Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday June 27, 1917
Duluth, Minnesota – Chief of Police Declares Ban on I. W. W.
From The Duluth News Tribune of June 26, 1917:
PLACE BAN ON I. W. W. ACTIVITY
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Police Will Not Tolerate Belligerent
Attitude of Radicals Any Longer.
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Chief of Police McKercher announced last night that the I. W. W. activities in Duluth are over from now until the end of the war. His announcement follows the raids Saturday made by the police on I. W. W. headquarters.
No meetings by the radicals, nor speeches or outbursts by known I. W. W. agitators will be tolerated, he declared flatly. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, arrested Saturday [on charge of vagrancy], has been warned by the police not to attempt to address any radical meeting in this city, it was said.
“There will be no demonstrations against war or against the government’s plans for over-production during the war period,” asserted the chief….
RAID PRISONERS ON TRIAL TODAY
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Says I. W. W.
Ordinance Is Convenient Makeshift.
—–Trials of the sixteen men and two women arrested in the I. W. W. raids Saturday were postponed yesterday in municipal court to this morning at 10 o’clock after each prisoner had entered a plea of not guilty before Judge Smallwood.
The arraignment yesterday was featured by the “undignified” attitude of some of the radicals, and several times the judge called upon offenders to behave themselves while in court. William Sullivan, who wears a Windsor tie and flowing locks of hair, refused to stand up to plead until ordered thrice by the court.
Attention however was centered on the case of Elizabeth Gurley flynn, woman leader of the Haywood organization, and Marie Baxter, Duluth organizer of the Housemaids’ union. Miss Flynn had previously been arrested and tried on similar charges in New York City, Spokane and three other cities, and she entered the plea of not guilty.
“The ordinance will not stand the searching light of legal scrutiny,” said Miss Flynn after she had entered her plea. “It is merely a convenient makeshift for local enemies of the I. W. W.”
Harry Thorne [Arthur W.], secretary of the Duluth local, Miss Flynn and Miss Baxter supplied the required bail of $100 each and were released. The others languished in jail.
When Miss Flynn was taken from the courtroom, she was received in the corridors by a committee of the Duluth Scandinavian Social club, and presented with a bouquet of red roses and carnations.
S. M. Slonim, who represented thirty-one I. W. W. members arrested last January in the raids on radical pickets at the employment office of the Virginia & Rainy Lake Lumber company, 413½ West Michigan street, will conduct the defense today, it was announced.
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[Cartoon added is from News Tribune of July 6, 1916.]
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SOURCES
The Duluth News Tribune
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-June 26, 1917, pages 1 & 5
http://www.genealogybank.com/
https://phw02.newsbank.com/cache/ean/fullsize/pl_006272017_1148_05871_608.pdf
https://phw02.newsbank.com/cache/ean/fullsize/pl_006272017_1134_35334_628.pdf
By the Ore Docks: A Working People’s History of Duluth
-by Richard Hudelson, Carl Ross
U of Minnesota Press, 2006
(Search: passage espionage act; for more on
banning of IWW in Duluth, read pages 79-82.
Note: MCPS = Minnesota Commission of Public Safety.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=F865CRqof1oC
IMAGE
MN Miners Strike, Get Out IWW, Cartoon, DNT, July 6, 1916
http://www.genealogybank.com/
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Popular Wobbly – Grand Industrial Band
Lyrics by T-Bone Slim
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