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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 22, 1909
Northwestern Montana – The I. W. W. Band from Eureka, to Kalispell, to Somers
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 17, 1909:
The thousands of readers of the Industrial Worker will probably be interested in a few paragraphs relative to I. W. W. brass band that is now on the road doing propaganda work. It was last year that we organized in Portland what was know as the “Overall Brigade,” composed of 20 people who “hoboed” it from Portland, Ore., to Chicago, holding propaganda meetings in nearly every division point between the above mentioned cities.
The great success of those meetings and the receipts of the same was what led to the organization of a brass band for the propaganda work on the road. It was easy to see that if 20 people with no instruments could make their way across the country as the “Overall Brigade” did, that about a dozen, specially selected people in a brass band and bright uniforms would certainly be a howling success. Such it has been for the first week on the road.
It took nearly three months to get the people, instruments, tents, trunks, etc, together. There is an investment of about $800 in the outfit, all of which is owned by the “bunch.” Our first meeting was Eureka, Mont., in the lumber strike district. The head “sprag” of the thieving lumber corporation was there and he was so opposed to the teachings of the I. W. W. and so enraged by the sight of a working class in red revolutionary uniforms, that he bought a couple cases of eggs and proceeded to get company suckers and kids to throw them at the speakers. However, they were caught in the nick of time. The lumberjacks were across the street, a few big fists were thrust into the air and the corporation tools took a sneak.
