Tag: International Socialist Review

Hellraisers Journal: Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the Missoula Free Speech Fight of the Industrial Workers of the World

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Western IWW Aggressive Spirit, IW p3, Aug 12, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 3, 1909
Missoula, Montana – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the Victory for Free Speech

From the International Socialist Review of November 1909:

EGF, ISR p466, Nov 1909

FREE SPEECH FIGHT. Missoula, Mont., Oct. 3.—Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World, was arrested here tonight for persistently attempting to hold an advertised open-air meeting in the business section.

The plan of action outlined by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was to select leaders of small squads and distribute them about town, giving each a chance to gather a crowd before the police might become cognizant of the movements of the I. W. W.

At the police station Mrs. Flynn said the I. W. W. could not be suppressed and that the work would be carried on as outlined if 10 men are jailed every day.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Victory at McKees Rocks” by Louis Duchez, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD to McKees Rocks Strikers, Aug 25, Butler PA Ctzn p1, Aug 26, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 10, 1909
Louis Duchez on Victory of McKees Rocks Strikers, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of October 1909:

IWW McKees Rocks, Victory by L Duchez, ISR p289, Oct 1909

[Part II of II.]

—–

On August 15th, the I. W. W. advertised a mass meeting to be held on Indian Mound. Large posters printed in five different languages were displayed. Eight thousand men attended the meeting—nearly all strikers, and many railroad men and trade unionists and laborers from Pittsburg.

William E. Trautman first addressed the meeting in English and German, after which the men were parcelled off in lots. Nine different nationalities were spoken to—besides these two—and to each man his own tongue.

To Ignatz Klavier, a Polander and member of the Socialist Party who speaks five languages fluently, much credit is due for enlightening the McKees Rocks strikers on the principles of industrial unionism. It was Klavier who, during the second week of the strike, brought out clearly the distinction between the A. F. of L. and the I. W. W. He was ably assisted by Henyey, a Hungarian, and Max Forker, a German.

A wonderful spirit of solidarity was shown by the trainmen of the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne and Chicago and on the Pittsburg and Lake Erie roads—the only railroads running into McKees Rocks, when the trainmen refused to haul scabs to the plant. This is the first time in the history of labor troubles in the United States that this has been done. This was another example of the tactics of industrial unionism directly due to I. W. W. propaganda and education. Not only did the railroad men lend their aid to the strikers but the crews on the two company steamers, “The Queen” and “The Pheil,” refused to haul the scabs. This also is due to the work of the Unknown Committee and the great wonderful spirit of solidarity that is spontaneously stirring the wage slaves of the world. Even the school children of “Hunkeytown” refused to attend school until the strike was settled.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Victory at McKees Rocks” by Louis Duchez, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD to McKees Rocks Strikers, Aug 25, Butler PA Ctzn p1, Aug 26, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 9, 1909
Louis Duchez on Victory of McKees Rocks Strikers, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of October 1909:

IWW McKees Rocks, Victory by L Duchez, ISR p289, Oct 1909

[Part I of II.]

—–

Letter I, ISR p289, Oct 1909N this article the writer is not going to give much space to a recitation of the crimes of the capitalist class at McKees Rocks and the other strike points in Pennsylvania. It is unnecessary. The capitalist press has done that more effectively—regardless of the motives that may have prompted them—than he is able to do. The class struggle is a historic fact and the diametrically opposed interests have long ago been proven. Such practices as were exposed during the last few weeks are only the logical result of the capitalist system of society at this stage of working class activity.

Readers of the Review want something more than a mere account of the cruelties of the Pressed Steel Car Company. They want to know something about the spirit and growth of solidarity and industrial organization among the striking wage slaves in Pennsylvania.

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialists of New Castle Form “Flying Squadron” to Get Out 10,000 Copies of “The Free Press”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, We Will Rest, UMWC Jan 27, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 2, 1909
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Socialists Flying Squadron and Free Press

From the International Socialist Review of October 1909:

Socialists of New Castle PA, ISR p374, Oct 1919
—–

“THE FLYING SQUADRON” of the Socialist Party of New Castle, Pa., is one of the best disciplined and the most progressive group of revolutionists in the state. About a year ago the idea struck them to start a weekly paper. This was done. No one had any great amount of money to put into it—there were no millionaire socialists in the local—but the paper has been carried through and The Free Press, which is published bi-weekly, is self-supporting.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review’s Publishers’ Department: Fred Warren’s “Suppressed Information”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Fred Warren, Justice Will Triumph, ISR p166, Aug 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 25, 1909
Fred D. Warren’s “Suppressed Information” with Speech to Court

From International Socialist Review of September 1909:

Fred Warren, Propaganda Books, ISR p283, Sept 1909

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Hellraisers Journal: Thousands Hear Eugene Debs, Oscar Ameringer, Caroline Lowe at Oklahoma Socialist Encampments

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Slave is My Brother, AtR p1, May 1, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 24, 1909
Farmers Come from Miles Around for Oklahoma Socialists Encampments

From the International Socialist Review of September 1909:

The Oklahoma Encampment
—–

EVD at OK Socialist Encampment, ISR p278, Sept 1909

SOCIALIST ENCAMPMENTS. Three meetings a day, five days a week for four weeks, makes a total of sixty red hot propaganda meetings a month, with an attendance of from 500 to 10,000 at each lecture. This is what they are doing at the Oklahoma Socialist Encampment.

Successful encampments have already been held at Waurika, Snyder, Elk City, Aline and Woodward and the country for miles around has been showered with literature. The big canvass tent with a seating capacity of 1,000, is always pitched in a shady, well-watered grove, and from every pole top a red flag floats toward freedom.

Scores of covered wagons file into camp during Monday and far into the night, so that by the time the speaking begins on Tuesday, we find ourselves in the midst of a big, happy and seriously-minded family, happy because they have given the capitalist system the slip for a few days and serious because they realize that they are becoming landless farmers.

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Hellraisers Journal: Louis Duchez on Strikes Ongoing in McKees Rocks, Butler & New Castle, Pennsylvania, Part II

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 4, 1909
“The Strikes in Pennsylvania” by Louis Duchez, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of September 1909:

McKees Rocks Strike, Indian Mound Meeting, ISR p193, Sept 1909—–

[Steel Trust Bulls and Pennsylvania Cossacks]

The steel trust “bulls” and “Pennsylvania Cossacks” were rushed in by the hundreds to club the laborers to death. One poor Hungarian while on the run was shot twenty-four times in the back. Comrade J. W. Slayton has the coat and every bullet hole shows up. The victim is lying in the hospital at the point of death. Another one, an Italian, looked through a knot hole in the fence surrounding the company’s property and two “bulls” ran out with drawn revolvers. One of them kept him covered while the other beat him so badly that he had to be dragged away by his fellow strikers and carried to the hospital. It would take volumes to relate in all its detail the brutality and boldness and lawlessness of the Pressed Steel Car Company.

It is no wonder that the country was aroused over the matter. No one with human feeling and a cent to give could refrain from offering it to the poor, starving men and children and sick women, who were treated a thousands times worse than the serfs of the Middle Ages or the black chattel slaves of the South.

In Butler the strikers were treated about the same as in McKees Rocks. Before the “Cossacks” came all was quiet, aside from the fact that the company “bulls” did everything to start a riot.

When the “Cossacks” came into town, naturally, the striking men and their families would crowd along the main streets. Hundreds of them got out in the middle of the streets of the little village of Lyndora, the Standard Steel Car Company’s town, and the mounted constabulary rushed into them without warning.

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Hellraisers Journal: Louis Duchez on Strikes Ongoing in McKees Rocks, Butler & New Castle, Pennsylvania, Part I

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

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 3, 1909
“The Strikes in Pennsylvania” by Louis Duchez, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of September 1909:

McKees Rocks Strike, PA Strikes, ISR p193, Sept 1909

Letter I, ISR p193, Sept 1909

T is impossible to treat this subject fully within the space allowed. The writer will simply present a few of the more important facts gleaned from a study of conditions as they exist at McKees Rocks, Butler and New Castle.

At McKees Rocks fifty riveters of the “erection department” of the Pressed Steel Car Company’s plant came out on strike. The others remained at work. Half of those fifty returned the next day—the other half were discharged. The following day one-third of the force in the “passenger car department” walked out and they returned to work twenty-four hours later. About half of those were “fired.” On the third day half of the force of the “Pennsylvania porch department” walked out.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Story of Child Labor, “The Apostate” by Jack London

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Lafargue re Child Labor, ISR p945, June 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 5, 1909
“The Apostate” by Jack London, The Story of a Child Laborer

From The International Socialist Review of June 1909:

A Story of Child Labor

“THE APOSTATE”

BY JACK LONDON.

Letter I, ISR p352, May 1909F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”

Child Labor, Lewis Hine, NCLC, Nicholas Karambles 6 AM, Dover NH, May 15, 1909

The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy’s hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practiced familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder.

“Lemme ‘lone!”

It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.

But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding, the former instinctively following the later in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into his body.

As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.

“All right,” he mumbled.

She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.

“You’ll be docked,” she warned back to him.

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