Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 11, 1912 Big Bill Haywood Lectures for The Review, Elected to N. E. C. of Socialist Party
From the International Socialist Review of January 1912:
William D. Haywood
The Haywood Lectures. During the National Executive Committee election [of the Socialist Party of America] (not over as we go to press) [see below for results] there has arisen a sudden and peculiar misunderstanding with relation to the routing of Comrade William D. Haywood by this office. Friends may have imagined that Comrade Haywood has yielded to the repeated and urgent requests of former National Secretary Barnes, acting under instructions from the National Executive Committee, to become one of the authorized lecturers on the National Lyceum Lecture Bureau, as did Comrade Frank Bohn under similar pressure, but we are glad to announce that Haywood preferred to continue lecturing under the auspices of the REVIEW.
The statement has recently been published broadcast by Comrade Robert Hunter, that locals securing Haywood were compelled to pay the REVIEW $250 a night. We take pleasure in repeating here the terms we have made ever since Comrade Haywood began to lecture for us. Except in the West, where close dates cannot be arranged at this time, our terms for Haywood dates are the local’s guarantee to take 500 admission tickets to the lecture (each ticket being good for a three months’ REVIEW subscription at 25 cents each, amounting to $125.00.) Out of this sum we pay $25.00 hall rent, supply all advertising material, donate 200 copies of the current REVIEW and pay all Haywood’s expenses.
The State Committee of Ohio is arranging dates in Ohio for Haywood from Jan. 15 to Feb. 15. Arrangements for other states may be made through this office. It might be well if our friends, who believe in fair play, would ask Comrade Hunter upon what foundation he based his published statements in this regard.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of Jan 1, 1912:
SOCIALIST PARTY ELECTS ———- National Executive Committee And Secretary Are Named.
Chicago, Dec. 31.-A national executive committee and a national secretary for the Socialist party, elected by referendum, the votes being sent to Chicago, were announced yesterday. On the executive committee thus chosen are Victor Berger, Milwaukee; Job B. Harriman, Los Angeles; William D. Haywood. Denver; Morris Hillquit, New York; Alexander Irvine, Los Angeles; Kate Richard O’Hare, St. Louis, and John Spargo, Yonkers, N. Y. John M. Work, of Chicago, was elected national secretary.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 14, 1911 “The Blighting of the Babies” -from John Spargo’s Bitter Cry of the Children
From The Progressive Woman of September 1911:
THE BLIGHTING OF THE BABIES —————
(From “the Bitter Cry of the Children” by John Spargo)
Poverty and Death are grim companions.Wherever there is much poverty the death-rate is high and rises higher with every rise of the tide of want and misery. In London, Bethnal Green’s death-rate is nearly double that of Belgravia; in Paris, the poverty stricken district of Ménilmontant has a death -rate twice as high as that of the Elysée; in Chicago, the death-rate varies from about twelve per thousand in the wards where the well-to-do reside to thirty-seven per thousand in the tenement wards .
The ill developed bodies of the poor, underfed and overburdened with toil, have not the powers of resistance to disease possessed by the bodies of the more fortunate. As fire rages most fiercely and with greatest devastation among the ill-built, crowded tenements, so do the fierce flames of disease consume most readily the ill-built, fragile bodies which the tenements shelter. As we ascend the social scale the span of life lengthens and the death-rate gradually diminishes, the death-rate of the poorest class of workers being three and a half times as great as that of the well-to-do. It is estimated that among 10,000,000 persons of the latter class the annual deaths do not number more than 100,000, among the best paid of the working class the number is not less than 150,000, while among the poorest workers the number is at least 350,000.
This difference in the death-rates of the various social classes is even more strongly marked in the case of infants. Mortality in the first year of life differs enormously according to the circumstances of the parents and the amount of intelligent care bestowed upon the infants. In Boston’s “Back Bay” district the death-rate at all ages last year was 13.45 per thousand as compared with 18.45 in the Thirteenth Ward, which is a typical working class district, and of the total number of deaths the percentage under one year was 9.44 in the former as against 25.21 in the latter. Wolf , in his classic studies based upon the vital statistics of Erfurt for a period of twenty years, found that for every 1,000 children born in working-class families 505 died in the first year; among the middle classes 173, and among the higher classes only 89. Of every 1,000 illegitimate children registered-almost entirely of the poorer classes-352 died before the end of the first year.
Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, Senior Physician of the Metropolitan Free Hospital, London, declared some years ago that the death-rate of infants among the rich was not more than 8 per cent, while among the very poor it was often as high as 40 per cent.
Dr. Playfair says that 18 per cent of the children of the upper classes, 36 per cent of the tradesman class, and 55 per cent of those of the working-class die under the age of five years.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 1, 1910 Copenhagen – American Socialist Women Attend International
May Wood Simons, Luella Twining, and Lena Morrow Lewis are delegates at the International Socialist Congress, now in progress at Copenhagen. They also took part in the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference which proceeded it.
From The Progressive Woman of August 1910:
Our Women Delegates to the International
May Wood Simons.
Have you ever asked yourself who have entered into the modern opportunities for women most fully? I have, and my thought always turns to our Comrade May.
She has enjoyed the best the schools could give her, having done the work not only for a first degree, but for a doctor of philosophy at Chicago university. That she has kept in the scholarly habit was proven last year by the remarkable feat of winning the Harrison prize for an essay in economics over many men competitors and judged by the heads of the department of economics in five great western universities.
But many women have done admirable work in scholarship. Mrs. Simons has been able to use hers steadily in practical service in the greatest cause of the age. She has worked for Socialism as teacher, lecturer or writer constantly, for the past twelve years or more. At present and since the establishment of the Daily Socialist she has been associate editor of that paper. Her husband, A. M. Simons is editor-in-chief. Already her activities and influence are world-wide and after this summer her place in the international movement will be still more pronounced and effective.
But no women, or normal man, for that matter, is content with world service alone. Fortunately indeed, is one for whom home life and life work are inextricably blended. It is interesting to note that the woman who seems to me to have reaped the fullest harvest from the new ideals and possibilities of our time both in public and private life happens also to be the most devoted mother of my acquaintance.
The genuine good of old standards need never be lost in gaining the genuine good of new freedom and opportunity. It is a satisfaction to have this demonstrated in the self-effaced beautiful little woman who will help to represent American Socialists in the greatest organization the world has known.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 12, 1910
Robert Hunter on Laissez Faire, what the powerful claim to believe in.
From the Socialist Montana News of August 11, 1910:
LAISSEZ FAIRE.
By Robert Hunter.
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The above is the name of a politic that the powerful claim that they believe in.
It means, “Let Alone”. It means that the community must not interfere in behalf of the weak, nor in aid of the strong.
It is the politic upon which our government is said to be founded and it has been called the politic of “Everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”
Those who are successful sat that it is a fine doctrine, that it means, unlimited competition, unlimited struggle, and the survival of the fit.
They say everyone should have freedom to battle and to win, if he can.
And they claim that Laissez Faire permits a free race in which the swift always wins. And so Bryan and Taft, Cannon and Aldrich, and nearly all the leaders of both parties, say they believe in Laissez Faire.
When the the judges declare unconstitutional laws limitting the hours of work, they speak in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the trusts want to escape the law they plead in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the rich fight socialism they say it is because Socialism would hurt Laissez Faire.
And who is this Laissez Faire anyhow that has become such a terrible bogie?
Well I’ll tell you. It is a secret, but I tell you. He doesn’t exist. He is just gas and wind. He is a goblin.
If Jack Johnson should go to Mr. Rockefeller’s estate and beat up Mr. Rockefeller and take his property away from him, Mr. Rockefeller would run to the courts not to Laissez Faire.
If the workers were to gain control of congress and do away with the protective tariff, the powerful would denounce Laissez Faire.
And so the rich not believing in Laissez Faire have built up about themselves every kind of protection.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 4, 1908
The Journey of Red Special as Told by Charles Lapworth
In this month’s edition of the Review, Comrade Lapworth tells the inspirational story of the journey of the Red Special which carried Eugene Debs, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, across the nation, ending with a big rally and last campaign speech at Terre Haute.
From the International Socialist Review of December 1908:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 25, 1908
Lower East Side, New York City – Debs Speaks at Hamilton Fish Park
From the Montana News of of October 22, 1908:
LAND-SLIDE FOR SOCIALISM
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NEW ENGLAND WORKERS GO WILD OVER DEBS.
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EAST SIDE CROWDS
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One Hundred Policemen Required to Take Care
of the Vast Masses of People
-Debs Holding Out Well.
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The lower east side of New York saw the greatest demonstration in its history Tuesday afternoon [October 13th] when Eugene V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, visited it and gave his thousands of supporters an opportunity to express their devotion to him and his cause.
From Hamilton Fish park, where Mr. Debs first appeared and spoke, to Rutgers square, where he ended his visit, the automobile in which he rode was surrounded and followed by a crowd that packed the streets through which he traversed and lapped over into those adjoining until nothing but a surging, tumultuous mass of humanity could be seen.
At Rutgers square it required all of the skill and discipline of a large force of policemen to make way for the Debs automobile to the center of the square, where he was to speak. When the socialist leader at last reached the spot he turned and looked down upon the vast sea of faces that extended as far as the eye could reach.
And the enthusiasm was as unrestrained and heartfelt as the crowd itself was huge. It was impossible to have every one in that crowd hear what was said, either by Debs or any of the other speakers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the crowd, for they applauded and cheered anyway. They were there to show their regard for the greatest working class champion in America-and they showed it.
Hellraisers Journal: Monday April 13, 1908
New York, New York – Robert Hunter Blamed for Bombing
The unemployed, and those who stand up for them, are to blame for a bomb thrown by a murderous criminal unconnected with them, this according to the Police Force of New York City. The actual crime of the protesting unemployed men, women and children was, apparently, their failure to starve silently and in an orderly manner.
From the Appeal to Reason of April 11, 1908:
Robert Hunter.
—–
In his address to the public following the breaking up of the meeting of the unemployed in Union Square, New York, Police Commissioner Bingham assumed an insolent and pompous attitude toward the working class. He served notice that the was going to deal with such meetings hereafter with an “iron hand.” We have heard such talk before. There is nothing in it.
Bingham goes on to defend the police. Of course. The police acted under his orders. Thousands of eye-witnesses declare that the police acted with unspeakable brutality in riding rough shod over the people and clubbing them without mercy. Hundreds who were unable to escape from the crowd bear the marks of the outrageous and unprovoked assaults of the police hirelings. Of course the police were not to blame, and of course Bingham comes to their rescue and defends them. The police were the mere tools in the hands of such politicians as Bingham.
Among other things, Bingham took occasion to misrepresent Comrade Robert Hunter and place him in a false light before the people. We happen to personally know Comrade Hunter and to have known him from his childhood. There is no gentler, kindlier, more considerate soul. Nor at the same time one more courageous. His heart throbbed in sympathy with the thousands of the unemployed. With all the passion of his noble nature he yearned to serve them, to comfort them. And so he was to speak to them on that fateful day when the blue-coated Cossacks swooped down upon the hungry hordes and scattered them with as little mercy as if they had been so many tarantulas. Robert Hunter did not speak. He had no chance to speak. But he was blamed for the trouble because he sympathized with the unfortunates; because he did not have a heart of stone.
I want justice, no more, no less.
If you’ll give us justice we won’t need charity.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 9, 1905
From the Albuquerque Evening Citizen:
Rich of Gotham Frolic While Children Stand in Breadline One Block Away
In an article which appeared yesterday in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen, Mother Jones describes the ostentatious display of wealth at a Madison Square Garden horse show while the children of the poor queued up for stale bread one block away.
Mother describes the Rich Spectators:
Hundreds of men and women, dressed in the height of what they called fashion, were seated in boxes, facing a circle, where well-bred horses, beautifully kept, beautifully fed, beautifully groomed and carefully sheltered from the cold blast of a November evening, were prancing about on the tan bark.
The horse show was in progress. The great garden was hung with gay bunting, the air was oppressive with the perfume of cologne and flowers. Pecks of diamonds glistened at the ears and breasts of the women. Orchids, which I am told cost $5 apiece, were as common at the corsages of the society dames as are daisies in an uncultivated meadow in July.
Mother describes the Hungry Children of the Slums:
I walked a hundred paces east, toward the corner of 27th street, and Fourth avenue. A little army of children from the slums was drawn up before Cushman’s bakery. Those children are there every night at 6 o’clock, drawn up in a line of misery. They came for free bread-stale bread, something to hold together the bodies and souls of brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers.
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