Hellraisers Journal: “Barbarous Spokane” by Fred W. Heslewood from the International Socialist Review, Part II

Quote Sheep Herder Anderson re Spk FSF, ISR p712, Feb 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 2, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Fellow Workers Donates Last Dollar to Free Speech Fight

From the International Socialist Review of February 1910:

Barbarous Spokane
—–

By Fred W. Heslewood.
—–

[Part II of II.]

[Fellow Worker Donates All He Has.]

One man donated $50 to the defense fund and deposited $100 more, which was all he had, to be used if required. In thirty-four days he came from the horse doctor a living wreck, scarcely able to crawl, and said that Judge Mann had fined him $100; that he now wished the union to accept the money that he had left on deposit, to be used in giving hospital treatment to those who were in a worse condition than himself. He stayed around a day or so to regain some of his former strength, then off to the woods to hunt a master.

Some of the men only had four or five dollars. Some had $20. Some had $50, but all had money. They are hoboes, vags, and undesirable citizens; they should have taken their money to the jail and allowed themselves to be robbed by the thugs in blue, who formed the slugging committee in the dark corridors between the booking window and the cells. These men of honor that smash men’s jaws, blind men, knock them down and kick their ribs in; these honorable brutes who squeeze men into an air-tight cell and then coolly open the steam valve. These human hyenas who gently tell you that they have orders to kill the first man that says a word back to them. These human beasts that are responsible for 1,000 treatments of green capsules to men with broken jaws, broken ribs, blinded eyes, etc. Green capsules to men who are starving, to increase the pain in the stomach. An emergency hospital. God save the word.

A cell alive with vermin, where men are placed on a bare iron cot without even a blanket. With a doctor that should be carrying a policeman’s club. None died. Wonderful! Had there been no labor or socialist press in America, they would all have died. The men were never carried to this capsule doctor until the police were getting afraid of having dead men on their hands. These treatments were to keep them from dying, at the same time increase the suffering. This horse doctor, as the boys call him, would have several thousand dollars coming if he got the customary fee. There is no doubt but what he would have got several hundred dollars, had the men turned their money over to the honorable gentlemen that compose the police force.

About one hundred prostitutes were arrested in one raid a few months ago in Spokane, in cheap hotels and lodging houses (the police said they were prostitutes, and they know). These women were taken to the jail and searched, and over $1,400 was taken from them. They were fined the next morning by the honorable judge the sum total that the honorable police found on them. They were then marched to the railroad depot and given a ticket to Pasco, Wash.

There is no harm in being a prostitute in Pasco. The Spokesman-Review stated next morning that the city treasury had been fattened to the tune of $1,400. The I. W. W. has reduced the fat about $50,000 worth. The police are now searching for more prostitutes.

The Review says that one of the “Workers” called up Dr. O’Shea on the telephone to try and get an affidavit to be used in preparing a damage suit against the city. That is true. We have a number of damage suits which, if justice can be had, will thin the treasury that the prostitutes are continually required to fatten.

The man that wanted the affidavit from the horse doctor did not get it. His jaw was smashed in three places by an honorable policeman’s club, while passing from the booking window to the cell.

He was five days in the sweat box and ice cold cells alternately, before the men could induce the police to get a doctor to bandage it. Not a blow was struck. None died! The Spokesman-Review says so.

“By God, the men that done the deed, Were better men than they.”
—Kipling.

Better than a cruel editor who coolly sits down and writes falsehoods and vilifies to protect a band of law-and-order thugs.

These are the people that hate the red flag, “because it means an anarchy.” They love the stars and stripes because they stand for “Freedom?” They are the exponents of law and order, justice and equality. They believe in equal right to all and special privileges to none. They love God. Verily, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

The law. The law must be upheld. Taft can speak on the street, and pack it for blocks—yes, so tight that workmen could not get home to their dinner. He was not put in the sweat box. He was not even arrested, although the ordinance was in effect at the time. William Jennings Bryan spoke on the street and blocked it. The Chamber of Commerce is the power behind the law. The Chamber of Commerce wrote the speech for Taft, when he spoke on the streets of Spokane.

Taft held up a bundle of papers and said, “This was handed to me by the Chamber of Commerce, and you will have to stand for it.” As it was impossible to move for two hours, we stood for it. The Spokesman-Review says the people don’t want to have the revolutionary harangues of the I. W. W. speakers rammed down their throats. Hundreds of people did not want to have the harangue of the Chamber of Commerce rammed down their throats by Taft, but they had to stand for it. Here is the keynote of the whole thing. The “best people,” those who fatten off the toil of slaves, do not want the workers to hear the truth. It is not the working class that is kicking. It is the profit monger. The fact that over 5,000 workingmen stood to have the I. W. W. teachings rammed down the throats in one year in Spokane shows where the knife was cutting. The color of the flag is only subterfuge. It is a handy thing to use when appealing to the prejudices of the people. One flag is as good as another for the workers if it increases the size of the pork chops. A dish cloth will do.

It is the lumber trust and the employment shark that wish to squelch the I. W. W. The Mayor believes that he can pacify the workers by revoking the licenses of several of the employment sharks, but the I. W. W. says that they must all go, and if we can win this fight for freedom of speech, they will all have to go, and they know it.

Over three thousand men were hired through employment sharks for one camp of the Somers Lumber Co. (Great Northern) last winter to maintain a force of fifty men. As soon as a man had worked long enough to pay the shark’s fee, the hospital dollar, poll tax, and a few other grafts, he was discharged to make room for more slaves, so that the fleecing process could continue. These different fees are split, or cut up with the bosses. In most cases these fees consumed the time of several days’ labor, when the men were then discharged and paid off with checks ranging from 5 cents and upwards. The victim of the shark in the most cases gets the check cashed at the first saloon, and takes a little stimulation. Why not? What is life to these men? What is there in life for them? The strong, barbed-wire whiskey makes things look bright for awhile. Then the weary tramp to town with his bed on his back. Back to Spokane, the slave market for the Inland Empire.

He hears the I. W. W. speakers on the street. The glad tidings of a great revolutionary union. An injury to one is an injury to all. Workers of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your bed on your back. You have a world to gain. Labor produces all wealth, and those who produce it are tramps and hoboes. This gets to him. A new life for him. He will go through hell for such a union with such principles. He has gone through hell in Spokane, and has given his last cent. He is soon coming back, and then again and again if necessary, until the truth can be told on the streets.

Five thousand joined in one year in Spokane. They tied up the drives in 1907, in Montana, and let the logs go to blazes, until the bosses got on their knees and begged them to go to work. They did go to work. They saved what logs did not get past the saw mills. They forced $10 a month more wages from the Amalgamated Copper Co. They forced the hours of labor down to nine hours per day. They left fifteen million feet of logs high and dry in the Flathead valley in Montana last spring. The bosses would not come through with the money and the shorter hours of labor. The logs are there yet on the bank. The water is gone, but there will soon be more water in the spring time, and the question will again come up, of more money, less hours, or no logs.

The masters say they like unions if they are run right, but the bosses do not like the I. W. W. They like the unions they can handle and leaders they can buy. We have neither. There are lots of such unions in America, but the I. W. W. is not one of them.

People are sending in money from all over America to care for the sick and injured, and feed the families of those who are wearing ball and chain on the county rock pile. The following letter is characteristic of the methods used by the I. W. W.:

IONE, ORE., Jan. 7th, 1910.

Fellow Worker:

A demonstration meeting was just held in Sheep Camp No. 1, there being three present, a herder and two dogs. The following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That we send $10.00 for the free speech fight in Spokane.

Yours for liberty,
THOS. J. ANDERSON,

P. S.—Stay with it. I’m coming.—T. J. A.

The cash was enclosed.

With all the brutality of the Spokane police; the suffering of the prisoners; the screaming of law and order; the blatting of preachers; and the denunciations of labor fakirs, not a man has been arrested for breaking the ordinance prohibiting freedom of speech. One hundred and three men were arrested on November 2d, the opening day of the fight, and the police booked them for breaking the street-speaking ordinance. The judge ordered the police department to change the charge to disorderly conduct, and there has been no disorderly conduct unless he meant disorderly conduct on the part of the honorable police.

It was evident that they did not wish to prosecute under the ordinance. Officers who were drawing pay as secretaries of the unions were arrested for vagrancy. The same charge was made against members selling the “Industrial Worker” on the street. They all had money.

In the suppression of the paper, the closing of the hall, the slugging of members, etc., those who worship and love the law, proceeded under the law of brute force only. They throw their own laws out if they are not fast enough to obtain results.

On November 2d, 1909, Judge Mann delivered himself of the following:

“The right to speak on the street or any other place is inherent. It it a natural right. It is a gift from God that every man is supposed to have. Some who are so unfortunate as to be deaf and dumb are eliminated from possibilities. But every man under the laws of nature and the laws of the universe, is born of the ability to speak when and where he chooses, in so long as he does not interfere with the interests of others, and the rights of others.

“I have no question in my mind as to the validity of this ordinance. I think that under the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of our State, and our city charter, that this ordinance, not only with reference to the class legislative clause that has been argued at length, but in reference to other clauses by reason of its absolute prohibitive powers bordering, in my mind upon the monarchial form of law, I think the ordinance is unconstitutional and invalid.”

After this the Chamber of Commerce met. The charge was altered from breaking an ordinance to disorderly conduct.

Three hundred and thirty-four men were treated in the emergency hospital. There were 1,600 treatments administered. None died! Spokane, the city beautiful!

[Photograph added from January Review: Fellow Workers on the rock pile.]
[Emphasis and paragraph breaks adde.]