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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 18, 1912
San Diego, California – The Death of Fellow Worker Joseph Mikolasek
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 16, 1912:
San Diego, Calif., May 9, 1912-The climax in the free speech fight came Tuesday, May 7. as a result one unarmed worker [Joseph Mikolasek] was murdered by the police, the town was practically under martial law, workers were clubbed on the streets, and over one hundred deported.
Tuesday morning it was reported that 84 members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were coming to participate in the free speech campaign, had arrived in the city on a freight train and were at Old Town, about three miles from the heart of the city. The police excitedly sent out all the reserves and special police men, who held up the train and took from a box car 84 free speech fighters on their way to battle. The men were lined up and herded into an old schoolhouse.
At 2 o’clock it became apparent that the vigilante outrages would be repeated for the business men were hurriedly arming themselves with rifles and shot guns. At 3 o’clock Attorney Moore of the free Speech League applied for a writ requesting the sheriff to take possession of the 84 prisoners. He also presented to the court an affidavit charging that it was the intention of the police to hand the men over to the “Vigilantes.” The writ was refused, the judge stating later in the evening he might grant a writ of habeas corpus. This was done at 8:45 p. m., too late to serve it.
Late that night, under cover of darkness, the police and the Vigilance Committee escorted the 84 Socialists and Industrial Workers out to the county line, and after tying them to trees, horsewhipping them and otherwise brutally treating them, they were told to “March north and keep going.”
Among the men thus deported were several members of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist party.
At 7 o’clock Tuesday evening the men in town decided to make another attempt to speak on the streets. Accordingly 70 men went to the corner of Fifth and E streets and started to speak. The fifth man had mounted the rostrum when the reserve squad of the police charged the crowd which had gathered, clubbing indiscriminately. One small man named Catallon was knocked down and jumped on by a vigilante. Several citizens were injured and many speakers were arrested.
During the melee on the street some policemen were heard to say that the I. W. W. hall would be raided that night, and word was sent by sympathizers to vacate the hall, which was done, and at 7:30 p. m. when four policemen appeared at the hall it was empty. The policemen came to the doors and without demanding entrance, they poured a volley of shots into the building. They then broke into the hall and finding no one present they approached a group of I. W. W. men standing on the sidewalk around the corner. These men they proceeded to “beat up” but did not arrest them.
They then went back to the hall and saw Joe Mickolasek [Mikolasek] an I. W. W. who had just entered the building. According to Mickolasek’s dying statement the police immediately opened fire on him without any provocation. Mickolasek thereupon picked up an axe and although mortally wounded, attempted to defend himself. He wounded a policeman with the axe. The policeman who was hit with the axe was named Heddon. Thereupon Policeman Stevens opened fire upon Mickolasek. Nine shots took effect in Mickolasek’s body. During the excitement Policeman Stevens was shot in the shoulder it is supposed that this was an accident, but Woodford Hubbard, a socialist organizer, was charged with attempting to murder, although he was not in the crowd at the time of the shooting.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA618
Industrial Worker
(Spokane, Washington)
-May 16, 1912, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n08-w164-may-16-1912-IW.pdf
See also:
Tag: San Diego Free Speech Fight of 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/san-diego-free-speech-fight-of-1912/
Regeneración
(Los Angeles, California)
-May 18, 1912, page 1-Spanish, page 4-English
http://archivomagon.net/wp-content/uploads/e4n90.pdf
The Agitator
(Lakebay, Washington)
-June 15, 1912, page 3
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/agitator/v2n15-w39-jun-15-1912-agitator.pdf
Free Speech for Radicals
-by Theodore Schroeder
Free Speech League, 1916
(search: mickolash)
https://books.google.com/books?id=V3ooAAAAYAAJ
Mother Earth, Volume 7
(New York, New York)
-March 1912-Feb 1912
https://books.google.com/books?id=fmkpAQAAIAAJ
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101015307257&view=page&seq=7&skin=2021
-search with “mikolasek”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?id=njp.32101015307257;q1=mikolasek;sz=25;start=1;sort=seq;hl=true;page=search;seq=1;orient=0
Living My Life, Volume 1
-by Emma Goldman
New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1931
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/living/living1_38.html
From Chapter 38, as remembered by Emma Goldman:
In this struggle [San Diego Free Speech Fight], in which the local police were on the side of the Vigilantes, several I.W.W. men lost their lives. The most brutal murder was that of Joseph Mikolasek, who died on May 7. He was one of the many rebels who had attempted to fill the gap caused by the arrest of their speakers. When he ascended the platform, he was assaulted by the police. With difficulty he dragged himself to the socialist headquarters and thence home. He was followed by detectives, who attacked him in his house. One officer fired and severely wounded him. In self-defense Mikolasek had picked up an ax, but his body was riddled with bullets before he had a chance to lift it against his assailants…..
San Diego was not content with the murder of Mikolasek; it would not permit him even to be buried in the city. We therefore had his body shipped to Los Angeles, and prepared a public demonstration in his honour. Joseph Mikolasek had been obscure and unknown in life, but he grew to country-wide stature in his death. Even the police of the city were impressed by the size, dignity, and grief of the masses that followed his remains to the crematorium.
[Emphasis added.]
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The Red Flag