Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs Defends I. W. W., Declares Charges “Absurd and Malicious”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote, Revolutionary Solidarity, ISR Feb 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 3, 1918
Eugene V. Debs Defends the Industrial Workers of the World

From the International Socialist Review of February 1918:

THE I. W. W. BOGEY

By EUGENE V. DEBS

WWIR, Chg IWW, EVD re Stanley J. Clark, ISR Feb 1918

The morning paper I have just read contains an extended press dispatch from Washington, under screaming headlines, making the startling disclosure that a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow the existing social order has been unearthed by the secret service agents of the government The basis of the conspiracy is reported to have been the discovery of some guns and ammunition in the hold of a Russian freighter just arrived at a Pacific port in charge of a Bolsheviki crew, from which it has been deduced that the guns must have been sent by the Russian revolutionists to the I. W. W. of the United States in pursuance of a conspiracy of the Russian reds, the Sinn Fein leaders of Ireland, and the American I. W. W.s to overthrow all the governments of the civilized world.

This is really too much!

We are not told how the Sinn Feiners happen to get in on this universal conspiracy, but as their name, like that of the Bolsheviki and the I. W. W., has great potency as a bogey to frighten the feeble-minded, the inventors of this wonderful cock-and-bull story may well be allowed this additional license to their perfervid imagination.

Everything that happens nowadays that the ruling classes do not like and everything that does not happen that they do like is laid at the door of the I. W. W. Its name is anathema wherever capitalism wields the lash and drains the veins of its exploited victims.

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Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Vagrancy Law Targets Striking Coal Miners, No Penalty for Lock-Outs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 2, 1918
State of West Virginia – Targets Strikers with Vagrancy Law

From the Duluth Labor World of January 26, 1918:

STRIKERS ARE TERMED LOAFERS
—–
West Virginia Law Makes Idle Men Subject
to Arrest for Vagrancy.
—–

WV Miners Strike, Gunthugs, Labor World, Sept 1, 1917

WHEELING, W. Va., Jan 24-Men who go on strike in West Virginia are liable to arrest for vagrancy under the new vagrancy law rushed through the last special session of the legislature. The law provides, under penalty of arrest and sentence for vagrancy, that able-bodied men, between the ages of 16 and 60, must be employed in some lawful, useful and recognized business or occupation whereby they may earn a sufficient income to support themselves and those legally dependent upon them.

A number of strikers already have been arrested under new law. The restlessness of organized labor in West Virginia is conceded to be the impelling force that necessitated an extraordinary session of the legislature to pass this law.

[Says a West Virginia labor official:]

Under the guise of attacking the loafer, the state legislature created the most effective instrument for the breaking of strikes.

The sinister aspect of the law is to be seen in the fact that no penalty is provided for the man who withholds work from others eager for the opportunity to earn. Lockouts are legal, while strikes are criminal.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones at Convention of United Mine Workers, Remembers Senator John W. Kern

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Praying Swearing, UMWC, Jan 17, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 1, 1918
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones at Convention of United Mine Workers

From the United Mine Workers Journal of January 31, 1918:

MOTHER JONES EXPRESSES APPRECIATION FOR
THE LATE SENATOR JOHN W. KERN.

John W Kern 1913, Life by Bowers, 1918

Mother Jones was granted the privilege of the floor to submit the following resolutions:

Resolved, That we express our deep appreciation for the untiring efforts of Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, in behalf of social justice for the working people of our country.

Mother Jones made a brief statement of the manner in which Mr. Older had championed the cause of labor and the pecuniary loss he had suffered because of the stand he took on the Mooney case.

The resolution was adopted.

Mother Jones made a brief statement of the manner in which the late Senator Kern of Indiana had championed the cause of the miners during the West Virginia strikes, when a large number of them were imprisoned by the military authorities, and submitted the following resolution:

Resolved, That we express to the widow of the late Senator Kern our appreciation for the valuable assistance he rendered the Mine Workers of America, especially during the West Virginia strikes, and express our sincere sympathy for her in her great loss.

The resolution was adopted unanimously.

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Hellraisers Journal: Modern-Day Slavery, American Style: Convicts Sold to Highest Bidder, Dice Thrown for First Choice

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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

Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 31, 1898
Albion, Florida – “Great Annual Sale of Convict Labor”

From The San Francisco Call of January 30, 1898:

Headline Convict Sale Florida, SF Call, Jan 30, 1898

Great Annual Convict Sale Florida Crpd, SF Call, Jan 30, 1898

Convicts Sold in Florida, SF Call, Jan 30, 1898

After a fashion slavery still exists In the United States! Only the other day at Albion, Fla., 430 men, women and children were sold into a bondage worse than death, and the State of Florida to-day is richer by $21,000.

To be sure, these poor wretches were convicts, and had broken the laws. But they were none the less human beings. You might have had some difficulty in realizing this could you have seen them as I saw them in all the misery of their hopeless, squalid dejection. And they were bought, body and soul, for the period of one year. The State sold them to four contractors, who had made the highest bids. Next year they will hare other masters.

They have no penitentiary in Florida, and so the convicts are sold into slavery. To build penitentiaries means the expenditure of money, and this the legislators are not willing to vote for, even were the property owners willing to be thus taxed. So the State of Florida, instead of providing accommodations for its criminals, derives a pecuniary benefit from a form of traffic which is appalling in this age of civilization and in this land of the free.

It isn’t called slavery in Florida. There is no auctioneer to cry: “How much am I offered for this man?” There is no bidding and raising of bids. The bidding has already been done to the State officials, and the entire lot has been knocked down to the highest bidders. Oh, no, it is not the selling of slaves, they will tell you. The scene I witnessed was merely the “annual division.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: “The Herding of the Workers,” Rose Hawthorne Lathrop on Slums of New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Plea for Justice, Not Charity, Quote Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 30, 1898
New York City Slum Life – Charity Worker Knows Not Whom to Blame

From the Appeal to Reason of January 29, 1898:

Poverty NYC by Lathrop, AtR Jan 29, 1898

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 1851-1926

A year ago, I started out to see what the east side of New York was like, and the street which struck me as the most astonishing in its difference from the up-town streets was Goerck Street. It was a warm August afternoon, and the inhabitants of the houses along its street were sitting on the steps and standing about the side walks, to say nothing of those upon the street itself.

I looked eagerly at the faces that should suggest dangerous depravity, and I thought I saw upon almost every countenance expressions of the most satanic cruelty and selfishness. I find that the people who visit me for investigation in this quarter of the city come in the same excited state of alarm at the character of the East Side residents. But after a few month of living among them one entirely abandons any idea of their being so different from other human beings, and there scarcely remains any surprise in one’s mind concerning them, excepting this fact of their living together in crowds, which seems dangerous to moral and physical health. I have found that it is a very common thing for a family of eight to have only one bed; so that possibly an elderly woman afflicted with a disease like rheumatism or cancerous affections in obliged to sleep upon chairs or to lie upon the floor, while the younger members of the family are piled upon the bed, and the poor little children are disposed of anywhere.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs for the Appeal to Reason: Calls Goldfield Report “an exceptional document.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people will ultimately see that
socialism is their only hope
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 29, 1908
From the Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on the Goldfield Report

From the Appeal of January 25, 1908:

DEBS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
—–
Interviews President and Arranges for
Congressional Action on Suppressed
Goldfield Report
-Washington News Service Established.
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
—–

EVD, Roosevelt, Goldfield, AtR, Jan 25, 1908

Washington, Jan. 17.-Arrangements have been completed here for a special news service, and a weekly letter to the Appeal by a correspondent whose reports of the proceedings in congress will be made from the Socialist point of view. The Washington column will therefore contain matter which does not find its way into capitalistic newspapers, and will be a feature of special interest to Appeal readers.

It is generally understood here that there is to be no legislation of any account by the present session of congress. Measures of little or no consequence have been introduced for no other purpose than to consume time between now and the approaching national conventions of the two old parties. Labor legislation is urgently demanded as usual by committees representing trade unions, but all such efforts will as in the past be barren of results.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part II: “All Capital is unpaid labor.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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When they fired the tents of Ludlow,
They lighted fires in the hearts of the workers
They can never put out.
-James P Thompson

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 28, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Class-Struggle Unionism

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part II.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

You will find one class owns the means of production and another class operate them. The interests of these two classes are diametrically opposed. The interest of the employing class demands that we work hard for small pay. Our interest demands that we put the other class to work. Today, we not only have to feed ourselves, but we have to feed an idle, worthless class who have no more function in society than a bedbug. Now, in order that you may fully understand this, you have asked me in this letter to me, when subpoenaing me, to mention the lumber industry. And I will explain the psychology of the lumber worker.

I think, altho I am a longshore man—I am one of those undesirables who travel everywhere, not to simply stir up people, but to tell people what we believe can be done to make this a better world. Now, the logger, he walks out in the woods and looks around at a wilderness of trees. He works hard in there. And what does he get? He gets wages that are below the dead line. I say dead line in wages means below the line necessary to keep him alive. They are being murdered on the installment plan.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part I: Craft Unionism Creates Union Scabs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?

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Hellraisers Journal: Honeymoon of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Cut Short by Arrest of Husband on Mesabi Iron Range

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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It’s great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 26, 1908
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota – Jack Jones Arrested

The honeymoon of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was cut short when her husband of less than three weeks, Jack Jones, was arrested on the Mesabi Iron Range. Jones is an iron miner and a union organizer.

From The Minneapolis Tribune of January 24, 1908:

Socialist Held as Suspect
at Biwabik
—–

D. A. Jonas and Two Austrians Are
Arrested by Village Marshal.
—–
Believes Men Know Something About
Dynamiting of Nicholas Home.
—–

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

BIWABIK. Minn., Jan. 24.-(Special.)-D. A. Jonas [J. A. Jones], one of the most noted Socialistic agitators on the range, occupies a cell in the village at Aurora, formally charged with being implicated in the dynamiting of the dwelling of Captain Thomas J. Nicholas early Tuesday morning. John Oflin and Anton Mariovic, two Austrians, are keeping him company.

To add to the already intense interest in the case, Jonas proclaimed publicly yesterday that he is the husband of Elizabeth Garley [Gurley] Flynn, one of the most noted Socialistic lecturers in the country. He avers most solemnly that he was wedded to the young woman some three weeks ago in Duluth [they were married January 7th at Two Harbors], and that she will now come to his assistance.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs in New York City to Boom Haywood for President, Plans to Unite Two Socialists Parties

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people will ultimately see that
socialism is their only hope
-Eugene Victor Debs

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

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday January 25, 1908
New York, New York – Debs Calls for Nomination of Haywood

From the New York Tribune of January 23, 1908:

DEBS HERE TO BOOM HAYWOOD.
—–
Says President Roosevelt Is Aiding Spread
of Socialism-May Unite Factions.

SPA, SLP, emblems buttons

Eugene V. Debs was in New York yesterday to help along the plan to amalgamate the two warring factions, the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, the latter representing the De Leon socialists. He said he was for William D. Haywood, secretary of the Western Federation of Miners, as the Socialist candidate for President.

A conference will be held to-day between Debs, the leaders of both parties and Haywood, at which a slate will be informally selected. The leaders on both sides said yesterday that it is practically certain that the amalgamation will take place.

[Debs said last night:

This financial crisis will end in an international crisis such as this world has not seen in our time. Then socialism will have its best chance.

President Roosevelt has done more to further the spread of the socialist propaganda than any man I know of. His policy, or lack of policy, whichever way you take it, along with his currency and tariff views, is paving the way for socialism. The more he says the longer the bread line will grow, and the people will ultimately see that socialism is their only hope. When the international crisis comes socialism will spread all over the world.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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