"1913 Massacre" - Woody Guthrie

 

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.
I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.

The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire, "
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.
Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."

A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you, "
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."

Father Corridan - The Real Waterfront Priest

The photo above is of John "Pete" Corridan, the "Waterfront Priest,” testifying before a Senate Commerce Committee investigating waterfront crime in the late 1940’s.

If you have ever seen the film “On the Waterfront” with Karl Malden as the crusading Priest Father Barry, then you need to know that he was not a totally fictitious character. As a matter of fact, that soliloquy which he gives in the hold of the ship where Dugan is killed by the falling cargo was actually spoken by a Father Corridan who was the real life inspiration for the film version of the Priest.

Here is the portion of one of Father Corridan’s addresses to the men which inspired Bud Schulberg’s version;

“I suppose some people would smirk at the thought of Christ in the shape-up. It is about as absurd as the fact that He carried carpenter’s tools in His hands and earned His bread by the sweat of His brow. As absurd as the fact that Christ redeemed all men irrespective of their race, color, or station in life. It can be absurd only to those of whom Christ has said, ‘Having eyes, they see not; and having ears, they hear not.’ Because they don’t want to see or hear. Christ also said, ‘If you do it to the least of mine, you do it to me.’ So Christ is in the shape-up.”

Father Corridan gave the speech at a meeting in the Union trade school across the river in New Jersey, not in the hold of a cargo ship. But his words were almost identical. "The speech was written more by Father Corridan than me," writer Bud Schulberg said. "Eighty percent of it was his words."

Schulberg was soon treated to a tour of the waterfront by one of Corridan's longshoremen, a man named Arthur "Brownie" Brown. Schulberg became an admirer of the Priest and described him as “the greatest individual I have ever known.”

For more about Father Corridan use this link;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Corridan

And here is Karl Malden delivering Bud Schulberg's version of Father Corridan's speech in the film "On the Waterfront";

"Detroit" by Charlie LeDuff (2013)

What killed Detroit? The saying used to be “As goes GM, so goes the nation.” If that expression is true, then we are all in trouble. Journalist Charlie LeDuff, formerly of the New York Times, returns home to the city where he grew up to work for the local newspaper, a far cry from the job he held in New York. He hopes to cover what may be the biggest story in America; the death a of a once great city; a place where Henry Ford began the $5 work day, and ended with the loss of the auto industry to the foreign market, before falling victim to the recession of 2008.

Looking back through some of Detroit’s history paints a picture of the city which became home to hundreds of thousands of workers during the great migration from the south. These people arrived seeking a better life, only to find themselves living in the worst end of town, while relegated to a life of factory work. For several generations that was the expected “norm”, but once the Unions got involved, with their demands for high pay and good benefits; even for the unskilled; the industry fell to the complacency which often accompanies the assumption that things will always remain the same.

Why go to college when you can sweep the factory floor for $18 an hour? Why prepare for any other work when you have a virtual guarantee of lifelong employment, and a retirement which meets all your needs? This is the thinking which allowed the people of Detroit to be taken down by crooked politicians, corrupt labor leaders, and the apathy of the people themselves as they watched their world literally crumble about them.

When the city went broke many of the municipal services we take for granted fell by the wayside. Garbage went uncollected, and fires raged out of control as people; unemployed and without hope; set fire to the vacant houses around them. The firefighters have no equipment which hasn't been damaged, or stolen to be sold as scrap, and even the federal bailout money which was supposed to help save the dying city, was pilfered by a cast of characters who rival those in Jimmy Breslin’s “The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.” The saying in Detroit is that sometimes when there is a crime, the people call the police. And as if to return the favor, sometimes the Police show up.

The authors brother Billie had a job as a writer of sub-prime mortgages, part of what brought the whole nation to its knees, just as the easy credit extended by GMAC in order to make cars affordable to all, did back in the 1920’s. The car was the precursor to the mindset that begat the housing bubble of the early 2000’s. Billie ends up working at a screw factory for $8 per hour, even as he loses the home he, himself, once wrote the sub-prime mortgage on.

Detroit itself, once home to an ambitious and upwardly mobile workforce has become the emblem of what went wrong with America in the heady years after World War Two had come to a close. Lacking any real competition from abroad, we became fat and lazy, allowing crooked politicians to lead us down the path to our own destruction.

With the bailout of Detroit’s “Big Three” comes a great lesson in greed and corruption. Arriving in Washington aboard their corporate jets to beg for a Federal bailout, they return home empty handed, seemingly at a loss as to what went wrong. They had arrived in style, but with no concrete plan to present to Congress. They were shocked when they were turned down for the bailout money, returning to Detroit to regroup. Only after returning to Washington; in hybrid automobiles; would they receive any attention at all.

Detroit’s “hip-hop” Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, presided over much of the city’s decay. And when he was caught and sentenced to prison, he served 99 days and when released returned to live with his mother, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a United States Congresswoman and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

As the factories and plants closed, the properties remained vacant, becoming a place for the homeless and drug addicted to seek shelter. The description of men playing ice hockey in the basement of one of these vacant buildings is incredulous, especially when they discover a body at the bottom of an elevator shaft frozen in ice. He was there for months before anyone reported him. His name was Johnnie Lewis Redding, second cousin to the great singer Otis.

And, as the city burns, there is no money left for schools, leaving the children to bring their own toilet paper to class. Books are a rarity, and the ones in use are hopelessly outdated. What kind of future awaits these children, who are daily accosted by drug dealers and cannot even play safely outdoors anymore?

Mr. LeDuff has done an extraordinary job at chronicling the demise of a once great metropolis. The scariest part of the book however, is that this is the blueprint of what is happening to America all over, as we watch our jobs; and futures; being shipped all over the world, leaving nothing behind for the average working class person.

When the authors brother Billie moves to a rented property, after losing his home, he packs his belongings in boxes stamped “Made in China” as he wonders aloud, “Don’t we make anything here anymore?” This is a book which will astonish you as it paints a picture of what our national future may look like under the leadership of the incompetent. The real pity is that we are the ones who choose them.

Not only has the author written a book about the fiscal failure of one of the nation's former leading cities, he has also given us a glimpse of what made Detroit the great metropolis she once was. And along the way, he makes some startling discoveries about his own family. Sometimes, while confronting the communal present, we find a mirror image of our individual pasts. A very revealing, and well written book.

Odetta and Tennessee Ernie Ford - Live

It’s not too often that I write about the same artist, or any subject, two days in a row. But while looking at videos of Tennessee Ernie Ford for yesterday’s post reviewing “River of No Return” by Jeffrey Buckner Ford, I ran across this video of Odetta performing on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show sometime in the 1950’s. It’s so good that I did not want it to get “lost” in the review. So, I decided to wait and post it separately, which also gives me a kind of day off.

Tennessee Ernie Ford was pigeon holed as a performer, and is remembered largely for his pea-picking songs, and of course “16 Tons.” But the man literally knew no bounds, and was equally comfortable in all genres, from jazz, blues and pop, to classical music. In 1960 he even did a half hour version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Mikado” on TV, giving me my first taste of “musicals.”

In this film from his show, Mr. Ford sits down with the legendary Odetta, and together they perform Merle Travis’ “Nine Pound Hammer”, and Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty”. Early television was filled with moments of uncertainty, error, and sometimes pure brilliance. This performance was one of the latter.

"The Salt of the Earth" with Will Greer and David Wolfe (1954)

“Salt of the Earth” holds the honor of being the only film ever blacklisted, and actively pursued by the law, in the history of the United States. It was more vigorously harassed than even any pornography which existed at the time. And the saddest part of the whole thing is this; the story is based on fact, and as such is really the story of a group of zinc miners in New Mexico during the 1930’s. This band of miners, consisting of both Mexican and Anglo workers, along with their wives, lived in deplorable conditions, prompting the men to call for a strike. 

This film may seem to be poorly acted at times; and if so, is to be excused. You see, most of the cast are the actual members of the Local Zinc Miners Union, and not actors at all. Just people; like you and I. The actual strike lasted 8 months, with no settlement in sight, until the women stepped in. With their children’s stomachs to be filled, these women could wait no longer to get the strike settled, so they pitched in in the best way they could. They got arrested, causing all kinds of logistical problems; including dirty diapers; for the local constabulary. This hastened them to put pressure on the mine owners to settle with the workers, who were none too happy to be at home washing clothes.

More important than the actual story is the example set by all who pitched in together to organize for change. Together there is nothing that cannot be achieved. It is only when we let the powers that be keep us divided by class, race, religion or sexual and political persuasion that they have any power over us at all. And that is what scared the government so much about this film.

The story not only speaks to labor equality, but is also one of the earliest films to encompass feminism and the deprivations of all workers. Being released in the midst of the McCarthy Era did it absolutely no good, as it was banned; and that ban was widely enforced.

The film was written and directed by Herbert Biberman, who had been among the Hollywood Ten, which was a group of directors singled out by the House of Un-American Activities during the McCarthy Era witch-hunts as being a subversive, and therefore a danger to society. His real crime, of course, was his unwillingness to name other people to be persecuted by McCarthy and his aides, who included future Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

A very educational and groundbreaking film; which also explores the issue of illegal immigration; this is a film that you will want to see more than once, if only to see whether your reactions to the issues remain consistent with what you think you believe, versus whether you have changed.

"Dark Harbor" by Nathan Ward

In this colorful and enjoyable history, Nathan Ward has brilliantly tied together the story of corruption along the New York waterfront of the 1930's through the 1950's with the iconic film "On the Waterfront." Utilizing the Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles by New York Sun reporter Malcom Johnson, Mr. Ward has pieced together the facts behind the thinly disguised fiction of the Elia Kazan film. Working with playwright Arthur Miller, and actor Marlon Brando, gave that film a reality that still has a bite, even now when viewed almost 60 years later.

The author takes the reader on a pier by pier journey through the corruption that ate away at the social fabrics of whole neighborhoods, gobbling up livelihoods, and often lives, as it swallowed the promise of the American Dream based on hard work.

The "shape-up", the humiliating practice of having men bribe, and beg, for a day’s work, is explored in detail. The real life characters that were the basis for the main players in "On the Waterfront" are all exposed here through the real life experiences of the working men, and their families, who were all victims to the thugs and organized criminal enterprises who ran the docks. There really were Johnny Friendly's and Kayo Dugan’s, just as there were real life Terry Malloy's, all caught up in the struggle to provide either pinky rings for themselves, or food and shelter for their families. There really was a Crime Commission investigating the labor practices along the waterfront, and witnesses were killed for testifying before them.

Of special interest in this book are the preparations for the filming of "On the Waterfront", with both Arthur Miller and Marlon Brando walking the streets of Red Hook, where the movie takes place, in order to capture the real feel of the time and place. Brando didn't think he could walk the streets unrecognized as Marlon Brando. Donning his costume, and carrying his cargo hook, he strode through the neighborhood, without raising an eyebrow. That's when he knew he was ready.

From Albert Anastasia, in the area of the Fulton Street Fish Market, to Charlie Yanowsky, in Jersey City, the cast of characters is colorful in this engaging book which chronicles the sordid history of New York's waterfront. In 1948 it was written that "the New York waterfront produces more murders per square foot than any other one section of the country."

Labor Day - 2011

This is a sweatshop on Ludlow Street on New York's Lower East Side. The photograph was taken by Jacob Riis. If any of the workers are smiling, it's only due to the novelty of having their pictures taken. These folks made pants for the princely sum of 45 cents per dozen. Imagine the time it took to accomplish this!

To make matters more clear, remember that this photo was taken in someone's home. That's right, this family, or group of immigrants, were working, living, eating and sleeping in this apartment, which probably contained one other room, with no windows at all, and a toilet in the backyard. The Public Baths were located on Grand Street. They worked 6 days a week, for about 12 hours per day. All of them split the 45 cents per dozen for the completed work. Just how many dozen do you think were made per day by this 5 person team working from scratch? Perhaps 2 dozen per day? That means that these 5 adults were working for a combined total of $5.40 per week.

When I grew up in New York, the city, as most of the nation, was largely free of these sweat shops. The workers had organized into Unions, demanding better wages and working conditions. Gone were the days of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory, with it's locked doors, leading to the deaths of so many of the women who worked there when fire broke out. Gone was the sign that read - "If you don't come in on Sunday- then don't come in on Monday." As a child of the 1950's, and the Middle Class, these things are unimaginable to me. That is, until I look down at my sneakers.

Unions are almost dead, and sweatshops exist everywhere in the world today. My sneakers were probably made in one somewhere in China, or Malaysia, or Mexico; in short, they probably come from anywhere that people are desperate for work, and there are others willing to exploit that need for profit. These children are working at a brick "factory" in Asia.

Even back on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where much of the Labor Movement began, there are sweatshops once more. In the last 30 years we have been moving backwards in regards to Worker's Rights. Everywhere in the world today, there are factories, and sweatshops, which employ the most destitute of the working class, as well as illegal immigrants, under conditions which make the older photo, by Mr. Riis, look good. Think about this when you are out shopping today for all of the Labor Day Sales.

"Made In Dagenham" with Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins and Miranda Richardson

This is a long overdue film. While American women were busy burning their bras in Atlantic City, the women of Dagenham, England were working in theirs. The Ford plant in which they made a living, sewing leather strips together for seats, was so hot and lacking in ventilation, that it was de riguer for the women to strip to the waist while working. Whenever a male supervisor entered the work area, the cry went up - "Man in the room!" as everyone scrambled to cover up. It's hard to say who was the more embarrassed, the men or the women.

Coupled with the deplorable working conditions was the fact that women were paid half of what men did for the same work. Economically, the late 1960's were a turbulent time in England; as taxes rose, jobs fled. In order to keep the Ford plants open, the Unions were actually allowing management to pay these women less than their male counterparts. If forced to pay the women equally, Ford announced it would leave England for another country. The Union bosses, eager to preserve their own high paying positions, did everything to sell the women out, keeping the men's wages intact.

Rita O'Grady, played by Sally Hawkins, is one of the 187 women working in a plant of 55,000 men, and she decides that she has had enough. Organizing the other women into a work slowdown is not that hard to do. And so, she does. But when the Union Steward and the Management lackey's conspire to delay her efforts, she ups the ante. Nothing less than equal pay for women will stop the slowdown, which has now become a strike. But don't cheer yet, as the strike brings on many complications.

As the strike winds on, the stockpile of seats dwindles, until there are none left. With no seats to install in the cars, the men are faced with a massive layoff. Rita O'Grady goes quickly from being a media celebrity to pariah. But she holds fast to her position. Equal pay for equal work.

Meantime, in London, the Minister of Labor, who happens to be a woman, is trying to mediate the dispute. But when she realizes that both the Union and Management are conspiring to thwart Rita and her co-workers of their just dues, she calls herself to account. After being told to stay out of the dispute by the Prime Minister, she summons Rita to meet with her. Her intentions are to get the women to wait until all the men's issues are ironed out at the Ford plant. But Rita, acting with the consent of her fellow workers, won't budge.

The Minister of Labor offers a compromise, an immediate raise to 75% of the men's wages, and a promise to discuss the issue further, if the women will just return to work. Rita settles for 90% immediately, with an Equal Pay Act to be put before the House of Commons by that August. Within the next 18 months the Equal Pay Act would be passed. Within the next few years almost all of the European countries would adopt the same types of laws. Equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex.

This is a fantastic movie, with a great 1960's soundtrack that really makes you feel the energy of that era all over again. It also calls into question just how effective the women's movement was in the United States. After Roe vs. Wade was settled, giving women the Right to Choose, the Equal Rights Ammendment was passed by Congress, but never ratified by the Senate. And to this very day it languishes, ignored by all, as American women still work for about 75% of what their male counterparts earn.

I'm hoping that enough women will see this film to make this issue a central theme in the upcoming 2012 Presidential Campaign. There is no good reason that the ERA has not been Ratified by the Senate in the past 38 years. There is also no valid excuse as to why the women of America have let this issue lie dormant for so long.

"Brooklyn Steel - Blood, Tenacity" by Frank Trezza

One of the best things about writing a blog are the e-mails you get from people you would ordinarily never meet. They can range from the famous, such as Tommy Chong or Olivia DeHavilland, to some contemporary authors and my main stock in trade, the ordinary reader. And all are of equal interest to me. I love the feedback. So, when I got an e-mail about the Brooklyn Navy Yard from Frank Trezza, I was immediately interested in what he had to say.

Mr. Trezza is the author of the book "Brooklyn Steel - Blood, Tenacity" which deals with the Brooklyn Navy Yard and it's struggle to survive the turbulent decades of the 1960's through the last days of the 20th Century. These are the decades in which shipbuilding took many great blows in an industry that harkens back to Colonial Days, when American made wooden ships plied the waters of the world, forging our new nation into a global trading partner.

At the end of the Second World War, there was no "bigger dog on the block" than the United States. We had just saved the world from a couple of brutal dictators and established Democracy in corners of the earth where it had never existed before.

In New York, at the 23rd Street Pier, sat the SS John Brown, a World War Two Liberty ship that served as a Maritime High School. My father graduated from her in 1948. Mr. Trezza would graduate from the same ship in 1971, as a Marine Electrician, intending, as did my father, to go to sea. Unexpected circumstances diverted them both from their courses.

In the case of my father, it was love which intervened. Having met my mother the year before he graduated from the Brown, he had a decided change of heart concerning leaving my mother alone. And she would not marry him if he went to sea. So that was out. In Mr. Trezza's case it was economics which kept him from shipping out. By the time that he had graduated from the Brown, American shipping had declined drastically, as it would through the 1980's. Shipbuilding was still an option, so Mr. Trezza took a job as an Electrical Engineer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The two main employers for shipbuilding there were Coastal Drydock, which handled the refit of my ship, the USS Milwaukee, and Seatrain, the company which hired Mr. Trezza.

The author recounts the days of working there in great detail. While recalling the constant safety violations, lack of proper equipment, Union goons who track the "bathroom" breaks of the employees, hazardous working conditions and local politics, Mr. Tezza has also written a vivid account of what it is like to raise a family while working under such harsh conditions.

In the effort to gain work at competitive prices, all pretense of safety and accountability are thrown to the wind by the shipbuilders, as well as the Unions, who are determined to keep the jobs in place that ensure the easy flow of Union Dues to the fat cats who sit at the top of the pyramid. As a former memeber of the National Maritime Union, I can identify with the frustation that comes with the realization that you have been paying dues to the very people who are doing their level best to forfeit your job.

By the time I entered the dry dock in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs in 1980, I was already familiar with the grounds, having been there with my father during the 1960’s. He was like that, taking the odd drive and showing my brother and I the different aspects of the city. We roamed the Fulton Fish Market, which at the time was completely worn down and decrepit. We wandered Battery Park when the remains of the old Castle garden were still there, and rode the Staten Island Ferry, climbed the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. But nothing captured me like the aura of history surrounding the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

From 1801- 1966 this was the place where many of the great ships had been repaired prior to returning to sea duty. It was also the birthplace of countless other vessels, among them the hundreds of "Liberty Ships" that helped to win the Second World War. Located in Wallabout Bay, opposite lower Manhattan, this was where the Battle of Brooklyn was fought. The bay was where the British held Yankee prisoners aboard “prison hulks”, ships that were derelict and filled with rats and vermin. Most of the prisoners never left the “hulks” alive.

Mr. Trezza has a wonderful site for this book that deals more closely with the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Coastal Drydock, as well as Seatrain's history of their time in the Yards. This is the link;

http://brooklynsteel-bloodtenacity.com/default.aspx

In addition, he has posted 20 years worth of photos from the last 2 decades of shipbuilding at the Navy yard. This is the link to those photos;

http://www.brooklynhistory.org/library/search.html

Be sure to reference the Brooklyn Historical Society-Seatrain Collection. Mr. Trezza is currently working to establish a Museum, within the Navy Yard, that will showcase our skills,and history as Americans, of building ships; as well as to cast light upon the political weaknesses and calculated business moves, that came to desroy a once thriving industry. His story is a fascinating tale about one man's struggle to deal with it all, while still putting food on the family table.

American Lightning by Howard Blum

What do you get when you put William Burns, Clarence Darrow and D.W.Griffith together in one book that links them all? One of the greatest true detective stories ever written.

The sheer scope of this book- from the explosion by anarchists at the LA Times in October 1910 to the Union battles of Chicago and the discovery of a nation wide plot by the Unions to destroy Capitalism, to the nascent film studios of D.W. Griffith in NY City and then back to Los Angeles for a sensational trial this book never stops giving the reader one surprise after another.

Add to this the battle for water rights in LA and the surrounding county (the underlying true story behind the Jack Nicholson movie “Chinatown”) and throw in some Mary Pickford and you have a book that can’t be put down.

Mr. Blum doesn’t confine himself to just the story- as if that wouldn’t be enough- he delves into the lives of the participants in detail- showing the how and why of the actions undertaken by each in this intricately told tale of domestic terrorism long before 9/11.

Of special interest to fans of the Scopes Monkey Trial and Clarence Darrow will be the

motivations that led one of the greatest legal minds of his day to commit bribery and suborn perjury in his quest to seek justice.

This book reads like a Robert Ludlum spy thriller- just when you think you’ve got it- you get another surprise.