Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 23, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Workers Vote with Great Enthusiasm for General Strike
From the Paterson Morning Call of February 20, 1913:
GENERAL STRIKE DUE NEXT WEEK? ———- Labor Committee Will Decide on Date at Tonight’s Meeting. ———-
Newark Evening Star February 20, 1913
Two meeting rooms were necessary in Turn hall last night to accommodate all the silk workers that attended to take action on a proposed general strike throughout the industry in this city. When more than a thousand had crowded into one hall and the police prohibited any additional people there, the committee from local 152, Industrial Workers of the World, under whose auspices the mass meeting was conducted, opened a smaller hall, where between two and three hundred stood while they listened to urgent appeals on the part of the labor leaders to join the walkout, which they claimed to be inevitable now. Men and women continued going and coming during the entire evening, so that it is safe to assume there were more than two thousand who heard all or part of the speeches at least.
After all the speakers had concluded, the chairman of the meeting asked what decision the people had arrived at and what they considered doing in the matter of the movement to do away with the three and four-loom system in Paterson. One man to the rear of the hall yelled “strike” in no uncertain tones, and the hundreds applauded.
“How many vote to have this striker?” asked the chairman, and then requested that all in favor of going out raise their right hands. The people had been worked to a white heat of enthusiasm by the addresses and many of them raised both hands and then jumped on chairs to make their approval the more pronounced. After joining in huzzas for the period of a minute or more the people filed out.
Whether this spirit is a lasting one will remain to be seen when the executive committee of the local 152 call upon the workers to strike. It was evident last night that the men were more than interested in the matter, but even sanguine labor leaders would not vouch for their support. Such action by the people was expected after the oratorical fireworks that had been presented, but there was no indication that the same line of action would be adhered to when the privations consequent to the loss of work and wages are met with.
Between 500 and 600 of the workers that crowded the two halls last night did not wait until the vote was taken, and their presence might be accounted for by assigning curiosity as the cause. They made no expression of their opinion one way or another, and while their support is banked upon, there is no positive assurance that the support will be there when wanted.
A Polish speaker named Lauer, an Italian speaker, Organizer Kaplen, who spoke in Yiddish, and Miss Elizabeth Flynn made up the list of talkers that had been brought into the city for the meeting. When it became necessary to open the second hall, several of the local leaders jumped into the breach and made addresses on the situation as they sized it up.
One thing is certain, a general strike will be called.The executive committee of local 152, I. W. W., will hold a closed meeting this evening in Turn Hall, where manifestos will be brought up and translated into several languages. As soon as they are taken from the press they will be distributed directly to the silk workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 23, 1912 San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Jack Whyte Expresses His Contempt of Court
From The Kentucky Post of August 21, 1912:
San Diego I. W. W., Convicted, Bluntly Explains to Judge His Contempt for Court ———-
SAN DIEGO, CAL., Aug. 21-Contempt of court, more bluntly expressed than probably ever before in the history of California, whose court records have been dirtied often by judicial acts which have disgraced the State, marked the close of proceedings here recently [August 5th], when Judge Sloane sentenced several members of the Industrial Workers of the World for conspiracy to violate the street-speaking ordinance.
Sloane asked Jack Whyte, Industrial Worker, if he had anything to say as to why he should not receive sentence.
Whyte had something to say. He talked straight. This is what he said:
There are only a few word that I care to say, and this court will not mistake them for a legal argument, for I am not acquainted with the phraseology of the bar, nor the language common to the courtroom.
There are two points which I want to touch upon-the indictment itself and the misstatement of the Prosecuting Attorney. The indictment reads: “The People of the State of California against J. W. Whyte and others.”
It’s a hideous lie. The people of this courtroom know that it is a lie, and I know that it is a lie. If the people of the State are to blame for this persecution, then the people are to blame for the murder of Michael Hoey and the assassination of Joseph Mickolasek. They are to blame and responsible for every bruise, every insult and injury inflicted upon the members of the working class by the vigilantes of this city.
The people deny it, and have so emphatically denied it that Gov. Johnson sent Harris Weinstock down here to make an investigation and clear the reputation of the people of the State of California from the odor that you would attach to it. You cowards throw the blame upon the people, but I know who is to blame and I name them-it is Spreckels and his partners in business, and this court is the lackey and lickspittle of that class, defending the property of that class against the advancing horde of starving American workers.
The Prosecuting Attorney in his plea to the jury accused me of saying on a public platform at a public meeting: “To hell with the courts; we know what justice is.” He told a great truth when he lied, for if he had searched the innermost recesses of my mind he could have found that thought, never expressed by me before, but which I express now. “To hell with your courts, I know what justice is,” for I have sat in your courtroom day after day and have seen members of my class pass before this, the so-called bar of justice.
I have seen you, Judge Sloane, and others of your kind, send them to prison because they dared to infringe upon the sacred right of property. You have become blind and deaf to the rights of men to pursue life and happiness, and you have crushed those rights so that the sacred rights of property should be preserved. Then you tell me to respect the law.
I don’t. I did violate the law, and I will violate every one of your laws and still come before you and say: “To hell with the courts,” because I believe that my right to live is far more sacred than the sacred right of property that you and your kind so ably defend.
I don’t tell you this with the expectation of getting justice, but to show my contempt for the whole machinery of law and justice as represented by this and every other court. The Prosecutor lied, but I will accept it as a truth and say again, so that you, Judge Sloane, may not be mistaken as to my attitude:
“To hell with your courts; I know what justice is.”
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 4, 1912
Mike Livoda, Organizer for U. M. W. A., Beaten in Huerfano County, Colorado
Affidavit of Mike Livoda
-Sworn to on June 20, 1912, at Las Animas County:
From the Denver Post of June 27, 1912:
ATTORNEY GENERAL ASKED TO ASSUME PROSECUTOR ———- Other Authorities Fail to File in Assault and Robbery Case. ———-
Governor Shafroth has been reminded that when a county prosecuting officer fails to do his duty when facts are presented sufficient to make a prima facie case the attorney general of the state can step in and personally take charge of the prosecution. When Attorney General Benjamin Griffith returns Friday he will be instructed by the governor to proceed against the five men who dragged Michael Livoda, organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, from his bed, robbed him of his union papers and ordered him to leave Walsenburg and Colorado.
John McLennan and John R. Lawson, in charge of the organization of miners, made the request that the state executive take action after District Attorney McHenry of Las Animas county failed to act. Deputy District Attorney Undershot, at Walsenburg, also refused to cause the arrest of the accused men.
McLennan and Lawson gave the names of these men to Governor Shafroth to turn over to the attorney general for prosecution: Charles A Kaiser, assistant superintendent of the Walsen mine; Deputy Sheriff Carr, stationed at the Walsen mine; James Farr, deputy sheriff, stationed at the Ravenwood mine, where Livoda was beaten, and a nephew of Sheriff Jefferson Farr; John Neish, superintendent of the Ravenwood mine, and Joseph Watson, guard at the Ravenwood mine. They claim to have witnesses to prove the five men guilty of the assault and robbery
Livoda was asleep in the house of a friend on the night of June 13 when five men entered the place, went through his clothes, took all union documents, marched him through the camp with mouth bound so he could not cry out, and when he reached the open country turned him loose after firing four shots and threatening to kill him if he came back.
Sept 15, 1913 – Trinidad, Colorado
Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America
The delegates opened their convention by singing The Battle Cry of Union:
We will win the fight today, boys,
We’ll win the fight today,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union;
We will rally from the coal mines,
We’ll fight them to the end,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the Baldwins and up with the law;
For we’re coming, Colorado, we’re coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The miners faced the grim prospect of going out on strike against the powerful southern coalfield companies, chief among them, John D Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The coal operators had steadfastly refused to recognize the Union and had ignored all attempts at negotiation.
The miners had had their fill of dangerous working conditions, crooked checkweighmen, long hours, and low pay. They lived in peonage in company towns, were paid in company scrip, and were forced to shop for their daily needs in high-priced company stores which kept them always in debt. But, mostly they hated the notorious company guard system. Every attempt to organize had been met with brutality on the part of the coal operators.
Mother Jones addressed the convention for over an hour, urging the men to:
Rise up and strike! …Strike and stay with it as we did in West Virginia. We are going to stay here in Southern Colorado until the banner of industrial freedom floats over every coal mine. We are going to stand together and never surrender…
Pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don’t fear a governor; don’t fear anybody…You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, “Let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 5, 1910
Trinidad, Colorado – Primero Mine Disaster Leaves 300-400 Children Fatherless
From The Fort Collins Express of February 3, 1910:
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THE REPORT OF THE EXPLOSION REACHED HERE AT SIX O’CLOCK TONIGHT BY A MESSENGER AND TELEPHONE THE WIRES WERE PURPOSELY CUT OR WERE BROKEN BY SOME UNKNOWN CAUSE BETWEEN HERE AND THE SCENE OF THE DISASTER, FOR JUST AFTER THE EXPLOSION THE WIRES PUT OUT OF COMMISSION AND ONLY MEAGER NEWS HAS BEEN RECEIVED FROM THE MINE.
At 11:30 tonight a messenger reported from a point about half way between here and Primero that fifteen bodies bad been recovered and that 135 more were in the mine with no hope of being rescued alive.
The cause of the explosion is unknown. A rescue party that left this city is expected back about 2 o’clock in the morning with complete reports of the disaster.
The criticism being directed against the company owning the mine is very severe as there is an apparent attempt to prevent the details from being made public. A large number of men who worked in the mine live in Trinidad, going back and forth on miners’ trains each morning and evening. Great excitement prevails in this city among the wives and children of the entombed men.
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 29, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Big Jim Thompson for the Defense
James P. Thompson, known to his Fellow Workers as Big Jim Thompson, was the first witness called by the defense in the Chicago I. W. W. Trial. He was on the stand for two days and spoke of his many years as an I. W. W. organizer.
FW Thompson wept as he recalled the Wheatland hop-pickers strike of 1913 and the massacre of the improvised workers there, shot down by sheriff’s deputies for the crime of attempting to organize.
Hop Pickers, Durst Ranch, Wheatland, California, 1913
Through his tears, Thompson predicted:
Some day, when Labor’s age-long fight for life and freedom is ended, then will there be a monument raised over the graves of the Wheatland martyrs-and it will show the little water-carrier boy and his tin pail lying there on the ground mingling his blood with the water that he carried, and over him, in a posture of defense, the brave Porto-Rican with the gun he had torn from the cowardly hands of the murderers who had fired upon a crowd of women and children.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 26, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Landis Rules Against I. W. W.; Defense Opens
From The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.) of June 25, 1918:
HARD BLOW IS DEALT I. W. W.
—–
Judge Landis Declines to Admit Report
of Industrial Relations Committee.
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(By Associated Press)
Chicago, June 24.-Federal Judge Landis dealt a hard blow to the defense in the I. W. W. trial today, counsel admitted, when he barred from evidence the eleven volume report of the federal industrial relations commission of which Frank P. Walsh was chairman.
On the commission’s report the I. W. W. based its entire course of dealing with the industrial situation, according to George F. Vanderveer, chief of counsel for the defense.
The attorney, in making his opening statement of the case of the defendants, who are charged with seditious conspiracy, denied that the I. W. W. organization had attempted to destroy the existing industrial system.
It was to lay the foundation of his case that the lawyer sought to submit in evidence the “I. W. W. Bible,” as published in 1915 [1916]. He declared the Walsh report was the “guiding light” of the I. W. W. members in all that they did.
Judge Landis refused to allow the defense to go into a general inquiry of industrial conditions.
Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism
From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.
Industrial Unionism:
What It Is
By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]
CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?
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