Tag: February 1903

Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 5, 1903
Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia – Deputies Gun Down Striking Miners

From The San Francisco Call of February 26, 1903:

Stanaford Mt Massacre, SF Call p3, Feb 26, 1903

CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 25.-At Stanniford [Stanaford] City, in Raleigh County, at dawn this morning, a battle took place between the joint posses of Deputy United States Marshal Cunningham and Sheriff Cook on one side and rioting miners on the other, as a result of which three miners were killed, two others mortally wounded and a number of others on both sides more or less seriously hurt…..

Miners murdered by deputized gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia, at dawn, Wednesday February 25, 1903:

William Dodson
William Clark
Richard Clayton

Miners mortally wounded:

Lucien Lawson
Joe Hizer

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia” →

WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV

Janet RayeMother Mary Harris Jones
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Has anyone ever told you, my children,
about the lives you are living…?
-Mother Jones
———-

MOTHER JONES, MINERS’ ANGEL

“I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.”

Mother Jones by Bertha Howell (Mrs Mailly), ab 1902

Let us stop and consider, for a moment, what would cause thousands of miners to lay down their tools and go out on strike, when striking meant homelessness and hunger for themselves and their families. Striking also brought down upon them the terror of the company guards, heavily armed deputies (often one and the same), state militia, bullpens, raids, court injunctions, and the wrath of the capitalistic press. In 1897, Mother Jones was in West Virginia traveling and speaking to miners and their families. John Walker of the United Mine Workers of America was traveling with her. In 1904, a reporter who had accompanied her wrote this account of one of her speeches:

Has any one ever told you, my children, about the lives you are living, more so that you may understand how it is you pass your days on earth? Have you told each other about it and thought it over among yourselves, so that you might imagine a brighter day and begin to bring it to pass? If no one has done so, I will do it for you today. I want you to see yourselves as you are, Mothers and children, and to think if it is not time you look on yourselves, and upon each other. Let us consider this together, for I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.

So the old lady, standing very quietly in her deep, far-reaching voice, painted a picture of the life of a miner from his young boyhood to his old age. It was a vivid picture. She talked of the first introduction a boy had to those dismal caves under the earth, dripping with moisture often so low that he must crawl into the coal veins; must lie on his back to work. She told how miners stood bent over until the back ached too much to straighten, or in sulpher water that ate through the shoes and made sores on the flesh; how their hands became cracked and the nails broken off in the quick; how the bit of bacon and beans in the dinner pail failed to stop the craving of their empty stomachs, and the thought of the barefoot children, at home and the sick mother was all too dreary to make the homegoing a cheerful one….

And so, while he smoked, the miner thought how he could never own a home, were it ever so humble; how he could not make his wife happy, or his children any better than himself, and how he must get up in the morning and go through it all again; how that some day the fall of rock would come or the rheumatism cripple him; that Mary herself might die and leave him, and some day there would be no longer for him even the job that was so hard and old age and hunger and pain would be his lot. And why, because some other human beings, no more the sons of God than the coal diggers, broke the commandment of God which says, “Thou shalt not steal,” and took from the toiler all the wealth which he created, all but enough to keep him alive for a period of years through which he might toil for their advantage.

[Said Mother Jones:]

You pity yourselves, but you do not pity your brothers, or you would stand together to help on another.

Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Speaks in Rochester, N. Y.: “Some Phases of the Labor Movement; or, Socialism and Civilization.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Socialist Ripe Trade Unionist, WLUC p45, May 31, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 22, 1903
Rochester, New York – Eugene Debs Speaks on Socialism and the Labor Movement

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (New York) of February 9, 1903:

SOME PHASES OF LABOR MOVEMENT
———-

ADDRESS OF EUGENE V. DEBS AT FITZHUGH HALL.
———-

THE WORKINGMAN’S HOPE
———-
Socialistic Programme Set Forth as
the Need of the People-The Tool of Production
-Reflections on Trusts-Panic Prophesied.
———-

EVD, LW p1, Aug 30, 1902

Eugene V. Debs, of Denver, Col., the prominent labor leader and Socialist, spoke at Fitzhugh Hall yesterday afternoon, under the auspices of the Labor Lyceum. His subject was “Some Phases of the Labor Movement; or, Socialism and Civilization.” Mr. Debs was given an enthusiastic reception, and for two hours he had the close attention of the audience. The seats on the floor of the hall were filled and but few were empty in the gallery.

Phillip Jackson presided at the meeting and made a few remarks, after which he introduced Mr. Debs. In his eloquent address, Mr. Debs said, in part:

The labor question broadly stated is the question of all humanity and upon its just solution depend the peace of society and the survival of civilization. The central and controlling fact of civilization is the evolution of industry.

A little over a century and a quarter ago, the American colonists were compelled to declare their political independence. The people were then engaged largely in agricultural pursuits, what they manufactured was produced in simple and primitive ways and they used with their hands the tools with which they did their work. The problem of making a living was a comparatively easy one. Each man could with the product of his own labor satisfy his own wants.

Long ago the too simple tool of those days was touched by the magic want of invention, until its mechanism has now become marvelously complex. In the great modern industrial evolution, the workingman has suffered, and because of his ignorance has allowed the tool of production to pass from his grasp. The cunning that was in the hand of labor has passed into the machine. As competition has become keen, handicraft has been succeeded more and more by the machine work, until skilled labor has become common labor; the struggle for existence became so hard that woman was forced into the labor market and become a factor in industrial conditions.

As the evolution of machinery has continually progressed, it has been found that many of these could be operated by the deft touch of children, until now 3 million of these have been forced into the labor market in competition with men and women. This has resulted from the system that makes profit the all-important consideration and life of little importance. There must be cheap labor in spite of its effects on the lives of human beings.

The state of Alabama once had a law against child labor. The time is coming, however, when competition will force manufacturers to operate their factories where the raw materials are produced. This has already been done by the New England manufacturers. They went to the lawmakers of Alabama and said: “We must have cheap labor if we are to compete in the markets of the world, and in order to do this, we must employ the children in our mills. You have a law against the employment of children in this state. We should like it to come here, but, if this is enforced, it will compel us to go elsewhere.” What was the result? Today there is no law against the employment of children in Alabama.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Speaks in Rochester, N. Y.: “Some Phases of the Labor Movement; or, Socialism and Civilization.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part III: Speaks at Meeting of Indianapolis Central Labor Union Against Stag Banquets

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, God s Cause, Scranton Tb p1, Aug 7, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 16, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part III
-Speaks at Meeting of Indianapolis Central Labor Union

From The Los Angeles Record of January 27, 1903:

“MOTHER JONES” TO THE MINERS

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

Mother Jones, the woman champion of the United Mine Workers, stirred their convention in Indianapolis by a speech denouncing the use of the pistol in labor disputes. She said:

You old gray beards are going to see a new epoch. You have been crying that we are in a country without liberty, but you have not gone out and fought to get it. That you are going to do and you won’t use pistol to get it either. We will shoot such men as Judge Jackson off the bench, and it won’t be with a gun.

Good for “Mother Jones.”

She is talking Americanism straight from the shoulder. No one can charge this white-haired old woman with incendiarism when she sticks to the ballot box.

The pistol is a relic of barbarism-a barbarism from which the Anglo-Saxon has not yet emerged.

Capital is shrewd. Sometimes it employes “private detectives,” not so much to guard property, as to provoke violence. The strikers oppose pistol to pistol. They lose public sympathy and the strike.

“Mother Jones” knows this and the miners are coming to know it, as is attested by their applause at the utterance.

Two so-called gospels have distinguished the last decade or so, each diametrically opposed to the other:

Nietache’s gospel is the gospel of brute force.
Tolstoi’s gospel is comprehended in “Resist not evil.”

So long as men and women are as they are either of these doctrines run to its legitimate extreme is absurd.

We must resist evil, not by brute force, but by education, agitation and finally, and forcefully, at the ballot box.

That is civilization.

That is the evolution of society.

[Photograph added.]

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 27, 1903:

CENTRAL LABOR UNION
———-

RESOLUTION FAVORING SUNDAY
BASEBALL ADOPTED.
———-
Women Object to Being Excluded
from the Banquet to Miners
To-Morrow Night.
———-

The Central Labor Union at a meeting held last night, adopted a resolution favoring the passage of the bill now before the Legislature legalizing Sunday baseball. The resolution was introduced by John L. Feltman, who spoke briefly in explanation of it.

President George A. Custer was absent last night and the chair was occupied by Vice President Edgar A. Perkins.

[…..]

The report of the committee, which arranged the miners’ banquet to be given Thursday night, by William F. Ewald precipitated a storm. The report described the programme of entertainment and furnished the names of the men who will serve on the committees to entertain the miners and operators. It concluded with the statement that the banquet was to be for the men delegates only, and the women delegates to the body, as well as the women in the Label League, would be entertained subsequently in a little affair to be planned for them. Delegates immediately objected to this and declared that women ought to be admitted and they could see no reason for their exclusion. After a long discussion of the merits and demerits of the last banquet and the possibility of a recurrence of several unpleasant features, “Mother” Jones, who was a guest of the evening, made a talk which smoothed over the obstacles to peace, and the report of the committee was concurred in. The women were still unsatisfied, however, and several of them voiced their disapproval by saying that they thought it was a shame that they could not go to the banquet.

“Mother” Jones was given a chance to speak during the meeting, and quickly drifted into socialism……

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part III: Speaks at Meeting of Indianapolis Central Labor Union Against Stag Banquets” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part II: Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers, Meets with Socialists

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, God s Cause, Scranton Tb p1, Aug 7, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 15, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part II
-Speaks at Miners’ Convention, Meets with Socialists

From The Indianapolis Journal of January 22, 1903:

TRIP LIGHT FANTASTIC
———-

MINERS’ DELEGATES ATTEND BALL
AT TOMLINSON HALL.
———-
Early Adjournment of the Convention
in Order that the Auditorium
Could Be Cleared.
———-

MOTHER JONES MAKES SPEECH
———-

[…..]

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

The dance of the Indianapolis garment workers in Tomlinson Hall last night interfered with the session of the mine workers’ convention that was to have been held during the afternoon. In order that the Janitors might prepare the floor of the hall for the dance the convention adjourned at noon until 9 o’clock this morning, after a motion to omit the afternoon session had carried.

The morning session was a busy one during the earlier hours, but toward noon had resolved itself into speech-making. Mother Jones, the woman friend of the miners, who was enjoined by Judge Jackson’s order prohibiting inflammatory speeches in the coal-mining district, was called on for an address. Her speech was typical of the woman and socialistic in tone. Her recommendation to the miners was that they use their votes as citizens to change conditions In the trade. Mother Jones was pessimistic in her views on the possibility of friendly relations between capital and labor. She thinks there is such a gulf between the two classes that it can never be bridged except by a change in government. The miners could adjust the conditions by their vote, she said, if they voted right. Now miners in America are existing as miserably as the serfs in Russia, and will continue so until all of the changes are made in the government which she suggests, she insinuated in her speech…..

[Photograph added.]

From The Indianapolis News of January 22, 1903:

SOCIALISM’S VOICE IN MINERS CONVENTION
———-

EXPRESSION ON GOVERNMENT
OWNERSHIP WANTED.
———-

INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM
———-
Miners Voted Unanimously Not to
Incorporate Their Organization
-Question of Co-Operative Stores
———-

At the opening of the United Workers’ convention this morning, there was the first clash of the year between the conservatives and the Socialistic factions. It originated in a resolution from an obscure local union, favoring an expression of Government ownership of coal mines and railroads.

A motion on the part of the conservatives to table it brought on a long discussion, and many leaders of the two factions were heard.

The socialistic faction based its arguments on the anthracite strike and the combination of coal companies and railroads and that a tendency not to treat with miners “according to the laws of man or God” made it necessary for the Government to take some such action.

Delegate Walker, of Illinois, in a long speech, said that the coal companies and railroads were now in a combination injurious to the interests of the people, and were holding back coal to boost prices.

Delegate Lusk, of West Virginia, also charged heartless attitude of coal operators and railroads not only to the miners, but to the people.

The controversy was finally ended for the time, on a motion of Chris Evans, of Ohio, to refer the matter back to the committee.

[…..]

William R. Fairley, executive committeeman for the Alabama district, in a speech of some length, laid before the convention a grievance of the Alabama miners on the speech made yesterday by Mother Jones, in which, he claimed, she held them responsible for the appalling child labor conditions in Alabama. Mother Jones made a reply in which she said she did not hold the miners responsible only in so far as they cast votes for and elected members of agricultural classes to the Legislature, who permitted the infants to be worked and murdered by mill and mine owners. She ripped the State of Alabama up and down. At the close of the discussion Patrick Dolan, president of the Pittsburg district, moved that Fairley and Mother Jones kiss and make up. There was a great deal of laughter but no vote was taken…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part II: Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers, Meets with Socialists” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part I: Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, God s Cause, Scranton Tb p1, Aug 7, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 14, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part I
-Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers

From The Clarksburg Telegram (West Virginia) of January 2, 1903:

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

“MOTHER” JONES VISITS CLARKSBURG

“Mother” Jones was in her usual splendid health and was quite talkative and courteous.

While in the city she was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. D. W. McGeorge in Glen Elk.

[Photograph added.]

From the Appeal to Reason of January 3, 1903:

From the Kingwood West Virginia Argus of January 8, 1903:

The election of Samuel B. Montgomery to the office of Mayor of Tunnelton for another term, is quite a compliment to this rising young orator who is called the “Patrick Henry of West Virginia,” by Mother Jones. Mayor Montgomery has a good strong ticket with him composed of the leading men of the Coal Center.

From the Bisbee Daily Review of January 9, 1903:

LABOR IS CAPITAL; CAPITAL IS LABOR

By “Mother” JONES. Friend of Striking Miners

WE are in a battle of class against class. Pierpont Morgan can go abroad-to Germany, to Russia, to England-and when he arrives he is entertained by his class, his own class, though you sometimes forget it in America-the class that oppressed you in Europe and that is growing more and more powerful and oppressive here. CAPITAL AND LABOR ARE THE SAME THING. LABOR IS CAPITAL, AND CAPITAL IS LABOR. WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING IS NOT CAPITAL, BUT CAPITALISTS. When the fight is won, this third element will be missing, and capital and labor will be joined without separation.

In the last 160 years there has been an economic revolution. What would you have thought years ago if some one had told you that all these coalfields would be held and operated by one combination. That sort of thing is what you must defend yourself against.

THERE IS A TREMENDOUS CHANGE GOING ON; AND YOU MUST CHANGE TO MEET IT.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part I: Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers” →

Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part III

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 12, 1903
Children of Pennsylvania’s Anthracite “Coal Shadow”
-Part III of article by Francis H. Nichols, with illustrations by Frank E. Schoonover

From McClure’s Magazine of February 1903:

CHILDREN OF THE COAL SHADOW

BY FRANCIS H. NICHOLS

Illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover

[Part III of III]

Children of Coal Nichols Schoonover, Girls Forelady, McClures p439, Feb 1903

Where the Daughters Work

While the miner’s son is working in the breaker or mine it is probable that his daughter is employed in a mill or factory. Sometimes in a mining town, sometimes in a remote part of the coal fields, one comes upon a large, substantial building of wood or brick. When the six o’clock whistle blows, its front door is opened, and out streams a procession of girls. Some of them are apparently seventeen or eighteen years old, the majority are from thirteen to sixteen, but quite a number would seem to be considerably less than thirteen. Such a building is one of the knitting mills or silk factories that during the last ten years have come into Anthracite…..

Through a district organizer I was enabled to interview under union auspices a number of little girls who were employed in a knitting mill. One girl of fifteen said that she was the oldest of seven children. She had worked in the mill since she was nine years old. Her father was a miner. As pay for “raveling” she received an amount between $2.50 and $3 every two weeks. Another thirteen-year-old raveler had worked since the death of her father, two years before, from miner’s asthma; her brother had been killed in the mine. The $3 she received every two weeks in her pay envelope supported her mother and her ten-year-old sister…..

The breaker boss finds at the mill or factory a counterpart in the “forelady.” This personage holds a prominent place in the civilization of Anthracite. It is taken for granted that the forelady must be habitually hateful, and in all controversies side with the proprietor against the rest of the girls. It is her duty to crush incipient strikes, and to do all in her power to “break” the union. She enjoys being hated by every one, and leads an isolated life of conscious rectitude for about $5 a week…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 11, 1903
Children of Pennsylvania’s Anthracite “Coal Shadow”
-Part II of article by Francis H. Nichols, with illustrations by Frank E. Schoonover

From McClure’s Magazine of February 1903:

CHILDREN OF THE COAL SHADOW

BY FRANCIS H. NICHOLS

Illustrated by Frank E. Schoonover

[Part II of III]

Children of Coal Nichols Schoonover, Breaker Boys, McClures p438, Feb 1903

The School of the “Breaker”

The company’s nurseries for boys of the coal shadow are the grim black buildings called breakers, where the lump coal from the blast is crushed into marketable sizes…..Between the [coal] chutes are boys. All day long their little fingers dip into the unending grimy steam that rolls past them…..

Children of Coal Nichols Schoonover, Breaker Boss, McClures p442, Feb 1903

…..In front of the chutes is an open space reserved for the “breaker boss,” who watches the boys as intently as they watch the coal.

The boss is armed with a stick, with which he occasionally raps on the head and shoulders a boy who betrays lack of zeal…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR p10641, May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 10, 1903
Children of Pennsylvania’s Anthracite “Coal Shadow”
-Part I of article by Francis H. Nichols, with illustrations by Frank E. Schoonover

From McClure’s Magazine of February 1903:

Children of Coal Nichols Schoonover, Boy, McClures p435, Feb 1903

Every child of the coal fields who to-day is ten years old has lived through at least two great strikes [Great Anthracite Strikes of 1900 and 1902]. During these periods the indefinite and sullen discontent takes a concrete and militant form. There is talk by idle men of “the rights of labor” and the “wickedness of riches.” Deputies armed with rifles are guarding the company’s property. A detachment of militia is encamped at the end of the street…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From McClure’s Magazine: “Children of the Coal Shadow” by Francis H. Nichols, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Socialism Versus Fads” by Father Thomas Hagerty, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Father Hagerty, ISR p452, Feb 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 7, 1903
Father Thomas Hagerty on Socialism, Scientific and Idealistic

From the International Socialist Review of February 1903:

ISR p449, Feb 1903

Socialism Versus Fads.

[-by Father Thomas Hagerty]
———-

[Part II of II]

Father Hagerty, Comrade p6, Oct 1902

I remember, a little over a year ago, with what amazement I listened to a lecturer on Socialism who, with evident relish, quoted this sentence from Dr. Paul Carus: “The essential feature of existence, of that which presents itself to the senses, is not the material, but the formal; not that which makes it concrete and particular, but that which constitutes its nature and applies generally; not that which happens to be here, so that it is this, but that which makes it to be thus; not its Thisness but its Suchness.”* The discourse itself was vaguely soothing, like James Jeffrey Roche’s Concord love-song:

“Ah, the Ifness sadd’ning,
The Whichness madd’ning,
And the But ungladd’ning
That lie behind!

When the signless token
Of love is broken
In the speech unspoken
Of mind to mind!”

But imagine the flood of pure white light which such a discourse poured into the brains of the non-Socialists of that audience! At the worst, however, it was Socialism only in the Pickwickian sense and did not roughly antagonize any one’s private beliefs. The lecturer was deeply interested in things occult and could not resist the opportunity, which an audience gathered to hear of Socialism gave him, to expound his favorite doctrines concerning the Nirvana.

On the other hand one frequently meets with the man who prefaces his explanation of Socialism by insisting, like Büchner in matters of science, that the mind must first be emptied of all ideas of God and the supernatural before it is in a proper condition to receive the philosophy of Karl Marx. He wanders far afield to attack this church or that dogma and leaves his hearer under the impression that Socialism is essentially atheistic. He blames all the misery and ignorance in the world upon religion and seems never to have learned that a materialist conception of history puts beyond doubt the fact that the social organism is, in a very large measure, conditioned by its interaction with industrial environment, and that a comparative study of religions shows the influence of economic factors in much of their development. Such a man does positive harm to the cause of Socialism; and he is just as unreasonable and as unscientific as the preacher who insists on basing the science of economics upon his own particular creed.

There is, furthermore, the utterly inconsistent fad of “Christian Socialism,” whose upholders put forth the dogma of the Fatherhood of God as the ground-work of economic science and then proceed to build upon it a superstructure as much out of plumb as the leaning tower of Pisa. They contend that Labor and Capital must recognize their mutual rights,—that, in other words, the lamb must lie down in the lion’s belly and rely upon its coat of wool to protect itself from the searching acid of the gastric juices thereof. They would have men led into the highways of industrial righteousness by the allurement of Gospel texts, unmindful of the fact that nineteen centuries of such blandishment have failed to soften the granite heart of the ruling classes. The New Testament was never designed to serve as a treatise on Socialism any more than it was intended to teach the first principles of Biology. With profound reverence for its beautiful pages, I find it vastly inferior to Huxley and Martin’s “Practical Biology” and Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital,” for the same reason that I find Homer’s “Iliad” inferior to Remsen’s “Chemistry,” for when I want to study either of these sciences I can discover no knowledge of the protoplasm in St. Matthew and no guides to quantative analysis in Homer. This fact, however, does not hinder me from giving full value to the letters of St. Paul nor from appreciating the rhythm and swing of the lines that carry that ancient swashbuckler Achilles.

But when the crazy charge of infidelity is urged against us and a bishop forces a Father McGrady to resign because of his advocacy of Socialism, we may rightly say with Thoreau: “Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches.” Surely, it is a flagrant infidelity which denies all Truth which does not bear the approval of a bishop’s imprimatur. It is a subtle atheism which admits the existence of God and then in His Name refuses economic salvation to millions of His creatures; which prays to Heaven and builds churches for worship and then tacitly sanctions the Capitalism which burns the marrow out of orphans’ bones.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Socialism Versus Fads” by Father Thomas Hagerty, Part II” →