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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday September 23, 1908
Adventures of the Overall Brigade Enroute to Chicago
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of September 19, 1908:
[J. H. Walsh on the I.W.W’s Red Special, Part II of II.]
In Seattle we held several good meetings and then departed for the east. We met a very nice train crew apparently, out of Seattle. They claimed to all be union men, but they proved to be cheap dogs of the railroad. Fearing such a large bunch, they telegraphed ahead to Auburn Junction for a force to take us off. When we arrived at the junction we were surrounded by a band of railroad officials-the papers stated there were 25-when we were covered by guns and told to unload. We were marched to jail and held over night. In the morning the writer was separated from the bunch, but finally we were all turned loose. Being separated, we did not learn until evening where each and all were. However, all except the writer had gotten back to Seattle, and secured the services of Attorney Brown, to take up the case, should it become necessary. It was not necessary. The boys held a street meeting in Seattle, and part started from there for Spokane, over one road, and the rest over another road.
We continued our work of propaganda without missing a single date, and all re-united at Spokane, where we held several good meetings. Leaving Spokane, we took in Sandpoint, Idaho, and then rambled into Missoula, Montana, where we had some of the best meetings of all the places along the route.
We put the “Starvation Army” on the bum, and packed the streets from one side to the other. The literature sales were good, the collections good, and the red cards containing the songs sold like hot cakes.
At Missoula, Mont., we have completed two full week’s work on the road. We left Portland with 20 members. We lost 4 of them, but we picked up one at Seattle, and two at Spokane, so our industrial band is practically the same as when we started.
There are “Mulligan Bunches” all along the road. We had scarcely gotten out of the city limits of Portland, when we saw the camp fires of the “boes” along the road, and we have never, as yet, been out of sight of those camp fires. In fact, the further east we get, the more numerous appear to be the “boes.” On investigation, we find that the “Mulligan Bunch” is not composed of pick and shovel artists alone, but that all kinds of tradesmen can be found among them.
There is still three weeks between us and the Fourth Annual Convention, and we expect to be in Chicago by that time. So far we have made every place on schedule time, and we hope to keep up the record.
The receipts from the sale of literature and collections for the first week, were $39.02 and the second week was $53.66, a total of $92.68. Of course, do not imagine that this is all profit, for its necessary to buy a passenger ticket for the wife of the writer, and as we are carrying 160 pounds of excess baggage-literature-these receipts are eaten into at a lively rate.
This may not be a “Red Special,” but it is leaving a red streak behind it. All fellow workers can get a meal at our special car-the jungles-free of charge, any a poor, hungry devil has been fed by the boys around the camp fires.
In the above money of literature and collections, the song sales are not counted. The boys in the bunch have that money to themselves. It runs from two or three dollars to eleven dollars per night.
It is time for another street meeting, and so I must close to join the revolutionary forces on the street, who are now congregating, after a big feed in the jungles.
Yours for the I. W. W.,
J. H. WALSH,
National Organizer.———-
[Part I of II, to be continued.]
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SOURCE & IMAGE
The Industrial Union Bulletin
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 19, 1908
(-also source for added newsclip.)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v2n24-sep-19-1908-iub.pdf
See also:
Tag: J. H. Walsh
https://weneverforget.org/tag/j-h-walsh/
Drift: Illicit Mobility and Uncertain Knowledge
-by Jeff Ferrell
Pages 91-93
(search: “overall brigade”)
Univ of California Press, Mar 16, 2018
https://books.google.com/books?id=We1JDwAAQBAJ
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