Tag: The Industrial Union Bulletin

Hellraisers Journal: Report from the IWW of Spokane by J. H. Walsh and a New Song, “Hallelujah I’m a Bum”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Oh, I like my boss,
He’s a good friend of mine,
That’s why I am freezing
Out in the bread line.

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 8, 1908
Spokane, Washington – Jawsmiths and Good Singers Enliven Street Meetings

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of April 4, 1908:

Developments at Spokane
[by J. H. Walsh]

The membership of the Mixed Local in this city have pushed the agitational work, and hung on with that tenacity that is necessary to accomplish the desired results of industrial organization. They are now located in a new headquarters, and since my arrival here three weeks ago we have taken in something like 125 new members, paid off all the back indebtedness to headquarters, and also organized a branch of the Servians of some 35 members. The boys here are charging 50 cents initiation, but at the times generally are not quite as strenuous as on the coast, and it can be collected much easier than it could be at places like Tacoma, Seattle or Portland.

There are so man hundred idle men in this country that many around the headquarters have little to do but study the question, compose poetry and word up songs for old tunes. It might be of interest to some to know about the program that has been followed out in this city for a few weeks and which has its effect. Among the I. W. W. membership there are a few good singers as well as jaw-smiths, and their genius has been expressed in the following composition and rendition at the street meetings as well as in the hall:

Hallelujah I'm a Bum!, IUB, Apr 4, 1908

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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on Tour in New England; Speaks in Providence and Buffalo

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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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, Sunday March 29, 1908
Providence, Rhode Island – Miss Flynn Speaks to Textile Workers

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 28, 1908:

The Flynn Lectures

EGF, ab Sept 1907, LOC

Enclosed find clipping from Providence Journal giving report of Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s lecture. The Providence Tribune printed her picture and a full column report of the meeting, but the editor’s fine Italian hand shows clearly throughout the article; it is evident that in his opinion the kind of talk dealt out by Miss Flynn is not good reading, unadulterated, for readers of the Tribune. This was the bumper meeting of a series of lectures run every Sunday evening by Textile Union 530, I. W. W. The first one, with Organizer Thompson as speaker, drew a large audience, and it grows larger at every meeting, rain or shine. The last meeting taxed the seating capacity of the hall. The speakers are limited to an hour and a quarter, after which the floor is thrown open for questions and remarks, with a five-minute limit, and no one is given the floor twice until all who wish to speak are done. There is no doubt that it is this feature of the meetings that draws the crowd. As speakers we have had, so far, two professors from Brown University, a lawyer with “radical” ideas, a high school principal who believes in Socialism, a couple of single-taxers, two Socialist party men, Frank Bohn, who gave a fine lecture, “The Working Class in American History,” and Miss Flynn. I understand that Organizer Thompson is on the docket for next Sunday, with the “Materialistic Conception of History” as the subject.

The following is from the Providence Journal:

Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addressed a large gathering in Textile Hall, Olneyville square, last evening under the auspices of Textile Local 530 and spoke on “Industrial Unionism.” Her coming had been the topic of discussion of local textile workers for several days and the hall was filled in spite of the disagreeable weather. She was received with enthusiasm. After her address several of those present plied her with questions and there was a general debate on the labor question.

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Hellraisers Journal: Oscar Ameringer on Three Kinds of Scabs: “by far the most important class is the union scab”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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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
—–

By OSCAR AMERINGER

IWW Gen Adm Emblem, IUB, Mar 14, 1908

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.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Harp, “A Literary Journal of the Irish Working Class in America”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The cause of labour
is the cause of Ireland,
the cause of Ireland
is the cause of labour.
-James Connolly

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday March 18, 1908
The Harp, Organ of the Irish Socialist Federation

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of March 14, 1908:

The Harp, Irish Socialist Federation, IUB p4, Mar 14, 1908

———-

The Harp, Irish Socialist Federation, IUB p2, Mar 14, 1908

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs on Roosevelt’s Quandary: What to do with Troops in Goldfield, Part I

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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The people are as capable of achieving
their industrial freedom as they were
to secure their political liberty,
and both are necessary to a free nation.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 6, 1908
Goldfield, Nevada – What to do with Roosevelt’s Troops, Part I

From the Appeal to Reason of January 4, 1908:

CAUGHT IN THEIR OWN NET
—–
Federal and State Authorities in a Quandary
as to What to Do With the
Soldiers at Goldfield.
—–

Instantaneous and Widespread Effect of the
“Goldfield Extra” Issued by the
Appeal to Reason Protesting
Against Troops.
—–
BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
[Part I]

Pres T Roosevelt, SF Call p37, Dec 29, 1907

When President Roosevelt issued his order, based upon the requisition of Governor Sparks and the Mine Owners of Nevada, converting the mining town of Goldfield into a military camp, the whole country was more or less surprised. It was the suddenness of the action of the president rather than the action itself which created such intense interest and elicited approval of provoked condemnation, according to the point of view.

The telegraphic dispatch containing this military order struck the APPEAL almost as if it had been a blow in the face.

There was absolutely nothing in the Goldfield situation to warrant such an arbitrary act of interference in a purely local situation. The president knew it, and so did every one else at all familiar with the situation. The act could have but one meaning and one purpose. The APPEAL instinctively understood it. The blow had been struck without warning; it must be returned without delay. The facts of the case must be given to the working class as promptly and as fully as the means and facilities at the command of the APPEAL would allow.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Scum rises to the top.” Ida Crouch-Hazlett Interviews Big Bill Haywood on “Disruption in I. W. W.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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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, Sunday March 31, 1907
From Caldwell, Idaho: Ida Crouch-Hazlett Reports

Haywood, Wilshire's Magazine, 1906

In this weeks edition of the Montana News, Ida Crouch-Hazlett reports her observations of the ongoing events in the case of our imprisoned comrades, Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone. She first describes the mental anguish of the murderer, Harry Orchard, saved from despair and suicide by the application of good food and fine cigars. But most importantly, she reports that she was able to have a talk with Bill Haywood, just after the close of court one day in the town of Caldwell, wherein Big Bill gave his opinion of the current conflict now upsetting the unity of the Industrial Workers of the World. Big Bill stated that the “scum rises to the top,” and that the I. W. W. will be stronger once the scum is skimmed off.

Included in the report is an editorial from the March 16th edition of The Industrial Union Bulletin entitled “Why They Want Haywood.”

From the Montana News of March 28, 1907:

Side Lights on the Trial
—–

Orchard Contemplated Suicide-
Now Treated as a Prince-
Mine Owners After Haywood

Through the machinations of the capitalist press the public has almost forgotten the fiend who did the deed. Although implicating himself in the same crime, the admitted principal is relegated to the rear when it comes to punishment. This miserable wretch the tool of the Great Conspiracy that vibrates through this mountain air, of men against the labor that feeds and cloths them, this Judas already damned, as is well known to the real “inner circle,” a broadcloth one giving his star-chamber bosses the slip after all, from sheer physical and mental ability to carry on his part. He had become a prey to his own degenerate mental images, and had become so fearful and despondent, that existence was a misery to him, and he had decided on taking his life. He got hold of some arsenic and concealed it about his cell. He told Mrs. Steve Adams of his resolution. She plead with him not to think of such a thing, but he was obdurate. She then reported the matter to the guards, the cell was searched and the poison was found.

Warned in this way that they were liable to lose their most valuable asset, the conspirators saw that they would have to put heart into their dupe, so that now he has pleasant surroundings and accommodations, good food, cigars, and all things needful, and he’s getting braced up to meet the men on trial that he is trying to swear into eternity. Nice thought that. They might as well have let him die easy. His life does not amount to anything anyhow.

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