A marvelous look at the fight of ‘unorganized’ women workers at the Oregon Packing Plant in Portland written for ISR by a committee of strikers, also sending in photos of the campaign.

‘On the Job in Oregon’ by Press Committee of Strikers, Photographs by Comrade Benhisch from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 3. September, 1913.

THE strike of the unorganized women and girls against the Oregon Packing Company, Portland, Oregon, was started June 27, by Pauline Haller, on account of the low pay on piece work and the rotten condition of the fruit handled by the company.

At the time of the strike the girls were handling strawberries. The berries came into the plant in 40-pound boxes. The girls were to receive 10 cents for picking one box. When the boxes came to them, however, they weighed from 62 to 75 pounds. A full-blooded Indian, the fastest picker in the place, was only able to pick a box in two and a half hours — and she made, at that rate, just 40 cents a day. The company handled fruit so rotten and filthy that it was nothing but a slime and mush and the girls had to dig their arms into the mess as they worked. The girls testify also that the fruit juice that falls to the floor to a depth of a half or one inch, is mopped up, wrung out into a bucket and used for JAM. A woman of 61 said the report was true and that she had refused to use this refuse for preserves.

As usual, there were two kinds of girls working in the plant — the kind that work for spending money and the kind that work to live. The latter knew that they could not exist on 40 cents a day and that they would be forced upon the streets if they did not get more. They said it was not much worse to starve on nothing a day than to try to live on 40 cents.

“I can’t pay higher wages,” said the manager of the plant. “Profits are low.” But they are not so low but that he can eat $1.50 meals and buy automobiles and accumulate property, while he drives the girls who do the work into the streets by low wages.

A Catholic priest, His Oilyness, Rev. O’Hara, butted into the strike (for the bosses). He advised his parishioners to quit picketing and go back to work. He is accused of telling them that if they did not return to work they would go to hell. Up to this time these women had been stanch Roman Catholics. It became a common sight to see girls and women dragging their rosary beads in the mud.

The committee maintained a free lunch table on the street, in front of the packing plant. At this stand all strikers were given the choicest of foods, plus fruits, candies and ice cream, free. Agitators and sympathizers paid as much as five dollars for a cup of coffee and sandwich to help the strikers.

Speaking, singing, music and dining on the street in front of the packing plant was the rule from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. Later, meetings were held up town. Crowds the like of which have never attended street meetings here before were always in evidence. The enthusiasm at these meetings drove ice cold shivers down the spines of the Employers’ Association of Portland.

Goaded into desperation by the mental eunuchs on the capitalist papers, the mounted police on July 12, at 5:05 p.m., committed the most atrociously brutal act in the history of Oregon. About seventy-five girls and women were on the picket line. They were standing with arms folded, near the sidewalk. Without a word of warning these bloodthirsty savages charged on them. Time after time the pickets were driven off the street. Time and again, under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Schwab, they reformed. They rushed under, by, and through the rearing and snorting horses. The bravery of these women will not be forgotten here.

The worthless lives of the mounted police were saved by the quick action of Rudolph Schwab, Mike McDonald, J.I. Braun, H. Schoen, I.D. Ransley and Tom Burns. These members of the strike committee grabbed the guns of the strike sympathizers and by force and argument compelled the hotheads to leave the crowd. Possibly we should not have stopped the shooting of scoundrels so low as to ride a horse on defenseless women. We would not do it again.

Mrs. Hart, Mitchell and Kennedy were seriously injured. Conferences were held with the Chief of Police, Mayor and Governor by the girl strikers and their committee. A committee of three — MacDonald, Schwab and Burns — waited on the Chief of Police at his request. His name is Clark. He used to be Chief in St. Paul. We are told he has a rotten record there. He had only been in office one hour when this conference took place. What those comrades taught him he will never forget. He said a girl can live decently in Portland, pay for food, clothes, room, etc., “on Six Dollars a week.” We told him in not too polite language he was a LIAR. He did not like it. Clark was at one time a Pinkerton. Jim Hill, possibly through Archbishop Ireland, gave him a job as one of his Second Hand Gumshoe Men. The Citizens’ Alliance here made him Chief of Police.

The Mayor gave the strikers and their committee a public hearing. Evidence was taken, under OATH, showing unspeakably filthy conditions at the Oregon Packing Plant. It was also brought out at this inquiry that wages as HIGH as ONE DOLLAR and SIXTY-NINE CENTS a week had been earned at this plant. Nothing came of this meeting.

Governor West arrived on the strike line just fourteen days after the strike began. A dog had been running around town for five days with a sign on its back which read: “Where is Governor West? Is he dead?” This sign got the goat of his royal lowness. Appearing on the picket line, he began to bully the committee. This did not work. We let him speak from our stand. He tried to get away with a lot of flapdoodle. This didn’t work, either.

He wanted us to leave the strike to him. We laughed at this. Then he wanted us to call the strike off till he got “The Industrial Welfare Commission to fix it.” We laughed some more. As a last desperate effort he begged us to meet with him, the mayor, sheriff, chief of police and the packing plant owners in the city hall on the following morning. There never was such a meeting here. Standing room was at a premium. His oilyness, Rev. O’Hara, and the Governor received the most drastic drubbing of their lives, being quizzed, questioned and torn to pieces by the strikers’ representatives, Mrs. Mary Schwab and Tom Burns. His oilyness was forced to admit that he was responsible for a dirty, lying report appearing in the local papers to the effect “that the strike is settled.” Once during the fiasco Governor West jumped on the top of a beautiful mahogany table in the council chamber and, rushing wildly at Tom Burns, said: “You cannot call my friends of the Welfare Commission dishonest, and get away with it.” “That’s exactly what I did,” said Burns. “Don’t think because you wear a Red Flag I am afraid of you,” continued the Governor of Oregon; all the time swinging his arms hear Burns’ face. The city hall was in an uproar. Burns kept on writing. He never appeared to notice the Jumping Jack on the table. Nothing came of this meeting.

Almost every person connected with the strike was arrested, fanciful charges being placed against their names. Mrs. Mary Schwab, than whom Portland never knew an abler or pluckier AGITATOR, was jailed FOUR times in twenty-four hours. They couldn’t break her spirit. This brave little woman is out under excessive bail. All the perjured testimony of police and deputy sheriffs cannot get a conviction against her. Each jury hung. Rudolph Schwab was sentenced to “forty days on the rockpile.” Case appealed. Tom Burns was shanghaied, too. His jury of six, contained five members of the Employers’ Association and one deputy sheriff. A fair and impartial jury! Sentence, “Forty days on the rockpile.” Case appealed; out on bail. Ransley and Peterson have also been convicted. White slavers and forgers get sentences of ten days in this court. Free speech fighters get the limit. Fair and impartial Judge Stevenson!

John J. Jeffrey, the ablest technical criminal lawyer in the state of Oregon, is defending all our cases. He is the terror of the courts here. He has the city administration up a tree. The way he defends us puts one in mind of a lioness protecting her cubs from attack. Not one of us will ever go to jail. Most of us will collect damages from city or county officials.

July 15, 9:30 p.m., while Tom Burns was speaking for a collection to help girl strikers, Sheriff Tom Word pulled him off the box. On the way to jail Burns was brutally beaten up. He has had to be operated on. Nine others were arrested with Burns. These ten criminals (?) were placed in dungeons for three hours for singing I.W.W. songs. They still sang.

The local Scripps paper, The Portland News, has been at the service of the strikers and free speech fighters from the start. Its editor, Dana Sleeth, is a man among men. He always fights for the under dog, regardless of his job. As a result thereof, his is the only paper in Portland whose circulation is increasing. Here’s once where it paid to print the TRUTH.

July 17, a band of striking girls under the leadership of Mrs. Mary Schwab were clubbed by the police and deputy sheriffs. The unspeakable brutality of these bloodthirsty scoundrels equaled the mounted police charge on the defenseless pickets. Having been forewarned, we were prepared. All our men and women were instructed to leave off emblems, etc. Result, not one of our crowd got beaten up. Bourgeois storekeepers and politicians who came to see us beaten up got what was intended for the REDS. We have not quit laughing yet.

A monster mass meeting was held in Gypsy Smith Tabernacle on July 26. This is the largest auditorium in Portland. The speakers numbered some of the most influential men in the city. Not one of them was a Socialist. The enthusiasm at this meeting knew no bounds. Another meeting is scheduled for August 2, and every Saturday thereafter till free speech reigns again. A surprising feature of this strike was a poem by a policeman. His name is Fuller. This appeared in The Portland News, a few days after the strike began. It caused people to think. He will most likely get fired. Another policeman named Long refused to perjure himself on the witness stand. His testimony helped us. He will get his walking ticket, too.

Written by Press Committee of Strikers — I. D. Ransley, Henry Schoen, Tom Burns — for International Socialist Review.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n03-sep-1913-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf