Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Liberator: “The Uncaging of Debs” by Charles P. Sweeney, First Hand Account

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 5, 1922
First Hand Account of the Release of Eugene Debs from Atlanta Penitentiary 

From The Liberator of February 1922:

The Uncaging of Debs

EVD Leaves Prison Dec 25, Waves Hat, Stt Str p1, Dec 31, 1921IT was Christmas morning. By the President’s order a man was to be released from prison in Atlanta some time that day and proceed to Washington-no one seemed to know just when. But at six o’clock we newspaper men were tipped off to go to the warden’s house, where Debs was said to be having his breakfast. We waited. An hour passed and then Debs, in his blue denim prison raiment, was ushered out a side door of the Warden’s house into a car and shot back to prison. We then were certain the President had not succeeded in getting his prisoner past our lines during the night. That was something, for few men have left prison supposedly free under circumstances as mysterious as these which attended the release of Eugene V. Debs. And, perhaps, no handful of reporters ever faced so strange a task as that of watching a prison so the President of the United States couldn’t sneak a prisoner up to Washington without anybody knowing it.

Playing this curious game against Presidential secrecy, we had to chase every car that came from the prison, overtake it, look in, satisfy ourselves Debs was not there, and then return to our station in the road two hundred yards from the prison. And this all morning, until eleven o’clock, when we boarded the train that took Debs to Washington. And this, we learned, was what happened at the prison.

One by one they came to say good-bye to Debs. One man, a hospital patient, fainted in his arms. Sam Moore, the life-term Negro murderer made over by Debs, wept, and Debs kissed him and promised him he would constantly advocate his freedom. Moore has been in prison thirty years, since he was twenty. A lawyer, also a lifer, imprisoned for killing his wife in a fit of drunken jealousy, embraced the man he said was the best friend he ever knew. The way over from the hospital to the great prison building was choked with men in blue denim, all with outstretched hands. There were tears, and there were smiles, according to temperament. Up the corridors they blocked his way, crowded about him, followed him as he advanced. The warden had suspended all rules. All, all, could come to the front. On every tier they rushed forward to the great barred windows of the building that is as broad as a city block. From the outside, out beyond the prison foreground and beyond the gates, those windows now were pictures of bars and faces, faces, faces. Debs reached the end of the corridor by the warden’s office and the big front door. It opened. Then the shout went up, and as Debs was going down the granite steps it resounded through the vast place and carried out over the free air to the ears of those away out in the road.

But it was no longer a shout. For it would not die. It steadily increased in volume. It was twenty-three hundred caged men crying to see the one who was loose. He walked away out over the grass foreground where he could see them all and they could see him. Cheers mingled with fanatical screams, and yells of his name. For a half a minute he stood with his hat high in air. Then his hand fell, then his head and he wept. He walked back to the warden’s automobile, and away he went with the great noise in his ears.

We all got in the train with Debs and rode with him to Washington, and not yet do any of us know why it was that the President of the United States took so great an interest in this man, whom he does not think worthy of the rights of citizenship.

CHARLES P. SWEENEY.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “The Capitalist Press” by Agnes Thecla Fair & “Boy Scouts” by Ryan Walker

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Quote Agnes Thecla Fair, Revolutionary Women, Stt Sc Wkgmn p4, Nov 20, 1909—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 4, 1912
“The Capitalist Press” by Agnes Thecla Fair, “Boy Scouts” by Ryan Walker

From The Coming Nation of February 3, 1912:

POEM Capitalist Press by Agnes Thecla Fair 1, Cmg Ntn p16, Feb 3, 1912POEM Capitalist Press by Agnes Thecla Fair 2, Cmg Ntn p16, Feb 3, 1912POEM Capitalist Press by Agnes Thecla Fair 3, Cmg Ntn p16, Feb 3, 1912

———-

re Lawrence, Boys Scouts Today n Future by Ryan Walker, Cmg Ntn p16, Feb 3, 1912

———- Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “The Capitalist Press” by Agnes Thecla Fair & “Boy Scouts” by Ryan Walker”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Social Democratic Herald: Eugene Debs Recalls Labor’s Battles in the “War for Freedom”

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SDH p2, Jan 11, 1902———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 12, 1902
Eugene Victor Debs Recalls Bloody Scenes of Battle in Class War

From the Social Democratic Herald of January 11, 1902:

The War for Freedom.

By Eugene V. Debs.

EVD crpd Nw Orln Tx Dem p3, Jan 26, 1900

The country we inhabit is generally supposed to have been in a state of peace since the close of the Civil War, excepting the brief period required to push the Spaniards off the western continent. And yet during this reign of so-called peace more than a score of bloody battles have been fought on American soil, in every one of which the working class were beaten to the earth, notwithstanding they outnumber their conquerors and despoilers at least ten to one, and notwithstanding in each case they asked but a modest concession that represented but a tithe of what they were justly entitled to.

To recall the bloody scenes in the Tennessee mountains, the horrors of Idaho, the tragedies of Virden, Pana, Buffalo, Chicago, Homestead, Lattimer, Leadville, and many others, is quite enough to chill the heart of a man who has such an organ, and yet above the cloud and smoke of battle there shines forever the bow of promise, and however fierce the struggle and gloomy the outlook, it is never obscured to the brave, self-reliant soul who knows that victory at last must crown the cause of labor.

Thousands have fallen before the fire of the enemy and thousands more are doubtless doomed to share the same fate, but

“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, Is ever won.”

The struggle in this and other lands by the children of toil is a struggle between classes which in some form or other has been waged since primitive man first captured and enslaved his weaker fellow-being. Through the long, dark night of history the man who toiled has been in fetters, and though today they are invisible, yet they bind him as securely in wage slavery as if they were forged of steel.

How the millions toil and produce! How they suffer and are despised! Is the earth forever to be a dungeon to them? Are their offspring always to be food for misery? These are questions that confront the workingmen of our day and a few of them at least understand the nature of the struggle, are conscious of their class interests, and are striving with all their energy to close up the ranks and conquer their freedom by the solidarity of labor.

In this war for freedom the organized men in the Western states have borne a conspicuous and honorable part. They have, in fact, maintained better conditions on the whole than generally prevail, and this they have done under fire that would have reduced less courageous and determined men. But, notwithstanding their organized resistance, they must perceive that in common with all others who work for wages they are losing ground before the march of capitalism.

It requires no specially sensitive nature to feel the tightening of the coils, nor prophetic vision to see the doom of labor if the government is suffered to continue in control of the capitalist class. In every crisis the shotted guns of the government are aimed at the working class. They point in but one direction. In no other way could the capitalists maintain their class supremacy. Court injunctions paralyze but one class. In fact, the government of the ruling class today has but one vital function, and that is to keep the exploited class in subjection.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Debs Freedom Monthly, Terre Haute Edition, Gene Gives a Speech from the Porch of His Home

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Deb Mag Jan 1922 p3———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 9, 1922
Debs Speaks from the Porch of His Home Upon Return from Prison

From the Debs Freedom Monthly of January 1922:

Debs Mag p3, Dec 1921 Jan 122

——-

Debs Mag Cv Dec 1921 Jan 1922

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Hellraisers Journal: Release of Eugene Debs, Who Will Continue to Wage War on War, Perplexes Harding Administration

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 31, 1921
Comrade Eugene V. Debs Will Continue to Wage War on War

From The Atlanta Tri-Weekly Journal of December 29, 1921:

SCENES AT THE FEDERAL PRISON ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

RELEASE OF DEBS IS NOW PERPLEXING TO ADMINISTRATION

Harding and Daugherty Are Not Sure It Was Wise
to Free Unconverted Radical
—————

BY DAVID LAWRENCE
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal._
(Copyright, 1921.)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28.-Eugene V. Debs has left behind him here a trail of mingled emotions. The administration which set him free is somewhat sadder and wiser this morrow morn.

For both President Harding and Attorney General Daugherty, who have tried their gospel of “understanding” in trying to convert Debs to a life of peace instead of agitation are not so sure that they have succeeded. Their disposition is to say no more about the case and hope that Debs will not abuse the liberty that has been given him by becoming a center for more agitation, a rallying device for radicalism and professional exploitation of the working classes.

The Harding administration tried a unique experiment-one that has been clouded somewhat in mystery because of the very delicacy of the undertaking. It is a fact that Debs could have had a pardon long ago if he would have agreed to withdraw the views he expressed against this country’s entrance into the war…..

DEBS SAYS HE WILL WAGE WAR ON WAR

Washington, Dec. 27.-War against war is to occupy a great part of the future activities of Eugene V. Debs, freed from Atlanta penitentiary by executive clemency on Christmas day, according to his own announcement here today. The Socialist leader said he could make no concrete plans for the future until he reached his home in Terre Haute, Ind., for which he will leave Washington at 6:20 o’clock tonight.

Debs announced his determination to obtain if possible a vow from every man, woman and child in this country and every other country which he might visit, that they refuse to take up arms and go to war. But until world relations undergo a reformation, he asserted, wars would continue.

[He said:]

There will be war, in some form, and war growing progressively more and more destructive until a competitive world has been transformed into a co-operative world. Every war for trade sooner or later and inevitably becomes a war of blood.

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Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release

From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:

Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921
——Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921———

(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history. 

Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child. 

Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile. As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free. 

“Citizen of the World.” 

So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights. 

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Hellraisers Journal: From Terre Haute, Indiana: Debs Reacts to Confession of McNamara Brothers in Los Angeles

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Quote EVD, Socialists n IU, Chg Sept 18, ISR p258, Nov 1910

———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 5, 1911
Terre Haute, Indiana – Eugene Debs Reacts to Confession of McNamara Brothers

From The Indianapolis News of December 4, 1911:

VIEWS OF EUGENE V. DEBS
—————

Socialist Candidate for Mayor of LA
Job Harriman, Socialist Candidate
for Mayor of Los Angeles

Socialist Leader Says
the McNamaras Do Not
Belong to His Party.

(Special to
The Indianapolis News.)

TERRE HAUTE, Ind., December 4.-Eugene V. Debs repudiates the assertion that the McNamaras are Socialists. Said he:

“The brothers are Democrats and Catholics, and that church is fighting the Socialist Party. We Socialists took the ground that they were to be regarded as innocent until proven guilty. We have nothing to apologize for; we never condoned dynamiting, but always condemned it. We simply tried to see that the brothers got a square deal, and especially because they had been kidnapped.

If the confessions had been held until after Tuesday [election day] the men would have been hanged. The mercy extended to them is the price paid for political effect in the election that day in Los Angeles.”

[Paragraph break and photograph added.]

———————-

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for October 1901, Part II: Found Speaking in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; Returns to West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 13, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1901, Part II
Found in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia

From the New York Evening World of October 28, 1901:

“MOTHER” JONES TO SPEAK TO THRONGS
———————-

GREAT TURNOUT EXPECTED IN PATERSON TO-NIGHT.
——-
Unionists of All Trades Are Invited to Hear
the Famous Labor Agitator.

——-

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

A great gathering of silk weavers and other factory workers is expected to-night at Apollo Hall in Paterson, where “Mother” Jones, the famous Pennsylvania labor agitator, will deliver an address on the advantages of unionism.

Although she comes here at the special invitation of the silk workers, the members of all other trades are invited to attend the meeting, and a great turnout of factory hands is looked for.

Daniel Teevan, the labor leader, has returned to Paterson, after having accompanied “Mother” Jones in her tour through the upper part of New Jersey.

He reports she was well received every where, and at Phillipsburg, Summit and Sterling she addressed large and enthusiastic meetings.

After leaving Paterson “Mother” Jones will go to Hazleton, where she will speak on Tuesday.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Lucy Parsons Speaks Out About the Attempted Assassination of President William McKinley

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Quote Lucy Parsons re McKinley Shot, Chg Tb p3, Sept 7, 1901—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 8, 1901
Chicago, Illinois – Lucy Parsons on Attempted Assassination of Mckinley

From The Chicago Daily Tribune of September 7, 1901:

CHICAGO ANARCHISTS’ REGRET.
———-
Receive the News of Attempted Assassination
with Statements of Fear That
Cause Will Be Injured.
———-

Lucy Parsons, Life of AP, pub Chg 1889

Anarchists in Chicago received the news of the President’s attempted assassination with regret, and disclaimed all knowledge of or acquaintance with the assailant. They described his action as foolish, wanton, and calculated to work great injury to the cause of anarchism.

“What is the latest news of the President?” was the first question asked by Mrs. Lucy Parsons, when visited last night at her home, 1777 North Troy street.

[She further stated:]

They say he may recover? I am glad to hear that. I hope he will recover. He is a good President, just as good as any capitalistic President could be, and it would be unfortunate if he should die of his wounds.

I have been afraid for two or three years that something of this kind would happen. I have feared that some radical, mistaken person would attempt to kill the ruler of either America or Great Britain. Nothing could be worse for the cause of anarchism. What is the use to strike individuals. That is not true anarchy. Another ruler rises to take his place and no good is accomplished.

The assailant is a man I never heard of before, and I do not believe he was in a conspiracy with anyone else in planning his deed. No man who has the true principles of anarchy in his heart would do such a thing. The President is chosen by the people, and comes as near representing them as a man could under the present system.

McKinley is a good President. He listens to the voice of the people and tries to heed its behest. I admire him for his conduct in regard to the Spanish-American war. If ever a man was pushed and kicked into a war against his will President McKinley was in that war. He is a civic President, always interested in the peaceful welfare of the country. If he should not recover we will have Roosevelt, a military man, young and full of aggressiveness. That would be unfortunate for the nation.

Oscar W. Neebe, one of the Anarchists who was indicted charged with participation in the haymarket riot, but acquitted, also said he never had heard of the assailant, and thought the assassination was the work of a crank or insane man.

“What was his motive? What did he expect to accomplish?” said Neebe, when told that the man claimed to be an Anarchist.

You might kill a thousand Presidents, but the next would represent the same class as those that went before, because we are ruled by capital in this country, and we are likely to be for a long time to come. So they call the fellow an Anarchist? Of course, every man who dues a crazy or foolish deed is an Anarchist in the eyes of the public. As a matter of fact there are no real Anarchists in this country. There are plenty of Socialists, of varying shades of belief, some revolutionary, perhaps, but no Anarchists. I myself am no Anarchist, and I doubt if you could find one in Chicago.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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