Tag: December 1909

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part II: Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones to Philly Shirtwaist Makers Dec 19, NY Call Dec 21, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 10, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part II:
-Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

On Sunday evening, December 19th, Mother Jones spoke to shirtwaist makers of Philadelphia at meetings held at the Labor Lyceum and Mercantile Hall. By unanimous vote and to deafening cheers, a strike was declared and set to begin at 9 a. m. on December 20th.

From The New York Call of December 21, 1909:

[Mother Jones Speaks.]

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

The action of Director Clay in forbidding the holding of a meeting in the Arch Street Theater, last night, to declare the strike was severely criticised by Mother Jones, in her speeches. She denounced the city administration as roundly as she denounced the bosses, who, she declared, had become wealthy through the toil of the girls before her.

[She said:]

They have an Independence Hall down here on Chestnut street; I wonder what it means to those who, for some deep political purpose, prevented you from having independence in the way of having a meeting to assert your rights? Tomorrow morning I hope every girl in this hall will walk out of the shops and let the employers make the waists themselves. Walk out at 9 o’clock, and don’t wear your Sunday-go-to-meetings clothes.

Let the people see you. Let them see that you are going to strike the shackles of slavery off your body. Get the spirit of revolt and be a woman. It’s not a Mrs. Belmont or an Anne Morgan that we want, but independent workers who will assert their rights.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part II: Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part I: Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Parade past swells who wear waists, Speech Dec 9, NY Cl p2, Dec 10, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 9, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part I:
-Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers

From the New York Call of December 10, 1909:

“This is not a play this is a fight!”

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

With these ringing words, Mother Jones, the valiant agitator for the freedom of the workers, struck the keynote of the enthusiastic mass meeting, in behalf of the waist strikers, held by Local New York, of the Socialist party in Thalia Theater yesterday afternoon. The big crowd applauded this sentiment to the echo……

Mother Jones Speaks.

Mother Jones, the friend of the miners and champion of all oppressed, was greeted with a very hearty reception by the big crowd. She was in excellent conditions. As she scored the system with sledge-hammer blows of logic and wit, the enthusiasm of the crowd broke into storms of applause.

[Said Mother Jones in opening:]

Through all the ages you have built a wonderful monument of civilization, but you don’t own it. You make all the fine waists, but you do not wear them. You work hard and are poorly paid, and now you have been forced to strike for better conditions of labor, shorter hours and higher wages.

You ought to parade past the shops where you work and up the avenues where the swells who wear the waists you make live. They won’t like to see you, they will be afraid of you!

If I belonged to a union and was on strike I would insist that we parade past the shops and homes of the masters.

You must stick together to win. The boss looks for cheap workers. When the child can do the work cheaper he displaces the woman. When the woman can do the work cheaper he displaces the man. But when you are organized you have something to say about the conditions of labor and your wages. You must stand shoulder to shoulder. The women must fight in the labor movement beside man. Every strike that I have ever been in was won by the women.

Last Great Fight of Man.

[Declared Mother Jones, as she concluded amid storms of applause:]

Whether you know of it or not, this is the last great fight of man against man. We are fighting for the time when there will be no master and no slave. When the fight of the workers to own the tools with which they toil is won, for the first time in human history man will be free.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part I: Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers” →

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Age 19, Braves Motherhood in Spokane Jail Cell in Fight for Free Speech

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Work for Justice Despite Hardships, Tacoma Tx p7, Dec 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 31, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Miss Flynn, Age 19, Braves Motherhood in Jail Cell

From The Tacoma Times of December 29, 1909:

ONLY 19, SHE BRAVED MOTHERHOOD IN CELL
TO AID IN STRUGGLE FOR FREE SPEECH

EGF, ed Spk Chc p2, Nov 18, 1909

(Special Correspondence.)

SPOKANE, Dec. 29.,-“If I have found work to do in a struggle for what is right, and just and human, then I would be unworthy and unhappy, should I lay down the work because of hardships, persecutions or privations. That is all.”

Nineteen years old, a wife, soon to be a mother, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, member of the national committee of the I. W. W., explained in her cell in the city prison here why she passed unflinchingly through the indignity of arrest, trial and conviction, through the insults of the “third degree” and the tortures of the “sweat box;” why she faced bravely a coming ordeal of motherhood behind jail bars.

This girl was arrested here for her activities in the struggle for free speech being carried on by the Industrial Workers of the World against the city authorities who are attempting to enforce what has been declared by one judge an unconstitutional ordinance against street speaking. She was tried for “criminal conspiracy,” convicted and sentenced to a term in jail. She heard the sentence without any visible manifestation of emotion and though in a delicate condition, she smiled calmly when the grated door of her cell was swung shut, leaving her alone.

Ten miserable years of childhood spent in the squalid poverty-ridden tenement districts of New York are the explanation of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s activities in the “free speech war” in Spokane. Filled with a spirit of revolt against existing industrial systems, she allied herself, four years ago, with the work of the Industrial Workers. She was a frail slip of a girl, 15 years old, then. When she was 17 she became the wife of J. A. Jones, an I. W. W. organizer. Though her married life has been happy, in her work she has retained her maiden name. Her education, snatched from bitter expedience and what few books she could find time to read, this girl leader is refined and gentle in speech and manner.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: New York Call Extra: “Shirtwaist Strikers Present Facts of Great Struggle to the Public of New York City”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 30, 1909
New York, New York – The Call Supports Uprising of Shirtwaist Makers

From The New York Call of December 29, 1909:

New York Call Extra Uprising Edition, p1, Dec 29, 1909

SHIRTWAIST STRIKERS PRESENT FACTS OF GREAT
STRUGGLE TO THE PUBLIC OF NEW YORK CITY

—–

WORKING GIRLS’ STRIKE RESULT OF OPPRESSION
—–
Discontent With Shop Conditions Had Been Steadily Growing
for Years-What Led Up to Present Situation-Employers
Desperate and Losing Ground Rapidly, While Strikers
Are Standing Solid, but Financial Aid Is Needed.
—–

By WILLIAM MAILLY.

When 30,000 workers in one trade, mostly girls under twenty years of age, quit work with one accord and go on a general strike almost without warning and with little preparation there must be some exceptional reason for their action.

The present strike of shirtwaist makers is an exceptional strike. Behind it is a long, bitter story of working conditions that had gradually become unbearable-a story of low wages that went lower in hard times, but never higher in good times, of long hours of day and night and Sunday labor in the busy season and idleness or semi-idleness in the dull season, of unsanitary shop conditions, with poor light, foul air and unhealthy surroundings, of the tyranny, and some times worse, of petty bosses and foreman, of a subcontracting system which relieved the manufacturer, so-called, of responsibility, but made it possible for contractors to employ labor at beggarly wages and to reap large profits-all these things had combined to make the general lot of the shirtwaist makers miserable, degrading and increasingly oppressive.

And these things prevailed because the shirtwaist makers were unorganized. They had no union. They were competing among themselves to their own undoing and the great benefit of their employers. They were helpless to resist oppression because they not act together. They were victims because they submitted being victimized.

What Led to the Revolt.

But a change had to come. Such a state of things could cannot prevail indefinitely. And when the change did come it came all the more quickly because the force that impelled it had been gaining strength for so long a time. Like a long-smoldering volcano that suddenly erupts, so the growing discontent among the shirtwaist-makers found vent in a revolt that burst forth within a few hours…..

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part II: Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Mex Rev Fornaro, NYT p15, Nov 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 22, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part II:
-Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro

From the New York Sun of November 29, 1909:

DEMAND DE FORNARO’S PARDON
—–
Protest Against the Cartoonist’s Imprisonment
Voiced at the Berkeley Theatre.

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

A meeting to protest against the imprisonment of Carlo de Fornaro, a cartoonist, for libeling a Mexican editor was held at the Berkeley Theatre last night. This resolution was adopted:

We the citizens of New York city in mass meeting assembled, herewith resolve that we regard the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro of libel and his sentence of one year’s imprisonment at hard labor as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack upon free speech and the freedom of the press. We demand that our Legislature repeal that part of the libel laws which gave an excuse for the action of the court and we call upon the governor of New York for the immediate and unconditional pardon of Carlo de Fornaro.

First of all reporters were introduced to Heriberto Barrow, who says he’s the Democratic candidate for President of Mexico, running against President Dias. He was a member of the House of Representatives, he said, and about a year ago introduced to Mexico to the New Idea party of young men, or Democratic party. In September he fled, fearing persecution. He says posters announcing his candidacy in big red letters are being torn down by the police in Mexico and any one that dares to indorse him openly is being thrown into prison by Diaz.

[Then followed, as speakers, Gaylord Wilshire, chairman of the meeting, and George Edwin Joseph, attorney for De Fornaro.]

Mother Jones, the Socialist propagandist, then took the centre of the stage and scanning the audience shouted that she had no fear of any Pinkerton dogs who were present and worked for Diaz. She was as ready to die to-night as any time in her fight for liberty.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part II: Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part I: Found Speaking for Socialism in the Lone Star State

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, For the Wage Workers, ISR p462, Nov 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 21, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part I:
-Found Speaking for the Socialist Party in the Lone Star State

From the International Socialist Review of November 1909:

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

MOTHER JONES was in to see us a few days ago. We asked if she had any message to send the readers of the Review and she replied:

FIRST, last and ALWAYS, of, for and BY the wage-workers.

Paste this motto in your hat. There never was any other one-half so good as this. Mother Jones infused this office with enough courage and ginger to keep us going till the next time she comes to see us.

[Photograph added.]

From the Appeal to Reason of November 13, 1909:

From page 4:

SHALL HE BE MURDERED?
—–

BY LUELLA TWINING.
—–

While in Los Angeles, Calif., I visited Comrade L. Guterrez DeLara, and his wife, Hattie Elliot DeLara. Comrade DeLara is charged with being an alien, an anarchist. He can prove by hundreds of witnesses that he is neither, but his trial before the Immigration Official Ridgway is to be secret, and as an official in Tucson inadvertently said, “Diaz has a long arm.” Our officials have too long been ready to do the bidding of that murderer, Porfirio Diaz, for us to trust them.

I learned to love the DeLaras dearly, and my heart bleeds for them. Every spare moment while I was with them we talked of the social questions and conditions in Mexico and America. With his black eyes blazing with the fire of the revolution DeLara said many, many times: “I must work and work and work to educate my people. That is our only hope. Diaz has stolen the money that should be used for schools and my people are in ignorance. I can not tell you in a few days of the suffering of the Mexican workers. They must be taught that Socialism is the remedy. They learn very easily if given an opportunity.”

It is this man who is charged with being an anarchist.

[…..]

Comrade DeLara said of the Appeal to Reason: “The Mexican workers appreciate the work the Appeal to Reason has done for them. They love Eugene V. Debs and Mother Jones, too.”

From page 5:

SW Edition Tx, AtR p5, Nov 13, 1909

—–

Lone Star Notes.

[…..]

Few speakers can awaken the workers as can Mother Jones. Her meeting at Troupe, where dense prejudice has existed, will be of great and lasting benefit to the movement. Some of the most prejudiced opponents of the movement there came to her at the close of the meeting and assured her that they were Socialists henceforth and contributed liberally for the expense of the meeting. Comrade Butler writes: “God bless Mother Jones; her memory will be enshrined in the hearts of the people long after Taft, Roosevelt and company are forgotten.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part I: Found Speaking for Socialism in the Lone Star State” →

Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced to Three Months in Spokane Jail for Conspiracy

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 18, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Convicted of Conspiracy

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part II of II.]

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced
to Three Months.

EGF, Joan of Arc, Nw Cstle Hld PA p21, Dec 17, 1909

Miss Flynn, or rather Mrs. Jones in private life, was arrested while walking on the street, on the new conspiracy charge that is now being used against the Industrial Workers. She has been editing and getting out the paper, the “Industrial Worker”, since the force was arrested.

This “conspiracy” charge makes any one concerned in coming or bringing people to Spokane to test the city ordinance guilty of the crime of conspiring against the peace of the city, and the authorities are working this to the limit. They even claim that their ordinance is superior to the Washington state laws, or the United States constitution. They completely ignore the fact that no inferior jurisdiction can make a law in contradiction to its superior.

The police have been itching to get Miss Flynn. She was thrown into a cell with prostitutes, insulted by the police, who came with their vile familiarity in the night, and abused terribly by the prosecuting attorney, Pugh. She is in a pregnant condition, and the greatest fears are entertain for her safety, the first child lost owing to her overwork on the platform. Her husband, who is Missoula, is worked up to an extreme nervous tension through suspense and anxiety.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: “Unexampled Barbarities” Used Against Prisoners of Spokane Free Speech Fight

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 17, 1909
Spokane, Washington – “Officials Use Russian Tortures”

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part I of II.]

The stand of the I. W. W. for Free Speech in Spokane is making the history that will disclose the hollowness of the claims of personal liberty the American constitutional government has made.

The brutal treatment of the prisoners has not been excelled in Russia. The Franklin schoolhouse where over 200 of them have been incarcerated is kept in a state of unparalleled filth. The floor has never been scrubbed; there are no receptacles for expectoration, a filthy pall is provided for the calls of nature, often overflowing. No beds or bunks are provided, and the men have to lie in this filth. There was no fire or stove, but the men began tearing down the building and making a fire on the floor, and so a stove was furnished.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, New York Labor Agitator Now in Spokane

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Western IWW Aggressive Spirit, IW p3, Aug 12, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 13, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Fights for Free Speech

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

A WOMAN LABOR AGITATOR.

EGF, ed Spk Chc p2, Nov 18, 1909

The tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn through the west, and the strenuous work she has been performing in generaling the Free Speech fights has introduced to this section of country and earnest and energetic young woman.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a married woman of New York, whose agitation in the labor movement has excited much attention in the capitalist press, and a certain amount in the labor and socialist press; although the attention given her by the latter has been by no means commensurate with the ability of her work, and the impression it has made upon those who have heard and seen her. But Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has broken into the labor movement under peculiar conditions. Reared in a socialist home, she grew up with her mind intelligent and keen as to the homogeneity of the socialist and labor movements, an idea that is as yet scarcely grasped at all in America, either by the great mass of laborers or the majority of the socialists themselves. To be a socialist, a social reformer, meant to Miss Flynn to work in the labor movement.

When the Industrial Workers of the World was organised she thought she saw in its methods the ideal line of activity for the workers to adopt, who were bent upon industrial emancipation through a revolutionary program. She became devoted to the interest of the Industrial Workers. She refused to ally herself with either the Socialist Party or the Socialist Labor Party because of their failure to co-operate decidedly with the I. W. W.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, New York Labor Agitator Now in Spokane” →