Month: June 2022

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part II

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 20, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign

[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part II:]

Ad Socialist Picnic Riverview Park, Chicago, EVD to Speak, Inter Ocn p33, June 16, 1912The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.

The platform adopted by the convention is a clear and cogent enunciation of the party’s principles and a frank and forceful statement of the party’s mission. This platform embodies labor’s indictment of the capitalist system and demands the abolition of that system. It proclaims the identity of interests of all workers and appeals to them in clarion tones to unite for their emancipation. It points out the class struggle and emphasizes the need of the economic and political unity of the workers to wage that struggle to a successful issue. It declares relentless war upon the entire capitalist regime in the name of the rising working class and demands in uncompromising terms the overthrow of wage-slavery and the inauguration of industrial democracy.

In this platform of the Socialist Party the historic development of society is clearly stated and the fact made manifest that the time has come for the workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world.

To this end the Socialist Party has been organized; to this end it is bending all its energies and taxing all its resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers and their sympathizers throughout the nation.

In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern industry it condemns poverty, idleness, and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilization it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child.

The Socialist Party knows neither color, creed, sex, or race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and downtrodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 19, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign

[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part I:]

Ad Socialist Picnic Riverview Park, Chicago, EVD to Speak, Inter Ocn p33, June 16, 1912

Friends, Comrades, and Fellow-Workers:— We are today entering upon a national campaign of the profoundest interest to the working class and the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the so-called Republican and the so-called Democratic parties. They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.

To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They-or rather it-stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.

Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.

We have before us in this capital at this hour an exhibition of capitalist machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have charged and proved upon one another. They are both good Republicans, just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats-and they are all agreed that socialism would be the ruination of the country.

Taft and Roosevelt in the exploitation of their boasted individualism and their mad fight for official spoils have been forced to expose the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the American people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for, and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers.

What difference is there, judged by what they stand for, between Taft, Roosevelt, LaFollette, Harmon, Wilson, Clark, and Bryan?

Do they not all alike stand for the private ownership of industry and the wage slavery of the working class?

What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Republican or Democratic political machine of capitalism is in commission?

That these two parties differ in name only and are one in fact is demonstrated beyond cavil whenever and wherever the Socialist Party constitutes a menace to their misrule. Milwaukee is a case in point and there are many others. Confronted by the Socialists these long pretended foes are forced to drop their masks and fly into each other’s arms.

The baseness, hypocrisy, and corruption of these twin political agencies of Wall Street and the ruling class cannot be expressed in words. The imagination is taxed in contemplating their crimes. There is no depth of dishonor to which they have not descended-no depth of depravity they have not sounded.

To the extent that they control elections the franchise is corrupted and the electorate debauched, and when they succeed to power, it is but to execute the will of the Wall Street interests which finance and control them. The police, the militia, the regular army, the courts, and all the powers lodged in class government are all freely at the service of the ruling class, especially in suppressing discontent among the slaves of the factories, mills, and mines, and keeping them safely in subjugation to their masters.

How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage worker give his support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties? The emblem of a capitalist party on a workingman is the badge of his ignorance, his servility and shame.

Marshaled in battle array against these corrupt capitalist parties is the young, virile, revolutionary Socialist Party, the party of the awakening working class, whose red banners, inscribed with the inspiring shibboleth of class-conscious solidarity, proclaim the coming triumph of international socialism and the emancipation of the workers of the world.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign with Speech at Chicago’s Riverview Park, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Literary Digest: Treason, Reason, and the Acquittal of Blizzard at Charles Town, West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 18, 1922
Nations Newspapers Opine on Acquittal of William Blizzard

From The Literary Digest of June 17, 1922:

“TREASON” AND REASON

Billy Blizzard and Family, Lt Dg p14, June 17, 1922

THE NAME OF WILLIAM BLIZZARD, West Virginia miner, has been added to the few who have been tried in the United States for treason. Like most of the others, he was acquitted, yet, notes the Washington Herald, “there is plenty of reason to fear that if the case had been tried in Logan County he would have been found guilty and given the severest sentence possible on the treason charge.” That any fair-minded jury must acquit the youthful official of the United Mine Workers of America was obvious from the first to The Herald, the New York Times, and other papers, and why the indictment for treason was brought is more than The Times can understand. “Attorneys for Blizzard,” caustically observes the New York Evening World, “might have claimed that the crime charged was impossible, because no Government existed in West Virginia against which treason was possible.” “In fact,” agrees the New York Herald, “Government in West Virginia had broken down, and its power had passed in part to the mine operators.” The leaders of the union miners who marched against Logan and Mingo counties, last August, according to this paper, were manifestly trying to take the law into their own hands, “which the non-union coal operators, controlling the local government in the two counties, already had done.”

In the opinion of the conservative New York Times:

Whatever their offenses, the unionist miners and their leaders were not trying to subvert the Government of West Virginia in whole or in part. Logan County can scarcely be said to have been under the rule of law or to have had a republican form of government. Private war was answered by private war. Some constitutional guaranties appear to have been suspended by conspiracy of non-union operators. If there was any “treason,” it was on both sides; but there was no excuse for charging the leaders of the misguided invaders of Logan County with the highest of crimes.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Literary Digest: Treason, Reason, and the Acquittal of Blizzard at Charles Town, West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Coal Operators of Logan County Fail to Convict William Blizzard

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 17, 1922
Charles Town, West Virginia – William Blizzard Found Not Guilty of Treason

From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 15, 1922:

After a trial that lasted five weeks, a jury at Charles Town, West Virginia, returned a verdict of not guilty in the case against William Blizzard, who was charged by the Logan county coal operators with treason against the state of West Virginia. The jury reported its verdict at 9:30 Saturday night, May 27. The court room was crowded at the time, and when the verdict was read and it was learned that Blizzard was free the crowd broke out with cheers that shook the building. There was a wild demonstration. Friends lifted Blizzard from the floor and carried him on their shoulders, while hundreds of people shouted and cheered. The demonstration continued for fully an hour. Charles Town people joined with the miners who were present for the trial in marching up and down the streets of the town in celebration of the failure of the Logan county coal operators to carry out their purpose to send Blizzard and many other members of the United Mine Workers of America to the penitentiary.

Attorneys for the coal operators announced later that they would next try Rev. J. [E.] Wilburn on a charge of murder in connection with the march in August of last year, and his trial was set for Monday, June 12. They also said they would try President C. F. Keeney and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Mooney, also, on treason charge, but no date was fixed for their trials.

The coal operators failed miserably in their attempt to convict Blizzard, who is president of Sub-District 2, of District 17. They placed about 150 witnesses on the stand, but even with all of that array of help they were unable to convince the jury of level-headed and fair- minded citizens of Jefferson county that Blizzard was guilty of the high crime of treason. The fact is that as the trial progressed it was not so much Blizzard who was on trial as the coal operators themselves and their Logan county methods. The defense succeeded in bringing out before the jury a large amount of evidence showing how the coal operators run Logan county with the aid of their hired gunmen and thugs.

One of the bits of testimony that caused much resentment among those who heard it was given by an aviator. He was not connected with the army nor with any other military force, but was a private flyer. He testified that he flew his airplane over the miners’ camps in Logan county and that he dropped bombs on them. Some of these bombs were explosive and were filled with scraps of iron. Others were gas bombs. This aviator testified that he worked at this job four days and that the Logan county coal operators paid him $100 a day. Another witness testified that one of the gas bombs landed near his house, and that the gas sickened his wife and children, killed two pigs in his lot and withered the vegetation.

Attorneys for the coal operators decided to try Blizzard first because they believed they had a stronger case against him than any of the other defendants. If that was true, they have little chance to convict any one else.

It was evident that the coal operators failed to make much of a hit with the jury or with the people of Charles Town by permitting their witnesses to testify in regard to the activities of the armed guards and gunmen and the methods employed by Sheriff Don Chafin and his deputies in their handling of the mining situation in Logan county. Chafin was a witness for the prosecution, but even his evidence failed to convict Blizzard.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Coal Operators of Logan County Fail to Convict William Blizzard” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1912: Speaks in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Harriman Lines Shopmen’s Strike

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Wealth Power Government, Anaconda Standard p5, May 4, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1912
Found Speaking in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Shopmen’s Strike

From The Anaconda Standard of May 4, 1912:

URGES WORKERS TO JOIN THEIR FORCES
———-

MOTHER JONES ADDRESSES MEMBERS OF LOCAL UNION.
———-
IN INTEREST OF STRIKERS
———-
Speaker is well known as strike aider and
advocate of labor unions in general
-Speaks on behalf of Southern Pacific men.

Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912

Mother Jones, the strike worker and speaker for labor unions, was in the city yesterday in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. She addressed the members of the Mill and Smelter Men’s union at last night’s session. Mother Jones is known the world over. Last night she made a plea for the strikers on the Southern Pacific, stating that if this strike was lost it would be much harder to win the next. She said, in part:

I am here tonight in the interest of the strikers on the Harriman lines. From time immemorial all our wars were based on economic principles. It is a conflict between classes, and always has been. It is not a struggle between parties, it is class war. The great system you are grappling with the world has never known before. We are in the midst of a great industrial war such as the world has never seen before. Everything is changing; our newspapers, ideas, ways of living, ways of thinking and everything that is connected with us. What are our newspapers? Organs in the control of the ruling class.

We are producing more wealth today than ever before. We produce more wealth than ever did Rome or Greece. There is something wrong with the people when they let this wealth get in the hands of a few. Wealth is power, power rules, consequently we have a despotic government. The power is not in the government, but in Wall Street. The president who is elected is named two years before election by the banks on Wall street. The press is controlled by that power and it molds public opinion. The magazines are the same. Religion fits in with this system of the capitalists. You did not see any Salvation Army 60 years ago. It was not needed. The Salvation Army came with the controlling class. The same is true of the temperance movements. The controlling class needs these devices to keep the working class hypnotized so they cannot think. Everything is in conflict. We are all after the dollar. We betray ourselves for the dollar, as well as for a smile from the boss.

Mother Jones continued in a similar strain at some length. 

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[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May 1912: Speaks in Anaconda, Montana, on Behalf of the Harriman Lines Shopmen’s Strike” →

Hellraisers Journal: From Mother Earth, San Diego Edition: Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Describe Brutal Cossack Regime

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote re IWW FSF San Diego Tribune, Mar 4, 1912 fr Mother Earth p106, June 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 15, 1912
San Diego, California – Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Report on Free Speech Fight

From Mother Earth of June 1912:

Mother Earth Cv IWW San Diego FSF Edition, June 1912

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Mother Earth Contents p96, IWW San Diego FSF, June 1912

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Mother Earth, San Diego Edition: Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Describe Brutal Cossack Regime” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Advertise San Diego!” -Brutal Crimes Committed Against Men and Women Engaged in Free Speech Fight

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote re IWW FSF San Diego Tribune, Mar 4, 1912 fr Mother Earth p106, June 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 14, 1912
San Diego, California – Brutal Crimes Committed in Effort to Stop Free Speech Fight

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 13, 1912:

IWW San Diego FSF, List of Crimes, IW p4, June 13, 1912

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Advertise San Diego!” -Brutal Crimes Committed Against Men and Women Engaged in Free Speech Fight” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones at Charleston, West Virginia: “To me the conditions mean industrial war.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Life Work Mission, WV Cton Gz, June 11, 1912, per ISR p648, Mar 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 13, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrives, Visits Holly Grove at Paint Creek

From The Cincinnati Post of June 11, 1912:

Mother Jones WV , Cnc Pst p1, June 11, 1912

CHARLESTON, W. VA., June 11.–(Spl.)—Mother Jones, who has devoted half of her 80 years to an effort to soften the lot of the coal miners, is here to remain until the miners of the Paint Creek section get some redress from the conditions which have made it necessary for them to appeal to Governor Glasscock.

Paint Creek is 18 miles long and is flanked by a score of mine operations, which usually employ thousands of miners. Idleness has reigned in the district since April 1. Now the operators have 100 guards patrolling the creek in an effort to crush out unionism among the West Virginia miners. It is only in this section that the miners have been strong enough to organize.

Condemns the System

“I am going to stay here all week and dig down to the bottom of this trouble,” said Mother Jones, who arrived Sunday from Colorado.

She began by addressing a mass meeting of miners Sunday at Holly Grove.

[She declared:]

It is not the individual we are after, it is the system.

In West Virginia the “system” has been to crush out organized labor by the bludgeon and rifle in the hands of guards, paid by the operators and sworn in by the State as Deputy Sheriffs.

[Said Mother Jones:]

To me the conditions mean industrial war. You may beat a slave, but after a time a slave will revolt. Sane men do not undertake to violate property law, but sane men may be driven insane when hunger comes, if they are forced to fight. They reach the stage where they feel they might as well die as try to live under the conditions they are forced to submit to.

Homes Are Saddened

[The aged friend of the toiler continued:]

We hear a great deal about the right of women to vote. You can’t improve such conditions as exist here by extending the ballot to women. One of the great troubles is the loss of sunshine in the home. When a man gets home from work he should be greeted by a smile, but the women can’t smile under these conditions. It’s no wonder the criminal class is chiefly made up of young people.

Sheriff Smith, under instructions from Governor Glasscock, is keeping in close touch with Paint Creek, where it is believed a crisis is at hand.

It is believed Governor Glasscock will order out the militia if there is further loss of life.  One miner was killed and another seriously shot last week. Many have been beaten.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones at Charleston, West Virginia: “To me the conditions mean industrial war.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Women Strikers of Kalamazoo Corset Co. Jailed in Fight for Living Wage and Dignity on the Job

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1912
Kalamazoo, Michigan – Union Women Jailed Include Josephine Casey and Bella Yount

From The Coming Nation of June 8, 1912
-“A Familiar Strike Story” by Gertrude Barnum:

J Casey n B Yount Jailed re Kalamazoo Corset Strike, Cmg Ntn p11, June 8, 1911

Josephine Casey, General Organizer International Ladies’ Garment
Workers’ Union, seated, and Bella Yount, member Executive Board,
Corset Workers’ Union No. 82 in jail at Kalamazoo, Mich.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Women Strikers of Kalamazoo Corset Co. Jailed in Fight for Living Wage and Dignity on the Job” →

Hellraisers Journal: Denver Conventions Close; Western Federation of Miners and American Labor Union Favor Socialism

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Ed Boyce re Socialism f Workingman, WFMC 1902, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 9, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 11, 1902
Denver, Colorado – W. F. of M. and A. L. U. Conventions Favor Socialism

From the Lead City Daily Tribune of June 10, 1902:

Big Bill Haywood, Sec Tre, WFMC 1902, Btt Lbr Wld p4, June 9, 1902

Moyer Elected President.
———-

Denver, June 9.-The annual convention of the Western Federation of Miners adjourned last night. Edward Boyce refused to serve as president and Charles Moyer of Lead, S. D., was elected in his stead. The other officers elected follow: Vice president, E. D. Hughes, Butte, Mont.; secretary and treasurer, W. D. Haywood, Silver, City, Ida.

—————

[Emphasis and photograph added.]

From the Butte Labor World of June 9, 1902
-Convention Number:

FEDERATION OF MINERS FAVORS SOCIALISM
———-
Charles Moyer, of Lead, S. D., Is Elected President
-Ed Hughes, of Butte, Vice President
-Edward Boyce Retires from Office
———-

Officers Elected WFMC 1902, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 9, 1902

[Highlights from article.]

President Boyce, after a number of years of successful service as president, has retired. His successor, Charles Moyer of Lead, S. D., is regarded as a strong man, and one who will judiciously administrate the affairs of the organization…..

Paul Corcoran of Idaho, whose pardon as one of the Coeur d’Alene miners was effected through the miners, sent a warm and appreciative letter to the federation thanking it for assisting in rescuing him from prison…..

For favoring the pardon of Paul Corcoran a vote of thanks was extended to Governor Hunt and Secretary of State Basset of Idaho……

While the delegates upstairs at the Western Labor Union convention were discussing socialism and adopting it, those downstairs were debating the question with great vigor. The matter came up on the report of the committee on President Boyce’s report. John M. O’Neill of Cripple Creek was chairman, and recommended that President Boyce’s socialistic program be carried out in its entirety…

[T]he resolution and its political plans was adopted Wednesday morning….

One of the most significant actions of the Western Federation of Miners’ convention was the turning down by a unanimous vote the proposition of the American Federation of Labor for a reaffiliation of the two big bodies…..

A Gentle Refusal.

Secretary-Treasurer W. D. Haywood was instructed to notify the American Federation of Labor that in view of the action of the convention’s new departure in espousing socialism the invitation is respectfully declined…..

Ed Boyce Pres n re Socialism, WFMC 1902, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 9, 1902

—————

WESTERN LABOR UNION CHANGES ITS NAME
———-
Will Carry an Aggressive Fight into the Camp of
the American Federation of Labor
-President Dan McDonald is Re-elected
———-

[Highlights from article.]

Officers Elected ALUC Sec Tre Clarence Smith, Btt Lbr Wld p1, June 9, 1902

The American Labor union has closed its annual convention at Denver…..

The name of the organization has been changed from the Western Labor union to the American Labor union.

The gauntlet has been thrown down to the American Federation, and war will be waged all along the line.

The territory of the Western organization will be enlarged to take in great industrial bodies of the East…..

The union has been irrevocably pledged to socialism and independent political action [see resolution below, the platform of Socialist Party of America was adopted in its entirety]…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Denver Conventions Close; Western Federation of Miners and American Labor Union Favor Socialism” →