Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 30, 1910
Spokane, Washington – “S. O. Chinn Did Not Die in Vain”
From The Spokane Press of March 21, 1910:
VICTIM CHINN DID NOT DIE IN VAIN
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The Workingman’s Paper March 26, 1910
S. O. Chinn did not die in vain.
The funeral of this victim of Sullivan’s brutal methods occurred yesterday, and while Chinn was but a simple worker in the ranks his cortege was one of the most imposing the city has seen in months. It was not an I. W. W. demonstration, for hundreds were there who were not followers of the union; it was the respect of honest men for another man who died for what he held to be principle.
Chinn’s death appears to have bean the turning point, in the sentiment of Spokane regarding the police system. Before Chinn died the recent conflict was generally regarded as merely a fight between authority and anarchy; now that the dust has settled, the average worker is discovering that it was a fight between brutality-senseless brutality run amuck-and devotion to a principle by men who had nothing to gain and everything-even life itself-to lose.
The Portland (Ore.) I. W. W. local on Saturday passed strong resolutions on Chinn’s death [see inset], condemning Mayor Pratt and Acting Chief Sullivan. While these resolutions will have no especial effect in Spokane they will in Oregon, and as they are being sent out to every city and town where the telegraph goes, the result will be that this city will be given a most unfortunate name for needless brutality; all because it had a chief of police, a mayor and a prosecuting attorney who could think of nothing but brutality to quell a disturbance. The I. W. W. conflict could have been settled in two days had the commonest principle of sense and humanity been used. They were not, and a great flare of scandal arose.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 20, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – General Strike Committee Sends for Debs
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of March 17, 1910:
[Statement of Philadelphia’s General Strike Committee.]
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Announcement of the plans of the labor leaders for today was embodied in the following statement issued by the General Strike Committee, from its headquarters at Twelfth and Filbert streets:
In our statement issued last night we announced several mass meetings would be held in different parts of the city, to which organized and unorganized working men and women and the general public are invited. These meetings will be held at Kensington Labor Lyceum. Second and Cambria streets; Mercantile Hall, 849 Franklin street; Academy Hall, 524 South Fourth street, and Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, on Thursday, March 17, at 8 P. M.
These meetings will be addressed by C. O. Pratt, Jeff Pierce, organizer of the American Federation of Labor; John J. Murphy and other prominent speakers…
The committee has also made arrangements for holding a monster mass meeting at Labor Lyceum, Sixth and Brown streets, at 3 P. M., Saturday, March 19, which meeting will be addressed by Eugene V. Debs and other prominent speakers…
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 10, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Thousands Quit Work to Support Carmen
From the Duluth Labor World of March 5, 1910:
Philadelphia, March 4.-Ten times ten thousand union workers of this city have consented to quit work and to join forces with the striking carmen as a rebuke to the arrogant attitude of the officials of the Philadelphia Transit company towards the strike.
This action was decided on at a meeting of the union workers of this city Wednesday night and promptly at midnight Friday went into force.
Throughout the week the company’s officials have been obdurate in regard to arbitration. Delegations of business men, ministers and other Quaker City interests have appealed to them in vain but could not induce them to recede from their position.
Late last week after a few gays of turmoil they with Mayor Reyburn and Director of Safety Clay weakened and were ready to go to arbitration.
The overwhelming force of “Cossacks” as the State constabulary is called, which was poured into Philadelphia to awe the striking carmen, however, stiffened the spines of the autocrats and they now refuse to entertain anything but an absolute surrender on the part of the men.
Strike-Breakers Can’t Mend Traffic.
But a small portion of street car traffic has been resumed and the force of strike-breakers brought into the city, the scum of the big cities of the continent, has been entirely inadequate to cope with the situation.
The general strike was the only weapon left the men in the face of the insolent and defiant attitude of the street car officials and the sympathy of the public, at first withheld, has now turned to the men fighting for better wages and conditions of work.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 3, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Gurley Flynn Reports from Free Speech Fight, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of March 1910:
Latest News from Spokane
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ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN.
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[Part I of II.]
HE agitation of the I. W. W. and free speech fight in Spokane, Washington, if it brought no other effects has been valuable in that it has forced the officials to take action against the employment agencies. In the beginning of the difficulty they were admitted by Judge Mann to be the cause of all the trouble. Since that time Mayor Pratt has frankly admitted refunding thousands of dollars to working-men who had been sold fictitious jobs by the employment agencies. There were about thirty-one in the city of Spokane but the licenses of all but twelve of these were revoked.
The following statement from Mayor Pratt explains this action: “On the whole we have found that the larger agencies have not been causing so much trouble. Some of the larger men have made a study of the business, understanding human nature, and have been successful. In some cases we find that men who do not understand the business have engaged in it nevertheless and have made a little money and have held on to every dollar that has come into their possession whether they were entitled to it or not.”
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Trial of Gurley Flynn and Filigno, Part II
From The Workingman’s Paper of February 26, 1910:
[Part II of II.]
The Jury
The first two days of the trial were taken up with impaneling the jury. It fell to Mr. Don Kiser’s lot to have charge of the prosecution’s side of this part of the performance.
About forty men were called before it was possible to get twelve men who were satisfactory. The vast majority were prejudiced against the I. W. W.; in fact, it was a surprise when a man would make the statement that he had formed no opinion concerning the case, or even when one would say he considered labor had a right to organize in order to better its conditions, etc.
Finally, however, by Friday afternoon the jury began to look like a jury and things were ready for taking up the testimony.
[The Prosecution’s Case.]
[Main witness for the prosecution were:
-Detective Martin J. Burns who testified that 20% of those arrested said no more than “Fellow Worker.”
-Chief Sullivan, witness for the prosecution, was unable to explain why foreigners who said no more than “Fellow-Workers” could draw such big crowds.
-“Floor-Spitter” Detective McDonald testified that the men he arrested were all foreigners whose names he could not remember nor pronounce.]
Defense Opens
At 3:30 [Tuesday February 15th] Mr. Symmes addressed the jury, and on request of defense court adjourned at about 4, to take up defense testimony in the morning.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 27, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Trial of Gurley Flynn and Filigno, Part I
From The Workingman’s Paper of February 26, 1910:
The Flynn-Filigno Trial
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(Reported for “The Workingman’s Paper” by its
Editorial Correspondent, Bessy Fiset.)
[Part I of II.
Wednesday, the 9th of February, 1910, saw the opening of the case of the State against C. L. Filigno and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn-Jones for criminal conspiracy.
The fact is that this trial is bringing to light the greatest conspiracy on the part of the MASTER CLASS AGAINST FREEDOM OF SPEECH, PRESS AND ASSEMBLAGE that has yet been revealed in this country, making it rank with the foremost cases that have had direct bearing, or been the direct outcome of the Revolutionary movement in America.
* * *
To any one looking on at this trial the spectacle was certainly a representative in miniature of conditions as they exist in society today. On entering the large courtroom-seating approximately three hundred-one faced the court with the jury box on the left, counsel’s table immediately in front of judge, clerk’s desk just to right, and at extreme right along the wall a row of seats reserved for women spectators.
Between the right wall and the court was a door opening into an anteroom, which in turn let into a corridor leading to the county jail. Between the court and the jury box on the left was the door leading into court chambers.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 26, 1910
Spokane, Washington – The Affidavit of Fellow Worker J. C. Knust
From the Seattle Socialist Workingman’s Paper of February 19, 1910:
KNUST’S AFFIDAVIT
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State of Washington, County of Spokane, ss.:
J. C. Knust, being first duly sworn on oath, deposes and says:
That I was arrested Nov. 3rd at the corner of Howard and First avenue by Officer Logan and a plain clothes man, while talking to a crowd of about 200 people.
They knocked my hat off, jerked me along, holding me by the shirt collar and choking me. When I protested they hit me over the head.
Officer Logan said: “I suppose you have been in this country about two weeks.” I told him I had fought for my country and thought I had the right to speak on the streets of Spokane.
When we reached the jail they shoved me into the booking window. I was taken into a dark cell 7 feet high by 6½ feet wide and six feet long, with 17 other men.
We were unable to lie down with so many in the cell. Those that did lie down had to do so with their heads to the wall and their feet to the center of the cell and with their feet on top of each other and higher than their heads. The man underneath was naturally restless with the heavy load from the others upon him and was always anxious to get to the top of the pile.
The air in the cell was foul, with no sanitary facilities, no soap, towels, etc.
At 6 in the evening and seven in the morning we were given food, but few of us could eat it. They kept cutting down what little grab we had, until there was hardly anything to speak of.
One day I was taken into Judge Mann’s kangaroo court and after a farce trial was sentenced to thirty days.
I tried to give a full statement of how I was arrested by the Cossacks of Spokane, when Judge Mann stepped in and refused to let me continue.
I then tried to swear out a warrant against Officer Logan for assault and battery, but Mann refused to issue the warrant.
I was placed back in the cell, where we spent an awful night, the groaning and crying of the men being terrible.
Many men fainted and many were taken out unconscious, but the jail or hospital above began to be filled up so fast from those below that the jailer refused to heed our cries.
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———-HE agitation of the I. W. W. and free speech fight in Spokane, Washington, if it brought no other effects has been valuable in that it has forced the officials to take action against the employment agencies. In the beginning of the difficulty they were admitted by Judge Mann to be the cause of all the trouble. Since that time Mayor Pratt has frankly admitted refunding thousands of dollars to working-men who had been sold fictitious jobs by the employment agencies. There were about thirty-one in the city of Spokane but the licenses of all but twelve of these were revoked.
