American Decades
Religion, Socialism, and the Industrial Workers of the World
An Army of Church Invaders.
"Six hundred unemployed men crept into the Labor Temple at Second Avenue and Fourteenth Street last night, while the lights were out for a moving picture show," The New York Times reported on 1 March 1914. When asked what they wanted, their leader, Frank Tannenbaum, replied, "We have come to take possession of this place for the night. We intend to stay.…If you try to put us out, the floor of this place will run with blood." The church capitulated somewhat to the demand, agreeing to house sixty-five men who said they had nowhere else to sleep for the night and peacefully dispersing the rest. Between 1 March and 5 March, Tannenbaum led his "army of the unemployed" into a series of churches in New York City, demanding food and shelter. They were welcomed by the pastor of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church on behalf of the parish's socialist fellowship, but elsewhere, including a tony Fifth...
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1910's Religion
The 1910's
