Hellraisers Journal: Justice Dept. Considers Amnesty for Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree of Philadelphia Marine Transport Union

22nd April 202222nd April 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Matilda Robbins ed, Ben Fletcher, p132 PC —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 22, 1922
Washington, D. C. – Amnesty Possible for Fletcher, Nef, Walsh and Doree

From the Baltimore Sun of April 20, 1922:

(From The Sun Bureau.)

Washington, April 19.-In the face of a renewed effort, led by the American Civil Liberties’ Union, to secure the pardon or commutation of sentences of 113 so-called political prisoners who still are in Federal prisons, it was learned today that the Department of Justice has no thought of recommending amnesty for the group. It is willing, however, to take up individual cases in the usual way, it is said. Apparently only Presidential intervention can accomplish general amnesty, and of that there is no sign.

Four cases are now concretely before the department-those of Walter T. Nef, Ben Fletcher, John J. Walsh and Edward F. Doree. They were members of the Marine Transport Workers’ Union, of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the I. W. W. They were sentenced to prison by Judge Landis, in Chicago, because of their activity in the I. W. W., although, it is asserted by their friends, they had been wholly loyal to the Government in their work at Philadelphia.

No Evidence Yet Of Disloyalty.

Investigation made thus far by the Department of Justice has failed to disprove contentions of champions of Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree that the Transport Workers’ Union in Philadelphia, which Nef, dominated and which embraced practically all of the dock workers in Philadelphia, performed its work with complete loyalty to the Government.

Dr. Frederick Edgerton, of the University of Pennsylvania, a champion of the men, has said that the Philadelphia dock workers did better than those anywhere else.

Dr. Frederick Edgerton has said that enormous quantities of munitions were shipped from Philadelphia during the war without a single accident at the dock or on any ship loaded at the dock; that many accidents occurred at other ports, and ships loaded elsewhere were taken to Philadelphia and reloaded. He also asserted that there was no strike in 1917 among the Philadelphia longshoremen, although strikes occurred elsewhere; that Nef used his influence against a strike, and also intervened against strikes in Boston and Baltimore; that many of the members of the Philadelphia union entered the service and that the members of the union bought $115,000 of Liberty bonds.

Thinks Record Should Count.

All of this, according to Dr. Edgerton and others, should outweight any significance that may attach to the activity of the four men in the central organization of the I. W. W., which led to their indictment and conviction with a large number of others, under the Espionage act, on charges of conspiracy. And it seems that Government officials, so far as they have gone into these cases, have no evidence that the men were not helpful to the Government at Philadelphia or that they were guilty of any overt acts elsewhere.

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal from Eugene V. Debs Urging All to Work for Release of Political Prisoners

20th March 202220th March 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

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.

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Hellraisers Journal: Philadelphia’s Local 8 of Marine Transport Workers, IWW, on the Firing Line, Calls for Solidarity

28th February 202228th February 2022 Janet RayeA. Philip Randolph

Quote re Employers No Race Line to Exploit, Messenger p11, Aug 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 28, 1922
Philadelphia Local 8 of I. W. W. on the Firing Line

From The Messenger of February 1922:

LOCAL 8 OF I. W. W. ON FIRING LINE

THE Administration’s policy toward the I. W. W. has been everything but frank, just and fair. On the contrary it has been mean, petty and cowardly. Believing that public sentiment was not as aroused and as insistent for the release of the members of the Industrial Workers of the World as it was for other prisoners charged with the violation of war-time laws it announced a different policy in dealing with the I. W. W. cases.

It was well established by the action of the Courts of Appeals of the seventh and eighth districts in the Chicago and Wichita cases, that the I. W. W.’s were found innocent of acts of sabotage or other industrial crimes. Their legal status now is the same as that of Debs before his release. In other words they are held in prison for expressing opinions in opposition to war.

As was pointed out in the foreword of the brief of attorney Otto Christensen, “many of the offenses that the I. W. W.’s were convicted of in the lower courts having been nullified by the action of the Court of Appeals, the legal basis for holding them in prison likewise has been changed.” “Since,” according to the Civil Liberties Union, the reversal of the industrial courts on which three-fourths of the evidence was introduced, these cases are in every essential analogous to the case of Mr. Debs.”

In view of the foregoing facts, it is apparent that the difference in policy in handling the cases of the Industrial Unionists, arises out of prejudice and class hatred.

It appears that the Administration acts not out of consideration for justice and right, established by facts and reason; but only out of fear of a general upsurge of an outraged public against blind, unreasoning intolerant, autocratic, Kaiser-like methods.

Recognizing this fact, Local 8 of the Marine Transport Workers of Philadelphia, has, in accordance with its general policy of enlightened, militant, revolutionary action, proceeded to arrange an intensive campaign of education and agitation in the interest of the 118 class-war and political prisoners still languishing in prison.

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Hellraisers Journal: Santiago Iglesias, Sent to Porto Rico as Organizer for A. F. of L., Arrested and Sentenced to Two Years

3rd January 20223rd January 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910 ———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 3, 1902
San Juan, Porto Rico – Organizer Santiago Iglesias Sentenced to Two Years in Prison

From the International Socialist Review of January 1902:

THE WORLD OF LABOR

By Max. S. Hayes.

[…..]

Santiago Iglesias, who was sent to Porto Rico on an organizing expedition by the A. F. of L., and who was arrested the moment he stepped on shore for having led a strike, was sentenced to three years imprisonment [two years, three months, eight days].

[Emphasis added.]

From The San Francisco Call of December 13, 1901:

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Hellraisers Journal: Release of Eugene Debs, Who Will Continue to Wage War on War, Perplexes Harding Administration

31st December 20211st January 2022 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 31, 1921
Comrade Eugene V. Debs Will Continue to Wage War on War

From The Atlanta Tri-Weekly Journal of December 29, 1921:

SCENES AT THE FEDERAL PRISON ON CHRISTMAS DAY

——-

——-

RELEASE OF DEBS IS NOW PERPLEXING TO ADMINISTRATION

Harding and Daugherty Are Not Sure It Was Wise
to Free Unconverted Radical
—————

BY DAVID LAWRENCE
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal._
(Copyright, 1921.)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28.-Eugene V. Debs has left behind him here a trail of mingled emotions. The administration which set him free is somewhat sadder and wiser this morrow morn.

For both President Harding and Attorney General Daugherty, who have tried their gospel of “understanding” in trying to convert Debs to a life of peace instead of agitation are not so sure that they have succeeded. Their disposition is to say no more about the case and hope that Debs will not abuse the liberty that has been given him by becoming a center for more agitation, a rallying device for radicalism and professional exploitation of the working classes.

The Harding administration tried a unique experiment-one that has been clouded somewhat in mystery because of the very delicacy of the undertaking. It is a fact that Debs could have had a pardon long ago if he would have agreed to withdraw the views he expressed against this country’s entrance into the war…..

DEBS SAYS HE WILL WAGE WAR ON WAR

Washington, Dec. 27.-War against war is to occupy a great part of the future activities of Eugene V. Debs, freed from Atlanta penitentiary by executive clemency on Christmas day, according to his own announcement here today. The Socialist leader said he could make no concrete plans for the future until he reached his home in Terre Haute, Ind., for which he will leave Washington at 6:20 o’clock tonight.

Debs announced his determination to obtain if possible a vow from every man, woman and child in this country and every other country which he might visit, that they refuse to take up arms and go to war. But until world relations undergo a reformation, he asserted, wars would continue.

[He said:]

There will be war, in some form, and war growing progressively more and more destructive until a competitive world has been transformed into a co-operative world. Every war for trade sooner or later and inevitably becomes a war of blood.

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Hellraisers Journal: Nine Fellow Workers Found Guilty Under Criminal Syndicalism Law in Los Angeles, California

12th December 202112th December 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917 ———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 12, 1921
Los Angeles, California – Fellow Workers Found Guilty of Criminal Syndicalism

From The Los Angeles Times of December 8, 1921:

Nine defendants in the I.W.W. criminal syndicalism, case in Judge Willis’s court were found guilty last night. The Jury found Manuel Engdal not guilty since he not only denied membership in the organization, but a membership card in his name was not produced. The eleventh defendant, Thomas Bailey, was dismissed several days ago.

The defendants acted as their own attorneys. Most of them were charged with two counts, membership in the I.W.W. and treasonable propaganda. They will be sentenced tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. The convicted men are William Baker, Ben Whittling, R. Bendig, Abraham Shocker, Henry Matlln, James Olson, W. I. Fruit, Louis Allen and Edward Peters. The case has been under way since November 10. Dep. Dist.-Attys. Turney and McCartney conducted the prosecution.

“I regard this conviction as one of the most important ever secured in the courts of this country,” said Dist.-Atty. Woolwine last evening. “It serves notice upon the Reds of the world that they cannot with impunity enter America and here hatch plots and schemes for the overthrow of our government and institutions.”

—————

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WE NEVER FORGET: Tomás Martínez, Class-War Prisoner, Who Died from Illness Due to Conditions at Leavenworth

24th October 202125th October 2021 Janet RayeWe Never Forget

Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925 —————

Nunca Olvidamos: Tomás Martínez, 1893-1921, Class-War Prisoner
-Died October 23, 1921, after Deportation to Guadalajara, Mexico

Photograph of Tomás Martínez, sent to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, shortly before his death.

From Iron in Her Soul by Helen C. Camp, page 95:

Thomas Martinez was deported to Mexico after he left the Kansas penitentiary in the spring of 1921. He arrived there very ill, suffering from tuberculosis-“which I suppose I took from the jail of Free America”-and the effects of a botched appendectomy. The Mexican IWW gave him a little money, as did [Elizabeth Gurley] Flynn, and the Workers’ National Prison Comfort Club branch in Milwaukee sent him two union suits and a pair of shoes. A friend of Martinez sent Elizabeth a photograph taken of him shortly before he died in October of the same year.

[Emphasis added.]

From “Red Scare Deportees” by Kenyon Zimmer:

Tomás Martínez (Thomas Martinez)

Born 1893, Mexico. Miner. 1905, a founding member of La Unión Liberal Humanidad in Cananea, which was affiliated with the new Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) and helped lead the 1906 Cananea miners’ strike. Member of several more PLM-affiliated groups. Migrated to the US circa 1907; active in Morenci, Arizona; helped plan and joined the PLM’s cross-border invasion of Baja California in 1910. Taken prisoner by Carranza’s forces and ordered executed, but escaped. 1914 organizing miners in Cananea; denounced and expelled as a “Huerta supporter,” leading to a strike of 2,500-3,000 miners until he was allowed to return. 1915-1918 active in IWW and PLM activities in Arizona and Los Angeles. Wrote numerous articles for the IWW’s paper El Rebelde (1915-1917). Arrested Miami, Arizona, March 1918; convicted to two years in Leavenworth Penitentiary and a $500 fine for violation of the Espionage Act [convicted of having literature of seditious nature]. Contracted tuberculosis while in prison, and a botched operation resulted in septicemia. Upon his release, detained for deportation but he petitioned to be allowed to leave what he called “the Jail of Free America” to another country at his own expense for fear that he would be executed for his past revolutionary activities if returned to Mexico; his petition was denied and he was deported in 1921; according to one report, “When he was finally shipped across the border he was more dead than alive.” Furthermore, he wrote to a friend in the US, “When I arrived at the border, they left me naked, they burned my clothes and shoes.” He never recovered, and died in Guadalajara, October 23, 1921. Comrades buried him with a headstone reading: ¡Nunca olvidamos! (We Never Forget!).

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Nation: Letter from James Rowan, Class War Prisoner 13113 at Leavenworth, Kansas

5th August 202128th July 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote BBH IWW w Drops of Blood, BDB, Sept 27, 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 5, 1921
Letter from Fellow Worker James Rowan, Class War Prisoner

Leavenworth Prisoner #13113:

From The Nation of August 3, 1921:

The Imprisoned I. W. W. at Leavenworth

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: May I call your attention, as well as that of your readers, to the cases of the I. W. W. prisoners at present doing time at Leavenworth? There are about one hundred and twenty of these men, all told. They are serving sentences varying from five to twenty years. I happen to be one of those serving a twenty-year sentence, so I can speak from first-hand knowledge.

We were arrested in 1917 under three indictments, known respectively as the Chicago, Sacramento, and Wichita indictments, charging us with conspiracy to hamper and obstruct the United States Government in the conduct of the war. After being held from one to two years under unspeakable conditions which caused the death of some, and others to go insane, in the county jails of Chicago, Sacramento, Wichita and other towns in Kansas, we were “tried,” convicted, and given sentences varying from one to twenty years. Fifteen received twenty-year sentences and the majority of the remainder are now serving ten year sentences.

Not one of us was proven guilty of any crime. We were convicted under the stress of war-time hysteria and public prejudice. Our real offense was that we all were, or had been, more or less active members of the I. W. W. We held, and still hold, certain opinions regarding the present system of society which are unfavorable to the ruling class and at variance with those held by the great majority of the people. Whether these opinions are right or wrong cuts no figure as far as the principle involved in these cases is concerned. If men can be imprisoned for their opinions then the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution no longer exist in the United States; free press and free speech are only empty phrases used to deceive the unthinking. If we are forced to serve out these sentences then no one is safe. Anyone holding opinions which the American plutocracy consider dangerous to their privileges can be thrown behind prison bars and forced to spend many years in a felon’s cell.

Our imprisonment not only means loss of liberty and all that makes life worth living to us. It is also a direct attack on the liberties of one hundred and ten million people. If the American people stand for these high-handed and savage judicial acts, unparalleled in any modern civilized country, it means that they have abandoned all claims to the rights and liberties for which our forefathers shed their blood. The lives of one hundred and twenty men are of little consequence. If forced to serve out our sentences we can do so, and I for one would rather stay in jail with a clear conscience than bow the knee to privilege on the outside. The real tragedy lies in the moral breakdown of a great people.

The only power that can free us is aroused public opinion. These cases must be investigated and the facts given wide publicity, and such a strong protest made to the officials at Washington that they may see their way clear to take action leading to the early release of all political prisoners in the State and Federal prisons of the United States. A small group of liberals and radicals are doing all in their power to bring about general amnesty for all political prisoners. Needless to say we thoroughly appreciate their efforts on our behalf. I ask you to add your voice to theirs, to the end that justice may be done and the voice of freedom, in unmistakable tones, may once more ring through the land.

JAMES ROWAN
Leavenworth, Kansas, July 13

[Emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Letter to Upton Sinclair from John L. Murphy, Sacrament IWW Class War Prisoner at Leavenworth

13th March 202113th March 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 13, 1921
Leavenworth Federal Prison – Letter from Fellow Worker John L. Murphy

From the Appeal to Reason of March 12, 1921:

The White Terror at Work

Recently I [Upton Sinclair] published a novel [100%-A Story of a Patriot] dealing with the activities of spies and secret agents of big business. Our gracious Postoffice Department does not permit me to mention the name of this novel, otherwise this contribution will be considered as an advertisement. But here is a letter which has just come to me, and which you might take to be a chapter out of the aforesaid unnameable novel. Read it, and see how very proud of your country it makes you. I do not know the writer of this letter, but the accent of truth is in every word of his story, and it what I have learned of hundreds of other cases, makes me quite ready to believe what he tells. If you know any 100 per cent American patriots in your neighborhood, take them this letter and try to get them to read it.

[Letter from John L. Murphy, No. 13586]

Leavenworth, Kans., Feb. 13, 1921.

Mr. Upton Sinclair, Pasadena, Cal.
Dear Comrade:

Below I am sending you the facts of my case.

I was born in Boston the boasted, cradle of Liberty. I am a working man, not a leech. In 1918 while working at Olympia, Wash., I wrote a letter to Chris Luber at Sacramento, Cal. He was an I. W. W. He was in jail at the time of my writing. This I did not know at the time. In fact he had been in jail almost two months before I wrote my first letter. My letter was the ordinary kind exchanged among workers—working conditions, etc. This letter was not delivered to Luber. The Department of Justice got it. They answered it and forged Luber’s name to it. This letter was indeed very bitter against the government. I thought my friend Luber had gone “bugs.” How was I to know that the Department of Justice agent was writing to me? They had his name forged to the letter, and I did not know he was in jail at the time. They wound up by asking me to “Pull off” something violent, just anything would do.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1920, Part II: Found in Stone Cutters Journal: Los Angeles Speech of March 7th

24th October 202024th October 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Dad Never Scabbed on Me, LA Mar 7, Stone Cutters p11, Sept 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 24, 1920
Mother Jones News for September 1920, Part II
Found in Stone Cutters’ Journal: Los Angeles Speech of March 7th

From The Stone Cutters’ Journal of September 1920:

Mother Jones Speaks in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Times
March 11, 1920

Mother Jones spoke to the workers in the Labor Temple in Los Angeles recently. She said in part:

Fellow Workers:-I came here to rest, but I never allow rest to interfere with an opportunity to spread my religion among the workers. First of all, I want to say to you secret service men, get out your books and pencils and come right up here on the platform, and listen closely to every word I say. You might learn something for your own good-some new ideas might percolate through your thick skulls, and you might form a desire to lead a cleaner, better, more useful life.

Fellow workers, you are today in a most critical position. You are either facing liberty and emancipation or else if you don’t wake u , you are going into the blackest, most abject slavery ever known by man in the history of this world.

We whipped the Kaiser abroad and all his autocrats; now, let’s clean ’em up at home.

The inhuman way in which the workers were dealt with in, the steel strike is a fair example of the Prussianism of big business. They tell you that the steel strike was lost, but I say to you that the steel strike was one of the greatest victories ever won by labor in this country—great, because 350,000 workers of all nationalities, and different tongues, stood shoulder to shoulder, and demonstrated what “solidarity” means. They paralyzed one of our strongest industries, and the supply of steel will not be normal for six months yet.

There’s a great cry going up now to Americanize these foreigners—that’s the trouble with them now, they are Americanized. Most of them were imported here 20 years ago or more by those patriotic profiteers, Carnegie, and Gary, to act as scabs during the Homestead strikes— they scabbed then, and broke that strike, but they’re Americanized now and there’s no scabs in their families any more. You can bet on that.

They have learned what true “Americanism” means, and they want it; they want freedom and decent working conditions and they’ll get it some day.

They’ve been slaving 12 and 14 hours a day, with a 24-hour shift every other Sunday. That’s not Americanism, and that’s why they struck. They are not machinery or animals; they’re human beings and they want a square deal.

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