Organized 1885 Official Organ of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific SPECIAL EDITION SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Friday, March 12, 2004 In memory of the Emancipator of Seamen Andrew Furuseth 150th ANNIVERSARY ith this special edition of the West Coast Sailors, the Sailors Union Damstuen, where five more children were born. Nielsens job there was to look of the Pacific proudly honors the memory of Andrew Furuseth who after the locks of a dam. His income was too small to support such a large family, W and the Nielsens suffered continuous poverty. Meals often consisted of potatoes was born 150 years ago this month. His was a life of superlatives, monumental battles, transcendent victories, dipped in herring sauce and bread made of tree bark and flour. To supplement this and horrible defeats: a fantastic voyage. Just as his life, his personal descrip- starchy diet, the father would hunt and fish. tions tend to the extreme. He was relentless and resolute, austere and severe, When Furuseth was eight years old, he was sent to Ostby in Romedal to live and virtuous and uncompromising, work with Jonas S. Schjotz, a monolithic and multi-faceted. He farmer, in order to help his fam- founded, built and cared for the ily. The choice was fortunate, for Union that he would eventually Schjotz, noticing the boys keen expel from the International interest in learning, arranged for Seamens Union of America his admission to a private Lutheran (ISU). Though his personal tra- school. When Andrew was con- jectory contained steep angles in firmed in 1869, at the age of fif- all directions, Furuseth himself teen, the church register recorded, did not waiver in his single goal: knowledge good, fairly good con- to improve the conditions of dition. On June 2, 1870, he left those who go to sea for a living. 1 2 he Schjotz farm and went to The ages feudal system of sea- Christiania, where he remained for going employment, however, three years. For a time he clerked which legalized the slavery of in a grocery store, and then entered sailors, made legal revolution a 8 0 a training school for noncommis- prerequisite to improving condi- sioned officers in the hope that he tions. Only the complete trans- might be admitted to the Norwe- formation of the legal founda- gian equivalent of Americas West tions of seagoing employment 5 0 Point. Despite coaching by his could set the stage for changes friends, he was rejected. But his to the evil boardinghouse system, keen interest in languages, devel- to sadistic punishments at sea, 4 4 oped while he was a student, en- and to forced labor. A task such abled him to supplement his earn- as that, to overturn centuries of ings by translating English, Ger- maritime law in the face of the man, Dutch, and French. determined opposition of the Goes To Sea United States government and Furuseth began going to sea in powerful shipowners, and to do 1873 in the bark Marie out of it nearly single-handedly, must Drammen and sailed in Norwegian, rank among the greatest social Swedish, British, French and reforms ever achieved. American vessels until August, Furuseths dream that seamen 1880, when he quit a British ves- could break the shackles of sla- sel out of Calcutta in San Fran- very and step into the light of a cisco, and went commercial fish- new day, became a reality on his ing on the Columbia River. watch in the SUP, earning him the Having lived under the brutal con- moniker the Abraham Lincoln ditions that existed at sea during of the Sea. His story and that of the Union are inexorably intertwined, as An- those years, Andrew Furuseth came ashore determined to change them. drew Furuseth personified the Sailors Union of the Pacific in its formative years. Joins The Union Early Years While Furuseth was at sea, the Coast Seamens Union had been organized in San Furuseths background was like that of many Norwegians who followed the sea Francisco on March 6, 1885, in response to a drastic wage cut by the shipowners. for a living. His father, Andreas Nielsen, who worked in the peat bogs, married When he returned, on June 3, he promptly joined. This simple act changed the course Marthe Jensdatter on April 17, 1846. The young couple lived in Gaaberget until of his life and eventually affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of seamen through- 1852, when they moved to a cottage in Furuseth, a farm southeast of the town of out the world. Romedal, Stang Municipality, Hendmark, Norway, about fifty miles north of Oslo For two months, the newly formed organization skirmished with the shipowners in (then known as Christiania). Here Anders, the fifth child, was born on March 12, attempts to stop them from shipping non-Union men at the reduced wage scale ($20.00 1854. In accordance with Scandinavian custom, the boy was known by the name of a month for inside ports and $25.00 a month for outside ports). the village in which he was bornAndrew Furuseth. In 1855, the family moved to continued on page 2 ANDREW FURUSETH EMANCIPATOR OF SEAMEN Page 2 WEST COAST SAILORS Friday, March 12, 2004 Andrew Furuseth continued nor a lockout. The shipowners tried to By July, 1885, the Union had 2,200 hire men who would sail ships for less members and was locked in a life-and- than Union wages. They enlisted the aid death struggle to wrest control of ship- of crimps to find among the unemployed ping from the boarding house masters and and the deepwater sailors enough men crimps and to prevent non-Union mari- to crew their vessels. If they could not ners from sailing at all. As Furuseth bi- get a non-Union crew, they paid the ographer Hyman Weintraub stated: The Union scale, but they tried not to hire situation was not conducive to sweet rea- through the Union hiring hall. The pri- sonableness. mary objective of the Sailors Union was By the spring of 1886, the Union was to prevent anyone from sailing below strong enough to enforce a higher wage Union scale. It was aided by the fact that scale on all coastwise vessels$35.00 to San Francisco was a Union Town, inside and $40.00 to outside ports. where workers would not think of work- Prompted by a strike against the Oceanic ing for less than the scale, and others Steamship Company by the Marine could be shamed into refusing to take the Firemens Union, the shipowners formed jobs of Union men. an association and issued an order that all Nevertheless, the SUP had a hard fight men were to be hired through a shipping on its hands and resorted to a variety of office established by the association. No tactics. It took non-Union sailors out of one could ship through the office unless the boardinghouses where they would be he surrendered his Union book and ob- at the mercy of the crimps and sent them, tained a grade book. Captains would at Union expense, to live in the country. record a seamans service in his grade It shipped Union sailors in the deepwater book, noting the dates of the voyage, the trade, thus encroaching on a field of grade and capacity in which the seaman employment which the crimps had ex- had served, and a comment on the quality clusively controlled. To harass the ship- of his work. Without the book, a man owners, the Union brought suit in court could not get a job on any vessel belong- for the recovery of advances made to ing to a member of the association. With crimps above the amount allowed by law. the book anyone who complained about Illustration by Using a tactic called The Oracle, the food, refused to kowtow to the offic- Gordon Grant dummies were sent aboard ship for the ers, or quit because he could no longer purpose of quitting the vessel at the very endure the conditions under which he last moment, thus delaying the sailing. A bucko mate in action. worked, would receive an unsatisfactory When these methods failed, SUP patrol- mark. This would effectively prevent a men used force to prevent scabbing. so-called troublemaker from securing Blood flowed freely on the waterfront in render. The Union, without funds and SUP Established future seagoing employment. 1892 as the crimps fought the Union for with many deserters, gave up the fight Shortly after his election, Furuseth By late August, the Union struck the control of shipping. on September 30, 1886. Many of those focused his attention on ending the juris- Shipowners Association and pulled its who had not left the Union while the dictional battles between the Coast In January, 1893, Furuseth confidently members from all coastwise vessels. struggle was in progress now saw no rea- Seamens Union and the Steamship Sail- reported to the membership that many During the entire month of September, son to remain with it. They either sailed ors Union that had been ongoing since of the shipowners were ready to give up, blood flowed freely on the San Francisco non-Union or took jobs ashore. the latter organization was founded in but he warned that the San Francisco waterfront as Union pickets tried to pre- Employers Association was urging a In the wake of this disastrous defeat, 1886. vent crimps from shipping men through lock-out. Furuseth was elected secretarythe high- Whenever a sailing ship was modified the association office. Several men were est office of the Unionin January 1887. for steam, both organizations claimed The association reopened its own ship- killed.