Hellraisers Journal: From Deseret Evening News: “Where Is Otto Applequist?”-Was Room Mate of Joseph Hillstrom, Is Second Suspect in Murders of the Morrisons

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Quote Joe Hill, General Strike, Workers Awaken, LRSB p6, Oct 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 18, 1914
Salt Lake City – Police Search for Applequist in Connection with Morrison Murders

From the Deseret Evening News of January 15, 1914:

HdLn Joe Hill, Joseph Hillstrom, Where Is Otto Applequist, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914—–
Otto Applequist Wanted, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914—–
Joe Hill, Joseph Hillstrom w Injured Hand, DEN p1, Jan 15, 1914

...A gunshot wound in the right hand of Hillstrom, which puzzled deputy sheriffs and police yesterday was explained by Chief Fred Peters of Murray, who said that he “took a shot” at Hillstrom when he leaped from his bed yesterday morning and reached under his pillow. The wound was not a deep or serious one.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Deseret Evening News: “Where Is Otto Applequist?”-Was Room Mate of Joseph Hillstrom, Is Second Suspect in Murders of the Morrisons”

Hellraisers Journal: “I Make Cheap Silk (The Story of a Fifteen-year old Weaver in the Paterson Silk Mills, as Told by Her to Inis Weed and Louise Carey.)”

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Quote EGF Organize Women, IW p4, June 1, 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 5, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Young Weaver Tells of Conditions in Silk Mill

From The Masses of November 1913:

Paterson Story of Theresa, Age 15, by Inis Weed and Louise Carey, Masses p7, Nov 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “I Make Cheap Silk (The Story of a Fifteen-year old Weaver in the Paterson Silk Mills, as Told by Her to Inis Weed and Louise Carey.)””

Hellraisers Journal: Profiles of Rebel Women: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Inez Haynes Gillmore, and Caroline Lowe

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Quote EGF Organize Women, IW p4, June 1, 1911—————

Hellraisers journal – Wednesday September 10, 1913 
Profiles of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Inez Haynes Gillmore, and Caroline Lowe

From The Progressive Woman of September 1913:

EGF Profile, Prg Wmn p11, Sept 1913—–
Inez Haynes Gillmore, Profile, Prg Wmn p11, Sept 1913—–
Caroline Lowe Photo n Profile, Prg Wmn p3, Sept 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Joan of Arc of 25,000 Silk Strikers, on Trial at Paterson, Certain of Acquittal

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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 23, 1913
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on Trial at Paterson, New Jersey

From The Richmond Palladium (Indiana) of July 19, 1913:

EGF on Trial at Paterson, Richmond IN Pldm p2, July 19, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Joan of Arc of 25,000 Silk Strikers, on Trial at Paterson, Certain of Acquittal”

Hellraisers Journal: Paterson Jury Hung in Trial of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; Quinlan Sent to Prison; Striker Madonna Killed

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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 13, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Trial of Miss Flynn, Quinlan to Prison, Striker Murdered

From Solidarity of July 12, 1913:

Paterson EGF Trial, Quinlan to Prison, Vincenzo Madonna killed, Sol p, July 12, 1913

From The Topeka State Journal of July 3, 1913:

Paterson, EGF n E Milholland, Tpk St Jr p8, July 3, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Paterson Jury Hung in Trial of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn; Quinlan Sent to Prison; Striker Madonna Killed”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part II

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Quote BBH, IU Socialism w Working Clothes On, NYC Cooper Union Debate w Hillquit, Jan 11, 1912

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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 2, 1913
“The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:

HdLn Paterson Pageant by P Russell, ISR p7, July 1913Scene fr Paterson Pageant, ISR p6, July 1913

[Part II of II]

The New York Press the next day said:

“The Garden has held many shows and many audiences, from Dowie to Taft to Buffalo Bill, but it is doubtful if there ever was such an assemblage either as an audience or as a show as was gathered under the huge rafters last night. In fact, it was a mixed grouping that at times they converged and actor became auditor and auditor turned suddently into actor. When more than 10,000 sang and shouted within, 5,000 outside clamored for admittance and were willing to pay double the prices to get in.”

The New York Evening World said:

Fifteen thousand specators applauded with shouts and tears the great Paterson Strike Pageant at Madison Square Garden. The big mill aglow with light in the dark hours of early winter morning, the shrieking whistles, the din of machinery-dying away to give place to the Marseillaise sung by a surging crowd of 1,200 operatives, the fierce battle with the police, the sombre funeral of the victim, the impassioned speech of the agitator, the sending away of the children, the great meeting of desperate hollow-eyed strikers-these scenes unrolled with a poignant realism that no man who saw them will ever forget.”

No spectacle enacted in New York has ever made such an impression. Not the most sanguine member of the committee which made the preparations for the pageant believed that its success would be quite so overwhelming. It is still the talk of New York, most cynical and hardened of cities, and will remain so for many days.

There were times when the committee were assailed with oppressive doubts. When one sat down and thought it over in cold blood, the idea of arranging for and carrying through such a thing in two weeks’ time seemed almost grotesque. Outside of the mechanical difficulties involved, the multitudinous details to be attended to, the advance outlay of money that would be necessary seemed to present an insuperable obstacle. There was the single item of $1,000 to be put down for the rental of one night, the $750 needed for scenery, the huge sum for advertising, all to be provided.

After plunging in with enthusiasm for the first few days, a bad reaction seized the promoters. They called a meeting in which the most gloomy forebodings were indulged in. There were disturbing reports of the small advance sale of tickets and there were serious proposals to give the whole thing up.

It was the workers themselves who stepped into the breach. Delegates from the New York silk strikers, whose cause has almost been lost sight of in the more spectacular struggle of Paterson, arose indignantly.

“What?” they cried. “Give this thing up after our people have set their hearts upon it? Never! Is it money you need? Leave it to us-we’ll raise that! We are poor. We are on strike. But a lot of us still have a few dollars left in the savings bank that we’ve been putting by through many years. We’ll get it out and lump it together. We will go to our business men and say: ‘Here, we’ve been trading with you a long time. We have helped to make your profits. Now you help us or we won’t trade with you any more.’ Never mind. You leave it to us-we will raise the money.”

And they did. Other generous people, more richly upholstered with ready cash, also came forward with contributions and in four days there was ample money with which to cover all deposits.

And it was found that the result was worth all the toil and trouble involved. The lives of most of us are sordid and grey. So tightly are we tied to the petty round of toil to which our galley-masters bind us, that most of us probably are born, live and die without experiencing one deep-springing, surging, devastating emotion. We are either afraid to feel or we have lost the capacity.

The Paterson pageant will be remembered for the sweeping emotions it shot through the atmosphere if for no other reason. Waves of almost painful emotion swept over that great audience as the summer wind converts a placid field of wheat into billowing waves. It was all real, living, and vital to them. There were veterans of many an industrial battle in that audience, though the cheeks of many still held the pink of youth.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part I

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Quote BBH, IU Socialism w Working Clothes On, NYC Cooper Union Debate w Hillquit, Jan 11, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 1, 1913
“The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part I

From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:

HdLn Paterson Pageant by P Russell, ISR p7, July 1913Scene fr Paterson Pageant, ISR p6, July 1913

[Part I of II]

JUNE 7, 1913, was a red letter day in New York. Literally, too. For when dusk fell on Madison Square, high up on the tower of Madison Square Garden, shone the giant letters “I. W. W.,” glowing red in the sky and sending scarlet beams through the smoke that drifts incessantly across the face of Manhattan Island.

It was the first time that those significant letters have ever been given so conspicuous a place. Their mission was to announce something new under the sun, a labor play in which laborers themselves were the actors, managers and sole proprietors, portraying by word and movement their own struggle for a better world. 

Imagine a great auditorium, the largest in New York, filled with one of the hughest audiences that ever gathered in the metropolis, gazing on the largest amateur production ever staged, with the biggest cast-1,029 members-that ever took part in a play, enacting a life-drama calculated to raise to the highest pitch the most powerful human emotions-and one gets a faint idea of the event in Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 7.

In order to give the reader a mental picture of what happened that night on the stage-which alone cost $600 to build -it might be well to outline the six episodes composing the pageant as given in the official program, which itself made a good propaganda pamphlet of 32 pages with a lithographed cover:

Scene: Paterson, N.J. Time: A. D. 1913.

The Pageant represents a battle between the working class and the capitalist class conducted by the Industrial Workers of the World (I. W. W.), making use of the general strike as the chief weapon. It is a conflict between two social forces-the force of labor and the force of capital.

While the workers are clubbed and shot by detectives and policemen, the mills remain dead. While the workers are sent to jail by hundreds, the mills remain dead. While organizers are persecuted, the strike continues, and still the mills are dead. While the pulpit thunders denunciation and the press screams lies, the mills remain dead. No violence can make the mills alive-no legal process can resurrect them from the dead. Bayonets and clubs, injunctions and court orders are equally futile.

Only the return of the workers to the mills can give the dead things life. The mills remain dead throughout the enactment of the following episodes.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Paterson Strike Pageant” by Phillips Russell, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: From Solidarity: Hunger Wolf Menaces 25,000 Paterson Silk Strikers; Relief Committee Appeals for Aid

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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 30, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Hunger, the Great Strike Breaker, Menaces Silk Strikers

From Solidarity of June 28, 1913:

Paterson Silk Strikers Starving, Sol p1, June 28, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Solidarity: Hunger Wolf Menaces 25,000 Paterson Silk Strikers; Relief Committee Appeals for Aid”

Hellraisers Journal: Hannah Silverman, “The Firebrand” of the Paterson Silk Strike, Receives Stern Warning from Judge Klenert

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—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 27, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Hannah Silverman Threatened by Judge Klenert

From The New York Times of June 21, 1913:

Hannah Silverman, Paterson Firebrand, NY Tb p4, June 8, 1913

The thirty-one strikers who were convicted of unlawful assemblage a few weeks ago appeared before Judge Klenert to-day. Each was sentenced to three months in the County Jail at hard labor, and then sentence was suspended during good behavior. Judge Klenert advised each of the defendants that he was at liberty to leave the country if he did not like its laws. When the case of Hannah Silvermann, the seventeen-year-old girl, who was styled the Joan d’Arc of the silk strike by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was called, Judge Klenert addressed her separately, advising her that her conduct had caused great sorrow to her parents. Because of her youth, he said, he would excuse her this time. If she offended again, the Judge warned her, she would be sent to the State Home for Girls at Trenton.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “What the Reds are Doing in Paterson” by Alexander Scott, Editor of the Socialist Weekly Issue

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Quote BBH, IU Socialism w Working Clothes On, NYC Cooper Union Debate w Hillquit, Jan 11, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 14, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Socialists Party Members Support Strike of Silk Weavers

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

What the Reds are Doing
in Paterson

By Alexander Scott

Editor of The Weekly Issue,
Socialist Party Paper of Passaic County.

Socialist Editor SP Passaic County NJ Alexander Scott, ISR p852, June 1913

THE Socialists of Paterson have from the beginning of the silk strike taken an active part and have performed real service for the strikers. How could they help doing so? The fight of the 25,000 silk workers, organized in the I. W. W., was their fight. A majority of the party members are themselves silk workers.

When the general strike was called, the Socialists rolled up their sleeves, ready for any emergency. No question arose as to whether the workers were being organized by the I. W. W., the A. F. of L., or S. L. P. That did not matter then.

Had the strike been called by the A. F. of L.-much as some of us might doubt the sincerity of the organizers of that organization, and dubious as we might be of the outcome of the strike-there is no doubt but that the Paterson Socialists would have as readily jumped into the fray. In fact, when a year or so ago, the Detroit faction of the I. W. W. (S. L. P.) attempted, or pretended to organize the textile workers of the Passaic county, the Socialist Party members assisted, and when it was seen that the workers had been defeated through petty political trickery, they just as readily denounced them as traitors to the working class.

In the present strike, the two arms of the revolutionary labor movement have worked in unison. The Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party have demonstrated the tremendous power of their organizations when united to fight a common enemy. No force is powerful enough to overcome them.

It is the opinion of the writer that the strike would have been lost had we not all fought together, throwing the weight of our organization and press in with the I. W. W.

Let it here be understood that this article is not written with the purpose of showing the superiority of political action over direct action, but with the view of showing the necessity of both political and industrial union action in the struggle of the working class for emancipation.

The general strike was called for February 28. “Nip the strike in the bud,” ordered the mill owners. “Righto. At your service,” replied the city administration, the police, the press and some of the clergy.

The police gave orders that all halls be closed against the I. W. W., and got their clubs in readiness. The newspapers put their lying pens to work, and the clergy prepared sermons to suit the occasion. The strikers had already engaged Turn Hall as their headquarters, and the police had ordered this closed, too, and, moreover, intended to enforce the order by means of their clubs and guns, if necessary.

On the first day of the general strike a few hundred strikers filed out of Turn Hall and proceeded peacefully along the sidewalk in double file, when they were brutally attacked by a gang of blue-coated, brass-buttoned ruffians, headed by their Chief. Clubs were swung right and left, and no discrimination was made as to sex or age. One girl was struck and her cries could be heard two blocks distant.

“Well done!” said the silk bosses, and their editorial lackeys echoed, “Well done!” The bosses’ papers appeared with headlines announcing, “Rioting Strikers Suppressed by Timely Work of Chief of Police Bimson and his Squad of Men-Strike Being Nipped in the Bud.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “What the Reds are Doing in Paterson” by Alexander Scott, Editor of the Socialist Weekly Issue”