A vignette of the class war from Norwich, Connecticut. Just one of the many, many thousands of such events occurring in nearly every community in the country.

‘Cops Knocked Out by Women Strikers’ from the New York Call. Vol. 4 No. 117. April 27, 1911.

Policemen Had Assaulted Them in Protecting Norwich Mill Owners.

NORWICH, Conn., April 26. Disorder prevailed throughout the day at the Norwich Cotton Mill Company’s plant at the Falls.

The strike at the mills was precipitated on Monday at noon and yesterday the 200 weavers went out in sympathy with those on strike.

When an effort was made this morning to hitch up the company’s teams, a crowd was on hand and male a demonstration. The teams were held up and efforts were made to unhitch horses. Police were put on duty and all was quiet until 12:30 this afternoon.

The gate was opened to admit scabs at the mill this afternoon and there was a rush be a crowd to prevent entrance. The police used their clubs on the crowd and drove it back to the street.

Those in the rear of the crowd began to throw stones, sticks and other missiles at the cops. Policeman Driscoll was felled with a huge stone. He immediately opened fire with his revolver.

Some of the crowd scattered, but others stood their ground. Policeman Brock was the next to be laid low with a flying brick, and Policeman Keenan was crippled by a stone.

Prior to being knocked out Brock had manhandled some women who were in the crowd.

It was not long before more policemen were dispatched to the mill, but no sooner had the cops handcuffed their men than the women and several men made a rush to assist their fellows in distress.

The women attacked the cops and tried in vain to have the men under arrest released. When the cops arrived with the prisoners at the police station Captain Linton and a number of cops went to the scene in automobiles and ordered the people to return to their homes.

Several defied the officers and were taken to police headquarters and will be given a hearing tomorrow morning.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1911/110427-newyorkcall-v04n117.pdf