Hellraisers Journal: Agnes Thecla Fair, Dangerous Character, Jailed and Assaulted in Spokane Free Speech Fight

Quote Agnes Thecla Fair, Revolutionary Women, Stt Sc Wkgmn p4, Nov 20, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 23, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Letter from Agnes Thecla Fair Describes Jail Horrors

From Seattle Workingman’s Paper of November 20, 1909:

THE SHAME OF SPOKANE
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We publish the following letter without the consent of its author. We believe the interests of truth demand its publication. When we first read it we could not believe it. Even now it seems impossible that such cowardly and brutal treatment could be accorded a helpless woman, even among savages. Yet we know the capitalist system has developed far lower moral types than savagery or barbarism ever knew. We know, too that daily revelations are made of jail horrors almost as bad as this. Read what Mrs. [Bessy] Fiset tells in her department, “The Woman,” in this paper [page 4].

Those who know Agnes Thecla Fair will not hesitate to credit what she testifies to. She is a quiet, frail, unassuming little woman, some 25 years old, who is publishing a book called “The Sourdoughs’ Bible.” She was drawn into the Spokane Free Speech Fight because she happened to be in that city soliciting for her book, and wherever she is she cannot refrain from taking the side of the under dog….

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MISS FAIR’S LETTER
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Spokane, Wash., Nov. 11, ’09

Dr. Hermon Titus and Mrs. Titus.
Dear Comrades and Friends:

Well, to put it mildly, Mrs. Titus came very near getting that copyright. I am now labeled by police as a DANGEROUS CHARACTER. My offense was mixing in free speech fight and behaving so different from other women arrested.

I made four jumps, as the box filled with dry goods, standing at Howard and Riverside in front of the White House was a high one. I talked for ten minutes and had a large crowd, when a detective came up and took me down from my high pedestal. He wanted me to walk to the station, but as I had never rode in a hurry-up wagon I asked to ride.

While waiting for a private automobile the crowd grew to thousands. Taking out a red handkerchief as I entered the wagon, I stood up and waved it at the crowd. Cheers went up for Free Speech.

Little did I dream of what was coming after in this enlightened age. You will pardon language used to get at facts, as I never heard anything so vile. They put me in a cell with a fallen woman and left. They were gone but a few minutes when two officers returned and (although the other woman was not to go until Monday, she told me), they told her to get ready in two minutes and get out.

When she was gone they put me in a dark cell, and about ten big burly brutes came in and began to question me about our union. I was so scared I could not talk. One said, “We’ll make her talk” Another said, “She’ll talk before we get through with her.”

Another said,”F–k her and she’ll talk.” Just then one started to unbutton my waist, and I went into spasms which I never recovered from until evening.

I was hardly over the first when they brought in a man disguised as a woman and put him in a cot next to me. I thought it was a drunken woman until the officers went out. Then I felt a large hand creeping over me. It’s too horrible to put on paper. I jumped out into an enclosure, screaming frantically and frothing at the mouth. Had not two of our girls been arrested and brought in just then I do not think I would ever come to.

Even then they showed no disposition to treat me as a human. I never slept or ate the three days I was in there. The third day I was so weak when the doctor called and they would not have let me out then only the doctor said (a “trusty” told me): “She cannot stand it another hour, and her death will mean the end.” Then they hurried in and carried me out near a window.

When the matron, who is on the pay roll (a Salvation lassie), but never around the women, was taking me into court, an officer said, “Let her walk.” The matron said, “She can’t.” He said: “If she faints we’ll throw a bucket of water in her face; that will wake her up.”

The court (through counsel) asked me: “Will you make any disturbance if we release you on your own recognizance?” I said: “I won’t be able to for a few days. I don’t know what I’ll do after that.” “Counsel” worded it different to the court, and the court ordered me to the receiving hospital. How kind of the court! I only stayed there a few minutes when I saw a fellow worker pass the door and I asked him to let me lean on his arm to get to a hall a few doors away. As it cost money to hire cabs and it would only keep from the public the brutality of the bulls and I looked dead, the fellow workers carried me on a stretcher through the principal streets to my room.

While the bulls beat back a crowd of ten thousand twenty-five more went in today.

AGNES THECLA FAIR.

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[…..]

Women for Jail
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By Agnes Thecla Fair.

Spokane, Nov. 17, 1909

I was arrested for speaking on the streets.

The judge has discharged all women and tried to advise us to take no active part.

As all Revolutionists know what the Capitalist Class don’t want us to do is the very thing we should do, in my humble opinion one hundred Revolutionary women is jail would end the fight.

The Spokane police are brutes. The Capitalist Class know that public sentiment would compel them to adopt the Seattle free speech ordinance if a hundred women were treated as our boys are being treated.

By sending women over to go to jail and give publicity to free speech fight you will help to win.

Yours for Freedom, Justice and Truth.

AGNES THECLA FAIR.

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[Emphasis added.]