``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Thursday November 4, 1915 From the Chicago Day Book: Author Mary Antin Speaks at Strikers' Meeting
I am not a garment worker, but I know the garment workers. Not many years ago I watched my older sister in the west end of New York. I stood at the door and saw her come home and pay out her little wages to our mother. I sat with the family around a table trying to figure out how to make it go around. I have seen babies fed sour milk when they should have had sweet milk.The Day Book of November 2nd condemned the one-sided coverage of the Garment Workers Strike by the Chicago Daily Tribune:No, I am not a garment worker, but I know them. I was kept out of school because wages of the garment trade would not leave enough for books for me. Later I learned to read and write on the wages of a garment worker. I am not an outsider.
The most sinister newspaper trickery foisted on the people of Chicago in recent days can be found on the pages of the Chicago Tribune for last Saturday, last Sunday and today. Two or three more samples of poisoned news such as the Tribune has carried on the police handling of the garment strike and the Tribune will go into a class with the Hearst papers. Already the feeling against it has spread a good deal farther than labor union circles and the realm of club women and social workers.It is clear to people who do their own thinking why the Tribune should use its own columns to protect bankers, department stores and its own school land leasehold. It is not so clear why any editor or publisher over at the Tribune office should join hands with Herman Schuettler, acting police chief, and give Schuettler free space to run a campaign of misrepresentation.
From The Day Book of November 1, 1915:
From The Day Book of November 2, 1915:The Kuppenheimers and Rosenwalds, all Jews who have lifted multimillion, dollar fortunes out of the garment trade,would not have sat easily in a front row of Cohan's Grand Opera house Sunday afternoon. And it would have been worse if they had brought their wives and children.Jew masters of the clothing trade in Chicago, driving thousands of Jew wage-earners to disease and death, denying their workers rights of petition and assemblage, were condemned by Mary Antin, noted writer and speaker, probably the foremost exponent of Jewish life in America. At night she was the headliner in Orchestra hall at the Sunday Evening club.
Grace Abbott of the the Immigrant Protective league showed Kuppenheimer pay envelopes. Photographs of these slips were thrown on a lantern screen: For 33 hours' work, $4.11; for 48 hours' work, $4.10; for 34 hours' work, $2.67. So they ran on the screen, signed and legible evidence with the name of Kuppenheimer written at the top of each. At the bottom of each slip was printed:
"Save at least $1 a week. Place your money with the North Western Trust & Savings bank."
Miss Abbott said: "These wages are typical. These pay envelopes are common to thousands of the garment workers in the busiest season They have not been selected with any view of exaggeration."
Photos of mounted policemen and motorcycle cops on sidewalks charging at strikers were shown. Nine cops, three on foot and six on horses, surrounding one striker flashed on screen. Miss Abbott said the condition might explain why policemen are not on hand at other points in the city when needed during strike time. Away from the strike zone criminals have an easier time during strikes was her point.
Then came Mary Antin, a slim, trembling Russian Jewess. Her books are in public libraries, school libraries, social centers. She is the voice of the American Jew. Her book, "The Promised Land," is a wonderful answer to the question: What shall America do with the Jews? A woman loved throughout the Jewish world, of America, she said:I am an imported, outside agitator. So many of the women in this struggle are like me. They, too, are imported. We came over in the steerage together from Russia. I speak for these people who cannot speak for themselves.The committee of sponsors for the meeting as given by Ellen Gates Starr of Hull house, included: Judge and Mrs. Wm. B. Brown, W. R. Sterling, Solomon Sturgis, Sigmund Zeisler, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Dobyns, Mr. and Mrs. Merritt Starr, Mr. and Mrs Charles Harding, Prof, and Mrs. P. R. Lillie, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Dauchy, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. F. Dummer, Prof. and Mrs. George W. Mead, Prof. and Mrs. James Tufts, Prof. and Mrs. P. W. Thomas, Prof. and Mrs. James A. Field and Mrs. H. M. Wilmarth.We came to this country because we were invited, because America called for population to settle its wilderness. I went across the continent last year. I saw these many places where the population rattles around like peas in a hogshead. Signs at wayside stations call for people. In Boston a campaign is on for Bigger Busier Boston. Everywhere prosperity boosters are clamoring for more people, more workers, to come. These women in this struggle came to this country because they were invited
I am not a garment worker, but I know the garment workers. Not many years ago I watched my older sister in the west end of New York. I stood at the door and saw her come home and pay out her little wages to our mother. I sat with the family around a table trying to figure out how to make it go around. I have seen babies fed sour milk when they should have had sweet milk.
No, I am not a garment worker, but I know them. I was kept out of school because wages of the garment trade would not leave enough for books for me. Later I learned to read and write on the wages of a garment worker. I am not an outsider.
I see something more than bread in this struggle. We came to this country believing this was a land of freedom. The right of petition, the right of free and lawful assemblage without penalty we thought those rights were sacred and respected here. We find they are a mockery. You have seen pictures this afternoon showing your policemen here in Chicago doing exactly what the Cossacks did to our people in the old country.
When will the manufacturers see that they are inflicting the same conditions on their workers as those they fled from in the old country? They are rich men. Their wives and sons and daughters have had every advantage of culture. They have sent their sons and daughters abroad to see cathedrals and museums, monuments and statues to heroes. But they have not touched in the simplest outline or faintest syllable the meaning of America. They discharge workers for attempting to form a union. They refuse to meet a committee from their workers to negotiate the dispute. They take the position of feudal lords.
If I went back to Russia now would have to tell them my fellow Jews in this country are backsliding, are not converted to democracy. When will these rich manufacturers who now send their daughters abroad recognize that there are countries from which they came which will not permit residents such liberty? When will they hear the voice of the many crying for justice?
[Photographs added.]
From the Chicago Daily Tribune of Sunday October 31, 1915.The most sinister newspaper trickery foisted on the people of Chicago in recent days can be found on the pages of the Chicago Tribune for last Saturday, last Sunday and today. Two or three more samples of poisoned news such as the Tribune has carried on the police handling of the garment strike and the Tribune will go into a class with the Hearst papers. Already the feeling against it has spread a good deal farther than labor union circles and the realm of club women and social workers.Chicago Daily Tribune, Front Page, Sat Oct 30, 1915 `````It is clear to people who do their own thinking why the Tribune should use its own columns to protect bankers, department stores and its own school land leasehold. It is not so clear why any editor or publisher over at the Tribune office should join hands with Herman Schuettler, acting police chief, and give Schuettler free space to run a campaign of misrepresentation.
In view of the fact that State's Att'y Hoyne begins trial this week of a captain and a lieutenant of detectives, and there have been convicted this summer four sticky-handed, grafting thieves among high police officials, it is still less easy to see why the Tribune offers its pages to the police force and at the same time denies its news pages to the garment strikers.
Today the Tribune prints on PAGE SIX INSIDE a list of 306 cases of violence committed by police and sluggers on garment strikers.
Saturday the Tribune printed on PAGE ONE OUTSIDE with screaming headlines that caught all Chicago: "Strike Assaults 339 in Month." That day Chief Schuettler practically had one whole page to prove that the police are a lot of heroes and the strikers, 60 per cent women and girls, are a mass of dirty rowdies with guns, knives and clubs.Chicago Daily Tribune, page 6, Tues Nov 2, 1915 ``````````Did the Tribune show this list to union officers and ask them the answer? No.Chicago Daily Tribune, page 2, Sat Oct 30, 1915 ``````````Did the Tribune point out that it was strictly a one-sided list and left out the names of Samuel Kapper, the deaf and dumb tailor who was shot and killed by a strikebreaker, and scores of others slugged? No.
The whole story was played through and through to give the same impression that the Kuppenheimers and garment bosses are spreading: That the strikers are a slimy, treacherous, violent bunch and the police are heroes.
Why does Chief Schuettler get the Tribune FRONT PAGE on violence of strikers and the strikers a BACK PAGE for their facts on police violence? Isn't it just as sensational that 306 strikers have been slugged by police and armed guards, one striker shot to death and two others now in hospital with revolver shot wounds?
Isn't it even more sensational that Rose Goodman was jammed so forcibly into a patrol wagon by city police that her breastbone is broken, she is under a doctor's care, and women like Maud Cain Taylor, secretary Chicago Political Equality league, say they saw her writhe in pain and moan at the slightest pressure of the doctor's finger in examination?
What is gained for this community by the printing of report sheets from Schuettler's spies at strikers' meetings? When have police spies of Chicago or anywhere else so established themselves as truth-tellers that they are entitled to a hearing over working people on strike?
And why twist a little statement from Hoyne into a news story that he may prosecute strike speakers for "incendiary" talk?
There has only been one approximately truthful news-story on the police and garment strike situation in the Tribune the past week. That was the one Monday morning on the mass meeting at Cohan's Grand Opera House Sunday. And then there was no mention of the fact that the name of Kuppenheimer was at the top of those pathetic little wage slips shown by Grace Abbott.
A few weeks ago the Tribune ran that splendidly human series by Henry M. Hyde on the manufacture of criminals through false arrests. This garment strike would have been a great laboratory for Hyde to work in. He would have found hundreds of cases where the private police instigate brawls, the city police arrest the strikers and the degradation directly touches all concerned except the Kuppenheimers and the garment trade millionaires, who are miles away and perhaps only hear rumors of the strike.
The Tribune calls for an inheritance tax on large fortunes. Surely the Tribune editors and publishers must see that these garment strikers are trying to collect higher wages now from their masters. They don't want to wait until the Kuppenheimers are shoveled into the tombs.
Can it be that Joe Medill Patterson, author of "The Fourth Estate," writer of that wonderful sketch, is a force on the Tribune editorial staff?
[Photographs added.]
Having published Schuettler's report which accused the strikers of mass violence and occupied a full column on the front page of Saturday's edition, continuing onto and taking up practically the entire second page of that same issue, the Tribune finally granted the strikers a small space on the fifth page of its Sunday's edition for a rebuttal of the accusations:
Strikers' View of Police List.~~~~~~~~~~Adherents of the strikers yesterday were far from dismayed by the list of arrests, complaints, and acts of violence published in THE TRIBUNE yesterday. Many of the names, it was pointed out, were those of strikers who had been assaulted. At the same time, it was said, hundreds of strikers who have been injured were unnamed.Samuel Kapper `````"In the general tabulation of the arrests," said Sidney Hillman, leader of the strikers, "there were noted 623 for disorderly conduct. Not one of these lists can properly be regarded as proved. In our view we see the 623 cases of disorderly conduct and the fifty-nine of unlawful assembly as evidence of illegal, and improper use of their authority by the police.
"More specifically, the name of Samuel Kapper, a striker who was murdered, was omitted somehow or other by the chief. So was that of Morris Wishner, who was shot while in his own home. So was that of a striker named Waxman and another named Sam Levner. I could go on naming strikers who have been slugged for an hour.
Novak Witness Against Police."On the other hand, Joseph Novak, a reporter for a Bohemian paper, is listed as having been slugged by strikers. In fact, he was one of the witnesses to police brutality before the council committee on police. He showed how he, an innocent bystander, had been brutally beaten."
Miss Abbott, a strong friend of the strikers, believed the lists prepared by Chief Schuettler failed to give a true picture of the situation.
"The fact is that hundreds of people have been arrested who were guilty of absolutely no crime that anybody ever heard of," she said. "Dozens of women whom I know have come to me to protest against their arrests. One woman, for instance, was arrested while waiting to board a car at the street corner nearest her home. Neither she nor any of her family has anything to do with the clothing industry."
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
The Day Book (Chicago, Illinois) (Also source for images of headlines.) -Nov 1, 1915 http://www.newspapers.com/... -Nov 2, 1915 http://www.newspapers.com/...
Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) -Oct 31, 1915 https://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES We Shall Fight Until We Win, ISR, Nov 1915, Chicago ACW Strike https://books.google.com/... Ad for Kuppenheimer, Chicago Daily Tribune, During Garment Strike, Oct 14, 1915 http://www.newspapers.com/... Mary Antin, 1915 https://en.wikipedia.org/... Chicago Daily Tribune, front page, Sat Oct 30, 1915 https://www.newspapers.com/... Chicago Daily Tribune, page 6, Tues Nov 2, 1915 https://www.newspapers.com/... Chicago Daily Tribune, page 2, Sat Oct 30, 1915 https://www.newspapers.com/... Samuel Kapper, Martyr Chicago Garment Workers Strike of 1915 https://books.google.com/... Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, emblem https://books.google.com/...
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Bread and Roses - Boston Workmen's Circle A Besere Velt (A Better World) Yiddish Chorus
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days. The rising of the women means the rising of the race. No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes, But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! -James Oppenheim
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11:23 AM PT: A Besere Velt, Yiddish Community Chorus - Open Rehearsals for New Members
1550 Beacon Street, Brookline (Hebrew Senior Life) A Besere Velt, Yiddish Community Chorus - A “Voice” for Justice
MEMBERSHIP OPEN ONLY ONCE A YEAR OPEN REHEARSALS FOR NEW MEMBERS October 29 and November 5th, 3:30–5:30pm at 1550 Beacon Street, Brookline (Hebrew Senior Life)