Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: “Soldiers Evict Miners’ Families” by G. H. Edmunds-Militia Aids Operators

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Quote Mother Jones, Better to Die Fighting, Sac Str p1, June 3, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal –Friday October 18, 1912
West Virginia Militia Aids Coal Operators in Evicting Miners’ Families

From The Wheeling Majority of October 17, 1912:

SOLDIERS EVICT MINERS’ FAMILIES
———-
(By G. H. Edmunds.)
—–

WV Militia Escort Miners to Court Martial, Cmg Ntn p2, Oct 12, 1912

In commenting on the troubles in the strike fields of Kanawha county, Gov. Glasscock mentioned the “invisible government” as being largely responsible for the troubles existing, and many of the citizens of this state have wondered what the “invisible government” was, but on Monday last, every one was brought face to face with this “Gila monster.” We beheld a monster with one head but two faces, a second Janus, too subtle for description.

Remember, Baldwin guards were driven out under the martial law proclamation, and everything went fine in the strike zone so far as peace and quiet was concerned, but, on Monday what do we find.

We find the militia of the state of West Virginia being used by the coal operators to evict miners from their homes, without any process of law whatsoever.

Never before has anything of the kind happened in any of the strikes of the country. Result: More than 100 families, aggregating 500 men, women and children are sitting by the roadside in the mountains of West Virginia with no place to lay their heads but on the hard rocks of the mountains, and absolutely no redress whatsoever. The governor has been appealed to, and his reply to the appeal was that the miners had redress in the civil courts, yet this same governor has suspended the civil courts and instituted martial law in their stead, and yet he tells the miners to go to the civil courts.

Yes, the government of West Virginia is “invisible.”

There seems to be a “power behind the throne” in this fight. Soldiers being used as strike breakers, and putting hundreds of women and children out in the cold to live in the open air in October, without any semblance of law. These people had a right to remain in the houses occupied by them until legally dispossessed, because, in law the fact that they were in the houses, and entered legally, gave them the right of remaining in said houses until legally dispossessed. The miners of West Virginia are being wrongfully treated by the governor, who is the commander in-chief of the state militia.

Strike breaking militia! Oh, shame on the fair name of West Virginia! The way that the militia is being used to evict the miners is done in this wise: The coal company sends several men to a miner’s house to put his household goods into the road. If the miner objects to having his goods put out without due process of law, the militia will arrest him and put him in the guard house. A squad of soldiers follows the evicting army and sees that no miner resists the process.

Yet in the face of all of this, and the hardships that the miners are being put into by the attitude of the governor of the state with their children half clad, hungry and barefooted, sickness in almost every home, no doctor, no money, only the charity of the Miners’ union to look to, and with a cold winter almost upon them, yet these hardships are more to be desired than peonage under the guard system. We are hoping that the governor will soon see the error of his way and do something to redeem the fair name of the great state of West Virginia.

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Socialism and the Negro” by Hubert Harrison, Part II

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Quote Hubert Harrison, The Voice re St Louis Horror, July 4, 1917—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 18, 1912
“Socialism and the Negro” by Hubert Harrison, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of July 1912:

Hubert Harrison, ISR p65, July 1912

[Part II of II]

The Duty of The Socialist Party.

I think that we might embrace the opportunity of taking the matter up at the coming national convention. The time is ripe for taking a stand against the extensive disfranchisement of the Negro in violation of the plain provisions of the national constitution. In view of the fact that the last three amendments to the constitution contain the clause, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” the party will not be guilty of proposing anything worse than asking the government to enforce its own “law and order.” If the Negroes, or any other section of the working class in America, is to be deprived of the ballot, how can they participate with us in the class struggle? How can we pretend to be a political party if we fail to see the significance of this fact?

Besides, the recent dirty diatribes against the Negro in a Texas paper, which is still on our national list of Socialist papers; the experiences of Mrs. Theresa Malkiel in Tennessee, where she was prevented by certain people from addressing a meeting of Negroes on the subject of Socialism, and certain other exhibitions of the thing called Southernism, constitute the challenge of caste. Can we ignore this challenge? I think not. We could hardly afford to have the taint of “trimming” on the garments of the Socialist party. It is dangerous-doubly dangerous now, when the temper of the times is against such “trimming.” Besides it would be futile. If it is not met now it must be met later when it shall have grown stronger. Now, when we can cope with it, we have the issue squarely presented: Southernism or Socialism-which? Is it to be the white half of the working class against the black half, or all the working class? Can we hope to triumph over capitalism with one-half of the working class against us? Let us settle these questions now-for settled they must be.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Socialism and the Negro” by Hubert Harrison, Part I

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Quote Hubert Harrison, The Voice re St Louis Horror, July 4, 1917—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 17, 1912
“Socialism and the Negro” by Hubert Harrison, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of July 1912:

Hubert Harrison, ISR p65, July 1912

[Part I of II]

1. Economic Status Of The Negro

The ten million Negroes of America form a group that is more essentially proletarian than any other American group. In the first place the ancestors of this group were brought here with the very definite understanding that they were to be ruthlessly exploited. And they were not allowed any choice in the matter. Since they were brought here as chattels their social status was fixed by that fact. In every case that we know of where a group has lived by exploiting another group, it has despised that group which it has put under subjection. And the degree of contempt has always been in direct proportion to the degree of exploitation.

Inasmuch, then, as the Negro was at one period the most thoroughly exploited of the American proletariat, he was the most thoroughly despised. That group which exploited and despised him, being the most powerful section of the ruling class, was able to diffuse its own necessary contempt of the Negro first among the other sections of the ruling class, and afterwards among all other classes of Americans. For the ruling class has always determined what the social ideals and moral ideas of society should be; and this explains how race prejudice was disseminated until all Americans are supposed to be saturated with it. Race prejudice, then, is the fruit of economic subjection and a fixed inferior economic status. It is the reflex of a social caste system. That caste system in America today is what we roughly refer to as the Race Problem, and it is thus seen that the Negro problem is essentially an economic problem with its roots in slavery past and present.

Notwithstanding the fact that it is usually kept out of public discussion, the bread-and-butter side of this problem is easily the most important. The Negro worker gets less for his work-thanks to exclusion from the craft unions-than any other worker; he works longer hours as a rule and under worse conditions than any other worker; and his rent in any large city is much higher than that which the white worker pays for the same tenement. In short, the exploitation of the Negro worker is keener than that of any group of white workers in America. Now, the mission of the Socialist Party is to free the working class from exploitation, and since the Negro is the most ruthlessly exploited working class group in America, the duty of the party to champion his cause is as clear as day. This is the crucial test of Socialism’s sincerity and therein lies the value of this point of view-Socialism and the Negro.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Ohio Socialist: Editorial from The Messenger: “Negroes Organizing in the Socialist Party”

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Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure,
and still more pressure through broad,
organized, aggressive mass action.
-A. Philip Randolph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday August 28, 1918
New York City – Socialist Locals Organized Across Race Divide

From The Ohio Socialist of August 21, 1918:

-The following article is reprinted from The Messenger:

Negroes Organizing in
Socialist Party

A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, Messenger, Nov 1917
Editors of The Messenger

The new negro is awakening. After having been the political Rip Van Winkle of America for fifty years, sleeping in the cesspools of Republican reaction, he has at last opened his eyes. In New York city, in the very heart of the negro settlement, there has been organized the Twenty-first Assembly District Socialist Branch, which includes all white and colored Socialists in the district. The branch has grown to about one hundred members in two weeks, all of whom are dues paying and in good standing.

The new negro leaders are pointing out the Republican party as the worst fraud under which negroes have been laboring.The Democratic party is openly against the negro. The Republican party is ever striking him a blow in the back. Either one or the other of those parties has been in power for the last fifty years, the Republicans the greater part of the time. The Jim Crowism, segregation, lynching, defranchisement and discrimination are as much the work of the Republican as the Democratic party. Jim Crowism railroads was upheld in a decision by Charles E. Hughes. Lynch laws thrived under McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. The Grandfather disfranchisement laws were passed under the guardianship of the Republican party. The Summer Civil Rights bill was declared unconstitutional by the Republican Supreme Court.

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