Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn for Chicago Propaganda League on Working Class Women and Suffrage

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Quote EGF, Pious women, Servant girls, Bff Cr NY p6, Mar 1, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 10, 1909
Chicago, Illinois – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Propaganda League

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 27, 1909:

PROPAGANDEA LEAGUE LECTURES.

EGF, Socialist Woman Cv, Dec 1908

Sunday evening, February 21, Elizabeth G. Flynn gave a very instructive lecture under the auspices of the Chicago Propaganda League, at 55 North Clark street, on the subject, “Why Women of the Working Class Need Not Be Interested in Woman Suffrage.”

The speaker argued not so much against woman suffrage in itself, as against the emphasis now being placed by Socialists upon a question of secondary importance. She pointed out that woman’s activity in the labor movement promised more fruitful results along the line of building up the economic organization, by which alone conditions in industry could be improved and rendered more nearly equal for both men and women, and the danger of “sex war” averted, which was one of the grave possibilities of the agitation merely for “equal political rights.”

The meeting was well attended, and interest manifest throughout the lecture and the discussion which followed.

Next Sunday, February 28, at the same hour (8 o’clock) and place (55 North Clark street). Theodore Hertz will speak on “Tendencies in the European Trades Unions towards Industrial Unionism.” The change in dates for these two lectures was made on account of the fact that Miss Flynn will speak in Buffalo on the 28th.

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[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Woman on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: Spirit of poet & revolutionist beautifully combined.

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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 5, 1908
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Maud Gonne of the American Movement

From the Socialist Woman of December 1908:

The Cover:

Socialist Woman, EGF on Cover, Dec 1908

From the Editor, Mrs. Josephine Conger Kaneko:

Elizabeth G. Flynn.
—–

EGF, Socialist Woman Cv, Dec 1908

The first time I saw Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was at a Socialist meeting in New York City in 1906. She was the speaker of the evening. A sixteen year old high school girl, she was indeed an interesting personality. The last time I saw her was in Chicago, where she came as a delegate to the convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. Meanwhile, she had become “famous” in New York City, all the big dailies writing up her activity for Socialism, some of them giving whole pages to it. Although a “mere slip of a girl” she promises much for the future, both from an intellectual standpoint, and as a “soap boxer.” For she has made most of the eastern part of the continent, speaking night after night for weeks at a time. The spirit of the poet and the revolutionist are beautifully combined in her, together with a power of logic, which often is wanting in older heads. She has been called the Maud Gonne of the American movement.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs and the Children of Girard; Some Thoughts on Childhood, “A Holy Theme”

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Quote EVD Childhood, Socialist Woman p12, Sept 1908~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 20, 1908
Eugene V. Debs: “Childhood! What a holy theme!”

The story, published in yesterday’s Hellraisers, about Comrade Debs bringing the Red Special to a halt in order to meet with the school children of Trenton, Michigan, brought to mind the following article from the September 1908 edition of The Socialist Woman:

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CHILDHOOD.
—–

EUGENE V. DEBS.

What emotion the recollection of childhood inspires, and how priceless its treasured memories in our advancing and declining years!

Laughing eyes and curly hair, little brown hands and bare feet, innocent and carefree, trusting and loving, tender and pure, what an elevating and satisfying influence these little gods have upon our maturer years!

Childhood! What a holy theme! Flowers they are, with souls in them, and if on this earth man has a sacred charge, a solemn obligation, it is to these buds and blossoms of humanity.

Yet how many of them are prematurely plucked, fade and die and are trampled in the mire. Many millions of them have been snatched from the cradle and stolen from their play to be fed to the forces that turn a workingman’s blood into a capitalist’s gold, and many millions of others have been crushed and perverted into filth for the slums and food for the pottersfield.

Childhood is at the parting of the ways which lead to success or failure, honor or disgrace, life or death. Society is, or ought to be, profoundly concerned in the nature of the environment that is to mold the character and determine the career of its children, and any remissness in such duty is rebuked by the most painful of penalties and these are inflicted with increasing severity upon the people of the United States.

Childhood is the most precious charge of the family and the community, but our capitalist civilization sacrifices it ruthlessly to gratify its brutal lust for pelf and power, and the march of its conquest is stained with the blood of infants and paved with the puny bones of children.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist Woman: City of Los Angeles Locks-Up Socialist Women for Speaking on Streets

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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 August 9, 1908
Los Angeles – Socialist Women Raise Hell for Free Speech

From The Socialist Woman of August 1908:

SOCIALIST WOMEN IN JAIL.

LA FSF, SF Call -p9, July 10, 1908

Four Socialist women—Mrs. Bertha M. Dailey, Mrs. Alice Vail Holloway, Mrs. Helen A. Collins, Mrs. Cloudsley Johns—all of Los Angeles, have been spending the warm days of July in the jail of that city. This, for speaking on the streets of Los Angeles—the City of Angels.

The Los Angeles Herald asks, editorially, “Why arrest scholarly, refined, delicately nurtured, women, mothers of families, and irreproachable members of society, and allow men to exercise with impunity the right of free speech?…Salvation Army speakers, evangelists, and other reformers are not interfered with…The worst feature of all this wretched display of prejudice and lack of good judgment is in the fact that all the leading newspapers of the land—ALL—have published accounts of the arrest of the little women and the immunity of the big men, and are commenting on it unreservedly. Los Angeles may well afford to do without this kind of advertising, and we think the chamber of commerce should call a special meeting to review this whole subject, and set our city right before the United States of America.”

In the meantime, the “little women” are doing a good stroke of agitation work for the Socialist movement. They are advertising the Los Angeles movement as it was never advertised before, and are creating sympathy where it never before existed. A daintily gotten-up “At Home” card sent out by them, reads as follows:

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Hellraisers Journal: The Compassionate Heart of Eugene Debs Re-Converts Florence Kelley to Socialism

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Quote EVD, re Knocked Down Women, Miners Mag, July 17, 1913
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday July 6, 1908
Compassion of Eugene Debs Re-Converts Florence Kelley

From The Socialist Woman of July 1908:

A RE-CONVERT.
—–
Rose Pastor Stokes.

Florence Kelley, Am Mag, July 1910
Florence Kelley

Mrs. Florence Kelley is one of the noblest women I know, and has worked for twenty years or more for Socialism among trades unionists and other classes of men and women. She used to belong to the Socialist party, but has not been a party member for many years. Last Sunday Mrs. Kelley was present at the mass meeting of the Christian Socialist Fellowship, when Eugene V. Debs spoke.

She was there when everybody else on the program spoke; but when she heard his wonderful plea for the woman who is not “fallen” but “knocked down;” for his sisters who are forced by a cruel and heartless system to sell their honor for a living, when she heard him declare, in a voice broken with emotion, that he honors these sisters of his and places his arm about them, and takes his stand by their side, Mrs. Kelley could not hear more.

Her face was flushed, and I saw the tears she wouldn’t let come to her eyes, as she exclaimed: “I am ashamed to be out of the party that has a man like that at its head! I’ll take out my membership card for him tomorrow.”

And her word is as good as her bond. Welcome to another new comrade!-The New York Evening Call.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist Woman: A Message from Theresa Malkiel to Her Sisters in Toil: “Come, Arise!”

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Quote T Malkiel, Sisters Arise, Sc Woman p10, July 1908
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday July 1, 1908
Theresa Malkiel Speaks to “Sisters in Toil”

From The Socialist Woman of July 1908:

MY SISTERS lN TOIL

Theresa Malkiel.

Theresa Malkiel 1874-1949, wiki

Listen my sisters! I have made up my mind to talk it over with you. I have toiled from morn to night, from week to week, from year to year, without any bright memories of the past or dreams for the, future. Like you, I have lived to work. Each day brought forth the same dull program; the only variation being the time when work was slack, and then the fear of the morrow made matters still worse. We girls of the same workroom often rebelled against our nerve and body tearing tasks, often wished for a glimpse of the clear sky and the bright sunshine, the green fields and shady woods, which very few of us ever got a chance to enjoy. But what was the use of complaining? We saw no remedy for it, and what was more, didn’t care to look for one.

It is true there was the possibility of marriage, but how many of us look forth to married life as a relief from hard burdens, as easier living. What with the housework and small babies, that come soon enough, a few boarders or some homework, or the job of a janitress, there is little time for recreation, or thought for better things.

Toilers live the life of animals—that is work, and sleep, with short intervals for food. Now let us put our heads together and see if this is right; if things ought to, and will, go on for ever in this way.

I know you will say: “What is the use? We’ll not change the world, it’s our fate to work and struggle, and we might as well accept the inevitable. We are too tired to think, or read what others have thought out for us; when bones ache and the head reels, the bed, even if it is a hard one, is more inviting than the most attractive lecture room.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist Woman: Personal Liberty “As Some of Us See It” by Grace Woodward Smith

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Women are tired of being “included,”
tired of being taken for granted.
They demand definite recognition,
even as men have it.
-Josephine Conger Kaneko

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday May 13, 1908
From The Socialist Woman, A Monthly Magazine

On Women and Liberty by Grace Woodward Smith, Socialist Woman, May 1908

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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason Announces Socialist Party Convention & Socialist Women Send A Message

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Women are tired of being “included,”
tired of being taken for granted.
They demand definite recognition,
even as men have it.
-Josephine Conger Kaneko

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 11, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – National Convention of Socialist Party of America

From the Appeal to Reason of May 9, 1908:

The Convention
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Socialist Party of America Button

The greatest political convention ever held in the interest of the working class in the United States will begin its deliberations on May 10th in the city of Chicago. This convention will represent every state and territory in the union and it will be the only political convention which will adopt a platform and name national candidates wholly in the name, and for the benefit of the working class.

Compared to the conventions of capitalist parties this will be a unique gathering. It will consist of both men and woman and its deliberations will be marked by the one unvarying purpose to faithfully express in political terms the economic interests of the working class….

The Appeal sends greetings to the delegates assembled at Chicago. It has full faith in their ability to clearly see the important duties which lie before them, and in their fidelity to discharge those duties with equal credit to themselves and the party.

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[Photograph added.]

From The Socialist Woman of May 1908:

ARE THE INTERESTS OF MEN AND WOMEN IDENTICAL?
A Suggestion to the National Convention
—–

Josephine C. Kaneko.

Josephine Conger Kaneko, 1904 as M Josephine Conger, Little Love and Nature Poems

It is an oft repeated phrase among Socialist agitators that the interests of men and women of the working class are identical, and therefore there should be no methods of education and appeal instituted for one sex alone; but that all efforts of this kind should be directed from one point, whether it be newspaper, pamphlet, street corner or platform, to all persons regardless of sex, creed or color.

And on this theory our educational work has proceeded, in this country at least, for the past quarter of a century. That is, we think we have proceeded on this theory. But it does not take very careful thought on the matter to discover that we have not acted in accordance with our theory at all, but have worked always as a matter of expediency along the line of least resistance with the male portion of humanity. It has never been very likely that we could reach the workingman in his wife’s kitchen or nursery, or her little parlor, and as it has seemed more expedient to work with him than with her, we have followed him to his lair—to the street corner, to the trade union hall, to the saloon. We have opened our locals in localities where he could be most easily reached, and have accommodated the environment to his tastes and needs. The little room at the rear of the saloon has not been so comfortable as his wife’s parlor or sitting room, and sometimes no larger. but he has felt more at ease in it when congregating with other men, so the locals have in some instances been established in the rear rooms of saloons, and frequently in other dreary, comfortless halls which are always obnoxious to women.

We have said, half-heartedly, that women could come to our locals in these dreary places. But they haven’t cared to come to any great extent, any more than the men would have cared to meet in the women’s parlors. It has been plainly a discrimination in favor of one sex above another. But it has always seemed a matter of expediency.

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