To advocate peace with things as they are
is treason to humanity.
This is a class struggle and on class lines
it must be fought out to a finish.
-Ida Crouch-Hazlett
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday April 27, 1907
American Labor Responds to President Theodore Roosevelt
From The Montana News of April 25, 1907:
ORGANIZED LABOR AROUSED
The statement of President Roosevelt in a letter to James S. Sherman, regarding the Harriman controversy, re-which he refers to Debs, Moyer, and Haywood as ‘undesirable citizens’ has raised a storm of protest among the labor unions and aroused to action those few that were hitherto luke-warm. The Executive Committee of the Moyer-Haywood Protest Conference of New York, representing over three hundred labor organizations, with a membership aggregating more than two hundred thousand men, addressed an open letter to the president protesting against the stand he has taken in this matter and asking him to “make such public amends as any true gentleman is bound to offer when inadvertently he has made a mistake and inflicted grievous wrongs upon men who have nothing to do with his personal quarrel.”
The Central Federated Union of New York adopted a motion calling upon Roosevelt to retract his statement that Moyer and Haywood are “undesirable citizens.”
The Boston Central Labor Union adopted a resolution condemning Roosevelt for “usurping prerogatives which neither the laws nor the constitution of the United States gave him.”
At the last meeting of the Brooklyn Moyer-Haywood Conference “Roosevelt’s attack upon Moyer, Haywood and Debs in the Harriman controversy was warmly discussed, and a committee was appointed to draft resolutions of protest for the president’s enlightenment.”
In Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver and other cities similar action has been taken and it seems as if this last snarl from the president has done more to clear the fog away from the class struggle than a years’ agitation by our socialist speakers could have done.
Now, while we agree with the sentiments of these labor organizations and rejoice to see this epidemic of class-consciousness, we cannot see but what Roosevelt has acted sincerely and consistently in this matter. Debs, Moyer and Haywood are undesirable citizens—to Roosevelt and his class. There never was yet a man who sought to stir up discontent and rebellion among the slaves but who was “undesirable” to the master. From Jesus Christ to Gene Debs there never was a man who championed the cause of the down trodden workers but who was persecuted by the rulers and denounced as “undesirable” and “dangerous.” In this class struggle which is now convulsing the world the working class is becoming dangerously conscious of its interests and its power. The working class in Russia is dangerous, to the Czar and the bureau.
The working class in Germany is dangerous to Emperor Wiliam. The working class in England is dangerous to King Edward and the royal family, and the working class in the United States is dangerous to the industrial despots who hold the power of life and death over millions of their fellow men. Any class of people, in any country, at any time determined on gaining their freedom are dangerous to a tyrant. Freedom always was and always will be dangerous to tyranny in every form.
Those who are in the front of the working class army in this struggle can expect nothing else than to be singled out for the shafts of hatred hurled by the henchmen of the capitalist class.
It is an honor and an acknowledgement of their integrity of character to be singled out. Roosevelt will make no gentlemanly amends, publicly or otherwise. He would not if he dared and he dare not if he would. He is in the position described by Emerson in his essay on “Compensation” where he says “the President has paid dear for his White House.” It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes.
To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne. The animosity shown by Roosevelt toward Debs, Moyer and Haywood is that of the class of which he is the representative and shows how keenly class conscious they are, and how alive to the increasing power of this “dangerous” and “undesirable” class by using the influence of the president’s office to prejudice the public against Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone just on the eve of their trial.
It is idle to talk of love or peace or fraternity on a basis of master and slave. To advocate peace with things as they are is treason to humanity. This is a class struggle and on class lines it must be fought out to a finish.
———-
[Drawings by Ryan Walker added.]
SOURCE
The Montana News
(Helena, Montana)
-Apr 25, 1907
“Owned and Published by the
Socialist Party of Montana”
Editor: Ida Crouch-Hazlett
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1907-04-25/ed-1/seq-1/
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1907-04-25/ed-1/seq-2/
IMAGES
Drawings by Ryan Walker from
Appeal to Reason of Apr 20, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586854/
Montana News, Ida Crouch-Hazlett, Editor, Apr 25, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/77950309
See also:
Tag: Haywood-Moyer-Pettibone Case
https://weneverforget.org/tag/haywood-moyer-pettibone-case/
Tag: Undesirable Citizen
https://weneverforget.org/tag/undesirable-citizen/
Emerson’s essay on compensation;
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882
Published 1906
https://archive.org/details/emersonsessayonc00emeriala
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are They Going to Hang My Papa?
Performed by John Larsen and Michelle Groves
Lyrics by Owen Spendthrift, 1907
http://steunenberg.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
For Lyrics to “Are They Going to Hang My Papa?”
Duluth Labor World of May 18, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1907-05-18/ed-1/seq-4/