Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs Travels to Denver, Confers with Governor Ammons on the Colorado Coalfield Strike

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Quote EVD, Law ag Working Class, AtR p1, Apr 29, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 24, 1913
Denver, Colorado – Eugene Debs Confers with Governor Ammons

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of November 22, 1913:

EVD to Colorado, Meets w Gov, ULB p1, Nov 22, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “The Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

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Quote Ellis B Harris Children of the Poor, MI MB p2, Nov 11, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 15, 1913
“Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris

From the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin of November 11, 1913:

Miners' Bulletin, MI, Nov 11, 1913

Little Children of the Poor
by Ellis B. Harris

Little children of the poor,
My heart goes out to you.
Little lives that must endure
Where miseries accrue;
In the factories and mills
There robbed of play and hearth
Suffering a world of ills
For parasites of wealth.

Little children of the poor,
You, tender, precious flowers,
Blooms for gardens sweet and pure,
Yet robbed of playtime hours.
Is it strange that blood runs wild
And hands are clenched in wrath
When we contemplate a child
Upon the thorn strewn path?

Little children of the poor,
Brave hearts shall place the blame
For the lives that you endure,
And point the nations’s shame.
Boasting here of Freedom’s reign
And scorning royal commands,
Forging them a master’s chain
To shackle baby hands.

Little children of the poor,
Pearls for trampling swine,
Cast and mired that they secure
The wealth from mill and mine.
There are those who hear the call
From far off Galilee,
Heeding, until Mammon fall
And you, His Jewels, are free.

Little children of the poor,
A future day shall break,
When no one can e’er secure
Your lives for profit sake;
When the people’s rule shall fill
The world with melody,
And childhood’s joys and laughter thrill
The world with ecstasy.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Poetry from the Michigan Miners’ Bulletin: “The Little Children of the Poor” by Ellis B. Harris”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: How the Woodstock Jail Turned a Union Leader into a Socialist by Eugene Debs

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Quote EVD Brush the Dust, Saginaw Eve Ns p6, Feb 6, 1899—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1902
How Six Months in the Woodstock Jail Made a Socialist of Eugene Debs

From The Comrade of April 1902:

HdLn Debs Socialist, Comrade p146, Apr 1902

As I have some doubt about the readers of “The Comrade” having any curiosity as to “how I became a Socialist” it may be in order to say that the subject is the editor’s, not my own; and that what is here offered is at his bidding—my only concern being that he shall not have cause to wish that I had remained what I was instead of becoming a Socialist.

On the evening of February 27, 1875, the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen was organized at Terre Haute, Ind., by Joshua A. Leach, then grand master, and I was admitted as a charter member and at once chosen secretary. “Old Josh Leach,” as he was affectionately called, a typical locomotive fireman of his day, was the founder of the brotherhood, and I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple manner and homely speech. How well I remember feeling his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently said, “My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.” Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the course of his remarks said: “I put a tow-headed boy in the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some day he will be at the head of it.”

Twenty-seven years, to a day, have played their pranks with “Old Josh” and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and I pressed his good, right hand, I observed that he was crowned with the frost that never melts; and as I think of him now:

“Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.”

My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watch-fires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the “meeting” was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.

At the convention held in Buffalo in 1878 I was chosen associate editor of the magazine, and in 1880 I became grand secretary and treasurer. With all the fire of youth I entered upon the crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day and night were one. Sleep was time wasted and often when, all oblivious of her presence in the still small hours my mother’s hand turned off the light, I went to bed under protest. Oh, what days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world—were straining:

“To catch the beat
On my tramping feet.”

My grip was always packed; and I was darting in all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an “agitator,” or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, were all in the program, and served to whet the appetite to conquer. One night in midwinter at Elmira, N. Y., a conductor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a policeman, who heard my story and on the spot became my friend.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: How the Woodstock Jail Turned a Union Leader into a Socialist by Eugene Debs”

Hellraisers Journal: Social Democratic Herald: Eugene V. Debs Opines on Buffalo’s Kept Preachers, Labor, and Socialism

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Quote EVD, Children of the Poor, AtR p2, Mar 17, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 26, 1902
Eugene V. Debs on Opines on Kept Preachers, Labor and Socialism

From the Milwaukee Social Democratic Herald of March 22, 1902:

Battle Cry of Superstition.
———-

The Church Protests in Vain Against
the March of Civilization.
———-

By EUGENE V. DEBS.

EVD crpd Nw Orln Tx Dem p3, Jan 26, 1900The socialist movement encountered a great shock at Buffalo a few days ago. One Quigley, a Catholic bishop, and another Stauffer (Stuffer?) of the Protestant persuasion, jointly and severally assailed social democracy, the latter gravely declaring that it was the “unhatched egg of anarchy”-in other words, a bad egg. The bishop vaulted into the arena, made due exhibition of his asininity, and in the name of the hierarchy proclaimed excommunication as the fate of all who cast their lot with the wicked socialists.

No opposition to organized labor, declared the bishop, was intended, except in so far as it was tainted with the virus of socialism-a hint that union men would be wise to profit by.

It is not my purpose to write about religion, or to interfere with that of any man. I am trusting to the light and logic of the future to abolish creeds and dispel the darkness of superstition.

But we have those in the socialist movement who are so supersensitive that they rise in passionate protest when the church is even mentioned. They are doubtless honest and sincere, but their prejudice is such that if the orders and injunctions of such priests as Quigley and Stauffer could be and were obeyed, they would look on in silence and submission, while the church with iron boots crushed out the socialist movement and the sun of labor set in gloom to rise no more.

What has the church, as such, ever done for working men and women except to keep them in darkness, preach obedience to their masters, and promise them a future home in heaven as the reward of patience and submission in the present hell?

The fulmination of this precious combination at Buffalo reveals the true attitude of the church, which profanes the name of Jesus Christ. In all its pomp and power today it stands for all he abhorred and against all he loved; and socialists would be worse than cowards, they would be base-born traitors not to speak the truth and challenge the enemy of the socialist movement in whatever form he may appear; and when the church consents to prostitute its functions in the service of the ruling class, its robes turn into rags and every honest man should help to strip it naked and expose the whited sepulcher to the world.

For more than 25 years I have watched the church in its attitude toward labor and I know it is the enemy of the toilers and strives and strains to keep them in industrial bondage. The freedom of the working class will mean the end of the church as we know it today. It will simply be out of a job.

During the Chicago strikes the priests and preachers grew hysterically violent in demanding the shooting and hanging of the strikers in the name of the meek and merciful Jesus. All denominations melted into one and all the ministers were likewise a unit in defense of the corporations and denunciation and damnation of the strikers.

There is something almost melancholy in seeing a meek, sad-eyed, dyspepsic preacher suddenly grow fierce and bloodthirsty. It seems strange, but it is easily accounted for. The priest is simply the echo of the capitalist. if he declines the function he ceases to preach.

In every labor strike I have ever known the church and those who speak for it have lined up solidly with the corporations. This has been and must be the attitude of the church whose priests now direct its fiery fulmination against socialism at Buffalo.

Through all the centuries the church has been the handmaid of tyranny and oppression-there she stands today, red with impotent rage because socialism has stripped her of her mask and challenged her to do her worst. Can the church extinguish the socialist movement? Can a bat snuff out the sun? It is high time the working class were opening their eyes, time that they were discarding the sacred (?) symbols of superstition and proclaiming their royal right to represent themselves without the vulgar and impertinent intervention of priests who are but the emissaries of their oppressors and exploiters.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Social Democratic Herald: Eugene V. Debs Opines on Buffalo’s Kept Preachers, Labor, and Socialism”

Hellraisers Journal: Judge Woods Is Dead, Sent Eugene Debs to Prison for Six Months in Connection with Pullman Strike of 1894

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Quote EVD Brush the Dust, Saginaw Eve Ns p6, Feb 6, 1899—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 25, 1901
Pullman’s Injunction Judge, William Woods, Is Dead

From the Social Democratic Herald of July 20, 1901:

Debs and Judge Woods

EVD ARU Officers Sent to Woodstock Jail 1894 Pullman Strike, photo ab 1895

The death of Judge Wm. A. Woods of the United States circuit court naturally brings up a chain of thought which may be useful and instructive at this time. Woods was the judge who prostituted his high and exalted office to serve the railways and crush the laboring men who were struggling for enough of the products of their labor to keep their families from starving. He it was who sent Eugene Debs to prison [at Woodstock, Illinois] for six months [in 1895] without trial for “contempt” of his most contemptible court, simply because Debs opposed with manly firmness the usurpations of this judicial scoundrel. It was this same judge Woods who set free “Blocks of Five” Dudley and the other bribers and ballot-box stuffers at Indianapolis in 1880, and was promoted from the district to the circuit court by the republican administration for his rascality. In his charge to the jury Judge Woods said that “advising or counseling bribery is not punishable unless briery is committed.”

In the coming time when the co-operative commonwealth shall have been established, when each man shall receive the product of his toil and have time and leisure to think upon the various steps and acts which have led up to industrial emancipation, then these two men, Debs and Woods, will each be held in proper estimation by the world. Posterity alone can properly write epitaphs. The memory of Debs will then be revered as one willing to suffer for his fellow men, while Woods will rank with Judas Iscariot, Grover Cleveland and Benedict Arnold.

[…..]

All the robber elements of this country will pronounce encomiums upon Judge Woods, while they have and will continue to cast odium upon Debs. But posterity will pass just judgment upon these two men, and memory of Debs will be enshrined in glory, while that of Woods will be shrouded in eternal infamy.-Equality, Deadwood, S. D.

EVD Notice ARU Offices to Terre Haute, Officers Sentenced, Rw Tx, Jan 1, 1895

—————

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Judge Woods Is Dead, Sent Eugene Debs to Prison for Six Months in Connection with Pullman Strike of 1894”

Hellraisers Journal: From Butte Daily Bulletin: Review of “Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters” by David Karsner, Part II

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Quote EVD, Be True Labor Will Come Into Its Own, OH Sc p1, Nov 5, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 23, 1920
David Karsner, of New York Call, “Paints Debs with Loving Hands” -Part II

From The Butte Daily Bulletin of February 13, 1920:

EVD re Karsner Bio, BDB p3, Feb 13, 1920

[Part II of II.]

EVD, David Karsner, Debs Life n Letters, Brk Dly Egl p4, Jan 17, 1920

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Ind., Nov. 5, 1855. The sixty-five years between that date and the present day which sees him in United States penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., are of startling significance in the social and economic history of this country.

“He was one of 10 children of Jean Daniel Debs and Marguerite Bettrich Debs, both natives of Alsace.”

“Jean Daniel Debs possessed a well-equipped library of French history as well as the works of some of the most noted French writers including Victor Hugo who was one of their favorites. Very early in his life, Eugene became acquainted with the works of Hugo and the master’s characterization of Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables,” made an indelible impression upon his mind.”

Debs in his early youth saw the Civil war, and Karsner wonders “to what extent these scenes and sounds of conflict influenced Eugene Debs to take his stand against war, but it is notable that not once during his long and varied career as a labor leader has he safe-counseled violence as means to the settlement of any dispute.”

Eugene’s school years were cut short by the necessity for earning money. At the age of 14, Debs began work in the shops and later as locomotive fireman for the Terre Haute and Indiana Railroad company. At first he received one dollar a day, but later, as fireman, was paid on a mileage basis. “Eugene’s pay envelope, which he turned over to his mother unopened, was decidedly slim.”

Debs’ first step in the organized labor movement was taken when the local lodge of the brotherhood of locomotive fireman was organized at Terre Haute on the evening of Feb. 27, 1874. He served in various official capacities as organizer. In 1892 he resigned from a position in which he was receiving $4,000 a year so that he might receive from the American Railway union a $75-a-month position.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Butte Daily Bulletin: Review of “Debs, His Authorized Life and Letters” by David Karsner, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: Western Federation of Miners Dedicates Monuments to John Murphy & George Pettibone, Part II

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Quote John ONeill re Pettibone, Mnrs Mag p7, July 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 7, 1909
Denver, Colorado – Monuments for Murphy and Pettibone Dedicated, Part II

From The Miners Magazine of August 5, 1909:

Monument to Murphy and Pettibone Dedicated July 24th.
[Part II]
—–

John Murphy, Pettibone, Mnrs Mag p4, Aug 5, p6, July 29, 1909
—–

Judge Hynes in a neat address then introduced John M. O’Neill, editor of the Miners’ Magazine, who delivered the following address:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of Organized Labor and Delegates to the Western Federation of Miners:

We have gathered here today to dedicate monuments to the memory of two men, who in life entwined themselves in the hearts of men and women who are scanning with yearning eyes the distant horizon and watching for the faint gleams of that glad morning that shall usher in a civilization that bequeathes to humanity the priceless heritage of industrial liberty. These monuments are the generous gifts of men who mourned the cruel summons of the grim messengers of death that snatched from life’s arena men whose deathless devotion and loyalty to the eternal principles of justice, made their names immortal in the labor movement of Western America. They did not come from the gory field of battle bearing victories that were baptized in human blood. They were not crowned with achievements won amid the fire and smoke of shot and shell, but they were soldiers in that great army of the world’s struggling millions that is slowly but surely marching onward toward the goal of economic freedom.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Ohio Socialist: Eugene Debs’ First Day In West Virginia Prison as Told by David Karsner

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Quote EVD, Debs Address to the Court, Sept 14, 1918———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 17, 1919
Moundsville, West Virginia – With Eugene Debs at West Virginia State Prison

From The Ohio Socialist of April 16, 1919:

Debs’ First Day In Prison

By DAVID KARSHNER [KARSNER].

EVD On Way to Prison, OH Sc p1, Apr 16, 1919

Moundsville, W. Va., April 14.-Eugene Victor Debs will sleep tonight, not in a cage like a wild beast, as he slept last night, his first night in the West Virginia State Prison, but in a little room in the hospital of the prison, for “Our Gene” has been appointed a hospital attendant, and he has a separate room to himself, with a white iron bed, newly clothed, a table and a chair.

Shortly after 11 o’clock this morning Debs was taken from his cell, No. 51, in the second tier of the south wing, to the prison baths. He was examined by Dr. O. P. Wilson, the prison physician, and then donned prison underclothing and the prison uniform. But when I saw Debs late this afternoon the prison suit was not unbecoming to him. It was well fitting and contained the tiniest check. It is the kind of a suit that anybody might purchase at a cheap clothing store.

Warden Joseph Z. Terrill explained that he had at first thought of placing Debs in the prison library because of his knowledge of books and literature, but he did not do this because he thought that he might be too much subjected to curiosity. As hospital attendant Debs will have a rom entirely to himself. The room is of a good size, larger than most rooms of the Bronx apartments. It is on the ground floor. There are two ample windows one facing the south, and one the east. There are no bars at his windows. The door will be open at all times, and Debs has full privilege to come and go as he pleases. He has full and complete access to the prison yard and the lawns.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Ohio Socialist: Eugene Debs’ First Day In West Virginia Prison as Told by David Karsner”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Your Liberties Will Go With ‘Gene Debs When He Goes to Prison

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Quote EVD Slave is My Brother, AtR p1, May 1, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 30, 1919
“…while Debs is in prison, you are not free, no honest man is free…”

From the Appeal to Reason of March 29, 1919:

Banner Headline EVD to Go to Prison, AtR p1, Mar 29, 1919
—–

The decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the prison sentence passed upon Eugene V. Debs by a lower federal court came as a distinct shock to several millions of the American people. It is true that the hopes of these people were not pinned to the slender faith that Debs would find a just refuge in this high court of the powers that be. While the Supreme Court frequently sets aside laws with an astonishing alacrity, they are such laws as are obnoxious to privileged interests rather than to plain citizens. Setting aside the Espionage Act, especially to remove the threat of prison from Debs the spokesman of labor, was the last thing the Supreme Court could have been rationally expected to do.

The reply of the Appeal to the Supreme court is simply this: Whatever you can or cannot do, whatever you will or will not do, in the case of Debs makes little difference in the actual and final settlement of the issue. Where ignorance and prejudice are blissfully enthroned, ’tis folly to look for wisdom and tolerance. If you had it in your power and province to make Debs a free man by a mere effortless nod of the head, we know well that you would not do so. Politically you may safely defy any storm of public opinion, because you are secure in your arbitrary life jobs. But there are other branches of the government that depend upon the suffrage of the people and that must, unless madness has seized them and they are led to listen to the most stupid of counsels, place themselves responsive to the manifested will of public opinion. We believe that President Wilson and certain members of his official family are really inclined to favor action that a sufficient sentiment of the people, clearly expressed, may demand. That is to say, we believe that they are wise enough to listen to the people when the people talk loud enough and that they are not so wrapped in reactionary stupidity and prejudice that they will obdurately refuse to follow a course that demonstrates itself to be popular.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Your Liberties Will Go With ‘Gene Debs When He Goes to Prison”

Hellraisers Journal: Debs in Omaha, Believes Workingmen Will Soon be Ready for Economic Revolution by United Ballot

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Quote EVD, Modern Wage Slave, Terre Haute May 31, 1898, Debs-IA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1898
Omaha, Nebraska – Eugene Debs Tells Old Story of Wealth and Poverty

On Wednesday December 21st, Eugene Debs was interviewed in Omaha and said, in part:

It is the old, old story—economics—the concentration of industry. The middle class of middlemen are being obliterated; they buy goods in small quantities and pay more than the department stores which buy by the carload. The department store advertises cheap goods, gets the laboring man’s cash, and the little corner grocery has the “credit” business. The small dealer is crushed: labor is pinched and suicides have increased 200 percent in the last ten years…..

I believe the present system, so destructive to the better elements of mankind, is soon to be eradicated, and that by the workingmen. They are beginning to think, and from the products of their minds is developing an economic revolution.

From the Omaha World-Herald of December 22, 1898:

Morally I Mean to Pay Them
[Interview with Eugene Debs]

EVD re Social Democracy, SLTb p3, Feb 9, 1898

No, I did not attend the [A. F. of L.] convention at Kansas City. I am in deep sympathy with the meeting and wanted very much to go, but my lecture engagements prevented. I have been speaking every night for two weeks.

With what success?

At Boone, Iowa, I had a fair audience, but usually through Iowa my audiences were not large. You know, the railroads and other corporations have no love for me, and it is given out cold to the men, and many of them who would attend stay away, fearful of incurring the displeasure of the powers that be. Especially is this true in railroad towns. However I cannot complain: I speak and the papers report and thus I reach the masses.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Debs in Omaha, Believes Workingmen Will Soon be Ready for Economic Revolution by United Ballot”