Tag: Industrial Democracy

Hellraisers Journal: Statement of Comrade Eugene Victor Debs, Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Party of America

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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EVD re Socialism v Capitalism—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 28, 1912
“The Supreme Campaign Issue” by Eugene Debs, S. P. A. Presidential Candidate

From The Pittsburg Press of August 27, 1912:

WHAT EUGENE V. DEBS STANDS FOR

A concise statement by the Presidential candidate of the
Socialist party on “The Supreme Campaign Issue.”

Written especially for THE PITTSBURG PRESS.

BY EUGENE V. DEBS

EVD, Ptt Prs p1, Aug 27, 1912

The supreme issue in this campaign is Capitalism versus Socialism. The Republican hosts under Taft, the Democratic cohorts under Wilson and the Progressive minions under Roosevelt are but battalions of the army of capitalism.

Opposed to them are the ever augmenting phalanxes of the world’s workers, organizing in the ranks of the Socialist party, to do battle for the cause of Socialism and industrial emancipation.

Nothing in the political history of the world has presented so inspiring vision as the formation of the battle lines for the campaign in America.

For the first time since the civil war is a political cleavage upon a great moral question. It is the question of the right of one class of human beings exploiting another class of human beings to the very point of physical existence.

It is a question of human freedom versus human slavery.

This question is as old as the race, but for the first time in human history the issue is stripped of all subterfuge and the exploited class have the political power in their own hands to accomplish by peaceful means their own emancipation.

No longer can the political harlots of capitalism betray the workers with issues manufactured for that purpose. The beating of tariff tom-toms, the cry for control of corporations, the punishment of “malefactors of great wealth,” the wolf cry of civic righteousness under capitalism, will not avail the politicians in this campaign.

Neither will the purely political issues of direct legislation, the recall, direct election of senators, or the economic reforms promised, of old-age pensions, minimum wage, industrial insurance and welfare of labor, about which the politicians of capitalism are now so much concerned, bring aid or comfort to them, for the people know that all of these are a part of the program of Socialism and that they are only seized upon by designing men who are not Socialists in an effort to deceive the people and prolong the reign of capitalism.

Taft may have stolen delegates enough to secure his renomination, but it remained for Roosevelt to burglarize the Socialist platform in order to secure his election under false pretenses.

The millions of American tillers of the soil and toilers of factory, mine and railroad, have abandoned once and forever all political parties of whatever name which do not challenge the very existence as an institution, and they are in open, organized and intelligent revolt against the system.

They have bunched all the so-called issues of all the capitalist parties, along with wage-slavery, poverty, ignorance, prostitution, child slavery, industrial murder, political rottenness and judicial tyranny, and they have labeled it “Capitalism.” They are bent upon the overthrow of this monstrous system and upon establishing in its place an industrial and social democracy in which the workers shall be in control of industry and the people shall rule.

The Socialist party offers the only remedy, which is Socialism.

It does not promise Socialism in a day, a month, or a year, but it has a definite program with Socialism as its ultimate end. Its advocates are men and women who think for themselves and have convictions of their own and they are in deadly earnest.

The hour has struck! The die is cast and Socialism challenges the institution of Capitalism. 

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Timber Workers and Timber Wolves” by William D. Haywood, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re Industrial Freedom BTW LA, ISR p , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 3, 1912
Brotherhood of Timber Workers Organizing Campaign in Louisiana

From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:

Timber Workers by BBH, ISR p105, Aug 1912

[Part II of II]

Before the campaign of organization [Brotherhood of Timber Worker] now inaugurated by the Industrial Workers of the World is closed the lumber barons of Dixieland will have learned that it is impossible to fell trees with rifles and saw lumber with six shooters.

It should be mentioned here that of the nine men arrested four are non-union men, two of them, John and Paul Galloway, being owners of the Lumber Company. All are charged with murder. This, perhaps, indicates that the Trust has not entirely corralled the officialdom of Louisiana. It is certain that they are in bad repute with the business element in nearly all of the towns as their commissaries have been the means of controlling nearly the entire earnings of their employees, who are compelled to trade with the companies or lose the only means they have of making a living.

To maintain their absolute control of the camps the lumber companies, with the aid of their thugs, patrolled the towns, in some places inclosures were built around the mills and shacks. Notices were posted warning away union men, peddlers and Socialists.

Only a few days ago, H. G. Creel, one of the Rip-Saw editors on a lecture tour, was roughly handled at Oakdale and DeRidder, La. He was compelled to leave the first-named place, being threatened and intimidated by gun-men.

The small merchant realizes that if the workers are allowed to trade where they choose some of their money would pass over their counters and they know if wages are increased there would be a corresponding increase in their day’s receipts. This will account for the fact that the small business man and farmer have given their sympathy and a measure of support to the growing union of timber workers.

Arthur L. Emerson and Jay Smith, both Southern born, are the men around whom interest centers. They are the men who organized the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Emerson had made two trips to the West-one to the Lumber District to the Southwest and the other to the Northwest. It was during the time that he worked with the lumber jacks of the Pacific Coast that he learned the need of organization. This thought was especially developed when he came in contact with the Lumber Workers’ Union of St. Regis and other points in the Bitter Root Range of Mountains. Being a practical lumber jack and saw mill hand and mill-wright himself, he saw at once the discrepancy in wages between the Pacific Coast and the Gulf States and upon his return to Dixieland he immediately took up the burden of organizing the workers as the only possible means of bringing up their wages and conditions to the level of the already too-low Western scale.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “Timber Workers and Timber Wolves” by William D. Haywood, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs: “Pious Pickets of Capitalism Prostitute Religion in the Service of Mammon.”

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD, Religion n Socialism, AtR p2, Apr 23, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1910
Eugene Victor Debs on the Pious Pickets of Capitalism

From the Appeal to Reason of April 23, 1910:

EVD on Prostitution of Religion, AtR p2, Apr 23, 1910—–

EVD, crpd, Ipl Ns p16, Jan 21, 1910It may be set down as a rule that the gentry who constitute the self-appointed protectorate over the domain of religion and who charge socialists with being infidels and socialism with attacking religion are themselves hypocrites who are profiting by the ignorance and superstitions of the people and who use the cloak of religion to conceal their evil practices. Their pretended solicitude for socialism is a sham. What they really fear is not that religion will be destroyed, but that hypocrisy and false pretense will be discovered.

Those pious misfits who do not know what real religion is are one in raising the cry against socialism in the name of religion. Most of them have never read a chapter of socialist economics and are utterly ignorant of what socialism really means, or else, knowing what it means, deliberately misrepresent it to receive the “well done” and the stipend from their masters.

It is so much safer for the average clergyman to speak against socialism than for it, so far as his charge is concerned, his income and his position in society. Some of them are by reflex so imbued with the hostility for socialism of the capitalists who pay their salaries that they deem it their special duty to denounce socialism as an attack upon the church and a conspiracy against religion. Of course they speak in the name of religion, the religion of Jesus Christ, the homeless wanderer who sympathized and associated with the poor and lowly, and whose ministrations were among the despised sinners and outcasts.

These pious pickets of capitalism prostitute religion in the service of Mammon. Of all men on earth they are the least fit to speak in the name of religion. They have no religion or they would not serve in such a degenerate role.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene V. Debs: “Pious Pickets of Capitalism Prostitute Religion in the Service of Mammon.”” →

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

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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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: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Make Our Neighbors Wrongs Our Own, II Altoona Tb p6, Jan 12, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 15, 1920
Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part II

From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 12, 1920:

Mother Jones Elucidates Theories To Altoona Audience

[Part II of II.]

Mother Jones, Crpd Lg, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

OVERWORK AND UNDERPAY

She scored the conditions which permit men and women to be overworked and underpaid and results in riots and strikes when women and children are shot by brutes. Under her own personal observation at a time like this in the south, she said, was a case of a woman run down by mounted police who gave birth to a child as she was being taken to the morgue.

[She passionately declared:]

You have no Christianity. If you had conditions like this would not exist.

However, the speaker gave it as her opinion that the workers are becoming educated, getting a different vision; they feel the pulse of the world beating and different days coming. In West Virginia 65,000 men are organized since the inception of the union movement in that section a short time ago. Recently 10,000 of these men marched in a parade which the mayor of the city characterized as the most orderly parade he ever saw. All of which is a good omen.

BRUTALITY COVERED UP

[She cried:]

We want to give America a well fed humanity, intellectually, morally and physically. If the ministers do not wake up they will be thrown on a scrap heap.

At this point she derided the idea of saying “Your honor” to the governor of a state, who has permitted the murder of women and children in industrial uprisings.

This is the most insidiously brutal age that ever was, but it is covered up.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Revolution in Our Veins, Altoona Tb p6, Jan 12, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 14, 1920
Altoona, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Mishler Theater, Part I

From the Altoona Times Tribune of January 12, 1920:

Blair Co PA Labor News, CLU, Altoona PA Tx Tb p6, Jan 12, 1920

Mother Jones Elucidates Theories To Altoona Audience

[Part I of II.]

GSS, Mother Jones, WZF, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919

Yesterday afternoon shortly after 2:30 o’clock, the crowd of workingmen and their women folks who had assembled at the Mishler theatre, were given the privilege of seeing Mother Jones in the flesh and of hearing her speak. At that moment there appeared upon the platform a silver haired motherly looking woman in black, wearing a flowing white lace jabot. Looking on her self-composed, benign countenance, the wonder struck one. Is this the Mother Jones who has created a furore in the whole world, whose impassioned waging of her cause for full economical rights of the working man has caused kings of finance to tremble in fear and who by her own admission says she wants “to raise Hell”?

But a second glance at that sturdy upright figure and one recognized a presence that radiates a dynamic force and vitality which gives the impression that it could conquer all obstacles no matter how great. Her strength and power in look and speech bely that 90th mile stone, which she said would reach May 1 of 1920, by many years.

Introduced by Pres. Charles Kutz, of Machinist Union No. 1008, Mother Jones wasted no time in digression but at once launched upon her theme by saying that this is the great year in the turning tide of oppression. For centuries the greatest agitators were murdered and driven off the earth through the power of money.

CITES CARTHAGE AGITATOR

Referring, by way of illustrations, to the time in Carthage when the rulers feared annihilation at the hands of the agitators, she detailed the incident of the leading one who was brought before the rulers. Asked, “Who are you?” he replied, “I am a man, a member of the human family.” “Why do you persist in this sedition?” “I belong to a class that through the progression of time has been murdered, maligned, imprisoned, roasted and tyrannized over.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks to Workingmen and Their Women Folk in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on Great Steel Strike: Strikers Killed, Beaten, Ridden Down Because of Gary’s Principles

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Fight for Righteousness n Justice, Gary IN Oct 23, 1919, Ab Chp 24———-

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

GSS Dead n Wounded, Btt Dly Bltn p2, Oct 10, 1919
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.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mary Heaton Vorse on Great Steel Strike: Strikers Killed, Beaten, Ridden Down Because of Gary’s Principles” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: Vincent St. John Announces Western Tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote V St John, Solidarity Organization, IW p4, May 6, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 15, 1909
Western Tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from May to July

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 6, 1909:

LECTURE TOUR OF MISS E. G. FLYNN
—–

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD
—–
General Administration,
310 Bush Temple, Chicago.
—–
Labor Produces All Wealth-
Labor Is Entitled to All It Produces-
An Injury to One Is an Injury to All
—–

EGF, Socialist Joan of Arc, Ctz Honesdale PA p6, May 14, 1909

Fellow Worker: The crying need of the hour with the working class is a form of organization that will create and maintain solidarity. To gain this means constructive work of great proportion. It needs correct education as well as correct form of organization. It means laying the foundation for the rule of the working class. It means the building of an organization that will enable its membership to successfully cope with the employing class in its everyday struggle. It means building an organization that will supplant the capitalist system and secure for the workers the full product of their labor.

Can this work be accomplished?
Can this organization be built?
It can and will!
It must be built!

Industrial Unionism on revolutionary lines will furnish the organization needed.

Agitation, education and organization on industrial lines is first required.

The Industrial Workers of the World is arranging a tour of the West for

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

Miss Flynn is one of the cleverest and best posted industrial unionists before the country today. Her exposition of the aims and objects of Industrial Unionism can be understood by all.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Ohio Socialist: Eastern City Fathers Pass Ordinances to Ban Red Flag, But Cannot Yet Ban Ties

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Red Flag, DNT Aug 11, 1907, p7

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 19, 1918
New York, Youngstown, Cleveland, Etc., Seek to Ban Red Flag

From The Ohio Socialist of December 18, 1918:

“THE RED FLAG ROAD”

Red Flag, ed, Wiki Socialism

We stole the caption because it sounded good. And now listen to our story.

You’ve heard of the Red Flag. You may never have seen one but we are sure you have heard about it. A Red Flag is a piece of cotton, wool or silk that’s been dyed red and in appropriate size is then hoisted to enjoy the breezes that blow.

There is a certain class of people in this land that go mad at sight of the Red Flag just as a bull does at sight of a red rag, and they chase it around with mouthings and ordinances.

The sport began in New York some weeks ago and seems to be traveling westward. The city fathers of Youngstown, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities have seen red and with heroic mien are chasing the Red Flag around and around.

We feel sorry for the Red Flag, folks. Poor, inanimate thing! Can neither talk back nor defend itself while it’s being banished and disgustingly discussed by those whom people have deemed wise enough to run cities.

Passing ordinances that the Red Flag shall fly no more is acting much like the fellow who cut off his little finger to make his hand quit stealing. The Red Fag is only an appendage. The real stuff is a matter of brains. And when brains accept the Red Flag as the insignia for Industrial Democracy then, whether the Red Fag flies or not, the trick is done.

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Hellraisers Journal: “A Letter to All Reds” by A. S. Embree, Acting Secretary I. W. W. General Defense Committee

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Thursday August 29, 1918
From the Cook County Jail: “Hold the Fort! We have nothing to regret.”

From The Ohio Socialist of August 28, 1918:

A Letter To All Reds

IWW Defense Fund, OH Sc p3, Aug 21, 1918

After 4 1-2 months of the most bitterly fought legal battle in the history of American labor, the prosecution scored an initial victory in the trial of one hundred of our fellow workers in Chicago.

A masterly defense was provided by Attorney George F. Vanderveer, assisted by William B. Cleary of Arizona, Otto Christensen of Chicago and Miss Caroline A.Lowe of Seattle. It is not too much to say that everything seemed to point to an acquittal, even the charge to the jury by Judge Landis, who, we gladly admit, proved himself to be impartial in all respects. The verdict of “Guilty” came as a shock, a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

The jury was out fifty-five minutes. It may have been only a formality that they left their seats to go to the jury room. A Chicago paper states it is evident that only one ballot was taken.

Motion for a new trial will be filed immediately and if necessary, appeal will be taken. All defendants are now in Cook County Jail. A word of cheer from the fellow workers in the field will be appreciated by them.

Fellow Worker Haywood gave out the following:

[Said Haywood, at the county jail:]

I have no fault to find with Judge Landis, and none of the rest of us have. He was fair to us, absolutely square throughout the whole trial. His instructions were fair, I thought, and certainly he treated us excellently while the trial was in progress.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “A Letter to All Reds” by A. S. Embree, Acting Secretary I. W. W. General Defense Committee” →