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Memorial Day massacre...
Memorial Day massacre...
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May 31, 1937
THE NEW YORK TIMES, New York, NY, May 31, 1937
* Memorial Day massacre
* Republic steel plant
* Chicago Illinois
This 32 page newspaper has a two column headline on the front page: "3 KILLED, 62 HURT AS STRIKERS FIGHT POLICE IN CHICAGO" with subheads that include: "Steel Mob Halted" "1,000 Marchers Stopped in Effort to Close Republic Plant" "Many Felled By Shots" and more. (see photos)
Other news of the day. Light browning with little margin wear, otherwise good.
wikipedia notes: In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, police shot and killed ten demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the "Little Steel Strike" in the United States.
The incident arose after U.S. Steel signed a union contract, but smaller steel manufacturers (called 'Little Steel'), including Republic Steel, refused to do so. In protest, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) called a strike. On Memorial Day, hundreds of sympathizers gathered at Sam's Place, headquarters of SWOC. As the crowd marched across the prairie towards the Republic Steel mill, a line of Chicago policeman blocked their path. When the foremost protestors argued their right to continue, police fired on the crowd. As the crowd fled, police bullets killed ten people.
Years later, one of the protesters, Mollie West, recalled a policeman yelling to her that day to, "Get off the field or I'll put a bullet in your back." No police were ever prosecuted.
Today, on the site of Sam's Place stands the union hall of the United Steel Workers Association and a memorial to the 10 people who died in 1937.
In the book 'Collected Writings' by Dorothy Day, the events of the protest are summarized thusly: 'On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, police opened fire on a parade of striking steel workers and their families at the gate of the Republic Steel Company, in South Chicago. Fifty people were shot, of whom ten later died; one hundred others were beaten with clubs'. Day was present at the strike.
Category: The 20th Century
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