Tag: Industrial Workers of the World

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 2, 1921
Chicago, Illinois – Mary Heaton Vorse Has Supper with Convicted Fellow Workers

From The Liberator of January  1921:

Twenty Years

By Mary Heaton Vorse

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

RECENTLY in Chicago, after a meeting, I went to get a sandwich with a group of labor men. As I looked around the table, it came to me with a shock that I was the only person there, but one, who was not condemned to a long jail sentence. For all the people at the table were members of the Industrial Workers of the World convicted in the famous Chicago case.

Ralph Chaplin sat next to me. I had been talking only a few minutes before with his wife, a girl of extraordinary loveliness. She had not come out with us to supper because she had gone home to put her little boy of seven to bed. I had seen them standing all three together, only a half hour before.

Ralph Chaplin is a gifted idealist, a poet, as well as a man of action. His quality of uncompromising courage made me think of Jack Reed. It is upon such youth that the strength of a people is founded, men ready to suffer and with gifts to make people understand the beliefs which have stirred their hearts. And his wife is like him. It made you feel right with life to see them together. They face a 20-year sentence.

Ralph Chaplin is to be put in jail because he belonged to an industrial union, a legal organization.

Ralph Chaplin was Editor of “Solidarity.” And that is why he was given twenty years. It was a pretty bad crime for anyone to hold a red card. The talented ones were selected for 20-year sentences. Apparently Judge Landis could not bear that a man of attainments and gifts should belong to the organization of the I. W. W.

Charles Ashleigh is another poet. What had he done? He had been an I. W. W. He has a sentence of five years. He was one of those against whose sentence even Captain Lanier of the Military Intelligence protested. One wonders if the Captain had ever read the poem by his distinguished relative, called “Jacquerie.” And so Charles Ashleigh is among those who are slated for Leavenworth, where he has already spent two years.

Opposite me sat George Hardy, the. General Executive Secretary. He was one of those who got off easy. He only got a year and he has already served his sentence. No one knew exactly why some got long sentences or why some got short ones.

Bill Haywood, at the head of the table, as a matter of course was given the maximum sentence; that means a death sentence if it is carried out.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Appeal to Reason: Mrs. W. F. (Emma) Little Reports from Fresno: “They Are Mobbing Workers”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
Share

Quote Emma Little, re IWW Fresno FSF Mob Attack of Dec 9, AtR p3, Dec 31, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 1, 1911
Fresno, California – “They Are Mobbing Workers” by Mrs. Emma Little

From the Appeal to Reason of December 31, 1910:

They Are Mobbing Workers

Fresno, Cal., December 13-Friday night [December 9th] Fresno mob attacked I. W. W. members who were speaking on the street and severely beat them. The mob then proceeded to the I. W. W. camp. The boys on the street rushed out to our house [home of Fred and Emma Little], then on out to camp, to give the boys in camp what warning they could.

I could hear the autos going past our house right behind the boys. Shortly after the autos passed I could bear the yell, the mob yell.

IWW Fresno FSF, Mob Attacks, FMR p1, Dec 10, 1920

They burned down the tent and then they took a vote on whether or not they should burn our house. They decided not. Then they proceeded back to town, stood around town awhile, then went to the jail and demanded the prisoners. This request was refused, and shortly after the mob dispersed.

Friday afternoon Murdock, one of the I. W. W. speakers, was tried for vagrancy before Judge Briggs by a jury of business men. Murdock was a well-dressed, well educated man, who, it was proved, was employed by and receiving a salary from the I. W. W. as organizer. The jury convicted him of vagrancy. Judge Briggs put off sentencing him until the next day.

When Murdock came to receive his sentence the next day, Briggs stated that he liked Murdock, but as he was one of the instigators of last night’s trouble he would have to sentence him 180 days (six months).

For weeks the papers have been urging the citizens to form a mob and drive the I. W. W. from the country. The I. W. W. had violated no law. They had lived quietly and peaceably in their own little canvas homes. The officers bad no excuse for molesting them.

Mayor Rowell, the saloon champion, owns the Republican, or most of it. A short time before the day of the mob the Republican said that in Portersville, a small town about thirty miles from here, the citizens had formed a committee and requested the I. W. W. to leave; and that the I. W. W. had immediately left. The paper suggested that would be good tactics to pursue here. The whole article was a tissue of lies. The I. W. W. was not driven out of Portersville. The article and many more along that line were written for the sole purpose of making a mob spirit.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Appeal to Reason: Mrs. W. F. (Emma) Little Reports from Fresno: “They Are Mobbing Workers”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “500 Men Wanted in Fresno, California, Immediately”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
Share

Quote John Whyte, re Fresno Aroused Working Class, IW p1, Dec 22, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 31, 1910
On to Fresno! – Call Goes Out for 500 Fellow Workers to Join Free Speech Fight

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 29, 1910:

Fresno FSF, Bnr HdLn, 500 Men Wanted Immediately, Spk IW p1, Dec 29, 1910

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “500 Men Wanted in Fresno, California, Immediately”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Capitalist Sluggers in Fresno” -Mob Destroys IWW Camp

Janet RayeFrank Little
Share

Quote Frank Little, Fresno Jails Dungeons, FMR p6, Sept 2, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 22, 1910
Fresno, California – Mob Destroys I. W. W. Camp as Police Stand By

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 15, 1910:

Fresno FSF, Telegram StJ CRTN re Mob Attack, IW p1, Dec 15, 1910

———-

Fresno FSF, HdLn Capitalist Sluggers in Fresno, IW p1, Dec 15, 1910

Again we have been taught another lesson in LAW AND ORDER. On Dec. 7, F. H. Little, secretary of the I. W. W. local in Fresno was tried in that city on a charge of DISTURBING THE PEACE. Disturbing the peace meant to use his constitutional rights to address an audience of workers or whoever wished to stop and listen to him expound the teachings of the I. W. W. At the trial of Little it was discovered (after men had been tortured in the cells of the Fresno jail for breaking LAWS) that there was no LAW in Fresno denying a man FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Fellow Worker Little was acquitted and it was then up to the authorities to release all the prisoners from the dungeons, where they had been tortured with the fire hose and other barbarous methods. The following dispatch to the Spokesman-Review from Fresno proves our statement:

The Industrial Workers of the World have won their fight for “free speech” in Fresno and are speaking throughout the city advocating the principles of their organization, while the police, helpless to interfere, are merely watching to see that none of the agitators incite rioting.

The victory was due to the discovery today that the ordinances of the city do not prohibit speaking on the streets without a permit. Police officials say that probably the 49 I. W. W. speakers now in the county jail will be liberated tomorrow.

Several of the prominent merchants here have advocated the organization of a citizens’ committee to force the industrialists out of the city, but no one has been willing to take the initiative.

The headquarters of the organization, just outside of the city limits, was the scene of jollification this evening , over the acquittal of F. H. Little, secretary of the organization, on a charge of disturbing the peace.

When the authorities could find no legal way to stop FREEDOM OF SPEECH they began to throw out hints to the Citizen’s Alliance and other thugs to go at it themselves and clean out the I. W. W. men with violence. The following dispatch to the Spokesman-Review on the 9th again bears out our statement that the respectable mob was invited to do bodily harm to our members, and probably murder in cold blood:

Following an order given by the chief of police to all patrolmen to allow members of the I. W. W. to speak unmolested on the streets of Fresno, and a statement that the citizens might do as they wished, a large mob gathered in this city tonight about 7 o’clock, attacked and severely beat a number of industrial workers, who sought to speak, and then marched to the I. W. W. camp, outside the city limits, and burned a big tent in which the members lived, together with all the supplies kept there.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Capitalist Sluggers in Fresno” -Mob Destroys IWW Camp” →

Hellraisers Journal: Fresno Free Speech Fight Continues: Jailed Fellow Workers Get Water Cure; Pimps Get Turkey Dinner

Janet RayeFrank Little
Share

Quote Frank Little, Fresno Jails Dungeons, FMR p6, Sept 2, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 12, 1910
Fresno, California – “Water Cure for Workers; Turkey for Pimps”

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 8, 1910:

IWW Fresno FSF, Jail Workers v Pimps, IW p1, Dec 8, 1910

Fighting for the right to tell the truth to workers so that they will organize and put an end to this CLASS STRUGGLE is no play for children. The rich are rich by virtue of the fact that the great mass of the people are IGNORANT.  It pays to keep the workers in IGNORANCE, as no one recognizes the old axiom that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER any better than the parasites that revel in luxury from the toil and misery of others. Under the guise of PATRIOTISM  the children are taught to murder each other in the name of their country when in reality they have no country and are fighting for the boss. Under the guise of the GOLDEN RULE they are taught to suffer on earth, and that the more they surfer and starve on earth the better off they will be after they die. Ay one who preachers this SPOOK DOCTRINE  will never be cast into jail even if all the street cars in America are stopped because of the crowd.

That I. W. W. men want to block the streets and obstruct traffic is an absolute lie. This bunk was peddled daily by the Spokane lying capitalist press, while at the same time religious organizations were having free use of the streets. This same bunch of LIES is being peddle now in Fresno, where the fight for Free Speech is on. I. W. W. men in jail have had the hose turned on them by the POLICE for singing the Marsellaise. The capitalist press of Fresno is a unit in endorsing the actions of the police in this matter. One daily paper of Fresno gleefully tells how the prisoners were floating around in the water, but yet they sang the Marsellaise.

In another department of the jail were PIMPS that were arrested for dealing WHITE SLAVES. They were fed on good food and were given daily papers and tobacco, and were furnished with good beds. The WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC is a product of capitalism. The I. W. W. is the result of the best thoughts and intelligence of the workers who rebel against the rule of the master.

The CAPITALIST CLASS knows that if the workers are organized on the lines laid down by the I. W. W. that the smoke it off with them. Among the men in jail in Fresno for Free Speech is an old man 81 years of age. He was put through the horrors of the water cure with the younger men. This old white-headed man stands for Freedom on earth. The crawling coward that will stand for all the insults and misery that is handed out to him on earth, believing that he will be better off after death, is too despicable a thing to notice. When are we to profit by the torture that is being dealt out to us in the lousy cells of the master class? Fall in around the banner, boys, and organize to put the PARASITES to work doing something useful. The day of reckoning is yet to come. Down with  IGNORANCE.

———-

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

IWW Fresno FSF, Telegram Jack Whyte, IW p4, Dec 8, 1910

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Fresno Free Speech Fight Continues: Jailed Fellow Workers Get Water Cure; Pimps Get Turkey Dinner” →

Hellraisers Journal: Butte Daily Bulletin: “Second Bloody Wednesday Victim Dead” -Young James Sullivan Dies in Ireland

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 9, 1920
Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland – Young James Sullivan Has Died

From the Butte Daily Bulletin of December 8, 1920:

ACM Anaconda Road Massacre, James Sullivan Dead, BDB p1, Dec 8, 1920ACM Anaconda Road Massacre, James Sullivan Dead in Ireland, BDB p1, Dec 8, 1920
James Sullivan, known to thousands of miners in the Coeur d’Alenes and Montana mining camps as “Jimmie,” one of the victims of the murder-list of the Anaconda Copper Mining company as exemplified by the actions of the company’s gunmen on Anaconda road, Butte, Bloody Wednesday, April 21, 1920, is dead. Jimmie died yesterday at the home of his parents, Donaghadee, County Down, Ireland, where he had been taken last September, a helpless cripple, to spend the remaining days of his life with his parents and sisters and brothers. 

News of young Sullivan’s death, the second resulting from the wanton brutality consummated by the Anaconda company’s gunmen on Anaconda road during the last miners’ strike, under the direction of Roy S. Alley and D. Gay Stivers of the company’s general staff, and under the personal observation of Sheriff John K. O’Rourke, was received in Butte today by cablegram from Ireland to J. V. Watson of Butte, a close friend of the unfortunate Sullivan.

The message merely stated that Jimmie had succumbed to his wound-a bullet in his spine-fired there by one of the company’s gunmen as Jimmie, with several hundred other unarmed strike pickets fled down Anaconda hill to escape the rain of lead from the riot guns, rifles and revolvers of the company’s gunthugs and city policemen.

The death of Sullivan, added to that of Thomas Manning, who died a week after the murderous attack on the pickets, marks the second actual death resulting from that occasion. Others of the more than a score of unarmed, peaceful pickets who were shot in their backs as they fled, are living deaths, cripples who will go through life without even the consolation of an early death to relieve them of their sufferings.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Butte Daily Bulletin: “Second Bloody Wednesday Victim Dead” -Young James Sullivan Dies in Ireland” →

Hellraisers Journal: Fresno Free Speech Fight Back On; Frank Little Among Many Fellow Workers Arrested and Jailed

Janet RayeFrank Little
Share

Quote Frank Little, Fresno Jails Dungeons, FMR p6, Sept 2, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 6, 1910
Fresno, California – Free Speech Fight Renewed; Fellow Workers Arrested

From The Fresno Morning Republican of November 30, 1910:

Fresno FSF IWW Renews, FL Arrested, FMR p1, Nov 30, 1910

The Long threatened clash between the Industrial Worker of the World and the local police materialized last night. Twenty-four of the followers of the red flag were lodged in jail by Chief Shaw and a squad of ten policemen.

The expected invasion began at 6 o’clock and continued till 9 when the 34th agitator was taken into custody. During these three hours the police department was never busier in the history of Fresno. As fast as central could ring the bell at police headquarters, Night Desk Sergeant Frank Truax was kept busy jotting down the various corners in the downtown section where the I. W. W.’s were trying to make speeches. Several of the “red shirts” were making wild-eyed speeches to a handful of men. At H and Kern streets two were talking at the same time from soap boxes to a half dozen listener.

Among the twenty-four arrested were three of the leaders, James Murdock, C. L. Fligino [Filigno] and F. H. Little. Yesterday morning Chief Shaw appeared in the police court and swore to complaints charging Murdock and Fligino with vagrancy. It is said that they receive no compensation from the Industrial Workers. In fact, Murdock and Fligino admit that they are speaking for the “good of the cause.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Fresno Free Speech Fight Back On; Frank Little Among Many Fellow Workers Arrested and Jailed” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: 14,000 Coal Miners Slaughtered During Past Ten Years

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925———–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 5, 1910
14,0000 Coal Miners Slaughter During Past Ten Years

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of December 1, 1910:

DRWG re Mine Disasters, Murderer Coal Op, IW p1, Dec 1, 1910

Statistics show that 14,000 coal miners miners have been slaughtered in the mines in the last 10 years. At the rate coal miners have been murdered in the last two months in the United States, the death rate will increase by leaps and bounds…..

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: 14,000 Coal Miners Slaughtered During Past Ten Years” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Fresno Free Speech Fight Is Re-opened-On To Fresno”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
Share

Quote Frank Little, Fresno Jails Dungeons, FMR p6, Sept 2, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 26, 1910
Fresno, California – I. W. W. Declares Free Speech Fight Re-opened

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of November 24, 1910:

IWW Fresno FSF Re Opened, IW p1, Nov 24, 1910

From The Fresno Morning Republican of November 23, 1910:

COUNTY INSTITUTIONS TO HAVE THANKSGIVING
TURKEY FEASTS
——-
School Children of Fowler Send 1-2 Ton 

Fruit to County Orphanage.
——-
Jail Prisoners Only Ones Who Will 

Not Taste Turkey and Pie
——-

Thanksgiving cheer will gladden the hearts of the inmates of the various county institutions tomorrow, all excepting tho prisoners in the county jail. Visions of the voluntary incarceration of the I. W. W. “martyrs” still afflict the officers in charge of “La Maison Fresno” and they strenuously deny any attempt to make jail life attractive with the garnishings of the American holiday. So if any prisoners partake of turkey it will be through the instrumentality of “Kangaroo Court,” the co-operative fund established by the prisoners, or through the assistance of friends…..

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Fresno Free Speech Fight Is Re-opened-On To Fresno”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: Lucy Parsons Recalls Terrible Day Her Husband Was Hanged

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Albert Parsons, Chicago, Nov 11, Alarm p1, Nov 19, 1887———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 18, 1910
Lucy Parsons Recalls Terrible Day in 1887 When Chicago Martyrs Were Murdered

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of November 17, 1910:

A LOYAL WIFE AND LOVING MOTHER
——-

(Extract from “Liberator.”)

Lucy Parsons, Life of AP, pub Chg 1889

 

So the fatal day at last arrived. It was a sad, quiet, chilly November morning. I had not seen my husband for three days. We had two children then. I felt that I must take them to see their father, to look into his noble face once more, and to receive his blessing. I took them by the hands and led them to the jail. When I arrived there I found the accursed place where the slaughter of the innocent was to take place. all roped in for one whole block around, and police with rifles marching up and down all around. I entreated them to let me see him just once more! I was gruffly ordered away. I then begged them, the brutes , to take the innocent children to see their father; certainly they had done no wrong to deserve punishment; but the reply was a patrol wagon was called and I and the children were tumbled in and carried off to the station house and locked in a cell while the murder was being committed.

About noon the matron came to my cell and said in a cold-hearted manner: “Mrs. Parsons, it is all over; your husband has been hanged.” I remembered nothing more until I realized that my little girl was patting me on the cheek and saying. “Mamma, are you asleep?”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: Lucy Parsons Recalls Terrible Day Her Husband Was Hanged” →