In an exemplary moment of solidarity during hard times in 1912’s Lawrence, Massachusetts ‘Bread and Roses’ strike, children of destitute workers were sent labor activist families throughout New England to live for six weeks to ease burdens. A report on the imminent arrival of 250 in New York City.

‘Lawrence Strikers Send 250 Children’ from New York Call. Vol. 5 No. 41. February 10, 1912.

To Arrive at Grand Central at 3 o’ Clock Today, Whence Huge Multitude Will Parade to Union Square.

OVER 400 HAVE ALREADY SENT PLEDGES

Workers of Empire City Rally to Aid of Fellows in Mill Town–Mass Meeting at Union Square, Thence to Labor Temple.

“On to Grand Central today! On to Grand Central to welcome the children of Lawrence!

“Workers of New York, turn out in your thousands! Men, women and children of the working class, come out in the strength of your numbers to welcome the children of your fellows in Lawrence who are fighting against poverty, starvation and degradation!

“Today there arrive at Grand Central station 250 children, coming to the Empire City to receive the hospitality and care of the workers.

“The children come from a city whose streets are patrolled by soldiers–soldiers armed with rifle and bayonet, legal butchers called out at the behest of greed-ridden, brutal exploiters of men, women and little children,

“The soldiers of Lawrence have wetted their weapons in the blood of workers. They stand ready again at the word of command to saber and bayonet and shoot men and women alike.

“The children arriving today come from a city held in the grip of an armed terror. These children have seen the gleam of edged weapons on the streets. They have heard their parents tell of the terror of steel and lead. These children of Lawrence are fresh from a battlefield stained with the blood of your fellow workers.

“Fellow workers: The children of Lawrence are here at your call. You have heard their cries, and you have sent for them. You who are in the front of the struggle: you, who have fought and won and lost in battles of and for your class–you, who have done these things too and known them, know too the dire need of your fellows in Lawrence and have come to their aid.

“You have sent for the children of Lawrence, and they are here at your call.

“On, then, to Grand Central today! Leave your factory, workshop and office! Let nothing stay, you! Workers, unite! Let the sign of our unity be the children whose needs you will tend!

“The children of Lawrence are coming! Out, out in your thousands! Rejoice today in the feeling and knowledge of unity!

“Hurrah for the children of Lawrence!

“THE NEW YORK LAWRENCE STRIKE COMMITTEE.”

Arrangements were finally completed last night by the New York Lawrence Strike Committee for the reception of 250 children of the Lawrence strikers.

The children will arrive today at 3 p.m., at Grand Central Station. The committee urges all workers, men and women, to bring their own children and form up in 44th, 45th, 46th and 47th streets and Lexington avenue.

All progressive organizations, Socialist locals, labor unions, and others are urged by the committee to attend with their banners and emblems. It is the object of the committee to make the reception of strikers’ children in New York the most dramatic and significant event in American labor history, and the committee declares this can be done with sufficient co-operation by all sympathizers.

The children will be placed in touring cars, two of which have been lent for the purpose free of charge, and arrangements are being made to secure other cars. But any sympathizer who has a car or other vehicle that can be used is asked to place it at the children’s disposal.

Any sign writer who can assist in making signs to fasten to the vehicles is urged to be on hand today in the basement at 212 East 12th street, and assist in making a number that are wanted.

Parade From Station.

One organization has donated the service of a band. But the committee Is anxious to secure further musical assistance, and asks the members of the Socialist drum and fife corps to be present with their instruments, and any other sympathizer who has an instrument he or she can play, is asked to bring it. Bands can be made up before the procession starts. The tunes will be the “International” and the “Marseillaise.”

From Grand Central Station the parade will fall in line, and proceed along 42d street to Fifth avenue, down Fifth avenue to 17th street, and then to Union Square. At the square a mess meeting on behalf of the Lawrence strikers will be held, and the children will be sent to the Labor Temple, 243 East 84th street.

Among the speakers at the Union Square meeting will be Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mrs. Margaret Sanger, J.A. Jones, Raimondo Fazio, Leonardo Frisina, Oscar Mazzitelli, and very probably William D. Haywood.

At the Labor Temple the children will receive a hot supper, given by the Workmen’s Educational Association. All those who have undertaken the care of a striker’s child are asked to come on to the Labor Temple from Union Square, and after the children have eaten they will be distributed. The use of the Labor Temple will also be given free.

The children will be brought from Lawrence by a committee of four, of whom one is a trained nurse who has volunteered her services for this purpose. The Women’s Committee of the Socialist party will be in charge of the distribution of the children at the Labor Temple.

The Strike Committee points out that this is the first move of this nature ever undertaken in America. It urges all workers to attend at Grand Central Station and to assist in swelling the parade, thus showing in every way possible that the workers of America stand behind the Lawrence strikers in their struggle for living conditions.

Up to a late hour last night, more than 400 men and women applied either through The Call or the Strike Committee, at 187 East 28th street, for the privilege of taking charge of the children of the Lawrence strikers. All nationalities are represented in the applications, and most of the applications were not particular as to age or sex.

The citizens of Greater New York have responded nobly to The Call’s appeal to their sense of working class solidarity, and a valuable precedent has been set for the guidance of the workers in future strikes of a similar character.

At a meeting of the Jewish Socialist Agitation Committee in Clinton Hall Thursday night, at which Abraham Cahan and B. Vindeck spoke, $26.18 was collected for the Lawrence strikers.

Max Spiwak collected from his fellow workers at Sam Floesheimer Co.’s shop $26.71, which was handed to the local strike committee.

The committee also received anonymously, through the Ferrer School, donation of $5, and from the Cap Makers Union, Local 20, per Miss Rosen, $10.

Haywood May Speak.

The Fieldman lectures and debates on Socialism, conducted at the Republic Theater, West 42d street, have been turned to use by taking up collections for the Lawrence strikers, and already $680 has been sent to Lawrence from this source. It is planned to make a collection for the strikers a regular feature of these lectures.

Tentative arrangements have been made with William D. Haywood, Jack London, and Sol Fieldman to address the meeting tomorrow night on behalf of the strikers.

Local Philadelphia, Socialist party has arranged two mass meetings for Sunday, at each of which Elizabeth Gurley Flynn will speak.

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/1912/120210-newyorkcall-v05n041.pdf