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 – Tuesday November 10, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – 5,000 Children Go to School Hungry
From The Socialist Woman of November 1908:
American School Children Starving
Chicago Tribune of October 5, 1908
When we are talking of the number of men who are tramping the country looking for work—hungry, broken-spirited, abject creatures, who once thought themselves men, as good as any of their kind—let us not forget the women, and the little children of these men.
Last winter in Chicago after the first flurry of the panic, I had occasion to visit a number of the “homes” of those who had been thrown out of work. In every case the men were out, hunting feverishly for the chance to make even a little money by any kind of hard labor. And in every case my heart ached and my soul grew sick when I thought of the future of the women and children of those families.
“It is awful when the children cry for food, and we cant give it to them,” said one woman who had never before known what it was to be down and out. Another mother, about thirty, and strong and handsome, had to sit by and watch her seven-year-old daughter burning with fever, and without the care of a doctor because she had lost her job in a department store, and there was no money even to buy food. She had applied for work at all the large stores again and again. She had tried everywhere—and was told that they might need her during the holidays. But the holidays were weeks away. Already she had moved into a questionable quarter because rent was cheap. And unless that mother got work within two weeks, there was but one resource left her, if she would save herself and her child from death through starvation. And that was the sale of her body.
It was for a charitable institution I was working—and I knew that those institutions were crowded to their utmost with destitute cases.
Such, indeed, was the condition of the poor in Chicago last winter, that the superintendent of compulsory education, W. Lester Bodine, took up the case of hungry school children, followed his investigations for six months, and finally ascertained that there are 5,000 starving children, and 10,000 that are underfed, in the schools of the city.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 31, 1908
Philadelphia Police Club and Arrest Supporters of Comrade Debs
From the Appeal to Reason of October 24, 1908:
“Riot” to Hear Debs!
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The Philadelphia Inquirer October 12, 1908
The Philadelphia North American, under scare head lines, tells a story which has no parallel in the history of political gatherings in America. Debs was scheduled to speak in three halls in different parts of Philadelphia and long before the doors opened the streets were jammed with men, women and children who were not only anxious to hear the message of Socialism, but willing to pay for this privilege as well!
Says the North American: “Crowds packed every hall, 7,000 being the estimated number inside while as many more lined the streets outside.”
So great was the anxiety of the hungry multitude to listen to the gospel of Socialism that they crowded the doors and became frantic in their efforts to get on the inside.
There was no disorder, yet the police proceeded to club inoffensive women and children and arrest men who protested against the outrages. Here is the North American’s version of the activity of the police:
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 29, 1908
Candidate Eugene Debs on Ideals and Purpose of Socialist Party
From the Appeal to Reason of October 24, 1908:
Get This Magazine.
—–
The Independent, published at 130 Fulton st., New York, will, in its issue of October 15, contain an article by Eugene V. Debs, entitled “The Socialist Party’s Appeal!” As a plain statement of what Socialism is and the relation of the Socialist party to the real vital questions of the day, its equal has not appeared.
This article is one of a series contributed to the Independent by each of the seven presidential candidates. The number containing Comrade Debs’ article will be mailed postpaid by the publishers to any address for ten cents.
———-
From the New York Independent of October 15, 1908:
The Socialist Party’s Appeal
BY EUGENE V. DEBS
CANDIDATE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
At a public meeting in New York City some months ago the present Presidential candidate of the Republican party was asked this question: [“]What is a man to do who is out of work in a financial panic and is starving?”
This is an intensely human as well as a very practical question. It epitomizes the problem of the unemployed and places it in bold relief. It is not too much to say that the future welfare and progress of our country-aye, the fate of civilization itself-depends upon a correct solution of this problem. In view of the supreme importance of the question it might naturally be expected that the Republican party would offer some practical and well-defined method of dealing with it, and one might suppose that the party’s standard-bearer would be in a position clearly to expound that method in making reply to his interrogator. But how pitifully inadequate was the answer! It is at least creditable to Mr. Taft’s honesty that he frankly replied, “God knows!”
When Mr. Kern, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Democratic party, was asked recently what his party proposed to do for the relief of the unemployed, he is reported to have answered, “Nothing directly, nothing socialistic. We hope that carrying out the general ideas in our platform will so restore confidence that industry will start up again. But that’s about all. In fact, that’s enough.”
These answers are not cited for any partisan purpose, but because they serve admirably to illustrate the really essential difference between the Socialist party and its most formidable political rivals. The Socialist party does not refer this important problem to the Deity for solution. It recognizes the fact that it is of human creation and must be solved by human effort. It proposes to do something “directly,” something “socialistic,” for the relief of the unemployed. The Socialist party recognizes the serious nature of the unemployed problem and aims to solve it in the only way it can be solved, namely, by removing its cause. As means of temporary relief, applicable during the period of transition to a collective system of industry, the party proposes “immediate government relief for the unemployed workers by building schools, by reforesting of cut-over and waste lands, by reclamation of arid tracts and the building of canals, and by extending all other useful public works.” Both from the standpoint of effectiveness and that of practicability this program may be offered without comment in lieu of Mr. Taft’s “God knows!” and Mr. Kern’s “hope” of restored confidence.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 23, 1908
Adventures of the Overall Brigade Enroute to Chicago
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of September 19, 1908:
[J. H. Walsh on the I.W.W’s Red Special, Part II of II.]
In Seattle we held several good meetings and then departed for the east. We met a very nice train crew apparently, out of Seattle. They claimed to all be union men, but they proved to be cheap dogs of the railroad. Fearing such a large bunch, they telegraphed ahead to Auburn Junction for a force to take us off. When we arrived at the junction we were surrounded by a band of railroad officials-the papers stated there were 25-when we were covered by guns and told to unload. We were marched to jail and held over night. In the morning the writer was separated from the bunch, but finally we were all turned loose. Being separated, we did not learn until evening where each and all were. However, all except the writer had gotten back to Seattle, and secured the services of Attorney Brown, to take up the case, should it become necessary. It was not necessary. The boys held a street meeting in Seattle, and part started from there for Spokane, over one road, and the rest over another road.
We continued our work of propaganda without missing a single date, and all re-united at Spokane, where we held several good meetings. Leaving Spokane, we took in Sandpoint, Idaho, and then rambled into Missoula, Montana, where we had some of the best meetings of all the places along the route.
We put the “Starvation Army” on the bum, and packed the streets from one side to the other. The literature sales were good, the collections good, and the red cards containing the songs sold like hot cakes.
At Missoula, Mont., we have completed two full week’s work on the road. We left Portland with 20 members. We lost 4 of them, but we picked up one at Seattle, and two at Spokane, so our industrial band is practically the same as when we started.
Am I to die, starving in the midst of plenty?
Or shall I die fighting?
For my part, a thousand times over,
I’ll die fighting before I’ll die starving.
-J. H. Walsh
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Hellraisers Journal Monday September 21, 1908
Billings, Montana – Mrs. Hazlett Encounters Walsh and His Army
From the Socialist Montana News of September 17, 1908:
On Mrs. Hazlett’s trip to Red Lodge, where the Labor day committee refused to let her speak after having engaged her, she spoke Saturday night at Billings. She had to combat a patent medicine doctor, another street fakir, and J. H. Walsh was there also with his industrial army. This “army” is a curious development of the unemployed protest. It will be remembered that J. H. Walsh was the first editor of the Montana News. He has since been a national organizer for I. W. W., and has been speaking along the coast, and through the western country. He has recently organize this hobo army of twenty, and they are on their way to the convention of the Industrial Workers of the World at Chicago.
They hobo it through the country and camp out. Mrs. Walsh goes through on a Pullman and he takes the baggage. They sing songs of the red flag and revolution, sell literature and take collections. They do not talk for socialism, but only for industrial unionism. Walsh does not believe in political action at all, but only in “direct action.” At the same time he says their propaganda is addressed to the large ranks of the unemployed, floaters, who are disfranchised because of no place to stay. Such work as the “hobo army” does may arouse the spirit of revolt in this class made miserable by society’s injustice, and so teach the only possible remedy for these terrible evils-the ownership by all mankind of the means of life.
The needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not forever perish. -Psalm 9:18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Monday August 1, 1898
From Commonwealth, Georgia – George Howard Gibson Speaks
From the Appeal to Reason of July 30, 1898:
[Part I of article by George Howard Gibson]
“When a man finds himself going down and down, without power to mend things, freezing, hungering and dying by inches, he’s sure to get desperate, In the last week I’ve been an atheist, anarchist and devil. I’ve sat here and cried out that there was no God except for the rich. I’ve said that if I could get down stairs I’d burn and kill. I’ve looked at my wife and children with murder In my heart.”
Those words were spoken to a reporter for the New York World by a sick man, living with his wife and children in a dingy room on the third floor of a miserable tenement house in New York City. There are millions in like circumstances, landless, homeless, destitute—and they are wealth producers. They are workers, but they must beg for a job and pay tribute for each day’s work when men choose to hire them.
When products cannot be sold at a net profit, the workers can get nothing to do and have no income to live on.
Read another item clipped from a New York paper of about the same date:
At a dinner party given in New York the other day to thirty-three persons, the bill was $6,500, or $200 a plate.
Am I to die, starving in the midst of plenty?
Or shall I die fighting?
For my part, a thousand times over,
I’ll die fighting before I’ll die starving.
-J. H. Walsh
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday July 30, 1908
National I. W. W. Organizer Reports from the Pacific Northwest
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of July 25, 1908:
SHALL WE DIE STARVING, OR SHALL WE DIE FIGHTING?
[by J. H. Walsh]
We are confronting a new condition in the labor movement in the northwest, and judging from all the labor reports it is the same throughout the United States, as well as many of the foreign countries.
Every train in this country is loaded with dozens of “hoboes” (working men looking for jobs), and in some instances there are hundreds in place of dozens. Last night there arrived on one train in this city [Spokane?] 313 men who were beating their way. The previous night 73 arrived in one box car, and in another car 53. The men coming to the headquarters report the same news day after day, and that is that the unemployed army is growing larger and larger.
There are ten men in the harvest fields in this country for every job. They are working for as low as 75 cents per day. There are women and children in this country actually starving. This is not the worst. The worst is yet to come. After the harvest is over the hundreds who secured work, although at small wages, will return to the army of unemployed. Its ranks will be swelled again. And swelled just on the verge of winter, when hardships will be added to the workers’ struggles for an existence.
Those who are getting their “feet under dad’s table,” coupled with those who have a job sufficiently remunerative to eke out an existence, will stand united with the philosophers in passing resolutions condemning the conditions-Bryan, “God Knows” Taft, etc., etc. But resolutions, no matter how philosophically drawn, will not fill empty stomachs.
I am with the “down-and-outs”-I am broke. I am in a land of plenty. Am I to die, starving in the midst of plenty? Or shall I die fighting? For my part, a thousand times over, I’ll die fighting before I’ll die starving.
The unemployed were clubbed by the police
under republican Mayor Busse in Chicago
and under democratic Mayor McClellan in New York.
-Ben Hanford, 1908 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday June 28, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – Republican Party to Unemployed: “Go and eat grass!”
From the Socialist Montana News of June 25, 1908:
Ben Hanford and Republicans
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“GO AND EAT GRASS” IS ADVICE.
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Socialist Candidate for Vice President
Scores Hypocrisy and Vulgarity
of Wall Street’s Recent Convention.
—–
“Go and Eat Grass!”
“If the people have no bread, why don’t they eat cake?”
So says the national convention of the republican party to the more than five million unemployed men in the United States. What sweet consolation to them and the twenty millions of people dependent on them.
We are a prosperous people, declared the leaders of the convention.
We have wealth to the value of $110,000,000,000, more than one quarter of all the wealth on earth.
We make more than one-third of the world’s modern manufactured products.
The republican convention was opened each day with prayer, and by a different clergyman—but there is no evidence that it was closed with a benediction.
The delegates considered themselves “the people”, and therefore they could truly say “the people” were prosperous. It was a convention of lawyers, office holders and millionaires. Why shouldn’t Senator Burrows be prosperous? For thirty-nine years he has drawn pay from a city, county, state or national treasury. Why shouldn’t Senator Lodge be prosperous? He graduated from Harvard Law School thirty-three years ago, and has been fed at the public crib for twenty-five of the years since past. These worthies fear lest socialism would “have the nation own the people.”
Women of the World, Unite.
You have double chains to lose
and you have the world to gain.
-May Wood Simons
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 31, 1908
Chicago, Illinois: City of the Impoverished Men, Women and Children
From the Montana News of May 21, 1908:
Extracts from the speech of May Wood Simons at the opening of the Chicago convention:
When his auditors had come back from he heights to which Wanhope had lifted them, it remained for May Wood Simons to take them down into the Valley of the Shadow. It is safe to say that such a stirring appeal to the heart of an American audience was never made before. Before Mrs. Simons had spoken for five minutes there was hardly a dry eye in the house.
The sobs of women resounded through the vast auditorium. In one of the front seats William D. Haywood, who came through his great persecution and trial at Boise without batting an eyelash-the man who did not even pale before danger and death when they menaced him and his-was crying openly.
At the press table the hardened reporters, who have seen misery in all its many forms time and again, until their very souls were calloused, were coughing suspiciously and unbidden tears were falling on the shorthand notes of the speech. It was a masterpiece of pathos, that simple description of “The State of Things as They Are.”
Plain Little Recital.
And yet there was nothing theatrical about the little statement. It did not savor of the dramatic in the least. It was just a plain little recital of fact. That was all. And yet a big six-footer just behind the writer of this article was blubbering like a baby. And he was a magazine writer, too. Not for a small magazine, but for one of the most prominent in America.
Hellraisers Journal, Monday May 4, 1908
Cities Across the Nation: Despairing Men Search for New Masters
From the Appeal to Reason of May 2, 1908:
Slaves Looking for Masters.
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In every city of the country there are to be found many sad and despairing men, trudging from place to place, or standing in small groups in earnest conversation. These men are not tramps, hoboes or loafers, but the involuntary idle; men, honest and industrious workingmen, who have lost their jobs and now wander and wonder where and when employment is to be found.
These men are of the wealth producers of the nation, but under the existing competitive system the markets of the world have been overstocked and orders countermanded, and as the employers of labor could no longer employ them with profit, the mill, shop and factory were closed down to await more favorable market conditions, while the unfortunate employes have been set adrift.
But what of those dependent upon the idle workers for food, raiment and shelter? Ah, me, that is not a matter of concern to the employers. When times become extremely severe and threaten revolt, the wife or daughter of the employer, “out of pity for the poor,” will attend a “charity” ball gowned in five thousand dollars worth of silks and diamonds, presenting a ten dollar ticket of admission. Beyond this the employers have little or no interest in their slaves.
When the shop and factory again need labor power, when it can again be employed with profit to the employers-the owners of the machine, the gigantic tool of production-they well know it will be found at the gate knocking and pleading for permission to enter…..
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