Tag: Bitter Cry of the Children

Hellraisers Journal: Conditions of “Economic Indecency” Commonplace Today in Nation’s Capital

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 23, 1917
Washington, D. C. – Report on Poverty from U. S. Department of Labor

Bitter Cry, Spargo, Little Tenement Toilers, Feb 1906

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The nation was shocked in 1906 when John Spargo’s Bitter Cry of the Children revealed shocking details of the lives of millions of American children who then lived in conditions of abject poverty (such as those pictured above). A recent report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, demonstrates that conditions of “economic indecency” are yet commonplace among the American working class.

From the Appeal to Reason of October 20, 1917:

Bad Living Conditions In the
Nation’s Capital

Everybody knows-and mostly from painful personal experience-that living conditions are shockingly miserable as a result of high prices. But when confronted with the cold facts and figures, such as the Appeal has been running regularly for several weeks past, one realizes the truth even more terribly. We do not believe any one can read the following report of the federal bureau of labor statistics on living conditions in the city of Washington, which appears in the Weekly News Letter of the American Federation of Labor, without agreeing that it affords “a shocking example of economic indecency”:

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Ella Reeve Bloor Describes Army of Little Factory Girls of Western Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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It is not enough to say that something good,
something beautiful is being born.
We must help it become a
reality-not a dream.
-Ella Reeve Bloor

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 8, 1907
Child Labor in America: An Army of Little Factory Children

From the Appeal to Reason of October 5, 1907:

Killing Children for Profits.

Ella Reeve Bloor, Packing Hse Invstg, Abq Eve Ctz, June 5, 1906

Mrs. Ella Reeve Bloor, of Philadelphia, writer and lecturer on industrial topics, who is investigating child labor conditions in the factories of western Pennsylvania, declares that hundreds of little children under the legal age are employed in a chimney factory at Charleroi, Pa.

[Said Mrs. Bloor:]

An army of little girls came flocking from all directions to the factories this morning. They work from 7 a. m. until 6 p. m., when little boys take their places and work until 2 a.m. The little fellows are afraid to go home at that hour and many boys of 10 and 11 years carry revolvers to and from their work. I believe the condition of child labor in Pennsylvania is as bad as it is in the south.

To show you how the glass manufacturers disobey the law, I will state that I have secured 6,300 convictions in six years of my office. One large factory covering 640 acres in Alton, Ill., has two gates for inspectors to get in and lots of holes for kids to get out.-Edgar T. Davies, Chief Factory Inspector of Illinois.

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Hellraisers Journal: Ida Crouch-Hazlett Pleads Guilty to Good Speechmaking; Scores the Hysterical Helena Independent

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Ida Crouch Hazlett, Quote, MT Ns, Sept 26, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 27, 1907
From the Montana News: Ida Crouch-Hazlett Speaks

Socialist Editor Makes Her Voice Heard, September 26, 1907:

Guilty as Charged
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Mrs. Hazlett Fined by Spokane Judge
For Being Good Speaker-
Appealed to Superior Court

Ida Crouch-Hazlett, wiki, Montana News, Aug 3, 1904

Wednesday, Sept. 18, was the day set by Judge Hide for hearing the arguments of the attorneys upon my case, and rendering his decision. The trains are running so irregularly that to make sure of being in court at two o’clock, I was obliged to take the night train from Rathdrum after the meeting. It should have gone at 11 o’clock, but did not start out till three in the morning. So I was obliged to lose my night’s sleep, although I got several hours after reaching Spokane.

The court room was filled again, with policemen scattered through the working class audience. To be a working man is prima facie evidence of criminal tendencies according to capitalist jurisprudence.

The prosecuting attorney, a redheaded, sharp-eyed fellow with the stamp of a character on his face that must necessarily belong to one who would put in his time perpetrating injustice upon his helpless fellow creatures that are herded in a police court, said with much emphasis that I had violated a city ordinance against any one who would do anything that would have a tendency to obstruct the streets.

Our attorneys were A. Kirby and Comrade Pence. Mr. Kirby made the argument. He showed conclusively that by our 15 witnesses to the prosecution’s two neither the sidewalks nor streets were blockaded. He went over the constitutional right to hold meetings on the street where they were peaceably and interfering with no one. He quoted many authorities and made a fine argument.

After he had closed the prosecuting attorney pulled out from under the table where he had hidden them a steak of law books. So trivial are the silly tricks upon which the great structure of capitalist injustice depends that he acted as though that were the heavy part of his argument to perform a little, trifling schoolboy trick like that, as if perchance he might mystify the defense attorney. There was nothing to his argument whatever. He did not make a single definite point. He acted as though the whole thing were cut and dried anyhow, as it evidently was, and he was just talking to make a show.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Reports to the Appeal to Reason from Oklahoma Territory

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I have been on the firing line
of the industrial battle for years,
and when democratic bullets shot workingmen,
their blood watered the highways just the same
as when republican bullets shot them.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday October 21, 1906
Oklahoma Territory – Mother Jones Travels and Speaks

From the Appeal to Reason of October 20, 1906:

MESSAGE FROM MOTHER JONES
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Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

Dear Appeal:-I want to report conditions as I find them in the new states. I entered the territory at Wilburton. There the democratic nominee for United States Senator was holding a meeting. The committee called on me and asked that the meetings be held jointly, as mine was also billed. I wanted to hear how he presented the struggle of the toiling millions from a democratic standpoint. He showed the wrongs of the republican party, and the beauties of his own. I followed, and showed up that they were both wings of the vulture class and if that class did not have both those wings they could not exist twenty-four hours. I explained to the audience that I had been on the firing line of the industrial battle for years, and that democratic bullets shot workingmen, and their blood had watered the highways just the same as when republican bullets shot them. The result was that a Socialist local of seventy of eighty members was organized soon after.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: George E Winkler Asks, “How Much Longer”

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“Of such is the kingdom of Heaven,”
said the great teacher.
Well, if Heaven is full of undersized,
round shouldered, hollow-eyed,
listless, sleepy little angel children,
I want to go to the other place
with the bad little boys and girls.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday August 11,1906
From the International Socialist Review: “How Much Longer?”

From this month’s edition of the Review:

George E Winkler, Poem-How Much Longer, ISR, Aug 1906
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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Rich at Horse Show & Children on Breadline, One Block Away

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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I want justice, no more, no less.
If you’ll give us justice we won’t need charity.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 9, 1905
From the Albuquerque Evening Citizen:
Rich of Gotham Frolic While Children Stand in Breadline One Block Away

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

In an article which appeared yesterday in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen, Mother Jones describes the ostentatious display of wealth at a Madison Square Garden horse show while the children of the poor queued up for stale bread one block away.

Mother describes the Rich Spectators:

Hundreds of men and women, dressed in the height of what they called fashion, were seated in boxes, facing a circle, where well-bred horses, beautifully kept, beautifully fed, beautifully groomed and carefully sheltered from the cold blast of a November evening, were prancing about on the tan bark.

The horse show was in progress. The great garden was hung with gay bunting, the air was oppressive with the perfume of cologne and flowers. Pecks of diamonds glistened at the ears and breasts of the women. Orchids, which I am told cost $5 apiece, were as common at the corsages of the society dames as are daisies in an uncultivated meadow in July.

Mother describes the Hungry Children of the Slums:

I walked a hundred paces east, toward the corner of 27th street, and Fourth avenue. A little army of children from the slums was drawn up before Cushman’s bakery. Those children are there every night at 6 o’clock, drawn up in a line of misery. They came for free bread-stale bread, something to hold together the bodies and souls of brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers.

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