Friday, January 08, 2016

Today -100: January 8, 1916: Of fusiliers, liquor-crazed men, and servants


Major Winston Churchill is given command of a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in France.

A strike at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company and other nearby steel factories leaves much of East Youngstown’s downtown on fire and 3 dead, shot by a posse of citizens organized by the city solicitor, with more expected to die. The arson and looting began after YS&T guards fired on strikers, who shot back. Houses have been dynamited and the bridge to Struthers, Ohio burned, I guess by Strutherites trying to keep the East Youngstownies from crossing it. “According to telephone reports, liquor-crazed men were drinking stolen whiskey from buckets in the fire-lighted streets of East Youngstown.” Gov. Willis sends in the troops.  East Youngstown changed its name in 1922 to Campbell, after James Anson Campbell, YS&T’s head.

War is hell:

In New York. And their wages are increasing accordingly. Housewives used to be able to hire themselves a nice immigrant girl fresh off the boat for $12 a month and now it’s $20. $20! The shortage is worst in the Bronx, because even immigrants don’t want to go to the Bronx.


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