Hellraisers Journal: “The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part I from the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeFrank Little
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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 4, 1918
Reprinted from The Masses: Part I-Harold Callender on the I. W. W.

From the International Socialist Review of January 1918:

The Truth About the I. W. W.

By HAROLD CALLENDER

EDITOR’S NOTE: Harold Callender investigated the Bisbee deportations for the National Labor Defense Council. He did it in so judicial and poised and truth-telling a manner that we engaged him to go and find out for us the truth about the I. W. W., and all the other things that are called “I. W. W.” by those who wish to destroy them in the northwest.-The Masses.

[Part I]
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WWIR, IWW Thompson, Hardy, Foss, W Smith, McDonald, Lloyd, Doran, ISR Jan 1918

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ACCORDING to the newspapers, the I. W. W. is engaged in treason and terrorism. The organization is supposed to have caused every forest fire in the West—where, by the way, there have been fewer forest fires this season than ever before. Driving spikes in lumber before it is sent to the sawmill, pinching the fruit in orchards so that it will spoil, crippling the copper, lumber and shipbuilding industries out of spite against the government, are commonly repeated charges against them. It is supposed to be for this reason that the states are being urged to pass stringent laws making their activities and propaganda impossible; or, in the absence of such laws, to encourage the police, soldiers and citizens to raid, lynch and drive them out of the community.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal for Defense of Our Imprisoned Fellow Workers: “They belong to the working class…”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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If you are a red-blooded worker
you will see that
this fight is your fight.
–International Socialist Review

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday January 3, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – General Defense Committee Appeals for Funds

From the International Socialist Review of January 1918:

“WHERE LIBERTY IS THERE IS MY COUNTRY”

WWIR, IWW Johanson Ahlteen Lossieff Graber, ISR Jan 1918

—–

WWIR, IWW Chaplin, H George, ISR Jan 1918

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Six of the one hundred and sixty-six socialists and members of the I. W. W. who are indicted on a charge of seditious conspiracy.

Most of the boys are in Cook County or near-by jails as it would take a cash bail of over a million and one-half dollars to secure their liberty.

They belong to the working class and are in jail because they organized and educated the workers to fight for Industrial Democracy.

It will be a class trial. Capitalist interests will demand that these men be convicted and their union legally destroyed. They want the U. S. government to do what their gunmen and governors have failed to do by brute force.

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Hellraisers Journal: 50,000 Copies of “Sabotage” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Reported Seized by Feds in Chicago

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 2, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – I. W. W. Books Seized by Federal Agents

50,000 “SABOTAGE” BOOKS SEIZED
IN I. W. W. RAID

Sabotage by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

CHICAGO, Dec. 28.-Some of the results of the recent raid on headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World here were made known by Federal officials today. Among the tons of literature seized were 50,000 copies of “Sabotage,” a book by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, of New York, now under indictment for conspiracy against the government. Thousands of copies of another book called “Sabotage” by Emil Pouget, were seized.

Vast quantities of stickers inscribed “Don’t be a soldier-be a man,” new I. W. W. song books and plates from which they were printed also were taken.

The Michigan Central Railroad to-day sent warnings to all points on its lines giving notice of an alleged I. W. W. plot to destroy grain elevators during the holidays. As a result special police have been detailed to guard every grain elevator in Chicago.

——–

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Bernal Mine Explosion Closes Out December 1907, Most Deadly Month for Nation’s Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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“Oh, damn it, dagos are cheaper than props.”
-Mother Jones quoting a mine manager.

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 1, 1908
Carthage, New Mexico – Year Ends with Explosion at Bernal Mine

If we thought we could end the deadly month of December 1907 without further news of horror from the nation’s coal mines, that hope was tragically crushed today with the news from New Mexico of yet another mine explosion, this latest at the Bernal Coal Mine.

From the Albuquerque Citizen of December 31, 1907:

Bernal Mine Disaster Carthage NM, Abq Ctz p1, Dec 31, 1907

This latest mine explosion at the Bernal Mine brings the death toll in the nations coal mines to well over 600 for the month of December 1907, making December the most deadly month for coal miners in U. S. history:

December 1 – Naomi Mine Explosion at Fayette City, Pennsylvania
December 6 – Monongah 6 and 8 at Monongah, West Virginia
December 16 – Yolande Mine Explosion at Yolande, Alabama
December 19 – Darr Mine Explosion at Jacob’s Creek, Pennsylvania
December 31 – Bernal Mine Explosion at Carthage, New Mexico

Note: the total death toll for each of these mine disasters in not yet known, but the two most deadly, the Darr Mine Explosion and the Explosion at Monongah have, between them, claimed 600 lives, therefore the total death toll for the five mine disasters of December 1907 will very likely be more than 700. Our readers should also remeber that when miners are killed one by one, in pairs, or in small groups of three or four, that is not counted as a “disaster.”

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Hellraisers Journal: New York Tribune Article Paints Haywood as “American Bolsheviki” Bent on “Reign of Terror”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The mine owners did not find the gold,
They did not mine the gold,
They did not mill the gold,
But by some weird alchemy
All the gold belonged to them!
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 31, 1917
New York, New York – Kept Press Waxes Hysterical on Big Bill

From the New York Tribune of December 30, 1917:

BBH American Bolsheviki Terror, NYTb p22, Dec 30, 1917

The article, authored by Theodore Knappen, is a long one and describes Fellow Worker Haywood’s long history of service to the working class as an effort to seek “the destruction of the existing system of government and industry by means of direct action.”

Interesting that the same author seems to hold no such outrage for the enslavement of children in mine and mill, for the thousands of men who perish each and every year in the mines, for the strikers and their wives and children murdered at Ludlow, Calumet, Roosevelt and other scenes of massacres too numerous to mention, nor for the millions thrown onto the scrap heap to face homelessness and starvation when they can no longer work or find work. One might conclude that such an “existing system” deserves to be replaced with a system which honors and respects the working men, women and children who provide the labor that keep it running.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on “Panic Philosophy” & “widespread poverty, misery & despair.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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While there is a lower class, I am in it,
While there is a criminal element, I am of it,
And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 30, 1907
#630 of Appeal to Reason Addresses “A Stupendous Crisis”

From the Appeal of December 28, 1907:
The following is the contribution made by Debs to the “Panic Edition”-

Panic Philosophy by EVD, AtR Dec 28, 1907

HMP, EVD, Eugene OR Guard, May 30, 1907

THE average man understands in a vague way that there is a panic, so-called, and he is more or less concerned about it according as it affects his business or his employment. But he has never studied economics and knows nothing about the laws governing social development. The panic distresses him, it is true, but he is not philosophic enough to inquire into its cause; he simply wants to get rid of the plague.

And so the average man falls easy prey to the political quack in the service of the industrial baron who glibly rings the changes on “financial stringency,” “elastic currency,” “lack of confidence,” “tariff revision,” “trust regulation” and like meaningless twaddle.

It is a fact to be deplored that the average man is a mental child; reads little and that mostly vapid nonsense; thinks less, and reasons not at all.

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Editor, Ida Crouch-Hazlett, Visits with Mr. & Mrs. George Pettibone in Ada County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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To advocate peace with things as they are
is treason to humanity.
This is a class struggle and on class lines
it must be fought out to a finish.
-Ida Crouch-Hazlett

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 29, 1907
Boise, Idaho – With George Pettibone in Ada County Jail

From the Socialist Montana New of December 26, 1907:
Editor Ida Crouch-Hazlett describes visit with Mr. and Mrs. George Pettibone-

In Pettibone’s Cell.

HMP, Pettibone, & wife, Current Lit June 1907

Saturday afternoon [December 14th] after the court session was over I went down to see Pettibone to get his picture for several of the papers I was correspondent for. He was lying on a cot, seemingly wearied after the demands of the day. His wife was sitting by him. The watchfulness of the sheriff’s office has been wonderfully relaxed since the Haywood trial. At that time visitors could hardly gain admission to the accused, and when they were allowed in the cell, a guard was in constant attendance at every conversation. Now, upon a simple request you are shown into the main room. There are no guards, the door is unlocked and the iron door not closed at all. Half a dozen of us were in this large room at the same time with no officials present whatever.

Pettibone, although looking ill and worn and wasted is still full of his quips and gibes. It is wonderful the way these men have stood this awful confinement.

Darker and more strenuous days than these though are before the working class before it comes into its own.

Ida Crouch-Hazlett.

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Hellraisers Journal: Poems for Our Boys in France from the United Mine Workers Journal

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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That old blood sucker,
the kaiser, ought to
be kicked off his throne.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday December 28, 1917
“In Flanders fields the poppies grow…”

From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 27, 1917:

“In Flanders Fields” by John McRae-

UMWJ Cover, Poem Flanders Field, Dec 27, 1917

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Hellraisers Journal: Tragic Story of Loss From Darr Mine Disaster, Mrs. Kroboth Loses Husband & Two Sons

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday December 27, 1907
Jacob’s Creek, Pennsylvania – Women Wait and Weep at Darr Mine

From The Pittsburgh Press of December 22, 1907:

Darr MnDs, Ptt Prs p13, Husband and 2 Sons, Dec 22, 1907

—–

A Pathetic Case of Bereavement as Result
of Mine Catastrophe Illustrated
by Mrs. George Kroboth
—–
ONE BOY A SUBSTITUTE ON THE FATAL DAY
—–

BY C. H. GILLESPIE,
Staff Correspondent.

Jacobs Creek, December 21.-In the terrific Darr mine explosion, the husband and two sons of Mrs. George Kroboth were snatched away.

She is not only triply bereaved, but deprived of all support, and her condition is most piteous. Her husband, George Kroboth, by years of thrifty living and constant labor, had provided a comfortable little home, and there today she sits alone with her great grief, mourning for her “man’s” cheery, comforting presence and shedding bitter tears for the two fine young sons so full of solace for her old age.

Her baby, George, was only 16 years old, but large and manly for his age, and Joe, aged 19 years, was a son any mother might well be proud of. But for the transient sickness of a neighbor, Max Sprecht, Joe would likely be alive today, instead of lying, charred and disfigured, in the far recesses of the mine workings.

In Sprecht’s absence, Joe took his place as a machine worker, and gladly availed himself of the chance to get a couple of days’ work. He was doing Sprecht’s work when the fatal explosion occurred.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: “Women Convicts Sold,” Dark Age Practice Persists in Alabama

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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WEB DuBois quote 1901, Slavery Convict Lease

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 26, 1917
Birmingham, Alabama – Women Convicts Sold for 15 Cents a Day

`
From the Duluth Labor World of December 22, 1917:

WOMEN CONVICTS BEING SOLD
FOR 15 CENTS A DAY
—–
Vicious Practice of the Dark Ages
Still Obtains in Alabama.
—–

Clarissa Olds Keeler, Convict Lease System, 1907

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Dec. 20.— Women convicts in this state are sold to contractors for 15 cents a day and are housed in filthy stockades while candidates for the governorship talk of the “gradual” removal of this glaring evil, declares the Monthly Bulletin of the Alabama state federation of labor.

This publication says:

Under a recent date line, Escambia county, state of Alabama, rises to remark that Escambia county has made a most advantageous contract with a certain employing concern, where the county has leased its women convicts for two years for the munificent sum of 15 cents per day. Such things make us wonder if we are still in the dark ages, with all the blind ignorance of human instincts, with all the intollerant cruelty of the old savage slave dealer and buyer, and this happened in the enlightened state of Alabama. Women, sold into slavery to the highest bidder, to do whatever that bidder desires; work, slave, toil through the days; rest in stockades, filthy and unfit, for the nights; truly a picture upon which every Alabamian should look with pride; and candidates for the governorship favor the “gradual” removal of convicted persons from the mines and lumber camps.

For years and years labor has fought this system of slavery in the state. Governors have promised to abolish it, legislatures have promised to abolish it; the people have demanded its abolishment, but when it comes to weighing the human soul against the almighty dollar the dollar wins every time. Poor, indeed, must be that state which has to sell its legal slaves into involuntary servitude that it may use the revenue thus obtained to pay its teachers, to pay its officers, to pay its expenses in other ways, to pay the jurors who send the unfortunates to the mines; to pay the judges who pronounce sentence.

And not a man offers for office in the state but who will wink at this inhuman traffic in human souls; not one of them will come out flatly for the abolition of this traffic.

[Photograph added of “Crime of Crimes” by Clarissa Olds Keeler.]

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