At some point a well-annotated, complete poems of Covington Hall will be published. This poem written in those heightened months of the Summer of 1914. A time of violence and conflict as the U.S. labor movement witnessed the War in West Virginia then the Ludlow Massacre and Colorado Mine War, both strikes that became real guerilla fights, and only two of many conflicts in a rising class struggle. Next door, and Mexico was in the midst of its great Revolution while the U.S. had just invaded Vera Cruz as the conflict in Europe became the First World War.

‘Why I Am a Revolutionist’ by Covington Hall from Voice of the People (New Orleans). Vol. 3 No. 24. June 11, 1914.

I have heard the child-slaves weeping when the world was fair and bright,
Heard them begging, begging, begging for the playgrounds and the light!
I have seen the statesmen holding all save truth a vested right,
And the priest and preacher fighting in the legions of the Night.

I have seen the queens of fashion in their jeweled pride arrayed,
Ruby-crowned and splendid,–rubies of a baby’s lifeblood made,
Richer than the gems of nature, of a stranger, deeper shade,
On their snow-white bosoms quivered as the dames of fashion prayed.

Then I went into the dungeons where the brute men cringe and crawl,–
Men to every high thought blinded–men no longer men at all–
And my eyes looked upward to the men who we “successful” call,
And the sign was in their foreheads and their thrones about to fall.

And I’ve seen my father lying on his death-bed like a beast,
In his poverty forsaken, he, a Southron soldier-priest;
Seen his broken body tremble as the pulse of living ceast,
And his soul go outward, moaning, as the red sun lit the East.

And I’ve seen my little mother on her death-bed weep and moan
For the babies she was leaving in the great world all alone;
Heard her loving spirit crying, seeking something to atone–
How she feared the god of hunger!–how she feared the heart of stone!

And you talk to me “religion,” and “rebellion” you “deplore,”
You whose souls have never anguished at the death-watch of the poor!
You who rape the starving millions and yet grasp for more, and more,
Raimenting in rags our mother, raimenting in silks your whore?

In these wild and frightful moments, I have felt my reason reel,
Felt the impulse of the Nihilist over all my being steal;
Felt it would not be a murder if my hand the blow could deal
That would stamp upon your temple the death angel’s mark and seal.

Then I heard a voice crying, “Workers of the world, unite!”‘
And the vanguard of the Marxians broke upon my hopeless sight.
And I took my place beside them, ‘neath the crimson flag of right,
To call our class to action, to arouse it to its might.

Long the months that since have vanished, splashed with blood and shot with pain;
Every inch of progress conquered marked by comrades jailed and slain;
But at last the ranks of Capital are breaking ‘neath the strain–
Press! Press on! my brothers, ’till the classless world we gain!

The Voice of the People continued The Lumberjack. The Lumberjack began in January 1913 as the weekly voice of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers strike in Merryville, Louisiana. Published by the Southern District of the National Industrial Union of Forest and Lumber Workers, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, the weekly paper was edited by Covington Hall of the Socialist Party in New Orleans. In July, 1913 the name was changed to Voice of the People and the printing home briefly moved to Portland, Oregon. It ran until late 1914.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/lumberjack/140611-voiceofthepeople-v3n24w075.pdf