Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 22, 1922 Photograph of Eugene Debs at Lindlahr Sanitarium near Chicago, Illinois
From The West Virginian of July 21, 1922:
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Eugene Debs, Socialist leader, is a patient at a Chicago sanitarium where he is undergoing treatment for insomnia. “I am not ill, but for the first time in my life I feel tired and worn,” he says. Shown with him are Drs. Boerma Daniels an Matthiesen Yunkers.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 20, 1912 Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign
[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part II:]
The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.
The platform adopted by the convention is a clear and cogent enunciation of the party’s principles and a frank and forceful statement of the party’s mission. This platform embodies labor’s indictment of the capitalist system and demands the abolition of that system. It proclaims the identity of interests of all workers and appeals to them in clarion tones to unite for their emancipation.It points out the class struggle and emphasizes the need of the economic and political unity of the workers to wage that struggle to a successful issue. It declares relentless war upon the entire capitalist regime in the name of the rising working class and demands in uncompromising terms the overthrow of wage-slavery and the inauguration of industrial democracy.
In this platform of the Socialist Party the historic development of society is clearly stated and the fact made manifest that the time has come for the workers of the world to shake off their oppressors and exploiters, put an end to their age-long servitude, and make themselves the masters of the world.
To this end the Socialist Party has been organized; to this end it is bending all its energies and taxing all its resources; to this end it makes its appeal to the workers and their sympathizers throughout the nation.
In the name of the workers the Socialist Party condemns the capitalist system. In the name of freedom it condemns wage-slavery. In the name of modern industry it condemns poverty, idleness, and famine. In the name of peace it condemns war. In the name of civilization it condemns the murder of little children. In the name of enlightenment it condemns ignorance and superstition. In the name of the future it arraigns the past at the bar of the present, and in the name of humanity it demands social justice for every man, woman, and child.
The Socialist Party knows neither color, creed, sex, or race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and downtrodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 19, 1912
Riverview Park, Chicago, Illinois – Debs Opens Socialist Party Campaign
[Eugene V. Debs Speaks to Thousands at Grand Picnic
Sunday June 16, 1912 – Full Text of Speech, Part I:]
Friends, Comrades, and Fellow-Workers:— We are today entering upon a national campaign of the profoundest interest to the working class and the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the so-called Republican and the so-called Democratic parties. They are substantially one in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.
To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact. They-or rather it-stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for wage-slavery.
Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.
We have before us in this capital at this hour an exhibition of capitalist machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have charged and proved upon one another. They are both good Republicans, just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats-and they are all agreed that socialism would be the ruination of the country.
Taft and Roosevelt in the exploitation of their boasted individualism and their mad fight for official spoils have been forced to expose the whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the American people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They are literally bought, paid for, and owned, body and soul, by the powers that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers.
What difference is there, judged by what they stand for, between Taft, Roosevelt, LaFollette, Harmon, Wilson, Clark, and Bryan?
Do they not all alike stand for the private ownership of industry and the wage slavery of the working class?
What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether the Republican or Democratic political machine of capitalism is in commission?
That these two parties differ in name only and are one in fact is demonstrated beyond cavil whenever and wherever the Socialist Party constitutes a menace to their misrule. Milwaukee is a case in point and there are many others. Confronted by the Socialists these long pretended foes are forced to drop their masks and fly into each other’s arms.
The baseness, hypocrisy, and corruption of these twin political agencies of Wall Street and the ruling class cannot be expressed in words. The imagination is taxed in contemplating their crimes. There is no depth of dishonor to which they have not descended-no depth of depravity they have not sounded.
To the extent that they control elections the franchise is corrupted and the electorate debauched, and when they succeed to power, it is but to execute the will of the Wall Street interests which finance and control them. The police, the militia, the regular army, the courts, and all the powers lodged in class government are all freely at the service of the ruling class, especially in suppressing discontent among the slaves of the factories, mills, and mines, and keeping them safely in subjugation to their masters.
How can any intelligent, self-respecting wage worker give his support to either of these corrupt capitalist parties? The emblem of a capitalist party on a workingman is the badge of his ignorance, his servility and shame.
Marshaled in battle array against these corrupt capitalist parties is the young, virile, revolutionary Socialist Party, the party of the awakening working class, whose red banners, inscribed with the inspiring shibboleth of class-conscious solidarity, proclaim the coming triumph of international socialism and the emancipation of the workers of the world.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1902 How Six Months in the Woodstock Jail Made a Socialist of Eugene Debs
From The Comrade of April 1902:
As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.
On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.”
Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “Old Josh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:
“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watch-fires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often when, all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world—were straining:
“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”
My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1922 Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal for Political Prisoners
From the Washington Evening Star of March 9, 1922:
From the Buffalo Socialist New Age of March 16, 1922:
Terre Haute, Ind., March 4, 1922.
To All Labor Unions and Organized Workers. Dear Brothers and Comrades:
I am making this appeal to you in behalf of the political prisoners.These men are held simply because of their activities in the labor movement and for no other reason. Any other pretense is simply a lie. All other countries have long since released their political prisoners. The United States government, to its lasting shame, is the one exception that keeps men caged as felons for the expression of their opinions. These men, brothers of ours, committed no overt act, no crime of any kind. The court records will prove this. The infamous Espionage Law, under which these men were convicted, has long since been repealed [Note: a section of the Espionage Law, the Sedition Act, was repealed December 13, 1920], and there is not the slightest excuse to longer hold them in prison.
The simple fact is that the treason for which these men were convicted was their loyalty to the working class. Such loyalty, especially in a time of war when the workers are turned into butchers and set to slaughtering one another for the profit and power and glory of their masters, is always treason in the eyes of such masters.
If these men with union principles and union hearts beating in their breasts, had been scabs or gunmen or strikebreakers, they would have been cracked up as 100% American patriots, given hero medals, and assigned to posts of honor carrying high salaries and eminent respectability. But instead they refused to bow to the will of the brutal and impudent profiteers and stood up loyally for their own class and gave expression to the truth that was in their hearts, as it was not only their lawful right but their moral duty to do, and for this and this alone they are marked as dangerous and held and treated as criminals to the shame of the American labor movement and the infamy of the United States government, the most plutocratic government on the face of the earth.
Senator Borah of Idaho, be it said to his credit, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate on January 25th, directing the Attorney General to submit to the Senate all available information relative to the cases of persons convicted under the notorious Espionage Act. This resolution is most timely and the organized workers of the nation must bring all possible power to bear to force its passage. The plutocrats, profiteers, and pirates of Wall Street and their degenerate henchmen in all their servile capacities, who had the monstrous Espionage Law enacted to gag the truth and strangle free speech while they were putting over their criminal war conspiracy, will bring all their power to bear to defeat the Borah resolution.
Well do these knaves in high places know that if this resolution passes the Senate and the Attorney General is forced to reveal the court records of the political prisoners it will show that they are guilty of absolutely no crime whatever save only that of saying during war time, when the nation had been lashed into fury of blind hate, what the 100% Wall Street profiteers and their lackeys in and out of office did not want to hear. The Constitution, of which they had been in the habit of prating on every occasion, was summarily suspended, truth was exiled, and manhood and self-respect put in prison stripes.
Think of these innocent union men, these working class brethren of ours, being suffered to remain buried alive in the steel vaults of American prison hells, and then talk about being “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” The very thought brings the deep blush of shame to the cheek of every decent American.
These men must be gotten out of prison to the last one of them. As long as one remains we are all in disgrace, and our country stands impeached before the civilized world.
There must be no discrimination among the class war prisoners, for that is what they are and nothing else.All spies and enemy agents, some of whom were convicted of the gravest charges, including the placing of fire bombs in ships and the destruction of life and property, were released years ago. Not one remains in prison. Not one of these belonged to a labor union. They were all readily forgiven as soon as the war was over.
But how different with the men who did belong to labor unions and who did not commit any crime or take any life or destroy any property, but who only stood up like men exercising their constitutional rights and telling the truth about the capitalist slaughter of the working class “to make the world safe for democracy!” It is for their benefit that the atrocious Espionage Law was enacted, and for the benefit of the Wall Street profiteers who coined the blood of the slaughtered workers into billions for themselves, that they are still festering in the hell-holes capitalism charitably provides for its victims.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 11, 1912 Big Bill Haywood Lectures for The Review, Elected to N. E. C. of Socialist Party
From the International Socialist Review of January 1912:
William D. Haywood
The Haywood Lectures. During the National Executive Committee election [of the Socialist Party of America] (not over as we go to press) [see below for results] there has arisen a sudden and peculiar misunderstanding with relation to the routing of Comrade William D. Haywood by this office. Friends may have imagined that Comrade Haywood has yielded to the repeated and urgent requests of former National Secretary Barnes, acting under instructions from the National Executive Committee, to become one of the authorized lecturers on the National Lyceum Lecture Bureau, as did Comrade Frank Bohn under similar pressure, but we are glad to announce that Haywood preferred to continue lecturing under the auspices of the REVIEW.
The statement has recently been published broadcast by Comrade Robert Hunter, that locals securing Haywood were compelled to pay the REVIEW $250 a night. We take pleasure in repeating here the terms we have made ever since Comrade Haywood began to lecture for us. Except in the West, where close dates cannot be arranged at this time, our terms for Haywood dates are the local’s guarantee to take 500 admission tickets to the lecture (each ticket being good for a three months’ REVIEW subscription at 25 cents each, amounting to $125.00.) Out of this sum we pay $25.00 hall rent, supply all advertising material, donate 200 copies of the current REVIEW and pay all Haywood’s expenses.
The State Committee of Ohio is arranging dates in Ohio for Haywood from Jan. 15 to Feb. 15. Arrangements for other states may be made through this office. It might be well if our friends, who believe in fair play, would ask Comrade Hunter upon what foundation he based his published statements in this regard.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of Jan 1, 1912:
SOCIALIST PARTY ELECTS ———- National Executive Committee And Secretary Are Named.
Chicago, Dec. 31.-A national executive committee and a national secretary for the Socialist party, elected by referendum, the votes being sent to Chicago, were announced yesterday. On the executive committee thus chosen are Victor Berger, Milwaukee; Job B. Harriman, Los Angeles; William D. Haywood. Denver; Morris Hillquit, New York; Alexander Irvine, Los Angeles; Kate Richard O’Hare, St. Louis, and John Spargo, Yonkers, N. Y. John M. Work, of Chicago, was elected national secretary.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 17, 1911 30,000 Shopmen on Strike on Harriman Lines; Union Scabs Continue Working
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 12, 1911:
It is estimated that there are 30,000 shop men, members of the Federated Shopmen’s Union, now on strike on the Harriman lines. The strikers comprise four crafts, which includes the blacksmiths, carmen, machinists and boilermakers. Up to the present time the men remain firm in their demands and few desertions are recorded, if any. Much of our news has come through the capitalist press and therefore we are forced to read between the lines. That there has been an earnest effort on the part of the strikers to keep the professional scabs from going to work in many places is certain. We have not heard of any bricks being thrown at the switchmen, who are also members of the A. F. of L., neither has many firemen, who are firing the coal into the engines that pull scabs around the country, had their heads knocked off.
There is some hope expressed that the strike may extend. We hope so. We hope that every craft now employed on the Harriman system will discover the fact that they are also employes of the Harriman management and have interests in common with the strikers and so long as they continue to work when four crafts are battling for better conditions, that they are scabbing. If the strike goes the way of many strikes it cannot be said that it was LOST. It will be of some benefit to the workers, as it will point the way to a more solid organization. It will demonstrate that it was not the so-called professional scabs that caused the temporary defeat, but was caused directly by the union scabs who stayed and helped the master whip those who were battling for better conditions. Until all the slaves working for the one industry and all the slaves working for all the industries recognize that “an injury to one is an injury to all” it will be a case of recording defeat after defeat. Not a train has been bottled up so far on the Harriman system and it would be absurd to say that the object in a strike is not to bottle up a railroad or other industry and FORCE the boss to come to terms. To FORCE concessions is the object of any strike, then why not have enough FORCE?
Is it creditable to go into an affray knowing that you have not enough FORCE to be victorious? Is it creditable to be always getting whipped? We hope the federated crafts will win their strike. We hope all strikes could be won. It is our one desire to not only win the little strikes known as skirmishes, but to win the BIG STRIKE when the boss will be FORCED to do his share of the work of the world instead of living off the toil of labor. If the strikers will only discover the fact that there are other scabs than professional scabs and will treat other scabs in the same way and with the same contempt as they are those who are directly taking their places or attempting to, the strike will be of short duration. Bottle up the railroad. Make the other crafts strike or forever damn them as the lowest scabs on earth. Make them fight to help you if possible. Send back their resolutions of sympathy and call a spade a spade. Call a scab a scab.Let every railroader on the Harriman lines lay down his tools or be condemned as a traitor to the working class. It’s a skirmish in the great class struggle, then fight it on class lines.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 8, 1901 Chicago, Illinois – Lucy Parsons on Attempted Assassination of Mckinley
From The Chicago Daily Tribune of September 7, 1901:
CHICAGO ANARCHISTS’ REGRET. ———- Receive the News of Attempted Assassination with Statements of Fear That Cause Will Be Injured. ———-
Anarchists in Chicago received the news of the President’s attempted assassination with regret, and disclaimed all knowledge of or acquaintance with the assailant. They described his action as foolish, wanton, and calculated to work great injury to the cause of anarchism.
“What is the latest news of the President?” was the first question asked by Mrs. Lucy Parsons, when visited last night at her home, 1777 North Troy street.
[She further stated:]
They say he may recover? I am glad to hear that. I hope he will recover. He is a good President, just as good as any capitalistic President could be, and it would be unfortunate if he should die of his wounds.
I have been afraid for two or three years that something of this kind would happen. I have feared that some radical, mistaken person would attempt to kill the ruler of either America or Great Britain. Nothing could be worse for the cause of anarchism. What is the use to strike individuals. That is not true anarchy. Another ruler rises to take his place and no good is accomplished.
The assailant is a man I never heard of before, and I do not believe he was in a conspiracy with anyone else in planning his deed. No man who has the true principles of anarchy in his heart would do such a thing. The President is chosen by the people, and comes as near representing them as a man could under the present system.
McKinley is a good President. He listens to the voice of the people and tries to heed its behest. I admire him for his conduct in regard to the Spanish-American war. If ever a man was pushed and kicked into a war against his will President McKinley was in that war. He is a civic President, always interested in the peaceful welfare of the country. If he should not recover we will have Roosevelt, a military man, young and full of aggressiveness. That would be unfortunate for the nation.
Oscar W. Neebe, one of the Anarchists who was indicted charged with participation in the haymarket riot, but acquitted, also said he never had heard of the assailant, and thought the assassination was the work of a crank or insane man.
“What was his motive? What did he expect to accomplish?” said Neebe, when told that the man claimed to be an Anarchist.
You might kill a thousand Presidents, but the next would represent the same class as those that went before, because we are ruled by capital in this country, and we are likely to be for a long time to come. So they call the fellow an Anarchist? Of course, every man who dues a crazy or foolish deed is an Anarchist in the eyes of the public. As a matter of fact there are no real Anarchists in this country. There are plenty of Socialists, of varying shades of belief, some revolutionary, perhaps, but no Anarchists. I myself am no Anarchist, and I doubt if you could find one in Chicago.
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—————The national convention of the Socialist Party recently held at Indianapolis was in all respects the greatest gathering of representative socialists ever held in the United States. The delegates there assembled demonstrated their capacity to deal efficiently with all the vital problems which confront the party. The convention was permeated in every fiber with the class-conscious, revolutionary spirit and was thoroughly representative of the working class. Every question that came before that body was considered and disposed of in accordance with the principles and program of the international movement and on the basis of its relation to and effect upon the working class.
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