Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 26, 1919
Leavenworth Prison – Stanley J. Clark Confirms Brutal Treatment
From The New Appeal of January 25, 1919:
I.W.W.’s Beaten Up, Says Stanley Clark
International Socialist Review February 1918
Confirmation of the story of brutalities inflicted upon political prisoners in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kans., published in a recent issue of The New Appeal, has reached us in the form of a letter from Mrs. Dorothy Clark, wife of the well-known Socialist lecturer, Stanley J. Clark. Clark was convicted of having violated the Espionage Act and is a fellow prisoner of the I. W. W.’s and other radicals at Leavenworth.
Mrs. Clark, hearing of the occurrences at the federal prison and anxious to learn whether her husband had been injured, came to Kansas City, Mo., which is within an hour’s car ride of the prison doors. While learning that Clark had escaped maltreatment she also learned that The New Appeal’s report of the manhandling of other prisoners was not exaggerated. In a letter to The New Appeal Mrs. Clark says:
I came here because I had heard of the inhuman treatment that men were receiving in this prison at Leavenworth and I knew that I should go insane unless I could see Stanley and know just what had happened. I was relieved of course to find that nothing had happened to him personally, but I found him terribly stirred up and in a perfect frenzy of indignation over the treatment that the other prisoners had received.
It seems that they have a new warden, who at once began to lengthen the hours of work and to cut down food rations. Some of the poor boys, not realizing that they were buried in there and by the world forgotten and absolutely at the mercy of their captors, attempted to strike to enforce the old and regular system of hours of work.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 18, 1919
Chicago, Illinois – National Labor Convention for Mooney Hears from Radicals
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of January 16, 1919:
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(Special Dispatch to The Bulletin.)
Chicago, Jan. 16.-At this morning’s session of the Mooney Labor Congress Ed Nolan scored the capitalist press on its criticism of the invitation of Debs and its attempt to give a sense of dissension among the delegates. Debs’ name was again greeted with tumultuous applause. It was moved that the Nonpartisan league be given the floor. The motion was defeated. Dunn of Butte moved to give the Detroit delegate the floor. The Detroit leader clearly outlined the program before the convention as follows:
No political begging, a general strike to free Tom Mooney and also to take a stand to free political prisoners and recognize Russia; reorganize the American Federation of Labor on an industrial basis.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 12, 1909
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1908
Found with Locals of U. M. W. in Springfield, Illinois
During the month of December 1908, we found Mother Jones in Springfield, Illinois, where it was reported by the December 17th edition of the Illinois State Register that:
“Mother” Jones, a noted leader among the miners’ organization of the country, addressed the Springfield sub-district quarterly meeting [U. M. W.] at Arion hall yesterday afternoon [December 16th], and in consequence the meeting was very largely attended. “Mother” Jones is engaged in soliciting assistance for Mexican workingmen who are engaged in a struggle against the despotism of the Mexican government, and who, when their plans became apparent to that government escaped to the United States, their extradition now being sought. The efforts of “Mother” Jones has the endorsement of the Illinois executive board of the United Mine Workers of America [John H. Walker, President], and it is her intention to make a tour of the state visiting the miners’ locals in behalf of these men.
While there is a soul in prison
I am not free.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 9, 1919
America’s Political Prisoners by Floyd Dell
From The Liberator of January 1919:
“What Are You Doing Out There?”
[by Floyd Dell]
THIS magazine goes to two classes of readers: those who are in jail, and those who are out. This particular article is intended for the latter class. It is intended for those who wish to prove themselves friends of American freedom rather than those who have had it proved against them.
The relation between these two classes of people is embarrassingly like that in the old anecdote about Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau refused to obey some law which he considered unjust, and was sent to jail. Emerson went to visit him. “What are you doing in here, Henry?” asked Emerson.
“What are you doing out there?” returned Thoreau grimly.
That is what the people who have gone to prison for the ideas in which we believe seem to be asking us now.
And the only self-respecting answer which we can give to this grim, silent challenge, is this: “We are working to get you out!”
That is our excuse, and we must see that it is a true one. We are voices to speak up for those whose voice has been silenced.
There are some silences that are more eloquent than speech. The newspapers were forbidden to print what ‘Gene Debs said in court; but his silence echoes around the earth in the heart of workingmen. They know what he was not allowed to tell them; and they feel that it is true.
It would be wrong to think of this as an opportunity to do something for Debs; it is rather our opportunity to make ourselves worthy of what he has done for us.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 4, 1909 Five Patriots Illegally Imprisoned in American Jails
With a banner headline and a wide column down the center of the front page of this weeks’s Appeal to Reason, Eugene V. Debs calls for the rescue of the Mexican and Russian patriots now held for deportation by American authorities at the behest of foreign tyrants.
From the Appeal to Reason for January 2, 1909:
RESCUE THE REFUGEES
By EUGENE V. DEBS.
When Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionist, refugee from his native land for attempting to overthrow its government, reached the United States, in 1851, he was received as the “distinguished Hungarian patriot” by President Fillmore, hailed as another Washington by the American congress and welcomed by the American people amidst demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm. He was a rebel and a revolutionist and before making his escape had been condemned for “treason” and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment “on account of taking a position favorable to six patriots who had been illegally imprisoned.”
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 27, 1918 New York, New York – Jack Reed & Art Young on Second Masses Trial
From The Liberator of December 1918:
-Defense Attorney Seymour Stedman by Art Young
SEYMOUR STEDMAN, attorney for the defense, in his eloquent summing up, referred as follows to the fact that the Masses editors asked an injunction compelling the Post Office to mail the very magazine for publishing which they were later indicted:
Do men who are committing a crime go into a Federal Court and face a District Attorney and ask the privilege of continuing it? A strange set of burglars! A strange set of footpads! A strange set o smugglers! A strange set of criminals! I ask Mr. Barnes to tell you when before in his experience, men in the City of New York came in and filed an appeal, opening all their proof and all their evidence and all their testimony and said, “if the Court please, we insist on the right to continue this deep, dark, infamous conspiracy, and have it sanctified by an advocate of the United States Court.” History finds no parallel that I know of in any criminal procedure which has ever taken place.
-John Reed on Second Masses Trial
About the Second Masses Trial
by John Reed
IN the United States political offenses are dealt with more harshly than anywhere else in the world. In the amendment to the Espionage Act [the Sedition Act] it is made a crime equivalent to manslaughter to “criticize the form of government.” The sentences in Espionage cases run anywhere from ten to twenty years at hard labor, with fines of thousands of dollars.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1898
Omaha, Nebraska – Eugene Debs Tells Old Story of Wealth and Poverty
On Wednesday December 21st, Eugene Debs was interviewed in Omaha and said, in part:
It is the old, old story—economics—the concentration of industry. The middle class of middlemen are being obliterated; they buy goods in small quantities and pay more than the department stores which buy by the carload. The department store advertises cheap goods, gets the laboring man’s cash, and the little corner grocery has the “credit” business. The small dealer is crushed: labor is pinched and suicides have increased 200 percent in the last ten years…..
I believe the present system, so destructive to the better elements of mankind, is soon to be eradicated, and that by the workingmen. They are beginning to think, and from the products of their minds is developing an economic revolution.
From the Omaha World-Herald of December 22, 1898:
Morally I Mean to Pay Them
[Interview with Eugene Debs]
No, I did not attend the [A. F. of L.] convention at Kansas City. I am in deep sympathy with the meeting and wanted very much to go, but my lecture engagements prevented. I have been speaking every night for two weeks.
With what success?
At Boone, Iowa, I had a fair audience, but usually through Iowa my audiences were not large. You know, the railroads and other corporations have no love for me, and it is given out cold to the men, and many of them who would attend stay away, fearful of incurring the displeasure of the powers that be. Especially is this true in railroad towns. However I cannot complain: I speak and the papers report and thus I reach the masses.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 21, 1918
Mother Jones News for November 1918
-American Revolutionary, Thomas Paine, Among Favorite Authors
From The New Appeal of November 30, 1918:
Mother Jones and Debs
This morning’s mail has brought The New Appeal Book Dept. orders for Voltaire’s “Candide” from Mother Jones and Eugene V. Debs. Mother Jones writes:
I want Voltaire’s greatest work, “Candide.” You know he is a very great writer. He and Victor Hugo and Thomas Paine were my favorites when the late J. A. Wayland and I used to sit up at night and talk these great writers over.
Mother Jones knows that Voltaire’s “Candide” is worth reading. Do you? If you don’t, then be sure to order this beautifully printed and exquisitely bound edition, which we are selling, postpaid, for only 80 cents. This is a low price and cannot remain that low very long. But we will fill your order if we receive it in the near future.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 17, 1918
Eugene Debs Sends Message to Tom Mooney: “Tear up that commutation!”
From The New Appeal of December 14, 1918:
Debs Wires Mooney
Eugene V. Debs has sent the following telegram to Tom Mooney:
Tear up that commutation and fling the scraps in the brazen face of the corporation hireling that insulted you and the working class by that infamous act.
Let Patrick Henry once more speak through you, “Give me liberty of give me death!”
There must be no compromise! You are innocent! The working class is aroused as never before in history. They will tear the murderous clutch of criminal capitalism from your throat.
All hail the general strike. If they insist on war let it come. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
God loves justice and hates cowards. Stand by your colors and the workers of the world will stand by you; to victory or death.
Now is the time for the workers of America to prove themselves. Tom Mooney and his comrades cry aloud to the proletariat of the world.
Arouse ye millions for whom he risked his life, and save that life for the future of his class, and for the vindication of right and justice.
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