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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 24, 1919
Helen Keller on Workers, Labor Exploitation and Freedom
From the New York Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
[From Helen Keller.]
Workingmen everywhere are becoming aware that they are being exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless they own themselves and their labor. The achievement of such economic freedom stands in prospect— at no distant date—as the revolutionary climax of the age. (Helen Keller.)
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Entire Edition of The Rebel Worker – for April 15, 1919
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TERRIBLE DAYS AHEAD IN THE UNITED STATES
MACHINE GUNS AND BOMBS TO QUELL REVOLT.The United States is in the grip of a bloody revolution. Thousands of workers are slaughtered by machine guns in New York City. Washington is on fire. Industry is at a standstill and thousands of workers are starving. The Government is using the most brutal and repressive measures to put down the revolution. Disorganization, crime, chaos, rape, murder, and arson are the order of the day, the inevitable results of social revolution.
The above is what we may expect to see on the front pages of what few newspapers survive the upheaval.
No one who has the interest of the working class at heart wants to see such a revolution. But whether those interested in the working class want to see such a revolution or not, there are powerful forces in the United States that are making for just such a catastrophe.
The Industrial Workers of the World has in the past and is now using all of its energies to avert such a cataclysmic debacle. It is not yet too late to avoid this terrible and sanguinary strife, provided that the I. W. W. is allowed to carry out its program of organizing and educating the workers for the purpose of taking control of, and operating industry and giving to those who work the full social value of the product of their labor.
But the powerful forces of reaction seem bent upon driving, with the most ruthless and barbarous tactics, the workers to open revolt.
That the masters are preparing for a revolution in this country is no secret. They openly boast that they are ready to meet any crisis. They are reorganizing their police forces and reserves and drilling them in tactics used in street fighting. They tell us of the gas bombs and machine guns that are in store. The iron heel is ready.
Unwilling or incapable of meeting the present crisis in a humane and rational way, not heeding the warnings coming from Europe, the masters are plunging ahead—in many instances deliberately provoking the workers to violence, in the hope that the revolt may be smothered in blood.
The great danger lies in the fact that the mass of workers are not class conscious, not organized and not educated to the idea of industrial democracy. The industrial tyrants knowing this, believe that if they can provoke the workers to unorganized revolt, the latter will murder each other and, when the fracas becomes intolerable, the masters will be able to appeal to the workers “in the name of humanity” to reestablish “law and order” and thus perpetuate capitalism, even though it be modified.
One does not have to look far to discover the causes that are driving the workers toward revolt. Unemployment is a growing menace. Already bread lines and soup kitchens are being established in the hope of palliating the misery of starving men and women. Free speech and free press are relics of the past. Thousand of working men and women are now in prison or on their way and for no other reason than championing industrial democracy. Deportation of union men and women adds fuel to the flames of discontent.
The lawmakers of many States are now engaged in passing laws designed to suppress the few remaining liberties of the workers. The country is facing a financial panic. Practically no new industrial undertakings are under way. Business is fast approaching the point where thousands of small business enterprises will be forced into bankruptcy. Wages are being cut with a will. The cost of living is still soaring. The climax is not far off—and the workers are not prepared.
In our opinion capitalism must and should go. But that is no reason why we should not do our utmost to make the change as peaceful and bloodless as possible. Our program is for organizing the workers industrially and educating them in the business of carrying on industry for themselves. We are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
We will go on with our program in spite of the industrial tyrants who would crush us with their machine guns, and without regard to the boneheaded would-be saviors of the workers who are trying to incite us to unorganized mass action, dynamite, and votes. We hold to industry with our constructive program. Onward.
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THE INTERNATIONAL REVOLT.
Germany: A soviet republic was proclaimed in Munich April 4. The communist movement is spreading throughout Bavaria and other parts of southern Germany. General strikes have been declared in various industrial centers and union with the workers of Russia and Hungary against the common enemy is being effected. The yellow Socialist government is at its wits’ end, as it no longer dares outrage the workers by the ruthless cruelty with which it has suppressed the working-class movement up to this time. The army is becoming permeated with communist ideas and various regiments have been disarmed on account of their disloyalty—to the bourgeois Socialist government. An effort is being made to double-cross the workers by the trick of a constitutional provision for “industrial councils” in which they would negotiate with their exploiters as to the terms under which they would continue to be slaves. The majority Socialists are everywhere lining up against the workers and trying to block the movement for general strikes throughout the country as a prelude to the real revolution.
At a national convention of unemployed, held in Berlin, April 5, the delegates reported that there were 3,500,000 German workers out of employment and that the Government bureaus were powerless to cope with the situation. There will be something doing when the Central Council of Soldiers and Workers Councils meets in Berlin the middle of this month. The miners in the Ruhr district, 142,000 of whom are on strike, voted to stop the pumps and let the mines be flooded if their demands were not granted by April 9. The miners of Silesia and central Germany have declared their solidarity with their fellow miners of the Ruhr district. They have also voted that those who responded to the Government’s call for troops should be “avoided like the pest,” and denied the right to work with them in future. There are 345,000 miners out on strike in the Rhineland and the movement is spreading.
The workers everywhere are demanding the disarming of the police and Government troops, the arming of the working class, the six-hour day, the formation of workers’ soviets, and the establishment of close relations with their fellow workers in Russia and Hungary. The revolutionary movement is making slow progress in the territory occupied by troops from “the demockracy of the golden west,” as the American authorities are either deporting workers who go on strike or fining them and making them work out their fines under military guard.
The mayor of Coblenz has been put on trial for “ignoring Gen. Dickman’s order to produce 300 laborers for army work.” A Spartacide plan to arm several thousand Russian war prisoners was blocked by the American guards, who scattered the Russians among various camps, where they can now spread Bolshevist propaganda.
Hungary: The revolution is consolidating its position in Hungary. The transfer of power to the working class has been accomplished without blood shed, and order prevails throughout the country. The Allies are enraged, but do not dare to interfere. The French Government is for armed invasion, but the other representatives of capitalism, fearing the consequences at home, are trying to use the Czecho-Slovaks or some other small nation as cat’s-paw.
Meanwhile the reorganization of society is progressing rapidly along lines worked out in advance of the revolution. Suitable homes for those who do the work of the community are being provided by dividing up the houses of the rich and apportioning the apartments among the workers on the basis of the size of the family. Rents have been reduced and will be collected by the State. Jewels above a certain value are confiscated and private art collections are declared public property.
The public debt will probably be repudiated. Law courts have been abolished and judges deposed, revolutionary tribunals taking their places, “with more consideration for real justice than mere law.” The stock exchange has been put out of business and religious schools have been closed. State aid for churches has been withdrawn and priests will be compelled to go to work. Clergymen and nuns have been removed from the hospitals. Socialism is being taught in all the schools, and workers’ universities are to be established. Horse racing has been prohibited and the race tracks turned into vegetable gardens.
Industry is being socialized, the Standard Oil Co. plant being one of the first to be confiscated. Every industrial establishment employing 20 or more workers has been turned over to the control of the workers themselves. Soviet councils are being organized, the right to vote being extended to all men and women over 18 years of age, with the exception of those who employ others to work for them or who live off unearned income; also merchants, priests, and common criminals—in short, crooks, lunatics, and parasites generally.
“The expropriator is being expropriated,” says Bela Kun, one of the leaders of the communist movement. “The fetters of wage slavery have been shattered. Air, light, and cleanliness, formerly the privileges of the bourgeoisie, can now benefit the proletariat. The cinemas and theaters, which until now have mainly served for the amusement of the rich, are open to the proletariat. The press, the most important organ of capitalism for influencing proletarian minds, is in our service.”
Austria: The example of Hungary is expected to be followed soon in Austria, where the communist idea is making rapid progress. April 15 is said to be the date set for the overturn. The Entente Mission in Vienna has called on the Government to expel agents sent by the Hungarians to aid the communist movement. Workers’ councils are being formed in Prague and other parts of Bohemia.
Roumania: Berlin dispatches state that “Bolshevism’s next onslaught will be in the direction of Roumania,” which is caught between Russia and Hungary and is being attacked also by the Bulgarians and Ukrainians. The British Government has opened credits for the purchase of supplies and has sent complete equipment for an army of 150,000 men. Canada has likewise thrown away $25,000,000 in a “loan” to Rumania.
Serbia: A crisis is reported to be imminent in Serbia, where 85 per cent of the workers are said to be without employment. When the railway workers struck last month and the Government mobilized them under martial law, a sympathetic strike was threatened.
Poland: All of Galicia is said to be in a state of revolution. The Lemberg Soviet has declared a general strike. Workers in the oil region around Drobhobyoz have established a soviet government and the movement has spread to near-by districts. Troops sent by the Polish Government have joined the communists.
Russia: Finnish troops who form part of Gen. Maynard’s force in north Russia are becoming mutinous and threatening to go over to the Bolsheviki, now that they see what they are being used for. Troops are being hurried from England to keep them quiet. The Bolsheviki army is in better condition than ever before. The total number of allied troops invading Russia and Siberia is officially stated to be 309,465, with the land of liberty represented by 12,420 American scissor hills. The same “democratic” country recently dispatched a shipment of 60,000 Remington rifles to “the brave Czecho-Slovaks,” to be used to kill Russian workingmen guilty of defending their country against foreign invaders.
Bolshevist agitation is growing so powerful in Vladivostok that the allied representatives are alarmed over the situation. Most of the Ukraine, the granary of Russia, is now in the hands of the Bolsheviki and pressure on Odessa has become so great that the allied invaders are making preparations for a retreat. Greek troops are being used by the Allies in this region. Those rascally Bolsheviki are continuing their unfair tactics of bombarding the invading troops with “seditious” literature, and distributing quantities of it among the natives. French regiments in Odessa mutinied last month and refused to kill their Russian fellow workers at the command of international capitalism. Bill Shatoff is reported to be chief of police in Petrograd.
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WICHITA DEFENDANTS GO RACK TO DUNGEONS
STARVE IN JAIL AWAITING TRIAL(C. W. Anderson.)
On March 10 the former Newton group were taken to Wichita for trial, as had the other boys a day or two before. On the 12th of March all defendants were marched to the Federal court. This first day in the squared arena was taken up with the selection of a jury composed almost wholly of “farmers.” At the end of that first day the 12 men who were supposed to judge us “guilty” or “not guilty,” consisted of one banker and eleven farmers. What would you have given for our chances?
Judge Pollack suggested that the jury be picked first of all so as to enable the empaneled men to either be accepted or sent home and not to be kept waiting while the arguments were heard on the bill of particulars, demurrers, and motion to quash the indictment.
The second day in court, March 13, was taken up almost wholly by Attorney George F. Vandeveer for the defense on arguments for quashing the indictment, the return of papers illegally seized, and many other matters. Vandeveer was at his best and his talk was so clear cut and convincing that he held the attention of the entire court, including the judge, the entire period. The five counts of the indictment was literally torn to shreds.
Take the “food and fuel act” of August 10, 1917, for instance. That is an “act” which provided for the punishment of those who hoarded, wasted, or otherwise hampered or interfered with the production or distribution of food, fuel, oil, natural gas, and farm products, with intent to enhance their price. This does not apply to the workers but to those who own and control.
In the oil fields there is scarcely anything else but oil and gas produced, so no one could have interfered with food, fuel, or farm products because there was none to interfere with. As far as the hampering of oil production was concerned I wish to state that the workers couldn’t have done so because statistics prove that there were 21,000,000 barrels or so more oil produced in 1917 than in 1916, in the Kansas fields alone. The powers that be have charged us with something that they got away with and profited by, and made the defendants the innocent victims of something we couldn’t have done if we wanted to. Not one profiteer has been convicted under this act that we know of.
Further, we were charged with obstructing the draft, enlistments into the Army and Navy and with insubordination in the same, in another count. In the indictment it did not specify when or how we conspired to obstruct. As a matter of fact it is a mythical charge. All defendants registered and answered their calls.
In another count we were charged with intent to murder citizens of the United States unknown to the grand jurors or anybody else, but in the indictment it does not specify when or where or whom we conspired against. That count seems to be a pipe dream cooked up by some one who thought he could get away with it under the cloak of war hysteria.
The other counts charge violation of the “S-spinach” act and other criminal codes. All are bunched together in one huge heap, making it appear as if we were a group of hardened criminals, instead of just plain industrial unionists, working for the betterment of a world through education and organization.
Vandeveer further argued that all our literature, letters, and supplies had been illegally taken, in that the search warrants did not specify what was wanted at the time of the seizures. In some instances no search warrants were presented at all. Much of the material used against us was the evidence used in the Chicago and Sacramento cases.
What is more, the writer was the only one out of this entire group that was presented with a warrant of arrest, at the time of being apprehended, and that I was taken on a William D. Haywood warrant in Chicago. Moreover, I had never seen an oil field nor had I ever been near one until forced to come down here.
As a whole the entire indictment against us is out of order and is so rotten it stinks to the high heavens. No sane individual could have been the author of such a document. Previous to September 24, 1918, we had been held for 10 months on a smaller indictment, charging only violation of the food and fuel act but it was too rank for presentation in court, so was quashed and on waiting for decision last September were reindicted on this present five count indictment, which was even more ridiculous.
In his arguments for the quash, etc., of this indictment, Vandeveer quoted many cases and astounded the legal fraternity of this neck of the woods. He raised all his points on technical flaws and there is no way to get around them. The opposition had little or nothing to say and was completely taken by surprise. The prosecutor tried to raise the point that the I. W. W. was a criminal organization, but there is not a court of law in this country that has ever proved it as yet.
At any rate the judge was so impressed by Vandeveer’s arguments that he asked if both sides would present their briefs in printed form, allowing each side 30 days apiece to get them filed. This was with the understanding that providing the defendants were willing to lay over this period. We consented to lay over. The judge will probably render his decision on or about two months from the time we were last in court, March 13. It seems as if the object in view of the judge in having the briefs filed in printed form was for the purpose of establishing a precedent case, and if he is the jurist that they claim he is he will sustain our quash to throw the case out of court. But if he should overrule it, we go to bat next September, and if we have to lay in the jail till that time, it will mean 22 months in county jails, mostly of the worst description.
Since last September and even at the present time 28 of us are held under $10,000 bail and conditions such that they are prohibitive and next to impossible for us to make them. If there ever was an iron heel used, it has been applied to us most vigorously. Many of the defendants are physically weak, one died last fall, three are mentally unbalanced, and a few have contracted symptoms of tuberculosis.
After the court proceedings at Wichita 10 of the boys were moved to the Reno County jail, at Hutchinson, Kans., as follows: M. Sapper, corresponding secretary; Robert Poe, A. Barr, F. Patton, H. M. McCarl, J. Wallberg, Leo Stark, S. Forbes, E. M. Boyd, and J. Geffrey.
Six of us were brought here [Lawrence] for safe-keeping as follows: C. W. Anderson, corresponding secretary; F. J. Gallagher, H. Drew, S. B. Hicok, E. J. Huber, and P. J. Higgins.
Twelve were moved to the Shawnee County jail, at Topeka, Kans., as follows: O. E. Gordon. W. Franick, M. Quinn, Joe Gresbach, M. Hecht, R. A. Lambert, Tom o’Day, P. Maihak, E. Henning. F. Grau, George Wengerand, C. Schnell.
The conditions in Topeka are intolerable. It is a virtual Middle Age dungeon and as had as that one at Wichita. How long is humanity to suffer in such vile dens? The Topeka can is not fit for human habitation.
Here in Lawrence we have a clean jail and the food is much better than in some jails but we are fed only twice a day, 7.30 a. m. and 2 p. m., whereas at Newton and Hutchinson prisoners are fed three times a day. We are in a small steel tank, with very little room for exercise. And plenty of exercise and fresh air is what we need now, on account of our 16 months’ confinement.
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FOR A GENERAL STRIKE.
Resolution adopted by “the general strike conference for the liberation of Eugene V. Debs and all political class-war prisoners,” on March 23, 1919, at 232 North Ninth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.:
Whereas Eugene V. Debs and other champions of the interests of the working class have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment because they have had the courage to express their convictions, and have dared to affirm their loyalty to the working class; and
Whereas these men and women are paying the price of their devotion to the interests of toiling humanity, under sentences more savage than any that have been imposed in Prussia and even in Czaristic Russia, thus proving that the instruments of law have been perverted into weapons of class oppression on vengeance, and persecution: Therefore be it
Resolved, That we call upon the organized and unorganized workers of this country to declare a general strike on May 1. 1919, as the only effective step in the direction of securing the release of the class-war prisoners.
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MASS MEETING.
The Printing and Publishing Workers’ Industrial Union will hold a mass meeting in Union Hall, 27 East Fourth Street, New York City, Tuesday. April 22, at 8 p. m.
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NEW YORK PRINTERS ORGANIZE IN THE ONE BIG UNION.
Formation of industrial unions of the I. W. W. in the New York district is progressing steadily. The latest group to organize is the printing and publishing industry. Other I. W. W. unions established in New York within the past few months include textile workers, metal and machinery workers, and construction workers.
The new union will he known as Printing and Publishing Workers’ Industrial Union No. 120O. It already has many active members who have started work at once on a vigorous propaganda and membership campaign. Special literature has been prepared and public meetings are going to be held for the purpose of spreading the One Big Union idea among the workers in the printing industry.
The field is ripe for an I. W. W. organization in this industry. Wage increases in recent years have been so few and far between that printers can no longer boast of being “the aristocrats of labor.” The gradual introduction of the eight-hour day in other industries has removed one “talking point” of the American Federation of Labor organizations, while the 9 and 10 hour day prevailing in nonunion shops is an effective source of discontent among the unorganized.
The humiliating $2 hand-out by the bosses as a sop to the workers in the early part of the war, and the later fiasco of the $3.60 increase granted by the War Labor Board and raised to $6 at the request of the employers themselves, have begun to open the eyes of the members of American Federation of Labor unions to the inherent weakness of the craft form of organization.
The autocratic actions of the American Federation of Labor international officials have already led to serious revolts and defiance of their authority. The Hebrew compositors laughed at the international’s threat to “lift” their charter, and called the bluff, with the result that they now have a shorter day and better pay than any other local branch of the industry. In like manner last fall, the pressmen’s assistants, scorned by the “higher” grade workmen, struck in violation of their contract and, in spite of the efforts of their international official to bully them into submission, stuck to their guns and pulled down a $6 a week raise, which forced the officials of “Big Six” and Pressmen’s Union 51 to take some action to satisfy the discontent of their less fortunate followers.
The new I. W. W. printers’ union, said to be the first of its kind in the history of the I. W. W. movement, expects to make big inroads among both organized lmd unorganized workers. Regular weekly meetings are held at 27 East Fourth Street, on Friday evenings. All compositors, linotypers, pressmen, bookbinders, lithographers, also stenographers, clerical employees, etc., employed in the printing or publishing houses—in short all workers in any branch of this industry—are invited to line up and help build up the One Big Union.
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Notice to all secretaries, stationary delegates, and delegates of 573: Semi all 50-cent general defense stamps, all day’s wage stamps to this office at once. Same have been called in by No. 573. By sending them in, we can turn them into general headquarters and get credit for same.
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AGRICULTURAL WORKERS’ INDUSTRIAL UNION NO. 400.
The auditing committee of three members of the organization committee is now in auditing the books of the main office of the A. W. I. U. and their report will be out by the end of the week; they have also counted the ballots which were out to decide where and when the spring convention would be held and they make the report that the convention of the A. W. I. U. will convene at Sioux City, Iowa, April 21, at 10 a. m.
As many members as possible should attend this convention as no doubt there will be many changes to be brought up and discussed concerning both the A. W. I. U. and the organization in general; those who can not attend and who have any points that should be brought up should send same in writing to either this office or to James Kelley at 316 Jennings Street, Sioux City, Iowa.
All members who have carried credentials during the winter months would do well to write in to the main office and send a statement of the supplies on hand so that they will know that they are starting out in the spring with a correct understanding as to how their account stands at the main office.
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Come to the open forum held every Sunday evening at New York headquarters, 27 East Fourth Street. Good speakers, questions from the floor, and general discussion.
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DO IT NOW.
By far the most important thing you can do is to get busy on the job with supplies and credentials. The delegate on the job now is necessary, because, at the time of writing, peace has been declared, and the problems pursuant to this event can only be met by a strong revolutionary organization, such as the I. W. W.
Many fellow workers do not like to take out credentials unless they see a chance to do a land office business. This is a mistaken idea of the delegate system. Because where the workers can be organized en masse, they generally organize themselves. Where the delegate is needed most is on the jobs, where, after hours, he can talk and agitate to those other workers who do not yet see the light. If a delegate sells only $2 worth of stamps a month, that is far better than having no supplies and selling nothing. And if there was a delegate on every third job in the country, how long would it be before every unorganized worker who travels from one job to another would be lined up? Figure it up for yourself, and if you figure it the same as we do, you will have credentials and supplies as soon as you can get them.
The job delegate is the most important part of the organization. No delegates, no organization; lots of delegations, big organization. If you are on a hostile job and have to whisper, then whisper; maybe after awhile if you whisper enough you can talk right out loud. But in any case be a delegate. Don’t leave it to some one else. Always bear this in mind—that the capitalist class don’t care a damn what you believe in, just as long as you don’t get active. (C. W. I. U. No. 573 Bulletin.)
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NOTICE TO NO. 500 DELEGATES.
All delegates and secretaries of the Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union should send to their headquarters for ballots.
George H. Ricker informs us that prospects are very good for the spring drive in the woods. Many new members are lining up daily.
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A CORRECTION.
In the last issue of the Rebel Worker we stated that an organization committee of six members had been elected at the Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union convention. As the ballots will not be sent out until the 10th of April, our report was a bit premature. We will do better next time.
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WHILE CAPITALISM LASTS.
The following letter, written by one of our fellow workers who, with three others, was deported to England by our Government in its efforts to make the United States safe for business, is interesting because it’ shows that the wobbly spirit can not be killed and it is useless to try it:
FELLOW WORKERS: We arrived safely and were subjected to a severe “frisking” by the authorities. They robbed us of all I. W. W. literature found in our possession, even the addresses from our notebooks. All four of us are under surveillance of the military and are restricted from speaking in public.
The voyage was fine as far as the weather was concerned. We traveled steerage and the food was surely bum. There were about 200 other passengers and most of them were sympathetic toward us; only two showed any antagonism. Our case has received great publicity, and the prospects are that it will react in favor of the organization before long.
The situation here is looking pretty fair, as far as the movement is concerned, and you can bet your life that we are still as active as ever and will be as long as capitalism lasts.
Yours, for industrial freedom,
HERBERT JACKSON.
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NOTICE TO LAWRENCE TEXTILE WORKERS.
We hope that you have not forgotten the organization which championed your splendid cause and the victory of 1912. We regret being handicapped by having 2,000 of our livest members in jail. The education the workers received in 1913 is bearing fruit in the victorious fight you are now waging. We know it is impossible for the Golden outfit to exist in Lawrence.
However, do not be misled by so-called garment industrial unions who would take advantage of this opportunity to organize the textile workers of Lawrence in a union that stands for “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” which makes contracts with the bosses. There is only one revolutionary I. W. W. The American Woolen Co. is about to grant an increase of wages if you will stick together, for the following reasons:
Your strike has compelled the American Woolen Co. to establish the 48-hour schedule in all of its mills outside of Lawrence.
Due to the unemployed conditions most of the small independent mills, scattered in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have violated this scale and are running their mills 54 hours in 5 days and others operating night shifts, work their help 48 hours in 4 nights per week.
The American Woolen Co. always sets the pace in all its activities. Notice this company auctioned off a lot of cloth recently to establish a basis for the prices of cloth to prevail in the future market.
The independent mills can always get the jump on the large companies like the American Woolen Co., because they usually buy their yarn already spun and ready for weaving; consequently delivering the finished product before the large mills have finished the preliminary process of working up the raw stock ready for weaving.
The American Woolen Co. is compelled to give at least a 12½ per cent increase very soon because the small mills are getting the first choice of help and will operate their plants 54 hours and the deluded workers most likely will prefer to get 54 hours and pay, respectively, than work in the American Woolen Co.’s mills on the established 48-hour basis. With this competition there is no choice in the matter for American Woolen Co. They must force the other mills in line with them and a substantial increase is the only way. The independent concerns will lag behind for some time on the increase of wages, as usual, and the discontented workers will tend to float toward the highest wages. With the natural advantages the Lawrence strike is won. Then for the O. B. U. to take over control and manage the textile industry for themselves.
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TEXTILE NEWS FROM NEW BEDFORD.
The workers in the mills of this city are dissatisfied with the method in which their recent strike was handled by the Amalgamation of Textile Operatives (A. F. of L.).
The workers in general were striking under the impression that they were to receive the 44-hour week with 56 hours pay, but on returning to the job they find themselves working 48 hours with a reduction in pay of 12 per cent.
John Golden in one of his speeches made the statement, “We told the manufacturers that not a cent was to he taken from the pay envelopes,” but as usual the bosses show their contempt for any statement made by their “Jack on a string.”
In a good number of the mills not even the 48-hour week has been granted, many of them working the night force as many as 66 hours. The employers further refuse to grant an audience to the textile council, stating that no specific agreement has been made for night workers.
In their statement to the press the following is gleaned from the attitude of the employers: “Inasmuch as no women or minors are employed during the night, and that there are no legal restrictions upon the hours of labor for men, it does not seem us though any change in the operation of the mills at night at present should be considered.”
For the enlightenment of our local “labor” (mis) leaders of the textile council we recommend the reading of the I. W. W. preamble, and to give particular attention to this section:
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class take possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolish the wage system.
(Press Committee.)
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BOSTON OPENS NEW HALL.
The Boston Recruiting Union celebrated’ the opening of its new hall on Saturday night, April 5, at 385 Harrison Avenue. Abner E. Woodruff, of New York, delivered the principal address.
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OPEN THE DOORS.
All members of the I. W. W. understand that it is the mission of the working class to overthrow the rule of capitalism, abolish the wage system, and establish a true industrial democracy.
With this end in view the task of to-day and the immediate future are under taken with the knowledge that each strike and protest which calls for a display of solidarity on the part of the workers, is but a part of their training for the great conflicts which will be forced upon the working class by the plunderers when they feel that their grasp upon the material things of life is slipping.
The release of our class-war prisoners, our fellow workers, who have been sentenced to long terms in prison because they were fighting your battles, is the most pressing of all our immediate problems. Our cause was their cause when they were fighting side by side with us. Their cause must be our cause now that they are deprived of all liberty for daring to be men.
We can not leave this work to any group of individuals outside of ourselves, no matter how well-intentioned their efforts may be. We can not expect the courts to take any other stand than they have already taken. We can not leave to our comrades in Europe the task of freeing our class-war prisoners here, although we know they are doing, and will continue to do, everything in their power to bring about the liberation of our fellow workers.
It is up to you, fellow-worker secretary; it is up to you, fellow-worker traveling delegate; it is up to you, fellow-worker job delegate; it is up to you, each and every fellow worker who holds a card in the I. W. W.
If any fellow worker holding office and getting wages from the organization does less than all he can possibly do, then he is a traitor to his fellow workers in jail. If any individual member of the organization fails to respond to the call of his fellow workers behind the bars to do his utmost to gain for them liberty, then he is not true to the cause of his fellow workers who have sacrificed their liberty for his welfare.
And how shall we gain for them their freedom? The answer is simple. By displaying our economic power. By the cessation of work in all industries. It has been successfully accomplished before now in similar circumstances.
Are we strong enough to make this display of our economic power tomorrow? Next month? You know we are not. Can we gain economic power in the near future? Assuredly we can.
How can we gain that economic power at an early date? Again, the answer is easy. By organizing the masses of the workers.
This is the day and this is the hour for each and every one of you to devote your time and your energy to the work of organization. Give the boss his Caesar’s coin in the routine work you have to do to get your living. Give all your spare time and energy to the work of getting all who are not already lined up into the One Big Union with you.
Until you take that stand, until you do everything in your power to make the organization strong enough for the accomplishment of our task, you have no right to criticize the work, or lack of work, on the part of any other member.
The unorganized worker is not going to come into the I. W. W. of his own accord. He must be reached with literature. He must be induced to attend the propaganda meetings. Day after day he must be called upon by job delegates until he is finally induced by education and persuasion to become a fellow member.
Do your secretaries need spurs to keep their feet on the desks? If so, chase them out of their offices without formality, and elect live ones in their places. Are your traveling delegates and stationary delegates entertaining you with pleasant stories instead of pounding you on the back and making you redouble your efforts in getting the slaves lined up? If so, tie the can to them at once. This organization has no money to waste on dead timber.
Are there job delegates in your community who are taking a rest until the pressure eases up a little? Give them a rest for a while by transferring their credentials and supplies to some other fellow worker who feels like taking on a little hard work, and who wants his imprisoned fellow workers to breathe free air once more.
Fellow workers, are you doing your best? You know that without your help all the work the secretaries and delegates can possibly do will not be enough. If from this minute you do your full part, we will have that economic power in less than three months, and our fellow workers now in prison will be walking with us, free men once more.
The work is hard, yes. But you work hard for the boss. Why not work hard for your friends in jail during the next three months? There is a chance of your going to jail yourself. Yes, there is. Did your fellow workers now in jail lay down on that account? Can you do less than they did?
These are hard times and you may lose your job. Yes, that’s true. Would you be willing to give up your job to-morrow if you could get one of your fellow workers out of jail by doing so? Of course you would. All right. You can get them all out of jail if you do your full part from now on.
And when you have built up the organization until it has the economic power necessary to set free our class-war prisoners, you will also have made it strong enough to get for yourselves the six-hour day.
Take out credentials; hold meetings with other delegates in your community. If you can’t take out credentials, get in touch with a live delegate and help him to line up the slaves. Distribute the literature, attend the business meetings yourself, and see that the man working beside you comes to the propaganda meetings and follow him up until he gets a red card.
Get to work at once.(No. 800 Bulletin.)
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ENTERTAINMENT AND DANCE.
Grand entertainment and dance by the Russian Recruiting Union for the benefit of the Russian I. W. W. paper, Golos Truzenika (Workers’ Voice), April 26. 27 East Fourth Street, New York City. Admission, 15 cents.
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NEWS FROM BUTTE.
It is hard to give Butte news without going into detail and that would really take more time than I have at my disposal.
The strike was nearly 100 per cent effective as far as the miners were concerned, and our picket lines for the first three days prevented the craft men and even shift bosses and foremen from going on the hill. On the fourth morning of the strike the soldiers were ready to break up our picket lines on the hill so we switched them to the car barns on the south side of the town and tied up the street car system.
The craft union rank and file, being unable to go to work anyway, voted to join the strike, but after the soldiers arrived pressure was brought to bear by the companies on the many reactionaries they have in these unions and with picked meetings and parliamentarian tactics the strike vote taken at first was rescinded and one after another the unions voted to go back to work.
The miners of Rutte, and for that matter the metal miners of the West, have learned by experience that a long strike is not effective or efficient. We now regard our strikes as skirmishes in the class war. Therefore, after we found the craft unions would go back to work under protection of the soldiers, the strike was called off and the miners went hack on the hill cheerfully and ready to come out again and engage in another skirmish with the companies whenever the time is opportune.
A move is now on foot, engineered by the A. C. M. Co., to have all the craft unions vote that demands be made upon the company, that every employee on the hill shall be a paid-up American Federation of Labor member. The vote is to be taken on April 13 and the demands are to be made through the engineers’ unions, which will notify the company that they will refuse to lower any employee without a paid-up American Federation of Labor card.
The object of this is to force the miners into the old Butte No. 1, Moyer’s Union. That union, for the last two years, has had a membership of less than 50, being held together for the purpose of holding what remains of the old union hall for the Moyer organization. These members are reactionaries and stool pigeons for the company. During the last week they have taken in a number of new members, all of whom are shift bosses and foremen on the hill. Their constitution and by-laws forbid the attendance of shift bosses and foremen at the union meetings but the constitution, on which they lay so much stress on some occasions, will not stand in their way when the interests of the A. C. M. are concerned. The object of getting the shift bosses into the union is to have them pass on the applications for membership if they succeed in getting the closed shop. Of course the A. C. M. blacklist will be the official blacklist for the union.
We are not at all concerned regarding this move, and if we thought it would pass when the referendum vote is taken we would not make a move to stop it. On the contrary, when the engineers got their demands ready for presentation to the company we also would have demands ready for the abolition of the rustling card, two men on a machine, $6 a day, and either eight hours from collar to collar or a six-hour day. This would precipitate a strike and would force the hands of the reactionaries in the craft unions. During the last strike the rank file of these craft unions were with us but were herded and cheated by their business agents, officials, and the reactionaries.
However, I do not think there is any chance of this referendum vote going the way the company stool pigeons, who are engineering it, want it to go. Accordingly we are getting out a leaflet explaining the whole scheme and will distribute them by the thousands all over the community.
Colorado is coming to the front for the first time since No. 800 was started. We have over 100 members now in Telluride, two or three delegates having accomplished this in less than two months. The town is now swarming with Federal dicks, who are investigating the growth of the I. W. W. there and are wondering where it got its start. We are also getting a pretty good start in Tonopah, Nov., and hope to accomplish a good deal in all the mining camps in Nevada this spring and summer.
You have read in the Chicago papers of the coal miners at VanVoorhis, Pa., coming into the organization, and I hope you fellow workers in New York will do everything you can to spread literature and propaganda among these Pennsylvania coal mines.
Minnesota and Michigan are the scenes of considerable activity, the number of new members per week averaging about 100.
That’s a fine title Art Young and Ellis O. Jones have selected for their new satirical weekly, “Good morning.” After the awful night of capitalism we’ve just had, the “Good morning” of proletarian revolution sounds splendid to us.
During February, 1919, the greatest international department of the I. W. W. enrolled 784 new members. That’s a fitting way to protest the lynching of Frank Little, who was murdered by tools of the copper mining corporations.
The working-class demand for I. W. W. organizers and organization is over whelming. It is beyond I. W. W. resources to fill. This simply goes to show that the working class understands the secret of I. W. W. persecution, which is, namely, to kill an effective organization and a great ideal.
The doctors can’t just decide what it is that ails the present system. They don’t know whether its sleeping sickness or influenza of the brain that produces that drooping, comatose condition. Perhaps its prostration of an overworked ideology, superinduced by “imperialismus capitalismus,” is really to blame.
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MAY DAY, 1918.
May day, 1919, promises to be the greatest international labor day ever celebrated. Europe has been the realization of many proletarian ideals, and now America is undergoing a transformation that points to their eventual success here. General strikes and mass demonstrations promise to be the order of the day as never before.
The Rebel Worker is going to join in this celebration. It is going to publish a special eight-page May day number full of good stuff. How big will be your bundle order? Send it in now! Last year the Labor Defender (our former name) put out a May day special that was a great success. We are undoubtedly going to beat it this year. Hustle in your bundle orders and encourage us to surpass ourselves.
We hope as our next venture to publish a weekly Rebel Worker soon. A weekly Rebel Worker is needed in the East to combat our opponents and present our program. Are you with us in this? If so, boost our circulation; then we can be self-sustaining and get out the weekly. Its editorial reportorial work is done as a contribution to the cause. Will you help us to get a paid editor for our weekly? Let your answer be a big boost in circulation. Boost now-early and often.
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RALPH EASLY’S LATEST.
It is to be hoped that the next time God creates Ralp Easly (God has made us all in His own image, and we are all destined to be reincarnated, you know) God will endow Ralph with a sense of humor. He needs it.
The whereas for this will be found in the following: Ralph announces in a recent issue of the National Civic Federation Monthly Review a change of policy. The Review will no longer limit itself to an advocacy of conciliation and arbitration between capital and labor, but will broaden its scope so as to promote the more important measures of social reconstruction as well. Bolshevism and I. W. W-ism especially will be strenuously combated.
Now, if this means anything, it means that Ralph Easly, $15,000 a year “social engineer,” originator, brains, and secretary of the National Civic Federation, has been getting good capitalist coin without having earned it. He has been booming conciliation and arbitration as an economic and social cure-all, only to confess to his employers that it has failed.
And this high-salaried business agent of the American federation of capital thinks he is personally fitted to wipe out Bolshevism and I. W. W-ism!
If failure is synonomous with success, its other name is Easly!
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CAN THE CAPITALISTS RUN THE WORLD?
The March Liberator wants to know, “Can the workers run the world?” This question tickles our risibilities and causes us to submit to an attack of the merry ha ha! It unconsciously reechoes the capitalists’ claim that they run the world and that they are the only ones that can run the world. For a radical socialist magazine to reecho capitalist misstatements is bad Marxiam-ism-the sin of sins against the holy of holies. And then the question is preposterous in the light of contemporaneous events. What we behold, if our eye sight is not falling us, is not a world run by capitalists, but a world that is running the capitalists—running them out of existence, p. d. q. (By the way, we suggest that Art Young draw a cartoon for his new satirical weekly, “Good morning,” showing the capitalists “running” the world according to modern history.)
Then look at the way the capitalists run the world when the world is not running them. H. L. Gantt, one of New York’s foremost production engineers, says the present system is only 15 per cent efficient. There’s some running for you-running to waste-85 per cent. Will the Liberator please repeat its question again? We enjoy anything that suggests a collosal joke, such as the capitalists’ assumption that they are the efficient world runners par excellence. Ask Gantt; he knows.
Now, for a change, let us take seriously this question of running the world. Let us state frankly that if the workers ever run the world the way the capitalists are running it, we’ll start a bloodly counter-revolution against them! And we’ll inflict an antiproltetarian mismanagement dictatorship on them; by God, so we will. We want the world to be run, not ruined or wasted.
The capitalists do anything but run the world. They either bring it to a dead stop or they develop conditions that throw the world into a state somewhat akin to a volcanic eruption. They have, in this heavenly society of theirs, stagnations, crisis, struggles for commercial supremacy and world domination, all climaxed by great wars. Its more like the catniption fits than running, in the sense of orderly, efficient management. We are tired of it. And if ever the workers try the same game on us, we’ll raise old Harry, damned if we wont!
Can the workers run the world?
Aw, shucks! Ask us something serious and sensible.
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THE SKILLED WORKER AND THE I. W. W.
A well-known radical woman employed as a chemist in the textile industry, and popularly supposed to be informed regarding every detail of the revolutionary labor movement, was recently asked, “Why don’t you join the I. W. W.?”
To which she made this amazing display of ignorance in reply, “Why, I can’t. The I. W. W. is a union of unskilled, migratory workers. They wouldn’t accept me. I am a skilled, scientifically trained worker.”
All of which is far from being the truth. If this young woman were really “scientifically trained,” she’d first learn the facts and then make her deductions accordingly. That’s scientific training in its best sense. The I. W. W. is full of scientifically trained workers when it comes to getting at the real facts and arriving at sound conclusions therefrom. She’d be in good company from that viewpoint.
The truth of the matter is that the I. W. W. is not solely and exclusively a union of unskilled and migratory workers. They are included in its membership, and at times have formed the bulk of it. The I. W. W. is just what it claims to be, namely, a union of all those employed in industry, regardless of skill or craft, or whether paid in wages or salary, which may be larger than the former, but is essentially the same thing, viz, labor’s share of its own product
Accordingly the I. W. W. accepts chemists when employed on the technical staff of firms or corporations for wages of salary. Doctors exploited in industrial welfare work are also eligible. So also are dentists and nurses of a like character. So on down the whole list; wherever the intellectual is exploited in industry in conjunction with other salaried or wageworkers, he is eligible to join an I. VV. W. industrial union together with them; provided, of course, they are convinced of his good faith, sincerity, and desirability. Some intellectuals are stool pigeons-sycophants-of the worst character and are not wanted. Only the true blue intellectual need apply.
The I. W. W. already has civil engineers, teachers, journalists, etc., on its membership list. They have realized their kinship with all the workers, and they join with them in one great mutual fraternity for labor’s benefit and emancipation. They have put behind them all the supercilious feelings of intellectual superiority which their professions so stupidly and asidiously cultivate. They aim to serve together with their fellow wage slaves, the entire working class of which they are a part.
The I. W. W. has its doors wide open to receive more of them!
We welcome the minor Liebknechts whom industrial plutocracy fain would murder.
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STOP SLURRING; GIVE US FACTS.
The Messenger, “the only radical Negro magazine in America,” is to be welcomed by all revolutionaries as an indication of the progress of the Negro race in this country. If the Negroes generally read magazines of the high literary character of the Messenger, they are far from being the illiterates they are said to be. It is some publication, worthy of a race that is surmounting the greatest of obstacles with success.
The Messenger is to be congratulated on advising Negroes to get into labor unionism, regardless of form or principles, in order to make the necessary beginning toward class consciousness somewhere. It evidently believes that any kind of unionism is better than no unionism, a belief the soundness of which few are likely to dispute.
Its only when the Messenger makes such statements as the following that disagreement stirs within us:
Political action must go hand in hand with industrial action. A class of people without the vote of the privilege of determining the kind of government under which they live has neither security of life nor property, from which liberty proceeds.
The above statement is made by many radical papers, like the Messenger. Is it true? Does it agree in the current history? Did not the foremost countries engaged in the late war have the vote in some form? Did the possession of the vote secure the life and property, the liberty, of the people of those countries?
Ask the editor of the New York Call, who votes as regularly and as often as the law allows, what liberty has his vote secured for him as against the imperialist necessities of capitalism, the patriotic Henry Dubbs and the Bourboun thought controllers. Or possibly the Messenger knows of some country in which the white man’s vote “kept us out of the war?” Will it kindly tell us where it is located? We’d like to know.
Now, be it understood we are nonpolitical, and as such not opposed to political action. But we object to boosting political action by slurring industrial action by means of untenable arguments.
Its up to the Messenger to show us wherein we err.
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IS IT WORTH IT?
Seven million three hundred and fifty-four thousand dead; $179,000,000,000 in losses; such is the estimated cost of the war to date. This is the price paid to perpetuate the system of industrial autocracy and rivalry for world markets known as capitalism. Is capitalism worth it?
And the end is not yet. Billions of debts and taxes must be paid. Exploitation will be increased, life’s burdens intensified, and distinctions of wealth and class eccentuated. Again, is capitalism worth it?
Further, the World War did not end war. The lust for world domination, with its war-producing proclivities, was rampant at the peace conference, and Senator Knox declares that the covenant for a League of Nations does not abolish or prevent wars, but does “sanction and command them.” Once more, is capitalism worth it?
Finally, the World War leaves the materialism of capitalism intact. The latter, in order to preserve the billions loaned to Czaristic tyranny by world financial magnates, stands in the way of progress and civilization, it is an obstacle to the advancement of mankind. Once more, is capitalism worth the awful cost of war, with its loss of millions in life, billions in wealth, and untold, incalculable values in ideals and development?
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SENATOR ADVISES CONFISCATION.
You ask me what is the remedy. The remedy is clear and plain-the same remedy you apply when a man breaks into your strong box and takes your money. You capture him and take the stolen property away from him.
It is the duty of the 65 per cent of our population who produced all the wealth to reach over and take back the 60 per cent of the wealth which the 2,000,000 thieves have stolen from them and appropriate it to the good of all, as all produced it and therefore the mass of the people are entitled to it.
This is not confiscation or robbery; it is simply taking from the thieves what they have stolen from you. (R. F. Pettigrew.)
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THE MENACE.
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E. E. McDonald, Ellis Island.
—–This sounds like a story from the land of the Czars, but it is a tale of happenings under the “new freedom” of Wilson’s administration. It is a story of a woman torn from her home and husband, railroaded across the continent, held for shipment across the Atlantic for the crime of loyalty to the working class and steadfastness in union activity:
Two little Scotch lassies who two years ago turned their backs upon their native highlands to seek their fortunes in the gilded land of North America have arrived here in the clutches of the immigration authorities. One of them married an American in Seattle, and is now an American citizen by virtue of that marriage, but that, and what pain her deportation to Scotland may cause her and her husband, is no reason why the mad corporation tools of the West should show her any consideration. To them the family is not an inviolate institution, if it may interfere with the profits of their masters; and she is a “menace” to those masters and the western plunderbund-a member of the I. W. W., as also is her sister.
Menacing they surely look, the younger about 22, the elder perhaps 25, with the bloom of Scottish roses in their cheeks-cheeks which would probably awaken the muses in Burns, were he here to see them.
It makes one wonder what sort of cattle in the West constitutes the guardians of American “civilization” and traditional liberty. To those who do not know its history it might seem strange that so much misery, injustice, and terrorism should sweep from that romantically free West, with its wonderful forests, plains, and mountains; but to those who know of its wars between the robbers and the robbed, and its political corruption, it is no surprise. Its history from the early days of the open cattle range and fights with the red man has been one of terrorism by the exploiters through the machinery of government. The deportation of the Roy sisters-Margaret and Janet-and the deportation “frame ups” on dozens of other workers is characteristic of the West and only an insignificant incident when compared with the tortures, arson, murders, which the capitalist tools of the West have so often committed in the name of so-called law and order.
Whenever na radical is arrested, tortured, or murdered the prostituted press howls that “the country is rid of another menace”; and when the “menace” has had the misfortune to be born in another country the cry of “unpatriotic foreigner” arises to drown his cries of pain and allay any resentment the crimes of capitalism may arouse in others. And yet how many of these so-called “foreigners” are the very stuff of which true patriots are made! How many of these hated aliens are thrilled with loyalty to all that is clean and lofty in American civilization. They may not worship at the shrine of Wall Street, but their minds respond with loyalty to those older and Jeffersonian traditions which used to be called “Americanism.”
Are these patriots a menace to the country they love-to the human race, which they are indeed trying to make equal, with equal opportunities for all, or are those other patriots who persecute them with deportation, imprisonment, and destruction the real menace to the country and civilization?
The latter have apparently nothing to lose by their brutalities, because their downfall is inevitable; but the former goes into the struggle for a greater, freer, and more beautiful civilization, knowing full well the hazards of that struggle and knowing that thousands before them have gone down the thorny path of exile, imprisonment, or death for such a social ideal
When one compares the two it is an easy matter to see who is the real menace to civilization, to mankind, or the country. That menace is not the “alien disturber” or the “native disturber,” but those who persecute them and try to drive them and their children into perpetual slavery and forever chain them to the machine to wring profits from their sweat and blood.
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Entertainment and dance, for the benefit of the Rebel Worker, to be held at the Finnish Hall, 422 East One hundred and forty-ninth Street, near Third Avenue, Bronx. N. Y., April 19, at 8 p. m. Admission, 25 cents.
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WE WILL FREE THEM IF YOU WILL HELP.
In league with the reactionary labor politicians, the capitalists of this country are making a determined effort to crush the militant labor movement. Both groups realize that their special privileges are menaced by the steady growth of the I. W. W. and are resorting to every means at their command to wipe that organization out of existence.
Wherever signs of I. W. W. activity appear tyrannical methods are used to try to check it. The I. W. W. office in Chicago has been raided three times in quick succession recently and the workers found there were arrested without warrant. Similar illegal raids have been made in Newark, N. J., Springfield, Mass., Bridgeport, Conn., Spokane, Wash., and other places. Chinese I. W. W.s striking against the 16-hour day in New York restaurants have been arrested without warrant, imprisoned, and deported.
The wholesale deportation of foreign-born workingmen in various parts of the country for no other reason than the fact of their membership in the I. W. W. is but another move in the campaign against that organization.
The enemies of labor see where the real danger to their power lies-in revolutionary industrial unionism. That is why they are centering all their attack on the I. W. W. and are inflaming the public mind with newspaper lies about I. W. W. plots of assassination and incendiarism, as a preparation for any acts of violence or injustice they may wish to perpetrate.
The fight of the I. W. W. is the fight of all the workers throughout the country who long for freedom from industrial slavery. It is their fight as well as ours. We can not win it without them. They must help or the opportunity for industrial democracy will be lost and capitalism will be firmly intrenched for years to come.
Hundreds of dollars must be raised for immediate needs. The men in the jails and deportation pens are cold and hungry. We must send them food and clothing and reading matter to keep up their health and spirits. Many of them have left wives and little children whom we must take care of. In the mean time their cases must be fought in every way possible under the capitalist system of “injustice,” and the workers of the country must be aroused by wide spread publicity to defend these fellow workers and demand their release.
This takes money-hundreds and thousands of dollars-which the workers must raise among themselves. They can do it if each will do his part.
Will you not do all in your power to help in this emergency? Will you give what you can yourself, get your friends and shopmates to contribute, and try to secure a donation from any working-class organization of which you are a member?
Above all, send what you can at once. Every dollar, every penny you can spare is needed. Give what you can and send more later if you can afford it. The need is urgent. We must have funds to carry on the fight.
Send contributions to New York defense committee, 27 East Fourth Street, New York City.
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JUSTICE GONE WRONG.
Deporting people who are “undesirable” is as good a policy as hitting a man whose face you don’t like. And so when the “red special” rushed across the country the newspapers celebrated the fact with flaring headlines and acrobatic editorials.
No questions asked. The fact that these men 54 in all had been held from 14 to 16 months without trial and no legal formality, with the exception of an examination by immigration inspectors, did not concern them. Immigration inspectors are sufficient unto themselves and New York newspapers.
No one doubted when the widely advertised “red special” landed that justice was being done and that the entire lot was going to be deported. But even immigration inspectors go wrong. The first writs applied for were denied, but finally the good work of the attorneys was rewarded by an offer of parole. This was not accepted by the 14 men concerned. The Bureau of Immigration came across with an unconditional release, which was accepted to the tune of soft music by the New York papers.
The 14 men so far released are: MacGregor brothers, Christ Johnson, John Berg, August Bostrum, John Leivo, Edwin Flogaus, Axel Hendrikson, James Lund, Aaron Slutzker, Arthur Smith, Joe Martin. Jalmar Holme, Gus Lipkin, and Ephraim Kertz. Lipkin comes from Leadville, Colo., and the others from Seattle.
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AN OPINION OF JUDGES.
A few Federal judges like the cheap mountebank, Landis, of Chicago, whose brother is the Washington lobbyist for the Powder Trust, still will from time to time conduct vilely patrisan “trials” of citizens accused in essence of disloyalty to our one-man Government and will impose brutally un-American prison sentences upon them. (Frank Putnam, in Reedy’s Mirror.)
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QUOTING MR. DOOLEY A CRIME.
One of the crimes charged against the fellow workers railroaded to jail in Sacramento in January consisted in having reprinted Mr. Dooley’s famous remark:
Don’t ask fr rights: Take them. An’ don’t let anny wan give thim to ye. A right that is handed to ye f’r nawthin’ has somethin’ the matter with it. It’s more than likely it’s on’y a wrong turned inside out.
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I. W. W.’S Eligible FOR Bail.
Thirty-eight of the Chicago I. W. W. defendants are to be released on bail from Leavenworth Penitentiary—that is, as soon as property bonds satisfactory to the United States Appellate District Court is scheduled. Due to long distances between properties and consequent delays in verification by the court, according to our attorneys, there will be some delay in scheduling these bonds. Anyone that wishes to aid in securing the needed bonds for the release of our Leavenworth fellow workers write to James Doyle, secretary New York I. W. W. defense committee, 27 East Fourth Street, New York City, or the I. W. W. general defense, 1001 West Madison Street, Chicago, Ill.
Immigration officials say deportation warrants for 19 of the 38 prisoners have been issued; and that it is their intention, if the men are released on bond, to immediately rearrest and hold these fellow workers for deportation to the lands from whence they emigrated.
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PICTURES OF THE SILENT DEFENSE.
The story of the silent defense of our fellow workers at Sacramento will live forever in our hearts. We can never forget the men who had the courage to go on strike against the courts of injustice and demockracy in the land of the bosses, and left the court room singing “Solidarity Forever.” All of us would have given much to have been there when our fellow workers were loaded on to a special train for Leavenworth, and grasped each by the hand and told him that we would hold the fort.
Three pictures were taken of the group coming out of the court room and one when they were boarding the special train for prison. These pictures are now for sale at 25 cents each or 20 cents each in lots of 25 or more.
Address: The San Francisco Recruiting Union, 1135 Mission Street, San Francisco, Calif.
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THE SPIRIT OF OUR CLASS WAR PRISONERS.
The Portland Fellow Workers send $285.75 to be equally divided among the boys in the Leavenworth Penitentiary, but the rebels confined therein decided unanimously to send same to the general office as the organization is in need of ready cash at present.
This is the spirit of the men who fought for us, and for whom we are now fighting, and their message is organize, organize some more.
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A NEW FOR DELEGATE FOR SWEDEN.
Fellow Worker Robert Johnson who was recently turned loose from Bridewell, Chicago, Ill., then held for deportation has elected to go back to Sweden.
After knocking around this “land of the free and home of the brave,” he has decided that a man must be brave indeed to submit to the awful torture of America’s sweat shops and factories. He is a member in good standing in M. and M. I. U. No. 300.
Here’s wishing him bon voyage and success in his new field of operation.
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[From Helen Keller.]
Workingmen everywhere are becoming aware that they are being exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless they own themselves and their labor. The achievement of such economic freedom stands in prospect— at no distant date—as the revolutionary climax of the age. (Helen Keller.)
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BRUTALITIES AT SEA.
One of our fellow workers, a marine transport worker, on board the White Star liner Baltic reports that working conditions on ships, sailing under the British flag, are now worse than ever before in his experience of 10 years at sea.
The British marine transport workers intend to call a general strike in April. The object of the general strike is to install the 4-hour watch, with 12 hours off, instead of the old system of 4 hours on and 8 hours off—which by the way has never been rigidly enforced. The fact of the matter is that the men have been compelled to practically work 6 hours on, sometimes more. The object of overworking the men is to keep the crew as small as possible, thereby forcing the men to work overtime without extra pay.
In compelling men to work longer watches brute force is resorted to. An illustration of how this is done is the case of a young boy, a coal passer, who had been honorably discharged from the British Navy. This boy put in 10 hours of work when he was called upon to report for further duty. Upon refusal to respond because of physical exhaustion, the third engineer grabbed him by the hair and dragged him out of a bunk 6 feet above the floor. The boy’s head was severely bruised as a result of being thrown against the bulk head. Then he was dragged on his back 200 feet to the stokehole, after which he was beaten into a state of unconsciousness. Later he was taken up to the ship’s doctor where it took 2 hours for him to come to. He was disabled from further duty for 4 days.
In these days such happenings as this are quite common aboard trans-Atlantic lines. Another important thing to bear in mind is that seafaring men have no redress, under existing conditions, for such grievances as this. If, perchance, the thing happened the other way round—this is, the boy struck the officer—the boy would have immediately been thrown in irons. When the ship arrived in port, the boy would be turned over to the port authorities on a charge of insubordination and assault, which would call for a minimum punishment of 12 months of hard labor.
The only reason that such outrages are perpetrated upon seafaring men is that there is a lack of effective organization along revolutionary industrial lines. Each and every member should take an active part in the work of organization, and not depend, as they do now on port delegates to do all their fighting and business for them.
Fellow workers, to quote an old axiom, “If you want a thing well done, do it yourself and do not leave it to others.”
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SUCCESS.
A short time ago a New York paper contained an account of a laborer who became a banker. This case was pointed out as an illustration of the manner in which a workingman can succeed. Probably about three-fourths of our population work for wages. If we can discover the formula of success for the workers, it will be indeed, a worthy discovery. We predict failure however, before we start. If you ask a successful man when he commenced to succeed, he will tell you it was just about the time he gave up work. This case then, does not deal with a successful workingman, but with the ease of a successful man.
We would ask the name of a carpenter who pounded nails all his life and amassed a fortune. We would ask to see Joe, the blacksmith’s bank roll. And Tony, the trackwalker, where is he? We may scrutinize the list of successful men without finding the names of Bill, the carpenter, Jim, the blacksmith, or Tony, the trackwalker. Tony, the trackwalker, who “succeeded,” succeeded himself. His name is now Antonio, the banker. If there is a difference in name there is also a difference in the effects of being different. Tony, the trackwalker, walked. Antonio, the banker, rides. Antonio, the banker, has a career. Tony, the trackwalker, has a car-rear.
We ask one instance of a man who remained a workingman and succeeded. We venture the statement that not one exists. A senior metphysician in one of our universities gets over the trouble by saying that “A man is what he may become.” It seems more practical to divide men into classes, and besides it is more polite. Tony, the trackwalker might be “tickled to death” to know that he is a banker because he may become one; but Antonio the banker would not like to be called a trackwalker even if a metaphysical aphorism would not put the callous back on his hands or make him sleep in a caboose.
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The laborers have the most enormous power in their hands, and if they once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they would only have to stop labor, regard the product of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. (Max Stirner.)
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AMERICAN SLAVE MARKET.
Foreign-born employees of the department of streets and engineering of that superpatriotic town, Springfield, Mass., were notified last month that they would be discharged if they did not take out naturalization papers. This puts citizenship on a level with a meal ticket and will help to cultivate a proper attitude toward nationalism, patriotism, political parties, elections, capitalist government and all the rigmarole with which the master class tries to befuddle the workers and blind them to the fact that the two classes have nothing in common, unless it be their mutual hatred and contempt.
Soldiers at the aviation camp near Houston, Tex. showed the undercurrent that is running through the Army and Navy by a mutinous demonstration last month. “All you Bolsheviki follow me!” cried one man, as he seized a red flag. The others fell in behind and paraded demanding release from the service, according to reports in the newspapers, which the military authorities tried to hold back, President Wilson’s manly countenance is hissed when it appears at movie shows given in the effort to keep the men quiet. If Uncle Sam holds them in camp a while longer, they will come out well trained for service—in the ranks of labor.
A movement to organize workers’ soviets, with delegates elected from the various shops, is well under way in Cleveland, Ohio. The initial demands, as a sort of dress rehearsal for the one big demand to come, include the six-hour day, with a minimum wage of $1 an hour, and the release of-all class-war prisoners.
The Teachers’ Union of New York were notified by the capitalist tool at the head of the “public” school system that they would be denied the use of a school building if they dared expose themselves to the corrupting influence of an address by a former teacher dismissed for having ideas about democracy in “our” schools.
Employees of the Brooklyn Rotten Transit Co. are organizing—the wrong way—and preparing to make the utterly unreasonable demand that they be required to work for the stockholders only 10 hours a day. As their international officials have announced that “there is really no foundation for the rumor of a strike,” it looks as if the owners of the road could rest easy in their armchairs, while their slaves continue to pile up dividends for them.
In Tacoma, Wash., the city officials and police have shown that they line up with Gen. Wood and his pals by refusing a permit for the Soldiers and Sailors Council to sell “tags” in order to raise funds for discharged men out of work; arresting threescore soldiers and sailors for selling the tags, raiding the headquarters of the council and threatening to prosecute members of the Central Labor Council who had helped the service men to organize. The next time Tacoma workers are called on by the Government for military service, they will know whose government it is.
A live organization has been formed in New York under the name of the Soldiers’ Sailors and Marines’ Protective Association. The paytrioteers have tried to hinder its growth by forming a rival organization for “good boys” under the auspices of a clique of officers close to Wall Street circles, and by encouraging a gang of empty-headed scissorbills to wreck the offices of the Association at 123 East Twenty-third Street on April 6.
Meanwhile the bread line has made its reappearance in New York City. Five hundred men a day are applying for a hand-out dosed with religious bunk at two “missions” on East Ninth Street and the Bowery.
After spending a tremendous amount of time, thought, and money on building up a Labor Party, the Chicago workers succeeded in polling 50,000 votes in the municipal election on April 1, in a city of a million workers, 240,000 of whom belong to labor unions. They will now have time to devote to the real struggle, until next fall, when politicians will again sidetrack them into thinking that they can beat the bosses by electing officials to go off somewhere and try to pass a few bills and resolutions. After a few years of such nonsense the workers of Chicago may wake to the fact that the only way they can win in the economic struggle is to fight it out themselves in the economic field by their united industrial power.
The United States Government has issued a call for 50,000 volunteers, offering as a special inducement that those who enlist for three years will be sent to Europe, to help keep the workers over there from going too far in their efforts to throw off the yoke of economic slavery.
The Indianapolis Associated Employers, realizing what is coming to them, are organizing a citizens’ police reserve, “to meet bolshevism in its insipiency, squelch the fire of anarchy, and sever the head of the revolutionary serpent.” What they call “the privilege of being invited to join” will be extended only to “American citizens of proven loyalty”—to the master class.
On April fool’s day, the United Mine Workers celebrated in Pittsburgh the fact that it is 21 years since they began slaving eight hours a day to make their masters rich, while they are as poor as ever.
The same highly revolutionary organization has announced through its official journal that its half a million members will not help in the July 4 strike for Tom Mooney. The excuse they give is that the Chicago Mooney conference was not called by the sacred American Federation of Labor and the U. M. W. was not represented there.
Officials of the above-mentioned highly class-conscious organization have likewise issued a statement repudiating the move of the Indiana miners for a strike in behalf of Eugene Debs.
“Merely preliminary” ballots are being sent out to “reliable” labor organizations “to decide as to whether they will take a vote” to decide as to whether they will call a strike for Tom Mooney. If Tom lives long enough, some pie-card artists may have to allow that strike to come off and let Mooney out of prison, even if it does mean that they will he out of a job.
Twenty-six aviators have been enlisted for the airplane section of the New York police department. They will come in handy when it becomes necessary to drop bombs on crowds of workers demanding some of the “democracy” they have heard so much about from the glib mouthpieces of the master class.
The Endicott-Johnson Corporation, the largest shoe-manufacturing plant in the world, has worked out a plan to dope its slaves and make them think they have a share in the prosperity of the concern. After the bondholders and preferred stockholders (who never do a stroke of work at making shoes) have received their “unearned increment.” and the holders of the common stock (which is “water” and does not even represent earnings of the workers withheld from them and reinvested in the business) have had their rake-off of 10 per cent, “the balance if any” will be divided 50-50 between the last-named group of pirates and the men and women who earned it all—provided the latter have been good and willing slaves “during the entire year.”
Rev. Dr. Frederick Lynch, envoy of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, comes back from the peace conference with a call to Christians in America to “stand firm against the rising tide of bolshevism” and help the capitalist governments of Europe prevent the workers from freeing themselves from industrial slavery.
Government officials have decided to suspend the order against overtime in navy yards and shipyards doing navy work, so that the men lucky enough to have jobs may not realize that they are being underpaid, even if this does keep other men from getting work.
The extreme solicitude of dear old Uncle Samuel for “his boys” is shown by the announcement that, “with the present military practice,” vessels bringing back troops from Europe will carry “at least twice as many” passengers as would have been permitted “under the German prewar regulations” for the safety and comfort of human beings at sea.
A petition is being circulated among the Negroes “beeseeching” President Wilson, “with the help of an impartial God,” to protect them against “a Klu Klux being organized in the Southern States to perpetrate atrocities upon the colored soldier when he returns from the battlefields.” A little organizing of the colored workers, men and women, in one big union would do more than a million petitions to make Woodrow, the impartial God, the Ku Klux, and all the rest of the capitalist gang step lively and treat the Negro like a human being.
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I FEEL SO GOOD.
I have to sing
I feel so good.
Because some grand
Duke’s sawing wood.And pretty soon
A big bunch more,
Will have to work
Until they’re sore.And then we stiffs.
Will run this earth.
And all their pains
Will cause us mirth.And if some guy
Tells us that’s wrong,
We’ve got a story
Good and long.Of things they’ve done
While we were slaves;
Grand Dukes and such
Are common Knaves.A. SIGISMUND.
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[From Jean-Jacques Rousseau.]
The first man who, having inclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe he was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditch and crying to his fellows:
Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody.
(Jean Jacques Rosseau. )
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A WORD FROM TOM MANN.
One of the keenest observers of industrial conditions and labor unions is Tom Mann, of England. He won his spurs in the labor movement long ago. John L. Jones, a member of the Steel Smelter Workers’ Union of Great Britain, who is now in America studying industrial conditions, has just received an interesting letter from Tom Mann which in part says:
I note your interest in the shop stewards’ movement. I attach more importance to it than to any other phase of the labor movement. It is only sectional because, as you know, it has hardly had time to become really national, but its basis is universal, and whilst it must partake of the character of those who compose it, its stimulating side makes for the syndicalist idea of direct control of work by those who do the work.
It is hardly antipolitical, but it is essentially proindustrial. I am hoping and expecting to see it—the shop stewards and similar movements—become the chief influence in throwing the workers’ cause on to right lines.
I am wanting to see the revolution actually realized and am wondering if the workers in the United States are preparing for the great change? The I. W. W. is the best organization in the United States, but most of their chief advocates are in prison. What a comment upon the fine speeches of President Wilson. Here the government is again mobbing the labor leaders and only the straight-out industrialist can save the situation.
Unionism in England, like Canada and Australia, is undergoing rapid and revolutionary changes. Craft unionism is moribund. It is improbable that this collapse of craft unionism in the British Empire will not affect the craft union movement in the United States. Indeed, to judge by the frantic howlings of the fakeration leaders, disintegration is already taking place in their ranks.
Jones, who has recently arrived from England, has a very interesting story to tell of the new union movement there. He will speak at I. W. W. headquarters, 27 East Fourth Street, New York, on Sunday, April 20, at 8 p. m. He is an exceedingly interesting fellow with a fine conception of the labor movement. This is an opportunity for the workers of New York to get the facts concerning industrial conditions in the British Empire.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE.
Do not wait until the last moment to send in your order for extra copies of the May Day Rebel Worker. It cost us twice as much to publish this edition as usual, so we can not afford to have more printed than we have orders for. Do not wait, send today. Three cents per copy for 10 or more.
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STINGERETTES.
Bohn-headed simplicity.— “At the signing of the armistice, the task before the allies was simplicity itself.” says that super-patriotic Socialist, “Dr.” Frank Bohn, in an article in the New York Times.
Russian prisoners of war “subsisted in many camps by eating the bodies of those among them who had died of starvation and disease.” he adds, estimating correctly the intelligence of persons who read the Times—or anything by Frank Bohn.
Tragic misfortune.— “Unfortunately, distrust of the military is deeply ingrained in the French Republic,” says a mournful Paris correspondent.
Charles E. Hughes, according to a newspaper headline, “sees Bolshevist failure in Russia.” That’s some eyesight for old whiskers.
The slaveholder’s christianity.— “A preacher is a good investment. The man who goes to church on Sunday goes to work on Monday rested, ambitious to do his best for you. He is a valuable employee.” (Church advertisement.)
Will we now waltz to “The Beautiful Red Danube”?
Bullshivism in the New York Times.—”In the streets of Moscow tragic and terrifying scenes are enacted. A horse falls exhausted with hunger and is immediately attacked by a score of famished dogs. Sometimes men and women cast themselves upon the carcass, slashing it with their knives and fighting with the snarling dogs for the strips of bleeding flesh, which they devour on the spot, not having sufficient will-power left to carry their booty home to cook.” (Special to the New York Times.)
When Harry Hicks, of Louisville, Ky.. was arrested for keeping a disorderly house near Camp Zachary Taylor, the judge let him off on the ground that “the war has come to an end.” If a labor agitator had been up before the same judge under the espionage net, how many years would hizzoner have soaked him?
Hogs.—While Hoover is making arrangements to “restore 250,000 hogs lost to the Hungarians by the fixation of new boundaries,” the Allies are trying o work out a plan for restoring the capitalist hogs the Hungarians got rid of by their own efforts.
A correspondent having written to the New York Globe urging that the capital of the League of Nations be located in New York in order to “make the city a mecca for tourists and thus stimulate its commercial life,” the editor labels this, “Proposal of a patriot,” thu$ $howing that he under$tand$ the true ba$i$ of patriotism.
Superexcellent.— “The behavior of the Cairo police was excellent. Altogether sixty-nine natives were killed and eight wounded.” (News item.)
Now that the Chicago meatpackers are no longer under Government “control,” they will have to get along without Herbert Hoover’s friendly interest and the inside tips they used to get from their dollar-a-year patriotic stool pigeons in the Food Administration.
“Secretary Glass bases fifth Liberty loan on patriotism; may raise interest rate,” says a newspaper headline, with an unpleasant suggestion of cause and effect.
Unfit to print.— The Rebel Worker, the New York World informs us, “continues to circulate through the United States mails by being wrapped in a page torn from the New York Times, thus deceiving postal employees into the belief that it is copies of the Times they are handling.” Modesty forbids our mentioning the other thing we use the Times for.
“Good and Willing Slaves.” — Charles M. Schwab, returning from Europe, “spoke in the highest terms of the conduct of the colored troops on the voyage. They were allowed to walk on the promenade deck all the time, space reserved for the deck chairs.” (News item.)
The world is going to have “either a League of Nations or another war,” Senator Hitchcock sagely informs us. We’ll soon have both, Hitch.
The league that will stand up will be the league of the workers of the world against the capitalists of the world, started by Russia and Hungary.
We recommend safety pins.— Poland is pinning all its faith on President Wilson. (Cable dispatch.)
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[Emphasis added throughout.]
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SOURCES
Quote Helen Keller, an IWW, interview NY Tb, Jan 16, 1916
https://www.iww.org/history/library/HKeller/why_I_became_an_IWW
The Rebel Worker
“Organ of Revolutionary Unionism”
“Take the s Out of Resolution and Add v for Victory”
(New York, New York)
-Apr 15, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=fuMtAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA653
From:
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer on Charges Made Against Department of Justice by Louis F. Post and Others, Volumes 1-2
-Hearings before Committee on Rules, House of Representatives
-June 1920, Sixty-Sixth Congress
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Rules
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=fuMtAAAAMAAJ
Exhibit No. 32: The Rebel Worker of Apr 15, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=fuMtAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA653
IMAGES
Helen Keller, NY Ithaca Jr p7, Nov 5, 1917
https://www.newspapers.com/image/254427695/
The Rebel Worker of Apr 15, NY Tb p88, May 25, 1919
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-05-25/ed-1/seq-88/
See also:
Tag: New York Rebel Worker
https://weneverforget.org/tag/new-york-rebel-worker/
“Why I Became an IWW”
-Helen Keller interviewed by Barbara Bindley
New York Tribune of Jan 16, 1916
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/keller-helen/works/1910s/16_01_16.htm
New York Tribune
(New York, New York)
-Jan 16, 1916
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1916-01-16/ed-2/seq-41/
Helen Keller, “Done with Half-Radical Measures”
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Joe Hill’s Rebel Girl – Janne Laerkedahl