WE NEVER FORGET – Tuesday June 10, 1913 Ipswich, Massachusetts – Nicholetta Paudelopoulou, 27, Shot Down by Police on IWW Picket Line
New York Tribune June 12, 1913
On Tuesday June 10, 1913 in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Nicholetta Paudelopoulou left Brown’s Essex Mill at the end of her work day and walked down the street to the Ipswich Hosiery Mill. Here she stopped to observe a picket line of I.W.W. strikers. The Industrial Workers of the World had been conducting a strike at this mill for seven weeks. Five hundred of the strikers were Italians, and one hundred were Greeks, perhaps friends of hers. Sadly, five hundred English-speaking workers had chosen to scab on their fellow workers.
Suddenly, the police opened fire on the picketers, wounding eight. They later gave the excuse that the “foreign” strikers were “jostling” the English-speaking strikebreakers. Seven of the wounded were taken to a hospital in Salem. Miss Paudelopoulou was shot in the top of the head. She was taken to a nearby doctor’s office where she died just before 8 PM without regaining consciousness.
Nicholetta Paudelopoulou was 27 years old. She was survived by her mother, six sisters and a brother in New York, and her father and brother-in-law in Greece.
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From The Boston Globe of June 12, 1913:
Funeral of Miss Pandelopulos.
[…..]
New York Tribune June 14, 1913
The funeral of Miss Pandelopulos, the only victim of the engagement of last night, was held this afternoon. A large company of men and women of her race gathered in the tenement at 22½ Market st, where she lived with her mother, six sisters and a brother, at 3:30 for prayers. Subsequently, they followed the body to the Greek Orthodox Church on Agawam Heights, where the services were conducted by Rev. Paulikop Marinika.
The ritual was punctuated by the pitiful lamentations of the members of the family of the young woman. Later, at the grave in the Highland Cemetery, the burial service of the church was supplemented by demonstrations of grief by the sisters of the deceased, the rending of the fabric of their waists and the mutilation of their braided hair.
The dead woman had been the sole support of her mother, five sisters and brother. All but the youngest girls worked in the mills, and all save the girl now dead were on strike. The father is in Greece and the husband of one of the sisters is serving in the Grecian Army.
Nicolata Pandelopulos, when shot, was an innocent witness of the encounter between the police and her striking countrymen.
[Newsclip and emphasis added.]
Massachusetts Death Certificate for Nikoleta Pantelopolou
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 15, 1913
Ipswich, Massachusetts – Police open fire on picket line, one woman killed.
On Tuesday, June 10th, police here opened fire on the strikers’ picket line at the Ipswich Hosiery Mill killing Nicholetta Paudelopoulou, 27, and wounding seven others. The wounded were taken to a hospital in Salem. Miss Paudelopoulou was taken to a nearby doctors office where she died of a bullet wound to the head.
Fifteen strikers were arrested, including the local leaders of the I.W.W.Nathan Hermann, I.W.W. organizer, Mr. E.L. Pingree, Secretary of the Lowell I.W.W., and Mrs. Pingree have been charged with inciting to riot resulting in murder. Thomas J. Halliday, National Secretary of the textile branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, has arrived to take charge of the strike.
The strike at the Ipswich mill has been on for the past seven weeks. At this time, 500 Italians and 100 Greeks remain on strike. Sadly, most of the 500 English-speaking workers have chosen to cross the picket line.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 6, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Giovannitti Speaks to Silk Strikers at Turn Hall
From the Passaic Daily News of March 5, 1913:
The first move toward a settlement of the silk strike in Paterson came last night, when, at a meeting of delegates from dyers and broad silk weavers, demands were formulated for presentation to manufacturers today. These demands, in brief, are:
Abolition of the four-loom system and and eight-hour day at the same price now paid per week for the dyers…..
Arturo Giovannitti, I. W. W. leader, who was recently tried and acquitted in Lawrence, Mass., on a charge of murder in connection with the strike riots in that city, arrived in Paterson this morning shortly after 11 o’clock. He went at once to Turn Hall where he addressed nearly 5,000 strikers, speaking first in Italian and then repeating his speech in English.
Giovannitti urged the strikers to stand by their action in walking out, saying that they were bound to receive their rights and that their demands would be granted. He was received as a hero of the “cause,” with much applause. He was introduced by Carlo Tresca, the I. W. W. leader who was arrested last week with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Patrick Quinlan. He did not advocate violence.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 3, 1913 New York, New York – The Striking Garment Workers and The Protocol
From the International Socialist Review of March 1913:
New York Garment Workers and the Protocol -Phillips Russell ———-
The New Disease: Protocolic
As this is written, the great strike of the garment workers in New York is in its seventh week and, according to present indications, it may last even longer than the historic struggle of the cloakmakers in 1910, which endured for nine weeks.
At present the garment workers’ strike seems to be suffering from a bad attack of the new industrial ailment that might be described as the “protocolic.” Twice the officials of the United Garment Workers’ Union, who pulled the strike, have tried to get an agreement approved which involved the signing of a protocol, but both times got severe jolts from the strikers as a whole who made known their opinions of compromise in no uncertain tones. The attempt to induce the strikers to accept the protocol has so far produced little but dissension and has had much to do with smothering the spirit of the workers which at first was militant and aggressive.
The waist makers have already gone back to work under the terms of a protocol, though a considerable part of them did so reluctantly, and so great opposition was manifested towards it at one meeting in Cooper Union that a serious outbreak was narrowly averted.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 24, 1913 Updates on Three Strikes: Merryville, Little Falls and Akron
From the Spokane IndustrialWorker of February 20, 1913 -Covington Hall on Merryville, Louisiana, Lumber Workers’ Strike -Joseph J. Ettor on Prisoners of Little Falls, Massachusetts, Textile Strike
From Solidarity of February 22, 1913 -“20,000 Rubber Workers Revolt in Akron! I. W. W. in Full Control.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 27, 1912 Salem, Mass. – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: “It is a foolish court that will try to fool an awakened people.”
From The Tacoma Times of October 26, 1912:
BY H. P. BURTON.
SALEM, Mass., Oct. 26.—There is just one spot of light in the shadowy Salem court house where sit, in their iron-meshed cage, Joseph Ettor, Arturo Giovannitti and Joseph Caruso, on trial for their lives and their cause. It is the grave, pale face of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Madonna of the women who slave.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is only a slip of a girl, 22. But she has been living a life for six years. She has gone from coast to coast, speaking for “the cause,” and suffering abuse, want and imprisonment, that the burden of the beaten-down may be lifted a little.
For a year now, with her baby clinging to her skirts, she has fought capitalism in the woolen trust town of Lawrence, regardless of winter cold or summer heat, picketing, helping, cheering and speaking.
And today she sees what this trial means not only to Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso, her comrades-in-arms, but, as she thinks, all of us, and indeed to all the world.
As she let her gaze float over Gallows hill, where they hanged the witches, she said:
They will not see, I fear—these cogs in the machine of justice—in just what sort of a way they are. They will not understand that they are not trying our leaders, but they are putting Justice itself on trial.
It is a foolish court that will try to fool an awakened people. It is a foolish court that does not release quickly those wrongly indicted men. For the anger of the American working man is awaken, it cannot be held in leash much longer, even by the strongest, leaders.
I wish I did not have to say it, but I have seen how in the past few weeks we have failed to hold the workers of Massachusetts and New York in check-how they have struck “in demonstration” against our advice and pleading. If we cannot hold these few thousand, how shall we be expected to keep calm a nation of them if they are aroused, as they surely will be if they are not given back their “lost leaders”?
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s pale face was even whiter than when she began speaking. She snatched up the little baby that had sat at her feet as she talked, and pressed him close to her.
[And she said:]
It’s for his sake and the other little ones like him that I hope it will not happen, that they will not make it HAVE to happen—babies are so helpless!
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 14, 1912 Lake Charles Jail of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana – B. of T. W. Prisoners Form Union
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of September 12, 1912:
BATTLING B. T. W. FORM JAIL UNION
REBELLIOUS PRISONERS FORM UNION IN JAIL -BLACK HOLE OF CALCASIEU IS LABOR’S RECRUITING GROUND -NO COLOR LINE DRAWN IN PRISON-REBELS ARE RISING.
B. of T. W. Prisoners, Lake Charles La.
On August 15th a charter was issued by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers to the following white and colored workers:
White: Pat Perkins, R. W. Perry, John Perry, L. Perry, J. M. Richley, Joe Rogers, J. H. Simpson, W. D. Smith, S. B. Slaydon, W. R. Stacey, Ben Sturgia, C. D. Woodard, Leon Zebeau, Chas. Zebeau, C. E. Jones, John Killen, C. Leblue, B. J. Lee, George M. Lacey, Ed. Lehman, J. W. Moor, W. A. Mathis, Frank McBride, R. Parkham, J. Pennington, Chas. Gibbons, Josh Perkins, Walter Delcour, Williams Davis, Andy Denby, A. L. Emerson, Will Estes, Ed. Eyell, Frank Farr, G. H. Gibson, G. M. Grim, J. H. C. Helton, C. Havens, C. C. Holley, Arthur Hammonds, R. V. Hennigan, W. E. Hollingsworth, H. L. McFillen, A. H. Burge, R. D. Burge, J. H. Baily, A. A. Bondreaux, J. W. Bowers, L. H. Brown, Waldon Cooley, W. A. Chatham, A. R. Cryar, A. F. Creed, Jeff Cooper, B. B. Collier, Tom Cooper, J. W. Callie, J. D. Perkins, Herman Slaydon, Charlie Hampton, O. P. Bell, John Hood.
Colored: Peter Blackman, Elisha Fowler, Jason Clark, Garfield Holcomb, Pink Morris, Silas Anderson, H. Green, Jim Cotton, Robert Chopin, Dennis Myles, Robert Johnson, Milton Mitchel, Robert Milton.
These boys compose the roll of honor making up the membership of Local Union, Jail No. 1, B. of T. W., office address, Parish Prison, Lake Charles, La. They also organized a local of the Socialist Party, Jail No. 1, with 54 members and both locals are still growing. Men are coming into the prison every day and joining, or sending in their applications. This is, indeed, the deathless spirit, the spirit that must and will conquer all before it. Dead, the souls of these boys will do a mightier work for the emancipation of their class than ever yet; imprisoned, yet their voices will be heard and, mingling with the cries of Ettor and Giovannitti, all the workers of the world will be awakened, triumphant the hosts of labor will arise and the social revolution be an accomplished fact. Truly did Edward Bellamy speak when he said: “No masters class has ever learned anything from the experience of its predecessors and the capitalist class will be no exception to the rule.” Down here in the Land of Dixie the slugging committee of the capitalist class is still busy, just as it was in Lawrence, just as it is in Canada and San Diego,-power(?)-crazed, gold-drunk hyenas trying to slug and shoot back the onward upward march of the human race! Fools who base their system on a thug’s heroism and a detectives’s honor, this is what the capitalist class has already degenerated to, and this is the surest sign of a system’s fall.
All that is now left for the working class to do to end its age-long misery is to unite and rise in ONE BIG UNION.
RISE!
Save Ettor, Giovannitti, Emerson, Lehman, and all the other hero lumberjacks now in the Black Hole of Calcasieu!
RISE!
Clan of Toil, awaken! Rebels of the South, arise! Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing but your chains to lose! You have a World to gain!
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