Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Fresno Police Show Brutality”-by Fellow Worker Jack Whyte

Quote John Whyte, re Fresno Aroused Working Class, IW p1, Dec 22, 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 7, 1911
Fresno, California – Brutal Police, Fellow Workers Not Weakening

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of January 5, 1911:

FRESNO POLICE SHOW BRUTALITY
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THE TRUTH JUST IN-MORE POLICE BRUTALITY-HELL IN FRESNO.
MEN ARE NOT WEAKENING.
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[-by Jack Whyte]

The last week has been a very busy one amongst the members on the firing line. The workers have been treated to all kinds of Christmas presents by their kind Christian masters, even your fellow members laying in jail. They had a hunger strike. Were treated to the Water Cure, first by the jailor and then by the fire department. They were compelled to walk around all night up to their knees in water, and then we had the slimy, reptile press of this city tell us the reason we were handed all those presents was that we used vulgar and obscene language towards the sheriff and his lackeys. (Great joke, isn’t it?) The following is the facts about the so-called riot and what led up to it.

On December 22 the police arrested a Frenchman (not a Mexican , as the papers stated), and charged him with drunkenness. When they brought him into the jail he was handcuffed. Four officers jumped on him, beating him up unmercifully. Our boys protested and they also protested against the actions of the sheriff, who stood idly by and made no attempt to stop this one-sided battle. This poor drunk was so badly beaten up that they did not dare take him up to court the next morning. For telling the sheriff and his lackeys what they thought of him, the boys were put on a bread and water diet, which they refused, preferring to go on a hunger strike.

At 3 p. m. on the 23d I was arrested and charged with vagrancy ad was an eyewitness and partaker of all that happened to the boys on December 23.

At 4 p. m. they came around with the bread. The boys refused it. Some one proposed that we SING THE RED FLAG FOR SUPPER. We did. We kept on singing until a crowd of citizens gathered around the jail. We took this opportunity of addressing them through the bars. It was the largest street meeting we every had in Fresno. This was too much for the sensitive nerves of Day Jailor Jones. He proceeded to quiet the boys in the usual brutal way. He came down to the bull pen and turned the fire hose on the boys. We protected ourselves as best we could, using the mattress and blankets for a barricade. After playing this hose on the boys for two hours they only laughed at him for his trouble. He then called out the fire department. Then the trouble started.

A large hose with 150 pounds of pressure behind it turned on 86 men copped up in a room 28 by 47 1-2 feet, can do a lot of damage. Men were knocked down, windows were broken and torn from their hinges, mattresses were torn in two. Then the slimy press will come out and tell you that great care was taken that no one was hurt. Men had their eyes closed. Over half of them ought to be in the hospital. When the sheriff saw that we would not surrender, that we would die rather than say “Enough,” he ordered the firemen to stop. Kind sheriff (?) He allowed those men to walk around all night up to their knees in water. He would not even hand in a wire so that we could open up the drains, which were all choked.

Since that night the boys have been receiving the full prison rations. Now, fellow workers, what are we going to do about it? Are you going to sit around the halls and GIVE US SYMPATHY? We don’t need it. We can gets lots of that right here. What we need is ACTION. Hold protest meetings in the cities, in the camps and advertise the city of Fresno as a city where the workers are oppressed; where men are thrown in jail for upholding their rights; where the workers are beaten and slugged. As for brutality, the sheriff and his lackeys would make old Bill Shannon blush with shame [notoriously cruel Officer who arrested Elizabeth Gurley Flynn during Spokane Free Speech Fight].

Get on your fight clothes and start for Fresno at once. We need you here. The boys here are all fighters . Why don’t you come and help them?

JACK WHYTE.

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]