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Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 12, 1912
Farewell Tribute for Michael Hoey, Martyr of San Diego Free Speech Fight
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 11, 1912:
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MICHAEL HOEY–MARTYR
(By Laura Payne Emerson).
Fellow Workers: I count it an honor to be accorded the privilege of paying a tribute, on this occasion, to our martyred dead fellow-worker, Michael Hoey. He was a soldier in the war for industrial freedom. Early in life he joined the forces that were making for better conditions for his class, the working class, and to the day when he fell mortally wounded, and was carried from the field of battle, never did he falter.
It was in San Diego, Cal. A fight for free speech was on. An infamous ordinance had been passed by the common council denying the natural and constitutional right of free speech and public assembly to certain citizens. Many brave souls had undertaken to test the odious law by attempting to speak on the streets, and had met the policeman’s club and the jail. Among those on the fire line in that contest was Michael Hoey, a man sixty-three years of age. When told by a friend that he was too old to enlist in such a fight, and that he should leave it to younger and more vigorous men, he replied:
I have nothing to give but myself and life is not worth living
when all liberty is gone.That night, amid a cheering crowd, his fine face appeared for a moment, while his voice was raised in a last appeal to his class to stand firm for human rights! Then!! Burly guardians of the law snatched him down, and with kicks and clubs, jail and starvation, silenced his voice forever.
Shall we say forever? Can it be that such souls die? If, it be true that the sea of oblivion engulfs those who leave this shore, and their voices are hushed in everlasting night, then Michael Hoey is dead; but from his ashes will spring ten thousand soldiers of freedom more powerful than he, and the message upon his dying lips will be carried by millions of voices, shouted from the housetops and mountains of the world.
But if, as many teach, there is no death, and what seems so is but transition; if within the infinitude of nature there is room and possibility for all creatures, and beyond the sunset gates of earth the countless so-called dead survive, then Michael Hoey is not dead, but with the hosts of martyrs to the cause of progress he stands today transfigured, perhaps, in form and face, wearing a garb and mien to suit the time and place, yet the same in mind. If so, then the victims of the snow-covered plains of Siberia, the dripping, loathsome vaults of San Juan Alua [San Juan de Ulúa], the Haymarket Riot; the Joans of Arcs, the Ferrers, and all the thousands from gallows, stake, bull pen and bastile, are with him today, and with us in our struggle for the abolition of this capitalistic hell.
Our fellow worker was a hero in the strife. The army with which he marched are not mounted, booted, nor spurred, neither do they carry arms; but from Maine to California their camp fires are burning, and from ocean to ocean the world over their banner floats. What army is this? The grand army of organized labor. They hope to win, not by taking arms, but by laying down tools. England at this moment is engaged in a desperate conflict, where by these tactics the power of that army is shown as never before in the history of the world. Michael Hoey belonged to that army, though on this side of the sea, and freedom of speech is necessary to its existence.
That army is becoming entrenched and its recruits fast being mustered wherever wage slaves bend beneath their burdens, wherever capitalism has laid its withering hand. They hope to win peaceably, but if that be not possible, no matter, they will win. They must.
And, today, standing besides the bier of this, our fellow worker, martyr in the world’s greatest revolution, we solemnly swear to carry on the battle with renewed energy, and to never stop until we avenge his death, and achieve victory in the cause for which he died.
And now, friend, fellow-worker, we leave you to your rest. Far from friends and relatives of other days, we are your friends. Today after your long laborious life you repose beneath a cover of flowers. Your weary body, oft neglected in life, is tenderly cared for in death. Such is the irony of fate. You who, no doubt, as others of your class, have oft been driven from place to place with no shelter, nowhere to lay your head, now find a place of abode where hunger shall not overtake you, and where no policeman’s club will bruise, you, nor gruff voice bid you “move on!” You have fought your fight, you have finished your work. Although a private in the ranks you wear a laurel wreath upon your brow. You have given your all, a Christ could do no more.
“AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL.”
WE SHALL NOT FORGET.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Laura Payne Emerson Make This Hell a Heaven, Ind Pnr p12, Mar 1921
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=sY9ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.RA1-PA12
Industrial Worker
(Spokane, Washington)
-Apr 11, 1912
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v4n03-w159-apr-11-1912-IW.pdf
See also:
May 17, 1912, Washington County (OK) Sentinel
Michael Hoey, of Bartlesville OK, Killed in San Diego.
Funeral Oration by Laura Payne Emerson
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99604429/may-17-1912-wash-co-sentinel-hoey/
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason of April 6, 1912:
Michael Hoey, Murdered by Jailers, Martyr of San Diego Free Speech Fight
Hellraisers Journal: Industrial Worker of March 21, 1912:
Police Turn Fire Houses on San Diego Protest Meeting as Laura Emerson Speaks
Tag: San Diego Free Speech Fight of 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/san-diego-free-speech-fight-of-1912/
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The Industrial Workers of the World – Willard Losinger
Lyrics by Laura Payne Emerson