Tag: Charles Edward Russell

Hellraisers Journal: “May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene Victor Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 1, 1914
“May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene V. Debs

From The Goltry News (Oklahoma) of May 1, 1914:

May Day and the Revolution

(By Eugene V. Debs.)

EVD Life Size Photo by Jas Soler, ISR p1044, May 1910

We are again about to celebrate the annual holiday of the International Socialist Movement. The thrill of May Day is even now in our veins and our hearts beat faster as we contemplate the glad tiding of this day to the workers of the world. 

May Day is above all days in the year the day of the working class; the day of rejoicing and fraternal greeting; the day of high hope and lofty aspiration; the day of national and international celebration.

Not yet have we of the United Stales risen to the heights of this grand occasion and given to May Day its revolutionary significance as have our comrades in European and other nations; not yet have we grasped the full and splendid meaning of this day to our class and to humanity, but this year I trust our celebration may be worthy of the day and that this jubilee of the working class may resound from coast to coast with the glad tidings of the coming revolution.

May Day was not granted as a boon to the workers by their patronizing masters to tranquilize their discontent, but was chosen and set apart by themselves as the day upon which to arouse themselves from their lethargy, lift up their weary bodies from the earth, clasp hands with their fellow workers, and solemnly vow to break their fetters and emancipate themselves from slavery. 

May Day is henceforth emancipation day for the working class. On this day the revolution breathes the breath of life into the nostrils of the workers and the awaking pulsing workers recruit with eager, passionate spirit the swelling ranks of the revolutionary movement.

Each and every industrial center and each agricultural district should this year join the May Day celebration and make its observance so general and fill it with such ardor and enthusiasm as to compel attention to the program of the day and the significance of the event. The very thought that labor’s holiday has been internationally proclaimed and will be celebrated by the workers of every nation on the face of the earth; the very contemplation of the fine spirit of the day and the eager greeting of comrades to comrade and nation to nation, voiced in every tongue known to man and borne to us on every tide and every breeze, is of itself enough to thrill us in every fiber and set every drop in our veins tingling with the fervor of international solidarity.

On this day of the downtrodden masses the inspiring message that Socialism brings to them must be heard around the world. The electrifying shibboleth of Marx must be echoed and re-echoed everywhere:

“Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.”

Unity and solidarity must be the watchword of the day. Industrial and political organization of the workers, all the workers, regardless of race, sex or creed, must be urged with all the force and persuasiveness at our command. Without organization the struggle is vain and the cause lost. The commonwealth of the workers that is to be must be organized primarily in the industries where they are employed and the time to do that is now, and May Day is the day to emphasize its supreme necessity.

The political power of the workers must also be developed through the Socialist Party, the only party organized and controlled by themselves; the only party which represents their interests, expresses their aspirations, and fights their battles in the war for emancipation.

May Day, pregnant with new and bounding life and rapture of resurrection, is the glorious harbinger of the social revolution, the gleaming promise of industrial freedom and social justice to all the WORKERS of the WORLD.

May Day Red Special International, Goltry OK Ns p2, May 1, 1914

[Photograph of Debs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Big Annie Clemenc, Strikers’ Flag Bearer, Seriously Ill at Her Mother’s Home in Calumet, Michigan

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Poem Ellis B Harris re Annie Clemenc n Women of Calumet, Mnrs Mag p14, Nov 27, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 19, 1914
Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc Seriously Ill at Her Mother’s Home

From the Dayton Daily News of January 18, 1914:

Annie Clemenc Ill in Calumet, Dayton OH Dly Ns p21, Jan 18, 1914

Saturday January 19, 1914 – Calumet, Michigan
–Annie Clemenc, Seriously Ill, Cared for at Her Mother’s Home

Annie Clemenc of Calumet has been very ill and under a doctor’s care since early this month.  Charles Edward Russell who is in the strike zone as part of the Socialist Party Investigating Committee went to visit her on January 10th. He reported that “she lay in her mother’s house, unconscious part of the time and part of the time shaken with nervous convulsions.” She is receiving sickness benefits from Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota (Slovene National Benefit Society), something she has never needed before.

We are left to wonder how much of a role the Italian Hall Massacre plays in her  illness. Annie, as President of the Calumet Women’s Auxiliary (W. F. of M.), was the driving force behind organizing the Christmas Party for the strikers’ children. The evening began with so much joy, but then ended with Annie holding a dead child in her arms, and attempting hopelessly to revive the little one.

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Hellraisers Journal: President Charles Moyer and Auditor Charles Tanner of the Western Federation of Miners Return to Upper Michigan’s Copper Country

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 16, 1914
Houghton, Michigan – Cheering Crowd Meets Moyer and Tanner at Station

From the Miners Magazine of January 15, 1914:

Moyer and Tanner Return to Michigan Copper Country, Mnrs Mag p3, Jan 15, 1914

From the Miners’ Bulletin of January 9, 1914:

Moyer and Tanner Return to Michigan Copper Country, MB p1, Jan 9, 1914

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Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, WV on Trial re Military Court Martial, Speech NYC Carnegie Hall, NYCl p, May 28, 1913, per Foner—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 29, 1913
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall

From The New York Call of May 27, 1913:

Ad for Mother Jones at Carnegie Hall, NYC p, May 27, 1913

From The New York Call of May 28, 1913:

This was the scene, as described by the New York Call, when Mother Jones was introduced by Max Eastman last night at Carnegie Hall:

Scarcely had her name left his lips then the audience burst into shouting, stamping, and handclapping. Several women surged down the aisle toward the stage and threw kisses to the aged agitator and flowers at her feet.

Mother Jones spoke at length about the West Virginia strike, the terror inflicted on the miners by the gun thugs, and the mass round-up of strikers by the military. She referred to West Virginia as “The Little Russia in America.” She sounded this warning:

West Virginia is on trial before the bar of the nation. The military arrests and the court martial to which I and others were forced to undergo in West Virginia was the first move ever made by the ruling class to have the working class tried by the military and not civil courts. It is up to the American workers to make sure that it is the last.

The comfortable New York Socialist were not spared the ire of Mother Jones:

What galled me most about my confinement at the military prison at Pratt, West Virginia, was the knowledge that a bunch of corporation lickspittles had the right to confine me. But I must be frank and tell you that the second thing that galled me was the silence of many here tonight who should have shouted out against the injustice. I would still be in jail if Senator Kern had not introduced his resolution… No thanks, then, to you that I am here today. Cowards! Moral cowards! If you had only risen to your feet like men and said, “We don’t allow military despotism in America! Stop it!” A lot of moral cowards you are. Not a word of protest did we get out of you, but instead you sat idly by and let these things be.

The New York Call continued:

After Mother had spoken a collection was taken up and $267.80 contributed. It was intended for the striking miners. Mother Jones announced the miners would take care of the miners, and said the collection could go to the Paterson silk strikers.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “Muckrakers” at Lawrence Include Cora Older, Charles Edward Russell, and Mary Heaton Vorse

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote Lawrence Strike Committee, Drunk Cup to Dregs, Bst Dly Glb Eve p5, Jan 17, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 1, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Prominent Magazine Writers Visit Strike Zone

From Boston Evening Transcript of February 29, 1912:

MUCKRAKERS ON THE SCENT
———-
Party Including Russell, White, Baker, and Others
Spends Day Gathering Material at Lawrence
———-

HdLn Lawrence Revolution Unbroken, IW p1, Feb 29, 1912
Industrial Worker
February 29, 1912

A group of prominent magazine writers visited Lawrence yesterday for the purpose of gathering material. Among those in the party were Charles Edward Russell and Mrs. Russell, William Allen White, Ray Stannard Baker, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mrs. Freemont [Cora] Older, wife of the San Francisco publisher, and Miss Frances Jolliffe, also of San Francisco. The party came in on the midnight train from New York and left last night after spending a busy day going over the city. They first visited the county jail, where Ettor and Giovannitti are confined, and though they tried hard to see the two men they were unsuccessful. They were however allowed to talk to the Polish women pickets who refused to pay their fines and are serving out their sentence.

The members of the party were held up by the military guard in their attempt to go to the mills through Canal street, as they were wearing the strikers card, “Don’t be a scab.” Then they visited some of tho homes of the strikers, and later dined at a Syrian restaurant as the guests of William D. Haywood. There were also present other strike leaders, several newspaper reporters, Miss Emma Goulain and two more Franco-Belgians.

Just as they reached the restaurant the guide happened to catch sight of patrolman Michael Moore, the Syrian policeman who was prominent in the Saturday morning incident at the station [see Hellraisers Journal of Feb. 26th]. He was pointed out to the visitors as the policeman who clubbed a woman. He was still nearby when the party cams out from the restaurant and stood for a moment on the sidewalk before starting downtown. They stopped, and Moore came up and ordered them to move.

“All right, well go,” said one man, but the women were not so complacent. Mrs. Older said to the patrolman: “So you’re the man who clubbed a woman, are you?”

“Now don’t stand talking to me,” replied the patrolman. “You’ve got to go along.”

Some of the men tried to argue that they were under no compulsion to move, and in the end the policeman all but arrested one of the young Franco-Belgians who was in the party.

———-

[Newsclip, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From New York Call’s Lawrence Strike Edition: Articles, Poetry, Letter from Eugene Debs to Joseph Ettor

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 18, 1912
The Lawrence Strike Edition of The New York Call

From The New York Call of February 14, 1912:

re Lawrence Strike Edition of Feb 15, NY Call p1, Feb 14, 1912

From The New York Call of February 15, 1912:

THE LAWRENCE STRIKE EDITION

New York Call Masthead, Lawrence Edition, Feb 15, 1912—–
HdLn Lawrence OBU, NY Call p1, Feb 15, 1912HdLn Lawrence Strikers Unyielding, NY Call p1, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 2-Letter from Debs to Ettor:]

Debs Letter to Ettor, NY Call p2, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 5-“The Children” by Adelbert Truando:]

Poem Lawrence Children Poem by A Truando, NY Call p5, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 6-“The Coming of the Children” by Jane A. Roulston:]

Lawrence Coming of Children Poem by Jane A Roulston, NY Call p6, Feb 15, 1912

Note: also included in The New York Call‘s Lawrence Strike Edition are articles by Joshua Wanhope, Charles Edward Russell, Margaret H. Sanger, a story by Theresa Malkiel, “My Experience as a Lawrence Mill Worker” by A. I. Wolftraub, poems by Sydney Greenbie and M. J. Connolly, and more!

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Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Fellow Workers Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and C. L. Filigno at Spokane Free Speech Trial

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Trial of Gurley Flynn and Filigno, Part II

From The Workingman’s Paper of February 26, 1910:

IWW Spk FSF, EGF Filigno Trial, HdLn Workingmns p4, Feb 26, 1910

[Part II of II.]

IWW Spk FSF, EGF Filigno Trial Verdict, Workingmns p4, Feb 26, 1910

The Jury

The first two days of the trial were taken up with impaneling the jury. It fell to Mr. Don Kiser’s lot to have charge of the prosecution’s side of this part of the performance.

About forty men were called before it was possible to get twelve men who were satisfactory. The vast majority were prejudiced against the I. W. W.; in fact, it was a surprise when a man would make the statement that he had formed no opinion concerning the case, or even when one would say he considered labor had a right to organize in order to better its conditions, etc.

Finally, however, by Friday afternoon the jury began to look like a jury and things were ready for taking up the testimony.

[The Prosecution’s Case.]

[Main witness for the prosecution were:

-Detective Martin J. Burns who testified that 20% of those arrested said no more than “Fellow Worker.”

-Chief Sullivan, witness for the prosecution, was unable to explain why foreigners who said no more than “Fellow-Workers” could draw such big crowds.

-“Floor-Spitter” Detective McDonald testified that the men he arrested were all foreigners whose names he could not remember nor pronounce.]

Defense Opens

At 3:30 [Tuesday February 15th] Mr. Symmes addressed the jury, and on request of defense court adjourned at about 4, to take up defense testimony in the morning.

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Hellraisers Journal: Rose Schneiderman: “Working Sisters..Organize! You Will Need No Laws to Save You.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Working sisters, fix your own hours of labor!
Organize!
You will need no laws to save you from coming
to work before 6 and leaving after 9.
-Rose Schneiderman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday March 27, 1908
Stirring Appeal to “Working Sisters” by Rose Schneiderman

As the Women’s Trade Union League continues its work on behalf of working women (see below), we pause to recall a fiery speech by one of our favorite union organizers.

From The Pittsburgh Press of June 30, 1907:

Quote Working Sisters Organize, Ptt Prs p16, June 30, 1907

From The Pittsburgh Press of July 19, 1907:

NY WTUL officers, Ptt Prs p14, July 19, 1907

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Rose Schneiderman: “Working Sisters..Organize! You Will Need No Laws to Save You.”” →