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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 24, 1911
Capitalism Fears Insurgent’s Bark by Ryan Walker
From The Coming Nation of September 23, 1911:
Tag: Ruling Class Power
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Issues Statement from Prison: Country Leaped From Frying Pan Into the Fire
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 5, 1920
Statement from Convict 9653 E. V. Debs, Socialist Candidate for President
From The Atlanta Constitution of November 4, 1920:
Country Leaped From Frying Pan
To Fire, Says Debs
———-In Written Statement, Defeated Candidate Declares
Wall Street Is Still in Saddle.
———-(Wednesday morning Eugene V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, furnished The Constitution the following written statement in regard to the election results.)
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BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
There was never any doubt about the results of yesterday’s election. The fate of the democratic party was sealed at the Versailles peace conference. One thing was made clear by the election returns. President Wilson, Attorney General Palmer and Postmaster General Burleson now know what the American people think of their despotic administration.
But, unfortunately, the people have not profited by past experience. They need look for no improvement in conditions as the result of the election. Wall street is still in the saddle under Harding as it was under Wilson.
Politically speaking, the American people have the cheerful habit of jumping from the frying pan into the fire and back again. They seem to enjoy the diversion.
Lincoln said “If you want that thing that is the thing you want.”
Harding prays God to help him. The American people will be doing the same thing before they are through with his administration.
For President Harding will take his orders from Wall street, and his administration can be relied upon to see to it that the people get all they voted for-and then some.
Hellraisers Journal: “You are waging a class fight!” Eugene Debs Speaks at Philadelphia’s Labor Lyceum, Part II
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 21, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Eugene Debs Speaks at Mass Meeting
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 20, 1910:
PRATT AND DEBS AT LABOR MEETING
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Sympathetic strikers crowded Labor Lyceum Hall, at Sixth and Brown streets, when their big mass meeting was called to order at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon [Saturday March 19th], and the streets about the building were blockaded with hundreds who were unable to enter the hall.
Many policemen, under command of Lieutenants Nippes and Ehrsman, were stationed about the entrance to the hall and along Sixth and Brown streets to prevent possible rioting, and riot wagons from City Hall were placed in near-by streets.
C. O. Pratt, the executive chairman of the carmen’s organization, arrived at the Labor Lyceum soon after 3 o’clock in an automobile, and was cheered by the crowd as he made his way to the entrance. The doors had been ordered closed by the police, but the lieutenant in charge made way for Pratt and the speakers with him. As soon as Pratt was inside the hall the crowd picked him up and passed him along to the platform.
Pratt in his speech exhorted the labor men to stand firm in their demands. In concluding he asked all who would remain out on strike to say “aye.” The answering chorus of “ayes” was heard in the streets.
Eugene [V]. Debs, a former Presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket, also addressed the meeting.
[He said:]
You are waging a class fight. I am not here to philosophize, but to tell you to fight and fight to the end, and you will win. There is nothing to concede, nothing to arbitrate. If you concede anything you will lose all. Fight the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. J. Pierpont Morgan could end the strike in a minute if he wanted to.
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[Photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From The Messenger: Cartoon by W. B. Williams: “When they get together they’ll dump us off!!”
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 13, 1919
Workers Unite, Black and White, and Dump the Bosses Off Your Backs
From The Messenger of August 1919:
-Cartoon by W. B. Williams
Hellraisers Journal: Speech of IWW Organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at Spokane on June 29, 1909, Part IV
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 28, 1909
Spokane, Washington – June 29th Speech of Gurley Flynn, Part IV
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 15, 1909:
ELIZABETH G. FLYNN ADDRESS TO WORKERS
—–(Concluded From Last Week)
Address of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Organizer and Lecturer of the Industrial Workers of the World, given at Spokane, Wash., on Tuesday evening, June 29, 1909.
Employers Unite Industrially.
The tobacco trust is organized from the tobacco fields straight through all the productions to the United States cigar stores and sell it over the continent; the American woolen trust, from the backs of the sheep clear through the mills, where the cloth is sold to the wholesaler; the beef trust is organized from the ranchers of the West through the slaughter houses and packing houses, and even in through the tannery, where leather is tanned, and they are now grasping out for the shoe factories, where the shoes are made.
Everywhere in the field of industry you see the organization according to the commodity produced, from the source of the raw material straight through the distribution of the finished product; and you find that straight line of capitalist industry sliced across by the union, just a little slice here and there; and by that method a class that has no capital hope to defeat those that have every power at their command. We have only our organization, fellow workers; they have capital; they have the power of the government, the slugging community of the capitalist class; they have the power of the state; they have the power of international capital-and we have but our power of organization. They can call out against us the militia, the army and the navy, and we have no means of stopping it, until we are organized to shut off from that army and navy their supply of food and their means of transportation. (Applause.)
Hellraisers Journal: Four Part Series from San Francisco Examiner: E. H. Hamilton on Tyranny in Idaho, Parts III & IV
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 30, 1899
Edward H. Hamilton Reports from the Coeur d’Alene Country, Parts III & IV of IV
From the San Francisco Examiner of June 28 & 29, 1899:
Hellraisers Journal: From Spokane’s Industrial Worker: “Employment Sharks Must Go!” -Part I, The System of Graft
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 26, 1909
Spokane, Washington – I. W. W. Declares: “Employment Sharks Must Go!”
From Spokane’s Industrial Worker of March 25, 1909:
[Part I.]
This heading ought to interest every worker who sees it. If there is one thing more than another that brings the I. W. W. to the notice of the WORKINGMEN in the Northwest it is the fight that the INDUSTRIAL UNION is carrying on against the licensed robbers known as the employment sharks. These places are run in connection with other grafts like them. Some of these “employment” offices are in the corners of saloons and others in connection with religious outfits. The Beacon Bible Class of the Central Christian Church is running an employment offices, so is that resort for “weak men,” the Young Men’s Christian Association. The last joint, the Y. M. C,. A., has a higher price list, even than the Peerless. The sucker has to pay the Y. M. C. A. one-third of the first week’s pay for the job. This one hired goes to the “Lawd.” Lord in English.
Law Is No Law, without Force.
No longer ago than last year the employment thieves in Spokane grew fat and rich and never a man to try to fix things. The I. W. W. was the first Union to begin a regular fight against this abuse. The employers of the state of Washington have made a law against getting money by fraud: that is, by false pretense. Some men who are not yet acquainted with the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney were foolish enough to think that this law against fraud could be made to apply to an employment shark. They have learned different, however! The Prosecutor told them that the cases of fraud committed by the employment sharks were so common that it would bankrupt the county to try them all! As for a civil suit for damages it was the exception rather than the rule for a worker to win out. All this, though, was in the days when the Union was small and little known. Continual agitation and hard work built up the I. W. W. from a low dozen to hundreds of members-a social power, for the first time in Spokane. As a result, the Judges began to grant decisions in favor of the working men: few at first, then more often.
Organized Power Better Than Law.
Today the I. W. W. in Spokane numbers thousands of members. It is generally enough to send a few men from the Union Hall to reason with the employment shark in a case where he has robbed a victim. The employment shark pays back the amount stolen. He has had a change of heart.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1909, Part II; Found in Chicago and in Denver
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 8, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1909, Part II:
-Found in Denver, Colorado; Scheduled to Speak at Protest Meeting
At the end of February, Mother Jones arrived in Denver, Colorado, where she was scheduled to speak at a “Gompers Protest Meeting” on March 1st. According to the Rocky Mountain News of February 28th, Mother made the following statements:
There is an industrial panic in the United States today, and it is not confined to any particular locality. The steel trust is now engaged in stamping out the independent steel concerns, and God have pity on the iron and steel workers when this happens and the rest of the people, too. In Illinois the coal miners are having their trouble, some working only one day a week, and some three days a week. The shoemakers all over the country are struggling against similiar conditions, and everywhere you turn you find this industrial stagnation…..
How can you expect labor to make very much headway with 10,000 judges ruled by the capitalists? Where can they get justice? Where can justice be had with Wall Street dictating the policies of the president, congress and the governors of the states?
Even religion is mixed up in the conditions. I saw in an Eastern city a $2,000,000 church built with the subscriptions of men whose daughters work in factories and stores for $3 and $4 per week. Oh, the farce of it all! Dare you tell me that a girl can work for $3 a week and be respectable? The idea of building a great church upon the sold bodies of girls!…..
I tell you that there is a limit to all things-and the limit will come in the present economic conditions of this country, and people will arise and take the industries into their own hands and right the wrongs that are making of this nation the most grasping in the world today.
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on “Social Democracy” and the Social Democratic Party of America
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 9, 1898
Debs on Capitalism Run Riot and the Battle for Social Democracy
From the Social Democratic Herald of October 8, 1898:
Social Democracy
-by Eugene V. Debs
In the outset, and to “clear the deck” for action, some attention should be paid to definitions. What is meant by the term, “Social Democracy?” The term “social” as applied to “democracy” means, simply, a society of democrats, the members of which believe in the equal right of all to manage and control it. Reading this definition, men are likely to say, “There is nothing new in that,” and they speak understandingly. The men and women who are engaged in organizing the Social Democratic Party of America are not pluming themselves upon the novelty of their scheme for the improvement of social, industrial, and political conditions. They claim for their movement a common-sense basis, free from the taint of vagary and in all regards preeminently practical.
The wise man is credited with saying, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” [Ecclesiastes 1:9]. Crediting the declaration of Solomon as conclusive, there must have been a time before he lived when something like “social democracy” of which I write existed in the earth, the germ idea of which, though latent for centuries, has aroused men from their lethargy from time to time in the processes of evolution, to find its most potent expression in the present era of “progress and poverty,” civilization and savagery, wealth and war, charity and greed, aroused them to an interest in socialism, which, with the chivalric courage of crusaders and the revolutionizing zeal of iconoclasts, has appeared to do battle for the regeneration of society.
No one hesitates to admit that the task is herculean; no one underestimates the power of opposing forces. Their name is legion, and they are organized forces—close, compact, resourceful, and defiant. They do not propose to surrender, compromise, nor arbitrate. They have the masses in the dust, their claws upon their throats and their hooves upon their prostrate forms. In the face of all the verified facts that startle thinking men, there is no requirement for extravagant speech.
