Newsboys' Strike of 1899

• The Newsboys' Strike of 1899 was a youth-led campaign in the U.S. seeking to change how newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst compensated their newsboys.
• The strike involved newsboys demonstrating across New York City, which effectively halted the circulation of the New York World and the New York Journal, as well as news distribution for many New England cities.
• The two-week strike caused the New York World's circulation to drop from 360,000 to 125,000 papers sold daily.
• The strike successfully pressured the World and Journal to offer full buybacks to their sellers, increasing newsboys' earnings, even though the price of the papers was not reduced.
• The 1899 strike served as the inspiration for the 1992 movie musical, Newsies, which was later adapted for Broadway in 2012.

Background

• Newsboys were crucial for newspaper distribution at the turn of the century, especially for afternoon editions.
• Most newsboys were from poor immigrant families.
• The newsboys would sell papers in the afternoons and evenings, after school.
• Newsboys bought papers at 50¢ per hundred and sold them for 1 cent each, earning a profit of half a cent per paper.
• There were newsboy strikes before 1899, including in 1886, 1887, and 1889.
• In 1898, the Spanish-American War increased newspaper sales and publishers raised the cost of a bundle of 100 newspapers from 50¢ to 60¢ for newsboys.
• After the war, many papers reduced the cost back to previous levels, but The Evening World and the New York Evening Journal did not.

Strike Events

• On July 18, 1899, newsboys in Long Island City overturned a distribution wagon for the New York Journal.
• On July 19, 1899, a strike was declared against the papers of Joseph Pulitzer (World) and William Randolph Hearst (Journal) in City Hall Park, demanding prices be rolled back to 50¢ per hundred.
• Newsboys in Manhattan and Brooklyn joined the strike on July 20.
• Early in the strike, newsboys would mob, beat, and destroy the papers of anyone selling the boycotted papers.
• Newspaper owners hired men and offered police protection to sell their papers, but strikers often distracted officers to attack these "scabs".
• Union leader Kid Blink said that women and girls were treated better during the strike.
• The newsboys distributed flyers and hung signs to encourage people not to buy the World and Journal.
• On July 24, 1899, a city-wide rally was held at Irving Hall, sponsored by state senator Timothy D. Sullivan, with about 5,000 boys from Manhattan, 2,000 from Brooklyn, and several hundred from other areas of the city.
• Local businessmen and politicians, including lawyer Leonard A. Suitkin, Frank B. Wood, and ex-Assemblyman Phil Wissig, addressed the crowd.
• Union president David Simmons read resolutions to continue the strike until prices were reduced and for the newsboys to adopt non-violent methods.
• Other speeches were made by "Warhorse" Brennan, Jack Tietjen, "Bob the Indian", union leader "Kid Blink", "Crazy" Arborn, Annie Kelly, and Brooklyn union leader, "Racetrack" Higgins.
• "Hungry Joe" Kernan sang a song at the end of the rally.
• Kid Blink was given a floral horseshoe as a reward for giving the best speech.
• After the rally, the newsboys' tactics became largely non-violent and the strike was effective because the public supported them.
• A parade planned for July 26, 1899, with as many as 6,000 boys, a band, and fireworks, was canceled due to permit issues.

Kid Blink Disgraced

• On July 26, 1899, rumors spread that strike leaders Kid Blink and David Simmons had betrayed the strike for a bribe from newspaper executives.
• Kid Blink and David Simmons denied the charges but resigned from their leadership positions.
• Kid Blink became a walking delegate.
• Kid Blink was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined.

End of the Strike

• The rumorsabout Kid Blink and David Simmons' desertion of the strike, combined with their failure to obtain a parade permit, diminished the newsboys' faith in centralized leadership.
• On August 1, 1899, the World and Journal offered a compromise: the price of a hundred papers remained at 60¢, but they would buy back any unsold papers.
• The newsboys accepted the compromise, ended the strike, and disbanded the union on August 2, 1899.

Strike Leaders

• The leadership of the newsboy strike was less centralized, with boys feeling more loyalty to their local area
• The papers, such as the New York Tribune, New York Sun or New York Herald often quoted the strikers with their New York accents, depicted as an eye dialect, using such sayings as "Me nobul men is all loyal."

Louis "Kid Blink" Baletti

• Louis "Kid Blink" Baletti was the face of the strike.
• Kid Blink was 18 during the strike.
• He was described as an "undersized boy" with red hair and an eye patch over his left eye.
• He also went by the nicknames “Red Blink,” "Muggsy McGee" and "Blind Diamond."
• Kid Blink was a charismatic leader and his speech at the Irving Hall rally won him a floral horseshoe.
• He was accused of accepting a bribe to sell the boycotted papers, and stepped down from his leadership position
• He told the police his name was Louis Ballat, but his real name appears to have been Louis Baletti.
• After the strike, Kid Blink worked as a cart driver and saloon keeper.
• He may have worked for New York mobster Chuck Connors.
• He died in July 1913 at age 32 of tuberculosis.

David Simmons

• David Simmons was president of the newsboy union at the beginning of the strike, and treasurer in the second half.
• He was twenty-one at the time of the strike and had been selling newspapers since the age of eight.
• He was also a well-known amateur prizefighter.
• Simmons read a list of resolutions at the rally at Irving Hall, which the crowd reportedly found quite boring.

Ed "Racetrack" Higgins

• Ed "Racetrack" Higgins was the leader of the Brooklyn union.
• After Kid Blink and David Simmons stepped down, he was elected vice-president of the general union.
• Higgins was a fixture at the Sheepshead Bay Race Track.
• He was a charismatic speaker, with Brooklyn Life calling him "a born leader of boys, and he may yet be of men."

Morris Cohen

• Morris Cohen was union president after Kid Blink and David Simmons stepped down.
• A July 20 memo from Joseph Pulitzer's business manager, Don Seitz, named Cohen as the boy who started the strike in New York City.

Henry "Major Butts" Butler

• Henry "Major Butts" Butler was the leader of the Upper Manhattan union after Kid Blink stepped down.
• He was arrested on July 31, 1899, on blackmail charges for telling executives at the New York World that he would not break the strike for less than $600 (roughly equivalent to $23,000 in 2024).

Annie Kelly

• Annie Kelly was one of the few newswomen loyal to the strike.
• She was seen as "almost a patron saint" by the striking newsboys.
• She was the only woman to speak at the rally at Irving Hall, where she told them "All I can say, boys, is to stick together and we'll win."

Legacy

• The newsboys' strike of 1899 inspired later strikes, including the Butte, Montana newsboys' strike of 1914, and a 1920s strike in Louisville, Kentucky.
• The introduction of urban child-welfare practices led to improvements in the newsboys' quality of life.

Cultural Representations

• The newsboys were fictionalized in 1942 by DC Comics as the Newsboy Legion.
• The events of the 1899 strike later inspired the 1992 Disney film Newsies, including a character named Kid Blink.
• A musical theatre adaptation of the film, also called Newsies, debuted in 2011 and played on Broadway from 2012 to 2014, and on tour from 2014 to 2016.
• A live filmed version of the stage production was digitally released on May 23, 2017, on Netflix and later switched to Disney+.
• In November 2022, a production of Newsies opened Off West End in London for a limited run.
• The newsboy strike is described in detail in the 2003 non-fiction book Kids on Strike!