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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 11, 1918
Sacramento, California-Federal Trial of I. W. W. in Progress
The trial of members of the Industrial Workers of World is now in progress in Sacramento, and little to no mention is made by the kept press of the five fellow workers who did not live long enough to face a jury of their peers.The San Francisco Chronicle of December 9th does mention them briefly:
[F]our of the defendants-Robert James Blaine, Edward Burns, Henry Evans and Frank Travis-have died since they were arrested.
However The Chronicle fails to mention the death of defendant, Fellow Worker James Nolan, and also fails to mention that these five fellow workers were imprisoned under horrendous conditions and further fails to mention that they died of influenza/pneumonia to which those unsanitary conditions may have been a contributing factor.
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 8, 1918:
I.W.W. to Treat U.S. Charge
With Silent Contempt
—–47 Defendants in Conspiracy Case
at Sacramento
Will Make No Defense.
—–SACRAMENTO, December 7.-A “silent defense” is the program of the trial committee, which will represent all but one of the forty-seven defendants in the Industrial Workers of the World conspiracy cases, who will be brought to trial here Monday in the United States District Court, according to Robert Duncan, special attorney for the Department of Justice, who will prosecute the case for the government.
Duncan said today he had received information from among the defendants and through other sources that it was the plan for the defendants and their committee to treat the entire proceedings with “silent contempt” and to take no part in the trial.
The only women defendant, Theodora Pollok of San Francisco, will be represented by Attorney Nathan C. Coghlan of San Francisco. The other defendants announced at their arraignment October 8, when they entered pleas of not guilty, that they had dismissed their attorneys and would conduct their own trial.
One defendant, Julius Weinberg of San Francisco, entered his plea of guilty on October 4, but has not been sentenced.
The defendants are charged with conspiracy to obstruct the war program of the United State government.
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SOURCES
Quote BBH re Sacramento IWW Martyrs,
-fr/ With Drops of Blood, Oct 1919
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/unions/iww/1920/drops.htm
San Francisco Chronicle
(San Francisco, California)
-Dec 9, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/27475187/
San Francisco Examiner
(San Francisco, California)
-Dec 8, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/457984692/
IMAGE
“In Here For You” by Ralph Chaplin,
-from Solidarity, Aug 4/Sept 1, 1917
p323 https://libcom.org/files/rebel-voices-2_0.pdf
See also:
WE NEVER FORGET-Sacramento 1918
FW Ed Burns-died October 22nd
FW James Nolan-died October 28th
FW R. J. Blaine-died October 28th
FW H. C. Evans-died October 31st
FW Frank Travis-died November 2nd
WE NEVER FORGET: The IWW Martyrs of the Sacramento County Jail Who Died Awaiting Trial, October-November, 1918
The Silent Defense
A Story of the Remarkable Trial of Members of the Industrial Workers of the World Held at Sacramento, California
– pubd af/ Jan 1919-bf/ June 21, 1920
page 17-The Silent Defense by Jean Sterling
-covers trial
page 26-Ol’ Rags An’ Bottles by Special Correspondence
-covers trial
page 37-Jury Disregards Judge’s Instructions
-re verdict
page 43- A Defendant Speaks
https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/images/publications/sl_silentdefense/sl_silentdefense.pdf
Description of Theodora Pollok during the trial:
From The Nation of Jan 25, 1919-
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=tVo5AQAAMAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA123
IN a vacant lot in the middle of a Baltimore block, the policeman in pursuit of boyish outcry found only a little girl sitting flat on the bare ground, her petticoats spread out round her, looking like an English daisy sprung from that barren soil. The policeman walked on shaking his head—he had been so sure boys were breaking the law by playing ball. Little Theodora Pollok rose demurely, picked up the bat she had been sitting on, and waved to the boys to come back and finish their game. This childhood habit has persisted—ministering to the happiness of others, and standing for their moral rights even though one be left alone to face the frown of the law. Trained as a museum expert, Miss Pollok’s chief interest is not the classification of specimens, but the liberating of those specimens of humanity who seem unjustly confined. Her efforts to secure bail for workers awaiting trial in California furnished the excuse for her arrest by Fickert’s men. With most of her friends flown like birds before a tempest, this Southern gentlewoman has for weeks been standing trial with the I. W. W.’s in Sacramento. When the Drifter saw her last she sat in the courtroom, her delicate face upturned, among the solid ranks of the “boys” she had tried to help, and she seemed like nothing so much as a fragile blue cornflower among the wheat—doomed like the grain to perish in the storm before the harvest.
The DRIFTER
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Prison Song-1917 by Ralph Chaplin
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