More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy

by Thai Jones

Overview

In the year that saw the start of World War I, the United States was itself on the verge of revolution: industrial depression in the east, striking coal miners in Colorado, and increasingly tense relations with Mexico. "There was blood in the air that year," a witness later recalled, "there truly was."

In New York, the year had opened with bright expectations, but 1914 quickly tumbled into disillusionment and violence. For John Purroy Mitchel, the city's new "boy mayor," the trouble started in January, when a crushing winter caused homeless shelters to overflow. By April, anarchist throngs paraded past industrialists' mansions, and tens of thousands filled Union Square demanding "Bread or Revolution." Then, on July 4, 1914, a detonation destroyed a seven-story Harlem tenement. It was the largest explosion the city had ever known. Among the dead were three bombmakers; incited by anarchist Alexander Berkman, they had been preparing to dynamite the estate of John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of a plutocratic dynasty and widely vilified for a massacre of his company's striking workers in Colorado earlier that spring.

More Powerful Than Dynamite charts how anarchist anger, progressive idealism, and plutocratic paternalism converged in that July explosion. Its cast ranges from celebrated figures such as Emma Goldman, Upton Sinclair, and Andrew Carnegie to the fascinating and heretofore little known: Frank Tannenbaum, a homeless teenager who dared to lead his followers into the city's churches; police inspector Max Schmittberger, too honest for his department and too crooked for everyone else; and Becky Edelsohn, a young anarchist known for her red tights and for spitting in millionaires' faces. Historian and journalist Thai Jones creates a fascinating portrait of a city on the edge of chaos coming to terms with modernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802743541
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/30/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Thai Jones is author of A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience. Formerly a reporter for Newsday, he is a graduate of Vassar College and the Columbia School of Journalism, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in U.S. History at Columbia University.
Thai Jones is author of A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience. Formerly a reporter for Newsday, he is a graduate of Vassar College and the Columbia School of Journalism, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in U.S. History at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction: December 31, 1913 1

I

1 So the New Year Opens in Hope 17

Statistical Abstract 43

2 The Jobless Man and the Manless Job 48

The Social Evil 72

3 A New Gospel 77

II

The Possibility of a Revolution 103

4 "Three Cheers for the Cops!" 111

Chief-Inspector Judas 137

5 Somebody Blundered 143

III

The Lid 171

6 Free Silence 176

A Film with a Thrill 199

7 A Sleepy Little Burg 205

Safe and Sane 229

8 His Own Medicine 234

IV

9 The War Has Spoiled Everything 257

10 Who's Who Against America 274

December 31, 1919 304

Afterword 317

Acknowledgments 339

Sources and Notes 341

Index 395

Editorial Reviews

With tensions brewing in Europe at the start of “the first war to end all wars” in 1914, New York City was rife with continuing conflict between the haves and have-nots, shaping the future of national politics and culture, according to this atmospheric account. Jones, a former Newsday reporter, details the young, patrician, and anti-Tammany Hall mayor, John Purroy Mitchel, who tried to keep the lid on a metropolis being pulled apart by anarchists and unionists attempting to bring down industrialist John D. Rockefeller and his fellow plutocrats, while they also tried to maintain labor rights on the front burner. This pivotal year has its share of political promises, rebel-rousing rhetoric, and bloodshed, including the activitiets of anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, journalists Walter Lippman and Upton Sinclair, and dedicated radicals Frank Tannenbaum and Becky Edelsohn (reputedly America’s first hunger striker). Delving into the major players behind the dramatic events of 1914 in New York City, Jones (A Radical Line) draws parallels between 1914 and recent times in the social issues, moral dilemmas, and lack of political insight with intelligent research, fascinating characters, and striking tabloid color. B&w illus. Agent: Anna Ghosh, Scovil, Galen, Ghosh Literary Agency. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Jobless, homeless, hungry, desperate. Remarkable how those words resonate through the years in the richest and most powerful country in world history. Their significance is dramatically highlighted in this compelling and vivid portrayal of the currents that swept the country a century ago, and have come back to haunt and inspire us once again today. More Powerful Than Dynamite is an impressive piece of work.” —Noam Chomsky

“Almost exactly a century before Occupy Wall Street launched a cause and gripped a nation, a different kind of radical movement in New York City was stirring, stunning, and scaring the country. Thai Jones, a brilliant historian and breathtaking writer, tells this compelling story in MORE POWERFUL THAN DYNAMITE. In his hands, the past is indeed prologue.” —Samuel G. Freedman, author of Jew Vs. Jew

“New York was as divided by class, race, and ideology a century ago as it is in our own time. That the city actually exploded in 1914 is not surprising. What is surprising is how subtly, persuasively, and imaginatively Thai Jones has interpreted the period and brought a rich cast of characters to life. More Powerful Than Dynamite is an exciting book.” —Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University, editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City

“Thai Jones brings into vivid life a period of American history when the haves and the have nots were close to civil war, a fascinating recreation of people we have forgotten at our own peril. An enjoyable and enlightening read.” —Marge Piercy, poet, novelist, memoirist

“A compelling and layered portrait of a year, a nation, and a people on the verge, More Powerful Than Dynamite is filled with echoes that clamor in contemporary America. The writing itself is so rich and powerful, the selection of scenes so smart, the details so telling, that it reads like an epic novel.” —Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground and author of Fugitive Day

“[T]his book begins with an intensely dramatic scene, and continues to fascinate the reader right through to the end. We follow a group of people—especially the notorious "Weather" people—who are at the center of the extraordinary events of the Sixties. Abstractions like "radicalism", "pacifism" "violence" are given a human face, as we see the characters in this book struggle, often in troubling ways, for a world free of war and injustice.” —Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States on A Radical Line

From the Publisher

Soapboxes, raucous parades, hunger strikes, and dynamite. These tactics were among the methods of American protest in the early 1900s, and New York City was the epicenter. The titular year of anarchy for Jones (former reporter, New York Newsday; A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience) is 1914. Through the tensions between a circle of passionate radicals and John D. Rockefeller Jr., Jones examines the larger picture. Tensions exploded—sometimes literally—partially fueled by the Ludlow massacre of miners' families, killed by troops confronting strikers from the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. Jones discusses well-known radical favorites, e.g., Emma Goldman, as well as activists less familiar to a modern audience, among them Frank Tannenbaum, Arthur Caron, and Becky Edelsohn. He treats all with dignity, examining their motives and character and spinning a human story around historical events, a presentation that one would expect from a former journalist. VERDICT This book compares favorably with other works on 20th-century radicalism. Recommended for undergraduates and casual readers interested in the history of American labor and social-justice movements.—Laura Ruttum Senturia, Univ. of Colorado-Boulder Lib.

Library Journal

A messy conglomeration of personalities make up this ill-focused yet engaging portrait of New York City on the verge of anarchy and war, 1914. Chockablock with research and detail, journalist Jones' second work (after A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience, 2004) includes everything except a clear thesis. If there is anything he is proving, it is his passion and respect for the players of that roiling, revolutionary time: anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Beckman, reform-minded New York City mayor-elect John Purroy Mitchel, crusading journalists like Mother Jones and Uptown Sinclair and even the Christian idealist out of step with his plutocratic patriarch, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Jones moves chronologically throughout 1914, which opened after the relative harmony of the previous year. However, social evils in all facets of society were exposed by enlightened provocateurs like the young unemployed labor leader Frank Tannenbaum, who led fellow groups of unemployed into the city's churches for shelter during that extremely harsh winter and was eventually arrested. Anarchists were on the march as well, supported by union protestors, often to violent effect; they taxed the resources and good will of the new mayor and his broad-minded new police commissioner, Arthur Woods. Employees at the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, co-owned by Rockefeller but managed from a distance, went on strike, culminating in the so-called Ludlow Massacre, which prompted a sea change in Rockefeller Jr.'s antiquated views on collective organization and union rights. President Wilson struggled with turmoil in Mexico, calls for war in Europe and his own health, while a bomb probably designated for Rockefeller Jr. detonated accidentally in a Lexington Avenue apartment, killing three anarchists. Jones provides deep research and nicely fleshed portraits but only partial synthesis of the information.

Kirkus Reviews