Month: October 2016

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Reports to the Appeal to Reason from Oklahoma Territory

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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I have been on the firing line
of the industrial battle for years,
and when democratic bullets shot workingmen,
their blood watered the highways just the same
as when republican bullets shot them.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 21, 1906
Oklahoma Territory – Mother Jones Travels and Speaks

From the Appeal to Reason of October 20, 1906:

MESSAGE FROM MOTHER JONES
—–

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

Dear Appeal:-I want to report conditions as I find them in the new states. I entered the territory at Wilburton. There the democratic nominee for United States Senator was holding a meeting. The committee called on me and asked that the meetings be held jointly, as mine was also billed. I wanted to hear how he presented the struggle of the toiling millions from a democratic standpoint. He showed the wrongs of the republican party, and the beauties of his own. I followed, and showed up that they were both wings of the vulture class and if that class did not have both those wings they could not exist twenty-four hours. I explained to the audience that I had been on the firing line of the industrial battle for years, and that democratic bullets shot workingmen, and their blood had watered the highways just the same as when republican bullets shot them. The result was that a Socialist local of seventy of eighty members was organized soon after.

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Hellraisers Journal: Survivors of Minnesota First Agitate for Monument to Honor Colonel William J. Colvill

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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“Tis a task to write this letter,
Painful news have I to tell,
On the second day of battle,
Sergeant Philip Hamlin fell.”
-Mrs. S.D. Tandy

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 20, 1906
Minnesota First Volunteers Seek to Honor Departed Civil War Hero

From this week’s Duluth Labor World:

HONORING A DEPARTED HERO

William J Colvill, ab 1862, Cpt later Col MN 1st

The First Minnesota of the Civil War times will live in the annals of heroism as long as history records the battle of Gettysburg.

Among the foremost to do their full duty and more than their duty to their beloved country on that memorable day was Col. Colville [Colvill], the regimental commander, who was literally shot “full of holes,” but was finally nursed back to a longer life of marked usefulness and the respect of all men.

The Colonel went to his well earned reward one year ago and his surviving regimental comrades are agitating for the erection of a suitable monument to his memory. No better or more fitting monument to the departed has ever been proposed. May success crown the loving effort of the surviving brave.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones: “The United States has become the home of a race of dollar hogs.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Recently in New York, there was held a banquet
at which $15,000,000 was represented.
Not one of the men present at that banquet
ever produced one dollar’s worth.
All that they posses was taken
away from the toilers.

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 19, 1916
Moline, Illinois – Mother Jones Speaks and Encourages Illegal Street Music

From The Monmouth Daily Atlas of October 17, 1916:

Mother Jones, UMWJ, Feb 10, 1916

MOTHER JONES HAS A GOOD TIME
IN MOLINE
—–

Moline, Oct. 17. – “Mother” Jones needs music to start off her meetings.

Mayor Martin T. Carlson of Moline Saturday refused to issue a permit for a band to play Sunday afternoon on the streets but “Mother” Jones told the boys to go ahead. There was a musical program on the streets before the meeting and at a late hour this afternoon, city officials had taken no notice of the disregard to the mayor’s order.

The meeting at the Moline theater was a monster one and “Mother” Jones delivered one of her dynamic talks touching on several phases of modern life, touching political religious, civic and individual questions of the hour.

—–

[Photograph added.]

Mother Jones Interviewed by The Davenport News:

LABOR LEADER SCORES HUGHES, BOOSTS WILSON
—–
‘Mother’ Jones, National Celebrity,
in Davenport for Short Time.
Decries Past Conditions.
—–
Says U. S. Home of Nation of ‘Dollar Hogs’
Holding Down Toilers.
—–

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Hellraisers Journal: AWO Wrapping Up Season in Harvest Fields, Turns Attention to Lumber Workers

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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The boss will be leery, the “stiffs” will be cheery
When we hit John Farmer hard
They’ll all be affrighted, when we stand united
And carry that Red, Red Card.
-Richard Brazier

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday October 18, 1916
From the Harvest Fields to the Lumber Camps: A. W. O. #400

The October 1916 edition of the International Socialist Review reports:

Harvest Workers, Farmer John, ISR Oct 1916
The Militant Harvest Workers

HUNDREDS of swarthy faced, hard muscled harvest workers are now turning their backs upon a hard summer’s work and are bound for the lumber camps and mills in the northwest, where they will be heard from during the coming winter.

The Agricultural Workers Organization, better known among the farmers as Local 400 I. W. W., is closing its second year’s work 20,000 strong. The members are going to carry their organization with them into the lumber camps and on construction work. Thus insuring not only the continued growth of the organization, but new unions in other industries. In spite of the fact that crops were small in North and South Dakota, the boys were able to enforce job control on half of the machines, making $3.50 per day for ten hours’ work.

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Hellraisers Journal: Men like the Rockefellers and Morgans “are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Bayonne Strike, Reap the Whirlwind, Dante Barton, NY Call, Oct 12, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 17, 1916
From the New York Call: A Warning from Dante Barton

Henry Dubb Crucify Agitator, R Walker, NY Call Oct 15, 1916

The New York Call (Socialist) of October 12th published a warning to the American people regarding the strike situation in Bayonne, New Jersey, from Dante Barton of the Committee on Industrial Relations:

As for the American people:

Is it not time that the American people should awaken to the essential brutality of millionaires and billionaires running their business on the principle that they cannot and will not pay their hardest-worked workers enough to give them a decent living? Ought we any longer to have business on terms in which it is considered respectable for that sort of treatment to be given to workers? The majority of these Polish workers receive now $2.50 a day, which, with the increased cost of living, does not give them enough for a profitable living.

And as for big business:

When these Polish workers have the ambition and the fine qualities to strike against that degraded condition in life, gunmen and special policemen, armed with guns and machine guns, are rushed against them, and the workers are abused because they have manhood and courage.

This sort of industrial injustice, if it is not cured and overthrown, must necessarily lead to the kind of revolutionary disorder that men like the Rockefellers and Morgans consider so terrible. Men like these are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Men like the Rockefellers and Morgans “are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Standard Oil Strikers Yet Again Shot Down in the Streets of Bayonne, New Jersey

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 16, 1916
Bayonne, New Jersey – Strikers Shot Down Yet Again

From the Duluth Labor World of October 14, 1916:

Bayonne Strikers Killed, Labor World, Oct 14, 1916

EIGHT OIL STRIKERS
AND FOUR GUARDS ARE KILLED
—–

Bayonne by Robert Minor, Mother Earth, Aug 1915

BAYONNE, N. J., Oct. 12.-Police, armed with Winchesters, automatics and sawed off shotguns patrolled the “hook district,” near the Standard Oil company’s plants, where eight strikers and four police men were wounded during a clash between the armed guards and employes of the company, yesterday.

The fighting occurred when several hundred strikers pushed a flat car across a street car track in an attempt to block traffic and isolate the entire industrial district, at the lower end of the long peninsula on which the city lies. Eighty guards, armed with Winchesters and sawed-off shotguns, rushed the strikers in an attempt to remove the car.

Throughout the district, which was a storm center in a similar strike of Standard Oil workers, years ago [July 1915], when six strikers were killed, police and strikers alike, attempted to draw picket lines today.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Victory” in Europe by Boardman Robinson for The Masses

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your own little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
-Bob Dylan

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 15, 1916
The War in Europe by Boardman Robinson

From The Masses of October 1916:

Europe at War, B. Robinson, Masses, Oct 1916

Detail:

Victory in Europe, B. Robinson, Masses, Oct 1916

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Hellraisers Journal: Darrow Appears Before U. S. Supreme Court on Behalf of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 14, 1906
Washington, District of Columbia – State Kidnapping Challenged

The Appeal to Reason of October 13th published a good part of the brief presented by Attorneys Murphy, Darrow, and Richardson on behalf of Fellow Workers Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone before the U. S. Supreme Court. The attorneys for the defense seek to free the men who were kidnapped from their homes as part of a plot perpetrated by the governors of Colorado and Idaho to deprive the men of their constitutional rights. The brief takes up an entire page of this issue of the Appeal, and we, therefore, offer this summary:

HMP Brief bf US Supreme Court, AtR, Oct 13, 1906

We ask and we believe that the action of the supreme court of the state of Idaho and of the circuit court of the United States, sitting in and for the state of Idaho, will be reversed, and that they will be directed to sustain the writs and direct the release of the prisoners, with an opportunity to them of returning to the state from which they were kidnaped by the conspiracy, confederation and agreement of the governors of the states of Idaho and Colorado, for the overthrow and in avoidance of a provision of the constitution of the United States and an act of congress made pursuant thereto.

Respectfully submitted.
JOHN H. MURPHY.
CLARENCE S. DARROW.
EDMUND F. RICHARDSON,
Counsel for Appellants and Plaintiffs in Error.

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Hellraisers Journal: Correspondent for Montana News Reports on Pinkerton Plot to Murder Steve Adams

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 13, 1906
Wallace, Idaho – Steve Adams Fights Pinkerton Frame-Up

From Isaac Cowan in the October 11th edition of the Montana News:

Steve Adams On Trial
—–

Montana News Special Correspondent Reports
McPartland’s Murderous Schemes

Montana News, ed Ida Crouch-Hazlett, Oct 11, 1906

After a preliminary hearing before Probate Judge Boomer, Steve Adams is bound over to the district court, which meets Oct. 15. When I arrived in Wallace, Idaho, Sept. 26, the city was full of detectives, headed by the notorious James McPartland [McParland], alias Jim McKenna, of the Pinkerton-Mollie Maguirs [Molly Maguires] fame, who is now trying to railroad Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone, officials of the Western Federation of Miners, to the gallows. Steve Adams, who was arrested shortly after Harry Orchard’s alleged confession charging the miners’ officials with being implicated in the murder of ex-Governor Steunenburg, is now charged with the murder of an alleged claim jumper named Fred Tyler.

McPartland’s Sleuthing.

Adams had been relied upon by McPartland and Governor Gooding to corroborate Orchard’s confession, or the main part of it, and was being held in jail (with his wife, Mrs. Adams, being kept in the woman’s ward for that purpose.)

Adams denies that there was or is any truth in what McPartland and Gooding say he swore to, and says that the statements about his knowledge of the guilt of the officers of the miners was written up by McPartland or Gooding, or both; and he was compelled to swear to them by threats of Governor Gooding, who stated that if the people of Colorado got hold of him he would be mobbed and killed. All of this Adams has given out through signed documents, witnessed to by Mrs. Adams, his wife, and handed to J. W. Lillard, Adams’ uncle, a sick ranchman in Washington, and is now in the hands of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone’s attorneys. On application Adams was immediately released on a writ of habeas corpus, but was at once arrested for the murder of Fred Tyler.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1916: Stumps for Wilson & Kern in Indiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The miners need no angel.
They are living in hell
and they want to raise hell.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 12, 1916
Mother Jones Found in Indiana During Month of September

Mother Mary Harris Jones, Logansport, IN, Sept 27, 1916

Mother Jones spent the much of the month of September 1916 in Indiana campaigning for the re-election of both President Wilson and Senator Kern. But before beginning our coverage of Mother’s activities in Indiana, we found an article from an Arizona newspaper which complained of her campaign on behalf of the re-election of Governor Hunt in that state.

Hellraisers Journal of September 2nd republished an article from the September 1st edition of the Graham Guardian of Safford, Arizona, which expressed much outrage over “The Stormy Petrel” and the bad language use by the supposedly foul-mouthed union agitator at a rally held in Phoenix on August 21st. The Guardian claimed that Mother campaigned as much for whiskey as she did for Governor Hunt.

Hellraisers Journal of September 5th republished two interviews with Mother Jones conducted while she was in Evansville, Indiana, to speak at the city’s Labor Day Celebration. Mother Jones declared herself in favor of the re-election of President Wilson and the Indiana Senator, John Kern. She demanded the six-hour day, and, on the subject women and the economic struggle she stated:

The problem of this age is not suffrage, not feminism, not liquor: it’s the industrial question. That’s the nation’s disease, that has bred nearly every war of mankind, for most wars are wars fought for capital.

You never can change the situation in which those who toil are illfed and ignorant, until woman is awakened to the economic situation in this country. She is by nature more human than man. When she becomes more enlightened to real labor conditions in this country, she will not rest until every child is well fed, well clothed and well educated.

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