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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 7, 1904
Telluride, Colorado – Martial Law Declared; Union Men Deported
From the American Labor Union Journal of January 7, 1904:
[News from Telluride by A. H. Floaten]
Tag: Socialist Party of Colorado
Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Coal Miners Fight to Win in Colorado by Robert M. Knight, Part II
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 4, 1913
Coal Miners of Southern Colorado Are Fighting to Win, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of December 1913:
[Part II of II]
Some one has said, “A fool in revolt is infinitely wiser than a learned philosopher apologizing for his chains.” Believing this, fully 95 per cent of the miners answered the call to strike [September 23, 1913]. Men with families within three days of starvation and without clothes enough to protect their frail bodies from the biting winds of mountain winters came out fully determined to win or die in the attempt. And who will blame them? Work such as the miner does is no longer honorable but has come to mean “drunkenness, vice and superstition.” It makes men and women unscrupulous, hard and restless. It destroys for others the treasure of life-a home. All the noble sentiments of liberty and the joy of labor mean in reality to the miner slavery of the worst type.
With thoughtless hymns of praise of this massacreing of labor, society allows one wholesale slaughter after another without a protest. While I am writing this the news arrived of the Dawson, New Mexico, disaster, in which the lives of 261 miners were lost and the operators refused to allow Secretary Doyle of the miners’ union to give the widows and orphans $1,000 donated by the union because the camp was non-union. And just as certain as that nothing becomes better without the desire to improve it so it is a healthy sign of the times that starvation wages for conscientious drudgery no longer fills the miner with heartfelt gratitude toward the master class.
The mine slaves were so cowed that the operators were sure that not more than 25 per cent would quit and when practically every miner laid down his tools, completely tying up the coal industry of Colorado, the wrath of the masters knew no bounds. They immediately got busy and sent a deputation of their lackeys, consisting of a lawyer, banker and a Catholic priest (Father Malone), to Washington to repeat the lies of the operators that the miners were satisfied with conditions but forced to strike by eastern agitators like Frank Hayes and Mother Jones. Their thugs began to terrorize the country, shoot up the tented camps of the strikers, insult the women and abuse the children and the operators began to call for the militia that the state might pay the cost of breaking the strike and thus save John D. a few paltry dollars with which to build a few more churches and start more Sunday schools where they sing and PREY-“servants obey your masters.”
Failing to get the militia as soon as they called, the operators had to content themselves with filling the jails of Colorado with strikers who dared to exercise their constitutional rights of peacefully asking imported strikebreakers to not work. In the city of Boulder and within the shadow of Colorado’s greatest educational institution, the state university, thirty-six were confined in the county jail until the court permitted the prisoners to bail each other out. Forty-nine others were arrested in Las Animas county and marched seven miles to the Trinidad jail between two rows of armed guards with Belk and Beltcher (out on bond for murder of Lippiatt), following up the rear with a Gatling gun mounted on an armored automobile.
Frank Hayes says, “The operators have several machine guns mounted on autos. They also have what is known as the ‘steel battle ship [Death Special].‘ This is an automobile with a high body of solid sheet steel built up so as to almost conceal the guard inside. The steel furnishes resistance to the bullets and is so arranged that the assassins on the inside may shoot their rifles in perfect safety. It is a splendid refuge for a coward. The body of the machine is shaped like a torpedo and was designed and built for mine guards. It carried a rapid fire machine gun with a range of more than two miles. As bad as West Virginia was there was nothing down there to compare with this latest instrument of murder that the operators of Colorado are using.”
As this procession neared town, G. E. Jones, a member of Western Federation of Miners, attempted to get a picture of the armored car. A. C. Felt beat him insensible and destroyed his camera and had him arrested for disturbing the peace.
Gun men patrol the public roads in armored autos, shooting up first one camp and then another. The first resistance the strikers offered was at Forbes, October 17, one striker was killed, two wounded and a deputy shot in the hip. One hundred and forty-seven bullets from a machine gun passed through a tent occupied by an aged Scotchman, who saved his life by lying flat on the floor. After this battle the miners made preparations to defend themselves from further attacks of the guards.
Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: Machine Guns and the Striking Coal Miners of Southern Colorado
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 2, 1913
Machine Guns Used to Wage War Against Striking Miners of Southern Colorado
From the International Socialist Review of December 1913:
MILITARISM is the heavy fist of the Capitalist class to beat the worker into abject submission. So well do they know the value of machine guns and soldiers that the utmost endeavor is constantly put forth by the Government-the ever-ready Servant of Vested interests, to seduce boys into the ranks of patriotic hirelings. Militiamen and soldiers are working men, hired for a consideration, to shoot and kill other workingmen in the name· of “law and order.”
Brute force, it is evident, is never entirely discarded by the capitalist robber class in their self-assumed right to exploit the worker of the product of his toil. Behind the courts, judges and injunctions, political machinery, class education and superstition, there always lurks the shadow of the big mit and the heavy club-the Military.
The velvet glove only covets the mailed hand.
Where the barons of the middle ages hired his knights and handmen to prey upon and keep in suppression the serfs of the surrounding territory, the coal barons of Colorado, New York and West Virginia maintain their teachers and editors, their preachers and professors, their lawyers, judges and political heelers for the same identical purpose-the robbing of the working class. When these forces fail to work expeditiously then-the honorable Governor is beseeched to call out the National Guard to preserve “law and order.”
The difference between the first exploiter of labor-the man with the knotted club-and John D. Rockefeller the holy, oily Christian philanthropist, is one of degree only. The robbery of the worker is equally complete. The spoils of the idle robber of today is greater than ever. Only the methods have changed.
Hellraisers Journal: Policy Committee Issues Statement; Mother Jones Inspires Strikers at Sopris, Ludlow and Segundo
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 7, 1913
Colorado Strike Zone – Policy Committee Issues Statement; Mother Jones Speaks
From the Trinidad Chronicle News of September 26, 1913:
In a general statement issued last night the district policy committee of United Mine of America composed of Frank J. Hayes, John McLennan, John H. Lawson and E. L. Doyle declared their position as follows:
We desire law and order above all things. We shall try to conduct this strike in such a way to command the respect of the public and civil authorities. A man who commits or talks violence as a means to win this strike is not properly representing the mine workers’ organisation.
We depend for success on the justice of our cause. We request the operators to warn their imported gunmen to respect the law and to cease their intimidation of union miners.
We have cautioned our people in this respect and we ask the operators to do likewise. Our responsibility in this matter is the same and we ought to meet it like men.
There is no occasion for the alleged purpose of protecting property. It is an evidence of weakness on the part of operators and is a reproach to all law abiding citizens. There is no need for the operators or their agents to ship hundreds of rifles into this region as they are doing at present for the purpose of intimidating peaceful lawsabiding people. We propose to the beet of our ability to protect life and property and to safeguard the liberties of our people by lawful means.
The strike is complete in every particular. The best in the history of our organisation, notwithstanding statements to the contrary, and the miners of Colorado will remain out of the mines until their rights are fully recognized.
At the scene of the Segundo tragedy [September 24th killing of C. F. I. “Marshal”]…Mother Jones [yesterday, September 25th] delivered another impassioned speech to miners, urging the men to remain on strike until the operators meet the full demands. No illusion was made to the killing of Marshal Lee…..
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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From The Rocky Mountain News of September 27, 1913
Strikers congregated in front of the town hall, where more than 3,000 listened to “Mother” Jones and other strike sympathizers (“Mother” Jones in the center).
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Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason: Mother Jones, Miners’ Angel, Found in Heaven Wearing the Biggest Crown of All
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 20, 1911
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1911
Dreamer Finds Mother Jones in Heaven Wearing Biggest Crown of All
From the Appeal to Reason of April 1, 1911
-page 3, Kansas & Oklahoma edition:
OKLAHOMA NOTES
—–[…..]
Comrade Lee, of Oklahoma City, sends in a list of subs. He says that he had a dream not long ago and found himself, much to his surprise, in heaven. The first person he saw was Mother Jones, who was wearing the biggest crown in the bunch.
Mother Jones, Miners’ Angel
Hellraisers Journal: Haywood Wins Thousands of Votes for Governor of Colorado While Facing the Gallows in Idaho
Have courage and energy;
they may put us in jail,
but imprisonment is not defeat.
Yours for economic freedom,
Ada County Jail, Boise, Idaho.
-WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD.
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 25, 1906
Colorado Socialists and Unionists Cast Their Votes for Haywood
Colorado Election Results from the Montana News of November 22nd:
COLORADO
Returns very incomplete. Enough to show more than 20,000 for Haywood and the Socialist ticket. Grand Junction goes 500 for Haywood, Telluride over 450 for Haywood. Great frauds every where, especially in Denver, where Socialist watchers were thrown out. In some places Socialists were prevented from voting.
Hellraisers Journal: Messages from Comrade Haywood, Socialist Candidate for Governor of Colorado
Have courage and energy;
they may put us in jail,
but imprisonment is not defeat.
Yours for economic freedom,
Ada County Jail, Boise, Idaho.
-WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD.
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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 4, 1906
From Ada County Jail, Idaho – Big Bill Campaigns for Governor
In the latest issue of the Appeal to Reason we find messages from William D. Haywood to the people of Colorado. These messages were sent out to the Appeal by Big Bill from behind the bars of the Ada County Jail where the Socialist candidate for Governor resides awaiting trial in an attempted frame-up on a charge of having murdered the ex-Governor of Idaho. Also found was a notice announcing a meeting with Eugene Debs in Denver on Monday, November 5th, the day before the election.
Haywood Denounces Democrats
Haywood Denounces Plot of Democrats
———–“No Compromise in Colorado!” is Still the Slogan Which the Socialist Candidate for Governor of Colorado Sends from His Prison Cell in Idaho to the Loyal Comrades of the Centennial State.
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Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kansas.
I have just received information to the effect that Alva Adams, democratic candidate for governor of Colorado, in his canvass is reading telegrams purporting to be from my representatives. I desire to say to the working class of Colorado that no telegram or message of any description to Alva Adams or any one of his class has been authorized by me. Moreover, no one but the state committee of the Socialist party is empowered to speak for me politically. In every conversation I have had on the subject, in everything I have written, I made it distinctly understood that there shall be NO COMPROMISE IN COLORADO. I accepted the nomination in good faith. There has been a magnificent campaign made. I stand or fall by the decision of my class-the wage-earners. Union men and women, fellow-workers, Socialists, I have never betrayed you-and, by the Almighty, I never shall. I am with you in this fight to abolish special privileges, to establish equal opportunities, to insure justice, life and liberty.
Ada County Jail, Boise, Idaho, Oct. 20.
Yours to a finish,
WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD.
Hellraisers Journal: Biography of William D. Haywood, Socialist Candidate for Governor of Colorado
Gabbertized capital must die that
a free people may live!
-Big Bill Haywood
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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday September 22, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: Bill Haywood, A Man of the Masses
From today’s edition of the Appeal to Reason, we find the story of the life of William D. Haywood, candidate of the Socialist Party of Colorado for the office of governor of that state. Comrade Haywood, Secretary-Treasure of the Western Federation of Miners, received his party’s nomination for governor despite being a prisoner in the Ada County Jail of Boise, Idaho.
Written for the APPEAL TO REASON
BY WALTER HURT.
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WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD,
Candidate for Governor.
William D. Haywood, Socialist candidate for governor of Colorado, comes rightfully by his revolutionary spirit; for it is a fact, although one to which, being a modest man, he seldom and reluctantly refers, that he is directly descended from a gallant Continental rebel. But the pride of such ancestry, instead of making of him an arrogant snobocrat, as is the case in too many instances, imbues him with the idea that he can best honor his liberty-loving forbear by being an uncompromising democrat in the fundamental meaning of the term.
Comrade Haywood was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb. 4, 1869, and to him belongs the unique distinction of being the first Gentile male child born within the borders of Zion.
From his earliest days Haywood was dedicated to the mining craft. His first job, when he was nine years old, was with his step-father on the Russian (!) Mine, Ophir, Utah, as tool-nipper and roustabout.
Hellraisers Journal: Big Bill Haywood, Socialist for Governor, Obstruction to the Demo-Republico Party
Will we win? We can’t lose!
Every socialist vote gained
is a victory for humanity.
-Big Bill Haywood
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Hellrasiers Journal, Sunday August 26, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: Big Bill Haywood, Socialist for Governor
From this week’s Appeal, a drawing by Ryan Walker:
Hellraisers Journal: Appeal to Reason to Colorado Voters: Socialists or Demo-Republicans of the Mine Owners Association?
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday August 9, 1906
Ada County Jail, Idaho – Haywood, Candidate for Governor of Colorado
From the Appeal to Reason of August 4, 1906:
