More Powerful Than Dynamite

by Thai Jones

  191–92 Sinclair was crafting plans: “That Pedal War on Young John D. Is Getting Slow,” the World (May 5, 1914); “Leaders Abandon Silence Mourning,” New York Times (May 10, 1914); “Rockefellers Fear to Attend Church,” New York Tribune (May 10, 1914): “Why should”: “New York from the Suburbs,” New York Tribune (May 17, 1914); “job of violence”: “Silence League Disbands,” New York Times (May 11, 1914).

  192–93 Rockefellers … abstain from Sunday services: “What the Great Metropolitan Churches Are in Business,” New York Times (Jan. 10, 1909); “Bouck White Fights in Oil King’s Church,” New York Tribune (May 11, 1914); “Rockefeller’s Foes Invade His Church,” New York Times (May 11, 1914); “Church Battle of Social Revolution a Police Victory,” the World (May 11, 1914); “real God”: “Taking the Bible as the Text-Book of the Social Revolution,” Current Opinion (June 1914).

  193–94 “Almost enough of the I.W.W.”: “The I.W.W. in Union Square,” the Sun (May 3, 1914); “nightsticks … mouse”: “Is Mr. Mitchel a Mayor or a Mouse?” New York Herald (May 2, 1914); “extremely liberal”: “Rockefeller, Jr., Weary, Seeks a Rest from Mob,” New York Tribune (May 2, 1914); Ganz, Rebels, 200; “Jail for ‘Silence’ Picket in a Shroud,” New York Times (May 8, 1914); “kid gloves”: “‘Vigorous’—But Lawful,” the World (May 13, 1914).

  194–96 marines placed the first coffin: Robert E. Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1962), 103; Mark Benbow, Leading Them to the Promised Land: Woodrow Wilson, Covenant Theology, and the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1915 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2010), 68; The military spectacle: “Vera Cruz Dead Here on Warship,” New York Times (May 11, 1914); “President Voices Nation’s Tribute,” the World (May 12, 1914); “Throng Hears Wilson’s Eulogy,” New York Tribune (May 12, 1914); “Nation, State and City Honor Vera Cruz Dead,” the Sun (May 12, 1914); “Nation Honors Vera Cruz Dead in Grieving City,” New York Times (May 12, 1914); “War Is a Symbol of Duty, Says President; ‘Hard to Do Duty When Men Are Sneering,’” New York Tribune (May 12, 1914); “Wilson in Parade, Despite Warning,” New York Tribune (May 12, 1914); “Thousands Silent in City Hall Park,” New York Tribune (May 12, 1914); The greatest shock for Wilson: Cary Travers Grayson, Woodrow Wilson: An Intimate Memoir (Washington: Potomac Books, 1977), 30; Arthur S. Link, ed., Wilson: The New Freedom (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 402.

  A Film with a Thrill

  199 They filed inside the Lyric Theatre: The Battle of Torreon was screened as part of a double feature, along with The Life of General Villa; twelve days: “Parlous Times,” New York Tribune (May 10, 1914); “grewsome”: “The Broadway Pictures,” New York Tribune (May 17, 1914); “New York’s New Theaters,” Carpentry and Building (Feb. 1903); Joseph E.J. Clark, “‘Real War and No Make-Believe’: The Spectacle of the Mexican Revolution on Screen” (master’s thesis, the University of British Columbia, 2001).

  199–200 a city of filmgoers: Mary Heaton Vorse, “Some Picture Show Audiences,” Outlook (June 24, 1911); “Fifty-ninth”: Roy L. McCardell, “There Are Some Rare and Wondrous Goings On in the Famous Theatres of the ‘Good Old Days’ Since New York Became a ‘Movie Town,’” the World (March 15, 1914).

  200 “moving-picture evil … ‘hold-ups’”: “Picture Shows Menace,” New York Tribune (Nov. 16, 1911); sinks of iniquity: Alphonsus P. Haire, “Motion Pictures as Educators,” New York Tribune (Nov. 6, 1910).

  200 “cheers, but does not inebriate”: “The Moving Pictures,” the Fra (Jan. 1914); Rector’s: Haire, “Motion Pictures as Educators”; moral and spiritual improvement: “Children Who Labor,” the Edison Kinetogram (Feb. 15, 1912), in National Child Labor Committee Records, box 3, RBML; “Films to Flash Clean-up Warning!” New York Tribune (May 11, 1914); “Films to Teach Caution,” New York Tribune (May 15, 1914); “Churches Plan Moral ‘Movie’ Propaganda,” New York Tribune (June 13, 1914).

  201–2 the White Slave films appeared: Shelley Stamp Lindsey, “‘Oil Upon the Flames of Vice’: The Battle Over White Slave Films in New York City,” Film History, vol. 9, no. 4 (1997); “Long lines”: “The Inside of the White Slave Traffic,” New York Times (Dec. 26, 1913); “What is really the cause”: Emma Goldman, The Traffic in Women, and Other Essays on Feminism (Ojai, CA: Times Change Press, 1971), 20; “hideous reality”: George J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution in New York City (New York: The Century Co., 1913), 99.

  202 Skeptics were not convinced: “‘Oil Upon the Flames of Vice’”; “through the efforts of the police”: “Enjoin Police in ‘Slave’ Film War,” New York Tribune (Dec. 21, 1913); “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Repudiates Vice Films,” Duluth News-Tribune (Dec. 28, 1913).

  203 again found himself victimized: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to Raymond B. Fosdick, April 18, 1914, Rockefeller Family Rockefeller Family, OMR, Rockefeller Boards, Bureau of Social Hygiene, box 7, folder 53, RAC.

  203 at the crescendo of the scandal: “Parlous Times”; “The War Pictures,” New York Tribune (May 24, 1914); “Real War and No Make-Believe,” 35.

  7. A Sleepy Little Burg

  205 Caron rode to Tarrytown: “Fake Hungry Boy Can’t Start Riot at I.W.W. Bidding,” the World (March 24, 1914).

  206 Caron was thirty years old: John T. Cumbler, Working-Class Community in Industrial America: Work, Leisure, and Struggle in Two Industrial Cities, 1880–1930 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979), 99; Indian ancestry: “Caron’s Career in Anarchy,” New York Times (July 5, 1914); disastrous stint in the navy: Arthur Caron, personnel files, National Personnel Records Center; A civilian once more: I have pieced together Arthur Caron’s life story, fragmentary as it is, through a variety of sources. And there is no detail that is not disputed. Even Caron’s family and closest friends give widely divergent accounts: “He was a Canadian Irishman”; “born of French parents in Connecticut”; “it was said that his grandfather on his mother’s side had been an Indian chief.” lived in New York: Arthur Caron’s sister told a reporter for the World that he, and she herself, had been born in New York. His naval records list Quebec as his birthplace. There is no extant record of his birth, nor does he figure in the family’s 1910 census entry—presumably because he was living with his wife or serving in the navy. However, the census does register that the Caron children were all born in New York until the year 1901, when the youngest, Blanche, was born in Massachusetts. married a woman: Several accounts agree that Caron married Elmina Reeves in Providence, but the 1910 census lists her as living (under her married name) with her family in Fall River. So they might have been moving around. their son, Reeves: Reeves Caron’s death certificate lists his date of birth. the mother died: “Deaths,” Pawtucket Times (Dec. 6, 1912).

  207 I.W.W. locals in Fall River: Cumbler, Working-Class Community, 99–164; Henry M. Fenner, ed., History of Fall River: Compiled for the Cotton Centennial (Fall River: Fall River Merchants Association, 1911); “Accidents in Mills,” Wade’s Fibre and Fabric (Oct. 30, 1886); “Relief Work in the Fall River Strike,” Charities: A Review of Local and General Philanthropy (Jan. 21, 1905); the protests: “I.W.W. Enter Strike,” New York Times (Nov. 21, 1913); as an agitator: “Arthur Caron Killed by Anarchist’s Bomb,” Fall River Evening News (July 6, 1914); “‘get’ the mayor”: “Suffrage Rider Meets Repulse in Fall River,” Boston Journal (July 9, 1914).

  207–9 failed to escape a toiling life: “Goes for Caron’s Body,” Boston Daily Globe (July 6, 1914); Marie Ganz, Rebels: Into Anarchy—and Out Again (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1920), 136, 198; Jobless, homeless: “Women Flock to Trial of Tannenbaum, Curious to See Leader of Church Raid,” New York Herald (March 25, 1914); “six feet tall”: Rose Goldblatt, in Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 210; “slightly dark”: Charles Plunkett, in Avrich, Anarchist Voices, 216; jolly … fellow: “7 ‘Mourners’ Appear at Rockefeller Estate and March in Silent Protest,” Tarrytown Dail
y News (May 4, 1914); “level headed”: “Anarchists Prepare for Public Funeral,” New York Herald (July 6, 1914); “they would kill me”: Upton Sinclair, “Free Speech Fight in John D.’s. Town,” Appeal to Reason (June 20, 1914); “they knew what they were about”: “Caron’s Career in Anarchy,” New York Times (July 5, 1914); nose was broken: “Mayor on Police Clubs,” New York Times (May 17, 1914).

  209 electric lights: “John D. Doubles Guard About His House,” the World (May 19, 1914); “no night-stick government”: “‘Vigorous’—But Lawful,” the World (May 13, 1914); “necessary sometimes”: “Mayor on Police Clubs.”

  209–11 radical agitation … had adapted: “Jane Est Rebels Against Threat in Union Square Talk,” the World (May 17, 1914); “Raid Taft Meeting, Jane Est’s Threat,” New York Times (May 17, 1914); Helen Hill to Frank Tannenbaum, May 24, 1914, Frank Tannenbaum Papers, box 3, RBML; head worker at the University Settlement: About a month after he publicly praised the mettle of the I.W.W. activists, the head of the University Settlement was forced to resign his position. “intellectually keen”: “Gilman Praises the I.W.W.,” New York Times (June 2, 1914); “after publicity”: “The Publicity Graf,” New York Tribune (June 2, 1914); Victor Berger: “Sinclair ‘An Ass;’ John D. Just ‘Goat,’” the World (June 11, 1914).

  212–13 “Did you ever hear the wail”: “Mayor on Police Clubs”; “Riotous Scenes as I.W.W. Agitators and Anarchists Fight on Streets for Free Speech in Tarrytown,” Tarrytown Daily News (June 1, 1914); “I.W.W.’s in Tarrytown Jail,” New York Tribune (May 31, 1914); Having come to agitate: “12 Agitators Put in Cells,” the Sun (June 1, 1914); “Tarrytown Police Rout I.W.W. Forces,” New York Times (June 1, 1914); “Clubs Hit Heads When I.W.W. Raids J.D.’s ‘Own Town,’” the World (June 1, 1914); Leonard D. Abbott, “The Fight for Free Speech in Tarrytown,” Mother Earth (June 1914).

  215–16 WHEN I.W.W. RAIDS J.D.’S “OWN TOWN”: “12 Agitators Put in Cells”; drowsy: This is from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” paved with brick: “Bricking Broadway,” Tarrytown Daily News (May 24, 1914); “Dutch conservatism”: “Cities of Westchester and Her County Seat,” New York Times (May 3, 1903).

  216 the countryside had been transformed: Frederic Shonnard, quoted in Marcus D. Raymond, ed., Souvenir of the Revolutionary Soldiers’ Monument Dedication at Tarrytown, N.Y. (Tarrytown, 1894), 34; “Public opinion”: “Imprudent Language,” Tarrytown Daily News (May 11, 1914); “No Capitalist”: “I.W.W. ‘I Won’t Work,’” Tarrytown Daily News (May 5, 1914).

  216–17 authorities lost all composure: “Anarchy Causes Great Unrest,” Tarrytown Daily News (May 22, 1914); “sleep on that”: “Hose and Tar Await Agitators at Tarrytown,” New York Herald (June 4, 1914); “Threats of bloodshed”: “Will Fool Reds at Tarrytown by a Secret Trial,” the World (June 6, 1914); “tiny village”: Alexander Berkman, “Observations and Comments,” Mother Earth (June 1914); “Commuters who go to”: “Home Rule Isn’t for Tarrytown People,” Tarrytown Daily News (June 12, 1914); “sympathize”: “Free Speech in Tarrytown,” the World (June 9, 1914); “if he can get away with it”: “Tarrytown and the I.W.W.,” the World (June 4, 1914).

  218–20 “a pale and haggard” Rockefeller: “Is Judge Lindsey with Rockefeller?” New York Times (May 23, 1914); Four guards: “Tarrytown Sleeps Now on Its Arms,” New York Herald (June 7, 1914); “Armed Squad Joins Rockefeller Guard,” New York Times (June 8, 1914); “you fooled us”: “I.W.W.” to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., June 10, 1914; “to assassinate you”: “A Sufferer of Capital” to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., no date, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, box 21, folder 191, RAC; alternate lines: Jerome D. Greene to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., May 6, 1914, May 7, 1914; Rockefeller Family Papers, Record Group 2, OMR, Business Interests Series, box 20, folder 176, RAC; “I feel quite strongly”: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to Starr J. Murphy, June 29, 1914; “My first instinctive reaction”: Starr J. Murphy to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., July 10, 1914, both letters in Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, box 20, folder 178, RAC; “I am very sorry”: Franklin K. Lane, secretary of the interior to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., June 6, 1914, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, Box 20, folder 179, RAC.

  220–22 such a relief to meet Ivy Lee: Lee had worked for the Times, the Journal, and the World. “misunderstood”: Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York: Random House, 1998), 584; “Desiring as I do”: Ivy Lee to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., June 14, 1914, Industrial Relations Committee, Vol. 9, 8871; “We should see to it”: Ivy L. Lee, “The Relation of the Railroad to Human Nature,” Railway Age Gazette (June 5, 1914); stating the truth: “Bulletin No. 1,” Facts Concerning the Struggle in Colorado for Industrial Freedom: Series I (Issued by the Coal Mine Managers, 1914); “dignified … It is thought”: Ivy Lee to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., June 5, 1914, Industrial Relations Committee, Vol. 9, 8867; “thoughtful people”: Jerome D. Greene to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., July 6, 1914, Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2C, box 20, folder 176, RAC; “This publicity work”: “Colorado Memorandum,” Rockefeller Family, OMR, Business Interests, Record Group III2Z, series V, Biographical Works, box 54, folder 484, RAC.

  223–24 Upton Sinclair had gone to Denver: Upton Sinclair, Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism (Long Beach, CA: self-published, 1928), 162; feud: Upton Sinclair, “The A.P. Must Answer,” Appeal to Reason (June 20, 1914); A “pest”: “Pen Points: by the Staff,” Los Angeles Times (May 19, 1914); “touch and go”: Upton Sinclair, “Was There Civil War in Colorado?—What Upton Sinclair Saw,” the Day Book (June 3, 1914); “About a month ago”: William A. Bloodworth, Jr., Upton Sinclair (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977), 82–83; a screen adaptation of The Jungle: “Filming the ‘Jungle’,” New York Tribune (May 17, 1914); Mary Craig Sinclair, Southern Belle (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), 171; “Tarrytown Armed to Thwart I.W.W.,” New York Tribune (June 6, 1914); “Edition after edition … reputation”: Upton Sinclair, “Free Speech Fight in John D.’s Town,” Appeal to Reason (June 20, 1914); “let the public”: Sinclair, Southern Belle, 163–164; libel: “Sinclair to Start Criminal Actions,” Tarrytown Daily News (June 15, 1914); “Arraign Three Editors This Morning to Answer Criminal Libel Charges,” Tarrytown Daily News (June 17, 1914).

  225 “you can bet we’re coming back”: “Tarrytown Loses I.W.W. Martyrs,” New York Tribune (June 9, 1914); “most astonishing”: Hugh Fullerton, “Siege of Tarrytown! John D. and Son Prisoners on Big Estate,” the Day Book (June 1, 1914); “right of silence”: reprinted from the Commercial Appeal, “The Right of Silence,” Grand Forks Herald (July 3, 1914); “spouters”: “Denying Free Speech,” Grand Rapids Press (June 8, 1914).

  225–26 For Arthur Caron, personally: Upton Sinclair, “Free Speech Fight in John D.’s Town”; “Caron’s Career in Anarchy,” New York Times (July 5, 1914).

  226–28 Two weeks had passed: “I.W.W. Agitators Pelted with Rotten Eggs, Stones and Dirt, as They Hold Free Speech Meeting on Aqueduct,” Tarrytown Daily News (June 23, 1914); “Anarchists Egged in Tarrytown Riot,” New York Times (June 23, 1914); “60 Agitators Storm Tarrytown to Speak,” the Sun (June 23, 1914); “Bad Egg Volleys and Sand in Eyes Rout the I.W.W.,” the World (June 23, 1914); “Tarrytown Mob in 3-Hour Riot Routs the I.W.W.,” New York Tribune (June 23, 1914); “I.W.W. Stoned by Tarrytown Force After Egg Shower,” New York Herald (June 23, 1914).

  228 some were in the mood to gloat: “Anarchy and Law at Tarrytown,” the Sun (June 24, 1914); a writer for the Times: “Anarchists Egged in Tarrytown Riot.”

  Safe and Sane

  229–30 “Don’t Throw Things Out the Windows”: For You. It Is Hard to Get Money. It Is Harder to Spend It Right. Health Is Wealth (New York: Issued by the Tenement House Department of the City of New York and the Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization Society, 1917); “greatest social worker”: This was said by George McAneny, president of
the Board of Aldermen. “City Plans to Uplift Tenement Livers,” New York Times (June 22, 1914); a prelude of intrusions to come: “A Primer for Tenement Dwellers,” New York Tribune (June 22, 1914).

  230 only one of the initiatives: “‘Skyscraper Jail’ for Women Is Soon to Be Begun,” New York Times (March 22, 1914); “Anarchist Prison on Riker’s Island,” New York Times (Nov. 29, 1914); “Kingsbury Hopes to Save $666,000,” New York Times (June 4, 1914); “Detective Force Reorganized,” the World (June 16, 1914).

  230–31 The carnage of the holiday: “A Fourth-of-July Lexicon,” Life (July 2, 1914); “Fourth of July Tetanus,” the Medical Standard (July 1901); William B. Bailey, “The Glorious Fourth,” the Independent (June 29, 1914); “annual carnival”: Raymond W. Smilor, “Creating a National Festival: The Campaign for a Safe and Sane Fourth, 1903–1916,” Journal of American Culture (Winter 1980); “more or less biff”: “The Glorious Fourth Comparatively Quiet,” New York Times (July 5, 1901); “A bombardment”: “The Fourth in the City,” New York Times (July 5, 1896).

  231–33 a country wide agitation: “Taft for a Sane Fourth,” New York Times (July 6, 1909); John D. Rockefeller: “Sane Fourth Idea Pleases John D.,” Chicago Daily Tribune (July 5, 1909); “Quite aside”: “The New Fourth,” American City (June 1912); “doing well”: “How to Celebrate ‘A Safe and Sane Fourth’—A Series of Contrasts,” New York Times (June 25, 1911); Twenty cities held Safe and Sane celebrations: Roy Rozenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 153; Revolutionary battles: “A Revolution in Celebrations,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (June 27, 1912); “Fewer Injuries Mark Sane Fourth,” Chicago Tribune (July 6, 1910); “No Lives Lost in 4th Celebration,” New York Tribune (July 5, 1914).