Remember, this is the only
American working-class movement which sings.
Tremble then at the I. W. W.,
for a singing movement is not to be beaten.
-Jack Reed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 3, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – “Big Bill Haywood, with his black Stetson…”
From The Liberator of September 1918:
Part II of John Reed’s coverage of Chicago I. W. W. trial with drawings by Art Young-
The Social Revolution In Court
By Art Young And John Reed
—–In the early morning they come over from Cook County Jail, where most of them have been rotting three-quarters of a year, and march into the court-room two by two, between police and detectives, bailiffs snarling at the spectators who stand too close. It used to be that they were marched four times a day through the streets of Chicago, hand-cuffed; but the daily circus parade has been done away with.
Now they file in, the ninety-odd who are still in jail, greeting their friends as they pass; and there they are joined by the others, those who are out on bail. The bail is so high-from $25,000 apiece down-that only a few can be let free. The rest have been in that horrible jail-Cook County-since early last fall; almost a year in prison for a hundred men who love freedom more than most.
On the front page of the Daily Defense Bulletin, issued by headquarters, is a drawing of a worker behind the bars, and underneath, “REMEMBER! We are in HERE for YOU; You are out THERE for US! ”
There goes Big Bill Haywood, with his black Stetson above a face like a scarred mountain; Ralph Chaplin, looking like Jack London in his youth; Reddy Doran, of kindly pugnacious countenance, and mop of bright red hair falling over the green eye-shade he always wears; Harrison George, whose forehead is lined with hard thinking; Sam Scarlett, who might have been a yeoman at Crecy; George Andreytchine, his eyes full of Slav storm; Charley Ashleigh, fastidious, sophisticated, with the expression of a well-bred Puck; Grover Perry, young, stony-faced after the manner of the West; Jim Thompson, John Foss, J. A. MacDonald; Boose, Prancner, Rothfisher, Johanson, Lossiev….
The half-starved men and women on the bread lines are the rulers of Russia. The crowd is the government. The faction of which Kerensky was the head, once looked upon by the world as radical, became, comparatively, as conservative as Taft in his second campaign. This faction did not represent the crowd, so it fell, leaving Kerensky with about as much influence in Russia as one William Jennings Bryan has here. If Kerensky should return to Russia he would be killed. If he and his supporters and remained in power two months longer every city in Russia would have been under German control. Korniloff planned the fall of Riga to frighten the Russian people into action, and admitted it publicly. The Kerensky government, when the people threatened to take its power from it, practiced sabotage on the food supplies of the people, fomented strikes in the manufacturing plants, and closed down factories.
