Hellraisers Journal, Monday April 9, 1917
The Review Reports on Failure to Starve in an Orderly Manner
The Cover of the International Socialist Review for April 1917:
Leslie Marcy of the Review Reports on Food Riots:
FOOD RIOTS IN AMERICA
-By LESLIE MARCY
Pray for the dead
and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Friday March 9, 1917
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 10,000 March to Honor Fellow Worker
From the Industrial Worker of March 3, 1917:
GUNMEN ATTACK PICKETS, KILL AND INJURE
———-(Special Wire to the Industrial Worker)
Philadelphia, Pa., February 27.-In its fourth week the sugar workers’ strike here finds the five thousand workers more determined than ever. The I. W. W. longshoremen and men on the boats plying out of Philadelphia have refused to handle sugar, or transport it to other ports where it would be handled. The picket lines are getting bigger every day. The wives and daughters of the strikers are also on the picket line.
On February 21 the police charged the strikers and shot Martinus Petkus (Marciionas Petkus, age 28) to death and wounded several others. There have been many arrests and strikers are being clubbed every day on the picket line.
The sugar workers of New York and New Jersey are also out on strike. One of the results has been an increase in the price of sugar, which has soared to twenty-five cents a pound.
The sugar companies are getting desperate.
The funeral of Martinus Petkus occurred here today. Over ten thousand people were in line, including over five thousand Industrial Workers of the World. The Tailors’ Union of the I. W. W. declared a holiday to attend the funeral.
Funds are needed to carry on this fight. Act, and act now! W. T. Nef, 800 Parkway Bldg, Philadelphia, Pa.
———-
[Photograph added.]
When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 24, 1917
New York, New York – Mothers Demand Food as Children Starve
While the nation’s kept press continues to report on the food rioting taking place in New York City and Philadelphia, they continuously emphasis the foreign birth of many of the demonstrators, some of which have indeed rioted. Seems they believe that those of foreign birth should be willing to starve and perish in a quiet and orderly manner once they come to America.
The kept press mostly ignores the deep suffering of those who have been driven to such desperate measure in order to find relief. In fact, within just the past two months of January and February, the price of staples has risen dramatically. The cost of potatoes has risen 100 percent, onions are up by 366 percent and cabbage by 212 percent. Without being able to afford meat, mothers rely on beans to nourish their growing children and that staple has increased by 100 percent.
The Day Book of Chicago is an exception to this callous coverage of human suffering, pointing out that people are actually starving in New York City. The Day Book reports on attempts at relief:
STARVING CONTINUE TO RIOT
IN NEW YORK-ACTIONNew York, Feb. 23.-Food riots continued sporadically in city today as heighth of Sabbath food buying among Jewish people was reached.
Mass meeting tonight, Rutgers sq., following which women will march to meeting of Board Estimate, where Mayor Mitchell is expected to make move to relieve conditions.
Demands will be made on city authorities for appropriation of $1,000,000 to open municipal stores and another $1,000,000 for school lunches. Strong demand that steps be taken to have government take over railway systems for food transportation.
When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 23, 1917
New York, New York – Mother Jones to Aid in Demand for Food
Food riots have broken out in New York City and in Philadelphia as the working-class women of those cities refuse to maintain proper civic order while they watch their children starve. In Philadelphia, police opened fire, killing one man and seriously wounding another. The police, as usual, claim that the workers fired first, and the word of the police has been printed as fact by the kept press of the nation.
Mother Jones is now in New York City to support the working-class women in their demand for food at prices that they can afford. She was interviewed by a reporter in her room at the Union Square Hotel.
From the New York Tribune of February 22, 1917:
“Mother” Jones To Head
Parade of 10,000
—–Will Take Delegation to President
if Mayor Fails, She Declares
—–
“Mother” Jones, aged strike leader of Colorado fame, will lead an army of 10,000 East Side woman to the city Hall next Saturday afternoon, she declares. She will ask Mayor Mitchel “just what he proposes to do” about the food shortage in New York. If his proposals are unsatisfactory she will take a delegation of “starving women” to Washington on Sunday and lay the case of New York’s poor before the President.
“Mother” Jones arrived in this city yesterday to “help the food strike along.” In her room at the Union Square Hotel last night the aged labor leader made her plans known somewhat reluctantly. Publicity, she said, might result in them being “blocked”
[She said:]
But they can’t hold this movement back. When half a million mothers in the richest city in the richest country in the world feel the pinch of hunger as they are feeling it here now nothing can prevent trouble. I came here to try to prevent it, though, and I shall do everything possible.
On Saturday I’ll lead all the women who’ll follow me down to the Mayor. More than ten thousand will go. We’ll put the matter up to him and ask for action. If he won’t give us action, some of us will go to Washington and ask the President.
