Tag: Poverty

Hellraisers Journal: Widows and Orphans of Monongah Crying for Bread; One-Half of Coal Camp’s Breadwinners Are Dead

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote, Paul U Kellogg, re Monongah, Labor World, Jan 11, 1908
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday January 16, 1908
Monongah, West Virginia – Hunger Reigns with Breadwinners Dead

Who among us could ever forget the following from journalist Dorothy Dale reporting from the devastated town after the great mine disaster:

Please letta me work, lady; gotta getta money…Please you get something for me, I can do.

A little hand touched my arm. The curl-framed face of a girl of 10 years looked into mine.

[She said pitifully:]

You know mans all dead. Boys all dead. Only girls left to work.

From The Labor World of January 11, 1908:

WIDOWS AND ORPHANS CRYING FOR BREAD
—–
Entire Burden of Every Industrial Disaster Falls
Upon the Poor Wage-earners’ Family.
—–
Bread Winners Killed By Wilful Negligence of
Their Employers, the Union Smashers.
—–

Monongah MnDs, Tots Beg for Work, Ptt Prs, Dec 10, 1907

In the appeal issued by the Monongah Relief Committee it is stated that of the 3,000 inhabitants of Monongah the mine disaster destroyed one-half of the breadwinners. Two hundred and fifty wives, 1,000 children and many unborn children are left without means of support. The company has declared that the families occupying these houses may remain in them until other provision is made for them and in other ways has been generous in its attitude, but it states that operations cannot be resumed at the damaged mines until these houses are available for the new force. $200,000 is asked for by the Relief Committee to meet these needs. Commenting on the situation Paul U. Kellogg, special representative of Charities and The Commons, says:

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Hellraisers Journal: New York Tribune Article Paints Haywood as “American Bolsheviki” Bent on “Reign of Terror”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The mine owners did not find the gold,
They did not mine the gold,
They did not mill the gold,
But by some weird alchemy
All the gold belonged to them!
-Big Bill Haywood

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 31, 1917
New York, New York – Kept Press Waxes Hysterical on Big Bill

From the New York Tribune of December 30, 1917:

BBH American Bolsheviki Terror, NYTb p22, Dec 30, 1917

The article, authored by Theodore Knappen, is a long one and describes Fellow Worker Haywood’s long history of service to the working class as an effort to seek “the destruction of the existing system of government and industry by means of direct action.”

Interesting that the same author seems to hold no such outrage for the enslavement of children in mine and mill, for the thousands of men who perish each and every year in the mines, for the strikers and their wives and children murdered at Ludlow, Calumet, Roosevelt and other scenes of massacres too numerous to mention, nor for the millions thrown onto the scrap heap to face homelessness and starvation when they can no longer work or find work. One might conclude that such an “existing system” deserves to be replaced with a system which honors and respects the working men, women and children who provide the labor that keep it running.

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs on “Panic Philosophy” & “widespread poverty, misery & despair.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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While there is a lower class, I am in it,
While there is a criminal element, I am of it,
And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 30, 1907
#630 of Appeal to Reason Addresses “A Stupendous Crisis”

From the Appeal of December 28, 1907:
The following is the contribution made by Debs to the “Panic Edition”-

Panic Philosophy by EVD, AtR Dec 28, 1907

HMP, EVD, Eugene OR Guard, May 30, 1907

THE average man understands in a vague way that there is a panic, so-called, and he is more or less concerned about it according as it affects his business or his employment. But he has never studied economics and knows nothing about the laws governing social development. The panic distresses him, it is true, but he is not philosophic enough to inquire into its cause; he simply wants to get rid of the plague.

And so the average man falls easy prey to the political quack in the service of the industrial baron who glibly rings the changes on “financial stringency,” “elastic currency,” “lack of confidence,” “tariff revision,” “trust regulation” and like meaningless twaddle.

It is a fact to be deplored that the average man is a mental child; reads little and that mostly vapid nonsense; thinks less, and reasons not at all.

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Hellraisers Journal: Editorial from the International Socialist Review: “The Panic” by A. M. Simons

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Panic, ISR, Nov 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday November 7, 1907
From the International Socialist Review: “The Panic”

ISR Nov 1917

[…..]

ISR Editorial, Nov 1907

The Panic.

[By A. M. Simons]

Panic on Wall Street, Wiki, Oct 1907

By far the most important event of the month has been the financial disturbance. It is rather interesting that the ink was scarcely dry on the editorial in this magazine last month, questioning whether there would ever be another panic than we seemed to be launched full into the midst of one.

To be sure there is still some question of whether all the phenomena of an industrial crisis will follow, or whether, after a brief period of financial upheaval, there will be only a steady industrial depression, or possibly a revival. It is certain that never before has there been such a conscious control of affairs by great industry as has been shown during the past few weeks, but it still remains to be seen just how effective that control is in the deeper industrial phases of the subject.

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Hellraisers Journal: Conditions of “Economic Indecency” Commonplace Today in Nation’s Capital

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 23, 1917
Washington, D. C. – Report on Poverty from U. S. Department of Labor

Bitter Cry, Spargo, Little Tenement Toilers, Feb 1906

—–

The nation was shocked in 1906 when John Spargo’s Bitter Cry of the Children revealed shocking details of the lives of millions of American children who then lived in conditions of abject poverty (such as those pictured above). A recent report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, demonstrates that conditions of “economic indecency” are yet commonplace among the American working class.

From the Appeal to Reason of October 20, 1917:

Bad Living Conditions In the
Nation’s Capital

Everybody knows-and mostly from painful personal experience-that living conditions are shockingly miserable as a result of high prices. But when confronted with the cold facts and figures, such as the Appeal has been running regularly for several weeks past, one realizes the truth even more terribly. We do not believe any one can read the following report of the federal bureau of labor statistics on living conditions in the city of Washington, which appears in the Weekly News Letter of the American Federation of Labor, without agreeing that it affords “a shocking example of economic indecency”:

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Hellraisers Journal: Henry Dubb Gets What He Votes For by Comrade Ryan Walker for the Northwest Worker

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday March 29, 1917
From the Everett Northwest Worker: Dubb Votes Old Party Ballot

Henry Dubb Gets the Things He Votes For
-by Ryan Walker

Henry Dubb Uses His Vote, Ryan Walker, Nw Wkr, Mar 29, 1917

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Mother Jones on the Iniquities of Child Labor in the South

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones, Stand with Working People, LW, Dec 15, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 19, 1906
From The Labor World: Young Lives Ground Up for Profit

Mother Jones March of the Mill Children, 1903, with text

Mother Jones has never forgotten the cruelty of Child Labor since the summer of 1903 when she led the mill children of Philadelphia on a march to Oyster Bay. They made the long trek in the summer heat in order that they might tell President Roosevelt about the hardships of their lives spent at work instead of in school. The President refused to meet with the children and Mother takes a few jabs at the “Great Prosperity” President in the following article on the subject of Child Labor in the American South.

BABY WAGE-EARNERS IN
SOUTHERN MILLS
—–

“Mother” Jones Writes Stirring
Article on Iniquities of
Child Labor in South.
—–
Cotton Mills Produce a Type of
Children Easily Recognized
As Most Puny.
—–

(By “Mother” Jones.)

After thirteen years of absence I returned to see what improvements had been made in the industrial conditions of the mill workers of the sunny south.

I found that there had been marvelous progress made as far as the mills and machinery were concerned. Looking at the advancement in that line, one would think that the day of rest for the workers must be near. Instead of bringing rest and leisure to the workers, however, this perfected machinery brings only a more merciless exploitation than was ever practiced before. With the advancement in machinery has come a corresponding advance in the methods of exploitation. That is all the difference the improvements have made upon the workers.

I stood one morning in the early dawn and I watched the slaves as they entered the pen of capitalism. I could see the shadows of the slaves passing along in the brush to the mill at twenty minutes to six in the morning. Children, roused from the heavy sleep of youth, left their beds reluctantly and entered the institution of capitalism to create wealth for others to enjoy.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1916: Stumps for Wilson & Kern in Indiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The miners need no angel.
They are living in hell
and they want to raise hell.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday October 12, 1916
Mother Jones Found in Indiana During Month of September

Mother Mary Harris Jones, Logansport, IN, Sept 27, 1916

Mother Jones spent the much of the month of September 1916 in Indiana campaigning for the re-election of both President Wilson and Senator Kern. But before beginning our coverage of Mother’s activities in Indiana, we found an article from an Arizona newspaper which complained of her campaign on behalf of the re-election of Governor Hunt in that state.

Hellraisers Journal of September 2nd republished an article from the September 1st edition of the Graham Guardian of Safford, Arizona, which expressed much outrage over “The Stormy Petrel” and the bad language use by the supposedly foul-mouthed union agitator at a rally held in Phoenix on August 21st. The Guardian claimed that Mother campaigned as much for whiskey as she did for Governor Hunt.

Hellraisers Journal of September 5th republished two interviews with Mother Jones conducted while she was in Evansville, Indiana, to speak at the city’s Labor Day Celebration. Mother Jones declared herself in favor of the re-election of President Wilson and the Indiana Senator, John Kern. She demanded the six-hour day, and, on the subject women and the economic struggle she stated:

The problem of this age is not suffrage, not feminism, not liquor: it’s the industrial question. That’s the nation’s disease, that has bred nearly every war of mankind, for most wars are wars fought for capital.

You never can change the situation in which those who toil are illfed and ignorant, until woman is awakened to the economic situation in this country. She is by nature more human than man. When she becomes more enlightened to real labor conditions in this country, she will not rest until every child is well fed, well clothed and well educated.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Masses: “Defendant was out of work,” by Art Young

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there
and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes.
I told him if he had stolen a railroad
he would be a United States Senator.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 10, 1916
From The Masses: Irrelevant Evidence by Art Young

defendant-out-of-work-art-young-masses-sept-1916

details-defendant-out-of-work-art-young-masses-sept-1916

Attorney for the Defendant: “Your honor, the defendant was out of work. He has a sick wife and three small children.”

Prosecuting Attorney: “Your honor, I object. The evidence is irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial.”

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