{"id":2825,"date":"2021-04-09T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T16:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2021-04-16T17:06:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T17:06:38","slug":"the-national-news-a-trade-unionist-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/the-national-news-a-trade-unionist-newspaper\/","title":{"rendered":"The National News<\/em>: A Trade Unionist Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0was created by editor Carl E. Person after the shutdown of the\u00a0<\/span>Strike Bulletin<\/span><\/i>\u00a0in May 1915.\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0began publication only a few months later in October of that year. Person was a famous labor activist who had been put on trial in 1914 for shooting a strike breaker and was later acquitted\u00a0<\/span>on the basis of<\/span>\u00a0self-defense. Much like\u00a0<\/span>Strike Bulletin<\/span><\/i>, the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0was devoted to describing collective labor actions across the United States. However, it also contained excerpts from the some of the latest popular fiction of the day including a novel\u00a0<\/span>The Abysmal Brute<\/span><\/i>\u00a0by Jack London. Person centered the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0in Chicago instead of his earlier location in Clinton, Illinois due to his feelings that Clinton had become a hostile work environment following the end of the Illinois Central Shopmen\u2019s Strike and his near-fatal encounter.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Curtis, Asahel, 1874-1941. Seattle Trade Union contingent marching south on 1st Ave. in Labor Day parade, Sept. 2, 1912, Seattle. 1912. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America,\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/curtis\/id\/336<\/span><\/a>. (Accessed January 12, 2021.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Person was an energetic but argumentative editor who frequently clashed with his peers in the labor unionist movement.\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>, as a labor unionist organ, relied heavily on subscriptions from different unions. Some union leaders, such as the men who led the Shopmen\u2019s strike,\u00a0<\/span>were in conflict with<\/span>\u00a0Person never subscribed or paid these dues. Person damaged his relationship with union leaders because he was quick to criticize those he felt had sold out or buckled under pressure during the strike. Person wrote in a February 12<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a01916 editorial \u201cDo not ask us to serve you, unless you are doing something for the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>. If you want a paper to serve you…then see to it that your union is supporting this paper”. His bluntness endeared him to laborers, even as it enraged their organizers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0received most of its articles from freelance writers within the labor movement. Articles within the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0included \u201cHealth Insurance\u201d about an attempt to pass universal healthcare legislation in the New York legislature, and \u201cDetroit Strikers Are Making Progress\u201d about a strike in a Michigan screw factory. Unlike many labor focused newspapers of the period the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0did include commercial advertisements.\u00a0<\/span>Carl Person<\/span>\u00a0had been hurt by internal union rivalries when running the\u00a0<\/span>Strike Bulletin<\/span><\/i>, he tried to make the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0financially independent.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Strikes – Strikebreakers at headquarters E. 26th St., N.Y. June<\/span><\/i>. ,\u00a01909. June. Photograph.\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2003654897\/<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0never became profitable and in January 1916 it cut its publication frequency from weekly to monthly. According to Person \u201cthe support the paper has received does not warrant publishing every week,\u201d although he added hopefully that \u201cas soon as we get sufficient support, and the circulation is increased to warrant it, the paper will again be published weekly.\u201d Such a moment never\u00a0<\/span>came,<\/span>\u00a0and the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0struggled to keep publishing. In May 1916 the\u00a0<\/span>National News<\/span><\/i>\u00a0unceremoniously published its last edition. After the\u00a0<\/span>National News\u00a0<\/span><\/i>went bankrupt Carl E Person left the newspaper business altogether and entered law school. He spent the rest of his life as a practicing attorney.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

–By Connor Monson<\/p>\n

The National News<\/em>\u00a0was digitized with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0National News\u00a0was created by editor Carl E. Person after the shutdown of the\u00a0Strike Bulletin\u00a0in May 1915.\u00a0National News\u00a0began publication only a few months later in October of that year. Person was a famous labor activist who had been put on trial in 1914 for shooting a strike breaker and was later acquitted\u00a0on the basis of\u00a0self-defense. Much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":716,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ndnp","category-new"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2835,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions\/2835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}