lumber workers

I wrote this and published it in the Redwood Ripsaw of Davenport, California last year (1965).

The Bolshevik Revolution in "Mother Russia" in November 1917 came like the thunder clap of the Atom Bomb. It caught the workers of all the world by complete surprise-and it dumfounded the master class as well.

The Working Class and the Employing Class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among the millions of working people, and the few, who make up the Employing Class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. . . .It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.

By John Brill - 1920s
Tune: Take it to the Lord in Prayer

Are you poor, forlorn and hungry?
Are there lots of things you lack ?
Is your life made up of misery?
Then dump the bosses off your back.
Are your clothes all patched and tattered ?
Are you living in a shack ?
Would you have your troubles scattered ?
Then dump the bosses off your back.

By T-Bone Slim (Matt Valentine Huhta) - 1920; except for [*] added by Bruce "U Utah" Phillips -1981
Tune: "They Go Wild Over Me"

I'm as mild mannered as I can be,
And I've never done them harm that I can see.
Still on me they put a ban, and they throw me in the can,
They go wild, simply wild, over me.

They accuse me of rascality,
But I can't see why they always pick on me;
I'm as gentle as a lamb, but they take me for a ram.
They go wild, simply wild, over me.

By Ralph Chaplin - ca 1915
Tune: "Darling Nelly Gray"

In the gloom of mighty cities
Mid the roar of whirling wheels
We are toiling on like chattel slaves of old,
And our masters hope to keep us
Ever thus beneath their heels,
And to coin our very life blood into gold.

By Joe Glazer -1929

[Verse 1]
50000 lumberjacks, fifty thousand packs
50000 dirty rolls of blankets on their backs
50000 minds made up to strike and strike like men
For fifty years they've packed a bed, but never will again

[Chorus]
"Such a lot of devils" -- that's what the papers say --
"They've gone on strike for shorter hours and some increase in pay:
They left the camps, the lazy tramps, they all walked out as one;
They say they'll win the strike or put the bosses on the bum."

The Outgrown - By Ernie Crook

Like an ox in modern traffic
Like a sword in modern fray
Or a scythe in modern harvest
Is our scheme of buy and pay
Own and borrow, get and corner
Trade and barter, hire and loan
Taking interest, rent, and profits
While our Brothers sigh and moan
Millions idle, robots taking
Jobs from living, mortal men

In the year of 1912 I heard Eugene V. Debs predict the victory of Socialism over the forces of Capitalism. I believed it then-and I believe it now (in 1966)-more than ever before.

Radicals generally, have given up the fight for Socialism mainly because of a lot of false notions as to the invincibility of Capitalism. They see the continuing almost uninterrupted boom conditions prevailing since [World] War II. Some of them seem to think that the theory of Marx-Lenin is outdated. Events will soon prove them wrong, and Marx-Lenin correct.

One more article from the Lumberjack News of Eureka California. This one was written in 1962.

At a time when part of the US Navy is hovering ominously in Santa Domingo waters to "prevent a leftist takeover" it might be well here to review briefly just how DID the US get Hawaii? It is a sordid story, but factual and written in a book called "Imperial Washington" by a former US Senator, one R. F. Pettigrow (senator of South Dakota in 1893). We just take excerpts to save space.

Now for another editorial from the Redwood Ripsaw of June 1965.

The last issue went over better than ever. Many comments received such as "bold" forthright, and no few letters, all of them favorable. One letter said in part, "The best and clearest explanation of imperialism I have ever read. Send me twenty copies."