Kate
Richards
was
born in Ada, Kansas, on 26th March, 1877. After a brief schooling
in Nebraska, she became an apprentice machinist in Kansas City. Deeply
religious, Richards joined the Women's
Christian Temperance Union.
Richards was influenced by the books on overcoming poverty by Henry
George and Henry
Demarest Lloyd.
However, it was a speech made by Mary 'Mother'
Jones and meeting Julius Wayland,
the editor of Appeal
to Reason, that converted her to socialism.
Richards joined the Socialist Labor Party
in 1899 and two years later the Socialist
Party of America. In 1902 she married Francis
O'Hare and they spent their honeymoon lecturing on socialism.
This included visits to Britain, Canada and Mexico. Richards wrote
the successful socialist novel, What
Happened to Dan? (1904) and with her husband edited
the National Rip-Saw,
a radical journal published in St. Louis.
In 1910 she unsuccessfully ran for the Kansas Congress.
Richards believed that the First World War had
been caused by the imperialist competitive system and argued that
the USA should remain neutral. In 1917 Richards became chair of the
Committee on War and Militarism and toured the country making speeches
against the war.
After the USA declared war on the Central
Powers in 1917, the government passed the Espionage
Act. Under this act it was an offence to make speeches that undermined
the war effort. Criticised as unconstitutional, the act resulted in
the imprisonment of many members of the anti-war movement including
450 conscientious objectors.
In July, 1917, Richards was sentenced to five years for making an
anti-war speech in North Dakota. The judge told her: "This is
a nation of free speech; but this is a time for sacrifice, when mothers
are sacrificing their sons. Is it too much to ask that for the time
being men shall suppress any desire which they may have to utter words
which may tend to weaken the spirit, or destroy the faith or confidence
of the people?"
While in prison Richards published two books, Kate
O'Hare's Prison Letters (1919) and In
Prison (1920). After a nationwide campaign President Calvin
Coolidge commuted her sentence. In 1922 Richards organized the
Children's Crusade, a march on Washington,
by children of those anti-war agitators still in prison.
Richards and her husband settled in Leesville, Louisiana, where they
joined the Llano Cooperative Colony, published the American Vanguard
and helped establish the Commonwealth College. Richards also took
a keen interest in prison reform and carried out a national survey
of prison labour (1924-26).
In 1928 Richards married Charles Cunningham,
a San
Francisco lawyer. She remained active in politics and in 1934
helped Upton Sinclair in his socialist campaign
to become the governor of California. Kate Richards, who was assistant
director of the California Department of Penology (1939-40) died in
Benicia, California, on 10th January, 1948.
Photograph of Kate Richards and her four children that
she kept with her after being imprisoned in 1917
(1)
Kate Richards O'Hare, How I Became a Socialist Agitator (1908)
Seeing so much poverty and
want and suffering, threw my whole soul into church and religious
work. I felt somehow that the great, good God who had made us could
not have want only abandoned his children to such hopeless misery
and sordid suffering. There was nothing uplifting in it, nothing to
draw the heart nearer to him, only forces that clutched and dragged
men and women down into the abyss of drunkenness and
vice. Perhaps he had only overlooked those miserable children of the
poor in the slums of Kansas City, and if we prayed long and earnestly
and had enough of religious zeal he might hear and heed and pity.
For several years I lived through that Gethsemane we all endure who
walk the path from religious fanaticism to cold, dead, material cynicism
with no ray of sane life-philosophy to light it.
I saw drunkenness and the liquor traffic
in all the bestial, sordid aspects it wears in the slums, and with
it the ever-close companion of prostitution in its most disgusting
and degraded forms. I believed, for the good preachers and temperance
workers who led me said, that drunkenness and vice caused poverty
and I struggled and worked, with only the heart-breaking zeal that
an intense young girl can work, to destroy them. But in spite of all
we could do the corner saloon still flourished, the saloon-keeper
still controlled the government of the city and new inmates came to
fill the brothel as fast as the old ones were carried out to the Potter's
field, and the grim grist of human misery and suffering still ground
on in defiance to church and temperance society and rescue mission.
About this time father embarked in the machine
shop business and I added to my various experiences that of a woman
forced into the business world there to have every schoolday illusion
rudely shattered, and forced to see business life in its sordid nakedness.
Possibly because I hated ledgers and daybooks and loved mechanics,
and possibly because I really wanted to study the wage-worker in his
own life, I made life so miserable for the foreman and all concerned
that they finally consented to let me go into the shop as an apprentice
to learn the trade of machinist. For more than four years I worked
at the forge and lathe and bench side by side with some of the best
mechanics of the city and some of the noblest men I have ever known.
The work was most congenial and I learned for the first time what
absorbing joy there can be in labor, if it be a labor that one loves.
Even before my advent into the shop I had begun
to have some conception of economics. I had read Progress
and Poverty, Wealth
vs. Commonwealth, Caesar's
Column, and many such books. Our shop
being a union one I naturally came in contact with the labor union
world and was soon as deeply imbued with the hope trade unionism held
out, as I had been with religious zeal. After a while it dawned upon
me in a dim and hazy way that trade unionism was something like the
frog who climbed up to the well side two feet each day and slipped
back three each night. Every victory we gained seemed to give the
capitalist class a little greater advantage.
One night while returning from a union meeting,
, I heard a man talking on the street corner of the necessity of workingmen
having a political party of their own. I asked a bystander who the
speaker was and he replied, "a Socialist." Of course, if
he had called him anything else it would have meant just as much to
me, but somehow I remembered the word. A few weeks later I attended
a ball given by the Cigar Maker's union, and Mother Jones spoke. Dear
old Mother! That is one of the mile-posts in my life that I can easily
locate. Like a mother talking to her errant boys she taught and admonished
that night in words that went home to every heart. At last she told
them that a scab at the ballot-box was more to be despised than one
at the factory door, that a scab ballot could do more harm than a
scab bullet; that workingmen must support the political party of their
class and that the only place for a sincere union man was in the Socialist
party. Here was that strange new word again coupled with the things
I had vainly tried to show my fellow unionists.
I hastily sought out "Mother" and asked
her to tell what Socialism was, and how I could find the Socialist
party. With a smile she said, "Why, little girl, I can't tell
you all about it now, but here are some Socialists, come over and
get acquainted." In a moment I was in the center of an excited
group of men all talking at once, and hurling unknown phrases at me
until my brain was whirling. I escaped by promising to "come
down to the office tomorrow and get some books." The next day
I hunted up the office and was assailed by more perplexing phrases
and finally escaped loaded down with Socialist classics enough to
give a college professor mental indigestion. For weeks I struggled
with that mass of books only to grow more hopelessly lost each day.
At last down at the very bottom of the pile I found a well worn, dog-eared,
little book that I could not only read, but understand, but to my
heart-breaking disappointment it did not even mention Socialism. It
was the Communist Manifesto, and I could not understand what
relation it could have to what I was looking for.
I carried the books back and humbly admitted my
inability to understand them or grasp the philosophy they presented.
As the men who had given me the books explained and expostulated in
vain, a long, lean, hungry looking individual unfolded from behind
a battered desk in the corner and joined the group. With an expression
more forceful than elegant he dumped the classics in the corner, ridiculed
the men for expecting me to read or understand them, and after asking
some questions as to what I had read gave me a few small booklets.
Merrie England and Ten Men of Money Island, Looking
Backward, and Between Jesus and Caesar, and possibly half
a dozen more of the same type. The hungry looking individual was Julius
Wayland, and the dingy office the birthplace of the Appeal to Reason.
(2)
Kate
Richards O'Hare,
wrote an article on child labour that was
published in Appeal
to Reason.
The material on Roselie Randazzo, an Italian
immigrant, was collected while she worked in an artificial flower
factory in New York City (19th November,
1904)
Walking
up the steps I came upon Roselie, the little Italian girl who sat
next to me at the long work table. Roselie, whose fingers were the
most deft in the shop and whose blue-black curls and velvety eyes
I had almost envied as I often wondered why nature should have bestowed
so much more than an equal share of beauty on the little Italian.
Overtaking her I noticed she clung to the banister with one hand and
held a crumpled mitten to the lips with the other. As we entered the
cloak room she noticed my look of sympathy and weakly smiling said
in broken English. "Oh, so cold! It hurta me here," and
she laid her hand on her throat.
Seated at the long table the forelady brought a great box of the most
exquisite red satin roses, and glancing sharply at Roselie said; "I
hope you're not sick this morning; we must have these roses and you
are the only one who can do them; have them ready by noon."
Soon a busy hum filled the room and in the hurry and excitement of
my work I forgot Roselie until a shrill scream from the little Jewess
across the table reached me and I turned in time to see Roselie fall
forward among the flowers. As I lifted her up the hot blood spurted
from her lips, staining my hands and spattering the flowers as it
fell.
The blood-soaked roses were gathered up, the forelady grumbling because
many were ruined, and soon the hum of industry went on as before.
But I noticed that one of the great red roses had a splotch of red
in its golden heart, a tiny drop of Rosie's heart's blood and the
picture of the rose was burned in my brain.
The next morning I entered the grim, gray portals of Bellevue Hospital
and asked for Roselie. "Roselie Randazzo," the clerk read
from the great register. "Roselie Randazzo, seventeen; lives
East Fourth street; taken from Marks' Artificial Flower Factory; hemorrhage;
died 12.30 p.m." When I said that it was hard that she should
die, so young and so beautiful, the clerk answered: "Yes, that's
true, but this climate is hard on the Italians; and if the climate
don't finish them the sweat shops or flower factories do," and
then he turned to answer the questions of the woman who stood beside
me and the life story of the little flower maker was finished.
(3)
Kate
Richards O'Hare,
letter to the Appeal
to Reason
on the death of Julius Wayland (23rd
November, 1912)
We
have no idle, vain, regrets; for who are we to judge, or say that
he has shirked his task or left some work undone? No eyes can count
the seed that he has sown, the thoughts that he has planted in a million
souls now covered deep beneath the mold of ignorance which will not
spring into life until the snows have heaped upon his grave and the
sun of springtime comes to reawake the sleeping world.
Sleep on, our comrade; rest your weary mind and soul; sleep and deep,
and if in other realms the boon is granted that we may again take
up our work, you will be with us and give us your strength, your patience
and your loyalty to your fellow men. We bring no ostentatious tributes
of our love, we spend not gold for flowers for your tomb, but with
hearts that rejoice at your deliverance offer a comrade's tribute
to lie above your breast - the red flag of human brotherhood.
(4)
Trial judge sentencing Kate Richards O'Hare to prison for five years
for making an anti-war speech in North Dakota (July, 1917)
This is a nation of
free speech; but this is a time for sacrifice, when mothers are sacrificing
their sons. Is it too much to ask that for the time being men shall
suppress any desire which they may have to utter words which may tend
to weaken the spirit, or destroy the faith or confidence of the people?
(5)
Eugene Debs, speech in Canton, Ohio (16th
June 1918)
The other day they sentenced Kate Richards O'Hare
to the penitentiary for five years. Think of sentencing a woman to
the penitentiary simply for talking. The United States, under plutocratic
rule, is the only country that would send a woman to prison for five
years for exercising the right of free speech. If this be treason,
let them make the most of it.
Let me review a bit of history in connection
with this case. I have known Kate Richards O'Hare intimately for twenty
years. I am familiar with her public record. Personally I know her
as if she were my own sister. All who know Mrs. O'Hare know her to
be a woman of unquestioned integrity. And they also know that she
is a woman of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. When
she went out into North Dakota to make her speech, followed by plain-clothes
men in the service of the government intent upon effecting her arrest
and securing her prosecution and conviction - when she went out there,
it was with the full knowledge on her part that sooner or later these
detectives would accomplish their purpose. She made her speech, and
that speech was deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of securing
her conviction. The only testimony against her was that of a hired
witness. And when the farmers, the men and women who were in the audience
she addressed - when they went to Bismarck where the trial was held
to testify in her favor, to swear that she had not used the language
she was charged with having used, the judge refused to allow them
to go upon the stand. This would seem incredible to me if I had not
had some experience of my own with federal courts.
(6)
Kate Richards O'Hare, Appeal
to Reason
(24th July, 1920)
We Socialists knew
the relation of profits to war and we insisted on telling the truth
about it. We talked war and profits, war and profits, war and profits
until the administration was compelled, in sheer self-defense to attempt
to squelch us. First the administration violated the constitutional
provision for free press and by the stroke of a pen destroyed the
greater portion of the Socialist press. But we could still talk if
we could not publish newspapers, and we did talk and talk and talk.
And the best method the limited intelligence of the administration
could devise for squelching talking Socialists was to send them to
prison.
In my case it was a frightful strain on the "brains of the administration"
to find some plausible excuse for sending me to prison. With the best
sleuthing the Department of Justice could do it was compelled to admit
that I had violated no law; I was of American blood for many generations;
my family had always been properly patriotic and had participated
in every war the United States had ever waged; my public utterances
and private life proved that I was not pro-German and was most emphatically
pro-American; I was entirely "nice" and "respectable"
and "ladylike" and I had managed to amble along to comfortable
middle age with the same husband and children I started with. In fact
I had but one vice - I did insist on telling the truth about war and
politics. And war and profits was the one subject the Democratic administration
dared not permit me to discuss.
So many people have marveled that I should have traveled all over
the country telling the truth, as I saw it, about war and profits
unmolested, until I landed in a little, unknown town in the north-west,
and there to have been "framed", arrested, tried, convicted
and sent to prison. But there is really nothing marvelous about it,
I was simply more dangerous to the capitalists, the war profiteers
and the Democratic Party in the northwest than in any other section
of the United States.
(7)
In July, 1920, the journal, Appeal
to Reason
, reported on Kate Richards O'Hare visiting Eugene
Debs
in prison.
In a visit full of
dramatic incidents, Kate Richards O'Hare visited Eugene V. Debs in
the Federal penitentiary in Atlanta on 2nd July, to carry to him the
love of Socialists everywhere.
Kate O'Hare was ushered into the prison; the two comrades met and
embraced; Kate Richards O'Hare recently freed from the Federal prison
and Eugene V. Debs in prison garb with nine years of prison life before
him, with both his hands still upon her shoulders, said, "How
happy I am to see you free, Kate."
"Your coming here is like a new sunlight to me. Tell me about
your prison experiences," said Debs. She answered, "Gene,
I am not thinking of myself, but of little Mollie Steimer who now
occupies my cell at Jefferson City and of her appalling sentence of
fifteen years. She is a nineteen-year-old little girl, smaller in
stature than my Kathleen, whose sole crime is her love for the oppressed.
Then Kate opened her leather card-case and showed Debs her family
group picture which she had carried with her during the fourteen months
of prison life. The sight of that picture had afforded her much consolation
through the hours of dreaded prison silence and monotony.
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