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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 26, 1903
Mother Jones and Her Army Will Parade in New York City, Permit or No
From the New York Tribune of July 23, 1903
-Socialist Declare Mother Jones Will Lead Parade in New York City:
Tag: New York City Central Federated Union
Hellraisers Journal: Clara Lemlich, Young Garment Worker, Calls for General Strike at Mass Meeting at Cooper Union Hall
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 25, 1909
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich Calls for General Strike of Waist Makers
“I want to say a few words.”
On Monday evening, November 22nd a mass meeting was held at Cooper Union Hall to consider the plight of New York’s waist makers, 70% of them young immigrant women. After listening through the long-winded speeches of the union leaders, a young garment worker arose from the crowd and demanded the opportunity to speak her mind. The New York Call of November 23rd describes the scene:
Clara Lemlich, who was badly beaten up by thugs during the strike in the shop of Louis Leiserson, interrupted Jacob Panken just as he started to speak, saying:
I want to say a few words.
Cries came from all parts of the hall, “Get up on the platform!” Wilting hands lifted the frail little girl, with flashing black eyes, to the stage, and she said simply:
I have listened to all the speakers. I would not have further patience for talk, as I am one of those who feels and suffers from the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike!
As the tremulous voice of the girl died away, the audience rose en masse and cheered her to the echo. A grim sea of faces, with high purpose and resolve, they shouted and cheered the deliberation of war for living conditions hoarsely.
When Chairman Feigenbaum put Miss Lemlich’s motion to a vote there was a resounding roar of a yes throughout the hall, and once again the vast crowd broke into roars of applause. The demonstration lasted several minutes.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Thunder of Cheers Greets Bill Haywood at Brooklyn Labor Lyceum: “Socialism Is My Religion”
We have no fight with capital.
All we want is the full equivalent for
the things which we produce.
Capital can take the rest.
-Big Bill Haywood
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 24, 1908
Brooklyn, New York – Haywood Speaks at Labor Lyceum
On the afternoon of Sunday January 19th, Big Bill Haywood was greeted with cheers from thousands of men and women when he arrived at the Brooklyn Labor Lyceum. The hall was packed and thousands were turned away. Haywood declared himself a man of the west who always went armed and then produced two cards, one his union card and the other his Socialist Party card. Haywood said:
By the economic power of this gun, the working class is going to win political power.
At the conclusion of the speech, Haywood was taken upstairs for a meeting with delegates of the Brooklyn Central Labor Union whom he thanked for their assistance in saving himself, Moyer and Pettibone from being railroaded to the gallows by the Mine Owners of Colorado and Idaho.
Earlier in the day, Haywood had met with delegates of the New York City Central Federated Union where he announced that he would accept the nomination for President of the Socialist Party should such be offered him.
Hellraisers Journal: Big Bill Haywood Hailed as Hero, Cheered by Thousands at Grand Central Palace in New York City
One thing I never can forget—
that I owe my life and my liberty
to the working class of America,
and what you have accomplished for me
and my comrades you can do for yourselves.
-Big Bill Haywood
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 22, 1908
New York, New York – Haywood Speaks to Thousands of Cheering Workers
From the New York Tribune of January 18, 1908:
HAIL HAYWOOD, MARTYR.
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Grand Central Palace Audience Rises
in a Body to Honor Miner.
William D. Haywood, ex-secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, was greeted as a martyr by a large audience in the Grand Central Palace last night. He was tried for conspiracy in the murder of Governor Steunenberg of Idaho and acquitted. When he was introduced to the local socialists, anarchists and labor union men and women they rose in a body and cheered him for nearly five minutes. He told less of his prison and trial experiences than he did of his remedies for the social regeneration of the world, and denounced the persons whom he held responsible far the prosecution of himself, Moyer and Pettibone, who figured in the trial with Orchard.
Morris Brown, of the Cigar Makers Union, was the chairman and introduced Albert Abrams, of the Central Federated Union. William Coakley was speaking when Haywood entered the hall. Joseph Wanhope, an editor of a socialistic magazine, was the next speaker. Then a collection was taken up, Mr. Haywood said:
One thing I never can forget—that I owe my life and my liberty to the working class of America, and what you have accomplished for me and my comrades you can do for yourselves. I do not feel, in my arrest and trial, that I have been a martyr. The months I spent in jail were the best I ever spent in my life. They gave me an opportunity to think, to reflect. That is what all working men should do, no matter how busy they may be.
Hellraisers Journal: 400,000 New York City Trade Unionists Threaten Sympathetic Strike on Behalf Street Carmen
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 9, 1916
New York, New York – The Review Reports on Street Carmen’s Strike
From this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review comes a report on the strike now being conducted by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America (A. F. of L.) against the Interborough Rapid Transit Company:
THE NEW YORK STREET CAR STRIKE
NEW YORK, the tremendous city of five million inhabitants, has become the Prize Ring in which is being fought one of the most colossal battles ever waged in this country between Capital and Labor. A general strike on the subway, “L” roads and street car lines of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company was declared on September 7th, in spite of the truce signed by the company and the men on August 7th. It developed that the company merely signed to gain time to organize to break the new union which has sprung up so amazingly within the past few weeks.
When it felt that it was in a position to defeat the carmen, the Interborough began to circulate the “master and servant” [individual or yellow dog] contracts the purpose of which was to destroy any benefit that might accrue thru belonging to the union. Union men on the Interborough who refused to sign were immediately discharged and at a rousing mass meeting held by the union men on the evening of the seventh, the crowd declared enthusiastically for a general strike to enforce the right of the street car men to organize into a union.
Almost from the beginning of the strike, the struggle began to take on a political, or class character. The Central Federated Union, combining all the powerful labor unions of the city voted to stand by the strikers to the last man and the last dollar. Longshoremen, firemen, engineers and boat men were among the first to rally to aid the men battling on the street car lines.
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