—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 12, 1912
San Diego, California – Weinstock Inquiry Proves Brutality of Vigilantes
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of May 9, 1912:
INQUIRY STRIPS MASK FROM THUGS
GOVERNOR ORDERS INVESTIGATION OF SAN DIEGO
-INQUIRY REVEALS FRIGHTENED OFFICIALS
-MEN STILL ENTERING CITY.[-by Stumpy]
San Diego, Cal., April 22, 1912
To the “Worker”-The most notable event of the past week has been the taking of testimony in the Free Speech fight by commissioner, Mr. Harris Weinstock, appointed by Governor Johnson to come to San Diego to get the facts in regard to the complete abrogation of all laws by the police and vigilantes, and incidentally this investigation has been the means of showing as fine an example of unqualified heroism as the world has ever seen.
The governor has appointed the commissioner in response to requests from scores of people here and elsewhere who knew of the lawlessness that was being carried on here, and he had issued invitations to all who wished to come forth and testify regarding the methods of the police and the justification for the vigilantes.
It would seem that here was a chance for the lovers of “law and order” to come forth and prove what martyrs the people of San Diego had been, but with the exception of two police officials and two others, one of them a vigilante, there was no one in all the town who had the nerve to come forth and justify their actions.
The first of the “citizens” to come forth had been well loaded with whisky, and he wanted to know if the commissioner was going to take the word of a lot of “anarchists and ragamuffins who were there to make trouble.” He then wanted the commissioner to go somewhere to get the statements of “a thousand citizens who were willing to testify, but the room where the investigation was being held was no fit place for them to come.” His scheme failed, as the commissioner told him plainly that no star chamber proceedings would be held.
Detective Shepherd was also on the job, but was unable to hold it down for more than a few minutes. When he was asked one or two questions about taking men out to be slugged by the vigilantes his prompter at a side door said “Telephone message for Shepherd,” and that was the end of his talk.
But it was not the end of the record. Thomas Kilcullen and one of the other I. W. W. men at once took the stand and testified that Shepherd was telling a point blank lie in the very essence of his testimony. He had had the nerve to state that no men were beaten up and that no one was turned over to the vigilantes. But men were there to prove him to be an unqualified liar, and the proof went into the record next after Shepherd’s attempt at a whitewash.
The true heroes were seven men who had been driven from the town and clubbed, some of them to insensibility, and told that if they ever returned to San Diego they would be killed. Some of them had been driven out two or three times, some had been clubbed on the streets of rotten San Diego, all had been threatened with death if they ever returned, yet they were defying the most vicious gun men of the west to give their story of cruelty to the governor that there might be the evidence for him to give us a measure of justice and fair dealing in our fight.
Space will not permit of giving much of the evidence introduced, but taken in all its details it gave as terrible an arraignment of the present police system as the world knows. Here were men who had been guilty of nothing but the crime of speaking on the street who were in danger of their lives every minute they were in San Diego, yet they told their stories without any show of fear or of bragadocia, and these true stories will take their place with any from darkest Russia.
All told of the brutalities of the police and vigilantes on the road to San Onofre; of how the men were kicked and clubbed under the direction of Detective Shepherd and a U. S. Immigration officer, and finally thrown from the train; of how they were driven into a filthy corral and abused by drunken, armed guards till morning; of how Joe Marco [Marko] was clubbed into insensibility and thrown into a tent for dead; of how the men were robbed of money, tobacco, and knives; of the running of the gauntlet of over a hundred crazed brutes by these defenseless men; of how Charles Hanson was crippled for life by having his knee-cap broken with a pick-handle; of the disgraceful proceeding of being compelled to kneel before a dirty rag called a flag of the U. S. and kiss it in token of loyalty; and finally of the weary march over thirty miles of desert before any relief could be obtained.
Detective Myers was one of the policemen on the stand and he proved himself a star liar; he declared at first that he would not answer any questions from “these people who are under indictment, or their legal representatives,” and then said that no one had been clubbed by the police, and besides if they had been, the police were justified. He said that orderly meetings would be permitted outside the congested district but when three men put it to a test by reading the declaration of independence on the street at 3 o’clock today, they were moved on with clubs. All Myers’ testimony was made up of lies.
There is something doing now all the time. Men are coming in and large numbers are on the road. Funds are needed to care for the men here, but there is one thing that should be attended to by everyone, and that is to advertise San Diego’s crimes to the world.
Tell it to every one. Get your local paper to give an account of it. They want to hold a Fair here in 1915 and they expect the money of outsiders to make it a success. See that they do not get it.
We are the most alive proposition here at the present time, but with the Merchants and Manufacturers Association to fight we need your help. And one of the best ways to help is to boycott San Diego in every respect.
Prominent men in the A. F. of L. on the Pacific coast were here a few days ago to get first hand information on this fight, and they stated that this is but a continuation of the fight in Los Angeles and that if we are beaten here it is a matter of but a short time till all forms of labor organizations in the west will be hopelessly crushed.
The Spreckles papers here state that we are here to invade Mexico as soon as possible, but that is as big a lie as the rest of their statements regarding the fight. They have also insulted Governor Johnson by saying that he had no business to send a man here to investigate conditions. The reason of this is that the investigation has shown up the brutal and rotten condition of San Diego as nothing else could have done. It will be one means in winning the fight for free speech.
In the “Worker” of the 18th my article states, “among others who were kidnaped and killed, etc.” It should have read, “Among others who were to be kidnaped and killed.”
The vigilantes and police here are scared stiff. If one of the thugs sees a workingman walking his way he hikes off at once, while the police wear their stars to bed or sleep standing up. Principally the latter, as robberies have been very numerous since the I. W. W. was “driven-out.”
A few days ago the guards were withdrawn from the county line, but now there is a new scare and sluggers armed with guns and booze are rushing out there to keep out the red terror. Bulls are apt to go wild at the sight of red.
Many men here would like to know what became of two machine guns that disappeared from Fort Rosecranz some time ago. Will those two guns be used to pump us full of pacification?
A list of vigilantes is being made up, and will be published as soon as the more prominent ones can be tabulated. One of the most vicious of the lot was Walter P. Moore, City Street Commissioner.
I am not at liberty to state the names of the men who kidnaped Editor Sauer, but they were three of the worst of the bunch who took our boys out the night previous.
Ten of the men in jail are upon a charge of wrecking some jail property, and an attempt is being made to get jury that will convict, but the court has worked all day and not one man has been accepted as yet. Since men have had time to think they are coming to see the dirty work that is laid out for such a jury and they don’t want to do it.
San Diego is hard to approach, there being a long narrow valley between the mountains and the sea to come through, but plans are nearly completed to get men here and when they begin to come there will be lots of them here.
We realize that if the social revolution is ever to be more than a pink tea discussion we had as well start now. So come on, you philosophers, put your theories to work. The fighters are here to coming. Show us what you are good for.
STUMPY.
—————
Any one having information as to the where about of Eddie Groat, who was arrested April 4 at San Diego, kindly notify the “Worker.” It is rumored that he was killed at San Onofre.
—————
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
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 9, 1912
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n07-w163-may-09-1912-IW.pdf
IMAGE
San Diego FSF, Jail Where Hoey Murdered, Cmg Ntn p13, May 4, 912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/488967394/
See also:
Report of Harris Weinstock, Commissioner to Investigate the Recent Disturbances in the City of San Diego and the County of San Diego, California, to His Excellency Hiram W. Johnson, Governor of California
Superintendent of State Printing, 1912
https://books.google.com/books?id=6ctRAQAAMAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100787870
http://aftguild.org/free_speech/history/pdf/WeinstockReport-1912.pdf
Harris Weinstock (1854–1922)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_Weinstock
Fellow Workers and Friends
I.W.W. Free Speech Fights as Told by Participants
-by Philip S Foner
Greenwood Press, Jan 1, 1981
-Chapter 5, pages 135-138
“My Experience During the San Diego
Free Speech Fight” by Charles Hanson
https://books.google.com/books?id=y4yxAAAAIAAJ
Free Speech for Radicals
-by Theodore Schroeder
Free Speech League, 1916
(search: with names mentioned above)
https://books.google.com/books?id=V3ooAAAAYAAJ
May 4, 1912, Coming Nation-San Diego Free Speech Fight by Ernest Jerome Hopkins
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101659435/may-4-1912-coming-nation-san-diego/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101659505/may-4-1912-coming-nation-san-diego/
Tag: Michael Hoey
https://weneverforget.org/tag/michael-hoey/
Tag: San Diego Free Speech Fight of 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/san-diego-free-speech-fight-of-1912/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We’re Bound for San Diego – Proles
See lyrics: Industrial Worker p2, May 1, 1912.
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n06-w162-may-01-1912-IW.pdf