On July 1, 1929 1000 New Orleans street car workers Carmen’s Union, Division 194, A.F. of L. went on strike. Less than a week later pickets attempting to prevent scab cars were fired into by police. Strikers Sylvan Thibodeaux and Joseph Molinerio were killed. The strike would last another four months and ended in defeat and the end of the destruction of the local union.

‘Orleans Police Shoot 20, Kill Aged Car Man’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 103. July 6, 1929.

Mass Picketing Blocks All Car Lines

BULLETIN. NEW ORLEANS, La., July 5. Three policemen, disgusted at the wanton slaughter of strikers by their fellow police, today tore off their badges and walked over to the ranks of the pickets. A third street car which tried to run with imported scabs after two others were stopped was held by the mass pickets today, and the crowd was pushing the motorman from the car when police clubbed their way in and arrested 25. Many more have been arrested.

Thibodeaux, the second man shot by the police, has died. The city council has ordered the company not to try to run cars with strikebreakers until more police are assembled.

NEW ORLEANS, La., July 5. Hundreds of police are around the car barns today, armed with revolvers, sub-machine guns, sawed-off shot guns and long barreled riot guns.

They have killed one striker, Joseph Molinerio, sixty years old, with a shot through the head, and probably fatally wounded another striker, Sylvan Thibodeaux, also shot through the head. Twenty other strikers were critically wounded by shots from the police or armed scabs.

Mounted police charged a picketing demonstration, and rode over and badly injured Mrs. Zala Kohman, aged 24.

Cars Stopped.

In spite of the police terror, no cars are moving as this is written. Only one car actually left the barns, run by scabs, and half filled with heavily armed police. It was unable to return when a picket demonstration blocked its way.

The Public Service Co., owners of the street car lines, had loudly advertised that they were going to operate all lines today with strike-breakers. Four hundred imported scabs with between 50 and 100 police to guard them tried to approach the barns late yesterday, and 500 strikers threw themselves in the way. The police and scabs attacked viciously, and many shots were fired. When the smoke cleared away, Molinerio lay where he had been shot down in the street, and died soon after being taken to the hospital.

Mass Picketing.

Today, with scabs secreted in the barns, which have been turned into armed fortresses, around the scab pens where bunks and kitchens are established, the company ran a car out of the Canal street barn. All available police reserves were sent to follow it, and another car prepared to leave. This car was stopped by 200 strikers, mass picketing.

The police opened fire with riot guns and Sylvan Thibodeaux, a striker, was shot through the head, and William Foret was shot in the shoulder.

At another point more strikers were shot and Mrs. Kohman was crushed beneath the hoofs of the mounted police.

The killers are led by Superintendent of Police Theodore Ray. He is angered because his son, Frederick Ray, scabbing in the Carrolton barn, attacked a striker on his way home from work, and got a broken head as a result.

The members of Local Union 194, of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes, announces that it will fight all summer if necessary. This strike started Monday because the company demanded the right to fire union men without arbitration proceedings, and refused to recognize seniority in promotions.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n103-NY-jul-06-1929-DW-LOC.pdf