This is one of the great battles
for the members of the working class
and we must stand by our boys.
They fought for us.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Hellraisers Journal, Friday March 2, 1917
From the Industrial Worker: Miss Flynn Speaks for Everett Prisoners
The Everett Defense News Letter of February 17th reported that Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had recently returned from a speaking tour on behalf of the Everett Prisoners’ Defense Committee:
MISS FLYNN HAS
SUCCESSFUL TOUR.Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has just returned from a speaking trip through Washington, Oregon, Idaho and part of Montana in the interests of the Defense of the 74 victims of Bloody Sunday. Every where the workers have heard eagerly the facts of the tragic and brutal massacre of November 5th and have given willingly of their time, energy and money to help set free our imprisoned fellow workers. Miss Flynn will now be engaged until the trial in the State of Washington and, more especially, in King County.
The Industrial Worker of February 17th offers a report on the speech given by Miss Flynn in Yakima, Washington, during that tour:
IN COLD FOR TWO HOURS.
—–
Once in a while a reporter tells the truth and the editor, being sleepy or tired, lets it go over. In what other way can we account for the extremely fair statement of the Gurley Flynn meeting given by the Yakima Republican:
Two hours is a long time to listen to any one speaker. It is a long time when one sits on the comfortable, fatly-cushioned seats of a theatre. It is still longer when one sits on the hard, wooden benches of the I. W. W. hall. And when one stands, without overcoat, on the streets to hear the stray phrases and sentences which come thru a crowded, narrow doorway, the time is long, indeed.
Yet 650 persons last night sat for two hours, on hard wooden benches, and sat tense and still, to hear Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s defense of the I. W. W. movement. A hundred or more others, unable to wedge themselves into the hall or doorway, shivered on the street as they stood to hear the lecture. Miss Flynn’s voice carried well and they heard most of the address. They heard enough to make them stay to the end of the two-hour appeal.
