SHOT DOWN LIKE DOGS

Poles began to arrive in large numbers beginning in 1888. The Russian influx began in 1893 and increased rapidly after the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. Selover's The History of the Borough of South River suggests that Russian and Polish immigrants each made up 10% of the 10,000 population. The actual state census for South River in 1915 shows an even larger percentage of foreign born; of the total population of 6,691 less than half (3,245) are listed as "American born". (The national average in 1920, by comparison, was 2 native-born for every 1 foreign-born person.) The 1915 Industrial Directory of New Jersey, a state publication, broke down the number of foreign workers (the total is smaller than above- apparently because only adults are included): 1,700 "Pollocks", 500 Hungarians, 600 Russians, 250 Austrians, 200 Italians and 10 Lithuanians. The Census also shows that only about 500 of the nearly 3,500 foreign born residents are listed as speaking English and only 315 as naturalized.

Russians tended not to become naturalized because the Tsarist government of Russia, in trying to encourage migration to Siberia, leveled penalties upon anyone accepting foreign citizenship and prohibited them from re-entering Russia. Émigrés also feared for the safety of relatives left behind. Because an independent Poland did not exist in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century, the state and federal censuses are often unclear about actual origin. In the NJ census of 1915, the great majority are listed as being born in "Russia". The 1910 federal census, however, listed most of these people as "Russia-Pol." and notes that the dominate language was Polish. Most contemporary accounts referred to the workers as simply "Russians".

Immigrant men in South River often labored in the area brick yards.  In addition to those in town, like the large American Enameled Brick & Tile Co. just across the Raritan River Railroad tracks from Herrmann, Aukam & Co., the huge Sayre and Fisher brickyards (1,500 employees) were in the neighboring company town of Sayreville.   All of South River's brickyards together employed 700-800 men. Other men traveled the Raritan River Railroad or the trolley lines of the Brunswick Traction Company (later, The Middlesex & Somerset Traction Co., by the late 1910's, part of Public Service Railway Co.'s extensive trolley lines) to work in the explosive powder factories of DuPont and Union Powder in the Parlin section of Sayreville or the tire plant of the French firm Michelin in Milltown.

The women of South River labored in the garment and cigar factories. Both industries were among the poorest paying and labor conflicts tended to affect them because of that. (Unionized cigarmakers, predominately male, usually worked in small firms that specialized in expensive, handmade cigars.)

The 1915 New Jersey census for South River features page after page of Russian and Polish born people, the men listed only as "laborer" and the women as "hdkf factory empl", "waist fcty empl" or "cigar fcty empl".

THE TIMES

April, 1917 would see the entry of the United States into World War I.  The country's involvement in the European conflict would bring with it a dramatic increase in the cost of living, anti-German and Hungarian and general anti-immigrant sentiments. With Russia's withdrawal from the war after the Communist revolution later in the year, anti-Russian feeling would be added to the list.  The country would become wrapped up in a jingoist hysteria that led to anti-labor and, especially, anti-radical actions during and after the War.

In South River, the war would bring a rapid growth in population as the local industries received government contracts.   Also, probably some friction developed within the immigrant population between German- and Hungarian-born residents and the larger Russian and Polish communities.  Russia was at war with the Central powers and most of Poland had been under either Prussian or Austro-Hungarian rule for close to a century.

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The "SHOT DOWN LIKE DOGS" title of this website is taken from the NEW YORK CALL's headline of their front page article on the 1917 Herrmann, Aukam & Co. strike.

South River Industrial Statistics