Hellraisers Journal: The Appeal to Reason Returns to Its “Good Old Name” with Issue No. 1213, the Special Amnesty Edition

9th March 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Here’s to the “little old Appeal”!
———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 9, 1919
Appeal to Reason Returns to “Good Old Name”

From the Appeal to Reason of March 1, 1919:

Back to the Good Old Name

Beginning with this issue, No. 1213, the Special Amnesty Edition, this paper will be known as the Appeal to Reason. In returning to our old name we are doing nothing but accepting the judgment and wishes of our readers. Ever since December, 1917, when the old name was changed to The New Appeal, we have been receiving letters from our workers and subscribers urging us to go back to the good old name. In addition we have been impressed with the fact that in spite of the many months that have passed, half of our mail today is addressed, “Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kans.” Not only does the Socialist world stick to the old name, but even capitalist newspapers and magazine in referring to us either name us by the old title or speak of “The New Appeal” formerly “Appeal to Reason.” When, after a year’s use of a name, it is necessary to identify it, plainly the best thing to do is to go back to the good old, familiar name, Appeal to Reason. Of your practically unanimous approval of this change we are confident. Here’s to the “little old Appeal”!

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Appeal to Reason Returns to Its “Good Old Name” with Issue No. 1213, the Special Amnesty Edition” →

Hellraisers Journal: New Appeal Publishes “Ballad of Reading Jail” by Oscar Wilde, “Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written“

26th February 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Oscar Wilde, Poem Reading Goal p25, London 1898 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 26, 1919
The New Appeal Book Department Publishes Oscar Wilde’s “Reading Jail”

From The New Appeal of February 22, 1919:

Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written

Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Jail” Has Just
Been Published by The New Appeal Book Department

“The Ballad of Reading Jail” [first published in 1898] will live as long as the English language. It is the greatest prison poem ever penned. This soul-stirring masterpiece of literature is the most overwhelming argument ever aimed against the terrible evil of capital punishment.

“The Ballad of Reading Jail” was written while Oscar Wilde was in a prison cell. One of the prisoners, sentenced to hang, and finally executed, so moved Wilde to the depths that he was inspired to write this ballad.

This poetical classic is the first of The New Appeal’s Pocket Series. We have printed this poem on fine book paper and have bound it handsomely. It is printed in a convenient form so that you will be able to slip it into your pocket and read it on the street car during your lunch hour or during any spare moments when you will want something that will be of more use to you than the usual trash with which one whiles away his time. A poem like this is not read once or twice. Those who know this tremendous masterpiece have it within reach so that they may return to it time and time again. By publishing this long, readable poem in this simple, bulkless from we enable you to carry it with you without bulging your pockets.

Oscar Wilde was a genius. Whatever may be said about him, no one has ever questioned his mastery of the English language and his ability to express the deepest emotions in the simplest, most compelling, manner conceivable.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New Appeal Publishes “Ballad of Reading Jail” by Oscar Wilde, “Greatest Prison Poem Ever Written“” →

Hellraisers Journal: “A Rebel in Jail” – Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104, Writes to Upton Sinclair from Leavenworth

18th February 201918th February 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, No Yellow Streak, AtR p4, Feb 15, 1919 —–

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 18, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary – Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin Pens a Sonnet

From The New Appeal of February 15, 1919:

A Rebel in Jail

Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner #13104

—–

[Note by Upton Sinclair]

Recently I was addressing the ladies of one of the large clubs in Los Angeles, and they were much amused when I told them that whenever I was in jail I found myself irresistibly impelled to write poetry. Moreover, that was my one chance to get poetry published; newspapers were ready to give it space, because it had been written in jail! You will note from the following letter that others also make verses in captivity. You see, there is nothing else you can do; and you have an irresistible impulse to tell the people outside what is happening to you!

Wherever you live in America you will read in your daily paper about those desperate criminals called I. W. W.s, who want to destroy society, but whom a wise government has put behind bars where they cannot do harm.

From this letter you may see exactly what desperadoes they are. They write sonnets, and beg you to send them good literature to read!

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “A Rebel in Jail” – Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104, Writes to Upton Sinclair from Leavenworth” →

Hellraisers Journal: Stanley J. Clark, Socialist Imprisoned at Leavenworth, Confirms IWWs Brutally Beaten

26th January 20197th June 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Stanley J Clark, Workers Demand World, AtR p2, Nov 19, 1921 —–

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 26, 1919
Leavenworth Prison – Stanley J. Clark Confirms Brutal Treatment

From The New Appeal of January 25, 1919:

I.W.W.’s Beaten Up, Says Stanley Clark

International Socialist Review
February 1918

Confirmation of the story of brutalities inflicted upon political prisoners in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kans., published in a recent issue of The New Appeal, has reached us in the form of a letter from Mrs. Dorothy Clark, wife of the well-known Socialist lecturer, Stanley J. Clark. Clark was convicted of having violated the Espionage Act and is a fellow prisoner of the I. W. W.’s and other radicals at Leavenworth.

Mrs. Clark, hearing of the occurrences at the federal prison and anxious to learn whether her husband had been injured, came to Kansas City, Mo., which is within an hour’s car ride of the prison doors. While learning that Clark had escaped maltreatment she also learned that The New Appeal’s report of the manhandling of other prisoners was not exaggerated. In a letter to The New Appeal Mrs. Clark says:

I came here because I had heard of the inhuman treatment that men were receiving in this prison at Leavenworth and I knew that I should go insane unless I could see Stanley and know just what had happened. I was relieved of course to find that nothing had happened to him personally, but I found him terribly stirred up and in a perfect frenzy of indignation over the treatment that the other prisoners had received.

It seems that they have a new warden, who at once began to lengthen the hours of work and to cut down food rations. Some of the poor boys, not realizing that they were buried in there and by the world forgotten and absolutely at the mercy of their captors, attempted to strike to enforce the old and regular system of hours of work.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Stanley J. Clark, Socialist Imprisoned at Leavenworth, Confirms IWWs Brutally Beaten” →

Hellraisers Journal: IWW Attorney Moore and Miss Caroline Lowe Report on Brutal Conditions at Leavenworth, Part II

16th January 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 16, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary – Report on Brutal Treatment of Prisoners, Part II

From The New Appeal of January 11, 1919:

[Part 2 of 2.]

Summing up the results of his inquiry, Mr. Moore [Attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World] says:

Extremely fragmentary as is the above, I believe that the following points may be considered as fully established:

1. That negro convicts armed with clubs were used under the direction of Mr. Fletcher [Deputy Warden] to beat up white men. That among those so beaten up were Stratton, Murphy and Floyd Ramp.

2. That many prisoners, whose physical condition was extremely bad, were placed on bread and water diet and deprived of their blankets and compelled to sleep on the cement floor at a time when this would seriously endanger their health.

3. That many prisoners were chained by their wrists to the sides of their cells and so compelled to stand for a period in excess of twenty-four hours.

Visits Husband in Cell.

In an affidavit, of which The New Appeal has been furnished a copy, Mrs. Floyd Ramp, wife of one of the solitary prisoners, states that she was allowed a brief visit with her husband on December 15, having come to Leavenworth in response to a report from friends that her husband had been seriously injured. Mrs. Ramp states that she was not permitted to question her husband regarding his injuries, but that his right eye was badly discolored and he was in an emaciated condition. Owing to the presence of the guard she could elicit no information of what had occurred beyond the most vague and unsatisfactory references. Ramp did say that Stratton was “pretty badly hurt.” Mrs. Ramp states “that Jack Phelan, who was released from the Leavenworth prison on December 18 because declared by the Appellate Court to have been illegally incarcerated on a charge of violating the Espionage Act, told her he had seen Floyd Ramp’s body and that it was a mass of bruises which led him to believe that he had been beaten, kicked and trampled upon.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: IWW Attorney Moore and Miss Caroline Lowe Report on Brutal Conditions at Leavenworth, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: IWW Attorney Fred Moore and Miss Caroline Lowe Report on Brutal Conditions at Leavenworth

15th January 201916th January 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 15, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas – Brutal Treatment of Prisoners Reported

From The New Appeal of January 11, 1919:

[Part 1 of 2.]

In its issue of last week The New Appeal reproduced a report of conscientious objectors at Camp Funston, Kans., detailing the brutal treatment to which they were subjected at the command of certain officers, contrary to the express directions of the war department in Washington. This report was published primarily as a matter of record, the guilty officers having been dismissed from the service and the conditions complained of corrected.

We are now in the way of making a more important exposure-an exposure of brutalities committed upon Socialists, I. W. W.s. and others imprisoned in the Federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., brutalities that we have reason to believe have not been brought to the notice of the higher authorities since the efforts of interested persons to investigate these brutalities have been baffled at every turn by prison officials. Enough evidence has been dragged into the light, however, to make it shamefully plain, to use the words of Mrs. Floyd Ramp, wife of a Socialist prisoner, “that things are occurring in this penitentiary which citizens of a democracy should not knowingly countenance.”

Could Not Question Prisoners.

On December 12, F. H. Moore, a Chicago attorney, went to Leavenworth to discuss certain legal steps with the group of prisoners sentenced under the Chicago indictment of the I. W. W. alleged anti-war agitators. He also desired to make personal inquiry of the treatment the prisoners were receiving, disquieting reports of which had reached him through “underground” channels. In company with Miss Caroline A. Lowe, who assisted in the defense of the prisoners at the trial, Mr. Moore called upon the warden. They were told by the warden that they could talk over legal matters connected with the case, but they were absolutely forbidden to question the prisoners as to conditions in the penitentiary.

Mr. Moore, in a somewhat lengthy communication sent to The New Appeal, repeatedly emphasizes this autocratic censorship of the warden. As they interviewed, separately, each one of twenty-two prisoners held in solitary confinement with unusual punishment, the deputy warden, who was present during the interviews, sternly suppressed every attempt to question the prisoners as to the manner in which they had been handled and as to their physical condition at the time. Nor were Mr. Moore and Miss Lowe, when they met and conferred with the majority of the prisoners in a body permitted to refer to the condition of their fellow prisoners who were “in solitary.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: IWW Attorney Fred Moore and Miss Caroline Lowe Report on Brutal Conditions at Leavenworth” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones News for November 1918 -Favorite Authors: Voltaire, Hugo, and Thomas Paine

21st December 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones re Hugo, Montgomery WV, Aug 4, 1912 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 21, 1918
Mother Jones News for November 1918
-American Revolutionary, Thomas Paine, Among Favorite Authors

From The New Appeal of November 30, 1918:

Mother Jones and Debs

This morning’s mail has brought The New Appeal Book Dept. orders for Voltaire’s “Candide” from Mother Jones and Eugene V. Debs. Mother Jones writes:

I want Voltaire’s greatest work, “Candide.” You know he is a very great writer. He and Victor Hugo and Thomas Paine were my favorites when the late J. A. Wayland and I used to sit up at night and talk these great writers over.

Mother Jones knows that Voltaire’s “Candide” is worth reading. Do you? If you don’t, then be sure to order this beautifully printed and exquisitely bound edition, which we are selling, postpaid, for only 80 cents. This is a low price and cannot remain that low very long. But we will fill your order if we receive it in the near future.

[Photograph added.]

Ad for Voltaire’s Candide:

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones News for November 1918 -Favorite Authors: Voltaire, Hugo, and Thomas Paine” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs to Tom Mooney: “Tear up that commutation…No compromise!..You are innocent!”

17th December 2018 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote EVD, Debs to Mooney, New Appeal p1, Dec 14, 1918
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 17, 1918
Eugene Debs Sends Message to Tom Mooney: “Tear up that commutation!”

From The New Appeal of December 14, 1918:

Debs Wires Mooney

Eugene V. Debs has sent the following telegram to Tom Mooney:

Tear up that commutation and fling the scraps in the brazen face of the corporation hireling that insulted you and the working class by that infamous act.

Let Patrick Henry once more speak through you, “Give me liberty of give me death!”

There must be no compromise! You are innocent! The working class is aroused as never before in history. They will tear the murderous clutch of criminal capitalism from your throat.

All hail the general strike. If they insist on war let it come. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

God loves justice and hates cowards. Stand by your colors and the workers of the world will stand by you; to victory or death.

Now is the time for the workers of America to prove themselves. Tom Mooney and his comrades cry aloud to the proletariat of the world.

Arouse ye millions for whom he risked his life, and save that life for the future of his class, and for the vindication of right and justice.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs to Tom Mooney: “Tear up that commutation…No compromise!..You are innocent!”” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the New Appeal: A Poem by Karl Marx Written During His Youth

6th May 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Anything but calm submission
To the yoke of toil and pain?
Come what may, then, hope and longing,
Deed and daring still remain.
-Karl Marx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 6, 1918
Young Karl Marx: The Poet with a “fine spirit against tyranny.”

From The New Appeal of May 4, 1918:

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the New Appeal: A Poem by Karl Marx Written During His Youth” →