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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 11, 1904
A. H. Floaten, of the Western Federation of Miners, on Colorado’s Military Despotism
From the Appeal to Reason of January 9, 1904:
[The Grip of the Monster by G. H. Lockwood]
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[Colorado Military Despotism by A. H. Floaten]
Am I to die, starving in the midst of plenty?
Or shall I die fighting?
For my part, a thousand times over,
I’ll die fighting before I’ll die starving.
-J. H. Walsh
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday July 30, 1908
National I. W. W. Organizer Reports from the Pacific Northwest
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of July 25, 1908:
SHALL WE DIE STARVING, OR SHALL WE DIE FIGHTING?
[by J. H. Walsh]
We are confronting a new condition in the labor movement in the northwest, and judging from all the labor reports it is the same throughout the United States, as well as many of the foreign countries.
Every train in this country is loaded with dozens of “hoboes” (working men looking for jobs), and in some instances there are hundreds in place of dozens. Last night there arrived on one train in this city [Spokane?] 313 men who were beating their way. The previous night 73 arrived in one box car, and in another car 53. The men coming to the headquarters report the same news day after day, and that is that the unemployed army is growing larger and larger.
There are ten men in the harvest fields in this country for every job. They are working for as low as 75 cents per day. There are women and children in this country actually starving. This is not the worst. The worst is yet to come. After the harvest is over the hundreds who secured work, although at small wages, will return to the army of unemployed. Its ranks will be swelled again. And swelled just on the verge of winter, when hardships will be added to the workers’ struggles for an existence.
Those who are getting their “feet under dad’s table,” coupled with those who have a job sufficiently remunerative to eke out an existence, will stand united with the philosophers in passing resolutions condemning the conditions-Bryan, “God Knows” Taft, etc., etc. But resolutions, no matter how philosophically drawn, will not fill empty stomachs.
I am with the “down-and-outs”-I am broke. I am in a land of plenty. Am I to die, starving in the midst of plenty? Or shall I die fighting? For my part, a thousand times over, I’ll die fighting before I’ll die starving.
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday February 2, 1918
State of West Virginia – Targets Strikers with Vagrancy Law
From the Duluth Labor World of January 26, 1918:
STRIKERS ARE TERMED LOAFERS
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West Virginia Law Makes Idle Men Subject
to Arrest for Vagrancy.
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WHEELING, W. Va., Jan 24-Men who go on strike in West Virginia are liable to arrest for vagrancy under the new vagrancy law rushed through the last special session of the legislature. The law provides, under penalty of arrest and sentence for vagrancy, that able-bodied men, between the ages of 16 and 60, must be employed in some lawful, useful and recognized business or occupation whereby they may earn a sufficient income to support themselves and those legally dependent upon them.
A number of strikers already have been arrested under new law. The restlessness of organized labor in West Virginia is conceded to be the impelling force that necessitated an extraordinary session of the legislature to pass this law.
[Says a West Virginia labor official:]
Under the guise of attacking the loafer, the state legislature created the most effective instrument for the breaking of strikes.
The sinister aspect of the law is to be seen in the fact that no penalty is provided for the man who withholds work from others eager for the opportunity to earn. Lockouts are legal, while strikes are criminal.
They came, that none should trample Labor’s right
To speak, and voice her centuries of pain.
Bare hands against the master’s armored might!-
A dream to match the tolls of sordid gain!
-Charles Ashleigh
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday April 18, 1917
From The Tacoma Times: An Interview with Charles Ashleigh
POET-TRAMP-JOURNALIST A CLOSE OBSERVER
OF BIG SEATTLE TRIALBy Mabel Abbott
SEATTLE, Wash, April 17.-A poet, a tramp, a newspaper man and an I. W. W. sit each day at the press table in Judge Ronald’s courtroom, where a great class struggle is being fought around the stocky figure of Tom Tracy, I. W. W.
They are Charles Ashleigh.
He is in charge of publicity for the Everett Prisoners’ Defense league, and he is a radical of the radicals; so revolutionary that he even dares to defy the tradition that a revolutionist shall be a sinister and mysterious-looking person.
He is young, small, mild-mannered, and speaks literary English with a fine British accent.
He was born in London. As a boy he was for a time an assistant secretary in the Fabian society of socialists and free-thinkers, and saw and heard Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and other famous members.
A little later, he tramped through England with the army of the unemployed, haranguing the crowds and stirring the miners of South Wales to organization.
Loves Adventure.
Ordinary life was tame, naturally, after that, and Ashleigh, went to South America.
In Buenos Ayres he was for a little while in the accounting department of a railway; then he took a contract to string telegraph wires along the right of way.
He had never strung a wire in his life, or seen it done, but he hired a foreman who did know how, assembled a gang of Guarani Indians, and started out.
It was a colorful experience. “The Indians aren’t really a bad sort at all, you know,” Ashleigh explains, “but they do drink. One night the cook shot his brother, in my tent. They were all rioting around so it was hard to tell anything about it, and the authorities got hold of me, as being the handiest person, I suppose, and put me in jail, until the British consul came and cleared things up.” Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: An Interview with “Poet-Tramp” and I. W. W. Journalist, Charles Ashleigh”
