Then we’ll sing one song of the poor and ragged tramp,
He carries his home on his back;
Too old to work, he’s not wanted ’round the camp,
So he wanders without aim along the track.
-Joe Hill
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 4, 1908
“The Blanket Stiff, Product of Roosevelt’s Prosperity”
From the Socialist Montana News of February 27, 1908:
The Man Without a Country
Still on the Hunt for the Dinner Pail
—–
The Wage Slave
A little more than half a century ago a question of great interest to the country was brought up by a few men and women who saw the evil effects of slavery and its consequences. The question was agitated so persistently that it spread through the world. Not to our own country was it confined, but it became the absorbing question in Europe, and it was acknowledged that it was an evil and a disgrace to humanity and to the civilized world that beings made in the image of God should be subjected and treated like animals.
Today we have another power in our land far more important to be considered than the slave power of that day. It is the power of capitalism, a power that wields its strong arm of authority, and says, “Ye are my slaves, my law must be obeyed.” Are we still the working class to be the slave of the capitalist? Workingmen may change their master, but they are still at the mercy of the master class. The choice of the chattel slave was between work or the lash; the choice of a wage slave is between work and starvation. Then why halt between two opinions? You workingmen cry out “hard times,” “low wages,” “long hour,” “high prices,” but do you try to eliminate the conditions, oh, no at the next election you march right up to the polls and vote for the same kind of medicine that you have been kicking about.
Socialism is the only remedy—it is the only escape from personal or class rule, rule, it would put an end to economic despotism and establish popular self government in the industrial realm. Socialism then, is the only hope for the wage slave, and the Socialist party is the only political party that has anything to offer. The Republican and Democratic parties are both parties of capitalism, and no workman need apply for help, they both represent the interest of the capitalist class, and their sham battles are for the purpose of dividing the laborers in to various factions lest they unite to to secure their freedom. The capitalist class both north and south have joined hands as the owner of the wage slave, although the Democratic party represents the interest of the small capitalist, and the Republican party of the large capitalist, the interest of both are opposed to the subtle serpent [Capital Bosses] who meets you before election with that smile of welcome and glad hand—but after-alas! You are nothing but a wage slave doing their bidding, and taking what they give, and the results are the same as before. There are two class, the laborers and capitalists, the interest of these two classes are diametrically opposed, and the time has come when we who belong to the working class should join hands at the ballot box against the common enemy—Capitalism, and vote for Socialism.
SOURCE & IMAGE
Montana News
“Owned and Published by the Socialist Party of Montana”
Editor: Ida Crouch-Hazlett
(Helena, Montana)
-Feb 27, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1908-02-27/ed-1/seq-1/
We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet in the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill
https://joehill100.com/joe-hill-songs/we-will-sing-one-song-1913/