When Americans saw Immigrant Laborers as Anarchists and Socialists

The 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike

Michael Streich

 The 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts represented a significant advance for workers involved in the long term war between labor and management. Despite violence and bloodshed, workers achieved demands in what IWW leader Big Bill Haywood described as “the greatest strike ever carried out in this country.” Although ultimately successful, the strike revealed widespread distrust of immigrants as well as growing fears of Socialism.

 

The Strike Begins

 

On January 12, 1912, thousands of textile workers representing dozens of nationalities walk off their jobs at the Lawrence complex of mills. Their grievances focused on wage cuts imposed by the company owners in response to a recently passed state law lowering workweek hours. Mill owners reduced wages proportionately and argued that this was necessary in order to remain industry competitive and satisfy investor expectations.

 

In a letter to employees, American Woolen Company President, William M. Wood cited “stockholders’ interests” and “trade conditions” as primary factors in rejecting demands for higher wages. Additionally, Wood reminded the workers that the company had previously increased wages four times, “without your asking.”

 

Striking workers, however, saw things differently. The striker’s “Proclamation” referred to the “slave pens of Lawrence” and contrasted the worker class with the “robber class.” The documents details, “Wrongs and injustice of years and years of wage slavery,” and outlines brutalities committed against the strikers by police and National Guard units sent in to quell the strike.

 

Socialist Connections

 

The striker’s Proclamation bears evidence of a strong socialist influence associated with the strike. Joseph J. Ettor, an activist with the International Workers of the World, arrived in Lawrence to help organize the strike. 29 years old, Ettor had been actively involved in several previous strikes and was seen by critics as a “pronounced socialist.”

 

Walter Pratt, an officer with the National Guard, wrote in March 1912 that Ettor “had become the idol of the workers of all the races, who believed every word of his incendiary speeches.” [1] Ettor and the other strike leader, Arturo Giovanitti, were arrested, charged with the murder of one of the female workers.

 

Ettor’s arrest brought Bill Haywood to Lawrence as well as other prominent socialist sympathizers like Margret Sanger and Mother Jones. Strikers, for their part, waved the American flag and tied their cause to freedom and equality, demanding social justice in the form of living wages.

 

As Bill Haywood later reflected, what made the Lawrence strike so unique was the fact that it involved so many different nationalities, many from countries like Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Turkey. These non-mainstream immigrants were often viewed with suspicion by an American middle class that tended to view labor unrest as revolution.

 

The Workers Win

 

Lasting over six weeks, striker demands were eventually met by the mill owners in the form of higher wages and shorter working hours. All strikers were deemed immune from punitive or retaliatory measures. The victory was complete and Haywood would later recount that, “we sang the Internationale in as many tongues as were represented on the strike committee.”

 

Referring to the significance of the strike as well as the role of the IWW, Mary O’Sullivan penned  in April 1912 that, “This is the first time in the history of our labor struggles that the foreigners have stood to the man to better their conditions as underpaid workers.” [2] Unlike the American Federation of Labor, the IWW succeeded in galvanizing unskilled foreign workers, achieving noteworthy results.

 

[1] Walter M. Pratt, “The Lawrence Revolution,” New England Magazine, March 1912.

[2] Mary K. O’Sullivan, “The Labor War at Lawrence,” April 1912

 

See also:

 

Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States (available on line)

[Copyright owned by Michael Streich; republishing requires written permission from Michael Streich]