Part Two: The Newsies on Strike: Soaking Scabs & Taking Names

In part two of this week's episode, Margaret continues her conversation with writer and podcast host Andrew Ti about how an informal union of children shut down the nation’s biggest newspapers and won their rights.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to cool people who did cool stuff
your weekly Joe that I'm Margaret Killjoy with me today
is Andrew T Andrew Harlo.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good, how's it going.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
I'm loving the amazing economy of the intros thing.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
No orange eating on my time exactly? Wait, how are
you doing on the orange?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Is?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Secretly it's the same. Well, you ate the entire orange.
I didn't notice, and we're on zoom together.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's really gone.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, that is one of your powers.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
It's a professional podcaster skill. Yeah, but I one a few.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
They were probably I would say I would. I'm going
to guess there were probably twelve sections of orange. So
if anyone can write in with the timecode for all
the all ever each if you correctly can identify all
the time codes when I an orange from the last episode,
I'll send you a prize. Hell yeah, just tweet tweet Abby.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Our producer is Sophie. How are you doing today, Sophie Swell?

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I wish I had an orange.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
I wish I had an orange too.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
I don't have an orange. I'm the only one that's
definitely orangeless. That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, I don't know. You could have a whole stash
of them.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
And Ian is our audio engineer. Hi Ian. Everyone would
say Hi Ian, including Ian. On woman wrote our theme music.
Someone asked on the internet what song it is, and
the answer is it is not a song. We said
to a woman, can you write theme music? So I
guess it's called cool people who did cool stuff the
theme music.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Theme?

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's see. That's why you get paid.
It's the writer. And this week we're talking about strikes
for no reason. It doesn't tything that's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
No getting paid as a writer.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
No one should be getting paid as a SUD writer
for any of the companies in the AMPTP.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We are on strike the Writer's Guild of America.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I don't know why I I somehow, I guess Yeah,
there was a crescendo in how I thought I should
be talking. But no, being on strike is not is
not a fun thing, although people are making it fun
and people it's other people are making it fun, but
people are refusing to be beaten down.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
And there is a difference.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Although I do appreciate some some folks from other unions
who have been standing in solidarity, not loving the celebratory
vibe of it, especially the teamsters and nats who I mean, honestly,
we couldn't do half of these sort of like picketting actions.

(02:51):
The efficacy would go way down as far as like
shutting down productions.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. You know, actors got I.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Was gonna say. And also thanks to SAG h for
joining us. It's been awesome.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
And we'll see what happens with SAG and their strike
authorization vote and their negotiation. But I suspect I suspect
we might see them officially joining US soon.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
That would rule solo there. It is a powerful weapon,
I hope. Okay, my story about this is that I'm
in the movie Rent, and oh I didn't ask to
be in the movie Rent. Wait you told me the
story in person the other day.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Spoilers. This is a great story. Oh my god, my
plug story good?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Please kill me. So I like needed to get home
for this is when I was like a squad in
New York City and it was like winter, and so
a big coat and a big beard because I hadn't
come out as trans yet and I'm playing Melodica and
Tompkins Square Park and this film crew comes up and
it's like they have a sixteen millimeter film camera like
a bulex, and I'm like, I know what that is,
you know, And they're like, oh, we're students. Think they

(04:00):
said they were from NYU, I can't remember exactly. And
they were like, can we film you? And I was like, yeah,
I'm going to get some money out of this. This
is great. I need to get some money anyway, so
you can film me. So they filmed me and then
they're like, I was like, hey, I need five bucks
ago and see my family for Christmas. Can I at
least get a couple of bucks? And so they pull
out a bunch of money and they pull off exactly
two one dollar bills and he hands it to me

(04:21):
and he says, you get what you ask for in life,
and I was because I said a couple dollars. In
my mind, I'm like, I pretty clearly asked for five dollars.
That was like a fairly direct ask. I didn't like
beat around the bush around this. And uh So he
hands to me two dollars and walks off, and I
think to myself, that's the rudest NYU film crew I've
ever met, You know, Jesus, it was Sony Pictures and uh.

(04:45):
And so a year later, my brother's like, did you
know you're in rent? And I'm like, I did not
know I was in rent. And so the Washington Post
wrote an article about it, and Sony didn't get back
to them about it, and then SAG contacted me and
was like, hey, can we represent you to Sony? Yeah,
and they settled out of court for the amount that

(05:07):
they pay extras. And I've loved SAG ever since. I've
been pro union for a very long time. But it
just was like nice to be like they didn't make
any money out of that, Like they just did that
because someone was being exploited by the film industry and
they wanted to step in.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I guess it also helps that it was clearly documented,
like you're clearly there.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, totally received nobody.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah yeah, no, totally and uh and I have an
IMDb credit because of that. So amazing, amazing, Yeah, thanks Sag.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah for real. I mean it is like, yeah, I
will say I should I should have manned. As soon
as I said it, I uh, And then you went
into your story. I did want to say, I don't
necessarily hope they joined us on the picket line. I
hope they get a fair deal with whatever means it takes.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, fair enough. So speaking of solidarity and unions and stuff,
this is part two in our two parter about the
real life newsies, the Newsboys Strike of eighteen ninety nine. Yeah,
I got that right. I always say nineteen said of
eighteen when I do these things, but I didn't this time. Instead,
now I'm just going to strike where we last left

(06:29):
our gang of our plucky gang of shockingly violent heroes
who may or may not have been very violent at all,
as there are no reported deaths or any particular mention
of hospitalizations during this wild time or whatever. They have
gone on strike for not having their rates go up.
And the strike is spread over all over New England
and into the Midwest. And they've got two of the

(06:49):
most powerful men in the world on their back feet
with the most successful strike in New York City history.
So let's see what happens next. I guess I already
told you that the Empire strikes back or whatever. But
the newspapers they're like, we're going to fucking stop this,
and they started working things out between each other. They
already had in terms of the price. I don't know

(07:11):
if it's legally price fixing, but you know, they fixed
the prices together. For one thing, the two papers made
a deal that if one caved, the other had to
pay two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the other,
which is about seven million dollars in today's money, as
a way to like bet to like pay chicken with children,
you know.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, right, and that's a public thing. So they're like,
we have we don't just have our normal skin in
the game. In solidarity, we've yeah, put seven million bucks
in s row. Yeah against in solidarity. They you know what,
they put a ring on it. This is this is
their pledge to each other. This is seven million dollars

(07:52):
that we will stay faithful to each.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Other absolutely and kind of in this we hate each
other way, you know, in.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
This collusive business arrangement.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah. And so they were like, all right, well, we
can't hire kids to sell these papers anymore, but surely
we could hire grown men. Obviously, grown men can't be
intimidated by teenage boys, said no one who's ever met
teenage boys before it really Yeah, this plan failed spectacularly

(08:23):
on several levels. So they hired a bunch of adult scabs.
They tried to hire about seven hundred of them in
the end, or they did hire about seven hundred of
them in the end, and they were hired at really
good rates. They got to buy one hundred papers for
forty cents each instead of sixty, and they each got
two dollars a day on top of it all. And
the newspapers told the scabs that the reason that the
kids were on strike is that competing newspapers had brainwashed

(08:46):
the impressionable young newsies. And actually these two papers were
very kind to their newsies, who had very good lives.
After all, there's been all of these articles about the
singing and the dancing. Maybe not the actual singing and dancing,
but sure, so these grown men go out on the
streets and news newsies follow them and beat them with
clubs until they stop scabbing. They stopped seven hundred men

(09:11):
this way. Also a lot of them, a lot of
the ostensible scabs actually just supported the strike. As soon
as they found out about it, they took their two
dollars and destroyed their own papers.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, I think there's probably some especially with this era
of like labor and these jobs specifically like it's so
wild that these like the management in this case would think, oh,
putting like people putting your putting people in the shoes

(09:44):
of the of the workers doing this like very difficult job.
Is not is going to keep them on our side? Yeah, totally,
Like it's it's the rate that we're quibbling about. Like,
you know, any any sensible person would see this is
a wonderful job for you know, human being, and it's like, yeah,
you do the fucking job for like half a day
and they're like, yeah, I strike.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, totally totally. We talked about it in an episode
last year the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was the
largest armed insurrection since the Civil War in the United States,
and it was a black and white miners going on
strike and then being attacked physically with guns and bullets
by the by the bosses. So they got their own
guns and bullets and fought back rights in southwest West Virginia.

(10:29):
And and that was that thing where they like, they
like bring on all these strike breakers and actually to
tie into race and unfortunate history of races. Usually what
they do is that if it's it's a white union,
they bring in black strike breakers, people who are you know,
desperately or or whatever. And at least in Battle of
Blair Mountain it just didn't work. The people showed up
and were like, oh this sucks. Yeah, absolutely, we're with you,

(10:52):
you know, and adults were like, what we're doing? What
to children?

Speaker 4 (10:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean you.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Have to imagine, like after a couple like, yeah, hours
minutes of these margins with this work, you're like, this
is fucking inhumane.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah, and I'm getting the good version of this, yeah, totally. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
At another point, seventy five men went in to go
sign up at one point in one of the papers,
and they listened to the bullshit pr speech from the papers,
and sixty eight of them turned around and walked away.
Rather than so the seven hundred men they hired, that's
probably outam yeah, ten thousand or something they tried to hire,
you know. In the end, seventy five percent of the

(11:34):
scabs were hired at two dollars a day quit before
selling a single paper. It's unsure how much of that
was solidarity and how much of that was a good
club in bail stick problems require bail stick solutions. Yeah,
I mean, also, maybe what they moved on to these
paper bails with Okay, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Oh yeah, it's kind of be right, Like the tool
of insurrection is between ten and sixteen inches of about
an inch thick wood.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
That's that is how you beat That's how you beat Magellan.
That's how you beat Pinkerton's. That's like the thing that
you have. Those sticks are around. It seems like there
has to be just because of how buffoonish the management
was in this case, there have to have also feels
like ben word going around. It's like, hey, you can
make an easy two box for free. It's a time show.

(12:26):
Like you listen to a bullshit speech, take your two box,
and then bounce.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah and throw the papers in the ocean.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah because ship.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah totally, what are you going to do? Like id
you on your Like yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, oh you'll never You'll never get to work as
a newsy again, like yeah, get get Fox.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah totally newspaper owner.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah yeah, I'm an adult. I don't want that job.
I just want my two bucks. So there was one
problem that the boys had a harder time solving. Women
newsgirls weren't hired as scabs, but there were all women
who ran newspaper stands and or were just like kind
of newsies, but in a different cultural sense, maybe standing

(13:06):
near the base of the bridges. And many of them
were on the striker's sid side, but some of them
were selling the boycotted papers under the table or literally
hiding them under their skirts. And this was a pickle because,
as strike leader Kid Blink put it, quote, a feller
can't soak a lady, and you can't get at them
women's scab papes without soaking them. We'll have to let

(13:28):
them get along. I guess anyway, we got Annie with us.
You can bet there's no worlds or journals under her skirts.
And they did indeed have Annie Annie Kelly. Annie Kelly
didn't apparently have a nickname, which is also a power move.
I think Annie Kelly one of the only newstand women
attached to the strike in a more formal way. The

(13:50):
New York Sun called her quote the brick of all
women in the most faithful of strikers. Because she supported
the strike, the strikers didn't harass her customers, and even
without selling the two most popular papers in the city,
her profits went up because there weren't picketers there, and
because the populace supported the strike, so people would come
intentionally to go to strike, supporting news vendors, and also

(14:13):
she got customers from other places because the strike the
picketers were at the other places. Other news women got
mad at her. One of them, missus Corkoran, threatened her
for stealing her customers. Annie Kelly's response was that she
could quote tie seven missus Corkoran's into a knot, and
that if missus Corkoran wanted, she could come over and fight.

(14:35):
Missus Corkoran declined to go over and fight about it.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
I will say there is a little bit of like
like Marvel logic here, and I know this is like
obviously like we're in We're trapped in a prison of gender,
and I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
I don't think I'm gonna misspeak.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
I feel confident in this, but I guess it's definitely
possible I will misspeak somewhere her but in you know,
because in in, I think Marvel Movies is the most
prominent place where this happens. But it's just that if
there's a female antagonist, when it comes time for the big, big,

(15:16):
you know fight at the end, you need a female
protagonist to beat them up physically or.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
As a fella can't soak a lady.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah, truly, And this just says, this just brings me
to the point of if you're going to run your
union on street violence, this is why it's important to
have a lot of diverse inn there so that you
can you can opt you know, with good optics, soak anyone.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
I absolutely agree. I think that this was a flaw
in the street organizing. Yeah, yeah, so and Kelly Annie Kelly.
The strikers viewed her as a patron saint according to
the papers, and she's cool. The newsies set themselves up
along delivery wagon routes and would ambush the waggons to

(16:00):
destroy their papers. Three delivery wagon drivers. This is very reasonable.
They quit their jobs because they didn't want to fight
literal children anymore.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
It is it is.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
I mean, look and the way that labor actions do
you know, begin to start to feel like a war.
I mean, like again our current strike. We can't do
anything without the teamsters. It's all about supply lines and optics.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Man, totally ridiculous, totally, And speaking of optics, the newsies
put up signs everywhere they says. They referred to them
as pasting them up so I assume that this is
wheat paste all over town, and I want to talk
about wheat paste. Have you ever wheat pasted? I mean
I have so long? Well no, In case anyone is interested,

(16:47):
it is one of the cheapest methods to attach papers
to a wall in a hurry. You take one part
white flower to four parts water. You heat it up
to almost a boil while stirring, and then that's it.
You now have wheat paste. It's nicer to use it
while it's warm. You've got to kind of use it
fairly quickly because it'll eventually go bad. Because it's wheat paste.

(17:07):
There's other stuff you can add to it. You can
look up recipes about it, but it's a very simple thing.
You slop it onto a piece of paper like paper mache,
you attach it to a wall, and you keep going.
And one thing that's nice about wheat paste again, historically
I would never advocate anyone do this. It's like not
as much of a crime as most graffiti, like because

(17:28):
it's fairly non destructive. And so it's like, again, I'm
not a lawyer or a crime advocate. I don't know
if I can say that I'm not a crime advocate anyway.
So that's a thing that the news is not a
crime lawyer. Yeah, totally. So that's what the newsies did,

(17:50):
fun historical anecdote. And whenever they grabbed huge bundles of papers,
of the yellow papers, they called them the two boycotted paper.
They'd like fire them in empty lots and dance around
the flames.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
It is kind of awesome how everything kind of gets
a little Lord of the flies, he.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Pret I know, like these people are having a peak experience,
that is what they are doing. It is a hard
come down from this kind of experience. Imagine if feels
like something like burning Man, only like really mattered, you.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Know, right.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
It is like somehow the literal opposite of burning Man.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, those same aesthetically the same.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah. At one point four hundred boys went on a
rampage around Uptown removing the yellow papers from stores and stalls.
They would like, literally they just like mob into a store,
find all the papers, take them out, and burn them.
Occasionally the children were caught and arrested, but others carried on.
Many of the arrested wound up in prison despite being

(19:01):
like eleven or fourteen or whatever. The public really wanted leniency,
the courts really wanted punishment. The courts got their way right.
At one point, the newsies raised about one hundred dollars
or so is a strike fund, and they used it
to a print eleven thousand copies of a circular that
basically said support the strike. It was like a little

(19:22):
bit longer than that, but I didn't bother quoting it
because it kind of just as support the striker. They
passed it out. They're very good at passing out news
so that was probably pretty effective. One black Newsy William
Reese with the nickname I'm not saying, he got arrested
while not breaking the law, surprising no one in the
Year of Our Lord twenty twenty three, right, he was

(19:44):
passing out the circular to support the newsies, and a
cop arrested him for passing out advertisements against buying newspapers.
Like that's what the cop said was the reason he
wound up. Yeah, yeah, he wound up taken in front
of the judge, and his defense was basically, I literally
didn't break any actual laws and no one has accused
me of breaking any actual laws. The judge warned him

(20:06):
not to do it again and let him go.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
I mean, yeah, obviously, just immense amounts of bullshit there, but.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
It's it is so wild. Yeah, but there isn't a
law against this, I.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Know, and this happens every day. I'm certain, yes, yes, yes, like,
but I literally didn't break a law. Well, don't do
it again, thanks for the leniency. Later, two kids were
arrested for breaking a law, which is that you're not
allowed to beat people up. One of the union kids
was white, one of one was black. The white kid
was fined one dollar. The black kid was fined three dollars. Right, again,

(20:51):
truly shocking information. And all the while, the newsies are
still selling the non boycotted papers, So the boycotted papers
they cover the shit out of this strike. This is
this is the front page news while it's happening, right,
because it's really catchy headlines, it's about children, and like

(21:13):
they didn't like their competitors who were Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
It truly, please fucking Paramount, what are you? What are
you defending Netflix for? It is so wild when they
had this, This is heartwarming to hear that these people can.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Sometimes stab each other. Don't even stab each other in
the back. They should be stabbing each other in the front.
I know they're in a fight.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
I know, and if you're in a fight, you might
need a bail stick. And at bail sticks in porium,
we sell only bail sticks, which if you go to
our emporium you'll find out what they look like. I
don't know because I've never been, but you, the listener,
should buy a bail stick from us. And anything else

(21:59):
that we're about advertise unless this is your only ad.
Here're some ads and we are back. And so we're
talking about how all of these other papers cover the
shit out of the strike, and it is why we
know so much about the strike. But it's also why
I doubt a lot of the stories, as you think.
I already talked about the golden age of newspapers making

(22:20):
shit up if nothing else. I'm sure things were embellished
or like quotes were invented, but I mean, I think
the overall stuff is probably true. There's just like some
specifics where I'm like, really, and there's like all these
specific quotes attributed to the kids in the middle of actions,
like the like quote I'm going to go distract that
whatever anyway.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, Yeah, it's like, how in what world do you
have this access you omnipotent narrator, like, what is this?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Exactly. Later in the strike, Pulitzer and Hurst start physically
threatening other papers into a media blackout on the strike.
There's actually a whole bunch of information that we have
from one of I didn't put the front on the screw,
so I don't remember exactly. One of their business managers
just like wrote things being like, I'm going to go
threaten these people to not cover this, and it's funny. Yeah,

(23:10):
threaten the other newspapers. Yeah, exactly, like this will work.
I don't know whatever. Anyway, fuck that guy. He's represented
nicely in the Disney version. He's like the nice guy
on the bad guy team.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
He is not.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
And it never quite they never quite get a media
blackout on the strike. But they do influence things, and
I'll talk about in a little bit something that I
think they pulled off. But the newsies they're individually doing
as well financially during the strike as before it, which
is fairly unique for a strike because the public supports
them and tips them well for the papers that they
are selling. At one point, this is okay. This is

(23:46):
actually the most heartwarming of these stories, even though it's
like not the most big deal. There's this union kid
and there's this old man reading one of the yellow papers,
and he just runs up and snatches the old man paper,
and the old man grabs the kid, and the kid
like explains the strike, and the old man's like oh,
and gives the kid ten cents and lets him go
for the ten cents for the bail fund or for

(24:07):
the strike fund.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, I mean it is like you just kind of
like it is a little like people never really know,
especially when you're striking against media companies, like the whole story.
It is remarkable in that regard.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, I mean, fortunately these
other papers are covering it, but they're more minor papers
and they're not you know, like and and cops would
have come in and attacked crowds of kids. The kids
would drive off the cops by throwing sticks, stones, old cans,
and at least in one place an iron bar, a

(24:46):
pretzel vendor named crazy a Born donated fifteen hundred pretzels
to the boys. So he was elected an honorary member
of the union and started like giving speeches at their
their rallies and stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Everything you say makes from the last episode, President davely
more sinister. Yeah, every nickname, every new character, I'm like, not,
Dave's the fucking craziest one of all.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Yeah. So the kids kept trying to have parades and
the first time the cops were like, yeah, you don't
have a permit, and they broke it up. They stole banners,
they arrested kids. This might have been a march over
the Brooklyn Bridge. Again, lots of different sources of kind
of conflicting information, in which case it fits into a
long tradition of cops arresting people marching over the Brooklyn Bridge.

(25:37):
So the kids are like, all right, fine, fuck it,
we'll get a permit, and the permit was denied. Of course,
organized labor is conspicuously absent from at least the histories
I can find about the Newsies strike. There's only one
thing I was able to find, and that is that
the Newsies went to the local typographical union, Typographical Union
number six, and they were like, hey, buds, want to
help us out since you're like fellow union and adults.

(26:00):
And the union was like, no, fuck off, kids, we
don't want to stick our neck out for you, right,
So fuck them real d GA vibes here. Wait, I
don't know what's d GA.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
The Director's Guild, you know, I guess I don't have
all the facts. But they they managed to close their
deal with the AMPTP, the the studios and streamers, I
think like a week early.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
To me.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
It has very questionable language in it, and they were
so proud of it.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
They announced it.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Like like nearly midnight on a Saturday.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
So make of that what you will. But DJA classically
has not could do best.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Solidarity as some of the other entertainment unions we will say.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Do better directors.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah, traditionally have not done the best job that they
could do.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, I don't I don't know why.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't have all the directors.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Why you got to be like Typographer Union number six
when you could be like the News Dealers Association, the
one organized group that had their back that I could find.
They joined their strike about a weekend to the strike.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
I mean, I guess it sort of makes sense also
because the news dealers presumably are sort of one wrung
op from the newsies.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I think that they're also a
way more informal union there's no number in their name, right,
and so On the seventh day of the strike, July
twenty fourth, eighteen ninety nine, the Newsboys had a rally
at a place called Irving Hall, which is near Union Square,
which at the time was a German theater serving the
immigrant community. A pro labor politician named Timothy Sullivan sponsored

(27:48):
the meeting. Thousands of Newsies were in attendance. I've seen
five thousand, I've seen seven thousand. The kids demanded to
be let in early, and the proprietor was like, no,
you can't give in early. It's like thirty minutes early.
We so I got ready. So the kids smashed down
the door, like stormed the hall for their own rally.
Newsies came.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Anyone that's been to see a show at Irving Hall
knows you don't want to get there, So get there
like forty five minutes, Like come on, kids.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, yeah, this is how you know they're kids. I know,
I know they're not fashionably late. What's wrong with them?

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Newsies came from Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Jersey City,
and most of them were actually outside. It was about
two thousand people inside and everyone else was outside, and
there's like all of these things where like every one
time anyone on the inside would cheer, all the kids
on the outside would cheer. No, they had no idea
what they're cheering for and stuff. It's very heartwarming. The
meeting was chaired by newspaper folks from other papers. A
lot of the adults who were there were city council

(28:45):
folks and newspaper folks who had been newsies themselves, because
that's the other thing about this strike, right, is that
like a ton of poor kids had come up as newsies.
You know, The Brooklyn Eagle is a newspaper that lasted
over one hundred years. I think it stopped in like
nineteen five these or something. And they sent the Brooklyn
newsies to the meeting with a big, great, big floral

(29:05):
horseshoe for to give to the best speech and have
been donated by a local florist. And the two main
messages of all the speeches, and the speeches seem to
be mostly from the kids. The two main messages were
basically like, we'll stick together and we'll win was one
of them. And the other big message that the kids
had was maybe we should stop beating everyone up. All

(29:25):
the time. I don't know, it kind of looks bad.
Bob the Indian said, quote, now I'm to tell you
that you're not to soak the drivers anymore. We're going
to try and square this thing without violence, So keep cool.
I think we'll win in a walk. On the level
I do, there's a lot of like most of the

(29:46):
media narrators are like and then they all just stopped
violent and everything went great, And like, I'm pretty sure
that this was like a played for the cameras kind
of thing and that they kind of like toned down
the violence a little bit, but also the violence might
have been exaggerating the first place. Yeah, anyway, it.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Feels like I had to have just met in the middle.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yeah, I think that's what happened. Yeah, Kid Blink won
the best speech of the night, and he won the horseshoe.
I like his speech. Part of it is quote, ain't
that ten cents worth as much to us as it
is to Hurston Pulitzer, who are millionaires? Well, I guess
it is. If they can't spare it, how can we?
Pretty good, I know, And then he did like a

(30:24):
no more violence part, and his no more violence part
was like kind of a like. Look, don't get me wrong.
I mean I was there with you do win the violence.
I'm not saying it was bad that you did it.
I'm saying that we've moved past that now. And then
he also said, quote we won in eighteen ninety three
and will win in eighteen ninety nine, but stick together
like plaster. Kid Blink was the most famous leader of

(30:46):
the strike. His name was Louis Bellietti. He was eighteen
at the time. He was redheaded, he wore an eye patch,
which he may or may not have needed, and besides
kid Blink, he went by red Blink, Muggsy McGee, and blind.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
I'm in.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Jesus Christ, hell yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
And I think he's the president of the Uptown Newsies.
I can't remember exactly, but he has a sort of
leadership rank in the elected system that they have. And
the arbitration Committee reported how they met with Hurst. He'd
refused their demands and didn't take them seriously. Said he
couldn't sell the paper for less, like get out of
here your kids. Annie was there, Annie Kelly, their patron saint,

(31:30):
and people made her get up and give a talk.
All she said and her entire quote Her entire speech
was quote, all I can say, boys is to stick
together and we'll win. That's all I've got to say
to you.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
There is there is a real especially at a certain
point in a labor rally or any kind of like
thing like that, where you just it truly is like
brevity will will help you totally. I know.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
I hate like just the speech is partly it's like yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
It's also like we get it, We're here, come on, yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, And the applause for her ten seconds speech lasted
for minutes. People really liked her. After the rally, tactics
moved from attacking scabs to more dredging up support for boycotts,
since the public was largely on their side, at least
as that the papers generally report, they did keep physically

(32:26):
confronting scabs. Then then the newspapers pulled their dirtiest trick
yet and this one I actually can't prove, but hear
me out. On July twenty sixth day nine, a bunch
of newspapers and the non yellow papers reported that two
of the main strike leaders, Kid Blink and Dave, had
been spotting selling the boycott spotted selling the boycotted papers

(32:49):
and that they'd been bought off and like taking bribes.
So the newsies get together and they kind of like
call a tribunal and they like show up and kind
of drag their their leaders to this tribunal, and the
two accused deny all charges, and the tribunal acquits them.
It's like, all right, I think you're telling the truth.
And and all that happened was that kid Blink stepped
out of leadership and Dave stepped down to treasurer. And

(33:12):
I think that these accusations were almost certainly scab jacketing,
basically like being like claiming someone's a scap when they're not.
There's a chance that the kids did get bribed, took
the money, and then changed their mind and rejoined the strike.
Also wouldn't put it past them.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
That as again as someone in the middle of a strike.
It has been shocking, like or not shocking, But I
I have been consistently surprised, how I mean, partially because
I am extra ready to believe that, especially people in
the upper ranks of the guild.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Are willing to scab. And yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
It has been against my instincts, like pretty much always been.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
You know, shown to not be accurate or yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
You know, it really is a big tactic to sort
of turn us all again to each other and not
to say that the like our guild is perfect or
that the stratification within our guild is good or if
it makes that much sense sometimes, but yeah, there is
you know, probably not or there's definitely not as much

(34:17):
scabbing happening as you know, the studio friendly media, would
you have you believe?

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, that makes sense, yeah, because they want to project
the like, oh, these insignificant people.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, like you know that while the rank and file
our suckers for yeah, for going along.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, that's totally class. That's really interesting that whole like
nothing's changed in one hundred and twenty three years or whatever,
twenty four years. Yeah, yeah, none of the papers actually
had even seen the kids selling the papers. They just
reported on rumors that other people had seen the kids
selling papers.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah, which is also like such a it's so funny
that like it would be such a PubL thing, like
selling newspapers on a street is so much different than
scabbing privately at your home.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Totally totally and like and probably at this tribunal, if
anyone had actually seen them do it, the tribunal would
have gone differently, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
It would be it would have been very obvious if
they were fucking selling news sapers on the street.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, I like no, I was there, remember, like, ah,
what we're talking about. That's why we call you old Lai. Yeah,
that's true. We at first I thought it was because
you only tell the truth. Yeah, you're one of the
it's one of the real nickname people. Yeah, you're standing
next to Big John, who's actually tall. So I think
that we thought, what are the odds. Yeah, it turns

(35:46):
out this time were and so so. Dave was like, no,
the enemy has fedi these rumors. Both continued to actively
participate in the strike. The next day, on July twenty seventh,
Kid Blink and a hundred friends went around in trash
newspapers that are being given out for free at this point.
That's how desperate the newspapers were, and which is part
of my theory that they didn't actually entirely move away
from violence. I don't know what it looked like to

(36:07):
go trash newspapers in this context. You know, they might
have moved firmly to direct action and property destruction and
away from I don't know whatever. I actually don't care.
I like support them no matter which of these tactics
they're doing, right, I only care because I I don't
like the convenient media narrative of like, and then they
became good, you know, right, and I'm like, I don't

(36:32):
know that it was good that they're like I'm not
trying to make a moral judgment here about it, but
it's like, yeah, I don't know whatever.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, violence is violence is just another tactic, and yeah,
it is so infrequently that the labor or the marginalized
side that starts it.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, totally, like totally. Because also it's like you're talking
about like literally starving to death at this point, you know. Yeah,
like yeah, that's the thing. I like, I like, oh,
they raised the raids, right, You're like they were making
less than twelve dollars a day, and then someone was like,
what if you only get seven dollars a day? Now,
can you survive?

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Like no, Yeah, starving someone is just as violent as
you know, snatching their news, substatching someone else's newspapers totally,
or shoving throwing mud at a scab.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Uh So when Dave stepped down. A kid who loved
gambling named Racetrack Higgins took over as president. So on
July twenty ninth, the newspapers caved on a major issue.
They didn't cave on the price. They actually for a
little while a few days before this, they kind of
were like, what about fifty five cents? And the kids
were like, we're clearly winning. Fuck off?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Yeah, what about fuck you? What about forty cents? Fuck face?

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah exactly. The newspapers caved on a different issue entirely.
They offered full buybacks of the unsold papers. And what
happened is they came in and they're like, what about
ten percent buybacks? And the kids were like no, and
they're like twenty percent buybacks. The kids were like no,
and they're like one hundred percent buybacks and the kids
were like maybe right, And this actually effectively ended the strike.

(38:09):
The strike leaders insisted that the strike was still on,
but more and more people were like, nah, we we
kind of won. This is good enough, Like the prices
didn't go down, but the buy back was probably a
bigger deal because you no longer have a situation where
you're gambling in order to sell papers. Some newsies insisted
that they kept up the fight, but most went back

(38:32):
to selling the newspapers. And in August first, the union
formally accepted the deal, and August second, the strike was over.
And then the news Boys Union dissolved as quickly as
it came into being, because it was an insurrectionary organization
that existed when it was necessary and disappeared later. And
that's not how all newsboys strikes went. Some of them
created formal institutions that lasted, you know, for several generations

(38:54):
and newsboys, but that's how it happened with this one.
And you know what else is a formal membership organization
is the new union that I'm starting called the Union
of Bailstick Operators, where for the low entry price of
you buy a bailstick and then think about what you

(39:19):
think of not Margaret carefully choosing her words to not
get in trouble. You can join the bailstick Union. And
in case anyone's wondering, it's spelled b a l E
like a bail of hay.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, I think what we can all agree. You extra
don't want to scab against this union.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, you're caught bailstick in without being in the bailstick
union unless you're a farmer. Yeah, if you're a farmer,
it's fine.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yeah yeah, bailstick not that way.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Not that way either. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
So that's one of the ads. And then here's some
more and we're back. So after the strike, life continued,
it didn't unfortunately magically. That's like one of the funny
things about strikes, right, is you like win and like
until we win, like the destruction of capitalism. What we're

(40:20):
winning is like things didn't get worse, you know.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Well, and also, this is a thing that I have
been wondering. It's gonna be hard to go back and
work for these fucks after this. We all know too
much about them.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, it really.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Is like, oh, you are fucking hateful people.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah. God, and then it's gonna be like really obvious
who's just being like pretend nice in order to get up,
Like you know, like who's like just kissing ass in
order to like start fuck their way up or whatever? Yeah,
because you'd be like, no, I know, you know they're bad.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, it's really it's I that is a thing that
I'm I'm risk because I mean it feels like, as
as you've mentioned a couple of times, and I think
is like this sort of vague we'll say management class
fear is that there's like a contagion effect here.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
This is you know, this is why, And.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
I suppose there is because watching some workers take power
in winter victory shows the vulnerability of you know, these.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Leeches that call themselves our bosses.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
However, there is another side of it, which is like this,
this labor action, Like for me, this strike is like
and I think for many people who are like even
less like thoughtful about this sort of thing or have
this as their personal politics. Outside of the Writer's Guild,

(41:49):
we're all learning way more about labor, about and about
our bosses specifically that I'm just like, this feels like
honestly more poisonous going forward if I were a fucking
studio head then like you know, just like paying people
livable wages.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Yeah, it's one of the it's like we hate them,
we hate them, and now we know their names.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
I didn't know las name prior to this, Like what
the fuck?

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Why?

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, the fact that they're going to war against the
people who make them rich. Like yeah, it because like
to talk about like like nonprofits in unions, right, one
of the reasons nonprofits are like like fake woke companies
or whatever will be like, oh, we don't want a
union because it creates an antagonistic relationship between the workers
and the bosses. And that can be true. It actually

(42:45):
doesn't have to be true. All you got to do
is be really good to your workers and stop exploiting them.
The problem is that our entire economic system, capitalism, is
based on the idea of exploiting workers. It's literally based
on the idea of like making other people produce more
value and then skimming off that extra value. But I
don't know it, it doesn't have to be right. It

(43:07):
could just you could have a union and then the
bosses could be like sick, now I know that you
all have protected and everything's fine, you know, like whatever, Like.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, it's so funny.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
It's like a union can create an antagonistic relationship, and
it's so weird that that rhetoric you can even get
away with that because it's like, yeah, yeah, you know
what else creates an antagonistic relationship prior to the existence
of a union, is you being antagonistic?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, the boss is totally.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Yeah, Like yeah, it's like the there's that classic like
style of headline. That's like the violence started at the
protest when one person threw a tear gas canister back
at the police, And you're like, yeah, clearly the violence
started from the other direction. Sorry, when you mean violence,

(44:01):
you mean against the systems of power? Oh right, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Or like some passive voice bullshit. But it is like, yeah,
some subversion.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Of that perpetually we're like, yeah, the fuck are you
talking about? Like how do we I mean, yeah, we
get let them get away with it because they're in charge,
and most people don't think about it.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
But now we're all thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah yeah, and that's I mean, more of us start
thinking about it. Yeah, and that's good. So after the
strike Hid Blink he gets into boxing and basketball and
organized crime in Chinatown, and at one point he gets
arrested for murder because he was bragging about killing a guy,

(44:46):
but then he's released when they realized he was literally
just lying and bragging about killing the guy needed and
actually kill a guy. In nineteen twelve, he was arrested
for possession of dynamite and I really want to know
why he had a stick of dynamite. I just I
want to know so bad. But I don't. And then
he died in his early thirties nineteen July nineteen thirteen

(45:09):
of Friend of the Pod Tuberculosis Jesus. Which is the
other thing to think about when you're like anything taking
place one hundred fifty years ago. It's like, look, all
of our lives are kind of short in the grand
scheme of things, right, but your life is extra short.
But well, tuberculosis is still weal. Tuberculous is still a
major killer worldwide, but in developed nations that have a

(45:33):
better success at stopping the spread of it. Anyway, conditions
for newsies actually got worse throughout the twentieth century. Unfortunately,
unionized newsies held on to decent splits way better than elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I know.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
I was like kind of being like there were like
an insurrection or union that existed and then just stopped existing.
The ones that held on to unions for longer kept
better percentages for decades longer than the other newsies. Yeah,
but the rates just kept getting worse.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Yeah, I mean that, Yeah, that lesson which is like
you know again, I I especially as far as race
politics go, you know, don't love all of the organized labor,
but it is indisputable that like this is it's like
the only way to have a real middle class is

(46:23):
through the unions and things like them. I guess, like,
I mean, it's just like it's it's the only way.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, totally, and his only way for in a lot
of places, it's the only way for people to express
any kind of agency. I'm like, yea, I you know,
it's like it's funny because in some ways I like
the sort of more heroic period of labor, but on
the other hand, during the you know, kind of late
nineteenth early twentieth century chunk of it. But on the
other hand, that's when more of the large labor places

(46:54):
were like more fucked up and like more resist and shit.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Well, yeah, I mean I think that's the thing. It's
like the right thing. And look, it's the same with like,
you know, so many pieces of history. It's like, yes,
but you know, who's considered human at right time.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Totally. But well it's a couple of paragraphs from now.
It's going to tie into a labor union around this
time that was doing good and was inspired by the kids.
So besides winning some demands, the eighteen ninety nine strike
brought a lot of attention to child labor in the US.
The National Child Labor Committee was formed in nineteen oh
four to try and draw attention to the plight of
working children. But it wasn't until nineteen thirty eight that

(47:33):
the Fair Labor Standards Act outlawed most forms of child labor.
That said, and this is MESSI the newsies weren't fighting
against their right to work, right. They they wanted to
have jobs. Well meaning reformers wanted them to not be
able to work. What they wanted was to be treated

(47:53):
right and to be paid well. To actually stop child labor,
we have to pretty much change the entire economic system
so that people aren't poor shit and therefore sort of
need to go work or send their kids to work. Meanwhile,
currently about a half a million children pick about twenty
five percent of the food we eat in the US
because agriculture was mostly exempted from the nineteen thirty eight law.

(48:14):
This exemption was crafted ostensibly. I believe it was crafted
so that like because like small farmers were like, look you,
Susie's got to milk the cow. Yeah, this was quickly
exploited to exploit children in mass once you know, and
once again, like eighteen ninety nine, mostly immigrant children, and
you know the children of immigrants, and of course Republicans

(48:37):
are trying to roll all back what child prediction laws
there currently are. So the fight continues, as I guess
what I'm trying to say. Puliser, speaking of the like bosses,
the antagonistic workforce, Pulisher tried really hard after this to
reform his image with Newsi's he either actually cared or
he tried to reform his image. I don't know if

(48:58):
there's one of them who would have sort of actually
it would have been Pulitzer's. He's a little bit more right.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, he wants to be the good, good guy.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yeah I got stuff slavery, you know, more than I did.
But and so he started offering he did the pizza
party version of good boss. Right, he brought his kids,
like the Newsies would go to the movies, and he
would like rent out the movie hall and let all
the Newsies watch movies. And he would like sponsor holiday

(49:27):
feasts and stuff at the lodge. I believe, right, And like,
you know, I a raise is better than a pizza party.

Speaker 5 (49:35):
But like I don't know what, Yeah, yeah, it's it is,
like yeah, I mean obviously like the nice boss, cool
boss kind of thing is like not.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
It's it's insufficient in such a thorough way.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
But yeah, look it's better.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Than Herst Yeah, totally, yeah, it's better than the eld
really like Hitler guy. Yeah. And the thing that I, okay,
my favorite union from this time period anyone who's listening
to this show knows is the Industrial Workers of the World,
the union that one of the founders was a black
anarchist woman. They worked incredibly hard to fight racism in

(50:21):
the labor world, especially on the West Coast where that
was the most prevalent. Well, racism in the labor union
was everywhere, but specifically there was a lot of racism
in the labor movement in on the West coast of
the United States and late nineteenth century against the East
Asian immigrants. So this strike, the Newsy's Strike, was referred
to in nineteen oh five by Daniel de Lyon during

(50:44):
the creation of Friend of the Pod labor union the
Industrial Workers of the World, And I'm going to read
a bit of his quote because I like this quote.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
These little tots who by their very appearance herald in
the open, the merciless cruelty of capitalism, even against the
defenseless child, under clad, underfed, undershod deprived of the innocent
joys of childhood that are so essential to the building
up of the future. Man stunted and schooling, prematurely thrown
into the temptation of vice, walking, running, yelling monuments to
capitalist cannibalism. These waifs walked before Typographical Union number six

(51:17):
and asked for support, for the support of men, many
of whom were the fathers themselves, and who had they
struck with the boys, certainly would have insured them victory.
Did they? Of course they wouldn't. They slobbered over the
boys their sympathies. They bestowed upon them all the sweet
words that butter no parsnips, and the boys went down
in defeat. This is like to pull out of it.

(51:39):
I actually think that this was a fairly successful strike
because of the thing that they won. But they did
lose their main demand, and so that's why it's being
referred to as a loss in this sense. To finish
the quote, because this is my favorite part of it quote,
it should be here added that when a year or
so later, the identical type of graphical union had strike

(52:00):
against the sun. Those bearded men went down upon their
knees before the identical boys, whom they had left ill
of a lurch, and implored their support. Let the fact
be recorded as all evidence of the inherent nobility of
the human hearts, and in honor of childhood the ever
renewing promise that human feeling and human instinct shall not
perish from the earth, that, when appealed to, the boys

(52:22):
returned evil with good and helped the printers fight their strike.
And I don't know, I think I realized.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I was like, yeah, but no, I.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Mean, yeah, I know, that's that's how I feel about.
It's like, yeah, fuck yeah. Like and also, God, people
like knew how to fucking write their labor speeches back
in the day. It's a little heady, but uh. And
obviously I think the most important comparison here to draw
about the Newsies and their labor action is that, like

(52:53):
the writers of Rohan, who were abandoned by the armies
of Gondor at their hour of need and helms deep,
how they chose to ride forth and do the assemble
armies of Mordor, showing solidarity even with those who had
turned their back. The Newsies threw down next year when
when the typographers needed help, and uh.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, it really is though.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
It's this thing where like, you know, I mean, yeah,
obviously right now everyone's short for instance, with DGA or whatever.
But like I think for me more it's like seeing
like the Teamsters contract is up, I believe next year
and now it's more clear than ever, like you know,
we'll be with them. The UTLA strike the teachers union

(53:39):
was a couple got months ago now as we're talking,
But yeah, there was a writer's build support there, and
I think it's like a thing where like, yeah, everyone
is like you know, wishing and aware, wishing they had
done more of prior and aware of everything in the future.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
So yeah, so you.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
All are the Rohrem ready to ride to the aid of.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I think so, I mean, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
I don't I don't want to put too much in
the writer's skilled I don't know.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I think that I think that solidarity is both a
very natural thing for humans to do, but also something
that like needs to be like practiced and developed as
a skill as like a you know, cause like okay,
like in like self defense training, they talk about like
you do what you're trained to do in times of crisis.
And so actually sometimes this is a problem. Right, Like
in a fight, someone might like if someone's used to

(54:33):
fighting like MMA, they might like try to destroy their opponent, right,
whereas actually all they need to do is like hit
them in then run away or whatever. Right, But no
one's treat teaching self defense where you're like, oh, hit
and then run away. Okay. So solidarity is like the
more we practice it, the more people do it. And
it's when because when there's crisis, you do what you

(54:55):
have previously practiced and sort of like I've made certain
decisions a kind of do Yeah. So I think that
it's it's a thing that we can encourage people to be,
like be your best self, be someone who doesn't scab,
be someone who is in solidarity outside your own struggles. Yeah,

(55:16):
and and willing to sacrifice when it's not your fight.
I mean again, I've concain it a lot. But like
you know, we are able to do things.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
With this writer's gold strike because teamsters are personally sacrificing.
They are taking, they're using paychecks, they are refusing to
cross picket lines with real consequence to themselves for a
fight that is not strictly speaking, theirs, so like right,
you know, beyond appreciative and like seeing that thing. And

(55:44):
I think it is also just teamsters because they have
a stronger union culture, are just more aware.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
This is the ship you got to do. Yeah, and
they're they're practiced at it, as you said.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
And that's how we that's how we win. It's like
we are overall safer to live in a society where
we take risks for one another. You know, even though
if I choose to interfere in something that's happening around me,
that makes me less safe, right because I could just
walk away. But by living in a society where we

(56:18):
do interfere and stop acts of bigotry or exploitation or whatever,
I'm then safer because I live in that society. I
get really anyway, Okay, So.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
Yeah, I mean we talked about this last time, which
is like my entry into doing sort of any mutual
aid work was you know, even in a completely self
interested like manner like it is because it is better
for me personally Andrew only even to do.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
This stuff totally totally. I'm gonna I'm gonna speed run
through some newsies, some more newsy strikes that came after,
because this was not the end. Sure, it's near the
end of the episode, but it's not near the end
of the Newsy struggle. The Newsy Struggle is probably mostly
over because newspapers have been destroyed. But in nineteen oh one,
the Boston newsies formed the Boston Newsboys Protective Union, and

(57:13):
they wanted the bare minimum. They were like mad that
the newspapers were giving discounts early buyers, that thing that
encourages kids to skip school, and they were like the
union went as a paper. The union went to the
paper and was like, can we have ten percent buybacks?
And they were like no, your children fuck off and die.
So then they went on strike and just like destroyed

(57:34):
the paper circulation and the publisher gave him full fucking refunds,
not just the ten percent they had asked for. And
then later and they formally after this, they formally affiliated
with the AFL the American Federation of Labor, which is
now currently the AFL CIO. But in nineteen oh eight,
the same union went on strike with a paper called
The American, and the larger typographical union was like against them, right,

(57:58):
and they were like no, And they ended up kind
of even though there's like grown ass men going around
beating up children strikers or whatever. Eventually they got the
entire AFL to condemn the strike. It petered out due
to lack of solidarity from adults. So not looking good.
AFL is going to get a win a little later
in this list, but not a win here. Who did

(58:22):
have their backs the Hebrew Bakers Union Local forty five,
they had their backs and they refused to take money
from the American and yeah, and then the other thing,
and part of this was that the way that they
used it in within the AFL is that they're like, oh,
these are they're merchants. These these children, they're not employees,
they're merchants, so they don't deserve labor protections. Like fuck

(58:44):
that we've talked about this whole time. It's like whatever,
it's the same shit. That's also go ahead.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Oh d yeah, the tidy soapbox there is that, Like, God,
remember a time when that rhetoric at least would work,
Like who doesn't deserve union protection? Because my big gripe
really with the Southern California Federation of Labor is the
presence of the LA Police Protective League.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
No one is less deserving of in solidarity than the
goddamn cops.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Yeah no, I yep. In Chicago, the Newsboys formed the
Chicago Newsboys Protective Association and they fought against a bosses union.
Speaking of that, this comes up time and time again
when I researched the show that like whenever there's like
a labor union doing some stuff, all the bosses get

(59:37):
together and form a conservative and anti union union, right,
and so the Daily Publishers Newspaper Daily Newspaper Publishers Association
had like set all of these standards and collaborated against
their against their children, the children who did their shit.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
I was gonna say, yeah, that should be telling, by
the way, for anyone who's like anti union, I guess
very very improbable that anyone is listening this long to
this and remains anti union. But as far as rhetoric goes,
like you know, with your for instance, like my father
is like kind of an idiot anti union person, and
it is like sort of telling that like the second

(01:00:18):
rubber hits any kind of road, the bosses immediately unionized.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, like they know it's fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Powerful, Yeah, and they want nothing more than to break
up the opposing union.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Yeah, like they know it's.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Powerful, totally, Like we have to crew up and when
powerful people do it, it makes them exponentially. It's an association, yeah, yeah,
totally yeah, but uh, Chamber of Commerce, fuck all that.
And so in Chicago they in nineteen oh nine they
affiliate with the AFL. They joined the Pressman's strike in

(01:00:52):
nineteen twelve, destroying papers in solidarity with lockdown union workers.
Newsy's being the writers of Rohem again. In nineteen oh
six in Goldfield, Nevada, a huge judge. A judge issued
an injunction against the Newsboys union, and I believe the IWW,
and I don't entirely know why. They must have been

(01:01:13):
doing something cool together during the nineteen ten Spokane free
speech fight, which I encourage everyone to go back and
listen to our episode about that we did with Robert Evans.
Sometime last fall, the Newsboys were hanging out handing out
the IWW papers and getting arrested for it. In nineteen
fourteen in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Newsboys destroyed newspapers and response to

(01:01:33):
the rise of the price of the paper, and the
IWW organized street meetings on their behalf from my point
of view, basically, everything gets cooler once the IWW existed,
once there was like a union being like, what if
we all have each other's backs and aren't racists? New
York City had notable Newsy strikes in only a couple
of years eighteen eighty six, eighteen eighty nine, eighteen ninety
eighteen ninety three, eighteen ninety eight, eighteen ninety nine, nineteen

(01:01:54):
oh eight, nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty two, nineteen forty one,
and nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Perpetual, perpetual.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
And I want to close with I had never heard
of this strike, and I'm annoyed at myself. I'd never
heard of it. Have you ever heard of the nineteen
nineteen Seattle General Strike. No, it's one of the coolest
strikes that's ever happened in the US. I'm not going
to do it at great length, but the newsboys were
in on it. That's the tie in here, and so
was the AFL in Seattle. Actually, the AFL and Seattle

(01:02:26):
was actually being cool, and they were actually deviating from
the party line of the larger AFL at the time.
They worked together with the IWW, which had a lot
of in the Pacific Northwest had a significant East Asian
membership as well as independent Japanese worker associations, and they
called for a general strike because the socialist former head
of the Seattle AFL had been arrested and tortured in

(01:02:49):
jail for oposing the draft in World War One. So
the Seattle longshoremen refused to load arms and manutions destined
to help the counter revolution in Russia. Union membership quadruple,
and they were like, you know what, let's show people
that the workers cannot just shut down a city by
withholding labor, but like run it on their own terms.

(01:03:09):
And so most of the cities shut down completely, but
the workers continued essential services. Firefighters stayed at work, laundry
workers kept one shop open to handle hospital laundry. Civil
order was controlled by the Labor War Veterans Guard. Who
their purpose was is the quote The purpose of this
organization is to preserve law and order without the use

(01:03:29):
of force. No volunteer will have any police power or
be allowed to carry weapons of any sort, but to
use persuasion. Only twelve fit kitchens fed everyone milk. Wagon
drivers supplied milk to babies, and it worked for a while.
The mayor said, quote the mare didn't like it. Quote
streetcar gong ceased their clamor newsboys cast their unsold papers

(01:03:52):
into the street. From the doors of mill and factory,
store and workshops streamed sixty five thousand workmen, school children,
with fear in their hearts, hurried homeward. The life stream
of a great city stopped. Major General Morrison completely contradicted
the children running away in fear thing. They clearly didn't
write their notes together because Major General Morrison said in

(01:04:15):
forty years of military service, he'd never seen a city
so quiet and orderly. And the strike lasted six days,
and it was brought down by the way that these
things are often brought down by the police and vigilantes
attacking everyone and arresting all the reds and storming labor
halls and such. But that's a story for another day.

(01:04:37):
Today's story is the story of you, Andrew, and how
people can support your strike and or your work.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Oh God, supporting the strike.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
I think there's been very clear messaging from the WGA.
I know there is oh I don't have it handy,
but there was a strike fund. You can it's all
and search for a w GA strike fund but and
there's an Entertainment Strike Fund, not merely for writers who
need assistants in this time, but especially for.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Folks in other unions.

Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
People for whom, you know, if production is shut down,
that is that is their income as well, and they
are not writers, They're not necessarily going to directly benefit
from any of our actions. So yeah, please look up
and donate to that. And you know, I'm just at
yos is racist. We do a premium podcast at suboptimalpods

(01:05:38):
dot com. You know, people have been supporting us and
that's been really wonderful as well, and really helpful in
this time for.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Me and my co host Tony. I don't know what
else I say.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
That's it, that seems good. And yos is racist. I've
said this last time Andrew came on. But I was
like a little bit like, oh my god, I guess
have Andrew on my podcast, because you know, is this racist?
When it was on Tumblr was like all of our shit,
we all just fucking loved it and read it every
day and like it really I think pushed the conversation
in like useful ways and was just so just like

(01:06:16):
funny and not like not mean spirited or something but
still like not pulling punches. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
I thank you. That's very nice of you to say. Uh.
I feel like it was mean spirited but at the
right people.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Yeah, maybe that's kind of what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
Yeah, it's definitely petty and mean spirited, because that is
who I am. But yeah, I just feel like at
least that it was pointed in the right direction, which
it rarely is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think that that's a better way to
put it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Don't worry I'm a bad person.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
If you want to know more about what I do.
At the moment, the main thing I'm pushing people towards
is I'm kickstarting a tabletop role playing game called a
Number City, and it has passed all of its stretch golds,
so we had to make up new ones, which means
that if you back it at any level, not only
do you get the main book, but you get two
other books, one of which will be a novella that

(01:07:10):
I'm writing said in the world. You'll get digital versions
of it. We don't have enough money to suddenly mail
everyone three extra books, but unless I know, I know well.
And then also so we made new stretch goals and
at fifty thousand dollars, everyone's going to get a map
of the city, and at one hundred thousand dollars, we're
going to like get this one sort of a joke one,
but we'll do it if we get there. We probably won't,

(01:07:33):
but we're all going to get in a hot tub
cost playing as characters from the game and have a
pizza party. I was writing this script about the pizza
party thing while I was also talking with the rest
of the collective about what stretch golds to come up with.
And that's why there's a pizza party.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Cool gotta do it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
But there's also a game and it's fun. Sophie, what
do you got?

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
Listen to Coulson Media's newest show produced by me called
Sad Oligarch, hosted by the one and only Jacanrahan. It
is an investigative series that dives into all the mysterious
deaths of oligarchs and Kremlin involvement and spoiler putin, it's

(01:08:19):
great on all the apps.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Yay see y'all next week. The Cool People Who.

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.