Tag: Eight-Hour Day

Hellraisers Journal: The Struggle of the Northwest Lumber Workers from the International Socialist Review

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, Sunday September 16, 1917
The Great Northwestern Lumber Strike: Causes and Demands

From the International Socialist Review of September 1917:

LUMBER BARONS REFUSE GOVERNMENT REQUEST
As we go to press we learn that Secretary of War Baker sent a telegram to the West Coast Lumbermen’s Association, urging an eight-hour day for Pacific Coast lumber workers.
According to an Associated Press dispatch, Robert B. Allen, Secretary of the Association, said the lumbermen were anxious to co-operate with the government, but “they did not feel that they could concede the eight-hour day at this time.” This open defiance of the government by the gentlemen composing this Association, coming at this time, is rank treason, and fifty thousand lumber jacks are watching the outcome.

Lumber Workers WA, ISR, Sept 1917

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Hellraisers Journal: Idaho National Guard Invades Washington, Arrests IWW Lumber Strike Leaders at Spokane Union Hall

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday August 31, 1917
Spokane, Washington – Local Leaders of I. W. W. Held by Military

From the Great Falls Daily Tribune of August 30, 1917:

Spokane, Aug. 29.-[…..]

James Rowan, district secretary of the I. W. W. for the northwestern states, who ordered a general strike, is still held as a military prisoner in the county jail with 11 other alleged I. W. W. They were arrested here by Major Wilkins August 19, the day before the strike was to have become effective.

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From the International Socialist Review of August 1917:

https://archive.org/stream/ISR-volume18#page/n45/mode/1up

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General Strike of Lumber Workers

AS we go to press a telegram brings the news of a general strike of all lumber workers west of the Mississippi river. It reads as follows:

Seattle, Wash., July 17. General strike has been called by Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500 of the I. W. W. Thousands responding to call. Solidarity fine. No scabs so far. John Martin.

The lumber trust and its henchmen, the state officials, county and city officials, with the aid of the militia, are resorting to the most ruthless methods to break the strike. Halls have been closed, strikers by the hundreds arrested and thrown in jails, or herded in stockades, but still the spirits of resistance grows. The lumber jacks have made up their minds that they are tired of the rotten conditions, and the long hours, and they will simply not tolerate them any longer. They are out to win this fight, and the $500,000 defense fund raised by the Lumbermen’s Association will not stop them. If the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million dollars to defend their profits, then the “jacks” say that the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million more dollars to increase the pay of the lumber jacks. Late reports state that the authorities are backing down and the halls are being reopened. The September Labor Day edition of the REVIEW will have an illustrated article covering the strike which we hope to call—How the Lumber Jacks Won!

[Drawing by Robert Minor added to article.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for April 1917: Found in West Virginia as Organizer for UMWA

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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What the lawmakers give you
they can take away.
The only thing you are sure of
is what you win for yourself.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday May 10, 1917
Mother Jones News for April: Mother Jones Returns to West Virginia

Mother Jones, WV with children of striking miners, ISR 1913

Who could ever forget the story of Mother Jones in West Virginia during the Paint and Cabin Creek Strike of 1912 and 1913 when she was held prisoner and court-martialed by the military forces of the that state?

Mother Jones has recently returned to the state of West Virginia, along with Peggy Dwyer, as an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. This is where we find her during most of the month of April 1917.

First, however, we find her mentioned in and article in the New York Tribune of April 1, 1917, written by John J. Leary, Jr., and entitled “How Old Is The Eight-Hour Movement?”

“How old is the eight-hour movement,” asked the city editor, when the attention of the country was focussed on the labor question by the decision of the Supreme Court upholding the Adamson eight-hour act….

As a matter of cold fact, the first law fixing the hours of labor at eight was enacted in New York fifty years ago, in 1857, to be exact. A joker in the law, however, prevented its being much more than a dead letter, for it was also provided that the law should apply only “where there is no contract or agreement to the contrary.” [With the bosses, of course, writing the contracts.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Abandons Her Neutrality; Says Kaiser Should Be “Kicked Off His Throne”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Why should the workingmen fight for
the robbers of Wall street?
Let them fight their own battles.
-Mother Jones

That old blood sucker,
the kaiser, ought to
be kicked off his throne.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 4, 1917
Des Moines, Iowa – Mother Jones Speaks Out on European War

WWI Dead All On Our Side, Ryan Walker, Nw Wkr, Mar 22, 1917

Overnight, perhaps reacting to the War Resolution now before Congress upon the request of President Wilson for same, Mother reversed her stand regarding American involvement in the terrible slaughter now taking place between the waring nations of Europe. In an interview reported by the April 2nd edition of The Des Moines Register, Mother declared:

I hate war. We must not throw our American workingmen into olive drab uniforms, stick guns in their hands, and ship them over to France to be fresh slaughter for the cannons of the devilish kings of Europe.

If John D Rockefeller, Morgan, the Guggenheims, or Wall street wants to see Germany defeated, let them go over and fight in the allies’ trenches. Why should the workingmen fight for the robbers of Wall street? Let them fight their own battles, says I!

The next day, the Register reported that Mother had “abandoned her neutrality:”

That old blood sucker, the kaiser, ought to be kicked off his throne, and if he ever starts anything with this country we will lick hell out of him if I have to raise a regiment of 10,000 women myself.

Thus “Mother” Jones, firebrand speaker, abandoned her neutrality in a speech that held spellbound the miners of the thirteenth district, U. M. W. A., who were celebrating the nineteenth anniversary of the securing of the eight-hour day for miners at the Coliseum yesterday afternoon.

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Hellraisers Journal: How the Railroad Brotherhoods Won the Battle for the Eight-Hour Day

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, Monday October 30, 1916
Washington, D. C. – The Brotherhoods and Adamson Act

The October edition of the International Socialist Review published two articles regarding the Railroad Brotherhoods and the Adamson Act, which we have re-published in today’s Hellraisers, see below. President Wilson signed the Adamson Act into law early in September just in time to prevent a national railroad strike set to begin on Labor Day.

From the cover of the Review, October 1916:

RR Worker, The Winner, ISR, Oct 1916

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Hellraisers Journal: How A Cold Storage Egg Inspired Organization of Domestic Workers’ IU, Part II

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, Thursday September 28, 1916
Denver, Colorado – Jane Street on Housemaids’ Union

Jane Street, Baltimore Sun, Sept 24, 1916

The Denver’s Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union, Local No. 113 of the Industrial Workers of the World was founded last spring by Miss Jane Street. Today we offer part two (of two parts) of an article about that union and its tactics from The Washington Post of September 24, 1916:

How A Cold Storage Egg Started
The Servant Girls Union (Part II)
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Miss Jane Street, organizer of the Housemaids’ Union, speaking of its purposes, said for publication in this newspaper:

Of all the abused people on earth none is worse treated than the general housemaid. The majority of housewives follow an aged tradition of looking down on those who serve them and their families and refuse to practice patience or give counsel or regard the women they hire as human beings with like impulses, like passions, like aims and hopes as their own.
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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones in Evansville, Indiana, for Labor Day Celebration, Comes Out for Wilson

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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When there’s a fight on, I go.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 5, 1916
Evansville, Indiana – Two Interviews with Mother Jones

The people of Evansville were fortunate enough to enjoy the presence of Mother Jones at their Labor Day celebration yesterday. While in Evansville, Mother was interviewed by two of the town’s newspapers-which interviews we are pleased to offer in full.

From the Evansville Press of September 4, 1916:

Mother Jones, Evansville (IN) Press, Labor Day Sept 4, 1916

MOTHER JONES DEMANDS 6-HOUR DAY;
WANTS WILSON
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Eight-hour day! Huh!

Mother Jones, in Evansville Monday to speak at the Labor day picnic, thinks that six hours a day is enough.

(White-haired, she has, at 86, a complexion 16 might envy-rose and snow she is!)
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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on “The Class War” -for the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The industrial union embracing all
and fighting and winning for all
is the demand of the hour and
the lesson of the years.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 1, 1916
For the Review: Debs Reflects on Labor Day

ISR, Debs on Class War, Sept 1916

LABOR DAY is drawing near and I have been asked by the Review to say a word for the special number to be issued for the celebration of that day. Labor Day this year will furnish abundant material and inspiration for its celebration.

At this writing twenty thousand iron workers are fighting for their lives on the Misaba Range. We see scarcely a mention of this desperate battle in the capitalist press and, if it were not for our own papers, chiefly the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW, we would know little about the fierce industrial conflict raging in that section of the country.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on the Mesabi Iron Miners’ Strike in Minnesota, Part II

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, Thursday August 31, 1916
Mesabi Range, Minnesota – “Injustices, Large and Small”

From The Outlook of August 30, 1916:

THE MINING STRIKE IN MINNESOTA
-FROM THE MINERS’ POINT OF VIEW

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE OUTLOOK
[Report of Mary Heaton Vorse, Part II]

Mary Heaton Vorse, 1874-1966, Spartacus Ed

Under the contract system, the miner contracts to mine ore for a certain price a car load. The price of this car-load may be, and is, varied at any time according to the conditions encountered. It is the mine captain who fixes the price. According to the miners, it has been the custom to sell the best places for prices varying from the virtue of the miners’ wives and daughters to presents of drinks and cigars. So universal is this custom that any reference to the graft of the captain is received in any meeting of miners by laughter and applause.

There are at present in the hands of the Federal investigators affidavits sworn to before a notary public concerning all these forms of grafts, from insulting propositions made to the women of miners’ families to affidavits that drinks or money were paid for the job.
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