The International Working Mens Association/Wiiliam Wess

Just found a website that has a catalogue of the papers and publishing of William Wess....including 4 photos of him. The papers themselves are held at the Modern Records Center at the University of Warwick.

https://www.warwick.ac.uk

......and some were in Yiddish Tom.

Cheers

[Roy Corduroy]

If you read the quote that was being referred to...the one that states the Club assisted women....you wouldnt likely have posted that Roy.

Yes I read the quote. The club served as a union hall during the matchgirls strike and fed them.

That doesn't fit with anything having to do with the murder of Liz Stride or why she was soliciting going on 1:00 in the morning.

Roy

[Phil Carter]

The Berner Street club would not have handed out money to women, if that's what you're suggesting.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

To start with Tom, I am thinking of food.

best wishes

Phil

The Berner Street club would not have handed out money to women, if that's what you're suggesting.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

No....but they might have women run errands for them in exchange for food or booze, as couriers perhaps. Maybe taking the recorded minutes of the meeting somewhere.

Just supposing.
Cheers TW

[Tom_Wescott]

The Berner Street club would not have handed out money to women, if that's what you're suggesting.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil Carter]

If her presence there was club related, why wasn't she IN the club? She wasn't hanging out in the yard, either, but just inside the gates. If Schwartz is right, she stopped BS Man. Why else would she do this if not to solicit?


Hello Tom,

To answer your question, how about..

She had only just got there?

best wishes

Phil

[Tom_Wescott]

Perry,

Naturally, Fenians and anarchists would run across each other and even work together. But to what extent? Certainly, they both dealt in bombs and such. The Berner Street club is no exception. This is one line I plan to research more in the future.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

The historical information on the club has no bearing on Liz Stride soliciting.

Roy

If you read the quote that was being referred to...the one that states the Club assisted women....you wouldnt likely have posted that Roy.

It may not mean anything, or it may have influential bearing on our perceptions about the men that are the ONLY witnesses we have from 12:45 until Spooner comes into the yard around 1:05am.

Best regards Roy

[Roy Corduroy]

Less and less do I envision that soliciting brought her to that location to hang around.

The historical information on the club has no bearing on Liz Stride soliciting.

Roy

I wonder if we have cross purpose objectives in the following, taken from multitext.ucc.ie.....regarding the rise of Irish Socialism......

"The socialist movement remained on the periphery of Irish politics until 1885. In this year, the Dublin Democratic Association came into existence. In practice this organisation developed as an offshoot of the much larger British group known as the Democratic Federation. Thus, Irish socialism throughout this period took direction from the British Socialist revival of the 1880’s. In an effort to attract some support from the landed interests the association proclaimed its objective was:

“to promote and defend the rights of labour, and to restore the land to the people”.

The formation of the Dublin Democratic Association was important insofar as it provided a valuable forum for meeting and discussing issues that affected the workers of the day. In some cases hundreds attended its Saturday meetings held at the Rotunda in Dublin. Eventually, financial insecurity coupled with a declining membership saw the organisation fold.

The Socialist League followed quickly on the heels of the Dublin Democratic Association. Once again, the Dublin branch arose out of a larger network established in Britain in December 1884. Indeed, it was with the arrival of an English anarchist, Michael Gabriel that the Dublin Socialist League began to make ground. It differed from previous Irish socialist organs in its radicalism. The defence and promotion of workers rights and issues took precedence above everything else. In line with this approach, the League explicitly denounced Parliamentary democracy as inadequate for highlighting the plight of workers. Because most MP’s were drawn from the upper landed classes or the wealthy industrial bourgeoisie, the League viewed Parliament as the defender of the status quo and thus, the enemy of working class agitation. Gabriel asked:

“What would be the use of sending labour candidates to Parliament? It would be no use whatever to send them to talk to capitalists and landlords whose interests were different from theirs. As working men they would never get anything by using a vote.”

Most members of the Socialist League rejected the notion that change could be achieved through constitutionalism. In their own words:

“everything depended on the organisation and co-operation amongst the working class”.


Thoughts? Are there indications that the 2 organizations sought essentially the same objectives...excluding the more radical Self rule position?

Heres a bit more from the same source....

"Disputes and problems in dealing with fundamental political issues soon crippled the League. The League’s militant approach pushed it towards Marx’s view of the socialist movement as international in character. By this assumption, political creeds like nationalism were seen as contradictory to the goals of socialism. Nationalism with borders that separated nation states were thus rejected in favour of a movement that would unite workers of all countries in a bid to achieve universal improvements. The Dublin Socialist League acted accordingly in rejecting the nationalist, albeit limited, Home Rule movement. Taking a cue from Marx, the Dublin league contended that Home Rule would entail: “the rule of the farmer, the publican, the clergymen and the politicians.”

As expected, opposing such a popular movement as Home Rule and a leader as charismatic as Parnell brought widespread contempt for the Socialist leaders. The pursuit of militant socialism continued throughout the latter 1880’s. The National Labour League in 1887 openly called for a socialist uprising in Ireland. J. B. Killen, a senior Land Leaguer, approved of such militancy because the [Irish] worker was: “justified in using any means whatever in order to get rid of the idle class that fattened upon his misery.”

I find that line in bold quite interesting.

My best regards

[Tom_Wescott]

Barnett Kentorich said the club was a 'nasty place' and various witnesses said they would bring girls to the club and things would happen. But 90% of the men at the club were under age 30. They would have had no use for Stride in a sexual fashion.

Consider Stride's immediate surroundings. If she wanted to remain in that area of Berner Street but be out of sight from the street, inside the club gates would be the only place.

If her presence there was club related, why wasn't she IN the club? She wasn't hanging out in the yard, either, but just inside the gates. If Schwartz is right, she stopped BS Man. Why else would she do this if not to solicit?

She may simply have been attracted by the "hilarious mirth" coming from the house and decided such "bonhome" would lend itself to drunken horny men. So she hung out there.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

Annie Besant

Hello All. Is Annie Besant related to Sir Walter Besant? His name popped up in a letter to Ives and I had heard the name but could not place where.

Cheers.
LC

Would that explain her being there possibly? Not JUST to meet a date?

best wishes
Phil

Hi Phil,

You hit upon what struck me about that segment of the article too.....maybe Liz was one of the women "supported" by the Club in some fashion.

Less and less do I envision that soliciting brought her to that location to hang around.

All the best mate

Hi Perry,

Schwartz and Wess probably both spoke Yiddish. I'm certain Wess did. Many Jews from different countries communicated this way. That's why Der Arbeter Fraint was published in Yiddish. Yiddish was looked upon as a slang and not a real language.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I think that's reasonable mate. He is still a candidate for being the Schwartz translator...maybe moreso now that we know linguistics was a part of his general makeup.

Cheers Tom

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Perry,

Schwartz and Wess probably both spoke Yiddish. I'm certain Wess did. Many Jews from different countries communicated this way. That's why Der Arbeter Fraint was published in Yiddish. Yiddish was looked upon as a slang and not a real language.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott