Month: January 2021

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Travels to Mexico with Fred Mooney, Will Attend Pan-American Labor Conference

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Un-Christ-Like Greed, IN DlyT Ipls p1, July 15, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 11, 1921
Mexico City – Mother Jones Attends Pan-American Labor Conference

From The Pittsburg Press of January 9, 1921:

Mother Jones IN Dly Tx p1 crpd, July 15, 1920

“MOTHER” JONES WILL BE
OBREGON’S GUEST.
—–

Charleston, W. Va., Jan. 8.-Treasuring an invitation to be the guest of President Alvaro Obregon, of Mexico, during her stay in Mexico City, “Mother” Jones left here accompanied by Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of this district, to attend the Pan-American labor conference. She has been in West Virginia working among the miners for some time.

———-

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Travels to Mexico with Fred Mooney, Will Attend Pan-American Labor Conference” →

Hellraisers Journal: Poem for Eugene Debs by Edmund Vance Cooke, Written During the Trial of “Brave Eugene”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Debs Address to the Court, Sept 14, 1918

—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 10, 1921
“Eugene” By Edmund Vance Cooke
(Written in the courtroom while Debs was being tried.)

From the Appeal to Reason of January 8, 1921:

EVD POEM Eugene by EV Cooke, AtR p4, Jan 8, 1921

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Poem for Eugene Debs by Edmund Vance Cooke, Written During the Trial of “Brave Eugene”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on Lockout of Amalgamated Clothing Workers: “In the Employment Bureau”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———–

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 9, 1921
New York, New York – Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from Employment Bureau

From the Oklahoma Leader of January 3, 1921:
(Note: the leader is a member of Federated Press.)

IN THE EMPLOYMENT BUREAU
—–

BY MARY HEATON VORSE

ACW Lockout Strike 1920 to 1921, Girls Picket, NY Dly Ns p1, Dec 15, 1920
New York Daily News
December 15, 1920

In the employment bureau of the Amalgamated [Clothing Workers of America] on East Tenth street, groups of women gather every morning. There are bareheaded women, and smart, well dressed women, who look as if they had just stepped off Fifth avenue. In the same room Sicilian peasants meet and talk with advanced workers of Tuscan descent.

Labor contests are lost and won in such little groups. Put a dozen of them together and you have the temper of the people. It is not what people shout for in big meetings that always counts most, it’s what they say at home or among themselves in slack moments on gray, rainy mornings, waiting in the employment bureau.

Out of the murmur and talk a voice cuts with corroding sharpness: “Children! I haven’t any children! Children break strikes. The worker’s children make it easy for the employers to tramp us. The workers are afraid because they are afraid for the children. Look at our Sicilian women who have a baby every year. How terrible a strike is for them! Babies are scab makers and strikebreakers for a worker! I’ll not have babies to live wretched like me! Let the rich people have the children! Let the employers’ children do the work!“

The revolt in this woman was a hot blue flame. It never went out. It was a spirit like this that had taken the factories in Italy. With that example before her, what a scorn she had for the American workers.

“The people in this country lie down for the bosses to walk on. My husband he’s just come back from Italy. The workers here make me ashamed-when a policeman waves a club at a crowd they run; there it takes fifty guards to capture thirty workers.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on Lockout of Amalgamated Clothing Workers: “In the Employment Bureau”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1900: Found Leaving Pennsylvania on Her Way to Organize Miners of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Fight n Keep On, Hzltn Pln Spkr p4, Nov 15, 1900———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 8, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1900
Found in Leaving Pennsylvania, Headed for Coal Fields of West Virginia

From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of December 1, 1900:

WITH THE MINE WORKERS.
———-
“Mother” Jones Leaves For Virginia
–Dilcher, Here Next Week.

Mother Jones, at Her Lecture Stand, Detail, Phl Iq p1, Sept 24, 1900

Fred Dilcher, who is at present doing missionary work in the Lackawanna region will arrive in this city on Monday. Mr. Dilcher’s visit is for the purpose of organizing the brewery employees and clerks in Hazleton. The latter have been organized but very little interest has been taken in the local and not a meeting has been held since the union was formed. Benjamin James was present at the meeting and it was decided by a unanimous vote that a charter be applied for.

Through the Lackawanna, upper Luzerne and the greater part of Schuylkill all tradesmen have been organized and every craft is represented in the great Federation of Labor.

“Mother” Jones who has been among the miners hereabouts for some time is organizing them, leaves tomorrow morning for Montgomery, Virginia, where she will do missionary work.

[She said today:]

Conditions are worse in Virginia than anywhere, and the days of chattel slavery are nothing compared to the methods employed by the mine owners there in forcing their employees into subjugation.

Mrs. Jones informed a reporter today that she would not return to this region for several months, but she leaves Hazleton glad in the knowledge that the miners are happy and contented and that better conditions exist in the anthracite region than for many years…..

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for December 1900: Found Leaving Pennsylvania on Her Way to Organize Miners of West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Fresno Police Show Brutality”-by Fellow Worker Jack Whyte

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote John Whyte, re Fresno Aroused Working Class, IW p1, Dec 22, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 7, 1911
Fresno, California – Brutal Police, Fellow Workers Not Weakening

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of January 5, 1911:

Fresno FSF, 500 Men Wanted, Bnr HdLn IW p1, Jan 5, 1911

FRESNO POLICE SHOW BRUTALITY
———-

THE TRUTH JUST IN-MORE POLICE BRUTALITY-HELL IN FRESNO.
MEN ARE NOT WEAKENING.
———-

[-by Jack Whyte]

Fresno FSF, Plea for Men fr Jack Whyte, IW p1, Jan 5, 1911The last week has been a very busy one amongst the members on the firing line. The workers have been treated to all kinds of Christmas presents by their kind Christian masters, even your fellow members laying in jail. They had a hunger strike. Were treated to the Water Cure, first by the jailor and then by the fire department. They were compelled to walk around all night up to their knees in water, and then we had the slimy, reptile press of this city tell us the reason we were handed all those presents was that we used vulgar and obscene language towards the sheriff and his lackeys. (Great joke, isn’t it?) The following is the facts about the so-called riot and what led up to it.

On December 22 the police arrested a Frenchman (not a Mexican , as the papers stated), and charged him with drunkenness. When they brought him into the jail he was handcuffed. Four officers jumped on him, beating him up unmercifully. Our boys protested and they also protested against the actions of the sheriff, who stood idly by and made no attempt to stop this one-sided battle. This poor drunk was so badly beaten up that they did not dare take him up to court the next morning. For telling the sheriff and his lackeys what they thought of him, the boys were put on a bread and water diet, which they refused, preferring to go on a hunger strike.

At 3 p. m. on the 23d I was arrested and charged with vagrancy ad was an eyewitness and partaker of all that happened to the boys on December 23. 

At 4 p. m. they came around with the bread. The boys refused it. Some one proposed that we SING THE RED FLAG FOR SUPPER. We did. We kept on singing until a crowd of citizens gathered around the jail. We took this opportunity of addressing them through the bars. It was the largest street meeting we every had in Fresno. This was too much for the sensitive nerves of Day Jailor Jones. He proceeded to quiet the boys in the usual brutal way. He came down to the bull pen and turned the fire hose on the boys. We protected ourselves as best we could, using the mattress and blankets for a barricade. After playing this hose on the boys for two hours they only laughed at him for his trouble. He then called out the fire department. Then the trouble started.

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Hellraisers Journal: The World Tomorrow: “Sacco and Vanzetti” by Mary Heaton Vorse – A Visit to Dedham Jail

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 5, 1921
Dedham, Massachusetts – A Visit with Nicola Sacco, Gallant Fighter

From The World Tomorrow of January 1921:

Sacco and Vanzetti

By MARY HEATON VORSE

Ad Sacco n Vanzetti Defense, Liberator p2, Jan 1921WE drove through the sweet New England towns on our way to the jail in Dedham , where Nicola Sacco has been sitting for six months , deprived of all occupation, waiting his trial.

He is accused of having killed two men on April 15th and having made off in an automobile with $ 18,000 from the pay roll of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Plant in South Braintree. Labor is again on trial in Massachusetts.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti is also accused of this crime. But he is not in Dedham Jail because he has already begun serving a fifteen year sentence in Charlestown. On December 24th, 1919 , there was an attempted hold-up in Bridgewater of another shoe company. No arrests were made-not until May 5th, 1920. There were eighteen people who swore an alibi for Vanzetti. Eighteen people testified that on the afternoon and evening of December 24th Vanzetti was selling eels in Plymouth, for eels on Christmas Eve are to Italians what turkeys are to us on Thanksgiving. These witnesses knew Vanzetti very well, for he was a fish peddler in Oldtown, where they lived. But the testimony of these eighteen people did not count with the American jury. There were three people who identified Vanzetti as the man whom they had seen six months before driving in an automobile, from which shots were fired in Bridgewater. One of the women who identified Vanzetti was blind in one eye. But their identification convicted him.

As for Sacco, not one of the people brought in to identify him swear that this was the man they saw shooting, yet he is held without bail.

But Sacco and Vanzetti are offenders of another sort than criminal offenders. They have both taken an active part as labor leaders among the Italians. Not only were they gallant fighters, both of them, but they were inconveniently holding meetings about Salsedo– Salsedo, who went crazy—maybe—and on May 1st jumped from the fourteenth floor window of the Post Office Building in New York City, where he had been illegally detained by the Department of Justice agents for months—the only man who died in Mr. Palmer’s great May Day revolution. Among the Italians there is a ghastly suspicion that Salsedo did not jump-anyway, it was mighty inconvenient having young men holding meetings about him.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 4, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Garment Workers Strike Continues, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of January 1911:

Chg Garment Workers Strike Police v Strkrs crpd, ISR Cv Jan 1911

BY ROBERT DVORAK

[Part II of II.]

The most admirable and contagious strike meetings were held in thirty-seven various halls in the city and money was pouring in from all parts of the country, with letters of encouragement and promise of further aid when another blow, again from union headquarters, once more nearly demoralized the strikers.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 3, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Garment Workers Strike Continues, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of January 1911:

Chg Garment Workers Strike by Dvorak, Title Fighting, ISR p385, Jan 1911

[Part I of II.]

MAULED by city police, assaulted and beaten by armed, hired sluggers, shot by strike breakers and now being faced with a winter full of the horrors of cold and starvation, the striking garment workers of Chicago still remain undaunted.

Not even the best efforts of the mayor, the city council, the Chicago Federation of Labor and very influential persons, such as Raymond Robins and other “Good Samaritans” can force the “ignorant strikers” to accept meaningless but well worded terms of peace from the hard pressed renegades, Hart, Schaffner and Marx.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Fighting Garment Workers of Chicago by Robert Dvorak, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 2, 1921
Chicago, Illinois – Mary Heaton Vorse Has Supper with Convicted Fellow Workers

From The Liberator of January  1921:

Twenty Years

By Mary Heaton Vorse

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

RECENTLY in Chicago, after a meeting, I went to get a sandwich with a group of labor men. As I looked around the table, it came to me with a shock that I was the only person there, but one, who was not condemned to a long jail sentence. For all the people at the table were members of the Industrial Workers of the World convicted in the famous Chicago case.

Ralph Chaplin sat next to me. I had been talking only a few minutes before with his wife, a girl of extraordinary loveliness. She had not come out with us to supper because she had gone home to put her little boy of seven to bed. I had seen them standing all three together, only a half hour before.

Ralph Chaplin is a gifted idealist, a poet, as well as a man of action. His quality of uncompromising courage made me think of Jack Reed. It is upon such youth that the strength of a people is founded, men ready to suffer and with gifts to make people understand the beliefs which have stirred their hearts. And his wife is like him. It made you feel right with life to see them together. They face a 20-year sentence.

Ralph Chaplin is to be put in jail because he belonged to an industrial union, a legal organization.

Ralph Chaplin was Editor of “Solidarity.” And that is why he was given twenty years. It was a pretty bad crime for anyone to hold a red card. The talented ones were selected for 20-year sentences. Apparently Judge Landis could not bear that a man of attainments and gifts should belong to the organization of the I. W. W.

Charles Ashleigh is another poet. What had he done? He had been an I. W. W. He has a sentence of five years. He was one of those against whose sentence even Captain Lanier of the Military Intelligence protested. One wonders if the Captain had ever read the poem by his distinguished relative, called “Jacquerie.” And so Charles Ashleigh is among those who are slated for Leavenworth, where he has already spent two years.

Opposite me sat George Hardy, the. General Executive Secretary. He was one of those who got off easy. He only got a year and he has already served his sentence. No one knew exactly why some got long sentences or why some got short ones.

Bill Haywood, at the head of the table, as a matter of course was given the maximum sentence; that means a death sentence if it is carried out.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case” →