You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Tuesday July 27, 1915
Bayonne, New Jersey - Standard Oil Spurns Mediation; Strike Martyr Buried
Bayonne Strikers and their families
`````
From The New York Times of July 25, 1915:
STANDARD SPURNS STRIKE MEDIATION
-----
Rejects Compromise Offer of Committee,
City Officials, and Federal Officers.
-----
SITUATION GROWS CRITICAL
-----
Governor Refuses to Order Out Militia and
Sheriff Can't Get Enough Police.
-----
Kinkead Threatens to Arrest Tide Water Officials-
Fear Men Have Hidden Arsenal.
-----
The Standard Oil company last night refused the offer of the striking employes of its great plant at Bayonne, N. J., to go back to work on Monday providing the company would agree to the immediate arbitration of the strikers' demands.
The only concession held out by George B. Hennessy, Superintendent of the Bayonne plant, was that if the men would come back to work at once he would use his personal influence to procure consideration for what they wanted. This offer was refused, and the strike, which has tied up the plants of the Tidewater and Vacuum Oil companies as well as that of the Standard and which has caused the killing of three men and the wounding of many others, now reaches a more serious phase.
The Bayonne police, reinforced by about fifty men from nearby places and the deputies sworn in by Sheriff Eugene F. Kinkead, are believed to be unable to handle the situation that will arise if the strikers again become violent. Governor Fielder so far has refused to order out the National Guard.
The disappointment at the company's refusal to arbitrate was intensified by the fact that the proposal presented to it by the strikers' committee considerably modified their first demands, and had been formulated after a conference with city and state officials and with John A. Moffit and James A. Smythe, the two Commissioners of Conciliation appointed by the Federal Department of Labor...
Sheriff Kinkead, while frantically trying to get more uniformed police from neighboring towns had to admit the practical failure of his deputies to make any impression on the mobs by ordering them away and ordering the company's guards to stay out of sight within the concrete stockades. The Sheriff found that the sight of armed guards along the wall enraged the crowds which had seen those same guards fire on Wednesday and Thursday. The deputies, without uniforms, had no effect at all on the temper of the mobs.
The feeling of the crowds was intensified by the fact that all night long the guards in the Tidewater plant had ben sniping at houses along east Twenty-second Street. The saloon and hotel of Mrs. Delia Boyle at 92 east Twenty-first Street was hit many times, and lives of persons sleeping in it were endangered. A tenement at 6 Avenue F. inhabited by eighteen families, was hit many times, and the big electric light hanging in front of Mydosch's Hall was put out by a shot.
[Continued below.]
[Continued from above.]
Sheriff Warns Officers.
Sheriff Kinkead went to the Tidewater plant and warned the officers that if any shot was fired except in defense of life-"and by that," he said, "I mean life, not property"-he would arrest officials of the company. So by evening all the armed men had disappeared from the fortifications, and there was outward quiet...
[The Martyr's Funeral]
The strikers had planned to hold a great public funeral for John Sterancaka [Stovanchik?] the first of the three men killed in the fighting. It had been intended to have a long procession of sympathizers from his home at 99 Prospect Street to Cooper Hall, thence to St. John's Greek Church, which is in the war zone, and after ceremonies at both these places to go to the Central Railroad station and leave for the Moravian Cemetery at Port Richmond, S. I.
Sheriff Kinkead shut down on this and personally supervised the funeral. At 1:15 o'clock, nearly an hour before the strikers had expected the ceremonies to begin, a few of the friends of Sterancaka's family went to the house, where services were held under the direction of the Rev. Father Thomas Szabo of St. John's Church. The body was taken directly to the Staten Island Ferry and conveyed to the New Richmond cemetery. The white hearse was followed by ten carriages, thirty honorary pallbearers, and about fifty sympathizers on foot...
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-July 25, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGE
Bayonne Strikers
https://miningawareness.files.wordpress.com/...
See also:
The New Republic
-Aug 14, 1915
"The Bayonne Strike"
https://books.google.com/...
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Aug 16, 1915
"HIT ROCKEFELLER IN BAYONNE REPORT; Industrial Board's Investigations Lay Strike to Low Wages and Oppression. SHERIFF'S ACTS CRITICISED Findings Given Out by Chairman Walsh Constitute an Arraignment of Standard Oil Methods."
http://query.nytimes.com/...
For more on condition which led to the strike:
"Hellraisers Journal: Bayonne, NJ- 900 Coopers Join Stillcleaners
on Strike at Standard Oil Refinery" by JayRaye
http://www.dailykos.com/...
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Dear Readers of Hellraisers,
This year for my vacation, Hellraisers will not be as scaled back as it was for the past two vacations. This happy change is due to my new & much faster computer and to the library of photos, songs, resources, etc, that I have built up over the past 2 and 1/2 years.
The big change that my readers will see, starting July 16th, will be the shorter length of the postings along with fewer links. I'm writing three Hellraisers per day right now and don't have the one or two hours extra that I usually take to find and put in the links.
When my readers find unfamiliar names, places, or events, please use the tags along with JayRaye (in diarist section of search feature). Or just leave a question for me in the comments and I will get back to you.
When I actually leave for Minnesota, I'll let everyone know. My access to computer will be limited while I'm away, probably about twice a week. But I will definitely be checking in.
Solidarity,
JayRaye
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Vince Gill/Alison Krauss/Ricky Skaggs - Go Rest High On That Mountain
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````