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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 27, 1919
From Leavenworth Prison – Poetry of Charles Ashleigh and H. Austin Simons
The following three poems appeared in the Ohio Socialist of April 23, 1919. The first is by Fellow Worker Charles Ashleigh and the second is by H. Austin Simons, Conscientious Objector. The third is by Mary O’Reilly, Socialist of Chicago.
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Fellow Worker Charles Ashleigh, No. 13115, Leavenworth, Sept 1918:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917
Wobbly:
The Rough-and-tumble Story of an American Radical
-by Ralph Chaplin
University of Chicago Press, Jan 1, 1948
Chapter 18-War, pages 208-9
https://books.google.com/books?id=n-ygPQAACAAJ
The Ohio Socialist
“Official Organ of the Socialist Parties of Ohio,
Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and New Mexico.)
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-Apr 23, 1919
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/065-apr-23-1919.pdf
Re “Mary O’Reilly” as Chicago Socialist, see:
–The Progressive Woman of May 1912
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=XYA-AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA38
States “Mary O’Reilly” is from Chicago, a school teacher, and a Socialist speaker and writer.
She is one of the members of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Daily Socialist , and has been instrumental in helping that paper over numerous rough places. Like many others of our younger women, Miss O’Reilly will no doubt make her work tell for Socialism more and more as the years pass.
Reasonably certain that this is the same Mary O’Reilly, but more research needed.
IMAGE
IWW, Charles Ashleigh, 13115, Leavenworth, Sept 1918
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/117703277
See also:
Re H. Austin Simons, see:
The Mother Earth Bulletin
(New York, New York)
-Jan 1918
https://libcom.org/library/january-1918-vol-1-no-4
IN THE TRENCHES
[…..]
Another very interesting case [“of conscientious objectors in the various camps and prisons”] is that of H. Austin Simons, a young American and brilliant writer, now at Camp Grant, Rockford, Ill. The case is reported in the Chicago American as follows:
H. Austin Simons, “conscientious objector,” received a sentence of eight years before Judge Advocate Lieutenant Charles F. Dyer of the Three Hundred and Forty-second Regiment. When told of his sentence by the Chicago Evening American correspondent he merely smiled.
He took up his pen and “poemed” a bit to show his feelings have not been disturbed. His verse, written extemporaneously, follows:
No moment more for weeping;
Now courage comes-free, uplifting,
With her I go to the long agony,
And I will be sweet and glad in my great beauty,
And with my love cheat the bitter seasons
Of their bitterness.“What are then principles on which you object to wear the uniform of Uncle Sam?” His answer was:
“A humanitarian principle, which makes it impossible for me to do any thing that will contribute to the death of another person. In the second place, a conviction that it as my duty to live for the future; and the belief that I cannot serve the future properly by going into military service.”
His last principle was that his life was dedicated to a creative impulse art particularly the art of literature; as art is creative and war is absolutely and entirely destructive.
“I am following the dictates of my conscience.” were his final words.
During the trial another question asked of the objector was, do you believe in God? His answer was, “Yes, a God.” “You have a God of your own, then?” Simons’ face lit up for a moment end he answered, “A God that is believed in by the philosophical world.”
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The Industrial Workers of the World –
Lyrics by Laura Payne Emerson
-from Industrial Pioneer of March 1921
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=sY9ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PA12
Performed by Twin Cities Labor Chorus