Hellraisers Journal: The Nation: “Children’s Crusade for Amnesty” by Mary Heaton Vorse, Grief on Parade in New York City

13th May 202213th May 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, Red Feast, Montreal 1914, Leaves 1917 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 13, 1922
Mary Heaton Vorse on Children’s Crusade for Amnesty

From The Nation of May 10, 1922:

The Children’s Crusade for Amnesty

By MARY HEATON VORSE

A GROUP of travel-worn working women and their children paraded from the Grand Central Station up Madison Avenue. The young girls stared straight ahead of them; babies stumbled with fatigue. Women, carrying children, sagged along wearily. They carry banners. The little boy who walks on ahead has a firm mouth and holds his head up. His banner reads “A Little Child Shall Lead Them.” There are other banners, which read “A Hundred and Thirteen Men Jailed for Their Opinions”; “Eugene Debs Is Free-Why Not My Daddy?” One banner inquires “Is the Constitution Dead?” One young girl carries a banner, “My Mother Died of Grief.” One woman with a three-year-old baby holds a banner saying “I Never Saw My Daddy.”

Reporters, movie men, and members of the bomb squad accompany the band of women and children. This is a new sort of show. This is a grief parade. These are the wives and children of men serving sentences under the Espionage Act, the wives and children of political prisoners jailed for their opinions. Some of the men did not believe in killing, and some belong to labor organizations. Not one of them was accused of any crime. They are serving sentences from five to twenty years.

Their wives and children are on a crusade. They have come from Kansas corn-fields and from the cotton farms of Oklahoma, from New England mill towns, from small places in the Southwest. They have been through many cities. They are on the way to Washington to see the President of the United States.* They have come here showing their wounds and their humiliation. They have spread out before us their frugal, laborious days. With a terrible bravery they have displayed them so that you and I might see them and be moved—perhaps, and, perhaps, help.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case

2nd January 20212nd January 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 2, 1921
Chicago, Illinois – Mary Heaton Vorse Has Supper with Convicted Fellow Workers

From The Liberator of January 1921:

Twenty Years

By Mary Heaton Vorse

RECENTLY in Chicago, after a meeting, I went to get a sandwich with a group of labor men. As I looked around the table, it came to me with a shock that I was the only person there, but one, who was not condemned to a long jail sentence. For all the people at the table were members of the Industrial Workers of the World convicted in the famous Chicago case.

Ralph Chaplin sat next to me. I had been talking only a few minutes before with his wife, a girl of extraordinary loveliness. She had not come out with us to supper because she had gone home to put her little boy of seven to bed. I had seen them standing all three together, only a half hour before.

Ralph Chaplin is a gifted idealist, a poet, as well as a man of action. His quality of uncompromising courage made me think of Jack Reed. It is upon such youth that the strength of a people is founded, men ready to suffer and with gifts to make people understand the beliefs which have stirred their hearts. And his wife is like him. It made you feel right with life to see them together. They face a 20-year sentence.

Ralph Chaplin is to be put in jail because he belonged to an industrial union, a legal organization.

Ralph Chaplin was Editor of “Solidarity.” And that is why he was given twenty years. It was a pretty bad crime for anyone to hold a red card. The talented ones were selected for 20-year sentences. Apparently Judge Landis could not bear that a man of attainments and gifts should belong to the organization of the I. W. W.

Charles Ashleigh is another poet. What had he done? He had been an I. W. W. He has a sentence of five years. He was one of those against whose sentence even Captain Lanier of the Military Intelligence protested. One wonders if the Captain had ever read the poem by his distinguished relative, called “Jacquerie.” And so Charles Ashleigh is among those who are slated for Leavenworth, where he has already spent two years.

Opposite me sat George Hardy, the. General Executive Secretary. He was one of those who got off easy. He only got a year and he has already served his sentence. No one knew exactly why some got long sentences or why some got short ones.

Bill Haywood, at the head of the table, as a matter of course was given the maximum sentence; that means a death sentence if it is carried out.

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Hellraisers Journal: Chicago Trial: IWWs Found Guilty in Blanket Verdict, Taken to Cook County Jail Singing “Hold the Fort”

18th August 201810th August 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

How often have court rooms served as undertaking parlors
for the aspirations of rebellious workers?
-Harrison George
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday August 18, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – “Guilty Is Verdict Against I. W. W.”

At 5:30 p. m. on Saturday August 17, 1918, the Federal Trial of the leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World ended when the jury announced its verdict:

Guilty as charged in the indictment.

Asked for his response to the verdict, Fellow Worker Harrison George stated:

If America can stand it, I am sure the I. W. W. can.

Report from Harrison George:

NEBEKER concluded his speech at 10:33 a. m. [August 17th], and the crowded courtroom listened expectantly for Vanderveer to open the floodgates of oratory. Nebeker had used less than one hour of the two allotted to the prosecution, and his assistant, Claude R. Porter, was to finish the presentation of their side with a flag-waving broadside of denunciatory eloquence that was not only to sway the jury, but was intended to elect him governor of Iowa. For, thoughtful of his campaign in that state, he had on the previous day sent advance copies of his speech to a great many of his partisan papers in Iowa for release on that day, when he intended to talk himself into immortality.

Judge, oh, ye gods! how deeply he was wounded when Vanderveer forbore to orate, only rising to thank the jury for their patience during the long trial and asking their consideration for a “Christian judgment.” The spectators were nonplussed at such an unusual situation, while Porter, pale and stunned, sat voiceless, trying to grasp the fact that Vanderveer, by refusing to address the jury, had cut off further argument, and that he, Porter, was up against wiring those Iowa papers to kill his oration, already going into the presses.

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