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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 16, 1911
Girard, Kansas – Fred Warren, Editor of Appeal Reason, Must Go to Jail
From the International Socialist Review of January 1911:
EDITORIAL
Fred Warren Goes to Jail.
On December 30, 1905, Frank Steunenberg was killed by the explosion of a dynamite bomb at Caldwell, Idaho. Several weeks later Charles H. Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners; William D. Haywood, Secretary, and George E. Pettibone, an honorary member of the organization, were kidnapped from their home in Colorado and secretly carried off to Idaho on a special train to be tried for the murder of Steunenberg. Requisition papers were issued by the Governor of Colorado on an affidavit signed by the County Attorney in Idaho, setting forth that the men were present in Idaho when the crime was committed and had fled from the state, although every one concerned knew perfectly well that they had not been in Idaho for months. The Western Federation of Miners was at that time engaged in a death struggle with the mine owners, and it is a fair inference that this kidnapping was a preconceived plan to discredit and crush this organization.
The capitalist press of the whole country united to fasten the charge of conspiracy to commit murder upon these men, while the Socialist press, with scarcely an exception, defended them. They were held for nearly a year and a half without trial, while strenuous efforts were made by both accusers and defendants to arouse public opinion on one side or the other. In this situation Fred D. Warren, editor of the Appeal to Reason at Girard, Kans., conceived the idea of giving the American people a striking object lesson. With this in view, he had postal cards printed offering a reward for the kidnapping of ex-Governor Taylor of Kentucky, who was at that time under indictment for murder in his own state and was safe in Indiana, because the Republican governor of that state refused to sign extradition papers.
This object lesson was an important factor in arousing public sentiment for the imprisoned miners, and when Haywood was finally put on trial he was acquitted; the other men were finally discharged. But the government officials and their capitalist masters did not forget the part Fred Warren played in their defeat, and an indictment was brought against him for having “sent scurrilous, defamatory and threatening matter through the mails.” After long delay he was tried and convicted by a packed jury, every member of which was a Republican. From this decision he appealed. Again long delays, and finally, after election is over, the Appellate Court has sustained the decision of the District Court, and Fred Warren must go to jail for six months. On the 21st of January, he is to begin serving his sentence.
Triumphantly he goes to jail. He has put the Federal courts on trial before the working class of the United States. He has charged that they are the tools of the capitalist class to protect the interests of that class and to keep the workers down. In sending him to jail the courts have pleaded guilty to his charge against them. They have failed and he has triumphed. They meant to crush the Appeal to Reason. It went into the fight with a circulation of a quarter of a million. It now has half a million. If the government officials are stubborn and stupid enough to keep Fred Warren in jail six months, he will come out of it the editor of a paper with a million enthusiastic subscribers, the most powerful man in America. Fortunately for the working class movement, Fred Warren is as true and loyal as he is able and resourceful. He strikes with tremendous power, because he is striking at the tyranny that stands between the working people of America and the happy life they want to live. His fight is our fight, and it is a winning fight.
[Paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
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[Ads for Books by Comrades Eugene Debs and George Brewer]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Fred Warren, ISR p166, Aug 1909
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA166
The International Socialist Review, Volume 11
(Chicago, Illinois)
-July 1910 to June 1911
Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1911
https://books.google.com/books?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ
ISR-Jan 1911
-page 427: Editorial re Warren
-page 428: photo of Debs and Brewer
-page 441: ad for Brewer’s book
-page 449: ad for “Debs: Life…”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/
See also:
Tag: Fred Warren
https://weneverforget.org/tag/fred-warren/
“The Fighting Editor”
…Or…
“Warren and the Appeal”
-by George D. Brewer
Brewer, Girard, Kansas, 1910
Note: also reviews Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EMKN3_jGNr4C
Debs
His Life, Writings and Speeches
-with Biography by Stephen Marion Reynolds
Appeal to Reason, 1908
Note: this is 3rd edition, 1910
-with intro by Mary Marcy
https://books.google.com/books?id=1X3rXrzI5GgC
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924002385379#page/n7
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Commonwealth of Toil Monsieur Jack
– just discovered this, now my favorite version!
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin