Tag: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Wins Fight for Free Speech in Philadelphia for Second Time

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910

—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 14, 1911
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Freed

From The Philadelphia Inquirer of June 13, 1911:

WOMAN SOCIALIST FREED
———- 
Court Grants Appeal From
Magistrate and Remits Fine

EGF, ISR p606, Apr 1911

Appealing from the decision of Magistrate Scott, who fined her $10 for obstructing the highways, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a labor organizer and social worker, received a favorable decision from Judge Kinsey in Quarter Sessions Court yesterday by having the magistrate’s action reversed and the fine remitted.

This is the second time within a week that Miss Flynn has succeeded in having the court overthrow the action of the police of the Twentieth and Buttonwood streets station. She was arrested twice while speaking in the vicinity of the Baldwin Locomotive Workers.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Women in Industry Should Organize” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF Organize Women, IW p4, June 1, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 3, 1911
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: Organize Women in Strong Industrial Unions

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 1, 1911:

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY SHOULD ORGANIZE
———-

BY ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

EGF, ISR p606, Apr 1911

From the viewpoint of a revolutionary socialist there is certainly much to criticize in the present labor organizations. They have their shortcomings, of so pronounced a character that many thoughtful but pessimistic workers despair of practical benefit from assisting or considering them further. Yet unionism remains a vital and a burning question to the toilers, both men and women.

[…..]

Little need be said of he seven million wage-earning women. That unionism is their one great weapon, hardly admits of argument. Even more than their brother toilers do these underpaid and overworked women need co-operative effort on their own behalf. Yet many of their experiences with the old unions have been neither pleasant nor encouraging. Strike after strike of cloak makers, shirt waist makers, dressmakers, etc on the East Side of New York has been exploited by rich faddists for woman’s suffrage, etc., until the points at issue were lost sight of in the blare of automobile horns attendant on their coming and going. A band of earnest, struggling workers made the tail of a suffrage kite in the hands of women of the very class driving the girls to lives of misery or shame, women who could have financed the strike to a truly successful conclusion were they seriously disposed, is indeed a deplorable sight. But the final settlement of the many widely advertised strikers left much to be desired.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The General Strike” by William D. Haywood -from Speech at New York City, March 1911, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Make Cp Suffer Pocket Book, GS by BBh, ISR p681, May 1911—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 17, 1911
“The General Strike” -from Speech by Big Bill Haywood

From the International Socialist Review of May 1911:

HdLn General Strike GS by BBH, ISR p680, May 1911

[Part I of II]

BBH, ISR p68, Aug 1910Comrades and Fellow-Workers:

I came tonight to speak to you on the general strike. And this night, of all the nights in the year, is a fitting time. Forty years ago today there began the greatest general strike known in modern history, the French Commune; a strike that required the political powers of two nations to subdue, namely, France and the iron hand of a Bismarck government of Germany. That the workers would have won that strike had it not been for the copartnership of the two nations, there is to my mind no question. They would have overcome the divisions of opinions among themselves. They would have re-established the great national workshops that existed in Paris and throughout France in 1848. The world would have been on the highway toward an industrial democracy, had it not been for the murderous compact between Bismarck and the government of Versailles.

We are met tonight to consider the general strike as a weapon of the working class. I must admit to you that I am not well posted on the theories advanced by Jaures, Vandervelde, Kautsky and others who write and speak about the general strike. But I am not here to theorize, not here to talk in the abstract but to get down to the concrete subject of whether or not the general strike is an effective weapon for the working class. There are vote-getters and politicians who waste their time coming into a community where 90 per cent of the men have no vote, where the women are disfranchised 100 per cent and where the boys and girls under age of course are not enfranchised. Still they will speak to these people about the power of the ballot, and they never mention a thing about the power of the general strike.

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Hellraisers Journal: Miss Flynn Speaks before New England Civil Liberties Committee on Behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 14, 1921
Boston, Massachusetts – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Sacco and Vanzetti

From The Boston Daily Globe of March 12, 1921:

MISS FLYNN RAPS “RED” HYSTERIA
———-
Criticises Method Used in
Prosecuting “Holdup Men”
———-
Asks Twentieth Century Club if
Justice Is Being Done Immigrants
———

EGF, Invitation f Speech re Sacco Vanzetti, Boston, Mar 11, 1921

In defending Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the two Italians who are to be tried for the murder and robbery of a paymaster in East Braintree some months ago, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, at the Twentieth Century Club last night [March 11th], denounced the methods used in prosecuting them, warmly upheld the foreign born workmen, or their children, as the victims of gross misconceptions among the so-called “American” population, excoriated this same attitude as unjustified, stupid and cruel-the product of fear and the “Red” hysteria.

Miss Flynn spoke before the New England Civil Liberties Committee.

[Said Miss Flynn:]

If a man is active in the labor movement and is trying to bring about better working conditions in industry, we have been taught to look behind charges brought against him. The Mooney case taught us to investigate before conviction, not afterward. We are willing to assume that men interested in labor movements are not of the criminal type.

That may not be a good reason in law, but it is perfectly true. No one with a studious, thoughtful mind can on the spur of the moment plan a crime requiring the skill of practiced criminals.

Touching on the popular prejudice against the alien element, she said she had read a sketch by Owen Wister, in which Mr. Wister compared aliens to guests within our house, who. if they did not like our ways, are privileged to leave, but not privileged to break up our home.

[She said:]

Yes, but they are not guests who sit in the parlor playing the piano while we are out in the kitchen doing the work. Not by a good deal. We are sitting in the parlor and they are washing the dishes, scrubbing the floor, fixing the furnace and doing all the drudgery we can load on them. If they were really guests we might expect them to reciprocate; but we expect them to do all the work and have nothing to say about the conditions under which they do it.

John S. Codman presided.

———-

[Invitation and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: New York City Longshoremen Protest Torture of Fresno Free Speech Fighters by Fire Department

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote Acton Speaks Louder, IW p1, Feb 9, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1911
New York City – Longshoreman’s Local Protests Torture of Fresno I. W. W.

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of February 9, 1911:

Fresno FSF, Fire Brigade v IWW, IW p1, Feb 9, 1911

FIRE ENGINES NOT FOR TORTURE
———-

NEW YORK LONGSHOREMEN PROTEST AGAINST BRUTALITY OF POLICE AND OTHER LEGALIZED THUGS IN FRESNO-FIRE DEPARTMENTS ARE NOT KEPT FOR EXECUTIONERS.

To the “Industrial Worker.”

We, the members of Local No. 791, International Longshoremen’s Association of New York, hereby enter our protest against the inhuman, un-American and non-constitutional treatment meted out to the members of the I. W. W. by the city government of Fresno, California.

We protest against the curtailment of free speech to one body of men, when the constitutional right is accorded to others freely, especially when the members of the I. W. W. desire simply to discuss industrial matters or make known their views on industrial conditions.

We protest against the methods used to suppress such meetings and discussions and insist that the right of free assemblage be granted to all lawful meetings, whether of an industrial social or religious character.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Fresno Police Show Brutality”-by Fellow Worker Jack Whyte

Janet RayeFree Speech Fights
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Quote John Whyte, re Fresno Aroused Working Class, IW p1, Dec 22, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 7, 1911
Fresno, California – Brutal Police, Fellow Workers Not Weakening

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of January 5, 1911:

Fresno FSF, 500 Men Wanted, Bnr HdLn IW p1, Jan 5, 1911

FRESNO POLICE SHOW BRUTALITY
———-

THE TRUTH JUST IN-MORE POLICE BRUTALITY-HELL IN FRESNO.
MEN ARE NOT WEAKENING.
———-

[-by Jack Whyte]

Fresno FSF, Plea for Men fr Jack Whyte, IW p1, Jan 5, 1911The last week has been a very busy one amongst the members on the firing line. The workers have been treated to all kinds of Christmas presents by their kind Christian masters, even your fellow members laying in jail. They had a hunger strike. Were treated to the Water Cure, first by the jailor and then by the fire department. They were compelled to walk around all night up to their knees in water, and then we had the slimy, reptile press of this city tell us the reason we were handed all those presents was that we used vulgar and obscene language towards the sheriff and his lackeys. (Great joke, isn’t it?) The following is the facts about the so-called riot and what led up to it.

On December 22 the police arrested a Frenchman (not a Mexican , as the papers stated), and charged him with drunkenness. When they brought him into the jail he was handcuffed. Four officers jumped on him, beating him up unmercifully. Our boys protested and they also protested against the actions of the sheriff, who stood idly by and made no attempt to stop this one-sided battle. This poor drunk was so badly beaten up that they did not dare take him up to court the next morning. For telling the sheriff and his lackeys what they thought of him, the boys were put on a bread and water diet, which they refused, preferring to go on a hunger strike.

At 3 p. m. on the 23d I was arrested and charged with vagrancy ad was an eyewitness and partaker of all that happened to the boys on December 23. 

At 4 p. m. they came around with the bread. The boys refused it. Some one proposed that we SING THE RED FLAG FOR SUPPER. We did. We kept on singing until a crowd of citizens gathered around the jail. We took this opportunity of addressing them through the bars. It was the largest street meeting we every had in Fresno. This was too much for the sensitive nerves of Day Jailor Jones. He proceeded to quiet the boys in the usual brutal way. He came down to the bull pen and turned the fire hose on the boys. We protected ourselves as best we could, using the mattress and blankets for a barricade. After playing this hose on the boys for two hours they only laughed at him for his trouble. He then called out the fire department. Then the trouble started.

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Hellraisers Journal: The World Tomorrow: “Sacco and Vanzetti” by Mary Heaton Vorse – A Visit to Dedham Jail

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 5, 1921
Dedham, Massachusetts – A Visit with Nicola Sacco, Gallant Fighter

From The World Tomorrow of January 1921:

Sacco and Vanzetti

By MARY HEATON VORSE

Ad Sacco n Vanzetti Defense, Liberator p2, Jan 1921WE drove through the sweet New England towns on our way to the jail in Dedham , where Nicola Sacco has been sitting for six months , deprived of all occupation, waiting his trial.

He is accused of having killed two men on April 15th and having made off in an automobile with $ 18,000 from the pay roll of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Plant in South Braintree. Labor is again on trial in Massachusetts.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti is also accused of this crime. But he is not in Dedham Jail because he has already begun serving a fifteen year sentence in Charlestown. On December 24th, 1919 , there was an attempted hold-up in Bridgewater of another shoe company. No arrests were made-not until May 5th, 1920. There were eighteen people who swore an alibi for Vanzetti. Eighteen people testified that on the afternoon and evening of December 24th Vanzetti was selling eels in Plymouth, for eels on Christmas Eve are to Italians what turkeys are to us on Thanksgiving. These witnesses knew Vanzetti very well, for he was a fish peddler in Oldtown, where they lived. But the testimony of these eighteen people did not count with the American jury. There were three people who identified Vanzetti as the man whom they had seen six months before driving in an automobile, from which shots were fired in Bridgewater. One of the women who identified Vanzetti was blind in one eye. But their identification convicted him.

As for Sacco, not one of the people brought in to identify him swear that this was the man they saw shooting, yet he is held without bail.

But Sacco and Vanzetti are offenders of another sort than criminal offenders. They have both taken an active part as labor leaders among the Italians. Not only were they gallant fighters, both of them, but they were inconveniently holding meetings about Salsedo– Salsedo, who went crazy—maybe—and on May 1st jumped from the fourteenth floor window of the Post Office Building in New York City, where he had been illegally detained by the Department of Justice agents for months—the only man who died in Mr. Palmer’s great May Day revolution. Among the Italians there is a ghastly suspicion that Salsedo did not jump-anyway, it was mighty inconvenient having young men holding meetings about him.

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Hellraisers Journal: Baby Boy Born to IWW General Executive Board Member, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, My Aim in Life, Spk Rv p7, July 8, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 14, 1910
New York, New York – Baby Boy Born to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

From the Industrial Worker of June 4, 1910:

IWW Exec Brd Member EGF Gives Birth to New FW, IW p1, June 4, 1910

I. W. W. General Executive Board Member
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn:

IWW EGF on Exec Board ed, IW p2, June 11, 1910, Spk Rv p9, July 9, 1909

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Hellraisers Journal: Spokane Free Speech Warrior Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Now Mother of Baby Boy in New York City

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 29, 1910
Spokane Fellow Workers Learn of Birth of Baby Boy to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

From the Spokane Spokesman Review of May 28, 1910:

GURLEY FLYNN IS MOTHER
———-

I. W. W.’S EX-LEADER ENDS WARFARE TO CARE FOR SON.
—–
Youngster Will Be Named Frederic Vincent Jones,
According to Letter.
—–

EGF, Restored, Spk Rv p7, July 9, 1909

The birth of a son to Mrs. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Jones, leader of the recent street speaking fight in this city, is announced in a letter received by Mrs. Fred Heslewood, of E703 Providence avenue. Mrs. Jones is with her mother in New York, engaged in the preparation of a book called “Women in the Industrial World.” The boy has been named Frederic Vincent Jones, it is said. It was born May 19.

Mr. Jones, better known by her maiden name, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was the leader of the street speakers in their fight against the authorities last winter. She was arrested on a charge of criminal conspiracy, found guilty by a jury in a justice court, and acquitted on appeal to the superior court. She spent one night in the county jail and made charges of misconduct against the jailers that were taken up later by members of the Woman’s club. She left for New York before the final adjustment of the street speaking difficulties. Her husband’s home is in Missoula, Mont.

———-

[Photograph added is from Spokesman Review of July 9, 1909.]
[Emphasis added.]

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WE NEVER FORGET: Irish Rebel James Connolly, Executed at Kilmainham Goal on Friday May 12, 1916

Janet RayeWe Never Forget
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It was a good clean fight.
The cause cannot die now.
-James Connolly
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Irish Rebels, We Never Forget James Connolly, May 12, 1916

——

JAMES CONNOLLY
—–

Irish Rebels of 1916, James Connolly

During the Easter Rising, James Connolly served as Vice-President of the Irish Republic and Commandant-General of the Dublin Division of the Army of the Irish Republic. He was severely wounded during the fighting at the General Post Office and was carried from there on a stretcher. He was taken from his hospital bed on May 12, 1916, placed in chair because he could not stand, and executed by firing squad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Recalls James Connolly

That fall [1910] James Connolly came to say goodbye to our family. He had been called back to Ireland and was glad to go. He said he was not sorry he had come to America and not sorry to leave. Movements were on foot to organize industrial unions in Ireland. We sat and talked quite a while. The baby was very fretful that day. Connolly, who was well experienced with babies, having had seven, took the baby from me, laid him face down across his knees and patted his back until he burped soundly and then went to sleep. We all felt very sorry to see Connolly go. His family left shortly afterward-the older children not too willingly. This was the last time I saw this good friend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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