Tag: Duluth MN

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs: “A worldwide, humanity embracing revolution is on the calendar.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote, cry for freedom, Duluth Truth, Feb 15, 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 17, 1918
Eugene V. Debs on the Coming Social Revolution

From the Duluth Truth of February 15, 1918:

Towards the Rising Sun

by Eugene V. Debs

EVD by LS Chumley, ISR Jan 1916

The earth is in travail; the race is suffering from the pangs of parturition. A worldwide, humanity embracing revolution is on the calendar—in red letters—of the 20th Century. The impending social crisis is the most portentous that ever issued from the womb of time.

Historical epochs mark the growth of man, the progress of events, the rise and sweep of civilization.

Prophets and philosophers, catching the spirit of coming events, force and proclaim them; and as they approach, poets and pamphleteers, orators and agitators, dramatists and musicians, animated by the new spirit, acclaim the glad tidings of the sunrise of the morrow.

These are the heralds of the dawn; the torchbearers of progress, the evangels of advancing civilization.

Living, they are hated and reviled, crucified and damned.

Dead, they live again and forever.

Freedom is the universal shibboleth of the present age.

And as the cry for freedom surges from the soul and leaps from the lips of Labor, a thousand and million proletarians, in all the zones that girdle the globe, lift their bowed bodies from the dust, and join in the swelling anthem of the Social Revolution.

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Hellraisers Journal: Honeymoon of Elizabeth Flynn & Jack Jones Halted, Will Rejoin Comrade Husband in Spring

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 14, 1908
New York, New York – Young Socialist Returns to Parent’s Home

For the past few weeks, the news of the arrest of the husband of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has been published in newspapers across the nation. For example, we have this item from Alabama’s Centreville Press of February 13th:

Socialist’s Husband Arrested.

John A. Jones, husband of Elizabeth Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator, was arrested at Aurora, Minn., on a charge of incendiarism.

—–

At this time Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is in New York City and her husband, Jack Jones, is out of jail and has recently been interviewed by a reporter for the Duluth News Tribune.

From Mississippi’s Vicksburg Evening Post of February 3, 1908:

PRISON HALTS HONEYMOON OF GIRL
—–

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

New York, Feb. 3.-With a romance written in suffering, a lifetime crowded into a few months, through which the divine fire of a cause gleams like a beacon light, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator whose words have at seventeen made her known across a continent, has returned ill and exhausted to her father’s home in New York City.

It is just two years ago since Miss Flynn, then a student in the Morris Heights High School, became affiliated with the Socialist movement. Gifted with a quick brain and a facile oratory, she seized upon the dramatic possibilities of the great struggle of labor and capital and spoke as one inspired.

The Flynns are New England folk, the father of a Bowdoin College man and civil engineer, whose difficulties with a company which refused him the money he had earned first aroused the thoughtful Elizabeth, eldest of a brood of four, to interest in the situation. When the Flynns left their Connecticut home to come to New York the girl, already deep in socialist literature, became associated with the leaders in this city. But she was a child, too young to become a member of the association, therefore she was permitted to speak from their platform only as an affiliated agitator.

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Hellraisers Journal: Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Tours Mesabi Iron Range, Speaks on Industrial Unionism

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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It’s great to fight for freedom
with a Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 15, 1907
Northern Minnesota – Miss Flynn Tours and Speaks

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of Dec 14, 1907:

Miss Flynn’s Tour a Success

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

I arrived in Duluth, Minn., on Friday, November 14th, and on Sunday afternoon, November 16th, the first meeting was held in Superior, Wis., with an audience of 300 people. The second was held the same evening in Duluth, Minn., with an attendance of from 600 to 700 people. At the two meetings the people were enthusiastic in demonstrating their appreciation of industrial unionism. The capitalist papers gave us extended write-ups, copies of which have been forwarded to headquarters, carefully omitting the portions of the talks which dealt with themselves and “the panic.” The chairman of both meetings was Fellow Worker Zollner, a fighter of ability in this vicinity.

The first range town we visited was Proctor, Minn., the home of the “Duluth, Mesaba and Northern” transportation workers. The round-houses and yards of this ore-carrying road are located here, all of it being stock-trust property. The company very generously gave their employers a special train into Duluth to see the “Land of Nod,” which was playing there that night, which had the effect of diminishing the size of our audience. “The Land of Nod” is better for the proletarians than an industrial awakening. Miss Flynn promised to come again, however-one hundred times, if necessary-to get the doctrines of industrial unionism before the workers. Let the company take notice.

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Hellraisers Journal: “GIRL WITH A MISSION,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House in Duluth, Minnesota

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday November 27, 1907
Duluth, Minnesota – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of November 23, 1907:

THE GIRL WITH A MISSION
—–
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Addresses a Packed House
at Duluth on Industrial Unionism

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

The visit of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to Minnesota in behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World is arousing great interest among the workers of that state. She spoke on Sunday night, November 17, at Duluth, to an audience that filled Odd Fellows’ hall. From an interesting report of the meeting in the Duluth Harald we take the following extracts:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is nothing if not earnest. Socialistic fervor seems to emanate from her expressive eyes, and even from her red dress. She is a girl with a “mission,” with a big “M,” and she delivered her sweeping generalities with perfect indifference as to where they hit.

She spoke to an audience which packed Odd Fellows’ hall last evening. There were a few labor leaders there out of curiosity; a scattering of women who were curious to see this strange school girl with the strange mission in life, and a large number of followers of the Socialistic doctrines expressed.

Characterizing the American Federation of Labor as organized scabbery, and branding it as a labor trust working injury to the majority of laborers for the benefit of the minority, the girl orator was evidently voicing the sentiments of many of her Socialistic followers in the room, but her statements in this respect made the several local labor leaders present hitch uneasily about in their chairs.

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Hellraisers Journal: Suffragist Alice Paul Sentenced to Six Months in Workhouse for “Obstructing Traffic”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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We feel that we are not subject
to the laws of this court,
in the making of which we have no part.
-Alice Paul

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday October 26, 1917
Washington, D. C. – Rebel Alice Paul Jailed for Freedom’s Cause

Although the following report from the News and Observer scores Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party as “the laughing stock of Washington,” we nevertheless find therein the statement issued by Miss Paul and her supporters shortly after sentence was passed upon her.

From North Carolina’s Raleigh News and Observer of October 24, 1917:

ALICE PAUL HAPPY IN JAIL UNDER
THE CLAIM OF MARTYR
—–
She Will Serve at Least Half a Year Unless
There Is Un-expected Turn
—–

SHE WAS ILL WHEN FIRST PICKETS
WERE ARRESTED
—–
Congressional Union For Woman Suffrage or Its Successor
The National Woman’s Party
Considered More or Less a Fake Organization
Since It Started
—–

By H. E. C. BRYANT.

Suffragists, Alice Paul, Eve Pb Ldg p1, Philly, Oct 22, 1917

Washington, Oct. 23.-Miss Alice Paul is happy now that she is in jail, and can make the claim of martyr. She was ill when the first White House pickets were arrested, tried and sent to prison but as soon as she got well she began to try to force the authorities of the District of Columbia to recognize her as the leader of the lawbreakers. She was sentenced to six months for one offense and one month for another. She will serve at least a half a year unless some unexpected turn comes to free her.

The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage or its successor, the National Woman’s Party, has been more or less a fake organization ever since it started. Conventions have been held, and delegates “selected” from the “various States.” A few years ago, when a national convention was held here, and all the States were to be represented, the News and Observer correspondent went to the Columbia Theatre, where it assembled, to get a list of the North Carolina suffragists. The Tar Heel seats were filled with women carrying North Carolina standards but only one or two out of the score who “represented” the State had ever as much as passed through it. Most of the women claiming to be North Carolinians lived in the District of Columbia, where they were born. The “national convention” was made up of fake-delegates. Like the three famous tailors of Tooley street they met and resoluted.

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Hellraisers Journal: Grand Jury Refuses to Indict Mesabi Range Strikers, Teofilo Petriella Goes Free

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 17, 1907
Mesabi Iron Miners’ Strike: Good News from the Front Lines

From the Duluth Labor World of September 14, 1907:

GRAND JURY REFUSES TO INDICT STRIKERS
—–
No Miscarriage of Justice in Duluth Courts.—
Won’t Practice Range Methods.
—–
Jury Practically Holds That Petriella Was
Justified in Protecting Himself.
—–

Mesabi Miners Strike, T. Petriella, Mpls Tb, July 27, 1907
Teofilo Petriella

The cases against the striking miners on the Mesaba range have fallen flat. When the Grand Jury took up the matter of the nine miners who were bound over on the charge of inciting a riot they listened to the evidence presented by the state, and then promptly, and very properly dismissed the matter by asking that the defendants be released.

Petriella too, who was bound over for carrying concealed weapons, was dismissed, and his $1,000 was returned to him.

One of the members of the grand jury in commenting on the cases said: “It was ridiculous to bring such frivilous cases before the grand jury.”

Judge Brady ought to see by this time that he is putting the county to needless expense in binding men over to the grand jury simply because hirelings for the Steel Trust bring them before him.

Petriella admitted carrying a revolver, but the jury thought he was justified, in view of the fact that newspapers on the range were threatening his life, advising tar and feathers, and demanding that he be driven from town. Petriella’s bail money was returned to him.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1907, Part II, Found on Minnesota’s Iron Range, and in Chicago, & Cincinnati

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 13, 1907
Mother Jones News for August, Part II: Travels to Chicago

Mother Jones, Tacoma Times, Sept 19, 1904

On August 21st, Mother left Duluth, Minnesota, after concluding her time in Northern Minnesota where she had been traveling the Mesabi Range in support of the striking iron miners and giving speeches alongside of C. E. Mahoney of the Western Federation of Miners. She next traveled to Chicago where she was found speaking in support of the Telegrapher’s Strike. At one union meeting she advised young woman on the issue of keeping company with scabs:

When you find these fellows sneaking back to work, keep him out if you can; if you can’t, renounce them and see that any fellow who calls on you carries a union card or else order him from your door.

Mother also made a short trip to Cincinnati in order to speak at Socialist Picnic in that city.

From The Cincinnati Post of August 23, 1907:

MJ, Ad Speech, Cinc Post p4, Aug 23, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal: Labor World Scores IWW: “Labor and the nation will be better off when we are rid of them.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Don’t worry, fellow-worker,
all we’re going to need from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 5, 1917
From the Duluth Labor World: I. W. W., Foe of Nation & Enemy of Labor

AFL Emblem, Am Fedist, Aug-Dec 1917

The Duluth Labor World, voice of the American Federation of Labor in northern Minnesota, has now declared the Industrial Workers of the World to be a foe of the United States of America and an enemy of true American Labor. Having been willing to organize foreign-born and unskilled workers where the A. F. of L., for the most part, would not, (the United Mine Workers being a noble exception), the I. W. W. is now accused of “exploiting” alien prejudices.

From the Duluth Labor World of September 1, 1917:

WWIR IWWR Labor's Enemy, Labor World, Sept 1, 1917

The time has come when it is necessary for the men of labor to speak out emphatically against any and all organizations claiming the support of workingmen that are not wholly American to the core. This is no time for quibbling. We do not propose to sit idly by and permit our cause to suffer longer from the foolhardy course of such a self-styled labor organization as the I. W. W., an organization that never did anything for the workingmen save pull their legs.

The enemies of the American trade union have for years been busy in Continental Europe propagating among workingmen against the American Federation of Labor. They declare it is controlled by the so-called “Capitalist Class;” that it is a mass-backed, conservative organization formed for the purpose of perpetuating the wage system, and when foreign laborers come here to work they bring with them their prejudices against the American labor movement.

This is why such an organization as the I. W. W., appeals to the foreign born laborers in this country who have not identified themselves with the American movement. And as a result the poor fellows are frequently led to deep industrial precipices from which they are ruthlessly hurled by the pretensive revolutionary leaders in the I. W. W.

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Hellraisers Journal: Striking Miners Cannot March on Labor Day; Imported Workers Imprisoned by Company Guards

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 4, 1907
From the Duluth Labor World: News from Mesabi Miners’ Strike

The August 31st edition of The Labor World provides much news from the Mesabi Range concerning the ongoing strike of the iron ore miners led by the Western Federation of Miners.

Miners Not Allowed to March on Labor Day.

Mesabi Iron Miners Strike of 1907, Labor Day, Lbr Wld Aug 31, 1907

Strike Continues.

Mesabi Iron Miners Strike of 1907, Liberty, Petriella, Lbr Wld Aug 31, 1907

[Note: Photograph with caption added is from the Duluth News Tribune, the voice of the mine owners’ interests in Minnesota.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Comes to Duluth to Support Striking Mesabi Iron Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Plea for Justice, Not Charity, Quote Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday August 27, 1907
From The Labor World: “Labor’s Little Angel” Speaks in Duluth

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

Mother Jones spoke at the Duluth Armory on Sunday August 18th. With her on the platform where William E. McEwen, editor and publisher of The Labor World, and C. E. Mahoney who served as acting president of the Western Federation of Miners until the recent release of Charles Moyer from jail in Boise.

The striking iron miners of the Mesabi Range were supported by the speakers, and the steel trust and their gunthugs were condemned.

During her speech Mother Jones declared:

When they bring in the guns and the military, they think they have conquered; they rejoice at the thought they have conquered labor. You can conquer the steel trust, you can conquer the paper trust—every other trust in the world, but put it down for the editor in the morning that you can’t conquer the labor trust. If you wipe out the working class, what are the rich people going to do; they can’t even cook a meal of victuals for themselves.

From The Labor World of August 24, 1907:

ARMORY MASS MEETING WAS
MOST SUCCESSFUL
—–
Mother Jones Tells Working People of
Duluth Something About
Labor Conditions.
—–
Large Crowd Turned Out in Spite
of Inclement Weather—
Interest Was Great.
—–

The mass meeting at the armory last Sunday evening [August 18th] brought out 300 of the faithful. The weather was most unfavorable. The worst storm of the season was at its height, and even those on the program as speakers didn’t expect to see more than the committee on hand. However, the attendance was good, and spirit was high.

The meeting was called lo order by W. E. McEwen. On the platform with him were Alderman Jos. Shartell, Mother Jones, C. E. Mahoney, acting president of the Western Federation of Miners, and M. Kaplin. The Finnish band opened the meeting with the playing of the Marseilles.

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