Los Angeles herald., 1890-07-04
STARVING WORKMEN.
Desperate ClOak-Makers Cause
a Riot in New York.
Several Shops on Broadway
Attacked and Wrecked.
Homeless Families Walk the Streets
Without Shelter.
Many Heads Broken by the Exasperated
Strikers-One Man Seriously
Injured.
Associated Press Dispatches

New York, July Sit has been feared
for some time that starvation would
force, the striking cloakmakers to do acts
of violence. These fears were realized
today. 1t has been matter of common
notoriety for several days past that these
unfortunate people have actually been
in awful straits, and few have been
confronted with the necessity of leaving
their homes for lack of money to pay
rent. Last night several families were
out on the streets all night and the men
this morning were driven to the point of
desperation, and about two hundred Of
them went over to their old workshops.
They massed in front Of Meyer, Jonas
son q Co.'s place and the Mercantile
Cloth Company, two Of the largest firms
in the city. Joseph Lereburger, buyer
in the employ of Meyer Jonasson, came
down the street. When the strikers
saw him they made rush at him, and
Lereburger was badly beaten up before
he managed to escape from the mob.
The success of the attack upon the first
victim seemed to turn the usually
peaceful men into body of rioters.
They ran down to Jonasson's store, and
the front doors being open, q few of the
bolder ones entered and seized the office
boy, Charlie Butler and in a second he
was receiving the same kind of blows
which fell upon Lereberger. Will
liam Winer, an OPERATOR Joseph
Rodelheimer, packer, and Bookkeeper
Sims were the next to receive similar
treatment to that accorded the other
two. Two Italians were then attacked,
but they drew weapons and the strikers
fled. The mob next gathered around
cloakmaker named Kunze. He did not
get away so easily as the other men.
When the police, who had been noti-
fed, came running down the street, the
strikers scattered, but they left Kunze
on the sidewalk bleeding from half a
dozen cuts in his head. They must
have kicked him, as his injuries were
serious.
All this time another detachment of
strikers had been busy two blocks be-
low. They were men who had been in
the employ of the Merchantile Cloth
Company, and they gathered there Just
as in front of Meyer Jonasson & Co. 8
and waited for the workmen to come
along. They were rewarded just before
3 o'clock, when they surrounded the
men, struck them badly half a dozen
times and then chased them up the
stairs. The mob was then scattered by
the police.
While all this was going on an angry
mob of striking cloakmakers collected at
the corner of Irvington and Eldridge
streets, determined to obtain work or
prevent the bosses from employing nom
union workers. Samuel Villet, a Pole,
had about score of men making cloaks
for him. He did not like the looks of
the strikers, and accordingly he locked
and barred his doors. About II 80
O'Clock, when the crowd was the largest,
Villet and his employees were startled
by a crash. The strikers had broken
open the front door, and mob of about
thirty, led by Abraham Rosenberg,
rushed in upon them. They demanded
that all hands stop work, and meeting
with no success began to threaten and in
timidate Villet and workmen. The
strikers threw out of the windows the
plush cloaks being made, and pande-
monium reigned.
8 The streets in that vicinity were filled
with surging mass OF people. Villet,
becoming terrorized. and after receiving
an ugly cash across the right eye with a
knife, he whipped out a revolver and
fired two shots. One bullet lodged in
the back OF Abraham Rosenberg,
and with a shrek he stag
gered out on the street. At this
moment the police arrived. They cap
tured Villet and eighteen other persons,
and carried them off to jail. Rosenberg
was removed to the hospital, where he
lies in a precarious condition. Tonight
two hundred Jews ON the east side
mobbed driver of loaded cloak manu-
facturer's truck, on which also rode a
policeman. The latter caught the leader
ard let his club fall on his head so often
that he collapsed, and the crowd skunk
away.