Bars and Shadows

lakak - Ralph Chaplin

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bars and Shadows, by Ralph ChaplinCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloadingor redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of thisfile. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can alsofind out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: Bars and ShadowsAuthor: Ralph ChaplinRelease Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6136] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first postedon November 18, 2002]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARS AND SHADOWS ***Produced by David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.BARS AND SHADOWSTHE PRISON POEMS OF RALPH CHAPLINWith an introduction By Scott Nearing1922CONTENTSINTRODUCTION MOURN NOT THE DEAD TAPS NIGHT IN THE CELL HOUSE PRISON SHADOWS PRISON REVEILLE PRISON ...

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Publié par	lakak
Publié le	08 décembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	49
Langue	English

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Author: Ralph ChaplinRelease Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6136] [Yes, weare more than one year ahead of schedule] [Thisfile was first posted on November 18, 2002]Edition: 10Language: English***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARS AND SHADOWS ***Produced by David Starner and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team.BARS AND SHADOWSTHE PRISON POEMS OF RALPH CHAPLINWith an introduction By Scott Nearing

1922CONTENTSINTRODUCTION MOURN NOT THE DEAD TAPSNIGHT IN THE CELL HOUSE PRISONSHADOWS PRISON REVEILLE PRISONNOCTURNE THE WARRIOR WIND TOFREEDOM THE VISION MAKER DISTANCESPHANTOMS SEVEN LITTLE SPARROWSSALAAM! THE WEST IS DEAD UP FROM YOURKNEES! THE EUNUCH I. W. W. PRISON SONGTO FRANCE VILLANELLE WESLEY EVERESTTHE INDUSTRIAL HERETICS BLOOD AND WINETHE RED GUARD THE RED FEAST THE GIRLSWHO SANG FOR US TO EDITH SONG OFSEPARATION TO MY LITTLE SON ESCAPED!RETROSPECTINTRODUCTIONI.Ralph Chaplin is serving a twenty year sentence inthe Federal Penitentiary, not as a punishment forany act of violence against person or property, butsolely for the expression of his opinions.Chaplin, together with a number of fellow prisoners

who were sentenced at the same time, wasaccused of taking part in a conspiracy with intent toobstruct the prosecution of the war. To be sure theGovernment did not produce a single witness toshow that the war had been obstructed by theiractivities; but it was argued that the agitation whichthey had carried on by means of speeches,articles, pamphlets, meetings and organizingcampaigns, would quite naturally hamper thecountry in its war work. On the face of theirindictments these men were accused of interferingwith the conduct of the war; in reality they weresent to jail because they held and expressedcertain beliefs.As a member of the Industrial Workers of theWorld, Ralph Chaplin did his part to make theorganization a success. He wrote songs andpoems; he made speeches: he edited the officialpaper, "Solidarity". He looked about him; sawpoverty, wretchedness and suffering among theworkers; contrasted it with the luxury of those whoowned the land and the machinery of production;studied the problem of distribution; and decidedthat it was possible, through the organization of theproducers, to establish a more scientific, juster,more humane system of society. All this he felt,intensely. With him and his fellow-workers the taskof freeing humanity from economic bondage tookon the aspect of a faith, a religion. They held theirmeetings; wrote their literature; made theirspeeches and sang their songs with zealousdevotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard acall to duty; they were giving their lives to a cause

—the emancipation of the human race.When the war broke out in Europe, with millions ofworking-men flinging death and misery at oneanother, men like Chaplin, the world over, regardedit as the last straw. Was it not bad enough thatthese exploited creatures should be used asfactory-fodder? Must they be cannon-fodder too?Why should they fight to increase the economicpower of German traders? of Britishmanufacturers? The war was a capitalist warbetween capitalist nations. What interest had theworkers in these nations? in their winnings or intheir losses? So ran the argument.The I. W. W. was not primarily an anti-warorganization In theory it had abandoned politicalactivity to devote itself exclusively to agitation andorganization on the field of industry. Practically itsfunds and its energies were expended uponindustrial struggles. Long before the war, the I. W.W. had made itself known and feared for itsconduct of strikes, its free speech fights, and itsability to put the sore spots of American industriallife on the front page of the daily press and to keepthem there until the people had become aroused tothe wrongs that were being perpetrated. It was inthis domain of industry that the I. W. W. wasfunctioning, and it was among the businessinterests that the determination had been reachedto rid the country of the organization at all costs.Had the chief offense of the I. W. W. consisted inits expressed opposition to the war, it would not

have been singled out for attack. Many of thepeace societies that flourished prior to 1917 weremore outspoken and more consistent in theiropposition to war than were the leaders of the I. W.W. None of these societies, however, had acquiredreputation for championing the cause of industrialunder dogs, and for demanding a complete changein the form of American economic life.Consequently, in the prosecution, in the sentences,in the commutations and in the pardons, the anti-war pacifists were treated very leniently, while therevolutionary I. W. W. members were singled outfor the most ferocious legal and extra-legal attack.Technically, Ralph Chaplin and his comrades hadconspired to obstruct the war. Actually, they hadlined themselves up solidly against the presenteconomic order, of which the World War was onlyone phase. This was their real crime.II.Ralph Chaplin was guilty of the most serious socialoffense that a man can commit. While living in anold and shattered social order, he had championeda new order of society and had expounded a newculture. Socrates and Jesus, for like offenses, losttheir lives. Thousands of their followers, guilty of nogreater crime than that of denouncing vestedwrong and expounding new truths, have suffered inthe dungeon, on the scaffold and at the stake.Not because he and his fellows conspired to

obstruct the war, but because they denounced thepresent order of economic society and taught theinauguration of a better one, are they still held inprison more than three years after the signing ofthe armistice; after the proclamation of peace andthe resumption of trade with all of the enemycountries; after the repeal or the lapse of theEspionage Act and the other war-time laws underwhich they were convicted; and after Germanagents and German spies, caught red-handed intheir attempts to interfere with the prosecution ofthe war, have won their freedom throughpresidential pardon.The most dangerous men in the United States,during the years 1917 and 1918, were not thosewho were taking pay to do the will of the Germanor the Austrian Governments, but those who weretrying to convince the American working peoplethat they should throw aside a system of economicparasitism and economic exploitation, should takepossession of the machinery of production andshould secure for themselves the product of theirown toil. In the eyes of the masters of Americanlife, such men are still dangerous, and that is thereason that they are kept in prison.III.The culture of any age consists of the feelings,habits, customs, activities, thoughts, ambitions anddreams of a people. It is a composite picture oftheir homes, their work, their arts, their pleasures

and the other channels of their life-expression.The culture of each age has two aspects. On theone hand there is the established or acceptedculture of those who dominate and control,—theculture of the leisure or ruling class. This culture isrespected, admired, applauded, and sometimeseven worshipped by those who benefit from it mostdirectly. Civilization—even life itself seems boundup with its continuance. When the advocates of theestablished culture cry "Long live the King!" theyare really shouting approval of royalty, aristocracy,landlordism, vassalage, exploitation and of all theother attributes of divine right. The world as it isbecomes in their minds, synonymous with theworld as it should be. For them the old culture isthe best culture.On the other hand there is the new culture,comprising the hopes, beliefs, ideas and ideals ofthose who feel that the present is but a transition-stage, leading from the past into the future—afuture that they see radiant with the best that is inman, developing soundly against the bounties thatare supplied by the hand of nature. These forwardlooking ones, impatient with the mistakes andinjustices of to-day, preach wisdom and justice forthe morrow. So imperfect does the present seemto them, and so obvious are the possibilities of thefuture, that they look forward confidently to theoverthrow of the old social forms, and theestablishment, in their places, of a new society, theembryo of which is already germinating within theold social shell.

The old culture relies on tradition, custom, and thenormal conservatism of the masses of mankind,The new culture relies on concepts of justice, truth,liberty, love, brotherhood. Eighteenth century,Feudal France was filled with the prophecies of aform of society that would supplant Feudalism.Nineteenth century Russia, in the grip of acapitalist burocracy, proved to be the centre for therevolutions of the early twentieth century. The newculture, growing at first under the shadow of theold, gradually assumes larger and largerproportions until it takes all of the sunlight for itself,throwing the old culture into the shadow of oblivion.Each ruling class knows these facts—knows that,the old must give place to the new; knows that theliving, ruling culture of to-day will be the history ofthe day after tomorrow, yet because of the vestedinterests which they rely upon for their power, andbecause they are satisfied to have the delugecome after them, they oppose each manifestationof the new culture and strain every nerve to makethe temporary organization of the worldpermanent. The more vigorously the new culturethrives, the more eagerly do the representatives ofthe old order strive to destroy it.IV.During three eventful centuries, the part of NorthAmerica that is now the United States haswitnessed two fierce culture-survival struggles. Inthe first of these struggles—that between the

American Indians and the whites, the culture ofWestern Europe supplanted the culture of primitiveAmerica. In the second struggle—that between theslave holders of the South and the rising businessinterests of the North, the slave oligarchy wasswept from power, and in its place there wasestablished the new financial imperialism thatdominates the public life of the nation at thepresent time. Despite the extreme youth of thecapitalist system in the United States, there arealready many signs that those who profit by it mustbe prepared to defend it at no distant date. TheRussian Revolution of 1917 sounded the loudestnote of warning, but even before that occurred, theindustrial capitalists had entered upon a strugglewhich they believed to be of the greatestimportance to their future.During the twenty years that elapsed between theHomestead and Pullman strikes and the beginningof the world war, the pages of American industrialhistory are crowded with stories of the labor conflict—on an ever vaster and vaster scale, betweennationally organized employers, using the power ofthe police, the courts and, where necessary, thearmy; and the nationally organized workers,backed by some show of public sentiment, andarmed with the strength of numbers. Although thebulk of the workers was still unorganized, andalthough those who were organized thought andacted within the lines of their crafts, consideringthemselves as railway trainmen or as carpentersfirst, and as workers afterward, there was notwanting a new spirit—sometimes called the spirit of