The Word is said; the Time is nigh.-
Stand fast, O rebel clan!-
For, what are gallows or jails to us
Upbuilders of the Plan?
You cannot stay the Debtor’s Day,-
The Heritage of Man!
-Charles Ashleigh
Hellraisers Journal, Monday February 4, 1918
From the Cook County Jail: “Labor in Prison” by Charles Ashleigh
From the International Socialist Review of February 1918:
When our cause is all triumphant
And we claim our Mother Earth,
And the nightmare of the present fades away,
We shall live with love and laughter,
We who now are little worth,
And we’ll not regret the price we have to pay.
-Ralph Chaplin
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 2, 1917
From the Cook County Jail, Chicago – A Prison Poem by Ralph Chaplin
Mourn Not The Dead
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie-
Dust unto dust-
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell-
Too strong to strive-
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;But rather mourn the apathetic throng-
The cowed and the meek-
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!
