You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday January 24, 1904
From The New York Times: Pacific Express Company of Omaha Declares War on Unions
The Pacific Express Company of Omaha, Nebraska, is now demanding that all employes sign a yellow-dog contract as reported by the Times:
Omaha, Neb., Jan. 23-The Pacific Express company will wage war on the unions and will notify all employes that to join a union will be considered as notice of resignation from the service of the company.The following pledge was handed to the Omaha employes of the corporation to-day:
"In consideration of my employment by the Pacific Express Company I hereby agree and pledge my word not to apply for membership or become a member or retain membership in the organization known as the Brotherhood of Railway Expressmen of America, nor of any other organization with the same or similar object or aims which the officials of the Pacific Express Company decide are antagonistic to that company's interests. Failure on my part to keep this agreement will be considered my notice of resignation from the employ of the Pacific Express Company."
The pledge was handed to each employee early this morning, but to-night none had signed it.
SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-of Jan 24, 1904
http://select.nytimes.com/...
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Saturday January 24, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado - General Chase Orders Cavalrymen: "Ride Down the Woman!"
The women of Las Animas County gathered in Trinidad yesterday to protest the military imprisonment of Mother Jones. They came marching with their children across the Picketwire River bridge and headed up Commercial Street passing by the Columbian Hotel. These were the women from the strikers' tent colonies and they came singing the strikers' song: "The Battle Cry of Union."
Their banners proclaimed:
God Bless Mother Jones
We're For Mother Jones
As they moved past Main Street, they were met by General Chase on his cavalry horse, and behind the General were his cavalrymen. Behind them were the infantry blocking the street. Nevertheless, the women and children continued singing as they marched toward the brave General and his troops.
The General began to yell, "Don't advance another step. You must turn back."
The General spurred his horse forward and brushed against 16-year-old Sarah Slator. He berated her, raised his foot, and kicked her in the breast. His horse backed into a buggy and the General fell off. The women began to laugh at the site of the pompous General on the ground beneath his horse.
The General regained his feet, red-faced and furious, and shouted to his men:
RIDE DOWN THE WOMEN!
Cavalrymen Riding Down the Women
On Order of General Chase
The cavalrymen spurred their horses forward, waving their sabers about and rode straight into the women and children. Several women were slashed: Mrs. Maggie Hammons received a gash across the forehead, Mrs. George Gibson nearly lost her ear, Mrs.Thomas Braley's hands were sliced as she covered her face. Mrs. James Lanigan was knocked to the ground, and 10-year-old Robert Arguello was smashed in the face. A cavalryman chased the flag-bearer, Mrs. R. Verna, down the street, knocked her down with his horse, and tore the American flag away from her.
Young Sarah Slator showed great courage when she challenged a cavalryman who was threatening a mother with his bayonet as she struggled to run with her three-year-old child in tow. Sarah said, "You're so low you could do anything." Sarah was among the six women arrested. Twelve men were arrested later in the afternoon.
Today the newspapers of Colorado are full of derision for the victorious General and his triumphant cavalrymen. The Denver Express reported:
Great Czar Fell!
And in Fury Told Troops to Trample Women
A craven general tumbled from his nag in a street of Trinidad Thursday like humpty-dumpty from the wall. In fifteen minutes there was turmoil, soldiers with swords were striking at fleeing women and children; all in the name of the sovereign state of Colorado...
The French Revolution, its history written upon crimson pages, carries no more cowardly episode than the attack of the gutter gamin soldiery on the crowd of unarmed and unprotected women.
SOURCE
Out of the Depths
The Story of John R. Lawson, a Labor Leader
-by Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
Photos: Women March & Cavalrymen "Ride Down the Women"
http://www.du.edu/...
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Friday January 24, 2014
More on the Yellow-Dog Contract, now illegal:
The yellow-dog contract was an anti-union device, used especially in the coal industry. It was a contract between employer and employee by which the employee agreed as a condition of employment not to join a labor union....
After the 1917 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hitchman Coal and Coke v. Mitchell, a case arising in West Virginia, yellow-dog contracts were viewed as legal and binding by state and federal courts. That changed when the right of workers ‘‘to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing’’ was codified in 1933 in section 7a of the National Industrial Recovery Act and in 1935 in the Wagner Act, both acts of federal legislation.
SOURCE
e-WV: Yellow-Dog Contract
http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/...
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I Am A Union Woman-Deborah Holland
The bosses ride big fine horses
While we walk in the mud
Their banner is a dollar sign
While ours is striped with blood.
-Aunt Molly Jackson