Hellraisers Journal: From the Oklahoma Leader: “Ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon Has Appeared in Front of the White House”

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Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon,-Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 20, 1922
Washington, D. C. – Women’s Amnesty Committee Pickets White House

From the Oklahoma Leader of December 19, 1922:

MAGON DEATH MAY HASTEN AMNESTY
———-

(By the Federated Press.)

Mexican Revolution, Ricardo Flores Magon, SF Call p21, Sept 29, 1907
Ricardo Flores Magón

WASHINGTON.-The ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon has appeared in front of the White House [Monday November 27th], demanding of his recent jailers that other friends of freedom still shut behind American prison bars be set free before they perish.

Magon still living, and racked by disease in his cell at Leavenworth, was no burden on the official conscience. But when death a week ago commuted his 21-year sentence for saying the war was an evil thing it released forces which brought embarrassment to the White House gates.

Outraged by the crucifixion of Magon, Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower Evans, Boston; Mrs. Nathalie B. Ellis, Baltimore; Mrs. Marguerite Tucker, New York, and Mary LaFollette Tucker, Washington, appeared before the executive mansion with banners which read:

Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died for Freedom, Leavenworth Prison, Nov. 21, 1922.

Mr. President, Another Political Prisoner Released, Death Is More Merciful Than the Administration, Magon Died in Leavenworth, Other Political Prisoners Are Dying From Consumption.

Mr. President, Charles W. Morse Did Not Die in Jail, Harry M Daugherty Was His Attorney, Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died in Leavenworth, Attorney General Daugherty Was His Jailer.

The only crime ever committed by Magon was the writing of an anti-war article for which he was given the maximum sentence by the federal court of the southern district of California. The reason given for the failure to consider this case was on the grounds that Magon was not repentant-in other words, that he refused to renounce his views.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Post Cards and Posters by Ryan Walker On Sale in Bulk at the Coming Nation to Support Socialist Locals

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Quote EVD, On overthrow of ruling class power, SD Hld, Oct 8, 1898—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 22, 1912
For Support of Socialist Locals, Post Cards and Posters by Ryan Walker

From the Appeal to Reason of September 21, 1912:

Post Cards n Posters by Ryan Walker, AtR p4, Sept 21, 1912

—–

Post Cards n Posters by Ryan Walker, Leopard, AtR p4, Sept 21, 1912

—–

Post Cards n Posters by Ryan Walker, Wilson, AtR p4, Sept 21, 1912

—–

Post Cards n Posters by Ryan Walker, The Offer, AtR p4, Sept 21, 1912

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Post Cards and Posters by Ryan Walker On Sale in Bulk at the Coming Nation to Support Socialist Locals”

Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal from Eugene V. Debs Urging All to Work for Release of Political Prisoners

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1922
Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal for Political Prisoners

From the Washington Evening Star of March 9, 1922:

HdLn EVD Urges Amnesty, WDC Eve Str p2, Mar 9, 1922

From the Buffalo Socialist New Age of March 16, 1922:

Terre Haute, Ind.,
March 4, 1922.

To All Labor Unions and Organized Workers.
Dear Brothers and Comrades:

I am making this appeal to you in behalf of the political prisoners. These men are held simply because of their activities in the labor movement and for no other reason. Any other pretense is simply a lie. All other countries have long since released their political prisoners. The United States government, to its lasting shame, is the one exception that keeps men caged as felons for the expression of their opinions. These men, brothers of ours, committed no overt act, no crime of any kind. The court records will prove this. The infamous Espionage Law, under which these men were convicted, has long since been repealed [Note: a section of the Espionage Law, the Sedition Act, was repealed December 13, 1920], and there is not the slightest excuse to longer hold them in prison.

The simple fact is that the treason for which these men were convicted was their loyalty to the working class. Such loyalty, especially in a time of war when the workers are turned into butchers and set to slaughtering one another for the profit and power and glory of their masters, is always treason in the eyes of such masters.

If these men with union principles and union hearts beating in their breasts, had been scabs or gunmen or strikebreakers, they would have been cracked up as 100% American patriots, given hero medals, and assigned to posts of honor carrying high salaries and eminent respectability. But instead they refused to bow to the will of the brutal and impudent profiteers and stood up loyally for their own class and gave expression to the truth that was in their hearts, as it was not only their lawful right but their moral duty to do, and for this and this alone they are marked as dangerous and held and treated as criminals to the shame of the American labor movement and the infamy of the United States government, the most plutocratic government on the face of the earth.

Senator Borah of Idaho, be it said to his credit, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate on January 25th, directing the Attorney General to submit to the Senate all available information relative to the cases of persons convicted under the notorious Espionage Act. This resolution is most timely and the organized workers of the nation must bring all possible power to bear to force its passage. The plutocrats, profiteers, and pirates of Wall Street and their degenerate henchmen in all their servile capacities, who had the monstrous Espionage Law enacted to gag the truth and strangle free speech while they were putting over their criminal war conspiracy, will bring all their power to bear to defeat the Borah resolution.

Well do these knaves in high places know that if this resolution passes the Senate and the Attorney General is forced to reveal the court records of the political prisoners it will show that they are guilty of absolutely no crime whatever save only that of saying during war time, when the nation had been lashed into fury of blind hate, what the 100% Wall Street profiteers and their lackeys in and out of office did not want to hear. The Constitution, of which they had been in the habit of prating on every occasion, was summarily suspended, truth was exiled, and manhood and self-respect put in prison stripes.

Think of these innocent union men, these working class brethren of ours, being suffered to remain buried alive in the steel vaults of American prison hells, and then talk about being “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” The very thought brings the deep blush of shame to the cheek of every decent American.

These men must be gotten out of prison to the last one of them. As long as one remains we are all in disgrace, and our country stands impeached before the civilized world.

There must be no discrimination among the class war prisoners, for that is what they are and nothing else. All spies and enemy agents, some of whom were convicted of the gravest charges, including the placing of fire bombs in ships and the destruction of life and property, were released years ago. Not one remains in prison. Not one of these belonged to a labor union. They were all readily forgiven as soon as the war was over.

But how different with the men who did belong to labor unions and who did not commit any crime or take any life or destroy any property, but who only stood up like men exercising their constitutional rights and telling the truth about the capitalist slaughter of the working class “to make the world safe for democracy!” It is for their benefit that the atrocious Espionage Law was enacted, and for the benefit of the Wall Street profiteers who coined the blood of the slaughtered workers into billions for themselves, that they are still festering in the hell-holes capitalism charitably provides for its victims.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal from Eugene V. Debs Urging All to Work for Release of Political Prisoners”

Hellraisers Journal: Philadelphia’s Local 8 of Marine Transport Workers, IWW, on the Firing Line, Calls for Solidarity

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Quote re Employers No Race Line to Exploit, Messenger p11, Aug 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 28, 1922
Philadelphia Local 8 of I. W. W. on the Firing Line

From The Messenger of February 1922:

LOCAL 8 OF I. W. W. ON FIRING LINE

Black and White Unite, Messenger p361, Feb 1922

THE Administration’s policy toward the I. W. W. has been everything but frank, just and fair. On the contrary it has been mean, petty and cowardly. Believing that public sentiment was not as aroused and as insistent for the release of the members of the Industrial Workers of the World as it was for other prisoners charged with the violation of war-time laws it announced a different policy in dealing with the I. W. W. cases.

It was well established by the action of the Courts of Appeals of the seventh and eighth districts in the Chicago and Wichita cases, that the I. W. W.’s were found innocent of acts of sabotage or other industrial crimes. Their legal status now is the same as that of Debs before his release. In other words they are held in prison for expressing opinions in opposition to war.

As was pointed out in the foreword of the brief of attorney Otto Christensen, “many of the offenses that the I. W. W.’s were convicted of in the lower courts having been nullified by the action of the Court of Appeals, the legal basis for holding them in prison likewise has been changed.” “Since,” according to the Civil Liberties Union, the reversal of the industrial courts on which three-fourths of the evidence was introduced, these cases are in every essential analogous to the case of Mr. Debs.”

In view of the foregoing facts, it is apparent that the difference in policy in handling the cases of the Industrial Unionists, arises out of prejudice and class hatred.

It appears that the Administration acts not out of consideration for justice and right, established by facts and reason; but only out of fear of a general upsurge of an outraged public against blind, unreasoning intolerant, autocratic, Kaiser-like methods.

Recognizing this fact, Local 8 of the Marine Transport Workers of Philadelphia, has, in accordance with its general policy of enlightened, militant, revolutionary action, proceeded to arrange an intensive campaign of education and agitation in the interest of the 118 class-war and political prisoners still languishing in prison.

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Hellraisers Journal: Release of Eugene Debs, Who Will Continue to Wage War on War, Perplexes Harding Administration

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 31, 1921
Comrade Eugene V. Debs Will Continue to Wage War on War

From The Atlanta Tri-Weekly Journal of December 29, 1921:

SCENES AT THE FEDERAL PRISON ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

——-

Atl Tri Wkly Jr p1, Dec 29, 1921

RELEASE OF DEBS IS NOW PERPLEXING TO ADMINISTRATION

Harding and Daugherty Are Not Sure It Was Wise
to Free Unconverted Radical
—————

BY DAVID LAWRENCE
(Leased Wire Service to The Journal._
(Copyright, 1921.)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28.-Eugene V. Debs has left behind him here a trail of mingled emotions. The administration which set him free is somewhat sadder and wiser this morrow morn.

For both President Harding and Attorney General Daugherty, who have tried their gospel of “understanding” in trying to convert Debs to a life of peace instead of agitation are not so sure that they have succeeded. Their disposition is to say no more about the case and hope that Debs will not abuse the liberty that has been given him by becoming a center for more agitation, a rallying device for radicalism and professional exploitation of the working classes.

The Harding administration tried a unique experiment-one that has been clouded somewhat in mystery because of the very delicacy of the undertaking. It is a fact that Debs could have had a pardon long ago if he would have agreed to withdraw the views he expressed against this country’s entrance into the war…..

DEBS SAYS HE WILL WAGE WAR ON WAR

Washington, Dec. 27.-War against war is to occupy a great part of the future activities of Eugene V. Debs, freed from Atlanta penitentiary by executive clemency on Christmas day, according to his own announcement here today. The Socialist leader said he could make no concrete plans for the future until he reached his home in Terre Haute, Ind., for which he will leave Washington at 6:20 o’clock tonight.

Debs announced his determination to obtain if possible a vow from every man, woman and child in this country and every other country which he might visit, that they refuse to take up arms and go to war. But until world relations undergo a reformation, he asserted, wars would continue.

[He said:]

There will be war, in some form, and war growing progressively more and more destructive until a competitive world has been transformed into a co-operative world. Every war for trade sooner or later and inevitably becomes a war of blood.

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Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release

From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:

Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921
——Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921———

(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history. 

Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child. 

Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile. As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free. 

“Citizen of the World.” 

So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights. 

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for May and June 1921: Found in Mexico Standing for Organization of Mexican Workers

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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921————–

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 21, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May and June 1921
Found in Mexico City, Standing for Organization of Mexican Workers

From the Tucson Citizen of May 11, 1921:

MOTHER JONES WILL RESIDE IN MEXICO. 

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

In January Mother Jones, the noted socialistic agitator who has been in the public eye throughout the United States through many years, went to the City of Mexico to attend an international congress of workingmen and women.

It is announced now that Mrs. Jones has decided to make her permanent residence in Mexico. She is quoted as saying that after many years of story experience in the United States including six penitentiary sentences served she finds Mexico “the only country where she can live la tranquility.”

[Photograph added.]

—————

Note: Mother has been taken into custody many times during her long life of standing with working people, but has never served a sentence in any penitentiary sentence that we know of.

From the Cleveland Toiler of June 4, 1921
-excerpt from article by Geo. N. Falconer:

MOTHER JONES. 

Seemed as if she had been imported specially to boost the Workers’ Mexican Government. “Workers,” she shouted during her several addresses during the Pan-American Congress, “stand by your government and it will stand by you.” 

“The pulse of the world is throbbing today,” declared ‘Mother’ Jones. “Humanity is watching the new Mexico. I want to tell you that there will be no intervention by the capitalist robbers of the United States in the affairs of Mexico. We won’t stand for it. We are going back to the United States and appeal to the workers there to stand by the workers here.”

When she shouted, “You are going to bring the new day in this country and center the eyes of the world on Mexico as well as Russia,” the applause was tremendous. 

Didn’t Mother Jones boost for Woodrow Wilson in 1916? And Mother Jones paid many compliments to that “grand old man of labor,” King Gompers. Why? Is she so ignorant of Samuels’ labor history?

—————

From Proceedings of the Convention of American Federation of Labor at Denver, Colorado, June 13-25, 1921:

…..Ernest Greenwood representing the International Labor Office at Geneva, Frank Bohn, publicist, together with Mother Jones as the invited guest of General Villarreal, minister of agriculture of Mexico, accompanied the party [of representatives of the American Federation of Labor] from St. Louis to Mexico City. Mother Jones attended the meetings of the convention and spoke on two occasions.

On arrival at Nuevo Laredo we learned that that the government of Mexico had sent a reception committee representing the government and labor to the boundary line to meet and greet us…..

Note: emphasis added throughout.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “Twenty Years” by Mary Heaton Vorse -Appeals at an End for Chicago IWW Case

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Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 2, 1921
Chicago, Illinois – Mary Heaton Vorse Has Supper with Convicted Fellow Workers

From The Liberator of January  1921:

Twenty Years

By Mary Heaton Vorse

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

RECENTLY in Chicago, after a meeting, I went to get a sandwich with a group of labor men. As I looked around the table, it came to me with a shock that I was the only person there, but one, who was not condemned to a long jail sentence. For all the people at the table were members of the Industrial Workers of the World convicted in the famous Chicago case.

Ralph Chaplin sat next to me. I had been talking only a few minutes before with his wife, a girl of extraordinary loveliness. She had not come out with us to supper because she had gone home to put her little boy of seven to bed. I had seen them standing all three together, only a half hour before.

Ralph Chaplin is a gifted idealist, a poet, as well as a man of action. His quality of uncompromising courage made me think of Jack Reed. It is upon such youth that the strength of a people is founded, men ready to suffer and with gifts to make people understand the beliefs which have stirred their hearts. And his wife is like him. It made you feel right with life to see them together. They face a 20-year sentence.

Ralph Chaplin is to be put in jail because he belonged to an industrial union, a legal organization.

Ralph Chaplin was Editor of “Solidarity.” And that is why he was given twenty years. It was a pretty bad crime for anyone to hold a red card. The talented ones were selected for 20-year sentences. Apparently Judge Landis could not bear that a man of attainments and gifts should belong to the organization of the I. W. W.

Charles Ashleigh is another poet. What had he done? He had been an I. W. W. He has a sentence of five years. He was one of those against whose sentence even Captain Lanier of the Military Intelligence protested. One wonders if the Captain had ever read the poem by his distinguished relative, called “Jacquerie.” And so Charles Ashleigh is among those who are slated for Leavenworth, where he has already spent two years.

Opposite me sat George Hardy, the. General Executive Secretary. He was one of those who got off easy. He only got a year and he has already served his sentence. No one knew exactly why some got long sentences or why some got short ones.

Bill Haywood, at the head of the table, as a matter of course was given the maximum sentence; that means a death sentence if it is carried out.

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Hellraisers Journal: No Christmas Pardon for Eugene Debs from President Wilson: “Not Consonant with Public Interest”

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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 25, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – President Wilson Refuses to Release Eugene Debs

From The Atlanta Constitution of December 24, 1920:

NO XMAS PARDON FOR EUGENE DEBS
FROM PRESIDENT
———-

EVD, w Reed n Young, Liberator, Sept 1918

Eugene V. Debs, socialist candidate for president, now serving a ten-year sentence in the Atlanta federal prison, will not be freed from the penitentiary Christmas day, as has been rumored, according to dispatches received from Washington Thursday night.

There has been much talk in Atlanta, centered around the belief among those who will be extended executive clemency by President Wilson on Christmas day, but it is now understood that the president has refused to extend clemency in the socialist leader’s case, believing it not consonant with public interest.

It has also been said that Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whom friends of Debs have been inclined to hold responsible for the president’s continued refusal to cut the prison term short, actually recommended the pardon of Debs some time ago.

———-

[Drawing by Art Young and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Political Prisoner Hulet M. Wells, Socialist, Released from Leavenworth Federal Prison

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Quote Frank Little re Guts, Wobbly by RC p208, Chg July 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 22, 1920
Leavenworth, Kansas – Hulet M. Wells Released from Prison

From the Everett Labor Journal of November 19, 1920:

Hulet Wells, ISR p11, July 1917

HULET M. WELLS IS AT LIBERTY
—————

WASHINGTON, D C, Nov. 16.-Hulet M. Wells, former president of the Seattle Central Labor Council, sentenced to prison by the Seattle federal court for alleged seditious utterances in opposing the draft act, was released from Leavenworth prison on November 13 under order of immediate commutation of the remainder of his sentence.

The formal order for his release was signed today by Attorney General Palmer.

——-

Wells, after two trials, was sentenced to serve two years in the federal penitentiary following his conviction in the local district court on a charge of having violated the military law of the United States. He began serving his sentence at McNeil Island in June, 1919, and about one year ago was transferred to the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Note: Hulet Wells was convicted in March of 1918 but did not begin serving his sentence until June of 1919 when all appeals were exhausted.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Political Prisoner Hulet M. Wells, Socialist, Released from Leavenworth Federal Prison”