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Otto Frederick Schmidt, IWW Martyr
Who Lost His Life in Spokane, Washington, on December 2, 1918
On December 2, 1918 in a hospital in Spokane, Washington, Otto Frederick Schmidt, a 26-year-old IWW member, died of injuries sustained in the Walla Walla County Jail.
According to A. George Jensen, his cellmate, FW Schmidt “believed that the working class should organize to better their conditions. He was arrested for trying to make the world a fit place in which to live.”
Fellow Worker Schmidt had been arrested some ten months earlier and held for deportation in Spokane. He was later transferred to Walla Walla County Jail where he was found bleeding and unconscious after he and other IWWs were hosed down with icy water as punishment for protesting terrible conditions. He was then transferred to the Spokane County Jail for medical care and finally to the hospital where he died.