Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 24, 1919
Helen Keller on Workers, Labor Exploitation and Freedom
From the New York Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
[From Helen Keller.]
Workingmen everywhere are becoming aware that they are being exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless they own themselves and their labor. The achievement of such economic freedom stands in prospect— at no distant date—as the revolutionary climax of the age. (Helen Keller.)
The Portland Fellow Workers send $285.75 to be equally divided among the boys in the Leavenworth Penitentiary, but the rebels confined therein decided unanimously to send same to the general office as the organization is in need of ready cash at present.
This is the spirit of the men who fought for us, and for whom we are now fighting, and their message is organize, organize some more.
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[Emphasis added.]
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Disciplinary Reports from Leavenworth Penitentiary
J. A. MacDonald, No. 13133
January 24, 1919
Became sarcastic and ridiculed the laws and system of Government of the United States. Isolation on restricted diet and removed as school teacher.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 22, 1919
Poetry and Philosophy from the New York Rebel Worker
From The Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
I FEEL SO GOOD.
I have to sing
I feel so good.
Because some grand
Duke’s sawing wood.
And pretty soon
A big bunch more,
Will have to work
Until they’re sore.
And then we stiffs.
Will run this earth.
And all their pains
Will cause us mirth.
And if some guy
Tells us that’s wrong,
We’ve got a story
Good and long.
Of things they’ve done
While we were slaves;
Grand Dukes and such
Are common Knaves.
-A. SIGISMUND.
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[From Jean-Jacques Rousseau]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778
The first man who, having inclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe he was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditch and crying to his fellows:
Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 21, 1919
Can the Capitalists Run the World without Ruin, Waste, and War?
From the New York Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
CAN THE CAPITALISTS RUN THE WORLD?
The March [April] Liberator wants to know, “Can the workers run the world?” This question tickles our risibilities and causes us to submit to an attack of the merry ha ha! It unconsciously re-echoes the capitalists’ claim that they run the world and that they are the only ones that can run the world. For a radical socialist magazine to re-echo capitalist misstatements is bad Marxian-ism-the sin of sins against the holy of holies. And then the question is preposterous in the light of contemporaneous events. What we behold, if our eye sight is not falling us, is not a world run by capitalists, but a world that is running the capitalists—running them out of existence, p. d. q. (By the way, we suggest that Art Young draw a cartoon for his new satirical weekly, “Good morning,” showing the capitalists “running” the world according to modern history.)
Then look at the way the capitalists run the world when the world is not running them. H. L. Gantt, one of New York’s foremost production engineers, says the present system is only 15 per cent efficient. There’s some running for you-running to waste-85 per cent. Will the Liberator please repeat its question again? We enjoy anything that suggests a collosal joke, such as the capitalists’ assumption that they are the efficient world runners par excellence. Ask Gantt; he knows.
Now, for a change, let us take seriously this question of running the world. Let us state frankly that if the workers ever run the world the way the capitalists are running it, we’ll start a bloodly counter-revolution against them! And we’ll inflict an antiproltetarian mismanagement dictatorship on them; by God, so we will. We want the world to be run, not ruined or wasted.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 20, 1919
Wichita, Kansas – I. W. W. Prisoners Appear in Court
From the New York Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
WICHITA DEFENDANTS GO RACK TO DUNGEONS
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Starve In Jail Awaiting Trial
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C. W. Anderson
On March 10 the former Newton group were taken to Wichita for trial, as had the other boys a day or two before. On the 12th of March all defendants were marched to the Federal court. This first day in the squared arena was taken up with the selection of a jury composed almost wholly of “farmers.” At the end of that first day the 12 men who were supposed to judge us “guilty” or “not guilty,” consisted of one banker and eleven farmers. What would you have given for our chances?
Judge Pollack suggested that the jury be picked first of all so as to enable the empaneled men to either be accepted or sent home and not to be kept waiting while the arguments were heard on the bill of particulars, demurrers, and motion to quash the indictment.
The second day in court, March 13, was taken up almost wholly by Attorney George F. Vandeveer for the defense on arguments for quashing the indictment, the return of papers illegally seized, and many other matters. Vandeveer was at his best and his talk was so clear cut and convincing that he held the attention of the entire court, including the judge, the entire period. The five counts of the indictment was literally torn to shreds.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 23, 1919
New York, New York – Chinese Fellow Workers Arrested and Deported
From the South Bend (Indiana) News of February 21, 1919:
RAID ON CHINESE I. W. W. MAY CAUSE DEPORTATIONS
[Detail]
I. W. W. Organizers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Harry Kelly, Jack Isaacson, Carlo Tresca, and Frank Levy —–
Thousands of Chinese in the United States may be deported as a result of the recent discovery in New York of an active Chinese branch of the I. W. W. Just as Chinese there prepared to sow discontent among their fellow countrymen by misrepresentation, intimidation and other means the police stepped in and obtained sufficient evidence to cause the deportation of four Chinese. In the round up of the Chinese I. W. W. fifteen prisoners were taken and eleven remained to be tried by the federal authorities. The Accompanying pictures shows some of the most prominent agitators.
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