LABOR & DIGNITY JAMES CONNOLLY IN AMERICA Patrons Labor & Dignity – James Connolly in America Mr. Eamon Gilmore, Tánaiste and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Ireland James Connolly, one of Ireland’s national icons, Despite major advances made by Irish labor Mr. John J. Sweeney, spent considerable time abroad, particularly activists in the 19th century, Connolly found President Emeritus, AFL-CIO in the United States, where he witnessed the that employers still held the advantage when he successes and failures of labor radicalism and arrived in 1902. Over the next eight years, he unionization, and of working class conditions was among an influential second generation of Funding has been generously provided by the resulting from unregulated corporate expan- Irish American leaders in the United States who Irish Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, sion. Those experiences influenced his actions rallied immigrants from all over Europe to press Emigrant Support Programme. The support of the during the Dublin Lockout of 1913, which was for the dignity of labor. Turning homeward, he Embassy of Ireland and the Consulate General of Ireland in part of a larger transatlantic effort to secure the insisted that the fight for Irish nationalism was New York is gratefully acknowledged. rights of the working class in the years before inseparable from the battle for the rights of all World War I. workers, in factories as well as on farms. Special thanks to J.J. Lee, Sally Anne Kinahan, Katherine McSharry, Miriam A. Nyhan, Duncan Crary, Stephen Ferguson, Michael Foight, Sinéad McCoole, Edmund Penrose and Robert W. Snyder. James Connolly’s conception of revolution was social as well as political: Connolly Commemoration Produced by Glucksman Ireland House Committee (New York) New York University “The Republic I would wish our fellow-country- Curators men to set before them as their ideal, should John J. Ahern Joe Jamison Marion R. Casey Anthony Callaghan Brendan Moore Daphne Wolf be of such a character that the mere mention Edward S. Collins Jack Mulvey of its name would at all times serve as a Design James P. Cullen Maureen Murphy Hilary J. Sweeney beacon-light to the oppressed of every land, at Thomas P. Giblin Peter Quinn all times holding forth promise of freedom and Terry Golway Brian O’Dwyer Printed by Graphic Management Partners plenteousness as the reward of their Portchester, NY efforts on its behalf.” American Labor Museum/Botto House National Landmark. Front cover image: Bettmann/CORBIS. © 2013 GIH NYU. All Rights Reserved. 2 3 AFTER THE HAT DID AMES ONNOLLY DO IN MERICA IRISH VOTE W J C A ? Socialists Predict Democratic Party Is Going to Perdi- James Connolly’s time in the United States tion was a constant tug-of-war between his Irish-Americans who revolutionary aspirations and his need for are not satisfied with wages. Being a socialist party organizer did present conditions were urged to become not pay well, if at all, and his publishing efforts socialists in a manifes- – except for Socialism Made Easy, which sold to issued yesterday by 40,000 copies – were often self-financed. the Irish Socialist Fed- eration, headquarters In Troy, New York, he collected insurance No. 749 Third avenue. premiums until a walkout by the young The federation was Edinburgh, Circa 1894 Courtesy of Lorcan Collins women in its collar factories found him organized at the time William D. Haywood raising strike funds instead. Out of a job, first addressed the he got work at the Singer Sewing Machine socialists here after his acquittal, one of factory in Elizabeth, New Jersey, settling the WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT JAMES CONNOLLY? the leading organizers family in nearby Newark. There he learned being James Connolly, both German and Italian to encourage who took an active new immigrants. Moving to the Bronx, he Ireland infused James Connolly’s life Connolly’s formal schooling ended at the age of ten; part in the spreading of socialist propa- became an organizer for the Industrial from the beginning. Born in 1868 to im- thereafter, he was self-taught, devouring the Joseph McGarrity Collection, Digital Library@Villanova University ganda in Dublin three Workers of the World. migrants from County Monaghan, and work of writers like Marx and Engels. He was years ago. The New York Tribune, raised in Edinburgh, he joined the British drawn to socialism while living in Scotland July 19, 1908 Army at 14 and was stationed in Ireland and upon moving to Dublin in 1896, found- America taught Connolly the value of a labor for seven years. There he met Lillie Reyn- ed the Irish Socialist Republican Party, movement that welcomed all workers, olds, from Co. Wicklow, whom he mar- calling for “public ownership by the Irish regardless of nationality or skill. But it also ried in 1890. He was a fiercely devoted people of the land and instruments of taught him a bitter lesson: family man, and Lillie always supported production, distribution and exchange.” his work, moving their big family across As editor of the ISRP newspaper, The the Atlantic Ocean in 1904, and finding Workers’ Republic, and as a contribu- “In America, the ambition of the toiler creative ways to feed them when he had tor to publications like The Shan Van is to be a slave driver instead of a no income. They had seven children, Mona Vocht, he supported universal suf- (who died from accidental burns on the eve frage, free education, a 48-hour slave…this applies not only to the native- of their departure for America), Nora, Ai- work week and a minimum wage. born American but to the deen, Ina, Moira, Roderick and Fiona (born The influence of John Mitchel and Working Class of America as a whole, in Newark, New Jersey). James Fintan Lalor emerged as Irish as much as any other. early as 1897 when Connolly became The spirit of America is on them - active in Irish nationalism by protesting Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. He also published the first edition the spirit of grab.” of Erin’s Hope, which he revised in 1909 while in the United States. Archives of Irish America, New York University. New Castle Public Library, New Castle, Pa; Joseph McGarrity Collection, Digital Library@Villanova University 4 5 SOCIALIST PROBLEMS DISCUSSED Speech by Irish Representative of Labor Party – Interesting Meeting in Graves Hall James Connolly, who had come from Ireland as a representative of the socialist party of that country, was the guest of the evening, and was introduced to the audience by Mr. Levy. Mr. Connolly is a clear, interesting speaker, without the excessive ire of the socialist orator, and was able last night to tell in an instructive way of the conditions of the present time in the little country from which he came. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-10184 He told of the troubles, hopes and aspirations of the people of WHO HEARD JAMES CONNOLLY IN AMERICA? Ireland almost over-shadowing the social problem of America. James Connolly made three extensive speaking tours of the United States, The presence of the capitalistic stopping in big cities and small towns. Traveling by train (and sometimes class in his country, the speaker stagecoach), he spoke to crowds in union halls and on street corners, often two said, was very evident, for the and three times a day. land was in their hands. Ireland Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-00335 and England, he said, had the NEW YORK CITY 1908 same king, but the two peoples were not one, that they had Connolly’s first tour (September-December 1902) was sponsored by the James Connolly championed the Industrial Workers of the Unemployment in the city had different political traditions and American Socialist Labor Party. He advocated for the value of strikes and the World on speakers’ platforms and on the docks of New York reached 200,000 that spring and economic conditions. Personally, importance of ethnic alliances among workers under the socialist umbrella. City. Nearly 8,000 people assembled on May Day 1908 in tensions were rising, especially be- he had no feeling of hostility against Englishmen as such, but On his second tour (July-October 1908) Connolly trumpeted the newly formed Union Square, just north of Greenwich Village, for an IWW tween socialists like the IWW lead- wished to live on friendly terms Irish Socialist Federation and its newspaper, The Harp, of which he was the rally. Connolly was among the scheduled speakers that day, ers and the more radical anarchists. with them apart. The speaker editor and chief writer. He also campaigned for Eugene Debs, the presidential captured in a rare photograph by George Bain. “You can- Coming just two months after a fatal quoted from the report of the candidate of the Socialist Party of America. Connolly was a national organizer not speak here today,” he said to Russian anarchist Alex- anarchist bombing in the same square, government’s statistician’s figures for the Socialist Party of America on his third tour (May 1909-April 1910 ) at the ander Berkman, according to The New York Times (May 2, 200 police officers were deployed for showing the suffering in Ireland steady salary of $3 a day, with a mission to soften prejudices against socialism 1908), because the permit had been issued to the IWW only. crowd control and rally goers sported caused by starvation, eviction among Irish Americans. When Berkman insisted on having his say, Connolly and his red cards in their hatbands reading and forced immigration. In colleagues adjourned the rally. discussing the social and political “First of May—Our Holiday. Phoenix, Ariz. Durango, Colo.