To advocate peace with things as they are
is treason to humanity.
This is a class struggle and on class lines
it must be fought out to a finish.
-Ida Crouch-Hazlett
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday September 15, 1907
Spokane, Washington – Ida Crouch-Hazlett Arrested
From the Montana News of September 12, 1907:
Assail Free Speech in Spokane
—–Mrs. Hazlett Arrested
—–
Two Thousand People Storm Jail and
Form a Triumphal Procession After
She Is Released on Bond
The fool policemen of Spokane and the idiotic city “reform ” administration has broken out in a new place and attempted to put an end to socialist street speaking.
Saturday evening, September 7, Mrs. Hazlett [editor of the Montana News] was addressing a crowd of 5,000 people on the street. She had spoken for an hour and a half without any molestation. There was not the slightest disturbance, the crowd standing remarkably still in a compact mass during that time. Just as she had announced her collection and was beginning to sell her books and subscription cards, a policeman in plain clothes came up and said, she was obstructing the sidewalk. She said she was not obstructing the sidewalk as she was in the middle of the street, but asked the crowd to open up a passage, which it immediately did. She then told the policeman that it was his business to keep people off the sidewalk and not hers. Whereupon he jerked her down from the box and placed her under arrest. The vast crowd began a most vigorous protest, shouting and shaming the policeman and even threatening to use force.
As the policeman started toward the jail with Mrs. Hazlett, the crowd formed a procession and fell in behind, shouting and raising a din that was heard all over the city . Comrade Tamblen mounted the box to continue the speaking, but everybody on the streets was headed towards the jail. A body of policemen joined the first one and Mrs. Hazlett proceeded under heavy guard. She took the matter cheerfully through and bowed and smiled as hats were lifted and cheers went up whenever she came in sight.
Many women followed all the long distance of about a mile to the jail. The crowd never ceased heaping abuses and maledictions upon the police, who looked utterly amazed and stunned at the unexpected storm they had evoked. It was as tho a volcano had broken forth in all its fury from ground that was supposed to be solid and substantial.
As the heavy doors clanged behind Mrs. Hazlett the fury of the thousands of people who had gathered outside increased. The police grabbed one young man and hauled him in too.
Dozens were on hand with offers for the cash bond, which was demanded. One business man said they could put him down for $500. A young lawyer by the name of Kirby, who was not a socialist at all and was a stranger to Mrs. Hazlett, offered to go her bond with a check, but was told cash was required, and he immediately left to procure it. Mrs. Hazlett was taken inside the cage while the bond was fixed up. She was then cited to appear for trial on Monday at 1:30 P. M.
On emerging from the jail the cheers and greetings of the crowd were tremendous. Comrade Liehty stepped to one side of her, and Comrade Mrs. Wilson to the other, and they started towards the Central Rooming house where Mrs. Hazlett was stopping. The crowd fell in behind in such a dense mass that it was necessary to take the middle of the street. Even so the street was blocked for two blocks, and the street cars, carriages and teams were brought to a halt. As block after block was passed, the people lined the sidewalks und cheered as at a Fourth of July celebration. The crowd never stopped cheering for an instant.
When the rooming block was reached, the nearest friends crowded into Mrs. Hazlett’s room, while it seemed as if the whole town massed itself on the street outside of her windows.
The police had tried to disperse the crowd at the jail by bringing out the hose. But they were afraid to turn it on the crowd in the temper in which it was in. They then made a fake run with the fire department. The people took no notice except to call after them with contempt. Fully 2,000 persons participated in the unprecedented demonstration. The Spokane papers admitted that it was the wildest demonstration ever witnessed on the streets of Spokane. When Mrs. Hazlett stepped from the jail, she spoke a few words to the crowd and asked them to disperse. They listened to her with attention, but showed unmistakable evidences that they were going to stay by her until the matter was settled. After going to her room they stayed outside until she appeared at the window, when they again greeted her with deafening cheers. She made them a brief address and gave the dates for the other meetings. In spite of her request not till the lights were out did the crowd disperse.
The affair is a dastardly attempt to suppress the socialist street meetings in Spokane. The streets are filled every night with crowds that listen to a fake doctor and Dutch Jake, the political boss of the city, who runs a vaudeville theater, jams the streets night after night with the pictures he throws upon a tall building. Any fake can use the streets in Spokane, but war must be made on the socialists, holding quiet, respectable, decent meetings, that are voicing the deep sentiments of the people.
This demonstration in Spokane is one of many that is occurring now that is amazing capitalist rule. Ever since the Western Federation outrage this feeling has been gathering in the hearts of the working class, and has been showing itself in monster demonstrations all over the country. At the news of Haywood’s acquittal the working men in town after town went wild where even old time agitators were astonished. This is the spirit that makes revolutions. The working class in America will yet do something worth while.
Judge Richardson and Attorney Kirby have been retained by the Spokane comrades as attorneys in the case. The case will be fought straight through the courts and a test made of this wanton interference by the police with the constitutional rights of American citizens.
Further meetings planned are at Oliver hall on Sunday night, and street meetings Monday and Thursday nights, provided the speaker is not in jail.
———-
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
Montana News
“Owned and Published by the
Socialist Party of Montana”
(Helena, Montana)
-Sept 12, 1907
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1907-09-12/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGE
Ida Crouch-Hazlett, Socialist, Montana News, Aug 3, 1904
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1904-08-03/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
Tag: Ida Crouch-Hazlett
https://weneverforget.org/tag/ida-crouch-hazlett/