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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 14, 1914
Mother Jones Praises John Kenneth Turner’s Series, “Government by Gunmen”
From the Appeal to Reason of May 9, 1914:
John Kenneth Turner Opens Fire
On Government by Gunmen
Here follows the introductory article of the “Government by Gunmen” series. In investigating these facts John Kenneth Turner risked his life, as it required his association with gunmen, detectives and the riff-raff of capitalist society. Several times he was warned by friends to drop his investigations. A reformed gunman has written the Appeal urging us to suppress this series if we valued Turner’s life. But the author of “Barbarous Mexico” and the investigator of West Virginia and other recent labor wars, laughs at this threat. He believes that the publicity given to this series will not only protect him but all who are today in danger of being “eliminated” by the murderous detective agencies. Here then is the beginning of the “Government by Gunmen” series. And every week for nearly half a year we shall bring before the public bar the strongest indictment of Capitalism’s Invisible Army that was ever attempted in this country. The Appeal feels that our first and most important duty is to abolish Government by Gunmen. It must be done-it will be done.
By JOHN KENNETH TURNER
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
In the county jail at Marysville, Cal., a short time ago I talked with two young workingmen who were on trial for murder. A jury of twelve men-not working men-has since declared them guilty and a judge has sentenced them to imprisonment at hard labor for the rest of their natural lives.
Yet these two workingmen had not killed anybody. Nor had they planned or attempted to kill anybody.
One, Richard Ford, is ruined for life-torn from his wife and two little children forever-solely because he became the spokesman for 2,300 hop-pickers who went on strike against intolerable conditions.
The career of the other, Herman Suhr, is blasted-he too, is unfortunate enough to possess a wife and two children-solely because he signed a number of telegrams asking that organizers be sent to the hop-fields to enroll the 2,300 pickers in a labor union.
The arrest, the trial and the conviction of Ford and Suhr was a deliberate frame-up of a ring of capitalists, in which a private detective agency took a necessary and criminal part…..
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