Tag: American Revolution

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Delivers Talk to Packed House in Duluth, Minnesota, and Is Greeted With Rising Cheer

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Socialist Ripe Trade Unionist, WLUC p45, May 31, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 21, 1914
Duluth, Minnesota – Debs Speaks to Packed House, Supports Colorado Miners

From The Labor World of June 20, 1914:

DEBS DELIVERS TALK TO A PACKED HOUSE
———-
Socialist Apostle At His Best In Speech
Last Monday Night At Auditorium
———-

SOCIALIST PARTY FOR THE WORKERS
———-
The Only Political Party Which Aids
Workmen on Strike Says Debs.
———-

EVD, LW p1, Aug 30, 1902

Before an enthusiastic audience of close to 2,500 people, Eugene V. Debs of Terre Haute, delivered a most powerful address in behalf of the striking miners in Colorado and the socialist movement, of which he is recognized as America’s most forcible exponent, last Monday night at the Auditorium. To the discredit of the Duluth dailies very little notice was given to the reading public of this meeting.

When Mr. Debs entered the hall he was greeted with a rising cheer from the audience, which lasted fully five minutes.

Debs Introduced.

W. E. Towne the socialist candidate for congressman at the primary election acted as chairman and introduced the speaker as “the most loved and the most hated man in the United States.”

In opening his address, Mr. Debs pointed out the evolution in society, stating that “never in the world’s history has their been a self governing people. Aristocracy, monarchy and republic have all been governed by a minority. The working class has always been in some form of slavery or servitude.”

“Capitalism,” he declared, “must be abolished” before real democracy can be realized. Lawrence, Patterson, Little Falls, Calumet and Ludlow were cited as glaring instances of the impossibility of a further continuance of the capitalist system. The strikes of the workers at the various cities were spoken of as being lessons to the working class. “No strike has ever been lost,” said Mr. Debs. “The working class must free themselves from their bondage, and to accomplish this freedom they must unite in their industrial and political organizations regardless of nationality, creed, sex, or color.”

The Workers Being Educated.

The working class is educating itself. They are developing their own thinkers. There is nothing more glorious than a thinker in overalls. Emerson once said that “when a thinker acts the earth trembles.” The working class now beginning to think the world is being shaken to its foundations

Speaking of the socialist party he characterized it as the greatest political movement in the world. “Its final triumph is assured.” This coming triumph he declared, may be “hastened or retarded but cannot be prevented.”

That socialist speakers and adherents of the party are vilified to-day was not at all deplored by the speaker. The American patriots of the Revolution were slandered by the ruling class of their day. Such men as Samuel Adams, Thos. Paine and Patrick Henry were mentioned among the many. A glowing tribute was paid to Thos. Paine, the greatest of America’s patriots, who has been slandered and vilified for many years.

Urges Affiliation.

Mr. Debs urged upon all workers, affiliation with the socialist party. He said, “a worker in the republican party is as much out of place as John D. Rockefeller would be in the socialist party. Rockefeller knows why he is a socialist but you don’t know why you are not.”

The crimes at Ludlow were graphically portrayed by the speaker. Louis Tikkas [Tikas], the Greek miner who was murdered in cold blood by gunmen, who Debs said, “are men with the heart of hyenas and the conscience of a rattle-snake,” was spoken of as a hero.

Ben Lindsey, who visited President Wilson in an effort to adjust the struggle in Colorado was referred to by the speaker as a truthful man.

The system of society which allows a title deed to stand between the welfare of the people and the interests in control of the resources of wealth was severely criticized. “Rockefeller could have prevented Ludlow by one word. The blood of Ludlow is not only on his head but also on his hands. When Rockefeller stated that his conscience was clear then he showed he has no conscience. When Rockefeller testified that only ten percent of the miners wanted to strike, he lied,” said Debs.

Objections Answered.

Mr. Debs briefly referred to those speakers who are going around the country lecturing against the socialist movement.

The socialist does not propose to break up the home but on the contrary hopes to make the real home a possibility for the working class. When they tell you socialism will rob you of your religion, they lie, I should like to meet one of these gentlemen before a working class audience for about five minutes and I would tear him to tatters.

The socialist party is the only party that supports the working class when on strike, continued the speaker. The party sent $40,000 to the Michigan miners, and five carloads of food and three carloads of clothing.

The future was referred to as the coming ideal of man. The address was closed admist deafening applause with Ingersoll’s “Vision of the Future.”

[Photograph and emphasis added]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks: “Was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men?”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 23, 1914
Mother Jones Speaks on Behalf of the Brooklyn Colorado Relief Committee

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 19, 1914:

MOTHER JONES MOVES
BIG TEMPLE CROWD
———-
Bids Defiance to Rockefeller as She Pleads
for “Her Boys” of the Mines.
———-

DENOUNCES GOV. AMMONS.
———-
Brooklyn Colorado Relief Committee
Protests Against Outrages.
———-

Trinidad CO Mother Jones Surrounded by Bayonets, Sc Lbr Str p1, Feb 13, 1914

From The Socialist and Labor Star, February 13, 1914

Mother Jones, the angel of the miners, who has given almost every day of her 82 years to the fight for improved industrial conditions for the workers in all forms of trade and in all parts of the country, last night [May 18th] appealed to an audience of several hundred at the Masonic Temple to aid the striking miners in Colorado and based her appeal on a graphic and forcefully told tale of conditions in the mining district as she herself had seen them and taken part in.

Clad in a plain black dress, with a touch of color only, down the front, at her waist and around the end of the sleeves, Mother Jones by her earnestness moved the large audience to applause when she bade defiance to John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil owners and the “invisible government” which she held responsible for the sufferings of “her boys” and the cruel sacrifice of “her babes” in the Ludlow tent colony disaster; held them tense and with breath caught, while she pictured the horrible deaths from smoke and fire of the women and children in that catastrophe; and moved them to laughter by her caustic epigrams about the “uniformed rats” and their superiors who she declares “oppress her boys.”

“If I were that fellow’s mother I’d disown him,” she declared of Governor Ammons (Democrat of Colorado) after telling how he and the members of the Senate had only smiled after hearing the tale of a miner who because he had refused to leave the postoffice in the mining camp without his mail, had been taken out by the militia and made to dig his own grave until, weakened by their taunts and cruelty, he fell unconscious into it.

[She declared, while the audience cheered:]

The Revolution was not fought because of taxation without representation. It was fought because of military despotism on the part of King George III. And when King George only sneered at the warning of Benjamin Franklin that unless the despotism stopped there would be a revolution, the answer our forefathers gave was Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Let John D. Rockefeller take care lest we have another Bunker Hill and Yorktown. He says he won’t recognize the union. King George said he would never recognize the union but he had to. And Mr. Rockefeller will have to, too.

Says Pen and Brain, Not War,
Must Settle Industrial Troubles.

Colorado, she said, was the key to the present industrial war in this country and she made an earnest appeal for its right and proper solution.

It must not be settled by the sword but by the pen and brain and I stand here today appealing for your assistance in the fight. We want to bury the bayonet. We are appealing to the mothers of the race, for no nation is ever greater than its mothers; and no man is more humane than his mother. If there were not among the women so much talk of temperance and foreign missionaries, if we did missionary work at home and let other nations do theirs, these conditions of which I speak would have been changed long since. The women of Colorado have had the ballot twenty-one years and yet see the horrible happenings that they have permitted in their State. It is because they have busied themselves too much with social settlements and other such things that are given to the industrial class to satisfy them and not with the real things in life about them.

Theodore Roosevelt, she said, refused to see a group of miners’ children she had once brought down to Oyster Bay so he could see for himself their maimed hands and the other effects work in the mines had on them.

Roosevelt, like Ammons, refused to see these children; Roosevelt, whom you think, is next to God Almighty, refused to see them because they were mine workers and not mine owners’ children.

[Speaking of the Ludlow catastrophe, she asked:]

Was it fair, was it fair of Rockefeller to burn up my babes so he could enslave those men? Can’t we find some other way of settling the question? Has this nation reached that stage in its history when babes have to pay the penalty-when on the altar of greed, we place the helpless infant and roast it to death for more coin?

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Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 20, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – General Strike Committee Sends for Debs

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 17, 1910:

[Statement of Philadelphia’s General Strike Committee.]

Phl GS, Murphy n Pratt, LW p1, Newark NJ Str p1, Mar 5, 1910———-

Announcement of the plans of the labor leaders for today was embodied in the following statement issued by the General Strike Committee, from its headquarters at Twelfth and Filbert streets:

In our statement issued last night we announced several mass meetings would be held in different parts of the city, to which organized and unorganized working men and women and the general public are invited. These meetings will be held at Kensington Labor Lyceum. Second and Cambria streets; Mercantile Hall, 849 Franklin street; Academy Hall, 524 South Fourth street, and Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, on Thursday, March 17, at 8 P. M.

These meetings will be addressed by C. O. Pratt, Jeff Pierce, organizer of the American Federation of Labor; John J. Murphy and other prominent speakers…

The committee has also made arrangements for holding a monster mass meeting at Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, at 3 P. M., Saturday, March 19, which meeting will be addressed by Eugene V. Debs and other prominent speakers…

[Photographs added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Make Our Neighbors Wrongs Our Own, II Altoona Tb p6, Jan 12, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 15, 1920
Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part II

From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 12, 1920:

Mother Jones Elucidates Theories To Altoona Audience

[Part II of II.]

Mother Jones, Crpd Lg, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

OVERWORK AND UNDERPAY

She scored the conditions which permit men and women to be overworked and underpaid and results in riots and strikes when women and children are shot by brutes. Under her own personal observation at a time like this in the south, she said, was a case of a woman run down by mounted police who gave birth to a child as she was being taken to the morgue.

[She passionately declared:]

You have no Christianity. If you had conditions like this would not exist.

However, the speaker gave it as her opinion that the workers are becoming educated, getting a different vision; they feel the pulse of the world beating and different days coming. In West Virginia 65,000 men are organized since the inception of the union movement in that section a short time ago. Recently 10,000 of these men marched in a parade which the mayor of the city characterized as the most orderly parade he ever saw. All of which is a good omen.

BRUTALITY COVERED UP

[She cried:]

We want to give America a well fed humanity, intellectually, morally and physically. If the ministers do not wake up they will be thrown on a scrap heap.

At this point she derided the idea of saying “Your honor” to the governor of a state, who has permitted the murder of women and children in industrial uprisings.

This is the most insidiously brutal age that ever was, but it is covered up.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part II: Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Mex Rev Fornaro, NYT p15, Nov 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 22, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part II:
-Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro

From the New York Sun of November 29, 1909:

DEMAND DE FORNARO’S PARDON
—–
Protest Against the Cartoonist’s Imprisonment
Voiced at the Berkeley Theatre.

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

A meeting to protest against the imprisonment of Carlo de Fornaro, a cartoonist, for libeling a Mexican editor was held at the Berkeley Theatre last night. This resolution was adopted:

We the citizens of New York city in mass meeting assembled, herewith resolve that we regard the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro of libel and his sentence of one year’s imprisonment at hard labor as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack upon free speech and the freedom of the press. We demand that our Legislature repeal that part of the libel laws which gave an excuse for the action of the court and we call upon the governor of New York for the immediate and unconditional pardon of Carlo de Fornaro.

First of all reporters were introduced to Heriberto Barrow, who says he’s the Democratic candidate for President of Mexico, running against President Dias. He was a member of the House of Representatives, he said, and about a year ago introduced to Mexico to the New Idea party of young men, or Democratic party. In September he fled, fearing persecution. He says posters announcing his candidacy in big red letters are being torn down by the police in Mexico and any one that dares to indorse him openly is being thrown into prison by Diaz.

[Then followed, as speakers, Gaylord Wilshire, chairman of the meeting, and George Edwin Joseph, attorney for De Fornaro.]

Mother Jones, the Socialist propagandist, then took the centre of the stage and scanning the audience shouted that she had no fear of any Pinkerton dogs who were present and worked for Diaz. She was as ready to die to-night as any time in her fight for liberty.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part II: Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro, Artist Convicted of Libel

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Mex Rev Fornaro, NYT p15, Nov 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 30, 1909
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks for Convicted Mexican Revolutionary

From The New York Times of November 29, 1909:

‘MOTHER’ JONES HITS OUT AT THE COURTS
—–
They’d Pronounce the Ten Commandments
Unconstitutional, She Says.
—–

THIS AT A FORNARO MEETING
—–
Woman Agitator and Gaylord Wilshire Ask
Berkeley Theatre Audience to Help Free
Artist Convicted of Libel.
—–

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

Mother Jones, who goes about fighting the battles of the downtrodden, turned up again in New York last night as a speaker. She joined with Gaylord Wilshire, Joshua Wanhope and others at a meeting held in the Berkeley Theatre to protest against the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro, the caricaturist, who has been sentenced to one year’s hard labor on Blackwell’s Island on the charge of libeling Rafael Reyes Espindola, an editor and politician of Mexico, in his book on Mexico published last year.

Resolutions were adopted protesting against the conviction, calling for the repeal of the law under which the conviction was obtained, and asking that Gov. Hughes immediately pardon Mr. de Fornaro. Moreover, a collection was taken up to help fight the case in the courts, if that is found necessary.

Mother Jones, though she said last night that she was 74 years old, is still marvelously vigorous, at least in speech. She said she had been spending a lot of her time of late down in the Southwest, where she had learned some horrible things about Mexican rule. She is going back there immediately, she declared. Assuming that the Berkeley Theatre was almost filled with spies of the Mexican and United States Governments, she hurled defiance at them, and spoke a good deal more cruelly about Mexico and big Mexicans than Fornaro did in his book.

[She said:]

In 1861 they used to say, “all is quiet along the Potomac.” Now the black press is saying that all is quiet along the Rio Grande. But in 1861, while all that talk was going on, there was the glint of bayonets on both sides of the Potomac and to-day United States officers are arresting all along the Rio Grande hundreds of Mexicans for no other crime than that they have denounced the tyrannical Government in their own country.

In Kansas to-day three young men are lying in prison for doing just exactly what Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry did for their country. Our judges and officers are doing scavenger work for the Mexican pirate. Let the Mexican bloodhounds here to-night take that to Taft if they want to.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro, Artist Convicted of Libel” →

Hellraisers Journal: Marguerite Prevey: “Unite for Liberation” -Eugene V. Debs Sends Message from Atlanta Prison

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Be True Labor Will Come Into Its Own, OH Sc p1, Nov 5, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 6, 1919
Eugene V. Debs: “Be true to yourselves and your class.”

From The Ohio Socialist of November 5, 1919:

EVD fr Prison by M Prevey, OH Sc p1, Nov 5, 1919

Cincinnati O. Oct. 23. 1919.

DEAR COMRADE WAGENKNECHT:-

M Prevey by Art Young, Liberator p18, Oct 1919

I visited Gene yesterday accompanied by attorney Castelton [Samuel Castleton] and found slightly improved, he is still in the hospital and will in all probability remain there because of his health. He is no longer obliged to work in the clothing shop as the Warden recognized he must get better air and rest. Every one about the prison appreciates and loves “our Gene,” many prisoners would gladly serve his time for him if they could. The prisoners in the tuberculosis section raise flowers and frequently send him boquets.

He is cheerful and optimistic, the split in the Party is to him an evidence of growth. He said,

Parties will split, but the movement for working-class emancipation never splits, the rank and file in all the Parties are honest and will get together in their own good time.

Tell them to carry on the work for liberation of all political prisoners. All of us will be released when the working-class present a united front. We must see to it that the financial interests are not permitted to overthrow by force the liberties so dearly bought and paid for by the blood of the workers.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part III: Found Wherever a Good Fight For Freedom Is Going On

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Home Good Fight Going On, Ptt Prs p17, Sept 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 31, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part III
Her Home? “Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

From The Pittsburgh Post of September 24, 1919:

Mother Jones, crpd, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

‘Mother’ Jones Heard
in Labor Trial
—–

“Mother” Jones, aged organizer for the United Mine Workers, appearing yesterday as a witness before Judge Richard H. Kennedy, gave her address as “wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

She testified in the hearing of a large number of appeals from fines imposed by Mayor James S. Crawford in connection with a meeting held in Duquesne last September 7.

After leaving the stand “Mother” Jones declared that had been her first experience as a witness in “a regular court trial.” She was one of the organizers arrested, but was not fined. That was the first time, she said, that she had been placed behind bars, although she had been arrested more than once.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From The Pittsburgh Press of September 24, 1919:

“MOTHER” JONES FREED FOR LABOR ACTIVITY.
—–

“Mother” Jones was freed today following her arrest in the steel mill districts Sept. 7. She came before Judge Kennedy and was permitted to go without a fine.

“What is your age?” queried the court.

“Ninety on the first day of next May.”

“Where is your home?”

“Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on,” replied the old lady, vigorously.

“You may go.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part III: Found Wherever a Good Fight For Freedom Is Going On” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Steel Workers of Buffalo: “The Revolution Is On and Nothing Can Stop It.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones GSS American Liberty, Bff Eve Tx p4, Oct 3, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 8, 1919
Buffalo, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Steel Workers

Mother Jones spoke Thursday evening, October 2nd, at Miller’s Harmonia Hall and said in part:

The revolution is on and nothing can stop is now. Old George III didn’t think the Americans would rise and lick h— out of him, and Gary thinks the same way. They call me an agitator well, the United States was founded on agitation by radicals, and we will make no apologies for that name if that is what they want to call us until we clean the whole lot of them out. American liberty was bought not by the money of men like Gary, but by the blood of men like you, who have left you that glorious emblem, the Stars and Stripes, of which the first stripe is red the color of the blood they shed.

The labor union represents the only Christianity of the present time. The labor union has done more of humanity than all the churches, universities, Y. M. C. A. and other institutions of capitalism. When the miners’ union took the children out of the mines and put them into the school the cry of anarchy went up. The master class has a new word now-Bolshevism-for those who do not agree with the capitalists. If Bolshevism makes the world any better for the workers, I am for the Bolsheviki. I want the spies who have followed me all day today to know this.

—–

GSS Mother Jones, WZF, NY Dly Ns p2, Oct 1, 1919

[Photograph added is from New York Daily News of October 1, 1919.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs Calls for Rescue of Mexican and Russian Patriots Now Held in American Jails

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Right of Asylum, AtR p1, Jan 2, 1909

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 4, 1909
Five Patriots Illegally Imprisoned in American Jails 

With a banner headline and a wide column down the center of the front page of this weeks’s Appeal to Reason, Eugene V. Debs calls for the rescue of the Mexican and Russian patriots now held for deportation by American authorities at the behest of foreign tyrants.

AtR, Banner re Mxn Revs Patriots p1, Jan 2, 1909
EVD re Mxn Revs, AtR p1, Jan 2, 1909

From the Appeal to Reason for January 2, 1909:

RESCUE THE REFUGEES

By EUGENE V. DEBS.

Mex Rev, Villareal Magon Rivera, Barbarous MX p307, 3rd ed 1910

When Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionist, refugee from his native land for attempting to overthrow its government, reached the United States, in 1851, he was received as the “distinguished Hungarian patriot” by President Fillmore, hailed as another Washington by the American congress and welcomed by the American people amidst demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm. He was a rebel and a revolutionist and before making his escape had been condemned for “treason” and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment “on account of taking a position favorable to six patriots who had been illegally imprisoned.”

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