You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday July 25, 1915
From The New York Times: Strikers Battle Police in Bayonne, Part Three
Sheriff Kinkead attempts to calm strikers.
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Thursday's
New York Times carried a long front-page article describing the July 21st battle between strikers and police in Bayonne in which one young striker was killed.
The New York Times gives the name of the fallen striker as John Stovanchik, an 18 year-old laborer from Bayonne. He was shot in the head during the battle and died later that day in City Hospital.
Hellraisers is featuring the entire article in three parts. Today we offer the third part of the article.
The Battle of Bayonne, Part Three
From The New York Times of July 22, 1915:
[After striker, John Stovanchik was shot..]
Two trucks, two hose companies, and an engine company were prepared to turn streams of water on the crowd, but before the hose was used, Sheriff Kinkead, accompanied by George T. Vickers, First Assistant County Prosecutor, arrived from Jersey City. When Kinkead, a former Congressman, and friendly to labor, stood up on the seat of his auto there was a burst of cheers. He told the crowd to be peaceable and to meet at Mydosch's Hall, at Avenue F and Twenty-third Street, at 3 o'clock to see what could be done about an agreement with the company.
2,000 at Strikers' Meeting.
Two thousand men crowded the hall when the meeting was called to order by Paul Supinski, the Jersey City lawyer who represented the strikers in the first demands, and hundreds more were outside.
[Kinkead said:]
I thank you on behalf of Hudson county...for conducting yourselves as you have done since I took charge. Let this co-operation continue and you will all be happier, and as long as you behave so I shall have no deputies sworn in. I will play square with you, and expect you to do the same with me. I don't want any repetition of the Roosevelt affair.
The strikers complained that, with the recent rush of war orders, the foremen had so speeded the work that they were compelled to work twice as fast as before, and that a working day of nine hours and fifty minutes, with only half a day off on Saturday, left them no rest. They chose J. D. Baily, a striker; Lipinski, Albert Gzeliga, and Alexander Androjeski a committee to go, accompanied by the Sheriff and Mr. Vickers, to confer with General Manager George B. Gifford and Superintendent Hennessy of the Standard plant.
Before the meeting ended the strikers heard that the Sheriff had sent to Jersey City for a patrol wagon to take to the county jail the twelve guards who had taken refuge in the engine house, and more than a thousand men gathered in front of the house, determined to stop it and get the guards. They let the patrol wagon enter the firehouse at 5 P. M. and sent men to put a log across the street and to get water-main pipes to obstruct it in its passage out.
Within thirty seconds from the time the doors of the engine house closed behind the patrol wagon they opened and the wagon backed out through the crowd and shot away up the street. The log and pipes were not yet in place and the crowd was outwitted. The wagon took eleven prisoners to Jersey City. One of the twelve in the engine house had walked out through the crowd unrecognized.
The crowd barricaded the street with pipes just before an automobile hook-and-ladder truck drove down the thoroughfare with Sheriff Kinkead on the front seat. On seeing the pipes the Sheriff tried to talk to the crowd, but what he wanted to say was drowned by cheers, and the truck drove down a side street.
[Continued below.]
[Continues from above.]
Frank Tannenbaum of the
Industrial Workers of the World.
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The crowd swarmed back to Mydosch's Hall at 5:30 o'clock to hear the report of the committee. Frank Tannenbaum, the I. W. W. agitator who served a term on Blackwell's Island for leading the unemployed into Manhattan churches, had arrived, as well as John J. Dowd, Sixth Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Ship Builders, and Helpers of America, who represented the American Federation of Labor. The Standard Oil Company's answer absolutely refused to treat while the men were on strike, but said that if they would return to work the company would take everybody back and give an answer within four days. If not, no strike breakers would be imported, but the plant would be shut down.
Sheriff Kinkead and Mr. Vickers tried to persuade the men to accept this, and said that if the company refused to accede to their demands after the interval they would back the men in any strike, but the strike leaders held that it would be impossible to get so large an unorganized body of men out again, and that they had better stay out. On a vote, the crowd howled a reply in half a dozen languages of which the principal ingredient was the English phrase, "Stay out."
The Sheriff again asked them to keep order and told them the committee would go back to the company today and try to make some arrangement.
Alexander Marks, an organizer for the American Federation of Labor, spoke in Polish, attacking the Rockefellers and urging the men to stay out, and Tannenbaum offered the help of the I. W. W. After the meeting Tannenbaum busied himself with getting up a public funeral for Stovanchik, who was killed.
While the meeting was being held a fire started in oil-soaked lumber in the tank yard, and at intervals in the next half hour four more fires were discovered on the Standard's premises. Some of them were in cars loaded with lumber, others in the paraffine yard. At half past seven a feed pipe leading to one of the big oil tanks was cut and set on fire, and flames were blazing in the yard, where there were forty huge tanks full of naphtha, kerosent, and gasoline-the nearest within 300 feet of the flames. Until about 8 o'clock the fire burned unchecked, for all the Standard's firemen had struck and the Bayonne department, which never had been called to a fire in the plant, was reluctant to take the initiative. Finally they started and by 9:30 these fires were under control and four of the nearest tanks emptied.
Fires Light Up Bay.
The pipes leading from the pumphouse to thirty tanks were cut at 9 o'clock, and the oil, which ran about all over the yards, began to blaze up. Later this, too, was under control, but at midnight the flames were still blazing brightly, with no prospect of burning out. All that part of the bay was lit up and heavy black smoke drifted for miles.
Within the concrete stockade which surrounds the plant the company's guards were waiting, armed with repeating rifles, and boats were waiting to take off the officials if the situation got too hot for them. Two tank steamers coming from Europe yesterday to be loaded at Bayonne were diverted by wireless to Philadelphia.
The workmen of the International Nickel Company and the Pacific Coast Borax Company, whose plants are in East Twenty-second Street, passed the strikers' pickets yesterday going to and from work in long lines, with their time cards stuck in their hats to indicate their neutrality. They took up collections to aid the strikers. Storekeepers at Constable Hook offered the strikers unlimited credit. Sheriff Kinkead closed all saloons in the neighborhood, and all street car traffic in that part of Bayonne is at a standstill.
From its offices at 26 Broadway the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey yesterday issued the following statement:
From the facts known to the company the present situation is due entirely to the action of a few professional agitators who are endeavoring to cause trouble among the employes of the company. The company intends to do everything it can for the protection of its employes and property. It has adopted the course provided by the laws of New Jersey. The proper public authorities of the City of Bayonne, the County of Hudson, and the State of New Jersey have been duly notified and the company has no doubt that the situation will very soon improve.
The company's officials refused to say whether they thought pro-German agitation had anything to do with the strike. It is said there are few Germans among the workmen, most of whom come from countries allied against Germany.
------
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SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 22, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://query.nytimes.com/...
IMAGE
Bayonne Strike, Sheriff Kinkead
http://www.loc.gov/...
Bayonne Strike, Frank Tannenbaum
http://www.loc.gov/...
See also:
The New Republic
-Aug 14, 1915
"The Bayonne Strike"
https://books.google.com/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Aug 16, 1915
"HIT ROCKEFELLER IN BAYONNE REPORT; Industrial Board's Investigations Lay Strike to Low Wages and Oppression. SHERIFF'S ACTS CRITICISED Findings Given Out by Chairman Walsh Constitute an Arraignment of Standard Oil Methods."
http://query.nytimes.com/...
For more on condition which led to the strike:
"Hellraisers Journal: Bayonne, NJ- 900 Coopers Join Stillcleaners
on Strike at Standard Oil Refinery" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
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Dear Readers of Hellraisers,
This year for my vacation, Hellraisers will not be as scaled back as it was for the past two vacations. This happy change is due to my new & much faster computer and to the library of photos, songs, resources, etc, that I have built up over the past 2 and 1/2 years.
The big change that my readers will see, starting July 16th, will be the shorter length of the postings along with fewer links. I'm writing three Hellraisers per day right now and don't have the one or two hours extra that I usually take to find and put in the links.
When my readers find unfamiliar names, places, or events, please use the tags along with JayRaye (in diarist section of search feature). Or just leave a question for me in the comments and I will get back to you.
When I actually leave for Minnesota, I'll let everyone know. My access to computer will be limited while I'm away, probably about twice a week. But I will definitely be checking in.
Solidarity,
JayRaye
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There Is Power In A Union-Billy Bragg
Now I long for the morning that they realize
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organize
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?
The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a Union
-Billy Bragg
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