Tag: Wage Slavery

Hellraisers Journal: From The Industrial Union Bulletin: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for I. W. W. in Philadelphia

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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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, Friday February 28, 1908
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 22, 1908:

Propaganda in Philadelphia

EGF, Girl Socialist, DEN, Sept 21, 1907

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was the speaker at the regular Sunday night meeting of the I. W. W., February 9th, in Philadelphia. Every seat in the large hall was taken and extra seats had to be arranged to accommodate those who were anxious to hear the eloquent advocate of industrial unionism.

Miss Flynn’s subject was “Socialism from a Woman’s Standpoint.” She began by stating that there is no difference between the man’s standpoint and the woman’s, as industrial development had forced the woman into the same position as the man-wage slavery. In the course of her address she rapped the craft unions and the pure and simple political Socialists impartially, and pointed to industrial unionism as the salvation of the workers, the highest and most enlightened expression of Socialism as embodied in the I. W. W. Her points were generously applauded throughout the address.

The progress made in Philadelphia is most encouraging. There are now eight locals in that city, the latest acquisition being the Independent Union of French Textile Workers, who by unanimous vote, have joined the I. W. W.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs: “A worldwide, humanity embracing revolution is on the calendar.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD Quote, cry for freedom, Duluth Truth, Feb 15, 1918
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday February 17, 1918
Eugene V. Debs on the Coming Social Revolution

From the Duluth Truth of February 15, 1918:

Towards the Rising Sun

by Eugene V. Debs

EVD by LS Chumley, ISR Jan 1916

The earth is in travail; the race is suffering from the pangs of parturition. A worldwide, humanity embracing revolution is on the calendar—in red letters—of the 20th Century. The impending social crisis is the most portentous that ever issued from the womb of time.

Historical epochs mark the growth of man, the progress of events, the rise and sweep of civilization.

Prophets and philosophers, catching the spirit of coming events, force and proclaim them; and as they approach, poets and pamphleteers, orators and agitators, dramatists and musicians, animated by the new spirit, acclaim the glad tidings of the sunrise of the morrow.

These are the heralds of the dawn; the torchbearers of progress, the evangels of advancing civilization.

Living, they are hated and reviled, crucified and damned.

Dead, they live again and forever.

Freedom is the universal shibboleth of the present age.

And as the cry for freedom surges from the soul and leaps from the lips of Labor, a thousand and million proletarians, in all the zones that girdle the globe, lift their bowed bodies from the dust, and join in the swelling anthem of the Social Revolution.

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Hellraisers Journal: “GIRL WITH A MISSION,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House in Duluth, Minnesota

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday November 27, 1907
Duluth, Minnesota – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of November 23, 1907:

THE GIRL WITH A MISSION
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Addresses a Packed House
at Duluth on Industrial Unionism

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

The visit of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to Minnesota in behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World is arousing great interest among the workers of that state. She spoke on Sunday night, November 17, at Duluth, to an audience that filled Odd Fellows’ hall. From an interesting report of the meeting in the Duluth Harald we take the following extracts:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is nothing if not earnest. Socialistic fervor seems to emanate from her expressive eyes, and even from her red dress. She is a girl with a “mission,” with a big “M,” and she delivered her sweeping generalities with perfect indifference as to where they hit.

She spoke to an audience which packed Odd Fellows’ hall last evening. There were a few labor leaders there out of curiosity; a scattering of women who were curious to see this strange school girl with the strange mission in life, and a large number of followers of the Socialistic doctrines expressed.

Characterizing the American Federation of Labor as organized scabbery, and branding it as a labor trust working injury to the majority of laborers for the benefit of the minority, the girl orator was evidently voicing the sentiments of many of her Socialistic followers in the room, but her statements in this respect made the several local labor leaders present hitch uneasily about in their chairs.

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Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs on John Brown, “the bravest man and most self-sacrificing soul in American history.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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John Brown by EVD, AtR, Nov 23, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday November 25, 1907
Eugene Debs on John Brown: “He resolved to lay his life on Freedom’s alter.”

From the Appeal to Reason of November 23, 1907:

JOHN BROWN: HISTORY’S GREATEST HERO
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BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
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John Brown, ab 1846, by A Washington, wiki

The most picturesque character, the bravest man and most self-sacrificing soul in American history, was hanged at Charleston, Va., December 2, 1859.

On that day Thoreau said: “Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified. This morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not ‘Old Brown’ any longer; he is an Angel of Light… I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it, the historian record it, and with the landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown.”

Few people dared on that fateful day to breathe a sympathetic word for the grizzled old agitator. For years he had carried on his warfare against chattel slavery. He had only a handful of fanatical followers to support him. But to his mind his duty was clear, and that was enough. He would fight it out to the end, and if need be alone.

Old John Brown set an example of moral courage and of single-hearted devotion to an ideal for all men and for all ages.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Union Bulletin: “Child Slavery in the South” by Gilson Gardner

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 29, 1907
Gaston County, North Carolina – Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of October 26, 1907:

Child Slavery in the South

Gilson Gardner in Chicago Journal.

Child Labor in South by G Gardner 1, W-B Ldr p7, Oct 5, 1907

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What about child labor in the south? Is it really true that small children work in cotton mills at night? or are those stories exaggerated?

I came here to see, because Gaston county has more mills then any county in a state that has more mills than any state in the south.

I find: Little girls, of an age to still care for dolls, working all night in the mills, pacing up and down between the long spinning frames, in a jar and roar of wheels. I find bright-faced little American girls, 8 to 12 years of age, toiling bare-footed in the heat and flying lint. These children tell me they can not read the words on my business card, because they have “most forgot” what they learned in the “second reader.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Remembering Judge John Jay Jackson Who Famously Tangled with Mother Jones in 1902

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Plea for Justice, Not Charity, Quote Mother Jones


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Hellraisers Journal, Friday October 11, 1907
Old Injunction Judge, John J. Jackson, Passed Away on Labor Day

From the Lincoln, Nebraska, Commoner of September 13, 1907:

Mother Jones by Bertha Howell (Mrs Mailly), ab 1902

THE DEATH of Judge John J. Jackson on Labor Day was a coincidence that was noted by thousands of the older members of American trades unions. Judge Jackson earned the sobriquet of “the iron judge” by reason of his many drastic injunctions against union men. In his anxiety to protect property rights Judge Jackson often lost sight of human rights. It was he who sent “Mother” Jones to jail for daring to make a public address in violation of his injunction, and he enjoined a Methodist preacher from conducting a prayer meeting of striking coal miners in Pennsylvania. At another time he enjoined striking miners from walking the public highways to and from meetings of their local union. The abuse of the injunction writ was forcibly demonstrated by Judge Jackson on many occasions. He was the last of the federal judges appointed by President Lincoln. He resigned a few years ago on account of ill health and advancing age.

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[Photograph added.]

From The Fairmont West Virginian of September 6, 1907:

An interesting article, here reprinted from the Chicago Record-Herald of August 3, 1902, provides some insight into the background of the Old Injunction Judge who ruled over the miners of West Virginia with an iron fist from his seat on the Federal Bench in Parkersburg. The Judge came from a family who championed freedom and liberty (for themselves) yet held in bondage, on the family plantation in Old Virginia, human beings as chattel slaves. They loved their slaves, John Jackson had said in 1861, yet loved the Union more. We believe it was Slavery that they loved, not their slaves, for if they truly loved them, as people, they would not have kept them enslaved.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The Deadly Parallel” Compares IWW’s Declaration on War in Europe with AFL’s Pledge of Service

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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IWW on War and Class Solidarity, Dec 1, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday April 2, 1917
From the International Socialist Review: “The Deadly Parallel”

“The Deadly Parallel” was first published in Solidarity, organ of the Industrial Workers of the World, on March 24, 1917, and is republished in this month’s edition of the Review:

WWI, IWW, Deadly Parallel, ISR Apr 1917

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Hellraisers Journal: Kidnaping Anniversary Edition of Appeal to Reason, Edited by Eugene Debs & Consecrated to “Holy Cause of Emancipation.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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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, Tuesday February 19, 1907
From the Appeal to Reason: Kidnaping Anniversary Edition

This week’s edition of the Appeal to Reason commemorates February 17, 1906, the one-year anniversary of the state-sponsored kidnaping of the valiant leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, under the banner:

Labor Is Forging The Thunderbolt
for the Conspiracy!

Eugene V. Debs is the special editor of the first page of this edition, and raises his voice on behalf of our imprisoned comrades:

HMP, AtR Kidnap Anniversary Edition, Feb 16, 1907

THESE are the three comrades whose kidnaping under the most extraordinary circumstances ever recorded we are celebrating with a special edition of three million copies and with fresh consecration to the holy cause of emancipation for which they have offered up their liberty and jeopardized their lives.

Verily, “it is an ill wind that blows no good,” and “God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.”

At first glance the kidnaping of our comrades by the chief magistrate of a state sworn to execute the law against kidnapers, and who, if not a perjurer is a felon, and if not a felon a perjurer would seem to be a monstrous crime without a feature to redeem it from execration. But not so. What else, or what less than this would have served to arouse the working class of the whole nation like an alarm blast from the trumpet of an avenging deity?

What else could have lashed the stagnant waters of organized labor into foaming billows, tossing high their spray of life and discontent?

In all the history of labor there is no event to equal it. A year ago the names of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone were known to but a few thousands in the Western states; today they are hailed and honored by millions, who applaud their fidelity and honor their fortitude.

And thus are heroes snatched from the common multitude.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Resolution on War and Class Solidarity from IWW Convention of 1916

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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IWWC on War and Class Solidarity, Dec 1, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 9, 1917
Chicago, Illinois – I.W. W. Opposes War, Advocates Class Solidarity

IWWC 1916, Delg Little, ISR Jan 1917

In the dark shadow of War, now looming over the nation’s working class men and women, we have concluded that now is a good time to consider the Resolution on War and Class Solidarity passed at Tenth Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. The delegates gathered together in Chicago for ten days last fall, from November 20th to December 1st of 1916. Resolution #112 was passed during the afternoon session on the last day of the convention:

No. 112—A DECLARATION:

We, the Industrial Workers of the World, in convention assembled, hereby reaffirm our adherence to the principle of Industrial Unionism, and rededicate ourselves to the unflinching, unfaltering prosecution of the struggle for the abolition of wage slavery and the realization of our ideals in Industrial Democracy. With the European war for conquest and exploitation raging and destroying the lives, class consciousness and unity of the workers, and the ever growing agitation for military preparedness clouding the main issues and delaying the realization of our ultimate aim with patriotic and, therefore, capitalistic aspirations, we openly declare ourselves the determined opponents of all nationalistic sectionalism, or patriotism, and the militarism preached and supported by our one enemy, the capitalist class. We condemn all wars and, for the prevention of such, we proclaim the anti-militarist propaganda in time of peace, thus promoting Class Solidarity among the workers of the entire world, and, in time of war, the General Strike in all industries. We extend assurances of both moral and material support to all the workers who suffer at the hands of the capitalist class for their adhesion to these principles and call on all workers to unite themselves with us, that the reign of the exploiters may cease and this earth be made fair through the establishment of the Industrial Democracy.

F. H. LITTLE,
W. E. MATTINGLY,
FRANCIS MILLER,
WM. D. HAYWOOD.

National Organizer McGuckin suggested that every effort should be made to get this published in the capitalist press, and that it should also be printed in leaflet form and widely distributed. Motion made and seconded that this be adopted unanimously, and published in the presses throughout the United States of America and the world. Unanimously carried.

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