On The 103rd Anniversary Of The Great IWW-led Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912-Reflections In A Wobblie Wind

 

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

 

One night Bart Webber, the now retired master print shop operator in Carver who made his mark in the business by early on in the 1960s counter-cultural explosion hiring a silkscreen artist to take advantage of craze for emblazoned posters and tee-shirts, and Frank Jackman who provided Bart with plenty of such business after taking his first trip west with the late Peter Paul Markin from up the road in North Adamsville and telling Bart of the craze for such materials out in Golden Gate San Francisco when he came back were cutting up old touches at Jack Higgin’s Sunnyvale Grille in Plymouth. Since Bart and Frank had reconnected several years before via the “magic” of the Internet when they were both seeking information about an upcoming class reunion they periodically, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with Frankie Riley, Jimmy Jenkins, or Johnny Callahan, would gather together and discuss old times, or if in a philosophical or political mood attempt to figure out what all that meant.

Back in the 1960s, the earlier part of that decade at least neither Bart nor Frank were all that political, were not ready to slay the dragon, and had both gravitated to the musical, sexual and dope end of what was going on at the time. It was only later in the decade after one of their hang around boys from high school, quiet Billy Badger, was killed during the Vietnam War in some jungle outpost whose name they still could not pronounce correctly that they began to go to the anti-war marches and take part in various acts of civil disobedience by sitting in at draft boards, including the hometown Carver one, blocking government buildings and stopping traffic to make political points, stuff like that. They had both been arrested and held for several days in a football stadium (then RFK Stadium) during the great if doomed May Day action in Washington, D.C. in 1971 when they tried, futilely tried, along with thousands of others to shut down the government, a government which had no intention of ending the war. That dramatic action was something of a last hurrah for the pair as they both agreed afterward that something more than a symbolic street action where they were easily defeated by the massed arms of the state was necessary to change the way the business of government was done in this country.

During this short few year activist period though they had also read a lot, been caught up in left-wing reader circles, had read significant labor and left-wing history including plenty of Marxist-tinged material that was something of the flavor of the month at one point once all the student-centered actions proved to come up empty and the pair had picked their villains and heroes accordingly. And although they both forsook political activism as the seventies brought quiet on the left-wing political fronts and they went back to Carver “normal”, Bart to amp up his commercial printing operation once the silk screen craze died down in order to provide for his growing family and Frank to editorial work with a small commercial publishing house, they separately had kept up an interest on what went right and wrong back then as the years went by. So it would not be out of character at one of their gatherings for anybody to comment on almost anything political whether they were going to do anything about the matter or not.

This one night in particular Bart had gotten on his “high horse” about the odd-ball commemoration craze that had kind of snuck up on everybody with the advent of 24/7/365 media coverage of events and the need to “fill in” the time on slow news days or periods with hype, bells and whistles and the appropriate “talking heads” to explain what it meant to a candid world, or better an indifferent world. What Bart had meant by this reference was that unlike in the old days when there was a certain order to anniversary dates like five, ten, twenty-five, fifty and so on observances now there were odd-ball ones like the thirtieth this or fortieth that. The reason that Bart had brought that subject up that particular night was that he had recently seen and heard a jumble of coverage about the fortieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon [now Ho Chi Minh City] and the thirty-fifth anniversary of the release of Dave Sargent’s masterful song, Don’t Rock The Boat. Frank, in response, challenged Bart on this point although he acknowledged that the craze existed, was something of a media and social networking contrived firestorm, and that far too many events were getting odd-ball year recognition. Frank, remembering as he had to in his later jobs on the editorial staffs of publishing houses, the Verve Left Publishing Co in particular, which inclined to publish left-wing book and academic studies and to republish classics of major works on their sometimes odd-ball years, that certain events fell outside of the normal anniversary cycles they had known from childhood. To make his point Frank mentioned that the recent 144^th anniversary of the establishment of the Paris Commune in 1871, the first working-class in power government, if short-lived, in history, the upcoming 98^th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, although since 1991 a major world working-class defeat with the demise of the Soviet Union and the 103^rd anniversary of the great IWW-led (Industrial Workers of the World, Wobblies) “Bread and Roses” strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 one of the great strikes of the pre-World War One world all fit into his exceptional category.                               

Now you have to know the long-time one-upsmanship characteristic that had been a part of the relationship between Frank and Bart since early high school which the years apart had not diminished to know that once Frank created the exceptions Bart would challenge him on such assertions. [And not just that pair, the whole hang-around Jimmy Jack’s Diner on Main Street gang, Frankie Riley in particular who had made it an art-form, on lonely girl-less, car-less, dough-less weekend nights, and almost any night in summer almost made a “religion” of one-upping even if a guy said a color was brown and another guy would “correct” him and say beige.]  Bart had no quarrel with the commemoration of the Paris Commune which in his funny now very middle-class and prosperous way said could be celebrated yearly since the leadership of that government such as it was didn’t exclude anybody but known counter-revolutionaries, spies, and thieves from participation and he had been to Paris and had taken part in the annual commemoration in the late 1970s. Bart also said he could see why there would have been an annual commemoration of the Russian Revolution while the Soviet Union existed even if he personally was still in thrall to the red scare Cold War anti-Stalinist ethos of his, his family’s, his town’s and his country’s attitudes toward that event but he would be damned why anybody would do so once the whole Potemkin Village edifice fell apart at the first serious wind in 1991. [Frank less in thrall to that Cold War ethos did an end around on Bart and reminded him that in 1972 just as they were getting wary of the political they had both attended, both had wanted to attend the fifty-fifth anniversary commemoration of the revolution put on by the Soviet-American Friendship Association which in turn brought Bart back to the point that at least there had been an actual dysfunctional society to pay homage to.] What really befuddled Bart though was about the Lawrence strike of 1912 which while important in Wobblie history and left-wing trade union history didn’t seem to merit special odd-ball anniversary status any more than the great general strikes in 1934 in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco which had a couple of years before been correctly honored on their seventy-fifth anniversaries.

Needless to say despite a few hours back and forth that night, despite a few too many high-shelf whiskies consumed too quickly as they got a little hot under their respective collars Frank later when he thought about what Bart had said decided to write a little something to argue for the great strike’s inclusion in the exception category. Here is what he had to say: 

 

“Every kid who has had wanderlust, even just a starry little, little bit on his or her way to the big bad world had said “bread and roses” under his or her breathe (and not just shop-worn shop girls drawing insufficient pay to buy bread let alone roses while waiting for some immigrant young man from their respective immigrant communities to sweep them off their feet and move them into married bliss in some cozy triple-decker close to the mighty Merrimac and from there who knew where in gilded golden age America). Meaning every half-starved (brought up on baloney sandwiches, grey clumpy oatmeal, and flatulent baked beans and franks), ill-clothed (older brother hand-me-down, too big, too long, too last year or the year before fashion, worse, Mother-selected at the local Bargain Center, home to all the train wreaks of 1950s fashions), hard-scrabble kid (hustling dough here and there collecting bottles, selling newspapers trying to out-hustle the crippled “newsie” down the block, a go at the Mayfair swells caddying at the country club, pearl-diving [washing dishes], and if worse came to worse, even later on the midnight creep, hit Ma’s  pocketbook for change), memory Carver kids too, reduced to life in walking paces (no automobile, no father automobile in trade in every three years prosperous America), footsore (those raggedy-assed Thom McAn’s bought for Easter time well-worn by summer’s end after walking what seemed like half the continent), time-lost sore (self-explanatory), endless bus waiting sore (walking half that half the continent rather than hoping against hope for that privately run solo Eastern Mass to come with its surly driver), and not the speed, the “boss” hi-blown ’57 gilded cherry red Chevy speed of the 20^th century go-go (and, hell, not even close in the 21^st century speedo Audi super go-go) itching, itching like crazy, like feverish night sweats crazy, to bust out of the small, no, tiny, four-square wall “the project” existence and have a room, a big room, of his or her own (shared dream with that shop-worn shop girl, and that crippled newsie too).

Meaning also every day-dream kid doodling his or her small-sized dream away looking out at forlorn white foam-flecked, grey-granite ocean expanses (the ocean trains catering to Mayfair swells and not to pensive walk tow-headed boys), crashing, crashing if that is the right word to tepid waiting shores),flat brown-yellow, hell, beyond brown-yellow to hate all such earthen colors to some evil muck prairie home expanses (and desires not to stay put in the center of nowhere), up ice cold, ice blue, beyond blue rocky mountain high expanses and stuck(winter stuck, light jacket against snow-bound white howls). Just plain, ordinary, vanilla stuck in the 1950s (or name your very own generational signifier, hell, go back to that turn of the century, 20^th century and you will still not be far off, double hell go forward to the 21^st century and if you believe the “talking heads you most certainly will not be far off) red scare, cold war, maybe we won’t be here tomorrow, one size fits all, death to be-bop non-be-bop night. Yah, just plain, ordinary, vanilla stuck. What other way is there to say it?

And every kid who dreamed the dream of the great jail break-out of dark, dank, deathic bourgeois family around the square, very square, table life and unnamed, maybe un-namable, teen hormonal craziness itching, just itching that’s all. Waiting, waiting infinity waiting, kid infinity waiting, for the echo rebound be-bop middle of the night sound of mad monk rock walking daddies from far away radio planets, and an occasional momma too, to ease the pain, to show the way, hell, to dance the way away. Down the road to break out of the large four-square wall suburban existence, complete with Spot dog, and have some breathe, some asphalt highway not traveled, some Jersey turnpike of the mind not traveled, of his or her own.

Meaning also, just in case it was not mentioned before, every day-dream kid, small roomed or large, doodling, silly doodling to tell the truth, his or her dream away looking out at fetid seashores next to ocean expanses, corn-fed fields next to prairie home expanses, blasted human-handed rocks up rocky mountain high expanses and stuck. Just plain, ordinary, vanilla stuck in the 1950s (oh, yah, just name your generational signifier, okay) red scare, cold war, maybe we won’t be here tomorrow, one size fits all, death to be-bop non-be-bop night. Yah, just plain, ordinary, vanilla stuck. What other way is there to say it?

And every guy or gal who has been down on their luck a little. Like maybe he or she just couldn’t jump out of that “the projects” rut, couldn’t jump that hoop when somebody just a little higher up in the food chain laughed at those ill-fitted clothes, those stripped cuffed pants one size too large when black chinos, uncuffed, were called for. Or when stuffed bologna sandwiches, no mustard, had to serve to still some hunger, some ever present hunger. Or just got caught holding some wrong thing, some non-descript bauble really, or just had to sell their thing for their daily bread and got tired, no, weary, weary-tired weary, of looking at those next to ocean, prairie, rocky mountain expanses. Or, maybe, came across some wrong gee, some bad-ass drifter, grifter or midnight sifter and had to flee. Yah, crap like that happens, happens all the time in “the projects” time. And split, split in two, maybe more, split west I hope.

And every guy or gal who has slept, newspaper, crushed hat, or folded hands for a pillow, all worldly possessions in some ground found Safeway shopping bag along some torrent running river, under some hide-away bridge, off some arroyo spill, hell, anywhere not noticed and safe, minute safe, from prying, greedy evil hands. Worst, the law. Or, half-dazed smelling of public toilet soap and urinals, half-dozing on some hard shell plastic seat avoiding maddened human this way and that traffic noises and law prodding keep movings and you can’t stay heres in some wayward Winnemucca, Roseburg, Gilroy, Paseo, El Paso, Neola, the names are legion, Greyhound, Continental, Trailways bus station. Or sitting by campfires, chicken scratch firewood, flame-flecked, shadow canyon boomer, eating slop stews, olio really, in some track-side hobo jungle waiting, day and day waiting, bindle ready, for some Southern Pacific or Denver and Rio Grande bull-free freight train smoke to move on.

Hell, everybody, not just lonely hard- luck project boys, wrong, dead wrong girls, wronged, badly wronged, girls, wise guy guys who got caught short, wrong gees on the run, right gees on the run from some shadow past, drifters, grifters and midnight sifters, society boys on a spree, debutantes out for a thrill, and just plain ordinary vanilla day-dreamers who just wanted to be free from the chains of the nine to five white picket fence work forty years and get your gold watch (if that) retirement capitalist system was (and, maybe, secretly is) an old Wobblie at heart. Yah, just like one-eyed Big Bill (Haywood who loved his Nevada Jane according to the lore), Jim Cannon, the Rebel Girl (Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, later that stalwart Stalinist that every red fearing young Carver boy crawled away from), Joe Hill (executed out in the Utahs, Frank Little (ditto private posse Montana), Vincent Saint John (the “Saint” who held it all together in those tough times around World War I when it counted, and me. Yah, all the one big union boys and girls from way back, just to name a few.

Except when you need to take on the big issues, the life and death struggle to keep our unions against the capitalist onslaught to reduce us to chattel, the anti-war wars giving the self-same imperialists not one penny nor one person for their infernal wars as they deface the world, the class wars where they take no prisoners, none, then you need something more. Something more that childish child’s dreams, hobo camp freedom fireside smoke, or Rio Grande train white flume smoke. That is when day dreaming gets you cut up. That is when you need to stay in one place and fight. That is when you need more than what our beloved old free-wheeling wobblie dream could provide. And that is a fact, a hard fact, sisters and brothers.

If that coming up short against the monster back in the day doesn’t deserve full yearly recognition from one Bartlett Webber then nothing more I can say to give him the spirit of the commemoration will do it.”