Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 2, 1914
Chicago, Illinois – Annie Clemenc Stands with Striking Henrici’s Waitresses
From The Day Book of February 28, 1914:
THE JOAN OF ARC OF THE CALUMET COUNTRY
SIZES UP THE WAITRESSES’ STRIKE
BY JANE WHITAKER
Do people go in that restaurant and eat? Oh, that cannot be possible when they know these girls are picketing outside in a battle for their rights?
I smiled as the question was asked by Annie Clemenc, the Joan of Arc of the Calumet country, the girl who has led so many parades of the striking copper miners and their wives, the girl who has been arrested so many times as she silently or verbally protested against the injustice of the conditions that surround the working class.
“They do patronize that restaurant, some people,” I answered, “but I always try to excuse them by believing they are representatives of the Restaurant Keepers’ Association and the Brewers’ Association, who are backing Henrici’s fight against labor. And even those people have a look of half shame and half bravado on their faces as they come out.”
But the girls inside! The girls who have taken the places of these girls on strike.
Annie’s arm trembled under my fingers, and I knew she was thinking bitterly of the word she uses when she speaks of the miners who have taken the places of the strikers in Calumet.
Aren’t they ashamed to go on serving the people who patronize this restaurant when they know that outside these girls are fighting not only for themselves but for all working women?
She did not wait for me to answer. [She murmured:]
How I pity these girls. They go up and down so quietly with no protest. You can only tell the battle they are fighting by the flag that they carry. Six slim girls and almost an army of police. I could not obey as they obey. I would cry out, “There is a strike here, don’t you go in.”
“When they have done that, they have been arrested and sometimes man-handled,” I explained gently.
“I know what that is,” she answered, and her soft brown eyes grew hard with bitterness. I knew she was thinking of that parade not so many months ago when she led a band of strikers and their sympathizers. When one of the large American flags was cut to shreds by the militia and she snatched the other, and waved it aloft in her strong arms, as she cried:
“Come on. Follow me!”
And I knew she was thinking of the cowardly soldier who had, under a uniform that pledged him to serve his country and protect the rights of her people, a heart filled with love of gold and hatred of the toilers a soldier who struck at Annie with a saber and cut a gash across her wrist, from which the blood poured over her hand.
Annie Clemenc and Ben Goggia, Center Calumet, Michigan, September 13, 1913
And I knew she was thinking of how she had held that flag until its red, white and blue clothed her like a gown, and had cried:
“Kill me, go on and kill me. I don’t care what you do, but you got to kill me through the flag of my country. I respect my country’s flag, if you do not.”
But the cowardly soldier contented himself by striking at her, and several of the strikers dragged her away.
I knew she was thinking of all these things, as I pointed out to her Officer No. 813, the big, brawny man who had belittled himself and his manhood, according to the story told by Miss Meyers, by insulting defenseless girls.
And I pointed out to her Police-woman Mrs. Boyd, who was smiling and chatting with some men, but whose eyes glittered and whose jaw set firmly as the pickets approached and passed.
“You will see things here that will strike you as very strange,” I said. “This is what is termed, a highly civilized city, and in highly civilized cities where labor is trying to come into its rights and capital is fighting to keep labor suppressed, you see brute force matched against woman’s frailty and never against equal strength of men. Only today mounted police rode down a band of unemployed, hungry men, weak and almost hopeless, but the police rode on their horses and used their clubs. They never fight with equal odds in labor wars.”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 28, 1914 Calumet, Michigan – Annie Clemenc Leaves on Speaking Tour
From The Calumet News of February 27, 1914:
Annie Clemenc to Tour with Mother Bloor
Annie Clemenc, known as the Joan of Arc of Calumet, left the strike zone February 26th to go on tour with Ella Reeve Bloor, a well-known member of the Socialist Party of America, and a hard-working union organizer. Annie was given a rousing send-off at the train station by members of the Women’s Auxiliary of Western Federation of Miners.The Women’s Lodge of the Slovene National Benefit Society was also well represented. Annie holds the office of Local President in both organizations.
Annie was dressed in a new black suit and a handmade hat, both given to her especially for the tour. Dog Picket joined them for the send-off, and a photograph was taken of Annie and Mother Bloor with Picket standing on a table between them. Annie can be seen standing tall in her new suit and hat.
The speaking tour will include Milwaukee and Chicago and these states: Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. They will also visit Washington, D.C.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 27, 1913 Hancock/Houghton, Michigan – Moyer and Tanner Kidnapped and Deported
Last night at about 8:30 p.m. Sheriff Cruse and a “committee” paid a visit to the Scott Hotel in Hancock. They went to the room of Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. The “committee” was determined that the leaders of the W. F. of M. should reconsider their refusal to accept any donations from the Citizens’ Alliance to the families of the victims of the Italian Hall Massacre. Mr. Moyer remained adamant that donations from the Citizens’ Alliance amounted to blood money and that the union would bury it’s own dead.
No sooner had this “committee” left the room than a mob burst into the room. They began to beat Moyer and also Charles Tanner who was there with him. A gun was used to beat Moyer over the head which discharged during the assault. Moyer was shot in the shoulder. Moyer and Tanner were dragged out of the Hotel and down the street to the train station in Houghton. At the Houghton-Hancock bridge they were threatened with hanging, and shown a noose brought for that purpose.
The kidnappers put Moyer and Tanner on the Chicago train. Deputy Sheriff Hensley and Deputy McKeever were assigned to accompany the deportees. The deputies wore their Citizens’ Alliance buttons right next to their deputy badges for all to see.
The train stopped briefly in Milwaukee, and reporters were able to get the story from Moyer and Tanner. The reporters also witnessed Moyer’s “pillow and bed linen were soiled with blood from wounds in his scalp and back.”
———-
From the Chicago Day Book of December 27, 1913, Noon Edition
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 11, 1903 Chicago, Illinois – John Mitchell Expects Peace in Southern Colorado
From the Chicago Inter Ocean of December 9, 1903:
Speculation that John Mitchell would fire Mother Jones for her part in delaying the separate settlement of the northern coal miners has not yet been realized. The following is an interview published in the Inter Ocean:
John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers, is at McCoy’s hotel. He came directly from Colorado.
“I regard the situation there as hopeful,” he said. “I believe a settlement will be reached, and I do not expect to have to return there. ‘Mother’ Jones and some of our best organizers are on the spot.
“The public mind, I believe, is somewhat confused concerning the troubles in the silver mines in Colorado. Many think that the United Mine Workers are concerned with them. Our men are coal miners only, and have had nothing to do with bringing about martial law. We have secured satisfactory settlements in the northern part of the state, and expect solid peace soon in the southern.”
[Emphasis added.]
Mitchell’s lack of concern for the metal miners is stunning. This lack of concern by Mitchell for these striking metal miners, now oppressed under military despotism, is another bone of contention between Mother Jones and her boss. Mother has shown all the Solidarity possible with the metal miners; she advocates unceasingly for unity between the United Mine Workers of America and the Western Federation of Miners.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 14, 1913 The White Slave Traffic for Sex Commerce in Free America
From The Progressive Woman of April 1913:
—————
THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC by Agnes H. Downing
WHILE all can see that women are sold for sex commerce, until very recently it was believed that the women were themselves the sellers. It was thought that either for love of luxury, or discouragement after seduction, or through their hunger needs women have consented to sell themselves promiscuously. But in late years and through accumulated evidence, it has been proved that the great business of supplying inmates for evil institutions has been and is carried on by persons who make a business of securing the girls for this traffic…..
In 1907 the United States government, through a special committee of the Immigration Commission, made an investigation of the importation and harboring of women for immoral purposes. The report says (Senate document 196, pages 8 and 9):
“…..The procurer may put his woman into a disorderly house, sharing the profits with the madam. He may sell her outright; he may act as an agent for another man; he may keep her, making arrangements for her hunting men. She must walk the streets and secure her patrons, to be exploited, not for her own sake, but for that of her owner…..”
They secure such power over the girls, first, because the girls are young and ignorant of their legal rights, and again because a girl is always suspicioned for being led into such a place. Though she be perfectly innocent, people are not ready to believe her. Lastly, when the punishment is beating or death, girls and men, too, can be forced into almost anything…..
It is just as much the duty of Socialists here and now to combat the white slave traffic as it is to strive for higher wages, rights of asylum, universal peace, or any of the other measures for which we all contend. It is in this broadness of spirit that our best good is to be found.
—————
WHO ARE WHITE SLAVES? by Jessie Ashley
TODAY the whole country talks and writes unceasingly of white slavery. As a descriptive title it is striking, and this fact helps to give it publicity; it attracts attention and sticks in the mind. But it is not wholly accurate. Slaves there are, but they are not always white; many black women and little yellow ones are also slaves in a world that should be free.
Slaves! What is a slave? A human being who has no freedom of choice, one who must live according to the will of another. Technically, when we speak of white slaves, we mean unwilling prostitutes. It is this phase of the matter that is arousing the just rage of a slowly awakening world. No rage can be too great for the crime, it must indeed become so great that it will sweep the horror from the face of the earth…..
Slaves, every woman of them today, whether prostitutes held unwillingly, or prostitutes gone willingly “astray,” whether submissive wife or rebellious virgin. Slaves every one, because there is no freedom of choice, but only a blind, cruel, stupid master, the social system, that without reason and without sympathy enslaves its womanhood.
But the cure is on its way. Women are becoming thinkers and are testing for themselves the chains that bind them. They are learning how to break them. They are at last beginning to realize that they are slaves, and that this is not a necessary condition; just as the working class is beginning to see that wage slavery is not necessary.
So on with the fight against white slavery and black, on with the working class rebellion against wage slavery, but let women especially keep up the rebellion, demanding fearlessly and incessantly sex freedom and economic freedom.
—————
—————
—————
—————
Last night at about 8:30 p.m. Sheriff Cruse and a “committee” paid a visit to the Scott Hotel in Hancock. They went to the room of Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. The “committee” was determined that the leaders of the W. F. of M. should reconsider their refusal to accept any donations from the Citizens’ Alliance to the families of the victims of the Italian Hall Massacre. Mr. Moyer remained adamant that donations from the Citizens’ Alliance amounted to blood money and that the union would bury it’s own dead.
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————