Category: Hellraisers Journal

Hellraisers Journal: Mesabi Defendants Must Face Trial; Cronaca Sovversiva Sends Aid

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday October 4, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – I. W. W. Defendants Must Stand Trial

From The Duluth News Tribune of September 19, 1916:

I. W. W.’S DENY MURDER CHARGE
—–
Must Stand Trial in Myron Case, as
Court Overrules Quash Motion.
—–

Funeral of John Alar, IWW Leaders, Virginia MN, by GR Dawson, June 26, 1916

Overruling all motions to quash indictments against Carlo Tresca, Sam Scarlett, Philip Masonovich and other I. W. W.’s charged with the murder of Deputy Sheriff James Myron at Biwabik, July 2, Judge Bert Fesler in district court yesterday ruled that all defendants would have in face trial. Formal pleas of not guilty were then entered by all.

Attorney John Keyes at the conclusion of the hearing announced that on Wednesday morning before Judge Martin Hughes at Virginia that he would make a motion for continuance, Assistant County Attorney I. L. Boyle then stated that every effort would be made by the state to force trial immediately and that riot cases would be moved for trial next Monday.

In making the argument for the freedom of Tresca, Scarlett and Schmidt, Attorney Keyes pointed out that these men were miles away from the scene of the crime at the time of happening and argued that if they were held it should be on a charge of conspiracy and not of murder.
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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on Tour on Behalf of Mesabi Defendants

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Your welfare ain’t on that rich man’s mind.
-Hazel Dickens

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 3, 1916
Miss Flynn to Hold Meetings in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas

IWW Metal Mine Workers IU No. 490, Hibbing MN, June 19, 1916

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is currently on tour on behalf of Mesabi I. W. W. defendants who are charged with first degree murder-we refer our readers to the recent article by Eugene Debs in the International Socialist Review.

Before leaving northern Minnesota, Miss Flynn spoke with Joe Ettor at a meeting in Virginia, Minnesota, where she said:

Tresca, Scarlett, Smith and the others are in jail for your sake, remember them.

She also spoke to the Ministerial association at the Duluth Y. M. C. A. where she declared:

A very large majority of the workers on the iron range are foreigners, and they have no friends except among their kinsmen and fellow-workers. If the American-born people would only co-operate, and enlighten the lives of these poor unfortunates, all these disturbances and misfortunes would be done away with.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Protests Frame-Up of Organizers & Strikers on Mesabi Range

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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By the Gods, it shall not be!
The bloated, beastly Steel Trust pirates
shall not murder our innocent
comrades and fellow-workers!
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 2, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: Support Mesabi Range Rebels!

From the current edition of the Review, Comrade and Fellow Worker Eugene Debs calls upon unionists and socialists everywhere to support the Minnesota iron ore strikers and I. W. W. organizers who are now under indictment for first-degree murder:

Eugene Victor Debs, ISR, Oct 1916

Murder in the First Degree

By EUGENE V. DEBS

TRUE bills against four strikers and one woman and against Carlo Tresca and two other leaders of the striking iron workers on the Mesabe Range in Minnesota charging them with murder in the first degree, have been returned by a Steel Trust grand jury.

Not one of the accused is guilty. On the contrary, they are all absolutely innocent of the crime charged against them.

It is another case of punishing the workers for the crimes committed against them by their masters. Let us briefly review the facts in this extraordinary strike on the Mesabe Range.
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Hellraisers Journal: The Agricultural Workers Organization (IWW) Is Coming Back to Stay

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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SABOTAGE
-the conscious withdrawal of
the workers’ industrial efficiency.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 1, 1916
From Solidarity: The A. W. O. Marches on to Industrial Freedom

AWO & Black Cat, Ralph Chaplin, Bingo, Solidarity, Sept 30, 1916

Solidarity, organ of the Industrial Workers of the World, in this week’s edition, published the above cartoon by “Bingo” along with the good news that 1916 has been a year of great success for the army of organizers sent out into the harvest fields by the Agricultural Workers Organization. In August the A. W. O. gained over 800 members and in in the first three week of September 2000 more were issued their red cards.
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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Indiana Federation of Labor Convention

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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I reside wherever there is a good fight against wrong-
all over the country.
Wherever the workers are fighting the robbers
I go there.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 30, 1916
Logansport, Indiana – Mother Jones: Interview and Speech

From the Logansport Daily Tribune of September 27, 1916:

Mother Jones, Logansport Dly Tb IN, Sept 27, 1916

Comes to Address Federation of Labor
and Grants Testy Interview
—–
STILL VIGOROUS AT AGE OF 86
—–
(By Helen C. Kuppenheimer.)

Mother Mary Harris Jones, Logansport, IN, Sept 27, 1916

Mother Jones arrived in the city last evening. The office sent me out to hunt her up and get an interview. These were the directions: “You’ll find her in one of the down-town restaurants-she’s a little, sweet-faced women with white hair and just as kind as she looks.”

I found her down at a Broadway restaurant sitting at a table with three men. I knew her because she was little and white-haired and sweet-faced, just like the office said she would be. I walked over to the table confidently, even boldly-here at least was one interview over which I need feel no timidity or trepidation-because she was as kind as she looked.

She was talking to the men at the table with her and I stopped beside her chair until she would give me an opportunity to speak to her. Finally she glanced up at me and then down at my feet and back up again-and then, very sharply, “Well?” I told her rather hurriedly who I was and what I wanted.

“An interview? What for? The paper? No I am going home and go to bed. I have nothing to say.” All these rapid fire remarks were made in a voice which might easily have reached to the farthest corner of a large hall. While her voice is as strong as a fog horn, it is as nothing compared to the quality of her glance which first pierces and then shrivels the person upon whom it is directed.

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Hellraisers Journal: IWW Convention Meets in Chicago; Haywood Sends Message from Ada County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Big Bill Haywood on IWW, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 29, 1906
Chicago, Illinois – Report from I. W. W. Convention

From the Appeal to Reason, a first-hand account of the Second Annual Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World:

THE I. W. W. IN SESSION
—–
Industrial Unionism Shows Itself to
Be a Virile Infant at Second
Annual Convention.
—–

by F. M. EASTWOOD,
Special Representative APPEAL TO REASON.
—–

IWW Label, 2nd Conv, Sept 17-Oct 3, 1906

CHICAGO. ILL., Sept. 20.-The second annual convention of The Industrial Workers of the World convened in this city September 17th, at 10 o’clock a. m., and is still in session.

The presence of factions has delayed the progress of the convention from the beginning but at this time all credential contests have been disposed of with the exception of that of the transportation department, which now is pending.
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Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ IU, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday September 28, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Jane Street on Housemaids’ Union

Jane Street, Baltimore Sun, Sept 24, 1916

The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part two (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:

How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union (Part II)
—–

Miss Jane Street, organizer of the Housemaids’ Union, speaking of its purposes, said for publication in this newspaper:

Of all the abused people on earth none is worse treated than the general housemaid. The majority of housewives follow an aged tradition of looking down on those who serve them and their families and refuse to practice patience or give counsel or regard the women they hire as human beings with like impulses, like passions, like aims and hopes as their own.
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Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ I. U.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 27, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Domestic Workers and the Blacklist

Jane Street, Baltimore Sun, Sept 24, 1916

The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part one (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:

How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union
—–

In Denver, Colo., looms at the present moment happy promise of a solution of the vexatious servant girl problem. How happy that promise is will be seen in the fact that a housemaids’ union now organizing in that city will be conducted on lines which have the frank approval of Denver’s most prominent hostess and society leader.
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Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Hamlin Blames Private Police for Violence in Mesabi Range Strike

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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As for the women on the picket lines,
they are not playing “the baby act.”
They’re good soldiers.
They’re thoroughly “game,” those women and
we should be immensely proud of them.
-Lenora Austin Hamlin

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 26, 1916
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota – Mrs. Hamlin Describes Conditions

From the Duluth Labor World of September 23, 1916:

BLAMES PRIVATE POLICE FOR VIOLENCE
IN MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Lenora Austin Hamlin Gives First Pen Picture of
Actual Conditions on Mesaba Range From
Disinterested Standpoint—Makes Telling
Report to Woman’s Welfare League
of St. Paul.
—–

masonovich-p-m-boarders-isr-sept-1916

Lenora Austin Hamlin of St. Paul was sent by the Woman’s Welfare league to get first hand information about the treatment accorded to men and women during the miners’ strike on the Mesaba range, following a speech made before the league by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

The St. Paul women wanted a colorless story of actual conditions. Mrs. Hamlin, well trained for this sort of investigations, was requested to do the work. She visited all the important points in the strike zone, and her story confirms the claims made during the strike by the miners.

Minnesota is closely following in the footsteps of Colorado and West Virginia, as is shown by the report. It reads in full as follows:

Members of the Woman’s Welfare league will recall that on Tuesday, Aug. 15, we were addressed by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on the subject of strike conditions on the range and that great interest was aroused by their descriptions of the part women were taking in the strike and the hardships they were enduring in consequence.
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Hellraisers Journal: Strike on Mesabi Iron Range Called Off by Central Committee

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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This is always a sad and bitter time
in the class struggle, to see brave workers
who had suffered and sacrificed
compelled to accept defeat.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday September 25, 1916
Virginia, Minnesota – Central Strike Committee Calls Off Strike

Solidarity, Mesabi, Get Out of the Way, by R Chaplin (Bingo), Aug 19, 1916

The Central Strike Committee, consisting of fifteen striking miners representing the strikers from the various towns along the Mesabi Range and of the Italian, Finnish, and Slavic nationalities, met in Virginia on September 17th and made the difficult decision to call off the strike of the iron ore miners. The striking miners and their families are facing the long, bitter, Minnesota winter with relief funds too meager to meet the needs of the hungry families.

The Strikers News, “Official Strike Bulletin of the Striking Iron Ore Miners of the Mesaba Range,” of September 22nd published the proclamation ending the strike which reads in part:
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