Tag: Wage Slavery

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Serfs, Wake Up” by J. A. Wayland

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal -Thursday March 26, 1903
J. A. Wayland on Right of Human Beings to Earth, Air and Water

From the Appeal to Reason of March 21, 1903:

Appeal to Reason Masthead, Mar 21, 1903

SERFS, WAKE UP!
———-

Every human being has the NATURAL RIGHT to work, to use as much of the earth, air and water as necessary to produce, and to pay no man for the use of them. No being has any right to profit off any other human being. Such profit is slavery. Slavery consists solely in one being used for the pleasure or profit of another.

Chattel slavery was one set of beings working for the pleasure and profit of the master, receiving only their necessary food and shelter out of their toil. Wage slavery does the same thing. The wage-workers are employed for the pleasure or profit of the master class, receiving in wages only enough to feed and shelter them, the surplus above this going to the masters.

Serfdom was a condition in which the serfs worked for the feudal lord two or three days in each week, and the balance of the time they had all the land they could use, and paid no other kind of profit or taxes. Land tenantry today takes from the workers one-third or one-half the crop just the same as serfdom, but puts an additional burden on them of taxes, and a profit is taken out of what remains on everything they buy.

The present land system in this country today is worse to that extent than was the serfdom of the Middle Ages. As the serfs then raised up under that system were unable to see the robbery they suffered, and were mostly satisfied, so you, tenants of today, raised up under the private ownership of the soil, pay your rent, or serfage, and do not see the wrong under which you live. Because you have always seen land bought and sold, and rent paid for it, you have never thought that there was anything wrong with such a system that takes from you half of your products, and gives it over to those who have cunningly got hold of the land.

Private ownership of land is a crime, and the landless, who are in a majority, should use their ballots to elect men to office who will change it, that every child, when it grows up, will have the use of land, without paying other human beings for what God made a free gift to man. If each has all the land he or she can use, what would they want with more, except to deny others the right to use the earth, that they may levy tribute on them? Wake up. 

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “Serfs, Wake Up” by J. A. Wayland” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: “How I Became a Socialist” by Father Thomas Hagerty, Seventh in Series

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote EVD, Father Hagerty, SDH p1, Aug 15, 1903—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 4, 1902
“How I Became a Socialist” by Father Thomas Joseph Hagerty

From The Comrade of October 1902:

How I Became a Socialist.

VII. [of Series]

By Rev. T. [J]. HAGERTY.

A CONVICTION grew upon me in my boyhood days-which has broadened and deepened with the out-going years—that human nature is inherently good. In the old Hebraic records, composite of earlier documents which register the world’s notion of creation, I was caught by the reiteration of the idea of the goodness of all things. The after-development of tribe and nation, however, seems to give the lie to this primal verity. Prophets and philosophers in the cuneiform script and Vedic hymn of Egypt and India, singers and sculptors in the psalm and glistening marble of Palestine and Greece, throughout the centuries have sought to keep alive the sense of goodness in the brain of man. Yet all the time murder and rapine, disease and wretchedness flaunted denial in the face of truth. Pariah, slave, and bond-servant groaned in hopeless toil the while Kung-fu-sdu and Gotamma the Buddha proclaimed kindness and justice and David and Homer sang of high emprise.

Father Hagerty, Comrade p6, Oct 1902

Christianity came, with a catholic breadth of goodness, teaching the brotherhood of man, gathering up the treasures of foregoing ages wherewith to enrich the race, and sending messengers of peace through all the turbulent highways in every land. Far-reaching deeds of love marked its growth in palace and hovel: yet the clash of swords and the snarl of the slave-driver’s lash broke in upon its holiness; and, ever and anon, hunger drove some mother to insane slaughter of the anæmic babe at her breast. The rich in high places rose up against a Savonarola and a Sir Thomas More and tried to silence the reproach of their goodness in death:

“And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large.”

Within reach of every banquet’s savor crouched the gaunt figure of Poverty; and the shadows of the Universities swept athwart the bleak paths of Ignorance and intensified the darkness. Gradually, through all the travail of the earth’s growth, came the machine to lift the burden from the straining muscles of men; and its only effect was to change the servitude of the many into an equally galling wage-slavery without surcease of misery and hate and crime. Meanwhile, the inherent goodness of human nature asserted itself in large heroism and patient bravery. Republics were builded out of the strength of the common people; and fine philosophies of liberty were engrossed upon the parchment of history, but humanity failed to reach the heights where gladness holds her breathing-places. The goodness of human nature seemed to be spent in the Sisyphus-like task of rolling some needless burden up the hill of Time and falling ever backward to the bottom in a futile renewal of toil.

As I read the annals of civilization in books and traced their later chapters in field and shop and factory, my early conviction of the inherent goodness of human nature was sharpened by its contrast with the physical evils everywhere so blatant. I saw the tragic waste of life wherewith the commerce of to-day stands crimsoned in the blood of the proletariat. I noticed little children slowly murdering by the loom and sewing-machine. In the disease-sodden tenements of the slums I saw hundreds of men and women dragging out a living death their lives foreshortening by the vilest adulteration of food and drink and by the foul air and reeking bodies of their fellow-men in the low, narrow rooms in which they huddled together. Drunkenness, insanity, and sexual perversions were all too common: nevertheless self-sacrifice, kindness, and wondrous patience were equally in evidence.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Comrade: “How I Became a Socialist” by Father Thomas Hagerty, Seventh in Series” →

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

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
Share

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.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Statement of Comrade Eugene Victor Debs, Presidential Candidate of the Socialist Party of America” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part III: Found Writing for the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 14, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part III
Found Writing on Behalf of Working Class Men, Women, and Children

From the International Socialist Review of September 1901:

A Picture of American Freedom
in West Virginia
———-

[By Mother Jones]

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

SOME months ago a little group of miners from the State of Illinois decided to face the storm and go to the assistance of their fellow-workmen in the old slave state of West Virginia. They hoped that they might somehow lend a hand to break at least one link in the horrible corporation chains with which the miners of that state are bound. Wherever the condition of these poor slaves of the caves is worst there is where I always seek to be, and so I accompanied the boys to West Virginia.

They billed a meeting for me at Mt. Carbon, where the Tianawha Coal and Coke Company have their works. The moment I alighted from the train the corporation dogs set up a howl. They wired for the “squire” to come at once. He soon arrived with a constable and said : “Tell that woman she cannot speak here to night; if she tries it I will jail her.” If you come from Illinois you are a foreigner in West Virginia and are entitled to no protection or rights under the law—that is if you are interested in the welfare of your oppressed fellow beings. If you come in the interest of a band of English parasites you are a genuine American citizen and the whole state is at your disposal. So the squire notified me that if I attempted to speak there would be trouble. I replied that I was not hunting for trouble, but that if it came in that way I would not run away from it. I told him that the soil of Virginia had been stained with the blood of the men who marched with Washington and Lafayette to found a government where the right of free speech should always exist.

“I am going to speak here to-night,” I continued. “When I violate the law, and not until then will you have any right to interfere.” At this point he and the constable started out for the county seat with the remark that he would find out what the law was on that point. For all I have been able to hear they are still hunting for the law, for I have never heard from them since. The company having called off their dogs of war I held my meeting to a large crowd of miners.

But after all the company came out ahead. They notified the hotel not to take any of us in or give us anything to eat. There upon a miner and his wife gave me shelter for the night. The next morning they were notified to leave their miserable little shack which belonged to the company. He was at once discharged and with his wife and babe went back to Illinois, where, as a result of a long and bitter struggle the miners have succeeded in regaining a little liberty.

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part III: Found Writing for the International Socialist Review” →

Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs, “Champion of Humanity,” Comes to Minnesota, Speaks in Duluth

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
Share

Quote EVD, Prosperity, LW p1, July 1, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 6, 1899
Duluth, Minnesota -“Our Gene” Speaks at the Armory

From the Duluth Labor World of July 1, 1899:

EVD, Our Gene, LW p1, July 1, 1899

EVD, Sc Dem Hld p1, July 1, 1899

Eugene V, Debs, accompanied by L. W. Rogers, one of the men who was incarcerated in Woodstock prison with Mr. Debs, arrived in Duluth Wednesday morning from West Superior, where he addressed a large audience the evening before [June 27th]. Mr. Debs spoke to a large, assemblage at the Armory in the evening [June 28th]. When the noted orator appeared and commenced his address unannounced, it being his wish that everything should be done in the most simple manner, there was literally a storm off applause.

Mr. Debs has, a striking personality. His smooth-shaven face is full of force of character. His firm jaw speaks of his will and energy which makes him a leader among men. His eyes are sharp and piercing, yet their expression is gentle and kindly in the extreme. He is a forceful speaker. His talk is an elevating one and if any man ever preached the true Christianity and the brotherhood of man, those eternal doctrines were discussed by Eugene V. Debs.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Victor Debs, “Champion of Humanity,” Comes to Minnesota, Speaks in Duluth” →

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks on Life and Liberty at Butte Miners’ Day Celebration

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
Share

Quote EGF, Life and Liberty, Btt Inter Mt p1, June 14, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 18, 1909
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at Butte Miners’ Day Celebration

From The Butte Inter Mountain of June 14, 1909:

EGF, Miners Un BD, Btt Inter Mt p1, June 14, 1909
EGF Speaks, Miners Un BD, Btt Inter Mt p1, June 14, 1909

The Butte Miners’ union has never had a more auspicious birthday than was today, its thirty-first. Thirty thousand people thronged the streets along the line of march and cheered the 2,000 miners and the 1,500 other union members who turned out in tribute to the parent union body of them all, so far as this city is concerned.

Flag day, too, secured its recognition, both from those who joined in the parade and those who watched it. The American flag was borne at the head of every union body. Nearly every individual member wore a tiny flag fast to the lapel of his coat, and it was to be noticed that the official badges of many of the organizations have in them the national colors, and particularly is this true of the Miners,’ union badge.

The parade was one of the longest that has ever taken place here, requiring an hour and five minutes to pass a given point. It started from the corner of Main and Copper streets at 10 o’clock, 30 minutes later than had been intended, but that is a remarkably small delay and speaks well for the able manner in which the bodies which swung into line were handled.

The line was led by a squad of 20 policemen, commanded by Sergeant Brinton. Following them cam President Flynn of the Miners’ union, grand marshal of the day, and his two aides, Robert Crane and John Harrington, all mounted. Immediately behind them marched the Boston & Montana band, once again under the leadership of Sam Treloar.

Next in line were 40 men, members of the Laundry Workers’ union, and behind them 26 carriages, all filled with women members of the Laundry Workers and members of the Woman’s Protective union.

The Clerks’ union turned out 500 strong and brought up the rear of the first division of the parade, which was in charge of John Connelly and Angus McLeod.

The second division in charge of Michael O’Brien and Eli Koskeli, was head by Butte City band, which was followed by the Mill & Smeltermen’s union , of whom there were 80 in line. Engineers’ union No. 83 came next, and nearly as strong in numbers. The Workingmen’s union, the Bartenders’ union and the Bricklayers’ union were also in this division, and the county and city officials in five carriages brought up the rear.

Then came the third division of the parade, the Miners’ union exclusively, headed by the Montana State band, and in charge of Joseph Shannon, Joseph Little, James R. Robinson and Tim Driscoll.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the orator of the day, occupied a carriage immediately following the band.

The miners marched four abreast and each one of his left breast wore the official badge of the union. There were just 1,000 men in the first section of the division. The second section was headed by a fife and drum corps, and first in line behind that came a four-horse carryall for old and disabled miners, who are always given a place of honor in the parade.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks on Life and Liberty at Butte Miners’ Day Celebration” →

Hellraisers Journal: Debs in Omaha, Believes Workingmen Will Soon be Ready for Economic Revolution by United Ballot

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
Share

Quote EVD, Modern Wage Slave, Terre Haute May 31, 1898, Debs-IA

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

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1898
Omaha, Nebraska – Eugene Debs Tells Old Story of Wealth and Poverty

On Wednesday December 21st, Eugene Debs was interviewed in Omaha and said, in part:

It is the old, old story—economics—the concentration of industry. The middle class of middlemen are being obliterated; they buy goods in small quantities and pay more than the department stores which buy by the carload. The department store advertises cheap goods, gets the laboring man’s cash, and the little corner grocery has the “credit” business. The small dealer is crushed: labor is pinched and suicides have increased 200 percent in the last ten years…..

I believe the present system, so destructive to the better elements of mankind, is soon to be eradicated, and that by the workingmen. They are beginning to think, and from the products of their minds is developing an economic revolution.

From the Omaha World-Herald of December 22, 1898:

Morally I Mean to Pay Them
[Interview with Eugene Debs]

EVD re Social Democracy, SLTb p3, Feb 9, 1898

No, I did not attend the [A. F. of L.] convention at Kansas City. I am in deep sympathy with the meeting and wanted very much to go, but my lecture engagements prevented. I have been speaking every night for two weeks.

With what success?

At Boone, Iowa, I had a fair audience, but usually through Iowa my audiences were not large. You know, the railroads and other corporations have no love for me, and it is given out cold to the men, and many of them who would attend stay away, fearful of incurring the displeasure of the powers that be. Especially is this true in railroad towns. However I cannot complain: I speak and the papers report and thus I reach the masses.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Debs in Omaha, Believes Workingmen Will Soon be Ready for Economic Revolution by United Ballot” →

Hellraisers Journal: “Experiences of a Hobo Miner” by Frank Little from the I. U. B. -“Wage-Slave Seeking a Master”

Janet RayeFrank Little
Share

Quote Frank Little re Wage-Slavery, IUB p4, Dec 12, 1908

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 15, 1908
From Reno, Nevada – Frank Little Describes Journey from Prescott, Arizona

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of December 12, 1908:

EXPERIENCES OF A HOBO MINER.

IWW Emblem Label, IWWC 1906

The experience of a wage slave, seeking a master during the panic of 1907-8:

On December 5, 1907, Fellow Worker Chris Hansen and myself left [P]rescott, Arizona, for a trip across the desert to see if we could find some kind-hearted parasite who would clasp the chains of wage-slavery upon us and allow us, along with other workers, to produce wealth that would allow a few parasites to live in luxury and idleness, giving us in return for our labor enough bacon and beans to keep us alive. We had heard that the American workers were free and had the right to work when, where and for whom they pleased. But we soon found that this was false.

The first place we went to was Octave, a mining camp south of Prescott, thinking we could get a job there. But one of the first men we met was an overdressed, well-fed parasite, who was in Clifton, Arizona, at the time I was trying to organize the slaves of that place.

We next went to Congress, the worst scab hole in Arizona. The looks of that place were enough to drive a man “nutty.” From there we went to Wickenburg, but this place was full of jobless slaves. We started across the desert towards the Colorado River, stopping at all the mining camps, but could not find a master at any of them.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Experiences of a Hobo Miner” by Frank Little from the I. U. B. -“Wage-Slave Seeking a Master”” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Socialist Woman: School Children Starving in Chicago & Caroline Lowe Speaks to Teachers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 10, 1908
Chicago, Illinois – 5,000 Children Go to School Hungry

From The Socialist Woman of November 1908:

American School Children Starving

Hunger in America, School Children, Chicago Tb p1, Oct 5, 1908
Chicago Tribune of October 5, 1908

When we are talking of the number of men who are tramping the country looking for work—hungry, broken-spirited, abject creatures, who once thought themselves men, as good as any of their kind—let us not forget the women, and the little children of these men.

Last winter in Chicago after the first flurry of the panic, I had occasion to visit a number of the “homes” of those who had been thrown out of work. In every case the men were out, hunting feverishly for the chance to make even a little money by any kind of hard labor. And in every case my heart ached and my soul grew sick when I thought of the future of the women and children of those families.

“It is awful when the children cry for food, and we cant give it to them,” said one woman who had never before known what it was to be down and out. Another mother, about thirty, and strong and handsome, had to sit by and watch her seven-year-old daughter burning with fever, and without the care of a doctor because she had lost her job in a department store, and there was no money even to buy food. She had applied for work at all the large stores again and again. She had tried everywhere—and was told that they might need her during the holidays. But the holidays were weeks away. Already she had moved into a questionable quarter because rent was cheap. And unless that mother got work within two weeks, there was but one resource left her, if she would save herself and her child from death through starvation. And that was the sale of her body.

It was for a charitable institution I was working—and I knew that those institutions were crowded to their utmost with destitute cases.

Such, indeed, was the condition of the poor in Chicago last winter, that the superintendent of compulsory education, W. Lester Bodine, took up the case of hungry school children, followed his investigations for six months, and finally ascertained that there are 5,000 starving children, and 10,000 that are underfed, in the schools of the city.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Socialist Woman: School Children Starving in Chicago & Caroline Lowe Speaks to Teachers” →