North Olean History, Pennsylvania Car Shops Strike
PENNSYLVANIA CAR SHOPS STRIKE-July 1922
A mass meeting of the Pennsylvania Railroad shop men was held on the last evening of June in 1922 to decide if there would be a walk out or not. Approximately 1200 employees left their jobs at 10 a.m. the following morning after a strike order was read that resulted in sweeping the local Pennsy shops practically clean. A few elderly sweepers and the various gangs of supervisory leaders were the only ones left on the job.
Two days later the Pennsy was seeking men to replace the Olean strikers by placing advertisements in the local papers. Gangs of between twenty and thirty men were brought to Olean to be used as cooks and helpers for the gang leaders that stayed on the job. This resulted in alleged threats of violence being made, threats of attacks in the dark, shooting from ambush as well as personal threats. As a result of these threats the local Pennsy guards were sworn in as deputies by the Sheriff’s department. Foremen and shop workers who continued on the job rode to and from work and to lunch in taxicabs paid for by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Some of the taxicab drivers refused to go on the call for the railroad in fear that there might be trouble and risk of damage to his taxi or to himself.
Of course the striking workers had to be paid for the time they had worked and it was decided to locate the Pay-car on the “Green Line” siding along Van-Campen Avenue between Wayne and Coleman Street. Approximately 1200 men received their checks in a thirty-minute time without any trouble since they were in a hurry to get to the bank to cash them.
About the middle of July the first outside workers arrived in Olean on a car attached to a regular passenger train. The workers were marched under guard to their quarters across from the yard shops. Trouble was brewing several days later when a mob of between 1,000 men and women swarmed the yards when the railroad attempted to bring in more workers. The mob rushed the force of nineteen guards causing knife wounds to one while the other guards fled.
This be as it may—this is how the Pennsy railroad strike disrupted the life of some North Olean wives:
On the complaints of three North Olean women, Catherine Rucinski, Anna Klotz and Catherine Dukiewicz, Daniel Monahan of Buffalo was arraigned before Justice D. W. Keating in police court in August of 1922. The women charged that about 4:30 p.m. Monahan came in a car for Baer, who worked for the Pennsy, and while pointing a revolver at them said “Do you read the papers? Do you see this gun?
Atty. Allen J. Hastings, for the railroad, stated that Monahan was a deputy sheriff. Atty. P. S. Collins appearing for the complainants stated, “That is impossible. The law strictly prohibits a man whose home is not in the county being a deputy sheriff.” This resulted in Monahan being charged with a misdemeanor and his bail was set at $500 and furnished.
Three days after the incident concerning Monahan the North Olean housewives were once again up in arms. The trouble began about 4 in the afternoon when a car with its guards pulled up to the curb near the Baer home on River Street. A group of waiting women and large boys soon grew into a large crowd of 500 ( I think this number was exaggerated) as the car waited for Baer to come out of his house. The railroad officers stayed close by the car protecting it and planned to quickly hustle Baer into it. As soon as William Baer appeared at the door of his home a storm of derisive cries and catcalls, mingled with yells of “Scab!” filled the air. As Baer attempted to make his way to the waiting car, the women and boys swarmed in on him. Broomsticks and other sticks of like nature, which had been concealed by the women in the folds of their skirts came into play and his face was bleeding before he could struggle through to the car. As a result Baer and Edward David, a railroad policeman, escaped with bloody faces, from blows welded by the milling mob of women that surrounded the men and the waiting car.
Chief of Police John C. Dempsey and Patrolman Randall arrived on the scene in time to prevent the hysterical mob of women and boys from overturning the car in which Baer and David had taken refuge. They, in fact, had raised one side of the car from the ground, the wheels being fully one and one-half off the pavement. Chief Dempsey and Officer Randall began pulling the women back and succeeded in righting the car. The driver started the car and speed off. Thus they rescued David and Edward Sommers, the two regular railroad policemen, Monahan and Baer, all of whom sought refuge in the car and were on the verge of stepping on the gas to make a get-a-way.
In spite of the melee and the bloody faces of the railroad guards, no arrests were made and it was thought that none of the women were struck. Chief Dempsey and Officer Randall had prevented the car from being overturned by grabbing and shouting at the struggling women.
The following morning the eleven women, who were alleged to have taken part in the riot were arrested and arraigned before Judge Dennis W. Keating in police court. Two of the Pennsylvania railroad officers had been injured and one was blinded with pepper. It was decided not to hold an examination and since this was agreeable with Attorney P. S. Collins, who represented the women, the women were then held for grand jury at Little Valley. Bail set at $500 each for the following women, Anna Zesuek, age 26; Mrs. Tony Wojtulski, age 41; Mrs. John Mazur, age 27; Mrs. Joseph Kwiatkowski, age 29; Mrs. Martin Kwiatkowski, age 23; Mrs. Stanley Gorecky, age 32; Mrs. Joseph Slodolski, age 40; Mrs. Mack Marowski, age 25; Mrs. Stanley Rucinski, age 25; Mrs. John Kubiak, age 23; and Mrs. Joseph Kersperski, age 28. All were charged with rioting under the provisions of a section of the penal code.
On two different dates in 1922, the women were to be tried at Little Valley, but their hearing was adjourned until May 1923. The ten women pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly conduct before Judge Ackerman and were sentenced to thirty days in jail and fined $50 each, the sentence and fine was suspended pending good behavior. When the charges were reduced to disorderly conduct they entered pleas of guilty.
I knew most of these women; at least three of them were my great aunts. They were all good wives and mothers who got carried away. One of my aunts had been home peeling potatoes for supper when she was summoned to the ruckus. Not giving it a second thought, she stuck the knife she was peeling the potatoes with into her apron pocket and hurried to the scene.
August was a hot month for tempers during the strike. There were two attempts to wreck Pennsylvania freight trains. One attempt was made to blow up the Haskell Creek Bridge and the other, the plugging of a switch near the Godfrey farm crossing in Pleasant Valley.
During that same month almost the entire Olean police force was called to Wayne Street, in the vicinity of Seventh Street when a crowd of about 1000 women and children gathered to await the return of railroad men working in the old shops, or car repair shops on Wayne Street. The crowds swarmed over the street corners waiting for the truck to bring the men to work. Some were armed with stones, bricks and sticks. The women and young girls had their apron pockets filled with stone and other missiles. The young boys shook apple trees to gather the green apples to throw at the workers.
When the crowd discovered that they had been duped since the truckload of workers had been taken out before they arrived, caused them to be in an even angrier mood. Young boys sang, “ Hail, hail the gang’s all here, what the hell do we care”. At one o’clock the crowd grew even larger. It was all patrolman “Vet” Cole could do to keep Wayne Street open because of the swarming crowd. At 2 o’clock a group of railroad men were greeted by a fusillade of apples, stones and sticks as they were rushed in a truck into the side entrance on Seventh Street. Barclay, who was in charge of the Pennsylvania Police, made threats to arrest the rioters.
That same day two Pennsy railroad guards admitted firing off short-barreled pump guns in the yards of the old shop near Reed Street. They claimed that they were testing the guns and fired them into the ground while doing so. Although they were taken to police headquarters no charges were made and they were allowed to return to work.
The next day the trucks carried the men through with out incident. J. O Hackenberg of the Pennsy railroad served notice on Mayor Foley that he must take means to protect the railroad property was being damaged. It was said that the persons gathering in mobs did not realize the seriousness of the situation they created. The public was reminded that the city was liable for any damage done by mob violence.
The situation only got worse. Anyone suspected of being a scab was beaten. Stone throwers attacked the armed guards traveling to work by taxi. Stone throwing was especially heavy in the vicinity of Seventh Street near Lincoln Avenue. Nine homes of men, who lived in all sections of Olean and were working in the PRR shops, were bombarded with stones. There were report of explosions near the Pennsy viaduct, but no damage found. Edward Braxton employed by the Pennsy shops as a waiter was shot in the back near Wayne and Fifth Streets. J. O. Hackenberg of the PRR had the newspaper publish a warning for the arrest and conviction, or information of anyone damaging railroad property and offered a $500 reward.
In September it was expected that a full quota of help would be employed at the car repair shops. Most of the workers would be imported. A large bunkhouse, capable of housing 400 men had been erected along with a cookhouse and dining room to feed them. Over 100 of the best of Olean’s craftsmen had gone to other cities to work for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad Company.
In September of 1922, J. O. Hackenberg announced that the Company was wiling to employ as new men any of its former members who are desirable and eligible for re-employment.
In June of 1922 the Pennsylvania Car Shops at Olean employed 1265 people. My grandfather, Albert Szadlowski was one of them. After the strike of 1922, he would not go back there to work. He was one of the men who went out of town to work, first at Salamanca than at LeRoy, NY. My father in law went to work for the Market Basket. He became the night foreman and retired from there in the 1960’s. My uncle, Frank McCartan’s grocery store went out of business owning to the fact that he allowed customers to charge their groceries and couldn’t pay their bill. He and his family moved to Buffalo.
In November of 1924, fire razed the structures that housed the old machine shop, blacksmith shop and tender repair buildings on Wayne Street. Thirty sticks of dynamite toppled the smoke stack that hadn’t been in use since the old shops were discontinued in 1929. The Pennsylvania roundhouse that was built in 1904 on the old Root and Keating plot continued to operate until about the late 1940’s. This roundhouse is now the property of Dresser Clark.
Pennsylvania Car Shops Strike-1922
