Hellraisers Journal: U. S. Supreme Court Legalizes the Bullpen & Preventative Arrest in Case of Moyer v Peabody

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 23, 1909
Washington, District of Columbia – U. S. Supreme Court Rules Against Moyer

From the Socialist Montana News of January 21, 1909:

Moyer v Peabody US Sp Crt, WDC Eve Str, Jan 7, 1909

Highest Court in the Land
Legalizes Bull Pen.
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Washington, Jan. 18.-The supreme court of the United States today decided against President Moyer, of the Western Federation of Miners, in the damage suit brought by him against former Governor Peabody, of Colorado, on account of Moyer’s imprisonment on the governor’s orders because of his alleged connection with riots at Telluride, Col., in 1904.

In the course of his opinion Justice Holmes said:

Right to Call Troops.

We must assume that the governor had a right under the state constitution and laws to call out troops, as was held by the supreme court of the state. The constitution is supplemented by an act providing that when an invasion of or insurrection in the state is made or threatened, the governor shall order the national guard to repel or suppress the same.

That means that he will make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that end; that he my kill persons who resist, and of course that he my use the milder methods of seizing the bodies of those whom he considers to stand in the way of restoration of peace. Such arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by way of precaution to prevent the exercise of hostile power; so long as each arrests are made in good faith and in the honest belief that they are needed in order to hold the insurrection off, the governor is the final judge and cannot be subjected to an action after he is out of office on the ground that he had no reasonable ground for his belief.

Individuals Must Yield.

When it comes to a decision by the head of the state upon a matter involving its life, the ordinary rights of individuals must yield to what he deems the necessities of the movement. Public danger warrants the substitution of executive process for judicial process.

[Newsclip added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Reveals: Roosevelt Read “Undesirable Citizen” Letter to Supreme Court Justices

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Ring Out May Ninth, O Bells of Labor;
Ring out O’er all the Nation;
This Day They Heroes Consecrate
to Thy Emancipation.
-Appeal to Reason, May 5, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 5, 1907
“Undesirable Citizen,” Eugene V. Debs, Takes on President Roosevelt

From page one of the Appeal to Reason of May 4, 1907:

COLLUSION BETWEEN ROOSEVELT
and SUPREME COURT
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BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–

HMP, EVD v Roosevelt, AtR, May 4, 1907

The one point of the most vital character in the kidnaping cases is the collusion of President Roosevelt and the Supreme court of the United States, clearly indicated in the dispatches from the white house published in the capitalist press. Read carefully the following extract from the Washington Post of April 4th:

It was ascertained at the white house yesterday that when the president wrote to Chairman Sherman (Oct. 8th, 1906), the letter which was made public yesterday, denouncing Harriman, he expected it would be made public at the time. He authorized Sherman to show it to Harriman, and the republican chairman did so. It was immediately afterward that a friend of Harriman came to Washington and assured the president that the railway magnate had not made some of the statements attributed to him by Sherman. For this reason, it is said, the president did not make public the letter then.

HE DID HOWEVER, SHOW IT TO MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, WHO MADE THE ANNUAL CALL UPON HIM THAT DAY WITH THE COMMENT THAT HE BELIEVED SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT HE DENOUNCED TOO FREQUENTLY WEALTHY EVIL-DOERS AND DID NOT CONDEMN OFTEN ENOUGH MEN OF THE HAYWOOD AND MOYER TYPE. HE, THEREFORE, TOOK CONSIDERABLE PLEASURE IN DEALING COLLECTIVELY WITH HARRIMAN AND HAYWOOD AND MOYER, ALL OF WHOM WERE MENTIONED IN THE SAME CATEGORY IN THE SHERMAN LETTER.

 

Here we have the most startling and extraordinary disclosure, inadvertently made to cover up another Roosevelt exposure, in the political history of the United States. We see the president before the supreme court pronouncing his condemnation upon three citizens on trial for their lives, in a state case which may, and probably will, be appealed to this same supreme court, and whose members are to finally decide whether these three citizens shall live or die. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Reveals: Roosevelt Read “Undesirable Citizen” Letter to Supreme Court Justices”

Hellraisers Journal: The Industrial Union Bulletin on Roosevelt’s Square Dealings with Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone

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The labor giant has slept long,
but is now awakening.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 14, 1907
From The Industrial Union Bulletin: Roosevelt’s “Square Deal”

IUB, Official Publication, IWW, April 13, 1907

The official publication of the Industrial Workers of the World yesterday discussed the remarks of President Roosevelt regarding the citizenship qualities of Comrades Debs, Moyer and Haywood, and included the statement of Bill Haywood, made in response to being termed an “undesirable citizen” by the President of the United States on the eve of his trial.

IS THIS A “SQUARE DEAL”?

HMP, Def Fund, IUB Apr 13, 1907

Nothing has happened in Theodore Roosevelt’s career as president of the United States that so entirely discredits his fitness for that position as the recent reference by him to Debs, Moyer and Haywood, as being “undesirable citizens.” The two latter are soon to appear in court and stand trial for their lives, yet the “chief magistrate” of the nation, oblivious to the ordinary rule that anyone charged with crime is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proven, has made public an opinion that must be prejudicial to their interests. It is an outrage that ranks with the unlawful acts of the mine owners and McParlands of Colorado. Neither of these men has ever been convicted of any crime, yet their case is prejudged in advance of their appearance in court. It is a shameful and brutal spectacle.

IWW, Gen Sec Trautmann, Ex Brd St J, IUB, Apr 13,1907

The facts are these: The president addressed a letter to Congressman James S. Sherman in which certain matters in dispute between himself and the railway magnate, E. H. Harriman; entirely without warrant and apparently with the sole purpose of creating prejudice against Moyer and Haywood, he denounced the conduct of Harriman in the following terms:

It shows a cynicism and deep-seated corruption which make the man uttering such statements, and boasting, no matter how falsely, of his power to perform such crime, at least as undesirable a citizen as Debs, or Moyer or Haywood.

Fellow-worker Haywood, awaiting his trial in Idaho, gave out the following statement:

 

I do not desire to make an extended statement with regard to President Roosevelt’s reference to me in his letter to Congressman Sherman.

The president says that I am an “undesirable citizen,” the inference being that, as such, I should be put out of the way. His influence is all-powerful, and his statement, coming as it does, on the eve of my trial for my life, will work me irreparable injury, and do more to prevent a fair trial than everything that has been said and done against me in the past.

President Roosevelt is the leading exponent of the doctrine of “fair play and a square deal,” but his reference to me in his letter to Sherman demonstrates that he does not practice what he preaches.

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Hellraisers Journal: As he faces the gallows, President Declares Haywood to be “UNDESIRABLE CITIZEN”

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 5, 1907
From the Montana News: Haywood Trial to Begin May 9th

HMP, Date Set Haywood Trial, Montana News, Apr 4, 1907

UNDESIRABLE CITIZENS

A letter, recently released by the President of the United States, was published in the Washington Evening Star April 2nd, wherein the President declares that Eugene Debs, Charles Moyer, and Bill Haywood are “undesirable citizens.” This follows by only one day the news that Fellow Worker William D. Haywood will go on trial for his life in Boise, Idaho, on May 9th.

The following is the relevant part of the letter written by President Roosevelt to Congressman J. S. Sherman on October 8, 1906 regarding the President’s feud with E. H. Harriman. The last paragraph of the President’s letter reads:

So much for what Mr. Harriman said about me personally. Far more important are the additional remarks he made to you as you inform me, when you asked him if he thought it was well to see Hearstism and the like triumphant over the republican party. You inform me that he told you that he did not care in the least, because those people were crooks and he could buy them; that whenever he wants legislation from a state legislature he could buy it; that he “could buy Congress,” and that if necessary he “could buy the judiciary.” This was doubtless said partly in boastful cynicism and partly in a mere burst of bad temper because of his objection to the interstate commerce law and to my actions as President. But it shows a cynicism and deep-seated corruption which make the man uttering such sentiments, and boasting, no matter how falsely, of this power to perform such crimes, at least as undesirable a citizen as Debs, or Moyer, or Haywood. It is because we have capitalists capable of uttering such sentiments and capable of acting on them that there is strength behind sinister agitators of the Hearst type. The wealthy corruptionist and the demagog who excites, in the press or on the stump, in office or out of office, class against class and appeals to the basest passions of the human soul are fundamentally alike and the are equally enemies of the republic. I was horrified, as was [Elihu] Root, when you told us today what Harriman had said to you. As I say,if you meet him you are entirely welcome to show him this letter, although, of course it must not be made public unless required by some reason of public policy, and then only after my consent has first been obtained.

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Hellraisers Journal: How the Railroad Brotherhoods Won the Battle for the Eight-Hour Day

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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, Monday October 30, 1916
Washington, D. C. – The Brotherhoods and Adamson Act

The October edition of the International Socialist Review published two articles regarding the Railroad Brotherhoods and the Adamson Act, which we have re-published in today’s Hellraisers, see below. President Wilson signed the Adamson Act into law early in September just in time to prevent a national railroad strike set to begin on Labor Day.

From the cover of the Review, October 1916:

RR Worker, The Winner, ISR, Oct 1916

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: How the Railroad Brotherhoods Won the Battle for the Eight-Hour Day”