Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 19, 1912 Duluth, Minnesota – Trade Unionists of the North Remember Visit of Miss Flynn
From the Duluth Labor World of February 17, 1912
ELIZABETH FLYNN HELPING THE STRIKERS
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn The Boston Globe February 13, 1912
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, well known in Duluth, is at present hard at work lecturing in New York for the benefit of the strikers at Lawrence, Mass.
Miss Flynn, clad in her flaming red cloak and hood, visited Duluth several years ago and appeared before the public many times, giving her Socialistic talks. She made many friends here and Duluth people who met or heard her are watching her progress in New York with interest.
Recently people were turned away from the theater at which she was giving a course of lectures. All the money thus earned she turns over to the striker for help in their cause.
You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 14, 1908
New York, New York – Young Socialist Returns to Parent’s Home
For the past few weeks, the news of the arrest of the husband of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has been published in newspapers across the nation. For example, we have this item from Alabama’s Centreville Press of February 13th:
Socialist’s Husband Arrested.
John A. Jones, husband of Elizabeth Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator, was arrested at Aurora, Minn., on a charge of incendiarism.
—–
At this time Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is in New York City and her husband, Jack Jones, is out of jail and has recently been interviewed by a reporter for the Duluth News Tribune.
From Mississippi’s Vicksburg Evening Post of February 3, 1908:
PRISON HALTS HONEYMOON OF GIRL
—–
New York, Feb. 3.-With a romance written in suffering, a lifetime crowded into a few months, through which the divine fire of a cause gleams like a beacon light, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator whose words have at seventeen made her known across a continent, has returned ill and exhausted to her father’s home in New York City.
It is just two years ago since Miss Flynn, then a student in the Morris Heights High School, became affiliated with the Socialist movement. Gifted with a quick brain and a facile oratory, she seized upon the dramatic possibilities of the great struggle of labor and capital and spoke as one inspired.
The Flynns are New England folk, the father of a Bowdoin College man and civil engineer, whose difficulties with a company which refused him the money he had earned first aroused the thoughtful Elizabeth, eldest of a brood of four, to interest in the situation. When the Flynns left their Connecticut home to come to New York the girl, already deep in socialist literature, became associated with the leaders in this city. But she was a child, too young to become a member of the association, therefore she was permitted to speak from their platform only as an affiliated agitator.
It’s great to fight for freedom
with a Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday December 15, 1907
Northern Minnesota – Miss Flynn Tours and Speaks
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of Dec 14, 1907:
Miss Flynn’s Tour a Success
I arrived in Duluth, Minn., on Friday, November 14th, and on Sunday afternoon, November 16th, the first meeting was held in Superior, Wis., with an audience of 300 people. The second was held the same evening in Duluth, Minn., with an attendance of from 600 to 700 people. At the two meetings the people were enthusiastic in demonstrating their appreciation of industrial unionism. The capitalist papers gave us extended write-ups, copies of which have been forwarded to headquarters, carefully omitting the portions of the talks which dealt with themselves and “the panic.” The chairman of both meetings was Fellow Worker Zollner, a fighter of ability in this vicinity.
The first range town we visited was Proctor, Minn., the home of the “Duluth, Mesaba and Northern” transportation workers. The round-houses and yards of this ore-carrying road are located here, all of it being stock-trust property. The company very generously gave their employers a special train into Duluth to see the “Land of Nod,” which was playing there that night, which had the effect of diminishing the size of our audience. “The Land of Nod” is better for the proletarians than an industrial awakening. Miss Flynn promised to come again, however-one hundred times, if necessary-to get the doctrines of industrial unionism before the workers. Let the company take notice.
—————
—————
