Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 22, 1919
Poetry and Philosophy from the New York Rebel Worker
From The Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:
I FEEL SO GOOD.
I have to sing
I feel so good.
Because some grand
Duke’s sawing wood.
And pretty soon
A big bunch more,
Will have to work
Until they’re sore.
And then we stiffs.
Will run this earth.
And all their pains
Will cause us mirth.
And if some guy
Tells us that’s wrong,
We’ve got a story
Good and long.
Of things they’ve done
While we were slaves;
Grand Dukes and such
Are common Knaves.
-A. SIGISMUND.
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[From Jean-Jacques Rousseau]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778
The first man who, having inclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe he was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditch and crying to his fellows:
Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 31, 1909
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Jones Thanks Mine Workers’ Convention
From Proceedings of United Mine Workers Convention
-Wednesday January 29, 1909
President Lewis—…..Mother Jones would like the floor for a few minutes to express her appreciation of the action of the convention in donating $1,000 for the defense of the Mexican refugees.
Mother Jones—In behalf of our brothers who are lying in the bastile of capitalism because they dared to raise their voices in behalf of their oppressed and murdered brothers in Mexico, I tender to you my deepest and most heartfelt appreciation of the resolution and donation to them. It is not charity; it is our duty even to go with them and give our lives for a cause so great. Never in human history before were men and women called upon to link hands in the mighty battle for the emancipation of the working class from the robbing class. Our brothers are behind the bars, and it lies with you and with me to do our part to free them. I extend to you my deep appreciation for the generous donation you gave to them. And when your turn comes they will be on deck to do their part for you. They will never surrender the rights of labor to the ruling class, even if they die in its defense.
Now, my brothers, you and I are not going to part. We have fought many battles together, and we have marched the highways together. Brave hearts marched with us then. Lying in lonely graves are some of the men who laid the foundation for this great and magnificent organization that you represent here to-day.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 29, 1909
Indianapolis, Indiana – Mother Speaks at U. M. W. Convention, Part I
From Proceedings of United Mine Workers Convention
-Wednesday January 27, 1909
Speech of Mother Jones, Part I:
President Lewis—If there are no objections we will have a short intermission at this time and hear from a visitor we have present.
We have with us this morning a friend with whom many of the delegates are acquainted. The Mine Workers of the country generally know of the work of this friend. In many of the districts in the turbulent times when our men were engaged in a struggle, when men, women and children were suffering all the hardships incident to industrial warfare, she spent her time helping them. This morning she is here in the interest of men who have been persecuted in other countries and have come to this country in the belief that they were coming to the land of the free. We understand that the men in whose interest she is here have not committed any crime, but rather are regarded as political criminals because they believed that all men have certain rights that all other men should respect. She has encouraged our men, women and children, not alone in the mountains of West Virginia and the valleys of Pennsylvania, but on the prairies of some of our states where words of encouragement were needed by those whose spirits were drooping because of surrounding conditions. I therefore take great pleasure in introducing to this convention Mother Jones, who has lost none of her vigor, none of her interest in the cause of organized labor and in the cause of humanity because of her age or her white hair.
Mrs. Mary Jones (Mother Jones)—Permit me to extend to your worthy President my appreciation for his introduction. In the days of old when the revolutionists fought against the conditions that King George III was about to fasten upon them, could he have reached his claws in and have put them around Washington he would no doubt have hung him. Today, after a century or more of history in this nation, we find two diabolically tyrannous governments reaching their hands into this country and asking us to deliver men who have taken refuge here and surrender our rights to the czar of Russia and the military despot of Mexico. You will realize, my friends, that international economic interests are back of all this; you must realize that for this change in our nation’s history there is a cause. Economic interests, both in Mexico and Russia, are dictating the policy of our government today—I mean the other fellow’s government. As the method of production changes, the policy of the government must change to fit into it. Newspapers, magazines, churches, all must fit into the changed order. It governs home life, it governs national life, it governs the newspapers, it governs all avenues of educating the people.
Any soldier who is guilty
Can be called a “Labor Hun.”
-Thomas H. West
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 13, 1919
Kansas City Labor Poet on Soldiers, in Uniform, Serving as Scabs
Thomas H. West, in his latest poem for working men and women, tells the sad story of soldiers gone scabbing against the street car strikers of Kansas City. The poem is entitled “Uniforms Disgraced” and was first published by the Labor Herald of Kansas City, Missouri.
From the Leavenworth Labor Chronicle of January 10, 1919:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 22, 1918
Kansas City Street Car Strike Continues, Scabs Wanted
Of the 2700 strikers, members of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes of America, Division 764, on strike in Kansas City since December 11th, 157 are conductorettes. The conductorettes have been on the picket line beside their brothers and not one of them has crossed the line and returned to work. Meanwhile the company advertises for scabs, “no previous training” needed.
From the Kansas Junction City Union of December 21, 1918:
It should be noted that ever since the cars have been operated by non-union men, accidents and deaths on the street car lines have dramatically increased. Yet, the Company prefers to hire inexperienced scabs rather than implement the cost-of-living award granted to their employees by the War Labor Board.
Men in a locked car are not free men, but prisoners.
These men were prisoners without authority of law.
They were under no criminal charge, had not been tried,
and were entitled to go and come at their pleasure.
-Governor John Riley Tanner
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 15, 1898
Birmingham, Alabama – Miners Recruited as Scabs Were Deceived
That the miners recruited in Birmingham, Alabama, to mine coal in Virden and Pana, Illinois, were deceived by the coal operators into becoming strikebreakers is made plain by the fact that the men were transported into Illinois in locked cattle cars, many of them, and were kept under the watchful eye of armed company guards. When the Alabama miners became aware of the situation, most of them resisted being turned into scabs. However, according to reports, the company guards threatened to shoot down any who attempted escape.
From the the the Chicago Public
-of August 27, 1898
The sheriff of Christian county, Ill., seems to think it his duty not only to threaten to shoot white miners who try to reach the imported negroes at Pana to explain the trick that has been played upon them by the operators, but also to threaten to shoot the negroes if they attempt to leave the operators’ employment. It is the business of the sheriff to preserve order, but it is not his business to act as a private detective for coal operators, which is a distinction that the sheriff of Christian county ought to know, and one which, if he doesn’t know it, he ought to be made to learn.
Professional scabs are few and efficient.
Amateur scabs are plentiful and inefficient,
and union scabs both numerous and capable.
-Oscar Ameringer
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Hellraisers Journal: Thursday March 19, 1908
Oscar Ameringer on Scabs: Professionals, Amateurs, and Card Holding
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 14, 1908:
UNION SCABS
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By OSCAR AMERINGER
There are three kinds of scabs; the professional, the amateur and union scab.
The professional scab is usually a high-paid, high-skilled worker in the employ of strikebreaking and detective agencies. His position is that of a petty officer’s in the regular scab army.
The amateur scab brigade is composed of bums, riff-raff, slum dwellers, rubes, tramps, imbeciles, college students and other undesirable citizens.
The last, and by far the most important class is the union scab.
Professional scabs are few and efficient. Amateur scabs are plentiful and inefficient, and union scabs both numerous and capable.
The professional scab knows what he is doing, does it well and for the sake of the long green only.
The amateur scab, posing as a freeborn American citizen, who scorns to be fettered by union rules and regulations, gets much glory (?), little pay and when the strike is over he is given an honorable discharge in the region where Darwin searched for the missing link.
The union scab receives less pay than the professional scab, works better than the amateur scab and don’t know that he is a scab.
Don’t worry, fellow-worker,
all we’re going to need from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Fellow Worker Verner Nelson
Martyr of the Industrial Workers of the World
On October 4, 1917, Fellow Worker Verner Nelson was gunned down on the streets of Butte, Montana. His crime was that he had called a scab a scab.
Nelson was about 26 years of age and a card carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World. At the time of his death, his Red Card proved that his dues were paid up in full, and that he had joined the Agricultural Workers’ Union (IWW) of Larimore, N. D.
A note found on his body read: “In case of accident, notify Tom Nelson of Erie, Pa.”
From The Butte Daily Post of October 5, 1917:
NELSON INQUEST IS HELD TODAY
—–
Conflicting Evidence Over the Death
of I. W. W. Who Was Shot.
—–
Verner Nelson, the I. W. W. leader shot by Ziki Savichevich on South Arizona street yesterday afternoon after he had called the latter a “scab,” received the gunshot wound which caused his death while he was in flight from Savichevich, according to the testimony of Joseph Schellhorn before a coroner’s jury this afternoon.
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 13, 1907
Mother Jones News for August, Part II: Travels to Chicago
On August 21st, Mother left Duluth, Minnesota, after concluding her time in Northern Minnesota where she had been traveling the Mesabi Range in support of the striking iron miners and giving speeches alongside of C. E. Mahoney of the Western Federation of Miners. She next traveled to Chicago where she was found speaking in support of the Telegrapher’s Strike. At one union meeting she advised young woman on the issue of keeping company with scabs:
When you find these fellows sneaking back to work, keep him out if you can; if you can’t, renounce them and see that any fellow who calls on you carries a union card or else order him from your door.
Mother also made a short trip to Cincinnati in order to speak at Socialist Picnic in that city.
There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 4, 1907
From the Duluth Labor World: News from Mesabi Miners’ Strike
The August 31st edition of The Labor World provides much news from the Mesabi Range concerning the ongoing strike of the iron ore miners led by the Western Federation of Miners.
Miners Not Allowed to March on Labor Day.
Strike Continues.
[Note: Photograph with caption added is from the Duluth News Tribune, the voice of the mine owners’ interests in Minnesota.]
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