Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1902, Part II: Found Speaking in Huntington, West Virginia, and Terre Haute, Indiana

8th April 20228th April 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote Mother Jones Mine Supe Bulldog of Capitalism —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 8, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1902, Part II
Found in Huntington, West Virginia, and Terre Haute, Indiana

From the Baltimore Sun of March 20, 1902:

MINE WORKERS ARE STRONG
———-
Half The Miners In The Virginias
Said To Belong To Union.

(Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.)

HUNTINGTON, W. Va., March 19.-Reports today made to the United Mine Workers of Virginia and West Virginia, in session here, showed a membership of more than 14,000. This is said to be more than half the number employed in the two States.

The election of officers this evening resulted as follows:

President, John Richards, of Loup Creek; vice-president, L. H. Jackson, of Norwood; secretary, Clark Johnson, of Montgomery; member of national executive committee, J. W. Carroll, of Glen Jean.

Headed by the famous Temperance Brass Band, of Sewell, W. Va., the miners, together with all organized labor of the city, gave a street parade, after which a big labor mass-meeting was held. “Mother” Mary Jones, of national fame, was chief speechmaker.

The sessions of the convention will probably close tomorrow.

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[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Social Democratic Herald: Eugene V. Debs Opines on Buffalo’s Kept Preachers, Labor, and Socialism

26th March 202226th March 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 26, 1902
Eugene V. Debs on Opines on Kept Preachers, Labor and Socialism

From the Milwaukee Social Democratic Herald of March 22, 1902:

Battle Cry of Superstition.
———-

The Church Protests in Vain Against
the March of Civilization.
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By EUGENE V. DEBS.

The socialist movement encountered a great shock at Buffalo a few days ago. One Quigley, a Catholic bishop, and another Stauffer (Stuffer?) of the Protestant persuasion, jointly and severally assailed social democracy, the latter gravely declaring that it was the “unhatched egg of anarchy”-in other words, a bad egg. The bishop vaulted into the arena, made due exhibition of his asininity, and in the name of the hierarchy proclaimed excommunication as the fate of all who cast their lot with the wicked socialists.

No opposition to organized labor, declared the bishop, was intended, except in so far as it was tainted with the virus of socialism-a hint that union men would be wise to profit by.

It is not my purpose to write about religion, or to interfere with that of any man. I am trusting to the light and logic of the future to abolish creeds and dispel the darkness of superstition.

But we have those in the socialist movement who are so supersensitive that they rise in passionate protest when the church is even mentioned. They are doubtless honest and sincere, but their prejudice is such that if the orders and injunctions of such priests as Quigley and Stauffer could be and were obeyed, they would look on in silence and submission, while the church with iron boots crushed out the socialist movement and the sun of labor set in gloom to rise no more.

What has the church, as such, ever done for working men and women except to keep them in darkness, preach obedience to their masters, and promise them a future home in heaven as the reward of patience and submission in the present hell?

The fulmination of this precious combination at Buffalo reveals the true attitude of the church, which profanes the name of Jesus Christ. In all its pomp and power today it stands for all he abhorred and against all he loved; and socialists would be worse than cowards, they would be base-born traitors not to speak the truth and challenge the enemy of the socialist movement in whatever form he may appear; and when the church consents to prostitute its functions in the service of the ruling class, its robes turn into rags and every honest man should help to strip it naked and expose the whited sepulcher to the world.

For more than 25 years I have watched the church in its attitude toward labor and I know it is the enemy of the toilers and strives and strains to keep them in industrial bondage. The freedom of the working class will mean the end of the church as we know it today. It will simply be out of a job.

During the Chicago strikes the priests and preachers grew hysterically violent in demanding the shooting and hanging of the strikers in the name of the meek and merciful Jesus. All denominations melted into one and all the ministers were likewise a unit in defense of the corporations and denunciation and damnation of the strikers.

There is something almost melancholy in seeing a meek, sad-eyed, dyspepsic preacher suddenly grow fierce and bloodthirsty. It seems strange, but it is easily accounted for. The priest is simply the echo of the capitalist. if he declines the function he ceases to preach.

In every labor strike I have ever known the church and those who speak for it have lined up solidly with the corporations. This has been and must be the attitude of the church whose priests now direct its fiery fulmination against socialism at Buffalo.

Through all the centuries the church has been the handmaid of tyranny and oppression-there she stands today, red with impotent rage because socialism has stripped her of her mask and challenged her to do her worst. Can the church extinguish the socialist movement? Can a bat snuff out the sun? It is high time the working class were opening their eyes, time that they were discarding the sacred (?) symbols of superstition and proclaiming their royal right to represent themselves without the vulgar and impertinent intervention of priests who are but the emissaries of their oppressors and exploiters.

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Hellraisers Journal: Terre Haute Toiler: John Peter Altgeld, Liberator of Class-War Prisoners, -by Eugene V. Debs

22nd March 202223rd March 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 22, 1902
From Terre Haute, Indiana, Eugene Debs Pays Tribute to John Peter Altgeld

From The Toiler of March 21, 1902:

Altgeld, the Liberator

-by Eugene V. Debs

John Peter Altgeld

John Peter Altgeld has joined Abraham Lincoln in the realm of the immortals [March 12, 1902]. His career was tempestuous and heroic, and the end tragic and sublime. The gods must have set the stage for the last earthly act of the intrepid warrior and most nobly did he fill the leading role. When the last word of his impassioned plea for liberty died upon his eloquent lips the climax came and the curtain fell upon another martyr in the great drama of humanity.

John Altgeld was born in the throes of revolt [December 30, 1847]. A thousand years of feudal tyranny were culminating. The fateful year of 1848 had a violent temper. It rocked the cradle of the babe that was destined to become the tribune of the people.

The leader, now fallen, never took a backward step, never subordinated principle to policy, never sacrificed conviction to attain his end. He was fearless, he was determined, and he was incorruptible.

John P. Altgeld was in the highest sense a statesman, he was a daring leader and a fiery and intense orator whose eloquent and lofty appeals inspired the multitude.

His noblest and therefore greatest official act was the opening of dungeon doors to liberate innocent victims of corporate tyranny [Chicago’s Eight-Hour Class-War Prisoners]. If the gods have to do with politics they ordained the election of John P. Altgeld for this incomparable service to humanity.

Through the rain of fire he walked with steady step to the hideous bastille’s doors, nor faltered once until the captives walked forth men; his official robes turned to ashes in the ordeal, but lo! the flame of calumny to which our hero bared his head is even now become the aureole of his fame.

The robbers of the people, the stranglers of liberty, the foes of humanity feared and hated him; the fawning sycophants of wealth, the time serving mercenaries of power slandered him; this was the measure of his greatness.

The few honest men who knew John P. Altgeld loved him. He was genuine; he was true; he could look God and man straight in the eye.

In the railroad strikes in 1894 he expanded to his true proportions.There he proved to be the fearless champion of the people. He stood upon the boundary line of Illinois and protested against the military usurpation of the President, and though overwhelmed, he proudly vindicated his high honor, and he, more than any other man, retired Grover Cleveland and his pirate crew from American politics.

Altgeld was too great to become President; he will be remembered long after most Presidents are forgotten.

How glorious the final scene! See him summon all his wasted strength. Note the transfiguration in the last superhuman effort—the light of liberty in his eye, the flush of dawn upon his brow as he defiantly exclaimed:

Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty’s tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.

Workingmen and workingwomen never had a truer friend; he yearned to see them happy, and consecrated all he had to make them free.

He paid the penalty of all the earth’s redeemers. Socrates was poisoned, Christ crucified, John Brown strangled, Lincoln assassinated, and Altgeld stabbed by a million venomous tongues.

The grandchildren of his slayers will seek his works for knowledge and inspiration, and to the coming generations he will speak forever.

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[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal from Eugene V. Debs Urging All to Work for Release of Political Prisoners

20th March 202220th March 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1922
Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal for Political Prisoners

From the Washington Evening Star of March 9, 1922:

From the Buffalo Socialist New Age of March 16, 1922:

Terre Haute, Ind.,
March 4, 1922.

To All Labor Unions and Organized Workers.
Dear Brothers and Comrades:

I am making this appeal to you in behalf of the political prisoners. These men are held simply because of their activities in the labor movement and for no other reason. Any other pretense is simply a lie. All other countries have long since released their political prisoners. The United States government, to its lasting shame, is the one exception that keeps men caged as felons for the expression of their opinions. These men, brothers of ours, committed no overt act, no crime of any kind. The court records will prove this. The infamous Espionage Law, under which these men were convicted, has long since been repealed [Note: a section of the Espionage Law, the Sedition Act, was repealed December 13, 1920], and there is not the slightest excuse to longer hold them in prison.

The simple fact is that the treason for which these men were convicted was their loyalty to the working class. Such loyalty, especially in a time of war when the workers are turned into butchers and set to slaughtering one another for the profit and power and glory of their masters, is always treason in the eyes of such masters.

If these men with union principles and union hearts beating in their breasts, had been scabs or gunmen or strikebreakers, they would have been cracked up as 100% American patriots, given hero medals, and assigned to posts of honor carrying high salaries and eminent respectability. But instead they refused to bow to the will of the brutal and impudent profiteers and stood up loyally for their own class and gave expression to the truth that was in their hearts, as it was not only their lawful right but their moral duty to do, and for this and this alone they are marked as dangerous and held and treated as criminals to the shame of the American labor movement and the infamy of the United States government, the most plutocratic government on the face of the earth.

Senator Borah of Idaho, be it said to his credit, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate on January 25th, directing the Attorney General to submit to the Senate all available information relative to the cases of persons convicted under the notorious Espionage Act. This resolution is most timely and the organized workers of the nation must bring all possible power to bear to force its passage. The plutocrats, profiteers, and pirates of Wall Street and their degenerate henchmen in all their servile capacities, who had the monstrous Espionage Law enacted to gag the truth and strangle free speech while they were putting over their criminal war conspiracy, will bring all their power to bear to defeat the Borah resolution.

Well do these knaves in high places know that if this resolution passes the Senate and the Attorney General is forced to reveal the court records of the political prisoners it will show that they are guilty of absolutely no crime whatever save only that of saying during war time, when the nation had been lashed into fury of blind hate, what the 100% Wall Street profiteers and their lackeys in and out of office did not want to hear. The Constitution, of which they had been in the habit of prating on every occasion, was summarily suspended, truth was exiled, and manhood and self-respect put in prison stripes.

Think of these innocent union men, these working class brethren of ours, being suffered to remain buried alive in the steel vaults of American prison hells, and then talk about being “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” The very thought brings the deep blush of shame to the cheek of every decent American.

These men must be gotten out of prison to the last one of them. As long as one remains we are all in disgrace, and our country stands impeached before the civilized world.

There must be no discrimination among the class war prisoners, for that is what they are and nothing else. All spies and enemy agents, some of whom were convicted of the gravest charges, including the placing of fire bombs in ships and the destruction of life and property, were released years ago. Not one remains in prison. Not one of these belonged to a labor union. They were all readily forgiven as soon as the war was over.

But how different with the men who did belong to labor unions and who did not commit any crime or take any life or destroy any property, but who only stood up like men exercising their constitutional rights and telling the truth about the capitalist slaughter of the working class “to make the world safe for democracy!” It is for their benefit that the atrocious Espionage Law was enacted, and for the benefit of the Wall Street profiteers who coined the blood of the slaughtered workers into billions for themselves, that they are still festering in the hell-holes capitalism charitably provides for its victims.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Debs Magazine: Poems in Honor of Eugene Victor Debs Upon Leaving Atlanta Penitentiary

3rd March 20223rd March 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 3, 1922
“Poems of Revolution” in Honor of Eugene Victor Debs

From Debs Magazine of March 1922:

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NOTE:-The verses, “We’re Glad to Say Good-bye,” were written by a prisoner as a farewell tribute to ‘Gene on his leaving the prison, and read at the meeting of prisoners ‘Gene addressed at the memorable Christmas Eve celebration in the prison, at which ‘Gene took his farewell from the boys behind the bars, he so loved, and whose leaving behind filled him with a sadness that took the joy out of his liberation. The verses were written by an inmate of the hospital. If ever poetry issued from the hearts of human beings it is to be found in this expression of appreciation and love inspired by a fellow-feeling as holy and divine as ever sprang from the fellowship of mutual suffering, sorrow and sympathy. These verses are published precisely as they are written, for it would only mar the real poetry they express to have them polished and prettified.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From New York Call’s Lawrence Strike Edition: Articles, Poetry, Letter from Eugene Debs to Joseph Ettor

18th February 202218th February 2022 Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912

Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 18, 1912
The Lawrence Strike Edition of The New York Call

From The New York Call of February 14, 1912:

From The New York Call of February 15, 1912:

THE LAWRENCE STRIKE EDITION

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[From page 2-Letter from Debs to Ettor:]

[From page 5-“The Children” by Adelbert Truando:]

[From page 6-“The Coming of the Children” by Jane A. Roulston:]

Note: also included in The New York Call‘s Lawrence Strike Edition are articles by Joshua Wanhope, Charles Edward Russell, Margaret H. Sanger, a story by Theresa Malkiel, “My Experience as a Lawrence Mill Worker” by A. I. Wolftraub, poems by Sydney Greenbie and M. J. Connolly, and more!

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Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Liberator: “The Uncaging of Debs” by Charles P. Sweeney, First Hand Account

5th February 20225th February 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 5, 1922
First Hand Account of the Release of Eugene Debs from Atlanta Penitentiary

From The Liberator of February 1922:

The Uncaging of Debs

IT was Christmas morning. By the President’s order a man was to be released from prison in Atlanta some time that day and proceed to Washington-no one seemed to know just when. But at six o’clock we newspaper men were tipped off to go to the warden’s house, where Debs was said to be having his breakfast. We waited. An hour passed and then Debs, in his blue denim prison raiment, was ushered out a side door of the Warden’s house into a car and shot back to prison. We then were certain the President had not succeeded in getting his prisoner past our lines during the night. That was something, for few men have left prison supposedly free under circumstances as mysterious as these which attended the release of Eugene V. Debs. And, perhaps, no handful of reporters ever faced so strange a task as that of watching a prison so the President of the United States couldn’t sneak a prisoner up to Washington without anybody knowing it.

Playing this curious game against Presidential secrecy, we had to chase every car that came from the prison, overtake it, look in, satisfy ourselves Debs was not there, and then return to our station in the road two hundred yards from the prison. And this all morning, until eleven o’clock, when we boarded the train that took Debs to Washington. And this, we learned, was what happened at the prison.

One by one they came to say good-bye to Debs. One man, a hospital patient, fainted in his arms. Sam Moore, the life-term Negro murderer made over by Debs, wept, and Debs kissed him and promised him he would constantly advocate his freedom. Moore has been in prison thirty years, since he was twenty. A lawyer, also a lifer, imprisoned for killing his wife in a fit of drunken jealousy, embraced the man he said was the best friend he ever knew. The way over from the hospital to the great prison building was choked with men in blue denim, all with outstretched hands. There were tears, and there were smiles, according to temperament. Up the corridors they blocked his way, crowded about him, followed him as he advanced. The warden had suspended all rules. All, all, could come to the front. On every tier they rushed forward to the great barred windows of the building that is as broad as a city block. From the outside, out beyond the prison foreground and beyond the gates, those windows now were pictures of bars and faces, faces, faces. Debs reached the end of the corridor by the warden’s office and the big front door. It opened. Then the shout went up, and as Debs was going down the granite steps it resounded through the vast place and carried out over the free air to the ears of those away out in the road.

But it was no longer a shout. For it would not die. It steadily increased in volume. It was twenty-three hundred caged men crying to see the one who was loose. He walked away out over the grass foreground where he could see them all and they could see him. Cheers mingled with fanatical screams, and yells of his name. For a half a minute he stood with his hat high in air. Then his hand fell, then his head and he wept. He walked back to the warden’s automobile, and away he went with the great noise in his ears.

We all got in the train with Debs and rode with him to Washington, and not yet do any of us know why it was that the President of the United States took so great an interest in this man, whom he does not think worthy of the rights of citizenship.

CHARLES P. SWEENEY.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “The Capitalist Press” by Agnes Thecla Fair & “Boy Scouts” by Ryan Walker

4th February 20224th February 2022 Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912

Quote Agnes Thecla Fair, Revolutionary Women, Stt Sc Wkgmn p4, Nov 20, 1909 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 4, 1912
“The Capitalist Press” by Agnes Thecla Fair, “Boy Scouts” by Ryan Walker

From The Coming Nation of February 3, 1912:

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Social Democratic Herald: Eugene Debs Recalls Labor’s Battles in the “War for Freedom”

12th January 202212th January 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 12, 1902
Eugene Victor Debs Recalls Bloody Scenes of Battle in Class War

From the Social Democratic Herald of January 11, 1902:

The War for Freedom.

By Eugene V. Debs.

The country we inhabit is generally supposed to have been in a state of peace since the close of the Civil War, excepting the brief period required to push the Spaniards off the western continent. And yet during this reign of so-called peace more than a score of bloody battles have been fought on American soil, in every one of which the working class were beaten to the earth, notwithstanding they outnumber their conquerors and despoilers at least ten to one, and notwithstanding in each case they asked but a modest concession that represented but a tithe of what they were justly entitled to.

To recall the bloody scenes in the Tennessee mountains, the horrors of Idaho, the tragedies of Virden, Pana, Buffalo, Chicago, Homestead, Lattimer, Leadville, and many others, is quite enough to chill the heart of a man who has such an organ, and yet above the cloud and smoke of battle there shines forever the bow of promise, and however fierce the struggle and gloomy the outlook, it is never obscured to the brave, self-reliant soul who knows that victory at last must crown the cause of labor.

Thousands have fallen before the fire of the enemy and thousands more are doubtless doomed to share the same fate, but

“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, Is ever won.”

The struggle in this and other lands by the children of toil is a struggle between classes which in some form or other has been waged since primitive man first captured and enslaved his weaker fellow-being. Through the long, dark night of history the man who toiled has been in fetters, and though today they are invisible, yet they bind him as securely in wage slavery as if they were forged of steel.

How the millions toil and produce! How they suffer and are despised! Is the earth forever to be a dungeon to them? Are their offspring always to be food for misery? These are questions that confront the workingmen of our day and a few of them at least understand the nature of the struggle, are conscious of their class interests, and are striving with all their energy to close up the ranks and conquer their freedom by the solidarity of labor.

In this war for freedom the organized men in the Western states have borne a conspicuous and honorable part. They have, in fact, maintained better conditions on the whole than generally prevail, and this they have done under fire that would have reduced less courageous and determined men. But, notwithstanding their organized resistance, they must perceive that in common with all others who work for wages they are losing ground before the march of capitalism.

It requires no specially sensitive nature to feel the tightening of the coils, nor prophetic vision to see the doom of labor if the government is suffered to continue in control of the capitalist class. In every crisis the shotted guns of the government are aimed at the working class. They point in but one direction. In no other way could the capitalists maintain their class supremacy. Court injunctions paralyze but one class. In fact, the government of the ruling class today has but one vital function, and that is to keep the exploited class in subjection.

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