Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – FW S. O. Chinn Gives His Life for Freedom of Speech
From the Industrial Worker of March 26, 1910:
DEAD AS RESULT OF BRUTAL TREATMENT
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Thirty-five Days on Bread and Water Brings On
an Attack of Diabetes and Causes
Death of S. O. Chinn, Spokane Free Speech Fighter.
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Spokane Press of March 17, 1910
Because of Chief Sullivan’s brutal system, S. O. Chinn, who contracted diabetes after being fed on bread and water for a period of 35 days, died at Deaconess Hospital of Spokane on Friday evening, March 18th. This brutal treatment was accorded him because of his participation in the Spokane free speech fight.
Chinn was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He had resided at Spokane for a period of two years, and for a time was secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the I. W. W. locals of that city. Those who knew him best knew him to be scrupulously, even fanatically, honest. He never drank, his personal life was clean and he was zealously devoted to what he thought was right.
Chinn went to jail because he believed that the constitution meant what it said; that free speech and free assemblage were inalienable rights; that as a man it was his duty to see that they were not trampled under foot. He caused no disturbance; he demanded merely what he considered were his rights. He believed that constitution meant what it said. But Chief Sullivan and the powers that be in Spokane had decreed otherwise.
Nowhere but in Spokane have men been put on bread and water for 35 days; from three to five days is the army regulation. For the average man a diet of bread and water for ten days, as it was allowed to the imprisoned free speech fighters, means chronic disease, but for 35 days S. O. Chinn was given a bread and water diet, and from the barbarity of the treatment he emerged a wreck and died a lingering death.
The Spokane Press has the following to say on Fellow Worker Chinn’s death:
He was one of the town’s citizens and a quiet, soft-spoken, hard-working man. But he had determination; so had Sullivan to prove that when he said the constitution wasn’t worth a damn, that he knew what he was talking about, so Sullivan kept Chinn on bread and water for 35 days, and so today Chinn, by giving up the struggle and finally dying, admits that Sullivan knew what he was talking about.
Don’t you wonder if Sullivan is real proud and happy of his little victory over S. O. Chinn?
Chinn doubtless was to blame for his own death; he should have given up his fight against the odds; he should have recognized that men can be tortured to death in Spokane regardless of law or common decency, and he should have saved his life. But, you see, Chinn was not that sort of a man; what he thought was right meant everything in life to him, and if it had taken twice 35 days Chinn would have been there just the same.
Sullivan can’t escape the moral responsibility for this man’s awful death today by saying the man could have given in and agreed not speak on the streets. The government does not give its worst offenders one-third the treatment Sullivan gave this man, who was guilty of no offense the law recognizes, and when Sullivan transcended the bounds of civilized brutality 200 per cent he did so on his own responsibility.
Chinn’s funeral took place on Sunday and was well attended, several hundred members of the Industrial Workers of the World, who were is the city at the time, taking part.
“The Marseillaise” – Louis Graveure, about 1919
Words and music by Rouget De Lisle Note: “The Marseillaise” was published in the first edition of the LRSB of 1909, and also 1900 “Socialist Songs,” translated by CH Kerr.
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