The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-09-25
Class War in America in the 1905
By Amy Schechter.
Decorations by Jerger)


were sashed again and again. In the mines. where
OF the hottest struggles OF the period were fought
the cut 40 per The textile workers were also
very hard hit In Paterson, for instance wages were
reduced so per cent within three years Large mum
bers Of mills were shut down. Contemporary press
descriptions OF the streams Of starving textile work
wandering about in despairing search for bread
might be taken from account of the Russian famine
The following is taken from the Hartford Examiners
account of the textile region along the Wimantic In
February, of 1885:
Since July fifteen of these concerns have shut out
their employees, and their inability to find work has
brought starvation nearly unto death In the
severity of the winter young girls tramped from
place to place in search Of work. begged shelter
and food and slept in outhouses and barns and to-
day the victims of hunger and exposure the
males tramp out farther in the state and be-
come desperate while the old people and in
fants remain in the villages starving by inches :"
Not only were wages extremely low and in many
paid monthly but the pleasant practice hold
ing back Is to 20 days pay of months, sometimes
till the end of the year, of the term of en-
ployment, so that" writes the Commissioner La.
Dor, "the poorest paid and classes are
thus unable to exist from payday to payday without
credit The masses of unsked workers lived in an
eternal round of debt Hours for this class of labor
were from eleven to twelve in states where legisa
ton had already been enacted other states any
thing up to twenty, and in all hours limit
less for tenement industry. Pennsylvania miners
worked up to Is hours. Minnesota passed law limit
ing work on the railroads to Is hours day.
Horrible things were done to the children of the
proetariat Turnout the country children from eight
in the south from six years worked eleven twelve and
thirteen hours day under unspeakabe conditions
Often, as in the Harmony Mills in Cohoes N Y,
known to workers "Hen's Nils" children were
ogged with leather straps when they could not keep
up the pace required The mill owners said that grhey
were kept under control in way that benefited their
morals >" superintendent either uncommonly
naive uncommony stupid told the Labor Bureau
officials, Now, have noticed a strange thing. Fam
lies here from Ireland and the girls are as rug
ged and healthy and rosy-cheeked you would
and yet in two years the girls would be consump
tive and half the family would be gone in Seven years
In New York City read of children working strip
ping and preparing tobacco I'll to 10 hours not as
long hours grown persons, but enough to kill them
rapidly" Tens Of thousands workers grew up litter
ate because they had been up in the factories
since earliest childhood
In mill as well as mining towns workers were com
PEELED to live In the filthy provided by the
companies at exorbant rents The Fall River Cotton
Manufacturer" wrote of these tenements, "They are
not good would like to have them, but they
ire good enough for operatives"
At the beginning of the decade capital believed that
under existing circumstances the great mass of I'M
skilled and defenseess completely in it's power,
and open to lznitless exploitation. But gaining i'm
petus during the destitute years of the 1SS+1SS5 de-
preston, great of revolt swept thru this
of labor IAN elemental protest against oppression and
degradation manfesting itself in thousands of furi
ouslyfought strikes and carrying hundreds of thou
sands of workers into the Knights of Labor In the
year from July 1885 to July, 1886, membership rose
from 1O4O66 to 7O2924 "rhe movement bore in every
way the aspect of a social war; writes Commons.
"A frenzied hatred of labor for capital was shown in
every important strike 4. Extreme bitterness to-
wards capital manifested itself in all the actions of the
Knights of Labor and wherever the leaders undertook
to hold it within bounds they generally discard
ed by their followers and others who would lead d.
rected were placed in charge :"
This great movement OF the proletariat-"that
rnightx clnrinns Ercnls calIs itcrnat