Hellraisers Journal: Unemployed of New York City Seek Shelter in Blizzard; 200 Arrested Including Frank Tannenbaum

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Quote Joe Hill, Poor Ragged Tramp, Sing One Song, LRSB 5th ed, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 7, 1914
New York City – Police Attack and Arrest Unemployed Men Seeking Shelter 

200 Unemployed Men Held after Arrests
at St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church

UE Storm Church, Frank Tannenbaum, NY Tb p1, Mar 5, 1914

Some 200 unemployed men were arrested during a blizzard on the night of March 4th as they sought shelter at St. Alphonsus’ Catholic Church. Frank Tannenbaum is being held on a felony charge with his bail fixed at $5,000. The others could be bailed out at the cost of $1000 each, were that amount available. The men are being held at four different prison: the Tombs, Jefferson Market, West 57th Street, and West 53rd Street.

At the Jefferson Market prison, the men are being kept in a large pen without cots and with only eight blankets for 50 men. Conditions at West 57th are much the same. At the Tombs and the West 53rd Street prison, the men have been crowded five and six to cell, and are being kept in unsanitary conditions described as vile.

Mary Heaton Vorse explains how the arrests came about:

Frank Tannenbaum, [Frank Strawn] Hamilton and [Charles] Plunkett had asked Father Schneider of St. Alphonsus if they might have shelter in his church. Father Schneider had refused on the ground that the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of our Lord was exposed and it would be sacrilege to allow men to sleep in the church at such a time.

The crowd of unemployed had not understood their instruction to wait outside and had started going inside to sit down in the back seats. A police officer told Tannenbaum to go into the church and bring the men out. Tannenbaum obeyed. The doors were closed and locked on him as soon as he went inside. The arrest followed before he could speak to the men. The papers had been told that the Catholic Church was going to stand for no nonsense and there was a battery of reporters and cameramen ready for the trouble.

It so happens that the newly formed Labor Defense Conference was holding its first meeting at the home of Mary Heaton Vorse and her husband, Joe O’Brien, the same night that the men were arrested. The Conference was organized by Big Bill Haywood of the Industrial Workers of World, and has attracted what Vorse calls “a strangely assorted group.” All of them are committed to defending workers, whether currently employed or not.

In the middle of the meeting, Heber Blankenhorn entered the room, and said, “We have your first case for you. Frank Tannenbaum and a crowd of two hundred men have just been arrested down at St. Alphonsus’.”

The Labor Defense Conference launched into action immediately. Justus Sheffield was contacted and will act as the attorney for men.

Note: Newsclip from New York Tribune of March 5, 1914

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Unemployed of New York City Seek Shelter in Blizzard; 200 Arrested Including Frank Tannenbaum”

Hellraisers Journal: “The Wheatland Boys”-Herman Suhr and Richard Ford Convicted of Second Degree Murder; Appeal Expected

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Quote JP Thompson re Wheatland, June 25-26, 1918, Chicago IWW Trial of H George, p71-2,—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 3, 1914
Herman Suhr and Richard Ford Convicted of Second Degree Murder

From the International Socialist Review of March 1914:

The Wheatland Boys

Hop Pickers, Mothers w Children, Durst Ranch, Wheatland CA, 1913

HERMAN Suhr and Richard Ford, leaders of the strike on the Durst Hop Ranch at Wheatland, have been convicted of murder in the second degree, in the trial for the murder of District Attorney Edmund Manwell, killed in the raid of the sheriff’s posse on a peacable meeting of men, women and children strikers. William Back and Harry Bagan, who stood trial with them, have been released “on account of insufficient evidence.”

Ford and Suhr are convicted of murder. But they are not convicted of actually having murdered Mr. Maxwell. They are convicted of conspiring to murder, of being accessory before the fact.

The evidence of several eye witnesses proved that the District Attorney was killed by a Porto Rican, who came to the rescue of his fellow strikers. But the Porto Rican was killed himself; Ford and Suhr were not killed. And, as Prosecuting Attorney Carlin says, “The blood of Ed Manwell cries from the ground for their conviction.” The employing class cry for their conviction, Mr. Carlin might have added with less false sentiment and more truth. For these men, Ford and Suhr, were strike leaders, and their strike promised to be successful, had not the sheriff’s posse acted as strikebreakers for the Hop Barons.

These are the reasons for the conviction of Ford and Suhr. The precedent of a conviction of a labor leader for conspiracy to murder, of being accessory before the fact to any violence fomented by the employers in time of industrial trouble, is choked down the throats of the working class in California. And a staggering blow is given of the organization of the migratory workers, in whose vast army they urge toward organization had just begun to take embryonic shape.

Immediately behind the four prisoners during the trial sat Mrs. Suhr and Mrs. Ford, each with her two children. Suhr is desperately broken by the tortures of the Burns detectives, and even wiry, spirited hopeful Ford shows the long imprisonment and the strain. But the men show their ordeal hardly more than their wives.

As they sat before the twelve men who were to decide their fate, it was difficult to imagine a situation where justice would be more bitterly impossible to secure than in this county of Yuba, from which change of venue had been denied the four prisoners. Not a man in the jury who would not consider (however falsely) that his financial interest would be more secure for the conviction of these men. Not a man there who knew them or had ever looked upon their faces before. Not a man there who did not know at least by reputation, the dead man, his widow and orphans. Not a man who had not read the bitter attacks of the local press, condemning these men to the gallows before they were even brought to trial. Not a man who had ever read a word favorable to them (the reading of the pamphlet [“Plotting to Convict the Wheatland Hop Pickers”] sent into Yuba County by this league having been declared by the judge to disqualify a man from jury service). Not a man in the jury, probably, who did not share the prejudice of the man with a home, against the so-called hobo.

Austin Lewis’ plea for the defense was brilliant, profoundly human and convincing. It took the evidence, as given by both sides and utterly demolished the case of the prosecution with the sword of cold reason, slashed the cowardly Stanwood for his persecutions of helpless prisoners, and then flung itself upward in such an appeal to the blood-kindred of all men in aspirations for betterment and freedom, such as the strike on the Durst Ranch, as must have stirred the blood of every listener. But Lewis was a stranger to the jurymen, and their petty life in an agricultural community rendered it impossible for them to judge in a case involving an industrial question.

Prosecuting Attorney Carlin, who followed, had set his stage well. Opposite the jury sat the widow of the dead man with her six children. Intimately, as a man might talk to them leaning over the front fences, Carlin drove his plea home to the jury, every man of whom knew him, and many of whom, it is stated, were under obligations to him. Analysis of the testimony there was none; argument there was none; reason there was none.

A poor, shabby, cowardly speech, vulgar and dull. But it did not have to be very clever. All was well prepared without a clever plea. The judge read to the jury instructions from the law exactly covering a conviction for conspiracy in these cases, and hastily skipped over the instructions which would have freed the men by showing that Ford and Suhr did not aid and abet the Porto Rican who did the shooting.

The crooked, brutal case was about finished. The prophecy of gentlemen intimately associate with the ever clever Burns detectives to the effect that the verdict would be brought in at 1:30 p. m. on January 31, was correct. Society women and social workers who had come up from San Francisco, representatives of the press, investigators from the new Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, townsmen and townswomen crowded the courtroom. And the impious mock dignity of the law went on its wind-inflated way, to free the two men whom it dare not hold and to pronounce guilty the two whose sole crime was that they rose to lead out of the darkness, a helpless crowd of men, women and children, to convict these men who used what talents were theirs to voice the will and aspirations of these people for clean and decent conditions and a wage sufficient to allow them to hold up their heads as men.

Their cases will be appealed, and the storms of protest and wrath will not be downed until they are free.

[Photograph and Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Wheatland Boys”-Herman Suhr and Richard Ford Convicted of Second Degree Murder; Appeal Expected”

Hellraisers Journal: Fellow Worker Joe Hill’s “Crime Record” and Mug Shot Sent from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City

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Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB p6, Oct 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 25, 1914
Salt Lake City, Utah – Joe Hill’s “Crime Record” Received from California

From the Deseret Evening News of January 24, 1914:

Joe Hill Hillstrom LA Mug Shot, DEN p16, Jan 24, 1914Joe Hill Hillstrom re LA Mug Shot, DEN p16, Jan 24, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: From Deseret Evening News: “Where Is Otto Applequist?”-Was Room Mate of Joseph Hillstrom, Is Second Suspect in Murders of the Morrisons

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Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB p6, Oct 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 18, 1914
Salt Lake City – Police Search for Applequist in Connection with Morrison Murders

From the Deseret Evening News of January 15, 1914:

HdLn Joe Hill, Joseph Hillstrom, Where Is Otto Applequist, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914—–
Otto Applequist Wanted, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914—–
Joe Hill, Joseph Hillstrom w Injured Hand, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914

...A gunshot wound in the right hand of Hillstrom, which puzzled deputy sheriffs and police yesterday was explained by Chief Fred Peters of Murray, who said that he “took a shot” at Hillstrom when he leaped from his bed yesterday morning and reached under his pillow. The wound was not a deep or serious one.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Deseret Evening News: “Where Is Otto Applequist?”-Was Room Mate of Joseph Hillstrom, Is Second Suspect in Murders of the Morrisons”

Hellraisers Journal: “I Make Cheap Silk (The Story of a Fifteen-year old Weaver in the Paterson Silk Mills, as Told by Her to Inis Weed and Louise Carey.)”

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Quote EGF Organize Women, IW p4, June 1, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 5, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Young Weaver Tells of Conditions in Silk Mill

From The Masses of November 1913:

Paterson Story of Theresa, Age 15, by Inis Weed and Louise Carey, Masses p7, Nov 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “I Make Cheap Silk (The Story of a Fifteen-year old Weaver in the Paterson Silk Mills, as Told by Her to Inis Weed and Louise Carey.)””

Hellraisers Journal: Vincent St. John Speaks on Behalf of the Wheatland Hop Pickers Now Confined in the Sacramento Jail

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Quote Shall We Still Be Slaves by ES Nelson, LRSB 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 16, 1913
Chicago, Illinois – Vincent St. John Speaks on Behalf of Wheatland Hop Pickers

From Solidarity of October 11, 1913:

Wheatland Hop Pickers, Speech by St John 1, Sol p1, Oct 11, 1913Wheatland Hop Pickers, Speech by St John 2, Sol p1, Oct 11, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part II

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Quote Shall We Still Be Slaves by ES Nelson, LRSB 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 4, 1913
Wheatland, California – Hop Pickers Attacked While Meeting on Durst Brothers

From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:

Wheatland Hop Pickers Camp by M Downing, ISR p210, Oct 1913—–
Wheatland Hop Pickers, Strikers Under Arrest, ISR p212, Oct 1913

[Part II of II.]

While the workers were still in meeting [of Sunday afternoon, August 3rd] and while they were singing “Conditions They Are Bad,” eleven armed men, headed by Sheriff Voss, whirled into the hop yard in two automobiles. They leaped to the ground. Among them was Edward Tecumseh Manwell, the district attorney. All these armed men charged the crowd. Voss, the sheriff, rushed to the stand, seized Dick Ford, and said he was under arrest. Ford asked for a warrant. Voss struck him. At the same time he lifted his gun, fired and ordered the crowd to disperse. Just then a woman seized Voss. He clubbed her with his gun. She tripped him and he fell.

By this time all the eleven men were shooting and the shots sounded like a battle. Voss went down. The crowd closed in around him. The woman was on top. A Porto Rican, name unknown, rushed from his tent through the crowd and got the sheriff’s gun. He saw the district attorney, Edward Tecumseh Manwell, ready to shoot into the crowd of workers. The Porto Rican killed Manwell. Already one of the workers, an unidentified English boy, had been killed. The Porto Rican then shot Eugene Reardon, one of the deputy sheriffs, and at almost the same time he dropped dead himself with a load of buckshot in his breast, which tore away the ribs and exposed his lungs. Harry Daken fired the shot. All these incidents took place while William Beck, one of the prisoners held in Marysville jail, was running less than two hundred yards.

So dumfounded were the deputies when this Porto Rican boy returned their fire that they ran like scared jack-rabbits. In less than a minute after they charged into the yard they were tearing away again in their automobiles. They made the trip back to Marysville from Wheatland, more than ten miles, in eleven minutes.

Left in the hands of the strikers was the sheriff, whose leg had been broken in the scuffle. Four dead bodies and about a dozen wounded testified to the savagery of the fight. The strikers nursed the wounds of the sheriff and the others injured, regardless of whether they were friend or enemy. After the battle, working-class humanity asserted itself. The sheriff told the men and women that they were better to him than his own men, who had fled. He was taken in a wagon to the town of Wheatland and turned over to his friends.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part I

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Quote Shall We Still Be Slaves by ES Nelson, LRSB 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 3, 1913
Wheatland, California – Hop Pickers on Durst Brothers Meet and Issue Demands

From the International Socialist Review of October 1913:

Wheatland Hop Pickers Camp by M Downing, ISR p210, Oct 1913—–Wheatland Hop Pickers Camp, ISR p210, Oct 1913

[Part I of II.]

ACTING on an invitation by Durst brothers twenty-three hundred men, women and children assembled to pick the Durst Brothers’ hops on their 600-acre ranch near the town of Wheatland, California. The posters and newspaper advertisements described the conditions on the Durst ranch as something ideal. All the workers had to do was to pick a few hops, enjoy a picnic and make plenty of money.

Just prior to August 3 these people assembled at the Durst ranch and found the first thing they had to do was to rent a shack or a tent from agents of the owners at the rate of from 75 cents per week up. The first money they earned was deducted to pay this rent. The rentals charged the pickers were in excess of $480 per week for four acres of ground which the state health inspector has described as a “sun-baked flat.” This in itself was a rather tidy profit for the boss.

It was soon found that Durst Brothers had provided only six single toilets for the twenty-three hundred workers. These apologies for modesty were turned over to the women, who used to stand twenty and thirty deep waiting a turn to use these places, while the whole camp looked on. Later it was found, when the men and women swarmed into the fields to pick the hops, that a cousin of the Durst Brothers had the “lemonade privilege.” In order that this thrifty scion of canny stock should have every opportunity to make an honest penny, Durst Brothers would not permit any water to be hauled into the field, nor would they allow the workers to fill bottles from the water wagons which were used in cultivating the crop. Lemonade was sold to the workers at five cents per glass.

Wheatland Hop Pickers Pay Day, ISR p211, Oct 1913

Pay at this hop yard was at the rate of 90 cents per hundred pounds of hops picked with a sliding bonus up to 15 cents, according to the length of time the worker staid on the job. Durst Brothers were particularly urgent that the hops should be absolutely clean of leaves or stems and that only the blooms should be taken. This rigid inspection made the work far slower than in other hop yards.

Conditions were so bad that after one or two days’ work the pickers assembled in meeting and voiced their discontent. They drew up demands for better sanitary conditions, more toilets, that lemons and not acetic acid should be put in the lemonade; that they should have water in the field twice a day, that high pole men be provided to pull down the hops from the poles, and that owing to the strict inspection of the pick that the pay be a flat rate of $1.25 per hundred pounds. This would enable an average worker to earn about $2 per day, out of which he had to pay for his shack and board himself.

These demands were presented to Durst Brothers by a committee. Ralph Durst, testifying before the coroner’s jury, stated that when Dick Ford, the chairman, approached him he “had both his gloves on and that he jocosely slapped Ford across the face.” He then took the demands under consideration. After a time he returned and made evasive promises of remedy of the sanitary conditions, talked a lot about having water in the field and flatly refused to advance the wages. This was on Sunday afternoon, August 3. The workers remained in meeting and were considering the reply of Durst. While they were so assembled Durst telephoned to the nearby town of Marysville for the sheriff and a posse. [to be continued…]

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “The Case of the Hop Pickers” by Mortimer Downing, Part I”