Month: February 2019

Hellraisers Journal: Fight Against Employment Sharks is on in Spokane, “The I. W. W. Storm Center for the West”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
Share

Quote JH Walsh, re Employment Sharks, IUB p1, Feb 27, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 28, 1909
Spokane, Washington – I. W. W. Takes on Employment Sharks

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 20, 1909:

“STORM CENTER OF THE WEST”

IWW Gen Adm Emblem, IUB, Mar 14, 1908

The I. W. W. storm center for the West just now appears to be Spokane, Washington. The very great activity of the fellow workers of that city is noticeable at General Headquarters in frequent orders and remittances for due stamps, membership books, buttons and other supplies, as well as Bulletins and other literature. Their fight against the employment bureau sharks continues unabated, and with growing sentiment against those institutions.

Fellow worker James Wilson, secretary of the Central Committee of the Spokane locals, writes on Dec. 19: “Over 100 members have joined here this last week,” and again on Dec. 23, he says: “I can tell you in all sobriety that we are convinced that the success of the I. W. W. in this part of the country will be amazing from now on, and I flatter myself that I am not visionary.”

J. J. Stark writes Dec. 23 in behalf of Local 222: “We are going to move into a larger hall about the first of the year, where the rent will be $125 per month, while formerly we only paid $30. However I think that the increasing membership will warrant the move. Walsh is still with us and is doing great work. He has just received a telegram from Whitehead to come on the first train to Seattle, and will leave at once. It appears that there is something doing among the loggers, and they need his services for a time.”

———-

[Photograph and paragraph breaks added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Fight Against Employment Sharks is on in Spokane, “The I. W. W. Storm Center for the West”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Debs on Deported Radicals: They are human beings, his brothers, & is ready to share their lot.

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
Share

Quote EVD re Deportations, Btt Dly Bltn p1, Feb 21, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 27, 1919
Terre Haute, Indiana – Eugene V. Debs on Deportations of Working Men

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 21, 1919:

Debs Brands Plot to Deport
Radicals “Crime of Crimes”
—–

Recalls Lincoln’s Birthday. Says Rail Splitter Was
Murdered by the Ruling Class, that Same Power That
Today Is Shipping Men Overseas Like Cattle Because
They Are Protesting Against Wage Slavery.
—–

By EUGENE V. DEBS.

EVD, Bstn Glb p3, Sept 13, 1918

Terre Haute, Ind., Feb. 12.-This is Lincoln’s birthday. It is a day rich with memory and dark with tragedy. Lincoln was and is the sweetest product of American soil. Like the Nazarene, he loved the poor, sympathized with the lowly, and was hated, vilified and finally murdered by the ruling class of his time.

The birthday of the immortal rail splitter is being celebrated in part by deportation from the land he loved of the men of honest toil, who, like himself, hated the money power and believed in government of and by and for the people. This is one of the beautiful ironies of capitalism. Its vaunted love of freedom is but the velvet cloak which conceals its iron-fisted despotism.

These men are charged by the ruling class and its prostitute press with being enemies of the government. Precisely the same charge that is being brought against these men today under capitalist despotism was brought against Abraham Lincoln by the slave power of his day. Lincoln was murdered by same power that is now tearing our brothers from their families and friends and shipping them over the wide seas like cattle for the crime of protesting against wage slavery and aspiring to walk the earth free men.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Debs on Deported Radicals: They are human beings, his brothers, & is ready to share their lot.” →

Hellraisers Journal: New Appeal Publishes “Ballad of Reading Jail” by Oscar Wilde, “Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written“

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Oscar Wilde, Poem Reading Goal p25, London 1898 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 26, 1919
The New Appeal Book Department Publishes Oscar Wilde’s “Reading Jail”

From The New Appeal of February 22, 1919:

Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written

Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Jail” Has Just
Been Published by The New Appeal Book Department

Oscar Wilde by Napoleon Sarony, 1882

“The Ballad of Reading Jail” [first published in 1898] will live as long as the English language. It is the greatest prison poem ever penned. This soul-stirring masterpiece of literature is the most overwhelming argument ever aimed against the terrible evil of capital punishment.

“The Ballad of Reading Jail” was written while Oscar Wilde was in a prison cell. One of the prisoners, sentenced to hang, and finally executed, so moved Wilde to the depths that he was inspired to write this ballad.

This poetical classic is the first of The New Appeal’s Pocket Series. We have printed this poem on fine book paper and have bound it handsomely. It is printed in a convenient form so that you will be able to slip it into your pocket and read it on the street car during your lunch hour or during any spare moments when you will want something that will be of more use to you than the usual trash with which one whiles away his time. A poem like this is not read once or twice. Those who know this tremendous masterpiece have it within reach so that they may return to it time and time again. By publishing this long, readable poem in this simple, bulkless from we enable you to carry it with you without bulging your pockets.

Oscar Wilde was a genius. Whatever may be said about him, no one has ever questioned his mastery of the English language and his ability to express the deepest emotions in the simplest, most compelling, manner conceivable.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New Appeal Publishes “Ballad of Reading Jail” by Oscar Wilde, “Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written“” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Red Special, Part II: 54 “Agitators” Reach New York on Deportation Train; Held Incommunicado

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote HOConnor, IWW Red Special Deportation Train, Stt Rev p154———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 25, 1919
Ellis Island – FWs, Deported on “Red Special,” Held Incommunicado

From The Survey of February 22, 1919:

The Deportations
[Part II]

IWW Deportees Recht Lowe for Defense, NY Tb p18, Feb 20, 1919

Who are the fifty-three men and one woman who reached New York city last week? It is difficult to tell, since they have been held incommunicado at Ellis Island since their ar rival on February 11 to noon of February 17, when this issue of the Survey went to press. All requests of friends, attorneys and representatives of the press to see them have been denied. A list giving their names, date of conviction and the reasons for deportation of each was, however, supplied to the press by Byron H. Uhl, acting commissioner of immigration at New York in the absence of Frederic C. Howe, who is in Europe.

According to this list, eleven have been found to be “members of or affiliated with an organization that advocates or teaches the unlawful destruction of property.” Eighteen were found actually “advocating or teaching the unlawful destruction of property.” Some of these are declared, also, to have been guilty of other offenses, such as advocating “the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of all forms of law.” Three are declared to be anarchists or to have taught anarchy. The remainder are charged with various offenses, most of them with being “likely to become public charges.” Several are said to be “morally unfit,” a few served prison terms before coming to this country, and one or two committed “crimes involving moral turpitude” within five years after entering.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Red Special, Part II: 54 “Agitators” Reach New York on Deportation Train; Held Incommunicado” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Red Special, Part I: “A Train Under Heavy Guard..Passed Swiftly Across the Continent from Seattle”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote HOConnor, IWW Red Special Deportation Train, Stt Rev p154———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 24, 1919
From Seattle to Ellis Island – The Red Special Deportation Train

From The Survey of February 22, 1919:

The Deportations
[Part I]

IWW, HdLn re Red Special Deportation Train, Chg Tb p1, Feb 10, 1919—–

FOR several days last week the eyes of newspaper readers were fixed upon a train under heavy guard that passed swiftly across the continent from Seattle. Persons who peered in at the windows (apparently no one was allowed to go aboard) remarked that most of the occupants looked foreign. Few were seen to smile. Apparently there was a commissariat on board, for “no food was taken aboard at Buffalo.” Reaching Hoboken, N. J., its occupants were hurried on board ferries and soon found themselves in the detention quarters of the United States Immigration Station, on Ellis Island, in New York harbor awaiting sailing to various corners of the earth.

The passengers on this curious journey have all been ordered to be deported from the United States. They constitute the vanguard of what is described as an “army of undesirable aliens” soon to leave our shores. For weeks the newspapers have been picturing the “great combing-out process” in which the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice are declared to be cooperating.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Red Special, Part I: “A Train Under Heavy Guard..Passed Swiftly Across the Continent from Seattle”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Chinese IWW Hall Raided in New York City; FWs Organized by Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
Share

Quote JH Walsh re Exclusion or IO, IUB p3, Apr 11, 1908———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 23, 1919
New York, New York – Chinese Fellow Workers Arrested and Deported

From the South Bend (Indiana) News of February 21, 1919:

RAID ON CHINESE I. W. W. MAY CAUSE DEPORTATIONS

IWW, Raid on Chinese FWs, EGF, Tresca, South Bend IN Ns p10, Feb 21, 1919

[Detail]

IWW, EGF, Tresca Organize Chinese FWs, South Bend IN Ns p10, Feb 21, 1919
I. W. W. Organizers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Harry Kelly, Jack Isaacson,
Carlo Tresca, and Frank Levy
—–

Thousands of Chinese in the United States may be deported as a result of the recent discovery in New York of an active Chinese branch of the I. W. W. Just as Chinese there prepared to sow discontent among their fellow countrymen by misrepresentation, intimidation and other means the police stepped in and obtained sufficient evidence to cause the deportation of four Chinese. In the round up of the Chinese I. W. W. fifteen prisoners were taken and eleven remained to be tried by the federal authorities. The Accompanying pictures shows some of the most prominent agitators.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Chinese IWW Hall Raided in New York City; FWs Organized by Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1919-Found Messaging Mooney Convention from Los Angeles

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Courts n Justice, ES2 p190, to Mooney Conv, Jan 14, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 22, 1919
Mother Jones News for January 1919
-Found in Los Angeles, California

On January 14th, Mother Jones sent a message from Los Angeles to the National Labor Convention for the defense of Tom Mooney which opened in Chicago on that date.

Telegram from Mother Jones:

Mother Jones, Eve Rv E Liverpool OH p2, Jan 4, 1919

January 14, 1919

To Ed Knockels,
166 Washington St.,
Chicago, Illinois

To the delegates in Convention greeting. May your resolutions be tempered with reason. Courts of our country must be exonerated. Convention must demand courts be cleansed of corporation judges. Place men on bench who will consider justice before dollars. Blot must be removed from courts. If the workers lose faith in courts then where are they to turn for justice.

Mother Jones.

———-

[Photograph added from The Evening Review (East Liverpool, Ohio) of January 4, 1919.]

From Nebraska’s Lincoln Daily Star of January 15, 1919:

LABOR RADICALS BADLY DEFEATED IN FIRST CLASH
—–

CHICAGO, Jan. 15.-After a fight which occupied the entire morning session the conservatives defeated the radicals by a vote or 2 to 1 today in organizing the national labor congress, called to consider plans for obtaining a new trial for Thomas J. Mooney, serving a life term for murder growing out of the San Francisco preparedness day parade bomb out rage.

[…..]

At the opening of today’s session Chairman Nolan made a plea for harmony and urged the delegates to speedily get to the consideration of the business for which the convention was called.

A message of greeting from “Mother” Jones at Los Angeles was read, in which she expressed the opinion that a rehabilitation of the country’s judicial system was necessary. “If labor loses confidence in the courts where can we turn for justice,” the message read.

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1919-Found Messaging Mooney Convention from Los Angeles” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Ohio Socialist: “Side Lights on The Seattle Strike” by An Observer

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Anna Louise Strong, NO ONE KNOWS WHERE, SUR p1, Feb 4, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 20, 1919
Notes on the Seattle General Strike from an Observer

From The Ohio Socialist of February 19, 1919:

Side Lights on Seattle Strike
By An Observer

Seattle General Strike, Solidarity by I Swenson, SUR p1, Feb 11, 1919

The five-day general strike of 70,000 Seattle workmen and working women brought about by the refusal of General Mgr. Piez of the Emergency Fleet Corporation to allow ship yard workers to negotiate directly with their employers and threatening to cut off the supply of steel to the local yards if they negotiated directly with the workers, was the most complete walkout that has ever occurred in America. At the same time it was the most peaceful.

The week’s mail has brought us some strike bulletins issued by the strike committee of the workers, and a personal letter from which we quote below. The whole tone of the bulletin is against any interference of the processes of the law or violence of any kind. It repeatedly advises the workers to “keep cool” and to visit the public libraries. The A. F. of L. takes entire responsibility for the strike though of course the I. W. W. and the Socialist Party were active participants.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Ohio Socialist: “Side Lights on The Seattle Strike” by An Observer” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Children in the Southern Cotton Mills” -Speech of Lewis Hine Illustrated with Lantern Slides

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Mother Jones Quote, Child Labor Man of Six Snuff Sniffer———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 19, 1909
New York, New York – Lewis Hine Speaks to Social Problems Club

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of February 15, 1909:

CHILDREN IN COTTON MILLS
—–
Lewis Hine Tells Social Problems Club
About Conditions in the South.
—–

Child Labor, L Hine, Noon Newberry Mills SC, Dec 1908
Noon hour at Newberry Mills of South Carolina.
All these children are working here.
Witness, Sara R. Hine.
—–

Before the Social Problems Club of the Young Women’s Christian Association, yesterday afternoon. Lewis Hine gave a lecture on the “Children in the Southern Cotton Mills.” The lecture was illustrated with lantern slides. Mr. Hine has worked in the Ohio valley and in the South investigating child-labor conditions. His camera has played an important part in his investigations, and the pictures shown yesterday were taken in mills of North and South Carolina and in Georgia. The speaker said that no little trouble is experienced with the superintendents and overseers of the factories in gaining admission and permission in take pictures. They are suspicious of all Northerners and are afraid that conditions existing in the mills will be exaggerated.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Children in the Southern Cotton Mills” -Speech of Lewis Hine Illustrated with Lantern Slides” →