You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday January 5, 1915
From the International Socialist Review: Unemployed of Pacific Northwest Organize
From the cover of this month's Review:
"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many; they are few."-Shelley.
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BLAMING THE UNEMPLOYED
In a long article in this month's Review, Bruce Rogers answers the common charge made against the unemployed, especially those connected in any way with the Industrial Workers of the World, that they simply will not take the work offered them by various charity schemes.
Rogers points out that some of these schemes, if put into effect, would be a capitalist's dream come true, for example, that of Mr. Pauly of the great state of Washington:
You will fall short in your appreciation of Mr. Pauly's genius [see below] if you do not understand that the unemployed problem so-called is a permanent one with periods of recurring intensity. If he could solve it by getting labor to reclaim the lands for nothing it would tend toward a permanent condition of labor—working for nothing. Could anything be more ideal from the viewpoint of the employers? They have been quick to see it, and Mr. G. N. Skinner, a most appropriately-named labor-hater and President of the Employers' Association, became an enthusiastic patron of the plan.
[emphasis added]
Being unwilling to enter into a system of peonage, the unemployed have been dubbed the "I Won't Workers" by the capitalist press of the nation, and blamed for most of the nation's problems.
Exactly why the unemployed of the Pacific Northwest should be connected to the financial troubles of the Washington state education budget is difficult to fathom. Nevertheless, the Aberdeen Herald recently made that connection, taking special aim at the Industrial Workers of the World:
Cut Down the University.
------
That the state appropriations for the University, the state College, and the three Normal schools can be reduced with less injury to the overburdened taxpayers, than probably any other state expenditure, except possibly roads, is being generally recognized by the members of the legislature....
The problem of the unemployed or more correctly of the will not work is having a hearing. The soap box orator's preaching socialism, condemnation of government, of religion and of officials and advising their hearers that society owes them a living, is claimed to be but a slightly exaggerated resume of the ideas fostered and urged by prominent university faculty men.
It is little wonder that it is reported King county legislators will refuse any extra appropriations this year for the "U" and it is not likely that the regular appropriation made will carry a requirement that the obnoxious preachers of socialism and of class hatred be eliminated...
[emphasis added]
The "I Won't Workers"
From The Rochester Herald
of March 10, 1914
It seems that the worst crime of the unemployed is that they refuse to accept peonage schemes, and are, instead, organizing and fighting for justice. And worse yet, they are making that fight with the assistance of those "obnoxious preachers of socialism and of class hatred," the Industrial Workers of the World.
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From the International Socialist Review of January 1915:
"NO CHARITY HERE!"
By BRUCE ROGERS
RETURNING over the hump from North Yakima my seat companion was a weather-tanned but neatly dressed man of twenty-eight or thirty. Hard muscles moved handsomely under the skin of his face and neck and his clear eyes told of sobriety and exceeding good health. When he joined me at Ellensburg I took him for a traveling sales man with a fad for the open air and physical culture. With casual smoking car democracy he proffered his tobacco and wheat straw papers. I was on the point of asking him what line he sold when, removing his gloves, which, I observed, would not fasten about his huge wrists, I saw the knotted callous-lined palms and split nails that come only from hard manual labor. He told me his story.
Work was slow in Tacoma, so I beat it over to the harvest to lay by something for the wife and kiddies for the hard winter ahead. I fell off at Ellensburg, took down the track and struck the first rancher I met for a job. I didn't like the wages but he said there were lots of other guys coming who couldn't make it at their trades, so I peeled off and went to it. Now I had always thought that farmers were a decent friendly class about their houses and would treat you like one of the family. We worked till dark at a pretty stiff clip.
He quit the chores enough ahead of me so that he had eaten with his family and when I came in I sat down to some cold grub and warmed over coffee and not so much as an excuse made about it. I waited around to be told where to sleep and finally I asks him.
"Sleep, hell," he says; "there's three hundred acres here. You ought to be able to find room enough to sleep in."
Believe me, I was that sore I coulda quit right then, but I didn't know how far it was to the next place nor how I would fare if I found it, so I crawled in the hay as far as I could get from over the horses. It was just like that all down the valley. I got used to it, in a way, and I got a few dollars to show for it. The wife worked some in Tacoma, but I guess it's' worse there now than when I left, so I don't know yet whether we will get by or not.
And then reflectively,
I got connections and I'm no bo, but, believe me, if I was, I would burn every barn and wheat stack in the Yakima Valley before I would let them make a dog outa me.
I couldn't see how that would get him anywhere, though I agreed that it might challenge attention, but he failed to hear. Pursuing his own feelings, he added:
There's one thing about it. When I get in to Tacoma, believe me, I'll not shoot off my lip about the I. W. W. like I did last winter and I'm a good mind to put in with them.
So there you are. The quality of abuse and contumely to be heaped upon a worker is measured only by the quantity which he will endure before making himself dangerous. That there is an increasing number who are willing to be walked upon, spat upon and fed with the dogs is sufficiently evident to remove all economic or practical reasons for active concern on the part of employers over the worker's undelightful pastime of starving to death. He morbidly enjoys the situation at the point where he encounters it, that of reading the reports of the Associated Charities, whose gilded certificate of membership hangs in his outer office, and he merely adds this pleasure-of-reading to his favorite indoor sports. There is a note of danger, however, in a new temper of a few of the unemployed—too wretchedly few.
If you don't give us work at standard pay we'll take food
wherever we find it.
There is no celerity like that of the capitalist brain to turn any situation to advantage, as we shall presently see. At least a month earlier than usual the Seattle Chief of Police reported that the number applying nightly for the cement hospitality of the city jail had reached all he could accommodate. Petty thieving was on the increase, burglaries had begun on a winter scale ahead of time, citizens were being held up, the city jail and both the city and county stockades were full, and still they came on every boat and train, and now in mid-winter they are still coming.
"Why don't they stay in the country?" is an innocent question; but in truth it is harder to winter there. There are no ten-cent lodgings and no cheap restaurants in country towns, and these men will not be wanted on the farm until the harvest. The logging camps will not open until spring. A new name for the charities gag is "The Central Council of Social Agencies." Securing a large building, they established a barracks where indigent but "worthy" single men might sleep on the floor and eat potatoes wetted down with coffee-tinctured water. This building took the natural name of "Hotel de Gink," which was an offense to the ears who officially styled it "Hotel Liberty" and put a salaried host in charge of it.
Enter now the bright idea with one Henry Pauly, disciple of Jeff Davis, and a typical padrone. He suggested the coinage of wretchedness into profits. Why not "clear" (meaning to put in a state of cultivation), the logged-off lands at a rate so low as to be attractive to the landholders? The men would work for just a little more than their board and sleep in floorless tents. At least the deserving ones would, he reasoned.
He was put in charge of Hotel Liberty with full power to select the worthy and drive the unworthy away. What a name for such a place! Now it must be known that with us logged-off lands are in reality waste areas, no matter how rich the soil may be admitted to be. The price at which the lands are held, added to the usual cost of clearing, makes a principal sum which, if invested at ordinary interest rates, would yield an income more than sufficient to buy the products of the reclaimed lands perpetually. Notwithstanding the land boosters, there is no way to think of them except as desert, marsh or waste lands, but subject to reclamation.
You will fall short in your appreciation of Mr. Pauly's genius if you do not understand that the unemployed problem so-called is a permanent one with periods of recurring intensity. If he could solve it by getting labor to reclaim the lands for nothing it would tend toward a permanent condition of labor—working for nothing.Could anything be more ideal from the viewpoint of the employers? They have been quick to see it, and Mr. G. N. Skinner, a most appropriately-named labor-hater and President of the Employers' Association, became an enthusiastic patron of the plan.
The papers lauded the scheme and began extolling the virtues of the deserving workingman who will work for poor wages when he can't get good, and who will work for nothing rather than be idle. The plan, of course, is well financed, but somehow it isn't working out and the papers are having more to say about the "won't works [I Won't Workers]." At least, one Local of the Socialist Party cared sufficiently little for the approval of the middle class that they openly denounced the peonage plan, and, marvel of wonders, the Central Labor Council awoke from its somnolent security long enough to pass a tactful resolution denouncing any exploitation of the unemployed at lower rate of pay than current wages, but naming no amount.
The Executive Secretary of the Charities Organization, Miss Virginia McMechen, is a somewhat disillusioned type of uplifter and an Expert in Social Service. She marveled that her committee of employers and business men could not reckon upon any phase of unemployment save that of the itinerant worker and could not get attention to the condition of resident unemployed heads of families. The writer was able to show her that the "home-guard" was less inclined to make a public problem of himself, constituted no threat against property, and would hold on as long as possible to a respectable status and the good opinion of his neighbors, but that she would not need to wait long, for even he would lose his moorings.
Presently a committee of family men presented themselves before the City Council requesting work at anything and received most bountiful sympathy sweetened with assurances that nothing could be done for them. One of their number made a little speech in which he said he had been a voter in Seattle for ten years, had never been up in court, that his family was near want and that he proposed to feed them, laws or no laws. Forthwith the papers discovered that there is much local distress and began a Christmas campaign for relief. Many schemes have been set under way such as cleaning up vacant lots, assembling wayward garbage, etc.
By far the most talked-of manifestation of the unemployed crisis in Seattle, and as reported in other Pacific Coast cities, is the habit some workers are developing of no longer begging the restaurants but of entering and seating themselves in dignified fashion, eating dollar meals and then telling the proprietor to "charge it to the Mayor," to Sweet Charity, or "tab it on the ice."
Haled into court they sing a more or less epicurean tune of "pie in the sky by and by," and one with a lilt of ribaldry and good cheer, "Halleluia, I'm a Bum, Hallelia, Bum Again," etc., on their glad way to the steam heat of the stockade. Twenty- nine such offenders were sent up in one day and continue in large numbers in the daily grist, of "offenses against property."
UNEMPLOYED DETACHED WOMEN
Our civilization is not a nice one and I yield to no desire to discuss it in a nice way. Unemployed working women and girls find their situation aggravated in that prostitution, ceasing to be profitable, women of that ancient profession turn to seek work. A stage-hand friend of mine who is some what of a rounder recently told me there were no less than five hundred girl hoboes in the neighborhood of Pike street alone who might be had for a "feed" or a bed. "You don't take them for 'boes because they must keep dolled up to the last."
Working women make room for them as best they can. No one else will. A number of them are reported to be sleeping under sidewalks. A hundred or more unemployed women workers in November challenged the Christian bluff in great form by marching upon the palatial club rooms of the Young Women's Christian Association, holding a meeting outside and demanding shelter. They were referred to the Charities Society, but something had to be done for the sake of the newspapers, and so a few cots were arranged in the building which kindly act was afforded due publicity. Another challenge of Christianism was made in a far different quarter when a score or more of unemployed men entered a Salvation Army storeroom, fitted themselves with castoff coats and walked away without paying.
PACIFIC COAST UNEMPLOYED LEAGUE
Growing weary of the gorgeous bunk and red tape of the charities societies, the unemployed themselves have formed The Pacific Coast Unemployed League, of which Seattle is Local Number One. They have no salaried officials or bureaus, choose their managers from among their own numbers, and have taken a firm stand against the Pauly peonage land-reclamation plan. They called the unemployed together in the largest meetings that have been held, chose a committee and began the publication of a paper styled the Unemployed News from sales of which many of their numbers support themselves. They have made a most effective answer to the cheap lie that they "won't work" by securing a large delivery wagon, making harness for themselves and hauling it about town in teams of thirty or forty as if they were work horses.
They are succeeding too well with this and at this writing, early in December, it is doubted if the authorities will permit the use of the wagon much longer. They have opened a commissary for the distribution of clothing and food and have opened a kitchen in true communal fashion. They make no classification of the phases of the "problem," but their movement is for the whole body of the unemployed. On the walls of their old store building hang many stinging "No Charity" legends. "We can do nothing for you. Join us and we'll do something all together."
[photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added]
SOURCES
The International Socialist Review, Volume 15
Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
C.H. Kerr, 1914
(unemployed seattle, p.413)
http://books.google.com/...
Aberdeen Herald
(Aberdeen, Washington)
-Jan 1, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
The Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/...
Hotel de Gink (Seattle) By Sinan Demirel, Ph.D.
http://www.historylink.org/...
IMAGAES
Cover ISR, Jan 1915
(scroll all the way to bottom, then click up to image)
http://books.google.com/...
The IWW Is Coming
http://libcom.org/...
The "I Won't Workers"
http://ideologicalart.wordpress.com/...
Bread Line, Appeal to Reason, Oct 1, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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Hallelujah I'm a Bum-Utah Phillips
Why don't you work like other folks do?
How the hell can I work when there's no work to do?
CHORUS:
Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout
To revive us again.
Oh, why don't you save all the money you earn?
If I didn't eat, I'd have money to burn.
Whenever I get all the money I earn,
The boss will be broke, and to work he must turn.
Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine,
That's why I am starving out on the breadline.
When springtime it comes, oh, won't we have fun;
We'll throw off our jobs, and go on the bum.
-Harry McClintock
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