Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 12, 1913
Comrade Thompson Responds to Debs Regarding Socialists’ Report on West Virginia
From the International Socialist Review of August 1913:
A Reply to Debs
[-by W. H. Thompson Editor of Huntington Socialist and Labor Star]
Editor of the Call:
In your issue of June 28 appears an article by Comrade Eugene V. Debs, headed “Debs Denounces Vilifiers of West Virginia Committee Report.” As one of the parties referred to as “vilifiers,” I would like to answer a few of the points made in the article.
The Socialist and Labor Star bitterly condemned the committee’s report; it did not publish it, but it did give an explanation for suppressing it, in the following words: “We have never, and will never, devote any of our space to whitewashing a cheap political tool of the capitalist class, not even when the whitewash is mixed by a committee representing our own party.”
From Comrade Debs’ own words I will endeavor to prove that our condemnation of the report was justified. Our charges against the report were that it was a “weak mass of misstatements and a sickening eulogy of Dictator Hatfield.” The truth of the last clause of the charge is plainly apparent to everyone who has read the report. The truth of the first clause is well known to all who have taken the trouble to inform themselves regarding the trouble in this state.
Comrade Debs says that when the committee arrived in West Virginia more than sixty of our comrades were in jail and two of our papers were suppressed. All true. Now pay particular attention to dates. The committee arrived in West Virginia on May 17. Hatfield was inaugurated governor on March 4, something over two months previous. These comrades had been held in-or put in-jail at Hatfield’s orders, and the papers had been suppressed at his command. Mother Jones, Editor Boswell, National Committeeman Brown, and forty-six other Socialists were placed on trial before a military drumhead court-martial on March 7. On March 9, the Circuit Court of Kanawha County issued a writ forbidding the trial of these prisoners by the militia. The sheriff went into the military zone to serve this writ, only to be met by the Provost Marshal, who, acting under orders from Hatfield, forcibly prevented the serving of the papers, and the drumhead trial proceeded in defiance of the civil courts.
The report of our committee says: “It was under the administration of Glasscock, and not Hatfield, that Mother Jones, C. H. Boswell and John Brown were court-martialed and convicted.”
On April 25, the Charleston Labor Argus was confiscated, suppressed, and those suspected of being connected with it were thrown into jail. On May 9 the Socialist and Labor Star was confiscated, its plant destroyed and five of its owners jailed by order of Governor Hatfield.
Our committee’s report referring to these outrages says: “In this connection it, is but fair to say that the governor and his friends disavow knowledge of these outrages!”
According to Comrade Debs’ article, it did not take him long to discover “that a certain element was hostile to the United Mine Workers.” Apparently, however, he failed to discover that there were numerous elements hostile to Socialism. There was an element hostile to the United Mine Workers’ officials who had just leagued themselves with Hatfield and agreed upon a “settlement” of the strike, which was odious to the strikers and which they have since totally repudiated. Comrade Debs uses this “element” that was hostile to the United Mine Workers as a shield to hide behind when we attack him for whitewashing Hatfield. Then he pours out this vial of wrath upon us:
The whole trouble is that some Chicago I. W. W .-ites, in spirit, at least, are seeking to disrupt and drive out the United Mine Workers to make room for the I. W. W . and its program of sabotage.
Speaking for myself, I will say that I have never seen a real live I. W. W.-ite. If there is or has ever been such an animal in West Virginia I am blissfully unaware of the fact.However, I have heard considerable of this new species from the capitalistic press and I note that the capitalists are very hostile toward it. I consider that a good recommendation for a labor organization and will certainly not speak slightingly of it or condemn it as long as the parasites fear it, but as for the I. W. W. being responsible for the attack on the Mine Workers’ officials, who deliberately attempted to betray the Kanawha strikers, I think Comrade Debs’ fear was father to the thought.
Then Debs dramatically points to Mother Jones and John Brown as evidence that the Mine Workers’ officials are straightforward and honest, or these two class-conscious comrades would not work for them. And I come right back with the assertion that both Mother Jones and Brown have worked, not for these officials whom he so vigorously defends, but for the rank and file of the workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 3, 1913
The Conviction of Alexander Scott, Editor of the Weekly Issue
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
The Conviction of Alexander Scott
A STATES Prison sentence of not more than fifteen years nor less than one year, with a fine of $250, was imposed, June 6th, on Alexander Scott, editor of the Weekly Issue, official organ of the Socialist party of Passaic County, who was convicted on June 3rd on a charge of “aiding and abetting hostilities to the government of the City of Paterson,” by Judge Klenert in the Court of Quarter Sessions.
No sooner was sentence announced when Henry Carless, a Socialist attorney of Newark, and Henry Marelli, both of whom defended Scott, filed notice that a writ of error had been applied for, a copy of which notice was presented to the judge. Bail of $3,000 was fixed and Scott was later released when Samuel Ginsburg, of Passaic, furnished the bond.
Scott was found guilty and sentenced under a law placed on the statute books in 1902 shortly after the assassination of President McKinley, but never before invoked in the State of New Jersey. Scott’s indictment was caused by the publication of editorials and pictures in the Issue in which the police, especially Chief Bimson, was characterized as the “boss anarchist” and the “boss strike-breaker.”
Scott’s conviction practically makes it a crime for any paper to criticize public officials, and makes the constitutional guarantee of free press a dead letter. In the prosecution of the case the state contended that the police were a part of the city government and that ridiculing the police was ridiculing the government.
“If we can’t criticize a policeman for his brutality, we might as well give up publication of newspapers in this country,” remarked a prominent newspaper man who was a visitor in court when sentence was imposed on Scott. He was highly indignant over the sentence, and said he would start a nation-wide movement to have the Scott verdict reversed.
That the authorities of Paterson have made up their minds to suppress the Issue was evidenced by the fact that they forced the sentence of Scott as soon as he was convicted. Though Patrick L. Quinlan, the silk strike leader, was convicted several weeks ago, the authorities made no move to sentence him, but they hurried the sentence of Scott.
While Scott’s case was rushed through, the authorities have made no move to prosecute the policemen who stole an edition of the Issue by breaking in the Socialist party headquarters and taking possession of 5,000 copies of the paper. The policemen are now out on $200 bail each, while Scott’s bail is fixed at $3,000.-N. Y. Call.
While the lawyers were arguing over technicalities, Scott, unconcerned, was busily engaged noting the proceedings in a notebook. “I am in the fight to win, and I am confident of exoneration in the higher courts,” said Scott. “They cannot suppress the Issue”
But the Socialists and Industrial unionists do not propose that Scott should serve one month in prison if they can help it. The S. P. of New Jersey, will appeal to the National Socialist Party to take up the Scott case and make a nation-wide fight in his behalf.
Solidarity, the I. W. W. organ has issued a call for protest meetings. “Scott has stood by the I. W. W. and the I. W. W. must stand by him,” writes Justus Ebert.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 14, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Socialists Party Members Support Strike of Silk Weavers
From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:
What the Reds are Doing
in Paterson
By Alexander Scott
Editor of The Weekly Issue, Socialist Party Paper of Passaic County.
THE Socialists of Paterson have from the beginning of the silk strike taken an active part and have performed real service for the strikers. How could they help doing so? The fight of the 25,000 silk workers, organized in the I. W. W., was their fight. A majority of the party members are themselves silk workers.
When the general strike was called, the Socialists rolled up their sleeves, ready for any emergency. No question arose as to whether the workers were being organized by the I. W. W., the A. F. of L., or S. L. P. That did not matter then.
Had the strike been called by the A. F. of L.-much as some of us might doubt the sincerity of the organizers of that organization, and dubious as we might be of the outcome of the strike-there is no doubt but that the Paterson Socialists would have as readily jumped into the fray. In fact, when a year or so ago, the Detroit faction of the I. W. W. (S. L. P.) attempted, or pretended to organize the textile workers of the Passaic county, the Socialist Party members assisted, and when it was seen that the workers had been defeated through petty political trickery, they just as readily denounced them as traitors to the working class.
In the present strike, the two arms of the revolutionary labor movement have worked in unison. The Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party have demonstrated the tremendous power of their organizations when united to fight a common enemy. No force is powerful enough to overcome them.
It is the opinion of the writer that the strike would have been lost had we not all fought together, throwing the weight of our organization and press in with the I. W. W.
Let it here be understood that this article is not written with the purpose of showing the superiority of political action over direct action, but with the view of showing the necessity of both political and industrial union action in the struggle of the working class for emancipation.
The general strike was called for February 28. “Nip the strike in the bud,” ordered the mill owners.“Righto. At your service,” replied the city administration, the police, the press and some of the clergy.
The police gave orders that all halls be closed against the I. W. W., and got their clubs in readiness. The newspapers put their lying pens to work, and the clergy prepared sermons to suit the occasion. The strikers had already engaged Turn Hall as their headquarters, and the police had ordered this closed, too, and, moreover, intended to enforce the order by means of their clubs and guns, if necessary.
On the first day of the general strikea few hundred strikers filed out of Turn Hall and proceeded peacefully along the sidewalk in double file, when they were brutally attackedby a gang of blue-coated, brass-buttoned ruffians, headed by their Chief. Clubs were swung right and left, and no discrimination was made as to sex or age. One girl was struck and her cries could be heard two blocks distant.
“Well done!” said the silk bosses, and their editorial lackeys echoed, “Well done!” The bosses’ papers appeared with headlines announcing, “Rioting Strikers Suppressed by Timely Work of Chief of Police Bimson and his Squad of Men-Strike Being Nipped in the Bud.”
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 12, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Workers on Picket Line, Braving Death, Standing Firm
From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:
On the Paterson Picket Line
By William D. Haywood
[Part I of II]
FIVE o’clock every morning finds thousands of Paterson silk workers on the picket line with spirits as dauntless as ever despite the fact that after twelve weeks of struggle, starvation is staring them in the face. Some of them have been out in front of the battle for sixteen weeks.
The picket line is the modern barricade. It is there that the strike will be either lost or won. It is the picket line that has taught the Paterson silk workers the meaning of the class struggle. Here men and women daily meet the guns of hired thugs and the clubs of policemen. Braving death, suffering indignity and humiliation, nearly 800 strikers have been arrested on trumped-up charges and thrown into jail. Some of them have been jailed a number of times.
It takes courage to face a term in the Paterson bastile. It was built in 1854, before the era of alleged prison reform began. In the cellhouse where most of the strikers have been thrown the cells are narrow, with two bunks, one above the other. The ventilation is bad and the sanitation worse. The food is on a par with the usual prison fare.
Before being transferred to this county jail, the prisoners are, as a rule, compelled to spend a night in the city jail before appearing before Recorder Carroll’s court. The conditions that have been imposed on the strikers in the city jail are beyond description, reminding one of accounts of the hell-holes of Russia. Here seven and eight men have been crowded into a single cell intended to be occupied by one. No bedding of any kind is provided and no food is furnished. One group of strikers reported they were held for nineteen hours without even water.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 4, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – The Arrest of Bill Haywood and Adolf Lessig
From the International Socialist Review of May 1913:
The Arrest of Haywood and Lessig
By Phillips Russell
DETERMINED that the 25,000 silk strikers of Paterson, N. J., should not listen to William D. Haywood on Sunday, March 30, the guardians of Paterson’s law and order, seized Haywood and Adolph Lessig on their way to Haledon and, in the interests of the mill owners, secured Haywood’s conviction and sentence to six months at hard labor, and Lessig to six months.
No single act or process in the proceeding had the least semblance of legality, and no attempt to make even a show of legality was made. The mill owners are represented on Paterson’s Police Commission by one of themselves.They appointed as Recorder one James F. Carroll, notorious in the city as a bar room politician. They wanted Haywood and Lessig out of the way; they had them seized by their police; they put them behind the prison bars, and intended them to stay there.
A mass meeting had been called for Sunday, March 30, in Lafayette Oval, which had been secured for the purpose by the strikers. On the preceding Saturday Police Chief Bimson issued an order prohibiting the meeting, but partly because of the lateness of the order’s appearance, but more largely because they believed they had the rights of free assemblage and free speech, the strikers ignored the order, and at the appointed hour began to pour in thousands down the roads leading to the meeting place.
In the meantime, a squad of special police detailed for special duty, namely, to prevent the meeting and disperse the crowd, held up Haywood and Lessig a block before they reached the Oval. The police informed Haywood that no meeting would be allowed, and that if he attempted to speak he would be arrested, whereupon the strikers within hearing distance shouted “On to Haledon!”
The cry was taken up by the thousands assembled, Haywood assenting: “All right we’ll go to Haledon,” and he began to walk the two miles beyond which lies the little Socialist municipality, followed by the strikers who had just learned that in Paterson they had no rights.
The crowd was perfectly orderly, although without any formation, but when it had got within half a block of the city’s limits the patrol wagon thundered through the mass of men, women and children to where Haywood and Lessig were walking in front. Motorcycle police had noted the general direction of the crowd and had rushed for the wagon, which was hooted and jeered by the strikers as it dashed directly for Haywood and Lessig.
Police Sergeant Ryan jumped out of the wagon, pointed at Haywood, saying, “You’re under arrest!” and grabbed Lessig, at the same time shouting, “Get Tresca!” Carlo Tresca, however, had dropped behind. As the wagon dashed by on its way to Haywood, some friends seized Tresca and hurried him into the house of a friend from whence he smiled pleasantly at the police who came to seize him.
After Haywood and Lessig were under arrest, the police, in a frantic effort to drive back the crowd, met with one who refused to be hurried. This was Messari, who was arrested and later arraigned on the same charges as the two principal defendants, some of the police conveniently swearing he was with them, as the amended charge required three defendants to make it legal.
“Have you a warrant?” asked Haywood of the policemen who rode with him in the wagon.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 2, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Bill Haywood on the General Strike of Silk Workers, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of May 1913:
The Rip in the Silk Industry
By William D. Haywood ———-
[Part I of II]
WHEN the broad silk weavers in Henry Doherty’s mill in Paterson, N. ]., left their machines last February they inaugurated what has proved to be the closest approach to a general strike that has yet taken place in an American industry.
They revolted against the 3 and 4 loom system which until recently has been confined to the state of Pennsylvania. This system is restricted to the lower grades of silk, messaline and taffeta.
There are almost 300 silk mills in Paterson. Doherty was the first manufacturer to introduce this system there and later it was carried into 26 other mills. The silk workers soon realized that unless this scheme for exploiting them still further was checked, it would in time pervade the entire industry in the Jersey city.
The silk workers of Paterson are the most skilled in the United States and the employers thought that if there was anywhere in the country where this system could be successfully adopted it was in Paterson. They thought that their workers would stand for it. The workers themselves were not consulted, as the manufacturers afterward realized to their sorrow, when a general strike was called embracing the industry in all its branches and extending to all states where silk is manufactured.
At present no less than 50,000 silk workers are on strike in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut, including those in the preparatory processes, the “throwster” mills, dye houses, broad silk making in all grades, as well as in nearly all the ribbon mills.
In many respects this strike is hardly less significant than that at Lawrence. It involves nearly as many workers and the conditions are just as bad. But the Paterson revolt has attracted less public attention than did the woolen fight. This is due to several reasons.
In the first place, the manufacturers, through their control of outside newspapers, were able to bring about a general conspiracy of silence. The New York papers, for example, after the first few days in which they gave prominence to the strike, were warned through subtle sources that unless there was less publicity they would be made to suffer through loss of support and advertising. Then the Paterson strikers were fortunate in having among them several trained veterans in the labor movement, such as Adolph Lessig, Ewald Koettgen, and Louis Magnet, who had been members of the I. W. W. since 1906, and knew what to do towards putting the strike on an organized basis. For a time they were able to take care of themselves without relying much on outside help. Besides, the authorities kept their hands off for a time, after their first fright in which they threw Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Carlo Tresca and later Patrick Quinlan and Alex Scott, the Socialist editor, into jail. These organizers got on the job instantly and have done excellent work.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 23, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Workers Vote with Great Enthusiasm for General Strike
From the Paterson Morning Call of February 20, 1913:
GENERAL STRIKE DUE NEXT WEEK? ———- Labor Committee Will Decide on Date at Tonight’s Meeting. ———-
Newark Evening Star February 20, 1913
Two meeting rooms were necessary in Turn hall last night to accommodate all the silk workers that attended to take action on a proposed general strike throughout the industry in this city. When more than a thousand had crowded into one hall and the police prohibited any additional people there, the committee from local 152, Industrial Workers of the World, under whose auspices the mass meeting was conducted, opened a smaller hall, where between two and three hundred stood while they listened to urgent appeals on the part of the labor leaders to join the walkout, which they claimed to be inevitable now. Men and women continued going and coming during the entire evening, so that it is safe to assume there were more than two thousand who heard all or part of the speeches at least.
After all the speakers had concluded, the chairman of the meeting asked what decision the people had arrived at and what they considered doing in the matter of the movement to do away with the three and four-loom system in Paterson. One man to the rear of the hall yelled “strike” in no uncertain tones, and the hundreds applauded.
“How many vote to have this striker?” asked the chairman, and then requested that all in favor of going out raise their right hands. The people had been worked to a white heat of enthusiasm by the addresses and many of them raised both hands and then jumped on chairs to make their approval the more pronounced. After joining in huzzas for the period of a minute or more the people filed out.
Whether this spirit is a lasting one will remain to be seen when the executive committee of the local 152 call upon the workers to strike. It was evident last night that the men were more than interested in the matter, but even sanguine labor leaders would not vouch for their support. Such action by the people was expected after the oratorical fireworks that had been presented, but there was no indication that the same line of action would be adhered to when the privations consequent to the loss of work and wages are met with.
Between 500 and 600 of the workers that crowded the two halls last night did not wait until the vote was taken, and their presence might be accounted for by assigning curiosity as the cause. They made no expression of their opinion one way or another, and while their support is banked upon, there is no positive assurance that the support will be there when wanted.
A Polish speaker named Lauer, an Italian speaker, Organizer Kaplen, who spoke in Yiddish, and Miss Elizabeth Flynn made up the list of talkers that had been brought into the city for the meeting. When it became necessary to open the second hall, several of the local leaders jumped into the breach and made addresses on the situation as they sized it up.
One thing is certain, a general strike will be called.The executive committee of local 152, I. W. W., will hold a closed meeting this evening in Turn Hall, where manifestos will be brought up and translated into several languages. As soon as they are taken from the press they will be distributed directly to the silk workers.
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