Author: Janet Raye

Hellraisers Journal: As Jury Selection Continues in Chicago, New York Tribune’s Full-Page Article Finds IWW Guilty, II

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Quote Ralph Chaplin"all the world that's owned", Leaves
-Ralph Chaplin
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 17, 1918
As Chicago Trial Continues, IWW Found Guilty by Kept Press, Part II

Today we offer the conclusion of our two-part series featuring the article by Boyden R. Sparkes which appeared as a full-page spread in the April 14th edition of the New York Tribune.

THE I. W. W.: AN X-RAY PICTURE

Chicago Trial Shows Searing Sparks from the Anvil Where Industrial-Military Power is Being Forged Endanger Progress-
Sabotage, Malcontents’ Principal Weapon,
a Menace to Farm, Factory and Home.

By Boyden R. Sparkes
Chicago, April 13, 1918.

[Part II]

WWIR, IWW Leaders BBH StJ BF etc, NYTb p28, Apr 14, 1918

WWIR, IWW Leaders Sketched in Court by MM Evers, NYTb p28, Apr 14, 1918

—–

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Hellraisers Journal: As Jury Selection Continues in Chicago, New York Tribune’s Full-Page Article Finds IWW Guilty

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The worst thief is he who steals
the playtime of children.
Join the I. W. W. and help put
the thieves to work.
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday April 16, 1918
As Chicago Trial Continues, IWW Found Guilty by Kept Press

Today we offer Part One of the following article by Boyden R. Sparkes which appeared as a full-page spread in the April 14th edition of the New York Tribune. We will conclude tomorrow with Part Two.

THE I. W. W.: AN X-RAY PICTURE

Chicago Trial Shows Searing Sparks from the Anvil Where Industrial-Military Power is Being Forged Endanger Progress-
Sabotage, Malcontents’ Principal Weapon,
a Menace to Farm, Factory and Home.

THE I. W. W. PRINCIPLES AS SHOWN IN THEIR OWN CARTOONS

By Boyden R. Sparkes
Chicago, April 13, 1918.

WWIR, IWW, Sabotage Beware, NYTb p28, Apr 14, 1918

OUT in the hill country of Oklahoma last August a group of tenant farmers and oil field workers were just a little too quick on the trigger, and what Federal officials believe was intended to have been a country-wide uprising of American “Bolsheviki” against the draft law was quelled almost before it started.

At the hearing in the Federal court in Enid, Okla., it was developed that forty-eight organizations under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World had planned a nation-wide revolution. The anti-draft rioters in Seminole, Hughes and Pontotoc counties began shooting just a little too soon, and posses of patriotic citizens had put 500 of them under arrest before many persons had been killed.

WWIR, IWW, Sabotage Sabots, NYTb p28, Apr 14, 1918

The men arrested belonged to organizations affiliated with the I. W. W., chief among these being the “Working Class Union.” The government is still trying to find out where the money used to purchase arms for the rioters came from.

It is the opinion of government attorneys that these I. W. W. leaders believed they would receive the support of the American Federation of Labor. Naturally any such hope was doomed to disappointment. But the government is still picking up threads of evidence that strengthen the belief that the American Bolsheviki leaders were prepared and hoping for a reign of terror in America that would have far outdone the Bolsheviki uprising in Russia.

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Hellraisers Journal: “What We Want” by Joe Hill from “I.W.W. Songs-General Defense Edition,” Recently Released

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We want all the workers in the world to organize
Into a great big union grand
And when we all united stand
The world for workers we’ll demand.
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday April 15, 1918
“I. W. W. Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent”

From the recently released General Defense Edition:

What We Want by Joe Hill, LRSB p8, Gen Def Ed, April

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Hellraisers Journal: “Six Red Months in Russia” by Louise Bryant, Series Running in Philadelphia Evening Ledger

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On the grey horizon of human existence
looms a great giant called
Working Class Consciousness.
He treads with thunderous step
through all the countries of the world.
There is no escape, we must go out and meet him.
-Louise Bryant

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Hellraisers Journal: Sunday April 14, 1918
Stories from the Russian Revolution by Louise Bryant

From the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger comes a series by Louise Bryant, written from the front lines of the Russian Revolution.

From Public Ledger of April 2, 1918:

Ad, 6 Red Months in Rss, Bryant, Phl Pb Ldg p15, Apr 2, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Defends Robert Hunter, Now Under Attack by Police Chief of New York

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Quote re Hunger March, Jewish Daily Forward of Mar 28, NYT p3 Mar 29, 1908

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Hellraisers Journal: Monday April 13, 1908
New York, New York – Robert Hunter Blamed for Bombing

The unemployed, and those who stand up for them, are to blame for a bomb thrown by a murderous criminal unconnected with them, this according to the Police Force of New York City. The actual crime of the protesting unemployed men, women and children was, apparently, their failure to starve silently and in an orderly manner.

From the Appeal to Reason of April 11, 1908:

Robert Hunter.
—–

Robert Hunter, Painting by Sergeant Kendall, The Critic, Jan 1905

In his address to the public following the breaking up of the meeting of the unemployed in Union Square, New York, Police Commissioner Bingham assumed an insolent and pompous attitude toward the working class. He served notice that the was going to deal with such meetings hereafter with an “iron hand.” We have heard such talk before. There is nothing in it.

Bingham goes on to defend the police. Of course. The police acted under his orders. Thousands of eye-witnesses declare that the police acted with unspeakable brutality in riding rough shod over the people and clubbing them without mercy. Hundreds who were unable to escape from the crowd bear the marks of the outrageous and unprovoked assaults of the police hirelings. Of course the police were not to blame, and of course Bingham comes to their rescue and defends them. The police were the mere tools in the hands of such politicians as Bingham.

Among other things, Bingham took occasion to misrepresent Comrade Robert Hunter and place him in a false light before the people. We happen to personally know Comrade Hunter and to have known him from his childhood. There is no gentler, kindlier, more considerate soul. Nor at the same time one more courageous. His heart throbbed in sympathy with the thousands of the unemployed. With all the passion of his noble nature he yearned to serve them, to comfort them. And so he was to speak to them on that fateful day when the blue-coated Cossacks swooped down upon the hungry hordes and scattered them with as little mercy as if they had been so many tarantulas. Robert Hunter did not speak. He had no chance to speak. But he was blamed for the trouble because he sympathized with the unfortunates; because he did not have a heart of stone.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1908-Found in Kansas & Texas, Speaking for Socialist Party

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Quote Mother Jones, Palaces and Jails, AtR, Feb 29, 1908

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 12, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1908
–Found in Kansas and Texas on Tour for S. P. of A.

From Proletarec of March 3, 1908
-Slovenian Language Socialist Newspaper:

Vi delavci gradite palače in ječe. Bogati postopači stanujejo v prvih, a v zadnje potisnejo vas. — Mother Jones.

From The Chicago Daily Tribune of March 3, 1908:

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

Here we find Mother Jones and Lucy Parsons connected by Chicago Chief of Police Shippy to the recent attempt on his life. The Chief blames the speeches of Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons and, apparently, even the settlement workers of Hull House and Graham Taylor of Chicago Commons, for the attempted assassination upon him by the alleged anarchist, Lazarus (Harry) Averbuch. Averbuch was killed by the Police Chief during the attack.

Mischief Done by Anarchist Speakers.

The situation which developed into the tragedy of yesterday was thus discussed by the chief:

“A number of attacks were made on the police at the Brand’s hall meeting [a few days previous to the assault]. Several of the speakers might just as well have told their deluded hearers to go out and murder every policeman they saw. That was what one of the speakers said he wished he could do-go out and kill every policeman and throw their bodies in the lake to the fish. Lucy Parsons spoke at this meeting, attacking the police bitterly.

“A few nights after this meeting Mother Jones, who was one of those who denounced the police at Brand’s hall, spoke at Hull house and Lucy Parsons was in the audience.

The social settlements,” continued the chief, gravely, “are first cousins to the anarchists. Graham Taylor, who spoke recently before the Association of Commerce, denounced the police as the most corrupt body of men. This kind of talk is what leads to assassination.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Tulsa, November 9th” – First-Hand Account from Secretary of IWW Local

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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday April 11, 1918
From The Liberator – I. W. W. Secretary on Tulsa Mob Violence

Tulsa, November 9th

WWIR, IWW Flog Tar Feather, Morn Tulsa Dly Wld, Nov 10, 1917

[EDITOR’S NOTE:-In this story of persecution and outrage at Tulsa, Oklahoma, told in the sworn statement of one of the victims, there is direct and detailed evidence of one of the most menacing by-products of the war. Here in Tulsa, as in Bisbee and Butte and Cincinnati, patriotic fervor was used by employers with the connivance or open co-operation of local officials, as a mask for utterly lawless attacks upon workingmen who attempted to organize for better conditions. This false resort to loyalty on the part of certain war profiteers is emphasized in the recent report of the President’s Mediation Commission. These cowardly masked upper-class mobs, calling themselves “Knights of Liberty” and mumbling hypocritical words about “the women and children of Belgium,” will not succeed in terrorizing the labor movement of America, nor will they tend to make it more patriotic.]

On November 9, 1917, seventeen men, taken from the custody of the city police of Tulsa, Oklahoma, were whipped, tarred and feathered, and driven out of the city with a warning never to return.

In a letter dated December 21, a resident* of Tulsa, writes:

I think it is only fair to say that the bottom cause of this trouble locally was that a few men, presumably belonging the I. W. W. came into the oil fields something like a year ago and were meeting with considerable success in getting oil-field workers-especially pipe-line and tank builders-to fight for better wages and shorter hours.

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialists of Kansas Oppose Private Bonds; Public Ownership Victorious in Recent Elections

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Nature has been lavish to her children.
She has placed in this earth all the material of wealth
that is necessary to make men and women happy…
There is just one thing we lack, and we have only ourselves
to blame if we do not become free. We simply lack
the intelligence to take possession
of that which we have produced.
-Lucy Parsons

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 10, 1898
Fort Scott, Kansas – Socialist Education Society Acts

From the Appeal to Reason of April 9, 1898:

OBJECT TO BEING BONDED.

POEM, Am Workingman, AtR p3, Apr 9, 1898

At a regular meeting of the socialist educational society of Fort Scott, Kan., by unanimous vote, the following resolutions were adopted and ordered signed by the President and Secretary in behalf of the society.

RESOLVED, That inasmuch as there is now a scheme on foot to bond ourselves and children to a private corporation for a large sum to pipe natural gas to Ft. Scott, that it is the pledge of this society that we will work to defeat these bonds, and in case these schemers succeed in hoodwinking the people, we pledge ourselves to devise a means to repudiate these bonds; and if we fail we will teach our children the infamy of such schemes that they may repudiate all such bonds.

RESOLVED, That these schemes, after they have been consummated have been laid at the door of the wage worker as “his folly.” We denounce any such accusations as false and defy the capitalistic class to point to a single scheme gotten up by the laboring class to vote any such private bonds.

RESOLVED, That we fully realize that all wealth is created by the laborer, and that all bonds are paid from this creation. Hence, the wealth producer ultimately pays both principal and interest, and the only reward is a false accusation and a little sop called “wage” while they are producing the wealth and giving it to the capitalist.

C. LIPSCOMB, Pres.

M. M. JONES
Secretary.

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Hellraisers Journal: Chicago IWW Trial Proceeds with Jury Selection; “Red Sweetheart” Found in Courtroom

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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday April 9, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – “Red Sweetheart,” Now Bride, Observes Trial

Miss Genevieve Semashko, formerly known as the “Red Sweetheart,” is now married to FW George Andreytchine, according to The Chicago Tribune. She has recently been found in attendance at the great I. W. W. trial as the process of jury selection continues.

From The Chicago Daily Tribune of April 4, 1918:

TWO JURYMEN ARE ACCEPTED
FOR I.W.W. TRIAL
—–
Ten Veniremen Locked Up for
Examination Today.
—–

WWIR, IWW, Andreytchine Red Sweetheart, Chg Tb Nov 11, 1917

Two jurymen tentatively accepted yesterday afternoon to sit in the trial of 112 members of the I. W. W. were ordered locked up last night along with ten others selected for examination today. They were ordered by Judge Landis to avoid discussing the case and not to read anything bearing upon it.

The men chosen, who may still be challenged by either the government or the defense, are:

A. J. McKEE, druggist, Morrison, Ill.

WILLIAM MALLOW, plumber, 4343 Lincoln avenue.

Two Challenges Used.

Two of the six peremptory challenges allowed the government were used yesterday by Charles F. Clyne, United States district attorney, who personally questioned the veniremen.

One of the two challenges used up by the government eliminated Thomas W. Allinson, father of Brent Dow Allinson, the pacifist, of Swiss embassy fame, ordered classed as a deserter yesterday for failure to respond to orders to report at Camp Grant.

Sixty brand new metal spittoons made their appearance yesterday on order from Judge Landis in the name of comfort for those being tried. Simultaneously a variety of plug and fine cut appeared from hip pockets.

Judge Landis also made his way to the “chuck house,” alias Judge Evans’ court, where the men are fed at noon. He wanted to see if the feeding was up to standard. He tasted about a bit and tried the coffee.

“The coffee will have to be stronger,” was his verdict.

Walter T. Neff, whose illness of Tuesday delayed the opening of the trial, was on hand, his throat wrapped warmly. “The Girl in Red,” Miss Genevieve Semashko, who figured some time back in an alleged attempt at jail delivery, appeared yesterday.

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Hellraisers Journal: Report from the IWW of Spokane by J. H. Walsh and a New Song, “Hallelujah I’m a Bum”

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Oh, I like my boss,
He’s a good friend of mine,
That’s why I am freezing
Out in the bread line.

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 8, 1908
Spokane, Washington – Jawsmiths and Good Singers Enliven Street Meetings

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of April 4, 1908:

Developments at Spokane
[by J. H. Walsh]

The membership of the Mixed Local in this city have pushed the agitational work, and hung on with that tenacity that is necessary to accomplish the desired results of industrial organization. They are now located in a new headquarters, and since my arrival here three weeks ago we have taken in something like 125 new members, paid off all the back indebtedness to headquarters, and also organized a branch of the Servians of some 35 members. The boys here are charging 50 cents initiation, but at the times generally are not quite as strenuous as on the coast, and it can be collected much easier than it could be at places like Tacoma, Seattle or Portland.

There are so man hundred idle men in this country that many around the headquarters have little to do but study the question, compose poetry and word up songs for old tunes. It might be of interest to some to know about the program that has been followed out in this city for a few weeks and which has its effect. Among the I. W. W. membership there are a few good singers as well as jaw-smiths, and their genius has been expressed in the following composition and rendition at the street meetings as well as in the hall:

Hallelujah I'm a Bum!, IUB, Apr 4, 1908

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