‘In all civilised countries the people fall into different classes having a real or supposed difference of interests … There will be particularly the distinction between rich and poor.’ ibid. James Madison
The ability of the wealthy to buy their way out of military services caused rage among the poor. ibid.
Irish immigrants were mocked for their accents, their religion and their overall impoverishment. They were also amongst the first ethnic groups in the United States to form labor unions. ibid.
‘You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both.’ ibid. Tom Watson, populist leader
Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and curtailed African-American voting rights. During the same time period poor white voters were also disenfranchised. ibid.
In California a genocidal campaign had reduced the indigenous population from 150,000 in 1846 to 30,000 by 1870. ibid.
The robber barons took every opportunity to bribe politicians and crush their competitors. ibid.
Congress became known as the Millionaires Club. ibid.
By 1900 something like 20% of all American workers were under the age of 18. ibid.
Police were also used to discipline the working class. In Tompkins Square New York 1874 7,000 workers protested unemployment only to be savagely attacked by police. ibid.
A spirited labor press emerged in all of the major cities. ibid.
Unions around the country were becoming increasingly militant. ibid.
‘Anarchy is on trial … Make examples of them, hang them … save our institutions, our society.’ ibid. Julius S Grinnell, prosecutor of anarchists
One in eleven steelworkers died while on the job, often from a lack of sleep. ibid.
When Chinese railroad workers went on strike in 1867 demanding higher wages, shorter working hours, a ban on whipping, and the right to quit their jobs, almost no-one came to their aid. ibid.
The New Orleans strike was emblematic of a growing spirit of solidarity between workers. ibid.
‘My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want … We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.’ Plutocracy II: Solidarity Forever, Mother Jones, 2016
In the late 19th century a brutal class-war was underway in the United States. And as in all wars the poor suffered the majority of casualties. ibid.
American industry had the highest job accident rate of any country in the industrialised world. ibid.
Presiding over society was a small group of industrialists and bankers nicknamed the Robber Barons. ibid.
The National Guard came to the Pinkertons’ rescue protecting strike-breakers and defeating the union. ibid.
Among the targets were the Molly Maguires … a secret society of Irish immigrants … during the 1870s, victims of perilous working conditions. ibid.
One of the most important labor struggles in the late 19th century was the Pullmen’s strike of 1894. ibid.
Chicago 1894: 12,000 US army troops were sent in to attack their own citizens. ibid.
Day of Blood at Lattimer! Lower End Mine Strike Takes a Terrible Turn … They fire on Marching Strikers with Terrible Effect … Deputies Use Rifles! … 16 killed 70 wounded. ibid. newspaper report
Working class prisoners were used as virtual slaves … More African/Americans died under the convict-leasing system than during slavery. ibid.
The link between wealth and voting rights sometimes caused unrest. ibid.
The Women’s Movement was also plagued by the same class and racial bigotries that afflicted labor unions. ibid.
‘I cannot think it probable that [working people] will be permanently contented with the condition of laboring for wages as their ultimate state. To work at the bidding and for the profit of another, without any interest in the work … is, not even when wages are high, a satisfactory state for human beings.’ ibid. John Stuart Mill
‘The IWW was openly anti-capitalist.’ ibid. historian
Migrant workers from Mexico had become a super-exploited class. ibid.
Most of the San Diego press cheered on the violence … The vigilantes represented the bankers and merchants. ibid.
‘The insurrectional fact, destined to affirm socialist principles by deed, is the most efficacious means of propaganda … It is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers.’ ibid. Erico Malatesta, 1876
‘Remember that you are fighting more than your own fight. You are fighting for the entire working class and you must stand together.’ ibid. Big Bill Haywood, IWW leader
The Lawrence Textile strike of 1912 which involved immigrants from over forty different nationalities, both men and women … Before long, police began attacking the picket lines. ibid.
‘Your violent and chaotic society always bears within it war as a sleeping cloud bears a storm.’ Plutocracy III: Class War, Jean Jaures, French socialist leader, 2017
Massive wealth inequality remained. Between the years 1800 and 1920 economic inequality in the United States increased more than a hundred-fold. ibid.
The most notorious of the battles occurred in Ludlow, Colorado, 1914 … ‘owned by the Rockefeller trust … The National Guard fired into the tents.’ The killing of their [strikers’] families caused national outrage. Protests erupted across the country. ibid.
An expression of growing working-class solidarity. ibid.
The Socialist Party was also experiencing national growth. ibid.
Joe Hill had a unique weapon in his arsenal: not just speech but song. ibid.
Another important labor Leader imprisoned under the Espionage Act was the anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon. ibid.
The pivotal struggle which must be waged in the ranks of the working class is consequently the open, unreserved battle against entrenched racism. The white worker must become conscious of the threads which bind him to a James Johnson, Black auto worker, member of UAW, and a political prisoner presently facing charges for the killings of two foremen and a job setter. The merciless proliferation of the power of monopoly capital may ultimately push him inexorably down the very same path of desperation. No potential victim of the fascist terror should be without the knowledge that the greatest menace to racism and fascism is unity! Angela Davis, If They Come in the Morning, 1971
We all know that around the world workers never got anything without struggle, without perseverance, and without fighting until the end. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, cited The Edge of Democracy, Netflix 2019
To the working class. To us. Barfly 1987 starring Mickey Rourke & Faye Dunaway & Alice Krige & J C Quinn & Frank Stallone & Jack Nance & Sandy Martin et al, director Barbet Schroeder, Rourke’s toast
I was born among the working classes and brought up among them. My father was a collier, and only a collier. Nothing praiseworthy about him. He wasn’t even respectable in so far as he got drunk frequently. D H Lawrence: cited Sex, Exile and Greatness, Sky Arts 2021
But my dreams – those dreams of long ago they still give me hope and faith in my class. I can’t believe that there’s no hope. Can’t. Alan Bleasdale, Boys from the Black Stuff: George’s Last Ride ***** George to Chrissie, BBC 1982
Just remember this, Mr Potter. That this rabble you’re talking about … They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well in my book my father died a much richer man than you’ll ever be. George Bailey, It’s a Wonderful Life
There’s a wave of reaction amongst working people to the way they are being treated. People are getting poorer every day of the week. People can’t pay their bills. Mick Lynch
The working class is back … We refuse to be meek, we refuse to be humble, and we refuse to be poor any more. Mick Lynch
Not a wheel turns, not a phone rings, not a light bulb shines, without the kind permission of the working class. Once this enormous power is mobilised, no force on Earth can stop it. Ted Grant
Jack Walker represents the silent core of this country, those millions of average Britons who feel they have no voice in 1971, and who have little power to control their way of life … It is the Jack Walkers who pay the majority of this nation’s taxes and yet take home a wage which barely accounts for a decent existence. John Pilger & World in Action, Conversations with a Working Man, ITV 1971
6:30 a.m.: Jack Walker, aged 36, arrives at the place he feels his heritage has allotted him for life, a textile die-house beside the Yorkshire moors. Here in the confinement of steam and fumes and pipes, Jack will breathe again the machines that control his day. ibid.
‘That’s the whole thing isn’t it: it’s the fear of unemployment.’ ibid. Jack’s friend
The National Health Service was not a gift from above. It was conceived in the blood, sweat and tears of ordinary people who had built the imperial might and wealth of Britain and yet often lived in abject poverty. John Pilger, The Dirty War on the National Health Service, ITV 2019
[Cats round fire cartoon] And then the working class humans began to turn on each other instead of the ruling class who was responsible for their suffering. Cartoon tweet 16th June 2022
It’s Sheriff-of-Nottingham times: what do the working class eat? Pasties. Let’s tax those. Where do they go on their holidays? Static caravans. We’ll tax them. I didn’t notice a tax on polo mallets. I loathe Cameron. I loath Osborne. We didn’t vote them in and yet here there are deciding for us. I’d like to see their heads on spikes. Seriously? Why aren’t the bankers in the dock? The working class are suffering in this country. They’re a joke in the media. They’re portrayed as chavs and rioters. Paul O’Grady
Preoccupation with the working class vote is wrong. They’ve got nowhere else to go. Peter Mandelson, to Peter Hain 1999