Ralph Chaplin
Ralph Chaplin (
1887—
1961) became a
labor activist, when at the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the
Pullman strike in
Chicago, Illinois. During a time in
Mexico he was influenced by hearing of the execution squads established by
Porfirio Diaz, and became a supporter of
Emiliano Zapata. On his return, he began work in various
union positions, most of which were very poorly paid.
For two years Chaplin worked in the strike committee with
Mother Jones for the bloody
Kanawha County, West Virginia strike of
coal miners in
1912-
13. These influences led him to write a number of labor oriented poems, one of which became the words for the oft-sung union anthem,
Solidarity Forever.
Chaplin then became active in the
Industrial Workers of the World (the I.W.W., or "Wobblies") and became editor of its eastern U.S. publication
"Solidarity. In
1917 Chaplin and some 100 other Wobblies were rounded up, convicted, and jailed under the
Espionage Act for conspiring to hinder the
draft and encourage
desertion. He served four years of a 20-year sentence for this.
Although he continued to work for labor rights after his release from prison, Chaplin was very disillusioned by the aftermath of the
Russian Revolution; however, he was also not pleased by the course of
New Deal liberalism. He became active in the cause of preventing
communist infiltration in American unions.
Eventually Chaplin settled in
Tacoma,
Washington, where he edited the local labor publication. From 1949 until his death he was curator of manuscripts for the Washington State Historical Society.
He is credited with designing the now widely used anarcho-syndicalist image, the
black cat.
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Free ebook of Ralph Chaplin at
Project Gutenberg
