Bars and Shadows

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bars and Shadows, by Ralph Chaplin
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Title: Bars and Shadows
Author: Ralph Chaplin
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6136]
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Language: English
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SHADOWS ***
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BARS AND SHADOWS
THE PRISON POEMS OF RALPH CHAPLIN
With an introduction By Scott Nearing
1922
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
MOURN NOT THE DEAD
TAPS
NIGHT
IN THE CELL HOUSE
PRISON SHADOWS
PRISON
REVEILLE
PRISON NOCTURNE
THE WARRIOR WIND

TO FREEDOM
THE VISION MAKER
DISTANCES

PHANTOMS
SEVEN LITTLE SPARROWS
SALAAM!
THE
WEST IS DEAD
UP FROM YOUR KNEES!
THE EUNUCH

I. W. W. PRISON SONG
TO FRANCE
VILLANELLE

WESLEY EVEREST
THE INDUSTRIAL HERETICS

BLOOD AND WINE
THE RED GUARD
THE RED FEAST

THE GIRLS WHO SANG FOR US
TO EDITH
SONG OF
SEPARATION
TO MY LITTLE SON
ESCAPED!

RETROSPECT
INTRODUCTION
I.
Ralph Chaplin is serving a twenty year sentence in the Federal
Penitentiary, not as a punishment for any act of violence against person
or property, but solely for the expression of his opinions.
Chaplin, together with a number of fellow prisoners who were
sentenced at the same time, was accused of taking part in a conspiracy

with intent to obstruct the prosecution of the war. To be sure the
Government did not produce a single witness to show that the war had
been obstructed by their activities; but it was argued that the agitation
which they had carried on by means of speeches, articles, pamphlets,
meetings and organizing campaigns, would quite naturally hamper the
country in its war work. On the face of their indictments these men
were accused of interfering with the conduct of the war; in reality they
were sent to jail because they held and expressed certain beliefs.
As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Ralph Chaplin
did his part to make the organization a success. He wrote songs and
poems; he made speeches: he edited the official paper, "Solidarity". He
looked about him; saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the
workers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the land and
the machinery of production; studied the problem of distribution; and
decided that it was possible, through the organization of the producers,
to establish a more scientific, juster, more humane system of society.
All this he felt, intensely. With him and his
fellow-workers the task
of freeing humanity from economic bondage took on the aspect of a
faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote their literature; made
their speeches and sang their songs with zealous devotion. They had
seen a vision; they had heard a call 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 of working-men
flinging death and misery at one another, men like Chaplin, the world
over, regarded it as the last straw. Was it not bad enough that these
exploited creatures should be used as factory-fodder? Must they be
cannon-fodder too? Why should they fight to increase the economic
power of German traders? of British manufacturers? The war was a
capitalist war between capitalist nations. What interest had the workers
in these nations? in their winnings or in their losses? So ran the
argument.
The I. W. W. was not primarily an anti-war organization In theory it
had abandoned political activity to devote itself exclusively to agitation
and organization on the field of industry. Practically its funds and its

energies were expended upon industrial struggles. Long before the war,
the I. W. W. had made itself known and feared for its conduct of strikes,
its free speech fights, and its ability to put the sore spots of American
industrial life on the front page of the daily press and to keep them
there until the people had become aroused to the wrongs that were
being perpetrated. It was in this domain of industry that the I. W. W.
was functioning, and it was