Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Shame of Spokane” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Part II

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Quote EGF, re Spk FSF, ISR p618, Jan 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 2, 1910
Spokane, Washington – The Story of Joseph Thompson, Courageous Newsboy

From the International Socialist Review of January 1910:

The Shame of Spokane
—–

By Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
—–

[Part II of II.]

IWW Spk FSF, Newsboy Joseph Thompson, ISR p615, Jan 1910

This same Judge Hinkle had made himself infamous in connection with the juvenile cases. Perhaps the most disgraceful affair of many connected with the Spokane free-speech fight was the raid on the hall December 1st, resulting in the arrest of eight little newsboys. Simple on the surface, it is a subtle attempt to undermine the right of a parent to teach a child ideas different from the established order. The children were taken to the chief’s office and put through a severe cross examination, after which they were locked up for the night.

“The third degree” on youngsters ranging in years from eight to sixteen is quite a credit to the Spokane detective force. Couldn’t you get evidence from grown-ups, Captain Burns, throwing light on the “secrets” and “conspiracy” of the I. W. W. without scaring it out of a lot of little boys? “The I. W. W. hall is no fit place for them,” said Prosecuting Attorney Pugh of these poor, ragged, little urchins who trudge the streets in their thin little shoes going in and out of saloons and cheap resorts all hours of the day and night. The parents of the boys with that innate respect for law came in fear and trembling to say that they had not sanctioned the children joining. One woman said she was too poor to buy her boy a necktie so let him wear the red one that a man gave him. The parents knew nothing of the I. W. W. and the little youngsters were rather deserted by the very ones who ought to know what’s wrong with conditions that force them to send their little ones on the streets this frosty weather.

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Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Shame of Spokane” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Part I

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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 1, 1910
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Reports from Spokane Free Speech Fight

From the International Socialist Review of January 1910:

The Shame of Spokane
—–

By Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
—–

[Part I of II.]

IWW Spk FSF, On the Rock Pile, ISR p610, Jan 1910

Letter O, ISR p610, Jan 1910N December 3rd Prosecuting Attorney Pugh thundered, in his attack upon the Industrial Workers of the World: “Let them feel the mailed fist of the law,” amply justifying our definition of government as “the slugging committee of the capitalist class.” This threat was presumably made in a full appreciation of what a roaring farce “constitution,” “justice,” “rights” constitute in Spokane—city of the Washington Water Power Company and the employment sharks.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: “The Shame of Spokane” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Age 19, Braves Motherhood in Spokane Jail Cell in Fight for Free Speech

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Quote EGF, Work for Justice Despite Hardships, Tacoma Tx p7, Dec 29, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 31, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Miss Flynn, Age 19, Braves Motherhood in Jail Cell

From The Tacoma Times of December 29, 1909:

ONLY 19, SHE BRAVED MOTHERHOOD IN CELL
TO AID IN STRUGGLE FOR FREE SPEECH

EGF, ed Spk Chc p2, Nov 18, 1909

(Special Correspondence.)

SPOKANE, Dec. 29.,-“If I have found work to do in a struggle for what is right, and just and human, then I would be unworthy and unhappy, should I lay down the work because of hardships, persecutions or privations. That is all.”

Nineteen years old, a wife, soon to be a mother, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, member of the national committee of the I. W. W., explained in her cell in the city prison here why she passed unflinchingly through the indignity of arrest, trial and conviction, through the insults of the “third degree” and the tortures of the “sweat box;” why she faced bravely a coming ordeal of motherhood behind jail bars.

This girl was arrested here for her activities in the struggle for free speech being carried on by the Industrial Workers of the World against the city authorities who are attempting to enforce what has been declared by one judge an unconstitutional ordinance against street speaking. She was tried for “criminal conspiracy,” convicted and sentenced to a term in jail. She heard the sentence without any visible manifestation of emotion and though in a delicate condition, she smiled calmly when the grated door of her cell was swung shut, leaving her alone.

Ten miserable years of childhood spent in the squalid poverty-ridden tenement districts of New York are the explanation of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s activities in the “free speech war” in Spokane. Filled with a spirit of revolt against existing industrial systems, she allied herself, four years ago, with the work of the Industrial Workers. She was a frail slip of a girl, 15 years old, then. When she was 17 she became the wife of J. A. Jones, an I. W. W. organizer. Though her married life has been happy, in her work she has retained her maiden name. Her education, snatched from bitter expedience and what few books she could find time to read, this girl leader is refined and gentle in speech and manner.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced to Three Months in Spokane Jail for Conspiracy

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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 18, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Convicted of Conspiracy

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part II of II.]

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Sentenced
to Three Months.

EGF, Joan of Arc, Nw Cstle Hld PA p21, Dec 17, 1909

Miss Flynn, or rather Mrs. Jones in private life, was arrested while walking on the street, on the new conspiracy charge that is now being used against the Industrial Workers. She has been editing and getting out the paper, the “Industrial Worker”, since the force was arrested.

This “conspiracy” charge makes any one concerned in coming or bringing people to Spokane to test the city ordinance guilty of the crime of conspiring against the peace of the city, and the authorities are working this to the limit. They even claim that their ordinance is superior to the Washington state laws, or the United States constitution. They completely ignore the fact that no inferior jurisdiction can make a law in contradiction to its superior.

The police have been itching to get Miss Flynn. She was thrown into a cell with prostitutes, insulted by the police, who came with their vile familiarity in the night, and abused terribly by the prosecuting attorney, Pugh. She is in a pregnant condition, and the greatest fears are entertain for her safety, the first child lost owing to her overwork on the platform. Her husband, who is Missoula, is worked up to an extreme nervous tension through suspense and anxiety.

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Hellraisers Journal: From Montana News: “Unexampled Barbarities” Used Against Prisoners of Spokane Free Speech Fight

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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 17, 1909
Spokane, Washington – “Officials Use Russian Tortures”

From the Socialist Montana News of December 16, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Barbarities, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909IWW Spk FSF, EGF Sentenced, MTNs p1, Dec 16, 1909

[Part I of II.]

The stand of the I. W. W. for Free Speech in Spokane is making the history that will disclose the hollowness of the claims of personal liberty the American constitutional government has made.

The brutal treatment of the prisoners has not been excelled in Russia. The Franklin schoolhouse where over 200 of them have been incarcerated is kept in a state of unparalleled filth. The floor has never been scrubbed; there are no receptacles for expectoration, a filthy pall is provided for the calls of nature, often overflowing. No beds or bunks are provided, and the men have to lie in this filth. There was no fire or stove, but the men began tearing down the building and making a fire on the floor, and so a stove was furnished.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, New York Labor Agitator Now in Spokane

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Quote EGF, Western IWW Aggressive Spirit, IW p3, Aug 12, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 13, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Fights for Free Speech

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

A WOMAN LABOR AGITATOR.

EGF, ed Spk Chc p2, Nov 18, 1909

The tour of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn through the west, and the strenuous work she has been performing in generaling the Free Speech fights has introduced to this section of country and earnest and energetic young woman.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is a married woman of New York, whose agitation in the labor movement has excited much attention in the capitalist press, and a certain amount in the labor and socialist press; although the attention given her by the latter has been by no means commensurate with the ability of her work, and the impression it has made upon those who have heard and seen her. But Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has broken into the labor movement under peculiar conditions. Reared in a socialist home, she grew up with her mind intelligent and keen as to the homogeneity of the socialist and labor movements, an idea that is as yet scarcely grasped at all in America, either by the great mass of laborers or the majority of the socialists themselves. To be a socialist, a social reformer, meant to Miss Flynn to work in the labor movement.

When the Industrial Workers of the World was organised she thought she saw in its methods the ideal line of activity for the workers to adopt, who were bent upon industrial emancipation through a revolutionary program. She became devoted to the interest of the Industrial Workers. She refused to ally herself with either the Socialist Party or the Socialist Labor Party because of their failure to co-operate decidedly with the I. W. W.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -to Speak Until All Are Arrested

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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 12, 1909
Spokane, Washington – Fellow Workers to Speak Until All Are Arrested

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Free Speech War Rages, MTNs p1, Dec 2, 1909

[Part II of II.]

Justice Orders Ordinance Made to Order.

Justice Mann who is holding up the judicial end of the government persecution detected the flaw in the first ordinance, as class legislation, and dismissed the prisoners under it. Another ordinance was then framed on the judge’s advice, designating any speaking on the street where a crowd gathers as disorderly. Thus the judge makes the laws, and decides on it, and passes sentence on it.

The second day 133 were arrested and 33 sentenced to 30-day terms in jail.

Attorney Moore for the I. W. W. gave notice of appeal to the superior court.

Foote, the editor of the Industrial paper published at Portland, was arrested as soon as he reached town.

A bulletin posted at headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World was as follows:

Fellow workers, tomorrow this fight will be carried on with greater determination than ever. We have only begun to fight; 200 men will go to jail tomorrow.

Immediately below was posted another, which read:

Every man who is appointed captain to select five or more men and proceed to hold meetings.

Every captain and squad go to the places designated and speak until all are arrested.

Remember, the authorities claim to have broken the backbone of the organization. Show them that they are just as ignorant as bulls usually are…..

The socialist of Spokane have actively taken up the I. W. W. fight.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Socialist Montana News: “Free Speech War Rages At Spokane” -IWW Causing a Little Stir

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Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 11, 1909
Spokane, Washington – I. W. W. Causing a “Little Stir”

From the Socialist Montana News of December 2, 1909:

IWW Spk FSF, Free Speech War Rages, MTNs p1, Dec 2, 1909

[Part I of II.]

The Industrial Workers of the World are making a little stir in this western section of the country in its valiant maintenance of the right of free speech. A battle royal was commenced with the authorities of Spokane. The authorities show an unusual malignancy against these I. W. W. because they so openly denounce capitalism, its laws, its government and its authorities; they call on the workingmen of all grades and stations to unite on these principles, and to openly, radically and emphatically fight the capitalists and their government.

Now this attitude is not particularly soothing to officials of a class government, even though the insurgents are backed by a constitutional guarantee. With officials it is “To Hell with the constitution”, whenever its enforcement jeopardizes their graft.

Dirty Chicanery.

The Spokane authorities have played a dirty trick with the I. W. W. A year ago the Industrial entered upon a desperate fight for free speech. They filled the jail and nonplussed the city administration. The city thought fit to call a truce and asked that hostilities be suspended pending a court decision. The I. W. W. agreed to these terms, but no action has ever been taken on the part of the city to get a settlement of the case. Tired of being buffaloed in this shape the I. W. W. prepared for a march on Spokane, the authorities prepared to resist them, and the Workers are now fighting capitalist domination, and unjust abridgment of legal personal rights with all the forces at their command. The capitalist papers of Spokane have announced in staring headlines that 8,000 revolutionists from all over the northwest were gathering for the fray.

The “Industrial Workers”, the Spokane organ of the I. W. W., issued the call for this gathering of the clans. Different unions were notified by wire how many men to send to Spokane. One capitalist paper stated that 500 recruits for the battle boarded trains out of Portland, Oregon, without the formality of purchasing tickets.

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WE NEVER FORGET-James Kelly Cole Who Lost Life on November 17, 1909, En Route to the Spokane Free Speech Fight

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

WNF, James Kelly Cole, IWW Spk FSF, Nov 17, 1909, Rev Writings Poems p12, 1910 ———-

WE NEVER FORGET
James Kelly Cole Who Lost His Life in Freedom’s Cause,
November 17, 1909, at Tomah, Wisconsin
———-

James Kelly Cole, Poems Cover, 1910
“It was on a pilgrimage to help others
who believed in the rights of men
that James Kelly Cole was halted suddenly by death.
A railroad accident at Tomah, Wis., November 17th, 1909,
ended only too untimely his brief, young, hopeful life.
He lived well and bravely and thus did he die.”

———-

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