Tag: Philadelphia Street Car Strike of 1910

Hellraisers Journal: Luella Twining on the Philadelphia Carmen’s Strike and Formation of Woman’s Auxiliary

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 12, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Carmen’s Strike Continues; Women Organize

From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:

The Philadelphia Situation

LUELLA TWINING

Luella Twining ed, Prg Wmn p9, Oct 1909

The most significant features of the Carmen’s strike in Philadelphia are the sympathetic strike that was called soon after the carmen went out, involving 200,000 men and women; the awakening of the workers of this city to the fact that the government is the bulwark of capitalism; and the great organization of carmen’s wives that has been built up in two weeks, now numbering five thousand women.

Government Officials Control Situation

Senators Penrose, McNichols, Director Clay and other officials have taken charge of affairs for the Transit company. There was not even an attempt at a settlement till those senators appeared, Mr. McNichols coming from Florida where he had fled to get away from the strike. Indeed, so apparent has been the connivance between the Transit company and national, state and city officials that even the least observing have been forced to see it. Mayor Reyburn has issued statements for the Transit company showing that the city hall is openly against the strikers; policemen are put on the cars to run them and scab on the carmen; when the carmen attempted to hold a meeting in the ball park, which had been rented for that purpose, mounted policemen rode into men, women and children, trampling them down and beating them on the heads with clubs, till the pavement was covered with blood. So active has the government been in attempting to break the strike that the strikers and their wives discuss the political situation almost exclusively. It might well be called a “political strike.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Car Strike and the General Strike in Philadelphia” -Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 4, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – “When the Sleeper Wakes” by Joseph E. Cohen, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of April 1910:

Phl GS, Shooting at Workers, ISR p865, Apr 1910—–

[Part II of II.]

On February 23rd, Mayor Reyburn dispatched a telegram to Governor Stuart, asking for the state constabulary, or cossacks, as they are more popularly known. Four companies of them, 158 men all told, arrived next day and remained until March 1st.

Now, the people of Philadelphia had no particular quarrel with the state constabulary. Their antipathy was confined largely to the transit company and its strike breakers. To fight against the cossacks meant to engage in bloody warfare, not with fists or bricks, but guns, and this the people were not prepared to do. Were it otherwise, the handful of cossacks would never have left Philadelphia alive. So, aside from a drubbing administered to a few of their number, they were permitted to depart in peace.

Phl GS, State Cossacks, ISR p870, Apr 1910—–

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Car Strike and the General Strike in Philadelphia” -Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 3, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – “When the Sleeper Wakes” by Joseph E. Cohen, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of April 1910:

Phl GS, Shooting at Workers, ISR p865, Apr 1910—–

[Part I of II.]

Letter A, ISR p865, Apr 1910CHILD does not blossom into maturity in a day, nor can a weakling to transformed into a Hercules over night. It requires the lapse of many years in the one instance as in the other. And several decades may pass before a city or a nation attains its majority. Yet there is no telling for how long a time the elements have been gathering for some mighty upheaval; how soon, when the surface of things seemed as calm as ever, there would break out an eruption such as would rearrange all that seemed stable and permanent.

Philadelphia is the third city, in population, in America. It has its own peculiar makeup, fondles its own brand of conservatism and will have to work out its own method of salvation from the condition of “corruption and contentment” which has been ascribed to it.

It is a city of “magnificent distances.” That, of itself, explains a great deal, for solidarity and separation are usually antithetical, and Philadelphia is spread over such a wide territory, that people who work and live in Manayunk, Chestnut Hill, Germantown, Olney, Fox Chase, Frankford and Bridesburg—all within the city limits—come down to the center of the city much as country folk go “into town.” Many wage-workers in these localities have had no notion at all of what a trades union is. The seeds of class feeling were only beginning to be scattered among them, their outlook was for all the world, that of some fair sized village—not of the third city in America.

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Hellraisers Journal: Philadelphia Central Labor Union Calls Off General Strike; Streetcar Strike Continues

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 1, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – General Sympathetic Strike Called Off

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 28, 1910:

GENERAL STRIKE DECLARED OFF
—–
Lively Debate Accompanies Passage of
Central Labor Union Resolution
—–
Political Movement Recently Launched Also
Discussed at Length-Plans for Carmen
—–

Phl GS, John Murphy Prz Carmen, LW p1, Mar 5, 1910

Interest in the trolley strike, so far as organized labor was concerned, centered yesterday in the meeting of the Central Labor Union at its headquarters at 232 North Ninth street.

As expected, the Central Labor Union, upon recommendation of the General Strike Committee of Ten, formally declared the general sympathetic strike off and ordered all union workers to return to their employment this morning, with instructions to continue their moral and financial support of the striking street carmen.

Delegates of the Central Labor Union had considerable to say about cases in which employes who had taken part in the general strike would not be reinstated in their positions by their employers. It was decided to refer all such cases to the Grievance Committee of the Central Labor Union.

There were some warm incidents in the session, particularly when delegates tried to explain why their unions had not participated in the general strike and when the movement for the projected new political labor party was in debate.

A resolution offered by a delegate of the Pressmen’s Union, No. 16, evoked a motion which was passed, from Tobias Hall, representing textile workers, that the resolution should be tabled and the union notified that the Central Labor Union had no use for unions that did not take part in the labor movement.

Then a delegate of the milk wagon drivers’ organization tried in vain to offer an explanation of the failure of his constituents to join the sympathetic walkout.

President John J. Murphy, of the Central Labor Union, instructed Secretary Charles Hope to read the resolution recently passed by the Central Labor Union to the effect that every union that did not go on strike would be regarded, as “working against our best interests.”

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Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part II

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 21, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Eugene Debs Speaks at Mass Meeting

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 20, 1910:

PRATT AND DEBS AT LABOR MEETING
—–

EVD, Spk Chc p15, Nov 22, 1909

Sympathetic strikers crowded Labor Lyceum Hall, at Sixth and Brown streets, when their big mass meeting was called to order at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon [Saturday March 19th], and the streets about the building were blockaded with hundreds who were unable to enter the hall.

Many policemen, under command of Lieutenants Nippes and Ehrsman, were stationed about the entrance to the hall and along Sixth and Brown streets to prevent possible rioting, and riot wagons from City Hall were placed in near-by streets.

C. O. Pratt, the executive chairman of the carmen’s organization, arrived at the Labor Lyceum soon after 3 o’clock in an automobile, and was cheered by the crowd as he made his way to the entrance. The doors had been ordered closed by the police, but the lieutenant in charge made way for Pratt and the speakers with him. As soon as Pratt was inside the hall the crowd picked him up and passed him along to the platform.

Pratt in his speech exhorted the labor men to stand firm in their demands. In concluding he asked all who would remain out on strike to say “aye.” The answering chorus of “ayes” was heard in the streets.

Eugene [V]. Debs, a former Presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, also addressed the meeting.

[He said:]

You are waging a class fight. I am not here to philosophize, but to tell you to fight and fight to the end, and you will win. There is nothing to concede, nothing to arbitrate. If you concede anything you will lose all. Fight the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. J. Pierpont Morgan could end the strike in a minute if he wanted to.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 20, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – General Strike Committee Sends for Debs

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 17, 1910:

[Statement of Philadelphia’s General Strike Committee.]

Phl GS, Murphy n Pratt, LW p1, Newark NJ Str p1, Mar 5, 1910———-

Announcement of the plans of the labor leaders for today was embodied in the following statement issued by the General Strike Committee, from its headquarters at Twelfth and Filbert streets:

In our statement issued last night we announced several mass meetings would be held in different parts of the city, to which organized and unorganized working men and women and the general public are invited. These meetings will be held at Kensington Labor Lyceum. Second and Cambria streets; Mercantile Hall, 849 Franklin street; Academy Hall, 524 South Fourth street, and Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, on Thursday, March 17, at 8 P. M.

These meetings will be addressed by C. O. Pratt, Jeff Pierce, organizer of the American Federation of Labor; John J. Murphy and other prominent speakers…

The committee has also made arrangements for holding a monster mass meeting at Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, at 3 P. M., Saturday, March 19, which meeting will be addressed by Eugene V. Debs and other prominent speakers…

[Photographs added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: War in Philadelphia as Thousands Join General Strike in Sympathy with Striking Carmen

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB Oct 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 10, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Thousands Quit Work to Support Carmen

From the Duluth Labor World of March 5, 1910:

Phl GS, Hundred Thousand Quaker City, LW p1, Mar 5, 1910

Phl GS, John Murphy Prz Carmen, LW p1, Mar 5, 1910

Philadelphia, March 4.-Ten times ten thousand union workers of this city have consented to quit work and to join forces with the striking carmen as a rebuke to the arrogant attitude of the officials of the Philadelphia Transit company towards the strike.

This action was decided on at a meeting of the union workers of this city Wednesday night and promptly at midnight Friday went into force.

Throughout the week the company’s officials have been obdurate in regard to arbitration. Delegations of business men, ministers and other Quaker City interests have appealed to them in vain but could not induce them to recede from their position.

Late last week after a few gays of turmoil they with Mayor Reyburn and Director of Safety Clay weakened and were ready to go to arbitration.

The overwhelming force of “Cossacks” as the State constabulary is called, which was poured into Philadelphia to awe the striking carmen, however, stiffened the spines of the autocrats and they now refuse to entertain anything but an absolute surrender on the part of the men.

Strike-Breakers Can’t Mend Traffic.

But a small portion of street car traffic has been resumed and the force of strike-breakers brought into the city, the scum of the big cities of the continent, has been entirely inadequate to cope with the situation.

The general strike was the only weapon left the men in the face of the insolent and defiant attitude of the street car officials and the sympathy of the public, at first withheld, has now turned to the men fighting for better wages and conditions of work.

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