My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want.
We do not want to find fault with each other,
but to solidify our forces and say to each other:
"We must be together; our masters are joined together
and we must do the same thing."
-Mother Jones
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Saturday May 27, 1905
Chicago, Illinois - Teamsters Strike Claims Lives on Both Sides
Chicago Teamsters Strike
Blockade at State and Madison Streets
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While
Hellraisers supports the Teamsters in their strike, which was begun as a show of solidarity for Chicago's striking Garment Workers, we deplore the violence now bringing chaos to the city. Nowhere have we been able to find a call for peaceful picketing from the leaders of the Teamsters or from the Chicago Federation of Labor. If such calls are pointed out to us, we will issue an apology.
From the Illinois Rock Island Argus of May 15, 1905:
Negro is Shot Dead.
James Jennings, 26 years old, colored, was shot dead and P. Lagrogoris, owner of a lunch wagon in front of 2517 State street, was severely beaten early yesterday. Legrogoris was taken to Mercy hospital, where it is said his condition is serious.
From the Rock Island Argus of May 17, 1905:
Boy Shot and Killed
Chicago, May 17.-The first schoolboy has fallen a victim to the violence attending the teamsters strike.
Enoch Carlson, 11 years old, a pupil in the Ward school, was shot and killed by a negro strike breaker, who was passing the child's home, 2701 Princeton avenue. The shooting occurred at 6:15 p. m. after a score of playing children had shouted derisively at the negro and a companion...
From the Chicago Broad Ax of May 20, 1905:
Crimes, Murder
And All Kinds of Lawlessness Continues To Follow
in the Wake of the Teamsters Strike.
At the present writing everything seems to indicate that the great or the bitter fight on the part of the striking teamsters is far from being settled, and in the meantime, crimes, murder, and all kinds of lawlessness continues to flourish in all parts of this city, so far innocent colored men, women, and children, and white ones too, for that matter, have been dragged from the street cars, beat up and otherwise mistreated, and shot down like common dogs by the white and black roughens and sluggers who have been so conspicuous in this teamsters' strike.
It is too bad that those in authority at the first inception of the strike, did not insist upon throwing the state troops into this city, for the sole purpose of maintaining order and for the further purpose of protecting the lives and the property of all citizens regardless of their race or color, if such the first place at no time since the commencement of the teamsters' strike would there have been the slightest occasion to inflame the public mind by working up an agitation in favor of race wars.
By failing to uphold and enforce the laws at all times has been the immediate cause of peaceable citizens who have not been interested in the strike one way or the other being foully murdered and through the reign of mob law, murder, and all kinds of lawlessness, a white gentleman foully murdered a colored man named Jennings at 26th and State St. last Saturday night. This same lawless spirit caused Mr. Bailey, an honest and respectable Afro-American who was not a strike breaker, to be dragged, from a street car at State and Van Buren streets, and to be beat up for nothing whatever, except that he happened to be a colored man.
Therefore it is no more than reasonable that as long as the striking teamsters and their sympathizers trample the laws of this city under their feet, and continue to place no valuation on human life, colored men who have been brought here to assist to end the strike also feel that they have the undisputed right to do the same thing, hence the killing of the little schoolboy, Enoch Carlson, at 27th and Princeton avenue, the first of the week by some unknown colored man who was supposed to be a strike breaker, and it is claimed he was brought here from Tennessee, Oklahoma, and that he was employed by the employers' Teaming Company to drive for the Peabody Coal company, and Marshall Field and Company.
The shooting to death of Enoch Carlson, which was a horrible crime to be perpetrated by any human being, was the culmination of all the riotous scenes, crimes, murders and all forms of lawlessness which have been enacted in Chicago since the beginning of the teamsters' strike.
From henceforth there should be no more temporizing on the part of the city, county or state authorities with those connected with either side of the strike, which should be stamped out at once, even if it is necessary to call out the state troops to preserve law and order, and to prevent the citizens of Chicago from being shot down in cold blood, while preambulating up and down its streets.
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[Photographs added.]
From The Appeal of Saint Paul, Minnesota, May 20, 1905:
SEEN AND HEARD IN MANY PLACES.
[A note by William Penn:]
In the Daily News Saturday, May 13th, appeared an article, entitled "Negroes and the Strike." I presume that "Dyers," the name attached, is that of an Afro-American. Whatever his color, he has the right idea, and I quote his article in full without further comment:
NEGROES AND THE STRIKE.
Strike sympathizers can stand back in the crowds of spectators and hurl bricks and insults at the strike breakers-white or colored-who are attending strictly to business. But if the drivers thus attacked attempted to protect themselves, the chances are that the policemen would arrests them rather than the persons who were guilty of the disorder-unless, perhaps, the lives or heads of the policemen themselves were in danger, in which case the arrested lawbreaker would be allowed by some justice to get off with a fine of $1, when it should have been a fine of $50 or $100, and from ten to thirty days in jail. The order to arrest all violators of the law seems to have a sting to it. If the city officials had put their feet on the violence at the outset they could have stamped it out.
I am persuaded that the colored strike breakers have been very unjustly treated. for instance when the police searched the strike breakers for weapons they would fail to disarm the union pickets. When the police came to the rescue of an attacked Negro they would generally succeed in arresting the colored man, but not his assailants. Students and citizens have been attacked for nothing else than because they were Negroes, despite the fact that they had nothing whatever to do with the strike.
William O'Day, a colored union teamster, was attacked by Albert Enders, a union hanger-on. The colored man shot his assailant, fatally. The the employers should see that he is given a just trial.
The other evening a colored laboring man was riding home from his regular work on a 26th street car. When near Stewart avenue the conductor pointed out this man to two union pickets, they at once attempted to get at him and had not the colored man been prepared for such attacks they might have done him great injury before a policeman appeared.
Can any one blame the colored men for defending themselves? The Negroes have a better right to work here than so many foreigners who are guilty of all manner of crimes. Worst of all, many of the foreigners are anarchists and plotters against the government of the country. The Negroes are free from any such charge as this.
C. H. Dyers.
[Introduction to Dyers' article added before article for clarification.]
[Photographs added.]
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SOURCES
Rock Island Argus
(Rock Island, Illinois)
-May 15, 1905
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
-May 17, 1905
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The Broad Ax
(Chicago, Illinois)
-May 20, 1905, Image 1
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The Appeal
(Saint Paul, Minnesota)
-May 20, 1905
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
IMAGES
Blockade at State and Madison Streets
https://books.google.com/...
The Broad Ax Banner
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The Broad Ax, Julius F. Taylor, editor.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The Appeal Banner
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
The Appeal, "A national Afro-American newspaper."
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
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Solidarity Forever
-Angela Kelly & Troy Coman of UAW Local 898/Rawsonville
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