Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 13, 1912 San Francisco, California – Joe Hill Speaks on Conditions in San Diego Jail
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 11, 1912:
FREE SPEECH DOINGS IN CALIFORNIA
(By Caroline Nelson).
The free speech protest in Building Trades hall Last Sunday [March 31] was a great success; $175 were collected to carry on the fight in San Diego.
Austin Lewis delivered one of his masterly addresses. He showed that street speaking of the I. W. W.’s was an absolute necessity. Without street speaking the migratory worker could not be reached, because he would not go to any hall. Without street speaking there would have been no organization among the lumber workers and section laborers, and therefore no strikes or fights for better conditions. In street speaking pamphlets, circulars and propaganda sheets are given out and find their way to camps where they do their work.
The last speaker was a released speaker from San Diego, Fellow Worker Hill. He explained that he had just come from the hospitality of the M. & M. [Merchants and Manufacturers Association] in San Diego, that owing to that hospitality he was physically unable to make any lengthy speech.He looked as though he had just risen from a sick bed. His face was pale and pinched. Dressed in overalls he bespoke the low standard of living that our modern civilization imposes upon our most intelligent workers; for he spoke more intelligently and eloquently than many a widely heralded upper class jaw smith, who has had nothing to do all his life but to wag his tongue and to look up references. He nailed the widely circulated lie that the upper class have bought out all the workers who have any intelligence, and that every intelligent man can get work.
Fellow Worker told how they practiced sabotage in San Diego in the jail in the form of building battle ships, as they called it, by hammering on the iron doors. The court was located on the second story over the jail and terrible noise made by the hungry prisoners prevented them from holding a session in the upper region. They sent word down to the prisoners to be quiet or they couldn’t hold court. The prisoners’ replied that it was their intention that no court should be held until they were fed.
Hill brought down the house when he proposed that the army of fifty thousand unemployed of San Francisco move on the San Diego, to free the men now in jail there which the M. & M. intend to railroad to the pen. The San Diego jail and bull pen are full now. They are running up the expenses of the tax-payers fearfully and an army of invaders would scare them stiff, and prevent the sending of the ten men now on trial to the penitentiary. But unless something was done quickly these men would be sent over the road; for there is nothing our ruling class doesn’t dare when it comes to strike terror to the hearts of the workers. They violate every law on the statute books, and trample in the dust every human right that is supposed to be sacred. They hold no law sacred except when it protects them in their piracy.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 12, 1912 Farewell Tribute for Michael Hoey, Martyr of San Diego Free Speech Fight
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 11, 1912:
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MICHAEL HOEY–MARTYR
(By Laura Payne Emerson).
Fellow Workers: I count it an honor to be accorded the privilege of paying a tribute, on this occasion, to our martyred dead fellow-worker, Michael Hoey. He was a soldier in the war for industrial freedom. Early in life he joined the forces that were making for better conditions for his class, the working class, and to the day when he fell mortally wounded, and was carried from the field of battle, never did he falter.
It was in San Diego, Cal. A fight for free speech was on. An infamous ordinance had been passed by the common council denying the natural and constitutional right of free speech and public assembly to certain citizens. Many brave souls had undertaken to test the odious law by attempting to speak on the streets, and had met the policeman’s club and the jail. Among those on the fire line in that contest was Michael Hoey, a man sixty-three years of age. When told by a friend that he was too old to enlist in such a fight, and that he should leave it to younger and more vigorous men, he replied:
I have nothing to give but myself and life is not worth living when all liberty is gone.
That night, amid a cheering crowd, his fine face appeared for a moment, while his voice was raised in a last appeal to his class to stand firm for human rights! Then!! Burly guardians of the law snatched him down, and with kicks and clubs, jail and starvation, silenced his voice forever.
Among the women soaked were Mrs. Laura Emerson and Juanita McKamey, both of whom are under the ban of the police. –Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1912 —————
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 23, 1912 San Diego, California – Fellow Worker Stumpy Reports on Vicious Police Action
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of March 21, 1912:
SAN DIEGO IS ABOUT ALL IN Vicious Actions Show Fight Is About Won ———-
Los Angeles Times March 11, 1912
To the “Worker:”-The fifth week of the free speech fight here has made a seething cauldron of human passions in this would-be exposition burg of fleas and oppression.
The M. and M. has raised a fund of five million dollars to crush organized labor in general and the I. W. W. in particular on the Pacific coast, and they have selected San Diego as the point of attack, though they are not overlooking a chance to make trouble in various other places. There has been 216 arrests to datefor street speaking, and over 200 of these are in jail now and intend to stay there until free speech is established. More men are coming in every day and speaking in the restricted district. The city and county jails here are full and 70 men have been sent to the jails of other counties. Tomorrow the city will start building a stockade where unknown amounts of rock are to be broken by I. W. W.’s.
We have the support of all classes of labor here in this fight. The carpenters union has levied a fine of ten dollars a day on any of its members who will work on the city stockade. All others are equally as loyal.
Two evenings ago an enthusiastic meeting was held in front of the U. S. Grant Hotel (just outside the sacred ground) and the aristocratic guests of that ten-dollar-a-day dump of snobbery were thoroughly acquainted with San Diego’s infamy.
Although we were clearly outside the forbidden ground the bosses could not forgive the telling of the truth. At the street meeting last evening a crippled man bought ten “Workers” of a newsboy for free distribution, when the brave cop who wears badge No. 10 struck him a terrific blow and valiantly landed the poor cripple on his back.
Today, March 10, has seen the climax of police brutality and the patience of the citizens has been tested almost to the breaking point. In the morning a meeting was held in front of the county jail to cheer the boys who are behind the bars. Not a policeman was in sight, and the meeting was very orderly and soon adjourned to the city jail to give the boys there a cheer and a song.
Here the scene was different. It was truly representative of Russia-or San Diego. More than a score of uniformed police and plain clothes thugs were lined up n the sidewalk in front of the jail. Behind a heavily barred gate, with blanched face, stood the infamous captain of police, Sehon, directing the work of brutality of his minions.
The meeting had proceeded but a few minutes when the police were ordered to turn the hose on the crowd. In this they were no respecters of persons. Hundreds of men were drenched and knocked down by the force of more than 100 pounds pressure per square inch. One man was knocked down by a police man before the hose was turned on him. Four young girls were nearly drowned before they could get out of the way. A woman past sixty years of age was struck on the side of the head by the stream of water and nearly paralyzed. Mrs. Emerson, who was speaking at the time, had the box washed from under her feet, and she and Mrs. Wightman were soaked [also soaked was Juanita McKamey, the Joan of Arc of San Diego]. A man named Patterson put an American flag over his shoulders and stepped into the street, but even this was no protection, as one bull tore it from his shoulders and another hustled him off to jail. Later Patterson’s father tried to take him some dry clothes but the brave bulls denied him that privilege. A woman who was going from a neighbors to her own home was drenched and driven by the stream as long as she was in range. A man and his wife who were going home from church with their baby in a buggy were struck and the baby nearly drowned before they could get away.
Many other instances of brutality are reported, but they did not come under my personal notice.
Aside from the wholly unwarranted action of the police nothing was more noticeable than the tone of subdued anger among the thousands of spectators. The brave (?) actions of the noble (?) police continued for nearly three hours, and every minute of the time the crowd could have been led to crush the entire police force by the sheer weight of numbers, but the I. W. W.’s were everywhere counseling peace. Only for this cool-headed action it is not doubted that the streets of San Diego would tonight be drenched in blood that would take many streams of water to wash away.
The police have but one more card to play.
The daily papers have followed Otis’ lead and are now counselling the murder of the boys in jail. The San Diego Tribune of the 5th inst., has the following works in an editorial: “Why are the tax payers of San Diego compelled to endure this imposition? Simply because the law which these lawbreakers flout prevents the citizens of San Diego from taking the impudent outlaws away from the police and hanging them or shooting them! This would end the trouble in half an hour.” Will they do it?
There is a bunch of the worst gun men of the West here, just “hanging around.” But these men do not come into a trouble zone by accident.
Two men were arrested for speaking tonight. The police have tried a new method. Heretofore there have been twelve to twenty bulls at the corner of 5th and E streets to make arrests, but last night there was but one when the speaking started. In a few minutes, however, 25 bulls came charging down the street at a run, cracking all the heads they could reach. Many were severely injured. One man was knocked insensible and had to be carried from the street. A woman was beaten until her hair was clotted with blood. She, too, was carried from the street. And this is the U. S.! The Mexican line should have been run north of San Diego, then we could have laid the crimes of the police to “Barbarous Mexico” instead of to the Christianized Otis gang.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 2, 1912 San Diego, California – I. W. W. Free Speech Fight Continues Despite Mass Arrests
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of February 29, 1912:
For nearly three months eighty-five business men of San Diego communicated with Captain Sehon and Chief of Police Wilson, secretly holding meetings in the U. S. Grant hotel, in an endeavor to find ways and means to gradually regulate the supreme law of the United States out of existence, namely, the law of FREE SPEECH and PUBLIC ASSEMBLY as granted to the people in the Constitution of the United States.
The Real Conspirators.
Here is the way these business men criminals finally proceeded to act:
They made their tools, the city council, pass an ordinance regulating street speaking under provisions of which they could move persons from the place where they had been wont to hold meetings. They thought that by moving the speakers some they gradually could move them more, and finally could move or regulate them clear out of town, and if necessary clear into old Mexico. They said that that was where the agitators belong.
But while the workers were willing to stand for reasonable regulations, they, like the Steel Trust, do not want strangulation, so on February 8 the dance started.
Workers Unite in Parade.
A protest parade was held in which I. W. W. members, Socialists, Single Taxers, Trade Unionists and unorganized and unattached workers joined hands and the line of march was arranged in a masterly manner.
We marched down to the sacred territory and then divided from four abreast into two sections, so that two could march together upon the sidewalk in accordance with Johnny Law. The forty-one persons who had decided to stand for their rights-rights which existed prior to governments-then mounted the box, only to be taken as are rabbits in a ferret drive, one by one, by those eunuch minded barbarians on the San Diego police force.
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Conspiracy Charged Against “Agitators.”
The M. and M. criminals, whose every move is illegal because of their actions in restraint of trade, had their judicial flunkeys go the limit and place a charge of conspiracy against 48 members of the army that is fighting to uphold freedom of speech. Bonds were set at $1,500 in order to secure those who dared to advocate that the workers gain more of the good things of life through organization.
Instead of discouraging the fighters this action increased the determination to win and results were that arrests for street speaking have occurred almost nightly since the judicial outrage.
Rebels Show the Proper Spirit.
The police do not know how to deal with people who seem anxious to break into jail and the spectacle of agitators drawing lots to see who shall have the honor has them worried. When the brutalities of the police inside the jail was made public the indignation rose so high that a change had to be made. So the attempt to discourage new recruits by refusing those who were arrested even the common necessities of life and by herding 45 men in one small room failed dismally and made matters worse for the asinine authorities.
One hundred and sixty men and women are in jail up to date (February 20). The majority of these are of the I. W. W. The presence of the women who are class conscious enough to fight right on the firing line is a great factor in the fight.
Idiotic Statements of Dist. Attorney Utley.
The lack of useful work for the supernumeraries is shown by District Attorney Utley’s statements as reported by the San Diego Herald.
“It is the duty of the county to attend to these vandals, barbarians, tramps, hoboes, I. W. W.’s, and such trash, and I am going to attend to it.
“There’s going to be no street speaking, if I can prevent it, in the main part of the city. Some of ’em might tell the truth.
“We will starve them into submission by keeping them in the jug until they are tame. They won’t feel like telling the truth about us any more.”
We Workers Will Win.
Well! Well! Time will tell. We intend to keep up this fight and keep on telling the truth to our fellow workers until the last parasite is forced to leave our backs. So hop to it, kind friend of the wig and gown, and help to fan the flames of discontent.
When the workers are awakened so they deal equitably as man to man they will have no need of delving into the pasts for precedent or listening to ponderous, musty, meaningless Latin phrases from the lips of the satyr-sensed satellites of the capitalist class.
As for stopping us we are the useful members of society and you the useless. The useful persists and the useless decays and dies. The river must seawards despite you.
San Diego’s Salubrious Climate.
We extend a cordial invitation to all who have not visited this city to come and feast upon our salubrious climate and to make the acquaintance of those staunch upholders of working class justice-SEHON, WILSON and UTLEY.
Come on the cushions Ride up on top; Stick to the brakebeams; Let nothing stop Come in great numbers; This we beseech: Help San Diego To win FREE SPEECH!
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 1, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts – Prominent Magazine Writers Visit Strike Zone
From Boston Evening Transcript of February 29, 1912:
MUCKRAKERS ON THE SCENT
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Party Including Russell, White, Baker, and Others
Spends Day Gathering Material at Lawrence
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Industrial Worker February 29, 1912
A group of prominent magazine writers visited Lawrence yesterday for the purpose of gathering material. Among those in the party were Charles Edward Russell and Mrs. Russell, William Allen White, Ray Stannard Baker, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mrs. Freemont [Cora] Older, wife of the San Francisco publisher, and Miss Frances Jolliffe, also of San Francisco. The party came in on the midnight train from New York and left last night after spending a busy day going over the city. They first visited the county jail, where Ettor and Giovannitti are confined, and though they tried hard to see the two men they were unsuccessful. They were however allowed to talk to the Polish women pickets who refused to pay their fines and are serving out their sentence.
The members of the party were held up by the military guard in their attempt to go to the mills through Canal street, as they were wearing the strikers card, “Don’t be a scab.” Then they visited some of tho homes of the strikers, and later dined at a Syrian restaurant as the guests of William D. Haywood. There were also present other strike leaders, several newspaper reporters, Miss Emma Goulain and two more Franco-Belgians.
Just as they reached the restaurant the guide happened to catch sight of patrolman Michael Moore, the Syrian policeman who was prominent in the Saturday morning incident at the station [see Hellraisers Journal of Feb. 26th]. He was pointed out to the visitors as the policeman who clubbed a woman. He was still nearby when the party cams out from the restaurant and stood for a moment on the sidewalk before starting downtown. They stopped, and Moore came up and ordered them to move.
“All right, well go,” said one man, but the women were not so complacent. Mrs. Older said to the patrolman: “So you’re the man who clubbed a woman, are you?”
“Now don’t stand talking to me,” replied the patrolman. “You’ve got to go along.”
Some of the men tried to argue that they were under no compulsion to move, and in the end the policeman all but arrested one of the young Franco-Belgians who was in the party.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 11, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts – Strikers Children Sent to New York City
From The Boston Daily Globe, Evening Edition, of February 10, 1912:
Upper Picture-Strikers’ Children from Lawrence in South Station [Boston], Waiting to Board a New York Train. Lower Left Hand-Child of a Striker. Lower Right Hand- Miss Florence Sawyer, with One of the Youngest in the Party. ———-
One hundred and seventy-five boys and girls, children of textile strikers in Lawrence, were brought to Boston this morning on their way to New York city, where they are to be cared for by different families until the strike is settled. The children left at noon for New York. They were to have departed on the 10:03 train out of the South Station, but they reached the North Station too late to make the connection. They went to the South Station by an elevated train, and from the time of their arrival at 10:30, until their departure, at 12, made the waiting room of the great terminal building lively with their songs and pranks.
The children were in charge of five women and 10 men. The man who conducted the party described himself as being Henry Lindworth, a Frenchman, who said he was “a comrade” and was “secretary in charge of the party.” Lindworth had a pocket full of letters from Socialist Democrats and plain Socialist in New York applying for one or more of the juveniles, whom they promised to give homes during the pendency of the strike. Each of the children had pinned to his or her garments a slip of paper on which was written the name, age and address of the child.
The children ranged in age from 4 to 14, and all of them seemed to be comfortably dressed, although the clothing of most was of rather poor quality, and some of them wore patches, but the little ones all seemed happy, and looked upon their trip as a great lark. They were ever ready to burst into song when Lindworth called on them to do so, which he frequently did. The song they most sang at the South Station was “La Internationale,” which Lindworth said was the hymn of those who are opposed to society as it is now constituted.
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—————The free speech protest in Building Trades hall Last Sunday [March 31] was a great success; $175 were collected to carry on the fight in San Diego.
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