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Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 23, 1912
San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Jack Whyte Expresses His Contempt of Court
From The Kentucky Post of August 21, 1912:
San Diego I. W. W., Convicted, Bluntly Explains
to Judge His Contempt for Court
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SAN DIEGO, CAL., Aug. 21-Contempt of court, more bluntly expressed than probably ever before in the history of California, whose court records have been dirtied often by judicial acts which have disgraced the State, marked the close of proceedings here recently [August 5th], when Judge Sloane sentenced several members of the Industrial Workers of the World for conspiracy to violate the street-speaking ordinance.
Sloane asked Jack Whyte, Industrial Worker, if he had anything to say as to why he should not receive sentence.
Whyte had something to say. He talked straight. This is what he said:
There are only a few word that I care to say, and this court will not mistake them for a legal argument, for I am not acquainted with the phraseology of the bar, nor the language common to the courtroom.
There are two points which I want to touch upon-the indictment itself and the misstatement of the Prosecuting Attorney. The indictment reads: “The People of the State of California against J. W. Whyte and others.”
It’s a hideous lie. The people of this courtroom know that it is a lie, and I know that it is a lie. If the people of the State are to blame for this persecution, then the people are to blame for the murder of Michael Hoey and the assassination of Joseph Mickolasek. They are to blame and responsible for every bruise, every insult and injury inflicted upon the members of the working class by the vigilantes of this city.
The people deny it, and have so emphatically denied it that Gov. Johnson sent Harris Weinstock down here to make an investigation and clear the reputation of the people of the State of California from the odor that you would attach to it. You cowards throw the blame upon the people, but I know who is to blame and I name them-it is Spreckels and his partners in business, and this court is the lackey and lickspittle of that class, defending the property of that class against the advancing horde of starving American workers.
The Prosecuting Attorney in his plea to the jury accused me of saying on a public platform at a public meeting: “To hell with the courts; we know what justice is.” He told a great truth when he lied, for if he had searched the innermost recesses of my mind he could have found that thought, never expressed by me before, but which I express now. “To hell with your courts, I know what justice is,” for I have sat in your courtroom day after day and have seen members of my class pass before this, the so-called bar of justice.
I have seen you, Judge Sloane, and others of your kind, send them to prison because they dared to infringe upon the sacred right of property. You have become blind and deaf to the rights of men to pursue life and happiness, and you have crushed those rights so that the sacred rights of property should be preserved. Then you tell me to respect the law.
I don’t. I did violate the law, and I will violate every one of your laws and still come before you and say: “To hell with the courts,” because I believe that my right to live is far more sacred than the sacred right of property that you and your kind so ably defend.
I don’t tell you this with the expectation of getting justice, but to show my contempt for the whole machinery of law and justice as represented by this and every other court. The Prosecutor lied, but I will accept it as a truth and say again, so that you, Judge Sloane, may not be mistaken as to my attitude:
“To hell with your courts; I know what justice is.”
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCE & IMAGE
The Kentucky Post
(Covington, Kentucky)
-Aug 21, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/760495389/
See also:
Aug 6, 1912, San Francisco Examiner-Jail and Fines
for IWW in San Diego, Sentenced on Aug 5
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/108162169/aug-6-1912-san-francisco/
Aug 8, 1912, Industrial Worker, page 1
“Six Workers Found Guilty”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n20-w176-aug-08-1912-IW.pdf
Aug 15, 1912, Industrial Worker, page 1
“Men Defy Corrupt Court”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n21-w177-aug-15-1912-IW.pdf
Aug 27, 1912, Evansville IN Press
-IWW Jack Whyte Addresses the Court re San Diego Free Speech Fight
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101721041/aug-27-1912-evansville-in-press-iww/
Free Speech for Radicals
-by Theodore Schroeder
Attorney for Free Speech League
Riverside CT, 1916
https://archive.org/details/cu31924030461630/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater
Chapter 9-History of the San Diego Free Speech Fight
From the N. Y. Call, Sunday issues, March 15 to April 5, 1914.
-pages 116-190
https://archive.org/details/cu31924030461630/page/n129/mode/2up?view=theater
Fellow Worker Jack Whyte Address the Court, page 189
https://archive.org/details/cu31924030461630/page/n201/mode/2up?view=theater
Mother Earth of Sept 1912, page 217
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435071629695&view=2up&seq=249&skin=2021&size=150
CIR V11 p10867
https://books.google.com/books?id=PeweAQAAMAAJ&q=%22jack+whyte%22#v=snippet&q=%22jack%20whyte%22&f=false
Rebel Voices
An IWW Anthology
-ed by Joyce L. Kornbluh
PM Press, Sep 1, 2011
-page 104-5
https://books.google.com/books?id=VbVHEAAAQBAJ
States source: Solidarity of Aug 24, 1912, introduced thus:
The following is a stenographic report of Jack Whyte’s speech before Judge Sloan, of the superior court of San Diego County, California, on being asked why sentence should not be passed [Aug 5th]. He was fined six months and is now at San Diego County jail on a bread and water diet. He is a member of Local 13, I. W. W., and was arrested on a conspiracy charge in the recent San Diego Free Speech Fight.
Tag: Jack Whyte
https://weneverforget.org/tag/jack-whyte/
Tag: San Diego Free Speech Fight of 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/san-diego-free-speech-fight-of-1912/
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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