Tag: March 1921

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1921: Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Willing to Swear If Required to Make Her Point

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Praying Swearing, UMWC, Jan 17, 1918———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 26, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1921
-Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Will Swear as Needed

From The Grand Rapids Press of March 15, 1921:

MOTHER JONES WILL SWEAR
IF IT IS REQUIRED
———-

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920“Mother” Jones, for many years a labor leader of national repute, arrived in Grand Rapids Tuesday noon for her first visit to this city in 20 years. She was a guest at the Eagle hotel and lunched at noon with a group of local labor leaders and their wives. During the afternoon she spoke at Trades and Labor council hall on general labor conditions in the United States, being introduced to the Grand Rapids audience by D. B. Hovey. Tuesday evening she will give another address at the Railway Workers’ union.

Grand Rapids labor circles greeted the venerated leader in a spirit of tribute for her many years of service in the cause of labor. She is a picturesque figure, but in spite of her flat bonnet and old-fashioned dress the impression the white haired old lady gives is not that of quaintness but of power, for the lines of her face are very strong and certainly she has a mind of her own. Though 85 years old she is more active than many persons much younger.

Mother Jones said she never knows what she is going to say to an audience until she faces it.

[She said:]

I’m not one of those orators that prepare a speech beforehand. I have to see what the folks I’m going to talk to look like first. If they’re a lot of roughnecks like us not I’ll swear at ’em.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1921: Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Willing to Swear If Required to Make Her Point” →

Hellraisers Journal: Jubilant Citizens of Matewan, West Virginia, Welcome Home Sid Hatfield and Fifteen Co-Defendants

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sid Hatfield, Matewan Friends, NYT p6, Mar 22, 1921———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 23, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Co-Defendants Return Home

From The New York Times of March 22, 1921:

Home Folk Welcome Defendants.

Sid Hatfield, Two Gun, Akron Beacon Jr p1, Mar 21, 1921

MATEWAN, W. Va., March 21.-This little mining village called it a holiday today to greet the sixteen mountaineers, defendants in the Matewan battle trial, who were found not guilty by the jury at Williamson this morning.

Apparently all residents of the town were at the station late in the day when the train, which brought home Sid Hatfield, Chief of Police, and his fifteen companions, arrives.

A special car attached to the train held the hillmen and their bodyguard, Pinoon, six deputies, Captain Brockus and ten State troopers.

As the sixteen men stepped from the train and rushed into the arms of relatives and friends women laughed and cried, alternately, and for an hour the defendants were kept busy shaking the hands of men, women and children.

“It is the happiest day Matewan ever knew,” declared one rugged mountaineer as he grasped the hand of Sid Hatfield. 

“At least for me,” Sid replied.

Chief Hatfield was the centre of the admiring throng, and it was with great difficulty that he made his way to his home through the crowd. It took him more than an hour to traverse the 100 yards from the railroad station to his residence.

Arrived at the door of his home, Hatfield gazed upon his right hand, swollen from the hearty grasps of his neighbors, and remarked: “It’s good to know you have so many friends.”

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia: Sid Hatfield and Fifteen Co-Defendants Found “Not Guilty”

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 22, 1921
Williamson, W. V. – Matewan Defendants Found Not Guilty

From The Pittsburg Press of March 21, 1921:

BNR HdLn, Sid Hatfield et al Not Guilty, Ptt Prs p1, Mar 21, 1921

SID HATFIELD AND
15 CO-DEFENDANTS
FREED BY JURY
—–

By S. D. Weyer,
International News Service Staff Correspondent

Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor, Lbtr p11, Aug 1920

Courthouse, Williamson, W. Va., March 21.-Sid Hatfield and his 15 co-defendants in the trigger trial were found not guilty by the jury at 11:21 o’clock this morning.

Three minutes later judge Bailey told the defendants to go back to the county jail, where they will give bond for their appearance in court for the indictments of murdering six other detectives. Bailey arranged to allow the 16 men to go back to Matewan on the noon train.

J. J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, made this statement to the International News Service staff correspondent immediately after the verdict was read by the clerk of courts:

I think the result is what the public generally anticipated. It means, in my opinion that the private guard system in West Virginia has been on trial and been condemned, and the legislature now in session should take notice of this fact.

The 16 defendants received the verdict without any show of emotion, except that Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan, smiled his perpetual smile.

After Judge Robert D. Bailey had told them to “go back to jail,” they crowded around Coniff and grasped his hand.

Then, accompanied by two “double gun” deputy sheriffs, they filed out of the court room, where they have sat daily since Jan. 26, and walked through lines of men and women congratulating them, across the court house lawn to the jail.

———-

[Drawing of Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Miss Flynn Speaks before New England Civil Liberties Committee on Behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 14, 1921
Boston, Massachusetts – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Sacco and Vanzetti

From The Boston Daily Globe of March 12, 1921:

MISS FLYNN RAPS “RED” HYSTERIA
———-
Criticises Method Used in
Prosecuting “Holdup Men”
———-
Asks Twentieth Century Club if
Justice Is Being Done Immigrants
———

EGF, Invitation f Speech re Sacco Vanzetti, Boston, Mar 11, 1921

In defending Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the two Italians who are to be tried for the murder and robbery of a paymaster in East Braintree some months ago, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, at the Twentieth Century Club last night [March 11th], denounced the methods used in prosecuting them, warmly upheld the foreign born workmen, or their children, as the victims of gross misconceptions among the so-called “American” population, excoriated this same attitude as unjustified, stupid and cruel-the product of fear and the “Red” hysteria.

Miss Flynn spoke before the New England Civil Liberties Committee.

[Said Miss Flynn:]

If a man is active in the labor movement and is trying to bring about better working conditions in industry, we have been taught to look behind charges brought against him. The Mooney case taught us to investigate before conviction, not afterward. We are willing to assume that men interested in labor movements are not of the criminal type.

That may not be a good reason in law, but it is perfectly true. No one with a studious, thoughtful mind can on the spur of the moment plan a crime requiring the skill of practiced criminals.

Touching on the popular prejudice against the alien element, she said she had read a sketch by Owen Wister, in which Mr. Wister compared aliens to guests within our house, who. if they did not like our ways, are privileged to leave, but not privileged to break up our home.

[She said:]

Yes, but they are not guests who sit in the parlor playing the piano while we are out in the kitchen doing the work. Not by a good deal. We are sitting in the parlor and they are washing the dishes, scrubbing the floor, fixing the furnace and doing all the drudgery we can load on them. If they were really guests we might expect them to reciprocate; but we expect them to do all the work and have nothing to say about the conditions under which they do it.

John S. Codman presided.

———-

[Invitation and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Comrade Eugene V. Debs Found in Solitary at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 7, 1921
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Comrade Debs Found in Solitary Confinement

From the Appeal to Reason of February 26, 1921:

EVD in Solitary HdLn, AtR p4, Feb 26, 1921

Eugene V Debs Federal Prisoner No 9653, has been placed incommunicado in Atlanta prison, has been forbidden even to communicate with his wife and brother, and is threatened with solitary confinement, “in the hole,” on bread and water—this fiendish and barbarous punishment being inflicted upon the Grand Old Man of the American labor movement in mad revenge for the latest statement of Debs printed in the Appeal [see below], in reply to President Wilson’s final contemptuous denial of a pardon to Debs.

The above is the startling news that is flashed over the wires of the Appeal, shortly before going to press, in the following telegram from Theodore Debs, brother of ‘Gene:

Terre Haute, Ind., 4:26 p. m., Feb. 21, 1921,

Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kans.

By President Wilson’s special order Gene Debs is now in isolation cell and is deprived from receiving or sending mail even to his wife and is denied all visitors. It is rumored he is to go into the hole on bread and water. This is his punishment for his reply to Wilson’s attitude on his release. It is evident that the intention is to break his spirit and completely destroy his health.

THEODORE DEBS.

This is without doubt the most ghastly information that has come out of Atlanta, where Our Gene is suffering the most brutal torture that his political jailers can inflict in an effort to make him recant, make him renounce the dictates of his conscience, make him betray the comrades in whose cause he became the target of all the enemy’s hatred and venom.

There can be no questioning the accuracy of Theodore Debs’ message, monstrously incredible as it may seem. We know Theodore Debs to be a most careful informant; furthermore he has been constantly in direct touch with Atlanta since his brother Gene was confined in the federal bastile of the South. Theodore Debs is not the kind of man to make rash or hasty statements. Be sure that Theodore Debs’ emergency wire to the Appeal was the result of the most absolute and authentic information and carries with it the most desperate urgency and alarm over the possible fate of his fearless and martyred brother.

The Appeal feels certain that this ruthless treatment of Gene has been inspired by the recently and suddenly active Anti-Debs Lobby which is now functioning night and day at the nation’s capital in an attempt to thwart the wishes of the American people and keep Gene and his comrades behind the prison bars and Gene himself “in the hole” if possible. It is maddening to reflect that while the minions of Wall Street are active in Washington, the friends of Debs have not yet made possible a powerful Debs lobby which should be on the spot night and day to checkmate and counteract the infamous and unscrupulous activities of the sworn foes of Eugene V. Debs. It is not yet too late to speed our full forces to the defense of our beloved Gene.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: Salsedo Dead-Sacco and Vanzetti in Danger -by Robert Minor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 2, 1921
Salsedo Dead in New York City; Sacco and Vanzetti in Danger in Massachusetts

From the New York Liberator of March 1921:

One Dead-Two in Danger

By Robert Minor

Cover by Robert Minor, Are They Doomed by Art Shields, Ad Lbtr Mar 1921
-by Art Shields
-cover design by Robert Minor

OUT of a window high in an office building in Park Row, a man’s body took the long drop to the street below. Early morning newspaper distributors and a policeman smoothed back the black hair on the head that rolled loosely. There were the fine forehead of olive skin, the black eyes and aquiline nose of an Italian.

The body had fallen from a window that gaped open in the half-dark of dawn, fourteen stories above. Investigation of the fourteenth floor showed that this was a window of a secret prison kept by the agents of the United States Department of Justice.

Do you remember “Palmer’s Revolution?” It was dated for May 1st, 1920. The Italian workman’s plunge to death on May 3rd from Palmer’s secret prison was its only casualty.

The secret jail, hidden away in an office building in the heart of the business district, was the headquarters for “Palmer’s Revolution.” In that resort, away from the restraints of regular prisons, Palmer’s agents handled “reds.” Andrea Salsedo was one of the working men that was being handled there. There was another man in the prison, Roberto Elia, a friend of the dead man. Elia had seen that Salsedo’s head and face were a mass of bruises. Salsedo had been taken out each day three times, he said, to be questioned and to be beaten so as to make him give the answers that were wanted. Elia said that he heard Salsedo’s screams while he was being tortured, and saw the agents examine Salsedo’s eyes and finger nails to learn whether the beating was going so far as to endanger life. When Elia went to sleep at night, the agents pointed to the open window, saying: “Don’t forget this is the fourteenth floor.”

In the morning Elia was told that Salsedo had “jumped out of the window.” The newspaper men and city policemen and strangers came, asking questions. The pile of shapeless flesh in the pool of blood below the window of the secret prison was embarrassing to Palmer and to Flynn of the Secret Service. Even the capitalist press stirred a little with the tang of the mystery. Did the man jump and kill himself, or was he thrown from the window? Was he thrown out alive? Or was a dead body dropped from the window to conceal the manner in which death had taken place?

The newspapers were shut off at last. The body was quickly buried without any coroner’s inquest. Roberto Elia was the only one who knew anything-except Palmer’s men. He was quickly deported to Italy, where he disappeared from sight. Then the Italian population of various American industrial districts began to make trouble. Agitators began to make protest meetings.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: Salsedo Dead-Sacco and Vanzetti in Danger -by Robert Minor” →