Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 11, 1911 Socialists Throughout the Grieve Deaths of Paul and Laura LaFargue
From The Coming Nation of December 9, 1911:
Death of the LaFargues
Paul LaFargue
That Paul LaFargue, the keen thinker, Jovial writer and cheerful companion, and his wife, Laura Marx LaFargue, the genial hostess, and co-worker of her husband have committed suicide is the startling news that has brought sorrow to hosts of Socialists throughout the world.
Those who had enjoyed the hospitality of their home at Draveil, near Paris, who knew their remarkable personalities and especially their apparently unfailing good humor and optimism the news seems incredible.
The reason given is that for years he had been suffering from a mysterious incurable disease that baffled the skill of even the greatest physicians of Paris to diagnose. Sixty-eight years of age, it seems that he, with his wife, looked upon the world and decided that for them the time had come to leave it and they acted upon that decision bravely and frankly.
Laura Marx LaFargue
For almost half a century Paul LaFargue has been known as a revolutionist. From the time when in 1866 he was expelled from the French University for having taken part in an anti-military demonstration, this expulsion sent him to England where he met Karl Marx, whose daughter Laura he married.
The story of his life has been the story of the revolutionary movement of Europe. Exiled from France, for activity in the Commune he returned to become a member of the Chamber of Deputies. With Jules Guesde he built up the strongest and the most intelligently revolutionary wing of the French Socialist party.
His writings have been translated into almost every language, and their sharp, biting wit, keen analytic power, shot through with that gentle humor so much needed and so seldom found in Socialist writings will go on for many years fighting the cause to which he and his wife gave so many years.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 5, 1909
“The Apostate” by Jack London, The Story of a Child Laborer
From The International Socialist Review of June 1909:
A Story of Child Labor
“THE APOSTATE”
BY JACK LONDON.
F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”
The threat had no effect on the boy. He clung stubbornly to sleep, fighting for its oblivion as the dreamer fights for his dream. The boy’s hands loosely clenched themselves, and he made feeble, spasmodic blows at the air. These blows were intended for his mother, but she betrayed practiced familiarity in avoiding them as she shook him roughly by the shoulder.
“Lemme ‘lone!”
It was a cry that began, muffled, in the deeps of sleep, that swiftly rushed upward, like a wail, into passionate belligerence, and that died away and sank down into an inarticulate whine. It was a bestial cry, as of a soul in torment, filled with infinite protest and pain.
But she did not mind. She was a sad-eyed, tired-faced woman, and she had grown used to this task, which she repeated every day of her life. She got a grip on the bedclothes and tried to strip them down; but the boy, ceasing his punching, clung to them desperately. In a huddle at the foot of the bed, he still remained covered. Then she tried dragging the bedding to the floor. The boy opposed her. She braced herself. Hers was the superior weight, and the boy and bedding, the former instinctively following the later in order to shelter against the chill of the room that bit into his body.
As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him. He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out, this time with more force and directness. At the same time his eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.
“All right,” he mumbled.
She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in darkness.
Capitalism has had its day of carnage and its crimson sun
is slowly but surely sinking in the west.
-Eugene Victor Debs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday November 25, 1905
From Wilshire’s Magazine: Eugene Debs on “Winning the World
The following article by Comrade Debs is from the most recent edition of Wilshire’s:
Winning a World.
by Eugene V. Debs
—–
The Socialist movement is as wide as the world, and its mission is to win the world—the whole world—from animalism, and consecrate it to humanity.
What a tremendous task!
And what a royal privilege to share in it!
To win a world is worthy of a race of gods.
And in the winning, men develop godlike attributes, since all men are potential gods.
To the strained and vigilant eye of the Socialist on the watchtower all is well in point of outlook.
Capitalism has had its day of carnage
and its crimson sun is slowly but
surely sinking in the west.
Not more certain is the sunrise on the morrow
than the coming of the sure-evolving
Cooperative Commonwealth.
———-
F you don’t git up, Johnny, I won’t give you a bite to eat!”
