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
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.”
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 3, 1910
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, Heroines
From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:
TWO LITTLE HEROINES
From The Survey of January 22, 1910 —–
I have listened to all the speakers and I have no patience for talk. I am one who feels and suffers for the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike.—Clara Lemlich at the famous Cooper Union meeting.
The spontaneous strike of 20,000 shirt waist makers in New York City was the greatest event in the history of woman’s work. The majority of the strikers were mere girls, few of them over twenty years of age. They had no “great” leaders, but among them were individualities strong enough and great enough to hold a place in the history of our country’s industrial development. Two of these were Fannie Zinsher and Clara Lemlich. The following from The Survey [“The Spirit of the Strikers” by Mary Brown Sumner] is a sketch of the lives of these two brave little girls:
I have two pictures of Fanny Zinsher in my mind, one as she came from Russia at fourteen, fleeing from persecution to free America, with round cheeks, smiling, irresponsible lips and clear eyes full of interest and delight in living; the other after five years of American freedom, with sad sweet eyes whose sight was strained by the flashing of the needle and by study late at night, mouth drooping with a weight of sadness and responsibility and an expression of patience and endurance far beyond her twenty years.
She came a little high school girl from Kishineff to San Francisco. She did not know what work for wages was, but she and her brother four years older had to turn to and support a mother and a little brother. Three hundred power-machines in one long room of the garment factory welcomed this little human machine-in-the-making. The roar and flash of the needles terrified her. She tried to work, but her nerves went more and more to pieces, her frightened eyes failed to follow her fingers as they guided her work and the second day she slit a finger open and was laid up for three weeks. When she returned she could adapt herself no better to the nervous strain. At piece work she could earn little over one dollar a week, until a kind forewoman removed her to a smaller room where in time she rose to five dollars.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 12, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910, Part I:
-Found Fighting for Working Women of Philadelphia and Milwaukee
From the International Socialist Review of February 1910:
Fighting to Live
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By Tom A. Price.
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[Mother Jones in Philadelphia.]
Mother Jones. This little woman whose heart is as big as the nation and beats wholly for humanity, came to Philadelphia while the trumpet was still reverberating after the call to arms had been sounded. Under her bold leadership the fighters were organized before the manufacturers had fairly realized that their workers had at last been stung to revolt by the same lash which had so often driven them to slavery.
In impassioned speech after impassioned speech Mother Jones urged the girls on to battle. Shaking her gray locks in defiance she pictured the scab in such a light that workers still shudder when they think of what she would have considered them had they remained in the slave pens of the manufacturers. Every man and woman and child who heard her poignantly regrets the fact that her almost ceaseless labors at last drove her to her bed where she now lies ill.
But she had instilled into the minds of her followers the spirit which prompted her to cross a continent to help them. That spirit remains and is holding in place the standard which she raised. It is leading the girls to every device possible to help the cause. Many of them are selling papers on the street that they may earn money to contribute to the union which they love.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 7, 1910
“The Capitalist Class” by Rudyard Kipling, Music by Franz Beidel
From The Progressive Woman of March 1910:
THE CAPITALIST CLASS
There was some question for a time as to whether Kipling was the author of the poem “The Capitalist Class.” We believe the controversy has settled the authorship in his favor. Comrade Franz Beidel, of Chicago, has written some music to Kipling’s words, thus making one of the most beautiful and effective songs in our revolutionary music. We are glad to give you the music, which is published here for the first time. If there are any who do not care for a minor strain, we would suggest that they change the key to G major, as it is very effective sung this way.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 31, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Free Speech Fighters Suffer Sweating, Hunger and Cold
From The Progressive Woman of January 1910:
RUSSIAN METHODS IN SPOKANE.
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Every once in a while things happen in the United States that seem for the world like Russia. The “bull-pen” episode in Colorado a few years ago was one of these. The present fight for free speech out in Spokane is another. The authorities out there took it upon themselves to deny the right of free speech to the Socialists, and the Socialist labor organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, with its official organ, The Industrial Worker, and its headquarters in Spokane, is bearing the brunt of this fight.
As fast as men are thrown into jail for attempting to hold their usual street meetings others come to take their places. In fact, the comrades are pouring in from every section of the country to help in this fight.
And it is a serious business. Young men, without funds, but anxious to help, take advantage of every possible means of reaching Spokane, even to “riding the rods” through the long dreary cold of the north west. One splendid young comrade from Chicago was killed while making his way in this manner; another was hurt in a wreck. Others suffered agonies from hunger and the cold. But none have turned back.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 4, 1909
Report on Women’s Committee of Socialist Party of America
From The Progressive Woman of October 1919:
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Aims and Purposes of Women Committee
MAY WOOD SIMONS
At the national convention of the Socialist party held in 1908 a committee on women was elected to formulate a plan for work among women, the work to be carried on directly under the supervision of the Socialist party, its object being to secure women members of the party and emphasize the necessity of obtaining the ballot for women.
This committee reported the following to the national convention:
The national committee of the Socialist party has already provided for a special organizer and lecturer to work for equal civil and political rights in connection with the Socialist propaganda among women, and their organization in the Socialist party.
This direct effort to secure the suffrage to women increases the party membership and opens up a field of work entirely new in the American Socialist party. That it has with its great possibilities and value for the party, our comrades in Germany, Finland and other countries have abundantly demonstrated.
The work of organization among women is much broader and more far-reaching than the mere arrangement of tours for speakers. It should consist of investigation and education among women and children, particularly those in the rank in or out of labor unions and to the publication of books, pamphlets and leaflets, especially adapted to this field of activity.
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