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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 10, 1904
“Crimes of Capitalism in Colorado” by Eugene Victor Debs
From The Chicago Socialist of April 9, 1904:
Tag: Montana News
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Arrested in Philadelphia for Talking Unionism
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 25, 1911
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Arrested for Talking Unionism
From the Appeal to Reason of June 24, 1911:
Gurley Flynn Arrested in Philadelphia
The police arrested Elizabeth Gurley Flynn while talking unionism before the Baldwin Locomotive works at Philadelphia, the other day, and that will help some. The bosses are blind as bats, for they are helping the agitation more than all we Socialists can do. In fact we could make poor progress if they were not such fools as to show the workers they are the kind that we Socialists proclaim them. They furnish the proof. She was held in $400 bail, took down the court proceedings in short hand, and went to the cell for free speech sake. The mass of men who were listening intently could hardly be restrained from knocking out the police for their brutality. It made many Socialists when no other kind of an argument could.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 22, 1911:
Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Montana News: “Laissez Faire” by Robert Hunter -What the powerful claim to believe in.
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 12, 1910
Robert Hunter on Laissez Faire, what the powerful claim to believe in.
From the Socialist Montana News of August 11, 1910:
LAISSEZ FAIRE.
By Robert Hunter.
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The above is the name of a politic that the powerful claim that they believe in.
It means, “Let Alone”. It means that the community must not interfere in behalf of the weak, nor in aid of the strong.
It is the politic upon which our government is said to be founded and it has been called the politic of “Everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”
Those who are successful sat that it is a fine doctrine, that it means, unlimited competition, unlimited struggle, and the survival of the fit.
They say everyone should have freedom to battle and to win, if he can.
And they claim that Laissez Faire permits a free race in which the swift always wins. And so Bryan and Taft, Cannon and Aldrich, and nearly all the leaders of both parties, say they believe in Laissez Faire.
When the the judges declare unconstitutional laws limitting the hours of work, they speak in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the trusts want to escape the law they plead in the name of Laissez Faire.
When the rich fight socialism they say it is because Socialism would hurt Laissez Faire.
And who is this Laissez Faire anyhow that has become such a terrible bogie?
Well I’ll tell you. It is a secret, but I tell you. He doesn’t exist. He is just gas and wind. He is a goblin.
If Jack Johnson should go to Mr. Rockefeller’s estate and beat up Mr. Rockefeller and take his property away from him, Mr. Rockefeller would run to the courts not to Laissez Faire.
If the workers were to gain control of congress and do away with the protective tariff, the powerful would denounce Laissez Faire.
And so the rich not believing in Laissez Faire have built up about themselves every kind of protection.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1910: Found in Girard, Kansas, and at Miners’ Special Convention at Cincinnati
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 15, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1910:
-Found Visiting Girard, Kansas, and Speaking to Miners at Cincinnati
From The Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 11, 1910:
Mother Jones the prominent Socialist lecturer has been in Girard this week.
From Hellraisers Journal of March 27, 1910:
Cincinnati, Ohio-Speech of Mother Jones at Miners’ Special Convention
From The Topeka State Journal of March 24, 1910:
SOUNDS CALL TO ARMS.
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“Mother Jones” Arouses Coal Miners
to Great Enthusiasm.
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Cincinnati. O., March 24.-Bituminous coal operators and miners of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, entered their subscale meeting this afternoon with almost certainty that a disagreement would be reported to the joint committee, that the joint conference would reach a like disagreement before tomorrow noon and that the International Convention of United Mine Workers would then be asked to say whether it should be industrial peace or war after April 1.
Operators of the three states immediately concerned, held a secret conference all morning and at the conclusion announced that the vote had been unanimous to resist all of the miners’ demand. The attitude of the miners in the international convention was shown during an address by “Mother” Jones when she declared:
If the operators force a fight we are all in trim to give them the hottest fight they ever had in their lives.
The convention was almost stampeded and the cheering did not cease for several minutes.
[She shouted:]
Line up, we are ready for war.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1910, Part II: Found Supporting Black Hills Miners of South Dakota
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 13, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1910, Part II:
-Found Supporting the Miners of the Black Hills in South Dakota
From the Black Hills Daily Register of February 22, 1910:
Mother Jones Sends Money
James Kirwan yesterday received a letter from Mother Jones, who is now in Milwaukee, informing him that she was coming to Lead to take a hand in the fight for the right to organize. She asked no money, but, on the contrary, enclosed a check for one hundred dollars, with these words:
My boys in Lead gave me one hundred and fifty dollars for the 1909 Labor Day speech. Fifty dollars of this sum I gave to the Mexicans and I am sending you the balance for the locked-out Black Hills boys.
Further along in her letter, Mother says:
Tell the boys to keep up that fight. Have no surrender written on the banners of the Western Federation of Miners. I am coming up there to take a hand. The Hearst crowd of blood-suckers are organizing to get more profits. We also have a right to organize to give that crew of blood-suckers less profits. Tell my boys to stand pat. Mother.
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From the Socialist Montana News of February 24, 1910:
[Mother Jones in Milwaukee]
A non-partisan anti-high-price mass meeting was called for Feb. 15 by the Milwaukee Federated Trades Council Among the speakers who addressed the meeting were A. M. Simons, editor of the Chicago Daily Socialist, and Mother Jones. This so hurt the feelings of Senator Stephenson’s organ, the Free Press, that it indulged in several columns of abuse against the meeting. It had a great deal to say about the “poor attendance” of the meeting, although the hall was packed to the doors, and many were obliged to stand.
The real grievance of this capitalist sheet was that the capitalist politician who addressed the meeting cut a poor figure, having no remedy to offer except the enforcement of the law and investigation of facts which our pocket-books already understand all too well, while the Socialist speakers made ringing addresses which were roundly applauded. Resolutions that the people must own the trusts were adopted by the audience without one dissenting vote.
[Paragraph break added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced to Three Months in Spokane Jail for Conspiracy
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 18, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Convicted of Conspiracy
From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:
[Part II of II.]
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced
to Three Months.
Miss Flynn, or rather Mrs. Jones in private life, was arrested while walking on the street, on the new conspiracy charge that is now being used against the Industrial Workers. She has been editing and getting out the paper, the “Industrial Worker”, since the force was arrested.
This “conspiracy” charge makes any one concerned in coming or bringing people to Spokane to test the city ordinance guilty of the crime of conspiring against the peace of the city, and the authorities are working this to the limit. They even claim that their ordinance is superior to the Washington state laws, or the United States constitution. They completely ignore the fact that no inferior jurisdiction can make a law in contradiction to its superior.
The police have been itching to get Miss Flynn. She was thrown into a cell with prostitutes, insulted by the police, who came with their vile familiarity in the night, and abused terribly by the prosecuting attorney, Pugh. She is in a pregnant condition, and the greatest fears are entertain for her safety, the first child lost owing to her overwork on the platform. Her husband, who is Missoula, is worked up to an extreme nervous tension through suspense and anxiety.
Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: “Unexampled Barbarities” Used Against Prisoners of Spokane Free Speech Fight
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 17, 1909
Spokane, Washington – “Officials Use Russian Tortures”
From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:
[Part I of II.]
The stand of the I. W. W. for Free Speech in Spokane is making the history that will disclose the hollowness of the claims of personal liberty the American constitutional government has made.
The brutal treatment of the prisoners has not been excelled in Russia. The Franklin schoolhouse where over 200 of them have been incarcerated is kept in a state of unparalleled filth. The floor has never been scrubbed; there are no receptacles for expectoration, a filthy pall is provided for the calls of nature, often overflowing. No beds or bunks are provided, and the men have to lie in this filth. There was no fire or stove, but the men began tearing down the building and making a fire on the floor, and so a stove was furnished.
Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, New York Labor Agitator Now in Spokane
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 13, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Fights for Free Speech
From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:
A WOMAN LABOR AGITATOR.
The tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn through the west, and the strenuous work she has been performing in generaling the Free Speech fights has introduced to this section of country and earnest and energetic young woman.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a married woman of New York, whose agitation in the labor movement has excited much attention in the capitalist press, and a certain amount in the labor and socialist press; although the attention given her by the latter has been by no means commensurate with the ability of her work, and the impression it has made upon those who have heard and seen her. But Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has broken into the labor movement under peculiar conditions. Reared in a socialist home, she grew up with her mind intelligent and keen as to the homogeneity of the socialist and labor movements, an idea that is as yet scarcely grasped at all in America, either by the great mass of laborers or the majority of the socialists themselves. To be a socialist, a social reformer, meant to Miss Flynn to work in the labor movement.
When the Industrial Workers of the World was organised she thought she saw in its methods the ideal line of activity for the workers to adopt, who were bent upon industrial emancipation through a revolutionary program. She became devoted to the interest of the Industrial Workers. She refused to ally herself with either the Socialist Party or the Socialist Labor Party because of their failure to co-operate decidedly with the I. W. W.
Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -to Speak Until All Are Arrested
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 12, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Fellow Workers to Speak Until All Are Arrested
From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:
[Part II of II.]
Justice Orders Ordinance Made to Order.
Justice Mann who is holding up the judicial end of the government persecution detected the flaw in the first ordinance, as class legislation, and dismissed the prisoners under it. Another ordinance was then framed on the judge’s advice, designating any speaking on the street where a crowd gathers as disorderly. Thus the judge makes the laws, and decides on it, and passes sentence on it.
The second day 133 were arrested and 33 sentenced to 30-day terms in jail.
Attorney Moore for the I. W. W. gave notice of appeal to the superior court.
Foote, the editor of the Industrial paper published at Portland, was arrested as soon as he reached town.
A bulletin posted at headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was as follows:
Fellow workers, tomorrow this fight will be carried on with greater determination than ever. We have only begun to fight; 200 men will go to jail tomorrow.
Immediately below was posted another, which read:
Every man who is appointed captain to select five or more men and proceed to hold meetings.
Every captain and squad go to the places designated and speak until all are arrested.
Remember, the authorities claim to have broken the backbone of the organization. Show them that they are just as ignorant as bulls usually are…..
The socialist of Spokane have actively taken up the I. W. W. fight.
Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -IWW Causing a Little Stir
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 11, 1909
Spokane, Washington – I. W. W. Causing a “Little Stir”
From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:
[Part I of II.]
The Industrial Workers of the World are making a little stir in this western section of the country in its valiant maintenance of the right of free speech. A battle royal was commenced with the authorities of Spokane. The authorities show an unusual malignancy against these I. W. W. because they so openly denounce capitalism, its laws, its government and its authorities; they call on the workingmen of all grades and stations to unite on these principles, and to openly, radically and emphatically fight the capitalists and their government.
Now this attitude is not particularly soothing to officials of a class government, even though the insurgents are backed by a constitutional guarantee. With officials it is “To Hell with the constitution”, whenever its enforcement jeopardizes their graft.
Dirty Chicanery.
The Spokane authorities have played a dirty trick with the I. W. W. A year ago the Industrial entered upon a desperate fight for free speech. They filled the jail and nonplussed the city administration. The city thought fit to call a truce and asked that hostilities be suspended pending a court decision. The I. W. W. agreed to these terms, but no action has ever been taken on the part of the city to get a settlement of the case. Tired of being buffaloed in this shape the I. W. W. prepared for a march on Spokane, the authorities prepared to resist them, and the Workers are now fighting capitalist domination, and unjust abridgment of legal personal rights with all the forces at their command. The capitalist papers of Spokane have announced in staring headlines that 8,000 revolutionists from all over the northwest were gathering for the fray.
The “Industrial Workers”, the Spokane organ of the I. W. W., issued the call for this gathering of the clans. Different unions were notified by wire how many men to send to Spokane. One capitalist paper stated that 500 recruits for the battle boarded trains out of Portland, Oregon, without the formality of purchasing tickets.