Hellraisers Journal: “May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene Victor Debs

1st May 20241st May 2024 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 1, 1914
“May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene V. Debs

From The Goltry News (Oklahoma) of May 1, 1914:

May Day and the Revolution

(By Eugene V. Debs.)

We are again about to celebrate the annual holiday of the International Socialist Movement. The thrill of May Day is even now in our veins and our hearts beat faster as we contemplate the glad tiding of this day to the workers of the world.

May Day is above all days in the year the day of the working class; the day of rejoicing and fraternal greeting; the day of high hope and lofty aspiration; the day of national and international celebration.

Not yet have we of the United Stales risen to the heights of this grand occasion and given to May Day its revolutionary significance as have our comrades in European and other nations; not yet have we grasped the full and splendid meaning of this day to our class and to humanity, but this year I trust our celebration may be worthy of the day and that this jubilee of the working class may resound from coast to coast with the glad tidings of the coming revolution.

May Day was not granted as a boon to the workers by their patronizing masters to tranquilize their discontent, but was chosen and set apart by themselves as the day upon which to arouse themselves from their lethargy, lift up their weary bodies from the earth, clasp hands with their fellow workers, and solemnly vow to break their fetters and emancipate themselves from slavery.

May Day is henceforth emancipation day for the working class. On this day the revolution breathes the breath of life into the nostrils of the workers and the awaking pulsing workers recruit with eager, passionate spirit the swelling ranks of the revolutionary movement.

Each and every industrial center and each agricultural district should this year join the May Day celebration and make its observance so general and fill it with such ardor and enthusiasm as to compel attention to the program of the day and the significance of the event. The very thought that labor’s holiday has been internationally proclaimed and will be celebrated by the workers of every nation on the face of the earth; the very contemplation of the fine spirit of the day and the eager greeting of comrades to comrade and nation to nation, voiced in every tongue known to man and borne to us on every tide and every breeze, is of itself enough to thrill us in every fiber and set every drop in our veins tingling with the fervor of international solidarity.

On this day of the downtrodden masses the inspiring message that Socialism brings to them must be heard around the world. The electrifying shibboleth of Marx must be echoed and re-echoed everywhere:

“Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.”

Unity and solidarity must be the watchword of the day. Industrial and political organization of the workers, all the workers, regardless of race, sex or creed, must be urged with all the force and persuasiveness at our command. Without organization the struggle is vain and the cause lost. The commonwealth of the workers that is to be must be organized primarily in the industries where they are employed and the time to do that is now, and May Day is the day to emphasize its supreme necessity.

The political power of the workers must also be developed through the Socialist Party, the only party organized and controlled by themselves; the only party which represents their interests, expresses their aspirations, and fights their battles in the war for emancipation.

May Day, pregnant with new and bounding life and rapture of resurrection, is the glorious harbinger of the social revolution, the gleaming promise of industrial freedom and social justice to all the WORKERS of the WORLD.

[Photograph of Debs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother and Babies Slain in Safety Cellars as Flames Devour Ludlow Tent Colony; Battle Continues

22nd April 202424th April 2024 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Helen Ring Robinson, Mine Owners Plug Uglies to Blame for Ludlow, RMN p5, Apr 22, 1914 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 22, 1914
Ludlow Tent Colony, Colorado – Mothers and Babies Slain; Battle Continues

From The Rocky Mountain News of April 22, 1914:

Editorial from Rocky Mountain News of April 22, 1914
“The Massacre of the Innocents”

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Hellraisers Journal: From Miners Magazine: “The Faithful Dog” Walks the Streets of Chicago to Advertise Against Scabs

7th November 202312th November 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Stick Together, MI Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 14, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 7, 1913
Chicago, Illinois – Faithful Dog, Topey, Says, “Don’t Be a Scab”

From the Miners Magazine of November 6, 1913:

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: The Rights of West Virginians Must Be Restored Peacefully Or…..!

6th April 20237th April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote WB Hilton re Mother Jones Courage, ed Wlg Maj p10, Mar 6, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 6, 1913
Kanawha County, West Virginia – Rights of West Virginians Must Be Restored

From The Wheeling Majority of April 3, 1913:

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

10th February 202312th February 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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:

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…..

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Masses: “Direct Action!” by John Sloan

8th February 20238th February 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote West Virginia Miner re Gunthugs, LW p1, Sept 24, 1921 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 8, 1913
“Direct Action!” by John Sloan (Government by Gunthug)

From The Masses of February 1913:

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks from Steps of Capitol at Charleston, W. V., Demands Removal of Mine Guards

22nd August 202222nd August 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, I Will Be With You, Cton WV, Aug 15, 1912, Speeches, Steel, p104 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 22, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Demands Removal of Mine Guards

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of August 16, 1912:

HdLn Miners v Gunthugs, MJ Speaks Aug 15, Wlg Int p1, Aug 16, 1912

August 15, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners from Steps of Capitol

NsClp Mother Jones Speaks Aug 15 Charleston WV, Wlg Int p1, Aug 16, 1912 — **Wheeling Intelligencer**
**August 16, 1912**

This, my friends, marks, in my estimation, the most remarkable move ever made in the State of West Virginia. It is a day that will mark history in the long ages to come. What is it? It is an uprising of the oppressed against the master class.

From this day on, my friends, Virginia–West Virginia–shall march in the front of the nation’s states. To me, I think, the proper thing to do is to read the purpose of our meeting here today–why these men have laid down their tools, why these men have come to the State House.

To His Excellency, William E. Glasscock,
Governor of the State of West Virginia:

It is respectfully represented unto your Excellency that the owners of the various coal mines doing business along the valley of Cabin Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia, are maintaining and have at present in their employ a large force of armed guards, armed with Winchesters, a dangerous and deadly weapon; also having in their possession three Gatling guns, which they have stationed at commanding positions overlooking the Cabin Creek Valley, which said weapons said guards use for the purpose of brow-beating, intimidating and menacing the lives of all the citizens who live in said valley, and whose business calls them into said valley, who are not in accord with the management of the coal companies, which guards are cruel and their conduct toward the citizens is such that it would be impossible to give a detailed account of.

Therefore, suffice it to say, however, that they beat, abuse, maim and hold up citizens without process of law, deny freedom of speech, a provision guaranteed by the Constitution, deny the citizens to assemble in a peaceable manner for the purpose of discussing questions in which they are concerned. Said guards also hold up a vast body of laboring men who live at the mines, and so conduct themselves that a great number of men, women and children live in a state of constant fear, unrest and dread.

We hold that the stationing of said guards along the public highways, and public places is a menace to the general welfare of the state. That such action on the part of the companies in maintaining such guards is detrimental to the best interests of society and an outrage against the honor and dignity of the State of West Virginia. (Loud applause.)

As citizens interested in the public weal and general welfare, and believing that law and order, and peace, should ever abide, that the spirit of brotherly love and justice and freedom should everywhere exist, we must tender our petition that you would bring to bear all the powers of your office as Chief Executive of this State, for the purpose of disarming said guards and restoring to the citizens of said valley all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and said State.

In duty bound, in behalf of the miners
of the State of West Virginia.

I want to say with all due respect to the Governor–I want to say to you that the Governor will not, cannot do anything, for this reason: The Governor was placed in this building by Scott and Elkins and he don’t dare oppose them. (Loud applause.) Therefore, you are asking the Governor of the State to do something that he cannot do without betraying the class he belongs to. (Loud applause.)

I remember the Governor in a state [Altgeld of Illinois], when Grover Cleveland was perched in the White House–Grover Cleveland said he would send the Federal troops out, and the Governor of that state said, “Will you? If you do I will meet your Federal troops with the state troops, and we will have it out.” Old Grover never sent the troops–he took back water. (Applause, and cries of: “Yes, he did.”)

You see, my friends, how quickly the Governor sent his militia when the coal operators got scared to death. (Applause.)

I have no objection to the militia. I would always prefer the militia, but there was no need in this county for the militia, none whatsoever. They were law-abiding people, and the women and children. They were held up on the highways, caught in their homes and pulled out like rats and beaten up–some of them. I said, “If there is no one else in the State of West Virginia to protest, I will protest.” (Loud applause, and cries of: “Yes, she will; Mother will.”)

The womanhood of this State shall not be oppressed and beaten and abused by a lot of contemptible, damnable blood-hounds, hired by the operators. They wouldn’t keep their dogs where they keep you fellows. You know that. They have a good place for their dogs and a slave to take care of them. The mine owners’ wives will take the dogs up, and say, “I love you, dea-h” (trying to imitate by tone of voice).

Now, my friends, the day for petting dogs is done; the day for raising children to a nobler manhood and better womanhood is here. (Applause and cries of: “Amen! Amen!”)

You have suffered, I know how you have suffered. I was with you nearly three years in this state. I went to jail, went to the Federal courts, but I never took any back water. I still unfurl the red flag of industrial freedom, no tyrant’s face shall you know, and I call you today into that freedom, long perched on the bosom (Interrupted by applause).

I am back again to find you, my friends, in a state of industrial peonage–after ten years absence I find you in a state of industrial peonage.

The Superintendent at Acme–I went up there, and they said we were unlawful–we had an unlawful mob along. Well, I will tell you the truth, we took a couple of guns, because we knew we were going to meet some thugs, and by jimminy (interrupted by applause).

We will prepare for the job, just like Lincoln and Washington did. We took lessons from them, and we are here to prepare for the job.

Well, when I came out on the public road the Superintendent–you know the poor salary slave–he came out and told me that there were Notary Publics there and a squire–one had a peg leg, and the balance had pegs in their skulls. (Applause.)

They forbid me speaking on the highway, and said that if I didn’t discontinue I would be arrested. Well, I want to tell you one thing, I don’t run to jail, but when the blood-hounds undertake to put me in jail I will go there. I have gone there. I would have had the little peg-leg Squire arrest me only I knew this meeting was going to be pulled off today to let the world know what was going on in West Virginia. When I get through with them, by the Eternal God they will be glad to let me alone.

I am not afraid of jails. We build the jails, and when we get ready we will put them behind the bars. That may happen very soon–things happen overnight.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Crowd of Six Thousand at Montgomery, WV: “Clean Up the Baldwin Guards”

8th August 202210th August 2022 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 8, 1912
Mother Jones Speaks at Mass Meeting, Demands End of Rule by Gunthug

August 4, 1912, Montgomery, West Virginia
Mother Jones Speaks to Six Thousand Miners at the Baseball Park

West Virginian
August 5, 1912

Fellow Workers: Let me say this to you, that not one person wins a strike, that it takes the combined forces of the oppressed, the robbed, class to get together and win a strike. The operators, the money power, never in all of human history have won a strike. You have never lost a strike, that is, the workers have not. You have simply rolled up your banners and retreated for a while until you could solidify your army and then come back and ask the pirates, “What in hell are you going to do about it?”

This hero worship must stop. We don’t owe any debt of gratitude individually.

Now, we are here today, as we have been—this is the outcome of an age-long struggle. It did not begin yesterday nor today. It is an age-long struggle, and it has crossed the oceans to you. It is about to crystallize, it is about to come aboard. The ship is sailing, it calls for pilots to come aboard. I want to say to you that all the ages of history have been ages of robbery, oppression, of hypocrisy, of lying, and I want to say to you tyrants of the world—(Railroad train whistling)—They got that gang to blow off hot air. (Applause.) I want to say to you tyrants of the world that all the centuries past have been yours, but we are facing the dawn of the world’s greatest century, we are facing the dawn of a separate century.

This, my friends, is indicative of what? No church in the country could get up a crowd like this, because we are doing God’s holy work, we are breaking the chains that bind you, we are putting the fear of God into the robbers. All the churches here and in heaven couldn’t put the fear of God into them, but our determination has made them tremble.

What happened on Paint Creek? Did the church make the operators run and go hide in the cellar? (Applause.)

I don’t know who started the racket, but I know that Mr. Operator began to shake, the marrow in his back melted, and he had to go into the cellar to hide himself.

Now, my friends here, twelve years ago I left the great battle that closed in the State of Pennsylvania, and came in here. We had fought a tremendous battle there. We fought that battle until Mr. Hanna said, “These workers are men and women, we have got to do something, we have got to blind them, we have got to hoodwink them some way. Let us start the Civic Federation.” The Republic hurrahed for peace and harmony is coming. Mark Hanna stood at the top of the game. We had them trembling, and they didn’t know where to get off at.

And so they got the Civic Federation, they got Morgan, Belmont, and the labor leaders. I said, “That is only a ‘Physic’ Federation, what are you joining it for?” There are some fellows in the labor movement, when their heads get swelled, they sit down with the thieves. They had their feet under the table, twenty-six thieves and twelve labor leaders, and you stood for it. I begged them not to join it, and some of them left it. They stuck their feet under the table and drank champagne, and the bloody thieves, when we had the women ﬁghting for bread, that gang of commercial pirates were feasting on our blood in New York. And then we stand for it. And when those fellows come along you say “Hurrah” and the whole gang drunk.

Now that wouldn’t do. They got the women so as to keep the labor leaders up in tune. They got women to join. They got a welfare department in their Civic Federation, and after a while the leaders and parasites and bloodsuckers they thought they would hoodwink us. One went up to Washington, it was…Morgan’s daughter. I happened to be in Washington. They were running to the free soup bowls to get a lunch. An Irish machinist ran in and had a piece of bologna that long (measuring on her arm about a foot), and a chunk of bread in the other hand. One of the women said to him, “Oh, my dear man, don’t eat that, it will give you indigestion.” He said, “The trouble with me is I never get enough to digest, indigestion, hell.” The half of you fellows never get enough to digest. You never got a good square meal in your life, and you know you never did. But you furnish the square meals for the others who rob and oppress you.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Literary Digest: Treason, Reason, and the Acquittal of Blizzard at Charles Town, West Virginia

18th June 202219th June 2022 Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921

Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 18, 1922
Nations Newspapers Opine on Acquittal of William Blizzard

From The Literary Digest of June 17, 1922:

“TREASON” AND REASON

THE NAME OF WILLIAM BLIZZARD, West Virginia miner, has been added to the few who have been tried in the United States for treason. Like most of the others, he was acquitted, yet, notes the Washington Herald, “there is plenty of reason to fear that if the case had been tried in Logan County he would have been found guilty and given the severest sentence possible on the treason charge.” That any fair-minded jury must acquit the youthful official of the United Mine Workers of America was obvious from the ﬁrst to The Herald, the New York Times, and other papers, and why the indictment for treason was brought is more than The Times can understand. “Attorneys for Blizzard,” caustically observes the New York Evening World, “might have claimed that the crime charged was impossible, because no Government existed in West Virginia against which treason was possible.” “In fact,” agrees the New York Herald, “Government in West Virginia had broken down, and its power had passed in part to the mine operators.” The leaders of the union miners who marched against Logan and Mingo counties, last August, according to this paper, were manifestly trying to take the law into their own hands, “which the non-union coal operators, controlling the local government in the two counties, already had done.”

In the opinion of the conservative New York Times:

Whatever their offenses, the unionist miners and their leaders were not trying to subvert the Government of West Virginia in whole or in part. Logan County can scarcely be said to have been under the rule of law or to have had a republican form of government. Private war was answered by private war. Some constitutional guaranties appear to have been suspended by conspiracy of non-union operators. If there was any “treason,” it was on both sides; but there was no excuse for charging the leaders of the misguided invaders of Logan County with the highest of crimes.

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Hellraisers Journal: Labor World: Samuel Gompers on the Fight of West Virginia’s Miners Against Government by Gunthugs

12th September 20218th March 2023 Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921

Mingo Co Sprigg Local Sec E Jude re Gunthugs, UMWJ p14, Aug 15, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 12, 1921
Gompers on Fight of West Virginia Miners Against Government by Gunthug

From the Duluth Labor World of September 10, 1921:

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 8.—Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, in a statement issued this week sets forth the fundamental facts in relation to the situation in West Virginia. He declares that in the mines there an unrestrained, unlimited greed absolutely dominates.

“The appetite of this private greed is upheld by a private army of killers the like of which exists in no other state,” says the labor chief. He shows how the state government has crumbled under the rule of the mining interests and declares the federal government must destroy the rule of gunmen by restoring civil government.

Information Lacking.

[Says Mr. Gompers in his statement:]

With the situation in West Virginia at a most critical juncture it is almost beyond belief that there has not been placed before the public complete and accurate information regarding the events leading up to the position taken by the President of the United States.

There are certain basic facts which must lie considered before there can be fair and proper judgment of the West Virginia situation. These facts have not been presented adequately and in most cases not at all.

The public press has been negligent and the federal government has been equally so in not presenting to the people the full underlying truth.

Prejudice Miners’ Case.

The great mass of news relating to West Virginia conveys the impression that lawless bands of miners are roving the state without reason except an unjustified bitterness against the mine owners. “Uneducated mountaineers,” they are called.

There are four basis facts which are consistently ignored and which it is the duty of government and press to present. These are:

1—The mines of West Virginia constitute the last refuge of autocracy in the mining industry. In these mines an unrestrained, unlimited greed dominates absolutely. Absentee owners hold immense tracts of rich mining land, demanding only dividends.

Private Army of Killers.

2—T’he appetite of this private greed is upheld by a private army of killers the like of which no longer exists in any other state. This private army is paid by the mine owners and naturally seeks to justify its presence by making “business” for itself in the form of trouble. The Baldwin-Felts detective agency recruits this army, but the mine owners pay the bill. Deputy sheriffs, paid by mine owners, form another wing of the private army, equally dangerous.

A Direct Protest.

3—The present strike is a direct protest against the action of the mine owners of West Virginia in refusing to abide by the award of the United States coal commission. If the United States government at this time defends the mine owners and does not destroy the private armies of the mine owners the government is in the position of sustaining a defiance of an order issued by its own authority.

4—The state government of West Virginia has broken down, not because the miners have protested against lawlessness, but because it has failed to stop the mine owners from enforcing law as a private business at the hands of privately paid and privately directed gunmen.

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