February 21, 1917
NEW YORK TO TRY TO REDUCE H.C. OF L.
NEW YORK. Feb. 21.—Drastic action to reduce the cost of food
in New York will be demanded today by a committee, headed by Dr. A. H. Friedman,
which will call on Mayor Mitchel and food commissioner John J . Dillon,
following riots in three of New York’s congested tenement districts. Push carts
were stripped, overturned and burned by frantic women.
In the Williamsburg section on Long Island the open air
market was wrecked and dealers hid behind barred and locked doors. Police
reserves battled to restore order. The riot followed a sudden jump in the price
of onions and potatoes.
In the Brownsville section and on the East Side section of
Manhattan where food riots almost as serious.
The trouble was started in Williamsburg when a women, unable
to pay the price demanded for onions put her shoulder to the push cart and tipped
it over. In a moment hundreds of women were on their knees scrambling for the
potatoes and onions. The contagion of the fight for food spread and soon other
carts were in the street and the peddlers fleeing. Kerosene was thrown on some
of the carts and in some instances they were set afire.
Later 2,000 residents of one district assembled in Mass
meeting to hear the peddlers’ side of the case. One man declared he had made
but 20 cents on a barrel of potatoes that cost him $10
The dealers, charged they were allowed to purchase at one
time only from two cars of potatoes, when eleven were on the tracks.
A boycott in which women of these districts will agree to
buy no more onions or potatoes until the price goes down, and in which the
dealers will agree not to purchase any more, seems probable.
Prices of food, not only in the public market, but in every
part of the city have advanced tremendously.
For a time there was the greatest confusion about the
building. All of the women demanded to see Mayor Mitchel. Police reserves were
called and arrangements were finally made tor a committee to enter the hall.
Practically all of the women carried babies in their arms.
Most of them were foreigners.
Within a few minutes after the hundreds appeared a crowd of
thousands gathered in city hall park watching the demonstration.
A women known as "Sweet Mary" [sic] to those joining in
the protest led the women. At 11:30 the huge throng was waiting patiently for
some word from their representatives who had entered the building. They expected
some.
"We are starving we want bread," was the constant
try raised by the women as they surged about the entrance to the city hall.
Walking quietly across city hall parks the women were at the top of the building before they were noticed. They swept up the steps but the
doors were closed.
A swarm of police appeared. They drove the women down the
steps. Marie Ganz then mounted the steps and addressed the women.
She urged the women to remain in the street and especially
to do nothing that would give the police an excuse to arrest them. With this
the crowd quieted and two women were admitted to the building as
representatives of the protesting women.
A serious outbreak was threatened when Marie Ganz was
arrested, after the main body of women had been dispersed. The crowd in City Hall
park by that time numbered thousands.
"Sweet Marie," as she was called, has been identified
with agitators here and the police sought to separate her from the women
demanding food She was hurried into the precinct police station at the city
hall and then into a patrol wagon. Sighting her in the wagon the women made a
rush for it, yelling, screaming and demanding her release, A line of police was
quickly formed to stop the women and the patrol whisked away.
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