Hellraisers Journal: From The Nation: Bars and Shadows, Poems by Ralph Chaplin, One of 58 Remaining Class-War Prisoners

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Mother and Boy, Lv Nw Era p4, Mar 14, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 14, 1922
Bars and Shadows, Poems by Ralph Chaplin, I. W. W. Class-War Prisoner

From The Nation of December 13, 1922:

Ad Bars n Shadows by Ralph Chaplin, Ntn p673, Dec 13, 1922

Ralph Chaplin and 58 of his fellow agitators for industrial justice are behind Federal prison bars because they dared to tell the truth about the war while the war was in progress. Chaplin has spent five consecutive Christmases behind the bars…

“Bars and Shadows’ [is] an ideal Christmas reminder, and one of the most effective documents for amnesty that has appeared.

DEMAND THE RELEASE OF
ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

Do Ralph Chaplin a good turn by ordering six copies of “Bars and Shadows” and using them for holiday gifts. The book is privately published. Every penny above the actual cost of manufacture, advertising and distribution goes to Mrs. Chaplin and her son…..

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “A Rebel in Jail” – Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104, Writes to Upton Sinclair from Leavenworth

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, No Yellow Streak, AtR p4, Feb 15, 1919—–

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 18, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary – Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin Pens a Sonnet

From The New Appeal of February 15, 1919:

A Rebel in Jail

Ralph Chaplin, Leavenworth 13104, Sept 1918
Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner #13104

—–

[Note by Upton Sinclair]

Recently I was addressing the ladies of one of the large clubs in Los Angeles, and they were much amused when I told them that whenever I was in jail I found myself irresistibly impelled to write poetry. Moreover, that was my one chance to get poetry published; newspapers were ready to give it space, because it had been written in jail! You will note from the following letter that others also make verses in captivity. You see, there is nothing else you can do; and you have an irresistible impulse to tell the people outside what is happening to you!

Wherever you live in America you will read in your daily paper about those desperate criminals called I. W. W.s, who want to destroy society, but whom a wise government has put behind bars where they cannot do harm.

From this letter you may see exactly what desperadoes they are. They write sonnets, and beg you to send them good literature to read!

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Cook County Jail: the First Prison Poem of Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin

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When our cause is all triumphant
And we claim our Mother Earth,
And the nightmare of the present fades away,
We shall live with love and laughter,
We who now are little worth,
And we’ll not regret the price we have to pay.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 2, 1917
From the Cook County Jail, Chicago – A Prison Poem by Ralph Chaplin

Mourn Not The Dead

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie-
Dust unto dust-
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;

Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell-
Too strong to strive-
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;

But rather mourn the apathetic throng-
The cowed and the meek-
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!


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Hellraisers Journal: Feds Descend On Chicago Headquarters of Industrial Workers of the World & Arrest Leaders

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If the workers are organized, all they have to do is
to put their hands in their pockets
and they have got the capitalist class whipped.
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 29, 1917
Chicago, Illinois – Leaders of I. W. W. Under Arrest

Yesterday afternoon federal agents descended upon the Chicago headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World and arrested, en masse, the leaders of the One Big Union. Our Fellow Workers were transported to the Cook County Jail were they remain at this time locked behind the prison bars of the Master Class.

From today’s Chicago Daily Tribune:

WWIR, IWW Arrests w BBH added, Chg Dly Tb, Sept 29, 1917

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