Dirty-Faced Davids & The Twin Goliaths.

In July 1899, the New York City newsboys formed their own union and went out on strike against Joseph Pulitzer's "World" and William Randolph Hearst's "New York Journal." A confederation of children challenged the two most powerful publishers in the US. The newsboys were in the enviable position of being irreplaceable as the newspapers' major distributors. These newsboys were different from the earlier generations of street waifs. The wholesale price increase in Hearst's "Journal" and Pulitzer's "World" lead to the strike. The first reported events of the strike were in Long Island City when newsies discovered the deliveryman had been cheating them and giving them a short count on their bundles of papers. Morris Cohen may have led the strike in Manhattan. The newsboys prevented the delivery wagons from leaving with papers. The "Journal" and "World" were reluctant to take the strike seriously at first.