Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 24, 1912 Los Angeles, California – Great Funeral Demonstration Held for FW Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 23, 1912:
GREAT FUNERAL DEMONSTRATION FOR MIKOLASCK.
(Special Telegram to the “Worker.”)
Los Angeles, Cal., May 13.-Fifteen hundred rebels were in line at the funeral of our brave fellow worker and comrade Joseph Mikelasck [Mikolasek], who was murdered by the San Diego police on the seventh inst. It was the greatest demonstration in the history of the city. The banner of the Industrial Workers of the World led the procession and the groups which followed carried red flags. Along the line of march the “Red Flag” and “Marseillaise” were sung. Parade traversed the business district and the police were forced to aid the parade by stopping traffic. The banners carried in the parade read:
“With the suppression of free speech our liberties are gone.”
“We are organized, not for riot and disorder, but for universal peace.”
“The defenders of liberty are jailed and murdered. The vigilantes go free.”
“He had nothing to give but his life, that he gave freely.”
“Our fellow worker who was murdered in the fight for free speech in San Diego.”
“Our silence in the grave will be more powerful than the voices you strangled today.”
Going along Hill Street the procession was joined by a body of Mexicans who threw down their tools in response to the cry of
“ONE BIG UNION FOR ALL”
J. J. McKELVEY.
[Emphasis added; newsclip added from Los Angeles Express of May 13, 1912.]
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 18, 1912 San Diego, California – The Death of Fellow Worker Joseph Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 16, 1912:
San Diego, Calif., May 9, 1912-The climax in the free speech fight came Tuesday, May 7. as a result one unarmed worker [Joseph Mikolasek] was murdered by the police, the town was practically under martial law, workers were clubbed on the streets, and over one hundred deported.
Tuesday morning it was reported that 84 members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were coming to participate in the free speech campaign, had arrived in the city on a freight train and were at Old Town, about three miles from the heart of the city. The police excitedly sent out all the reserves and special police men, who held up the train and took from a box car 84 free speech fighters on their way to battle. The men were lined up and herded into an old schoolhouse.
At 2 o’clock it became apparent that the vigilante outrages would be repeated for the business men were hurriedly arming themselves with rifles and shot guns. At 3 o’clock Attorney Moore of the free Speech League applied for a writ requesting the sheriff to take possession of the 84 prisoners. He also presented to the court an affidavit charging that it was the intention of the police to hand the men over to the “Vigilantes.” The writ was refused, the judge stating later in the evening he might grant a writ of habeas corpus. This was done at 8:45 p. m., too late to serve it.
Late that night, under cover of darkness, the police and the Vigilance Committee escorted the 84 Socialists and Industrial Workers out to the county line, and after tying them to trees, horsewhipping them and otherwise brutally treating them, they were told to “March north and keep going.”
Among the men thus deported were several members of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist party.
At 7 o’clock Tuesday evening the men in town decided to make another attempt to speak on the streets. Accordingly 70 men went to the corner of Fifth and E streets and started to speak. The fifth man had mounted the rostrum when the reserve squad of the police charged the crowd which had gathered, clubbing indiscriminately. One small man named Catallon was knocked down and jumped on by a vigilante. Several citizens were injured and many speakers were arrested.
During the melee on the street some policemen were heard to say that the I. W. W. hall would be raided that night, and word was sent by sympathizers to vacate the hall, which was done, and at 7:30 p. m. when four policemen appeared at the hall it was empty. The policemen came to the doors and without demanding entrance, they poured a volley of shots into the building. They then broke into the hall and finding no one present they approached a group of I. W. W. men standing on the sidewalk around the corner. These men they proceeded to “beat up” but did not arrest them.
They then went back to the hall and saw Joe Mickolasek [Mikolasek] an I. W. W. who had just entered the building. According to Mickolasek’s dying statement the police immediately opened fire on him without any provocation.Mickolasek thereupon picked up an axe and although mortally wounded, attempted to defend himself. He wounded a policeman with the axe. The policeman who was hit with the axe was named Heddon. Thereupon Policeman Stevens opened fire upon Mickolasek. Nine shots took effect in Mickolasek’s body. During the excitement Policeman Stevens was shot in the shoulder it is supposed that this was an accident, but Woodford Hubbard, a socialist organizer, was charged with attempting to murder, although he was not in the crowd at the time of the shooting.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 16, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1911, Part II Found in Los Angeles, Interviewed by Estelle Lawton Lindsey
From The Los Angeles Record of December 21, 1911:
“MOTHER JONES” PREDICTS BRIGHTER DAY; MEN NATURALLY GOOD IS HER BELIEF
By Estelle Lawton Lindsey.
“Some day men will go into the bowels of the earth and bring out lead to be made into type to enlighten the minds of their fellows, instead of bullets to brutalize. In that day we shall be civilized.”
The speaker was Mrs. Mary Jones, known through this land as “Mother Jones,” saint or revolutionist according to your point of view, a woman loved to adoration by 400,000 organized miners of the U. S., and who has been described as “the walking wrath of God.”
In conversation this woman, who will be 80 years old the first day of next May, and looks like a well-preserved and vigorous woman of 50, speaks little of wrath and much of love, understanding and education.
WOMEN MUST UNDERSTAND
My work is to prevent violence, to settle, peaceably, differences between employer and employed. Wherever there are strikes, wherever there may be violence—which I abhor—wherever feelings of revenge are rampant, there I go. My work is to teach men the causes of their difficulties, to show them how to remedy conditions by changing the laws and the system. My field of activity is the world.
The trouble with the average woman is that she is a sentimentalist. She is ignorant of the causes of our industrial disturbance. She cannot realize that as long as we have oppression we shall have violent reaction in the minds and feelings of the oppressed; and that such feelings are the root of violence. The thinker who understands the cause knows all violence can be done away with. Soon women will understand, then they will give the world better men.
My work is to keep people from getting into conflicts to get them to think instead of fighting; and to show others how to think. I believe in education; and through education I believe we can so change our forms of government that feelings of revenge will die of inanition.
In that day we will not devote millions, wrung from those least able to pay, to chaining human beings like beasts for being what the government has made them.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 15, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1911, Part I
Found in Berkeley, California; Learns of Confession of McNamara Brothers
From the Richmond (California) Daily Independent of December 1, 1911:
MOTHER JONES TO SPEAK. ———-
Mother Jones, the mother of the working men, will speak at the Building Trades Temple on Fourth and Macdonald avenue, Friday evening at 8:15. Her subject will be “McNamara Defense.” The public is cordially invited to attend.
[Photograph added.]
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From the Richmond Daily Independent of December 2,1911:
MCNAMARA CONFESSION
CREATES COMMOTION
———- At First Held Ridiculous Here. But Mother Jones
Meeting at Trades Hall Is Postponed–Many
See Political Move in Los Angeles Election. ———-
The blood-red extra of the Oakland Tribune last evening set the Richmond world ablaze. Its headlines, in letters inches long, read “J. B. McNamara Pleads Guilty,” “Admits Slaying Haggerty,” and “Brother Admit Dynamiting.” The Trib had little else save that it claimed that J. B. McNamara would be given life imprisonment and that his brother, J. J. McNamara under agreement with state, would receive fifteen years.
[…..]
The union labor forces of Richmond and the sympathizers with the McNamaras found themselves in queer position with the appearance of the evening papers. Mother Jones was announced to address the Richmond people at the Building Trades Council hall on Fourth street on the matter of aiding in the defense of the accused men.
Quite a body of people assembled to listen to the famous woman, but after a short wait, it was announced by the officials of the council that Mother Jones would not be present, as she was waiting in Berkeley for later and more reliable information from the southern city. There was nothing else to be done but postpone the meeting, and it was done. At a later date, should tho conditions at Los Angeles be different than reported last night, Mother Jones may appear here…..
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 15, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1911, Part I Found Involved in Conflict Between Madero and Magón
From the Appeal to Reason of November 4, 1911:
Mexico.-The history of the Mexican revolution is too well known to need discussion here. Following the successful overthrow of Diaz there have appeared two tendencies of the working class movement in our sister republic. One of these, lead by [Ricardo Flores] Magon, is semi-anarchistic, while the other is socialistic. The Socialists have established a labor paper at the city of Mexico and both the Western Federation of Miners and the United Mine Workers have gone into the republic to organize the miners. Mother Jones is now there for that purpose, as is also Charles Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners. Madero has promised his protection. It is too early to make predictions as to the result.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From Regeneración of November 4, 1911 -Page 4, English Section:
…..Our readers must pardon us for piling up, week after week, the evidence of Madero’s complete subjection to the money power, and we ourselves feel that every mind open to conviction must have become persuaded long ago of the truthfulness of the charges we have been making for the last eight months. Unfortunately such women as “Mother Jones” apparently can be still won over by a handshake from Wall Street’s president-elect, and communications from men who are intriguing day and night for Madero are still played up in Socialist publications. For the most part, however, the Socialist press has dropped the Mexican revolution like a hot potato, it will have to take it up again, and, it is to be hoped, from an amended standpoint…..
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 12, 1921 Los Angeles, California – Fellow Workers Found Guilty of Criminal Syndicalism
From The Los Angeles Times of December 8, 1921:
Nine defendants in the I.W.W. criminal syndicalism, case in Judge Willis’s court were found guilty last night. The Jury found Manuel Engdal not guilty since he not only denied membership in the organization, but a membership card in his name was not produced. The eleventh defendant, Thomas Bailey, was dismissed several days ago.
The defendants acted as their own attorneys. Most of them were charged with two counts, membership in the I.W.W. and treasonable propaganda. They will be sentenced tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. The convicted men are William Baker, Ben Whittling, R. Bendig, Abraham Shocker, Henry Matlln, James Olson, W. I. Fruit, Louis Allen and Edward Peters. The case has been under way since November 10. Dep. Dist.-Attys. Turney and McCartney conducted the prosecution.
“I regard this conviction as one of the most important ever secured in the courts of this country,” said Dist.-Atty. Woolwine last evening. “It serves notice upon the Reds of the world that they cannot with impunity enter America and here hatch plots and schemes for the overthrow of our government and institutions.”
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 7, 1911 Los Angeles, California – McNamaras Sentenced; Darrow Stung by Criticism -Socialist Candidate for Mayor, Job Harriman, Defeated
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 5, 1911 Terre Haute, Indiana – Eugene Debs Reacts to Confession of McNamara Brothers
From The Indianapolis News of December 4, 1911:
VIEWS OF EUGENE V. DEBS —————
Job Harriman, Socialist Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles
Socialist Leader Says the McNamaras Do Not Belong to His Party.
(Special to The Indianapolis News.)
TERRE HAUTE, Ind., December 4.-Eugene V. Debs repudiates the assertion that the McNamaras are Socialists. Said he:
“The brothers are Democrats and Catholics, and that church is fighting the Socialist Party. We Socialists took the ground that they were to be regarded as innocent until proven guilty. We have nothing to apologize for; we never condoned dynamiting, but always condemned it. We simply tried to see that the brothers got a square deal, and especially because they had been kidnapped.
If the confessions had been held until after Tuesday [election day] the men would have been hanged. The mercy extended to them is the price paid for political effect in the election that day in Los Angeles.”
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 20, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1911, Part II
Mother Writes From Mexico City; Is Denounced by Regeneración
From the Appeal to Reason of October 21, 1911:
Mother Jones In Mexico ———-
Mexico City, Oct. 4.-Just a line to let you know I have just returned from the palace where I have had a long audience with President De La Barra. At the close of my interview the Mexican guaranteed me protection and my right to organize the miners of Mexico. This is the first time that any one has ever been granted that privilege in the history of the Mexican nation. It is the greatest concession ever granted to any one representing the laboring class of any nation.
I also spent an hour with President-elect Madero and he granted me the protection and aid from the government that I called for. I am the first person who has been permitted to carry the banner of industrial freedom to the long suffering peons of this nation.
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