Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 21, 1913 Arthur E. McFarlane Tells the Story of “Rotten Risk” and the Triangle Fire
From Collier’s National Weekly of May 17, 1913:
MORE than two years ago [March 25, 1911], in New York, 146 factory workers, most of them girls, were burned to death on the upper floors of the Asch Building. It will seem that every possible story of that fire has long ago been told. But the insurance story has never been told. And in the end it may be held to be the one vital story. I am going to tell it now.
COLLIER’S has been charged with saying much of fires due to crime and intention, and little of those due to carelessness and negligence. This, then, is the story of a fire which may well have been due to carelessness and negligence. But there are different kinds of carelessness and negligence. If a man can obtain $100,000 of insurance upon a value of $50,000, he will very naturally be careless and negligent.If a fire means not loss but gain to him, what more natural than that he should leave even the most dangerous of conditions uncorrected? And if behind such an insurer we have an insurance system which permits and encourages over-insurance, which feels no obligation to inspect, remove dangers, or to do anything whatever other than make the insurance rate proportionate to the risk, the fire will follow almost as certainly as if kindled with matches and gasoline…
The Perfect Fire Trap
BUT I can best begin with the physical conditions in the Triangle factory-Messrs. Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, proprietors-as they were before the fire.
The 550 girls and the 50 men on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch Building were employed, all of them, at least 100 feet above the street. The floors of their workrooms were covered with wicker baskets, which, like the shelves above them, were filled with the most inflammable of muslin fabrics. On the eighth floor there were two barrels of oil, on the ninth two more.Beneath every sewing machine the floor was soaked with oil. Great bins beneath the cutters’ tables were filled with rags. Oil-soaked rags and lint lay about the banks of motorsand the high-speed floor-way gearing which supplied the power for the machines. And, so long as they did not do it openly, the men who worked in the Triangle factory were allowed to smoke.
The 550 girls were packed so closely together that their chairs dovetailed. They had the use of only one narrow door on each floor. And they could reach it only through a single circuitous passageway not two feet wide. On each floor one window opened upon a single fire escape. According to the New York Fire Commissioner, it would have taken them three hours to escape by it. “If you could visit one of those twelve- and fourteen-story workshops”-the Triangle factory was only one of hundreds-testified Fire Chief Croker before a New York Insurance Commission three months before the fire, “you would find it very interesting to see all those people with absolutely no protection whatever-without any means of escape of any kind, in case of fire.”
We Never Forget: April 24, 2013 Rana Plaza Factory Collapse
-Savar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh -1,134 killed, 2,500 injured -Suspect: Sohel Rana, Charge: Murder -“The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134.”
Photograph by Sharat Chowdhury [edited] Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013, at Dhaka, Bangladesh -Board of the Missing, taken April 27, 2013
From Warehouse Workers United – Statement from Kalpona Akter on Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013
Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of workers lost in this tragic event.It must be said, these tragedies can be prevented by multinational corporations like Walmart and the Gap that operate in Bangladesh. Because of these companies’ negligence and willful ignorance, garment workers are in danger every day because of the unsafe working conditions.
As we learn more details, we will better understand the brands that were manufactured in these factories, but we already know that the largest retailers in the world hold tremendous power to transform conditions for garment workers – mostly young women – in Bangladesh.
Today’s news is yet another reminder that Walmart and the Gap must immediately adopt the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a transparent and legally binding agreement that includes worker representation, independent building inspections, worker rights training, public disclosure and a long-overdue review of safety standards. The safety agreement is the first step toward ensuring no more lives are lost.
More from Warehouse Workers United:
Kalpona is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She is a former garment worker and is currently in the United States calling on retailers like Walmart, the Gap and Disney to lead on improving working conditions and adopting fires safety standards in Bangladesh.Today, international worker rights groups are calling for immediate action from international corporations and brands following the horrific news of a deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, in Dhaka Bangladesh. The collapse of the eight story building that housed five factories and a mall, has reportedly killed at least 80 people and injured over 800[*]. For the last month Kalpona has been touring the United States with Sumi Abedin, a young garment worker who jumped out of a third story window to save her life as the Tazreen factory burned killing on 112.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 6, 1912 The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: “God Did It” by Phillips Russell
From the International Socialist Review of February 1912:
A NEW YORK jury composed of capitalistic cockroaches has absolved Harris & Blanck of the murder of 147 young workers in the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of March 25, 1911.
Harris & Blanck, the two bosses, were tried only for the death of one girl worker, according to the crooked ways of capitalist courts, and since “it couldn’t be proved” that they were responsible for this one girl’s death, they were freed.
A member of the jury afterward expressed himself as follows:
“I can’t see that anyone was responsible for the loss of life, and it seems to me that it must have been AN ACT OF GOD.”
Poor God! The capitalists have got him just where they have the working class-cornered! They tell us He can do all things. But there is one thing God can’t do, it seems-He can’t answer back. Else the moment this pitiful squirt uttered these words He would have rent the sky open, would have hurled His scepter aside, thrown off His robe, stepped down from His awful throne, taken this petty capitalist croaker by the throat, and rammed his statement back down him again.
Hasn’t God any manhood at all? How long will He continue to allow Himself to be made the goat for capitalist crimes? Or is His eternal silence a confession of guilt? If so, then it is time we were knowing. Is it God who has been up to the deviltry of all these years? Is it God who traps the worker in blazing factory or buries him in tomblike mine, without providing him with even one means of escape? Is it God who sends the sailor abroad in a rotten hulk of a ship and drowns him before he can leap from his foul bunk? Is it God who hurls the iron worker from his lofty perch a thousand feet to the stones below and mangles the brakeman and the machine hand into an unrecognizable mass, telling the weeping wives and children that He is very sorry but the dead men were guilty of contributory negligence? Is it God who takes into His tender care all that the worker produces and hands him back just enough to live on?
The capitalists say so. Their priests and preachers, their professors and editors, their teachers and other kept men, say so.
But we have begun to suspect. We have begun to see that the capitalists have created God in their own image. And He is running up a terrible account which some day He will have to settle with the working class of the world.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 28, 1911 Blanck and Harris Found “Not Guilty” in Connection with Triangle Fire Deaths
-Verdict was delivered at 4:46 p. m., December 27th.
From the New York Tribune of December 28, 1911:
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David Weiner, whose sister, Rosie, perished in the fire, collapses after confronting Blanck and Harris.
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The wives of the two defendants in the Triangle fire trial threw their arms around their husbands’ necks as they left the courtroom.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 4, 1911 Big Bill Haywood Lectures on Class Struggle Around the World
From the International Socialist Review of November 1911:
William D. Haywood
PAGES TORN FROM “THE CLASS STRUGGLE” AND OTHER HAYWOOD LECTURES
You will all remember with me the 22d of Jan., 1905. It is recorded in history as Bloody Sunday. On that day there occurred a terrible massacre in St Petersburg, Russia. It seems that the people of that country had been ground down to such terrible conditions that they could no longer stand it. Families were living in single roomed huts or hovels, sleeping on the bare floor. Bedding and clothing were scant. They ate out of a common bowl. Their only food
was a coarse mush. To improve theses conditions they determined to appeal to their Little White Father. They called the Czar of Russia their Little Father. But these peasants thad never learned to write. So it must needs be a living petition.
The word went forth and thousands upon thousands of them gathered in the city of St. Petersburg. They marched toward the winter palace and as they marched they carried aloft the holy Cross of Christ. They bore upon their breasts their sacred icons. They were singing religious hymns. They were a religious people. They came within a hundred feet or less of the palace gates when a volley rang forth from the guns in the hands of the Czar’s ‘s soldiers. Hundreds upon hundreds of these peaceful supplicants fell dead in the snow, their warm red blood mingling with and melting the white mantle that covers Darkest Russia at that season of the year. And when you heard the echo of that volley you heard the echo of the world wide class struggle.
When you heard the echo of the volley that killed the Russian peasants at St. Petersburg you heard the shrieks and groans of the Russian girls exiled from home who were burned to death in that terrible factory fire in New York City last winter. The same people, the same conditions, the same anguish the same struggle everywhere.
* * *
Across the sea from Russia in Finland our comrades are protesting because the constitution of their country has been abrogated by the authorities of Russia. They are protesting because the youth of that land are compelled to serve as soldiers in the Czar’s army or to pay a tribute in gold. Their protest is a voice in the class struggle!
* * *
It has only been a few years ago since the unions of this country were sending money to assist the workers of Sweden who were involved in a great general strike. I visited Sweden while across the water and while there met many who took part in that great struggle. The workers who were on strike were not asking for an increase in wages or a reduction in hours. They had ceased to work in sympathy with thousands of their members who had been locked out because they dared to organize. They were opposed by the employers’ association who were backed up by the capitalists of the continent and the world. The Swedish workers were beaten to their knees. Women and children were compelled to subsist on black bread and water but they were not vanquished. As I was leving Stockholm they said to me:
“Comrade Haywood when you return to America, tell the workers of your country that we will be fighting with them in the vanguard until the working class of the world are victorious!”
They are doing their part in the class struggle!
* * *
From Sweden I went to the Latin countries and while there learned something of the conditions in Spain. It seems that certain French capitalists had made investments in the gold mines of the Riff Country. It is well known that the capitalist class does not confine its operations within the borderlines of any nation. The capitalist goes to any locality where he can make profit out of the sweat, blood and tears of the workers. The capitalist has no country, no flag, no patriotism, no honor and no god but Gold. His emblem is the dollar mark. His ensign is the black flag of commercial piracy. His symbol is the skull and cross bones of little children that are ground up in the mill. And the pass word of Capitalism is graft.
The Moors objected to their lands being exploited by capitalists, so the French bankers called upon the King of Spain to protect them in their vested interests. The king of Spain being one of the ruling class and a capitalist himself, called upon the young men of his country to go to war and he called upon the people of Spain to furnish the sinews of war. At this period, the Socialists combining with the labor unions of Spain declared a campaign against war. The Socialists of all countries are opposed to war and when we get just a little stronger in Spain, just a little stronger in the United States, just a little stronger in the nations of the world, the time will forever have passed when one workingman will shoot down another workingman in the interest of the capitalist class. And so declared the workers of Spain.
The building trades of Barcelona declared a general strike against war. At that time there lived in Spain a great educationalist. One of the formost men of letters in the world. Like all humanitatians, he was opposed to war. He wrote, he spoke, he contributed a little money toward the general strike. And because of this, he was arrested as a revolutionist. They called him an anarchist. He was thrown into prison. His trial was a travesty upon justice. He had no lawyer. He was allowed no witness. He neither heard nor saw the witnesses that testified against him. In site of these conditions, he was convicted and sentenced to be executed. As this brave man stood at the open ditch that was to be his grave, he looked the twelve that were to take his life square in the eye and said:
“Long live the modern school,”
When the volley rang out that sounded the death knell of Francisco Ferrer, it sounded the death knell of Capitalism in Spain.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 13, 1911 “Echoes from the Triangle Fire…Americans Need Big Shocks”
From The Ladies’ Garment Worker of September 1911:
Echoes from the Triangle Fire.
Dr. Price Suggests Co-operation Between
the Waist Makers’ Union and the
Board of Sanitary Control.
The whole community is responsible for the safety of its workers.
Parents and friends of the 145 victims who were in the Triangle fire, says the New York “Call,” and of the scores of workers who saved their lives but were maimed and injured, have written, telephoned and appeared in person at the office of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, in the last two days, calling upon the union to see to it that Harris & Blanck, the owners of the Triangle shop, be brought to trial.
The parents and friends of the victims also called upon the union officials to demand an account from the Red Cross as to the manner in which $100,000 collected for the benefit of the families of the fire victims, has been disposed of, if it had been disposed of.
As a result of these numerous calls the Executive Board of the Ladies’ Waist Maker’s Union stirred up the committee of three which has been appointed some time ago to look into the Triangle case, to immediate, vigorous activity.
The committee, which consists of Sam Spivack, A. Silver, and Sam Gusman, met last night at 151 Clinton street to decide upon plans to co-operate with the parents and friends of the fire victims, and to determine upon ways and means of improving conditions in the shops where the lives of workers are daily exposed to the fire panics.
Several of the parents and friends of the Triangle victims, who called at the office of the Ladies’ Waist Makers’ Union, said that they will either get up a petition or will write personal letters to District Attorney Whitman calling upon him to bring Harris and Blanck to trial.
Dr. George M. Price, M. D., the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Cloak and Suit Industry of New York, has written to the “Call” suggesting a way in which the Board might co-operate with the Waistmakers’ Union.
Americans need big shocks, says Dr. Price.
Because several meetings have been held, because a “safety committee” has been appointed, because the papers devoted a few pages to factory fire damages, it is not to be expected that the 30,000 shops in the city should have suddenly become improved, that new fire escapes should have been put in where needed, and that workers should have become interested in protecting their lives from fires instead of devoting their whole time to the most important question of election of business delegates?
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 6, 1911 “The Triangle Fire” by Martha Bensley Bruere, Part II
From Life and Labor of May 1911:
The Triangle Fire
By Martha Bensley Bruere
Well, the fire is over, the girls are dead, and as I write, the procession in honor of the unidentified dead is moving by under my windows. Now what is going to be done about it?
Harris and Blanck, the Triangle Company, have offered to pay one week’s wages to the families of the dead girls-as though it were summer and they are giving them a vacation! Three days after the fire they inserted in the trade papers this notice:
NOTICE, THE TRIANGLE WAIST CO. beg to notify their customers that they are in good working order. HEADQUARTERS now at 9-11 University Place.
The day after they were installed in their new quarters, the Building Department of New York City discovered that 9-11 University Place was not even fireproof, and that the firm had already blocked the exit to the one fire escape by two rows of sewing machines, 75 in a row, and that at the same time repairs were begun on the old quarters in the burned building under a permit winch called for no improvements or alterations of any conditions existing before the fire. It called for repairs only, which means, it was generally conceded, that the place would be re-opened in the same condition it was in before the fire.
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—————A NEW YORK jury composed of capitalistic cockroaches has absolved Harris & Blanck of the murder of 147 young workers in the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of March 25, 1911.
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