Hellraisers Journal: Gene Debs Welcomed Home; Tour of Red Special Ends in Big Demonstration at Terre Haute

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Quote EVD re Political Scabbing, AtR p2, Oct 3, 1908
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 8, 1908
Tour of Red Special Ends in Home Town of Eugene Debs

From The Indianapolis News of November 3, 1908:

TERRE HAUTE WELCOMES
“GENE” DEBS BACK HOME
—–

BIG DEMONSTRATION FOR THE SOCIALIST CANDIDATE.
—–

REGARDS TO BRYAN AND TAFT
—–

(Special to The Indianpolis News.)

EVD Red Special detail, Zanesville OH Tx Rcdr p1, Oct 20, 1908

TERRE HAUTE, Ind., November 3.-“Gene” Debs came home last evening in his “Red Special,” and had a welcome surpassing in enthusiasm any political demonstration seen in Terre Haute in many years. His train was three hours late, owing to a breakdown at Cayuga, but the crowd waited for him, cheering for “Gene.” when he appeared on the stage at the Colosseum 3,000 persons, who had each paid 10 cents admission, packed the place, and as great a crowd outside listened to other speakers. At the Armory another big audience waited for him until after 10 o’clock. Besides paying the admission at the Colosseum there was a liberal contribution when collectors, some of whom were women, wearing red sashes, went down the aisles.

Debs began with a feeling acknowledgment of the personal note in his welcome, referring to the fact that he was born in and always had lived in Terre Haute, where, if any one had ever said an unkind word about him, he never heard of it.

Refers to Rockefeller.

[He said:]

All great movements in their incipiency are unpopular and are led by “undesirable citizens.”

[T]he reference to the designation of him by President Roosevelt causing laughter and applause. He said the two old parties stand for the same system, which has reached the climax of its existence. He declared that Rockefeller “was not born yesterday”; that he knew better than any one else how unpopular he is and the effect of his interview for Taft. The interview, he said, was the shrewdest move in the campaign. He knew that he had exhausted the usefulness of the Republican party to him, and desires Bryan.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Gene Debs Welcomed Home; Tour of Red Special Ends in Big Demonstration at Terre Haute”

Hellraisers Journal: Debs Reflects on Haywood Verdict: Thinks Roosevelt Should Tender an Apology

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A thousand times rather would I be
one of those men in Ada county jail
than Theodore Roosevelt in
the White House at Washington.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday August 10, 1907
From the Montana News: Debs Reflects on Haywood Verdict

Readers of Hellraisers will remember the controversy begun by Roosevelt when it was revealed, last April, that the President had declared Haywood, Moyer, Pettibone and Debs to be “Undesirable Citizens.”

In the Appeal to Reason of May 18th, Comrade Debs confronted Roosevelt:

Henry Maki WFM Telluride, Chained to Pole Mar 2, 1907

Were a mob of workingmen to seize Theodore Roosevelt and chain him to a post on a public street in Washington in broad daylight, as a mob of his capitalist friends seized and chained a workingman [Henry Maki] in Colorado, or throw him into a foul bullpen, without cause or provocation, prod him with bayonets and outrage his defenseless family while he was a prisoner, as was done in scores of well-authenticated cases in both Colorado and Idaho, would he then be in the mood to listen complacently to hypocritical homilies upon the “temperate” use of language, the sanctity of “law and order” and the beauty of “exact justice to all”?

And if he heard of some man who had sufficient decency to denounce the outrages he and his family had suffered, would he then “conceive it to be his duty,” as he tells us, to condemn the language of such a man as “treasonable and murderous” and the man himself as “inciting bloodshed,” and therefore an “undesirable citizen”?

[Photograph added.]

If fighting for the rights of working people makes one an undesirable citizen, then let us hope that millions more would be proud and happy to be classed with the likes of Comrades Haywood and Debs.

In this weeks edition of the Montana News, Eugene Debs suggests that President Roosevelt should tender an apology to the man he declared guilty in advance of the trial. Comrade Debs declares the acquittal of Big Bill Haywood to be a great victory for the American labor movement and a rebuke to the prosecution and to their masters, the Mine Owners’ Association, whose interest the prosecution endeavored to serve. Comrade Debs expresses his great respect for Comrade Haywood and proposes that Haywood should be nominated as the Socialist Party’s candidate for president.

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Hellraisers Journal: Summary of Moyer-Haywood Case From Current Literature: Socialist Press & “Undesirable Citizens”

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If they hang Moyer and Haywood,
they’ve got to hang me.
-Eugene Victor Debs

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday June 8, 1907
Current Literature on Moyer-Haywood Case, Part II

HMP, Gooding Steunenberg, Current Lit June 1907

—–

THE murder of ex-Governor Steunenberg, as viewed by the state authorities of Idaho and by most of the daily papers of the country, came as a sequel to a long series of labor troubles between the miners and the mine-owners of the Coeur d’Alene district in Idaho. This district, twenty-five miles in length and one to five miles wide, contains rich mines of lead. Trouble began in 1892 and continued for seven years, off and on, with all the usual violent accompaniments of a war between labor and capital in a region where the forces of government are none too strong and the leaders on either side none too scrupulous. There were pitched battles between the union men and the non-union men. Dynamite was used to wreck mills, men were assassinated, and on May 8, 1897, the feeling had become so intense that President Boyce, of the Western Federation, advised every local union to organize a rifle corps, “so that in two years we can hear the inspiring music of the martial tread of twenty-five thousand armed men in the ranks of labor.” The trouble reached a climax in April, 1899, when the $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill Company was destroyed by the miners with dynamite.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Summary of Moyer-Haywood Case From Current Literature: Socialist Press & “Undesirable Citizens””

Hellraisers Journal: John R. McMahon and Ernest Untermann Report from Boise for Wilshire’s Magazine

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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, Wednesday June 5, 1907
Wilshire’s Magazine Covers the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Case

HMP, Hy, My, Pt Court Hse Lawn, Wilshires, June 1907

The above photograph is from page 8 of the June edition of Wilshire’s Magazine, which edition devotes much space to coverage of the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone Case now unfolding in Boise, Idaho. We offer a review of that coverage below.

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John R. McMahon and Ernest Untermann Report from Boise for Wilshire’s Magazine”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: A Song for Haywood’s Little Daughter by Owen Spendthrift

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 26, 1907
New York Songwriter Pens Lyrics for “Undesirable Citizen” Meeting

“WILL THEY HANG PAPA?”
LABOR’S LATEST DITTY
—–
Little Daughter of W. D. Haywood Asks
Pathetic Question of Reporter.
—–
Query Becomes Inspiration for Song
and Lyric Tunes It Into Music.
—–

HMP, Henrietta Haywood, Boise, Wilkes-Barre Leader, May 10, 1907

“Are they going to hang father?” thus a reporter for an eastern paper was questioned when visiting the home of W. D. Haywood for the purpose of making a study of the domestic life of the imprisoned official of the Western Federation of Miners. The question was asked by the little daughter of Mr. Haywood, and the cheeks of the poor girl were wetted by tears as she pathetically looked into the eyes of her visitor.

The great papers which give much space to the prosecution’s side of the greatest conspiracy of modern times, have not much to spare to inform the public of the touching appeals of Haywood’s children, so firmly convinced of their father’s innocence.

When Owen Spendthrift, the New York song writer, read the story of the reporter’s visit to the Haywood home, he was impressed with the query of the little girl, and he tuned his lyric for a big “Undesirable Citizen” meeting to be held in New York on the following Sunday. This is his song:

HMP, Hang Papa? Spendthrift, Labor World, May 18, 1907

[Photograph of Henrietta Haywood added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: A Song for Haywood’s Little Daughter by Owen Spendthrift”

Hellraisers Journal: Luella Twining for the Appeal to Reason on Monster Moyer-Haywood Demonstration in Boston

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If I hang on the scaffold myself
I will do all in my power to defend
Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone.
-Luella Twining

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday May 22, 1907
Boston, Massachusetts – Monster Moyer-Haywood Demonstration

HMP, Undesirable Citizen, Walker 3, AtR, Apr 20, 1907

Massive demonstrations to protest the frame-up of the officials of the Western Federation Miners have been held this month in cities and towns across the nation. Most recently, on Sunday May 19th, the workers of Chicago came out en masse onto the streets, many wearing buttons declaring, “I Am an Undesirable Citizen.” This same button had been worn by the marchers in New York City on May 4th. That parade was one of the largest ever held in the city and concluded with a rally at the Grand Central Palace.

In the May 18th edition of the Appeal to Reason, Luella Twining describes the monster demonstration held in Boston on Sunday May 5th:

ON THE BOSTON COMMON
—–

A Hundred Thousand Workingmen
Call The President’s Bluff

-Massachusetts Full of “Undesirable Citizens.”

BY LUELLA TWINING.
Special Correspondent Appeal to Reason

HMP, Boston Demo of May 5, Luella Twining, AtR, May 18, 1907

Luella Twining

WHEN I saw the boys at Fitchburg marching down the street, 2,000 strong, with their banners flying, flags and torches headed by the band playing the Marseillaise, I wept. I could not restrain my tears in Lynn, when I saw the boys there marching 2,500 strong. These were mighty armies parading to show Standard Oil and President Roosevelt that they will not tolerate the railroading of Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone to the gallows. I was elated over the mass meeting in the morning at Lynn, in the ball park, where five thousand citizens assembled to protest against injustice and show their colors. But the demonstration May the 5th, in Boston, was so stupendous I could not comprehend it, and I am sure I never shall be able to. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Luella Twining for the Appeal to Reason on Monster Moyer-Haywood Demonstration in Boston”

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs for the Appeal to Reason: “Roosevelt’s Labor Letters”

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If Moyer and Haywood die!
If Moyer and Haywood die!
Twenty million working men
Will know the reason why!
-Protest Chant

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 19, 1907
From the Appeal to Reason: Debs Questions President Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s Labor Letters
—–

Eugene V. Debs
—–

Kidnappers Special by BBH, detail, AtR, May 19, 1906

The letter of President Roosevelt to the Moyer and Haywood conference of New York is in strange contrast with the one previously addressed by him to the Chicago conference on the same subject. The two letters are so entirely dissimilar in spirit and temper that they seem to have been written by different persons. In the first the President bristles with defiance, in the last he is the pink of politeness. The first letter utterly failed of its purpose. Organized labor did not lie down and be still at the command of the President. On the contrary, it growled more fiercely than before in fact, showed its teeth to the President, who has become so used to exhibiting his own. And lo-what a change! The President receives a labor committee, talks over matters for an hour and then addresses a letter to the conference through the chairman, beginning “My Dear Mr. Henry,” explaining that he is ready to perform his duty if only the conference will point it out to him, and putting the whole blame on “Debs and the Socialists,” whom he charges with using “treasonable and murderous language,” but not a word of explanation does he vouchsafe in regard to his denunciation of Moyer and Haywood, the real, and in fact the only, point at issue.

Again has the President vindicated his reputation as one of the smoothest of politicians and one of the most artful and designing of demagogues.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs for the Appeal to Reason: “Roosevelt’s Labor Letters””

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Reveals: Roosevelt Read “Undesirable Citizen” Letter to Supreme Court Justices

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Ring Out May Ninth, O Bells of Labor;
Ring out O’er all the Nation;
This Day They Heroes Consecrate
to Thy Emancipation.
-Appeal to Reason, May 5, 1907

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 5, 1907
“Undesirable Citizen,” Eugene V. Debs, Takes on President Roosevelt

From page one of the Appeal to Reason of May 4, 1907:

COLLUSION BETWEEN ROOSEVELT
and SUPREME COURT
—–

BY EUGENE V. DEBS.
—–

HMP, EVD v Roosevelt, AtR, May 4, 1907

The one point of the most vital character in the kidnaping cases is the collusion of President Roosevelt and the Supreme court of the United States, clearly indicated in the dispatches from the white house published in the capitalist press. Read carefully the following extract from the Washington Post of April 4th:

It was ascertained at the white house yesterday that when the president wrote to Chairman Sherman (Oct. 8th, 1906), the letter which was made public yesterday, denouncing Harriman, he expected it would be made public at the time. He authorized Sherman to show it to Harriman, and the republican chairman did so. It was immediately afterward that a friend of Harriman came to Washington and assured the president that the railway magnate had not made some of the statements attributed to him by Sherman. For this reason, it is said, the president did not make public the letter then.

HE DID HOWEVER, SHOW IT TO MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, WHO MADE THE ANNUAL CALL UPON HIM THAT DAY WITH THE COMMENT THAT HE BELIEVED SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT HE DENOUNCED TOO FREQUENTLY WEALTHY EVIL-DOERS AND DID NOT CONDEMN OFTEN ENOUGH MEN OF THE HAYWOOD AND MOYER TYPE. HE, THEREFORE, TOOK CONSIDERABLE PLEASURE IN DEALING COLLECTIVELY WITH HARRIMAN AND HAYWOOD AND MOYER, ALL OF WHOM WERE MENTIONED IN THE SAME CATEGORY IN THE SHERMAN LETTER.

 

Here we have the most startling and extraordinary disclosure, inadvertently made to cover up another Roosevelt exposure, in the political history of the United States. We see the president before the supreme court pronouncing his condemnation upon three citizens on trial for their lives, in a state case which may, and probably will, be appealed to this same supreme court, and whose members are to finally decide whether these three citizens shall live or die. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Reveals: Roosevelt Read “Undesirable Citizen” Letter to Supreme Court Justices”

Hellraisers Journal: Thousands of Undesirable Citizens Prepare to March in Haywood-Moyer Protest Parades

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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday May 3, 1907
From the Montana News: Organized Labor Plans Protests

Massive protests parades in support of the officials of the Western Federation of Miners, now imprisoned in Boise, Idaho, will take place this weekend in New York City and in Boston. This week’s Montana News describes the preparations now underway:

Undesirable Citizens
—–

Action Taken by Organized Labor to
Resent the Insult of Roosevelt
and to Insure Justice

HMP, Undesirable Citizen, Walker 3, AtR, Apr 20, 1907

“Undesirable citizens” clubs were started throughout the country yesterday. In Chicago members of the Moyer-Haywood conference prepared to order a supply of buttons for organized working men bearing the Words: “We are undesirable citizens.”

This is intended to amalgamate the men branded by President Roosevelt as “undesirable citizens” and show that the men be puts such a brand on are really the men who do the world’s work, the men who always stand as a class for lofty measures in public life and progress of the human race.

In New York plans are made to place 100,000 badges on the men who will parade in protest against the mine owners’ conspiracy to hang Mover, Haywood and Pettibone.

The New York Plan.

New York.—The executive committee of the Moyer and Haywood protest committee called off its expedition to the White House. In a statement the committee declared: “Only the respect in which we hold the presidential office restrains us from characterizing Roosevelt’s assertion by the term which the incumbent of that office so frequently employs—’an in famous lie.'”

The committee of three named to call upon Roosevelt will read a report at the next meeting of the organization Sunday morning. An order was placed today for 10,000 buttons bearing the inscription:

We are undesirable citizens. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Thousands of Undesirable Citizens Prepare to March in Haywood-Moyer Protest Parades”

Hellraisers Journal: From The Montana News: Undesirable Citizens of Organized Labor Are Aroused to Action

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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, Saturday April 27, 1907
American Labor Responds to President Theodore Roosevelt

From The Montana News of April 25, 1907:

ORGANIZED LABOR AROUSED

HMP, Undesirable Citizen, Walker 1, AtR, Apr 20, 1907

The statement of President Roosevelt in a letter to James S. Sherman, regarding the Harriman controversy, re-which he refers to Debs, Moyer, and Haywood as ‘undesirable citizens’ has raised a storm of protest among the labor unions and aroused to action those few that were hitherto luke-warm. The Executive Committee of the Moyer-Haywood Protest Conference of New York, representing over three hundred labor organizations, with a membership aggregating more than two hundred thousand men, addressed an open letter to the president protesting against the stand he has taken in this matter and asking him to “make such public amends as any true gentleman is bound to offer when inadvertently he has made a mistake and inflicted grievous wrongs upon men who have nothing to do with his personal quarrel.”

The Central Federated Union of New York adopted a motion calling upon Roosevelt to retract his statement that Moyer and Haywood are “undesirable citizens.”

The Boston Central Labor Union adopted a resolution condemning Roosevelt for “usurping prerogatives which neither the laws nor the constitution of the United States gave him.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Montana News: Undesirable Citizens of Organized Labor Are Aroused to Action”