You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Wednesday August 19, 1903
From the Appeal to Reason: Mrs. Cremier educates the President on "Race Suicide."
President Teddy Roosevelt espouses some interesting theories on the subject of "race suicide." It seems he is greatly disturb by increase in immigration from eastern and southern Europe, and alarmed by the large families that these immigrants bring with them. He recently wrote a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst deploring the insufficient number of babies produced by women of the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic races, referring to this sad lack of reproduction as "race suicide." Learning of this letter, Mrs. Cremier was prompted to write the President and explain her failure to produce more babies. Below are excerpts from her letter which was published in August 15th issue of the Appeal:
Mr. President...
My sister takes a monthly magazine, which she lets me read; and that is the way I happened to see your letter to Mrs. Van Vorst.
Permit me to suggest that you appear to have overlooked one matter of great importance. I will try to explain what I mean by reference to my own household.
Our family consists of my husband, myself, three children (between six and twelve years of age), and my mother, 65 years of age. My mother is useful about the house, but she is too old and feeble to work out for pay, so her support comes out of my husband's wages....
My husband earned a little more than [the average earnings of laborers in manufacturing]. His wages were $1.50 per day. He fortunately was in excellent health, and worked every day except Sundays and holidays-306 days-and his income was $459.
I had our eldest daughter, as practice in arithmetic, as a matter of business training, and to see to it that we did not run in debt, keep an exact account of our expenditures....
To sum up, the year's expenses were as follows:
[for food, rent, clothing, fuel, and light]
Total-$460.75
You see, the very best we could do we expended a little more than my husband's earnings. And his work was not interrupted by sickness...
Dividing $459 by 6 gives $76.50 as the average annual expense for each member of our family-less than 21 cents a day. Our county board of supervisors allows our sheriff 25 cents a day for feeding prisoners in the county jail, and the same allowance is made for the paupers in the county alms house. It seems to me it is as much as I ought to be required to do to support our family-food, rent, clothing, fuel, everything-on less than is paid out for food alone for paupers and criminals....
If we expend anything [for other needs or wants], it must come out of our food bill. For instance, by eating only 3 cents worth of victuals at breakfast this morning, instead of five, I saved 2 cents with which to buy the paper on which I am writing this letter. By eating a 3-cent dinner I save 2 cents with which to buy a postage stamp to mail it. The pen and ink I have borrowed from a neighbor.
You will observe that $76.50 is the average annual expense for each of us now, when there is no extra medical attendance on account of the advent of another child into the household. That would certainly mean more than $25 additional.
Now, Mr. President, I submit to your candid judgment whether it would not be the height of folly-worse than that, criminal recklessness-for us to make family arrangements that would necessarily involve us in an expense next year, and for indefinite years to come, of from $75 to $100 a year more than we have any reason to expect my husband's income will be, even in case he keeps his health, and work remains plentiful, and prosperity continues to reign?
"Yours for the Revolution"
The Appeal to Reason, 1895-1922
-ed by John Graham
U of NE Press, 1990
Tuesday August 19, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado - Lippiatt's chaired draped at Colorado F. of L. Convention
State delegates were in bad temper as the state labor convention was called to order yesterday morning for there, in the hall, was a chair draped in black. This chair belonged to Brother Gerald Lippiatt who would have been a delegate at that convention had he not been murdered by the Baldwin-Felts gunthugs, employed by the coal operators only two days earlier.
The delegates voted their support to District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America in any action they deemed necessary with respect to conditions in the southern coalfields. Efforts are underway to avoid a strike against Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, but the likelihood of avoiding that strike fades with each passing day.
Out of the Depths
Barron B. Beshoar
(1st ed 1942)
CO, 1980
Hellraisers Journal on vacation!
Hellraisers will appear in abbreviated form until Sept 2nd for a vacation of sorts. A total vacation is not possible since the capitalist never took any time off in their suppression of the U.S.labor movement.
Solidarity,
JayRaye