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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday August 7, 1918
Canon City, Colorado – Poem from Imprisoned Anarchist Comrade
We have not forgotten our Comrade, Louise Olivereau, who is now serving a ten-year prison sentence at Colorado’s state prison. Miss Olivereau was convicted last November on charges of violating the Espionage Act due her her anti-war and anti-conscription writings.
From the Mother Earth Bulletin of April 1918:
Hellraisers Journal: Monday April 13, 1908
New York, New York – Robert Hunter Blamed for Bombing
The unemployed, and those who stand up for them, are to blame for a bomb thrown by a murderous criminal unconnected with them, this according to the Police Force of New York City. The actual crime of the protesting unemployed men, women and children was, apparently, their failure to starve silently and in an orderly manner.
From the Appeal to Reason of April 11, 1908:
Robert Hunter.
—–
In his address to the public following the breaking up of the meeting of the unemployed in Union Square, New York, Police Commissioner Bingham assumed an insolent and pompous attitude toward the working class. He served notice that the was going to deal with such meetings hereafter with an “iron hand.” We have heard such talk before. There is nothing in it.
Bingham goes on to defend the police. Of course. The police acted under his orders. Thousands of eye-witnesses declare that the police acted with unspeakable brutality in riding rough shod over the people and clubbing them without mercy. Hundreds who were unable to escape from the crowd bear the marks of the outrageous and unprovoked assaults of the police hirelings. Of course the police were not to blame, and of course Bingham comes to their rescue and defends them. The police were the mere tools in the hands of such politicians as Bingham.
Among other things, Bingham took occasion to misrepresent Comrade Robert Hunter and place him in a false light before the people. We happen to personally know Comrade Hunter and to have known him from his childhood. There is no gentler, kindlier, more considerate soul. Nor at the same time one more courageous. His heart throbbed in sympathy with the thousands of the unemployed. With all the passion of his noble nature he yearned to serve them, to comfort them. And so he was to speak to them on that fateful day when the blue-coated Cossacks swooped down upon the hungry hordes and scattered them with as little mercy as if they had been so many tarantulas. Robert Hunter did not speak. He had no chance to speak. But he was blamed for the trouble because he sympathized with the unfortunates; because he did not have a heart of stone.
You, you miserable policemen!
What business have you here?
Your presence is and insult to
the honest workingmen
who are attending this meeting.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 15, 1908
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1908:
-Found Speaking with Lucy Parsons in Chicago
On the evening of January 17th, at a meeting for the Unemployed at Brand’s Hall in Chicago, Mother Jones and Lucy Parsons were both found making passionate speeches which were most unfavorably reported by the kept press.
From Indiana’s Fort Wayne News of January 18, 1908:
THE ANARCHISTS WERE RESTRAINED
—–LUCY PARSONS THE LEADING FIGURE IN LAST
EVENING’S DEMONSTRATION IN CHICAGO.
—–
CHICAGO, Jan. 18.-The presence of a score of policemen and an equal number of plain clothes men prevented anarchy from ruling the meeting of the “unemployed” and others at Brand’s hall last night, but there was enough of it to make the occasion lively and cause J. H. Drake, who acted as chairman, to give up in disgust and leave the hall.
Not over 800 persons in all answered the call for the turnout, but it was decided to mass the unemployed next Thursday and march on the city hall to demand work. It was suggested, if no other means presented themselves, to tear down the city hall to furnish the desired work.
Mrs. Lucy Parsons, widow of the noted anarchist, Ben L. Reitman, who makes a comfortable living out of the Brotherhood Welfare association, and “Mother” Jones all took the opportunity to air their opinion of President Roosevelt and capitalists.
One thing I never can forget—
that I owe my life and my liberty
to the working class of America,
and what you have accomplished for me
and my comrades you can do for yourselves.
-Big Bill Haywood
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 22, 1908
New York, New York – Haywood Speaks to Thousands of Cheering Workers
From the New York Tribune of January 18, 1908:
HAIL HAYWOOD, MARTYR.
—–
Grand Central Palace Audience Rises
in a Body to Honor Miner.
William D. Haywood, ex-secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, was greeted as a martyr by a large audience in the Grand Central Palace last night. He was tried for conspiracy in the murder of Governor Steunenberg of Idaho and acquitted. When he was introduced to the local socialists, anarchists and labor union men and women they rose in a body and cheered him for nearly five minutes. He told less of his prison and trial experiences than he did of his remedies for the social regeneration of the world, and denounced the persons whom he held responsible far the prosecution of himself, Moyer and Pettibone, who figured in the trial with Orchard.
Morris Brown, of the Cigar Makers Union, was the chairman and introduced Albert Abrams, of the Central Federated Union. William Coakley was speaking when Haywood entered the hall. Joseph Wanhope, an editor of a socialistic magazine, was the next speaker. Then a collection was taken up, Mr. Haywood said:
One thing I never can forget—that I owe my life and my liberty to the working class of America, and what you have accomplished for me and my comrades you can do for yourselves. I do not feel, in my arrest and trial, that I have been a martyr. The months I spent in jail were the best I ever spent in my life. They gave me an opportunity to think, to reflect. That is what all working men should do, no matter how busy they may be.
The greatest bulwark
of capitalism is militarism.
-Emma Goldman
Hellraisers Journal, Monday June 18, 1917
New York, New York – Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman Arrested
On Friday June 15th, President Wilson signed the Espionage into law (see below). That same day in New York City, the Harlem office of Mother Earth and The Blast was raided, and Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested.
From the New York Sun of June 16, 1917:
BERKMAN AND EMMA GOLDMAN
HELD FOR PLOT
—–
Accused of Inducing Young Men to
Violate Registration Law.
—–BOTH LOCKED IN TOMBS
—–
“Literature” in Office of
Anarchist Publications
Seized as Evidence.
—–
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested yesterday afternoon charged with conspiracy against the Government in inducing young men to break the selective conscription law by not registering. If convicted they can be imprisoned for two years and fined $10,000 apiece, and can also be deported for preaching anarchy, both being aliens.
United Suites Marshal McCarthy served the warrants on the pair, who love to be called “the beat known anarchists in America,” in the little Harlem office where they have been publishing Mother Earth and the Blast. He said it was the best thing he ever did in his life.
They were taken to the Federal Building along with a young anarchist helper, W. P. Bales, who had not registered for conscription. It being too late for arraignment they were locked up in the Tombs. They will confront United States Commissioner Hitchcock at 9:45 o’clock this morning, and Berkman and Miss Goldman will probably have to give $25,000 bail apiece if they want to get out pending trial or Grand Jury action. A lot of “literature” in the Harlem office, of which the police and Department of Justice are now in charge, was seized as evidence, including copies of Mother Earth and the Blast. Signed articles in these magazines figure in the Government’s complaint. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Espionage Act Signed; Goldman & Berkman Arrested; Mother Earth & The Blast Seized”
Since the earth belongs to the capitalist class,
why should a grand jury concern itself
in such a small matter as
helping itself to the state of Idaho?
-Eugene Victor Debs
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 14, 1907
From the Appeal to Reason: Eugene V. Debs Responds to The Statesman
On April 20th (see below), The Idaho Daily Statesman published an editorial in which it referred to the Appeal as the “Appeal to Treason” and insisted that the Socialists of the Appeal were actually “anarchists…wolves of society.” In the the May 11th edition of the Appeal, Comrade Debs asks, “Who Are the Wolves?” We will publish the entire response in two parts, beginning today with Part I:
WHO ARE THE WOLVES?
—–
An Inquiry Into Some of the Charges Made Against
the Appeal to Reason by the
Criminal Idaho Statesman.
—–BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–
UT few people are so blind or indifferent as to be oblivious of the mighty struggle now in progress in the existing social and economic order. It is true that only the few who have studied historic and social evolution have any proper understanding of the forces underlying society, or any clear perception of the trend of its development, but the fact that we are living in an era of industrial transformation and that economic conditions are rapidly changing is pretty generally understood by the whole people.
Now the system under which we live, like the one preceding it, and from which it sprang, has its historic limitations and when its mission is accomplished it will be relegated to the past, but this will happen only after the system that is to succeed it has evolved and taken its place in the orderly march of events and the unceasing progress of civilization.
Capitalist society, corner-stoned in wage slavery, will no more last forever than did the feudal system based upon serf-labor. It will serve its historic time and purpose and that will be the end of it. Another and better system will take its place, out of which will rise a higher civilization.
But the dominant class in every system want that system to last forever. They are on top and want to remain there. That is natural enough. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Answers Charges of Idaho Statesman: “Who Are the Wolves?” Part I”
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday December 26, 1916
New York City – Carlo Tresca Welcomed Home at Mass Meeting
From the New York Sun of December 25, 1916:
TRESCA WELCOMED BCK.
—–
I. W. W. Leader Kissed on Both
Cheeks at Public Meeting.
Nearly a thousand anarchists and Industrial Workers of the World expressed in a variety of ways yesterday their happiness at the return to New York of their fiery leader, Carlo Tresca, who has been on trial* in Minnesota as a result of his activities in the Mesaba iron range strike.
A meeting of welcome was held in Manhattan Lyceum, 66 East Fourth street. In his exuberance William Shatoff kissed the protesting Carlo first on one cheek and then on the other, while the crowd yelled its appreciation of the scene Shatoff afterward made a speech, but as it was in Russian it will not be reported. Hundreds of his compatriots gathered around Carlo and kept him busy shaking hands for half an hour. Then the meeting began. Tresca said the Minnesota iron miners were ready for another strike “when the gong rings.”
[*Note-Tresca did not stand trial, but was released as part of a plea agreement.]
