You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Thursday October 28, 1915
Chicago, Illinois - Samuel Kapper, Striking Tailor, Shot Dead by Scab-Three Wounded
The Chicago Day Book of October 27th reported:
Samuel Kapper
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STRIKER IS DEAD-
TWO ARE INJURED-GUN FIGHT
Staccato barks of a gun; the surge of a mob that excitement creates; a pool of blood in a sink in the sidewalk; a man lying face in pool, dead. The first murder of the garment workers' strike was done last night.
Sam'l Kapper, 35, 2147 Crystal pi., deaf and dumb striking tailor, was killed. Three were wounded: Sam'l Siegel, 23, 1115 S. Loomis st., shot below right ear; Wm. Whelen, 49, 2124 W. Harrison st., innocent bystander, bullet in breast; unidentified man.
With a smoking gun in his hand, Tony Panichi, strikebreaker. Scotch Woolen Mills, was arrested. He admitted firing one shot. Many witnesses say they saw or heard him fire at least five shots.
Panichi and his wife, with perhaps two others, were walking on Halsted near Harrison. Trouble started. Witnesses say Panichi's wife handed him a gun and he began shooting. Panichi's wife told police she did hand husband a gun.
First Deputy Schuettler is trying to alibi the police department by blaming, first, city council for ruling against hired sluggers, and then the strikers, whom he intimates are liars.
Schuettler is so confident of the untruthfulness of testimony presented to the council committee which investigated the strike that he has ordered his department to visit garment factories and homes of strikebreakers in an endeavor to rake up some testimony of strikebreakers being mistreated by strikers.
Schuettler issued this general order:
To commanding officers: You will canvass each garment factory and ascertain the employes who have been assaulted; also those who have been threatened. You will verify same by calling at homes of persons alleged to have been assaulted.
Schuettler, wants this dope quick. The order calls for a complete report by 9 a. m. tomorrow. It is believed he wants to get stories of strikebreakers being beaten in order to offset the gigantic list of brutalities the police have committed upon frail bodies of women strikers. The council investigating committee did not find a single instance of a strikebreaker having been molested by strikers.
While Schuettler was at Desplaines station Sidney Hillman, president of striking garment workers, came into the room. "If you don't get out in a hurry I will kick you out," Schuettler shouted at him.
The police department is paid by the city. An impression has gained that police think they are paid by and beholden to employers.
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[Photograph added.]
Further reporting from
The Day Book can be found below the fold.
From The Day Book of October 27, 1915:
UTPATEL BLAMES POLICE
The police are responsible for strike murder last night. If Schuettler had enforced the council order to put all private police and sluggers off the job there probably wouldn't have been killing. I saw conditions around garment shops last night which ought not to be allowed. I am going to see Mayor Thompson today and urge him to take the same action by which Mayor Mitchell of New York settled garment strike. Get bosses and strikers together some way. [-Ald. Henry Utpatel].
Why were there no policemen at the corner of Halsted and Harrison streets last night at 7 o'clock? Why have police, mounted and foot, been ON this corner night and day for three weeks since the garment strike started?
And why was every uniformed cop in the district OFF the job just when the murder of a striker, took place? And were there any plain clothes men, special police or known sluggers in the mob that swirled around the one man killed and three wounded by revolver, shots?
These are questions aldermen of the council police committee want answered. They are going to ask these questions of Herman Schuettler, acting police chief, when he obeys summons to appear before the committee Saturday morning.
There were many stories today at city hall and strike headquarters explaining the killing of Kapper, a striker, by a strikebreaker. The stories ran like this:
The police had it fixed. There was a frame. But it didn't work. Somebody fell down on the job. They were going to kill a scab and not a striker. That would help the police make a cry that all, the violence comes from the strikers. It would help Acting Chief Schuettler back up his call for more extra police to be made before city council next Monday night.
With the killing of Kapper last night the record of police and strikebreakers for gunplay goes higher. Three strikers now have been shot. Two are in hospital nursing holes torn in their legs and shoulders by the lead slugs from police revolvers.
Sidney Hillman, President
Amalgamated Clothing Workers
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[Said Pres. Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers today:]
The strikebreakers are not only armed but are accompanied by sluggers also armed..In the riot of last night there was not a single shot fired from the strikers, nor have any weapons been discovered on any of our strikers since the strike began. Two strikers have been in hospital the last two weeks, shot by sluggers while on picket duty.
Schuettler's statement to newspapers that the Kapper murder "is the result of the intervention of the city council into the strike situation" is taken by aldermen as a political play to back up Schuettler's call for more police. If the Herald got Schuettler's words straight he lays blame for the killing on the council police committee saying:
The fatal riot was partly due to the council committee's action. They put witnesses on the stand to tell how policemen beat them up and mistreated them, but did not allow policemen to tell their side of the story or any persons who were beaten up by strikers to tell what happened to them.
Ald. John C. Kennedy says he will go through to a finish on these statements of Schuettler.
[Said Kennedy:]
If the acting chief is correctly quoted I would say his statements are those of a police official using his job in the interests of the millionaire clothing manufacturers..Not only are these statements false. They are stupid and they are treacherous to the best interests of peace and safety on the streets of Chicago. If the acting chief made those statements we want to know why. The police committee aldermen I have talked with seem to feel the same way about it. We have summoned Schuettler to appear Saturday and answer.
Aid. Buck was shown the Kennedy comment on Schuettler and said:
Well, those are about my sentiments.
Mayor Thompson said to newspaper men today:
I am sorry to see Chicago's record for industrial peace spoiled. I am going to call Acting Chief Schuettler to my office this afternoon and go over the situation with him. It appears to me that aldermen have taken it upon themselves to run this strike situation. They have used public hearings in an attempt to discredit my police force. I think Schuettler was right in his statements made to the morning papers. To take away private police from garment shops might encourage violence.
Only police officials close to Schuettler were able today to reach Tony Panichi, the strikebreaker known to have fired at least one shot at Kapper. Whether he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, whether he wore a start [star?], all information on whether or not he might be a stool pigeon, was kept dark by Schuettler.
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STATE'S ATT'Y'S OFFICE MAY PROBE KAPPER KILLING
Possibilities of an investigation by the state's att'y's office into the killing of Sam Kapper were seen today in the assigning of Ass't State's Att'y Case to the Kapper inquest this afternoon.
Case was detailed by State's Att'y Hoyne to be in on the doings before Coroner Hoffman.
Police are looking for Sam and Joseph Panichi, who, it is believed, fired some shots. They are brothers of Tony. The story runs that these two were behind Sam Kapper when he approached Green street, on Harrison, and were handy with their guns when trouble started.
Sam, it is claimed, is the man who went into a saloon to have his arm bandaged after being shot. Neither of the two men could be reached at home or at work today. Cap't McWeeny claimed that the two men had offered to give themselves up today. They are still out, however.
Pres. Sidney Hillman said this morning that he was going to take the whole shooting affair up with State's Att'y Hoyne, as he could get no satisfaction from the police.
Eight men and three women were arrested at Jackson blvd. and Peoria today for "loitering."'
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NO MORE PARADES?
Will Acting Police Chief Schuettler put the ban on any more garment workers' parades? He so indicated this morning when he told Sydney Hillman, head of the garment forces, that he would not allow any more gatherings of the garment workers on the streets.
[Said Schuettler:]
The speakers have got to curb their lingo..Peaceful picketing can go on, but nothing doing on the gatherings.
The acting chief laid blame for the Harrison street shooting affair on speeches made by Hillman and others and to strikers' gatherings.
Schuettlers' little spiel was an attempted ball-out of Hillman
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[Photographs added.]
From The Day Book of October 27, 1915:
WHY WAS THAT STRIKER SHOT TO DEATH?-
IT'S ONE ACT OF BIG WAGE BATTLE
Why was that man killed at Halsted and Harrison last night? Why was this blood spilled in a red blotch over the sidewalk? Why is Sam Kapper dead on a slab out in the Cook county morgue today-Sam Kapper, a deaf and dumb tailor, 35 years old who never in his life wanted anything much more than a chance to earn a living as a clothes maker?
There is a war on Chicago. On one side are the Kuppenheimers, Rosenwald's and Lindenthals, a group of manufacturers with 16 millionaires and multi-millionaires among them. These big garment manufacturers own and run the men's clothes industry of Chicago and the total output of their factories last year was over $140,000,000. These millionaires live in big rambling mansions out in Lake Forest and on the South Shore. They have servants, motor cars and steam yachts to play with, and for their women jewels, silks, and everything that money can buy. They are fixed and fastened in what are called the luxuries of life.
On the other side in this war are 20,000 workers, 60 per cent women and girls. Thousands of these people live in the rottenest slums on the West Side of Chicago, large families crowded into small rooms. The death rate from consumption among the grown-ups is high. And among their babies the death rate is seven times as high as among babies in the districts where the Kuppenheimers' and the Rosenwalds' houses are. The bodies of these people are kindling wood fed to the pressing fire of slum life. That they feed on husks is one of the platitudes of health department charts and statistics.
Now for over three weeks they have been out of the shops where they worked. They are on strike to get a raise in wages and to get recognition for a union by which they can challenge shop tyrannies exercised by foremen and superintendents appointed by the Kuppenheimers, Rosenwalds, et al.
Those on strike are members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and their demands are:
1. Standardization of wages and earnings, increases running from 7 to 25 per cent.
2. All overtime to be paid for as time and one-half.
3. A week's work shall be 48 hours, divided into 8 3/4 hours each week day except Saturday, which shall be 4 1/2 hours, ending at noon.
4. In slack season work to be given out as equally as possible among all workers.
5. No employe to work on legal holiday and no deduction from pay of week workers for such holidays.
6. Recognition of the union with collective bargaining established and maintained in the industry.
7. No employe shall be discharged without cause and all fining systems shall be abolished as well as blacklisting and sub-contracting.
8. Grievance committees shall have the open door to the bosses' office.
"We won't arbitrate," has been the bosses' answer from last summer until now. They have two unions. One is the National Wholesale Tailors' ass'n, mail order. The other is the Wholesale Clothiers' ass'n, ready-to-wear. The two control three-fifths of the clothing industry of Chicago. Of wholesale clothiers these are the big ones and their approximate number of workers:
Alfred, Decker & Cohn, 416 S. Franklin st, 2,000; Hirsch, Wickwire Co., 345 S. Franklin st, 1,500; Kuh, Nathan & Fischer, 330 S. Franklin st, 1,500; B. Kuppenheimer & Co., 423 S. Franklin st, 2,500; Rosenwald & Weil, 500 S, Franklin st., 1,000; Strouss, Eisendrath & Co., 300 S. Franklin st., 1,000; Leopold, Solomon & Eisendrath, 519 South Franklin, 1,000.
These are the ready-to-wear houses:
The Royal Tailors, 5th av. and Polk st., 1,200; M. Born & Co., 540 S. 5th av., 800; Edward E. Strauss & Co., 400 S. Market st., 800; Lamm & Co., 886 W. Jackson blvd., 1,500, International Tailoring Co., 212 S. Market st., 1,000; Continental Tailoring Co., 700 W. Jackson blvd., 1,000; Edward Rose & Co., 628 W. Jackson blvd., 800; Fred Kauffman, 564 W. Monroe st; Majestic Tailors, 509 S. Franklin st., 300; J. L. Taylor & Co., 535 S. Franklin st.
[Photograph added.]
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
(Also source for image of headline.)
-Oct 27, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Samuel Kapper, Martyr of
Chicago Garment Workers Strike of 1915
https://books.google.com/...
Sidney Hillman
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
Picket Signs X2, ISR,
Nov 1915, Chicago ACW Strike
https://books.google.com/...
Garment Workers Make Strike,
Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept 29, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, emblem
https://books.google.com/...
See also:
From Harpers Weekly of Dec 11, 1915
"The Chicago Clothing Strike" by Edith Wyatt
https://books.google.com/...
Chicago City Council, 1915-16
https://books.google.com/...
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Dortn iz mayn rue plats - Aquabella
Nit zukh mikh vu di feygl zingen.
Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats.
A shklaf bin ikh vu keytn klingen,
Dortn iz mayn rue plats.
-Morris Rosenfeld
English translation:
Don't look for me where birds sing.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
I am a slave where chains ring,
There is my resting place.
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