The cause of labour
is the cause of Ireland,
the cause of Ireland
is the cause of labour.
-James Connolly
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 18, 1908
The Harp, Organ of the Irish Socialist Federation
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 14, 1908:
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I have no country to fight for;
my country is the earth,
and I am a citizen of the world.
-Eugene V. Debs
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 17, 1918
Eugene V. Debs on Indictments of Socialist Comrades
From The Eye Opener of March 16, 1918, page 2:
Indicted, Unashamed and Unafraid.
by Eugene V. Debs
Sunday morning, March 10, the press dispatches in the daily papers announced the indictment the day before in the federal court at Chicago of Adolph Germer, National Secretary; Victor L. Berger, member of the National Executive Committee; J. Louis Engdahl, editor of The Eye Opener; William F. Kruse, Secretary of the Young People’s Socialist League; and Irwin St. John Tucker, writer and lecturer, all of the Socialist Party [of America]. The charge against them is seditious utterance and interference with the prosecution of the war.
The indictments were found Feb. 2, we are told, but secrecy was preserved regarding the proceeding until the administration at Washington could be consulted and its sanction secured before entering the prosecution.
It is thus made clear that this indictment, while ostensibly directed against certain individuals, is in fact the indictment of the Socialist Party by the national administration at Washington.
If Germer, Berger, Engdahl, Kruse, and Tucker are guilty, so are we all. They have but spoken and written what the Socialist Party stands for, and if Socialism, the thing we stand for and shall continue to stand for, is criminal and subject to indictment and prosecution, then the administration, to be logical and consistent, should indict, prosecute, and imprison not only the spokesmen of the party but its entire membership of more than 100,000 social rebels, who in opposing the damnable profiteering system which has precipitated this bloody deluge upon humanity are alike guilty of sedition and disloyalty in the bleared eyes of the autocratic rulers of this country.
In the relations of a weak Government
and a rebellious people
there comes a time when every act of the authorities
exasperates the masses,
and every refusal to act excites their contempt.
-Jack Reed
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday March 16, 1918
From The Liberator: John Reed on the Russian Revolution
Correspondent John Reed was in Russia with his wife, Louise Bryant, during the amazing events of October and November 1917. In the latest edition of The Liberator is published Reed’s account of what he witnessed, and which we republish, in part, below:
RED RUSSIA-
The Triumph of the BolshevikiI.
THE real revolution has begun. All the swift events of the last eight crowded months–the sudden debacle of Czarism in February, the brief inglorious attempt of Miliukov to establish a safe and sane bourgeois republic, the rise of Kerensky and the precarious structure of hasty compromise which constituted the Provisional Government–these were merely the prologue to the great drama of naked class-struggle which has now opened. For the first time in history the working-class has seized the power of the state, for its own purposes–and means to keep it.
Hellraisers Journal, Friday March 15, 1918
Mother Jones News for February 1918: Found at Hearings in Chicago
Towards the end of February, we found Mother in attendance at the Alschuler Hearings in Chicago. Federal Judge Samuel B. Alschuler was appointed by President Wilson to arbitrate differences between Packinghouse Workers, now in the midst of a massive organizing campaign, and the Stockyard Employers. The Alschuler Hearings were held in Chicago from February 11th until March 7th and a ruling is expect soon.
From the Oregon Daily Journal of February 27, 1918:
Chicago, Feb 27.-(I. N. S.)…..
Like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. “Mother” Jones of labor strike fame, came into the midst of representatives of the packers Tuesday during a five-minute recess in the hearing.
“Why am I here-why?” she exclaimed in a high pitched voice that penetrated the courtroom.
I’m here to tell you bloodsuckers where you get off at. I’m here to help drive out you crooks. I’ll not let up-I’ll not let up.
She directed her attack against John E. O’Hern, general superintendent of Armour & Co. plants, and others. Louis F. Swift, standing back some distance, heard her fiery statements.
A fist fight was threatened when Frank P. Walsh, counsel for the workers, read a series of letters indicating the packers sought to spike corrective legislation in various states.
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[Photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 14, 1898
From the Salvation Army: A Picture of Poverty in America
From the Appeal to Reason of March 12, 1898:
A SHAMEFUL PICTURE.
Comrade Booth, of the Salvation Army gives us some facts that ought to make the “greatest country in the world” ashamed of itself. Read this and wonder no longer why socialism is growing:
The pauper world-there’s a world for you! A world with starvation. Then the vicious world, the gambler and the harlot. Last the criminal world-why, in this country alone there are 80,000 men and women who are behind bars. These are the three worlds in which our work lies. We have 415 different institutions, ninety of which are at work in the United States. We feed 250,000 hungry men, women and children every night and shelter 13,000 ragged men and women, of which 4,500 are in the United States. On cold nights the figures sometimes double. We give them hot and cold water with which to wash, and if the person is afflicted with those strange little pests-unknown, of course, in Denver-we furnish crematories for them. While the poor fellow is taking a bath we bake his garments, so that if he comes in 20,000 strong he goes out one single personality. In addition to this we furnish him with a rousing salvation meeting and give him something to think about. If a man falls we offer a hand to help him onto his feet again. We have sixty-nine institutions for the rescue of young girls. Talk of pity! Am I not talking to a people who are sending pity to that island Cuba? Yet in their midst they have objects of pity.
Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure,
and still more pressure through broad,
organized, aggressive mass action.
-A. Philip Randolph
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 13, 1918
New York, New York – Announcing a New Socialist Magazine
From The Ohio Socialist of March 10, 1918:
NEGRO COMRADES ESTABLISH MAGAZINE
A journal that will fill a long felt want is now published in New York. It is “The Messenger,” a Socialist monthly. Brilliantly edited by our colored comrades in New York city, A. Philip Randolph and Chadler [Chandler] Owen. The negroes of America are to be congratulated in having such able men in charge of their first revolutionary journal.
We predict a great success for them in their noble work. They have a vast field to themselves to cultivate, and there is no doubt that under their able leadership the negroes of America will soon take their rightful place in the ranks of the revolutionary army.
One dollar for eight months, $1.50 a year. Published at 230 William street, New York city.-Arizona Bulletin.
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For Freedom laughs at prison bars;
Her voice re-echoes from the stars,
Proclaiming with the tempest’s breath
A cause beyond the reach of death!
-Ralph Chaplin
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday March 12, 1918
From the Cook County Jail: “Prison Song” by Ralph Chaplin
From The Ohio Socialist of March 10, 1918:
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And hark! An echo from the past
Rings Down through all eternity-
“Ye did it not to these my lambs,
And so ye did it not to Me!”
-Annie Q. Carter
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 11, 1908
The Waif and the Petted Poodle by Annie Q. Carter
From the Socialist Montana News of March 5, 1908:
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday March 10, 1918
From San Francisco to Petrograd, Workers Fight for Life of Tom Mooney
From The Liberator of March 1918:
The Peril of Tom Mooney
By Robert Minor
THE story of the manner in which Tom Mooney’s death sentence was procured is stock conversation in American working-class homes. It has gone as far as the trenches of the European armies. There is hardly a Russian village where the name of “Tom Muni” has not been heard. Actually, the names of the witnesses in the case are spoken in Siberian villages, and a certain California district attorney is regularly cursed around the samovar.
The only evidence against Tom Mooney that a sensible man would listen to, was that of an Oregon cattleman, Frank C. Oxman, who came into the trial at the last moment, took the stand like a breeze from the prairie, swore that he was a country gentleman, loved his wife, and had seen Israel Weinberg drive Tom Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings and an unidentified man to the scene of the crime in Israel Weinberg’s jitney bus, of the number of which car he had made a note on a telegraph envelope which he had in his pocket at that moment. He never made a mistake in his life in the identity of a person, as he was used to identifying cattle on the range….Mooney was condemned to die on the gallows.
Hellraisers Journal, Monday March 9, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1908, Part 2:
–Found Speaking at Girard, Kansas, at Socialist District Convention
After February 19th, Mother Jones was found in the state of Kansas where she gave speeches in her usual rousing style on behalf of the Socialist Party. She was a special guest of the Appeal to Reason in Girard where she attended the Third District Convention and gave a speech which “aroused the audience to the wildest enthusiasm.”
The Dallas Morning News reported on February 28th that Mother had entered the state of Texas and was engaged to speak in Longview and in Dallas.
From the Appeal to Reason of February 29, 1908:
A GALA DAY FOR SOCIALISM
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The Third District Convention Stirs Things up in Girard
-Old Party Politicians Puzzled and Worried.
—–Last Saturday, in the Girard court house, delegates from the Third district of Kansas met in convention and placed in nomination for congress Comrade Ben Wilson. Under the new primary law this nomination is merely an informal expression of the party’s desire and his name will necessarily have to be voted on at the regular primary in August. In the meantime a vigorous campaign will be carried on.
There were seventy-six regular delegates present, representing nearly every county in the district. There were several hundred out-of-town visitors at both afternoon and evening sessions, and the court house was crowded to the doors. Two years ago there were eleven delegates at our congressional convention in Parsons. The old party politicians viewed the assemblage with surprised wonder. They’ll be more surprised this fall.
The feature of the night session was a stirring address by Mother Jones. As usual, her clear, resonant voice, her earnest face, in its frame of silver hair, aroused the audience to the wildest enthusiasm. The air seemed electrified with the spirit of the revolution. Turning suddenly, as she pointed to Ben Wilson, she declared:
I’m coming back to the Third district this summer and fall and I’m going to help you fellows elect the first Socialist congressman. Then I’m going down to Washington, and when Ben and I get there you’ll see something doing.
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