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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 5, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Big Bill Haywood Visits Solidarity Staff in Jail
From the International Socialist Review of June 1910:
“Leading exponent of Revolutionary Unionism east of the Rockies.”
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“Solidarity in Prison” by William D. Haywood
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[Part II of II.]
The [New Castle] Free Press and Solidarity were issued every week. The employers were furious. Members of the Business Men’s Exchange grew hydrophobic. Detectives were hired and set on the trail of the papers and finally the editorial staffs of both The Free Press and Solidarity were arrested, charged with an alleged violation of the Pennsylvania publishing law (enacted in 1907 and never called into use except on one occasion, as a matter of spite).
This law is being violated daily and weekly by many publications in Pennsylvania at the present time.
The editors of Solidarity and the Free Press were hailed into court and with them the editor of the New Castle Herald, a capitalist sheet. All three were convicted, but the leniency of the court, resulted in the capitalist editor being released on payment of costs while the others were fined $100 and costs.
The Free Press appealed their case while the members of Solidarity refused to pay the fines and were sentenced to jail, declining to accept Judge Porter’s profferred offer of ten days in which to look for money to pay them. Knowing that the workers alone would be the ones to contribute, they preferred to go to jail.
It was there I met them. Lawrence county jail is a disgrace to any civilized community. It is dark, dingy, loathsome and damp, absolutely unfit for habitation. But the crowded cells and rusty bars are not in harmony with the spirits of the imprisoned men. They are bright. All were feeling well and in accord with the sentiments expressed by George Fix, when he said,
This is only the beginning.
These men are imprisoned: humiliations are heaped upon their wives and children, because they dared to organize and to teach organization, because they worked for the abolition of wage slavery.
They ask nothing for themselves. When I asked what message they had for the workers on the outside, in one voice they replied,
If the workers would help us, let them build up Solidarity.
* * * *
The minions of the capitalist courts have invaded the jail and served process of injunction against the imprisoned men. They are prohibited from molesting or persuading the employes of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company. And the persecution does not end here.
In the June docket, Charles McCarty, F. M. Hartman, Charles McKeever, Evan Evans and William J. White are charged with seditious libel and must appear to defend themselves. This is a further effort to strangle the press of the working class in New Castle.
Money will be needed in this fight and it will have to come from the workers. Do not neglect this matter, as this case is of vital interest to you.
Defense Fund is in charge of Joseph Booth, Box 644, New Castle, Pa.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCE & IMAGES
Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1096
The International Socialist Review, Volume 10
(Chicago, Illinois)
-July 1909-June 1910
C. H. Kerr & Company, 1910
https://books.google.com/books?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009034160
ISR of June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1057
page 1065 – Sol in Prison by BBH
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1065
Solidarity Ns, AD, Eds Stirton n Goff, ISR p1134, June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1134
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 4, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Big Bill Haywood on the Jailing of Solidarity
Staff of Solidarity Behind Bars in New Castle, Pennsylvania, for Displeasing Steel Trust, Part I
Tag: G. H. Perry
https://weneverforget.org/tag/g-h-perry/
Frank Little & Grover Perry, Labor Defender of Aug 1926
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1926/v01n08-aug-1926-LD.pdf
July 1916-Cleveland IWW Pub Br
“The Revolutionary I. W. W.” by Grover H. Perry
“Constructive Program of the I. W. W.” by B. H. Williams
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015079029339&view=2up&seq=4
Feb 2, 1917-Phoenix, AZ
Letter from Grover H. Perry to William D. Haywood in Chicago, Illinois
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/docs/031.html
The International Socialist Review, Volume 17
(Chicago, Illinois)
Charles H. Kerr & Company,
July 1916-June 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ
ISR of June 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA705
“Metal Miners Blast” by G. H. Perry
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA730
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This Land Is Your Land – Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman
Lyrics by Woody Guthrie