Tag: New York Call

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Will Speak to Women of Colorado Relief Committee at Brooklyn, New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Babes of Ludlow, Speech at Trinidad CO UMW District 15 Special Convention, ES1 p154 (176 of 360)—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 16, 1914
Brooklyn, New York – Mother Jones to Seek Aid for the Colorado Strike

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 14, 1914:
Mother Jones to Speak to Women of Colorado Relief Committee

MOTHER JONES TO SPEAK HERE MONDAY
———-
Committee Meets at Home of Mrs. J. P. Warbasse
to Perfect Arrangements
———-

FOR AROUSING SYMPATHY
———-
She Will Tell of Her Experiences in Colorado Strike,
Where She Was Arrested.
———-

Refugees of Ludlow Tent Colony at Trades Assembly Hall,
Trinidad, Colorado, photograph by Louis Dold

The committee in charge of the Mother Jones meeting, to be held at the Masonic Temple Monday evening met at the home of Mrs. James P. Warbasse [Agnes Dyer Warbasse], 386 Washington avenue yesterday afternoon, and discussed the arrangements. The object of the meeting on Monday is to arouse interest and sympathy for the wives and children of the Colorado mine workers who are suffering for want of food and clothing, and all who attend are requested to bring warm clothing blankets, etc., to be sent to Colorado.

Mother Jones who was in Colorado during the mine trouble, was asked to go to Washington to testify before the Senate in the investigation of the alleged massacre of women and children in the fight between the strikers and the militia. She has never spoken in Brooklyn before, and has come at the request of the women of Brooklyn, who formed the Colorado Relief Committee, to tell of her experiences in Colorado, where she was arrested on her way from Denver to Trinidad, and held by the military court for three weeks incommunicado not being allowed to employ a counselor or see a physician during that period and being released just before the serving of a writ of habeas corpus.

“This was all illegal, according to the laws of Colorado,” declared Mrs. James P. Warbasse to an Eagle reporter, at her home, yesterday afternoon. “A military court should not have been held when the civil courts were in session, and then think of an old woman like Mother Jones being held without the opportunity of consulting a physician. However, she is free now and she is going to tell the public just how things stand out there. She accepts no remuneration for her talks, and says it is payment enough to arouse the interest and sympathy of the public in the oppression and suffering of the Western miners.”

Mrs. Warbasse, who is actively interested in social work, was present in her automobile when Miss Elizabeth Dutcher was arrested on Tuesday evening, in front of Stern’s store on Forty-second street, Manhattan, where she had gone to speak to the employees on the unionization of clerks in department stores. Mrs. Warbasse furnished the bail.

Miss Dutcher is a member of the committee in charge of the meeting on Monday, as is also Mrs. Frank H. Cothren, who is acting as advisory counsel to Miss Dutcher, and Miss Hildegarde Kneeland, who was also present at the time of arrest.

“I think it a very significant thing that Mother Jones is coming here for the first time, at the request of the women of Brooklyn,” said Mrs. Warbasse, “and we think the time is ripe for bringing before the public some of the wrongs and oppressions suffered by the poor people in this country. I think this quotation will explain our attitude as well as anything. ‘He who would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression.’ We have tried to help the sufferers in Colorado by sending Miss Helen Schloss, a trained nurse, and at her request we are raising funds for clothing and food, for which these people are suffering. A collection will be taken up for their benefit on Monday evening.”…..

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Writ of Habeas Corpus Denied by Colorado District Court for “Dangerous Person,” Mother Jones

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Chase No Own State, RMN p3, Jan 12, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 9, 1914
Trinidad, Colorado – Writ of Habeas Corpus Denied for Mother Jones

From El Paso Herald of March 6, 1914:

MILITIA MAY HOLD WOMAN, COURT RULES
———-
Judge Denies Writ of Habeas Corpus
in the Case of “Mother” Jones.
———-

POWER OF MILITARY OFFICIALS UPHELD
———-

Cartoon Mother Jones Surrounded by Soldiers Trinidad, ISR p462, Feb 1914

Trinidad, Colo., March 6.-In a verbal decision rendered at the opening of the district court this morning, Judge A. W. McHendrie denied the writ of habeas corpus for “Mother” Mary Jones, the noted woman strike leader held under military guard at the San Rafael Hospital, and remanded the prisoner to the custody of the respondent in the action, Gen. John Chase, commander of the state militia in the strike zone.

The ruling of the court was brief. Immediately upon hearing the decision, attorney F. W. Clark, local counsel for the United Mine Workers, asked for and was granted 60 days to prepare a bill of exceptions to be submitted to the supreme court.

Like [Albert] Hill Case, Says Court.

The court held the case in all essential respects to be the same as the case instituted early in February for others who were held prisoners by the military authorities for alleged connection with the burning of the Southwestern mine tipple and postoffice.

The court in its ruling upheld the powers of the military authorities in arresting and detaining the petitioner under specific instructions form governor Ammons, who in his order to Gen. Chase, declared the woman to be a “dangerous person” and one likely to raise riot or disorder.

To Appeal Case.

But few people were in court when the opinion was rendered this morning. The attorneys for the petitioner will now submit the case on appeal to the supreme court, which a short time ago denied an original application.

[Drawing and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Masses: John Reed on the “War in Paterson”-Part I

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote John Reed, Paterson Prisoners Soon we back on picket line, Masses p15, June 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 7, 1913
New York, New York – John Reed Recalls Time Spent in Passaic County Jail

From The Masses of June 1913:

HdLn Paterson War by John Reed, Masses p14, June 1913

CRTN Paterson v BBH n EGF by Art Young, Masses p15, June 1913
“Speaking of Anarchy” by Art Young

[Part I of II]

There’s war in Paterson. But it’s a curious kind of war. All the violence is the work of one side—the Mill Owners. Their servants, the Police, club unresisting men and women and ride down law-abiding crowds on horseback. Their paid mercenaries, the armed Detectives, shoot and kill innocent people. Their newspapers, the Paterson Press and the Paterson Call, publish incendiary and crime-inciting appeals to mob-violence against the strike leaders. Their tool, Recorder Carroll, deals out heavy sentences to peaceful pickets that the police-net gathers up. They control absolutely the Police, the Press, the Courts.

Opposing them are about twenty-five thousand striking silk-workers, of whom perhaps ten thousand are active, and their weapon is the picket-line. Let me tell you what I saw in Paterson and then you will say which side of this struggle is “anarchistic” and “contrary to American ideals.”

At six o’clock in the morning a light rain was falling. Slate-grey and cold, the streets of Paterson were deserted. But soon came the Cops-twenty of them—strolling along with their nightsticks under their arms. We went ahead of them toward the mill district. Now we began to see workmen going in the same direction, coat collars turned up, hands in their pockets. We came into a long street, one side of which was lined with silk mills, the other side with the wooden tenement houses. In every doorway, at every window of the houses clustered foreign-faced men and women, laughing and chatting as if after breakfast on a holiday. There seemed no sense of expectancy, no strain or feeling of fear. The sidewalks were almost empty, only over in front of the mills a few couples—there couldn’t have been more than fifty-marched slowly up and down, dripping with the rain. Some were men, with here and there a man and woman together, or two young boys. As the warmer light of full day came the people drifted out of their houses and began to pace back and forth, gathering in little knots on the corners. They were quick with gesticulating hands, and low-voiced conversation. They looked often toward the corners of side streets.

Suddenly appeared a policeman, swinging his club. “Ah-h-h!” said the crowd softly.

Six men had taken shelter from the rain under the canopy of a saloon. “Come on! Get out of that!” yelled the policeman, advancing. The men quietly obeyed. “Get off this street! Go home, now! Don’t be standing here!” They gave way before him in silence, drifting back again when he turned away. Other policemen materialized, hustling, cursing, brutal, ineffectual. No one answered back. Nervous, bleary-eyed, unshaven, these officers were worn out with nine weeks’ incessant strike duty.

On the mill side of the street the picket-line had grown to about four hundred. Several policemen shouldered roughly among them, looking for trouble. A workman appeared, with a tin pail, escorted by two detectives. “Boo! Boo!” shouted a few scattered voices. Two Italian boys leaned against the mill fence and shouted a merry Irish threat, “Scab! Come outa here I knocka you’ head off!” A policeman grabbed the boys roughly by the shoulder. “Get to hell out of here!” he cried, jerking and pushing them violently to the corner, where he kicked them. Not a voice, not a movement from the crowd.

A little further along the street we saw a young woman with an umbrella, who had been picketing, suddenly confronted by a big policeman.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he roared. “God damn you, you go home!” and he jammed his club against her mouth. “I no go home!” she shrilled passionately, with blazing eyes. “You bigga stiff !”

Silently, steadfastly, solidly the picket-line grew. In groups or in couples the strikers patrolled the sidewalk. There was no more laughing. They looked on with eyes full of hate. These were fiery-blooded Italians, and the police were the same brutal thugs that had beaten them and insulted them for nine weeks. I wondered how long they could stand it.

It began to rain heavily. I asked a man’s permission to stand on the porch of his house. There was a policeman standing in front of it. His name, I afterwards discovered, was McCormack. I had to walk around him to mount the steps.

Suddenly he turned round, and shot at the owner: “Do all them fellows live in that house?” The man indicated the three other strikers and himself, and shook his head at me.

“Then you get to hell off of there!” said the cop, pointing his club at me.

“I have the permission of this gentleman to stand here,” I said. “He owns this house.”

“Never mind! Do what I tell you! Come off of there, and come off damn quick!”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

With that he leaped up the steps, seized my arm, and violently jerked me to the sidewalk. Another cop took my arm and they gave me a shove.

“Now you get to hell off this street!” said Officer McCormack.

“I won’t get off this street or any other street. If I’m breaking any law, you arrest me!”

Officer McCormack, who is doubtless a good, stupid Irishman in time of peace, is almost helpless in a situation that requires thinking. He was dreadfully troubled by my request. He didn’t want to arrest me, and said so with a great deal of profanity.

“I’ve got your number,” said I sweetly. “Now will you tell me your name?”

“Yes,” he bellowed, “an’ I got your number! I’ll arrest you.” He took me by the arm and marched me up the street.

He was sorry he had arrested me. There was no charge he could lodge against me. I hadn’t been doing anything. He felt he must make me say something that could be construed as a violation of the Law. To which end he God damned me harshly, loading me with abuse and obscenity, and threatened me with his night-stick, saying, “You big — — lug, I’d like to beat the hell out of you with this club.”

I returned airy persiflage to his threats.

Other officers came to the rescue, two of them, and supplied fresh epithets. I soon found them repeating themselves, however, and told them so. “I had to come all the way to Paterson to put one over on a cop !” I said. Eureka! They had at last found a crime! When I was arraigned in the Recorder’s Court that remark of mine was the charge against me!

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Masses: John Reed on the “War in Paterson”-Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, WV on Trial re Military Court Martial, Speech NYC Carnegie Hall, NYCl p, May 28, 1913, per Foner—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 29, 1913
New York, New York – Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall

From The New York Call of May 27, 1913:

Ad for Mother Jones at Carnegie Hall, NYC p, May 27, 1913

From The New York Call of May 28, 1913:

This was the scene, as described by the New York Call, when Mother Jones was introduced by Max Eastman last night at Carnegie Hall:

Scarcely had her name left his lips then the audience burst into shouting, stamping, and handclapping. Several women surged down the aisle toward the stage and threw kisses to the aged agitator and flowers at her feet.

Mother Jones spoke at length about the West Virginia strike, the terror inflicted on the miners by the gun thugs, and the mass round-up of strikers by the military. She referred to West Virginia as “The Little Russia in America.” She sounded this warning:

West Virginia is on trial before the bar of the nation. The military arrests and the court martial to which I and others were forced to undergo in West Virginia was the first move ever made by the ruling class to have the working class tried by the military and not civil courts. It is up to the American workers to make sure that it is the last.

The comfortable New York Socialist were not spared the ire of Mother Jones:

What galled me most about my confinement at the military prison at Pratt, West Virginia, was the knowledge that a bunch of corporation lickspittles had the right to confine me. But I must be frank and tell you that the second thing that galled me was the silence of many here tonight who should have shouted out against the injustice. I would still be in jail if Senator Kern had not introduced his resolution… No thanks, then, to you that I am here today. Cowards! Moral cowards! If you had only risen to your feet like men and said, “We don’t allow military despotism in America! Stop it!” A lot of moral cowards you are. Not a word of protest did we get out of you, but instead you sat idly by and let these things be.

The New York Call continued:

After Mother had spoken a collection was taken up and $267.80 contributed. It was intended for the striking miners. Mother Jones announced the miners would take care of the miners, and said the collection could go to the Paterson silk strikers.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: Mother Jones Speaks to Socialists at Carnegie Hall, “Cowards! Moral Cowards!”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The New York Garment Workers” by Mary E. Marcy, Part III

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 5, 1913
New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson

From the International Socialist Review of February 1913:

THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS
By MARY E. MARCY

Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.

[Part III of III]

NY Garment Workers, Type of Striker, ISR p586, Feb 1913

Unlike the Lawrence strike, the strike of the New York garment workers is from the top DOWN; that is the union officials ordered the strike and have held the reins in their hands ever since. Without doubt they are trying to serve the strikers, but it is our opinion that they would build more permanently in permitting the strikers themselves to have the deciding voice in their own affairs; in teaching them self-reliance and class solidarity.

But the workers are finding out many things for themselves. They are thrilling with a new sense of power; they are learning the joy that comes when workers of whatever race or creed fight side by side in a great class struggle. The hope of victory and achievement is in the air and it is doubtful whether they will obey any orders from the union officials if their employers do not grant them appreciable benefits.

The heart of every true Socialist is with the strikers in this fight. We believe that the strike is a valuable form of direct action that teaches working class self-reliance and solidarity better than anything else. It teaches the workers to conduct their own fights. It brings out the class character of all existing social institutions. It teaches above all things, the necessity of revolutionary class unionism.

TEXT NY Garment Workers, Victory for 20 th Waist Makers, ISR 588, Feb 1913

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The New York Garment Workers” by Mary E. Marcy, Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The New York Garment Workers” by Mary E. Marcy, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Rose Schneiderman Quote, Stand Together to Resist Mar 20, NY Independent p938, Apr 1905—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 3, 1913
New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson

From the International Socialist Review of February 1913:

HdLn NY Garment Workers by M Marcy, CRTN Walker Solidarity Hand, ISR p583, Feb 1913

[Part I of III]

A WALKOUT which may yet involve every garment worker in the nation, was started in New York City, December 30th, when scores of thousands of men and women employed in the garment industries responded to the call issued by the United Garment Workers of America and deserted the shops and benches where they had toiled for years.

The response to the strike call was so great that the union officials declared the union was a great deal stronger than they had believed. One thousand five hundred volunteer red scouts, who were picked to carry the official strike declaration, were on the job at 4:00 o’clock in the morning ready to start out with bundles of strike orders to be distributed in all sections of the Lower East Side. Before night over 100,000 men, women and children had taken their working paraphernalia home to begin the good fight.

The garment workers are striking for:

The abolition of the subcontracting system.
The abolition of foot power.
That no work be given out to be done in tenement houses.
Overtime to be paid for at the rate of time and one half, double time for holidays.
A forty-eight hour work week.
A general wage increase of 20 per cent for all the workers in the garment industry.

The following scale of wages:
Operators-First class, sewing around coats, sewing in sleeves, and pocket makers, $25 per week; second class, lining makers, closers and coat stitchers, $22; third class, sleeve makers and all other machine workers, $16.
Tailors-First class, shapers, underbasters and fitters, $24; second class, edge basters, canvas basters, collar makers, lining basters and bushelers, $21; third class, armhole basters, sleeve makers, and all other tailoring, $17.
Pressers-Bushel pressers, $24; regular pressers, second class, $24; underpressers and edge pressers, $18.
Women and Child Workers-Button sewers and bushel hands, $12; hand buttonhole makers, first class, 3½ cents; second class, sack coats, 2½ cents; feller hands, not less than $10 a week.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The New York Garment Workers” by Mary E. Marcy, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: “West Virginia Coal Barons Re-Enact Ancient Barbarism”-Class War On

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Revolution Is Here, Speech Cton WV, Sept 21, 1912, Steel Speeches p116—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 29, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Men Lured into State by Human Scavengers

From The Wheeling Majority of November 28, 1912:

WV Coal Barons Barbarism, Mother Jones, Wlg Maj p1, Nov 28, 1912

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: “West Virginia Coal Barons Re-Enact Ancient Barbarism”-Class War On” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: “How I Became a Socialist” by Helen Keller -Has Red Flag Hanging in Her Study

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Helen Keller re Red Flag, NY Call, Nov 3, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 5, 1912
Miss Helen Keller States She Would Love to Carry the Red Flag Past The Times

From The New York Call of November 3, 1912:

How I Became a Socialist
-by Helen Keller
———-

Helen Keller re Schenectady NY Mayor Lunn, Hot Springs Ark Sentinel Rec p1, Sept 29, 1912

For several months my name and socialism have appeared often together in the newspapers. A friend tells me that I have shared the front pages with baseball, Mr. Roosevelt and the New York police scandal. The association does not make me altogether happy but, on the whole, I am glad that many people are interested in me and in the educational achievements of my teacher, Mrs. Macy (Anne Sullivan). Even notoriety may be turned to beneficent uses, and I rejoice if the disposition of the newspapers to record my activities results in bringing more often into their columns the word Socialism. In the future I hope to write about socialism, and to justify in some measure the great amount of publicity which has been accorded to me and my opinions. So far I have written little and said little about the subject. I have written a few letters, notably one to Comrade Fred Warren which was printed in the Appeal to Reason. I have talked to some reporters, one of whom, Mr. Ireland of the New York World, made a very flattering report and gave fully and fairly what I said. I have never been in Schenectady. I have never met Mayor Lunn. I have never had a letter from him, but he has sent kind messages to me through Mr. Macy. Owing to Mrs. Macy’s illness, whatever plans I had to join the workers in Schenectady have been abandoned.

On such negative and relatively insignificant matters have been written many editorials in the capitalist press and in the Socialist press. The clippings fill a drawer. I have not read a quarter of them, and I doubt if I shall ever read them all. If on such a small quantity of fact so much comment has followed, what will the newspapers do if I ever set to work in earnest to write and talk in behalf of socialism? For the present I should like to make a statement of my position and correct some false reports and answer some criticisms which seem to me unjust.

First — How did I become a Socialist? By reading. The first book I read was Wells’ New World for Old. I read it on Mrs. Macy’s recommendation. She was attracted by its imaginative quality, and hoped that its electric style might stimulate and interest me. When she gave me the book, she was not a Socialist and she is not a Socialist now. Perhaps she will be one before Mr. Macy and I are done arguing with her.

My reading has been limited and slow. I take German bimonthly Socialist periodicals printed in braille for the blind. (Our German comrades are ahead of us in many respects.) I have also in German braille Kautsky’s discussion of the Erfurt Program. The other socialist literature that I have read has been spelled into my hand by a friend who comes three times a week to read to me whatever I choose to have read. The periodical which I have most often requested her lively fingers to communicate to my eager ones is the National Socialist. She gives the titles of the articles and I tell her when to read on and when to omit. I have also had her read to me from the International Socialist Review articles the titles of which sounded promising. Manual spelling takes time. It is no easy and rapid thing to absorb through one’s fingers a book of 50,000 words on economics. But it is a pleasure, and one which I shall enjoy repeatedly until I have made myself acquainted with all the classic socialist authors.

In the light of the foregoing I wish to comment on a piece about me which was printed in the Common Cause and reprinted in the Live Issue, two anti-socialist publications. Here is a quotation from that piece:

“For twenty-five years Miss Keller’s teacher and constant companion has been Mrs. John Macy, formerly of Wrentham, Mass. Both Mr. and Mrs. Macy are enthusiastic Marxist propagandists, and it is scarcely surprising that Miss Keller, depending upon this lifelong friend for her most intimate knowledge of life, should have imbibed such opinions.”

Mr. Macy may be an enthusiastic Marxist propagandist, though I am sorry to say he has not shown much enthusiasm in propagating his Marxism through my fingers. Mrs. Macy is not a Marxist, nor a socialist. Therefore what the Common Cause says about her is not true. The editor must have invented that, made it out of whole cloth, and if that is the way his mind works, it is no wonder that he is opposed to socialism. He has not sufficient sense of fact to be a socialist or anything else intellectually worthwhile.

Consider another quotation from the same article.

The headline reads: “SCHENECTADY REDS ARE ADVERTISING; USING HELEN KELLER, THE BLIND GIRL, TO RECEIVE PUBLICITY.”

Then the article begins:

“It would be difficult to imagine anything more pathetic than the present exploitation of poor Helen Keller by the Socialists of Schenectady. For weeks the party’s press agencies have heralded the fact that she is a Socialist, and is about to become a member of Schenectady’s new Board of Public Welfare.”

There’s a chance for satirical comment on the phrase, “the exploitation of poor Helen Keller.” But I will refrain, simply saying that I do not like the hypocritical sympathy of such a paper as the Common Cause, but I am glad if it knows what the word “exploitation” means.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The New York Call: “How I Became a Socialist” by Helen Keller -Has Red Flag Hanging in Her Study” →

Hellraisers Journal: Jack Whyte States His Contempt for San Diego Court: “To hell with your courts; I know what justice is.”

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote Jack Whyte, Too Hell with Your Court, Ky Pst p4, Aug 21, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 23, 1912
San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Jack Whyte Expresses His Contempt of Court

From The Kentucky Post of August 21, 1912:

San Diego I. W. W., Convicted, Bluntly Explains
to Judge His Contempt for Court
———-

Jack Whyte, To Hell With Your Courts SDg FSF Aug 5, KY Pst p4, Aug 21, 1912

SAN DIEGO, CAL., Aug. 21-Contempt of court, more bluntly expressed than probably ever before in the history of California, whose court records have been dirtied often by judicial acts which have disgraced the State, marked the close of proceedings here recently [August 5th], when Judge Sloane sentenced several members of the Industrial Workers of the World for conspiracy to violate the street-speaking ordinance. 

Sloane asked Jack Whyte, Industrial Worker, if he had anything to say as to why he should not receive sentence.

Whyte had something to say. He talked straight. This is what he said:

There are only a few word that I care to say, and this court will not mistake them for a legal argument, for I am not acquainted with the phraseology of the bar, nor the language common to the courtroom.

There are two points which I want to touch upon-the indictment itself and the misstatement of the Prosecuting Attorney. The indictment reads: “The People of the State of California against J. W. Whyte and others.”

It’s a hideous lie. The people of this courtroom know that it is a lie, and I know that it is a lie. If the people of the State are to blame for this persecution, then the people are to blame for the murder of Michael Hoey and the assassination of Joseph Mickolasek. They are to blame and responsible for every bruise, every insult and injury inflicted upon the members of the working class by the vigilantes of this city.

The people deny it, and have so emphatically denied it that Gov. Johnson sent Harris Weinstock down here to make an investigation and clear the reputation of the people of the State of California from the odor that you would attach to it. You cowards throw the blame upon the people, but I know who is to blame and I name them-it is Spreckels and his partners in business, and this court is the lackey and lickspittle of that class, defending the property of that class against the advancing horde of starving American workers.

The Prosecuting Attorney in his plea to the jury accused me of saying on a public platform at a public meeting: “To hell with the courts; we know what justice is.” He told a great truth when he lied, for if he had searched the innermost recesses of my mind he could have found that thought, never expressed by me before, but which I express now. “To hell with your courts, I know what justice is,” for I have sat in your courtroom day after day and have seen members of my class pass before this, the so-called bar of justice.

I have seen you, Judge Sloane, and others of your kind, send them to prison because they dared to infringe upon the sacred right of property. You have become blind and deaf to the rights of men to pursue life and happiness, and you have crushed those rights so that the sacred rights of property should be preserved. Then you tell me to respect the law.

I don’t. I did violate the law, and I will violate every one of your laws and still come before you and say: “To hell with the courts,” because I believe that my right to live is far more sacred than the sacred right of property that you and your kind so ably defend.

I don’t tell you this with the expectation of getting justice, but to show my contempt for the whole machinery of law and justice as represented by this and every other court. The Prosecutor lied, but I will accept it as a truth and say again, so that you, Judge Sloane, may not be mistaken as to my attitude:

“To hell with your courts; I know what justice is.”

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Jack Whyte States His Contempt for San Diego Court: “To hell with your courts; I know what justice is.”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Battle at Mucklow Between Miners and Company Gunthugs Leaves One Dead, Many Injured

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Fred Mooney re July 1912 Battle of Mucklow, Ab—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 31, 1912
Mucklow, West Virginia – Striking Miners Battle Company Gunthugs

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of July 27, 1912:

HdLn re Battle of Mucklow, Wlg Int p1, July 27, 1912

From The Pittsburgh Post of July 30, 1912:

Photos re Mucklow WV, Ptt Pst p3, July 30, 1912

Top, left to right:
Troop train arriving at Mucklow, W. Va. Every man on Paint Creek goes armed, and the excitement is intense.
General view of Mucklow, showing the company store and tipple on the left, and troops beginning their encampment on the right.

Bottom, left to right:
Prisoners accused of murdering mine guards. Twenty-two of these were taken on Saturday by Baldwin men, who surrounded them with an armed guard.
Tent and family of one of the destitute and evicted miners.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Battle at Mucklow Between Miners and Company Gunthugs Leaves One Dead, Many Injured” →