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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 15, 1912
San Diego, California – Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman Report on Free Speech Fight
From Mother Earth of June 1912:
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Tag: Alexander Berkman
Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Last Days With John Reed” -Letter to Max Eastman from Louise Bryant in Moscow
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 3, 1921
Louise Bryant Writes from Moscow on Death of John Reed
From The Liberator of February 1921:
Last Days With John Reed
A Letter from Louise Bryant
Moscow, Nov. 14, 1920
Dear Max:
I knew you would want details and a story for the Liberator–but I did not have either the strength or the courage. As it is–I will be able to write only a very incoherent letter and you may take from it what you wish. Jack’s death and my strenuous underground trip to Russia and the weeks of terror in the typhus hospital have quite broken me. At the funeral I suffered a very severe heart attack which by the merest scratch I survived. Specialists have agreed that I have strained my heart because of the long days and nights I watched beside Jack’s bed and that it is enlarged and may not get ever well again. They do not agree, however, on the time it will take for another attack. I write to you all these stupid things because I have to face them myself and because it must be part of the letter. The American and German doctors give me a year or even two, the Russians only months. I have to take stimulants and I am not in a bit of pain. I think I have better recuperative powers than they believe–but, anyway, it is a small matter. I once promised Jack that I would put all his works in order in case of his death. I will come home if I get stronger and do so.
All that I write now seems part of a dream. I am in no pain at all and I find it impossible to believe that Jack is dead or that he will not come in this very room any moment.
Jack was ill twenty days. Only two nights, when he was calmer, did I even lie down. Spotted typhus is beyond description, the patient wastes to nothing under your eyes.
But I must go back to tell you how I found Jack after my illegal journey across the world. I had to skirt Finland, sail twelve days in the Arctic ocean, hide in a fisherman’s shack four days to avoid the police with a Finnish officer and a German, both under sentence of death in their own countries. When I did reach Soviet territory I was at the opposite end of Russia from Jack. When I reached Moscow he was in Baku at the Oriental Congress. Civil war raged in the Ukraine. A military wire reached him and he came back in an armored train. On the morning of September 15th he ran shouting into my room. A month later he was dead.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1909, Part II: Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 22, 1909
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1909, Part II:
-Found Speaking in New York City on Behalf of Carlo de Fornaro
From the New York Sun of November 29, 1909:
DEMAND DE FORNARO’S PARDON
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Protest Against the Cartoonist’s Imprisonment
Voiced at the Berkeley Theatre.
A meeting to protest against the imprisonment of Carlo de Fornaro, a cartoonist, for libeling a Mexican editor was held at the Berkeley Theatre last night. This resolution was adopted:
We the citizens of New York city in mass meeting assembled, herewith resolve that we regard the conviction of Carlo de Fornaro of libel and his sentence of one year’s imprisonment at hard labor as an unprecedented and unconstitutional attack upon free speech and the freedom of the press. We demand that our Legislature repeal that part of the libel laws which gave an excuse for the action of the court and we call upon the governor of New York for the immediate and unconditional pardon of Carlo de Fornaro.
First of all reporters were introduced to Heriberto Barrow, who says he’s the Democratic candidate for President of Mexico, running against President Dias. He was a member of the House of Representatives, he said, and about a year ago introduced to Mexico to the New Idea party of young men, or Democratic party. In September he fled, fearing persecution. He says posters announcing his candidacy in big red letters are being torn down by the police in Mexico and any one that dares to indorse him openly is being thrown into prison by Diaz.
[Then followed, as speakers, Gaylord Wilshire, chairman of the meeting, and George Edwin Joseph, attorney for De Fornaro.]
Mother Jones, the Socialist propagandist, then took the centre of the stage and scanning the audience shouted that she had no fear of any Pinkerton dogs who were present and worked for Diaz. She was as ready to die to-night as any time in her fight for liberty.
Hellraisers Journal: “Pennsylvania Constabulary and the McKees Rocks Strike” by Alexander Berkman
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 6, 1909
Alexander Berkman on Creation & Purpose of Pennsylvania Cossacks
From Miners Magazine of September 30, 1909:
THE PENNSYLVANIA CONSTABULARY AND
THE McKEES ROCKS STRIKE.
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By Alexander Berkman.
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Even before the memorable days of the Homestead strike, of 1892, there was a law on the statute books of Pennsylvania forbidding the importation of armed men from other states. Heavy penalties were attached to the offence.
However, when the Carnegie Steel Company was preparing to destroy the Association of Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, the then chairman of the company, H. C. Frick, imported armed Pinkertons from Chicago and New York to intimidate and shoot down the locked-out men. The history of that great struggle is well known. But when the strike was finally settled, public sentiment forced the district attorney of Allegheny county to bring charges of murder against Frick and other officials of the Carnegie company, they being legally responsible for the atrocious deeds of their imported myrmidons.
Naturally, the authorities felt too much respect for the Carnegie-Frick millions to press the charges of murder. It was feared that a jury of citizens might possibly send the Carnegie officials to prison. The cases were therefore never permitted to come to trial. But the popular outcry against the importation of armed ruffians became so strong that the Pennsylvania legislature was forced to action. The already existing statute was amended, making the importation of armed men treason against the state, punishable with death.
The industrial Tsars of Pennsylvania were not at all pleased with the situation. The new law expressly forbade the employment of Pinkertons, foreign or local. The people execrated their very name. It would be risky to face a charge of treason. The local Iron & Coal police were not sufficient to “deal effectively” with great strikes; nor was it financially advisable to keep a large private standing army who would have to be paid even When there were no strikers to be shot.
The coke, coal, and steel interests of Pennsylvania (practically the Same concern) faced a difficult problem. They were preparing to wage a bitter war against organized labor, fully determined to annihilate the last Vestiges of unionism among their employes. It was to be done effectively, yet economically. A very difficult problem. At last the solution was found. A high priced steel lawyer struck the right key. It was quite simple. Why risk popular wrath, possible prosecution for treason and murder, by employing Pinkertons? Why even go to the expense of hiring an army of private guards? It would be far cheaper and safer to have the great state of Pennsylvania act as their Pinkerton. What is the state for if not to protect the lords of money and subdue grumbling labor? The good taxpayers will do the paying.
Hellraisers Journal: Tom Mooney’s Death Sentence Commuted to Life in Prison by Governor Stephens of California
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 November 29, 1918
Sacramento, California – Life of Brother Mooney to be Spared
From the San Francisco Chronicle of November 29, 1918:
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Governor, in Decision,
Refuses to Recognize
Case as Representing
Clash of Capital and Labor
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ACTION INFLUENCED BY
APPEALS FROM WILSON
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Convicted Man No True Friend
of Working Class,
Statement Says;
Matter Decided on Merits
—–Sacramento, November 28,-The death sentence of Thomas J. Mooney was commuted to life imprisonment today by Governor William D. Stephens. Mooney, convicted of the Preparedness parade bomb murders in San Francisco July 22, 1916, was sentenced to be hanged at San Quentin Prison December 13.
In announcing his decision governor Stephens asserts the case does not represent a clash between capital and labor. He characterizes as “absurd” propaganda that would make Mooney appear as a martyr to the cause of labor, and indicates that this action was influenced by two telegraphic appeals from President Wilson which urged commutation of sentence for international reasons….
Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: Floyd Dell Recounts The Masses Trial; Art Young Found Asleep in Courtroom
“For heaven’s sake, wake Art Young up,
and give him a pencil!
Tell him to try to stay awake
until he gets to jail!”
-Attorney Malone
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 5, 1918
New York, New York – The Masses Trial as Told by a Defendant
The trial of the those connected with The Masses began on April 15th of this year and lasted for about two weeks, ending in a hung jury. A new trial is certain, according to the prosecution. Floyd Dell, one of the defendants, tells the story of that trial wherein the defendants were facing up to twenty years in prison for alleged violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. We begin with Part I today and will conclude tomorrow with Part II.
From The Liberator of June 1918:
The Story of the Trial [Part I]
By Floyd Dell
AT 10:30 o’clock in the morning on April 15 we filed into one of the court-rooms on the third floor of the old Postoffice Building, and took our places about a large table in the front enclosure. Ahead was a table at which sat three smiling men from the district attorney’s office; higher up, on a dais, behind a desk, a black-gowned judge, busy with some papers; to the right a jury-box with twelve empty chairs; and behind us, filling the room, a venire of a hundred and fifty men from among whom a jury was presently to be selected.
It was with the oddest feelings that we sat there, waiting. It seemed strange that this court-room, this judge, this corps of prosecutors, those rows of tired men at the back, had any personal relationship to us. It took an effort to realize that we were not there as interested observers, but as the center of these elaborate proceedings.
It was more than strange, it was scarcely credible. Was it possible that anyone seriously believed us to be conspirators? Was it conceivable that the government of the United States was really going to devote its energies, its time and its money to a laborious undertaking, with the object of finding out whether we were enemies of the Republic! It was fantastic, grotesque, in the mood of a dream or of a tragic farce. It was like a scene from “Alice in Wonderland,” re-written by Dostoievsky. But it was true. We did not expect that the judge, frowning as he read over the papers before him, would suddenly look down at us over his spectacles and ask: “What the devil are you doing here? Don’t you know that I am a busy man, and that this is no place for silly jokes?”
No….For we knew that war produces a quaint and sinister psychology of fear and hate, of hysterical suspicion, of far-fetched and utterly humorless surmise, a mob-psychology which is almost inevitably directed against minorities, independent thinkers, extreme idealists, candid and truth-telling persons, and all who do not run and shout with the crowd. And we of the Masses, who had created a magazine unique in the history of journalism, a magazine of our own in which we could say what we thought about everything in the world, had all of us in some respect belonged to such a minority. We did not agree with other people about a lot of things. We did not even agree with each other about many things. We were fully agreed only upon one point, that it was a jolly thing to have a magazine in which we could freely express our individual thoughts and feelings in stories and poems and pictures and articles and jokes. And when the war came we were found still saying what we individually thought about everything-including war. No two of us thought quite alike about it. But none of us said exactly what the morning papers were saying. So–
We rose to answer to our names: Max Eastman, Floyd Dell, Merrill Rogers, Art Young, Josephine Bell*-a poet-philosopher, a journalist, a business manager, an artist, and a young woman whom none of us had ever seen until the day we went into court to have our bail fixed. And there was another, invisible “person” present, the Masses Publishing Company, charged, like the rest of us, with the crime of conspiring to violate the Espionage Act-conspiring to promote insubordination and mutiny in the military and naval forces of the United States and to obstruct recruiting and enlistment to the injury of the service. We all sat down, and the trial had begun.
*John Reed, war-correspondent, and H. J. Glintenkamp, artist, also indicted, were not on trial
Hellraisers Journal: Letter to New York Call from Atlanta Penitentiary Describes Two American Political Prisoners
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday March 30, 1918
From The New York Call: A Letter from the Atlanta Pen
The New York Call on March 24th published a letter written by Ammon A. Hennesey who, having been convicted of distributing literature against the draft, is now serving a two-year sentence at the Atlanta Federal Prison. Hennesey began serving his sentence on July 31, 1917. He hales from Columbus, Ohio, and is described as an “Irish America Socialist.”
Imprisoned with Hennesey is John T. Dunn, a Socialist from Providence, Rhode Island, who was sentenced to twenty years having been convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Described also is William V. McCoy, a “Virginia mountaineer” from big Stone Gap, West Virginia who was convicted of conspiring to seize U.S. property and oppose the government. McCoy was sentenced to five years in prison and began serving his sentence on August 17, 1917. Despite the fact that he is sixty-one years old Mr. McCoy was sent to “the hole” in January and remains there at this time.
Hellraisers Journal: Espionage Act Signed; Goldman & Berkman Arrested; Mother Earth & The Blast Seized
The greatest bulwark
of capitalism is militarism.
-Emma Goldman
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday June 18, 1917
New York, New York – Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman Arrested
On Friday June 15th, President Wilson signed the Espionage into law (see below). That same day in New York City, the Harlem office of Mother Earth and The Blast was raided, and Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested.
From the New York Sun of June 16, 1917:
BERKMAN AND EMMA GOLDMAN
HELD FOR PLOT
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Accused of Inducing Young Men to
Violate Registration Law.
—–BOTH LOCKED IN TOMBS
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“Literature” in Office of
Anarchist Publications
Seized as Evidence.
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Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were arrested yesterday afternoon charged with conspiracy against the Government in inducing young men to break the selective conscription law by not registering. If convicted they can be imprisoned for two years and fined $10,000 apiece, and can also be deported for preaching anarchy, both being aliens.
United Suites Marshal McCarthy served the warrants on the pair, who love to be called “the beat known anarchists in America,” in the little Harlem office where they have been publishing Mother Earth and the Blast. He said it was the best thing he ever did in his life.
They were taken to the Federal Building along with a young anarchist helper, W. P. Bales, who had not registered for conscription. It being too late for arraignment they were locked up in the Tombs. They will confront United States Commissioner Hitchcock at 9:45 o’clock this morning, and Berkman and Miss Goldman will probably have to give $25,000 bail apiece if they want to get out pending trial or Grand Jury action. A lot of “literature” in the Harlem office, of which the police and Department of Justice are now in charge, was seized as evidence, including copies of Mother Earth and the Blast. Signed articles in these magazines figure in the Government’s complaint. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Espionage Act Signed; Goldman & Berkman Arrested; Mother Earth & The Blast Seized”
