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Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 6, 1912
Photograph by Lewis Hine of Young Spinner: “Toiling Childhood”
From The Coming Nation of May 4, 1912:
November 1908, Vivian Cotton Mills, Cherryville, North Carolina
Young Spinner by Lewis Hine for National Child Labor Committee:
“Spinner in Vivian Cotton Mills, Cherryville, N.C. Been at it 2 years. Where will her good looks be in ten years?”
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 14, 1908
-Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1908
Found in Kansas: “Pioneer Socialist woman in the revolutionary movement…”
During the early days of November, we found Mother Jones* assisting the Kansas Comrades to wind up the 1908 election campaign on behalf of the Socialist Party. The Coffeyville Daily Journal described her speech in Coffeyville:
One of the most powerful Socialist lectures ever delivered in Coffeyville was given in the Coliseum Saturday night. “Mother Jones,” the pioneer Socialist woman in the revolutionary movement, was the orator. A large number of people were out to hear the speech on economics, despite the counter attractions.
“Mother” Jones has been trying to improve the industrial conditions of the working class for nearly four decades. She has particularly devoted her energies along the line of unionism. For nearly a score of years before the Socialists put out a ticket in this country she was going from coast to coast talking unionism to the wage workers. This she is still doing but her scope of work is now much larger than before she embraced international scientific Socialism. She is not only assisting in liberating those who work for wages but she is equally intent on emancipating the entire human race.
The Appeal to Reason credited her contribution:
Mother Jones lined up a great crowd of miners at Weir and Chicopee.
In Parsons:
“Mother” Jones, noted Socialist, spoke to a good sized audience at Edward’s opera house on Sunday afternoon [November 1st].
By November 20th, we found Mother back in Chicago where Clarence S. Darrow and Peter Sissman were part of the legal team engaged in a desperate fight to prevent the Russian Government from extraditing Christian Rudowitz, Russian revolutionist. Describing the court scene, the New York Sun stated:
Mother Jones and several other Socialists were also there.
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 3, 1908
Marianna, Pennsylvania – Gertrude Gordon Interviews Lone Survivor
The heart-rending reporting of Gertrude Gordon continues from the scene of the Marianna Mine Disaster.
From the Pittsburg Press of November 30, 1908:
FEARFUL SCENES WERE ENACTED AT PIT MOUTH
[Continued.]
—–BY GERTRUDE GORDON.
Staff Corespondent of the Press
—–
—–
SOLE SURVIVOR TELLS STORY OF CATASTROPHE
—–The first body taken out was that of Fred Elvarna who is in all probability, the only man living of all who were in the mine at the time of the explosion. He was badly burned and his leg was wrenched, but he was living. In a talk with him, which, with surprising vitality he was able to give within a few hours of his rescue, he described some of his sensations in the mine. He is a bricklayer and was repairing a wall when the explosion occurred.
[He told me:]
I had just put up a brick, and was putting some mortar on it when I felt the explosion coming. It was just like a cold breath from somewhere, not exactly cold, but there was something awful seemed to come and I knew that terrible danger of some kind was there. Of course the worst danger is fire damp, after any explosion that kills more than fire or the falling timbers, and I just threw myself on the ground and dug a hole with my hands to put my face in, and threw my coat over my head.
Of course I did all that in a second and I didn’t really dig a hole, but just scooped out a handful of earth to lay my face in, so that I could breathe.
After the crash I laid quiet for a little and then when I had to move to breathe I tried to look around. It was pitch dark, of course, and the air was pretty bad, but still I could get enough to keep me going.
COULD NOT MOVE.
I couldn’t move and didn’t know how bad I was hurt, but I started yelling right away so that the boys could tell where I was when they came to hunt us. I could hear the men moaning and crying all around me, but we couldn’t get to one another. The men didn’t seem able to talk, and I cannot tell how long they moaned. I guess it was hours, but one by one they stopped, and I guess they all died.
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 2, 1908
Marianna, Pennsylvania – Heartrending Reports from Gertrude Gordon
From The Pittsburg Press of November 29, 1908:
—–
WOMEN MUTE SUFFERERS AT MARIANNA MINE
—–
Bear Their Great, Anxious Sorrow,
in a Benumbed Fashion
-Rescuers Come From the Shaft,
to Be Followed by Others
—–By Gertrude Gordon.
Marianna, Pa., At the Mine, Midnight.-The first thing that struck my ears on leaving the train at Marianna was the hysterical scream of a woman.
With my nerves keyed to a tension by the reports I had heard all the way up from Pittsburg, and the conversations relating to the terrible mine disaster, I expected to enter upon a scene and sights of the utmost horror, but that one scream was all I heard.
“My boy,” calling her son, and that was all.
Not a star shown on the skies, even the moon glimmered but dully, the only light being the points of brightness which showed the presence of the lanterns and the smoking torches flaming in an inadequate attempt to light the darkness. At the mouth of the Rachel shaft, where formerly had stood compact machinery and rough, although completely equipped sheds, was only a shapeless mass of debris. Official-looking men in blue uniforms stood around, keeping black all the people who were pressing to get closer to the shaft.
Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 1, 1908
Marianna, Pennsylvania – Catastrophe at Rachel and Agnes Mine
From The Pittsburg Press of November 29, 1908:
—–
[Sketch of Stricken Crowds at the Mine]
—–
BRAVE RESCUERS FIGHT THE UNDERGROUND FIRE
—–
Crack Mine Is Scene of Terrible Disaster
-Scaffolding Hurled 2,000 Feet in the Air
—-WORKED LIKE DEMONS AGAINST GREAT ODDS
—–
BY OWEN A. THOMAS,
Press Staff Correspondent.Marianna, Pa., November 28 (11 p. m.)-Even worse than was at first reported is the horrible catastrophe here at the Marianna mine, where late this morning 200 miners were killed instantly by a terrible explosion.
Although officials of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Co., owners and operators of the mine, refuse to admit it, flames are baffling the attempts at rescue, and brattice clothe in enormous quantities is being rushed here by trains from Monongahela 21 miles distant.
Rescuing parties, lowered in great iron buckets, have been able to force their way through the mass of tangled wreckage at the bottom of the shaft.
Here, however, they were stopped by the great piles of stone, iron and coal, heaped there by the force of the exploding gas. The cause of the disaster, in all probability, never will be known….
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 28, 1908
Women Toiling at Poverty Wages, Driven to Desperation
From the Socialist Montana News of November 26, 1908:
“The Harlot’s Marching Song” by Joyce Kilmer
Young Girls, Cheap Labor, Pittsburg
SACRIFICING YOUNG GIRLS IN ROLLING MILLS.
In a Pittsburg foundry girls are employed to make simple cores for castings. A quick girl can make 10,000 a day, for which she receives $1. According to the investigator who reported to charities on “Pittsburg Women in the Metal Trades”, this work is carried on in clouds of drifting dust. As the cores are finished they are set on trays, which the women carry across the room to the ovens. A loaded tray weighs from ten to 25 pounds.
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 23, 1908
Report on Recent Legislation from the National Child Labor Committee
From the Duluth Labor World of November 21, 1908:
EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS CHILD LABOR EVILS
—–
Nine States Have Passed Remedial Measures
and Entire Country is Aroused.
—–
But Much Yet Remains to be Done
to Protect American Children.
—–Mr. A. J. McKelway, secretary of the National Child Labor Committee for the southern states has recently published a report of the years’ progress in child labor legislation, from which we glean the following excerpts.
Progress in 1908.
The year 1908 was an off year in state legislative sessions, as thirty-eight states have their legislatures meet in 1909. The national child labor committee reports progress in nine states, in addition to the passage of the District of Columbia child labor bill, which had been agitated for several years. This act of federal legislation was not all that was hoped for by the friends of the cause, as the pages of the senate, though not of the house, and the children of dependent parents are exempted from the operation of the law. In other respects the law approaches the standard of the more advanced states.
New York State.
An important amendment to the New York child labor law was the transferring of the enforcement of the mercantile child labor provisions from the local boards of health to the state labor department, and the provision for a bureau of mercantile inspection. This amendment was bitterly contested by interested parties and Governor Hughes sent two special messages to the legislature concerning the necessity of this change in the law.
New Jersey and Ohio.
In New Jersey, the effort to forbid night work for children under 16 years of age failed, but a compulsory education amendment requires children from 7 to 17 to attend school, except that children of 15 who are regularly employed are excused from such attendance.
In Ohio two efforts to weaken the child labor law failed and an eight-hour law was passed for boys at work under 16 and for girls under 18. This puts Ohio abreast of the most advanced states in this regard.
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 22, 1908
Eugene Victor Debs: Photo, Signature, & Poetic Tribute
From the Appeal to Reason of November 21, 1908:
Free Photo with Signature:
“Debs” by Horace Traubel:
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 16, 1908
Theresa Malkiel: “Prostitution is very seldom a voluntary choice…”
From The Socialist Woman of November 1908:
Our Unfortunate Sisters
THERESA MALKIEL
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It has been estimated that there are six hundred thousand women in the United States who sell their bodies for a living. I know that many of you will shudder reading of this number of unfortunates and will think of them with hatred and disgust.
But be merciful, women, those sisters of yours are not bond slaves like the prostitutes of ancient times, nor are they aliens like the medieval woman of the street. They are gathered from your very midst, from the girls who have by adverse circumstances been impelled to turn to prostitution as a means of livelihood.
Like ourselves, these unfortunates have been carried under a mother’s heart, like ourselves they have been born and destined for an honest life, but victims of force and fraud, or economic conditions, they soon reached the point where society held out nothing better for them than the life of shame.
Prostitution is very seldom a voluntary choice on the part of the fallen. Girls do not elect to cast themselves away, they are driven to the haunts of vice. A young working girl is an easy mark for a man’s designing. And the designers are not wanting. Their most fruitful recruiting grounds are the stores where girls work long hours for small pay; the homes that have few comforts and no pleasures; the streets where girls are often cast while still unknown to sin, but are in want and without shelter; in places where distress and temptation stand ever present.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 15, 1908
Eugene Debs on the Campaign’s “true spirit of Socialist comradeship.”
From the Socialist Montana News of November 12, 1908:
TO OUR COMRADES: GREETING
—–By Eugene V. Debs.
The campaign is ended and my very first thought is of the kindness shown me and the loyal support given me in every part of the country. While at times the exactions were trying I was sustained every hour by the loving care and unflagging support of comrades. To me this was the most beautiful and satisfying feature of the campaign. It expressed the true spirit of Socialist comradeship which is the making of our movement and which will sustain it through every ordeal till it is finally triumphant.
The one incident we all deeply regretted was the illness of Comrade Ben Hanford. With all his heart he yearned to be where he always has been, in the thick of battle, but he had given himself too freely all his life, utterly forgetful of self, until at last his physical powers succumbed and he was compelled to see others on the firing line while he was reserved for less strenuous service that he might have some chance for physical recuperation. His very illness bears testimony to his many years of service in the past when it required courage and sacrifice to be a Socialist, and all of us join most fervently in the hope that he may recuperate his impaired powers and again take his wonted place in the activities of the movement.
Truly this has been a magnificent campaign for the Socialist Party. Our meetings from coast to coast have been the marvel of all, and such enthusiasm has never been displayed in any political campaign.
