Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 24, 1913 Updates on Three Strikes: Merryville, Little Falls and Akron
From the Spokane IndustrialWorker of February 20, 1913 -Covington Hall on Merryville, Louisiana, Lumber Workers’ Strike -Joseph J. Ettor on Prisoners of Little Falls, Massachusetts, Textile Strike
From Solidarity of February 22, 1913 -“20,000 Rubber Workers Revolt in Akron! I. W. W. in Full Control.”
Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 1, 1912 Lake Charles, Louisiana – Nine Members of B. T. W. on Trial for Murder
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 31, 1912:
WITNESSES ARE BADLY TANGLED ———-
The jury that is to try the nine members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers who have been singled out by the “Sawdust ring” as those it would most love to adorn with rope cravats, was completed at 3:25 p. m. on October 15th. The jurors were chosen in order named.
Court convened at 9 a. m. on the 16th and a roll call of witnesses showed 82 summoned by the state and 66 by the defense.
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Brothers in Toil!
Judge Hunter and all our lawyers are putting up a magnificent fight; nothing but a lack of funds can beat us, and we appeal to you to help us, now, today! In labor’s name, we appeal to you!
COMMITTEE OF DEFENSE, B. of T. W.
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Opening Events of B. T. W. Trial ———-
The trial of the members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers charged with conspiracy to murder A. P. Vincent, whiskey-soaked Lumber Trust gunman, at Grabow, La., opened at lake Charles, La., on October 7.
The first move of the state was absolutely in disregard to all of the capitalist laws governing conspiracy trials but the objection of the defense was overruled by the presiding judge, Winston Overton. The cases of nine of the defendants were brought into court, whereas the entire number of arrested men should be tried at one and the same time.
The nine men are A. L. Emerson, president B. T. W.; Ed Lehman, organizer; Edgar Hollingsworth, secretary Local 223, B. T. W.; J. H. C. Helton, secretary De Ridder Socialist Party local, and the following members of the B. T. W.: Louis Brown, Jack Payne, Ed Ezell, C. Havens, and R. H. Chatman.
The judge ruled that no member of the B. T. W. nor of the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association would be allowed to serve on the jury…..
The star witnesses for the state made a very poor showing on the opening days. By their own testimony it was proven that attempts were made to get the gunmen drunk so that they would provoke disorders. One witness was forced to admit that he did not want to testify but was paid to do so by the Lumber Trust. The testimony of others was very conflicting……
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Women With Them-Would They Riot?
(Special Telegram to the “Worker”)
Lake Charles, La., Oct. 28.-The defense opened today’s testimony with S. O. Cooley, who stated that John Helton took supper with him and afterwards went toward Grabow, where they heard shooting. They then returned home. Helton was unarmed and was never east of Grabow during the battle, as state witnesses had testified. The Ezell family came to his house after the shooting. Two of Ezell’s children were wounded.
J. D. Golden, was then called to the stand. He stated that Emerson talked only on unionism. Helton was never east of Grabow. He saw the first shots which came from the direction of Galloway’s office.
Christine Cooley stated that Helton and Golden came to her father’s home shortly before supper. Helton, Golden and her father had only left the house a little while when the shooting started. She paid attention to the time they were away because she was uneasy about her father when she heard the shooting.
Doris Lebieu stated that she went to all the towns with the unionists and other ladies and children were along. Her wagon stopped in front of the Galloway office. She was certain that the first shot was fired from the office as the bullet brushed her nose.
Minnie Tilly stated that her family tried to leave the house during the battle, but were met by armed negroes and became so frightened that they returned home. They left later, meeting Deputy Gibbs and armed negroes. On Saturday she, and her uncle met M. M. Galloway, who said: “Go back, you S. of a B., or I will blow your brains out.” They went.
Miss Bailey stated the “Leather Breeches” Smith told Denby to take that gun and take Deputy Grantham and Jim Whidden to old man Whidden’s and let no one hurt them.
Claude Payton stated that he saw the first shot fired from Galloway’s office. He left the commissary and went to Ezell’s house. He saw the shooting from Zook Galloway’s house and lumber yard. Ezell’s children and two of his children were wounded.
The prosecution was unable to shake the testimony of any of the witnesses. Labor’s right to organize, not the accused men, is really on trial. All unionists had better get busy.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 6, 1912 Lake Charles Jail, Louisiana – Heroic Women Stand by Fighting Lumberjacks
From The Progressive Woman of October 1912:
THE NEW WOMAN of THE OLD SOUTH By Covington Hall ———-
Union Prisoners in Lake Charles Jail, and the Big Dinner Given Them by the Women of De Ridder, La.
IN the long and bitter struggle of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers against the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association none have suffered more or borne their part in the battle more heroically than the wives, mothers and daughters of the fighting lumberjacks of the south.
In the long and terrible lockout, lasting from July, 1911, to February, 1912, when hundreds of families were reduced to the direst want and misery by the silken savages of the lumber trust in its brutish effort to starve the men out of the union and back into submission, the women, with their babies living on cornbread and molasses, still urged their husbands, fathers and brothers to keep up the battle for “A man’s life for all the workers in the mills and forests,” no matter what the cost, no mater what Kirby, Long and their brother wolves demanded as the price of liberty.
When the blacklist was added to the lockout, when thousands of workers were hounded from state to state, when the only way a man could get a job was to dishonor himself by taking an oath of allegiance to the lumber trust, by swearing obedience and loyalty to his sworn enemies, the women took up that other battle cry of the Union: “Don’t be a peon-be a MAN!” and the desperate fight for justice still went on.
When all law was suspended, when the states of Louisiana and Texas abdicated their authority to the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association and allowed this combine of grafters and gunmen to proclaim martial law throughout the timber belt, when the worst in this scum and slum class came to the surface and the reign of terror that reached its climax in the “riot” at Grabow was inaugurated, when no one’s life or person was safe anywhere in the empire of the lumber trust, the women still urged the men on to battle and in many instances took their places beside them on the “firing line.”
When sixty-five of our best and bravest boys were arrested, thrown into jail and charged with murder on account of the “riot” at Grabow, when men were torn from their sick mothers, wives and children, taken from their homes in the dead of the night by the deputy sheriffs of the Association, still the women did not quail but shrieked defiance at their enemies, still louder rose the cry of the Brotherhood: “ONE BIG UNION, life and freedom for ALL the workers!“
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 14, 1912 Lake Charles Jail of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana – B. of T. W. Prisoners Form Union
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of September 12, 1912:
BATTLING B. T. W. FORM JAIL UNION
REBELLIOUS PRISONERS FORM UNION IN JAIL -BLACK HOLE OF CALCASIEU IS LABOR’S RECRUITING GROUND -NO COLOR LINE DRAWN IN PRISON-REBELS ARE RISING.
B. of T. W. Prisoners, Lake Charles La.
On August 15th a charter was issued by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers to the following white and colored workers:
White: Pat Perkins, R. W. Perry, John Perry, L. Perry, J. M. Richley, Joe Rogers, J. H. Simpson, W. D. Smith, S. B. Slaydon, W. R. Stacey, Ben Sturgia, C. D. Woodard, Leon Zebeau, Chas. Zebeau, C. E. Jones, John Killen, C. Leblue, B. J. Lee, George M. Lacey, Ed. Lehman, J. W. Moor, W. A. Mathis, Frank McBride, R. Parkham, J. Pennington, Chas. Gibbons, Josh Perkins, Walter Delcour, Williams Davis, Andy Denby, A. L. Emerson, Will Estes, Ed. Eyell, Frank Farr, G. H. Gibson, G. M. Grim, J. H. C. Helton, C. Havens, C. C. Holley, Arthur Hammonds, R. V. Hennigan, W. E. Hollingsworth, H. L. McFillen, A. H. Burge, R. D. Burge, J. H. Baily, A. A. Bondreaux, J. W. Bowers, L. H. Brown, Waldon Cooley, W. A. Chatham, A. R. Cryar, A. F. Creed, Jeff Cooper, B. B. Collier, Tom Cooper, J. W. Callie, J. D. Perkins, Herman Slaydon, Charlie Hampton, O. P. Bell, John Hood.
Colored: Peter Blackman, Elisha Fowler, Jason Clark, Garfield Holcomb, Pink Morris, Silas Anderson, H. Green, Jim Cotton, Robert Chopin, Dennis Myles, Robert Johnson, Milton Mitchel, Robert Milton.
These boys compose the roll of honor making up the membership of Local Union, Jail No. 1, B. of T. W., office address, Parish Prison, Lake Charles, La. They also organized a local of the Socialist Party, Jail No. 1, with 54 members and both locals are still growing. Men are coming into the prison every day and joining, or sending in their applications. This is, indeed, the deathless spirit, the spirit that must and will conquer all before it. Dead, the souls of these boys will do a mightier work for the emancipation of their class than ever yet; imprisoned, yet their voices will be heard and, mingling with the cries of Ettor and Giovannitti, all the workers of the world will be awakened, triumphant the hosts of labor will arise and the social revolution be an accomplished fact. Truly did Edward Bellamy speak when he said: “No masters class has ever learned anything from the experience of its predecessors and the capitalist class will be no exception to the rule.” Down here in the Land of Dixie the slugging committee of the capitalist class is still busy, just as it was in Lawrence, just as it is in Canada and San Diego,-power(?)-crazed, gold-drunk hyenas trying to slug and shoot back the onward upward march of the human race! Fools who base their system on a thug’s heroism and a detectives’s honor, this is what the capitalist class has already degenerated to, and this is the surest sign of a system’s fall.
All that is now left for the working class to do to end its age-long misery is to unite and rise in ONE BIG UNION.
RISE!
Save Ettor, Giovannitti, Emerson, Lehman, and all the other hero lumberjacks now in the Black Hole of Calcasieu!
RISE!
Clan of Toil, awaken! Rebels of the South, arise! Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing but your chains to lose! You have a World to gain!
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 24, 1912
Jay Smith, Secretary of B. of T. W., Appeals for Funds to Save Fellow Workers
From Pittsburg (Kansas) Labor Herald of August 16, 1912:
Shall Emerson Die?
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[Letter from Jay Smith, B. of T. W. Secretary]
Brother, Comrades, Fellow-workers:
On Sunday evening, July 7, 1912, while the Brotherhood of Timber Workers were holding a mass meeting on the public road at Grabow, La., thugs concealed in the office of the Galloway Lumber Co., fired upon our people with rifles and pump guns loaded with buck-shot. When the firing ceased, three men were found to be killed outright, several mortally and seriously wounded and thirty-odd others injured, the great majority being union men. Immediately following the “riot”, as it was called by the capitalists class, President A. L. Emerson, who was our chief speaker on the occasion, and other members of the Brotherhood, were arrested, denied bail, and placed in the county jail at Lake Charles, La., which prison is totally inadequate to accommodate the number of men now confined there, and is in a deplorably unsanitary condition, besides. Despite the condition of this prison, sick and wounded men are confined there, the authorities giving the excuse that there is no room in the I hospital for them and our boys are still being arrested.
This, so far, is the outcome of the “riot” at Grabow. That our boys were neither looking for nor expecting any such trouble is borne witness to by the fact that many of them had taken along their women and children, and, that none of the last were killed by the Trusts gunmen, is a miracle.
All the news and evidence so far reported shows that our men were not only ambushed, but that the “riot” had been carefully planned by the Lumber Trust, and we have every reason to believe, that hidden in the offices of the Galloway Lumber Co., were gunmen who had been sent over from other places by the Southern Operators’ Association. The “riot” was but the culmination of a long series of outrages against the Brotherhood and all other Union labor, and was staged by the Operators’ Association for the purpose of crushing out the unions in the Southern timber districts and terrorizing its workers back into meek submission into peonage. This has been the boasted purpose of the Operators’ Association: “To crush all union labor out of their mills and camps, drive all Socialist speakers out of their towns, and run things as they damned please.”
For twenty long months we have fought this mighty and merciless combination of capital, this vicious combine of grafters and gunmen, and, because they have not been able to whip us back into their mills and slave pens, they have planned the massacre of Grabow, and, failing there to kill our President Emerson and his bravest associates, they have taken him and them to jail and are preparing to stage another legal murder.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 19, 1912
Grabow, Louisiana – Company Gunthugs Shoot Down Members of B. T. W.
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 18, 1912:
Kirby’s Thugs Shed Workers’ Blood
The Washington Times July 8, 1912
Not content with maiming and mangling the peons in their slave camps in the lumber district the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association has turned loose their gunmen to take the lives of those who dare to struggle for better conditions.
As a sequel to the degenerate actions of Kirby’s thugs there are three men lying dead in Grabow, La., and 20 others are wounded. Some of the latter are not expected to live.
Among those placed under arrest as the result of the battle between the scabs and the B T. W. men are A. L. Emerson, president of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, and J. T. Galloway, president of the Galloway Lumber Co.
The dead are A. T. Vincent, scab; Roy Martin, Cates Hall, and two unidentified men, unionists; the fatal wounded being Ed Brown and J. Tooley, union men, and Bud Hickman, farmer.
The union men were from De Ridder and nearby points. They had gathered under direction of Emerson to hold demonstration in front of the non-union mills. The objective point was Grabow, where the Galloway plant is located.
Following a series of meetings, one of which was held at Carson, amid the jeers of the company thugs and the continual din created by hoodlums hired by the Kirby interests, the band of union men marched to the Galloway mills.
There Emerson commenced to address the non-union men, asking them to be men rather than peons and to stand up for their class. The beating of tin cans and other noises created by company hirelings drowned out his voice. Suddenly an oath was heard high above all other noises and a shot pierced the body of a union man standing just beside Emerson. The shot came from the company office, it is alleged.
This was a signal for action and the scabs and thugs of the Lumber Trust had access to the guns and ammunition stored close at hand and the shooting became general.
After a battle lasting over ten minutes Emerson and the union men were forced to beak for cover. They gained the woods and made their way to their homes.
It is said that more than a score of arrests have been made upon the charge of murder. The militia has been called out, despite the protests of many persons. Especially strong in denouncing the calling of the troops are Wm. D. Haywood and Covington Hall., who were in New Orleans on business for the B. T. W. at the time of the outrage. It is thought that the presence of troops will add to the tenseness of the situation.
The feeling against Kirby’s hired murderers is growing and its echo is heard in Eastern Texas. In Oakdale, La., the company gunmen shot at H. G. Creel, leading writer for the National Rip-Saw. Creel has been instrumental in exposing Kirby’s blacklist and also is spreading broadcast the story of the shameful conditions in the Southern lumber camps. Along with the leaders of the B. T. W. there is a price upon his head, it is alleged, offered by the Lumber Trust.
The brotherhood was organized about 16 months ago and just recently decided to affiliate with the I. W. W. Organizers from the ranks of the Industrial Workers were sent into the district and were getting results. W. D. Reed, well known Colorado speaker, was also in the Southern lumber district, in the interest of the lumber workers.
The Southern Sawmill Operators’ Association has its headquarters at St. Louis, from which point it has been directing a bitter warfare against the B. T. W. The weapons used have been the boycott of B. T. W. sympathizers, the blacklist of B T. W. men, the mysterious shooting of active union men, the lockout of 5,000 men from their plants, and now open warfare on the B. T. W. and I. W. W. organizers at the hands of hired murderers, while the instigators of these cowardly deeds skulk in their palatial offices.
The B. T. W. is built of the same kind of men as the I. W. W. and against the spirit of revolution that springs alike in their breasts the guns of Kirby’s thugs are powerless.
Instead of breaking up the B. T. W. these damnable actions will awaken the spark of manhood in those who have been mere onlookers and the result will be ONE BIG UNION of toilers which will soon have control of the forests and the mills now being despoiled by Kirby and his breed of degenerate coyotes.
The unemployed were clubbed by the police
under republican Mayor Busse in Chicago
and under democratic Mayor McClellan in New York.
-Ben Hanford, 1908 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 28, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – Republican Party to Unemployed: “Go and eat grass!”
From the Socialist Montana News of June 25, 1908:
Ben Hanford and Republicans
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“GO AND EAT GRASS” IS ADVICE.
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Socialist Candidate for Vice President
Scores Hypocrisy and Vulgarity
of Wall Street’s Recent Convention.
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“Go and Eat Grass!”
“If the people have no bread, why don’t they eat cake?”
So says the national convention of the republican party to the more than five million unemployed men in the United States. What sweet consolation to them and the twenty millions of people dependent on them.
We are a prosperous people, declared the leaders of the convention.
We have wealth to the value of $110,000,000,000, more than one quarter of all the wealth on earth.
We make more than one-third of the world’s modern manufactured products.
The republican convention was opened each day with prayer, and by a different clergyman—but there is no evidence that it was closed with a benediction.
The delegates considered themselves “the people”, and therefore they could truly say “the people” were prosperous. It was a convention of lawyers, office holders and millionaires. Why shouldn’t Senator Burrows be prosperous? For thirty-nine years he has drawn pay from a city, county, state or national treasury. Why shouldn’t Senator Lodge be prosperous? He graduated from Harvard Law School thirty-three years ago, and has been fed at the public crib for twenty-five of the years since past. These worthies fear lest socialism would “have the nation own the people.”
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