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Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 29, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Men Lured into State by Human Scavengers
From The Wheeling Majority of November 28, 1912:
Tag: Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen
Hellraisers Journal: Western Federation of Miners Dedicates Monuments to John Murphy & George Pettibone, Part I
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 6, 1909
Denver, Colorado – Monuments for Murphy and Pettibone Dedicated, Part I
From The Miners Magazine of August 5, 1909:
Monument to Murphy and Pettibone Dedicated July 24th.
[Part I]
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—–On last Saturday afternoon the monuments erected to the memory of John H. Murphy and George A. Pettibone, were unveiled in the presence of more than 500 people who had gathered in Fairmont cemetery: The convention of the Western Federation of Miners adjourned at noon Saturday in order that the delegates might attend the dedication services in a body. At 2:15 p.m. the delegates left Denver in two special cars for the cemetery, followed by a special car containing members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and another special car with members of the Granite Cutters’ Union. When the special cars reached the cemetery, the monuments were already surrounded by many of the friends of the departed and at 4 o’clock, Judge W. F. Hynes, who was master of ceremonies, addressed the gathering and paid eloquent tributes to the men who had proven their loyalty to the principles of organized labor. Judge Hynes then introduced A. H. Hawley, general secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, who spoke as follows:
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Addresses the Court: “The cross is bending, the midnight is passing…”
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday September 16, 1918
Cleveland, Ohio – Eugene Debs Address the Court, Part II
On September 12th, Comrade Debs was convicted under the Espionage law on charges based upon his Anti-War Speech delivered at Canton, Ohio, on June 16th. On Saturday September 14th, Debs appeared at Federal Court in Cleveland, Ohio, in order to receive the sentence of Judge Westenhaver. The motion for a new trial was denied and Debs was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was pronounced. Comrade Debs faced the Judge and spoke:
STATEMENT TO THE COURT, PART II
I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned—that industry, the basis of life, instead of being the private property of the few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all.
John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty million dollars a year, five million dollars a month, two hundred thousand dollars a day. He does not produce a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in need, and it were in my power to serve him, I should serve him as gladly as I would any other human being. I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller personally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful, to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives secure barely enough for existence.
This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself, have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic and political movement that spreads over the face of all the earth.
Hellraisers Journal: Comrade Eugene Victor Debs Addresses the Court, Sentenced to Ten Years, Admitted to Bail
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 15, 1918
Cleveland, Ohio – Eugene Debs Address the Court, Part I
On September 12th, Comrade Debs was convicted under the Espionage law on charges based upon his Anti-War Speech delivered at Canton, Ohio, on June 16th. On Saturday September 14th, Debs appeared at Federal Court in Cleveland, Ohio, in order to receive the sentence of Judge Westenhaver. The motion for a new trial was denied and Debs was asked if he had anything to say before sentence was pronounced. Comrade Debs faced the Judge and spoke:
STATEMENT TO THE COURT, PART I
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
If the law under which I have been convicted is a good law, then there is no reason why sentence should not be pronounced upon me. I listened to all that was said in this court in support and justification of this prosecution, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon the Espionage Law as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with democratic principles and with the spirit of free institutions.
Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to form of our present Government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believed in the change of both—but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means.
Let me call your attention to the fact this morning that in this system five per cent of our people own and control two-thirds of our wealth; sixty-five per cent of the people, embracing the working class who produce all wealth, have but five per cent to show for it.
Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. At fourteen I went to work in a railroad shop; at sixteen I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I remember all the hardships and privations of that earlier day, and from that time until now my heart has been with the working class. I could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. I could not have done otherwise. I have no regret.
In the struggle, the unceasing struggle, between the toilers and producers and their exploiters, I have tried, as best I might, to serve those among whom I was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until the end of my days.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1918, Part I: Found Supporting Strikers in St. Louis
Let me see you wake up and fight.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 22, 1918
Mother Jones News for May 1918, Part I: Found in St. Louis
Mother Jones was first found missing from the May Day celebration in Springfield, Illinois. It appears she was called to an unspecified strike in Quincy, Illinois.
We next found her in Washington, D. C. where the May 1st edition of The Washington Times stated:
“Mother” Jones, noted labor leader, arrived here today to appear before the National War Labor Board and plead with former President William H. Taft, in the interest of commercial telegraphers demanding the right to organize.
On May 10th and 11th, we find Mother in the pages of the St. Louis, Missouri, newspapers where her efforts on behalf of the men and women on strike against the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Company are well covered.
We will pick up the story of Mother Jones in St. Louis in Part II of our Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1918.
Hellraisers Journal: How the Railroad Brotherhoods Won the Battle for the Eight-Hour Day
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 30, 1916
Washington, D. C. – The Brotherhoods and Adamson Act
The October edition of the International Socialist Review published two articles regarding the Railroad Brotherhoods and the Adamson Act, which we have re-published in today’s Hellraisers, see below. President Wilson signed the Adamson Act into law early in September just in time to prevent a national railroad strike set to begin on Labor Day.
From the cover of the Review, October 1916:
