Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: 121 IWW & Socialist Party Men Enter Chicago Jail

24th August 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Don’t worry, fellow-worker,
all we’re going to need from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday August 24, 1917
Chicago, Illinois – Anti-War Prisoners Enter Bridewell

Cover of the International Socialist Review for August 1917:

A reminder of our Fellow Workers and Comrades now behind the prison bars-

———-

121 Behind the Prison Bars

One hundred twenty-one men entering Bridewell Work House, Chicago.
They were sentenced to one year’s hard labor by Judge Landis for refusing to register.

—–

One Hundred and Twenty-One Men

THE following accounts of the trial and imprisonment of 121 Socialists and members of the I. W. W. who voluntarily gave themselves up to the sheriff rather than register is taken from the Chicago newspapers.

Judge Landis first won fame by fining the Standard Oil Co., $29,000,000.00—which of course was never paid.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “Hunger, The Master Strategist”

23rd May 201723rd May 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

If blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God! we have bought it fair.
-Unknown Proletarian

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday May 23, 1917
Worldwide – Hunger Rules the Earth

From the International Socialist Review of May 1917:

Hunger by C. D. Batchelor

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs Pleads with Organized Workers of America to Stand Up and Save Life of Tom Mooney

13th April 2017 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Comrades, the red blood in you
must now prove itself.
I pledge myself to you
in this fight to its finish.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 13, 1917
From the International Socialist Review: Debs Fights for Life of Tom Mooney

TOM MOONEY SENTENCED TO DEATH

An Appeal to the Organized Workers of America!
By EUGENE V. DEBS

A TELEGRAM just received from San Francisco announces the sentence of Tom Mooney. He is to hang by the neck until he is dead. The day set for his murder is May 17th. The capitalist jury and judge have done their foul work, and it is now up to us to do ours.

Tom Mooney is an absolutely innocent man and his conviction an infamous crime. We, the workers of America, are duty bound to challenge the verdict of the capitalists’ jury and set aside the sentence of the capitalist judge. We constitute a court, a jury and a judge of our own.

We sat thru this case from the hour the vile conspiracy was concocted and we knew beyond doubt that Mooney was framed and that he is to be murdered for no other reason than that the corporation criminals, the big capitalist thieves and their official highbinders could not buy him, or silence his agitation.

More than twenty reputable witnesses not only testified to Mooney’s innocence but proved it beyond even the shadow of a doubt. His alibi was without a flaw. He was miles away from the bomb when it exploded in the preparedness parade. He had absolutely no connection with and no knowledge of the affair. Bourke Cockran, the eminent New York lawyer who defended him, is positively convinced of this and so is every other man or woman who attended the trial and is not in the pay or under the influence of the United Railroads, the Manufacturers’ Association, and other red-handed bandits who have for years been plundering San Francisco and have now set themselves up as the autocratic rulers of the Pacific coast.

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Hellraisers Journal: Mr. Grab-It-All has a very good year while the Ninety and Nine work and die in want and hunger and cold.

31st December 201630th December 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 31, 1916
From the American Socialist: Grab-It-All’s Very Good Year

From the Appeal to Reason of December 31, 1916:

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Hellraisers Journal: Seattle’s Kept Press on IWW “Song of Hate” & Joe Hill Memorial Edition of Songbook

17th November 201617th November 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

My body? Oh, if I could choose,
I would to ashes to reduce
And let the merry breezes blow,
My dust to where some flowers grow.

Perhaps some fading flowers then
Would come to live and bloom again.
This is my last and final will,
Good luck to all of you,
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal: Friday November 17, 1916
Seattle, Washington – “Christians at War,” a Blasphemous Song?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer makes clear that the I. W. W. song, “Christians at War,” is blasphemous song and a “song of hate.” The “Intelligencer” warns that the song is found in the I. W. W. Songbook dedicated as the “Joe Hill Memorial Edition” and goes on to describe Fellow Worker Hill as “an I. W. W. sympathizer.” We proudly point out that Joe Hill was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World. FW Hill was a world-famous songwriter, a poet, an artist, and a true blue rebel, dedicated to the principles of the One Big Union of all the workers.

WE NEVER FORGET

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of November 15, 1916:

1-Front cover of the I. W. W. Book of Songs, containing the “Hymn of Hate” and other seditious [?] verse. The volume is inscribed “Joe Hill Memorial Edition,” The “Joe Hill” being the notorious Joseph Hillstrom, an I. W. W. sympathizer who was executed in Utah for cold-blooded murder. The I. W. W. sought at the last moment to prove as alibi for the murderer, but the [attempt failed?]. Spry [Governor of Utah] declined to interfere, and the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the court was carried out. This I. W. W. book of songs is sold [?] in the Seattle local and wherever the organization is allowed to exist.
2-“Christians at War, “ a blasphemous song set to the music of “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” which was sung by the Seattle I. W. W. when they invaded Everett and fought the battle that resulted in six deaths, Sunday, November 5.

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Hellraisers Journal: John F, Tobin, President of Boot and Shoe Workers, Tells of Spies in Labor Unions

27th October 201627th October 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 27, 1906
From the Duluth Labor World: Beware the Pinkerton

SPIES IN LABOR UNION
BONE OF CONTENTION
—–
John F. Tobin Tells How One is Discovered
in Boot and Shoe Workers.
—–
Becomes Active in Strike and Proves to be
Employed as Pinkerton Detective.
—–

In his report made at the convention of the Boot and Shoe Workers’ union recently held at Milwaukee, National President J. F. Tobin had this to say of spies in unions:

In many of our unions, and particularly in the large shoe centers, it is a well known fact that we have members who betray the union, giving out information both truthful and untruthful, which is conveyed to employers, sometimes by one method and again by others.

During my membership in a local union in Rochester, N. Y., in 1890, while the Cox strike was in progress, a stranger came to the city well recommended, and was very active in our meetings, very friendly with everybody and very liberal with his money, and contributed to the funds of the union altogether out of proportion with his small earnings while occasionally employed in one of the factories.

After being in the union quite a number of weeks he became a candidate for delegate to the joint shoe council in the semi-annual election and made an active canvass for election. About this time it was discovered that he was a Pinkerton detective, and upon this information being passed around among the members at the meeting he was elected outside sentinel, from which he took the hint and immediately left the city.

During the last big strike in Haverhill a man giving his name as Ed Loughlin was a avery active and prominent member of the union for some time, and was then discovered to be a Pinkerton detective, when he suddenly disappeared.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Masses: Boardman Robinson on the Execution of “The Deserter”

23rd July 201620th July 2016 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
-Fellow Worker Jesus of Nazareth,
Carpenter

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Sunday July 23, 1916
From The Masses: A Drawing on the Fate of The Peacemaker

The Masses, The Deserter, Jesus Christ, by B Robinson, July 1916

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones on Rich at Horse Show & Children on Breadline, One Block Away

9th December 201512th October 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

I want justice, no more, no less.
If you’ll give us justice we won’t need charity.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 9, 1905
From the Albuquerque Evening Citizen:
Rich of Gotham Frolic While Children Stand in Breadline One Block Away

Mother Jones, Mar 11, 1905, AtR

In an article which appeared yesterday in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen, Mother Jones describes the ostentatious display of wealth at a Madison Square Garden horse show while the children of the poor queued up for stale bread one block away.

Mother describes the Rich Spectators:

Hundreds of men and women, dressed in the height of what they called fashion, were seated in boxes, facing a circle, where well-bred horses, beautifully kept, beautifully fed, beautifully groomed and carefully sheltered from the cold blast of a November evening, were prancing about on the tan bark.

The horse show was in progress. The great garden was hung with gay bunting, the air was oppressive with the perfume of cologne and flowers. Pecks of diamonds glistened at the ears and breasts of the women. Orchids, which I am told cost $5 apiece, were as common at the corsages of the society dames as are daisies in an uncultivated meadow in July.

Mother describes the Hungry Children of the Slums:

I walked a hundred paces east, toward the corner of 27th street, and Fourth avenue. A little army of children from the slums was drawn up before Cushman’s bakery. Those children are there every night at 6 o’clock, drawn up in a line of misery. They came for free bread-stale bread, something to hold together the bodies and souls of brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Four

6th December 201514th November 2017 Janet RayeJoe Hill Rebel Songwriter

Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill

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Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at San Pedro Sailors Mission — Joe Hill, Self-Portrait at Sailors’ Rest Mission in San Pedro, April 1911

Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the fourth day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 4 of this series.

The Songs & Poems of Joe Hill,
Published in the Little Red Songbooks of 1914 & 1916

The Eighth Edition of the Little Red Songbook, published in Cleveland and dated December, 1914, was dedicated as the “Joe Hill Edition.” There were no new Joe Hill song’s in that edition, but there was a poem headed by a drawing of a wooden shoe entitled “The Rebel’s Toast.” The poem appears under the song “Liberty Forever,” but Green believes that the two are not related and states that there is no evidence to indicate that Joe Hill intended for the poem to be sung.

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WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Three

5th December 201515th November 2017 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might;
Then we’ll sing one song of the workers’ commonwealth,
Full of beauty, full of love and health.
-Joe Hill

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Joe Hill, cartoon, And stay off! See! Sept 1911 — Cartoon drawing by Joe Hill, September 1911

Fellow Workers, sit back and relax. It’s time to honor the memory of Joe Hill by enjoying the songs that he left to us. For the second day, WE NEVER FORGET, The Labor Martyrs Project, features FW Hill’s musical and lyrical legacy. We are presenting his songs in the order in which they were first published in the Little Red Songbooks of the Industrial Workers of the World. Today we offer Part 3 of this series.

Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: Joe Hill-Songs from the Little Red Songbook, Part Three” →