Hellraisers Journal: “The Betrayal of the West Virginia Red Necks” by Fred Merrick, Editor of Pittsburgh Justice, Part II

8th July 20238th July 2023 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913 ————–

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 8, 1913
Socialist Editor Fred Merrick on the Betrayal of the West Virginia Miners, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:

[Part II of II]

The National officials of the union called a convention April 22, 1913, at Charleston, of delegates from Paint and Cabin Creeks and Coal River strike zones. When this convention was convened it was found that more than 90 per cent of the delegates and two officials of the union were bitterly opposed to the governor’s proposition, which was simply the bare ultimatum of the operators. These delegates for days arose and rehearsed the year of bitter suffering as conclusive argument why they should not go, back on such a basis of compromise.

Day after day the officials argued and coaxed and threatened. The “pay-roll” worked the streets and hotel lobbies at night like ward heeling politicians, recalcitrant delegates were doped in saloons and every dirty trick known to labor union politics was attempted. On Wednesday evening Harold W. Houston, at that time Secretary of the Socia]ist party of West Virginia and attorney for the U. M. W. of A. made a radical Socialist speech which was applauded vigorously by the miners. He won their confidence.

But Friday, April 25th, rolled around and the “God damn red necks couldn’t be controlled,” a prominent official put it. The miners wouldn’t accept the compromise. Hatfield became impatient over the inability of Haggerty, Vasey & Company to deliver the goods, and he issued his ultimatum of April 25. With this as a club the officials tried to scare the “red necks,” but men who had fought Baldwin guards and faced machine guns and dum-dum bullets weren’t much afraid of the threats of a Hatfield.

So the last trick was pulled from the stacked cards of craft union politics. Harold Houston was approached. He was made to believe that it was the best thing for the miners to go back. He was then told that he was the only one the miners had confidence enough in to listen to and that if he would advocate their acceptance of the proposition the delegates would accede. Houston weakened and agreed that on condition that a communication be sent the governor interpreting “discrimination” to mean that no striker should be refused employment he would advise acceptance. This was done and the miners reluctantly followed the advice of their trusted lawyer “leader” and adjourned April 26th with the distinct understanding that the national officials would stand by them against any discrimination-that “all or none must return to work.”

But the operators saw that the miners had begun to weaken and they gave Hatfield to distinctly understand that the “agitators” would not be taken back. And despite the months of persecution and the imprisonment of many Socialists, there were scores more on the creeks. Hatfield, true to his capitalist interests, immediately issued his now famous 24-hour ultimatum of April 27th threatening deportation to all miners and sympathizers unless every miner in the strike zone was at work Monday morning, April 28th, and in this, distinctly said regarding the re-employment of all the strikers, “It would be presumptuous for me to tell employers whom they should employ.” Everyone understood immediately that the “agitators” would not get back. Hundreds refused to apply for work as being a violation of the action of the convention of April 22nd, and the solemn pledges of the national officials that they would stand by the men and support them in a continuance of the strike if they did not all get back.

Despite the governor’s outrageous and unconstitutional conduct which was in addition a violation of his own flowery promises, Joe Vasey, who had been conveniently left in charge of the situation by Haggerty, issued a statement to the press which was published Monday morning as follows: “At 9:30 p. m. Governor Hatfield called up the President at Clarksburg.” Yet with the villain responsible for these outrages present, Vice President Hayes, whose “Socialism” has been used as a bait for the radical miners for years, introduced Hatfield to the miners in a disgustingly laudatory fashion and the governor then proceeded to make a speech characteristic of the finished politician, in which he said he was the laboring man’s governor and that “By God the interests don’t control me.”

Following this was the advent of the Socialist National Investigating Committee. This committee’s report should be reviewed at length, but that is impossible here. Harsh terms must be used in dealing with it, but ample proof can be adduced for every charge including personal witnesses if necessary.

The writer charges that when Debs says that the conduct of the committee was received with rejoicing and enthusiasm he either ignorantly or intentionally misrepresents the facts as scores of witnesses can be produced to prove the contrary.

The writer further brands as absolute falsehood the statement that the court martialing of “Mother” Jones, Brown, Boswell, Parsons and others occurred under Glasscock. Hatfield was inaugurated on March 4th. The Governor had full control of martial law and under Hatfield’s administration the drumhead court martial sat on March 7th and placed on trial 51 persons. The sessions of this court continued until March 12th. More than this, it can be proven that the committee’s attention was called to this error before they left Charleston and yet they deliberately returned to Chicago and sent broadcast to the country a statement they had been informed was unqualifiedly false. Witnesses can be produced to prove this also.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Betrayal of the West Virginia Red Necks” by Fred Merrick, Editor of Pittsburgh Justice, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II

2nd April 20233rd April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 2, 1913
Ralph Chaplin on the Attack by the Bull Moose Special Upon Strikers’ Colony

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

[Part II of III.]

The operators, realizing that violence has always been their big trump, thought they would have everything their own sweet way when trouble started. Everything was in their favor-armed guards and regiments of militiamen-so why should they not feel confident? But it is evident that the miners have fooled them. The miner knew the hills better than the blood-hounds that were sent to track them down. After a few months of it, the odds are just about even, and the fight is not half over. Soldiers in the strike zone are becoming uneasy and are using the slightest excuse to make a getaway. Many of the guards have deserted their posts of duty in a panic. One hundred and fifty of them have paid for treason to their class with their lives! They are in mortal fear of the time when the bleak hillsides will be covered with greenery-when “the leaves come out!“

The miners have been hounded into the using of violence. Just an instance in which the above-mentioned armored train figures conspicuously: This train is called, for some reason or other, the Bull Moose Special. Needless to state, it is thoroughly hated by the miners. The engineer and fireman and others of the train crew are reported to be extremely proud of the union cards they carry. This hellish contraption was a lovely plaything to put into the hands of the cut-throat, coyote-hearted guards and, like children with a new pop-gun, they were simply aching for an opportunity to use it against the strikers. The opportunity soon presented itself. Just how it came about nobody seems to know. The guards claim that some of the miners had fired into an ambulance carrying wounded mine-guards to the hospital. The strikers claim that the train was first used to avenge the death of a couple of guards who had been held to account for insulting some of the girls in the tent village. I, myself, have spoken with miners who claim to have been eye-witnesses to the insulting of these girls.

Mine guards are noted for their inhuman and brutal treatment of the women of the miners. Their authoritative positions often gave them advantages over the helpless women, especially in the absence of the men, and the full record of their unrestrained animal viciousness will never be written. Between the miners and the guards there is an open war to the knife. More than once these Kanawha cossacks have evicted mothers, in the pangs of childbirth, from company houses, and children have been born in the tents of the strikers while the murderous bullets of the guards were whistling and zipping through the canvas. At all events these cut-throats of the coal operators had the long wished for chance to use the Bull Moose special. They would have their revenge.

So in the dead of night, and with all lights extinguished, the Death Train drew up over the sleeping tent village at Holly Grove and opened fire with machine gun and rifle. Miners’ huts were torn to splinters and tents were riddled with bullets. One woman had both legs broken by the murderous rain of lead; and a miner, holding an infant child in his arms and running from his tent to the shelter of a dugout, fell, seriously wounded. The baby was, by some miracle, unhurt, but three bullet holes had tattered the edge of its tiny dress. Men, women and children ran hastily through the dark night seeking the cold security of the woods. The miners, as could be expected, were desperate enough to do most anything and returned the fire as best they could. Bonner Hill, sheriff of Kanawha county, who was only elected by a small and suspicious majority over Tincher the Socialist, candidate, was on the train, and it is claimed by the train crew that it was he who gave the order to fire the first murderous volley.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part I

1st April 20233rd April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 1, 1913
Ralph Chaplin on Striking Miners and Military Despotism in West Virginia

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

[Part I of III.]

“THEY got my gun when they run me out of the creek, but I done borried my buddy’s, and I’m goin’ back.” This is what a slender, grimy lad of sixteen told me one night in the freight yards of a town not far from the martial law zone. He was picking coal for his mother and sisters at “home” in the tent. His father was in the bull-pen at Pratt. The boy had a bullet wound on his shoulder and numerous bayonet holes in the seat of his ragged breeches. “Took seven of them to run me out,” he boasted, with a grin.

“What are they doing to you all down there?” I asked.

“It isn’t what they’re doin’; it’s what they’re trying to do. If they had their way about it, they’d give us hell-but we won’t let ’em. It’s a whole lot better living in a tent than in a company shack, and we’re just goin’ to stick there until we win. Just wait till the leaves come out, so they cain’t see us. Buddy, we’ll show ’em!”

After spending four or five days in the strike region and talking with hundreds of miners, I can say that the boy summed up the entire situation in his few words. The strikers have “kicked over the traces” and have made up their minds to win at all costs. They are determined to do this all by themselves, if necessary-and in their own way.

In spite of the “heart throb” articles in some of the daily papers, these people are not objects of pity. They are doing pretty well in their tents. There is no atmosphere of martyrdom about these fighting West Virginians-nothing but a grim good humor and an iron determination. There is no pretense about them-no display. They are in deadly earnest, and they mean business. Lots of kind-hearted people who would shed tears for the “poor miners” living in tents would probably think these same miners in their right places if they were picking away at a coal bank in some black pit. The fact that many of the strikers seem to rather enjoy the situation and rest from the mines makes some of the local respectables furious with rage. It isn’t just what one would expect of a striker to see him holding his head high and walking around as if he owned the whole valley.

Of course, there are sufferings and hardships. Many men wear mourning on their hats and many women have husbands, brothers or fathers in the bullpens-but they are going to win this strike; they are sure of it, and this fact makes them feel equal to anything.

It is true that they have tasted of hell since the strike began, but before that time they lived in hell all the time. Conditions in West Virginia are and have been without parallel in the United States. Peonage and serfdom have flourished under the most brutal forms. West Virginia is the one state that has tried to make abject slaves of its miners-that has herded them in peon pens without a vestige of “constitution” liberty, with cut-throat mine guards to protect them from the contaminating influence of organizers and agitators.

For many years the grisly vampire of Greed has fluttered its condor wings and fattened on the very heart’s blood of these men-helpless for want of effective organization. Miners are working in company towns who seldom see money-nothing but paper script-men who dare not speak a word of criticism of the intolerable conditions under which they labor, or even hint that organization is desirable. The blacklist and the brutal mine guards are every ready to punish such indiscretions.

Women have been beaten on the breasts and kicked into convulsions while in a state of pregnancy-men have been shot up and man-handled, all because they had dared to raise their voices in protest. Indignity after indignity has been heaped upon the workers in the hell-holes of this state, until they have united into one big Brotherhood of Revolt. They are standing shoulder to shoulder with the only weapons available in their hands, fighting to overthrow the dismal industrial despotism that is crushing them. These miners are remarkable in many ways. In spite of all they have endured, their spirits have not been broken. They have been hoarding their hate for many years and biding their time. At present they are waiting for the leaves to come out.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: One Big Union Wins Great Victory at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Part III

5th April 20226th April 2022 Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912

quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 5, 1912
Lawrence Textile Strikers Win Great Victory with I. W. W., Part III of IV

From the International Socialist Review of April 1912:

ONE BIG UNION WINS

By LESLIE H. MARCY and FREDERICK SUMNER BOYD

5,000 to 20,000 Strikers Formed the Endless Chain Picket Line
Every Morning from 5 to 7:30 A. M., Rain or Shine.-Boston Globe

Brute force was not, however, the only weapon used by the bosses to try to crush the workers. They had allied with them the A. F. of L., the Catholic church and the Civic Federation a very holy trinity!

Two days after the strike was called John Golden, a member of the Militia of Christ, wired Mayor Scanlon, who had called for militia, asking whether he could be of any assistance to the authorities in suppressing the “rabble,” which he described as anarchistic. Golden and the Lawrence Central Labor Union, affiliated with the A. F. of L., joined in praising the authorities for importing soldiers, and declared that their presence was necessary for “the preservation of order.”

Neither by word nor deed did Golden or the C. L. U. condemn the authorities or their tools for the barbarities and atrocities committed. Vice President Ramsden of the C. L. U., whose two daughters were scabbing in the Arlington mill, when interviewed by the writer was loud in his praises of the militia and the authorities, referred to the I. W. W. as an anarchistic organization that fomented violence and lawlessness, and declared it should be suppressed. He asserted that there was no strike and no organization-only a rabble. When he was asked about the dynamite plot engineered by the bosses through their tool John J. Breen, he naturally refused to comment.

Golden publicly declared that the program of the I. W. W. had acted very much to the advantage of the Textile Workers Union, as it was bringing the latter in closer touch with the mill owners, who understood that it would be more to their interests to deal with the organization, he, Golden, represented rather than with the revolutionary and uncompromising I. W. W.

After having wired, proffering his assistance to the chief of police, Golden got busy in other directions. The mule spinners, numbering according to their own officials, some 180 men, were the only body organized in Lawrence that was affiliated with the A. F. of L. Golden’s union did not have a single member in the whole city. Nevertheless he, in conjunction with Joe R. Menzie, president of the C. L. U., issued circulars to all C. L. U. bodies asking for funds to aid the strike and expressly asking them not to send assistance to the I. W. W.

Then the C. L. U. opened a separate fund. So, too, did Father Melasino, and a man by the name of Shepherd appeared on the scene with some sort of free lunch counter, also appealing for funds.

These various appeals for financial assistance, all made in the name of the strikers of Lawrence, and all calculated to injure the I. W. W. succeeded in diverting large sums of money, the C. L. U. benefiting largely at the expense of the I. W. W. Several times committees from the I. W. W. went to the C. L. U. with evidence that money had been misdirected, but restitution was invariably refused.

Here it may be said that in the seventh week of the strike the C. L. U. strike relief station was practically suspended, applicants being told that the strike was off and that they should return to the mills.

Golden’s next move was to endeavor to organize rival labor unions based on the many crafts in the mills. For several days strenuous attempts were made to divide the workers in the old, old way. Meetings were called by Golden and Menzie, a great deal of money was spent on so-called organizing which had been contributed to the relief funds, and every effort was made to break the solidarity of the workers and get them to return piecemeal.

These efforts failed, the only result being that when the bosses made an offer of five per cent increase over the cut rates—equivalent to an increase of one and one-eighth per cent—a handfull of double-dyed scabs whom Golden had secured to do his work went into the mills.

Golden has shown himself in this fight in his true light, and all the world knows him for a traitor to the working class, and his craft unions are a thing of the past. What Golden did was merely in accord with the policy and doings of the official A. F. of L., and many of the rank and file of the Federation have already woke up to the game of their alleged leaders.

The Ironmolders’ Union that was affiliated with the Lawrence C. L. U. denounced in a resolution the doings of Golden and his gang and withdrew their affiliation. A motion denouncing Golden and his tactics was lost in the Boston Central Labor Union by a vote of 18 to 16. The Central Federated Union of New York City, one of the slimiest haunts of the professional labor crooks in America, even passed a resolution virtually telling Golden to keep his hands off. The Philadelphia Textile Workers’ Union, which had received the Golden appeal, reprinted the I. W. W. appeal for funds and sent several thousand dollars to the I. W. W. war chest.

The latest development in Philadelphia is that 2,000 textile workers have requested I. W. W. organizers to go there and organize a local. All over the country local A. F. of L. unions have denounced Golden and his official friends, and the rank and file of the A. F. of L. has gone on record solidly in favor of their class and against their officials.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: One Big Union Wins Great Victory at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part II: Found Denouncing the Private Army of Gunthugs Ruling West Virginia

9th February 20229th February 2022 Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921

Quote Mother Jones re RR Men Haul Gunthugs n Scab Coal, Coshocton Tb OH p3, Sept 17, 1921 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 9, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1921, Part II
Found Denouncing Government by Gunthug in the State of West Virginia

From The New Castle Herald of September 6, 1921:

MOTHER JONES HAS SOLUTION

DECLARES FORCE OF RIGHT MUST SUPPLANT
RIGHT OF FORCE IN WEST VIRGINIA
———-

By HARRY HUNT

WASHINGTON Sept. 6.-“The secretary of war doesn’t understand. The president doesn’t understand.”

There is a great wrong being perpetrated in West Virginia. This wrong will not be corrected by jailing miners or shooting them. It will be settled only by social and industrial justice.

It was ”Mother” Jones speaking. She had just left the office of Secretary of War Weeks, where she had gone to protest against the sending of federal troops into the zone of the West Virginia mine war.

“Just what is the situation?” she was asked. “You were there last week. What is the trouble?”

[Mother Jones replied:]

The miners under arms in West Virginia are not fighting the government, either state or nation. But they are determined to defend themselves from the oppression and domination of the hired gunmen of the mine operators who constitute a private army of the interests in West Virginia.

Companies Obdurate

The government rendered a decision on the wage question in this district in 1919. But the mine companies have not recognized the authority of the government in that decision and have not followed it.

The men, being Americans, revolted. They sent out word asking to be organized.

Then they were thrown out of the miserable company shacks in which they lived.

The mine workers in this district are robbed to pay an army of professional murderers, maintained to keep the workers in subjection.

The money that ought to go to the miner who slaves underground is diverted to maintain gunmen to enforce the demands of greedy overlords of industry.

The fathers want that money, which they earn, to help educate their children, to improve their homes, to get churches and schools and the rights of American citizens.

Force of Right

The trouble in West Virginia must be settled by the force of right, not by the right of force.

You can shoot down these men in West Virginia, but they will rise again against the outrage of being robbed to pay a private army to enforce the brutal demands of coal operators.

If the employers can form their army, the workers naturally think they can do the same. That’s logical, isn’t it?

And that situation is the ulcer from which flows all the poison. Until it is removed, there will be no peace.

Fought Same Battle

We fought this fight out in the Kanawah and New River fields 23 years ago. We had a few battles. A good many of us were put in jail. I was carried 84 miles to jail myself, to get me out of the zone where it was thought I would be troublesome.

But we got the whole of these fields organized. The gunmen had to leave. The men began to get their pay in Uncle Sam’s currency, not in company money that could only be spent at company stores.

They are living in peace today in the Kanawha and New River fields and in the Fairmont district. Their homes are happier, their work better, the relations of the men and their employers more just.

But along the Norfolk & Western in the Mingo fields, a private army rules.

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part II: Found Denouncing the Private Army of Gunthugs Ruling West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Phillips Russell on the Shopmen’s Strike against the Harriman Lines

3rd November 20213rd November 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB Oct 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 3, 1911
“Switched off the Main Line” by Phillips Russell

From the International Socialist Review of November 1911:

ON the last of September, the long delayed strike of the System Federation among the shopmen of the Harriman lines took place, extending from the middle west to the Gulf in the south and taking in all that territory westward to the Pacific ocean.

The System Federation comprises the shopmen of ten different organizations. the principal ones being the International Association of Machinists, Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Brotherhood of Blacksmiths and Helpers, International Association of Sheet Metal Workers, the steamfitters, clerks, painters, engine hostlers and members of the Federal Labor Union. The first five mentioned are the leading organizations involved. The international presidents of these unions, having had many conferences with Vice-President Kruttschnitt of the Harriman lines, finally called the strike on three lines, these lines being the Illinois Central, the Southern Pacific and the Union Pacific lines.

The union officials claimed that 25,000 men came out. The railroad heads asserted there were only a few thousand at most.

In this strike there are just two questions with which the men in the ranks need concern themselves, and these are-hours and wages. The matter of recognition early in the fight was made the most of, but of all the issues involved, this was the most insignificant. However, the Federation heads insisted on making recognition the leading demand and pushing the first two fundamentals into the background.

Of all the questions at issue, that pertaining to the hours of labor is supreme. Men on strike can afford to make the matter of wages a secondary issue. It is the hours that count, for it cannot be too often repeated that shorter hours in variably mean higher wages.

Several thousand unorganized workers followed the union men out, and having been given the impression that the revolt was for an eight hour day and better conditions, they were eager for the fight.

But on learning that the question of hours and conditions was not going to figure in the struggle, and on hearing the incessant chant of the Federation heads that they asked only recognition for the Federation, the unorganized men soon lost interest and began to drift back into the shops.

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Hellraisers Journal: Industrial Worker: “Union Scabs Working on Harriman Lines; 30,000 Shop Men on Strike”

17th October 202119th October 2021 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB Oct 1919 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 17, 1911
30,000 Shopmen on Strike on Harriman Lines; Union Scabs Continue Working

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 12, 1911:

It is estimated that there are 30,000 shop men, members of the Federated Shopmen’s Union, now on strike on the Harriman lines. The strikers comprise four crafts, which includes the blacksmiths, carmen, machinists and boilermakers. Up to the present time the men remain firm in their demands and few desertions are recorded, if any. Much of our news has come through the capitalist press and therefore we are forced to read between the lines. That there has been an earnest effort on the part of the strikers to keep the professional scabs from going to work in many places is certain. We have not heard of any bricks being thrown at the switchmen, who are also members of the A. F. of L., neither has many firemen, who are firing the coal into the engines that pull scabs around the country, had their heads knocked off.

There is some hope expressed that the strike may extend. We hope so. We hope that every craft now employed on the Harriman system will discover the fact that they are also employes of the Harriman management and have interests in common with the strikers and so long as they continue to work when four crafts are battling for better conditions, that they are scabbing. If the strike goes the way of many strikes it cannot be said that it was LOST. It will be of some benefit to the workers, as it will point the way to a more solid organization. It will demonstrate that it was not the so-called professional scabs that caused the temporary defeat, but was caused directly by the union scabs who stayed and helped the master whip those who were battling for better conditions. Until all the slaves working for the one industry and all the slaves working for all the industries recognize that “an injury to one is an injury to all” it will be a case of recording defeat after defeat. Not a train has been bottled up so far on the Harriman system and it would be absurd to say that the object in a strike is not to bottle up a railroad or other industry and FORCE the boss to come to terms. To FORCE concessions is the object of any strike, then why not have enough FORCE?

Is it creditable to go into an affray knowing that you have not enough FORCE to be victorious? Is it creditable to be always getting whipped? We hope the federated crafts will win their strike. We hope all strikes could be won. It is our one desire to not only win the little strikes known as skirmishes, but to win the BIG STRIKE when the boss will be FORCED to do his share of the work of the world instead of living off the toil of labor. If the strikers will only discover the fact that there are other scabs than professional scabs and will treat other scabs in the same way and with the same contempt as they are those who are directly taking their places or attempting to, the strike will be of short duration. Bottle up the railroad. Make the other crafts strike or forever damn them as the lowest scabs on earth. Make them fight to help you if possible. Send back their resolutions of sympathy and call a spade a spade. Call a scab a scab. Let every railroader on the Harriman lines lay down his tools or be condemned as a traitor to the working class. It’s a skirmish in the great class struggle, then fight it on class lines.

—————

[Emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1911: Found in Pittsburgh Speaking at Huge Protest Rally on Behalf of McNamara

17th June 202118th June 2021 Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III —————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 17, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1911
Found in Pittsburgh Speaking at Rally on Behalf of James McNamara

From The Pittsburg Press of May 28, 1911:

BIG RALLY BY HOSTS OF LABOR
———-
Demonstration Against McNamara “Kidnaping”
Transformed Into Meeting in Favor
of the P. R. R. Strike
———-

DEBS, “MOTHER” JONES AND DE LEON SPEAK
—–

One of the biggest labor demonstrations ever known in this community took place last night around the old bandstand in West Park, North Side, where from over 6,000 persons, mostly workingmen, gathered to listen to vehement addresses protesting against the arrest and “kidnaping” of Secretary James [John J.] McNamara, of the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. Widely-known Socialist leaders, among them Eugene V. Debs, “Mother” Jones and Daniel de Leon, were the principal speakers of the occasion.

The demonstration, which was originally instituted in behalf of McNamara, was transformed by the remarks of Mr. Debs, before the meeting was half an hour old, into a rally in the interests of the striking Pennsylvania Railroad shopmen. Debs urged every man and woman present to throw the weight of his or her influence in favor of the strikers.

The meeting was preceded by a parade half a mile long from the Labor Temple on Webster avenue to the Allegheny parks. Probably 4,000 men were in line. In the van was a large squad of the city mounted police. The procession proper was led by the local Socialistic organization, members of which turned out in large numbers. The strikers from the Twenty-eighth street shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad came next in order, and a big delegation from the Ormsby shops, on the South Side, formed the rear.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Girl Slaves of Milwaukee Breweries” by Mother Jones

14th April 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Mlk Girl Slaves n Virtue, AtR p2, Apr 9, 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 14, 1910
Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Mother Jones on Girl Slaves of Brewery Plutocrats

From the Appeal to Reason of April 9, 1910:

It is the same old story, as pitiful as old, as true as pitiful.

When the whistle blows in the morning, it calls the girl slaves of the bottle washing department of the breweries, to don their wet shoes and rags, and hustle to the bastile to serve out their sentences.

It is indeed true, they are sentenced to hard, brutal labor, labor that gives no cheer, brings no recompense. Condemned for life to drudge daily in the wash-room with wet shoes and wet clothes, surrounded with foul mouthed, brutal foremen, whose orders and language would not look well in print, and would surely shock over-sensitive ears, or delicate nerves!

And their crime? Involuntary poverty. It is hereditary. They are no more to blame for it than a horse is, for having the glanders. It is the accident of birth. This accident that throws so many girl workers into the urging, seething mass, known as the working class, is what forces them out of the cradle into servitude-to be willing (?)slaves of the mill, factory, department store, hell or bottling shop in Milwaukee’s colossal breweries.

Here they create wealth for the brewery barons, that they may own palaces, theaters, automobiles, blooded stock, farms, banks and heaven knows what all, while the poor girls slave on, all day, in the vile smell of sour beer, lifting cases of empty and full bottles, weighing from 100 to 150 pounds, while wearing wet shoes and rags; for God knows they can not buy clothes on the miserable pittance doled out to them by their soulless master class.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Women Workers of the World” -Fight for Emancipation

2nd August 201925th July 2019 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

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Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 2, 1909
“True respect for women is mostly confined to the working class.”

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 29, 1909:

THE WOMEN WORKERS OF THE WORLD

True respect for women is mostly confined to the working class. Strange as it may sound to the unthinking, and the unobserving, a woman or girl is safer from insult in any crowd of workingmen, however plain and rough, than in any crowd of idlers, however well-dressed and worthless. To take the modern miniature of Sodom, Spokane for example: decent women may pass up and down Stevens street-even among the spiritless slaves who are saying mass to the job signs of the employment sharks, and not a man who would breathe a word of offense.

How many women do not look down and feel nervous and apprehensive as they pass the crowd of loafers at the corner of Howard and Riverside streets, and these loafers are the very cream of Spokane society-yes, more, they are the refined cream, the Limburger cheese of the town. The same thing is true in all cities; it is the workingmen who are chivalrous, and the loafers who are curs.

The sharpest quote in the battle hymns of all nations has been the call to defend “wife, home and children,” but how could this affect our modern American employing class? What a task! “To defend wife?” Which wife? Which one of the modern employing class concubines could stir the spirit of bravery in the breast of a spaniel? The task is too great; too much responsibility! Love of home and wife may do well enough for a plain workingmen, but our advanced employers, with their plural marriages, have not bravery and “love” enough to go ’round.

In all ages, women, from their comparative bodily weakness, have been treated as inferiors. St. Paul says that “It is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.” Paul was right. It is a shame not only for women, but for men to speak in the church, which has been and is, one of the chief influences used to keep the female sex in submission. “Let her ask her husband at home”-for information, says Paul. Fancy a woman asking an A. F. of L. scab, with a broken back, for “information!” Men have fought and bled for religious liberty for themselves, and have thought to win real freedom by gaining the baubles of suffrage and theoretical “political” rights. The modern suffragette agitation among women may cause some of the men to smile, but they are following where the political “socialist” saints have trod-the ballot is the way, the truth and the life!

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