Hellraisers

Hellraisers Journal: Thousands of Chicago Garment Strikers Win 48-Hour Week With No Loss of Wages

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

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Saturday December 18, 1915
From the Chicago Day Book: Thousands of Striking Garment Workers Win Shorter Hours

The Day Book of Chicago, Illinois, reported in its December 16th edition that, although recognition of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America has not been granted, nevertheless, thousands of Garment Workers have won the 48-hour week with no reduction in wages:

Chicago Garment Workers Strike of 1915, Day Book headline, Dec 16.png

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason, Speech by Eugene V. Debs to Steel Workers of Chicago


I am for Socialism because I am for humanity.
We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough.
-Eugene V. Debs

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Sunday December 17, 1905
From the Appeal to Reason: Comrade Debs Speaks to Chicago Steel Workers

In this weeks edition of the Appeal to Reason, we find the text of a speech given by Eugene Debs, on November 24th, to a large audience in Chicago. The Appeal states that Comrade Debs was speaking to Steel Workers of that city. In the speech Debs compares the old out-dated system of craft organization with the revolutionary system of class-conscious industrial unionism as proposed by the newly formed Industrial Workers of the World.

Eugene Debs Talks to Steel Workers, text, Appeal to Reason, Dec 16, 1905.png
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(The following address was delivered by Eugene V. Debs at South Chicago, on November 24th, to an immense audience.)

Eugene Debs, Wilshire's Magazine, Nov 1905.png

THE year now drawing to a close will be memorable in the annals of labor because of the organization of the Industrial Workers of the World. For thirty years I have been connected with the labor movement. All of the years of my young manhood were devoted to the work of organizing my fellow-workingmen, that by the power of united effort they might do something to improve their condition as workers, promote their interests as citizens and advance their general welfare as men. There was a time when I believed that the trade union was in itself sufficient for this work. I have been compelled to revise my opinion and to conclude that something larger, more thorough and comprehensive in the way of organization is required to meet the demands of modern times.

The trade union, itself the product of industrial evolution, is subject to the laws of change, and the union that may have served some purpose a quarter of a century ago is now as completely out of date as the tools of industry that were then in use.

Hellraisers Journal: Gurley Flynn, Labor's Joan of Arc, "Left Paterson Authorities Still Afraid"


She’s a little woman, is Gurley Flynn, and Irish all over.
The Celt is in her gray blue eyes and almost black hair,
and in the way she clenches her small hands into fists when she’s speaking.

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Thursday December 16, 1915
From The Outlook: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Labor's Joan of Arc, Feared by Paterson Authorities

An editorial from yesterday's Outlook defends Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, whom the silk workers call: "Labor's Joan of Arc." The Outlook supports Gurley's right to free speech in the city of Paterson, although they consider her and members of her organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, to be radicals and agitators. Yesterday's editorial follows an article from the November 24th edition which detailed the invasion of Paterson on November 11th by Miss Flynn and a group of prominent New York women. On that day, the Chief of Police stood before the door of the hall and refused to allow Miss Flynn to go inside to speak to the working men and woman of that city. We present, today, both offerings from The Outlook, beginning with the article of November 24:

FREE SPEECH IN PATERSON
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Free Speech at Paterson, NY Women, NY Trib, Nov 21, 1915.png

Hellraisers Journal: Edith Wyatt on "The Chicago Clothing Strike" in Harper's Weekly, Illustrated

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

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Wednesday December 15, 1915
From Harper's Weekly: Edith Wyatt on the Chicago Clothing Strike & Special Police Guards

In the December 11th edition of Harper's, Edith Wyatt offers the following account of the Chicago Garment Workers Strike, now ongoing in that city, along with news regarding police brutality, and some history on the practice of arbitration in the needle-work trades:

The Chicago Clothing Strike

by EDITH WYATT
Chicago Garment Workers Strike of 1915, Harpers Wkly, Dec 11.png

"THE story of civilization,” says Norman Angell in Arms and Industry, “is the story of development of ideas.”

One of the most interesting chapters of that chronicle is the narrative of the development of the idea of industrial arbitration in this country, in opposition to the idea of industrial war. Chicago is now watching intently a bitter contest between these two principles in one of her greatest industries, her trade in men’s clothing, a business truly enormous, the value of its product in this city being rated in the last census at over eighty five million dollars.

Hellraisers Journal: Gurley Flynn's Victory at Paterson Recalls 1909 Free Speech Fight at Spokane


Never before had I come in contact with women of that type, and they were interesting.
Also, I was glad to be with them, for in a jail one is
always safer with others than alone.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Tuesday December 14, 1915
From Archives of The Workingman's Paper: Gurley Flynn on the Spokane Jail

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, on trial in Paterson, Nov 29, 1915.png

Fresh from her victorious one-woman fight for Free Speech with the city of Paterson, New Jersey (see photograph at right), Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn plans to continue her struggle to establish the rights of union organizers to speak to the silk workers in that city. With this struggle in mind, Hellraisers offers an article, written by Miss Flynn for the December 11, 1909, edition of The Workingman's Paper in which she described her experience in the county jail at Spokane during the I. W. W. Free Speech Fight in that city which took place during the winter of 1909 and 1910.

Miss Flynn came to Spokane as a young married woman, having married John A. Jones in Lake County, Minnesota on January 7, 1908. The newly weds arrived in Missoula, Montana, in time to play an active role in that victorious struggle for Free Speech. They then moved on to the fight for Free Speech in Spokane, Washington, where Gurley Flynn was arrested as an I. W. W. "agitator."

Miss Flynn's article gives us some idea of the special hardships endured by women when prisons and jails employ male guards rather than matrons. The male guards are often less than trustworthy to be in charge of the keys which give them unfettered access to women prisoners, day and night.

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Her Long Free Speech Contest with Paterson

Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Gets Chief Bimson as mad as sin;
When Chief Bimson gets mad as sin,
Sweetly smiles Miss Gurley Flynn.

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Monday December 13, 1915
From The Survey: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Victorious in Long Contest with Paterson

The Survey of December 11th described the long one-woman free speech fight, a contest fought between Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the city of Paterson, New Jersey, which ended on the evening of November 30th with a victory for Miss Flynn:

ELIZABETH FLYNN'S CONTEST WITH PATERSON
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Without Sunday from Fort Wayne (IN) News of Mar 20, 1915, cropped.png

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN, I. W. W. leader in the Paterson strike of 1913, was acquitted last week of the charge of inciting to riot that had been pending since the jury disagreed in her first trial in July, 1913. This is the last of the cases growing directly out of the strike of two years ago that will be tried, and the verdict sets Miss Flynn free to continue her contest over free speech with the Paterson authorities.

Chief of Police Bimson said that the trial narrowed down to a question of the veracity of the police officials and Miss Flynn’s supporters, “and evidently the police hadn't been believed.”

The calling of the case to trial at this time came as a surprise. In the summer of 1913, three strike leaders were tried following similar indictments—Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca and Miss Flynn herself. Feeling in Paterson at that time was bitter against the I. W. W. and the defense believed that it would be difficult to obtain a fair trial. Nevertheless a Passaic county jury disagreed in the first trial of Quinlan. A second trial resulted in his conviction with a sentence of two to seven years in the penitentiary. Attorneys for the defense then secured an order from Supreme Court Justice Minturn directing that in the other cases pending, juries should be drawn from outside Passaic county. Tried before so-called “foreign” juries, Tresca was acquitted, and in the case of Miss Flynn the jury disagreed. No move toward a new trial was made at the time.

Hellraisers Journal: Paterson Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of Inciting to Riot

The constitution of the United States is on trial-I'm not!
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Sunday December 12, 1915
From The Washington Times: People of Paterson, New Jersey, Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

In a section of the Times reserved for editorials on subjects of interests to women, there was expressed in the December 9th edition, high praise for the "law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson." The topic at hand was the acquittal of Miss Gurley Flynn on charges of inciting to rioting:

Women, editorials on, W (DC) Tx, Dec 9, 1915, text.png
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Without Sunday from Fort Wayne (IN) News of Mar 20, 1915, cropped.png

The law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson are to be congratulated on the acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. They are to be congratulated because the effort of the Paterson police, responsive to suggestions from lawless elements in the community, to substitute Russian for American government has failed. The greatest winner by the verdict is Paterson.

The verdict is important as vindicating free speech, freedom of orderly assemblage, and freedom of orderly and legal organization. It is also important as tending strongly to shift the burden of presumption when lawlessness occurs in connection with industrial disputes. Formerly, when violence occurred during a strike, or bombs exploded, or labor agitators were charged with having incited to riot, the public assumed that the strikers were responsible. But it now appears that in many cases things are not as they seem. Private detective agencies are used and public police forces permit themselves to be used to arrange for crimes.

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Acquitted of Inciting to Riot in Paterson, New Jersey

Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Gets Chief Bimson as mad as sin;
When Chief Bimson gets mad as sin,
Sweetly smiles Miss Gurley Flynn.
-The Lincoln Star

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Saturday December 11, 1915
Paterson, New Jersey: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found "Not Guilty" of Inciting to Riot

On Tuesday November 30th, Fellow Worker Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was found "not guilty" of inciting to riot in Paterson, New Jersey. Hellraisers will be covering this story over the next few days. We begin our coverage with this report from the Chicago Day Book of December 1st:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Free Speech Trial, Paterson, Day Book, Dec 1, 1915.png

Paterson, N. J., Nov. 30. - "The constitution of the United States is on trial-I'm not!" So said Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, I. W. W. orator on the eve of her appearance in Paterson court for "inciting to personal violence"-a charge that grew out of her attempt to deliver a speech in a Paterson hall when the police did not want her to.

"It is free speech, that right guaranteed to every American by the constitution of our fathers, that Paterson seeks to abridge," she went on.

Hellraisers Journal: Report on Chicago Garment Workers Strike from International Socialist Review

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

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Friday December 10, 1915
From the International Socialist Review: Report from Chicago Garment Strike
We Shall Fight Until We Win, ISR, Nov 1915, Chicago ACW Strike.png

The strike of the Chicago garment workers which began at the end of September is now in its eleventh week. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers remain firm in their intention to continue the battle to a successful conclusion. The Day Book is collecting funds to assist the strikers, and the Chicago Federation of Labor stands with the strikers despite the fact that A. C. W. of A. is not a member of the C. F of L. nor of the A. F. of L.

The December issue of the International Socialist Review includes an article by Leslie Marcy on the strike which tells of mass arrests of strikers at the hands of a corrupt police department, and dwindling strike funds with winter coming on fast. Yet, the strikers remain unified and determined to win a living wage and shorter hours.

WE NEVER FORGET: Fellow Worker Joe Hill, True Blue Rebel

Joe Hill died game.
-Ed Rowan
November 19, 1915

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Candle Flame for We Never Forget.png

WE NEVER FORGET
Joe Hill, True Blue Rebel
1879-1915

Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden. He immigrated to the United States in 1902 and, at some point, began using the name Joseph Hillstrom. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World, most likely in 1910 in Portland, Oregon, and soon thereafter began writing songs under the name of Joe Hill, eventually becoming the most popular rebel songwriter of his time. His songs were published in the songbook, "I. W. W. Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent," famous then and now simply as the "Little Red Songbook."

By the time of his murder at the hands of the Utah (in)Justice System, Joe's songs were being sung on picket lines all across the nation, in Britain, Australia, and many other far and distant lands, where, after his death, his ashes were scattered to the winds. Perhaps, some fading flowers will yet arise to take up the cause of Industrial Freedom for which Fellow Worker Joe Hill so courageously gave his life.

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