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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 14, 1913
“Hard Up”-Poem by Roxie Trent of Christian, Logan County, West Virginia
From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of September 12, 1913:
Tag: Poetry
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, “The Miner’s Guardian Angel” -by Mary Quinlan Laughlin from The Christian Socialist
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 26, 1913
“To Mother Jones” -a Poem by Mary Quinlan Laughlin
From The Goltry (Oklahoma) News of May 23, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: A Poem by Gerald Lively for Mother Jones and a Letter from the Military Bastile at Pratt, West Virginia
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 13, 1913
Mother Jones Writes to Mrs. Jamison from the Military Bastile at Pratt, W. Va.
From Solidarity of May 10, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: A Poem by J. A. Bradley: “Sons of Mother Mary Jones Awake!”
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 27, 1913
A Poem for Mother Jones Held in the Grasp of the “Beast, Made Mad With Greed.”
“Mother Jones” by J. A. Bradley of Lancaster, Ohio:
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: A Poem by J. A. Bradley: “Sons of Mother Mary Jones Awake!””
Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: White Slave Number, Enslaving and Trafficking Women and Girls for Profit
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 14, 1913
The White Slave Traffic for Sex Commerce in Free America
From The Progressive Woman of April 1913:
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THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC
by Agnes H. DowningWHILE all can see that women are sold for sex commerce, until very recently it was believed that the women were themselves the sellers. It was thought that either for love of luxury, or discouragement after seduction, or through their hunger needs women have consented to sell themselves promiscuously. But in late years and through accumulated evidence, it has been proved that the great business of supplying inmates for evil institutions has been and is carried on by persons who make a business of securing the girls for this traffic…..
In 1907 the United States government, through a special committee of the Immigration Commission, made an investigation of the importation and harboring of women for immoral purposes. The report says (Senate document 196, pages 8 and 9):
“…..The procurer may put his woman into a disorderly house, sharing the profits with the madam. He may sell her outright; he may act as an agent for another man; he may keep her, making arrangements for her hunting men. She must walk the streets and secure her patrons, to be exploited, not for her own sake, but for that of her owner…..”
They secure such power over the girls, first, because the girls are young and ignorant of their legal rights, and again because a girl is always suspicioned for being led into such a place. Though she be perfectly innocent, people are not ready to believe her. Lastly, when the punishment is beating or death, girls and men, too, can be forced into almost anything…..
It is just as much the duty of Socialists here and now to combat the white slave traffic as it is to strive for higher wages, rights of asylum, universal peace, or any of the other measures for which we all contend. It is in this broadness of spirit that our best good is to be found.
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WHO ARE WHITE SLAVES?
by Jessie AshleyTODAY the whole country talks and writes unceasingly of white slavery. As a descriptive title it is striking, and this fact helps to give it publicity; it attracts attention and sticks in the mind. But it is not wholly accurate. Slaves there are, but they are not always white; many black women and little yellow ones are also slaves in a world that should be free.
Slaves! What is a slave? A human being who has no freedom of choice, one who must live according to the will of another. Technically, when we speak of white slaves, we mean unwilling prostitutes. It is this phase of the matter that is arousing the just rage of a slowly awakening world. No rage can be too great for the crime, it must indeed become so great that it will sweep the horror from the face of the earth…..
Slaves, every woman of them today, whether prostitutes held unwillingly, or prostitutes gone willingly “astray,” whether submissive wife or rebellious virgin. Slaves every one, because there is no freedom of choice, but only a blind, cruel, stupid master, the social system, that without reason and without sympathy enslaves its womanhood.
But the cure is on its way. Women are becoming thinkers and are testing for themselves the chains that bind them. They are learning how to break them. They are at last beginning to realize that they are slaves, and that this is not a necessary condition; just as the working class is beginning to see that wage slavery is not necessary.
So on with the fight against white slavery and black, on with the working class rebellion against wage slavery, but let women especially keep up the rebellion, demanding fearlessly and incessantly sex freedom and economic freedom.
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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part III
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 3, 1913
Ralph Chaplin Travels with Comrade Rumbaugh to West Virginia Strike Zone
From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:
[Part III of III.]
A brief account of a trip made by Comrade Rumbaugh, of Hurricane, W. Va., and myself to the danger zone, might be of interest to readers of the REVIEW. We rode into Charleston “on the front end” and found that city to have the appearance of a place preparing for a siege. Martial law had been declared but a short time previously and the streets were full of soldiers. Yellow-legged sentries were stationed in front of the state house and the governor’s residence. It was rumored that machine guns were mounted in the upper windows of the former building, commanding both entrances to the capitol grounds.
A sentry was also stationed in front of the office of the Labor Argus to guard Comrade W. H. Thompson, who is editing that paper while Comrade Boswell is being “detained” in the bull pen. Comrade Thompson is an ex-Kanawha county coal miner and is unblushingly ”red.” He is the editor of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star and he has put up as staunch a fight for the cause of the miners as any man in the state. At the city jail we witnessed the interesting spectacle of a bunch of “tin horns” bringing a prisoner from the military district to the city lockup. As the great iron gates swung open to receive them, the spectators commenced hissing the soldiers, calling them “scab herders” and other expressive names. Some of the “yellow legs” glared at these people brazenly but, may they be given due credit, others of the soldiers hung their heads with shame, as if such condemnation from members of their own class was more deadly to them than bullets.
From Charleston we took the labor train that was to carry us into the martial law zone. At Cabin Creek we were almost arrested with a bunch of miners in the car who were poking fun at the grave and ludicrous antics cut by some of the would-be man-killers in khaki. At the Paint Creek junction we remained for several hours, ostensibly to visit some soldier boys of our acquaintance, but in reality to secure information and photographs for the REVIEW and the Labor Star. Comrade Rumbaugh was afterwards arrested and relieved of his camera for attempting to take photographs to illustrate this article. We spoke with dozens of the soldiers, and one of them, an ex-mine guard, admitted that the guards use dum-dum bullets against the miners. He told of two miners who had been killed with these proscribed missiles, one man who had the top of his head completely shot off and another who received a death wound in the breast large enough to “stick your fist into.”
The freight house at Paint Creek has been converted into a bull pen, and over fifty men are now incarcerated there, only three of whom are not native West Virginains. The interior of this place would make a Siberian prison pen look like a haven of refuge. The sleeping accommodations are inadequate, ventilation poor and the floors filthy beyond description. Even with two or three men sleeping in the coal-bin there is no room for the others. The only papers the prisoners are permitted to read are the reactionary local rags and the National Socialist. Mother Jones, Charles Boswell and John Brown have somewhat better quarters elsewhere in town. A sentinel is constantly measuring his paces before the door of each. Dear old Mother Jones in the bull-pen and guarded by armed mercenaries of the Mine Owners! The very thought of it makes blood boil, here in West Virginia.
Hellraisers Journal: From the West Virginia Bull-Pen: “Apostrophe to Liberty”-a Poem by Socialist Agitator, John W. Brown
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 16, 1913
Military Bull-Pen, Pratt, West Virginia – “Apostrophe to Liberty” by John Brown
From the Appeal to Reason of March 15, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “They’ve put an injunction of old Mother Jones” -a Poem by O. L. Ford
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 5, 1903
Poem for Mother Jones, Champion of the Striking Miners of West Virginia
From the Appeal to Reason of January 3, 1903:
Hellraisers Journal: From The Nation: Bars and Shadows, Poems by Ralph Chaplin, One of 58 Remaining Class-War Prisoners
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 14, 1922
Bars and Shadows, Poems by Ralph Chaplin, I. W. W. Class-War Prisoner
From The Nation of December 13, 1922:
Ralph Chaplin and 58 of his fellow agitators for industrial justice are behind Federal prison bars because they dared to tell the truth about the war while the war was in progress. Chaplin has spent five consecutive Christmases behind the bars…
“Bars and Shadows’ [is] an ideal Christmas reminder, and one of the most effective documents for amnesty that has appeared.
DEMAND THE RELEASE OF
ALL POLITICAL PRISONERSDo Ralph Chaplin a good turn by ordering six copies of “Bars and Shadows” and using them for holiday gifts. The book is privately published. Every penny above the actual cost of manufacture, advertising and distribution goes to Mrs. Chaplin and her son…..
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 26, 1902
“The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby
From the International Socialist Review of September 1902:
