Tag: Socialists

Hellraisers Journal: Political Prisoner Hulet M. Wells, Socialist, Released from Leavenworth Federal Prison

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 22, 1920
Leavenworth, Kansas – Hulet M. Wells Released from Prison

From the Everett Labor Journal of November 19, 1920:

Hulet Wells, ISR p11, July 1917

HULET M. WELLS IS AT LIBERTY
—————

WASHINGTON, D C, Nov. 16.-Hulet M. Wells, former president of the Seattle Central Labor Council, sentenced to prison by the Seattle federal court for alleged seditious utterances in opposing the draft act, was released from Leavenworth prison on November 13 under order of immediate commutation of the remainder of his sentence.

The formal order for his release was signed today by Attorney General Palmer.

——-

Wells, after two trials, was sentenced to serve two years in the federal penitentiary following his conviction in the local district court on a charge of having violated the military law of the United States. He began serving his sentence at McNeil Island in June, 1919, and about one year ago was transferred to the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Note: Hulet Wells was convicted in March of 1918 but did not begin serving his sentence until June of 1919 when all appeals were exhausted.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs Interviewed by Norman Hapgood at Atlanta Prison

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 25, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Norman Hapgood Interviews Eugene Debs

From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1920:

EVD Interviewed in Prison by N Hapgood, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920

Did you ever enter the strong gates of a prison? Has your mind ever pictured the sinking heart of a man who hears those heavy iron doors clank behind him? Wife and child, perhaps, are shut from him in the outer world. And inside? The lost are there, the despairing, the destroyed. Leave hope behind, ye who enter. And yet it is not as bad as it was, some centuries ago. The harmonious and austere building at Atlanta is infinitely superior, in what happens inside of it, to the prisons of Lincoln’s day. God knows it is bad enough.

Partly, it is bad because we in truth do not know what to do with certain types of dangerous depravity. Give us time, a century or two, and we may learn the alphabet of treating such aberration. Granted we are ignorant about crime — what about prisoner 9653? Why is he in this place?

To see prisoner 9653 we go only so far as a reception room, and Eugene V. Debs, four times nominee of a great party for the Presidency, now No. 9653, steps forth eagerly to meet me. How warm his grasp! How pure and sunny his smile! How his face carries the record of his 40 years of service, of forbearance, of hope of a great belief.

Debs’ Warm Cordiality.

We sit down on opposite sides of a long table. Debs’ lawyer is there and so is the prison attendant. Neve mind; Debs doesn’t mind. He leans across, his face alight, his speaking and delicate hands at play. He will not let me get in my question. His warm cordiality prevents. He knows I am not a Socialist and that I am not going to vote for him. He knows all about it. But what is that to him? I am a human being, which is enough. But there is more. I have recently chosen the unpopular course on a great subject — Russia — and Debs knows all about that also, and pours out an overgenerous appreciation until, afraid of that man at the end of the table, who is responsible for the allotment of time, I see a chance to turn the switch and I suddenly ask the most dangerous question I know.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Butte Daily Bulletin: Deb Asks Supporters to Work for Release of All Class War Prisoners

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD re SP n Working Class, Atlanta Cstn p2, May 30, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 6, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Working for Release of All Class-War Prisoners

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of August 4, 1920:

EVD w SP Com at Atlanta Pen, BDB p2, Aug 4, 1920

DEBS STILL WORKING FOR RELEASE OF FELLOW MEN
—–

(Special United Press Wire.)

New York, Aug. 4.-Added impetus to the movement to secure the release of all political and class war prisoners from the federal and state prisons has been noted here since the receipt of word from Eugene V. Debs, who requested that efforts of individuals and organizations in his behalf alone be ceased and energies turned to the release of all.

Debs, who is the nominee of the Socialist party for president, is undergoing imprisonment at Atlanta federal penitentiary for his struggles in behalf of the workers.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “A Personal Letter to the Appeal Army” by Eugene V. Debs

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 28, 1910
Eugene V. Debs to the Appeal Army, “It All Depends on You”

From the Appeal to Reason of July 23, 1910:

A Personal Letter to the Appeal Army
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–

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

Comrades-During the past year or more my work in the field has brought me into personal touch with most of you and I want to express to you this word of appreciation of your personal kindness and your service to the cause. You have made the Appeal the most widely circulated labor and Socialist paper in the world and given it a power which is making capitalist culprits in high places tremble with fear and misgiving. But for this power Warren would long since be in jail and along with him Wayland, myself and the rest of the Appeal staff. The order to this effect was duly issued and the papers prepared but when the time came to move the puppets were paralyzed with fear. They were palsied by the silent power of the Appeal and did not dare to defy its lightning.

This power of the Appeal created by you is the power of the rising people and the degree it registers on the indicator is the degree of their progress toward emancipation.

This power is subject to the laws of growth and decay. Daily hourly, it must advance or it must decline. It cannot remain at a standstill. The very law of its being forbids.

IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU.

You not only created that power, YOU ARE THAT POWER!

The moral power of the Appeal, in the revolutionary movement of the people is the concrete expression of the moral power of the Appeal Army.

To the extent that you add to the moral stature and strength of the Appeal to Reason you hasten the day of deliverance from the tyranny of plutocracy.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Socialists and “The Traffic in Girl Slaves” by Josephine Conger-Kaneko

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Great Church upon Bodies of Girls, Dnv Rck Mt Ns p2, Feb 28, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 21, 1910
Warning the American Public of the Widespread Traffic in Women

From The Progressive Woman of July 1910:

Girl Slave, Prg Wmn Cv, July 1910———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialists Visit Debs at Atlanta Prison to Notify Him That He Has Been Nominated for President

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD re SP n Working Class, Atlanta Cstn p2, May 30, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 1, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Eugene Debs Accepts Nomination for President

From The Atlanta Constitution of May 30, 1920:

DEBS POINTS WAY FOR SOCIALISTS
———-
Praises Russian Russian Revolution, and
Criticises Platform When Notified of
Presidential Nomination.
—–

Expression of keen but friendly criticism of the socialist platform, as adopted in New York city, and of sentiments of sympathy with the Russian revolution, which Eugene V. Debs declared the greatest achievement of all time, were the features of the unique ceremony conducted in the federal prison in Atlanta Saturday morning, when the prisoner was formally notified by a committee of his party that he had been nominated for president by the socialists.

EVD f Prz w Sc Com Madge,ed, LW p3, June 12, 1920

Every possible courtesy was extended the committee and the aged convict by the prison authorities. There were some fifteen people present at the notification, some seven of them socialists, perhaps as many newspaper men, and a fellow prisoner of Debs-Joe Caldwell, of Rhode Island, a member of the communist party.

The exercises were held in a beautifully lighted room on the ground floor, with a nice view through the barred windows. Just before this took place. Debs met his friends in the hallway and kissed each one, four men and one woman-Dr. Madge Patton Stephens, from Terre Haute, his home town, and a friend of his family. Then, for half an hour, a moving picture man snapped all conceivable poses of the nominee and his committee.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, “Two Little Heroines”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 3, 1910
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, Heroines

From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:

TWO LITTLE HEROINES

Clara Lemlich, Fannie Zinsher, Survey p553, p551, Jan 22, 1910
From The Survey of January 22, 1910
—–

I have listened to all the speakers and I have no patience for talk. I am one who feels and suffers for the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike.—Clara Lemlich at the famous Cooper Union meeting.

The spontaneous strike of 20,000 shirt waist makers in New York City was the greatest event in the history of woman’s work. The majority of the strikers were mere girls, few of them over twenty years of age. They had no “great” leaders, but among them were individualities strong enough and great enough to hold a place in the history of our country’s industrial development. Two of these were Fannie Zinsher and Clara Lemlich. The following from The Survey [“The Spirit of the Strikers” by Mary Brown Sumner] is a sketch of the lives of these two brave little girls:

I have two pictures of Fanny Zinsher in my mind, one as she came from Russia at fourteen, fleeing from persecution to free America, with round cheeks, smiling, irresponsible lips and clear eyes full of interest and delight in living; the other after five years of American freedom, with sad sweet eyes whose sight was strained by the flashing of the needle and by study late at night, mouth drooping with a weight of sadness and responsibility and an expression of patience and endurance far beyond her twenty years.

She came a little high school girl from Kishineff to San Francisco. She did not know what work for wages was, but she and her brother four years older had to turn to and support a mother and a little brother. Three hundred power-machines in one long room of the garment factory welcomed this little human machine-in-the-making. The roar and flash of the needles terrified her. She tried to work, but her nerves went more and more to pieces, her frightened eyes failed to follow her fingers as they guided her work and the second day she slit a finger open and was laid up for three weeks. When she returned she could adapt herself no better to the nervous strain. At piece work she could earn little over one dollar a week, until a kind forewoman removed her to a smaller room where in time she rose to five dollars.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: General Merriam Represents McKinley in War Against Idaho Miners

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 16, 1900
Washington, District of Columbia – General Merriam, Tool of President McKinley

From the Appeal to Reason of April 14, 1900:

Wardner ID Bullpen HdLn, Gen Merriam Lunatic, AtR p2, Apr 14, 1910—–

There is a long and interesting story in the Coeur d’ Alene mining troubles.

The strikers began by acting very badly-no doubt whatever of that. They or their friends unquestionably made mistakes, blowing up a mill with dynamite, etc.

Of course it is probable that the mine owners in their own way abused their power as wickedly. But a mine owner can always hire lawyers, or, if need be, government officials and the army-the strikers cannot. Therefore, the strikers should be careful.

New ID Bullpen of 1899, Miners Bunks, Hutton p56, 1900—–

You know that in that mining region men were arrested without warrant. United States troops, sent to obey mine owners’ orders, shut the men up in a “bull pen.” The district attorney was the legal advisor of the Standard Oil corporation. He suspended the habeas corpus idea entirely-said that if the courts had issued habeas corpus papers he would have ignored them.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Butte Daily Bulletin: Review of “Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters” by David Karsner, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Be True Labor Will Come Into Its Own, OH Sc p1, Nov 5, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 22, 1920
David Karsner, of New York Call, “Paints Debs with Loving Hands” -Part I

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 13, 1920:

EVD re Karsner Bio, BDB p3, Feb 13, 1920

[Part I of II.]

EVD, David Karsner, Debs Life n Letters, Brk Dly Egl p4, Jan 17, 1920

“Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters,” has just gone into its second edition, (Boni and Liveright, New York). Written for socialists, by a socialist, it might well be termed a book for Americans, since socialism is the great issue of the present day. “Debs” is propagandist. And as such it should be a handbook of ready reference for those who agree with its doctrines, and for those whore aim it is to refute those doctrines. But the book primarily presents the emotional color of Debs’ socialism.

David Karsner, the author, paints Debs with loving hands. He is an ardent disciple. He depicts a man who is not a fiery leader, but rather one who is filled with good-will and a desire for peace on earth. Debs was not born a socialist. He was pushed, says the author by the logic of facts as he saw them, into the opinions that have finally caused his incarceration in prison. According to Karsner, his magnetism does not issue from flame, for he is not a “Red.” He is, says Karsner, a mild and greatly loved leader. He is said to have no desire for honors. Yet he was four times a candidate for the presidency of the United States.

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