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

18th July 202220th July 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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:

[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

17th July 202220th July 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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:

[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: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, Part II

23rd June 202023rd June 2020 Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921

Quote Mother Jones, Every Damned Robber, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel p222 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 23, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part II

Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.

SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES at WILLIAMSON, PART II.

[Mother Jones on Agitators.]

The West Virginian
June 22, 1920

I went to a meeting and the secretary of the steel workers went with me. He got up to speak. They took him. The next fellow got up; they took him. I got up. They arrested me. I wouldn’t walk. They had to ride me. A big old Irish buck of a policeman said, “You will have to walk.” “No, I can’t.” “Can you walk?” “No, I can’t.” “We will take you down to jail and lock you up behind the bars.”

After a few minutes the chief came along.
“Mother Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”

“There is some of the steel managers here want to speak to you.”
“All right, let the gentlemen come in. I am sorry gentlemen, I haven’t got chairs to give you.” (Laughter.)

One good fellow says, “Now, Mother Jones, this agitation is dangerous. You know these are foreigners, mostly.”
“Well, that is the reason I want to talk to them. I want to organize them into the United States as a Union so as to show them what the institution stands for.”

“They don’t understand English,” he says.
I said, “I want to teach them English. We want them into the Union so they will understand.”
“But you can’t do that. This agitation won’t do. Your radicalism has got to go.”
I said, “Wait a minute, sir. You are one of the managers of the steel industry here?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t the first emigrant that landed on our shore an agitator?”
“Who was he?”
“Columbus. Didn’t he agitate to get the money from the people of Spain? Didn’t he agitate to get the crew, and crossed the ocean and discovered America for you and I?

“Wasn’t Washington an agitator? Didn’t the Mayflower bring over a ship-full of agitators? Didn’t we build a monument to them down there in Massachusetts. I want to ask you a question. Right today in and around the City of Pittsburgh I believe there has assembled as many as three hundred thousand people [bowing the knee to Jesus during Easter season.] Jesus was an agitator, Mr. Manager. What in hell did you hang him for if he didn’t hurt your pockets?” He never made a reply. He went away.

He was the manager of the steel works; he was the banker; he was the mayor; he was the judge; he was the chairman of the city council. Just think of that in America—and he had a stomach on him four miles long and two miles wide. (Laughter.) And when you looked at that fellow and compared him with people of toil it nauseated you.

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Hellraisers Journal: Letter to The Crisis Reminds Editor of Ben Fletcher, “Sole Negro Defendant” at IWW Chicago Trial

7th June 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

We respect [the IWW] as one of the
social and political movements
in modern times that draws no color line.
-WEB DuBois for The Crisis
———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 7, 1919
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher, Prisoner at Leavenworth, Remembered

From The Crisis of June 1919:

I. W. W.

[by W.E.B. Du Bois]

Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher

AN editorial in the Easter CRISIS (written during the Editor’s absence) has been misunderstood and was, perhaps, itself partially misleading.

Mr. F. H. M. Murray of Washington, D. C., writes us:

In a recent editorial in your magazine the statement is made that there are no Negroes among the Industrial Workers of the World. While I am certain that the statement is erroneous, I am not at this moment able to lay my hands on anything in print to confirm my denial, except the following from an article in last Sunday’s New York Call magazine, by David Karsner, who reported the trial of the big batch of members of the I. W. W- in Chicago last summer and later the trial of the five Socialists at the same place. He is writing about Judge Kenesaw M. Landis, who presided at both trials and who imposed upon the hundred or so I. W. W., who were convicted, and the five Socialists, sentences aggregating over nine hundred years in prison and fines aggregating over two millions of dollars. Mr. Karsner says:

“There was only one defendant among the I. W. W., to my knowledge, who refused to believe in Judge Landis [during the trial]. He was Ben Fletcher, the sole Negro defendant. One day in the corridor I asked Ben what he thought of Judge Landis. Ben smiled broadly, ‘He’s a fakir. Wait until he gets a chance; then he’ll plaster it on thick.’ Ben was a sure-thing prophet, for the Judge plastered him with ten years, and his counsel said with not enough evidence to invite a reprimand.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Strikebreakers Brought to Virden and Pana from Alabama Were Threatened by Company Guards

15th October 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Men in a locked car are not free men, but prisoners.
These men were prisoners without authority of law.
They were under no criminal charge, had not been tried,
and were entitled to go and come at their pleasure.
-Governor John Riley Tanner
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 15, 1898
Birmingham, Alabama – Miners Recruited as Scabs Were Deceived

Virden Massacre, Wanted Colored Miners, Poster ab Sept 19, 1898

That the miners recruited in Birmingham, Alabama, to mine coal in Virden and Pana, Illinois, were deceived by the coal operators into becoming strikebreakers is made plain by the fact that the men were transported into Illinois in locked cattle cars, many of them, and were kept under the watchful eye of armed company guards. When the Alabama miners became aware of the situation, most of them resisted being turned into scabs. However, according to reports, the company guards threatened to shoot down any who attempted escape.

From the the the Chicago Public
-of August 27, 1898

The sheriff of Christian county, Ill., seems to think it his duty not only to threaten to shoot white miners who try to reach the imported negroes at Pana to explain the trick that has been played upon them by the operators, but also to threaten to shoot the negroes if they attempt to leave the operators’ employment. It is the business of the sheriff to preserve order, but it is not his business to act as a private detective for coal operators, which is a distinction that the sheriff of Christian county ought to know, and one which, if he doesn’t know it, he ought to be made to learn.

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

28th August 201817th August 2018 Janet RayeA. Philip Randolph

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

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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Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part III

7th April 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote WZF, re Walsh closing for Packinghouse Workers, LnL, April 1918

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

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 7, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part III

From Life and Labor of April 1918:

HOW LIFE HAS BEEN BROUGHT
INTO THE STOCKYARDS
A Story of the Reorganization of the Packing Industry

William Z. Foster
Secretary Chicago Stockyards Labor Council

The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.

[Part III]

THE SHORTER WORKDAY

A big battle raged around the question of the eight hour day. In this measure’ the packers saw typified the victory so earnestly sought by the workers. They bent every effort to defeat it. Although compelled to admit the justice, economy and inevitability of the eight hour day as a general proposition, they exhausted every pretext to prevent its consideration, for very obvious reasons, till after the war.

Their strong argument was that, due to the irregular supply of cattle, sheep and hogs, and the limited capacities of the plants, introduction of the eight hour day could only be brought about after months and years of rebuilding and other preparation. To establish it suddenly now would be disastrous. It would reduce the production of vitally necessary foodstuffs full 20 per cent. This would involve starvation for the boys in the trenches and very possibly the loss of the war.

To establish this contention the brainiest superintendents in the packing business piled complexities upon complications. But their efforts were in vain. The workers met and defeated them at every point. Samuel Gompers and Victor A. Olander made the general argument for the shorter workday, and a masterful one it was. Dennis Lane, John Kennedy, Martin Murphy, Tim McCreash, John Joyce and Joseph Selkirk, all skilled butchers, applied it to the packing houses. These union workers destroyed every technical objection raised by the superintendents, checking them one by one. Once, in the midst of the arbitration, they even went to Kansas City to ascertain the exact capacity of certain departments of the packing plants in that city. They routed the experts, horse, foot and dragoons, and proved beyond all question of doubt the practicability and economy of immediately establishing the eight hour day in the packing industry. At the first hour, seeing they were defeated, the packers urged the administrator in case he saw fit to shorten the workday, to make it apply only to the skilled trades—an insidious attack on the unions that did not pass without thorough exposure.

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Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part I

5th April 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote WZF, re Organizing Packinghouse Workers, LnL, April 1918