Tag: Schoenville PA

Hellraisers Journal: Louis Duchez on Strikes Ongoing in McKees Rocks, Butler & New Castle, Pennsylvania, Part I

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

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 3, 1909
“The Strikes in Pennsylvania” by Louis Duchez, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of September 1909:

McKees Rocks Strike, PA Strikes, ISR p193, Sept 1909

Letter I, ISR p193, Sept 1909

T is impossible to treat this subject fully within the space allowed. The writer will simply present a few of the more important facts gleaned from a study of conditions as they exist at McKees Rocks, Butler and New Castle.

At McKees Rocks fifty riveters of the “erection department” of the Pressed Steel Car Company’s plant came out on strike. The others remained at work. Half of those fifty returned the next day—the other half were discharged. The following day one-third of the force in the “passenger car department” walked out and they returned to work twenty-four hours later. About half of those were “fired.” On the third day half of the force of the “Pennsylvania porch department” walked out.

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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 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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WE NEVER FORGET: Martyrs of the McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Strike, Bloody Sunday, August 22, 1909

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

WNF McKees Rocks PA Bloody Sunday Aug 22, 1909———-

WE NEVER FORGET
The Martyrs of the McKees Rocks Strike
Who Lost Their Lives in Freedom’s Cause
on Bloody Sunday, August 22, 1909

Funeral of Joseph Hruska, Russian Striker, Age 20
-from The Pittsburg Press of August 24, 1909:

WNF Crpd, Joseph Hruska, McKees Rocks Bloody Sunday, EVD, WDC Eve Str p2, Aug 24, 1909

FUNERAL OF HRUSKA

The funeral services for Joseph Hruska, aged 20 years, of Shingiss street, McKees Rocks, who died as a result of a wound received during the riot Sunday evening, were held this morning in the Greek Catholic church on Helen street, Stowe township.

Hruska was unmarried and is survived by a father and mother living in Russia. The mass was celebrated by the Rev. Father Anton Knoseskes, pastor, the body being carried into the church at 9:30 o’clock.

A parade from the church to St. Mary’s cemetery was planned by the strikers. In the line places were given to the Lodge No. 390, Arch-Michael Greek Catholic Russian society, of McKees Rocks, to which the dead man belonged, and to 200 members of the Spolok Slavish society, Lodge No. 95, K. J., of McKees Rocks.

[Emphasis adde.]
[Newsclip added from Washington Evening Star of August 24, 1909.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Bloody Sunday at McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Strike, “Six Are Dead and More Dying”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 24, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Bloody Sunday Leaves Six Dead

From The Pittsburg Press of August 23, 1909:

WNF McKees Rocks Bloody Sunday edit, Ptt Prs p1, Aug 23, 1909

Detail 1: McKees Rocks Strikers Battle “Cossacks”

WNF McKees Rocks Bloody Sunday Detail 1, Ptt Prs p1, Aug 23, 1909

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Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Strikers Elect Committee of Four, Seek Settlement Through Socialist Attorneys

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Parasites Too Lazy, UMWC Jan 27, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 20, 1909
McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania – Strikers Seek Settlement
-As the Pressed Steel Car strikers seek a settlement through Socialist Attorneys, we learn that “one a day” is the death toll for the workers within the plant.

From The Pittsburg Press of July 16, 1909:

From page 1:

PEACE MOVE BY STRIKERS
—–
Committee of Four, One from Each
Nationality, to Confer, Through
Socialist Party Attorneys,
With Officials
—–

RENEWAL OF RIOTING IF OFFERS ARE SPURNED
—–
Attorney Piekarski Offers His Services to
the Sheriff-Undercurrent of Excitement
in Schoenville This Afternoon
—–

McKees Rocks Strike Troopers Clear Streets, Ptt Prs p1, July 16, 1909

Rioting at McKees Rocks has for the present given place to an effort at compromise, and a committee of four, representing the striking employes, is now conferring with attorneys of the Socialist party, who will take up the matter of settlement with officials of the Pressed Steel Car Co.

“We demand pay by the hour-no other way,” is the only demand made by the strikers.

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