Tag: Political Prisoners

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1919, Found in West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Fight for Flag Apr 8, Rockford IL Morn Str p4, Apr 9, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 20, 1919
Mother Jones News for May 1919
-Found Speaking to Coal Miners in Watson, West Virginia

From the Fairmont West Virginian of May 31, 1919:

Mother Jones at Parade for Soldiers, WVgn p1, May 31, 1919
Mother Jones Speaks, WVgn p1, May 31, 1919

Organized labor paid its tribute to the returned soldier boys yesterday when a parade was held in the morning between Fairmont and Watson under the auspices of United Mine Workers’ local union 4005, of Watson which closed with an open air meeting at the grove at Watson. Two thousand United Mine Workers participated in the parade.

The parade started at Fairmont avenue and Twelfth street and was escorted by Chief of Police Harr and a cordon of police. W. M. Rogers, Fairmont, president of the State Federation of Labor lead off the procession.

The Moose band, of Fairmont, was next in line, wearing their new uniforms, which are composed of a pretty blue with appropriate trimmings. The band rendered a fine program of march music. Thirty-five service men who reside near Watson, were in line. There were 200 members of local 4005, United Mine Workers, in line. One hundred and twenty-five members of local 4006, Kingmont, were in line and local 4017, Norway, had 55 men in line. Local union 4021, of Dakota, had 58 men in line and local 4027, of Barnstown had 120.

Local 4006, Rivesvllle, had 50 men, while local 2358 Rivesville, had 56 men. United Mine Workers, local 4048, Carolina, had 41 men. Then came the largest delegation in the parade that of local 1643 Monongah, which had 500 United Mine Workers in line. The next largest delegation was from local 4047, Grant Town, which had 400 men.

Mother Jones occupied a seat in an auto that led off the parade. R. E. Fitzhugh, of Watson, was marshal of the parade, which was a great success.

After the parade the column moved to Crawford’s Grove Watson, where meeting was held in the presence of 3,000 United Mine Workers and their families. W. M. Rogers, Fairmont, president of the State Federation of Labor, introduced the speaker in well chosen words.

“Mother Jones” was the first speaker. She urged all of the United Mine Workers to remain loyal to their organization. Later she paid a high tribute to the returned soldiers, many of whom appeared in uniform at the meeting. She praised the democracy of America.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs Transferred from Moundsville Prison to Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD Enter Prison Untamed, Ipl Str p11, Apr 14, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 15, 1919
Atlanta, Georgia – Comrade Debs Now an Inmate at Federal Penitentiary

From The West Virginian of June 14, 1919:

DEBS IS MOVED FROM MOUNDSVILLE
—–
Marshall Ned Smith Took Famous Prisoner
to Federal Prison at Atlanta.
—–

(By Associated Press.)

Eugene Victor Debs, EVD, crpd, Liberator, May 1919

WHEELING, W. Va., June 14.-Eugene V. Debs, former Socialist candidate for President, who was placed in the Moundsville penitentiary two months ago on being sentenced to a term of ten years for violation of the Federal Espionage law, this morning is an inmate of the Federal prison at Atlanta, Ga.

Debs, who was taken by surprise by the action, was removed from the penitentiary yesterday morning, it was learned today, by United States Marshal Ned Smith and deputies and brought to Wheeling where he was placed on a train for Atlanta by way of Cincinnati.

Up to early today the reasons for Debs’ removal had not been stated officially but it was reported that the greater safety of the Southern prison had something to do with the move.

While in Wheeling and on the train en route to Cincinnati every effort was made by the officers to keep the identity of their prisoner a secret.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “May Day in Ft. Leavenworth,” Socialist, IWW, & Anarchist Prisoners Celebrate

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD re Unity for May Day 1919, fr SPA Progam———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 8, 1919
May Day Celebrated at Ft. Leavenworth by Reds of All Stripes

From The Liberator of June 1919:

May Day in Ft. Leavenworth

By a Socialist C. O.

May Day in USA by M Becker, Liberator p28, June 1919

WHILE Cleveland was having its fatal May Day demonstration and while other free American cities were engaged in bloody rioting and fighting between citizens and police, with soldiers pitching in on both sides and shavetail ex-officers going into “action” for the first time, the militant Socialists imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth were observing the international revolutionary Labor Day under U. S. military sanction.

The open air red flag parade was witnessed by a crowd of soldiers who offered no opposition but viewed it with apparent approbation. The one day stoppage of prison work by the celebrants met with the approval in advance of the prison authorities who made special arrangements to permit the rebel group to assemble and observe the day. Civilians and Q. M. sergeants and children on their way to school looked with amazement on the unprecedented prison scene as it unfolded itself behind the double lines of barbed wire surrounding the stockade-annex of the Disciplinary Barracks.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Messenger on FW Ben Fletcher: “The best and bravest, the noblest and most courageous”

Janet RayeA. Philip Randolph
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Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 27, 1919
Prisons and Jails of the U.S.A. Now Hold the “Best and Bravest”

From The Messenger of May-June 1919:

POLITICAL PRISONERS

IWW, Ben Fletcher, 13126 Leavenworth, Sept 7 or 8, 1918
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher
—–

The recent conviction and sentenced of the national Socialist officials, the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the convictions of Eugene V. Debs and of Kate Richards O’Hare, definitely stamp the United States as the most archaic, antiquated and reactionary of the alleged civilized nations. In addition to these popular and well-known characters, there are 1,500 political and class prisoners in the prisons. Practically all other countries have granted amnesty to their political prisoners, but the U. S. is sentencing them more savagely now than during the War.

Men like Victor Berger, Adolph Germer, Louis Engdahl, Irwin St John Tucker and Charles Kruse have each been sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years for speaking a word in favor of human liberty and for making statements concerning profiteering and patriotism, the truth of which has been amply corroborated by the Federa Trade Commission and the Federal Income Tax Reports. Among the 1,500 political and class prisoners are men of practically all races and nationalities.

Negro men like Ben Fletcher, who have done more to improve the actual economic and social life of Negro workers than the much heralded so-called leaders, are in prison for fifteen and twenty years. There is no race, color or sex line involved. The best and bravest, the noblest and most courageous, are in the dark and cavernous prison cells of this country.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Nominates Debs for President & Kate Richards O’Hare for Vice-President

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote AtR p1 Nominates EVD for President, May 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 25, 1919
Eugene V. Debs, No. 2253 of Moundsville Prison, for President

From the Appeal to Reason of May 24, 1919:

EVD for President, AtR p1, May 24, 1919—–

[Debs for President, 1920.]

Since political power has put Eugene V. Debs in a felon’s cell, political power will place him in the White House. To test the power of the reactionary ruling class as against the power of the enlightened working class, the Appeal to Reason hereby formally places in nomination for the presidency of the United States to be voted on at the 1920 election Eugene v. Debs, a citizen of Terre Haute, and at present confined by a Democratic party administration in a federal prison at Moundsville, W. Va.

[O’Hare for Vice-President, 1920.]

Because the United States Constitution forbade Congress from passing any law that would interfere with the rights of free speech and free press, and because an enlightened jurist like Federal Judge Amidon has said that the espionage law should not have been used to interfere with innocent expressions of belief, the Appeal to Reason considers Kate Richards O’Hare as a martyr to the cause of liberty and therefore places her name for the nomination of the vice presidency of the United States to be voted on in the general election of 1920.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Magón, Villarreal and Rivera Found Guilty at Tombstone Trial

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Ricardo Flores Magon, Serene bf Judges, AtR p3, May 22, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 24, 1909
Tombstone, Arizona Territory – Mexican Revolutionaries Found Guilty

This week’s edition of the Appeal to Reason, page one, informs us that our Mexican Comrades were found guilty at trial in Tombstone on May 16th. Page three carries a report from the trial by George H. Shoaf and a statement from Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón, written before the trial.

From the Appeal to Reason of May 22, 1909:

Mex Rev, Mexican Cases Tombstone Trial, AtR p3, May 22, 1909—–

THE TRIAL AT TOMBSTONE.
—–
Opening of the Case Against the Mexican Patriots
at the Town of the Significant Name.

By Telegraph to Appeal to Reason.

Mex Rev, Verdict of Guilty Magon etc, AtR p1, May 22, 1909

Tombstone, Ariz., May 14.-Before a jury of nine republicans and three democrats the government began the evidence against Magon, Villarreal and Rivera. The selection of the jury occupied one day. Men who were members of labor unions, members of the Socialist party or readers of the Appeal to Reason were disqualified. As a result no one on the jury has any sympathy with the laboring class and its struggles. If this jury acquits the defendants it will be because of the absence of any evidence that could tend to point to conviction.

Evidence so far introduced is incompetent and immaterial and is regarded by the spectators as having no bearing on the case. All objections made by the defense have been overruled. In spite of the numerous witnesses examined, most of them Furlong detectives and Mexican spies, it is believed that the jury will be forced to acquit. The worst that is expected is a disagreement.

Duration of the trial cannot be determined at this time.-George H. Shoaf.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Wichita Class-War Prisoners & “Hell Holes in America” by Upton Sinclair

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Mother and Boy, Lv Nw Era p4, Mar 14, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 14, 1919
Upton Sinclair Exposes the Barbaric Sedgwick County Jail

From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1919:

Upton Sinclair Page, AtR p4, May 10, 1919

Hell Holes in America

In the Amnesty Edition of the Appeal I reproduced a circular sent out by the I. W. W. boys, describing the terrible conditions in the Sedgwick county jail at Wichita, Kans. I made no investigation of their statements, but acted on my general impulse to believe the worst about American jails. Those which I have investigated in past times have disposed me to believe that nobody could possibly exaggerate their evils. But soon after this article appeared in the Appeal I received letters from several correspondents who reported that they had complained to the Governor of Kansas about the matter, and had received from him a report of a confidential investigation which he had had made into this Wichita jail. The report stated that conditions in the jail were excellent, and that all the accounts sent out by the I. W. W. were false.

Now the Governor of Kansas, Henry J. Allen, is a progressive politician and a gentle man. I feel acquainted with him from reading “The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me,” by William Allen White-Governor Allen being the Henry” of that book. So I began to feel real bad about what I had published, and made ready to apologize to Governor Allen, and also to the readers of the Appeal for the blunder I had made.

But I studied that report again and noted that the Governor’s investigator denied that the I. W. W. boys had been arrested for trying to call a strike of the oil workers. He said they had been arrested for hindering the prosecution of the war. I have encountered that official bunk so often that I know the type of mind that swallows it.

And then I recalled the many, many times in my life when I had followed the work of official investigators, in cases with which I myself was entirely familiar. I recalled, for example the statement given out about the county jail here in Los Angeles, that the prisoners had had lice brought in and put them on their bodies prior to my inspection! I recalled Major Louis L. Seaman of the United States army, who investigated the Chicago stockyards for Collier’s Weekly, at the time when the Appeal to Reason was publishing “The Jungle.” Major Seaman was a gentleman of undoubted integrity, and he reported that everything was lovely in that inferno of graft. You see, these gentlemen of undoubted integrity have their class point of view, and they let themselves be escorted around, and they only see what they are shown-and even then, most of the time they don’t realize what they are seeing!

So I decided that before I apologized to Governor Allen, I would inquire a little farther. I wrote to Caroline Lowe, a woman who has interested herself in the defense of political prisoners, and asked if she happened to know anything about this particular jail. In reply came a letter which speaks for itself and which I quote:

Regardless of any denial made by the Governor of the State of Kansas, I can testify of my own knowledge that the conditions not only in the Wichita jail but in the jail at the State capitol at Topeka, Kans., beggar description. The rotary tank in the jail at Wichita is a relic of barbarism. I have been in the jail many times and have seen this tank in operation.

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Hellraisers Journal: National Civil Liberties Bureau Corrects Attorney General on Number of Political Prisoners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Prison Reveille, Lv New Era p2, Apr 4, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 28, 1919
New York, New York – National Civil Liberties Bureau on Political Prisoners

From the Appeal to Reason of April 26, 1919:

Deny Attorney General’s Statement Regarding
Number of War Prisoners

Remember Political Prisoners by Bingo, OH Sc, Mar 10, 1918

(The National Civil Liberties Bureau of New York City makes public the following statement in reply to the assertion of the Attorney General that the number of political prisoners in the United States has been greatly exaggerated:)

—–

In a published statement the Attorney General intimates that the current estimate that there are 1,500 political prisoners in the United States is the result of either frenzied imagination or deliberate intent to deceive the public.

We accept full responsibility for the estimate in question and wish to reassert our belief in its moderation and accuracy. The Attorney General evidently does not regard a person who is under indictment or is out on bail pending appeal as a political prisoner. His view is that liberty on bail is the same thing as liberty without the threat of prison. Such an assertion needs no comment. Nor does the Attorney General include conscientious objectors. The following table shows how our estimate has been derived and we challenge the Attorney General to show that it is inaccurate in any substantial particular. The figures for prosecution under the Espionage Act are taken from the report of the Attorney General for the year ending June 30,1918, and are the most recent published officially. We have repeatedly requested more recent figures but our requests have been refused.

Clas War n Political Prisoner Numbers per NCLB, AtR p3, Apr 26, 1919
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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Kate O’Hare “Dressed In” at Prison, Will Work in Sewing Shop with Emma Goldman

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Kate OHare re War Profitters, Address to Court, Dec 14, 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 16, 1919
Jefferson City, Missouri – Kate Richards O’Hare Behind the Prison Bars

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of April 15, 1919:

KATE RICHARDS O’HARE ‘DRESSED IN ‘ AT PRISON
—–
Socialist Will Sew on Jumpers in Shop With
Emma Goldman at Jefferson City.
—–

By a Staff Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch.

Kate Richards O'Hare & Children, Richards, Kathleen, Victor, Eugene, Apr 1919, Spartacus, Mxorg
Kate Richards O’Hare & Children: Richard, Kathleen, Victor, and Eugene.
April 1919-taken before she turned herself over to begin serving prison term.
———-

JEFFERSON CITY, April 15.-Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare of St. Louis, the Socialist leader convicted of violating the espionage law by speaking against war, was “dressed in” this morning at the Missouri penitentiary, to which she has been sentenced to serve five years, was given a bath and designated as “No. 21,669.” She will be put to work tomorrow sewing jumper jackets and suspenders on a machine, in the same shop with Emma Goldman, the anarchist.

Mrs. O’Hare is the wife of Frank P. O’Hare and the mother of four children. She is the author of a number of essays, pamphlets and at least one play on social and economic subjects. She was Socialist candidate for Senator from Missouri in 1916, and once was a candidate for the Socialist nomination for Vice President.

Mrs. O’Hare, after the affirmation of her conviction by the Supreme Court, made a study of criminology for the purpose of making a scientific analysis of crime and the causes of it, when she became a prisoner. She consulted several noted psychologists and criminologists, and studied the mental tests used in the army. With the aid of these she prepared an exhaustive questionnaire for prisoners to answer.

More than a month ago she visited Gov. Gardner here and obtained permission from him to purse her studies in the prison…..

———-

[Photograph added.]

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