Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 9, 1912 San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Michael Hoey Murdered by Brutal Jailers
From the Appeal to Reason of April 6, 1912:
LABOR WAR IN WEST ———-
By Telegraph to the Appeal.
The Sacramento Star March 28, 1912
San Diego, Cal., March 31.-Michael Hoey died at Agnes hospital Thursday as a result of being kicked in the stomach and groin while a prisoner. The coroner’s jury refused to allow attending physicians and witnesses to testify.
The police interfered with a monster funeral parade, arresting the standard bearers and confiscating a red flag. There is great public indignation.
Fred H. Moore, attorney for the Free Speech league, published a letter to the chief of police warning him that kidnaping, deporting, beating up and horrible brutality of unbooked men must cease. Many men have been beaten insensible in cells. Joseph F. Tierman, union reporter, was slugged. Automobiles are employed in the fight against the working men and men are beaten and kicked and left twenty-five miles in the hills.
Monster mass meeting was held by trade unionists, Socialists, Industrial Workers last night and speakers were madly cheered. Moore introduced resolutions to boycott merchants who assist the masters in the fight. Fifty thousand unemployed have left San Francisco to join in the fight. Two hundred and fifty dollars was collected at the mass meeting held at Labor Temple at Los Angeles. To the present the fight has cost the city $30,000. Judge Sloan presides over the superior court and prejudiced grand jurors are admitted, among them Adam Witcher, who advised beating the speakers with pick handles and the tarring and feathering of Industrial Workers. Judge Sloan admits the findings of this jury as right, although contrary to the rulings of the supreme court in a similar case. He admits this is not justice, but says it is law.
Prisoners in the city jail are denied food and water until forced to drink from the toilet. Stool pigeon of the capitalists destroyed jail property and charged the offense to free speech prisoners. Of this there is positive proof.
The M. and M. association met in Grant hotel in December. Harrison Gray Otis being present, and decided to annihilate the Industrial Workers and Socialists in San Diego at all hazards.
The district attorney refuses to prosecute the police on the charge of murder, though backed by many affidavits. An effort will be made to have the superior court compel prosecution.
Two hundred men have just left Los Angeles for San Diego and more are coming later.A monster mass meeting will be held at Frisco labor temple tonight, some of the speakers being Fremont Adler [Fremont Older?], Austin Lewis, and J. E. Morgan. It is the first time in the history of the movement that Socialists, Industrial Workers and trade unionists are united, realizing their common cause against the effort to exterminate laborism on the coast. The capitalist press predicts conditions similar to those in England. Three hundred men, women and children have so far been arrested.
Funds are needed to carry on the fight, and should be sent to the treasurer of Free Speech League, San Diego, Cal.
H. S. SHIPPLEY
[Newsclip and emphasis added.]
From the Salem (Oregon) Daily Capital Journal of March 28, 1912:
Gray-haired Michael Hoey was an IWW veteran of free-speech fights in Spokane and Fresno. Arrested during the first week of protests in San Diego, Hoey spent 40 days in city jail. Although they denied it, Hoey swore that three officers — rookie patrolman Irwin, in particular — clubbed and kicked him repeatedly in the groin. Cramped with over 100 prisoners in a cell built for 60, Hoey had to sleep on a cement floor and eat inedible food. “When I asked Dr. Claude Magee [the police surgeon] for a laxative, he gave me an emetic, which caused such violent vomiting that I became seriously ill.”
On March 21, Magee sent Hoey, a man in his mid-60s, in an ambulance to Agnew Hospital with a note: the patient is in “practically normal condition,” but suffers from an old rupture. Seven days later, Hoey died.
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