You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Friday July 24, 1903
New York City, New York - Mother gets her permit; Army marches and holds meeting.
Mother Jones came herself early yesterday morning to see Acting Police Commissioner Ebstein, and when he continued to refuse her a parade permit, she went over his head and appealed directly to Mayor Low. The Mayor agreed to see her at City Hall. She explained to him that her army was intent on passing peacefully through New York City on its way to visit the President at Oyster Bay. The Mayor summoned Ebstein to City Hall and eventually an agreement was reached which allowed Mother and her Army to hold a parade and a meeting in the evening. The use of Madison Square Garden was, however, denied to her.
The Army arrived by ferry yesterday afternoon at 2:30. A delegation of the Social Democratic Club met them at the ferry landing and escorted them to the headquarters at 64 East Fourth Street where they are being housed and fed.
The parade began at 8 o'clock in the evening with Mother Jones leading the way. The Industrial Band of two fifes and two drums provided the marching music. Local Socialists joined the little army of about forty warriors carrying torches to illuminate the transparencies:
Fifty-five Hours or Nothing
Give Us More Schools
We Only Ask for Justice
Prosperity: Where Is Our Share?
A crowd of east siders followed behind, and an escort of three Inspectors with city police reserves from eleven stations was provided by the city. That expense was thought necessary by city leaders to "guard" this little army of textile workers.
The meeting was held about a block from Madison Square, near Twenty-seventh. A great crowd of 30,000 turned out to hear the speeches. Col. Geiger of Philadelphia was the first to speak, followed by Benjamin Hanford, former Socialist candidate for Mayor of New York. Hanford's statements had little to do with the textile strike or child labor. He first abused Low and Ebstein and then declared:
Each of these policemen has a revolver in his pocket. You have none. The militia come down the streets when they parade with glistening bayonets. Why are they armed: Because of the law. Your vote is a sacred thing. Next election vote so that you will carry the revolver instead of the police. Not that we socialists believe in blood shed-the capitalists say we do, but you can't find any dead capitalist that we have killed.
Mother Jones was not at all pleased by the content of Hanford's speech. Her statements regarding his speech, as well as the speech she gave from the back of a truck, will be covered in tomorrow's edition of Hellraisers.
SOURCES
The New York Times
-of July 24, 1903
http://select.nytimes.com/...
The Atlanta Constitution
-of July 24, 1903
Mother Jones
The Miners' Angel
-by Dale Fetherling
So IL U Press, 1974
The Children's Crusade Summary
Day 17: Thursday July 23, 1903
From Jersey City, NJ
To New York City, NY
(Use with "get directions" on google maps to follow general route of march.)
Thursday July 24, 1913
Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan - The Widow-Maker! An Issue in Copper Miners' Strike
As the strike continues to grow in the copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, we are hearing more about the one-man drills which the miners are calling "widow-makers" or "man-killers." The Western Federation of Miners is campaigning against these drills, claiming that it is dangerous for men to be working alone in the mines. Some in the WFM feel that the one-man air drill has done more to organize the miners than "four years of speech-making."
SOURCE
Rebels on the Range
-by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
Wednesday July 24, 2013
Email from Marisol Echeverria of Warehouse Workers United:
"Today I went on strike. You can help."
I am a single mother of four. Every day my heart aches with worry about my kids and their futures. Today I went on strike to protest retaliation. I did it for my children.
Please consider a donation of $50 or more to support workers while we are on strike.
I work in a warehouse moving Walmart merchandise and I make $8 an hour. In a good week I earn $300. Our rent alone is $800 a month. Going on strike means no paycheck, but your support can help us during this time.
The math doesn't add up. My coworkers and I cannot support our families on these wages, but when we have spoken up about the poverty we face and the dangerous working conditions inside the warehouse, we have been targeted. We've had enough. The warehouse managers follow us around, they have installed cameras to watch us constantly, they told us we cannot talk to each other about safety hazards, they intimidate us and they threatened we could lose our jobs if we continue to organize.
When I get scared, I think of the alternative. A second job means waking before the sun comes up and coming home long after my children are in bed. I can't continue to make this choice every month. No one can.
A donation to our strike fund will help ensure we can send a strong message that Walmart's warehouse contractors can't silence us in our fight to create good, safe jobs.
Walmart must hear our message. I know we can transform warehouse jobs so that they are safe and we make a decent wage, but we need your support.
Thank you,
Marisol Echeverria
Warehouse Worker
Riverside, California
DONATE
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Warehouse Workers United
http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/
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There Is Power in a Union-Billy Bragg
There Is Power in the Union-Billy Bragg
Who comes to speak for
the skin and the bone?