You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday October 29, 1915
From the Chicago Day Book: 5,000 Mourners March Behind Funeral of Samuel Kapper
The funeral for striking garment worker, Samuel Kapper, Martyr of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, was held yesterday. The Day Book gave this account:
Samuel Kapper
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THOUSANDS MARCH BEHIND
KAPPER FUNERAL
Five thousand garment workers marched from the synagogue at Division and Lincoln av. today behind the body of Samuel Kapper, striker, who was murdered on Halsted st. Monday. The marchers disbanded at Madison st. Burial of Kapper was made in Forest Home cemetery.
It was planned to continue the march to the Cubs' ball park and hold a mass meeting there, but the park could not be secured. The big vacant lot outside the ball park was available, but Sidney Hillman refused to allow his strikers to meet there, fearing police and hired sluggers would instigate trouble in order to turn public sympathy against the strikers.
Hillman arose from a sick bed to participate in the march.
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[Photograph added.]
Below the fold, our readers can find further reporting on the Great Chicago Garment Workers Strike.
From The Day Book of October 28, 1915:
IS THE WHOLE AFFAIR A CASE HALF SIZES?
A lot of good hard cash is going into the newspaper offices for Kuppenheimer clothes ads. A half-page ad in the Tribune and Herald is signed:
The House of Kuppenheimer, Chicago.
(Originators of Half--Sizes in Men's Clothing.)
That's where the kick comes from the men and women on strike at Kuppenheimer's. The Kuppenheimers want half-size men and half-size women to make half-size clothing.
From the testimony before the Utpatel committee of Grace Gross, a striker, who was a finisher in a Kuppenheimer shop, is this:
I go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning, but do not punch the time clock until 7:30 o'clock. We are told to do that by the forelady. I work until 5:45 o'clock in the evening.
Which led Ald. W. J. Healy to say it looked as though the Kuppenheimers were breaking the 10-hour law.
From the Chicago Daily Tribune of October 14, 1915:
From The Day Book of October 28, 1915:
THE POLICE SQUINT-EYE- Has the Chicago police department got a bad case of squint-eye? Shall the police look on and laugh when hired sluggers of the clothing manufacturers beat up strikers? How long will this city allow sluggers, prizefighters, to carry guns and wear stars as special policemen authorized by permits from the city of Chicago?
"It is obvious that order must be maintained, that the law must be enforced," says the Tribune. Sure. Then why don't Schuettler order policemen to arrest sluggers beating strikers?
"Violence is intolerable, whether it be that of the striker or the strikebreaker," again says the Tribune. That isn't the big kick. Here's the wrong:
The city police force under Schuettler and Mayor Thompson is one-sided in viewpoint and action. It is not neutral. It is not midway. The only complaints against it are from strikers. The employers, the Illinois Manufacturers' ass'n, the Association of Commerce, and the Kuppenheimers, Rosenwalds, Lindenthals, all the big sweatshop millionaires, are satisfied with the city police. It is one-sided. It is against labor. It is for capital. It is prejudiced, non-judicial, in its execution of the law. In the single fact that policemen have wounded three strikers with revolver shots while not a cop has got a bullet from a striker is a dirty red record of violence that shows the moral squint-eye of the police.
From The Day Book of October 28, 1915:
A. F. OF L. TO HEAR ARGUMENTS OF GARMENT BODIES
At the convention of the American Federation of Labor which will be held in San Francisco next month the charges against the United Garment Workers' union will be brought out by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers who have been unable to obtain membership in that body because they seceded from the former body.
The charges are of such a nature that officials of the Amalgamated union are sure that they will be recognized when they bring out their proof of certain actions of officials of the U. G. W. union.
[Said Hillman:]
The attacks on our union, are prompted by no other motives except to descredit us in the eyes of the labor world..We have proof that certain actions of the officials of the United Garment Workers were treasonable to the labor movement. At present their organization has the treasury and the officials and ours has the members. They have less than 15,000 members in the United States while we have more than 100,000.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Day Book of October 28, 1915:
HILLMAN DISCUSSES POLICE METHODS FROM ALL-IN BED
Sidney Hillman's reserve fund of vitality came to an end last night. Today, from a sick bed in the Hotel La Salle, he is directing the strike. Since the struggle began he has made an average of six speeches a day and has never slept more than six hours a night.
Last night he was near collapse. His aids hurried him to the hotel and put him to bed. This morning, after a nap, he said to reporters: "I feel fine. You'll see me back on the firing line this afternoon. Let me know if anything else happens."
In a statement issued last night Second Deputy Superintendent of Police Schuettler blames the strikers for all the trouble. He tells them to "obey the law and stop putting strong arm men on the job."
The chief has no evidence that the strikers have sluggers. If so he would have produced it before the council committee which found the methods employed by the police in handling the strike as "unnecessarily brutal."
[Hillman said:]
This is practically proof that Schuettler's methods in handling a strike are wrong..He believes in sluggers on the employer's side, but not on the union side. He goes so far as to accuse us of employing them. Twenty of our people were arrested for peaceful picketing yesterday.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Day Book of October 28, 1915:
PLENTY OF CHANCE TO DO SOME BOOSTING IN THE STRIKE
Mayor Big Bill Thompson
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"Boost Chicago!"
The mayor gave prosperity interview today. He predicted another business boom and talked of the big improvements the burg needed and was going to get if he had his way, including a Town Hall on the list.
But what did he say he was going to do to help the garment workers get enough from the prosperity to let them live without slavery of mothers and prostitution of daughters.
Oh! He said the striking garment workers were outlaw unionists. He doesn't seem to care what happens to the mothers and daughters in the families of some 20,000 citizens.
"I agree with Corporation Counsel Folsom's opinion regarding private police," said the mayor.
Folsom's opinion invalidated the order of city council that private police and sluggers must not be employed by garment makers. Folsom and the mayor believe it is all right for factory owners to pay strong-arm men to do duty against the strikers.
Ald. Buck says Folsom's opinion is based on a trivial technicality. "The council will put through another order against the private police and word it so that Folsom's opinions cannot harm it," said Buck.
"I can't see how any one can want to reduce protection," said the mayor in criticising council's action.
Pass the prosperity pie!
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
The Day Book
[Chicago, Illinois]
-Oct 28, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Samuel Kapper,
Martyr Chicago Garment Workers Strike of 1915
https://books.google.com/...
Ad for Kuppenheimer, Chicago Daily Tribune,
During Garment Strike, Oct 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The Day Book, N. D. Cochran, Editor,
Oct 28, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, emblem
https://books.google.com/...
Sidney Hillman
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
Mayor Big Bill Thompson,
Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct 20, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
See also:
"The Break From the United Garment Workers in 1914"
https://books.google.com/...
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The Red Flag from the Songs of Irish Labour
Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise,
In Moscow's vaults its hymns were sung
Chicago swells the surging throng.
So raise the scarlet standard high.
Beneath its folds we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
-Jim Connell
Songs of Irish Labour
http://webpages.dcu.ie/...
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