In New York City a new sort of agitation was devised in the winter of 1913-14 under the captaincy of a young man who quite suddenly found himself widely advertised.Frank Tannenbaum organized an "army of the unemployed," commandeered Rutgers Square as a rendezvous, Fifth Avenue as a parade ground, and churches and parish houses as forts and commissaries.Several of the churches were voluntarily opened to them, but other churches they attempted to enter by storm.In March, 1914, Tannenbaum led several score into the church of St.Alphonsus while mass was being celebrated.Many arrests followed this bold attempt to emulate the French Revolutionists.Though sympathizers raised $7500 bail for the ringleader, Tannenbaum loyally refused to accept it as long as any of his "army" remained in jail.Squads of his men entered restaurants, ate their fill, refused to pay, and then found their way to the workhouse.So for several months a handful of unemployed, some of them professional unemployed, held the headlines of the metropolitan papers, rallied to their defense sentimental social sympathizers, and succeeded in calling the attention of the public to a serious industrial condition.
At Granite City, Illinois, another instance of unrest occurred when several thousand laborers in the steel mills, mostly Roumanians and Bulgarians, demanded an increase in wages.When the whistle blew on the appointed morning, they gathered at the gates, refused to enter, and continued to shout "Two dollars a day!" Though the manager feared violence and posted guards, no violence was offered.Suddenly at the end of two hours the men quietly resumed their work, and the management believed the trouble was over.But for several successive mornings this maneuver was repeated.Strike breakers were then sent for.For a week, however, the work went forward as usual.The order for strike breakers was countermanded.Then came a continued repetition of the early morning strikes until the company gave way.
Nor were the subtler methods of sabotage forgotten in these demonstrations.From many places came reports of emery dust in the gearings of expensive machines.Men boasted of powdered soap emptied into water tanks that fed boilers, of kerosene applied to belting, of railroad switches that had been tampered with.With these and many similar examples before them, the public became convinced that the mere arresting of a few leaders was futile.Amass meeting at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1913, declared, as its principle of action, "We have got to meet force with force," and then threatened to run the entire local I.W.W.group out of town.
In many towns vigilance committees acted as eyes, ears, and hands for the community.When the community refused to remain neutral, the contest assumed a different aspect and easily became a feud between a small group of militants and the general public.In the West this contest assumed its most aggressive form.At Spokane, in 1910, the jail was soon filled, and sixty prisoners went on a hunger strike which cost several lives.In the lumber mills of Aberdeen, South Dakota, explosions and riots occurred.In Hoquiam, Washington, a twelve-foot stockade surmounted by barbed wire entanglements failed to protect the mills from the assaults of strikers.At Gray's Harbor, Washington, a citizens' committee cut the electric light wires to darken the meeting place of the I.W.W.and then used axe handles and wagon spokes to drive the members out of town.At Everett, Washington, a strike in the shingle mills led to the expulsion of the I.W.W.The leaders then called for volunteers to invade Everett, and several hundred members sailed from Seattle.They were met at the dock, however, by a large committee of citizens and were informed by the sheriff that they would not be allowed to land.After some parley, the invaders opened fire, and in the course of the shooting that followed the sheriff was seriously wounded, five persons were killed, and many were injured.The boat and its small invading army then returned to Seattle without ****** a landing at Everett.
