You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Sunday January 31, 1904
From The Labor World: Reports of Closed Factories and Work Shops Increasing Daily
The latest issue of this Duluth and Superior labor newspaper takes a look at the increasing unemployment around the country and the misery that goes with it:
FREE SOUP HOUSES WITH HARD TIMES
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Daily Reports Brings Reports of Closed Factories and Work Shops.
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(At the Vine Street Congregational Church, Cincinnati, last Sunday, the eloquent and thoughtful pastor, Herbert S. Bigelow, discussed the return of hard times, taking for his text scenes in the local police court. We here give a few extracts:)
Hard times and free soup houses are with us again. Every day for months has brought us reports of factories closed and wages reduced. Despite the demagogues's assurance of continued prosperity, the depression which has been predicted is here The ugly facts cannot be concealed even by papers which have been preaching for so long that hard times is a Democratic malady.
Like Rome's History.
Our daily papers are beginning to read like the history of ancient Rome. The hungry mob clamors for bread and the political bosses vie with each other in their ostentatious charities. Here, for instance, is a news item:
"Councilman Michael Mullen, of the Eighth Ward, Wednesday morning established a free soup house at 435 Front street. It was instantly crowded by poverty-stricken people with baskets, broken-spout coffee pots, bottles and tin cans to carry away solid provisions, soup and coffee."
The condition of the unemployed has become so desperate and thieving so epidemic that our machinery of justice, which is usually so relentless in the prosecution of little criminals, has broken down. In our police court we have had the remarkable spectacle of the callous sleuth of the law pleading for the accused and the Judge, grown merciful, dismissing acknowledged thieves, whose hunger drove them to crime.
Here is a scene in this court. A man is on the stand who was caught with stolen bread. The officer who arrested him is called as the prosecuting witness. He addresses the Judge. But, behold, this Javert abandons his role of sleuth. He speaks as a man and a brother. Listen:
"Judge, there are nearly two hundred people down there who are starving. This man Jones is a working man and not a thief. He was going to share what he stole with the others to prevent worse crimes such as burglary, we must arrest these men. They are out from three o'clock in the morning for what they can find to eat. A loin of pork was stolen Monday morning and the grocer told us not to look for it. 'Lord knows, they need it,' he told us. In the buildings at 318, 320, and 322 there are many who have not a cent and who have nothing to eat."
What is the Judge's reply to this policeman's plea for mercy? The Judge is not a preacher. Perhaps he is not a church member. He is a politician. He is a member of the "gang." Possibly, he is worse than many he sends to prison. But he is not without heart, and this is his verdict:
"The stealing of bread under such circumstances is no offence!!"
Another prisoner is arraigned. This is Charles Stevens, a white man. The night before he had gone to the jail, said he was out of work and hungry and begged to be locked up. What crime has he committed? None. He is here to ask the Judge for the privilege of being treated like a criminal. The Judge says:
"You may go to jail, and when the sun begins to shine warm enough, go to the jailer and tell him you wish to be released. I will docket you as committed for $50 and costs at your own request."
Later the Judge addressed a body of city officials before whom he defended these strange decisions. "Why," said he, "nearly every morning at one and two o'clock, policemen on their beats find the men picking potato peelings out of ash barrels. Why, gentlemen, even I would not hesitate to fracture one of the ten commandments if placed in this position."
A Preacher's Confession.
And now listen to the words of a preacher who visited the politician's soup-house: "It is a sad picture. I have been studying this problem of human misery all my life, and am no nearer a solution than when I began. I presume as soon as they eat their bread and molasses they will be thoroughly contented and would not work again until they are hungry."
That is the preacher of it. In a comfortable study he has been seeking for a solution all his life, and the ripe fruit of all this research is the hackneyed presumption that poverty must be do to laziness.
Blind leaders of the blind! They offer no solution which is not an insult either to God or man. Sometimes they say there is not enough to go around, that poverty is inevitable, and in that plea, they blaspheme the Creator. But if they save the reputation of the Deity it is but to malign his creatures.
I shall not charge the preachers with dishonesty. A more charitable view is that they have so long thought of themselves as the repositories of all wisdom that they cannot become as little children and enter that kingdom of truth whose gates welcome those who are willing to learn.
The Shibboleths of Ignorance.
The fact is their gospel of free will and individual responsibility is but half the truth. Environment is one of the factors of destiny. These unfortunates have been hardest hit by a social order, which would seem to us monstrous thing if our eyes were not blinded by custom. Why is there not always work in abundance for those who wish it? My Reverend Sir, drop your phrases about the fall of Adam and blood of Jesus, and tell me, why should there be at my time a lack of employment for men? Have you tried to answer that question? Do you really want an answer to it? I half believe you do not.
The good Reverend goes on to advocate the ideas of
Henry George as a remedy for lack of employment. The ideas of Henry George may or may not be the answer, but we do appreciate the Reverend Bigelow's compassion for the unemployed, and his willingness to ask why working people should go jobless and hungry in a land of plenty.
SOURCE
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-of Jan 30, 1904
Photo: Bread/Soup Line
This photo is from the Great Depression, used here to represent the Depression of 1904
http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/...
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Saturday January 31, 1914
Salt Lake City, Utah - Joe Hill Acts As Own Attorney at Preliminary Hearing
The newspapers of Salt Lake City seem to have already convicted Fellow Worker Joe Hill, even though all the evidence presented against him is entirely circumstantial. We will now take another look at the preliminary hearing which was held last Wednesday before Justice of the Peace Harry S. Harper. As was noted before, FW Hill had only $5.60 on his person when he was arrested, and that is the reason that he chose to act as his own attorney.
Hill was not positively identified by any of the witnesses as one of the killers of Grocer Morrison and his son. A few of the witnesses stated that there was a similarity between him and one of the two men seen fleeing the store after the murders, but not one of them could positively identify him as that man.
The young Merlin Morrison, who stated that the Joe Hill resembled one of the attackers as to weight and height, was cross-examined by Hill:
Wen you saw me in the jail this morning after my arrest, did you not say, "No, that is not the man at all. The ones I saw were shorter and heavier."
The boy denied that he said that and was questioned no further by FW Hill, but he continues to insist that the boy had been influenced by the police to alter his first observation.
Mrs. Phoebe Seeley failed to give testimony beneficial to the magistrate's case against Joe Hill. She described the taller of two men as having "small features and light bushy hair." The magistrate corrected her: "You mean medium colored hair like Mr. Hillstrom's don't you?" And then further prodded her: "Is the general appearance of Mr. Hillstrom anything like the man you saw?" Whereupon Mrs. Seeley replied, "No, I won't-no, I can't say that." Hill was overruled when he objected to the leading questions.
Mrs. Nettie Mahan and Mrs. Vera Hanson had seen a man run from the murder scene stooped over with his hand to his chest. He cried out, "Oh, Bob!" Mrs. Hanson said that she could not say for certain that that man's voice and Hill's voice were the same. Mrs. Mahan thought that, perhaps, the man yelled, "I'm shot," but she could not be certain.
The Drs. Hugh and Bird testified, again, without any definite evidence, about guns and bullets. Neither were sure what type of gun Joe Hill was carrying, and could not say what type of bullet had caused his injury.
With great seriousness, two red bandannas were place into evidence. One came, not from the crime scene, but from a barn two blocks from the store, and the other came from the Hill's room. Joe Hill responded:
I have only this to say. I fail utterly to see how any significance can attach to the discovery of a red bandanna handkerchief such as I owned. Many persons have red handkerchiefs and it is no uncommon thing to lose them.
This circumstantial evidence was found to be sufficient to proceed to trial, and Joe Hill was denied bail and handed over to the Third District Court for trial. He was returned to the county jail where he will remain until the trial takes place.
SOURCES
The Case of Joe Hill
-by Philip S. Foner
International Publishers, 1965
The Letters of Joe Hill
-ed by Philip S Foner
Oak Publications, 1965
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Banks of Marble-Pete Seeger
l saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore
l heard the bosses saying
Got no work for you no more
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the seaman sweated for
-Les Rice