Today in Labor History March 12, 1912: The IWW won their Bread and Roses textile strike in Lawrence, MA. This was the first strike to use the moving picket line, implemented to avoid arrest for loitering. The workers came from 51 different nationalities and spoke 22 different languages. The mainstream unions, including the American Federation of Labor, all believed it was impossible to organize such a diverse workforce. However, the IWW organized workers by linguistic group and trained organizers who could speak each of the languages. Each language group got a delegate on the strike committee and had complete autonomy. Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn masterminded the strategy of sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, drawing widespread sympathy, especially after police violently stopped a further exodus. 3 workers were killed by police during the strike. Nearly 300 were arrested.

The 1911 verse, by Poet James Oppenheim, has been associated with the strike, particularly after Upton Sinclair made the connection in his 1915 labor anthology, “The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #breadandroses #policebrutality #union #elizabethgurleyflynn #bigbillhaywood #strike #picket #immigrants #poetry #novel #books #fiction #writer #author #uptonsinclair @bookstadon

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #UptonSinclair #Employment #Ignorance #Knowledge #Understanding

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #LavaFlow #Galapagos #Geology

Link posted not for the story, which is paywalled, but the comments. Which are exactly what you'd expect, and crystallize something I've been thinking about for some time. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ALyANXXqX/

(If you can't or don't want to follow a Facebook link, here's the original story, albeit without the comments I'm talking about: <https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/01/28/london-is-far-safer-than-violent-viral-videos-will-have-you-believe>.)

To paraphrase #UptonSinclair, it is difficult to get people to understand something when their sense of who they depends on them not understanding it. And for a whole lot of people who don't live in the world's great cities, part of their identity is believing that they're different from and better than those who do.

It's been thirty-five years or so since I was regularly walking around #London late at night. At the time I was young and strong and healthy and it was easy to believe I was immortal. But I wasn't stupid. I knew there was real danger and did my best to avoid it. Most of the time I succeeded, sometimes I didn't.

(My fellow GIs' reaction to my habit of taking off for the weekend was amusing. "You go to London? And stay there? BY YOURSELF?" Dude, it's fine. The Blitz has been over for fifty years, and you may have heard that the folks there speak English.)

The early '90s were a violent time on both sides of the Atlantic. London's #homicide rate declined somewhat through most of the decade with a spike toward the end, jumped again in the early '00s, and since then has been on a downward trend. Other #violent #crimes have declined steadily since 1990-1992. The place is measurably *more safe* now than it was when I was passing a jug of cheap wine outside King's Cross or watching my tablemate get glassed at a pub in Southwark.

Oh yeah, there are no "no-go areas." Grow up.

Naturally, a lot of commenters refuse to believe it. "You're just a privileged snob who never leaves your nice safe neighborhood!" "Bullshit, it's full of Muslim gangs!" And of course, the single-emoji "🤣" response, always your sign of quality internet discourse.

This is not a problem limited to London. For many people all over the world, the nearest city significantly bigger than where they live is *always* a wretched hive of scum and villainy. So the biggest city in any country—London, #NewYork, #Tokyo, whatever—must be the wretchedest and scummiest and most villanous of all.

It happens on a much smaller scale too. I've run into more people than I can count who live less than an hour away from #Denver and are positive that Colorado's fair capital makes Snake Plissken's New York look like Disneyland by comparison.

There's also the opposite effect: lately I've seen a number of people from places like #Chicago and #Philadelphia making fun of the idea that anyone in #Minneapolis is really tough. "You think ICE is having a hard time there? Let 'em come here and they'll learn what real resistance is like!" I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were Muscovites sneering at #Stalingrad, back when.

Of course I am quite sure that you, my dear readers, would ever engage in any such absurd self-aggrandizing rhetoric. Right?

#AJourneyIntoTheCenterOfTheEarth by #JulesVerne

Descending into the unknown! A thrilling adventure through volcanic tubes to a world of prehistoric wonders beneath the Earth's crust. 🌋🔦

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-journey-into-center-of-earth-by-jules.html

#TheJungle by #UptonSinclair

The book that changed food laws forever. Sinclair’s gritty exposé of the meatpacking industry and the immigrant struggle. 🏭🥩🇺🇸

Read here: https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-jungle-by-upton-sinclair.html

Today in Labor History January 19, 1920: Crystal Eastman, Roger Nash Baldwin, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (from the IWW) and others founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Their original focus was freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and supporting conscientious objectors. In 1923, they defended author Upton Sinclair after he was arrested for trying to read the First Amendment during an IWW rally. In 1925, they persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee's anti-evolution law in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Clarence Darrow, an ACLU member, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. In 1926, they defended H. L. Mencken, who deliberately broke Boston law by distributing copies of his banned American Mercury magazine and won their first major acquittal. However, they kicked Elizabeth Gurley Flynn off their board in 1940 because of her Communist affiliations. And they refused defend Paul Robeson and other leftists in the 1950s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #elizabethgurleyflynn #communism #aclu #evolution #uptonsinclair #PaulRobeson #clarencedarrow #hlmencken #freespeech #antiwar #education #school #freeppress #journalism #firstamendment @bookstadon

In light of everything happening, and people I speak to wondering why those in charge won't do anything about it, a handy maxim:

It is difficult to get our elites to change something, when their wealth depends on them not changing it.

After #UptonSinclair

Literarischer #25November

„Ich zielte auf das Herz der Öffentlichkeit und traf sie versehentlich im Magen“"

#UptonSinclair Tod 1968

"It is difficult to get a man to understand #gravy, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

#UptonSinclair

#HashtagGames

#GravyAFamousQuote