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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 8, 1919
Rutgers Square, New York City – Rally for Release of Eugene Debs
From the New York Tribune of April 6, 1919:
—–
Soviet Republic Here Certain,
‘Reds’ Predict
—–We Shall Not Rest Until Doctrines of Russia
Are in Operation in America,
Debs Adherents Declare
—-General Strike Is Urged
—–Agitators Call for Walkout on Day Leader
Is Sent to Jail for Ten-Year Term
—–“We shall not rest till the Soviet Republic of America is established!”
To a little knot of 300 East Siders who had gathered in Rutgers Square yesterday to “demand the release of Eugene V. Debs,” Fred Biedenkamp, of the Brotherhood of Metal Workers, flung forth the phrase. It came almost at the beginning of the meeting and it set the key for all that followed.
“What we want to talk about now,” cried Joseph Caldwell, state secretary of the Socialist party in Rhode Island, a man convicted under the espionage act, but now out on bail pending appeal, “what we want to talk about now is Russianizing the United States.”
Flag Called No Protection
A little later he added:
We, the workers, have fought for every country and have no country. The American flag is no protection to the workers. It protects those who own property under it. We want a flag that will protect the working class. We want a dictatorship of the proletariat.
“It would be well for you to take your eyes off Russia, ” counselled Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, speaking of radicals now serving prison sentences, “and think about yourselves.”
[…..]
“We Want the Earth!”
[Said Biedenkamp:]
The only time we’ll get democracy in this country is when we say to the capitalists, “Either you’re for us or against us,” and send them on the same road the Kaiser has taken. But don’t get so self-centered that you think it’s only America we want to bring real democracy to. It must be for the world. We want the earth-and sooner or later we’re going to get it.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn declared that the United States is lagging behind every other nation in the world in granting amnesty to political prisoners, of whom she said there are now over 2,000 in jail, and she urged her hearers to make the release of these people the “burning question” of East Side agitation
[…..]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, Rebel Girl p96
https://books.google.com/books?id=TK2y0I-E9EkC
https://libcom.org/files/rebel-girl-autobiography.pdf
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Apr 6, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/79050433/
See also:
Workers Defense Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_Defense_Union
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Rebel Girl – Hazel Dickens
Lyrics by Joe Hill & Hazel Dickens