Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “The Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 15, 1913
“Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of November 11, 1913:

Little Children of the Poor
by Ellis B. Harris

Little children of the poor,
My heart goes out to you.
Little lives that must endure
Where miseries accrue;
In the factories and mills
There robbed of play and hearth
Suffering a world of ills
For parasites of wealth.

Little children of the poor,
You, tender, precious flowers,
Blooms for gardens sweet and pure,
Yet robbed of playtime hours.
Is it strange that blood runs wild
And hands are clenched in wrath
When we contemplate a child
Upon the thorn strewn path?

Little children of the poor,
Brave hearts shall place the blame
For the lives that you endure,
And point the nations’s shame.
Boasting here of Freedom’s reign
And scorning royal commands,
Forging them a master’s chain
To shackle baby hands.

Little children of the poor,
Pearls for trampling swine,
Cast and mired that they secure
The wealth from mill and mine.
There are those who hear the call
From far off Galilee,
Heeding, until Mammon fall
And you, His Jewels, are free.

Little children of the poor,
A future day shall break,
When no one can e’er secure
Your lives for profit sake;
When the people’s rule shall fill
The world with melody,
And childhood’s joys and laughter thrill
The world with ecstasy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SOURCE & IMAGES
Miners’ Bulletin
(Official newspaper of the
Western Federation of Miners
in the strike zone of Michigan’s Copper Country)
-Nov 11, 1913
Copy in possession of JR

See also:

Dec 4, 1913 – Miners’ Magazine p14 – Poems by EBH
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112043506416&seq=470&q1=harris+children&start=1

“Debs”
American Rail-Way Union Memento
-by Ellis B Harris, 1895
https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.23901100/

“We Will Follow Brave Debs” (Cover)
-by Ellis B Harris
New Times Socialist Pub Co, Minneapolis, MN, 1897
From: 
Letters of Eugene V. Debs, Volume 1
-ed by J. Robert Constantine
University of Illinois Press, 1990 
(search: new times) -p252
https://books.google.com/books?id=6i3PS8RLEygC

“We Will Follow Brave Deb to the End” (Song) by Ellis B Harris.
-published by Harris & Gannes, Chicago, 1919
Note: sadly link to full pamphlet is non-functioning.
https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2023/03/10/we-will-follow-brave-debs-to-the-end-song-by-ellis-b-harris-published-by-harris-gannes-chicago-1919/

At link: cover of pamphlet of song written and self-published [republished] by IWW activist and labor poet Ellis B Harris on the occasion of Debs’ entry into Federal prison after being found guilty on ten counts of sedition. The PDF has a handwritten inscription from Ellis to Debs’ brother Theodore:

To my beloved Comrade, Theodore Debs, 4-1919, Ellis B. Harris

This poem is the preamble for the song that Harris wrote for Debs:

Cover of Pamphlet:

Tag: Ellis B. Harris
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ellis-b-harris/

Tag: Michigan Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914
https://weneverforget.org/tag/michigan-copper-country-strike-of-1913-1914/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Set the Children Free-Larry McDonald & Toots Hibbert