Hellraisers Journal, Monday April 9, 1917
The Review Reports on Failure to Starve in an Orderly Manner
The Cover of the International Socialist Review for April 1917:
Leslie Marcy of the Review Reports on Food Riots:
FOOD RIOTS IN AMERICA
-By LESLIE MARCY
When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday March 8, 1917
Mother Jones News for February: Fighting for Working-Class Women
During the month of February 1917, before she moved on to the struggles of the working-class women in the cities of New York and Chicago, we first found Mother Jones in Washington, D. C. Here she observed a women, one of them clad in a $7,000 coat, demonstrating for women’s suffrage. Now, Hellraisers does not agree with Mother on the issue of suffrage for women, but we acknowledge that, perhaps, her attitude is shaped by having been on the front lines of the Colorado Coal Miners’ Strike of 1913-1914. In Colorado, at that time, the vote for women did very little good for miners, their wives, or their children.
In that state, women had the right to vote, nevertheless, the miners and their families suffered greatly under the rule of Governor Ammons, Democrat of Colorado. Many of these coal-camp women were immigrants who could not vote. And those women who were citizens, and had the right to vote, had first to get past the company guards before they could exercise their franchise.
The duly elected Governor Ammons sent a brutal military general to rule over the striking miners and their families. It was this Military Despotism which then resulted in the Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914. Mother Jones was herself a guest of the Military Bastile established under General Chase who answered directly to the democratically elected Governor of the State of Colorado.
When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 24, 1917
New York, New York – Mothers Demand Food as Children Starve
While the nation’s kept press continues to report on the food rioting taking place in New York City and Philadelphia, they continuously emphasis the foreign birth of many of the demonstrators, some of which have indeed rioted. Seems they believe that those of foreign birth should be willing to starve and perish in a quiet and orderly manner once they come to America.
The kept press mostly ignores the deep suffering of those who have been driven to such desperate measure in order to find relief. In fact, within just the past two months of January and February, the price of staples has risen dramatically. The cost of potatoes has risen 100 percent, onions are up by 366 percent and cabbage by 212 percent. Without being able to afford meat, mothers rely on beans to nourish their growing children and that staple has increased by 100 percent.
The Day Book of Chicago is an exception to this callous coverage of human suffering, pointing out that people are actually starving in New York City. The Day Book reports on attempts at relief:
STARVING CONTINUE TO RIOT
IN NEW YORK-ACTIONNew York, Feb. 23.-Food riots continued sporadically in city today as heighth of Sabbath food buying among Jewish people was reached.
Mass meeting tonight, Rutgers sq., following which women will march to meeting of Board Estimate, where Mayor Mitchell is expected to make move to relieve conditions.
Demands will be made on city authorities for appropriation of $1,000,000 to open municipal stores and another $1,000,000 for school lunches. Strong demand that steps be taken to have government take over railway systems for food transportation.
When half a million mothers
in the richest city
in the richest country in the world
feel the pinch of hunger
as they are feeling it here now
nothing can prevent trouble.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 23, 1917
New York, New York – Mother Jones to Aid in Demand for Food
Food riots have broken out in New York City and in Philadelphia as the working-class women of those cities refuse to maintain proper civic order while they watch their children starve. In Philadelphia, police opened fire, killing one man and seriously wounding another. The police, as usual, claim that the workers fired first, and the word of the police has been printed as fact by the kept press of the nation.
Mother Jones is now in New York City to support the working-class women in their demand for food at prices that they can afford. She was interviewed by a reporter in her room at the Union Square Hotel.
From the New York Tribune of February 22, 1917:
“Mother” Jones To Head
Parade of 10,000
—–Will Take Delegation to President
if Mayor Fails, She Declares
—–
“Mother” Jones, aged strike leader of Colorado fame, will lead an army of 10,000 East Side woman to the city Hall next Saturday afternoon, she declares. She will ask Mayor Mitchel “just what he proposes to do” about the food shortage in New York. If his proposals are unsatisfactory she will take a delegation of “starving women” to Washington on Sunday and lay the case of New York’s poor before the President.
“Mother” Jones arrived in this city yesterday to “help the food strike along.” In her room at the Union Square Hotel last night the aged labor leader made her plans known somewhat reluctantly. Publicity, she said, might result in them being “blocked”
[She said:]
But they can’t hold this movement back. When half a million mothers in the richest city in the richest country in the world feel the pinch of hunger as they are feeling it here now nothing can prevent trouble. I came here to try to prevent it, though, and I shall do everything possible.
On Saturday I’ll lead all the women who’ll follow me down to the Mayor. More than ten thousand will go. We’ll put the matter up to him and ask for action. If he won’t give us action, some of us will go to Washington and ask the President.
If that is frenzy, I plead guilty
and I notify the Globe
I shall not soon recover.
-Luella Twining
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 13, 1907
From the Appeal to Reason: New York Workers Aroused!
Luella Twining of Denver can now be found in New York City assisting in the organization of the defense movement for Comrades Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone by the working men and women of that city.
From the Appeal to Reason of January 12, 1907:
NEW YORK IS AROUSED
—–
Working Class of City Organizing
Powerful Defense Movement
for W.F.of M. Officials.
—–By Luella Twining.
—–
New York, Jan. 4.-New York workingmen and women are demonstrating the solidarity of the working class. The second meeting of the Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone conference, composed of all workers who want to save their brothers in Idaho, irrespective of race, color, creed or politics, was more enthusiastic even than the first. Many new delegates were seated. Among the unions represented were the District Council of the Carpenters and Joiners, Central Federated Union, Brewers, Bill Posters, Typographical Union, Tobacco Workers, Bakers and Confectionary, Cloak and Suit Tailors, Cigar Makers, Butchers, Hat and Cap Makers, Beer Drivers, Beer Bottlers, Painters and Decorators, Steam Fitters, Bricklayers, Machinists, United Hebrew Trades, Sick and Death Benefit and Waiters. All of these trades were represented by more than one local, most of them by three or four.
The financial secretary reported the receipt of $2,760.20 for the “Defense Fund,” and $1,500 for the “Agitation Fund.” While we are laying particular stress on the necessity of money to carry on the trial, still we are setting forth also the necessity for agitation. We shall hold many meetings to warn the workers of the murder that is being planned in Idaho. We shall also distribute tons of literature setting forth the facts. New York City shall be buried in papers and pamphlets. Everybody shall know of this conspiracy, planned in New York, in that magnificent stone building on Broadway, and to be executed in that desolate, isolated region of Idaho. We do not intend to wait till our brothers are in their graves for the working class to say: “We did not know, we thought they would have a fair trial.”
The unions visited show intense interest. Many of them are holding special meetings for the reason that their by-laws do not permit them to give more than a prescribed sum. For instance, the “Sheet and Metal Workers” gave the maximum amount at their regular meeting. They held a special meeting the next week and gave $500. No unions before which speakers have appeared have refused to assist. All have displayed the greatest enthusiasm and expressed their indignation in burning words at the foul conspiracy to break up organized labor, and all resistance to capitalistic encroachment. They realize that Standard Oil, successful in ridding themselves of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, would be like wild animals after having a taste of human blood, and thirsting for more. They know they would be the next victims.
The action of the Central Federated Union, in displaying such intense interest in the “Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone Conspiracy” was a hard blow for the prosecution. The Globe commented on it editorially, and said that the C. F. U. should not have allowed such statements to be made on its floor. They called me a “Maenad” (frenzied woman). I suppose that was for portraying the sufferings of Comrade Haywood’s invalid wife, also the agony she has endured during the long year in which her husband has been incarcerated in a cell, denied every right of an American citizen. If that is frenzy, I plead guilty and I notify the Globe I shall not soon recover. I am not alone. The C. F. U. all became “frenzied,” gave all they could and promised all moral support possible.
Prison bars do not frighten when
one has truth and right
deep in the heart.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday January 1, 1907
New York, New York – Miss Flynn Lectures on Socialism
From the New York Sun of December 31, 1906:
HYPATIA INSTEAD OF HOPP.
—–Bread and Butter, Not Sentiment, Is the Universal Solvent of the Industrial Problem, in the Opinion of the Young Eyed Cherub-But Mr. Hopp Hangs On.
Sandwiched between sentiments by Julius Hopp on what the real drama ought to be an audience that half filled the orchestra of the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre yesterday afternoon listened to a lecture by Miss Elizabeth Flynn, aged 17 schoolgirl Socialist.
Mis Flynn is pretty, is not addicted to laughter and is self-possessed, as one might expect a girl to be who nonchalantly submitted to arrest for carttail talking without a license. Her remarks were on lines familiar to most Socialists, but she declared that they were unfamiliar to most capitalistic editors, who appeared to have room enough in their heads for only one idea at a time.
She said that she was a materialistic Socialist and advocated socialism purely on scientific grounds. It was a problem of bread and butter and not of sentimentalism. Mr. Stokes could not feel about the subject as the workingman could because he was not in the workingmen’s class.
The idea of the Socialist was the cooperative commonwealth. That could be attained only through a process of evolution that had first caused the destruction of slave labor and later the disappearance of the feudal system. The next step in the evolutionary plan would be the vanishing of the capitalistic system. All methods of production that capitalism had used would be used by the working folk in more enlightened fashion for the benefit of all. Production, transportation and distribution would all be done by the people themselves.
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday December 26, 1916
New York City – Carlo Tresca Welcomed Home at Mass Meeting
From the New York Sun of December 25, 1916:
TRESCA WELCOMED BCK.
—–
I. W. W. Leader Kissed on Both
Cheeks at Public Meeting.
Nearly a thousand anarchists and Industrial Workers of the World expressed in a variety of ways yesterday their happiness at the return to New York of their fiery leader, Carlo Tresca, who has been on trial* in Minnesota as a result of his activities in the Mesaba iron range strike.
A meeting of welcome was held in Manhattan Lyceum, 66 East Fourth street. In his exuberance William Shatoff kissed the protesting Carlo first on one cheek and then on the other, while the crowd yelled its appreciation of the scene Shatoff afterward made a speech, but as it was in Russian it will not be reported. Hundreds of his compatriots gathered around Carlo and kept him busy shaking hands for half an hour. Then the meeting began. Tresca said the Minnesota iron miners were ready for another strike “when the gong rings.”
[*Note-Tresca did not stand trial, but was released as part of a plea agreement.]
I am loyally yours for a damn fine fight.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 16, 1916
Mother Jones Found in Washington D. C. During November
We pause to review the activities of Mother Jones, that fearless champion of the cause of working-class men, women and children in their struggle for industrial freedom. We first find her remembered for her work on behalf of the children of the mills when she led them on the March of the Mill Children during the summer of 1903.
From the Iowa Bayard Advocate of November 2, 1916:
TENEMENT CHILDREN WILL
VISIT WILSON
—–
Their Welcome Will Be Unlike That
Once Given at Oyster Bay.
—–
New York, Oct. 28.-Fifty mothers of New York’s east side, with their children, who have been emancipated from sweatshops by the enactment of
the child labor law, are going to Shadow Lawn, Saturday, in person to thank President Wilson.
A “kind lady,” who prefers to conceal her identity, has donated a special car to be attached to one of the trains bearing pilgrims from New York to Shadow Lawn to hear the president’s address on “Wilson day.” The children will carry armsful of artificial flowers which they used to make in the factories, before their emancipation.
No such pilgrimage of the children of the poor has been attempted since the one when Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States and a carload of children from the Pennsylvania coal mines [textile mills] journeyed to the summer capital at Oyster Bay to petition for a national child labor law.
“Mother Jones,” who conducted that excursion, told recently in public of the refusal of the guards at Oyster Bay to allow the children to pass the outer gate, and of their return home to wait 14 years for a Woodrow Wilson to set them free.
[Photograph added.]
You, the wives of the strikers,
ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday November 9, 1916
Mother Jones News Round-Up for month of October, 1916
During the month of October, Mother was first found in New York City advising the wives of the street car strikers to put on their fighting clothes and go out and raise hell. Her words greatly shocked the kept press, the same press which is never much shocked whenever workers are killed on the job, or beaten, shot, and otherwise brutalized on the picket line by the powers-that-be.
Mother was next found in Illinois and Kentucky campaigning for the re-election of President Wilson and Senator Kern. She was sent into the region by the United Mine Workers of America to speak to the miners and other working men.
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 28, 1916
From the Everett Labor Journal: Criminal Strikebreakers
EX-CONVICTS PREFERRED AS STRIKEBREAKERS
—–
“God save my dollars.”
The following relating to strike-breaking methods in New York will show to what lengths open shop advocates will go to accomplish their ends:
Dante Barton, of the Industrial Relations Committee, in a statement just issued, points out the record of the strike-breaking firm of Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, which is supplying the traction trust with strike-breakers. The statement follows:
Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, who have supplied the thousands of strikebreakers now being housed in car houses and shop buildings by the Interboro, is today the largest and most notorious strike-breaking agency in the United States. It is an amalgamation of Bergoff Bros. and the old firm of Waddell-Mahone.
Almost exactly a year ago this firm was investigated by the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, in connection with an investigation of the strike at the Bayonne refinery of the Standard Oil Company. The investigation was conducted by George P. West and C. L. Chenery, agents of the commission.
In a statement issued recently by the now unofficial Committee on Industrial Relations, Mr. West said:
Waddell, the most experienced member of this firm, admitted to Mr. Chenery and me that he had no prejudice against ex-convicts, but on the contrary, finds many of them particularly valuable for the work in hand.
