WEBVTT - EXTRA! EXTRA! The Newsboy Strike Episode! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.520 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.799 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:21.279 should Know. Extra extra read all about it. Stuff you 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.320 Should Know. Release is an episode on the Newsy strike 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:25.400 of eighteen ninety nine. 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.920 Oh boy, I knew you were going to say something 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:30.920 like that, by the way. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.240 Yeah I did too, but I didn't know what that's 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:35.159 what it turned out to be. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.080 Yeah, that's the beauty of you. Thanks man, never know 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:39.760 what you're gonna get. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:45.840 I appreciate you appreciating me. So apparently we're way, way, 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.040 way behind the curve because stuff you missed in history 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:50.760 class did an episode on this, like all the way 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:51.800 back in two thousand and nine. 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.240 Oh yeah, yeah, so. 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.680 It's time we did this, I guess one hundred something 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.120 years on from the actual strike. Yes, it needs to 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:04.800 be covered by us. 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.679 Yeah, so we can. Are we copying them now if 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.800 it's fourteen years later or whatever? 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.720 Yeah? Yeah, we just go on the stuff you missed 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.720 in history class site and figure out new topics. 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.160 Geez, who was the host back then? 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.840 Who knows? It was such a rotating cast at that point. 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.679 Who yeah, I mean this was before Tracy and Holly. 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.960 Yeah, shout out Tracy and Holly keeping it on lockdown 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.680 a stuff you missed in history class for years now. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.720 That's right. They got the reins and they were like mine, Yeah, and. 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.600 The horse is like, stop jerking me around. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:39.000 Yeah. 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.479 So you mentioned one hundred plus years or something, this 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.360 was a If you're wondering what a news he is, 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.400 it was a paper delivery person, usually a paper boy 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.000 or a newsboy, although we will see there were other 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.920 people delivering papers in New York City. Yeah, and they 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.560 went on strike in eighteen ninety nine. A bunch of boys, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.040 generally boys got together. We're like, hey, we're tired of 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.000 making thirty cents a day. We want to make like 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:07.920 fifty cents a day. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.760 Yeah, And thirty cents a day sounds like a very 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:16.440 small amount. It actually was about eleven dollars in today's money, 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.480 which is still a pretty small amount to survive in 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.880 New York City. And a lot of those newsboys, it 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.640 turns out, were just barely surviving. Like a lot of 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.560 them were pretty much every single one of them was 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:31.359 working class tops. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:32.160 Yeah. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.400 I don't think there was any middle class at the time, 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:40.080 and there certainly weren't any like aristocratic newsboys, so like 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.200 you were working class at best, if you even had 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.480 a home, if you were not an orphan, if you 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.799 were not living on the streets. Yeah, and almost all 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.720 of them were at the time, like very marginalized communities 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:59.320 like Irish kids, Jewish kids, Black kids like it. It 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.040 was a it was a neat kind of like cross 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.160 section of America that or New York at least at 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.200 the time that had been kind of thrown together, put 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.560 together at this job. And there was a lot of 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.640 them doing it to something like ten to fifteen thousand, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.880 depending on who you asked at what decade. But from 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.320 what I saw, Olivia helped us with this, and I 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.399 think she said something like fifteen thousand at the time 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:23.840 of the strike we're talking about, which is eighteen ninety nine. 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.960 Yeah, And most of these kids were probably tweens and teens, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.000 you know, some of them were as young as six 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.000 and seven years old. Of course, some of them were 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.560 late teenagers, even reports of some of them being like 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.000 twenty twenty one years old. When it came to sort 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.600 of leading these organization or leading these meetings in these 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.080 this strike. But they were generally teens and tweens. And 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.640 like I said, they weren't all boys. There were some girls, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.480 there were some married women, there were some disabled adults. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.040 Really mostly boys though, and these were all regardless of 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.560 who it was, these were all people that, like you said, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.240 we're looking to you know, say, you know, I made 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.640 thirty cents today, I'll give twenty five cents to my family, 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.560 and I'll get a box of cookies for a nickel. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.440 And oh, you could buy a car for a nickel 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:16.840 back then. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.159 I actually did some because spending powers different than you know, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.919 just what would that be in today's dollars? And I 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:27.560 did look up in nineteen hundred what you could get 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.200 for some of this for like, you know, ten to 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:30.880 thirty cents. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.039 Oh cool, Well, a box of cookies was a nickel. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.240 Okay, so the car thing was wrong. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.640 Right, I'm sorry to disappoint you. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:41.400 Okay. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.440 A box of cereal was a dime, can of Campbell's 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.920 soup was a dime. A package of Quaker oats was 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.760 a dime. Seven pounds of potatoes was a dime. Wow, 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.960 literally wow. And you could get a lot of steak too. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.280 Meat Meat wasn't as expensive as you might think. So 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.280 it was kind of weird that way, But that just 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.720 kind of shows you a little bit of what thirty 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.919 cents a day would buy you. And you know, the 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.360 way these boys were doing it. They were basically free agents. 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.560 They didn't work for the newspaper or work for a company. 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:15.240 They would go out. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:20.240 And hustle on their own, buy these bundles of newspapers, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.080 like one hundred newspapers, and then sell them at a markup. 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:31.040 So generally, like, hey, what was the original price that 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:31.800 they were charging. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.400 Fifty cents per bundle of one hundred is what the 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.599 papers charged the newsboys at first. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.120 Yeah, and they would sell them for generally a penny apiece, 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.360 but sometimes mark them up to two or three cents. 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.240 But none of that adds up to thirty cents, So 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:46.600 I'm trying to reckon with all that. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.000 I think that they didn't necessarily make it through the 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.400 entire bundle in a day h They might have some 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.200 left over and they had to eat that. 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.520 Cost totally makes sense, Josh, jeez. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.320 That's my take. That's what I got from it. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.320 No, I think you're right, because that that reckons with 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.000 a little thing here at the end as far as 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.360 what the newspapers offered them. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.920 Right exactly. And so these kids would work sun up 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.280 to sundown. They would be on the street shouting out 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:17.440 the headlines all day long selling papers. I read a 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.960 contemporary account who talked about how like when you walk 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.320 down the street, they run up to you and like 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.080 essentially make you buy their newspaper. And it was a 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.040 it was like a hardscrabble life. Like the impression that 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.719 we have of it is like these tough little kids 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.440 who all smoked cigarettes and cigars and like gambled and 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.960 and you know, playing craps and stuff like that. Like 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.839 that was real. It was even worse than that, like 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.800 we have almost a romanticized version of it. It was 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.400 that plus grittier. Is the life that these kids were living, 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.960 hustling on the street selling newspapers every day and in 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.400 different places around the country. Chok, they had like rules, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.880 but New York was not one of those places. 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:08.080 When you say contemporary contemporaneous, sire. Oh, I just wondered 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.800 if you've since it's a thing now with the. 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:16.080 Show, I've you just grabbed me by the ankle and 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.120 dragged me back, and I fell on my face as 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.440 I was pulled down. But other than that, it's good. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.240 What I was hoping you would say is like, no, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.320 it was contempts, it was contemporary. It was contemporary. Jeez, 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.520 Now I'm confused. Like I read it in Vice last week, 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.080 it's about the news voice strike. Shut up, Chuck, Okay, 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:35.760 So what is it? 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.880 Contemporaneous would be what I meant to say in contemporaries today. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.200 Yeah, I'm so sick of this. I am too dumb, 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:45.560 stupid words. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:47.960 I'm just gonna say I read an account from the 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:49.400 time that I'm speaking of. 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.360 Oh that's nice. You know there's a word for that. Yeah, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.080 but I don't know what it is, all right, So 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:57.840 let's get into this. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.400 You said other cities were a little more organ eyes 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.800 with rules and like, hey, you can only work so 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.600 many hours, and maybe you have to be a part 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.720 of an actual organization or something, and you got to 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:09.520 wear a uniform. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:11.280 New York was a wild West. 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.280 This was a time when William Randolph Hurst and Joseph 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:20.280 Pulitzer were really running the show with their big time papers, 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.280 The New York World. Well, I guess I should read 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.520 it the opposite way. The New York Journal in the 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:31.040 New York World, respectively. And so the Spanish American War 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.880 comes along in April of eighteen ninety eight, and news 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.839 was hotter than ever. Everyone wanted to get their hands 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.360 on a newspaper. So they said, hey, this is a 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.080 good chance to raise the price on these newsies, on 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:48.880 these newsboys to sixty cents from fifty cents, because covering 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:49.720 wars is expensive. 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:51.720 This will also help us cover this war. 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.880 Yeah, it was a legitimate price increase in the World 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.320 and the Journal were not the only papers that that 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.520 to pay for their rather expensive coverage of the war. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.680 And the newsboys at the time were like, this is fine. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.800 It makes sense because we're selling so many more papers 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.160 than we normally do. We're actually probably a little better 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:18.160 off even at the sixty cent bundle price point. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.360 Yeah, because we're selling out exactly. 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.160 They were selling out, maybe selling multiple bundles in a day, 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.920 who knows. But the problem came when the Spanish American 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.680 War ended and other papers returned to their As the 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.520 circulation went down, the other papers went to their pre 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:41.360 war prices per bundle, but the Journal and the World 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:46.319 did not, and that really stuck under these little newsboys crawl. 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.240 And this gets very colorful here pretty soon. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.640 So my god, some of these quotes are just amazing. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.640 Sort of strap in, we also have to set up 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.520 sort of the time in which this took place. In 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.080 the late eighteen hundreds, there were it was just a strike, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.960 heavy union heavy time. There was a trolley strike going 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.679 on in Brooklyn and Manhattan that even though the adults 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.480 were the trolley drivers, a lot of these Newsy's parents 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.199 maybe worked in that field or they were sympathetic. So 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.160 these kids got involved and they were you know, throwing 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.280 rocks at scab drivers and stuff like that, so you know, 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.760 they knew what striking was all about and sort of 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.640 the strong arm version of how to go about a strike. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.840 And there were also other newsboy strikes before this, like 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.760 in the few years proceeding in Boston, Dallas, and Detroit. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.120 So this strike of eighteen ninety nine, like if you 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.959 type in newsboy strike, all you're going to get back 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.120 on the internet is the strike of eighteen ninety nine. Yeah, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.800 so significant, and the reason that it differentiated itself from 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:55.800 other strikes was in scope, in depth, in organization, like 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.040 in just a few days, as we'll see, like these 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.720 kids went from a bunch of ragtag, you know, rough 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.320 and tumble seven year olds to forming like a union 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.800 and like defending themselves in the face of being run 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.760 over by greedy fat cats essentially. 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:12.720 Yeah, I mean it's just a couple of weeks, really. 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.360 Yeah, the whole thing was less than fourteen days. 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:15.840 Yeah. 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:21.800 And they also led Boston, Detroit, in Dallas and Nicknamery. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.480 Yeah they did. Yeah. The kids in New York definitely 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.800 had the nicknames down. 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.800 All Right, I think it's a pretty good setup. 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:31.920 You know, Chuck, I've got to agree with you as 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:33.559 well on your take on the setup. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.920 Okay, all right, we'll take a break and we'll talk 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:37.439 about the literal tipping point. 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.080 Right if you want to know, then you're in luck 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:49.560 just to suffuse. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:12:06.240 Stuffuge No, all right, we mentioned a literal tipping point, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.880 and that's a bit of a stupid pun. 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.040 Because on July eighteenth of eighteen ninety nine, it was 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.680 a Tuesday. There were some newsboys in Queen's and Long 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.200 Island City that found out that one of the journal 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.320 delivery people that brought the bundles to these guys was 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.000 stealing papers from their bundles and shorting them on each bundle. 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.840 And they were like this is not going to stay 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.920 in my friend And they literally tipped over his wagon, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.360 chased them off, and stole the papers. And this was 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.160 in screenwriting terms, this would be called the inciting incident. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.319 Right, This is where the gun is introduced an act one. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.679 Sure you've been going to that one a lot lately, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.280 but it's the only one I know. I love it. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.199 Think about it though, like a bunch of little kids 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.080 tipped over a wagon, chased away the adult driver, and 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.480 stole a bunch of papers. Like that was what they did. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.839 And that's a really great indicator, or I guess example 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.319 of what a bunch of little kids can do if 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.640 you put enough of them together and tick them all 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.400 off at the same time. It's like ants, Like how 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:13.760 ants can just do all sorts of amazing things if 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.240 they collectively combine their strength. Same thing with seven to 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:18.280 fifteen year olds. 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.679 Well, other people have said it before me, but there 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.560 is no scarier group of humans on earth than a 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.119 group of young boys. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.160 Yes, and I imagine all of these kids too. All 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.960 of these boys are just like fifteen thousand Scott Farcas 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.080 and Grover Gills. That's who I imagine the two bad 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:41.800 kids from a Christmas story. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.440 Absolutely, and their brains aren't fully formed yet, so they're 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.720 not capable of making like rational decisions. And there's a 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.880 mob mentality. And I'm just telling you, if you're on 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:55.840 the streets and you see a group of like nine 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.640 teenage boys run in the other. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.400 Direction, yeah, that's great, that's great advice. 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.280 And Antoni, it's not me, it's well known fact. 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.880 Okay, I'm not disputing it at all. 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.400 Yeah, especially you. You better get out of there, my friend. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.640 Yeah, I'm pretty pretty bad at fighting. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.439 Me too, because actually I don't know. I've never been 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:16.840 at a fight. 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.680 I can tell you firsthand that I'm not all right. 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.400 So that tipping point you said, which, by the way, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:25.920 I don't think was a bad pun. I think it 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.680 was quite apt. Hey, thanks, that kind of like ignited 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.480 something in these newsies, like they were they had already 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.640 been bristling for a little while under that rate hike 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:37.960 that they knew was unfair, that they were really upset 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.360 at the world and the journal about and it was 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.960 enough to kind of like light a fire under a 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.800 few hundred of them at least, who gathered in City 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:52.040 Hall Park outside of City Hall, of all places, about 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:56.040 three hundred of them rallied and basically said, Journal World, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.760 if you guys don't bring your your bundle price per 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.600 bundle back down to pre war, we're going to strike. 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.000 We're mad right now. There's enough of us who are 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.160 mad right now. We're gonna put a herding on you. 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.160 You better listen to us. 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:08.800 That's right. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.160 And they also said, you know, we're smart enough to 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.640 know that they needed someone to kind of head this 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.920 thing up. They'd seen these unions and other strikes popping up, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.520 and even with their little unformed brains, they knew that 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.200 they couldn't just be a bunch of aunts at this point. 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.880 They had to have some leadership and some organization, as 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.360 all great unions do. And they elected an eighteen year 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.320 old maybe twenty one. And this is where things get 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.720 interesting because contemporaneous accounts don't always get the names right, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.080 so there's a lot of different versions of names and ages. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.800 Yeah, but this kid was a Jewish boxer. 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.400 His name was either Dave Simons or Simon or Simons 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.840 with a D or Simons with two m's and a D. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.520 Right, but let's just call him Dave Simons. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.720 Yeah, that's what most people call him. He was the 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.720 He was the lead dude, right the president. He was 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.960 the the second in command as far as I could tell. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:04.920 And the one who actually is probably the most well 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.600 known out of all these guys was an eighteen year 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.640 old Italian American kid with red hair and a disabled eye. 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:14.400 He was either blind in the eye or it was 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.280 impaired in some way, shape or form, and as a result, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.680 they called him Kid Blink. And his real name was 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.760 Lewis Biletti, Lewis Dalitt, Ballot, or Battel, depending on which 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.240 old timey newspaper you consult, But the one I've seen 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.560 most of all is Lewis Biletti. But everybody called him 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.600 Kid Blink. So those two were essentially in charge. And 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.160 then one other really important one who became increasingly important 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.560 as time went on, was a guy named race Car 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.560 Higgins from Brooklyn, and he's my hero. He's the one 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:44.400 I like the most. 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.200 Yeah, Livia just dug up some more fun names, which 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:54.000 is why we love Livia. Creutch Morris, not bad, no hunch, Maddox. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.360 I can't imagine that kid had good posture, right, And 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.520 Muggsy McGee was another one. And I don't know if 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.040 you dug up and found anymore. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.760 No, Muggsy McGee was the winner. I was like, there's 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.200 none that are better than that, So yeah, it's pretty good. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:08.440 Keep it at Muggsy McGhee. 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:10.600 Would you mess with those kids. 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.240 No, No, I wouldn't even be comfortable walking past them 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.160 under normal circumstances. When they're trying to sell me a paper, 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:19.480 I'd be like, just give me ten. 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:20.280 Right. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:26.119 So a couple of days later, this is July twentieth. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.239 By this point, the newspapers had said, no, thank you, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.200 We're going to keep our prices the same, and so 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.080 they sent their delegates out and told all the newsies 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.960 all over New York City stopped selling these two newspapers, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.119 which is interesting. It wasn't like, hey, we're not going 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.240 to sell newspapers anymore. They were targeting these two in particular, 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.560 which is a little different than maybe your average strike. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.520 Yeah. They also said if you don't stop selling those newspapers, 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:56.399 you're going to get your face punched in, which was 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:57.360 a direct quote. 0:17:58.080 --> 0:17:58.520 Yeah. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.880 So these kids, these newsies stopped selling, and I get 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.359 the impression that they were, like you said, they were 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.639 selling other papers. But it seems like as the strike 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.679 kind of really started to settle in, like they were 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.440 basically striking most of the time, and they would kind 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.800 of patrol the streets of New York, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.920 and where else? Uh Long Island maybe, Okay, where else? 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:26.400 What's the other one? 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.760 Give me one more queen up there in the North Harlem? Sure? 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:31.480 And what else? 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:37.760 Home of Yankee Stadium, Yankee Ville, the something the Bronx. 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.639 There's a part named after it? 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:41.280 Is there? Really? 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.640 Oh the Bronx. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:45.960 I never realized that was a fart. Always thought it 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:47.520 was another name for like a raspberry. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.199 Uh No, I think you're right, but it sounds like 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:50.560 a fart. 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.680 Okay, all right, well you just changed it big time. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:55.400 I think you improved it, frankly. 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:56.639 Yeah. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.440 So all of these kids are walking around with from 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:08.240 what I saw, horseshoes, baseball bats, barrel staves, wheelspokes like 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.920 clubs essentially, and more like. If you if we catch 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.480 you selling the Journal of the Record other newsies, we're 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.240 going to beat you. We're going to give you a beating. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.000 I don't care if you're an adult, I don't care 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.919 if you're a kid. Where you can't sell these anymore. 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.840 And a lot of people got beaten by these kids, 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:25.720 especially on day one and two. 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:28.240 Period. 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.680 Yeah, I realized it didn't sound like I was completing 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:32.760 that sentence, but that was it. 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:34.120 That's all right. 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.800 There was a little little bit of police action at first, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.280 but not much because the police had their hands full 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.120 with this trolley strike. But there were some contemporaneous accounts 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.680 in those or at least some newspapers back then, of 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.439 a handful of kids getting rounded up. Some went to 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.000 like a juvenile system I was called a juvenile asylum. 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.960 Others went to child protective agencies. But generally the cops 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.000 weren't like rounding up these boys right and left because 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:04.160 they had their hands bull already. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:04.480 Right. 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:06.760 But on the same day that a few of these 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.359 boys happened to be rounded up, which I guess was 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.560 probably the twenty eighth or twenty first, Yeah, Yeah, the 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.520 Evening Post said that a fourteen year old led a 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:22.560 crowd of boys marching through Manhattan. They're chanting like things 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.800 are escalating pretty fast around here. They were chanting, we 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.479 don't sell no worlds and journals. Hooray for to strike. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.560 Yeah, there's a great anecdote. I love this so much. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.320 On one of these marches. They went down Wall Street 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.200 and some of the brokerage employees leaned out of the 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.959 windows and through ticker tape. They gave them a ticker 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:46.760 tape parade. 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:47.760 I love it. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.600 And then even better, if it couldn't get any more 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.560 like old time in New York, one of the street cleaners, 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.760 who was like indubitably wearing a white suit with a 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.000