"Get out and fight,"
I told those women.
"Fight like hell until you go to Heaven!"
That was the only way I knew to comfort them.
-Mother Jones
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Monday January 25, 1915
Roosevelt, New Jersey - Men, Women, and Children March in Funeral Cortege
Wives and Children of Roosevelt Strikers.
"Sacrificed to the Gunmen of Capitalism."
This was the inscription on the ribbon wrapped around a wreath of red roses and prominently displayed in honor of the two martyrs of the Roosevelt strike, Desederio Alesandro and Carman Patty. The coffins were covered in flowers.
On Saturday afternoon religious services were held for the two strikers who were murdered last Tuesday by deputized company gunmen. The bodies were then removed to the union hall from where several hundred men, women and children marched through mud and rain in a funeral cortege to the cemetery, a distance of three miles.
From The Boston Daily Globe of January 24, 1915:
LAST RITES FOR STRIKE VICTIMS
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Hundreds at Funeral in Roosevelt, N J.
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Men, Women, Children March Through Mud and Rain.
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Wives and Children of Roosevelt Strikers.
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ROOSEVELT, N J, Jan 23-Patrick F. Gill and Daniel T. O'Regan, investigators for the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations, who have been assigned to the strike situation here, returned to New York tonight to consult with Chairman Frank P. Walsh.
Before leaving Roosevelt, Mr Gill said they had seen officials of the American Agricultural Chemical Company and that today they had no trouble in gaining admittance to the plant. What form of questioning was put to the officers Mr. Gill declined to say. Both investigators will return to the scene of the strike on Monday.
At 2 p m the funeral of Desederio Alesandro and Carman Patty, the victims of the shooting on Tuesday, took place. Religious services were held at the church of their faith; afterward the bodies were taken to the union hall. Long before the arrival of the bodies every inch of space in the building was occupied. The chairs were removed and all those present stood during the half-hour services.
The coffins were covered with flowers, a large wreath of red roses with a ribbon inscribed "Sacrificed to the Gunmen of Capitalism" being conspicuous. Officials of the union made short addresses, during which the dead men were termed "the martyrs of an awakening that will result in the driving of gunmen from the State of New Jersey." The men at the meeting were admonished to maintain peaceful measures in the conduct of the strike.
Two hearses bearing the bodies, were followed to the cemetery, three miles distant, by a crowd of several hundred men, women and children marching, through mud and rain, the funeral cortege being headed by a band.
All along the line of march through Chrome and Carteret, respective sections of Roosevelt borough, business houses were closed and blinds drawn as the funerals passed.
Late today police officers, accompanied by representatives of the prosecutor's office, visited the Williams & Clark plant and seized a number of guns said to have been used by the guards in the firing on Tuesday.
These guns, together with empty shotgun and revolver shells, picked up on the ground where the shooting occurred, will be used as evidence against the accused men.
It was reported here tonight, but not confirmed, that 17 of the men arrested had been identified as alleged gunmen from New York; also that one of the number had agreed to turn State's evidence.
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[photograph added]
More from the same edition of The Boston Daily Globe:
FACING MURDER CHARGES.
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Grand Jury to Take Up the Cases of Deputies
in the Roosevelt, N J, Strike Next Tuesday
Wounded strikers following Roosevelt Massacre of January 19, 1915.
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NEW BRUNSWICK, N J. Jan 23-The Grand Jury was notified by the prosecutor to reassemble in extraordinary session here next Tuesday to consider the charges against the 22 deputies arrested last night at the fertilizer works in Roosevelt, where 19 strikers were shot.
Mr Florence, the prosecutor, said he will present to the Grand Jury the testimony of approximately 100 witnesses much of which was taken on the ground shortly after the shooting, and will ask that indictments charging murder in the first degree be returned.
Altogether 54 warrants have been issued in connection with the shooting. Of these 22 charged the deputies with manslaughter. On this charge the men were arraigned several days ago and released in 2000 bonds each. They then returned to their posts at Roosevelt. The entire 22, it was said, were among the number arrested on murder charges last night.
[photograph added]
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SOURCE
The Boston Globe
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-Jan 24, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Strikers' wives and children X2
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
Roosevelt New Jersey Massacre of 1915
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/...
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The Red Flag - Socialist Victory Choir
The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
-Jim Connell, 1889
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