In factory and field and mine we gather in our might,
We’re on the job and know the way to win the hardest fight,
For the beacon that shall guide us out of darkness into light,
Is One Big Industrial Union!
-Ralph Chaplin
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday July 22, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – “I.W.W. Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent”
“Paint ‘Er Red” by Ralph Chaplin
From General Defense Edition-14th, April 1918:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
IWW Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent
Chicago IWW Publishing Bureau, April 1918
https://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF045327/00001/pageturner#page/1
“Songs of the Workers”, 14th Edition, General Defense Edition
https://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF045327/00001/pageturner#page/3
“Paint ‘Er Red” by Ralph H. Chaplin
https://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF045327/00001/pageturner#page/43
See also:
Rebel Voices
-ed by Joyce L. Kornbluh
PM Press, Sep 1, 2011
(search: “paint er red”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=n2ATBwAAQBAJ
Kornbluh states:
Although this poem frequently appeared in the I.W.W. press over Ralph Chaplin’s name, in his autobiography, Wobbly (Chicago, 1948), Chaplin claimed that it was written by a West Virginia miner, Elmer Rumbaugh. He wrote:
The only convert I made for the “One Big Union” idea was Elmer Rumbaugh, a young, hard bitten miner, blind in one eye as the result of a mine accident…”Rummy” afterward joined the I.W.W. and remained true to the faith until his dying day. He was very much interested in writing labor songs. One of these, “Paint ‘Er Red,” in time became a proletarian classic.
“Paint ‘Er Red” was first published in the Huntington, West Virginia , Socialist and Labor Star (January 24, 1913), while Chaplin was the editor. On November 7, 1914, it was published in Solidarity. The song was used by the prosecution in several federal and state trials of I.W.W. members during World War I period as proof of the organization’s revolutionary intent.
Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs!
-ed by Archie Green, David Roediger,
–Franklin Rosemont, Salvatore Salerno
PM Press, Feb 19, 2016
(search: “paint er red”)
Note: Songs are numbered by first appearance in Little Red Songbook. “Paint ‘Er Red” gets #94, with first appearance in Ninth Edition, March 1916, Cleveland: “Joe Hill Memorial Edition.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=QaXECwAAQBAJ
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Great Performance by May Day Chorus of Asheville