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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 14, 1912
San Diego, California – Brutal Crimes Committed in Effort to Stop Free Speech Fight
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 13, 1912:
Tag: June 1912
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones at Charleston, West Virginia: “To me the conditions mean industrial war.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 13, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrives, Visits Holly Grove at Paint Creek
From The Cincinnati Post of June 11, 1912:
CHARLESTON, W. VA., June 11.–(Spl.)—Mother Jones, who has devoted half of her 80 years to an effort to soften the lot of the coal miners, is here to remain until the miners of the Paint Creek section get some redress from the conditions which have made it necessary for them to appeal to Governor Glasscock.
Paint Creek is 18 miles long and is flanked by a score of mine operations, which usually employ thousands of miners. Idleness has reigned in the district since April 1. Now the operators have 100 guards patrolling the creek in an effort to crush out unionism among the West Virginia miners. It is only in this section that the miners have been strong enough to organize.
Condemns the System
“I am going to stay here all week and dig down to the bottom of this trouble,” said Mother Jones, who arrived Sunday from Colorado.
She began by addressing a mass meeting of miners Sunday at Holly Grove.
[She declared:]
It is not the individual we are after, it is the system.
In West Virginia the “system” has been to crush out organized labor by the bludgeon and rifle in the hands of guards, paid by the operators and sworn in by the State as Deputy Sheriffs.
[Said Mother Jones:]
To me the conditions mean industrial war. You may beat a slave, but after a time a slave will revolt. Sane men do not undertake to violate property law, but sane men may be driven insane when hunger comes, if they are forced to fight. They reach the stage where they feel they might as well die as try to live under the conditions they are forced to submit to.
Homes Are Saddened
[The aged friend of the toiler continued:]
We hear a great deal about the right of women to vote. You can’t improve such conditions as exist here by extending the ballot to women. One of the great troubles is the loss of sunshine in the home. When a man gets home from work he should be greeted by a smile, but the women can’t smile under these conditions. It’s no wonder the criminal class is chiefly made up of young people.
Sheriff Smith, under instructions from Governor Glasscock, is keeping in close touch with Paint Creek, where it is believed a crisis is at hand.
It is believed Governor Glasscock will order out the militia if there is further loss of life. One miner was killed and another seriously shot last week. Many have been beaten.
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[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Women Strikers of Kalamazoo Corset Co. Jailed in Fight for Living Wage and Dignity on the Job
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1912
Kalamazoo, Michigan – Union Women Jailed Include Josephine Casey and Bella Yount
From The Coming Nation of June 8, 1912
-“A Familiar Strike Story” by Gertrude Barnum:
Josephine Casey, General Organizer International Ladies’ Garment
Workers’ Union, seated, and Bella Yount, member Executive Board,
Corset Workers’ Union No. 82 in jail at Kalamazoo, Mich.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Ends Western Tour on Behalf of Shopmen’s Strike, Plans to Leave for West Virginia
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 5, 1912
Mother Jones Preparing to Leave Montana, Heading for West Virginia
From The Sacramento Star of June 3, 1912:
Mother Jones has forwarded $800 from Montana to the Harriman shop strikers. Seven hundred of this was donated, in response to her earnest appeal, by unions of coal miners, and the remainder came from mill and smeltermen, machinists and other crafts. How persistent has been her work tor the System Federation is seen in her statement that she refused to accept less than $250 from the union of miners at Roundup, and their $100 donation was sent through their international office. Butte metal miners gave $300 some time ago.
[She writes in a characteristic letter to President E. L. Reguin and Secretary John Scott of the System Federation:]
If the men had been working regularly in the coal mines, I could have gathered up very much more. However, the whole thing shows the disposition of the men to aid each other in the struggle, which counts to me very much more than the finances,
I shall leave in a few days for West Virginia, to take up the battle there. It is a dangerous field, and many of us who go in there are more than likely never to come out, but what difference does that make so long as we are carrying on the industrial battle, and flaunting in the face of the foe the red flag of industrial freedom? There must be sacrifices made, and there must be martyrs. That state and Alabama must be organized within the next few years.
Tell my boys of the Federation it matters not where I go, I shall keep up the fight against oppression and wrong. Men, women and children must be free, and sentiment will never free them. Those who are grounded in the philosophy of the class struggle must go forth and give battle to the well-entrenched foe.
Tell the boys to keep up the fight. It is far better to die fighting and suffering than to remain slaves.
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[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Local Boise, of Socialist Party, Defends Comrade Bill Haywood Against Charges Made by Local Yuma
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 3, 1912
Local Boise (S. P. A.) Defends Big Bill Haywood
From the International Socialist Review of June 1912
Approve Haywood.-Just because our Com. Wm. D. Haywood happens to lay some stress on the industrial field, we are told by Local Yuma, Arizona, that he is unfit for the executive committee. We, Local Boise, take exception to this and declare that if Haywood is unfit for the executive committee we had better disband the Socialist party and tell Carl Marx to turn over in his grave, since by such an act we would proclaim to the world that the bona fide workers were not able to be a directing head. Local Yuma, in the desert of Arizona, seems to have a spirit in its ranks. This spirit seems to be able to go thousands of miles to report the words of a man who, maybe, is little to its liking. If Com. Haywood transgressed the holy word, why doesn’t Local New York, in whose territory Com. Haywood is said to have desecrated the Socialist party [Cooper Union Speech of Dec. 21, 1911], we say, why doesn’t New York move to recall Com. Haywood? Perhaps Com. Hillquit and others, who are always in New York, have too much influence there, and as they love Com. Haywood the New York local overlooks whatever Com. Haywood says. We rather think that the gods of our party make the faith in New York, but only the rank and file of Yuma, Arizona, believe it. Comrades, we, Local Boise, have had the good fortune to know Com. Haywood at close quarters. We saw him suffer day by day in the damp jail in this city. We saw him heroically withstand the slaughter of bloodthirsty lawyers and all for our cause. Comrades, we know that Com. Haywood is a true Socialist. His dues are paid in the Socialist party, and above all he never flinches from his duty to the working class, our class. If the referendum proposed by Local Yuma should carry, a smile of pleasure would spread itself over the face of every enemy of Socialism. We, Local Boise, call on all true comrades to snow under the proposed recall and thereby keep Com. Haywood where he was duly elected by a big majority.
MICHELE CIMBALO.
SEWELL H. CHAPMAN,
Local Boise Press Committee.[Note: re Tom Mann, the Review states:]
Tom Mann Sentenced.-Tom Mann, the industrial union labor leader who inspired over a million English miners to strike a few months ago, has been sentenced to serve six months in jail for calling upon the troups during the recent coal strike to refuse to shoot down strikers or their sympathizers. Comrade Mann defended himself and asked no mercy of the court. The charge against him was “inciting to mutiny.”…..
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Prosecution of Ettor and Giovannitti, Leaders of the Lawrence Strike
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 2, 1912
The Plot Against Ettor and Giovannitti, Leaders of the Lawrence Strike
From the International Socialist Review of June 1912:
EDITORIAL
A Plot to Murder Wage-Workers. Our readers already know that Ettor and Giovannitti, the I. W. W. organizers who directed the Lawrence strike in its earlier stages, were thrown into jail on charge of conspiracy to murder. At the time this seemed merely a move to cripple the strike, and it was expected that when work was resumed at the mills they would be released. Now, however, it seems that a desperate effort will be made to pack a jury with tools of the mill owners and send our comrades to the electric chair. No one claims that they had any part in the actual killing of any one. The victim was a woman striker [Anna LoPizzo], and the shot was fired by a policeman, as is fully explained in the New York Call of May 10. The real question is whether the prisoners were inciting the strikers to violence, and on this point there is an overwhelming array of testimony in the negative. The REVIEW had a representative on the scene all through the closing days of the strike, and from his personal knowledge we can say that the capitalists and police were eager to have the strikers resort to force, and in many ways did all they could to provoke violence. The strike committee on the other hand realized that any resort to force would give the police and the soldiers the pretext they were looking for to slaughter hundreds of strikers. Consequently they maintained such discipline and restraint among the strikers that the pretext never came, and finally the strike was won. Now in revenge, the jackals of the mill owners are seeking to murder Ettor and Giovannitti. Their trial has been postponed to the August term of court. Money for their defense is urgently needed. Send it direct to William Yates, Treas., 430 Bay State Building, Lawrence, Mass.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Eugene Debs and Emil Seidel Nominated to Head Socialist Party Ticket
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 1, 1912
Socialist Party of America Nominates Eugene Debs and Emil Seidel
From the International Socialist Review of June 1912:
Note: This issue of the Review covers the National Convention of the Socialist Party of America extensively, devoting 25 pages to that coverage and including many drawings and photographs of delegates and visitors. The convention was held at Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning Sunday, May 12th and ending Saturday, May 18th. Debs and Seidel were nominated late in the day on May 17th.
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