Rebel Voices
Page 36
Notwithstanding all this, the mill corporations went right on as if nothing of importance was happening, or could happen. They were supreme and able to crush out all discontent, as before. They recked not of the terrible resentment—the general rage, long smoldering and now irrepressible—that filled the workers on beholding their robbed envelopes—and lives. And they knew not that where Labor is most suffering and most oppressed, there is it also most terrible when aroused.
Hence, the revolt was a complete surprise, that caused unprecedented alarm, and for the first time in a labor dispute in the history of Massachusetts, later on, necessitated the calling out of the militia. The Lawrence textile revolt reverberated throughout the industrial world. Large numbers in distant parts instinctively realized at once that something extraordinary had happened in New England’s hotbeds of labor submission and exploitation, the textile mills. The textile wage-slaves had openly and actually rebelled. Lawrence, with its exploitation and luxury for the benefit of a few capitalists on one side, and its slavery and starvation for the many workers on the other, was now enacting the world-wide drama of the class struggle—of the irrepressible conflict between the interests of capital and labor.
It was this profound fact that sounded the riot call, turned Lawrence topsy-turvy and enabled the industrial democracy to arrive.
2
On July 15,179s, “La Marseillaise” was made the official national anthem of France. It had been written by a young French army officer, Rouget de Lisle, and dedicated to the French commander of the Army of the Rhine at a time when France had declared war on Prussia and Hungary. In 1830, it was sung by radical workers in the July Revolution against the reactionary King Charles X. Louis Philippe, Charles’s successor, granted De Lisle a pension, and when he died in 1836 huge crowds of workers marched in his funeral procession.
“The Marseillaise” became popular with revolutionary movements throughout Europe and was printed in many radical songbooks. It was included in a book, Socialist Songs (Chicago, 1901), published by the Charles Kerr Publishing Company, and printed in the first edition of the I.W.W. songbook. It was especially popular in the I.W.W. strikes in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Paterson, New Jersey.
THE MARSEILLAISE*
Ye sons of toil, awake to glory!
Hark, hark, what myriads bid you rise;
Your children, wives and grandsires hoary—
Behold their tears and hear their cries!
Behold their tears and hear their cries!
Shall hateful tyrants mischief breeding,
With hireling hosts, a ruffian band—
Affright and desolate the land,
While peace and liberty lie bleeding?
Chorus:
To arms! to arms! ye brave!
Th’ avenging sword unsheathe!
March on, march on, all hearts resolved
On Victory or Death.
With luxury and Pride surrounded,
The vile, insatiate despots dare,
Their thirst for gold and power unbounded,
To mete and vend the light and air,
To mete and vend the light and air,
Like beasts of burden, would they load us,
Like gods would bid their slaves adore,
But Man to Man, and who is more?
Then shall they longer lash and goad us?
Chorus.
O, Liberty; can man resign thee?
Once having felt thy generous flame.
Can dungeons, bolts and bars confine thee?
Or whips, thy noble spirit tame?
Or whips, thy noble spirit tame?
Too long the world has wept bewailing
That Falsehood’s dagger tyrants wield,
But Freedom is our sword and shield;
And all their arts are unavailing!
Chorus.
3
A Parisian transport worker, Eugene Pottier, wrote the words to “The Internationale” in 1871, and they were set to music composed by Pierre Degeyter, a wood carver from Lille, in 1888. “The Internationale” became the anthem for radical movements throughout the world. It was the official anthem of the Soviet Union until 1944, when the U.S.S.R. adopted a new national anthem, “The Hymn of the Soviet Union.” It was translated into English by Charles Kerr, head of a cooperative socialist book publishing company in Chicago, and included in a socialist songbook published in 1901. It was sung by delegates to the first I.W.W. convention in 1905, frequently reprinted in the I.W.W. press, and included in the first edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
THE INTERNATIONALE*
By EUGENE POTTIER
Translated by Charles H. Kerr
Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth,
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world’s in birth.
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us,
Arise, ye slaves! no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations,
We have been naught, we shall be all.
Refrain
’Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in his place,
The Industrial Union
Shall be the human race.
We want no condescending saviors,
To rule us from a judgment hall;
We workers ask not for their favors;
Let us consult for all.
To make the thief disgorge his booty
To free the spirit from its cell,
We must ourselves decide our duty,
We must decide and do it well.
Refrain
The law oppresses us and tricks us,
Wage systems drain our blood;
The rich are free from obligations,
The laws the poor delude.
Too long we’ve languished in subjection,
Equality has other laws;
“No rights,” says she, “without their duties,
No claims on equals without cause.”
Refrain
Behold them seated in their glory,
The kings of mine and rail and soil!
What have you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil?
Fruits of the people’s work are buried
In the strong coffers of a few;
In working for their restitution
The men will only ask their due.
Refrain
Toilers from shops and fields united,
The union we of all who work;
The earth belongs to us, the people,
No room here for the shirk.
How many on our flesh have fattened!
But if the noisome birds of prey
Shall vanish from the sky some morning,
The blessed sunlight still will stay.
Refrain
Sheet music of “The Internationale.’
4
Fred Beat (1895?-----), author of Proletarian Journey (New York, 1937) from which this selection is taken, was a textile worker and textile organizer. Convicted during the Gastonia (North Carolina) textile strike, he jumped bail and, with Utopian expectations, fled to the Soviet Union, where he lived for several years. Disillusioned with his experiences, he broke with the Communist Party and returned to the United States. His second book, The Red Fraud (New York, 1949), was published by Tempo Publishers.
STRIKE!
By FRED E. BEAL
1
I suddenly discovered that I did not want to be a textile worker. I was fifteen…. Mill work was dreary….
… One day, at noon-time, [a] lecturer addressed the crowd in front of our mill gate…. [He] urged us to organize into a union, to join the Industrial Workers of the World, and to demand from the bosses more wages and shorter hours. He declared with emphasis that we, the textile workers, were wage slaves and that all the mill owners were slave drivers, as bad and as brutal as Simon Legree of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
&
nbsp; This was news to me. I had always thought that only coloured people could be slaves and that they had been freed long ago by us Yankees who fought in the Civil War. Yet there was something convincing about his talk although I could not quite understand just who were the bosses who, according to the speaker, were enjoying the Florida sunshine while we slaved in the mills for their profit. All the subordinate bosses I had ever known were working in the mill, like “Slim Jim the Burglar” and Paddy Parker.
Strikers held back by soldiers, Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912.
Brown Brothers photo.
The Irish workers did not like the speaker; the Italians did. The Irish cupped their hands to their mouths, made strange noises every time the Italians applauded, and yelled: “Ef ye don’t loike this countr-r-ry, go back where ye come fr-r-rom!”
The speaker ignored these remarks and continued: “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.”
Then, rudely, as if by prearrangement, the ten-minutes-to-one bells, high up in the mill’s belfry, began tolling their dismal warning to us workers that it was time for us to get back to work. “The slave bells are calling” yelled the I.W.W. speaker. “The master wants you back at the bench and machine. Go, slaves! But remember, these very bells will some day toll the death-knell of the slave-drivers!”
The bells tolled on defiantly.
2
That afternoon, during the rest period, we doffers talked about the I.W.W. speaker and the union he was organizing. We had good reason to talk. Things were about to happen. The State Legislature had just passed a law reducing the hours of labour from 56 to 54 per week, and there was rumour that our pay would be reduced accordingly. Our next pay day was Friday, January 12, and the grown-up workers were talking about going on strike if wages were cut. We young people thought it would be fun to strike and made plans to go skating and sleigh-riding—all but Little Eva. She and her mother were the breadwinners of the family. Her father had lost an arm at Pingree’s Box Shop two weeks after they came from Canada. They sorely needed Little Eva’s weekly wage of five dollars and four cents.
Old man Dwyer, the empty rovings’ collector, had worked in the Pacific Mills over thirty years. There was a strike in the Pacific Mills in 1882, said Dwyer, against a wage reduction. He took part in that and lost.
“Thems that runs things gets the best of us every time,” he shook his head dejectedly. “Let well enough alone.” He was against going on strike. “Tain’t right to be loafin’,” he would say. “These dagoes, who come to this country and takes the vittels right out of our mouths by workin’ for nothin only wants more money to send home to Italy.”
While the discussion was on, two Italian spinners came to me with a long white paper. They wanted me to be among the first to sign a petition against the threatened wage cut because, they said, I was American. The idea was to present Paddy Parker with a long list of those opposed to any reduction. I read the words at the top of the paper:
THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE WORKING IN THE SPINNING ROOM WILL GO ON STRIKE FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, IF WAGES ARE CUT—
Queenie read it over my shoulder. “Don’t sign it, Lobster,” she cautioned. “These wops’ll get you in trouble. You’ll be put on the blacklist if you sign that paper!”
But I signed it. So did Gyp and Lefty Louie.
And January 12 was only two days away.
3
On this Friday morning the atmosphere at the mill was tense with suppressed excitement. We were not sure that the company would cut our wages. We would know when the paymaster came round at eleven o’clock. The shop was full of rumours. One of these was that the big Wood Mill of eight thousand workers had already gone on strike. This almost started an immediate walkout in our spinning room. Dwyer had it on “good authority” that we would get an increase if we stayed at work. Queenie said the priest told her not to strike.
“You goddam French-Canucks will go out if we do,” snapped Gyp, “even if we have to pull you out by the tongue.” Gyp was afraid his plans for skating might fall amiss.
Paddy Parker, petition in hand, called me to one side. “Young man,” he said blandly, “I see your name heads this list. Did you put it there?”
“Yes, I did, because I don’t think we should get a wage cut.”
“You shouldn’t have your name with these foreigners.”
“I work with them, don’t I?”
“Yes, but you want to get a better position soon, don’t you? Stand by the company. I’ll cross off your name.”
“I’m going on strike if the others do,” I said firmly.
“All right, young man, if you do, you will never get work again in the Pacific Mills, and I will see to it that you are blacklisted at other mills, and every other name on this list.”
The threat of not being able to get work again in any of the mills made me feel miserable. Where else could I get a job? All Lawrence to me was mills, mills, mills…. Perhaps the best thing would be to leave Lawrence and go West, to be a cowboy like those in the movies. For the first time in my life I felt fear tugging at my heart. Hadn’t I promised to help out the family? And now, if I went out on strike, I would never get another job in the mills of Lawrence and perhaps Paddy Parker could stop me from getting a job anywhere. I had to make a decision in thirty minutes before the paymaster came round.
It was my habit, in a crisis, to ask God the way out—God and Jesus Christ, because I took my Sunday-school teachings seriously. I always talked with God in private. There was no thought of irreverence in me when, sitting upon the toilet seat, I asked God about going out on strike. There just wasn’t any other private place.
There was a sharp whistle. It was the call that said: “Come and get your pay!”
Just like any other Friday, the paymaster, with the usual armed guard, wheeled a truck containing hundreds of pay envelopes to the head of a long line of anxiously waiting people. There was much chattering in different languages, and much gesticulation. I stood with Gyp halfway along the line. When the great moment came, the first ones nervously opened their envelopes and found that the company had deducted two hours’ pay. They looked silly, embarrassed and uncertain what to do. Milling around, they waited for someone to start something. They didn’t have long to wait, for one lively young Italian had his mind thoroughly made up and swung into action without even looking into his pay envelope.
“Strike! Strike!” he yelled. To lend strength to his words, he threw his hands in the air like a cheer-leader.
“Strike! Strike! Strike!”
He yelled these words as he ran, past our line, then down the room between spinning frames. The shop was alive with cries of “Strike” after the paymaster left. A few French-Canadian spinners went back to work. A tall Syrian worker pulled a switch and the powerful speed belts that gave life to the bobbins slackened to a stop.
There were cries: “All Out!”
And then hell broke loose in the spinning room. The silent, mute frames became an object of intense hatred, something against which to vent our stored-up feelings. Gears were smashed and belts cut. The Italians had long sharp knives and with one zip the belts dangled helplessly on the pulleys. Lefty Louie and I went from frame to frame, breaking “ends,” while Tony smashed windows. Queenie barricaded herself behind trucks and let loose a barrage of bobbins on Gyp, who seemed determined to get hold of her tongue. It was a madhouse, a thrilling one, nevertheless.
More cries: “Strike! All Out! Strike!”
Old man Dwyer hugged his truck of rovings and Paddy Parker was at the door when we stampeded for the street. How ineffectual he looked, standing there with the petition. It was 11:45. The company wanted to keep us in until twelve, when the bells in the belfry would again ring out the noon hour, so the gates were closed. Three workers grabbed the watchman and forced him
to open up. We wanted to get out before the bells rang, and we did.
We piled out into Canal Street, singing and shouting.
It was snowing.
5
Richard Brazier’s verses on shorter hours appeared in the third edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
Although the eight-hour day was not legally established in this country until 1938, with the passage of the Wage-Hour Law, agitation for a shorter work day had been carried on for over fifty years by American workers. In the I.W.W., E. S. Nelson, author of “Workingmen, Unite,” spearheaded an eight-hour movement among lumber and construction workers in the Northwest. An Eight-Hour League was formed about 1912 among textile workers in Paterson, New Jersey, where no reduction had been made in the working hours of the industry since 1904. An earlier eight-hour song to the tune “The British Grenadiers” originated among the miners and was probably sung in the 1897 mine strike for a shorter work day.
THE EIGHT-HOUR SONG
By RICHARD BRAZIER
(Tune: “Silver Threads Among the Gold”)
Workingmen, both young and old, why will you wear your lives away,
For the masters making gold, while you live from day to day?
Hungry, ragged and forsaken, millions of you roam the earth,
All you make is from you taken, slaves you are right from your birth.
Chorus
Arise, then, throw your chains asunder, stand up for the eight-hour day,
Then you workers who now hunger will have work and get more pay.
Refrain
Workers do you hear us calling, 1912, the FIRST OF MAY?
After that date, work no longer than eight hours a day.