Tag: Robert Minor

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The New York Garment Workers” by Mary E. Marcy, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 4, 1913
New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson

From the International Socialist Review of February 1913:

THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS
By MARY E. MARCY

Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.

[Part II of III]

NY Garment Workers, White Goods Strikers, ISR p585, Feb 1913

The thugs employed by the shop bosses have proved very energetic and reliable. They have worked early and late beating up strikers whenever possible, starting trouble and blaming it on the workers, while the police stood by (or took a hand) to see that nobody attacked or injured them.

During the first week in January the union officials conferred with the employers relative to a settlement of the strike, but the New York Call reports that all negotiations were broken off when the employers insisted upon a return of the strikers to the shops pending an investigation of the conditions in the trade by a special commission to be appointed for that purpose. The union officials declared that under no circumstances would “they order the men to return to work” pending an investigation or arbitration of their demands.

As the pickets began to suffer at the hands of the company guards, it was decided to take a lesson from the strikers at Lawrence, Mass., and chain picketing was employed for the first time in New York City.

Ten thousand pickets were asked to report each day, starting to work on the “Chain Picket Line” at 5 :00 o’clock in the morning, to pass constantly in a steady stream of pedestrians before the strikebound shops.

On the day of the inauguration of the Chain Picket plan, the unions held various meetings which were well attended by the strikers. Hugh Frayne urged a general strike in every branch of the needle and garment industries, promising the support of the A. F. of L. while Abe Cahan closed one meeting begging the strikers to be true to the American Federation of Labor. He urged them to carry an A. F. of L. card in one pocket and a Socialist party card in the other (that is to work for class organization on one side and craft division on the other.)

This is very different from the calls of the Industrialists, all of whom insist upon a CLASS UNION card on the industrial field and a Socialist party card to represent their class interests upon the political field.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Knight of the Round Belly” by Robert Minor: U. S. Supreme Court Rules Against Nation’s Child Workers

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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 1, 1922
“The Knight of the Round Belly” by Robert Minor
-United State Supreme Court Rules Against Nation’s Child Workers

From The Liberator of July 1922:

US Supreme Court re Child Labor Laws, Drawing by Robert Minor, Lbtr p18, July 1922

January 1911, South Pittston Pennsylvania
-Breaker Boys of Pennsylvania Coal Company by Lewis Hine

 The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrates the utmost recesses of the boy’s lungs. A kind of slave driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding or kicking them into obedience.

Breaker Boys, Jan 1911, Lewis Hine

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Industrial Pioneer: Political Cartoons by Boardman Robinson and Robert Minor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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EVD re Socialism v Capitalism———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 15, 1921
Cartoons by Boardman Robinson and Robert Minor

From The Industrial Pioneer of November 1921

“Propping Up the Sick Man-European Capitalism” by Boardman

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: Salsedo Dead-Sacco and Vanzetti in Danger -by Robert Minor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 2, 1921
Salsedo Dead in New York City; Sacco and Vanzetti in Danger in Massachusetts

From the New York Liberator of March 1921:

One Dead-Two in Danger

By Robert Minor

Cover by Robert Minor, Are They Doomed by Art Shields, Ad Lbtr Mar 1921
-by Art Shields
-cover design by Robert Minor

OUT of a window high in an office building in Park Row, a man’s body took the long drop to the street below. Early morning newspaper distributors and a policeman smoothed back the black hair on the head that rolled loosely. There were the fine forehead of olive skin, the black eyes and aquiline nose of an Italian.

The body had fallen from a window that gaped open in the half-dark of dawn, fourteen stories above. Investigation of the fourteenth floor showed that this was a window of a secret prison kept by the agents of the United States Department of Justice.

Do you remember “Palmer’s Revolution?” It was dated for May 1st, 1920. The Italian workman’s plunge to death on May 3rd from Palmer’s secret prison was its only casualty.

The secret jail, hidden away in an office building in the heart of the business district, was the headquarters for “Palmer’s Revolution.” In that resort, away from the restraints of regular prisons, Palmer’s agents handled “reds.” Andrea Salsedo was one of the working men that was being handled there. There was another man in the prison, Roberto Elia, a friend of the dead man. Elia had seen that Salsedo’s head and face were a mass of bruises. Salsedo had been taken out each day three times, he said, to be questioned and to be beaten so as to make him give the answers that were wanted. Elia said that he heard Salsedo’s screams while he was being tortured, and saw the agents examine Salsedo’s eyes and finger nails to learn whether the beating was going so far as to endanger life. When Elia went to sleep at night, the agents pointed to the open window, saying: “Don’t forget this is the fourteenth floor.”

In the morning Elia was told that Salsedo had “jumped out of the window.” The newspaper men and city policemen and strangers came, asking questions. The pile of shapeless flesh in the pool of blood below the window of the secret prison was embarrassing to Palmer and to Flynn of the Secret Service. Even the capitalist press stirred a little with the tang of the mystery. Did the man jump and kill himself, or was he thrown from the window? Was he thrown out alive? Or was a dead body dropped from the window to conceal the manner in which death had taken place?

The newspapers were shut off at last. The body was quickly buried without any coroner’s inquest. Roberto Elia was the only one who knew anything-except Palmer’s men. He was quickly deported to Italy, where he disappeared from sight. Then the Italian population of various American industrial districts began to make trouble. Agitators began to make protest meetings.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Toiler: “John Reed Is Dead” by Robert Minor -Great Funeral Demonstration Held in Moscow

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Quote John Reed, Weak Gov Rebellious People, 10 Days Chp III, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 31, 1920
Moscow, Russia – Great Funeral Demonstration Panned for John Reed

From the Cleveland Toiler of October 30, 1920:

John Reed Is Dead

By Robert Minor.

John Reed Dead in Moscow, Telegram Oct 22, Toiler p4, Oct 30, 1920

The Tzar Nicholas once complained that he was unable to have the best of Russian music because, unfortunately, the best composers were guilty of the crime of sedition and he could not encourage them.

Today the Tzar Nicholas lies in a hole in the ground of a Siberian village, and the sweetest music of Russia is played in his palace to the ears of the plain workingmen for whom the composers really wrote their music anyway.

In Moscow there died the other day a great American literary artist, John Reed. He was a young man, only thirty-three, and already known about the earth as one of the finest of American artists.

John Reed, LOC, 19363, see Charlotte Ob NC p19, Nov 22, 1914

John Reed began his career ten years ago as a reporter for the New York World and for the New York Tribune. He did well. Very soon he graduated from the ranks of daily reporters and was acknowledged as one of the most brilliant writers on the high-priced magazines that spend their thousands to get the best of writing.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part IV of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Robert Minor re Battle of Matewan, Lbtr p13, Aug 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 5, 1920
Robert Minor on the Battle at Matewan Between Citizens and Gunthugs

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

IV of IV

Battle of Matewan, WDC Tx p1, May 20, 1920

About half past five in the afternoon, Chief Hatfield was standing around when a boy runs in, saying, “The thugs is come to town!”

Sid Hatfield walked out quick to the back street and there was Albert and Lee Felts and C. B. Cunningham, the gunman that was known for being quick on the draw. And standing back of them was ten Baldwin-Felts men. Then there was a dummy that had been hanging around town all day without any gun and not letting on he was a Baldwin-Felts man.

Sid walked up to Albert Felts and says, “I’ve got a warrant for you.”

Albert sort of grinned and says, “I’ll return the compliment; I’ve got a warrant for you.” All of the thugs kind of shuffled around on one foot and then the other, and pretty soon Sid was surrounded. Sid looked around and seen there was no friends near, only Isaac Brewer, the town policeman, was standing quiet.

Albert Felts says to Sid, “We’ll take you up to Bluefield on the train that’s due in seven minutes.” Sid says nothing and just smiles. And Albert says, “We’ll ride on the Pullman, Sid,” and walks Sid over to near the place where the end of the train will stop, and says, “Is this where the Pullman stops?” and Sid said “Yes.”

Sid knew it wasn’t no Pullman ride they planned for him, but that they wanted to be near the end of the train to jump on when they got through with him. The train only stops a minute.

They stood around waiting, and Sid kind of edged back towards the town-side of the street, near the back door of Chambers’ hardware store. Albert Felts and Cunningham the gunman kept close to, Sid, while Lee Felts and the ten other gunmen was standing back a little piece, nearer the railroad track. Albert says again that the train will be in in seven minutes and they would take the Pullman.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part III of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 4, 1920
Robert Minor Arrives in Matewan, Meets Smilin’ Sid Hatfield

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

III of IV

From the five o’clock morning train I alighted at the little. double row of stores and houses that are called Matewan, and before the town was astir I took a walk to the middle of the bridge over Tug River. There boy asked me, “Is it true they got two more thugs up the road last night?” I turned back to talk with the boy, and then I saw a man on a bench before a building on which was scrawled in red letters, “U. M. W. of A.” This man’s face limbered up when I told him I was a friend of Fred Mooney, Secretary of the Mine Workers at Charleston, and he said, “I sized you up as a friend of the Union and I’m glad you didn’t go further across the bridge, because you might have got shot. That is Pike County, over there.”

Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor, Lbtr p11, Aug 1920

Toward nine o’clock I saw, standing near the railroad track, a middle-sized man of age about twenty-two. Although this man was alone, he was continually smiling. When he moved, his vest was displaced and exposed two Smith & Wesson revolvers, one stuck into each side of his trousers; A coal digger introduced him as Chief of Police Sid Hatfield.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part II of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 3, 1920
Robert Minor Reports on Efforts to Organize Mingo County

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

II of IV

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

When the United States entered the World War and the getting-out of coal became important, the United Mine Workers of District 17, comprising the southern half of West Virginia, grew in membership from five thousand to forty-two thousand. Young and energetic leaders developed out of the coal pits, advances were made in pay, and the workday was reduced from nine to eight hours.

In 1919, Unionism knocked hard on Old Man Baldwin’s door, and even slipped her foot over his sill. Unionism entered Logan County. Logan County is the “fortified town” of Don Chafin. Old Man Baldwin ruled Mercer, McDowell, Wyoming and Mingo Counties from his headquarters at Bluefield, but the County of Logan is held by his ally, Don Chafin, officially known as County Clerk.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part I of IV

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Robbers Tremble, Montgomery WV, Aug 4, 1912———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 2, 1920
Robert Minor Travels to West Virginia to Report on Coalfield Wars

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

I of IV

Robert Minor, ed, KC Wkrs Wld p1, Sept 19, 1919

As the train from Charlottesville ran through the Blue Ridge Mountains, a Negro looked out of the window, arose and walked from the stuffy compartment “for colored people” into a more comfortable car marked “for whites.” From that I knew the train had passed into West Virginia. The Negro sat down facing a weatherbeaten man with a white mustache and a broad-brimmed hat. The white man’s face did not change expression at the Negro’s entrance, and from that I knew that the white man was a mountaineer of the West and not an inhabitant of Old Virginia.

From Chesapeake Bay, across the Blue Ridge Mountains and away up around the southwest corner o£ Pennsylvania, used to extend the domain of Old Virginia. But the rich planters of the eastern valleys went to war against the Union, and the “po’ white” men hoeing their corn alone on the mountains and not owning any n——, refused to follow. The new State of West Virginia was made of these soft green mountains and lonely cabins and corn patches.

For another generation the people of the mountains hoed their corn. Then somebody discovered that the green-covered mountains were made of coal. The railroads began to scratch their way through the green, and to nose out the great black insides that were worth more than the cabins and corn patches. Men from Northern cities took part in West Virginia affairs and soon could prove with legal papers that they owned the black contents of the mountains and the green surface, too.

Many mountain families quit hoeing corn. They settled near the coal pits where regular wages and store clothes seemed to offer more of a living. The population passed from the outside of the mountains to the inside of them, and the grip of the men with the title deeds dosed down hard upon all.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Steel Strike” by Mary Heaton Vorse, “At the beginning of the fourth month…..”

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Quote MHV Immigrants Fight for Freedom, Quarry Jr p2, Nov 1, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 4, 1920
Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike

From The Liberator of January 1920:

The Steel Strike

By Mary Heaton Vorse

GSS Arrests at Homestead, Survey p58, Nov 8, 1919—–

AT the beginning of the fourth month of the strike, at a moment when the newspapers have definitely decided that there is no strike, the strike still cripples production of steel 50 per cent. These are figures given by the steel companies to the financial columns of the daily press. One would think that the strike would have been definitely battered down and the account closed for good in at least a few towns.

One would think that the might of the steel companies, backed by the press, reinforced by the judiciary, local authorities and police, and self-appointed “citizens’ committees,” would have finished this obstinate strike. One would think it would have been kicked out, smothered out, stifled out, bullied out, brow-beaten out, stabbed out, scabbed out, but here they are hanging on in the face of cold weather, in the face of abuse and intimidation, in the face of arrests, in the face of mob violence-and these are dark days too.

These are days when the little striking communities are steeped in doubt, when the bosses go around to the women and plead with them almost tearfully to get their husbands to go back to work before their jobs are lost. These are the days when in these isolated places every power that the companies know is brought to bear upon the strikers to make them believe that they and they alone are hanging on, that the strike is over everywhere else and that this special town will be the goat.

People talk of the steel strike as if it were one single thing. In point of fact, there are 50 steel strikes. Literally there are 50 towns and communities where there to-day exists a strike. The communication between these towns is the slenderest, the mills and factories which this strike affects line the banks of a dozen rivers. The strike is scattered through a half a dozen states.

This is something new in the history of strikes-50 towns acting together. Pueblo acting in concert with Gary; Birmingham, Alabama, keeping step with Rankin and Braddock, Pennsylvania. How did it happen that these people; so slenderly organized, separated by distance, separated by language, should have acted together and have continued to act together?

Some of the men have scarcely ever heard a speaker in their own language. Some of the men are striking in communities where no meetings are allowed. Sitting at home, staying out, starving, suffering persecution, suffering the torture of doubt, suffering the pain of isolation, without strike discipline and without strike benefits, they hold on. What keeps them together?

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