Yours for the Revolution,
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 30, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: A Drawing by J. A Mitchell
Words to the Wise from the Appeal to Reason:
ARE you soft enough in the head to expect relief for the working class from a congress composed of trust officials and trust attorneys? You might as well expect a king to voluntarily divide his power and privileges with his peasants.
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ALTHOUGH the American working man in some respects resembles his quadruped brother of the long ears, he is entirely too good a fellow to remain in slavery to the beastly bipeds that do nothing but supply pages of scandal for the reading public.
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THE inability of the railroads to transport coal to the freezing people of the Dakotas is another evidence of the inability of the capitalist system to meet modern demands. A few more exhibitions of incompetence and the “able man,” which is the working class, will take charge.
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THE power of American lords of industry is so much greater than that possessed by kings, barons and czars, that the comparison makes the old-time potentates look like thirty cents with a hole in it. And this is possible only because 80,000,000 people are easy enough to stand to for it.
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EMPLOYERS are always liberal with good advice; that, is, good advice for the masters. When they tell you to beware the Socialist, have you ever analyzed their motive? Did it ever strike you that what your masters want is just the thing you should not want? Do a little thinking for yourself, Mr. Worker.
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TALK about beggars! Was there ever such a famished horde of mendicants as the industrial lords of America? They want subsidies to help them build railroads, subsides to build factories, subsidies to build ships, tariffs to keep out foreign competition, privileges of all sizes and sorts. And what a purse-proud aggregation of beggars they are!
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WRITING about the trouble in France between the government and the Catholic church, the Kansas City Daily Times says: “The church has always thrown its influence on the side of monarchy as against the republic. And that, too, when the state was paying every priest out of the public treasurey.” And Ruzvlt is trying to unite the church and state in this country! But, for power men will do anything.
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IN Western Kansas, in Oklahoma, in North Dakota, and in other states, indignant citizens are holding up trains, cutting out cars of coal, and appropriating the contents for their private use. They are simply taking the property of the trusts and holding it for their own benefit. Some day these coal-car seizures will extend to include the machinery of production, as well as of the things produced. Coming events cast their shadows before.
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THE bread and butter question is the most important question agitating the most numerous class of people in America today. There are whole families who could dispense with the benefits of a national merchant marine in exchange for a sack of flour, and who could exchange their interest in the entire American navy for a sack of navy beans. There is not much poetry in the reflection, but hungry people have no immediate need of poetry, either.
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THE aim of the ruling class in the twentieth century does not differ materially from the object of rulers throughout history. They have changed their methods to conform to new conditions. Tyrants once held their slaves in submission by the strong arm; they now hold wage slaves in submission by the strong mind. They cunningly flim-flam the innocent thick-head with ideas of duty, etc., that make the thoughtless submit to the grossest injustice. Get wise, workers, get wise!
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A GIRARD man went home very much agitated over the prospect of having to “divide up” with the lazy and dishonest Socialists. When he got home he found the fire out, no coal on hand and nothing in the house to eat. A brief consultation with his wife resulted in that lady’s application at the neighboring home of Socialist for a temporary divide up of coal. As the good wife busied herself with starting the fire, his empty stomach began to think as his empty brain had never thought before; and, by the next morning the more violent symptoms of his Socialistphobia had disappeared.
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YOU can comprehend the fact that if I owned the earth, every manjack of you would have to pay tribute to me. Not a wheel could turn, not a plow could be thrust into the earth but with my consent. There would be no difference between that sort of an arrangement and the one where a hundred men own the earth and the balance paid tribute. So long as any man is denied the free use of the resources of nature-just so long will slavery exist. So long as one man or a group-large or small-is permitted to make the terms upon which other men will produce the wealth necessary for the existence of humanity-so long will capitalism prevail. When no man has the power to dictate the terms of labor to another man then will capitalism cease and Socialism begin.
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A NEW YORK news report quotes H. H. Rogers with the statement that Rockefeller’s income amounts to $60,000,000 a year. With this income he could in two years, buy the states Utah and Wyoming and the territory of New Mexico, at their assessed value. This revenue is equivalent to making every man in the United States work for him four days out of every year for nothing. And Rockefeller is only one of many feudal lords of finance who are enabled by possession of great wealth to command the labor of a million serfs. You proud jaspers wouldn’t allow a robber baron of the middle ages to sit in his castle and order you out to work for him; but you are perfectly willing for Rockefeller to do the act because he uses up-to-date methods.
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SOURCES
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Dec 29, 1906
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586781/
“Yours for the revolution”: the Appeal to Reason, 1895-1922
-ed by John Graham
University of Nebraska Press, Jun 1, 1990
Chapter 5-The Socialist Party and the Appeal’s Socialist Culture
-drawing found on page 195.
https://books.google.com/books?id=2_YDAQAAIAAJ
IMAGES
From the Depths by JA Mitchell, AtR Dec 29, 1906
& Appeal to Reason banner
https://www.newspapers.com/image/67586781/
See also:
“Revolution” by Jack London
Sacramento River, March, 1905
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/Revolution/revolution.html
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