Winnipeg Wobbly

On October 16, 1859, abolitionist fighter John Brown began the raid on Harpers Ferry. With twenty-one other men in the hopes of seizing the federal armory at Harper's Ferry, the holding place for approximately 100,000 rifles and muskets, hoping to arm slaves and create a violent rebellion against the south.

However, after thirty-six hours the revolt was suppressed by federal forces led by Robert E. Lee (later General of the Confederate Army) and Brown was jailed.

The raid resulted in thirteen deaths, twelve rebels and one U.S. Marine. After being found guilty of murder, treason, and inciting a slave insurrection, Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.

John Brown should stand as a symbol of those who continue to struggle against oppression and immoral systems. Those who fight against wage-slavery. As Eugene Debs once wrote, "Old John Brown is not dead. His soul still marches on, and each passing year weaves new garlands for his brow and adds fresh luster to his deathless glory."

The Following is a piece from one of the most famous supporters of the I.W.W., Carl Sandburg (under the pseudonym "Jack Philips"), on the similarities between John Brown and I.W.W. founder Big Bill Haywood, as well as a music video of the song John Brown by David Rovics.

For past coverage on John Brown Click Here

HAYWOOD OF THE I. W. W.

By JACK PHILLIPS

[ISR 18.7 (Jan. 1918): 343]

Old John Brown of Ossawattamie was arrested by officers of the United States government, legally indicted, legally tried, and legally shot, as a traitor to the nation.

A few short years afterward millions of marching men, soldiers of the United States Army, with Abraham Lincoln for commander-in-chief, marched singing a song with every verse and every chorus glorifying John Brown. And "John Brown's Body Lies A Mouldering in the Grave" is today the most popular folk song of the American nation. Let the fact be recorded at this time that John Brown was tried on the charge of treason and shot to death because of presumed guilt of treason.

What was it John Brown did that caused him to be remembered and glorified in a national marching song? He was a man with a dream. His mind conceived the vision that if the southern black slaves could be armed wtih rifles they would fight their way to freedom from their white masters. Therefore, reasoned John Brown, the thing to do is to raid a government arsenal and seize the guns wanted by the black slaves. So he and his sons and followers raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, were hunted, captured, and as hereinbefore noted, legally indicted, tried, shot.

So Big Bill Haywood, nearly sixty years later, appears in history, another man dominated by a dream. Haywood has a vision of industrial democracy established, a hope of security and justice for all the workers of the world, the shackles of capitalist wage slavery struck off. How is this vision to be attained? Thru a world wide general strike of the working class, thru mass action of the working people of the world, without violence necessarily, without death penalties, revenges and punitive indemnities. Merely thru a folding of arms, a refusal to make or transport the goods of the world, till all autocracies yielded to a newer order. Such was to be the working of the plan when its details could be arranged.

As wild a dream, perhaps, as the dream of John Brown that arming the southern blacks would lead to the abolition of chattel slavery. As vague and chimerical a vision as that of the "traitor" after whom the nation's most famous marching song was written.

What it leads to is the question: Will there be marching songs written to Bill Haywood some day as the same kind of a "traitor" as the John Brown who was legally indicted, legally tried, legally shot?

Let Claude Porter, special assistant attorney general in charge of the prosecution of the I. W. W. think about these things.

We wonder today when we look back and read the savage and ruthless charges brought against John Brown by the prosecutors. They called for his blood with tongues that today are dust.

One day Claude Porter's accusing tongue will be dust. And Big Bill Haywood will be dust. Which of the two will be remembered?

Nobody remembers today who it was that tongue-lashed John Brown in the prosecution of him for treason. But everybody knows the story of John Brown.

So be it. Such is the history and the drama of destiny.