Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 9, 1904
Summary of Miners’ Strikes in Colorado and Utah for May 1904
From The Salt Lake Herald of May 06, 1904:
Mother Jones with Delegates at Utah State Convention of Western Federation of Miners
From the San Francisco Chronicle of May 1, 1904
Southern Coalfields of Colorado – Union Organizer Beaten, Not Expected to Live
The strike zone of the southern coalfields of Colorado continues to be a dangerous place for union organizers working for the United Mine Workers of America. Brother Wardjon was brutally assaulted there and was not expected to live. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on that assault and other news regarding the labor situation in Colorado:
ASSAULT ON A LABOR LEADER
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Mine Union Organizer Wardjon Beaten on Head
in Colorado So Severely That He May Die
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DENVER, (Col.). April 30.-W. M. Wardjon, national organizer of the United Mine Workers of America wasterribly beaten on the head and shoulders with revolvers by three unknown men at Sargent, Col., to-day and lies in a critical condition at the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Hospital at Salida. Wardjon was traveling eastward from Crested Butte, where he had been organizing the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company’s miners, and was attacked in a car while the train was standing at Sargent.
He is suffering from concussion of the brain, and the hospital physicians say his recovery is doubtful.
In a lengthy brief filed before the Supreme Court to-day by Attorney E. F. Richardson in the habeas corpus case of Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, who is held as a military prisoner at Telluride, Governor James H. Peabody is declared to be a usurper. Governor Peabody is compared by Richardson to a soldier drunk with power, and his acts in trying to suppress the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus compared to the acts of tyranny practiced on the people of England by the olden kings.
Richardson, in his brief, attacks the decision of the Supreme Court of Idaho in a similar case, and says it is the only court in the country that has said that the military was above the judiciary. He says that the decision does not follow precedent or commonsense, and that the Judges of the Supreme Court of Colorado should not consider it when deciding the present case.
The Legislature alone, Richardson says , has the authority to determine when the conditions require the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus and then to suspend it.
PUEBLO (Col.).-April 30.-Because Charles Demolli, a former organizer of the United Mine Workers, failed to appear to-day as complaining witness against Oreste Pagnini, charged with being the ringleader of a gang whichassaulted the Italian labor leader several weeks ago, the case was dismissed by Justice McCallip. Pagnini, however, will be held on a complaint sworn to by William Gearhard, charging him with assaulting Demolli with intent to kill. Demolli is in the coal fields of Kansas and is in communication with friends here.
INDIANAPOLIS (Ind.), April 30.-The Colorado situation was again taken up at to-day’s session of the national executive board of the United Mine Workers of America……
President Mitchell has telegraphed to “Mother” Jones, who is being held in quarantine near Price, Utah, directing her to report to him in person in this city as soon as possible. He says that there is no significance attached to this, and that the order was issued because the work in the district 15 at the present time is scarcely suitable for a women.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 25, 1911 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Arrested for Talking Unionism
From the Appeal to Reason of June 24, 1911:
Gurley Flynn Arrested in Philadelphia
The police arrested Elizabeth Gurley Flynn while talking unionism before the Baldwin Locomotive works at Philadelphia, the other day, and that will help some. The bosses are blind as bats, for they are helping the agitation more than all we Socialists can do. In fact we could make poor progress if they were not such fools as to show the workers they are the kind that we Socialists proclaim them. They furnish the proof. She was held in $400 bail, took down the court proceedings in short hand, and went to the cell for free speech sake. The mass of men who were listening intently could hardly be restrained from knocking out the police for their brutality. It made many Socialists when no other kind of an argument could.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 22, 1911:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 12, 1910
Robert Hunter on Laissez Faire, what the powerful claim to believe in.
From the Socialist Montana News of August 11, 1910:
LAISSEZ FAIRE.
By Robert Hunter.
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The above is the name of a politic that the powerful claim that they believe in.
It means, “Let Alone”. It means that the community must not interfere in behalf of the weak, nor in aid of the strong.
It is the politic upon which our government is said to be founded and it has been called the politic of “Everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”
Those who are successful sat that it is a fine doctrine, that it means, unlimited competition, unlimited struggle, and the survival of the fit.
They say everyone should have freedom to battle and to win, if he can.
And they claim that Laissez Faire permits a free race in which the swift always wins. And so Bryan and Taft, Cannon and Aldrich, and nearly all the leaders of both parties, say they believe in Laissez Faire.
When the the judges declare unconstitutional laws limitting the hours of work, they speak in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the trusts want to escape the law they plead in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the rich fight socialism they say it is because Socialism would hurt Laissez Faire.
And who is this Laissez Faire anyhow that has become such a terrible bogie?
Well I’ll tell you. It is a secret, but I tell you. He doesn’t exist. He is just gas and wind. He is a goblin.
If Jack Johnson should go to Mr. Rockefeller’s estate and beat up Mr. Rockefeller and take his property away from him, Mr. Rockefeller would run to the courts not to Laissez Faire.
If the workers were to gain control of congress and do away with the protective tariff, the powerful would denounce Laissez Faire.
And so the rich not believing in Laissez Faire have built up about themselves every kind of protection.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 15, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1910:
-Found Visiting Girard, Kansas, and Speaking to Miners at Cincinnati
From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 11, 1910:
Mother Jones the prominent Socialist lecturer has been in Girard this week.
From Hellraisers Journal of March 27, 1910:
Cincinnati, Ohio-Speech of Mother Jones at Miners’ Special Convention
From The Topeka State Journal of March 24, 1910:
SOUNDS CALL TO ARMS.
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“Mother Jones” Arouses Coal Miners
to Great Enthusiasm.
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Cincinnati. O., March 24.-Bituminous coal operators and miners of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, entered their subscale meeting this afternoon with almost certainty that a disagreement would be reported to the joint committee, that the joint conference would reach a like disagreement before tomorrow noon and that the International Convention of United Mine Workers would then be asked to say whether it should be industrial peace or war after April 1.
Operators of the three states immediately concerned, held a secret conference all morning and at the conclusion announced that the vote had been unanimous to resist all of the miners’ demand. The attitude of the miners in the international convention was shown during an address by “Mother” Jones when she declared:
If the operators force a fight we are all in trim to give them the hottest fight they ever had in their lives.
The convention was almost stampeded and the cheering did not cease for several minutes.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 13, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910, Part II:
-Found Supporting the Miners of the Black Hills in South Dakota
From the Black Hills Daily Register of February 22, 1910:
Mother Jones Sends Money
James Kirwan yesterday received a letter from Mother Jones, who is now in Milwaukee, informing him that she was coming to Lead to take a hand in the fight for the right to organize. She asked no money, but, on the contrary, enclosed a check for one hundred dollars, with these words:
My boys in Lead gave me one hundred and fifty dollars for the 1909 Labor Day speech. Fifty dollars of this sum I gave to the Mexicans and I am sending you the balance for the locked-out Black Hills boys.
Further along in her letter, Mother says:
Tell the boys to keep up that fight. Have no surrender written on the banners of the Western Federation of Miners. I am coming up there to take a hand. The Hearst crowd of blood-suckers are organizing to get more profits. We also have a right to organize to give that crew of blood-suckers less profits. Tell my boys to stand pat. Mother.
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From the Socialist Montana News of February 24, 1910:
[Mother Jones in Milwaukee]
A non-partisan anti-high-price mass meeting was called for Feb. 15 by the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council Among the speakers who addressed the meeting were A. M. Simons, editor of the Chicago Daily Socialist, and Mother Jones. This so hurt the feelings of Senator Stephenson’s organ, the Free Press, that it indulged in several columns of abuse against the meeting. It had a great deal to say about the “poor attendance” of the meeting, although the hall was packed to the doors, and many were obliged to stand.
The real grievance of this capitalist sheet was that the capitalist politician who addressed the meeting cut a poor figure, having no remedy to offer except the enforcement of the law and investigation of facts which our pocket-books already understand all too well, while the Socialist speakers made ringing addresses which were roundly applauded. Resolutions that the people must own the trusts were adopted by the audience without one dissenting vote.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 18, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Convicted of Conspiracy
From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:
[Part II of II.]
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced
to Three Months.
Miss Flynn, or rather Mrs. Jones in private life, was arrested while walking on the street, on the new conspiracy charge that is now being used against the Industrial Workers. She has been editing and getting out the paper, the “Industrial Worker”, since the force was arrested.
This “conspiracy” charge makes any one concerned in coming or bringing people to Spokane to test the city ordinance guilty of the crime of conspiring against the peace of the city, and the authorities are working this to the limit. They even claim that their ordinance is superior to the Washington state laws, or the United States constitution. They completely ignore the fact that no inferior jurisdiction can make a law in contradiction to its superior.
The police have been itching to get Miss Flynn. She was thrown into a cell with prostitutes, insulted by the police, who came with their vile familiarity in the night, and abused terribly by the prosecuting attorney, Pugh. She is in a pregnant condition, and the greatest fears are entertain for her safety, the first child lost owing to her overwork on the platform. Her husband, who is Missoula, is worked up to an extreme nervous tension through suspense and anxiety.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 17, 1909
Spokane, Washington – “Officials Use Russian Tortures”
From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:
[Part I of II.]
The stand of the I. W. W. for Free Speech in Spokane is making the history that will disclose the hollowness of the claims of personal liberty the American constitutional government has made.
The brutal treatment of the prisoners has not been excelled in Russia. The Franklin schoolhouse where over 200 of them have been incarcerated is kept in a state of unparalleled filth. The floor has never been scrubbed; there are no receptacles for expectoration, a filthy pall is provided for the calls of nature, often overflowing. No beds or bunks are provided, and the men have to lie in this filth. There was no fire or stove, but the men began tearing down the building and making a fire on the floor, and so a stove was furnished.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 13, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Fights for Free Speech
From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:
A WOMAN LABOR AGITATOR.
The tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn through the west, and the strenuous work she has been performing in generaling the Free Speech fights has introduced to this section of country and earnest and energetic young woman.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a married woman of New York, whose agitation in the labor movement has excited much attention in the capitalist press, and a certain amount in the labor and socialist press; although the attention given her by the latter has been by no means commensurate with the ability of her work, and the impression it has made upon those who have heard and seen her. But Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has broken into the labor movement under peculiar conditions. Reared in a socialist home, she grew up with her mind intelligent and keen as to the homogeneity of the socialist and labor movements, an idea that is as yet scarcely grasped at all in America, either by the great mass of laborers or the majority of the socialists themselves. To be a socialist, a social reformer, meant to Miss Flynn to work in the labor movement.
When the Industrial Workers of the World was organised she thought she saw in its methods the ideal line of activity for the workers to adopt, who were bent upon industrial emancipation through a revolutionary program. She became devoted to the interest of the Industrial Workers. She refused to ally herself with either the Socialist Party or the Socialist Labor Party because of their failure to co-operate decidedly with the I. W. W.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 12, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Fellow Workers to Speak Until All Are Arrested
From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:
[Part II of II.]
Justice Orders Ordinance Made to Order.
Justice Mann who is holding up the judicial end of the government persecution detected the flaw in the first ordinance, as class legislation, and dismissed the prisoners under it. Another ordinance was then framed on the judge’s advice, designating any speaking on the street where a crowd gathers as disorderly. Thus the judge makes the laws, and decides on it, and passes sentence on it.
The second day 133 were arrested and 33 sentenced to 30-day terms in jail.
Attorney Moore for the I. W. W. gave notice of appeal to the superior court.
Foote, the editor of the Industrial paper published at Portland, was arrested as soon as he reached town.
A bulletin posted at headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was as follows:
Fellow workers, tomorrow this fight will be carried on with greater determination than ever. We have only begun to fight; 200 men will go to jail tomorrow.
Immediately below was posted another, which read:
Every man who is appointed captain to select five or more men and proceed to hold meetings.
Every captain and squad go to the places designated and speak until all are arrested.
Remember, the authorities claim to have broken the backbone of the organization. Show them that they are just as ignorant as bulls usually are…..
The socialist of Spokane have actively taken up the I. W. W. fight.
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