Tag: Peonage

Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: “Women Convicts Sold,” Dark Age Practice Persists in Alabama

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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WEB DuBois quote 1901, Slavery Convict Lease

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 26, 1917
Birmingham, Alabama – Women Convicts Sold for 15 Cents a Day

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From the Duluth Labor World of December 22, 1917:

WOMEN CONVICTS BEING SOLD
FOR 15 CENTS A DAY
—–
Vicious Practice of the Dark Ages
Still Obtains in Alabama.
—–

Clarissa Olds Keeler, Convict Lease System, 1907

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 20.— Women convicts in this state are sold to contractors for 15 cents a day and are housed in filthy stockades while candidates for the governorship talk of the “gradual” removal of this glaring evil, declares the Monthly Bulletin of the Alabama state federation of labor.

This publication says:

Under a recent date line, Escambia county, state of Alabama, rises to remark that Escambia county has made a most advantageous contract with a certain employing concern, where the county has leased its women convicts for two years for the munificent sum of 15 cents per day. Such things make us wonder if we are still in the dark ages, with all the blind ignorance of human instincts, with all the intollerant cruelty of the old savage slave dealer and buyer, and this happened in the enlightened state of Alabama. Women, sold into slavery to the highest bidder, to do whatever that bidder desires; work, slave, toil through the days; rest in stockades, filthy and unfit, for the nights; truly a picture upon which every Alabamian should look with pride; and candidates for the governorship favor the “gradual” removal of convicted persons from the mines and lumber camps.

For years and years labor has fought this system of slavery in the state. Governors have promised to abolish it, legislatures have promised to abolish it; the people have demanded its abolishment, but when it comes to weighing the human soul against the almighty dollar the dollar wins every time. Poor, indeed, must be that state which has to sell its legal slaves into involuntary servitude that it may use the revenue thus obtained to pay its teachers, to pay its officers, to pay its expenses in other ways, to pay the jurors who send the unfortunates to the mines; to pay the judges who pronounce sentence.

And not a man offers for office in the state but who will wink at this inhuman traffic in human souls; not one of them will come out flatly for the abolition of this traffic.

[Photograph added of “Crime of Crimes” by Clarissa Olds Keeler.]

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Hellraisers Journals: Goldfield Local of Western Federation of Miners on Strike Against Payment of Wages by Scrip

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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If the workers are organized, all they have to do
is to put their hands in their pockets
and they have got the capitalist class whipped.
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday November 29, 1907
Goldfield, Nevada – Miners Strike Against Scrip Peonage

The following reads like a report written by the mine owners themselves, and yet makes clear why the gold miners of Goldfield are now on strike.

From the Reno Evening Gazette of November 27, 1907:

Goldfield Miners Strk Begins, Reno Eve Gz, Nov 27, 1907

Grievance Over Manner of the
Payment of their Wages
—–

Rumor of Open Camp Results
—–

(Special to the Gazette.)

GOLDFIELD, November 27.-Once again the miners of this camp have decided that they would rather be idle than work. This time the grievance is the matter of payment of wages, the miners taking exception to the cashier’s checks that have been given them in return for their toil. The strike was foreshadowed last week, but it was hoped that the working miners would be able to vote the motion down, as it was known that they were opposed to the action of the idle members of the union. The checks that have been given to the men are negotiable at every store in the camp, but this fact has not prevented the men from again tying up the camp.

The leasers are not affected materially as their time limit will be extended, and the operators themselves are not greatly bothered because they are willing to shut down until the smelters accept ore at reasonable prices.

It is whispered on the streets today that one result of this move of the miners will be the importation of Slav miners, such as are now being employed by the Tonopah Mining company. These men belong to the union but they are glad to get the high wages that are paid in the southern camps. Their presence in Tonopah has greatly affected the business men, as they live as cheaply as Chinese and patronize their own countrymen exclusively. Many Tonopah merchants have been practically forced to suspend business because of the encroachments of small Greek stores which get practically all the business of these imported miners. Goldfield business men fear that the operators in this camp will take similar action and that the doom of many business houses will surely follow.

There is also some talk that an open camp will be the result of this strike, because it is known that the operators have previously expressed the determination to run the mines as they pleased if the demands of the union become intolerable. It may be that this trouble will be the one that will precipitate a crisis.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Union Bulletin: “Child Slavery in the South” by Gilson Gardner

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 29, 1907
Gaston County, North Carolina – Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of October 26, 1907:

Child Slavery in the South

Gilson Gardner in Chicago Journal.

Child Labor in South by G Gardner 1, W-B Ldr p7, Oct 5, 1907

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What about child labor in the south? Is it really true that small children work in cotton mills at night? or are those stories exaggerated?

I came here to see, because Gaston county has more mills then any county in a state that has more mills than any state in the south.

I find: Little girls, of an age to still care for dolls, working all night in the mills, pacing up and down between the long spinning frames, in a jar and roar of wheels. I find bright-faced little American girls, 8 to 12 years of age, toiling bare-footed in the heat and flying lint. These children tell me they can not read the words on my business card, because they have “most forgot” what they learned in the “second reader.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Mother Jones on the Iniquities of Child Labor in the South

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones, Stand with Working People, LW, Dec 15, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 19, 1906
From The Labor World: Young Lives Ground Up for Profit

Mother Jones March of the Mill Children, 1903, with text

Mother Jones has never forgotten the cruelty of Child Labor since the summer of 1903 when she led the mill children of Philadelphia on a march to Oyster Bay. They made the long trek in the summer heat in order that they might tell President Roosevelt about the hardships of their lives spent at work instead of in school. The President refused to meet with the children and Mother takes a few jabs at the “Great Prosperity” President in the following article on the subject of Child Labor in the American South.

BABY WAGE-EARNERS IN
SOUTHERN MILLS
—–

“Mother” Jones Writes Stirring
Article on Iniquities of
Child Labor in South.
—–
Cotton Mills Produce a Type of
Children Easily Recognized
As Most Puny.
—–

(By “Mother” Jones.)

After thirteen years of absence I returned to see what improvements had been made in the industrial conditions of the mill workers of the sunny south.

I found that there had been marvelous progress made as far as the mills and machinery were concerned. Looking at the advancement in that line, one would think that the day of rest for the workers must be near. Instead of bringing rest and leisure to the workers, however, this perfected machinery brings only a more merciless exploitation than was ever practiced before. With the advancement in machinery has come a corresponding advance in the methods of exploitation. That is all the difference the improvements have made upon the workers.

I stood one morning in the early dawn and I watched the slaves as they entered the pen of capitalism. I could see the shadows of the slaves passing along in the brush to the mill at twenty minutes to six in the morning. Children, roused from the heavy sleep of youth, left their beds reluctantly and entered the institution of capitalism to create wealth for others to enjoy.

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Hellraisers Journal: George P West Reports on Meeting Between American and Mexican Labor Leaders, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Since we arrived here we have learned
that the American people do not want war,
and especially the working people.
-Carlos Lovera

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday August 16, 1916
From The Masses: Robert Minor on Mexico and American Politics

Masses, Dems Rpbs Hang Mexico, Robert Minor, Aug 1916
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Hellraisers Journal: The Cananea Massacre: “The Czar Outdone…Capitalism’s Shame in Old Mexico”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday July 3, 1906
From Appeal to Reason: George Shoaf on Cananea Strike, Part III

Cananea Miners under arrest af crushing of strike of June 1906
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Hellraisers Journal: At Cananea: “Fusilade of Bullets Meets the Humble Petition of Mexican Workingmen.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Monday July 2, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: George Shoaf on Cananea Strike, Part II

Funeral of Cananea Striker, June 1906
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Hellraisers Journal: “Canaea Riots Not a Revolution But Simply a Strike of Under-Paid Labor”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday July 1, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: George Shoaf on Cananea Strike, Part I

James Kirwan WFM, Quoted in AtR of June 30, 1906
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Canaea Riots Not a Revolution But Simply a Strike of Under-Paid Labor”” →