Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 27, 1921 Leavenworth, Kansas – Fellow Workers Report to Prison Voluntarily
From The Leavenworth Times of April 26, 1921:
PRISON WELCOMES TWENTY WOBBLIES TO ITS ROCK PILE. ———-
INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF WORLD REPORTED VOLUNTARILY YESTERDAY. ———-
SAY ‘HAYWOOD IS COMING’ ———-
Charles Ashleigh, Oxford Graduate, Ralph H. Chaplin, Artist-Poet, Ben Fletcher, Walking Delegate and Other “Leading Lights” Among Those Who Re-Entered Federal Penitentiary -Several Refuse to Believe “Big Bill” Fled to Escape Sentence. ———-
Twenty of the forty-six Industrial Workers of the World, convicted for violation of the espionage law and obliged to return to the Federal penitentiary because the United States supreme court denied an appeal on a trial review, reported voluntarily yesterday.
“Haywood will be here soon,” declared most of the “wobblies,” who reported yesterday. They refuse to believe that “Big Bill,” their international secretary and chieftain, fled to Russia to escape the prison sentence of five to twenty years.
Stanley J. Clark, Chicago attorney, under sentence of ten years, was the first to report. He arrived yesterday morning from Fort Worth, Tex. Charles Bennett, also under sentence of ten years, was the twentieth man to report, being “dressed in” at 5 o’clock yesterday evening.
Twelve “wobblies” marched through the prison gates in one group. Among the twelve were Ben Fletcher, walking delegate for the I. W, W. and the only colored man in the entire consignment Charles Ashleigh, Englishman and graduate of Oxford University, and Ralph H. Chaplin, artist and poet, who was detailed by the “wobblies” to investigate the Centralia, Wash., conspiracy. Nizra Pietro [Pietro Nigra], who drew the shortest sentence, only ten months, also reported.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 26, 1921 Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1921 -Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Will Swear as Needed
From The Grand Rapids Press of March 15, 1921:
MOTHER JONES WILL SWEAR
IF IT IS REQUIRED ———-
“Mother” Jones, for many years a labor leader of national repute, arrived in Grand Rapids Tuesday noon for her first visit to this city in 20 years. She was a guest at the Eagle hotel and lunched at noon with a group of local labor leaders and their wives. During the afternoon she spoke at Trades and Labor council hall on general labor conditions in the United States, being introduced to the Grand Rapids audience by D. B. Hovey. Tuesday evening she will give another address at the Railway Workers’ union.
Grand Rapids labor circles greeted the venerated leader in a spirit of tribute for her many years of service in the cause of labor. She is a picturesque figure, but in spite of her flat bonnet and old-fashioned dress the impression the white haired old lady gives is not that of quaintness but of power, for the lines of her face are very strong and certainly she has a mind of her own. Though 85 years old she is more active than many persons much younger.
Mother Jones said she never knows what she is going to say to an audience until she faces it.
[She said:]
I’m not one of those orators that prepare a speech beforehand. I have to see what the folks I’m going to talk to look like first. If they’re a lot of roughnecks like us not I’ll swear at ’em.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1921 Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1921 -C. H. Newell Claims Mother Jones is Helping to Make Mexico Safe
From the Salt Lake Telegram of February 1, 1921:
MAKING MEXICO SAFE PLACE FOR ALL ———- Obregon, Villareal, Gompers and “Mother Jones” Fight Bolshevism ———
By C. H. NEWELL
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-Mexico’s “big four” are Obregon, Gompers, Villareal and Mother Jones.
They’re making Mexico safe for Americans and American business.
The great American drive to capture the immensely rich Mexican trade is on full blast…..
“MOTHER” IS HELPING.
Mother Jones, America’s 90-year-young labor leader, is helping to put the skids under bolshevism in Mexico.
Her visit to Mexico, at first hailed with glee by Communist party organizers, has resolved itself into a characteristic crusade for trade union organization.
This means, employers and government officials say, a better chance for the Obregon administration to get the country back on a productive basis.
[Mother Jones says:]
Education is the fundamental need of Mexico. I’m down here to preach the gospel of education for workers.
When they get education they will know how to act to achieve full industrial as well as political rights. And the agency through which they will make the most rapid, peaceful progress is the Pan-America Labor federation, backed as it is by the American Federation of Labor.
This is what Mother Jones told the communists at the labor convention:
SAYS IT IS BEST.
Uncle Sam’s government may not be perfect, but it is the best one on earth today. So you rats may just as well understand that if you open your mouths against my country, I will grab you by the collar, drag you out of your hole, and shake hell out of you.
Mother Jones is the personal guest of General Antonio Villareal, who, as secretary of agriculture, is trying to restore farming and ranching pursuits, with real success.
Several years ago an effort was being made by mining and timber interests of northern Mexico have Villareal deported from the United States. His deportation would have meant his death.
Mother Jones made a trip to Washington in his behalf and he was not deported.
Villareal has been one of the foremost in restoring mail, wire, railway and ship service, so all important lines of communication are now open in the country.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 24, 1911 Stories from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
From The Outlook of April 15, 1911:
THE FACTORY GIRL’S DANGER
BY MIRIAM FINN SCOTT
On Friday evening, March 24, two young sisters walked down the stairways from the ninth floor where they were employed and joined the horde of workers that nightly surges homeward into New York’s East Side. Since eight o’clock they had been bending over shirt-waists of silk and lace, tensely guiding the valuable fabrics through their swift machines, with hundreds of power driven machines whirring madly about them; and now the two were very weary, and were filled with that despondency which comes after a day of exhausting routine, when the next day, and the next week, and the next year, hold promise of nothing better than just this same monotonous strain.
“Operators Wanted. Inquire Ninth Floor.”
They were moodily silent when they sat down to supper in the three-room tenement apartment where they boarded. At last their landlady (who told me of that evening’s talk, indelibly stamped upon her mind) inquired if they were feeling unwell.
“Oh, I wish we could quit the shop!” burst out Becky, the younger sister, aged eighteen. “That place is going to kill us some day.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 23, 1911 New York, New York – Blanck and Harris Indicted for Manslaughter
From The Outlook of April 22, 1911:
Indictments in the Asch Fire Case
Last week the Grand Jury of New York found indictments against the proprietors of the Triangle Waist Company, Issac Harris and Max Blanck. These two men constitute the firm who employed the factory operatives of whom 143 [146] lost their lives in the terrible disaster in Washington Place, New York, on March 25.The indictments against them are for manslaughter in the first and second degree, and they are based, so the District Attorney states, on what he believes to be strong evidence that some at least of the doors through which the girls might have escaped were habitually kept locked and were locked at the time of the fire.
The law requires that doors in such a factory shall open outwardly where practicable, and shall not be locked, bolted, or fastened during working hours. The evidence before the coroner’s jury has been conflicting on this point, but the Grand Jury, it is asserted, had before it a fragment of a tightly locked door. Meanwhile, Mr. Whitman, the District Attorney, laid before the Grand Jury the testimony of witnesses who stated that the doors on the Washington Place side of the building were kept locked, and the Italian Consul is reported to have taken affidavits of many Italian girls who swore that the Washington Place doors were locked and never used for exit.
It is further asserted that it is capable of proof that two girls in particular lost their lives directly because these doors were locked.
We need not point out that the men accused are entitled to a suspension of opinion until they are actually tried. Whatever may be the facts in this case, there is considerable evidence that it is deplorably common custom for doors in similar establishments to be locked.
Immediately after the fire The Outlook quoted from the report of a special committee made up from the Cloakmakers’ Union and the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association. It stated that they had found twenty-two shops in which the doors leading to the hall and stairways were locked during the day, while other provisions of law were constantly violated in a much larger number of shops.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 22, 1921 Chicago, Illinois – Federal Officials Confirm Haywood is in Russia
From The Leavenworth Post of April 21, 1921:
(By The Associated Press.)
Chicago, April 21.-Federal officials today received confidential information that William D. Haywood, secretary of the Industrial Workers of the World who was scheduled to begin a sentence at United States penitentiary, at Leavenworth this week, had fled from the United States and now is in either Moscow or Riga.
Attorney Admits Departure.
Otto Christensen, attorney for Haywood, said he had been informed that Haywood sailed from New York on the Oscar Second about April 1, and landed at Riga about April 16. He said he thought Haywood had gone to Russia on a personal mission and was not fleeing from the penitentiary sentence.
Authorities Start Search.
Charles F. Clyne, United States district attorney announced that search had been started for Haywood.
“He is not at Leavenworth, Chicago, nor New York, and we have private information that he has landed either at Moscow or Riga,” said Clyne.
“That is all we know about it but we expect to have definite information very quickly.”
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 21, 1911 Calexico, California – Stanley Dies of Wounds Received Fighting Tyrant Diaz
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 20, 1911:
Stanley Dead.
Captain Stanley, a member of the I. W. W., a Spokane Free Speech fighter, a deserter from the United States army, and a rebel against the rule of the despot Diaz, has been shot to death. He was killed while leading his 80 men against an army of 500 Mexican soldiers armed with machine guns. Had it not been for the rapid-fire machine guns the 500 federal soldiers would have been put to route. Stanley has left a heritage to his relations and to his union. He lived and died a man battling for freedom. He has gone where thousands of others have gone who have dared to “beard the lion in his den.”
To desert the army that is used for the express purpose of defending the private interests of a lot of multi-millionaires, was an honorable act. To join an army that was fighting for the right to live on nature’s soil was creditable. To die an I. W. W. man was proof of the recognition of the class struggle and that the interest of one worker was the interest of all workers. When enough workers can say that they would follow in the footsteps of William Stanley, it would be to say that the days of murdering each other would be over and a brighter day ushered in for the toiling millions. We doff our hat to our dead fighter and to all the workers who were with him in his memorable charge of the brave 80 reds.
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DIED FOR LIBERTY
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WM. STANLEY COMMANDER OF THE REDS, DIES FIGHTING FOR LIBERTY.
Imperial, Cal., April 10th, 1911.
General William Stanley, commander-in-work in the shape of extending the I. W. W. victorious over great odds, but when the recent battle was over he was brought across the line to Calexico to die. He is said to have been almost shot to pieces. He was one of the Spokane prisoners, one of the first six who went from Brawley to Spokane. Afterward he was for a while secretary of the Imperial branch. A noble, true fellow he was, brave and sincere as a revolutionists, genial and generous as a friend. He had but lately been commissioned as a general, having won fame while a captain, so mush so that the tyrant Diaz set a high price on his head.
Our fellow worker and fellow soldier is at rest, but like John Brown, “his soul goes marching on.”
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———-“Mother” Jones, for many years a labor leader of national repute, arrived in Grand Rapids Tuesday noon for her first visit to this city in 20 years. She was a guest at the Eagle hotel and lunched at noon with a group of local labor leaders and their wives. During the afternoon she spoke at Trades and Labor council hall on general labor conditions in the United States, being introduced to the Grand Rapids audience by D. B. Hovey. Tuesday evening she will give another address at the Railway Workers’ union.
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