Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 4, 1912 “The Shame of San Diego” by Hartwell S. Shippey, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of May 1912:
The Shame of San Diego
by HARTWELL S. SHIPPEY
[Part II of II]
Up to and preceding March 14, the fight was the conventional free speech fight; but on that date (Sunday) the police took the initiative and ceased booking their prisoners, though the original captives who are charged with criminal conspiracy and jail breaking are still reposing behind the bars. (The “jail breaking” consisted of supposed smashing of jail windows by prisoners who were denied food and water and were compelled to drink from the toilet.) At a meeting held in front of the city jail, outside of the proscribed district, the fire department was called upon and three fire engines played powerful streams of water upon the speakers, knocking down Mrs. Emerson, Miss McKamey, Mrs. Wightman, a religious speaker, but a courageous and high-minded woman, Miss Ruth Wightman, 44 years of age, and overturning a baby carriage, the baby being swept into the gutter by the heavy stream of water.
Mrs. Ray Holden, an innocent by stander, was clubbed over the abdomen by a guardian of the “peace,” being unconscious for two hours following. When her husband called at the police station to investigate, he was locked up and a charge of sending in false fire-alarms was preferred against him.
Egged on by the violent and incendiary press, the local real estate dealers and other capitalists and members of the M. and M. formed themselves into vigilance committees and mob law was instituted. With the connivance and open aid of the police, bands of semi-disguised ruffians, appeared nightly at the police station, from whence, at the dead of night automobile loads of prisoners, industrial unionists, trades unionists in good standing, Socialists, and some with no affiliation, were carried from twenty to thirty miles into the hills and there beaten, clubbed, kicked while helpless on the ground and left with bloody heads and bruised bodies and with threats of death should they return. But return they did, to make affidavits of their persecutions.
[Martyr Michael Hoey]
March 28 died Michael Hoey, the first martyr of the San Diego battle. An old man, was Michael, but in perfect health, having walked 140 miles to the seat of war from Imperial Valley in the space of 5½ days. Kicked in the stomach and groin by a policeman, Hoey complained continually of pain in the swelling on his side but was laughed at by the official physician, Dr. Magee, until Hoey was removed from the jail and taken to Agnew Hospital by the Free Speech League, remaining there until his death. He was cared for by Dr. Leon De Ville, a Socialist, and a devoted soldier of the revolution.
[The Funeral of Michael Hoey]
The following Saturday, March 29, sorrowing fellow-battlers of Michael Hoey’s gathered on a vacant lot where, under the pitying smile of sunny California’s blue sky, they paid their last respects to the fallen hero of labor’s struggle. Waving sadly over his bier was the red flag, the emblem of brotherhood for which Michael Hoey had offered up his life. Not an insignia of violence and hatred, as conceived in the maggot-eaten brains of hired murderers and prostituted “journalists,” but a token of peace and love. And then-ah, well is this article entitled “The Shame of San Diego”-then Harvey Sheppard, a minion of armed and brutal violence, invaded the sanctity of their victim’s funeral and wrested the banner of brotherhood from the hands of the unresisting workingman who bore it, and placed the bearer under arrest! As I write all this I am seized with a feeling that the readers will deem that my story is an exaggeration. But the official organ of the trades-unionists, the Labor Leader, and the Weekly Herald, an independent, profit-making sheet, will fully verify my tale.
Vincent St. John, secretary-treasurer of the I. W. W., has published a reward of five thousand dollars for the conviction of those who were the cause of Hoey’s death.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 3, 1912 “The Shame of San Diego” by Hartwell S. Shippey, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of May 1912:
The Shame of San Diego
by HARTWELL S. SHIPPEY
[Part I of II]
SPAT upon, cursed, reviled; the victims of lying calumny and vile vituperation; the recipients of farcical indignities on the part of the legal lackeys of an organized oligarchy; beaten, kicked, clubbed, starved by brass-bound blue-coated Cossacks and vigilantes, the scorned and despised members of the I. W. W. hold San Diego-on-the-bay in their grasp.
Laughing, only passively resistant, singing their songs of solidarity, these homeless, propertyless, countryless “hoboes,” incarcerated in the iron-bound bastiles of smiling San Diego, are clamoring not for physical comforts or luxuries, but for mental food, the works of Marx, Spencer, Renan, Rousseau and Dietzgen.
Even without definite knowledge of the rhythmic tread of the thousands marching to their rescue, these modern Crusaders, buoyed up by their indomitable idealism, secure in the virtue of their cause, have that great faith in the loyalty of their kind to feel, if they cannot know, that theirs will be the victory.
Rivaling the Coeur d’Alene and Colorado, the San Diego fight for free speech and free press will enter the pages of revolutionary history as a stupendous example of red-blooded men heroically enduring every conceivable form of “Man’s [perfect?] self-control in the face of fiendishly inhumanity to man” and preserving brutal persecution.
San Diego may congratulate herself on being the instrument by which two socially valuable bits of education have been given to the world. First the world has come to know the extremes to which an overbearing despotism will go in its efforts to crush labor; and second, it is being demonstrated that, under certain conditions, revolutionary and conservative branches of the labor movement will line up together solidly and unitedly.
For, know ye, the battle is not primarily one fought for a short hundred yards of city street, nor yet for free speech and press alone. It is, at bottom, a struggle on the part of labor for the privilege of organizing and educating its kind to the end that the products of labor shall be rendered unto labor, and that better living conditions for the toilers shall make of this modern miasma of human misery a more fit state for human beings to occupy.
What precipitated this struggle in the non-commercial city nestling on the hills above a beautiful bay with the blue mountains rising in the distance?
California will, barring intervening preventatives, hold two great fairs in 1915, one at San Francisco and one at San Diego. A great amount of labor will be employed in instituting and conducting these fairs. Organized labor, as represented by the A. F. of L., insists on having a voice in determining the rate of wages it will receive and the conditions under which it will work. Organized capital, dominated by the M. and M., declares that IT shall be the sole arbiter in reference to these questions. Organized capital insists that the open shop shall prevail in California; while organized labor realizes that the closed shop is its life-principle. Knowing that it cannot prevail against the unions when there are no idle men to take their places, the M. and M., controlling the press of the country as it does, has systematically published misinformation throughout the country to the effect that jobs are plentiful in California-to the end that jobless men may flood the labor market of the coast and imperil the power of the unions.
The chief function of the Industrial Workers of the World on the coast has been, and is, an education of the unemployed to an understanding of the interests of labor that prevents the out-of-works from acting in the selfish and cowardly role of strike-breaker or scab. The M. and M. recognizes this menace to their plans and strikes at the vitals of this education by an attempted suppression of free speech and press, these forms of freedom being imperative to the educators of the floating population.
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.
Among the women soaked were Mrs. Laura Emerson and Juanita McKamey, both of whom are under the ban of the police. –Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1912 —————
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 23, 1912 San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Stumpy Reports on Vicious Police Action
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of March 21, 1912:
SAN DIEGO IS ABOUT ALL IN Vicious Actions Show Fight Is About Won ———-
Los Angeles Times March 11, 1912
To the “Worker:”-The fifth week of the free speech fight here has made a seething cauldron of human passions in this would-be exposition burg of fleas and oppression.
The M. and M. has raised a fund of five million dollars to crush organized labor in general and the I. W. W. in particular on the Pacific coast, and they have selected San Diego as the point of attack, though they are not overlooking a chance to make trouble in various other places. There has been 216 arrests to datefor street speaking, and over 200 of these are in jail now and intend to stay there until free speech is established. More men are coming in every day and speaking in the restricted district. The city and county jails here are full and 70 men have been sent to the jails of other counties. Tomorrow the city will start building a stockade where unknown amounts of rock are to be broken by I. W. W.’s.
We have the support of all classes of labor here in this fight. The carpenters union has levied a fine of ten dollars a day on any of its members who will work on the city stockade. All others are equally as loyal.
Two evenings ago an enthusiastic meeting was held in front of the U. S. Grant Hotel (just outside the sacred ground) and the aristocratic guests of that ten-dollar-a-day dump of snobbery were thoroughly acquainted with San Diego’s infamy.
Although we were clearly outside the forbidden ground the bosses could not forgive the telling of the truth. At the street meeting last evening a crippled man bought ten “Workers” of a newsboy for free distribution, when the brave cop who wears badge No. 10 struck him a terrific blow and valiantly landed the poor cripple on his back.
Today, March 10, has seen the climax of police brutality and the patience of the citizens has been tested almost to the breaking point. In the morning a meeting was held in front of the county jail to cheer the boys who are behind the bars. Not a policeman was in sight, and the meeting was very orderly and soon adjourned to the city jail to give the boys there a cheer and a song.
Here the scene was different. It was truly representative of Russia-or San Diego. More than a score of uniformed police and plain clothes thugs were lined up n the sidewalk in front of the jail. Behind a heavily barred gate, with blanched face, stood the infamous captain of police, Sehon, directing the work of brutality of his minions.
The meeting had proceeded but a few minutes when the police were ordered to turn the hose on the crowd. In this they were no respecters of persons. Hundreds of men were drenched and knocked down by the force of more than 100 pounds pressure per square inch. One man was knocked down by a police man before the hose was turned on him. Four young girls were nearly drowned before they could get out of the way. A woman past sixty years of age was struck on the side of the head by the stream of water and nearly paralyzed. Mrs. Emerson, who was speaking at the time, had the box washed from under her feet, and she and Mrs. Wightman were soaked [also soaked was Juanita McKamey, the Joan of Arc of San Diego]. A man named Patterson put an American flag over his shoulders and stepped into the street, but even this was no protection, as one bull tore it from his shoulders and another hustled him off to jail. Later Patterson’s father tried to take him some dry clothes but the brave bulls denied him that privilege. A woman who was going from a neighbors to her own home was drenched and driven by the stream as long as she was in range. A man and his wife who were going home from church with their baby in a buggy were struck and the baby nearly drowned before they could get away.
Many other instances of brutality are reported, but they did not come under my personal notice.
Aside from the wholly unwarranted action of the police nothing was more noticeable than the tone of subdued anger among the thousands of spectators. The brave (?) actions of the noble (?) police continued for nearly three hours, and every minute of the time the crowd could have been led to crush the entire police force by the sheer weight of numbers, but the I. W. W.’s were everywhere counseling peace. Only for this cool-headed action it is not doubted that the streets of San Diego would tonight be drenched in blood that would take many streams of water to wash away.
The police have but one more card to play.
The daily papers have followed Otis’ lead and are now counselling the murder of the boys in jail. The San Diego Tribune of the 5th inst., has the following works in an editorial: “Why are the tax payers of San Diego compelled to endure this imposition? Simply because the law which these lawbreakers flout prevents the citizens of San Diego from taking the impudent outlaws away from the police and hanging them or shooting them! This would end the trouble in half an hour.” Will they do it?
There is a bunch of the worst gun men of the West here, just “hanging around.” But these men do not come into a trouble zone by accident.
Two men were arrested for speaking tonight. The police have tried a new method. Heretofore there have been twelve to twenty bulls at the corner of 5th and E streets to make arrests, but last night there was but one when the speaking started. In a few minutes, however, 25 bulls came charging down the street at a run, cracking all the heads they could reach. Many were severely injured. One man was knocked insensible and had to be carried from the street. A woman was beaten until her hair was clotted with blood. She, too, was carried from the street. And this is the U. S.! The Mexican line should have been run north of San Diego, then we could have laid the crimes of the police to “Barbarous Mexico” instead of to the Christianized Otis gang.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 28, 1919
New York, New York – Defense Committee Statement on Persecution of I. W. W.
From The Ohio Socialist of March 26, 1919:
Defense Committee Tells of
Persecution of I. W. W.
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The New York Defense Committee of the I. W. W. has issued the following statement in regard to the government’s activities in persecuting that organization:
With the war-time prosecutions being pushed relentlessly by the U. S. government and with a fresh outburst of capitalist persecution everywhere […..against?] radical labor elements, the I. W. W. is being driven to redoubled efforts to raise the large sum needed to protect its members throughout the country and defend the right of the organization to carry on its work as a labor union.
The New York Defense Committee of the I. W. W. has been reorganized and has mapped out an energetic money-raising and publicity campaign. The labor organizations of New York and vicinity and radical groups and individuals throughout the country are going to be appealed to for help in meeting the financial demands of the situation.
The committee, in its appeal for the support of all friends of the radical labor movement, points to the fact that, in addition to 93 I. W. W.’s convicted in the famous Chicago trial last summer and sentenced to 807 years’ imprisonment and fined aggregating $2,570,000, 46 members were convicted last January in the Sacramento bomb frame-up. Besides there, 34 more are to be tried in Wichita this month, while 28 are still awaiting trial in Omaha and 27 in Spokane, in addition to scores of individual cases throughout the western states, either under the Espionage act or under state laws against “criminal syndicalism” enacted within the past year for the express purpose of crushing the I. W. W.
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