Tag: Socialist Party of America

Hellraisers Journal: “The Strike of the Singers of the Shirt” by Rose Strunsky for International Socialist Review, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 13, 1910
Rose Strunsky on New York City’s Shirtwaist Uprising, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of January 1910:

The Strike of the Singers of the Shirt
—–

By Rose Strunsky.
—–

[Part II of II.]

NYC Uprising, 40,000 Shirtwaist Strikers March, ISR p620, Jan 1910

The next day [November 24th, following the November 23rd mass meeting at Cooper Union], when the girls in the shops were informed of the general strike, they rose without a question, left their work and went out. Six hundred shops joined the union in a few days. The spontaneous and enthusiastic response to the call came as a great surprise to every one. None had guessed of this latent fire-neither the leaders, nor the Woman’s Trade Union League, nor the girls themselves. None knew that it was there. In forty-eight hours it reached forty thousand girls. Their demands were for the recognition of the union, a twenty per cent, increase in their wages and shorter hours—a fifty-two hour working week.

Before the strike was several hours old twenty shops settled and five hundred girls won. The next day forty-one shops settled and seven thousand girls returned to work and each day brings bosses who are willing to settle on union terms.

Morning, afternoon and evening every hall on the East Side and the large halls in the city that could be gotten, were filled with strikers and sympathizers, to discuss ways and means and to encourage each other in the struggle.

The war was on, and the chivalrous instincts in the old veterans of the class struggle came out. Besides the Socialists and the Women’s Trade Union League, the United Hebrew Workers [United Hebrew Trades] sent out committees to help these new militants; the American Federation of Labor offered Mr. Mitchell to give his aid and advice, and Solomon Shindler [Schindler], the Gompers of the East Side, has directed their forces from the very beginning.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Strike of the Singers of the Shirt” by Rose Strunsky for International Socialist Review, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part II: Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones to Philly Shirtwaist Makers Dec 19, NY Call Dec 21, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 10, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part II:
-Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers

On Sunday evening, December 19th, Mother Jones spoke to shirtwaist makers of Philadelphia at meetings held at the Labor Lyceum and Mercantile Hall. By unanimous vote and to deafening cheers, a strike was declared and set to begin at 9 a. m. on December 20th.

From The New York Call of December 21, 1909:

[Mother Jones Speaks.]

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

The action of Director Clay in forbidding the holding of a meeting in the Arch Street Theater, last night, to declare the strike was severely criticised by Mother Jones, in her speeches. She denounced the city administration as roundly as she denounced the bosses, who, she declared, had become wealthy through the toil of the girls before her.

[She said:]

They have an Independence Hall down here on Chestnut street; I wonder what it means to those who, for some deep political purpose, prevented you from having independence in the way of having a meeting to assert your rights? Tomorrow morning I hope every girl in this hall will walk out of the shops and let the employers make the waists themselves. Walk out at 9 o’clock, and don’t wear your Sunday-go-to-meetings clothes.

Let the people see you. Let them see that you are going to strike the shackles of slavery off your body. Get the spirit of revolt and be a woman. It’s not a Mrs. Belmont or an Anne Morgan that we want, but independent workers who will assert their rights.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part II: Found in Philadelphia Speaking to Shirtwaist Makers” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part I: Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Parade past swells who wear waists, Speech Dec 9, NY Cl p2, Dec 10, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 9, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part I:
-Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers

From the New York Call of December 10, 1909:

“This is not a play this is a fight!”

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

With these ringing words, Mother Jones, the valiant agitator for the freedom of the workers, struck the keynote of the enthusiastic mass meeting, in behalf of the waist strikers, held by Local New York, of the Socialist party in Thalia Theater yesterday afternoon. The big crowd applauded this sentiment to the echo……

Mother Jones Speaks.

Mother Jones, the friend of the miners and champion of all oppressed, was greeted with a very hearty reception by the big crowd. She was in excellent conditions. As she scored the system with sledge-hammer blows of logic and wit, the enthusiasm of the crowd broke into storms of applause.

[Said Mother Jones in opening:]

Through all the ages you have built a wonderful monument of civilization, but you don’t own it. You make all the fine waists, but you do not wear them. You work hard and are poorly paid, and now you have been forced to strike for better conditions of labor, shorter hours and higher wages.

You ought to parade past the shops where you work and up the avenues where the swells who wear the waists you make live. They won’t like to see you, they will be afraid of you!

If I belonged to a union and was on strike I would insist that we parade past the shops and homes of the masters.

You must stick together to win. The boss looks for cheap workers. When the child can do the work cheaper he displaces the woman. When the woman can do the work cheaper he displaces the man. But when you are organized you have something to say about the conditions of labor and your wages. You must stand shoulder to shoulder. The women must fight in the labor movement beside man. Every strike that I have ever been in was won by the women.

Last Great Fight of Man.

[Declared Mother Jones, as she concluded amid storms of applause:]

Whether you know of it or not, this is the last great fight of man against man. We are fighting for the time when there will be no master and no slave. When the fight of the workers to own the tools with which they toil is won, for the first time in human history man will be free.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part I: Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Cherry Mine Murders” -Men and Boys Burned and Suffocated in Criminal Fire Trap, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Life Cheaper Than Props, Trinidad CO, Sept 16, 1913, Hse Com p2630———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 8, 1910
Cherry, Illinois – Scene of Mass Murder of Men and Boys, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of January 1910:

The Cherry Mine Murders.
—–

Why Four Hundred Workers Were Burned and Suffocated
in a Criminal Fire Trap.
—–

By J. O. Bentall.
—–

[Part II of II.]

Cherry MnDs Murders by JO Bentall, Despair, ISR p582, Jan 1920

Little Albert Buckle, 15 years old November 28, who escaped on the last car up, and his mother and sister stood at the ropes all day watching for “Rich,” who was 16 years the 21st of last June, and who had worked in the mine ever since his father was killed three years ago, but poor Richard was not brought up that day. On Monday I went to see the broken-hearted mother but I could not comfort her.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Cherry Mine Murders” -Men and Boys Burned and Suffocated in Criminal Fire Trap, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Cherry Mine Murders” -Men and Boys Burned and Suffocated in Criminal Fire Trap, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Life Cheaper Than Props, Trinidad CO, Sept 16, 1913, Hse Com p2630———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 7, 1910
Cherry, Illinois – Scene of Mass Murder of Men and Boys, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of January 1910:

Cherry MnDs Murders by JO Bentall, ISR p577, Jan 1920

[Part I of II.]

Letter W, ISR p577, Jan 1920AS your brother one of the four hundred who perished in the Cherry coal mine November 13th? Or was it your father? Your husband? Your son? My brother was there. My father. My son. I helped carry them out. They were cold in death. They were covered with coal dust and swollen from black damp.

I am telling you this story from what I have seen with my own eyes. Not from hearsay.

I went from Chicago right to Cherry. With thousands of others I stood and looked from the outside. Then I broke through the line and joined the volunteer rescuers. I put on overalls, jacket, cap and lamp and went down into the tomb that contained over four hundred victims—a few living, most of them dead.

I helped plug the entries to prevent the fire from spreading. I had a hand in timbering where the roof was loose, or where collars were breaking. I cut legs off the dead mules so we could get them through the passageways and clear the track for bringing out the men. I was with the gang that found nineteen dead in one pile and twenty-one in another, thirty-seven in a third and one hundred and sixty-two in a fourth.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Cherry Mine Murders” -Men and Boys Burned and Suffocated in Criminal Fire Trap, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part I: Found Speaking for Socialism in the Lone Star State

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, For the Wage Workers, ISR p462, Nov 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 21, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part I:
-Found Speaking for the Socialist Party in the Lone Star State

From the International Socialist Review of November 1909:

Mother Jones, Elkhart IN Dly Rv p2, Crpd, July 19, 1909

MOTHER JONES was in to see us a few days ago. We asked if she had any message to send the readers of the Review and she replied:

FIRST, last and ALWAYS, of, for and BY the wage-workers.

Paste this motto in your hat. There never was any other one-half so good as this. Mother Jones infused this office with enough courage and ginger to keep us going till the next time she comes to see us.

[Photograph added.]

From the Appeal to Reason of November 13, 1909:

From page 4:

SHALL HE BE MURDERED?
—–

BY LUELLA TWINING.
—–

While in Los Angeles, Calif., I visited Comrade L. Guterrez DeLara, and his wife, Hattie Elliot DeLara. Comrade DeLara is charged with being an alien, an anarchist. He can prove by hundreds of witnesses that he is neither, but his trial before the Immigration Official Ridgway is to be secret, and as an official in Tucson inadvertently said, “Diaz has a long arm.” Our officials have too long been ready to do the bidding of that murderer, Porfirio Diaz, for us to trust them.

I learned to love the DeLaras dearly, and my heart bleeds for them. Every spare moment while I was with them we talked of the social questions and conditions in Mexico and America. With his black eyes blazing with the fire of the revolution DeLara said many, many times: “I must work and work and work to educate my people. That is our only hope. Diaz has stolen the money that should be used for schools and my people are in ignorance. I can not tell you in a few days of the suffering of the Mexican workers. They must be taught that Socialism is the remedy. They learn very easily if given an opportunity.”

It is this man who is charged with being an anarchist.

[…..]

Comrade DeLara said of the Appeal to Reason: “The Mexican workers appreciate the work the Appeal to Reason has done for them. They love Eugene V. Debs and Mother Jones, too.”

From page 5:

SW Edition Tx, AtR p5, Nov 13, 1909

—–

Lone Star Notes.

[…..]

Few speakers can awaken the workers as can Mother Jones. Her meeting at Troupe, where dense prejudice has existed, will be of great and lasting benefit to the movement. Some of the most prejudiced opponents of the movement there came to her at the close of the meeting and assured her that they were Socialists henceforth and contributed liberally for the expense of the meeting. Comrade Butler writes: “God bless Mother Jones; her memory will be enshrined in the hearts of the people long after Taft, Roosevelt and company are forgotten.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part I: Found Speaking for Socialism in the Lone Star State” →

Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced to Three Months in Spokane Jail for Conspiracy

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 18, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Convicted of Conspiracy

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part II of II.]

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced
to Three Months.

EGF, Joan of Arc, Nw Cstle Hld PA p21, Dec 17, 1909

Miss Flynn, or rather Mrs. Jones in private life, was arrested while walking on the street, on the new conspiracy charge that is now being used against the Industrial Workers. She has been editing and getting out the paper, the “Industrial Worker”, since the force was arrested.

This “conspiracy” charge makes any one concerned in coming or bringing people to Spokane to test the city ordinance guilty of the crime of conspiring against the peace of the city, and the authorities are working this to the limit. They even claim that their ordinance is superior to the Washington state laws, or the United States constitution. They completely ignore the fact that no inferior jurisdiction can make a law in contradiction to its superior.

The police have been itching to get Miss Flynn. She was thrown into a cell with prostitutes, insulted by the police, who came with their vile familiarity in the night, and abused terribly by the prosecuting attorney, Pugh. She is in a pregnant condition, and the greatest fears are entertain for her safety, the first child lost owing to her overwork on the platform. Her husband, who is Missoula, is worked up to an extreme nervous tension through suspense and anxiety.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: “Unexampled Barbarities” Used Against Prisoners of Spokane Free Speech Fight

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 17, 1909
Spokane, Washington – “Officials Use Russian Tortures”

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part I of II.]

The stand of the I. W. W. for Free Speech in Spokane is making the history that will disclose the hollowness of the claims of personal liberty the American constitutional government has made.

The brutal treatment of the prisoners has not been excelled in Russia. The Franklin schoolhouse where over 200 of them have been incarcerated is kept in a state of unparalleled filth. The floor has never been scrubbed; there are no receptacles for expectoration, a filthy pall is provided for the calls of nature, often overflowing. No beds or bunks are provided, and the men have to lie in this filth. There was no fire or stove, but the men began tearing down the building and making a fire on the floor, and so a stove was furnished.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, New York Labor Agitator Now in Spokane

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Western IWW Aggressive Spirit, IW p3, Aug 12, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 13, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Fights for Free Speech

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

A WOMAN LABOR AGITATOR.

EGF, ed Spk Chc p2, Nov 18, 1909

The tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn through the west, and the strenuous work she has been performing in generaling the Free Speech fights has introduced to this section of country and earnest and energetic young woman.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a married woman of New York, whose agitation in the labor movement has excited much attention in the capitalist press, and a certain amount in the labor and socialist press; although the attention given her by the latter has been by no means commensurate with the ability of her work, and the impression it has made upon those who have heard and seen her. But Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has broken into the labor movement under peculiar conditions. Reared in a socialist home, she grew up with her mind intelligent and keen as to the homogeneity of the socialist and labor movements, an idea that is as yet scarcely grasped at all in America, either by the great mass of laborers or the majority of the socialists themselves. To be a socialist, a social reformer, meant to Miss Flynn to work in the labor movement.

When the Industrial Workers of the World was organised she thought she saw in its methods the ideal line of activity for the workers to adopt, who were bent upon industrial emancipation through a revolutionary program. She became devoted to the interest of the Industrial Workers. She refused to ally herself with either the Socialist Party or the Socialist Labor Party because of their failure to co-operate decidedly with the I. W. W.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -to Speak Until All Are Arrested

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 12, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Fellow Workers to Speak Until All Are Arrested

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Free Speech War Rages, MTNs p1, Dec 2, 1909

[Part II of II.]

Justice Orders Ordinance Made to Order.

Justice Mann who is holding up the judicial end of the government persecution detected the flaw in the first ordinance, as class legislation, and dismissed the prisoners under it. Another ordinance was then framed on the judge’s advice, designating any speaking on the street where a crowd gathers as disorderly. Thus the judge makes the laws, and decides on it, and passes sentence on it.

The second day 133 were arrested and 33 sentenced to 30-day terms in jail.

Attorney Moore for the I. W. W. gave notice of appeal to the superior court.

Foote, the editor of the Industrial paper published at Portland, was arrested as soon as he reached town.

A bulletin posted at headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was as follows:

Fellow workers, tomorrow this fight will be carried on with greater determination than ever. We have only begun to fight; 200 men will go to jail tomorrow.

Immediately below was posted another, which read:

Every man who is appointed captain to select five or more men and proceed to hold meetings.

Every captain and squad go to the places designated and speak until all are arrested.

Remember, the authorities claim to have broken the backbone of the organization. Show them that they are just as ignorant as bulls usually are…..

The socialist of Spokane have actively taken up the I. W. W. fight.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -to Speak Until All Are Arrested” →