Tag: The Labor World

Hellraisers Journal: The Railroad Telegrapher: “Idaho’s Disgrace”-U. S. House of Representatives Investigates

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 2, 1900
Washington, District of Columbia – House Investigates Coeur d’Alene Troubles

From The Railroad Telegrapher of April 1900:

IDAHO’S DISGRACE.
—–

WFM, Wardner Bull Pen of May 1899, Hutton photo 1, 1900—–

THE investigation before the Committee on Military Affairs of the House of Representatives, with reference to the charges made against the United States soldiers under Brigadier General Merriam, growing out of the labor troubles in the Coeur d’Alene mining district in Idaho, has been creating intense interest in labor circles and elsewhere for some time past. Even those who are callous to labor’s wrongs and pin their faith to the theory that the survival of the fittest is the prevailing law in heaven as well as on earth and the other place, have felt some qualms of conscience that such things should happen in “The land of the free and the home of the brave.”

After a strike and some riotous proceedings, which latter could easily have been quelled by the local authorities, the Governor of the State [Frank Steunenberg] suspended the writ of habeas corpus, an infringement of the liberties of the people not even within the prerogative of the President of the United States, without the sanction of Congress. Over eleven hundred citizens were arrested without warrant by this tyrannically-inclined “servant of the people” and confined in a place unfit for human habitation, and kept there for a period ranging from a few days to eight months.

By and through the courtesy of the Miner’s Magazine and the Pueblo Courier, we are enabled to present pictures of some of the men who have been made “Martyrs of the Bull Pen.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Railroad Telegrapher: “Idaho’s Disgrace”-U. S. House of Representatives Investigates” →

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.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Philadelphia Central Labor Union Calls Off General Strike; Streetcar Strike Continues” →

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.]

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

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.]

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

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.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: War in Philadelphia as Thousands Join General Strike in Sympathy with Striking Carmen” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 26, 1910
New York, New York – How the Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Began

From the Duluth Labor World of January 22, 1910:

NYC Uprising Greatest Girls Strike, LW p7, Jan 22, 1910—–

By ROBERTUS LOVE.

[Part II of II.]

How General Strike Began.

The general strike was not declared until Nov. 22, when at a great mass meeting in the hall of Cooper Union, where Abraham Lincoln made his first speech in the east, President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor delivered an address on the shirt waist workers’ situation. A Jewish girl [Clara Lemlich], representing many thousands of her nationality who work in the waist shops, advanced to the front of the platform and delivered in Yiddish an appeal to those of her race to strike immediately. More than 2,000 right hands went up in response. The sentiment for an immediate and wholesale strike spread to the Italian and American shirt waist makers, and the “walk out” of seven-eighths of those employed in that industry was the result.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 25, 1910
New York, New York – Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike Making History

From the Duluth Labor World of January 22, 1910:

NYC Uprising Greatest Girls Strike, LW p7, Jan 22, 1910—–

By ROBERTUS LOVE.

[Part I of II.]

IN the history of the world no such scenes have been witnessed as those which nearly two months past have characterized the strike of the shirt waist makers in the city of New York. Nearly 35,000 girls and women, members of the Ladies’ Shirt Waist Makers’ union, were engaged at first in this greatest strike of women workers ever known. For the first time since industrial conditions became such that women have been compelled to go out from home and support themselves and dependent relatives nearly all the workers in a great industry in one of the foremost cities of the world have engaged in a struggle with their employers, refusing to return to work until certain demands which they consider just shall be complied with by the bosses.

Conspicuous and significant features of the shirt waist girls’ strike have been the entrance into the struggle of many women of great wealth and high social position and of others whose collegiate culture may be calculated by the unthinking to lift them so far above the plane of the working girl that a feeling of sympathy for her is scarcely expected of them.

Yet these college bred women not only have declared their sympathy for the strikers, but many have gone on active service as watchers and pickets to aid them in inducing nonunion girls not to take their places.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Shirt Waist Girls’ Strike the Greatest Struggle of Women In History of Labor” by R. Love, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1919: “I hope that when I die, that I will not go where Judge Gary will be.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Home Good Fight Going On, Ptt Prs p17, Sept 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 16, 1920
-Mother Jones News for December 1919
Found Lambasting Judge Gary and Standing with Striking Steel Workers

From The Blacksmiths Journal of December 1919:
-Report of International Representative W. A. McArthur

-Gets Well Acquainted with Kaiserism at
the Buffalo Plant of Williams & Co.
-Meets Mother Jones at Lackawanna
Where a Monster Crowd Heard one of
Her Characteristic Talks.
Takes a Fling at Judge Gary.

Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 20, 1919.

Editor Journal:

Mother Jones, Crpd Lg, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

In company with Brother Carey we have tried our best to make the J. H. Williams Company, Buffalo, see their error in discriminating against our men and as this matter has been reported by Brother Carey and I have previously dwelt upon it will not make any further report. I sincerely hope that the Kaiser of the plant will be made to abdicate.

From Buffalo I went to Lackawanna and addressed the steel workers in that place and while there had the pleasure of meeting Mother Jones. This grand old lady of 86 years’ experience, was also there and delivered one of her famous characteristic talks. She thrilled the crowd repeatedly and at one time caused a tremendous outburst of applause, when she said,

Judge Gary will never make slaves out of Americans, or any foreigners who come to America to make this their home, if I can help it. I hope that when I die, that I will not go where Judge Gary will be.

[…..]

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1919: “I hope that when I die, that I will not go where Judge Gary will be.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Duluth Labor World: Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 27, 1919
Report from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike by Mary Heaton Vorse

From the Duluth Labor World of October 25, 1919:

GSS Unshaken by MHV, Lbr Wld p1, Oct 25, 1919

[Part II.]

STATE TROOPERS TOOLS OF STEEL
—–
Cossacks Break Into Homes,
Interfere With Church Worship
and Assault Women.

[By MARY HEATON VORSE.]

We must remember that in the steel towns people have been arrested wholesale because they have committed the crime of striking. There are charges such as obstructing traffic, unlawful assembly, etc., which make it impossible to run a striker in without his having committed any real offense.

Suppression and oppression have been the father and mother of this strike and terror its godfather. But, when the company used terror, they forgot the old saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

There hasn’t been a home searched or an illegal arrest made that hasn’t helped the strike. There hasn’t been a club that has come down on a defenseless mill worker that hasn’t sent men hurrying to get out their union cards.

Take the case of Clairton for instance—this was the town where the union had got no foothold—the watchful authorities had kept the “agitators” out. (“Agitator” is the company’s name for all members of the A. F. of L. who try to get their fellow workers to join a union.)

There were no halls in Clairton that could be rented. All permits were denied and street meetings were broken up. That is to say, the fundamental rights of Americans were sweepingly denied. There is no right of free speech and free assembly in the steel towns. When the people in Farrell want to go to a meeting they have to go over the Ohio state line into America—and the other evening 4,000 of them walked over to hear Foster speak.

There are plenty of steel towns not in America and Clairton is one of them.

After a time the organizer hired a vacant lot from one of the mill workers. But a man in Clairton can’t ask a few friends to a lawn party on his own property—the Cossacks rode down the strikers and broke up the meeting. The mill workers didn’t know that it was un-American to strike and they had put up an American flag—this the Cossacks tore down and the flag was trampled under the horses’ hoofs. This started trouble, for there were some ex-service men there as there are in all workingmen’s crowds. The affidavits sent to the senate abound in statements like:

The state troopers rushed on the lot and the people started to run away but when said state troopers rushed to the platform and tore down our flag, the men became incensed and some ex-soldiers, seeing our flag being insulted and defiled, rushed at said troopers in defense of our flag and started the excitement and almost caused a riot and loyal citizens were greatly incensed. There was no provocation for said interference and riding over women and children.

(Signed) Mihon Terzich.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Duluth Labor World: Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Duluth Labor World: Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 26, 1919
Report from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike by Mary Heaton Vorse

From the Duluth Labor World of October 25, 1919:

GSS Unshaken by MHV, Lbr Wld p1, Oct 25, 1919

[Part I.]

MEN SHOW DOGGED ENDURANCE;
-EVERY RIGHT IS DENIED THEM
—–
State Troopers Serve Masters of Steel-Break up Meeting
-Search Homes Without Warrant-Override Children Playing
in Streets, But Men Are Determined to Win Out at Any Cost.
—–

By MARY HEATON VORSE.

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 23.—(Special to The Labor World.)—The other day a man came in to Foster’s office. He had been on strike three weeks, and now he had about 90 cents left. He had some chickens, he had good neighbors, that had given him vegetables and things from their gardens. The man was a foreigner, a young married man, and what he had come for was not to ask strike benefits. He wanted advice and the moral support of encouragement.

He wanted to know how he was going to get along. He came rather deprecatingly, smiling in an embarrassed sort of fashion over his difficulties. Then he went away, still with his smile, his only assets his friends, his 90 cents and his indomitable will to stick out.

The strike is based on people like this; people full of faith; people full of endurance; people full of sacrifice—thousands and thousands of them.

Thousands of them looking upward and forward to a better life for themselves and their children—for these people are striking for a right to be considered as men. They are striking for the right of a little leisure. They want an end put to this de-humanizing double shift.

The other day in Braddock a mill superintendent stopped an old timer on the street. “Aren’t you working?” he asked.

“No, I am not working. I’m on strike; I’m taking a holiday. I am paying myself back those 20 Christmases I worked for the company,” said the man.

That has been the situation with the mill workers. No Sundays, no Christmas. Work that took it out of a man so that he was old at 40. Work that left him so tired at the end of a day that he wasn’t a human being any more. And now these people are willing to sacrifice to change this sort of thing, for themselves, for their children, and for the workers of all time.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Duluth Labor World: Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Front Lines of Great Steel Strike, Part I” →