night.

When miners were evicted because they dared to strike for more wages it was Mother Jones, who will speak at the opera house Tuesday night, took the wives and children to the woods and sheltered them in tents and secured food for them until the strike was won.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part III: the Mexican Revolutionaries

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon, Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 3, 1909
Mexico City -John Murray Meets with Mexican Revolutionaries

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer the conclusion of that article in which Mr. Murray meets with a group of Mexican Revolutionaries.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part IIII]
—–

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919

We turned into the mouth of a narrow street, cobbled from wall to wall. Herbierto knocked at a door. A window swung open above our heads and a voice called out, “Is that the doctor?”

“It is,” answered Senora Moreno. “Is the child still sick?”

“Yes, come in quickly,” replied the watcher, closing the window.

“A sick child?” I questioned, as the door opened and we stumbled through the dark passageway.

“No,” meaningly answered Herbierto. “A sick country, with the revolution as the only medicine.”

And the woman added: “That was the pass word.”

Around an oblong table in the room we entered sat two dozen men, as dissimilar in their appearance as their native land is varied, Mexico is half desert and half tropics and breeds its people small, light-skinned and still-tongued, or swarthy, heavy-boned and voluble, as unlike each other as sand and sage brush are to mountain torrents and black jungle-land.

“A friend from Los Angeles,” explained Herbierto to the group watching me in surprised silence, but as he read my credentials from Magon their faces changed and when the signature was reached, a slim, black-eyed boy warmly grasped my hand, asking the question which seems to echo through Mexico:

“How is Ricardo?”

I gave them greetings from their imprisoned leader. He was their hero, their master-mind, whose years of unflinching struggle against the crushing powers of the Dictator had kept hope in Mexico alive; and in return I heard the news of the revolutionary movement.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part II: The Rio Blanco Massacre

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Quote John Murray re Rio Blanco Martyrs, ISR p653, Mar 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 2, 1909
At Mexico City – John Murray Learns Details of Rio Blanco Massacre

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer part two of that article in which Mr. Murray arrives in Mexico City and hears the story of the Rio Blanco Massacre.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part II]
—–

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919—–

Black clouds gathered against the mountains and as the City of Mexico was reached the deluge broke.

A sandal-footed, brass-tagged “cargador” seized my bags and carried them from the Pullman’s steps to a blue-flagged coach.

I kept my face glued to the carriage window and asked myself this question: “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico is—what?” The answer seemed to rise from the passing throng of bent-backed, human burden bearers, “Mexico is a land of cargadores.”

With leather thongs passed across their foreheads and around their heads, cargadores carrying as much as three hundred pounds, trotted by without a stumble. And in the steps of these men followed the women and children likewise loaded.

In no other country in the world does the human back so stagger under a dead weight as here in Mexico.

Arriving at the hotel in front of the Alameda, I went immediately to my room, locked the door and got out my list of addresses in cipher. It was a wearisome task to figure them out, one by one, but I dared not run the risk of being taken by the police and having them find names of Mexican revolutionists given me by the Junta in Los Angeles—that would mean prison for all. One person in Mexico in particular had been recommended to me by Magon. I would see him first.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution” by John Murray, Part I: Train Ride to Mexico City

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Quote R Magon re John Murray, ISR p643, Mar 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 1, 1909
From Juarez to Mexico City – John Murray Talks with an American Cane-Grower

John Murray recently returned from Mexico and has written an article about that experience for this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review. Below we offer part one of that article in which Mr. Murray travels from Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City and speaks with an American cane-grower along the way.

Mexico’s Peon-Slaves Preparing for Revolution

BY JOHN MURRAY
[Part I]
—–

The third uprising of the Liberal Party failed but another is preparing in Mexico that will not be so easily snuffed out by President Diaz and his “partners,” so asserts the writer of this article, John Murray, who saw Mexico a few months ago in the fever-heat of revolt. With credentials from the revolutionary leaders he traveled from one Liberal Party group to another and was shown by them the underside of Mexico-the Mexico that President Diaz hides from view and guards with guns in hourly fear that it may rise and end his dictatorship.—Editor.

Mex Rev, Sarabia, R Magon, Rivera, Villarreal, ISR p642, Mar 1919

Letter T, ISR p641, Mar 1909HE warm clasp of Tom’s hand tempted me to talk—in a moment, and my loose tongue let slip enough to give hint of my errand to Mexico. Now Tom Hart was the last man that I should have supposed would show the white feather—a bear hunter, mind you, and grizzlies at that.

“Look here, Bud,” he spoke with a down-drop of his eyes that was new to me, “don’t be so foolish as to rub the President’s hair the wrong way. You don’t know Mexico—it’s prison or death down here. You’re fooled if you think for a moment that this is the United States. Why, I have seen a bunch of rurales ride into a village before sun-up, where things were not going to suit the Diaz government, and call out the whole population, line ’em up and shoot down every tenth man. No trials. Nothing. That’s Mexico. And don’t you go for to stand on your dignity as an American citizen, thinking that you’re safer than a native to speak your mind free. I’ve seen Americans—yes, and there’s three of ’em right now in the prison of San Juan de Ulua—who might just as well be Esquimaux for all the protection that their nationality gives ’em. For God’s sake, old man”—Tom’s pleading startled me, for if he were possessed of such a crushing fear of Diaz what chance had I to escape contagion?—”don’t do anything to offend the Mexican government.”

“It’s too late, Tom, I’m into it now—up to my neck. You never held back when we were after the big-footed grizzly that killed our cattle in the pines back of the Loma Pelon ranch. The game I am after now is news—the true story of Mexico’s sandaled-footed burden-bearers and their nearness to revolt.”

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