Tag: IWW Preamble

Hellraisers Journal: Harrison George on the Chicago Trial, the IWW Preamble, the Magna Carta, and the Sab-Cat

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote H George, re Chicgo Prisoners to Court, OH Sc p1, June 11, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday June 14, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – The Sab-Cat Enters the Courtroom

From The Ohio Socialist of June 11, 1918:

A Second Runnymede
—–

By HARRISON GEORGE

WWIR, IWW Harrison George, ISR Jan 1918

It is no new thing-this struggle for human rights. Every morning we Chicago prisoners are taken in irons from the Cook County jail, the tomb of the old “Eight-Hour Movement,” and dumped into a gloomy court room of the Federal Building. How often have court rooms served as undertaking parlors for the aspirations of rebellious workers?

Here in the sepulchral atmosphere of the Law are gathered the class conscious social forces of this age in cut and thrust contest of Capital versus Labor.

Fathoming the shadows of the big room, our eyes discern an inscription within an arch among the mural decorations-“No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold or liberties or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise damaged, but by lawful judgment of his peers. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” Did Simon De Montfort and his followers, who forced he tyrant John to accept this Magna Charta at Runnymede, dream that six centuries later in a land whose boasted jurisprudence is based upon their great conquest, these words would lend a sanctity to such hypocritical persecution? We think of Ludlow and Lawrence, Paint Creek and Everett, of Bisbee and Butte-and we wonder why that inscription should not be painted out.

Throughout the month of April we I. W. W. men sat in the dock listening to the endless stream of questions and replies between lawyers and prospective jurors. Nebeker, the Copper Trust attorney, seeking always to constrain the issues and select employers; Vandeveer, for the I. W. W., groping in a basket of bad eggs for those the least bad, seeking to obtain men who have the social mind. “Industrial democracy”-“the class war”-“the right of revolution,” are phrases that flow like sparks from an anvil as Vandeveer, or Cleary, hammer home their questions and forged the tremendous issues. For here is a second Runnymede, and here the I. W. W. must enforce upon a tyrant master class the recognition of a new Magna Charta- the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World..

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “On the Inside” by Bill Haywood, IWW Class-War Prisoners in Cook County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Such a group of men one is proud to be associated with
-workers, clean hearted, clear eyed;
all fighting for the principles so plainly set forth in
the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World.
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 7, 1918
Big Bill Haywood on Conditions in the Cook County Jail

From The Liberator of May 1918:

On the Inside

By William D. Haywood

BBH, Str Prs Muncie IN, -p11 edit, Apr 25, 1918

CLANG! clang! a bell rang out, big iron doors slid back, the auto patrol wheeled up to the rear entrance of the Cook County Jail; and here we are.

We are in the wing of the “old jail,” a room about 60 by 60 with a double row of cells four tiers high; our cells face the alley to the west. Cells are six by eight, about eight feet high with ceiling slightly sloping to the rear.

This cell is parlor, bedroom, dining room and lavatory all in one. Decorations black and white-that is, the interior is painted solid black on two walls, black half way on the other two walls. The ceiling is mottled white. Wash bowl, toilet, water-pipe, small bench, a narrow iron bunk, flat springs, corn husk mattress, sheet and pillow case of rough material, blanket, tin cups and spoons, constitute the fittings of our temporary homes where we spend twenty hours out of every twenty-four, involuntary parasites, doing no more service to society than the swell guys who loll around clubs or attend the functions at fashionable resorts.

The reveille of this detention camp is the sharp voice of the “runner,” “Cups out! Cups out!”

It is the beginning of a new day. The light, streams through the grated. door and falls in a checkered pattern across the cell floor.

One stretches his body on the narrow cot and awakens to the fact that he is still in jail, accepting the situation philosophically, wondering, some of us perhaps, what manner of independence and freedom it was that our Forefathers fought for in this country.

A prison cell is the heritage we gain for the blood and lives our forefathers gave; they fought for religious freedom and left us with minds free from superstitious cant and dogma; they waged war for political justice; they carried on the struggle against chattel-slavery-these were the titanic battles that were fought, bringing us to the threshold of the greatest of all wars-the class war-in which we are enlisted as workers, against all kinds of exploiters.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part I: Craft Unionism Creates Union Scabs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?

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Hellraisers Journal: Delegate at IWW Convention: Miss Flynn, “Young High School Girl-Fiery Socialist Orator”

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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I studied carefully the New York East Side,
the slums, the dives, and the sweatshops
and the terrible conditions of the people there
drove me into socialism.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 22, 1907
Chicago, Illinois – Miss Flynn Delegate to I. W. W. Convention

From Montana’s Great Falls Daily Tribune of September 21, 1907:

EGF, Fiery Girl Socialist, Grt Fls Tb p1, Sept 21, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal: IWW Convention Meets in Chicago; Haywood Sends Message from Ada County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Big Bill Haywood on IWW, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 29, 1906
Chicago, Illinois – Report from I. W. W. Convention

From the Appeal to Reason, a first-hand account of the Second Annual Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World:

THE I. W. W. IN SESSION
—–
Industrial Unionism Shows Itself to
Be a Virile Infant at Second
Annual Convention.
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by F. M. EASTWOOD,
Special Representative APPEAL TO REASON.
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IWW Label, 2nd Conv, Sept 17-Oct 3, 1906

CHICAGO. ILL., Sept. 20.-The second annual convention of The Industrial Workers of the World convened in this city September 17th, at 10 o’clock a. m., and is still in session.

The presence of factions has delayed the progress of the convention from the beginning but at this time all credential contests have been disposed of with the exception of that of the transportation department, which now is pending.
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