Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 2, 1913 “On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York” by Big Bill Haywood, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of January 1913:
On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York
-by William D. Haywood
[Part II of II]
Victims of Law and Order. Members of the I. W. W. in Jail at Little Falls. Red Banner Shown in Picture was Made in a Cell.
The many arrests, the brutality shown the prisoners after they were thrown into jail and other outrages by the police and hired thugs of the company, caused a state of excitement among the strikers that was only subdued by the arrival of Matilda Rabinowitz. She came from Bridgeport, Conn., formerly Russia. It was she who reorganized the shattered forces and got the committees in working order, electing others to take the places of those imprisoned. Miss Rabinowitz is as small in person as the smallest striker, yet disciplined as she is in the Industrial Workers of the World principles, she is shaping the mighty force that means victory. A book could be written about Matilda.
Others came, among them Jessie Ashley, a lawyer and sterling friend of the oppressed. She came from New York City as counsel to prepare for the legal end of the battle, paying her own expenses and contributing $100 to the strikers’ fund, making $1,100, and more, that she has contributed to the strikers at Lawrence and elsewhere.
The Socialists of Schenectady, Mayor Lunn, Robert Bakeman and John Mullin and others were on the job from the beginning. Comrades Kruise, Wade and Mullin came early, rolled up their sleeves and entered the culinary department, known in the strike quarters as the soup kitchen.
Money, supplies, groceries and clothing have been abundantly contributed by the Relief committee organized among the Socialists of Schenectady. The Citizen, a Socialist paper, has given publicity to the disgraceful conditions at Little Falls. All of which the strikers deeply appreciate and, while they cannot vote, as most of them are women and children, still they are in the vanguard, and on the picket line. They are marching to the music of the Marseillaise, onward to industrial freedom.
M. Helen Schloss, who is shown behind the bars on the cover, is a woman of Spartan mold, a Socialist of four years’ standing; well known at the Rand school in New York. She came to Little Falls and took a position with the Twentieth Century Club, a fashionable charity association, to investigate tuberculosis, which is prevalent among the mill workers. When the strike began, she took up the cause of the women on the firing line and joined forces with them. This lost her a salaried position and landed her in jail where she was held for eleven days. She was charged with inciting to riot and is only now enjoying her freedom under bond of $2,000.
Recently she has been arrested again while investigating the cases of some strikers who had been thrown into jail without warrant. Her unusual activity on behalf of the oppressed caused her to be looked upon with suspicion by the authorities who are under the control of the mill owners. A board of physicians, appointed by the chief of police, known as “Bully” Long, discovered nothing more serious the matter with her than a brilliant mind, a sterling character and a warm heart.
In spite of all the bitter persecution, which Miss Schloss has endured, she is still lending her strength to the strikers’ cause.
Out of the West comes the young blood of the revolution, ever willing to fight for the political right of freedom of speech, always giving more than they take, but willing, if broke, to live providing Algernon Lee will permit them on a one 7-cent meal a day until they are privileged to go to jail for the cause of labor.
After all it is the strikers themselves who are making the real struggle. They revolted against a reduction of wages that came when the 54-hour law went into effect, reducing their meagre incomes from 50 cents to $2.00 a week. As a direct result of the firm stand made by the Little Falls strikers, wages of other men, women and children employed in similar industries at Utica, Cohoes and other knitting mill centers have been restored and even the strikers at Little Falls have been promised 60 hours’ pay for 54 hours’ work, but they are demanding a 10 per cent increase and a 15 per cent increase for night work. This is what the employer gets when he drives his workers to organize in the Industrial Workers of the World.
If you want to help the mill slaves at Little Falls in this struggle for better condition, follow the example of Helen Keller, Jessie Ashley and Helen Schloss. Send your contributions to Matilda Rabinowitz, Box 458, Little Falls, N. Y.
Later, Chief of Police “Bully Long” has closed up the strikers’ soup kitchens in order to force them back to work. This wrought great hardship on the women and children. But Schenectady threw open her municipal doors and buildings and gathered in some of the children. These and more will be cared for by Socialist “strike parents” till the strike is won.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 18, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1902, Part I Found Speaking in New York City and Standing with Striking Miners of West Virginia
From TheComrade of November 1902:
Mother Jones at Cooper Union, New York City, October 18, 1902 by Ryan Walker
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Frank Sieverman and Mother Jones
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of November 1, 1902:
MOTHER JONES’S LECTURE. ———- Discussed Social and Political Topics at the Criterion Theater. ———-
“Mother” Jones lectured before a good sized audience last evening in the Criterion Theater on social and political topics. The audience was evidently in sympathy wiih her views, for she was frequently interrupted with applause and her introduction was the signal for an ovation that must have been flattering to the venerable organizer.
“Mother” Jones is a well preserved woman of perhaps 60 years, with bright blue eyes and clear complexion, and she speaks with great force and earnestness.
Dr. Charles Furman presided at the meeting and introduced “Mother” Jones. Some enthusiastic socialist leaped up on his seat and called for three cheers for the speaker and they were given with a will.
“Mother” Jones began her address by saying the movement of the present day was along lines of progression laid down by the sages years ago, and everywhere along the line of battle the cry was forward. “To move forward is the object of socialism, and to help you in this movement is why I am here to-night.”
In referring to the recent coal miners’ strike in Pennsylvania “Mother” Jones said John Mitchell was one of God’s own noblemen and she flayed the operators in no uncertain tone. Referring to her arrest and incarceration in West Virginia, “Mother” Jones said she had been blamed by a great many people because she shook hands with the judge who sentenced her to jail. “Why shouldn’t I do so?” she cried. “The judge was not to blame. He was a victim of environment and had to perform his sworn duty to carry out the laws as he found them.” Continuing, the speaker said neither of the old parties could be trusted because both were capitalistic.
In many respects her address was disappointing. She presented no new arguments and her discourse did not differ mainly from the usual pronouncements of socialists-that is, condemnation of capital. J. P. Morgan came in for a good share of the speaker’s attention and many of her witty sallies in reference to him evoked hearty applause.
From the Appeal to Reason of November 1, 1902:
All newspaper reports to the contrary notwithstanding, the miners’ strike in West Virginia is by no means over, and a hard fight is being made in a number of districts where the operators refuse to make any concessions. “Mother” Jones writes from Montgomery, W. Va, that the utmost suffering prevails there, in consequence of the harsh measures taken by the “Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of this country.” She says: “We have fifteen hundred families of coal miners thrown out of their homes by the capitalist cannibals, and now camping on the highway. We should not talk so much about evictions in Ireland. Free America eclipses Ireland.”
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From Mother Jones. Montgomery, West Va., Oct 5, 1902.
Dear Wayland: Here I am in the midst of industrial warfare with all its horrors. The wind blows cold this morning, but these cruel coal barons do not feel the winter blast; their babes, nay even their poodles dogs, are warm and have a comfortable breakfast, while these slaves of the caves, who in the past have moved the commerce of the world, are out on the highways without clothes or shelter. Nearly 3,000 families have been thrown out of the corporation shacks to face the cold blasts of winter weather.Children look into your face and their looks ask, is this what we are here for?
Is this the doctrine Jesus taught? Is this what he agonized for that frightful night in the Garden of Gethsemane 2.000 years ago? When you look at this picture of suffering, and then look into the homes of the Barons, with their joy and pleasures that these helpless people have given, then I ask Bishop Potter how he can howl “all for Jesus” on Sunday and on Monday morning drink wine at $35.00 a bottle, and sing all for Baer and Morgan.
In Pennsylvania its “shoot to kill,” in Virginia, it’s injunction them to death: Everywhere you go, you step on an injunction. Step on the Monstrous injunction. There yells a corporation lap dog, if you step on the R. R. T. the R. R. Detective yells, “Get off here, on injunction company property.” If you go into the river some one yells out “I own half that River.” Well, said I, for God’s sake give me a chance to make a deal with Peter, perhaps he might lend a rope down and swing me in the air. They will have an injunction on that soon. If you go on the public highways, to say “all for Jesus,” with a crowd of strikers, it is an unlawful assemblage-no one can do that but Potter and Morgan-you must be a sky pilot, an looking for Morgan.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 3, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of December 1912:
[Part II of II]
Shortly after [the October 30th] affair the strikers and the strike committee were holding a meeting in The Slovak Sokol Hall, the principal social center of the working population, when the door was thrown open with a crash and the police and hired guards burst in. Women, who composed the majority of the audience, were hurled right and left. Men who protested were struck on the head. Furniture was overturned. The musical instruments of the Slovak Band were broken and battered. One cop who happened to notice the framed charter of the local textile union of the Industrial Workers of the World, drove his club through the middle of it. It hangs in the hall now, its broken glass held together by an edging of red ribbon with a knot of red covering the hole made by the club. All the members of the strike committee and all persons suspected of being connected with the strike were arrested and dragged to the local lock-up, a place so vile that the State Prison Inspector has threatened the town with mandamus proceedings unless it is cleaned up.
Legere, however, could not be found. The building was searched for him and the police, not wishing to investigate the dark cellar, fired three shots into it at random, any one of which might have killed Legere had he not already been taken to a place of safety by a devoted band of workers. He went to Utica that night, got some needed printing done, sent off some messages, and then returned to Little Falls where he was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail at Herkimer, another place that has been condemned by the State Prison Inspector.
Bakeman, Hirsh, Bochino and George Vaughan of Schenectady, were already there, along with thirty-nine others, strikers and sympathizers. When visited later, some of them were still wearing the bloody shirts that they wore when arrested. They were joined by Miss Helen Schloss, a young Socialist woman of New York, who for several months had been a tenement investigator for a club of the well-to-do women of Little Falls. Despite warnings from her lady employers, Miss Schloss cast her lot with the strikers, gave up her position, joined the relief committee, and went out on the picket line with the workers. For this she incurred the enmity of the police and her spectacular arrest by Chief Long himself followed. She was put in Herkimer jail on a charge of “inciting to riot” and as a special honor was given the cell occupied by Chester Gillette, electrocuted for the murder of his sweetheart. She was finally released on bail and went right back to work in the relief kitchen.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 2, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part I
From the InternationalSocialistReview of December 1912:
[Part I of II]
ON October 1 of this year a law went into effect in the state of New York making it illegal for female industrial slaves to work more than 54 hours a week. Some employers immediately took advantage of the situation and paid their workers what they call “pro rata”-that is, they punished the beneficiaries of this law by reducing the contents of their pay envelopes to correspond with the reduced number of hours. Departments of industry are so closely connected nowadays that the men were affected in an equal degree with the women.
Slaves in most parts of the state seem to have received the reduction with submission, but not so the employes of the knitting mills in Little Falls. When their second pay day came around and they found their $7 envelopes short from 60 cents to $2, they did what the mill workers of Lawrence did in a similar situation-they rebelled.
On October 10more than 1,500 workers, embracing nearly all the departments in the Phoenix and Gilbert Knitting Mills and four nationalities-Polish, Slavish, Austrian and Italian-walked out and poured into the streets to the sound of “The Marseillaise.” The Americans stayed and scabbed.
The revolt was entirely spontaneous and most of the workers were uncertain what to do next, but a few of them knew. They appealed to the one organization that can handle such a situation-the I. W. W. Organizers Fillippo Bochino and Fred Hirshcame hurrying from Rochester and Schenectady respectively, and the battle was on.
The first few days were quietly spent in putting the strike on an organized basis, and then as the need for a good chairman for the strike committee became evident, Benjamin J. Legere, a fighting Socialist and graduate of the Lawrence school was sent for. Though he was just entering on a short vacation after several months of exhausting work agitating for the Ettor-Giovannitti defense, he arrived promptly. He showed the strikers how to form a mass picket line that moves in an endless chain and helped to get all the different committees in working order.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 18, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part IV Boston, Massachusetts – Found Speaking on Behalf of Striking Coal Miners
From The Boston Globe of October 20, 1902:
“Mother” Jones, who has become famous all over the country as a result of her work in behalf of the coal miners, addressed a gathering of more than 7000 yesterday afternoon at the open-air meeting at Apollo garden, Roxbury. The meeting was in behalf of the striking miners, and was under the auspices of the general committee of the socialist party.
It is said that more than 8000 tickets were sold and a good sum was realized, which will be forwarded for the assistance of the strikers. The meeting was also addressed by Representative James F. Carey and Ex-Mayor Chase of Haverhill, the latter socialist candidate for governor.
The meeting was an enthusiastic one and every telling point scored by the speakers brought forth ready approval. In the gathering was a fair sprinkling of women. The speakers stood on the balcony of the old house, which had been decorated free of charge, and the grove was given free of charge also.
The principal interest centered about the appearance of “Mother” Jones. She sat on the balcony while the other speakers were talking. She was dressed in a plain gown of black cloth and wore no hat. She looks to be more than 50 years old, and her hair is almost snow white. Her keen, small eyes look out from under rather heavy brows, and she has a voice of remarkable power, her address easily being heard at the other side of the grove.
She is a fighter for her “boys,” as she terms the men who work in the mines, and it was easy for those in the audience to see how she has come by the loving term of “mother.”
She told in a quiet, easy manner of her work among the miners, of their toil in the bowels of the earth, their attempts to keep their little families from starving, and of their grinding down by the coal barons. “Mother” Jones evidently knows whereof she speaks, for she told of her visits to the mines underground, and her control over the miners was illustrated by a story she told of a recent occurrence in the present strike, when she led a gathering of 7000 strikers and many women over the mountains in the coal region and their meeting with the armed militia.
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Respects the Law.
The keynote of her address was that the people had made the government, and must obey the law and abide by its decisions. When she was being introduced by the presiding officer, Patrick Mahoney, a man on the balcony interpolated the remark that “She also defied Judge Jackson.” She was hardly on her feet before she made a denial of the statement, saying that Judge Jackson represented the law, and she never defied the law.
Representative James F. Carey of Haverhill was the first speaker. He said the coal strike would have been a failure but for the fact that it has taught the miners a lesson. It has opened the eyes of the people. The class in economic power, he continued, always controls the government, and socialists, knowing that, have tried to bring to the attention of the voters the absurdity of voting for the representatives of capital…..
John C. Chase, socialist candidate for governor, was received with cheers. He said that if the strikers had to go back without gaining a single thing it would show one thing, and that is that the working class must stand together in industrial matters and politics…..
“Mother” Jones was the next speaker, and there was a wave of applause as she came forward. She spoke clearly and distinctly and rather slowly. At no time till she grow heated, but the pathos of her voice showed clearly that the interests of the striking miners were her interests.
She said she largely was responsible for the miners’ organization.
[She said:] For ages men had been struggling to right the wrongs of the world. In this country we first had the civil struggle, and we settled that. Now at the beginning of the 20th century we have the industrial struggle.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 17, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part III New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Cooper Union
From The New York Times of October 18, 1902:
From The Pittsburg Post of October 18, 1902:
Thomas Duffy, Mother Jones and President John Mitchell
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 5, 1919
Butte, Montana – The Bulletin on “Bomb Plot” Frame-Up and May Day “Riots”
The following reports and opinion pieces are from The Butte Daily Bulletin, published May 1st, May 2nd and May 3rd, and covering the dramatic events surrounding May Day 1919.
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of May 1 1919:
BOMBS ARE SENT BY MAIL
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Packages Sent to Several Government Officials
and Citizens Throughout U. S.
Contained Explosives.
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(Special United Press Wire.)
Washington May 1.-What is believed by the officials to be a wide spread attempt on the lives of members of Wilson’s cabinet has just been discovered. Seventeen packages being held in the postoffice at New York were found to contain explosives. it is not known how many have already passed through the mail.
The packages were addressed to officials throughout the United States among whom were; Postmaster-General Burleson, Secretary of Labor Wilson, Attorney-General Palmer, and Commissioner-General Palmer, and Commissioner-General of Immigration Caminetti. There were also packages addressed to John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, New York Commissioner Howe, Mayor Hylan of New York, Governor Sproul of Pennsylvania, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, District Attorney Fickert of California and his assistant, Edward Cunha. The bombs were similar to the ones received by Mayor “Ole” Hanson of Seattle and former Senator Hardwick of Georgia. The packages all bear the label of Gimble Bros., a New York department store, but the officials of the store declare they are imitations.
Fear is expressed that some of the packages may have had sufficient postage to insure their delivery through the mails and may be enroute to their intended victims. It is noted that virtually all the prominent men to whom the packages were addressed are concerned one way or another with the immigration problems. A warning has been issued by the postoffice department to all postoffice inspectors and superintendents in charge of the railway mail service to watch for any bombs that may still be in transit. If has not been ascertained, the officials state, whether any bombs have been sent to the Americans who are attending the peace conference.
Friends of Edward Cunha delivered the package to him at his sick bed, thinking that it was a present for him. The package was only partly opened when their suspicions were aroused and the package was not opened until later. When the contents were disclosed they were found to contain sulphuric acid and explosives similar to that received by Mayor Hanson. Ficket’s package was left unopened.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 25, 1908
Lower East Side, New York City – Debs Speaks at Hamilton Fish Park
From the Montana News of of October 22, 1908:
LAND-SLIDE FOR SOCIALISM
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NEW ENGLAND WORKERS GO WILD OVER DEBS.
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EAST SIDE CROWDS
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One Hundred Policemen Required to Take Care
of the Vast Masses of People
-Debs Holding Out Well.
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The lower east side of New York saw the greatest demonstration in its history Tuesday afternoon [October 13th] when Eugene V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, visited it and gave his thousands of supporters an opportunity to express their devotion to him and his cause.
From Hamilton Fish park, where Mr. Debs first appeared and spoke, to Rutgers square, where he ended his visit, the automobile in which he rode was surrounded and followed by a crowd that packed the streets through which he traversed and lapped over into those adjoining until nothing but a surging, tumultuous mass of humanity could be seen.
At Rutgers square it required all of the skill and discipline of a large force of policemen to make way for the Debs automobile to the center of the square, where he was to speak. When the socialist leader at last reached the spot he turned and looked down upon the vast sea of faces that extended as far as the eye could reach.
And the enthusiasm was as unrestrained and heartfelt as the crowd itself was huge. It was impossible to have every one in that crowd hear what was said, either by Debs or any of the other speakers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the crowd, for they applauded and cheered anyway. They were there to show their regard for the greatest working class champion in America-and they showed it.
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—————Frank Sieverman and Mother Jones
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