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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 19, 1918
New York, Youngstown, Cleveland, Etc., Seek to Ban Red Flag
From The Ohio Socialist of December 18, 1918:
“THE RED FLAG ROAD”
We stole the caption because it sounded good. And now listen to our story.
You’ve heard of the Red Flag. You may never have seen one but we are sure you have heard about it. A Red Flag is a piece of cotton, wool or silk that’s been dyed red and in appropriate size is then hoisted to enjoy the breezes that blow.
There is a certain class of people in this land that go mad at sight of the Red Flag just as a bull does at sight of a red rag, and they chase it around with mouthings and ordinances.
The sport began in New York some weeks ago and seems to be traveling westward. The city fathers of Youngstown, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities have seen red and with heroic mien are chasing the Red Flag around and around.
We feel sorry for the Red Flag, folks. Poor, inanimate thing! Can neither talk back nor defend itself while it’s being banished and disgustingly discussed by those whom people have deemed wise enough to run cities.
Passing ordinances that the Red Flag shall fly no more is acting much like the fellow who cut off his little finger to make his hand quit stealing. The Red Fag is only an appendage. The real stuff is a matter of brains. And when brains accept the Red Flag as the insignia for Industrial Democracy then, whether the Red Fag flies or not, the trick is done.
A German Citizen-Yes, he was anti-German, anti-kaiser, anti-autocratic, anti-imperialistic, anti-capitalistic-told us some years ago that in the country he gave up in order to enjoy the unlimited democracy of these United States, the government put the ban on red as part of the color scheme in the attire of all workingmen. Red neckties, red handkerchiefs, and, we believe, red hair also, were taboo and every workingman caught with anything red upon his person was forthwith jailed. One of the results of the baning of red in Germany was an increase in the Socialist vote from about 400,000 to about nine times that.
Today Germany flies the Red Flag as THE flag.
We know what is meant by this passing of ordinances making it an offense to fly the Red Flag. The city fathers see beyond the Red Flag and fear the day of Industrial Democracy. Hauling down the Red Flag will not delay its advent. Attacking the Red Flag will not defeat it. Only one thing will defeat Socialism and that is to prove to the majority of workers that its principles are wrong. This our heroic councilmen are too cowardly to do and so they satisfy themselves by chasing the Red Flag around the room.
Keep it up boys! If we had the price we’d pay you for it!
In the meantime the march down the Red Flag Road will continue, Red Flags or no Red Flags. And when we arrive at the destination, it’s dollars to doughnuts that we won’t find a soul that favored banishing the Red Flag in the year 1918.
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There follows an editorial which appeared in the Youngstown “Vindicator.” This editorial is really too fair-so fair that it almost robs the Socialist of his sting.
THE RED FLAG
Did not council act hastily and without due consideration, in passing under suspension of the rules, Monday night, an ordinance forbidding the use of the Red Flag in Youngstown? The Red Flag has for years been the distinctive emblem of Socialists the world over. It is the emblem of the Socialists in France and England, without whose support the war could not have been won and who are now among the most ardent backers of President Wilson. Against the selfish forces of reaction which are now scheming to rob us of the fruits of victory the Socialists in Europe are setting themselves like a powerful bulwark. Let us take care lest we offend these men. Among them are some of the most thoughtful and farsighted statesmen of our time, and we want their help in securing the new and better world order which we in America, especially, have been encouraged to expect from the war.
Council evidently passed the ordinance under a misunderstanding. It shares the common belief that the Red Flag stands for riot and anarchy and the overthrow of organized government. As used by the established Socialist parties in Europe it stands for no such thing; they are as respectable and order-loving as Republicans and Democrats and no one in Europe would dream of suppressing them. Of course, the revolutions in Germany and Russia have brought excesses which no one condones, but these same revolutions have contributed more than battles to the central powers’ defeat and have saved millions of American lives. The riots in New York and other states, caused by the carrying of the Red Flag, have generally been started not by those who carried it but by onlookers whose misconception of liberty and patriotism led them astray. In matters like this, repression never has accomplished its purpose and never will; men’s convictions grow and draw strength from opposition and attempts to suppress them can only do harm. Council’s action is part of the campaign which is just beginning in this country, to curtail men’s rights, and is only another proof of the saying common in Europe, that Americans enjoy less freedom than British and Continentals.
There is one thing that council cannot do. The red necktie has, like the Red Flag, been an accepted sign of Socialism, and the Socialists of Youngstown at their meetings and when they appear before council are justified in wearing it as a sign of protest.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Montana News of February 13, 1908:
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SOURCE
The Ohio Socialist
“Official Organ of the Socialist Parties
of Ohio and Kentucky”
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Dec 18, 1918
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/047-dec-18-1918.pdf
IMAGES
Mother Jones Quote, Red Flag, DNT p7 Aug 11, 1907
https://www.genealogybank.com/
Red Flag Waving
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Red Flag Poem by Mary F Merrill, MTNs p3, Feb 13, 1908
https://www.newspapers.com/image/77933958/
See also:
For EVD on the The Red Flag:
See: “The Crimson Standard” by Debs
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076839839;view=2up;seq=278
Political Repression in Modern America from 1870 to 1976
-by Robert Justin Goldstein
University of Illinois Press, 2001
(search: “red flag laws”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=2Za8lifq1mYC
U. S. Supreme Court
Stromberg v. California, 1931
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromberg_v._California
German Revolution 1918-1919
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_1918%E2%80%9319
Russian Revolutions of 1917
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution
Search at Chronicling America:
-1918-1919 + “red flag law”
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?date1=1918&sort=date&date2=1919&searchType=basic&state=&rows=50&proxtext=%22red+flag+law%22&y=12&x=16&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2
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Re: “The Red Flag” by James Connell
-first song of first edition (1909) of Little Red Songbook.
See: Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs!
-ed by Archie Green, etc…
PM Press, Feb 19, 2016
(search: “1 the red flag james connell”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=QaXECwAAQBAJ
The Red Flag by James Connell
-LRSB p2, 14th General Defense Edition, IWW Apr 1918
https://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF045327/00001/pageturner#page/9
The Red Flag, Lyrics by Jim Connell, 1889
The Red Flag -Billy Bragg to Tune of “The White Cockade”