Every socialist family can have
no end of fun with these cards.
-Charles H. Kerr
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 24, 1908
From the Appeal to Reason: Socialist Playing Cards
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1918, Part II: Found in St. Louis, Missouri and Grafton, West Virginia
Let me see you wake up and fight.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 23, 1918
Mother Jones News for May 1918, Part I: Gives Long Interview in St. Louis
From the St Louis Post-Dispatch of May 13, 1918:
Valiant Champion of the Workers Pink of Cheek
at 88 and Wears a Fussy Little Bonnet.
—–
Objects to Women Doing Heavy War Time Work;
Opposes Suffrage, Knitters Rile Her.
—–BY MARGUERITE MARTYN.
I WOULD like to have had a union card to show. I was glad I was conversant with the after-the-war platform of the British Labor Party as voluminously printed in the Post-Dispatch, and that I could profess full faith in the justice of trade unionism, when I went to call on Mother Jones. As it was, I came out of the interview with the valiant little 88-year-old labor champion comparatively unscathed, though I sat meekly silent while her scorching tongue excoriated many institutions I have at least looked upon with toleration.
Women in war industries supplanting men, she had little patience with.
[She said:]
I see them climbing over engines with their oil cans. I see them pumping levers on street cars; I see them pushing heavy trucks of munitions, and I think, what of the future generation? Woman’s nervous organism is not equal to such work. One of the principles of trade unionism is that women shall work under conditions that will safeguard to the utmost their bodily welfare.
Woman suffrage she dismissed with equal scorn.
Women vote in Colorado and what have they done to improve industrial conditions? After the riots at Trinidad and 20 women and children were laid out in the morgue, committees of ladies came and looked over the scene, and they said, “Too bad, too bad!”
They knew the murder of these innocents, whose men were fighting only for the right to work and earn their bread, had been authorized by the [Democratic] Governor they had helped to put in power. They did not criticise the Governor and some of the women were in the militia that committed the crimes.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1918, Part I: Found Supporting Strikers in St. Louis
Let me see you wake up and fight.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 22, 1918
Mother Jones News for May 1918, Part I: Found in St. Louis
Mother Jones was first found missing from the May Day celebration in Springfield, Illinois. It appears she was called to an unspecified strike in Quincy, Illinois.
We next found her in Washington, D. C. where the May 1st edition of The Washington Times stated:
“Mother” Jones, noted labor leader, arrived here today to appear before the National War Labor Board and plead with former President William H. Taft, in the interest of commercial telegraphers demanding the right to organize.
On May 10th and 11th, we find Mother in the pages of the St. Louis, Missouri, newspapers where her efforts on behalf of the men and women on strike against the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Company are well covered.
We will pick up the story of Mother Jones in St. Louis in Part II of our Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1918.
Hellraisers Journal: From the St. Louis Brauer-Zeitung to Social Democratic Party of America: “Well Done!”
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday June 21, 1898
St. Louis, Missouri – Brewers Send Congratulations
The new Social Democratic Party of America was founded in Chicago by Eugene Debs and other “political actionist” who broke with the “utopians” of the Social Democracy of America at the end of that convention earlier this month. The German Brewers of St. Louis sent the following hearty “well done!” to the new socialist party.
From the St. Louis Brauer-Zeitung of June 18, 1898:
Well Done!
The Social Democratic Party of America
Organized at Last Week’s Convention
by G.A. HoehnChicago, June 13, 1898.
Three cheers for the Social Democratic Party of America! The organization of this new bona fide labor party will undoubtedly be cheering news to thousands of socialists and wage workers of this country. The first national convention of the Social Democracy of America was opened at Uhlich’s Hall, June 7, 1898. Comrade Eugene V. Debs called the delegates to order, stating the object of the gathering in a few remarks, expressing also the hope that the business of the convention would not be interfered with by parliamentary tricks and shyster tactics. According to report of the Credentials Committee, there were 75 delegates present; several delegates arrived later on.
Immediately following the report of the Credentials Committee, Secretary Keliher announced that on Saturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5, not less than 11 new branches of the Social Democracy of America were organized in Chicago, all of which had applied for charters Monday, June 6; i.e., just one day before the opening of the convention. In his opinion at least 9 out of the 11 were not entitled to representation in the convention, for which reason he refused to grant them the charters applied for. However, he would put this matter into the hands of the convention for final settlement.
Burns and Hogan declared that the 11 branches were entitled to representation, at the same time attacking Secretary Keliher for his refusal to grant charters. Comrade Hourwich of New York moved that the delegates of the new Chicago branches be not admitted, Phillips of New York, Berger of Milwaukee, Carey of Massachusetts, Hoehn of St. Louis, Margaret Haile of Boston, Mailly of Tennessee, Gordon of New Hampshire, Winchevsky of New York, and Meier of St.Louis bitterly opposed the admission of the new Chicago delegates, claiming that at leas 9 out of 11 new branches were organized at the very last moment for no other purpose than to pack the convention, the 11 delegates representing less than 60 members in all. Mailly ridiculed the idea that these “brave Chicagoans” did not discover the grandeur of the Social Democracy until 24 hours before the opening of the national convention.
Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Party of America: Principles and Platform Adopted by 1908 Chicago Convention
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Hellraisers Journal: Saturday June 20, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Platform and Principles
From the International Socialist Review of June 1908:
Socialist Platform.
PRINCIPLES.
Human life depends upon food clothing and shelter. Only with these assured are freedom, culture and higher human development possible. To produce food, clothing or shelter, land and machinery are needed. Land alone does not satisfy human needs. Human labor creates machinery and applies it to the land for the production of raw materials and food. Whoever has control of land and machinery controls human labor, and with it human life and liberty.
To-day the machinery and the land used for industrial purposes are owned by a rapidly decreasing minority. So long as machinery is simple and easily handled by one man, its owner cannot dominate the sources of life of others. But when machinery becomes more complex and expensive and requires for its effective operation the organized effort of many workers its influence reaches over wide circles of life. The owners of such machinery become the dominant class.
In proportion as the number of such machine owners compared to all other classes decreases, their power in the nation and in the world increases. They bring ever larger masses of working people under their control, reducing them to the point, where muscle and, brain are their only productive property. Millions of formerly self-employing workers thus become the helpless wage slaves of the industrial masters.
As the economic power of the ruling class grows it becomes less useful in the life of the nation. All the useful work of the nation falls upon the shoulders of the class whose only property is its manual and mental labor power—the wage worker—or of the class who have but little land and little effective machinery outside of their labor power—the small traders and small farmers. The ruling minority is steadily becoming useless and parasitic.
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs: ”To serve the working class has always been to me a high privilege.”
To speak for labor; to plead the cause
of the men and women and children who toil;
to serve the working class,
has always been to me a high privilege;
a duty of love.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 19, 1918
Canton, Ohio – Echoes from Nimisilla Park
On Sunday June 16th, Eugene Debs arrived at the Nimisilla Park, in Canton, for a grand picnic given by the Socialist Party of Ohio on the final day of the state convention. He came directly to the park following a brief visit with the Ohio Comrades, C. E. Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht, and Charles Baker who are now residing behind the bars of the Stark County Work House, across the street from the park.
Comrade Debs walked through the crowd smiling and came to the front of the platform. He gave a speech which is certain to be remembered for years to come.
Debs spoke for about two hours, and said, in part:
-(Emphasis added.)
Comrades, friends and fellow-workers, for this very cordial greeting, this very hearty reception, I thank you all with the fullest appreciation of your interest in and your devotion to the cause for which I am to speak to you this afternoon.
To speak for labor; to plead the cause of the men and women and children who toil; to serve the working class, has always been to me a high privilege; a duty of love.
I have just returned from a visit over yonder, where three of our most loyal comrades are paying the penalty for their devotion to the cause of the working class. They have come to realize, as many of us have, that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.
I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, there are certain limitations placed upon the right of free speech. I must be exceedingly careful, prudent, as to what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets. They may put those boys in jail—and some of the rest of us in jail—but they can not put the Socialist movement in jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their souls are here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all men have paid in all the ages of history for standing erect, and for seeking to pave the way to better conditions for mankind.
Hellraisers Journal: “If I find Debs used the words reported to me, I will take immediate action to have him prosecuted,”
You need to know that you are fit for something
better than slavery and cannon fodder.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday June 18, 1918
Canton, Ohio – Federal Agents Were on Hand at Nimisilla Park
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of June 17, 1918:
DEBS URGES AID FOR BOLSHEVIKI FROM AMERICA
—–
Suggests Army of 1,000,000 Socialists to Help
Russia Resist Prussian Aggression.
—–FIGHT CAPITALISTIC WAR
—–
U. S. Agents Hear Speeches
at Canton Convention;
May Act.
—–BY C. R. MILLER.
Staff Correspondent Plain Dealer.
CANTON, June 16.-Hundreds of Socialists, including scores of delegates to the Ohio Socialist party convention which has been in progress here since Friday [June 14th], went on record today as being unequivocally opposed to “a war of capitalism.”
The Socialists of Ohio were urged to stand by the party’s program by Eugene V. Debs, three times Socialist candidate for president, who addressed the closing session of the convention which took the form of a picnic at one of Canton’s public parks.
J. J. Fried, Cleveland Socialist, said Debs had approved a plan for American Socialists’ co-operation with the Bolsheviki by sending an army of 1,000,000 men to their assistance.
Mr. Debs, after paying tribute to Socialist leaders, particularly to those of Cleveland who had “the moral course” to go to jail for the sake of their principles, praised I. W. W. members, referred to the Bolsheviki as “our comrades who have made Russia a land of living light,” and charged the purposes of the allies in the war is the same as that of the central powers-a desire for plunder.
Hellraisers Journal: Poem for Militiaman Walker, Sent Home for Burial C. O. D.
And, if in Glorious battle,
Your life should offered be,
Your body will be sent home sure-
But strictly C. O. D.
-W. H. Piper
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday June 17, 1898
St. Louis, Missouri – Body of Corporal Walker Sent Home C. O. D.
From the Appeal to Reason of June 11, 1898:
Poem by W. H. Piper
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Poem for Militiaman Walker, Sent Home for Burial C. O. D.”
We Never Forget: Eugene Victor Debs Speaks at State Socialist Party Picnic Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918
To speak for labor; to plead the cause
of the men and women and children who toil;
to serve the working class,
has always been to me a high privilege;
a duty of love.
-Eugene Victor Debs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Canton Anti-War Speech of Eugene Victor Debs
Sunday June 16, 1918
Note: clicking on the five tweets below will lead to threads with excerpts from the famous speech by Eugene Debs, 45 in all-some long, some short. Based on charges steming from this speech, Comrade Debs was later prosecuted and sent to Atlanta Federal Prison. Follow Hellraisers Journal for the rest of the story.
Comrades, friends and fellow-workers, for this very cordial greeting, this very hearty reception, I thank you all with the fullest appreciation of your interest in and your devotion to the cause for which I am to speak to you this afternoon.
Eugene Victor Debs, Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918
-Excerpts from speech follow; for full speech see:https://t.co/6XPmSuRjm0 pic.twitter.com/7hjMfNJFq8— WE NEVER FORGET (@LaborMartyrs) June 16, 2018
Highest Duty
To speak for labor; to plead the cause of the men and women and children who toil; to serve the working class, has always been to me a high privilege; a duty of love.
Free Speech or Lack Thereof
It is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.
Eugene Victor Debs, Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918
PART II-Excerpts from speech follow; for full speech see:https://t.co/6XPmSuRjm0 pic.twitter.com/PAoo6AYyJo— WE NEVER FORGET (@LaborMartyrs) June 16, 2018
The Blood of Childhood
The history of this country is being written in the blood of the childhood the industrial lords have murdered.
Unpalatable Truth
And the truth, oh, the truth has always been unpalatable and intolerable to the class who live out of the sweat and misery of the working class.
Hellraisers Journal: Dedication of Ludlow Monument from Italian and Slovak Sections of United Mine Workers Journal
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 15, 1918
Ludlow, Colorado – Italian and Slovakian Miners Remember the Martyrs
From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 13, 1918:
