Tag: Oscar Carlson

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Coming to Seattle to Assists 74 Fellow Workers Jailed in Everett

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Prison bars do not frighten when
one has truth and right
deep in the heart.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 15, 1917
Seattle, Washington – Miss Flynn, of Mesabi Fame, Coming Soon

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has barely had time to visit her family and her little son in New York City since the long struggle up on the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota came to a close, when now comes the call from the fellow workers of Washington state for assistance to save the 74 imprisoned free speech fighters locked behind the bars of the Snohomish County Jail on charges of first degree murder. She is preparing to answer that call, and her arrival in the the city of Seattle, where the Everett Prisoners Defense Committee is headquartered, is expected soon. This story and further news regarding the Everett situation can be found below.

From The Seattle Star of January 12, 1917:

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN
WILL SPEAK HERE
FOR I. W. W.

Everett Massacre, EGF Coming, Stt Star, Jan 12, 1917

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the well known I. W. W. leader, and reputed the best woman labor speaker in America, is coming to Seattle to assist in the campaign for the defense of the 74 men in jail in Everett. Miss Flynn has just concluded a long campaign in Minnesota in connection with the strike of the iron ore miners on the Mesaba Range.

One of the usual subriquets applied to Miss Flynn by her admirers is that of “the Joan of Arc of the Labor Movement.” She has been a speaker in the working class movement since her 15th year and has since become prominent thru her activities in the Lawrence strike, the Paterson, N. J., strike and other great labor upheavals.

Miss Flynn is billed to speak at a meeting at Dreamland on Sunday, the 21st.

A dance in the evening will be given to raise funds for the defense of the accused.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: Everett Prisoners’ Defense Committee Publishes First News Letter: Attorney Moore on the Job

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 6, 1916
Seattle, Washington – Fred H. Moore, Attorney for the Defense

Fred H Moore, Defense Attorney

The Everett Prisoners’ Defense Committee has been established in Seattle with Herbert Mahler as Secretary-Treasurer and Charles Ashleigh as Publicity Agent. The Committee’s first edition of the Everett Defense News Letter was published on December 2nd. We now find attorney Fred H. Moore on the job, ready to act on behalf of the persecuted free-speech fighters.

Comrade Moore is a Socialist and long-time defender of members of the Industrial Workers of the World in their great struggles on the industrial battle field. He worked on behalf of I.W. W. defendants during the Spokane Free-Speech Fight of 1909, the Fresno Free-Speech Fight of 1910, the San Diego Free-Speech Fight of 1912, and, most notably, he successfully defended Arturo Giovannitti and Joseph Ettor from an attempted frame-up on a trumped-up murder charge following the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912.

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Hellraisers Journal: “The Voyage of the Verona” by Walker C Smith for the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Q: “Who is your leader?”
A: “We are all leaders!”
-Industrial Workers of the World

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 4, 1916
From Seattle, Washington – FW Smith on Everett’s Bloody Sunday

In this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review we find Fellow Worker Walker C. Smith’s description of the tragic voyage of the Verona:

The Voyage of the Verona

By WALKER C. SMITH

FIVE workers and two vigilantes dead, thirty-one workers and nineteen vigilantes wounded, from four to seven workers missing and probably drowned, two hundred ninety-four men and three women of the working class in jail—this is the tribute to the class struggle in Everett, Wash., on Sunday, November 5. Other contributions made almost daily during the past six months have indicated the character of the Everett authorities, but the protagonists of the open shop and the antagonists of free speech did not stand forth in all their hideous nakedness until the tragic trip of the steamer Verona. Not until then was Darkest Russia robbed of its claim to “Bloody Sunday.”

Everett Massacre, Verona Returns to Seattle, ISR Dec 1916

Early Sunday morning on November 5 the steamer Verona started for Everett from Seattle with 260 members of the Industrial Workers of the World as a part of its passenger list. On the steamer Calista, which followed, were 38 more I. W.W. men, for whom no room could be found on the crowded Verona. Songs of the One Big Union rang out over the waters of Puget Sound, giving evidence that no thought of violence was present.

It was in answer to a call for volunteers to enter Everett to establish free speech and the right to organize that the band of crusaders were making the trip. They thought their large numbers would prevent any attempt to stop the street meeting that had been advertised for that afternoon at Hewitt and Wetmore avenues in handbills previously distributed in Everett. Their mission was an open and peaceable one.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Seattle Union Record: IWW Not to Blame for Everett’s Bloody Sunday

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Song on his lips, he came;
Song on his lips, he went;—
This be the token we bear of him,—
Soldier of Discontent!
-Charles Ashleigh

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday November 14, 1916
Everett’s Bloody Sunday: Making Facts Known in Interest of Justice

From the Seattle Union Record of November 11, 1916:

I. W. W. NOT TO BLAME FOR FIGHT
—–

Prominent Attorney Investigating Case Believes
“Citizens Committee” Is Entirely at Fault
in Everett Affair
—–

By THOMAS R. HORNER

IWW Label, 2nd Conv, Sept 17-Oct 3, 1906

So many untruthful statements have been published concerning the I. W. W. trouble last Sunday [November 5th], at Everett, that in the interest of justice the facts should be made known, and when the facts are known the public will see that the blame of the trouble rests wholly on the “Citizen’s Committee,” organized by the mill owners to put down by force and bloodshed the Shingle Weavers and Longshoremen’s strike at that place.

The I. W. W. did not go armed to Everett. They were admonished by their leaders to go unarmed. There may have been a very few who had weapons, but the vast number were without them. This statement is proved by a circumstance that cannot successfully be denied:

When the shooting occurred the boat had just been tied to the dock alongside, and about twenty feet from the broad side of the warehouse. There is unanswerable proof there were at least three parties of deputies entrenched so as to be comparatively safe themselves, yet so they could rake the boat from three angles.

Only Few Bullets From Boat

It is plain that practically all the shots that were fired from the direction of the boat must have struck the warehouse; yet the warehouse shows that only a very few bullets came from that direction. But the riddled condition of the boat shows that the vigilantes fired hundreds of times. Moreover, the splintered sides of the warehouse show that a number of shots were fired blindly from the inside of the north warehouse, where some of the vigilantes were ambushed, thus giving good grounds for the belief that when the trouble started they became panic-stricken and began madly to fire through the board sides, and possibly wounding their own men. At the same time they were firing blindly into a regular passenger steamboat without even distinguishing between “the dreaded” I. W. W.’s and the other passengers and members of the crew who were on board the Verona.

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