Today In Labor History March 26, 1918: American anarchist Philip Grosser wrote about being tortured in the prison on Alcatraz Island, while serving time there for refusing to serve in World War I. By 1920, he was the only draft resistor still serving time at Alcatraz. Alexander Berkman referred to him as "one of [my] finest comrades."
Today in Labor History January 7, 1939: The authorities finally freed Tom Mooney, a labor activist who they wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916. The governor granted him an unconditional pardon after 22.5 years of incarceration. As a result of the bombing, 10 people died and 40 were injured. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper.
Today in Labor History October 26, 1889: The Ukrainian anarchist general Nestor Makhno was born in Huliaipole,. Makhno led a large insurrectionary army of peasants and helped defeat the reactionary White armies. His Black Army ultimately liberated and held onto the Free Territory within Ukraine, known as Makhnovia, from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society that was defended by the Black Army. Roughly 7 million people lived in the area. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State. His uprising was eventually crushed by Trotsky. Makhno died in exile in Paris, July 25, 1934.
Today in Labor History October 17, 1939: Warren Billings, labor activist, and falsely imprisoned for the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing, was finally released from Folsom Prison. trumped up charges stemming from the San Francisco Preparedness Day parade bombing in 1916. As a result of the bombing, 10 people died and 40 were injured. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. Billings and his codefendant Tom Mooney were wrongly convicted. They served 23 years in prison and were released in 1939. Governor Edmund G. Brown pardoned them in 1961.
Today in Labor History July 22, 1916: Someone set off a bomb during the pro-war “Preparedness Day” parade in San Francisco. As a result, 10 people died and 40 were injured. A jury convicted two labor leaders, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, based on false testimony. Both were pardoned in 1939. Not surprisingly, only anarchists were suspected in the bombing. A few days after the bombing, they searched and seized materials from the offices of “The Blast,” Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman’s local paper. They also threatened to arrest Berkman.
In 1931, while they were still in prison, I. J. Golden persuaded the Provincetown Theater to produce his play, “Precedent,” about the Mooney and Billings case. Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote, "By sparing the heroics and confining himself chiefly to a temperate exposition of his case [Golden] has made “Precedent” the most engrossing political drama since the Sacco-Vanzetti play entitled Gods of the Lightening... Friends of Tom Mooney will rejoice to have his case told so crisply and vividly."
Today in Labor History July 22, 1892: Anarchist Alexander Berkman tried to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick in retaliation for the 9 miners killed by Pinkerton thugs on July 6, during the Homestead Steel Strike. Frick was the manager of Homestead Steel and had hired the Pinkertons to protect the factory and the scab workers he hired to replace those who were on strike. Berkman, and his lover, Emma Goldman, planned the assassination hoping it would arouse the working class to rise up and overthrow capitalism. Berkman failed in the assassination attempt and went to prison for 14 years. He wrote a book about his experience called, “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist” (1912). He also wrote “The Bolshevik Myth” (1925) and “The ABC of Communist Anarchism” (1929).
Today in Labor History July 2, 1892: Carnegie Steel locked out workers at its Homestead, PA, plant. The lockout culminated in a major battle between strikers and Pinkerton security agents on July 6. Determined to keep the plant closed and inoperable by scabs, the strikers formed military units that patrolled the grounds around the plant, and the Monongahela River in boats, to prevent access by strikebreakers and their Pinkerton guards. On the night of July 5, Pinkertons, armed with Winchester rifles, attempted to cross the river. Reports conflict as to which side fired first, but a gun battle ensued. Both sides suffered numerous deaths and injuries. Women also participated in the action. In the end, the Pinkertons gave up and surrendered. However, the governor called in the state militia, which quickly displaced the picketers and allowed the scabs in, thus ending the strike. In the wake of the bloody strike, Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, Carnegie’s agent at Homestead.
K. Friedman wrote about the strike in “By Bread Alone” (1901). Friedman was a Chicago socialist, settlement-house worker and journalist. His novel was an early example of the transformation in socialist fiction from "utopian" to "scientific" socialism. More recently, Trilby Busch wrote about the strike in her novel, “Darkness Visible” (2012).