Hellraisers Journal: Part II: “Mother Jones & Her Methods -Personality & Power of This Aged Woman”-Boston Sunday Herald

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Quote Mother Jones, Husband Children, WDC Tx p5, June 18, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 14, 1904
Part II of III: “Mother Jones & Her Methods”-Then and Now

From the Boston Sunday Herald of September 11, 1904:

HdLn w Photos Mother Jones Methods, Speech WV 1897, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 1904

Her Appearance and Her History

Mother Jones Methods, Making a Point, Bstn Hld Sun Mag p1, Sept 11, 1904“Mother” Jones is an old woman, perhaps about 62 years of age. Her hair is white as snow, her eyes bright blue. She has a sweet, womanly mouth, and a pink flush in her cheeks. She is robust and healthy in appearance, with a good matronly figure. In dress she is quite plain, often almost shabby; though there is a neatness, almost a daintiness, about her which always gives her an agreeable appearance.

Her maiden name was Mary Harris. When she was a child of 10 she came to this country with her father and brother from Ireland. They lived for time in Provincetown, and afterward went to Canada. She was educated in the common and normal schools of Toronto, where her brother became a priest, and is now the dean of the archdiocese. She went to teach in a convent in Monroe, Mich., and later, going to Memphis, Tenn., to teach, she met an iron moulder, whom she married. They had two [four] children. She lost husband and children after a brief six years of married life in the yellow fever epidemic in the south.

After the war she went to Chicago, where she lived from 1867 until 1874, taking part in the relief work of the great fire as one of her first experiences in public work. She was a dressmaker in Chicago, as she was in San Francisco, where she lived for five years. In San Francisco she became interested in socialism, and took part in the anti-Chinese movement. When she returned East it was Mrs. George Pullman who secured her transportation. She had sewed for many women of wealth in Chicago, and had a large circle of friends among them.

Her life thus far had been comparatively simple. As a daughter she was obedient and studious, as a young woman a modest, retired teacher, as a wife, faithful and loving. She says of her married life that it was like that of most devoted wives. She wept if her husband drank a glass of beer after the day’s work or went to a union meeting at night. Yet she had enough intelligence to interest herself in his labor views, and imbibed her first notions of unionism from the protestations of her husband against her too devoted solicitude, and a great part of her effort in later years was to make women understand what she failed to understand in those early days, that the wife must care for what the husband cares for, and that every man loves freedom, even freedom from domestic tyranny.

Her remedy for lonely wives is a broader interest in the affairs of life. As a young widow she took pride in the trade she learned, and today she still loves to walk for an hour through the shops and look at beautiful silks and fine laces.

But though a good teacher and skillful dressmaker, it was not sufficient for this woman to provide for herself a good living and take no further thought of the world. She was aware that there were questions troubling the minds of men, and she wanted to help solve them. And somewhat later it came to her that she had the gift of eloquence. She discovered this in the old trades and labor assemblies in the West, where, when rising to take part in a discussion, a torrent of words would rise to her lips and her hearers would sit spellbound.

She belonged to the old Knights of Labor, and later took part in the organizing work of the American Railway Union, and became the friend of Eugene Debs. She was active in Chicago at the time of the Pullman strike, unmindful of the old-time friendliness of Mrs. George Pullman. Some years later she was able to secure a pardon for some of the men involved in the labor troubles of that great railroad strike by a personal interview with President McKinley at the White House.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Part II: “Mother Jones & Her Methods -Personality & Power of This Aged Woman”-Boston Sunday Herald”

Hellraisers Journal: Debs on the Capitalists’ Parties: “Differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.”

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—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 11, 1904
Indianapolis, Indiana – Debs Opens Campaign with Impassioned Address

From the Appeal to Reason of September 10, 1904:

Published in the Appeal we find the entire text of the speech made by Socialist Presidential Candidate, Eugene Debs, in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday, September 1st. The article begins with a few notable quotes:

TOCSIN OF THE 1904 CAMPAIGN SOUNDED
———-

In an Eloquent and Impassioned Address Before A Multitude of
Cheering People, Eugene V. Debs, Candidate for President of
the Socialist Ticket, Opened the Campaign at
Indianapolis, Indiana, Last Thursday.

SPA Ticket Debs and Hanford, 1904

SOME OF DEBS’ EPIGRAMS.

     “Ignorance alone stands in the way of Socialist success.”

———-

     “Capitalist parties stand for slavery and night; the Socialist party is the herald of Freedom and Light.”

———-

     “The ballot of united labor expresses the people’s will, and the people’s will is the supreme law of a free nation.”

———-

“The divided vote of labor is the abuse at the ballot and the penalty is slavery and death.”

———-

     “Labor has always been the mud-sill of the social fabric-is so now, and will be until the class struggle ends in class extinction and free society.”

———-

     “These are stirring days for living man. The day of crisis is drawing near and Socialists are exerting all their power to prepare the people for it.”

———-

     “The old order of society can survive but little longer. Socialism is next in order. The swelling minority sounds warning of the impending change. Soon that minority will be the majority, and then will come the Co-operative Commonwealth.”

———-

     “The Socialist party comprehends the magnitude of its task and has the patience at preliminary defeat and the faith of ultimate victory.”

———-

     “With faith and hope and courage we held our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the search from capitalism to Socialism, from slavery to Freedom, from barbarism to Civilization.”

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Debs on the Capitalists’ Parties: “Differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.””

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs on the Chicago Pullman/ARU Strike of 1894: “The Grandest Industrial Battle in History.”

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Quote EVD Workers n Parasites, SDH Jan 30, 1904—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 31, 1904
Eugene Debs Replies to Grover Cleveland’s Critique of the Chicago Strike of 1894

 From the Appeal to Reason of August 27, 1904:

The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike

Eugene V. Debs’ Reply to Grover Cleveland’s Magazine Article.

EVD re ARU Pullman Chicago Strike 1894, McClures p227, July 1904

This article was written for McClure’s Magazine in reply to Cleveland, but the editor of that publication refused to publish it, although permitting Cleveland’s calumny of the railway employes of this country to appear in its columns. McClure boasts of circulating a half million copies of Cleveland’s article. This first edition of the Appeal already reaches the half-million mark-ten days before going to press. It will exceed one million before the first of September. The Socialists of America propose to give plutocracy an example of what can be accomplished in the way of circulating the defense of the working class in spite of the wealth of plutocracy. Every true Socialist will take a hand in this distribution.

IN THE July issue of McClure’s Magazine, ex-President Grover Cleveland has an article on “The Government in the Chicago Strike of 1894.” That there may be no mistake about the meaning of “government” in this connection, it should be understood that Mr. Cleveland has reference to the federal government, of which he was the executive head at the time of the strike in question, and not to the state government of Illinois, or the municipal government of Chicago, both of which were overridden and set at defiance of the executive authority, enforced by the military power of the federal government, under the administration of Mr. Cleveland.

CLEVELAND VINDICATES HIMSELF.

THE ex-president’s article not only triumphantly vindicates his administration, but congratulates its author upon the eminent service he rendered the republic in a critical hour when a labor strike jarred its foundations and threatened its overthrow.

It may be sheer coincidence that Mr. Cleveland’s eulogy upon his patriotic administration, and upon himself as its central and commanding figure, appeared on the eve of a national convention composed largely of his disciples who were urging his fourth nomination for the presidency for the very reasons set forth in the article on the Chicago strike.

HIS KNOWLEDGE SECOND-HAND.

HOWEVER this may be, it is certain that of his own knowledge ex-President Cleveland knows nothing of the strike he discusses; that the evidence upon which he acted officially and upon which he now bases his conclusions was ex parte, obtained wholly from the railroad interests and those who represented or were controlled by these interests, and it is not strange, therefore, that he falls into a series of errors beginning with the cause of the disturbance and running all through his account of it, as may be proved beyond doubt by reference to the “Report on the Chicago Strike” by the “United States Strike Commission,” of his own appointment.

WHAT WAS THE CHICAGO STRIKE?

SIMPLY one of the many battles that have been fought and are yet to be fought in the economic war between capital and labor. Pittsburg, Homestead, Buffalo, Latimer, Pana, Coeur d’Alene, Cripple Creek and Telluride recall a few of the battles fought in this country in the world-wide struggle for industrial emancipation.

When the strike at Chicago occurred, did President Cleveland make a personal investigation? No.

Did he grant both sides a hearing? He did not.

In his fourteen-page magazine article what workingman, or what representative of labor, does he cite in support of his statements or his official acts? Not one.

I aver that he received every particle of his information from the capitalist side, that he was prompted to act by the capitalist side, that his official course was determined wholly, absolutely by and in the interest of the capitalist side, and that no more thought or consideration was given to the other side, the hundreds of thousands of workingmen, whose lives and whose wives and babes were at stake, than if they had been so many swine or sheep that had balked on their way to the shambles.

* * *

THE GREATEST INDUSTRIAL BATTLE IN HISTORY.

The Chicago strike was in many respects the grandest industrial battle in history, and I am prouder of my small share in it than of any other act of my life.

Men, women and children were on the verge of starvation at the “model city” of Pullman. They had produced the fabulous wealth of the Pullman corporation, but they, poor souls, were compelled to suffer the torment of hunger pangs in the very midst of the abundance their labor had created.

A hundred and fifty thousand railroad employes, their fellow members in the American Railway Union, sympathized with them, shared their earnings with them, and after vainly trying in every peaceable way they could conceived to touch the flint heart of the Pullman Company, every overture being resented, every suggestion denied, every proposition spurned with contempt, they determined not to pollute their hands and dishonor their manhood by handling Pullman cars and contributing to the suffering and sorrow of their brethren and their wives and babes. And rather than do this they laid down their tools in a body, sacrificed their situations and submitted to persecution, exile and the blacklist; to idleness and poverty, crusts and rags, and I shall love and honor these moral heroes to my latest breath.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs on the Chicago Pullman/ARU Strike of 1894: “The Grandest Industrial Battle in History.””

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Travels to Denver, Confers with Governor Ammons on the Colorado Coalfield Strike

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Quote EVD, Law ag Working Class, AtR p1, Apr 29, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 24, 1913
Denver, Colorado – Eugene Debs Confers with Governor Ammons

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of November 22, 1913:

EVD to Colorado, Meets w Gov, ULB p1, Nov 22, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Travels to Denver, Confers with Governor Ammons on the Colorado Coalfield Strike”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: “How I Became a Socialist” by May Wood Simons, Eighth of Ongoing Series

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Women of the World, Unite.
You have double chains to lose
and you have the world to gain.
-May Wood Simons
—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 9, 1902
“How I Became a Socialist” by May Wood Simons

From The Comrade of November 1902:

How I Became a Socialist.

VIII.
By MAY WOOD SIMONS

May Wood Simons, Comrade p32, Nov 1902

“Day’s Wages for Day’s Work.” Over and over again I had read the rugged lines of Carlyle’s “Past and Present” in my university days. It all came back to me one summer vacation when I returned to our Wisconsin town to find it excited over the trial of a favorite professor at the State University.

“Socialism” was then a new word to me and had little or no meaning, but my curiosity led me to at once procure and read the book that was arousing the commotion-R. T. Ely’s “Socialism and Social Reform.” I read it several times and then fell to studying his “French and German Socialism” I was far more impressed by his statement of Socialism than by his objection to it. The latter seemed to me very weak.

In the fall when I returned to Northwestern University I began the reading of Ruskin on the one hand and the study of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill’s “Principles of Political Economy” on the other. Fortunately I was not so fascinated by Mill’s wonderful logic and beautiful style that I lost my spirit of criticism. Hence I did not acquiesce blindly in his conclusions as did the majority of my fellow students. The “Wage Fund” theory, so universally accepted in the economics department, was to me a stumbling block. Long  before reading Marx I came upon the Labor Value theory in Mills and Ricardo, and as I turn over my old note-books, I find them filled with quotations from Mill, that set forth the Class Struggle as plainly as any Socialist ever stated it. These contradictions I could not explain. There was no one to tell me of Mill’s change of mind, and not until I became interested in his personality, and took up his autobiography, did I find that before he died he called himself a Socialist.

My economic studies continued through the other classical writers to the Austrian, German and later American economists, and at each step I felt that I must get out of this mass of dead hair-splitting and mental calisthenics, and find something alive in the way of economics. Their a priori statements and apparent disregard of actual conditions and tendencies was evident to me.

At a bookstore I one day came upon Arnold Toynbee’s “Industrial Revolution.” As I read it I felt that here was something that gave me more of economics than the theoreticians possibly could. My next book was Marx’s “Capital.” I had heard of it before as “The Bible of the Working Classes.” I studied it carefully. The first thing that impressed me was his great scholarship and his masterly chapters on industrial history. The labor value theory was again brought to my attention, and for the first time, surplus value. Here, said I, is the secret of capitalism. When I had obtained the “Manifesto” and Engels’ little book on “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,” and read them, I was a convert to Socialism.

Quite accidentally I had come into contact with settlement work, at Hull House and the Northwestern University Settlement. I frequently went on “slumming” trips, and having been brought up in a country town, where poverty shows few of its horrible features, I was suddenly made aware that a worse than the Inferno of Dante existed on earth. In the strike of 1894 I took the greatest interest, and my only regret was that I could not be a man on the field of action.

I had originally planned that on finishing my university work I would take a theological course preparatory to entering the ministry, in which work I had already engaged to some extent. I found, however, that my university studies had unfitted me for this, and I turned to the profession of teaching for the next few years. Here I continued my economic and sociological studies and began to fully grasp the idea of Socialism as a philosophy of society. For the first time I felt the inadequacy of our school methods and the existence of class education, and I saw that education too must pass through a revolution.

The years from 1897-99 were spent in or near the Chicago University Settlement. At this time I became a member of a branch of the Socialist Labor party. I knew little or nothing of politics, less of Socialist party matters, or of the international movement. During these two years I spent four hours a day in the office of the Bureau of Charities. Night after night that stream of haggard faces kept me company in dreams. There were three distinct stages in my attitude of mind toward this problem of poverty. The sentiment of sympathy dominated during the first stage. Then the whole thing became mechanical. This in turn gave way to a fierce rebellion against the conditions that made people come begging for a pittance. Two years spent in this settlement and charity work forced both my husband and myself to leave it and give our whole time to the Socialist cause. 

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: “How I Became a Socialist” by May Wood Simons, Eighth of Ongoing Series”

Hellraisers Journal: Great Anthracite Strike Ended; Miners Agree to Accept Judgement of Roosevelt’s Commission, Part II

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Quote Mother Jones, Coming of the Lord, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 25, 1902
Pennsylvania Anthracite Strikers Ordered to Resume Work, Part II

From the Scranton Tribune of October 22, 1902:

HdLn re Great Anthracite Strike, Miners to Resume Work, Scranton Tb p1, Oct 22, 1902

[Part II of II]

REJOICING AT SHENANDOAH.
———-
Eighteenth Regiment Band Leads
the Parade of Miners.

By Exclusive Wire from The Associated Press.

John Mitchell, The Columbian, Bloomsburg PA p2, Oct 23, 1902

Shenandoah, Pa., Oct. 21.-News that the convention declared the strike off reached Shenandoah at 12 o’clock, and almost simultaneously every bell in the town was ringing and the whistles of every factory and breaker pealed joyous notes. There was a spontaneous outpouring of people and ten minutes after the good news reached town the streets were crowded.

At Mahanoy City and elsewhere in the anthracite field the news of the strike settlement was received with wild enthusiasm. There was blowing of whistles and ringing of bells, and almost the entire population of the towns assembled in the streets. In some localities there were impromptu parades, in which the fire departments and other organizations joined in some instances.

Pathetic scenes were enacted as the men, who have been idle and under great strain for nearly six months, rushed off to prepare for work.

Colonel Rutledge sent the Eighteenth Regiment band into town this afternoon to take part in the strike settlement celebration. The band marched through the streets at the head of a mine workers’ parade and was wildly cheered all along the line. Nearly every building in the town is decorated with flags, and the people in general appear almost insanely happy. Besides the soldiers’ band, two other bands took part in the demonstration.

—————

PRESIDENT ACTS PROMPTLY.
———-
He Summons the Members of Commission
to Meet on Friday.

By Exclusive Wire from The Associated Press.

Washington, Oct. 21.-Shortly before 3 o’clock this afternoon, President Roosevelt received a telegram from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., informing him that the convention of miners had declared off the anthracite coal strike. The telegram was signed by John Mitchell, chairman, and W. B. Wilson, secretary of the convention, and was identical with that made public at Wilkes-Barre before noon today.

Immediately on receipt of this Information, the following telegram was sent to Mr. Mitchell:

White House, Washington, Oct, 21, 1902

Mr. John Mitchell, Chairman of Convention, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.:

Upon receipt of your telegram of this date, the president summoned the commission to meet here on Friday next, the 24th instant, at 10 a. m.

George B. Cortelyou, Secretary.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Great Anthracite Strike Ended; Miners Agree to Accept Judgement of Roosevelt’s Commission, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Christmas in Prison” by Fellow Worker and Comrade Eugene Debs, Part II

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Quote EVD No Bitterness on Release fr Prison Deb Mag Jan 1922 p3—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 15, 1922
Christmas Eve 1920: Eugene Debs Is Guest of Honor at Prison Banquet 

From the Appeal to Reason of August 12, 1922:

Christmas in Prison

By EUGENE V. DEBS

[Part II of II]

EVD Leaves Prison crp Dec 25, Waves Hat, Stt Str p1, Dec 31, 1921
Eugene Debs Leaving
Atlanta Penitentiary
Christmas Day 1921

Some weeks before Christmas [of 1920] a case containing 500 copies of a book, entitled “Debs and the Poets” was shipped to the prison. It was an anthology of verse and comment collected by Ruth Le Prade and published by Upton Sinclair at Pasadena, Cal.

It was the desire of the author and publisher that I autograph the books to be sold by them in the interest of a fund being raised to continue the agitation for general amnesty for political prisoners.

When the books arrived, a copy was scrutinized by Warden Zerbst, who decided that the introduction supplied by Upton Sinclair was not particularly complimentary to the prison idea, nor was some of the poetry. So a copy was sent to Attorney General Palmer, who ruled there was nothing objectionable in it, and that I might be permitted to autograph the copies.

Some friends outside the prison asked the warden if I might be permitted to inscribe the books Christmas Eve night. The request was granted and the hour to begin was fixed at seven o’clock. I went to the clerk’s office, where I found my friends.

The books were piled on either side of me at the clerk’s desk and the work of autographing them commenced.

Ginger Ale Suspected.

In the corridor outside a dozen or more prisoners were assembling the last of the Christmas packages for the convicts and there was an atmosphere of fellowship that pervaded the entire scene.

From time to time prisoners slipped in and out of the room where I was at work to drop a kindly word, and my friends from the outside world remarked upon the amiable manner in which every convict conducted himself.

Later that evening it was suggested by one of my visitors that maybe the prisoners assorting Christmas boxes would like to have a soft drink, so the matter was put up to the chief clerk, who was superintending the work, and he agreed to it. Thereupon my friends went out of the prison and down to a little store outside the gates, where they purchased two dozen bottles of ginger ale.

It happened that when they asked to be readmitted to the penitentiary Deputy Warden Gregory was in the main corridor and he came to the gate to inquire what was in the box they carried.

He was told of its contents and that permit had been secured to bring it in the prison for the men who were at work over the Christmas gifts. The deputy warden felt that he should have first been consulted about the matter and he refused to allow the refreshment to be given to the convicts.

This is but one indication of how senseless and needlessly harsh are prison rules.

Later the deputy attempted to explain in a somewhat apologetic manner to one of my friends that: “Who knows but that those bottles might contain ‘dope’ and ‘files’!”

This, in spite of the fact that he could have reassured himself on that score in a moment by observing that every bottle was sealed.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Christmas in Prison” by Fellow Worker and Comrade Eugene Debs, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: How the Woodstock Jail Turned a Union Leader into a Socialist by Eugene Debs

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Quote EVD Brush the Dust, Saginaw Eve Ns p6, Feb 6, 1899—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1902
How Six Months in the Woodstock Jail Made a Socialist of Eugene Debs

From The Comrade of April 1902:

HdLn Debs Socialist, Comrade p146, Apr 1902

As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.

On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.”

Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “Old Josh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:

“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”

My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watch-fires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.

At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often when, all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world—were straining:

“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”

My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: How the Woodstock Jail Turned a Union Leader into a Socialist by Eugene Debs”

Hellraisers Journal: Terre Haute Toiler: John Peter Altgeld, Liberator of Class-War Prisoners, -by Eugene V. Debs

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Justice Guiding Light, Oratory p49, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 22, 1902
From Terre Haute, Indiana, Eugene Debs Pays Tribute to John Peter Altgeld

From The Toiler of March 21, 1902:

Altgeld, the Liberator

-by Eugene V. Debs

John Peter Altgeld, wiki
John Peter Altgeld

John Peter Altgeld has joined Abraham Lincoln in the realm of the immortals [March 12, 1902]. His career was tempestuous and heroic, and the end tragic and sublime. The gods must have set the stage for the last earthly act of the intrepid warrior and most nobly did he fill the leading role. When the last word of his impassioned plea for liberty died upon his eloquent lips the climax came and the curtain fell upon another martyr in the great drama of humanity.

John Altgeld was born in the throes of revolt [December 30, 1847]. A thousand years of feudal tyranny were culminating. The fateful year of 1848 had a violent temper. It rocked the cradle of the babe that was destined to become the tribune of the people.

The leader, now fallen, never took a backward step, never subordinated principle to policy, never sacrificed conviction to attain his end. He was fearless, he was determined, and he was incorruptible.

John P. Altgeld was in the highest sense a statesman, he was a daring leader and a fiery and intense orator whose eloquent and lofty appeals inspired the multitude.

His noblest and therefore greatest official act was the opening of dungeon doors to liberate innocent victims of corporate tyranny [Chicago’s Eight-Hour Class-War Prisoners]. If the gods have to do with politics they ordained the election of John P. Altgeld for this incomparable service to humanity.

Through the rain of fire he walked with steady step to the hideous bastille’s doors, nor faltered once until the captives walked forth men; his official robes turned to ashes in the ordeal, but lo! the flame of calumny to which our hero bared his head is even now become the aureole of his fame.

The robbers of the people, the stranglers of liberty, the foes of humanity feared and hated him; the fawning sycophants of wealth, the time serving mercenaries of power slandered him; this was the measure of his greatness.

The few honest men who knew John P. Altgeld loved him. He was genuine; he was true; he could look God and man straight in the eye.

In the railroad strikes in 1894 he expanded to his true proportions.There he proved to be the fearless champion of the people. He stood upon the boundary line of Illinois and protested against the military usurpation of the President, and though overwhelmed, he proudly vindicated his high honor, and he, more than any other man, retired Grover Cleveland and his pirate crew from American politics.

Altgeld was too great to become President; he will be remembered long after most Presidents are forgotten.

How glorious the final scene! See him summon all his wasted strength. Note the transfiguration in the last superhuman effort—the light of liberty in his eye, the flush of dawn upon his brow as he defiantly exclaimed:

Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty’s tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.

Workingmen and workingwomen never had a truer friend; he yearned to see them happy, and consecrated all he had to make them free.

He paid the penalty of all the earth’s redeemers. Socrates was poisoned, Christ crucified, John Brown strangled, Lincoln assassinated, and Altgeld stabbed by a million venomous tongues.

The grandchildren of his slayers will seek his works for knowledge and inspiration, and to the coming generations he will speak forever.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Terre Haute Toiler: John Peter Altgeld, Liberator of Class-War Prisoners, -by Eugene V. Debs”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Social Democratic Herald: Eugene Debs Recalls Labor’s Battles in the “War for Freedom”

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SDH p2, Jan 11, 1902———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 12, 1902
Eugene Victor Debs Recalls Bloody Scenes of Battle in Class War

From the Social Democratic Herald of January 11, 1902:

The War for Freedom.

By Eugene V. Debs.

EVD crpd Nw Orln Tx Dem p3, Jan 26, 1900

The country we inhabit is generally supposed to have been in a state of peace since the close of the Civil War, excepting the brief period required to push the Spaniards off the western continent. And yet during this reign of so-called peace more than a score of bloody battles have been fought on American soil, in every one of which the working class were beaten to the earth, notwithstanding they outnumber their conquerors and despoilers at least ten to one, and notwithstanding in each case they asked but a modest concession that represented but a tithe of what they were justly entitled to.

To recall the bloody scenes in the Tennessee mountains, the horrors of Idaho, the tragedies of Virden, Pana, Buffalo, Chicago, Homestead, Lattimer, Leadville, and many others, is quite enough to chill the heart of a man who has such an organ, and yet above the cloud and smoke of battle there shines forever the bow of promise, and however fierce the struggle and gloomy the outlook, it is never obscured to the brave, self-reliant soul who knows that victory at last must crown the cause of labor.

Thousands have fallen before the fire of the enemy and thousands more are doubtless doomed to share the same fate, but

“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, Is ever won.”

The struggle in this and other lands by the children of toil is a struggle between classes which in some form or other has been waged since primitive man first captured and enslaved his weaker fellow-being. Through the long, dark night of history the man who toiled has been in fetters, and though today they are invisible, yet they bind him as securely in wage slavery as if they were forged of steel.

How the millions toil and produce! How they suffer and are despised! Is the earth forever to be a dungeon to them? Are their offspring always to be food for misery? These are questions that confront the workingmen of our day and a few of them at least understand the nature of the struggle, are conscious of their class interests, and are striving with all their energy to close up the ranks and conquer their freedom by the solidarity of labor.

In this war for freedom the organized men in the Western states have borne a conspicuous and honorable part. They have, in fact, maintained better conditions on the whole than generally prevail, and this they have done under fire that would have reduced less courageous and determined men. But, notwithstanding their organized resistance, they must perceive that in common with all others who work for wages they are losing ground before the march of capitalism.

It requires no specially sensitive nature to feel the tightening of the coils, nor prophetic vision to see the doom of labor if the government is suffered to continue in control of the capitalist class. In every crisis the shotted guns of the government are aimed at the working class. They point in but one direction. In no other way could the capitalists maintain their class supremacy. Court injunctions paralyze but one class. In fact, the government of the ruling class today has but one vital function, and that is to keep the exploited class in subjection.

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