You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday August 10, 1906
Helena, Montana – State Socialist to Hold Convention
From the Montana News of August 9, 1906:
On the front page of the News:
BUTTE’S THOUSANDS TO THE RESCUE
We have just received authentic news from the socialistic and revolutionary sources of the grand demonstration in Columbia Gardens, Butte, August 8, on behalf of the labor martyrs in Caldwell [Ada County] jail. No adequate idea can be gained of it from the reluctant and trembling capitalist sheets who in spite of their unwillingness were compelled to devote several columns each to it.
No other labor event in the history of Butte can compare with, in point of numbers, in enthusiasm, in class loyalty and in the unmistakable glorious spirit of proletarian revolution. Proletarian Butte emptied itself into Columbia Gardens, surged round the speakers and rocked and swayed like the billows of the ocean as the tale of capitalistic outrages was unfolded and the hopes and the aspirations of the proletariat were portrayed….
The Event Significant.
The event was significant in a score of ways. It was the greatest labor demonstration Butte has ever seen. The women were unusually in evidence. All socialist or revolutionary sentiment was immediately understood and brought out spontaneous applause. Near the close of meeting when Mr. [M. G.] O’Malley [Socialist of Montana] was about to be introduced, the rainstorm increased to a deluge and it was proposed to dismiss the meeting. Immediately a hundred lusty throats roared, “No, let’s hear O’Malley; a little thing like rain won’t stop us when we can hear some good arguments on the cause we have espoused.”
Comrade Dalton made the revolutionary speech of his life and it is significant that all the socialist or revolutionary parts of it were censored by all the Butte and Anaconda daily papers. When the clear, sharp and defiant resolutions were read and adopted at the end of the meeting the human response completely drowned the band.
W. S. Dalton.
Dalton’s speech was a socialistic or working class interpretation of the significance of the crime and the situation that confronts the working class and had the true revolutionary ring to it. “It is the working class,” he said, “that is [in?] jail in the person of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone. “This is not a partisan meeting,” said he, “but it is unmistakably political. I note your politics from your applause and only ask that you vote as you clap.” Thunderous applause greeted this happy hit…
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SOURCE
Montana News
“Owned and Published by the
Socialist Party of Montana”
(Helena, Montana)
-Aug 9, 1906
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1906-08-09/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGE
SP Conv Call, MTNs, Aug 9, 1906
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1906-08-09/ed-1/seq-4/
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We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet In the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill