Hellraisers Journal: “May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene Victor Debs

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Quote EVD, SPA Campaign Opens, Riverview Park, Chicago, June 16, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 1, 1914
“May Day and the Revolution” by Eugene V. Debs

From The Goltry News (Oklahoma) of May 1, 1914:

May Day and the Revolution

(By Eugene V. Debs.)

EVD Life Size Photo by Jas Soler, ISR p1044, May 1910

We are again about to celebrate the annual holiday of the International Socialist Movement. The thrill of May Day is even now in our veins and our hearts beat faster as we contemplate the glad tiding of this day to the workers of the world. 

May Day is above all days in the year the day of the working class; the day of rejoicing and fraternal greeting; the day of high hope and lofty aspiration; the day of national and international celebration.

Not yet have we of the United Stales risen to the heights of this grand occasion and given to May Day its revolutionary significance as have our comrades in European and other nations; not yet have we grasped the full and splendid meaning of this day to our class and to humanity, but this year I trust our celebration may be worthy of the day and that this jubilee of the working class may resound from coast to coast with the glad tidings of the coming revolution.

May Day was not granted as a boon to the workers by their patronizing masters to tranquilize their discontent, but was chosen and set apart by themselves as the day upon which to arouse themselves from their lethargy, lift up their weary bodies from the earth, clasp hands with their fellow workers, and solemnly vow to break their fetters and emancipate themselves from slavery. 

May Day is henceforth emancipation day for the working class. On this day the revolution breathes the breath of life into the nostrils of the workers and the awaking pulsing workers recruit with eager, passionate spirit the swelling ranks of the revolutionary movement.

Each and every industrial center and each agricultural district should this year join the May Day celebration and make its observance so general and fill it with such ardor and enthusiasm as to compel attention to the program of the day and the significance of the event. The very thought that labor’s holiday has been internationally proclaimed and will be celebrated by the workers of every nation on the face of the earth; the very contemplation of the fine spirit of the day and the eager greeting of comrades to comrade and nation to nation, voiced in every tongue known to man and borne to us on every tide and every breeze, is of itself enough to thrill us in every fiber and set every drop in our veins tingling with the fervor of international solidarity.

On this day of the downtrodden masses the inspiring message that Socialism brings to them must be heard around the world. The electrifying shibboleth of Marx must be echoed and re-echoed everywhere:

“Workers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.”

Unity and solidarity must be the watchword of the day. Industrial and political organization of the workers, all the workers, regardless of race, sex or creed, must be urged with all the force and persuasiveness at our command. Without organization the struggle is vain and the cause lost. The commonwealth of the workers that is to be must be organized primarily in the industries where they are employed and the time to do that is now, and May Day is the day to emphasize its supreme necessity.

The political power of the workers must also be developed through the Socialist Party, the only party organized and controlled by themselves; the only party which represents their interests, expresses their aspirations, and fights their battles in the war for emancipation.

May Day, pregnant with new and bounding life and rapture of resurrection, is the glorious harbinger of the social revolution, the gleaming promise of industrial freedom and social justice to all the WORKERS of the WORLD.

May Day Red Special International, Goltry OK Ns p2, May 1, 1914

[Photograph of Debs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Mother Jones Arrested in West Virginia by Leslie H. Marcy

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Quote Mother Jones My Life Work, Cton Gz June 11, 1912, ISR p648, Mar 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 2, 1913
Kanawha County, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrested, Charged with Murder

From the International Socialist Review of March 1913:

Mother Jones Under Arrest
-by L. H. Marcy

Mother Jones Shoes for WV Strikers Children, ISR Cv, Mar 1913

Mother Jones Arrested and Jailed in a Box Car

Last June, when “Mother Jones” traveled across the states from Butte, Mont., to aid the West Virginia miners in their fight, a reporter on the Charleston Gazette interviewed her. The following is quoted from this paper June 11th.

Mother Jones…from the stump and through the press has shown a desire only to do something for the betterment of the great American laboring class. She is 80 years old. On the day of her arrival here she addressed a miners’ mass meeting for an hour and a half-and unassisted she climbed a steep hill to the speakers’ stand and made a stronger effort and a more telling address in every way than that of any of the others whose names appeared on the list of speakers, and most of whom were only half her years.

Some people never get old, and Mother Jones is one who, no matter how long she be spared to her stormy career, will be gathered to her ancestors in the bosom of youth.

The reporter had heard a lot about the woman he was about to interview-and seen her pictured everywhere-had heard of her making fiery speeches in places where her life was in danger, and he expected to encounter a cyclone.

The reporter, however, was wrong.

What he really found was a kindly-faced woman of apparently 50 years-the only evidence of her four score years being an abundance of snow-white hair. She gave the reporter a kindly greeting-a greeting that reminded him at once of the name that had attached itself to the woman he had come to see-the name was that of “mother”-and the reporter knew whence the name had come.

“Mother” was right.

A few brief questions, and as many brief answers and the interview was over-for “Mother” Jones does not seek to be featured in the daily press.

[She said:]

I am simply a social revolutionist. I believe in collective ownership of the means of wealth. At this time the natural commodities of this country are cornered in the hands of a few. The man who owns the means of wealth gets the major profit, and the worker, who produces the wealth from the means in the hands of the capitalist, takes what he can get. Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner than we think, evolution and revolution will have accomplished the overturning of the system under which we now live, and the worker will have gained his own. This change will come as the result of education.

My life work has been to try to educate the worker to a sense of the wrongs he has had to suffer, and does suffer-and to stir up the oppressed to a point of getting off their knees and demanding that which I believe to be rightfully theirs. When force is used to hinder the worker in his efforts to obtain the things which are his, he has the right to meet force with force. He has the right to strike for what is his due, and he has no right to be satisfied with less. The people want to do right, but they have been hoodwinked for ages. They are now awakening, and the day of their enfranchisement is near at hand.

That, in substance, is what Mother Jones had to say about her mission on earth. She bowed the reporter from the room. He had seen “Mother Jones.”

For eight months “Mother Jones” has been working, speaking and fighting with the West Virginia miners. In spite of her eighty years she has suffered with the miners, their wives and children, sharing every hardship, the cold of winter in the mountains, the coarse food and the insults and brutality of the “guards” and militiamen.

Many were the speeches she made and every one a battle cry for class solidarity. The most weary and disheartened group gathered courage and inspiration when she addressed her “Boys.”

But it became evident to the mill bosses that the beautiful, white-haired woman was a militant figure that it would be well to eliminate. So, on February 13th, “Mother Jones” was arrested on a charge of murder. It is claimed that she advised the strikers to arm themselves. Many times the mine “guards” crept up upon strikers in their mountain retreat, and coldly murdered them. Several “guards” were discovered and shot by the miners in self defense. An attempt will be made to hold “Mother Jones” responsible. Evidently the true Progressive believes in murder only where the gun is in the hands of a servant of the owning class and directed against working men.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Mother Jones Arrested in West Virginia by Leslie H. Marcy”

Hellraisers Journal: Staff of Solidarity Behind Bars in New Castle, Pennsylvania, for Displeasing Steel Trust, Part II

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Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 5, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Big Bill Haywood Visits Solidarity Staff in Jail

From the International Socialist Review of June 1910:

“Leading exponent of Revolutionary Unionism east of the Rockies.”

Solidarity Ns, AD, Eds Stirton n Goff, ISR p1134, June 1910—–

“Solidarity in Prison” by William D. Haywood

Solidarity Ns in Prison by BBH, ISR p1065, June 1910—–

[Part II of II.]

The [New Castle] Free Press and Solidarity were issued every week. The employers were furious. Members of the Business Men’s Exchange grew hydrophobic. Detectives were hired and set on the trail of the papers and finally the editorial staffs of both The Free Press and Solidarity were arrested, charged with an alleged violation of the Pennsylvania publishing law (enacted in 1907 and never called into use except on one occasion, as a matter of spite).

This law is being violated daily and weekly by many publications in Pennsylvania at the present time.

The editors of Solidarity and the Free Press were hailed into court and with them the editor of the New Castle Herald, a capitalist sheet. All three were convicted, but the leniency of the court, resulted in the capitalist editor being released on payment of costs while the others were fined $100 and costs.

The Free Press appealed their case while the members of Solidarity refused to pay the fines and were sentenced to jail, declining to accept Judge Porter’s profferred offer of ten days in which to look for money to pay them. Knowing that the workers alone would be the ones to contribute, they preferred to go to jail.

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Hellraisers Journal: Staff of Solidarity Behind Bars in New Castle, Pennsylvania, for Displeasing Steel Trust, Part I

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Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 4, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Big Bill Haywood on the Jailing of Solidarity

From the International Socialist Review of June 1910:

“Leading exponent of Revolutionary Unionism east of the Rockies.”

Solidarity Ns, AD, Eds Stirton n Goff, ISR p1134, June 1910—–

“Solidarity in Prison” by William D. Haywood

Solidarity Ns in Prison by BBH, ISR p1065, June 1910

[Part I of II.]

Solidarity Ns in Prison, Letter A, ISR p1065, June 1910CTIVITY in the socialist movement presents some complex situations, some unusual rewards.

There are socialists in jail in New Castle. There are socialists in office at Milwaukee.

If the opportunity of the individuals concerned could be reversed, it is certain that Comrade Emil Seidel, mayor of Milwaukee, and his colleagues, would bear with fortitude the gloomy ignominy of the cells in Lawrence County Jail. It is likewise true that comrades McCarty, Stirton, Williams, Jacobs, Fix and Moore, the manager and editorial staff of Solidarity, could administer the affairs of a municipality with honor to the party, and credit to themselves. But those who know the boys in jail, know that neither would voluntarily change places. All are filling their present positions, in upholstered, revolving office chairs or hard rough benches for the same great cause.

The imprisonment of our fellow-workers in New Castle is an incident in the strike against the American Sheet and Tin Plate Co., which has been on since last July.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part I: Craft Unionism Creates Union Scabs

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Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs on Mother Jones: “wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.”

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EVD Quote re Mother Jones, AtR, Nov 23, 1907

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 24, 1907
Eugene V. Debs on “The Grand Old Woman of the Revolutionary Movement”

From the Appeal to Reason of November 23, 1907:

“MOTHER” JONES.
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–

Mother Jones, Fort Worth Telegram, Apr 26, 1907

“The ‘Grand Old Woman’ of the revolutionary movement” is the appropriate title given to Mother Jones by Walter Hurt. All who know her—and they are legion—will at once recognize the fitness of the title.

The career of this unique old agitator reads like romance. There is no other that can be compared to it. For fifteen years she has been at the forefront, and never once has she been known to flinch.

From the time of the Pullman strike in 1894, when she first came into prominence, she has been steadily in the public eye. With no desire to wear “distinction’s worthless badge,” utterly forgetful of self and scorning all selfish ambitions, this brave woman has fought the battles of the oppressed with a heroism more exalted than ever sustained a soldier upon the field of carnage.

Mother Jones is not one of the “summer soldiers” or “sunshine patriots.” Her pulses burn with true patriotic fervor, and wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.

For many weary months at a time she has lived amid the most desolate regions of West Virginia, organizing the half-starved miners, making her home in their wretched cabins, sharing her meagre substance with their families, nursing the sick and cheering the disconsolate—a true minister of mercy.

During the great strike in the anthracite coal district she marched at the head of the miners; was first to meet the sheriff and the soldiers, and last to leave the field of battle.

Again and again has this dauntless soul been driven out of some community by corporation hirelings, enjoined by courts, locked up in jail, prodded by the bayonets of soldiers, and threatened with assassination. But never once in all her self-surrendering life has she shown the white feather; never once given a single sign of weakness or discouragement. In the Colorado strikes Mother Jones was feared, as was no other, by the criminal corporations; feared by them as she was loved by the sturdy miners she led again and again in the face of overwhelming odds until, like Henry of Navarre, where her snow-white crown was seen, the despairing slaves took fresh courage and fought again with all their waning strength against the embattled foe.

Deported at the point of bayonets, she bore herself so true a warrior that she won even the admiration of the soldiers, whose order it was to escort her to the boundary lines and guard against her return.

No other soldier in the revolutionary cause has a better right to recognition in this edition than has “Mother” Jones.

Her very name expresses the Spirit of the Revolution.

Her striking personality embodies all its principles.

She has won her way into the hearts of the nation’s toilers, and her name is revealed at the altars of their humble firesides and will be lovingly remembered by their children and their children’s children forever.

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs on Mother Jones: “wherever the battle waxes hottest there she surely will be found upon the firing line.””

Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Reports on Turmoil at Second Convention of Industrial Workers of the World

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There is power, there is power
In a band of workingmen.
When they stand hand in hand,
That’s a power, that’s a power
That must rule in every land-
One Industrial Union Grand.
-Joe Hill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday October 10, 1906
Chicago, Illinois – Will I. W. W. Survive 2nd Convention?

This week’s Appeal to Reason offered a first hand account of the turmoil which prevailed at the Second Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World held in Chicago from September 17th to October 3rd:

DE LEON DOMINATES
—–

S. L. P. Leader Captures I. W. W. Convention
at Chicago and Rules With An Iron Hand
—–

BY F. M. EASTWOOD.
Staff Correspondent Appeal to Reason.
—–

Daniel De Leon (1852-1914), in 1902

CHICAGO, ILL., Sept. 24-The convention is dragging along into the eighth day with its organization not perfected and the really important work delayed by the bickerings of DeLeon and the time-consuming tactics of his untrained and untamed following. DeLeon is making strenuous efforts to promote himself as the apostle of the only revolutionary element in existence by showing all opponents of himself to be “reactionary”.

DeLeon is decidedly in control of the convention; and unless some means of reducing his personal influence on the floor to the measure of the membership which he represents is adopted, the entire convention will become a farce that will wholly dishearten the delegates who are working in good faith for the welfare of the working class and the up-building of the organization.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs on the Proposed Platform of the Socialist Party of America

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The industrial organization of the working class
is the foundation of the Socialist movement,
and without it Socialism is impossible.
-Eugene V. Debs

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday August 13, 1916
Terre Haute, Indiana – Debs for Revolutionary Economic Organization

From St. Louis Labor of August 12, 1916:

On the Proposed National Platform
by Eugene V. Debs

Terre Haute, Ind., August 4

Socialist Party of America Button

Every member ought to read carefully the draft of the new platform of the Socialist Party recently submitted to the party membership for final action. The importance to the party and to our propaganda of a sound platform, a clear and ringing declaration of what the party stands for and what it stands against, cannot be overestimated.

The platform now before us doubtless had the most careful thought and conscientious attention of the committee that framed it and it is certainly well written, its propositions are clearly stated, and its indictment of capitalism and militarism strongly drawn; yet it would be expecting too much to find it free from objection.
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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on “The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions,” Part II

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The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found
among millions of working people and the few, who
make up the employing class, have
all the good things of life
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday August 4, 1906
From The Worker: Debs on the I. W. W. and the A. F. of L.

Eugene Debs, Wilshire's Magazine, Nov 1905

Over the next for days we offer the response made by Eugene V. Debs to the questions posed by the New York Worker regarding the debate on the relation of the Socialist Party of America to the trades unions.

The Worker introduces what it calls a symposium:

The question of the relation of the Socialist Party to the trade unions having again attracted attention within our ranks, The Worker has inaugurated a symposium to which representative comrades are being invited to contribute, setting forth various points view.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on “The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions,” Part II”