Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 27, 1919
Mary Heaton Vorse Reports from the Front Lines of the Great Steal Strike:
People have died, people have been wounded, they have been beaten, ridden down by mounted police, and have suffered in great numbers, fine and imprisonment, because of Mr. Gary’s principles.
From the Kansas Trades Unionist of December 26, 1919:
CAMOUFLAGE IN INDUSTRIAL WARFARE
By Mary Heaton Vorse
Butte Daily Bulletin of October 10, 1919
Do you know what the steel strike is about?It is about the right of free men to join freely in organizations which will deliver them from conditions which prevent them being men. It is a fight as to whether one man can coerce the men in the industries of five great states.
There are wars being fought now in Europe over territories not so large and involving the lives of fewer human beings.
This strike is a strike for democracy. It is a fight for the opportunity for wider citizenship.
People against profit. Feudalism against Americanism-a blacker feudalism than the world has known for a long time, for in the most autocratic monarchies the people had the right of petition.
If they had something they wanted to say to their king, they could say it. He would read their petition, he would reply to it.
Judge Gary is more autocratic than any monarch. He denies his men the right of petition. He throws their petitions into the waste basket.
For principles sake.
For principles sake Mr. Gary has let this strike go on.
People have died, people have been wounded, they have been beaten, ridden down by mounted police, and have suffered in great numbers, fine and imprisonment, because of Mr. Gary’s principles.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 31, 1908
Spokane, Washington – I. W. W. Plans Free Speech Campaign
From The Spokane Press of December 28, 1908:
ALL GET READY FOR JAIL
—–
INDUSTRIAL WORKERS WILL HAVE 500 SPEAKERS
ON TAP TO BE ARRESTED FOR
MAKING TALKS ON CITY STREET
—–
Another problem similar to that of jailing all the saloonkeepers in town will be presented the police department when an attempt is made to enforce the ordinance recently passed to prevent public speaking on the street. The Industrial Workers of the World have organized systematic opposition and yesterday they asked the socialists to join them.
The Industrial Workers already have a list of 50 speakers, and expect to secure a total of 500 out of their membership of 1,500 in this city. These speakers will be numbered, a street meeting started and as soon as one speaker is confiscated by the police another will take his place. The industrialists hold the ordinance an invasion of the rights of free speech, and say they would rather go to jail than abide by its provisions.
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 December 29, 1908
Samuel Gompers on the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press:
Samuel Gompers addressed the Court, December 23rd, before being sentenced to one year in prison, and said, in part:
[T]he freedom of speech and of the press have not been granted in order that men may say the things that please, but to say the things that displease, which may convey the need of change and the unaccepted thought….
If in monarchical England these rights can be given, they ought not to be denied to the theoretically free citizens of this Republic.
From the Washington Evening Star of December 23, 1908:
From The Washington Times of December 23, 1908:
[Continued.]
Defendants Before the Court.
All the while the reading [of Judge Wright’s opinion] proceeded the three defendants sat in the courtroom directly in front of Judge Wright. All were composed, betraying at times slight evidence of restlessness, but listening closely to the words of the court. When he had concluded his opinion, Justice Wright announced he was ready to pass sentence, and after the customary fashion, the defendants were ordered by the bailiff to stand up.
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 – Monday December 28, 1908
Leaders of American Federation of Labor Flayed by Justice Wright
From The Washington Times of December 23, 1908:
FEDERATION’S HEAD IS GIVEN ONE YEAR
BY JUSTICE WRIGHT
—–
Vice President Gets Nine Months
and the Secretary Six Months
in Bucks Stove and Range Case.
Give Appeal Bond.
—–
DEFENDANTS FLAYED FROM THE BENCH
—–
Court Declares Violation of Order as to Boycott
and “We Don’t Patronize List”
Is Flagrant and Deserves Severe Punishment.
—–
President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, Secretary Frank Morrison of this organization, and John Mitchell, former president of the United Mine Workers, were today sentenced by Judge Wright of the District Supreme Court to the District jail for contempt of court.
Their offense is the violation of the injunction issued some months ago by Judge Gould prohibiting the American Federation of Labor and its officials from publishing the name of the Bucks Stove and Range Company in the “We Don’t Patronize List” of the federation as it had appeared in the American Federationist, the official organ of the American Federation of Labor.
To advocate peace with things as they are
is treason to humanity.
This is a class struggle and on class lines
it must be fought out to a finish.
-Ida Crouch-Hazlett
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 15, 1907
Spokane, Washington – Ida Crouch-Hazlett Arrested
From the Montana News of September 12, 1907:
Assail Free Speech in Spokane
—–
Mrs. Hazlett Arrested
—–
Two Thousand People Storm Jail and
Form a Triumphal Procession After
She Is Released on Bond
The fool policemen of Spokane and the idiotic city “reform ” administration has broken out in a new place and attempted to put an end to socialist street speaking.
Saturday evening, September 7, Mrs. Hazlett [editor of the Montana News] was addressing a crowd of 5,000 people on the street. She had spoken for an hour and a half without any molestation. There was not the slightest disturbance, the crowd standing remarkably still in a compact mass during that time. Just as she had announced her collection and was beginning to sell her books and subscription cards, a policeman in plain clothes came up and said, she was obstructing the sidewalk. She said she was not obstructing the sidewalk as she was in the middle of the street, but asked the crowd to open up a passage, which it immediately did. She then told the policeman that it was his business to keep people off the sidewalk and not hers. Whereupon he jerked her down from the box and placed her under arrest. The vast crowd began a most vigorous protest, shouting and shaming the policeman and even threatening to use force.
While Elihu Root is advising
the new Russian democracy,
you can come over and advise
the new American autocracy.
–Appeal to Reason to Czar Nicholas II
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday July 12, 1917 Girard, Kansas – Invitation Sent to “Mr. Nicholas Romanoff”
From the Appeal to Reason of June 30, 1917:
The Appeal Invites “Czar Nick”
to Come to America
Girard, Kansas, June 27, 1917.
Mr. Nicholas Romanoff, Care Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, Petrograd, Russia.
Dear Nick: Not knowing just how to reach you directly, we are sending this letter in care of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, who are doubtless keeping an eye on you and whom we trust to deliver this message uncensored as the mail of other private citizens is now being delivered-in Russia.
We expect you to be surprised at hearing from us, but not more surprised than we are at finding ourselves writing to you, a perfect stranger, you might say. Still, we feel that we have had an introduction to you after a fashion, having read about you a great deal and followed your recent career with much interest; so we think, Nick, that you’re the very man for a job that is now open over here in this land of the recently free. Here is a new and promising field for the exercise of your peculiar talents.
You will drop your hoe and come over on the next ship when we tell you that Czarism has been introduced in America, that the United States has taken the place of Russia with a vengeance that is rather characteristic of your own past rule.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday July 4, 1917
St. Peter & Duluth, Minnesota – Freedom of Speech Denied
From the New Ulm Review of July 4, 1917:
EUGENE DEBS IS BARRED FROM
PUBLIC SPEAKING
—–
St. Peter’s Chautauqua opened Sunday, July 1, and will continue until next Sunday, July 8. An excellent program has been arranged and is being carried out, with a large attendance. Eugene V. Debs, who had been secured to deliver one of the lectures, has been forbidden by the Minnesota Safety commission to deliver a public lecture in this state. The St. Peter committee was notified to that effect late last week. Mr. Debs was to have delivered the Fourth of July address on the Chautauqua program. St. Peter people, who had anticipated hearing a patriotic address by Mr. Debs feel that the Safety commission has convicted him without a trial.
The commission offered to send C. W. Ames, a member of that body to take the place of Debs on the program, but the offer was declined without even thanks. In fact the offer was considered, according to the St. Peter papers, somewhat presumptuous on the part of the commission.
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