Growing Pains for Society
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THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 1998 5-D OUR CENTURY 1911 AT A GLANCE Democrat regains control of City Hall Growing pains for society Herman Baehr, Cleveland’s first Republi- can mayor of the century, made little impres- Workers demand shor ter week; sion and chose not to run for re-election. City Solicitor Newton D. Baker, campaigning in women rally for the vote tents in the style of his mentor, Tom L. John- son, defeated Baehr’s safety director, Frank off meetings planned for the next day, Hogen, by nearly 18,000 votes, the largest By Fred McGunagle a Sunday, and urged members to margin ever. Democrats also regained control spend the day in the parks “with the They poured into the streets, a of City Council. fresh air, the flowers, the sunshine.” happy throng that soon grew to 4,000 Employers charged that the strike Johnson did not see “Johnsonism” revived. men and women stretching from E. He had died April 11; 200,000 Clevelanders was fomented by New Yorkers who 21st St. to W. 6th St. In what is now wanted to harm their Cleveland ri- watched his funeral procession wind its way the Warehouse District, they past buildings hung with crepe and pictures of vals. (Cleveland trailed only New marched past the shops that made up York and Berlin in the industry.) The the four-term mayor. the third-largest garment industry in Baehr’s administration did mark one mile- Sperling Co. produced records that the world, calling, “Come out and join women workers were well paid — $18 stone. On Sept. 23, Rose Constant, the widow us.” of a city employee, was named a city sanitary to $30 a week, almost half as much as “And in each case,” The Plain men workers. The men had helpers — inspector, making her the first woman Cleve- Dealer reported, ‘‘a scurrying crowd land police officer. “a girl to whom they paid about $6 a of workmen surged from the doors.” week.” · The garment workers’ strike of The companies contracted out work 1911 would to small shops around the state, and One result of Johnson’s vision was becom- lead to rioting, the strike slowly lost steam. In Octo- ing reality in 1911. In March, the Federal deaths, arrests ber, union headquarters in New York Building (now the Federal Courthouse) was and, after five said it had paid out $325,000 in strike PLAIN DEALER FILE dedicated on the northwest corner of Public months, bitter benefits over five months and could Square — right where the Group Plan of 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the English suffrage movement, came to failure. But at afford no more. The strikers went had dictated. The $3.3 million building, de- America for a speaking tour. On Nov. 27, 1911, she addressed a throng of midmorning back to their employers — those em- signed by architect Arnold Brunner, featured Wall Streeters. on June 7, ployers, that is, who were willing to granite exteriors and marble halls. when the Later in the year, the Cuyahoga County deadline Courthouse became the second building on the passed and the mall. Designed by the firm of Lehmann and workers Schmidt, the $4 million building was hailed as walked out, it a triumph of the Beaux Arts style. was a joyous · Dawley celebration. “Hebrews Adrian “Addie” Joss was on his way to be- were there in coming one of baseball’s all-time great pitch- great numbers. And beside them ers. He had thrown a one-hitter in his first ma- marched Poles, Bohemians, Rus- jor league game in 1902, a sians, Italians and Slavs,” The Plain perfect game in 1908 and a Dealer reported. “From one end of no-hitter in 1910. His re- the procession to the other, one heard cord was 160 wins and 97 a peculiar mixture of languages with losses. but little English to vary the monot- On April 12, two days ony.” after his 31st birthday and The next day, most of the city’s two days before the Naps’ 5,000 garment workers attended a opening game, Joss died of mass meeting where speakers fired tubercular meningitis. The them up in English, Yiddish, Italian management of the Naps Joss and Bohemian. They cheered when and the Detroit Tigers re- they learned that Jay P. Dawley, the fused to postpone the lawyer who long had represented the opener, so the Naps took Cloak Makers Association, had come matters into their own hands. All of them went over to their side. to Toledo for Joss’ funeral, forcing cancella- The International Ladies Garment tion of the game. Workers Union called the strike. Its A state law legalizing Sunday baseball be- members — more men than women came effective May 7. At League Park the fol- — cheered when leaders demanded a lowing Sunday, State Rep. Joseph Greaves, 50-hour week with Saturday after- who had sponsored the law, was given a life- noon and Sunday off, and an end to time pass; the Naps then beat the New Yorks, the practice of charging workers for 16-3. the cloth and machines they used. PLAIN DEALER FILE Joss was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1968. Dawley declared: “Hiring a man to His lifetime ERA of 1.88 is the second-lowest State board of Ohio League of Women Voters meets at the Hotel Statler. Leading Ohio suffragist Elizabeth J. in major league history. do your shopwork and then asking him to furnish his own power, ma- Hauser was in the center in the white dress. · chinery and material is the same as if Police Chief Fred Kohler went on vacation I would hire a chauffeur for $100 a take them back. National Federation of Women’s wore “Votes for Women” badges, to Germany in June and downtown bars again month and then tell him to bring a Clubs, meeting in Cleveland, had de- which were sold on the boat, but re- began opening on Sundays. Kohler was a $6,000 machine with him.” The audi- · clined to back women’s suffrage. fused to wave the flags provided for stickler for enforcing the Sunday bar closing ence gave him a 10-minute standing the occasion. ovation. “Votes! Votes! Votes! Votes! Votes! But English suffragist Emmeline law, but with him away, the word went out to W.S.P.!” Pankhurst was encouraged by the Gradually, though, Hauser rallied The night of the strike, there had look the other way. Ministers blamed Mayor large and enthusiastic turnout. She support among men as well as been dancing in “the Jewish quarter That was the new official cheer of Baehr, who had been an officer in his family’s told the audience, “The women’s suf- women. Newton D. Baker, then a can- and some of the foreign districts,” the Women’s Suffrage Party, and The Baehr Brewing Co. frage movement gives the lie to state- didate for mayor, was chairman of The Plain Dealer reported. But the Plain Dealer noted that a group of ments that women will never get the first meeting of the Men’s Equal · situation quickly turned serious. younger suffragists chanted it at a votes because they can never agree Suffrage League. Backers collected Strikers and police were injured “votes for women” rally in Gray’s Ar- City Council moved against a clear and among themselves on what they 15,000 signatures asking the next when strikers forced their way into mory on June 20. present danger on May 23. It passed an ordi- want.” year’s state constitutional convention nance providing a $50 fine for any woman the Prinz-Biederman Co. on W. 25th The report went on: “The great to include a suffrage amendment. whose hatpin projected more than half an inch St., where workers still were on the number in the audience, however, Ohio women had been able to vote They succeeded, but the state’s from the crown of her hat. job. Rafael Lorenzo, a striker, was stood by the more dignified and con- in school elections since 1894, but the male electorate turned down the shot by a policeman. servative, if less forceful, glove spat- movement for full voting rights didn’t amendment. In 1914, the legislature · “Work was discontinued for the ting which the more emphatic suffra- gain steam until 1910, when the passed a suffrage bill, but opponents Also new this year: chlorination of the water afternoon, the girl employees all suf- gettes seek to have abandoned as Cuyahoga County Women’s Suffrage defeated it in a referendum. In 1916, supply, the Torbenson Gear & Axle Co. (now fering from fright,” according to The inadequate to express a proper de- Association named Elizabeth Hauser East Cleveland gave women the right Eaton Corp.), the Sam W. Emerson Co., the Plain Dealer. The Italian consul said gree of enthusiasm.” as its director. A former newspaper to vote in city elections. Lakewood Lake Shore Blvd. plant of the Illuminating Co., his government was concerned about If the Cleveland suffragists were reporter, she had been Mayor Tom L. followed suit and, in 1920, the 19th Shaker Heights village, Dover village (now Lorenzo’s shooting. divided about the cheer, it was not Johnson’s secretary and had edited Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Westlake), the Amasa Stone Chapel of Case The following day, a striker shot surprising; the suffragists also re- his autobiography. finally gave American women full Western Reserve University, the Exchange and killed a Teamster who jumped fused to take a stand on the Interna- She organized events like a June 1 voting rights.