USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Lancaster > Lawrence yesterday and today (1845-1918) a concise history of Lawrence Massachusetts - her industries and institutions; municipal statistics and a variety of information concerning the city > Part 6
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From this point the progress for some 100 rods or more was across open ground to Springfield street where the most damage was done to buildings and where the greatest loss of life occurred. Houses were piled in the middle of the street, and large blocks were torn and twisted. Thence the gale swept through South Union park, uprooting and levelling great trees. Then it struck Portland street where much damage was done. It spent itself at the entrance of the Shawsheen into the Merrimack River.
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THE LAWRENCE CYCLONE
LIST OF DEAD
Elizabeth O'Connell, 32 years Michael Higgins, 23 years Mary Lyons, 34 years Mary Ann O'Connell, 11 years
Annie Collins, 6 years
Elizabeth Collins, 25 years
Hannah Beatty, 8 years
Helen H. Cutler, 10 years
The storm had barely passed before the mayor, Dr. John W. Crawford, was upon the scene of destruction surrounded by other members of the city government. The fire department at once began a careful patrol, and continued it until after all danger of fire burst- ing from the ruins had disappeared. The chief of police and the heads of the street, health, and public property departments were also promptly on hand with a large force of men and teams. Their efforts with those of the firemen, seconded by hundreds of ready volunteer workers, soon extricated the dead and wounded from the wreck. The wounded were quickly conveyed to the General hospital and the Orphan Asylum, where they were received by skillful and tender hands and efficiently cared for.
Within an hour after the storm the mayor and aldermen had constituted themselves a relief committee and had opened the Packard schoolhouse as a refuge for the homeless. Here many persons were lodged on Saturday and a few succeeding nights, and here also they were supplied with meals until their homes could be re-established.
Early in the evening a military guard, consisting of Battery C, Field Artillery, under command of Captain L. N. Duchesney, and Company F, Ninth Infantry, under Captain Joseph H. Joubert, was thrown around the wrecked district.
On the following day, Sunday, it was estimated that 50,000 strangers visited the city for the purpose of seeing the ruins. So effective were the measures for keeping order that no arrests were necessary.
On Saturday evening in response to a suggestion of Mayor Crawford, the Board of Trade held a meeting, at which its president, Franklin Butler, its treasurer, H. L. Sherman, Hon. Charles A. DeCourcy and Rev. Clark Carter, the city missionary, were added to the general committee for the purpose of receiving funds and disbursing relief. The committee included the following :- Hon. John W. Crawford, chairman ; Fred M. Libbey, Charles T. Main, George B. Elliott, Arthur A. Bailey, Otis Freeman, Jr., and Lewis P. Collins, aldermen ; Franklin Butler, Henry L. Sherman and Hon. Charles A. DeCourcy, from the Board of Trade, Rev. Clark Carter, city missionary, and William T. Kimball, city clerk, who
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was also secretary of the committee. Mr. Sherman served as the fund treasurer.
Throughout Sunday and Monday the work of clearing the wreck was pushed rapidly forward under the direction of John Battershill, superintendent of public property, and William S. Marsh, superin- tendent of streets.
Monday evening a mass meeting was held at city hall, which was cheered by messages of sympathy and offers of aid from other cities, and at which a large sum of money was subscribed by the citizens.
A committee, comprising Rev. Clark Carter, Rev. Michael T. McManus, pastor of St. Patrick's church, and Michael F. Collins. was appointed to attend to the immediate needs of the wounded, homeless and destitute. A committee was also selected to estimate the losses on buildings and to grant aid in repairing and rebuilding. Of this committee the Hon. James R. Simpson was chairman, ably supported by John K. Norwood, William R. Pedrick, A. A. Currier and John F. Hogan.
The total amount of the contributions to the relief fund was $37,560.65. The smallest amount given by any Lawrence party was ten cents and the largest $500. Lawrence donated $27,249.35 ; Boston $6,853.co; Lowell $2,090.30; Haverhill $1,059.00; Salem $218; Manchester, N. H., $66.00 and Worcester $25.00.
The amount of money drawn by the building committee to pay awards was $29,879.23. The estimated damage was $37,000, and the actual damage aggregated $42,occ, which includes all money paid out to replace damage done by the cyclone.
TORNADO OF 1910.
In the evening of August 4, 1910, Lawrence was again visited by a tornado, which, although not as terrible as the disaster of 1890, was very destructive. Passing through the heart of the city, the storm left a trail of destruction. Trees were uprooted, buildings unroofed, the lives of many were endangered and one young man was seriously injured. Charles A. Mahoney was struck by a falling branch of a tree and knocked from a wagon while driving along the lower end of Oak street. Although it was the next day before he regained consciousness, he eventually recovered. Probably the greatest havoc was wrought in the Common. Many of the paths were blocked by a tangled mass of uprooted and torn trees. The huge flag pole that stood opposite where the beautiful Shattuck staff is now located, was snapped off at the base like a pipe-stem.
THE BATHHOUSE TRAGEDY
THE VICTIMS
Seeundo Allegbro, 10 years
Roland Jones. 9 years
William Bolster, 10 years
Joseph McCann, 15 years
Flower Pinta, 11 years
William Thornton, 10 years
Michael Woitena. 14 years
Joseph Hennessey, 15 years
* Gaudette was visiting with his parents at the residence of his grand- father, Alfred Parent, and was to have returned to his home in Fitchburg on the day following the accident.
Not since the cyclone in 1890 did Lawrence experience such a calamity as the so-called bathhouse tragedy. This disaster occurred on June 30, 1913, when a runway leading from the northerly bank of the Merrimack river, a short distance above the dam, to one of the municipal bathhouses, collapsed and II boys, ranging in age from eight to 15 years, were drowned. Scores of others were saved through the heroic work of volunteer rescuers.
The bathhouses were to have been opened that day, and boys from all parts of the city were attracted there, to escape the sun's hot rays, in the cooling waters of the Merrimack. It was nearly 2 o'clock, the hour the doors were to open, and the youngsters crowded on the board walk which extended out over the water to the entrance of No. I bathhouse, restlessly awaiting the arrival of William Blythe, the attendant, who was to admit them for the first swim of the season.
Without warning the runway collapsed. A panic ensued, and immediately the water was a mass of struggling boys. Their wild cries for help, mingled with those of their companions who were out of danger, attracted a few men who were in the vicinity of the scene.
Indeed, the one bright spot in the whole sad affair was the heroic way in which men and boys alike went to the work of rescue and resuscitation. Many a boy who figured in that terrible happening owes his life to some police officer, doctor or civilian who assisted either in his rescue, or in the application of first-aid principles after
Joseph Belanger, 8 years John Cote, 8 years *Ronaldo Gaudette, 10 years
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his removal from the water. But for such commendable work the loss of life might have been at least three times what it was.
The heroism of young Joseph McCann, a 15-year-old crippled lad, who numbered among the victims, perhaps outshone that of all others, for he gave his life that somebody else's son might live. Young McCann was on the river bank when he saw his companions suddenly thrown into peril. Without hesitation he jumped into the river. Although a cripple, he was a good swimmer, and he struck out bravely toward the mass of struggling boys. But, as soon as he reached them, he was desperately grasped by several of the terrified lads, and drawn down to a watery grave.
Many other valiant acts were performed which space will not permit recounting. One young man, Henry Hinchcliffe, then 16 years of age, has since been awarded the Carnegie medal for bravery, and afforded a college education by the Carnegie Hero Fund. He was one of the first to the rescue, and under great difficulties succeed- ed in bringing a number of the drowning boys to safety. Lyman Parker and Charles Patterson were at the Lawrence Canoe Club on the opposite shore when they heard the outcries. They crossed the river in a power boat. Both dived for bodies, and, assisted by John Keefe, recovered a number that were afterwards resuscitated. Sergt. Timothy J. O'Brien of the Police department directed the first aid work.
The scene upon the river bank until darkness set in made even strong men weep. It was a pitiable sight, as parents, brothers and sisters wrung their hands in agony and called for their little ones. A pathetic fact also was that two hours after the accident happened, when it was taken for granted that there were no more bodies in the water, some doubt was expressed that all had been recovered. This was given weight when a woman in the crowd that surged the river bank declared that her son was missing. The search was resumed, and half an hour later the appalling force of the calamity was brought home to the saddened crowd, when seven other lifeless forms were brought to the surface.
An expert diver was employed, and the search was continued until late into the night, and resumed early the next day, but all the missing had been recovered.
Shortly after the catastrophe the city government abolished the bathhouses. The relatives of each of the II victims were compensated in the sum of $100 to defray the funeral expenses. Afterwards some families sought to recover damages from the mu- nicipality, but the Supreme court decided that under the laws of the commonwealth they could not prosecute a claim for injury or loss of life sustained at a place of public recreation from which no revenue was derived. City Solicitor Daniel J. Murphy defended
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the City of Lawrence against the several suits in which the ad dam- num was $90,000.
Judge Jeremiah J. Mahoney of the District court held an inquest into the fatalities. In his finding he declared that the accident was due to the insufficiency of the fence or railing which crumpled away under the great and unusual weight thrown against or upon it when the runway settled, and that the settling of the runway was due to the fact that only one ledger board supported it instead of two. He expressed the belief that had the runway been supported by two ledger boards the accident would not have occurred.
INDUSTRIAL UPHEAVAL OF 1912
The year 1912 will go down into history as an eventful one in the annals of Lawrence, for it had hardly made its advent when there began the great textile strike which was not alone a history-making and a history-marking event in Lawrence, but an occurrence in which interest was centered throughout the entire United States if not beyond the confines of this country.
The strike lasted just nine weeks. It actually began on Friday, January 12, 1912, and was formally declared off on Thursday, March 14, of that year, although most of the strikers did not resume work until the following Monday.
It affected directly 27,000 operatives in the Lawrence mills. Its cost has been figured at approximately $3,000,000, including the loss of wages to the workers, the loss of business to the mills, the extra expense of policing the city and the harm to the general business of the community.
The direct result was an increase in wages ranging upward from five to twenty-five percent., a modification of the so-called "premium system", and a twenty-five percent. increase in pay for overtime work. Its effect was even broader in scope. Besides the 27,000 operatives in the Lawrence mills, practically all textile work- ers in New England were given an increase in wages as a result. Conservative figures place the number thus benefiting at 125,000 By the ordinary ratio accepted in figuring vital statistics this means that more than 500,000 people had their standard of living raised thereby.
In the way of explanation it might be said that the modifica- tion of the "premium system" meant that workers producing more than the required amount of work were allowed a premium or extra compensation every two weeks instead of every four, as was the case prior to the strike. The workers claimed that bad luck with their work during the third or fourth week of the tour-week period often nullified the extra work of the first two weel . This bonus system was in vogue only in the American Woolen Company's and Kunhardt mills, though in the Kunhardt plant it was based on weekly earnings.
The strike was conducted by an organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World by methods never before seen in a textile strike in this country and which came in for bitter
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FACTS OF STRIKE IN NUTSHELL
Began January 12th, 1912.
Lasted 63 days.
27,000 operatives involved.
Cause : Reduction in pay with enforcement of new 54-hour law.
Two regiments of infantry, two troops of cavalry, besides Metropolitan Park police, assisted augmented Lawrence police force in preserving order. Anna LoPezzi and John Remi slain in clashes between strikers and police and strikers and militia.
Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, strike leaders, arrested on charge of being accessories before the fact to the slaying of Anna LoPezzi. After jury trial both acquitted.
Parties of children sent to New York, Philadelphia and Barre, Vt., for care until the close of strike. One group stopped by police and several arrests made.
Investigation by Congressional committee, the United States Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Labor, a committee of the State Legislature and the Attorney General of the state.
Cost to mills, estimated at nearly $1,000,000.
Estimated loss of wages to employes, $1,350,000.
Estimated cost of maintaining regular and special police by the city, $75,000. Estimated cost to state in maintaining militia, $200,000.
Relief funds sent in from all over the country, approximately $65,000.
More than 2,500 persons cared for daily during period of strike.
$45,000 collected by I. W. W .- Leaders of that organization accused of mismanagement and misuse of funds.
Estimated number of arrests, 500, of whom about one half paid fines ranging from $1 to $100.
Strike ended March 14th. 1912.
Concessions of mills, 5 to 25 percent. increases in wages.
Wage advance spread over New England. A general increase of 5 to 7 percent.
Estimated cost to 1,500 textile manufacturers, $5,000,000 a year.
criticism. The regular police force was not sufficient to handle the mob. Assistance was rendered by the Metropolitan Park police department and enough special officers were sworn to increase the force from 84 to 200. The aid of the state militia was invoked, and in all 56 military companies saw service in Lawrence during the progress of the strike. The maximum number on duty at any time was 25 companies, averaging about 55 per company.
The enforcement of the 54-hour law, with its attendant loss of two-hours pay per week, was attributed as the cause of the whole trouble. The measure prohibited women and children from working in the mills more than 54 hours a week. But as the work of tl women and children feeds the work done by the men the new la . meant a reduction of two hours in the week's working schedi . and, while the wages per hour were not changed, the amount compensation received by the workers under the 54-hour law was i. s than under the 56-hour law.
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The workers demanded that they receive the same wages regard- less of the change in the schedule of hours and when the first pay- day arrived following the date that the 54-hour law went into effect they resented the reduction, as they saw fit to regard it, and the strike began. This was on January 11. Five hundred weavers and spinners in the Everett, Arlington and Duck mills were the first to quit their work.
The forerunner of this great industrial conflict was a strike of 50 weavers at the Duck mill on January 2, owing to a controversy over the new 54-hour law. On Wednesday, January 10, at a mass meeting of Italian mill workers in Ford's hall, it was voted to go on strike the following Friday. There was, however, the small strike on Thursday, January 11, forecasting the greater movement the next day when the storm broke which plunged Lawrence into a turmoil of strife, such as had never before been witnessed in its history.
Friday morning, January 12, snow began falling at 7.30 and through the whirling whiteness ran the constantly growing crowd of strikers. It started from the Washington mills with 500 and by 10 a. m. had 12,000 people out of the mills and the riot call sound- ing for the police. The mob marched over Union street and entered the Wood worsted mills. Weapons were brandished, belts were thrown off, obstacles were hurled into the machinery and workers were actually driven from the mills. Next the army of strikers went to the Ayer mills to get the workers out. Here occurred the first clash with the police who were under command of Assistant City Marshal Samuel C. Logan. Marching across the Duck bridge the mob attacked the Duck and Kunhardt mills, breaking many windows.
The Industrial Workers of the World had a small organization of perhaps 300 in Lawrence, although little or nothing had ever been heard of it until the strike. Immediately its local leaders sent for Joseph J. Ettor, an Italian organizer of that body, and he ar- rived from New York Saturday morning, addressing a mass meeting in City Hall. He remained as chairman of the strike committee, which was organized on the following Monday, and the real leader of the strike until his arrest on January 30, on the charge of being accessory to the murder of Anna LoPezzi, an Italian woman, who was shot on January 29.
By Saturday night 15,000 of the mill workers of Lawrence were out. On Sunday, January 14, Ettor and the strike committee had a conference with Mayor Michael A. Scanlon and the members of the Board of Aldermen, when the strikers were advised to observe law and order and not invoke trouble or continue the destruction of property. Fearing a further demonstration upon the part of the strikers on the following Monday morning, however, every police officer was ordered to report for duty early and the three local militia
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organizations, Battery C of the Field Artillery, Company F of the Ninth Infantry and Company L of the Eighth Infantry, were ordered to report at the Amesbury street armory.
The next morning, Monday, January 15, there was a clash be- tween the troops and the strikers and there was general disorder. Thirty-five arrests were made. A strikers' parade started in the vicinity of Union street and proceeded along Canal street to the Washington mills. Here the mill gate was stormed and a number succeeded in getting into the mill where they were arrested. Then the mob moved up street along the canal to the Pacific mills where they were received with hose streams. After they had been repulsed a crowd armed themselves with sticks from a freight car standing on their side of the canal and smashed many windows in the Atlantic mills. Shots were fired from the mob at the mill watchmen, and one rioter was bayoneted, though not fatally, by a member of Com- pany F in an attempt to rush the Atlantic mill gates.
This marked the entrance of the militia into the situation which had got beyond control of the civil authorities. Governor Foss ordered militia companies from other cities in the state to Lawrence, and from that day till several weeks later, when the need of the military was no longer apparent, the iron grip of the soldiery was felt. Cordons of militia were thrown about the mills, and sharpshooters were located in the factory towers as a precaution against prowlers who might get by the line of soldiers. Later a portion of the militia did police duty in the foreign quarters and business section of the city. Col. E. Leroy Sweetser was ordered to take command of the troops in Lawrence. Police from numerous other cities and towns were also brought in to reinforce the local police.
The City Council members endeavored to bring about a con- ference between the strikers and the mill men but without success, and all efforts of the State Board of Arbitration to settle the strike were futile.
On Wednesday, January 17, there was another clash between the strikers and the militia, when the former tried to go into the mill district from which they had been ordered to keep out. In fact, hardly a day passed without a mix-up between the strikers and the police or militia. The troubles between the two sides grew constantly.
On January 20, the discovery of dynamite in three buildings on the "plains" gave rise to rumors of a plot to blow up the mills. It later developed, however, that the explosive was "planted". An attempt was made to prove that the "plant" was the result of a conspiracy to discredit the strikers, but a trial in the courts failed to show that the mill operators were connected with it.
On the morning of January 29, at the mill-opening time, before
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daylight, hundreds of windows were smashed in the trolley cars bringing the people to work. This took place on Essex street, east of Jackson street, and on Broadway. Many were driven from the cars and forced back to their homes by threats of the strikers. The police were unable to cope with the situation. That same night a big crowd assembled in the vicinity of Garden, Union and Haverhill streets and attempted to parade through Union street. The police interfered and numerous shots were exchanged. Anna LoPezzi, an Italian woman, who was in the vicinity, was shot and instantly killed. During the melee Police Officer Oscar Benoit was seriously, though not fatally, stabbed in the back.
Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, another Italian leader in the I. W. W. movement, were arrested on the following night, charged with being accessories to the alleged murder of the LoPezzi woman. It was claimed by the authorities that they had incited the crowd by alleged incendiary speeches and were responsible for the rioting. They were indicted by the Essex County grand jury but after a lengthy trial, which aroused interest even outside the country, they were acquitted. William D. Haywood who was accused, but acquitted, of being implicated in the murder of Governor Steunenberg of Idaho in February, 1906, when the latter was killed by a bomb during the big miners' strike at that time; Carlo Tresca and Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn who afterwards were arrested in connection with strike rioting in Paterson, N. J., were also identified as leaders in the Law- rence strike. Haywood took charge following Ettor's arrest.
An outstanding feature of the presence of the soldiers in the city, which reflected a great deal of credit upon Colonel Sweetser, his officers and men, was that, notwithstanding the ugly demeanor of the strikers and the fact that many of them were armed, only one life was sacrificed in the clashes between the soldiers and the strikers.
On Tuesday morning, January 30. John Remi, aged 18 years, was fatally bayoneted on White street when about 200 strikers, mostly Syrians, attempted to hold a parade. Company H of Salem was stationed there and one of the soldiers ran his bayonet through Remi's lung in a charge on the mob which had defied the militia.
In the midst of all the excitement of the strike, on the night of February 2, the city was plunged into a frenzy of fear by the dis- covery of one of the most sensational murders in police annals. Four persons were found dead in a tenement on Valley street, with innumerable knife wounds in their bodies. The murderer was never apprehended, although the crime was committed when the city was practically under martial law. It is believed that the motive was rob- bery, Shaef Maroon, 26, one of the victims, having drawn $485 from the Essex Savings Bank a few days before. The theory is that he was lured to the death house and slain, the murderer disposing
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of the other three victims to remove all witnesses of the crime. Besides Maroon, Joseph Savaria, 23, his wife, Mary, 18, and Evelyn Denis, born Tanguay, were killed by the mysterious assassin. For- tunately, there was no connection between the murder and the strike, and the terror of its revelation in the public mind was soon allayed. In a few days the murder was overshadowed by the deeper interest in the strike.
Further complications arose when the strikers attempted to send some of their children away to other cities to be cared for, which move the authorities believed to be for the purpose of exploitation. Special trains were engaged and the incident was attended with quite a demonstration on the part of the strikers. Capt. John J. Sullivan who had relieved City Marshal James T. O'Sullivan as head of the police department, interrupted the procedure, when on Saturday, Feb- ruary 24, he sent a number of officers to the North station and caused 15 children with their parents to be taken to the police station. This interruption put a stop to the sending away of children, but it also resulted in Congress ordering Attorney General Wickersham to make an investigation. The entire affair was aired in Washington where Alderman Cornelius F. Lynch who was di- rector of the department of public safety, including the police depart- ment, and Captain Sullivan were called to explain the situation. Be- sides this investigation, there were at different times during the strike inquiries into the phases of the controversy by the Federal Bureau of Labor, a committee of the State Legislature and the attorney general of the state.
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