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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 20, 1921
Cartoon by Art Young: “Plenty of Demand-No Market”
From the Appeal to Reason of October 15, 1921:
Tag: Capitalism
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part III: Found Writing for the International Socialist Review
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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]
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 International Socialist Review: “Pyramid of Capitalism” -“We Work for All; We Feed All”
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 3, 1911
“The Pyramid of Capitalism” -Workers of the World Feed the World
From the International Socialist Review of October 1911:
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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones on Capitalism, Socialism, and the Keys to Nature’s Storehouse
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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, 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.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “Capitalism, The Hand That Crushes” -Cartoon by Ryan Walker
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 9, 1911
“Capitalism, The Hand That Crushes” by Ryan Walker
From The Coming Nation of September 9, 1911:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part II: Scranton Silk Strikers: “Little Tots ranging from 8 to 14 years of age.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 10, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part II
Scranton Silk Strikers-Little Tots Worked by Master Class
From St. Louis Labor of April 13, 1901:
The Strike in Scranton
Mother Jones makes the following statement concerning the strike of the 5,000 silk mill hands in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Most of them are little tots ranging from 8 to 14 years of age. The poverty of the parents compels them to swear that these babies are of the age when they can be legally worked by the master class. In one mill I found children who toiled twenty-four long, weary days of ten hours each; and at the end of that time received $2 apiece. The vampire who runs the plant felt deeply aggrieved because his little slaves went on strike. He complained that he had built and paid for a new mill and cleared $10,000 in two years, and just as he was getting his head above water, the ungrateful little wretches run away! And then some people say there is no hell! And others that there is no wage slavery! Why, I have got a trunk full of evidence showing that miners were plucked of all their earnings, and didn’t have a dollar from one end of the year to the other. This is capitalism with a vengeance, the robber system that is upheld by those who vote Republican and Democratic tickets.
Boss Davis, the ringleader of the plute cannibals, has offered this compromise: If the strikers allow him to measure their work and take his word for it, he will pay them 25 cents a week more. If they won’t allow him to measure, they must go back at the old rate. It’s a scheme with robbery on its face , and little ones won’t yield.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for January 1901, Part III: Found in Indianapolis Speaking on Evils of Child Labor in Pennsylvania
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 13, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1901, Part III
Found Speaking in Indianapolis on Evils of Child Labor in Pennsylvania
From the Indianapolis Sunday Journal of January 27, 1901:
“Mother” Jones and Mr. Debs.
Eugene V. Debs and “Mother” Jones will deliver public addresses in the Criminal Court room to-morrow night. Mrs. Jones will speak especially to the women, and particularly to women who belong to labor or trades organizations. To-morrow afternoon Mr. Debs will speak to the miners at their convention.
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[Photograph added.]
From The Indianapolis Journal of January 29, 1901:
OFFICERS’ REPORT
[-from Miners’ Convention]In the afternoon many resolutions, principally of importance to the miners only, were passed then the committee on officers’ reports was heard. After some discussion the report was adopted by sections. Of important bearing was the adoption of President Mitchell’s recommendation to organize a woman’s auxiliary union. The convention adopted the recommendation and gave the power of appointing an organizer to President Mitchell. It is understood that “Mother” Jones will be appointed organizer…..
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DOWN IN THE COAL MINES.
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“Mother” Jones Graphically Describes
Child Labor In Pennsylvania.“Mother” Jones addressed a meeting of mine workers and their friends in the Criminal Court room last evening on the subject of “Employment of Child Labor in the Mines.” Although her address was primarily intended to be in the interest of the miners, she made a general plea for all branches of labor. Quite a number of working girls were present and the eloquent appeals made in their behalf met with hearty applause from them. The speaker described the condition which prevails among the breaker boys of the mines of Pennsylvania, where boys of eleven years work thirteen hours a day for a wage scale of 1 cent an hour.
The miners and their families, she declared, are the helpless slaves of the great combinations of capital and the operators who own and control the mines. In those regions when a child is born, the day is eagerly looked forward to when he will be old enough to do a day’s work, and when that day arrives he is taken by his father to the operator of the mine, to whom his services are offered for a pittance. Some of the worst details of the present system were gone into and the need of organization among all the miners of the country was strongly urged.
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs, Socialists Candidate for President, Speaks at Arion Hall in Wheeling, West Virginia
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 26, 1900
Wheeling, West Virginia – Eugene V. Debs Speaks at Arion Hall
From The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer of October 25, 1900:
SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINE PROPOUNDED
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By Eugene V. Debs to a Large Crowd
At Arion Hall Last Evening.
——-HE EXPLAINS HOW AN UTOPIA
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Can Be Established in This Country. Would Make
Radical Change in Present Conditions.
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Eugene V. Debs, candidate for president on the Social Democracy ticket, addressed a large audience at Arion hall last night. Most of his hearers were of another political persuasion, however, attracted out of mere curiosity. Seated on the stage were the men prominent in socialist circles in this city. Mr Debs’ eloquence is well known and this fact alone was sufficient to attract a large crowd. He advanced nothing new along the line of socialism. Harry Leeds, the local socialist, acted as chairman of the meeting. He said they represented a body of workingmen whom strikes and lockouts had almost taken away their rights as American citizens. He said they were an embryonic party and they needed funds. He asked the audience to contribute to the campaign fund and before introducing Mr. Debs the hat was passed around the audience for contributions. Mr. Leeds introduced Eugene V. Debs, who was applauded as he stepped to the front of the stage.
Mr. Debs began by saying that a mighty social revolution was in progress. The world was gradually becoming co-operative instead of competitive. The social demoralization of the world was passing away. He would not appeal to the prejudice of his auditors. His sole purpose would be to appeal to their reason.
Hellraisers Journal: The Independent: “The Social Democratic Party” -by Comrade Eugene V. Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 24, 1900
Presidential Candidate Eugene V. Debs on Mission of Social Democratic Party
From The Independent of August 23, 1900:
The Social Democratic Party
By Eugene V. Debs,
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE PARTY.
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In the Presidential election of 1892 the socialist candidate received 21,512 votes; in the election of 1896 the vote was increased to 36,275 votes [Socialist Labor Party]. The following two years witnessed an unprecedented spread of Socialist sentiment and in the Congressional and state elections of 1898 the Socialist candidates received 91,749 votes, an increase of almost 200 percent, in two years. But it must not he assumed that this vote represented the entire political strength of Socialists in the United States. In a number of states the election laws were such that the Socialist ticket could not be placed upon the official ballot, while in many districts the number of socialists was so small and they were so widely scattered that no nominations were made and the socialist vote was not polled.
The figures given are sufficient to indicate that in the United States, as in other countries. International socialism is making tremendous strides and that its seven million supporters, spread over all the belts and zones of the globe, and the most active propagandists ever known, will in the next few years be multiplied into controlling majorities in all lands which have modern industry as the basis of their civilization. Socialism being wholly a question of economic development. This will mean the end of the present capitalist competitive system and the introduction of its economic successor, the cooperative commonwealth.
The movement is international because it is born of and follows the development of the capitalist system, which in its operation is confined to no country, but by the stimulus of modern agencies of production, exchange, communication, and transportation, has overleaped all boundary lines and made the world the theater of its activities. By this process all the nations of the earth must finally be drawn into relations of industrial and commercial cooperation, as the economic basis of human brotherhood.
Hellraisers Journal: Debs Accepts Nomination for President , Stands for Class-Conscious Socialism
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Hellraisers Journal -Tuesday August 7, 1900
Eugene Debs Will Represent International Class-Conscious Socialism
From The Scranton Republican of August 6, 1900:
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SPRINGFIELD, Mass., Aug. 5.-Eugene V. Debs, the presidential nominee of the Socialist Democratic party, has sent his letter of acceptance to William Bubscher, national secretary of the party in this city. Mr. Debs writes his letter from Terre Haute, Ind., under date of July 31,
