Tag: The Liberator Magazine

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Lawrence Strike…a Struggle Simply for Living Wage” by Ruth Pickering

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 22, 1919
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Textile Strikers Stand Firm

From The Liberator of May 1919:

The Lawrence Strike

[by Ruth Pickering]

American Freedom Detail, Liberator p31, May 1919

THE causes of the Lawrence strike are the most elemental in the whole history of the labor movement. It is a struggle simply for a living wage. But the “law and order” fraternity are doing their best to bring on what they so much fear-a revolution. Partly as an excuse for breaking the strike, partly out genuine nervousness, they are attempting to obscure the primary issues in the fog of “Bolshevism.” And the more they advertise the revolution as something which they hate, as something so manifestly dangerous to them, the more do the workers wonder: “If they hate this thing so-whatever it is-it must have something in it for us.” Fear of Bolshevism and memories of 1912 have made the Lawrence citizens and the press applaud all repressive measures. Mounted police have been imported from Lynn, and stray recruits have been added which cost the city 3,000 extra dollars per week to maintain. Their horses are scrawny and rickety and they ride with some difficulty, but what pride they lose in their consciousness of these facts, they take out on the pickets.

Men come in from the picket-line with their heads cut open and blood covering their shirt fronts. That the strikers have a legal right to maintain the picket-line is out of the question. Liberty has come to be a joke. There is no law for the “damned Bolshevik foreigner.” The brave mounted police ride up on the sidewalk cursing and swinging their sticks. The pickets retreat before these onslaughts-but they will never forget.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Lawrence Strike…a Struggle Simply for Living Wage” by Ruth Pickering” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Reflections on the Seattle General Strike by a Woman Who Was There”-Revolution?

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Anna Louise Strong, NO ONE KNOWS WHERE, SUR p1, Feb 4, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 29, 1919
Seattle General Strike: Revolution? -60,000 Striking Workers Run the City

From the New York Liberator of April 1919:

When Is a Revolution Not a Revolution

Reflections on the Seattle General Strike
by a Woman Who Was There

Seattle General Strike, Metal Trades Council, SUR p3, Feb 4, 1919

“A GENERAL STRIKE, called by regular unions of the American Federation of Labor, cutting across contracts, across international union constitutions, across the charter from the American Federation of Labor,”-this was what the chairman of the strike committee declared it to be. A General Strike in which the strikers served 30,000 meals a day, in which the Milk Wagon Drivers established milk stations all over town to care for the babies, in which city garbage wagons went to and fro marked “Exempt by Strike Committee”; a General Strike in which 300 Labor Guards without arms or authority went to and fro preserving order; in which the Strike Committee, sitting in almost continuous session, decided what activities should and should not be exempted. from strike in the interests of public safety and health, and even forced the Mayor to come to the Labor Temple to make arrangements for lighting the city.

Yet almost any member of the Strike Committee will tell you, in hot anger, that “this was no revolution, except in the Capitalist papers; it was only a show of sympathy and solidarity for our brothers in the shipyards.” And so in truth it was, in intention. It would seem that the beginnings of all new things take place, not through conscious intention, but through the inevitable action of economic forces.

Hardly yet do the workers of Seattle realize all the things they did.

The shipyard workers of Seattle struck, 35,000 strong, on [Tuesday] January 21st. On January 22, a request was brought to the Central Labor Council for a general strike in sympathy with the Metal Trades. This was referred to the various unions for referendum. By the following Wednesday, January 29, the returns were pouring in.

“Newsboys vote to strike and await instructions of Joint Strike Committee.” “Hotel maids vote 8 to 1 for strike.” “Waitresses expect to go strong for general strike.” Foundry employees, butchers, structural iron workers, milk wagon drivers, garment workers, carpenters, barbers, building laborers, longshoremen, painters, glaziers, plasterers, cooks and assistants, these were among the votes to come in the first week.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Reflections on the Seattle General Strike by a Woman Who Was There”-Revolution?” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Rebel Worker: “Can the Capitalists Run the World?” (without ruin, waste and war?)

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 21, 1919
Can the Capitalists Run the World without Ruin, Waste, and War?

From the New York Rebel Worker of April 15, 1919:

CAN THE CAPITALISTS RUN THE WORLD?

Art Young, Capitalism All right so far, Liberator p19, Apr 1919

The March [April] Liberator wants to know, “Can the workers run the world?” This question tickles our risibilities and causes us to submit to an attack of the merry ha ha! It unconsciously re-echoes the capitalists’ claim that they run the world and that they are the only ones that can run the world. For a radical socialist magazine to re-echo capitalist misstatements is bad Marxian-ism-the sin of sins against the holy of holies. And then the question is preposterous in the light of contemporaneous events. What we behold, if our eye sight is not falling us, is not a world run by capitalists, but a world that is running the capitalists—running them out of existence, p. d. q. (By the way, we suggest that Art Young draw a cartoon for his new satirical weekly, “Good morning,” showing the capitalists “running” the world according to modern history.)

Then look at the way the capitalists run the world when the world is not running them. H. L. Gantt, one of New York’s foremost production engineers, says the present system is only 15 per cent efficient. There’s some running for you-running to waste-85 per cent. Will the Liberator please repeat its question again? We enjoy anything that suggests a collosal joke, such as the capitalists’ assumption that they are the efficient world runners par excellence. Ask Gantt; he knows.

Now, for a change, let us take seriously this question of running the world. Let us state frankly that if the workers ever run the world the way the capitalists are running it, we’ll start a bloodly counter-revolution against them! And we’ll inflict an antiproltetarian mismanagement dictatorship on them; by God, so we will. We want the world to be run, not ruined or wasted.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Rebel Worker: “Can the Capitalists Run the World?” (without ruin, waste and war?)” →

Hellraisers Journal: New York’s Local 25 of Ladies Garment Workers Union Announces Victory for 12,000 Strikers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 9, 1919
New York, New York – Dress and Waist Makers Declare Victory

Local 25 of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union declared total victory for 12,000 striking Dress and Waist Makers on April 7th (see article below from the New York Tribune).

From the Liberator of April 1919:

Strike by C Barns, re ILGWU L25, Liberator Cover, Apr 1919
“Strike!”
OUR cover design, drawn by Cornelia Barns, will carry to readers all over the country something of the spirit with which Local 25 of the International Garment Workers is conducting its strike for the 44-hour week in New York. Eighty-five per cent of the strikers are girls. Of the 35,000 who went out on January 21st, 23,000 have already won their terms and gone back to work. The rest are sticking it out magnificently.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New York’s Local 25 of Ladies Garment Workers Union Announces Victory for 12,000 Strikers” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Leavenworth New Era: “Prison Reveille” by Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Ralph Chaplin, Prison Reveille, Lv New Era p2, Apr 4, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 7, 1919
Poetry from Leavenworth Prisoner No. 13104, Ralph Chaplin

From the Leavenworth New Era of April 4, 1919:

IWW, Poem, Prison Reveille by Ralph Chaplin 13104, Lv New Era p2, Apr 4, 1919

———-

LIBRARY NOTICE

…..A donation of ten volumes of “The Wit and Humor of America,” edited by Marshall P. Wilder, has been added to the library by Ralph Chaplin. It is a fine set of books , filled with chuckles and laughter…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Leavenworth New Era: “Prison Reveille” by Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eye-Witness Account from Sacramento Courtroom: Fellow Workers “Were Led Back to Jail Singing”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917—–

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 7, 1919
Sacramento, California – Fellow Workers Sang Their Way Back to Jail

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 3, 1919:

43 I.W.W. RECEIVE THEIR SENTENCE
WITH A LAUGH

The Defiant Stand of Unionists in Sacramento Trial
Told in Eye-Witnesses’ Account.

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

An eye-witness’ account of the courtroom scene when 43 members of the I. W. W. were sentenced in Sacramento 10 days ago, after having maintained a “silence strike against capitalist justice” during the trial, has just been published by the New York defense committee, 27 East Fourth street, New York City. After being out only 70 minutes the jury brought in a verdict of “guilty as charged” against all of the defendants, showing that the case of each had been dispatched in a minute and a half.

The men seemed rather glad to have it over with, it is reported. There never had been any doubt in their minds as to what the verdict would be. As they were led out of the courtroom they sang “Solidarity Forever!”

The next morning, Jan. 17. the 43 “silent defendants” were brought in for sentence. The three who had refused to join in their decision to put up no defense were absent. “Have any of the defendants anything to say before I pass sentence?” asked Judge Frank H. Rudkin.

They had, indeed. Their pledge of silence, “in contempt of court,” was to last only until they had been convicted. Their tongues were now loosed. Eleven of them spoke, occupying the entire morning, during which time the 43 stood shoulder to shoulder before the court and delivered probably as scathing an arraignment of capitalist justice as has ever been voiced by workingmen.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eye-Witness Account from Sacramento Courtroom: Fellow Workers “Were Led Back to Jail Singing”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Silent Defense in Sacramento” by Jean Sterling (Silent Except for Coughing)

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Jean Sterling, Silent Defense, Liberator, Feb 1919—–

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 1, 1919
Sacramento, California – I. W. W. Defendants Silent Except for the Coughing

From The Liberator of February 1919:

The Silent Defense in Sacramento

By Jean Sterling

Sacramento IWW, Silent Defense, Dec 1918 to Jan 1919
Silent Defenders

—–

“Do the defendants, not represented by attorneys, wish to interrogate the talesman?”

The court reporter held his pencil suspended. The forty-three defendants faced with mocking eyes and closed lips their jailers, prosecutors and the presiding judge.

“Do they wish to exercise the right of challenge?”

For a tense second the inexorable wheels of justice stopped turning. Some one had thrown a felt slipper in the cogs. The defendants gave the prospective juror not so much as a glance. They had read and yawned and gazed vacantly out of the high windows while the attorneys for the prosecution had been probing the talesman’s soul for any humane or modern ideas on the subject of labor.

Then, after a decorous silence, such as is observed in court procedures and funeral rites, the Judge said quietly, “If, then, there are no objections to the talesman, he may take his seat in the jury box.”

And so the juryman, an ancient rancher, the prophesy of the type to follow, took his seat.

And in this manner did the forty-three defendants, I. W. W.’s, now being tried in Sacramento, California, on charges of conspiracy, under the Espionage Act, open their “silent defense.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Silent Defense in Sacramento” by Jean Sterling (Silent Except for Coughing)” →