Hellraisers Journal: A New Socialist Publication: The Messenger, Edited by A. Philip Randolph & Chandler Owen

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Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure,
and still more pressure through broad,
organized, aggressive mass action.
-A. Philip Randolph

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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday November 1, 1917
From New York City – Randolph & Owen Publish The Messenger

The first edition of this fine new Socialist publication came out in August of this year. The edition introduced below is Volume 1, Number II, for the month of November:

Messenger, Cover 1st Ed, Nov 1917

The Messenger-Contents for November:

Messenger, Contents 1st Ed, Nov 1917

—–

Statement from A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen:

THE EDITORS’ STATEMENT

We are no longer the “Hotel” Messenger.

In the first place the name was too narrow.

In the second place the radical tone of the editors’ writings did not set well with the “thought-controller” in the hotel field. We did not always say”nice” things about the head-waiters’ attitude toward the side waiters and the inadequate wages paid them. The clothes proposition was also a moot question whose ventilation is not to the taste of the powers that be.

The steady and numerous requests by the intelligent, radical, forward-looking and clear-eyed thinking patrons for the editors to rid themselves of the hindering name, have borne this fruit-The Messenger.

So here we are in the big, broad world of human actions trying to do our “bit” in supplying light and leading.

We shall interpret social, political and economic conditions, municipal, state, national and international, with calm, dispassionate poise.

We shall always strive to eradicate error and to denude hypocrisy regardless of the garb in which she happens to be clothed.

The Messenger shall be forward, aggressive, militant, revolutionary.

The Messenger shall ever fight for the economic and intellectual emancipation of the workingmen.

It shall ever fight for peace-a durable, permanent and democratic peace.

It shall ever fight the hydra-headed monster-race prejudice.

It shall ever champion the cause of free speech, free press and free assemblage.

Such is our aim.

On we go.

Will you support the Messenger, your race and humanity?

The Editors.

———-

The Messenger on Scientific Radicalism:

Messenger, Ad Scientific Radicalism, Nov 1917

Randolph and Owen endorse Morris Hillquit for Mayor of New York City:

Messenger, Randolph and Owen, Nov 1917

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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Messenger
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000056822
Messenger Volumes 1-2, 1917-1920
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2904887;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=7
The Messenger
(New York, New York)
-Nov 1917
Messenger, Cover, Nov 1917
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2904887;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=11;num=1
Messenger, Contents, Nov 1917
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2904887;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=13;num=3
“The Editors’ Statement”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?num=20&u=1&seq=38&view=image&size=125&id=uc1.c2904887
Messenger, Ad Scientific Radicalism, Nov 1917
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=125;id=uc1.c2904887;page=root;seq=31;num=21
Messenger, Randolph and Owen, Nov 1917
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?num=28&u=1&seq=31&view=image&size=125&id=uc1.c2904887

See also:

The Messenger (1917-1928)
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/messenger-1917-1928
http://spartacus-educational.com/USACmessenger.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Messenger_(magazine)

Asa Philip Randolph (1889-1979)
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/randolph-asa-philip-1889-1979
http://spartacus-educational.com/USArandolph.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Philip_Randolph

Chandler Owen (1889-1967)
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/owen-chandler-1889-1967
http://spartacus-educational.com/USACowen.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Owen

For more on Randolph & founding of The Messenger, August 1917:
Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America
-by Andrea Pinkney
Disney Electronic Content, Nov 6, 2012
(search: always striding ahead)
(search: “new negros” young radicals)
https://books.google.com/books?id=QVXHOBTm9YwC

For more on Randolph Quote above:
The Story of the Civil Rights March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom in Photographs

-by David Aretha
Enslow Publishers, Inc., Jan 1, 2014
(search: pressure more pressure)
https://books.google.com/books?id=cxqWAgAAQBAJ

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Randolph Reading Pledge of the March on Washington

Freedom Songs: from 1963 March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize – Mavis Staples