Don’t waste any time in mourning-organize.
-Joe Hill
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday May 2, 1917
Seattle, Washington – I. W. W. Honors Martyrs on May Day
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Members and supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World celebrated International Workers’ Day by honoring their martyred dead with a grand march to the graves of three of the five Free Speech Fighters who were murdered at Everett last November. Joe Hill’s ashes were scattered to the winds, after-which the marchers made their way to the King County jail to sing for the I. W. W. boys imprisoned there.
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Events of the day are described by Walker C. Smith:
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[In Seattle there was held] one of the largest demonstrations of Labor ever held in the Pacific Northwest…International Labor day was celebrated by the united radicals of the entire city and surrounding district. Meeting at the I. W. W. Hall at 10:30 in the morning, thousands of men and women fell into a marching line of fours, a committee pinning a red rose or carnation on each marcher. Fifteen solid blocks of these marchers, headed by Wagner’s Band, then wended their way through the streets to Mount Pleasant Cemetery and grouped themselves around the graves of Baran, Gerlot and Looney-Labor’s martyred dead.
There upon the hillside, in accordance with his final wishes, the ashes of Joe Hill were scattered to the breeze, and with them were cast upon the air and on the graves beneath, the ashes of Jessie Lloyd and Patrick Brennan, two loyal fighters in the class struggle who had died during the year just passed.
A fitting song service, with a few simple words by speakers in English, Russian, Swedish, Hungarian and Italian, in commemoration of those who had passed away, completed the tribute to the dead.
Nor were the living forgotten! The great crowd drifted from the graveside, but hundreds of them reassembled almost automatically and marched to the King County jail. Standing there, just outside of the very heart of the great city, the crowd, led by the I. W. W. choir, sang song after song from revolutionary hymnal-the little red song book, each song being answered by one from the free speech prisoners confined in the jail. The service lasted until late in the day and, to complete the one labor day that is as broad as the world itself, a meeting was held in one of the largest halls of the city [where a] collection for the Everett Prisoners’ Defense was taken and at the request of the imprisoned men one half of the proceeds was sent to aid in the liberation of Tom Mooney and his fellow victims of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association in San Francisco.
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
The Everett Massacre
A History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry
-by Walker C. Smith
IWW, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001106557
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31810/31810-h/31810-h.htm
May Day Celebration
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=image;size=100;id=mdp.39015002672635;page=root;seq=234;num=228
IMAGES
May Day 1917 Seattle, At Graveside of Martyrs, Everett Massacre, WCS 294
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31810/31810-h/31810-h.htm#Page_294
May Day 1917 Seattle, Singing to Prisoners, Everett Massacre, WCS 277
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;page=root;view=image;size=100;seq=283;num=277
Everett Massacre Martyrs of Nov 5, 1916
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/pnwlabor/page/1
See also:
Mother Earth, Volume 12, Issue 4
(New York, New York)
Emma Goldman, June 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=DtBCAQAAMAAJ
Mother Earth, June 1917
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=DtBCAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA95
Correspondence
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=DtBCAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA125
CORRESPONDENCE
Seattle, Wash., May 1, 1917.
MY DEAR EMMA:
Just got home after an all day’s glorious International day celebration, and found your letter waiting for me. I am tired as a dog to-night, but have renewed hope for the working class. We, the International Workers’ Defense League of Seattle, of which I am a member and one who first started its organization, have been agitating for a general strike of the Pacific coast workers for May 1st as a protest against the hanging of Tom Mooney. When this idea was first sprung at the League by F. H. Brown, it was given the laugh, but just the same the idea grew until many of the unions had passed by unanimous vote to strike, and it was endorsed by the Central Labor Council. The time was set at from 11 A. M. to 11:10 A. M., a ten minute protest strike. While it was only ten minutes, it was effective in that it made the masters sit up and take notice. Many of the workers quit for the whole day.
We had a parade from the I. W. W. hall to the cemetery on Queen’s Own Hill where the murdered Everett victims sleep. And we also made it the occasion for the scattering of the ashes of Joe Hill, Jessie Lloyd and Pat Brimsen. Lloyd and Brimsen were both members of the I. W. W, in Seattle, and it was their wish that their ashes be scattered to the breeze. The ashes of these two workers together with Joe Hill’s ashes were scattered over the graves of the boys who died in Everett’s battle.
The parade was the grandest spectacle I ever witnessed in Seattle. We were four abreast in the line of march which extended from the I. W. W. Hall clear up to the Washington Hotel. Several thousand were in line; each member of the parade wore a red carnation. The American flag was carried at the head of the procession, and for this reason the Russian workers declined to march in the line but formed on the opposite side of the street and marched to the cemetery with us carrying the RED FLAG. All hail to the Russian rebels!
As the idea of the general strike grew, so grew this idea and by the time we were half way to the cemetery, someone had raised the red flag in our ranks. At the graves, speeches were delivered in the following languages: Italian, Russian, Swedish, Hungarian and English. The International and many songs written by Joe Hill were sung. From the cemetery we went to the county jail where many of the Everett prisoners are incarcerated. We gathered around the jail and sang songs to those on the inside. The prisoners joined in the songs and let it be known that it was only their bodies that were in bondage, and surely not the minds and spirit of this courageous group.
In rebuttal of the defense, at the trial of Tracy, the State put George Reese on the witness stand. He is the detective who was on the Verona with the I. W. W. on that fateful day. He is just one more Judas, and I wonder if |he will have manhood left to the amount of a grain of mustard seed and will go off and hang himself. (He might make good fertilizer for skunk and cabbage.) I had hoped all the time that the rumor that Reese was a Pinkerton would prove false. Not that I had any particular friendship for him, but the fact that I have known him for about four years, and knew him as a speaker for the I. W. W. and a big husky, strong man physically, and then to think that he has turned out to be such a weakling. Physical strength does not seem to stand for principle or have much to do with it.
Berkman is a wonder in his tireless efforts and enthusiasm for the San Francisco boys. He has done splendid work. In fact, all his work is done with such unceasing effort that I wonder what it is that drives him on while others fall by the wayside. The Mooney case looks better now, but instead of a new trial he should have his liberty at once.
Affectionately,
MINNIE RIMERS.
