Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 23, 1911 Poems of James Kelly Cole, Martyr of Spokane Free Speech Fight
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 15, 1911:
THE LIFE WORK OF KELLY COLE —————
By Frank Bohn.
James Kelly Cole was killed in a railway accident at Tomah, Wisconsin, November 17th, 1909. He was on his way to take part in the Spokane free speech fight and was riding free.
At that time I wrote a short letter in the [New York Socialist] Call, drawing attention to the self-forgetfulness which led to the untimely death of this young comrade. To me he was simply one of many who were then fighting for freedom of speech in Spokane and elsewhere. I had not even learned his name. It is therefore a peculiar pleasure to discover that, dying in the cause, he left us something very much worth while. A little book of poems entitled “Revolutionary Writings” suggest to us the deep loss suffered by the movement when he went to his death.
His picture as well as his poems makes one regret not to have known him personally. He was a representative of a type-the type of idealistic young Americans of both sexes who are now thronging into the Socialist movement. He was fortunate in having had educational advantages. He had been a student at one of the Chicago High schools and abundant leisure during his youth afforded him opportunity for wide reading on a variety of subjects.
The most significant feature about his personality and his work was the revolutionary spirit. His intense hatred for misrule coupled with his desire for emancipation from wage slavery once led him into a tactical error. He was forced to spend more than a year in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 29, 1910
Spokane Fellow Workers Learn of Birth of Baby Boy to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
From the Spokane Spokesman Review of May 28, 1910:
GURLEY FLYNN IS MOTHER
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I. W. W.’S EX-LEADER ENDS WARFARE TO CARE FOR SON.
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Youngster Will Be Named Frederic Vincent Jones,
According to Letter.
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The birth of a son to Mrs. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Jones, leader of the recent street speaking fight in this city, is announced in a letter received by Mrs. Fred Heslewood, of E703 Providence avenue. Mrs. Jones is with her mother in New York, engaged in the preparation of a book called “Women in the Industrial World.”The boy has been named Frederic Vincent Jones, it is said. It was born May 19.
Mr. Jones, better known by her maiden name, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was the leader of the street speakers in their fight against the authorities last winter. She was arrested on a charge of criminal conspiracy, found guilty by a jury in a justice court, and acquitted on appeal to the superior court. She spent one night in the county jail and made charges of misconduct against the jailers that were taken up later by members of the Woman’s club. She left for New York before the final adjustment of the street speaking difficulties. Her husband’s home is in Missoula, Mont.
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[Photograph added is from Spokesman Review of July 9, 1909.]
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 18, 1910
Spokane, Washington – Impressive Funeral Honors Free Speech Martyr F. J. Ferry
From the Industrial Worker of April 16, 1910:
Once again the Grim Reaper Death has visited the ranks of the gallant band of men who valorously defended their principles during the recent Spokane free speech fight, and has claimed as its latest victim Fellow Worker F. J. Ferry, a member of L. U. No. 222.
Fellow Worker S. O. Chinn, the first martyr to Spokane police brutality, who died four weeks ago as a result of the hardships suffered in jail, was a young man not yet in the prime of life. He was a mere youth-the prospect of life stretched before him full of possibilities; he hadn’t begun to live yet. He had just started on “Life’s fitful dream” when he was cut off. He was out of place in this capitalistic world, as is every man of principle, so he had to be sacrificed. Not for him was the boon of life enjoyed by all animated nature; he was an intruder, a revolutionist; he interfered with the smooth working of the well-laid plan of the master class to hold the workers in subjection; his presence in life was a danger to their organized system of exploitation; therefore he, the merest stripling, with every natural right to life, was ruthlessly murdered.
In the mad career of the suicidal capitalist class, not only is the seed of the future society thus wantonly, but the old and storm-twisted oaks of the working class-men who have earned every right to peaceful old age-are also destroyed on the slightest pretext when the interest of the modern juggernaut demands it. Fellow Worker Ferry was an old man 62 years of age. He was a life-long veteran of the cruelest struggle in history-the struggle for existence in a capitalist society. Ever since early boyhood he has been robbed and abused by an insatiate parasite. In common with his fellow-slaves of the working class, he was denied the luxuries and necessaries that make life worth living. He was reduced to the condition of a machine, being given only enough of the product of his labor to simply keep life in his body. After many years of killing slavery as a baker, he became worn out and was cast aside to make room for a younger victim-like an old machine he was “scrapped.”
An old and battle-scarred victim of capitalism-deprived of home and family and all the natural attributes of a worthy old age-he earned his scanty living as best he could with seemingly no other goal in store for him than that of so many workers-an apologetic exit from life-a hurried trip to Potters’ Field.
But he became imbued with the philosophy of the new society; he joined the I. W. W.; he became a rebellious slave. For this he was made a social outcast-even more so than simply as a discarded slave-he became an object of loathing and hatred to his masters-a creature to be eradicated if possible.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 11, 1910
Spokane, Washington – FW Ferry Dead Due Brutal Treatment at Franklin School
From The Spokane Press of April 8, 1910:
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34 DAYS ON BREAD THE CAUSE
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F. FERRY, AN INVALID AFTER JAIL EXPERIENCE,
SUCCUMBS TO PNEUMONIA.
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Another death is chargeable to the brutality of the system of Chief of Police John Sullivan and the members of the Spokane police department.
Another agonizing face will await the coming of these men in the Great Beyond, where they will face the responsibility that they so shrewdly shift here below, in the name of the majesty of the law.
The latest victim of police inhumanity to man is an aged man named F. Ferry, a resident of Spokane for years, who died last night at the Spokane general hospital, Third and Washington, following a brief but deadly attack of pneumonia.
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Ferry took part in the free speech fight last fall and was among the first arrested and sent to the Franklin school. There, by order of chief Sullivan, he was placed on bread and water for 34 days and left the prison a physical wreck. He has since been an invalid, unable to work, and barely able to crawl around. Wednesday night he took suddenly sick with pneumonia, which found in his worn and emaciated body an easy victim, and all that medical science could do to save him was of no avail.
True, Ferry was an I. W. W. Yet he was an American citizen, a resident of Spokane for many years, whose only offense was that he thought the right of free speech should be accorded his fellow workingmen. He was a quiet, inoffensive man, past 60 years of age, and even in a Russian prison his gray hairs would have been respected and less harsh treatment shown than was manifested by the cowardly police force of Spokane.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 8, 1910
Spokane, Washington – S. O. Chinn Gets Grand I. W. W. Send-Off
From the Industrial Worker of April 2, 1910:
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CHINN’S FUNERAL LARGELY ATTENDED
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Many Watch Procession on Riverside Avenue
-Strains of the Marseillaise Heard-I. W. W.
Members Who Attend Funeral Wear Red Neckties.
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Funeral services for S. O. Chinn, age 27, which were held from the I. W. W. hall proved a magnate as the procession of men, women and children following the hearse and the brass band moved down Riverside Avenue. The last tribute was paid by James Thompson, national organizer of the Industrial Workers at the I. W. W. Hall at 616 Front Avenue, in which he declared that the man had given his life in the interest of the working class.
Three hundred Fellow Workers packed the hall to capacity and after the services followed the hearse and band to Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street, from which point the hearse and pall bearers proceeded to Greenwood cemetery, where Chinn was buried. The casket was draped with the flag of the organization of which Chinn was a member and an officer. Chinn came to Spokane last fall to participate in the free speech fight. His home was originally at Hutchinson, Kansas.
The funeral proceedings attracted a great deal of attention. Before the hearse walked four officers of the I. W. W. with red neckties and red badges of the organization in their buttonholes, while the band before pealed out the martial strains of the “Marseillaise.” Stretching behind for four or five blocks marched the members of the organization, who came out to pay their last respects to the man that had sacrificed his life for the cause of Free Speech.
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 – Monday March 28, 1910
Spokane, Washington – FW S. O. Chinn Gives His Life for Freedom of Speech
From the Industrial Worker of March 26, 1910:
DEAD AS RESULT OF BRUTAL TREATMENT
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Thirty-five Days on Bread and Water Brings On
an Attack of Diabetes and Causes
Death of S. O. Chinn, Spokane Free Speech Fighter.
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Spokane Press of March 17, 1910
Because of Chief Sullivan’s brutal system, S. O. Chinn, who contracted diabetes after being fed on bread and water for a period of 35 days, died at Deaconess Hospital of Spokane on Friday evening, March 18th. This brutal treatment was accorded him because of his participation in the Spokane free speech fight.
Chinn was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World. He had resided at Spokane for a period of two years, and for a time was secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the I. W. W. locals of that city. Those who knew him best knew him to be scrupulously, even fanatically, honest. He never drank, his personal life was clean and he was zealously devoted to what he thought was right.
Chinn went to jail because he believed that the constitution meant what it said; that free speech and free assemblage were inalienable rights; that as a man it was his duty to see that they were not trampled under foot. He caused no disturbance; he demanded merely what he considered were his rights. He believed that constitution meant what it said. But Chief Sullivan and the powers that be in Spokane had decreed otherwise.
Nowhere but in Spokane have men been put on bread and water for 35 days; from three to five days is the army regulation. For the average man a diet of bread and water for ten days, as it was allowed to the imprisoned free speech fighters, means chronic disease, but for 35 days S. O. Chinn was given a bread and water diet, and from the barbarity of the treatment he emerged a wreck and died a lingering death.
The Spokane Press has the following to say on Fellow Worker Chinn’s death:
He was one of the town’s citizens and a quiet, soft-spoken, hard-working man. But he had determination; so had Sullivan to prove that when he said the constitution wasn’t worth a damn, that he knew what he was talking about, so Sullivan kept Chinn on bread and water for 35 days, and so today Chinn, by giving up the struggle and finally dying, admits that Sullivan knew what he was talking about.
Don’t you wonder if Sullivan is real proud and happy of his little victory over S. O. Chinn?
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