Detailed, on-the-ground reports from a dramatic strike’s most dramatic events as Gastonia’s Workers’ Defense Corps defend their tent colony from a raid led by the local sheriff–who met his demise. In many ways the textile strikes in North Carolina were a harbinger of the C.I.O. unionization drive of later 1930s as they reached into previously unorganized territory and workers. Led by the T.U.U.L.’s National Textile Workers Union with the Workers International Relief setting up the colony and the I.L.D. providing legal supporting, it was an intense struggle. Death, jail, exile, and death penalty trials followed with Communist activists (including leading trade union figures Amy Schechter, Fred Beals, and Vera Buch) framed-up for the sheriff’s ‘murder.’ Facing potential execution, the Gastonia defense was among the most important campaigns of the I.L.D. Several of the strikers were convicted and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Others, like Fred Beal, jumped bail and went to the Soviet Union.

‘Police Chief Leads Mill Deputies in Shooting Up Tent Colony; Is Killed’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 80. June 10, 1929.

Three Deputies Wounded; Nat’l Textile Union Official Shot; 60 Arrested Face Trial Tent Colony Partly Destroyed in Raids by Gunmen Trying to Smash Textile Strike

GASTONIA, N. C., June 9. Savage raids by deputy sheriffs bristling with arms, city police and armed club-swinging thugs and gunmen employed by the Manville-Jenckes mill company have nearly wrecked the tent colony of the Loray strikers here, and placed over 60 of the strikers in jail to face frameup charges, either of murder or of being accessories to murder. Joseph Harrison, president of the Passaic local of the National Textile Workers’ Union, is seriously wounded in the hospital. He was shot by deputies, and is. charged with murder. All of the local National Textile Workers’ Union officials, all of the Workers’ International Relief workers, and many of the well-known strikers are arrested. Fred Beal, southern organizer of the N.T.W.U., was arrested last night in Spartanburg, S.C., with K.O. Dyers, a union organizer.

Police Chief Led Attack.

Chief of Police Aderholt died in the Gastonia sanitarium late last night. At 10:30 Friday night he led a troop of deputies onto the tent grounds where the evicted strikers live near the new headquarters building of the National Textile Workers’ Union. The murderous raiders came without warrant or other authority. The sheriff and deputies started shooting without provocation. Joseph Harrison, who had recently arrived from Passaic, fell, shot through by a bullet. Chief Aderholt himself was shot, and later died. Policemen Tom Gilbert, Charles Roach, and Charles Ferguson were wounded in the legs.

Previous Brutality.

Aderholt and Ferguson have been the most notorious and brutal of officers in their previous attacks on  he strikers. Aderholt led repeated bayonet charges of militia and deputies against the picket line during the first weeks of the strike, and bayonetted men, women and children. Gilbert has slugged and used his guns upon strikers with complete recklessness for human life all through the strike.

The strikers have been repeatedly threatened by mill owners’ thugs and police ever since the tent colony and new union headquarters building was erected that it would be destroyed and the camp shot up. A masked mob, several weeks ago, attacked the union and relief headquarters at night and wrecked both of them, destroying food and chopping the union building into bits. Strikers were beaten and threatened with death, the police did nothing to prevent the outrage, no one was arrested, and a grand jury white-washed every one accused.

Many Assaults.

After the first assault on the tent colony, Friday, heavily reinforced squads of deputies and gunmen raided and destroyed again and again. George Carter, a visitor to the tent colony from Chester, Pa., was arrested and has been selected by the police to stand trial on a murder charge of shooting the chief of police; Harrison, the Passaic N.T.W.U. president, and Clarence Miller, organizer for young workers here, are charged with shooting Deputy Sheriff Charles Roach. Miller was cruelly beaten up by the Loray bosses’ gunmen after he was arrested and while he was being taken to jail. Lewis McLaughlin, active striker, is to be accused of shooting Motorcycle Policeman Charles Ferguson and Policeman Thomas Gilbert. Many charges of “conspiracy,” “assault with intent to murder,” “accessory to murder,” are expected against the remaining strikers arrested.

Sixty Jailed.

Mass terrorism against the striking textile workers of the Loray mill is now raging in this company-owned town. More than 60 strikers have already been arrested, while armed thugs deputized by the local authorities, agents of the bosses, searched the surrounding countryside looking for Fred F. Beal, National Textile Workers Union organizer, until he was finally arrested in Spartanburg, where he had gone on organization work after his return from Elizabethton.

All last night and early today deputies have been menacing the strikers living in the tent colony established here by the Workers International Relief. Without warrants they have been invading the tents and houses where the strikers live.

In invading the tent colony of the W.I.R. the deputies tore down some of the tents and destroyed them. Union and relief signs were smashed. Every tent and home of the strikers was invaded, some as late as three in the morning. When the workers protested against the action, demanding a warrant, the legalized thugs stated that no warrants are needed in North Carolina. All the men strikers found in the tent colony were placed under arrest, searched and taken to jail handcuffed. Every striker that is found is immediately taken into custody. This is viewed as an attempt to smash the strike by one huge blow.

McDonald, a striker with a wooden leg, could not walk fast enough to suit the deputies, and told them so. They answered that he would have to.

Armed thugs with searchlights visited and searched the tent colony more than a dozen times during the night. No consideration was given to the privacy of the strikers, most of whom were asleep when the raiding party arrived.

Among those arrested are Amy Shechter, manager of the Workers International Relief station here. and Caroline Drew, relief worker who has been active especially in organizing relief picnics, local relief committees and collecting of food from surrounding territories. The attempt to suppress the relief by arrest of W.I.R. workers is regarded here as the carrying out of threats often made by the mill bosses against this workers’ organization, and is part of the campaign to starve the strikers back to their slavery.

The Gastonia Gazette is publishing the most outrageous lies about the attack on the workers. It is an attempt to provoke more violence against the strikers. A deliberate attempt is being made to stimulate lynch mobs to kill the imprisoned strikers.

The striking workers who have not as yet been arrested express deep indignation over the action of the police authorities.

The tents destroyed by the police will be replaced and food will continue to be furnished to the striking workers by the W.I.R.

Funds are now needed, more than ever before, by the W.I.R. and I.L.D. The workers of America must answer the mill owners’ attack by rallying to the support of the strikers. Rush funds to the Workers International Relief, 1 Union Square, New York City, and to International Labor Defense, 80 E, 11th St., New York City.

‘Restore Tent Colony Despite Jailing of Strike, Relief Leaders’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 80. June 10, 1929.

GASTONIA, N.C., June 9. Eyewitnesses to the shooting Friday in the Gastonia tent colony have stated to the International Labor Defense representatives here that they saw Chief of Police Aderholt start the shooting.

He fired the first shot, without provocation directly into a crowd of strikers, and his deputies followed suit.

The United Press correspondent in Gastonia reports that George Moore, Gaston county deputy sheriff, was seriously wounded this afternoon when, during funeral services for Chief of Police Aderholt several deputies pursued and fired upon a striker. The United Press report states: “Moore is believed to have been struck accidentally by a bullet fired by another deputy.”

GASTONIA, N. C., June 9. “The Gastonia Strikers Defense Committee of the International Labor Defense is being organized here to defend the 60 strikers now in jail and facing a framed-up murder trial,” stated Juliet Stuart Poyntz, National Secretary of the I.L.D. today. Poyntz arrived in Gastonia as soon as the trip could be made after hearing of the mass arrests and terror which followed the attack on the strikers’ tent colony and the shooting which accompanied it.

“The Defense will undertake immediately a nation-wide campaign to rally the workers against what is starting out as another of the historic frame-up cases of American class-war history. This new Centralia case, this attempt to legally murder strikers through the use of the courts as a result of provocative attacks by agents, whether police or not, of the mill owners, will meet with the sternest resistance.”

W.I.R. WILL RE-OPEN TENT COLONY.

“The Workers’ International Relief is determined to carry on the feeding of the strikers and refurnishing of the tent colony in spite of every obstacle,” stated Alfred Wagenknecht, National Secretary of the Workers’ International Relief Committee, who is taking personal charge of reestablishing the relief work checked by the surrounding of the union headquarters and tent colony by 20 armed deputies, and the arrest of every known relief worker by the Gastonia police.

The leaders of the national and local organizations of the National Textile Workers Union join with Poyntz and Wagenknecht in giving the following account of the murderous attack on the strikers by police:

“Sixty strikers, including National Textile Workers’ Union, Workers’ International Relief, and International Labor Defense officials, are in three jails in Gastonia and vicinity, held incommunicado, and are supposed to be brought up for hearing Tuesday. The charges against them will be murder.

“They may never come to trial, for all the mill owners’ press is shrieking for their lynching, and there is abundant evidence that the crowd at the public funeral tomorrow will be whipped on by bloody minded speakers to turn itself into a lynch mob.

“Fred E. Beal, southern organizer of the National Textile Workers’ Union was arrested while he was on union business in South Carolina, and is being held no one knows where. He may be lynched at any moment, as the mill bosses’ hatred for the leader of this stubborn strike is intense.

Kept Press Spreads Lies.

“No credence whatever can be placed in the stories in the employers’ papers that anybody has confessed to shooting any of the deputies or police. It is impossible for anybody but the mill bosses and the officers of the law,’ they control to interview them.

“The raid on the Workers’ International Relief tent colony Friday night followed a bloody attack on the mass picketing demonstration which was organized at a meeting on the tent colony and union headquarters grounds in the evening.

“At the meeting mill owners’ provocateurs tried to start trouble by throwing eggs at Vera Bush, union organizer, and at Fred Beal eggs and stones were thrown. The meeting however passed off quietly otherwise, and the demonstrators started down towards the Loray mill to call on the strikebreakers to come out. Such demonstrations on previous nights last week have already drawn many of the strikebreakers out of the mills, and enlisted them in the ranks of the union.

Deputies Attack Strikers.

“The demonstration Friday night was met by a crowd of deputies in more than usual ugly mood. They clubbed the workers, choked the women and girl strikers, and kicked the children around. The demonstration was brutally broken up, and the strikers went back to the tent colony. After nine o’clock the strikers’ guards cleared the grounds, as is usual, and everything was perfectly quiet.

“A little later, an automobile loaded with police, in charge of Police Chief Adlerholt drove right into the tent colony, the officers dismounted and began to bully the guards. A couple of them seized one man and attempted to tear his rifle away from him. As though this was a signal, the other deputies and police started firing right into the tents. Women and children fled into the tents when the first struggle started. The deputies charged among the tents, firing recklessly, and when the confusion was over, four of them were wounded.

Striker First to Fall.

“The striker, Harrison, was the first to fall, and when he dropped wounded by bullets in the arm and leg, deputies held him to the ground and he was carried away with the other wounded.

“It is impossible to tell, because all the prisoners are held incommunicado, whether the deputies were shot by other deputies in the reckless firing, whether they were shot by agent provocateurs of the mill companies in the tent colony or whether they were shot by strikers in self defense.

Came Without Warrants.

“The police and deputies had no search warrants. When they first attacked the tent colony guards, warrants were demanded of them. Policeman Gilbert cursed the strikers, and declared, ‘We don’t need no got damned warrants.’

“After the wounded were removed Major Bullwinkle, the attorney for the Manville-Jenckes Co., came into the tent colony with a posse of forty deputy sheriffs (mill company thugs) and without warrants began to arrest strikers and beat some of them up. Clarence Miller was beaten almost to a pulp. Women were terrifically beaten and guns were flourished.

Start Wrecking Tents.

“After most of the arrests were made, during yesterday and today, the deputies surrounded the headquarters of the National Textile Workers Union, and new small building near the tent colony, and permitted no one to go in. They blocked entrance to the tent headquarters of the Workers International Relief, also near the headquarters. They have charged repeatedly through the tent colony. destroying the tents and driving all the strikers’ families out to lie on the open ground in the midst of a terrible rain storm. Arrests continue. Caroline Drew, relief worker, was arrested yesterday while on her way to consult Attorney Jimison, retained by the I.L.D.

“The strikers have been without food now for three days, because of the smashing of the relief work.

Will Renew Relief.

“The Workers’ International Relief is determined to reopen the colony and get food for these strikers without delay. The International Labor Defense has an attorney on the ground, and will use every method to get in to see the strikers and break the incommunicado policy.

“The National Textile Workers’ Union was never more in the confidence of the workers of this section than now. Sentiment for the union is developing by leaps and bounds, and it will continue its organization work and carry the strike to a victory in spite of every terroristic tactic.

“As in the case of the Centralia, Washington, defendants, which almost exactly parallels this attack, the bosses will utilize their control of the courts to condemn innocent workers to death or to life imprisonment if they are not prevented by the organized workers. In Centralia, as in Gastonia, mobs attacked the union hall and wrecked it, the workers declared they would continue their organization and defend their hall, the reactionary forces of the community raided it, the workers were arrested for the deaths during the shooting which accompanied the raid, lynch mobs killed one of them, and the frame-up proceeded.

Other Attacks Recalled.

“The employing class has many times resorted to murder to attack workers’ organizations and their strikes. The Everett massacre in Washington was another case where company gunmen, masquerading as police officers fired into workers and killed many, and when the workers defended their lives, they were tried for murder. In Everett, the prosecution failed.

“Destruction of tent colonies where evicted workers and their families live is also not new in America. The Gastonia outrage reminds the American workers of Ludlow, Colorado, where Rockefeller’s militia fired into his coal miners tents and slaughtered the strikers wholesale, setting fire to the tents and burning the children, women and wounded who lay in them.

Prevent Murder of Workers.

“But with the National Textile Workers’ Union growing, and the I.L.D. and W.I.R. immediately on the job, rallying and organizing the defense and feeding and shelter of the Gastonia strikers, we can expect a determined effort to save these new victims of employers’ greed. It all depends on the working class.

“If the workers hear the real facts of the case, and mobilize in time, life imprisonment for the workers as in Centralia or legal murder as in the Sacco-Vanzetti case will be prevented.”

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n080-NY-jun-10-1929-DW-LOC.pdf