Tag: Appeal to Reason

Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones in Mexico, Meets with Madero, Gains Right to Organize Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote John ONeill re Mother Jones Resting Place, Miners Mag p6, Sept 23, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 22, 1911
Mother Jones in Mexico City, Meets with Madero Regarding Right to Organize

From the Appeal to Reason of October 21, 1911:

Mother Jones In Mexico
———-

Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

Mexico City, Oct. 4.-Just a line to let you know I have just returned from the palace where I have had a long audience with President De La Barra. At the close of my interview the Mexican guaranteed me protection and my right to organize the miners of Mexico. This is the first time that any one has ever been granted that privilege in the history of the Mexican nation. It is the greatest concession ever granted to any one representing the laboring class of any nation.

I also spent an hour with President-elect Madero and he granted me the protection and aid from the government that I called for. I am the first person who has been permitted to carry the banner of industrial freedom to the long suffering peons of this nation.

MOTHER JONES.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part III: Found Writing for the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 14, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part III
Found Writing on Behalf of Working Class Men, Women, and Children

From the International Socialist Review of September 1901:

A Picture of American Freedom
in West Virginia
———-

[By Mother Jones]

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

SOME months ago a little group of miners from the State of Illinois decided to face the storm and go to the assistance of their fellow-workmen in the old slave state of West Virginia. They hoped that they might somehow lend a hand to break at least one link in the horrible corporation chains with which the miners of that state are bound. Wherever the condition of these poor slaves of the caves is worst there is where I always seek to be, and so I accompanied the boys to West Virginia.

They billed a meeting for me at Mt. Carbon, where the Tianawha Coal and Coke Company have their works. The moment I alighted from the train the corporation dogs set up a howl. They wired for the “squire” to come at once. He soon arrived with a constable and said : “Tell that woman she cannot speak here to night; if she tries it I will jail her.” If you come from Illinois you are a foreigner in West Virginia and are entitled to no protection or rights under the law—that is if you are interested in the welfare of your oppressed fellow beings. If you come in the interest of a band of English parasites you are a genuine American citizen and the whole state is at your disposal. So the squire notified me that if I attempted to speak there would be trouble. I replied that I was not hunting for trouble, but that if it came in that way I would not run away from it. I told him that the soil of Virginia had been stained with the blood of the men who marched with Washington and Lafayette to found a government where the right of free speech should always exist.

“I am going to speak here to-night,” I continued. “When I violate the law, and not until then will you have any right to interfere.” At this point he and the constable started out for the county seat with the remark that he would find out what the law was on that point. For all I have been able to hear they are still hunting for the law, for I have never heard from them since. The company having called off their dogs of war I held my meeting to a large crowd of miners.

But after all the company came out ahead. They notified the hotel not to take any of us in or give us anything to eat. There upon a miner and his wife gave me shelter for the night. The next morning they were notified to leave their miserable little shack which belonged to the company. He was at once discharged and with his wife and babe went back to Illinois, where, as a result of a long and bitter struggle the miners have succeeded in regaining a little liberty.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Socialists of New Castle Freed; Other Socialist Editors Remain in Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 10, 1911
Socialist Editors of New Castle, Pennsylvania, Freed

From the Appeal to Reason of October 7, 1911:

New Castle Socialists Freed
———-

New Castle PA, Free Press Fight by Warren, ISR Cv, July 1910

Charles McKeever, Frank M. Hartman and C. H. McCarty, editors of the Free Press, of New Castle, Pa., have been acquitted in the court of the charge seditious libel. This is the ease that has attracted so much attention all over the country. They are arraigned under an obsolete English law that was supposed to have been off the statute books of every civilized state. Had there been no publicity given to the matter no doubt the comrades would have been convicted, but when the people began to realize that a law belonging to the middle ages was sought now as a means of upholding the capitalist system there was such an awakening that conviction became an impossibility.

Although the seditious libel case was decided in favor of the defense, the unheard of action was taken of assessing them half the costs of the prosecution. All the costs of defense and half the cost of prosecution, when they were found not guilty, is a hard burden for them to bear and is an outrage against so-called civilization in America.

But in addition to this, they are under sentence of a fine for contempt of court. This case has cost them a great deal and the flight against the life of the Free Press has lasted for eighteen months. As a result it has been a severe blow to the comrades. Those who wish to help in this fight now that it is won should send fifty cents for an annual subscription to the Free Press. 

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: New Edition “Cry for Justice, An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote, Workingmen Unite, Joe Hill, Cry for Justice, p707, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 26, 1921
New Edition Available of “Cry for Justice” from Upton Sinclair

From the Appeal to Reason of September 24, 1921:

Ad Cry for Justice by Upton Sinclair, AtR p4, Sept 24, 1921

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones on Capitalism, Socialism, and the Keys to Nature’s Storehouse

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Capitalists should surrender gracefully, AtR p2, Sept 14, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 18, 1901
Mother Jones,  Interviewed in Indianapolis, Advises Ruling Class

From the Appeal to Reason of September 14, 1901:

An Interview With Mother Jones.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

“Mother” Jones, as she is affectionately called by her boys, for whom she labors in season and out of season, was interviewed by an Indianapolis reporter at the time of her visit to that city, in which she said:

The issues of the day are capitalism and Socialism. We have our rights and I will I fight for them until the bitter end. We are now in a great industrial battle with the two armies of labor and capital arrayed against each other. We want to bring harmony out of chaos. A great industrial war is on. There is no question about it. We will have a number of strikes and other uprisings, but the workers are educating themselves. While they are producing they are reasoning. They will resort to the ballot and not to the bullet. Out of this industrial chaos they will bring industrial harmony. They will not be begging their masters to give them a day’s work or a loaf of bread, They will simply take that which is theirs by rights. They produce it, and in producing it, they should own it. We are after the machinery of production, distribution and exchange.

The era of Socialism is dawning. From the records I find that in 1850 the wealth of the American nation was $8,000,000,000. The share of the working people was 62½%, and the people who exploit had but 37½%. In 1880 the producer’s share went down to 24%, while the wealth of the nation had increased to $48,000,000,000, and the share of the non-producers had increased to 76%. In 1901 the nation’s wealth is estimated at $100,000,000,000, and the exploiters have 90% of that amount, and the producers only 10%. After $22,000,000 were raked in on the first of July as dividends, the workers had not even 10%.

Here is the point I am getting at: The capitalist class can do but little more exploiting in America. The people are disinherited, but they do not seem to realize it.

Inside of the next ten years the capitalists will have reached into eastern nations for new fields, and the middle class capitalists will have disappeared from society. The proletariat of nations will have molded its parts together and will come on the field as the conscious revolutionary party for the first time in the history of the world and will demand the surrender of the keys of nature’s storehouse. If the ruling class takes notice of the past it will surrender gracefully.

I look for the possible solution of the industrial problem in the dawn of the era of Socialism. Then will the masses of oppressed men and women of the nations of the earth rally to its bright banner and hail the advance of the Co-operative Commonwealth when all laborers will be capitalists and every capitalist will be a laborer, and industrial harmony will at last have come to a patient, long-suffering people.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: J. Mahlon Barnes Has Resigned as National Secretary of Socialist Party of America after Hard, Bitter Fight

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD re Jean Jane Keep, Barnes, SPA, July 29, 1912, Constantine V1 p517—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 29, 1911
Chicago, Illinois – Barnes Resigns as National Secretary of Socialist Party

From the Appeal to Reason of August 26, 1911:

RESIGNATION OF BARNES.
———-

SPA J Mahlon Barnes n Staff, Chg Nat Office, 1905, wiki

J. Mahlon Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist party [Socialist Party of America], has resigned. The resignation was accepted by the national executive committee and John M. Work, who has been head clerk in the national office was made national secretary until an election can be held.

This a consummation of a hard and bitter fight that has been waged against Barnes. There was no charge against his official acts, but only relative to his private life. Twice the national executive committee investigated the charges, and in both case found that while there were many charges, there was no definite proof of his guilt. So soon, however, as an affidavit was presented showing that in day s past Barnes had been guilty of immorality, being charged with paternity of a seven-year-old girl, the action indicated above was taken. Barnes denies guilt, but admits it was best for the party that he retire.

This much must be said of the case, that the Socialist have handled the matter as no other party would dare do. With democrats and republicans it has been assumed that the private life of the individual has absolutely nothing to do with the fitness for public office. The notorious Tom Taggard, who was proven guilty of running numerous house of ill-fame and who was accused in the Ella Gingles case, was chairman of the democratic national central committee, and nothing was said about it. So soon, however, as it was charged that the private life of a Socialist official was not all it might be there was agitation, that amounted to a clamor, for his removal, and when the first affidavit, which made definite and positive charges, was brought to light, resignation was offered and accepted.

Nothing could more clearly show the attitude of the Socialist Party on questions of personal purity and nothing could demonstrate more clearly that the Socialist party is capable of managing its own affairs and having its will executed.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Judge Woods Is Dead, Sent Eugene Debs to Prison for Six Months in Connection with Pullman Strike of 1894

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Brush the Dust, Saginaw Eve Ns p6, Feb 6, 1899—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 25, 1901
Pullman’s Injunction Judge, William Woods, Is Dead

From the Social Democratic Herald of July 20, 1901:

Debs and Judge Woods

EVD ARU Officers Sent to Woodstock Jail 1894 Pullman Strike, photo ab 1895

The death of Judge Wm. A. Woods of the United States circuit court naturally brings up a chain of thought which may be useful and instructive at this time. Woods was the judge who prostituted his high and exalted office to serve the railways and crush the laboring men who were struggling for enough of the products of their labor to keep their families from starving. He it was who sent Eugene Debs to prison [at Woodstock, Illinois] for six months [in 1895] without trial for “contempt” of his most contemptible court, simply because Debs opposed with manly firmness the usurpations of this judicial scoundrel. It was this same judge Woods who set free “Blocks of Five” Dudley and the other bribers and ballot-box stuffers at Indianapolis in 1880, and was promoted from the district to the circuit court by the republican administration for his rascality. In his charge to the jury Judge Woods said that “advising or counseling bribery is not punishable unless briery is committed.”

In the coming time when the co-operative commonwealth shall have been established, when each man shall receive the product of his toil and have time and leisure to think upon the various steps and acts which have led up to industrial emancipation, then these two men, Debs and Woods, will each be held in proper estimation by the world. Posterity alone can properly write epitaphs. The memory of Debs will then be revered as one willing to suffer for his fellow men, while Woods will rank with Judas Iscariot, Grover Cleveland and Benedict Arnold.

[…..]

All the robber elements of this country will pronounce encomiums upon Judge Woods, while they have and will continue to cast odium upon Debs. But posterity will pass just judgment upon these two men, and memory of Debs will be enshrined in glory, while that of Woods will be shrouded in eternal infamy.-Equality, Deadwood, S. D.

EVD Notice ARU Offices to Terre Haute, Officers Sentenced, Rw Tx, Jan 1, 1895

—————

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for June 1911, Part I: Reporting on Pittsburgh Protest Rally on Behalf of McNamara Brothers

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 19, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1911, Part I
Found with “Characteristic Style” at Rally on Behalf of McNamaras

From the Appeal to Reason of June 3, 1911:

Solidarity at Pittsburg.
[Mother Jones Speaks.]

By Telegraph to APPEAL.

Mother Jones crpd ed, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910

Pittsburg. Pa., May 27.-The most tremendous labor demonstration Pittsburg ever saw occurred tonight. Thirty thousand indignant working men and women marched through the principal streets in protest against the kidnaping of McNamara, congregated at west side and yelled themselves hoarse at every telling point made by the speakers. Hundreds of policemen guarded the streets in squads and mingled with the monster crowd.

Socialists, Industrial Workers and craft unionists were thoroughly united on this occasion and all made the very earth tremble with their yells of defiance. The spirit of solidarity prevailed as it has never been known to prevail before, and Pittsburg is alive to its power. The echo will be heard in the morning to the cell doors of the victims in Los Angeles and to every nook and corner of America. Capitalists will realize once again that they have to deal with an aroused and awakened class. The chant was started tonight by Comrade Debs that was used in the Moyer-Haywood case “If McNamara die, twenty million working men will know the reason why.”

The first speaker of the evening was Comrade Fred H. Merrick, who is under indictment for libeling a Judge here in Pittsburg. Debs followed, and not only described the McNamara case in detail, but also analyzed the Pennsylvania strike and reviewed the great strike of the Pennsylvania railroad employes. His force and eloquence inspired the multitude and something will drop if the enthusiasm of the crowd was an indication.

Mother Jones in characteristic style appealed to the assemblage to be men and stand together, both on the political and economic field. De Leon, of New York, also spoke.

GEORGE D. BREWER.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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