the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.

Subject: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 10:46 AM

HOW MANY DIFFERENT ONES DO YOU HAVE !!!

The Industrial Workers Of The World has put out it's famous little red songbook since 1909.

I have (hesitate to say own) 2 of them---the May 1st, 1973 edition (.40) and the April 1968 edition (the 32nd ed.---also .40)

I used to have a much older one but, as you probably know, they were made to be stuffed easily into a back pocket. That's exactly how the songs were spread around. It disappeared long ago...

I wonder who out there might have the largest collection of the books from different eras and editions. What songs might've been added to reflect the struggles of more recent times???
The 1973 edition has a new price of .75 inserted with a stapm pad. Bruce U. Utah Phillips' fine song "Larrimer STREET" is here as is Woody Guthrie's "UNION MAID" making it's first appearance with a NEW VERSE by Nancy Katz:

A woman's struggle is hard,
Even with a union card,
She's got to stand on her own two feet,
And not be a servant of the male elite,
It's time to take a stand,
Keep working hand in hand,
There is a job that's got to be done
And a fight that's got to be won.

Art Thieme_________________________________________

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19th Edition (1923) of the Little Red Songbook available online here (click)

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Socialist Songbook available online here (click)

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I.W.W. Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent (1917) available online here (click)

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Little Red Songbook (London, 1916) available online here (click)

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 11:04 AM

I have 34th edition. 1973, 4th reprint, 1980...

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 11:05 AM

Hello, my friend,

I used to have half a dozen, I think I am down to two. I have always wanted to collect these things, but I keep giving them away. In fact I gave one to Brother Joe Offer at the Getaway weekend. I will have to dig them out.

I am a Union Organizer. If anyone has a collection of them and wants to auction them off in the Mudcat, I will be heavy into the bidding.

Big Mick

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 12:45 PM

The IWW web site advertises the songbook for sale. What edition are they currently selling?

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: InOBU
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 01:55 PM

Ive got a bunch, of cource, there is one I have, that is real rare. I helped stop it from being produced by the Womans Press COllective, that turned out to be a stalinst front, not our dear old Union, I was sent over by the local to see what was up and help with the run, and found it was this fellow, Oh I am blanking on his name, died a few years ago, and his brainwashed followers where busted about two years ago for stock piling weapons in a few houses in Brooklyn. His name was a spanish name, and I cant believe I cant think of it, had a limp that he had twenty different storries for how he got it... If I remember his name Ill post it. We got suspicious when, before I could work on the shop floor, a comizar gave me a political pep talk, and when a worker in a supposed IWW shop asked me what the union was, and I began to tell her, the comizar jumped on me and said I was not allowed to talk politics on the shop floor. I called a halt to the work and told him in my loudest UNION MAN voice, that any shop that did not allow union talk was inviolation of labor law and was no IWW shop in the first place. Turned out not to be. It was an alice in wonderland event, but I totally enjoyed it.
Now is the point in the story when we get out our little red books and have a rousing rendition of Mr. Block Yours in the OBU Larry

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 02:16 PM

Hiya Art. I have a Litle Red Songbook given (sent through the mail)to me by Ammon Hennacy in the early sixties. I had written to him c/o the Joe Hill House of Hospitality, Salt Lake City, after reading about him in Sing Out!. He sent me a signed copy, saying it was the last one he had at the time, and some leaflets about his work. I thought him a great man. Does anybody know if the Joe Hill House still exists? Cheers, Burl

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 02:53 PM

Fellow Workers.... hey, this post caused a frantic search, which ended up in me not finding the songbook that I've had since the late 60's. I think I may have searched the wrong house, got a son who may have appropriated it... I do have a well worn copy of Joyce Kornbluh's tome, more Wob lit than I can describe.

One of the IWW's in the Detroit area has a number of recent editions that I scornfully refer to as the BIG red songbook. It won't fit in your shirtpocket. I think it was printed in Chicago, but not certain. It is about twice as long and a little wider than the songbooks that I have.

Have any of you seen that one?

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 02:59 PM

...does Eric Glatz have any songs in the book, Art????harpgirl

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 03:01 PM

Good news, I can quit blaming my kid, I found the copy of the 33rd edition, published in 1970, worn torn and waterstained, but still in pretty good shape. Cost 40 cents, and is marked printed in USA, well back to fannin' the flames....

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Stewie
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 06:25 PM

I have a little book called 'The Big Red Songbook' Pluto Press 1977. It is compiled by Mal Collins, Dave Harker and Geoff White. It's probably modelled on the IWW songbook.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 08:07 PM

Harp, No songs by Eric Glatz. Who is he? How are you?

Art

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 08:14 PM

Burl,

Ammon Hennacy was a mentor of Utah Phillips'. Bruce used to say that his parents raised his body but that Ammon had raised his head. Check with Bruce Phillips with questions about him. I'll get his address to you in a private message.

Art

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Susan A-R
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 11:17 PM

I seem to be a latecomer to the revolution. Mine's the 35th edition, issued May 1 1984 (brrrrr) reprinted June 1987. It has Bread and Roses, Amazing Boss (yep, to the tune of Amazing Grace, )Make No Mistake and Prices Rise (to the tune of Three Blind Mice) and probably numerous other goodies. Still fits in a shirt pocket.

Susan A-R

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 11:41 PM

Art, Eric was very active as a folksinger for Ed Sadlowsky in Chicago in the 60-70's. He was in the IWW at that time and I thought had one of his compositions in one of the editions...He lives in Muskegon now...performs in Michigan...incredible Chet Atkins style picker and former rabid unionite...I played the Old Florida Capital today, Art. Look out for a xmas present!

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 08:59 AM

Hi Harp and Art,

Eric lives and works in West Michigan. I believe he lives in Muskegon just now. In fact, Art, he was on the "Rebel Voices" IWW album produced by Flying Fish Records in 1987. He did "The Popular Wobbly". Also on that album was Bruce (Utah) Phillips, Faith Petric, Fred Holstein, Marion Wade, Jeff Cahill, Mark Ross, Bruce Brackney, Bob Bovee, Robin Oye and Kathy Taylor.

All the best,

Big Mick

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 01:10 PM

34th edition 5/1/73, second printing 3/1/74, price 75 cents.

-- MA

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 03:58 PM

Ammon Hennacy was a Catholic Anarchist. I had a rare treat. It was a symposium given by an unlikely trio in New York City at a big church (St. John The Divine?)

Pete Seeger, Ammon Hennacy and Eric Fromm. What a meeting!

Frank

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 05:13 PM

Hi Art,
Would it be possible to get a little bit of history about the Industrial Worker's of the World (IWW).
I am currently reading 'How Can I Keep From Singing' by Pete Seeger. The book make reference to the IWW, but gives few details of what this group of people were about.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: InOBU
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 06:38 PM

Hi Bonnie! Check out the book Roughneck. It is about Big Bill Haywood, one of the founders of our dear old OBU. When I was a younger wob, one of the oldest members of the NYC local had been a child wobblie during the famous Patterson Silk Workers Strike, and had danced with Big Bill, remembered hearing Tresca speak, and was at a rally in 1913 where James Connelly spoke, but does not remember him, as she was very young.
Develessa
Larry

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: InOBU
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 06:55 PM

One more thing Shey, Bonnie

The Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things in life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the eath and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system
We find that the centering of the management of Industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Morover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessisary, cease to work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the concervative motto, a fair days wage for a fair days work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, ABOLITION OF THE WAGE SYSTEM.
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of produciton must be organized, not only for the every day struggle against capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are froming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
Well shey, that is the whole story in a nutsell,
Larry

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 07:09 PM

Banjo Bonnie, Two books that come to mind, are Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology, by Joyce Kornbluh, and Labors Untold Story, by Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais.

Rebel Voices has a wealth of Wobblie history and a treasure of working class poetry.

Labor's Untold Story is the book that many of us credit with being the first and most inspiring book of US Labor history. It is still printed and distributed by the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, (UE), a great, highly principled industrial union, that has dedicated many resources to promulgating workers culture.

The IWW still exists in the hearts of many of us, and exists in fact, also, organising in bookstores, food co-ops,and probably some other areas that I am not as aware of.

U.Utah Phillips is the finest repository of the history of the great Wob personalities, telling story after story about the organizers in the forests, mines and mills in the northwest. Travel as far as you have to to see him perform while he is still with us.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 08:40 PM

Larry, thank you very much for the help and the 'Nut Shell'
And NorthFolk, thanks for the resources.
Food For Thought

BB

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:16 PM

I can remember when I was the only "known" labor person around these parts.............and I must tell you it is great that that has passed. Thanks, Brothers and Sisters, for jumping in here and providing first rate information on the marvelous organization that gave us Mother Jones, Bill Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, Bruce Phillips and many, many more. This Union is legendary, and all of labor owes it a debt. Would that more organizations in my movement had the integrity of ideals that the IWW has always displayed.

Mick

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: WriteFLyer
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:37 PM

I'm a 3rd generation Wob. They've moved hq from Chicago to San Fran, if you are lookin' for 'em. If you ever are in SF, they have a great labor history library/museum, and there is a display in the Tacoma WA history museum on the WWW and the Centralia massacre. Faith Petric prob knows as many labor songs as any living person...along with Utah Philips. Can you imagine: Bing Crosby recorded "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum"?!

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 12:33 AM

check out www.iww.org

Abby, Ed Sadlowsky---a real name from Chicago antiquity ! Wasn't that the steel workers union? (Back when there were steel foundrys.) There was a real populist charisma about him if I recall. He was there and burning bright--and then he wasn't--like a starburst firecracker. I'm gonna try him in a search engine & see what comes up.

_______________________________________________________

That reminds me of a tale about the 3 U.S.Steel vice presidents who died & went to heaven. St. Peter wouldn't let 'em in. Said, "Guys we've got too many good union men here. They'd be real upset if I let ya in." So he sent em to hell. A bit later there was a call on the "HOT LINE"---the devil calling St. Peter. Said, "Pete, did you send those 3 U.S. Steel vice presidents down here?" Pete answered, "Yeah, I sure did. Is there a problem?" "Well" said the devil, "They've only been down here 20 minutes and they've already got every furnace but one shut down!!!"

_______________________________________________________

I posted a fine old Wobbly song in Kat's thread on the song "Where The Silvery Colorado Wends It's Way". Both had the same tune.

Also, a while ago I posted reminiscences of a man I met when I was 20 years old---a fiddle-playing Wobbly hobo that I tape recorded in Chicago in 1961---93 year old Paul Durst (1868-19??). If I can find the general transcripts of a taped conversation I had with Paul, I'll post those. Those talks became a couple o' columns in Come For To Sing magazine and also in ---a show biz monthly. Ask Big Mick about those tapes. I believe he thought they were pretty amazing.

But PAUL DURST (along with Woody and Kerouac and Steinbeck) gave me that heady romantic wanderlust that sustained me in a lifetime spent singing and searching, meandering and learning on the road long after a good percentage of the bloom was off the sage. (Enough blown waterpumps at three A.M. can do that.) But when I listen to those tapes, the struggles, hardships and glory of that old gentleman's life sure do come to life for me.

And I feel some of that same wonder in these posts--- a dedication to a bigger thing, a love of the trip, of going---of making the WESTERING journey until you run out of continent. So then you go again---back the way you came 'cause the crops are ready for pullin' back there--the jobs are there. The Eisenhower super-mega-highways just don't cut it. The Grail won't be found there ever. (The Grail is the journey itself anyhow.)

Hell, I'm off on a word binge again--a whole other tangent. Sorry 'bout that. But I still love the going--staying down close to the ground in a way that no air travel will ever duplicate. Or is that a generational thing? Is that love of the westering impulse something the new cyber--supersonic world can't slow down enough to feel? The calm of the hobo jungle and the comaraderie of people trying to change a system of things--hopefully for the better?

That's enough. I'm out of here. Really. I mean it.

Your turn.

Love,

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 03:04 AM

Art, I hoped this would cause you to comment on Paul Durst. Amazing man, amazing journey. I remember listening to the tape in awe as he told of the monumental events, the strikes, the people that he associated with, and as he sang the songs. I will never be able to repay you for share this with me, Bro Art.

So........the urge to go a westering is hitting you, eh?? So, let's go. I promise we won't hit nary a superslab. We could visit 'Catters around the country, one after the other.............Now wouldn't that be a trip, eh Art?

Mick

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 03:41 AM

Click here for information about Ammon Hennacy and Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, fascinating people who did wonderful work.
Click here to get to the Industrial Workers of the World ("Wobblies"). You should be able to order the book throough the Website, but I can't get the pages on the book to work this evening. Try here (click). Somehow, the book has more meaning if somebody gives it to you. Mick Lane gave me a weathered copy of the 36th edition (1995), and I'll treasure it for the rest of my folksinging days.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 11:40 AM

Folks, Is this a MALE THING??? Is is what guys rather than gals do with their youth? Is it a REAL DIFFERENCE between the sexes in this era where we are constantly told that there are no differences?????? Is it why older guys might try to reclaim some of it (or some of what they missed) by banging drums in the woods or by hunting? Recently, in a copy of The Hobo Times (Buzz Potter's fine magazine of wanderlust) in an interview with the extrmely elderly James Michener, the close to death writer thoroughly enjoyed recalling his days of jumping freights and just going. Carl Sandburg was the same way. There are "recreational hobos" now---guys who leave the office on Friday and "catch out" and get back in time for work on Monday morning even if they have to fly home after using the credit card to pay for the flight.

Of course I know there are female hobos now---Connecticut Shorty and her sister, Gypsy Moon. In olden times there was Boxcar Bertha. But it was a male need thing---(to maybe support the family)----to get to the jobs as a migrant--to just wander--an addiction to "the road"---a way of life so one could drink. But there were the mountain men. Very few, if any, women out there going after the beaver pelts and, by the way, exploring the WEST.

Yeah, I always felt the pull to go west--to taste the ocean and to keep on going until I couldn't do it any more. To my way o' seeing it, it IS a male thing that comes from the differences caused by testosterone and estrogen---and all the wondrous and various gender shades that are seemingly within the human mosaic.

Folks (Kat), wha'd'ya think???

Art Thieme
The Prince Of Peru
(My official hobo name given me by the fine singer of hobbo songs and former HOBO KING, Luther The Jet (Luther Gette) who also has a PHD in French Literature.)

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 11:50 AM

To explain further: I've never jumped a freight in my life---except once. It was moving slowly down Lakewood Avenue in the middle of Chicago where it was depositing a boxcar in back of a meatpacking place. I rode about 2 blocks and then went home---a block away on Nelson Street.

(Carol just said she didn't remember that. I said, "Honey, I never told you.")

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 05:01 PM

I'm just as afflicted with wanderlust as described above; hitched around eurpoe one summer during my students days, got in my car and went wherever and whenever; you have to remember it wasn't safe for female persons then (or now) to be out and about, alone. A (female) relative of a friend had a travelling job inthe fifties, and talks about wearing a man's hat she kept pulled down while on the highway. No, it shouldn't be like that, but butting your head against the realities can get you dead. I knew someone this happened to, too.

off the soapbox now, Mary Ann

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: WriteFlyer
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:24 PM

My brother Gary Snyder and I hitchhiked all over from coast to coast and border to border, back in the old days (40s, 50s). Kerouac did some boxcar time, too. So there are female wanderers out there (and here).

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: InOBU
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 06:27 PM

Hey ART! What would Big Bill have said if you told him that the richest guy in America would get rich by inventing a machine where old Wobblies can get together and talk about Bertha Thomkins!? Well, the only thing funnier about this funny old world is how I picked up my get out of jail free card. I was a paralegal, on my way to law school. I needed an ID card to get in, and more important, get out of federal prissons to interview inmates. Well.. they photgraphed me, and did all the stuff they do, then let me know my Get Out Of Jail Free card was ready. I needed two peices of ID to pick it up. I only had a drivers licence, a Veit Nam era draft card, which I kept because it said on it, 1AO (objector) and I thought that was me all over, fit but not fitting in, and my old red duccet, the IWW card. Well, the feds wouldnt take my federally issued draft card as ID, as the draft was over, but they accepted the IWW card. Yours in the OBU Larry X 333263

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 Dec 99 - 11:12 PM

WriteFlyer,

Just re-read Dharma Bums again. What a fine book. Was Gary in that one anywhere & by what name? His "Mid-August At Sourdough Mountain Lookout" makes me think he might've been part of them doings... If he's another Gary Snyder poet then forgive my assumings.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:47 AM

...I started wandering as a teenager...hitched a ride from a guy coming home from the Mt. Clements racetrack along Lake St. Clair one night, down to a neighborhood called Indian Village by the Belle Isle Bridge...my school friends were all spending the night and I had a spanish exam the next day and was supposed to be home in bed. I slipped out of my home and walked to the end of the block where the lake was and waited for a car going into downtown Detroit...now it is more a state of mind!

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 10:52 AM

Art,
you're right about Ed Sadlowsky. Eric Glatz was a steel worker at the time. He worked on the burner's bed at McLouth Steel down by the Ambassador Bridge south of Detroit...When I first met him at a bar in Ann Arbor I said "Do you work in metals?" He was astonished but I just thought he looked like Hephastus!

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: WriteFLyer
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 11:21 PM

Art Thieme---

Yup, in DB, Gary is Japhy Ryder, I'm Rhoda Ryder. The person I am marrying in that book is the same one whose art work is selling on Ebay (he's a superrealistic cowboy artist in Wyoming named James Bama.) Kerouac had him being a salesman or businessman, as I recall. I have a picture of Gary standing on a snowbank wearing shorts and holding out food to an elk, on Sourdough Mt.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:34 AM

...singing anything these days, Ms. Snyder?

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Dani
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 08:46 AM

Hey Frank Hamilton! And they say they have to drag things out of ME around here.

Let's hear more about that symposium! I studied some Fromm in *Catholic* school, long before I became a disciple of Pete's. What a group THAT must have been!

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 01:17 PM

WriteFlyer,

Amazing. Very nice of you to respond.---Not to mention cool as hell. This place amazes me more often than not. I had thought Japhy was Neal Cassady. But I see Ann Charters says Gary was not only Japhy but that he was Jarry Wagner in BIG SUR.

Ann Charters, Kerouac's biographer, was/is(?) the spouse of Sam Charters---author of great books on blues---like The Blusmen, Sweet As The Showers Of Rain and The Country Blues. (Just an aside that would be of interest to other Mudcatters.)

I'm pretty sure I heard recently about some of Gary's modern doings---but I can't recall specifics. I, for one, would enjoy enlightenment if you're willing !

Thanks---and all the best,

Art Thieme also at [e-mail]

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: harpgirl
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 05:14 PM

...Art, Put Gary Snyder in a search engine and read about a terrific poet!

Subject: Paul Durst Interview - Art Thieme
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 06:25 PM

I wrote 2 columns about PAUL DURST during September and November of 1982. They were in the show biz newspaper out of Chicago called the ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER...The column was called Art Thieme's Folk World.

__________________________________________________________

PART ONE

Paul Durst is a man I've mentioned before in this column. He was 93 years old when I interviewed him on December 8, 1961. He had lived through some amazing times and he survived. His is a tale of hard times and how to live through 'em.

Art Thieme: How old are you Paul?

Paul Durst: I'm past 93 already. Born in 1868. That's a long time. Now I'm full of rheumatism and can't play no more like I used to play. We'd start playing at 5 PM and wouldn't stop playing until four in the morning. All my partners in the music game--they all passed away. They drank too much, ya know. I didn't drink so much. Some places we was playin' and whisky was comin' so swift. Some got drunk and hit the guitar to beat the band anyhow. There was a friend of mine, he was a Texan; a funny guy, a good guy, ya know. A good feller. But a screwball, ya know. I had to bring him half a pint before I could get him started. He'd play like hell all full o' booze. One time we was playing a dance and he was singing a song:
"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam..."
And, by God, he hit his guitar, keeled over, and he was dead. Dead as a doornail. Guitar fell out of his hands. And I lost so many partners that way. What I didn't go through...

A.T.--Tell me about hoboing.

Paul Durst--- Oh, in the olden days it was different. When I hoboed I traveled by myself all the time. I had my fiddle in my case---a good solid case. And then over the case I had a good rain-proof bag. I'd put it on my shoulder. I had the fiddle hangin' behind me and I'd hop the freight anyhow. I'd travel to the harvest fields---the wheat fields---pickin' oranges and everything. Worked in Greeley, Colorado picking potatoes. I was in Denver and another hobo came in. Idon't know if he was a Wobbly or not. Said he come from Greeley. I said, "How is harvesting there?" "No, there's nothing doin'" he says. Well, I tell him that's bullshit---there's lots of potatoes in Greeley. I jumped the freight and went out & got there just as the picking was started. So I made $200.00. I made good. I came back to Denver with cash in my pocket.

A.T.---Play a Wobbly song, Paul. One of the old ones.

Conditions they are bad,
And some of you are sad,
You cannot see your enemy
The class that lives in luxury,
So workingmen unite,
You must put up a fight,
For liberty---equality,
Our class is marching on.

Shall we be slaves and work for wages,
It is outrageous, has been for ages,
This world of our belongs to toilers,
And not to spoilers of liberty.
[tune: "REDWING"]

A.T.---Were there many members in the I.W.W.?

It was an international union--a organization---all over the world. In 1905 we split from the Socialist Labor Party. I belonged to the Socialist Labor Party at that time. And then they split. The industrial arm went one way and left the political party on the side. But I told 'em not to split. To fight with two arms is better than to fight with one. But they wouldn't listen. They said they had nothing to do with politics---that they were just industrial workers. That's the way they figured it, but I don't know. You've got to fight with two arms. But we are an international union. No matter what nationality, color, race---anybody who joins the I.W.W. is an Industrial Worker of the World. If he go to China--Japan--Egypt--Africa----as long as you work you're a Wobbly. All over the world. We had lots of Greeks, Swedes, colored folks. We was one time 50,000 strong in the lumber camps. Went on strike. Some scabs came with the blankets and we took the blankets away from 'em. We threw 'em in the ditch. They hollered, "Oh, my money is in there!" "To hell with your money. We told you not to come to work with these lousy blankets." We told 'em to fish the money out o' the piss but leave the blankets there. I been through all that...

A.T.---Where were you born Paul?

Paul Durst---Lakeville(?), Wisconsin. My father came from Switzerland and my mother's folks came from Sweden & Denmark. My father settled down there in 1848.

A.T.---What was the country like then?

Paul Durst---It was wild and wooly. All hills. We tried many places to settle down but the only country we liked---it looked more like Switzerland---was that country out there. My father had a Swiss rifle. The wolves kept breakin' in---we had to build a stockade around our place. Wolves would come and howl at night behind the stockade. It was pretty cold out there at night in those hills. We'd have a little light hangin' at night on the end of the rifle and the wolves'd look at the light and we'd bump 'em off. In the morning we'd find quite a few wolves layin' down there. We'd pull the skin off and make coats out of it. Good warm coats. See the light would shine in their eyes and we'd aim between the glowing eyes; it's all you could see in the dark.

A.T.---Where'd you go when you left Wisconsin?

I went to Minnesota first. I was only 14 years old and I worked on a farm. Later, in Wisconsin, in the lumber camps---Ashland, Wisconsin. We worked cutting logs there. There's hardly nothing I didn't do. I didn't kill nobody and I didn't steal anything. But I done all kinds o' work.

PART TWO

A.T.---Tell me some more about your days hoboing, Paul.

Paul Durst---When I was hoboing I never had to knock at the back door. All I'd do is take my fiddle out and go to some farmer's house. I'd be out in the country when I'd hop off a freight. I'd stand by the gate and start playin' my fiddle. Pretty soon they all come out. "Come in, mister. Come in!" There wasn't any music around or radios like ya got now. So they took me in the house and fed me. Sometimes I'd stay two or three days...

A.T.---I've heard folks call you Buffalo Bill, Paul. How'd you get that nickname?

Paul Durst---I took two trips over to Europe with Buffalo Bill. I had my chin whiskers like Bill and I looked like him.

A.T.---Paul, could you tell me that story again---about the trip & the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show?

Paul Durst---It was the last trip he made to Europe. We didn't know nothin' about hoof and mouth disease but in Europe they know all about that. So the German government found Bill's animals had the disease so they destroyed all his animals. Only one cow was left. We came back in an old freighter. Took us five or six weeks. Buffalo Bill only had a few dollars left and he talked to the captain and he took us on for so much a person to take us to America. It was a slow boat. Finally we got back here. Now I can eat breakfast in New York and eat dinner in London. That's quite a change, isn't it?
[On returning to America, broke, Bill Cody was refinanced by another great showman, P.T. Barnum.]

A.T.---Did you ever work on the rivers?

Paul Durst---On the Mississippi River. I built a boat one time. Flat bottom. Twenty feet long. Built it in St.Paul and traveled clear down to New Orleans on the boat. We jumped the Minihaha Falls and gave an exhibition; made a few dollars. Sold the boat for $25.00. Yeah, I went through all kinds o' things. Now I'm just an old hobo---just gettin' by. I came in with nothing and I'll go out with nothing. To hell with it. Why should I worry about it?

A.T.---Can you remember any of the old hobo songs?

Paul Durst---
Why don't you work like other men do?
How the hell can I work when there's no work to do?
Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout
To survive us again.

Is that on the record now? Let me see how it sounds. Look at this, here, Pete...
[This comment was made to Pete Leibundguth, the owner of THE FRET SHOP on 57th St. (Chicago's south side Hyde Park neighborhood) where Paul was living in the back room----and where I was conducting the interview.---Then I played some of the songs back so Paul could hear his recorded voice and fiddle playing.]

A.T.----Paul, did you know Joe Hill?

Sure. I met him on the coast. We went on a boat to Honolulu and all over.He was a Wobbly. He had a sister in Sweden. You see, his name was not Joe Hill. His name was Hilstrom. They shortened the name. I was in Utah when they shot him. The capitalists and the copper kings didn't like the working man's songs. Joe Hill wrote the working man's songs. They shot him. Rough times. In Ludlow, Colorado [a miner's strike] we were all fenced in with wire fences all around us. You'd touch the fence and you'd burn your hands! [electricity] You couldn't get out. What we didn't go through, boy. They had us fenced in. You had to sleep out in the open. The weather was tough and everything.
You will eat by and by,
In that glorious land above the sky,
Work and play, live on hay,
You'll ge pie in the sky when you die,
That's a lie...

That's Joe Hill's song.---He wrote that.

A. T.----Was hobo life like you sing it in "The Wabash Cannonball"? Did you really ride on the rods and the brakebeams under the cars? And tell me about the jungles.

Well, we'd sit around the jungles and have the stew pots going, coffee makin' in the cans. They had regular places for the hobo jungles in those days. Sure. And when something was left over it wasn't destroyed. It was put in a clean can and put away. If another hobo goes through he'd have something to eat. It was a regular system. Not now. There isn't a system like that any more I don't think. You can't go close to the train no more. The diesel engine will pull you in and kill you. The suction is so strong. In the olden days you could catch freights anyplace. Everything goes fast now ya know. And when they get there they don't know what to do with themselves. I know one guy who says he can't walk no more.Whenever he goes someplace it's in a car. He forgot how to walk.

Well, it's gettin' chilly in here now. Think I'll go in the back----warm up. Thanks for everything.
_________________________________________________________

Paul Durst had a stroke a few days after I made these tapes. He was taken to the hospital and a clergyman was called to give him the last rites. The folks at the hospital thought the stroke to be more serious than it actually was. Paul opened an eye and saw the priest hovering over him. He got pretty incensed and tried to toss the guy out of his room. (Paul was a lifelong atheist.) Paul recovered from this little episode. Shortly after returning home from his hospital stay (Christmas eve---1961) Paul moved in with an old girlfriend.

I never saw Paul Durst again.

About 2 years later (I think) my attention was belatedly drawn to an article printed in the Chicago Sun Times about an old fellow with long white hair and beard who had been found frozen to death in a makeshift hovel built into the lower level superstructure of the Michigan Avenue Bridge in downtown Chicago.

The only posesssion the old man had with him when he was found was a beat-up old fiddle.

Art Thieme
September and October, 1982

_

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 11:35 PM

Paul D. said that he was from Lakeville, Wisconsin but I can't find a LAKEVILLE in the state of Wisconsin. Could be I'm just missing it on the lists I've perused. Has anyone out there been able to locate a town with that name in that state?

Art

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: thosp
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 12:27 AM

ART-- i really enjoyed and was touched by your article---thanks

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Marymac90
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 01:07 AM

Dear Art,

I was very touched by your interview with Paul. I have been having a lot of trouble replying to threads, so I am just going to send this now, and see if it works.

Mary

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 01:45 AM

Hey Art... when you and the Big Mick get to the Colorado Mountains on your Westering journey, you've got a place waiting by the fire in my cabin.

LEJ

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 01:51 AM

And now you know why I love this man.........genuinely.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Marymac90
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 02:08 AM

Dear Art,

Mary here again. This whole thread has really touched me. I started out interested because I have a copy of the IWW songbook, one of those extra-long, wouldn't fit in your pocket ones. I bought it in recent years, from Charlie King, I think, or maybe at the People's Music Network gathering. (The next one of those is Jan 28-30 in Queens, NYC.)

My next interest in the thread was the wanderlust one. I never hopped freights, but I did a lot of solo hitchhiking around the US between 1967 and 1981. I'd hitchhike to gatherings of social changers, folk festivals, wherever. A couple times I started a trip on a bus or train, at night, got off in the morning, and continued by thumb.

Also, I loved your interview with Paul. I was so touched by the story of his life, and his death. How ironic that someone who should have been a national treasure should die like that. I've done some study of the IWW, but he lived that history.

And overall, I loved the responses by the various mudcatters who have written for the thread. There are certainly various folkies who are not particularly leftists, just as there are leftists who aren't folkies. My favorite people are the leftish folkies, or the folkish lefties, and it is good to know there is a strong showing of them here at the mudcat.

Please keep up the good work.

Peace,

Mary

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Write Flyer
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 02:10 AM

Art, lovely interview! Good for you. I didn't know that information about Mr. Charters.

Harpgirl: I just sing to amuse myself. When I attended the local folk club they seemed to think my taste was weird...or something.

Warble, warble. In Halleluja I'm a Bum, shouldn't the last line should be "to revive us again..."?

Subject: Socialist Songbook Online
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 09:07 PM

Click here for a real treat. Somebody has transcribed the Socialist Songbook.
-Joe Offer-

---

Transferred from a message in the Help Forum. I'll e-mail him and get him registered.

---

Subject: Send Max or Dick email NG Codename?
From: [e-mail]
Date: 20-Apr-00 - 01:28 AM

Well, I tried to register and it said the codename I had picked was already in use. So I looked at the form and there was no place for a codename. I figured you knew I was a refugee from suburban Schwenksville lo, these many years and were screwing with my mind.

Then I went to send you email about a site where you can get the Socialist songbook and that wasn't working either.

In case you are interested, the IWW is still alive and on the Internet. They have "The Little Red Song Book" available. www.best.com/~engstrom/songbook/ will get you the Socialist Songbook.

If you want to do something nice for me, find "The Bosses' Songbook" for me.

David

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: thosp
Date: 20 Apr 00 - 09:35 PM

thanks Joe!

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: DebC
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 10:19 AM

I have a copy of a songbook that was given to me by an AFSCME organiser. I got it in 1975 and the book was put out by the DSOC (Democratic Socialist Organizing Commitee)in Chicago.

It's been a great resource for me and is still in one piece.

Funny, but I didn't see this thread until now. Where have I been?

Debra

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Fedele
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 05:33 PM

ha ha ha... It's ane ENORMOUS pleasures to me Italian to know that there are true revolutionaries all over the world and specially in the U.S. Tell me more and more and more about IWW; I saved these messages and I'll read them carefully. I'd like to know all the revolutionary and workers' songs of the American tradition since they are little know here in Europe.

Help me: i saw a movie bout Woody Guthrie's life. When he was with the other workers at night outside the fields, there comes the radio singer (don't remember the name) who will become his talent-scout and friend; he incites the workers to form a union and he sings: Workers of the world unite, side by side, ...

TELL ME What was that song and give me the lyrics, please please please !!! Yours sincerely, "Fedele"

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 11:50 PM

Fedele---I think the song you want is in the Socialist Songbook that has the link to it in this thread---Joe Offers post.

--------------------------------------------------------

To whom it may concern: I've re-set my cookie 3 times in recent days. All I get it a notice that "I have PERVERTED MY COOKIE" --- or something like that. As far as I know I am not a guest although I'm said to be a guest when I post to a thread.

My question. Should I change my name to "EDGAR A. G---- ?

Would appreciate some help...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 Apr 00 - 11:53 PM

Mr. Offer,

Thank you for that site. Pretty amazing.

Art

Subject: RE: GUEST, Edgar A. (very clever, Art!)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 00 - 04:14 AM

Dear Edgar A.,
Just remember, It takes a heap o' livin' to make a house....

-Joe Offer-

Oh, Edgar, in case you're interested, click and click again, and Click once more.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 01:35 PM

Joe,

Thanks. That is amazing.

Art

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Mudjack
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 02:02 PM

WOW! I can remember bying my Little RED Book at a Utah Phillips concert and thinking at the time, there must be a FBI agent taking pictures and catalogging all the potential revolutionist and commie agitators. So as I read this thread I again have that suttle feeling that the FBI is looking in on us and making a list. So be it known that not only do I own a little RED Book, But I also subscribe to "Sing Out".
Ed Sadlowsky.....He ran a hard and true campaign to win the Steelworkers leadership and lost. I was a steelworker then and now, but must say it isn't the same today as then. I pay my dues but without fair reprensentation. Sounds like the same complaint we have with the Government. Hmmn...
Thanks Art, good thread. Mudjack

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 01:55 PM

I am on break, and thought this may be of interest, I have in front of me, Charlie King's "Little Read Songbook" available from Charlie, and everywhere folksong parody books are sold...subtitled..."to inflame the fans of discontent", good stuff, and so typical of CK's wit and satire.

Side note on Ed Sadlowski, He and I were on the original National Interim Committee, which met in Chicago, of Labor Party Advocates, which a few years ago became the Labor Party...I haven't seen or heard about him in the last five or six years, but his involvement gave credibility to what now has become one of the most important expressions of political involvement that a significant sector of the US labor movement has ever embraced...a future alternative to the tweedledee, tweedledumber politics that we often excoriate in these posts.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 04:04 PM

http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/iww.html

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 11:52 PM

An amazing site that I never knew about. Thanks so much.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 07:27 AM

You're very welcome, Art. I was looking around, and saw that. Kept it to post here because I remembered this.

The title always intrigued me. My compilation of Gaelic songs is in a Red Duo-tang, and so, it's been called the "Little Red Book".

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 12:43 PM

Art, have a look at the site using this link

http://www.acronet.net/~robokopp/folkindx.htm

It has links by categories, as well as country, or by author. Some of these are

Sea Songs
Hymns
Robert Burns
Isaac Watts
Robert Tannahill

It's quite a nice entry to the site.

Subject: Index: LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 01 - 10:01 PM

There are a couple of threads going that ask for radical and Wobbly songs. I thought it would be a good idea to refresh this thread and post the index of my Little Red Songbook, 36th edition (1995). Mick Lane gave it to me, so it's a very special gift. Thanks, Mick.
You will find many of these songs in the Digital Tradition. Others are in the 1916 Little Red Songbook (click). Also see IWW Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent, 1917 edition.
-Joe Offer-

---

A Las Barricadas A World To Win All Used Up Aragon Mill Aristocracy Forever Babylon Updated Banks of Marble The Blackleg Miner The Boss's Darling Box Factory Bread and Roses Buy This American Car Capitalism's Endless Chain Casey Jones, the Union Scab Christians At War Commonwealth of Toil Cotton Mill Girls Down At The Picket Line Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill Dump the Bosses Off Your Back Ella's Song Fight Like Hell Food Not Finance Forget Me Not The Four-Hour Day Freedom Road Give Back My Factory To Me Give Me That New Union Contract Giving Nothing Back Go, I Will Send Thee Go to Work on Monday Hallelujah, I'm a Bum Hijos del Pueblo High Tech Hold the Fort

If It Weren't For The Union I'm Dreaming of a Fair Contract The Internationale Joe Hill Joe Hill's Last Will Labor's Endless Chain Landlord and Tenant Larimer Street Legal-Illegal Links on the Chain UP Song Lumberjack's Prayer The Men of Kemira Mexican Revolutionary Song Mister Block Moderation The New America Nine to Five Song No Nos Moveran Not So Long Ago Old Ma Bell On The Picket Line One More Day Than Them Outa Work Blues The Picket Boogie Popular Wobbly Porque Los Pobres No Tienen Potter Valley Mill The Preacher and the Slave Public Workers Stand Together Put It On the Ground Rise Again Rob A Train Rock-A-Bye Baby Roll the Hours Back

Roll the Union On Scabs The Scab a Crawlin So Long Partner Solidaridad Pa' Siempre Solidaiity Forever Song of My Da Soul Stealers Stand United, All You Workers Star-Spangled George Bush Staying Out On The Line Stung Right There Is Power In A Union (Bragg) There is Power in the Union (Hill) This Little Scab The Union Buster Union Maid Universal Housewife V.D.T. We Are Building A Strong Union We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years We Shall Not Be Moved We Shall Not Give Up The Fight What Is a Boss? What Is a Scab? Where Are We Gonna Work? Which Side Are You On? Who Bombed Judi Bari? Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues Wobbly Doxology Work Rap Song The World Turned Upside Down Workers' Control Song Working folk Unite You Gotta Go Down

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 May 01 - 11:52 AM

Joe,

That's great. THANKS !

Art

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Metchosin
Date: 20 May 01 - 04:09 PM

Joe, I have another song that belongs here as well, entitled Where The Fraser River Flows written by Joe Hill, to the tune of Where The Shannon River Flows, when he came out to BC to rally support for construction workers who were building the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway.

The song was first sung in 1912 during an I.W.W. strike on the railway, when 6,000 men downed tools for two and a half months.

It is contained in a book called Songs of the Pacific Northwest by Philip J. Thomas and when I get a chance in the next few days I will post the lyrics to this thread.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 May 01 - 05:55 PM

Hi, Metchosin. I don't know who AJS is, but I think he/she submitted a number of Joe Hill's songs to the Digital Tradition. Click here for "Where the Fraser River Flows." A search for "Joe Hill" shows we could use some more.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Metchosin
Date: 21 May 01 - 12:59 AM

good, I figured it was relevant, but I wasn't looking forward to typing it all out.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 May 01 - 01:18 AM

Anything else you can transcribe from that Pacific Northwest book, Metchosin?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Metchosin
Date: 21 May 01 - 09:59 AM

Uh oh....well Joe, now that you've asked, there are quite a few actually. I've been putting it off because there were so many, but I guess I should get cracking, eh? Only this time I'll do a search to double check that they really aren't already in the Forum and DT.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: bassen
Date: 25 May 01 - 03:43 PM

This thread was one of the reasons I got hooked on the Mudcat. BS notwithstanding, the information, reminiscences and factual information about and around folkmusic that is accumulating here is amazing. I'd like to add a small voice to this Wobbly thread. My wife's greatgreat uncle Ed emigrated to the US from Norway in 1890. He fought in the Philippine-American war around 1902 and worked his whole life as a lumberjack in Washington. He sent home letters regularly until his death in the early 1950s. The following is an excerpt from a letter he sent home in 1919, translated from the original Norwegian. Maybe someone can find a song in this; its place in this thread is selfexplanatory.

Bassen

Seattle Washington August 10 1919

Dear Brother ... Concerning daily wages for a lumber jack, they're pretty good now but everything we need to buy is double the price it was in 1914 before the war. ... Yes it's terrible how they hold the working man down, here in America there are strikes here and there all over the country over low wages and the high cost of living. They have a union here that the owners don't like at all and that's the Industrial Workers of the World in other words I.W.W. They demand to be paid fairly for the work they do and want to change things so that if the Capitalists want to eat, then they must work too, just like in Russia.

Bolshiviki they call them here. I figure that in a year or two there'll be some big changes made here in America, there are thousands of Europeans going back to their homes in Europe, the people here hate Europeans now, but at the same time don't like to see them go because they take a lot of money with them and you know they don't like that. Also it won't be so easy for the bigwigs to get a hold of cheap workslaves. It's the Europeans who are trying to get better conditions for the working man by trying to get together in one big union, so that when they go on strike everyone all over the country will quit and you know that will be hard on the Capitalists' wallets and larders.

I'm a member of that IWW union. ... I'll close now in the hope that all of you are well and doing fine

From your brother Ed

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Amergin
Date: 25 May 01 - 06:01 PM

Bassen,

That is absolutely wonderful...yes there is a song or two or three in that....

Subject: Paul Durst Interview - Art Thieme
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 May 01 - 10:39 PM

Ed,

Truly, thanks for showing that letter here. This thread represents real examples of the amazing depth and breadth of historical items long lost with the passing of participants in all of the events discussed here. I'm really glad that, at age 20 I took the time to talk to and tape record Paul Durst. So many of those who were THERE are gone now and their remembrances are lost.

Quite recently Utah Phillips used excerpts of my 1961 interview with Paul Durst for an entire episode of his LOAFERS GLORY radio show. (No. 77) It was grand to see old Paul shown to so many folks that way--and 40 years after the fact to boot. I was really excited. Bruce Phillips is a good and an old friend, as well as being a mentor of mine, so it was an honor to have him use the interview and to have him feel it was important.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 May 01 - 08:55 PM

Quite a thread! I have kept my bookmark and print facilities busy. I was a kid when the hoboes came round for a meal in exchange for a little work. Some of the local people were doing the same thing. Quite a period in American history!

Subject: ADD: Dear Brother (Amergin)
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 05:45 AM

Bassen....this may not be quite what you had in mind but here are some words based on that lovely letter....

Dear Brother
(Amergin, 2001)

Dear Brother, I write to you
From Seattle in 1919
The wages of a lumberjack
Are decent but the prices are high
They have doubled since before the war

Dear Brother I write to tell you
That they don't like us here
They want our labour but not our ideas
They harass us with guns and words
There are thousands going home

Dear Brother, I must inform you
The workers are striking across the land
The wobblies help them march
Singing songs for better conditions
For each and every working man

Dear Brother I say to you
I am a member of that Wobbly union
And they say that I am a red
But I'm not sure what that means
But I wear the label proud

Dear Brother I must go
Give my love to the family
You're in my thoughts and prayers
As I march and sing down the Skid Road
Of this dirty logging town

Amergin

P.S My most sincere apologies for taking so much liberty with it....

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: mousethief
Date: 18 Jun 01 - 12:15 PM

One bit of information on the State of Washington that I think is pretty humorous. One of the Secretaries of State (I think it was pre-ww2?) made a quip that we have "47 States, and the Soviet of Washington."

This has always been a Union state. Think Teamsters, Longshoremen, Machinists.

Alex

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 12:14 PM

I wish some of these Little Red Songbooks would show up in our auction. Any spares out there?

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: marty D
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 12:28 PM

When I was growing up, I found a copy of the 'Little Red Songbook' on our bookshelf. Today I'm thinking 'Who was the progressive/subversive in my family'? Think it may have been my Grandad. Good for him.

marty

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jun 01 - 02:15 PM

Click here to get to the IWW bookstore, which offers two editions of the U.S. IWW Little Red Songbook, plus a Canadian IWW songbook that has songs by Rick Fielding and others.
Is anybody familiar with the other songbooks listed at the store, and can you give us a review?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 03:20 AM

I came across a real gem this evening,

IWW Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent (1917, dedicated to Joe Hill)

Also, don't forget the
1916 Little Red Songbook (London) and Socialist Songbook, both listed above.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Jul 01 - 07:24 PM

Joe, That's fine stuff. Thanks so much. And watch your mail. Eventually (maybe within a couple o' weeks) a tape is coming your way.

Art

---

Oooh, oooh! Thanks, Art. I like getting tapes.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 03 Sep 01 - 09:54 PM

PBS has a program talking about the I.W.W. and Utah and Joe Hill. Very interesting story.

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From:
Date: 03 Sep 01 - 09:55 PM

Hillstrom

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 08:55 PM

just though i would refresh this...in light of all the "subversiveness" in todays politics...

Subject: RE: the LITTLE RED SONGBOOK--I.W.W.
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 05:24 AM

GUEST, thank you for refreshing this. It has been wonderful reading it again. I shall now dig out my copy of Art's Paul Durst tape, and sing some songs from my Little Red Songbook, gift of Ammon Hennacy. I'm a pale revolutionary these days but this thread has got the blood stirring. Thanks again. Burl

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 12 Jun 07 - 09:03 PM

Archie Green, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont and Salvatore Salerno edited an amazing compilation titled the BIG RED SONGBOOK! Recently issued, it's from the Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co. in Chicago and it's simply a wonderful collection of wobbly songs and artworks and lore! Big Mick just sent me a copy of this great book and I want to thank him heartily and publicly for that!!! I'd heard it was coming out, but then lost track of it...

www.charleshkerr.net

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 05:31 AM

I second Art's motion! (Then again, maybe not...) Just got a copy of the Big Red Songbook via Dick Greenhaus - it's great.

Regards

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 10:56 AM

If anyone wants a copy, please let me know. I've run out of tock, but if a half-dozen or so folks want a copy, I'll reorder.
List Price: $24 (soft cover), $36 (hard cover)
CAMSCO Price: $19.20 (soft cover), $28.80 (hard cover)

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 10:59 AM

I ended up with a used one I got through Amazon.

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 13 Jun 07 - 11:53 AM

It is a beauty, eh Art? I love mine, and knew you would love it too!! The gift you made me of the Durst tape is one that I will be a long time repaying.

A thought occurs to me. The real value in this book is that it teaches the importance of lending our voices to the struggle. It has always been the bards that have stepped up to lend structure to the voices of those desiring a better life. It has always been the bards that gave words and tunes to the struggle for justice and fairness. If you get the book, read it, and put it away, it will simply be a book gathering dust. If you read the book, sing the songs, and then become inspired to lend your voice, words and music to the fight, the book will have fulfilled its mission.

Mick

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:07 PM

I forgot to mention that Archie Green, at the very back of the BIG RED SONGBOOK, in a section titled "A Word About Field Recordings" (or something close to that) had some interesting things to say about my old interview tapes of Paul Durst---1961. It took decades (45 years actually) of showing those tapes to people, and writing about my meeting Paul, before getting anything like this. Mostly I got skepticism and doubt. I'm glad I got my tapes of Paul Durst to Archie. And I thank him for seeing their rarity--and value.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: Big Mick
Date: 14 Jun 07 - 01:11 PM

I am glad you pointed that out, Art. That section is exactly why I sent you a copy of the book. In my opinion, your taped converations are a critically important piece of labor history. One cannot help but be moved by them.

Mick

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Aug 09 - 06:43 PM

Refresh: for Bill Williams--and any interested folks.

Art

Subject: RE: the Little Red Songbook--I.W.W.
From: Gulliver
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 04:46 PM

New link for the Socialist Songbook is:

http://www.hengstrom.net/songbook/

Don