Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Duluth, Minnesota 1908 4- ir + £ jL 5K«a p&ftt'Ss ILL sw*UH»

Before our battle for free speech had ended successfully in Missoula, the much more famous Spokane free speech fight had already begun, in November 1909. It was a far bigger and tougher battle than Missoula. The IWW, although it considered itself nonpolitical, carried on 26 such political struggles for the rights of free speech and assemblage between 1906 and 1916. Some, like San Diego, were even more bitter and bloody. Spokane is the center of “The Inland Empire” of eastern Washington and western Idaho, a rich mining, lumber and agricultural area. Due to the nature of the work and the climate the workers were largely migratory or “floaters,” shipping out from Spokane. Their wages were low, the work was hard, conditions unsanitary, and hours were long. But their most pressing grievance, especially in the depression years of 1907 and 1908, was the way the employment agencies cheated them in the sale of jobs.

The IWW systematically collected evidence of hundreds of cases where workers were either sent to nonexistent jobs or were fired after their first pay, out of which they had to pay a fee for the job. The “shark” was usually in cahoots with the foreman on the job. There was a grim joke among the migratory workers that the employment sharks had discovered perpetual motion—“one man going to a job, one man on the job, and one man leaving the job.” The IWW found, too, that this trickery interfered with organizing workers, as there was no permanence in a working crew and the “organizer” on the job could not stay there long enough to be effective.

The IWW hall was situated in the heart of the skid row, surrounded by cheap flop houses and employment agencies. Signs hung outside for “help wanted” in all sorts of jobs. In the spring, summer and fall of 1909, the IWW held street meetings directly in front of these places,

In December 1908, at the instigation of the employment agencies, a city ordinance was passed forbidding all street meetings in the business section of Spokane. Meetings were permissible in public parks which were situated in residential areas, far from the scene of the struggle. However, the IWW took advantage of this to hold meetings in the parks and bring the issues before the residents of Spokane. It succeeded in mobilizing considerable local support in trade unions and women’s clubs. Over 600 members came in response to the call of the IWW from the four comers of the country. When they tried to speak on the streets they were arrested for disorderly conduct, which evaded a test as to the constitutionality of the ordinance. The IWW hall was raided in November and four of its officers—James Wilson, editor of the Industrial Worker, James P. Thompson, Spokane organizer, A. E. Cousins, assistant editor, and C. R. Filigno, secretary of the Spokane local—were arrested and charged with “criminal conspiracy,” the old dragnet charge used so much in labor struggles.

Spokane was the scene of vicious police brutality throughout this struggle. Police officers kicked, struck and abused the prisoners. A newspaper reporter, Fred Niederhouser, characterized the herding of the men in the city jails as “monstrous.” Twenty-eight men were forced into a cell seven-by-eight feet. It took four cops to close the cell door. This was called “the sweat box.” The steam was turned on until the men nearly suffocated and were overcome with exhaustion. Then they were placed in ice-cold cells and “tWd degreed” in this weakened state. When the jail became overcrowded an abandoned unheated schoolhouse, the Franklin School, was used as a jail.

A moving diary kept there by James Stark reads today like something from a later Nazi concentration camp. He describes how the men were covered with blood after their arrest; “teeth kicked out, eyes blackened, and clothes tom.” One man had a broken jaw. Food at the school was “one-third of a small baker’s loaf twice a day” because the men refused to work on the rockpile. Stark describes how “turkey for

The heroism of the migratory workers who came from all over the country was remarkable. Men gave their addresses on arrest, as McKees Rocks, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and towns in Montana. There was a Civil War veteran among the free speech prisoners, who said that the conditions in the Franklin School reminded him of Libby and Andersonville prisons. There were two youths of 18 years who were offered a suspended sentence by Judge Mann if they would promise not to speak again and to leave town. Both refused and were sentenced to 30 days in jail and $100 fines, to be worked out on the rock pile. One woman was arrested who had also been with us and arrested in Missoula, Mrs. Edith Fre- nette, a camp cook. She was struck by a policeman on the way to jail. Another woman, Agnes Thecla Fair, who came from Alaska and had written a volume of poems called Songs of the Sourdoughs, went out among the farmers to collect money and food for the Spokane fighters. She met with a generous response. Socialist papers, such as the Oakland World, the International Socialist Review and others, supported our free speech efforts. The Socialist Party of Washington made an investigation and issued a public report strongly condemning the denial of free speech and police brutality.

When I came to Spokane in December 1909 the all-male committee was somewhat disconcerted to be told that I was pregnant. They decided I was not to speak on the forbidden streets but confine myself to speaking in the IWW hall, to clubs and organizations willing to give us a hearing, and in nearby places to raise defense funds. I made trips to Seattle, British Columbia, Idaho and Montana. A few months later, after five editors of the Industrial Worker had been arrested and it was harder for me to travel, I was put in charge of the paper. I felt fine, but my co-workers were disturbed about having me appear in public.

There had been such an orgy of police brutality in Spokane that my friends back East were greatly concerned. I struck the Spokane authorities a real blow, however, by describing in the next issue of the Industrial Worker my overnight experiences in the county jail. The entire edition of the paper was confiscated and suppressed. But the story went all over the country and hundreds of protests poured in. I took my story to the local Women’s Club, and they demanded a matron be placed in the jail.

When I came in there were two prostitutes in the women’s quarters. They were kind to me, gave me fruit and a blanket. But during the night a jailer came, opened the door and took one of the women downstairs, ostensibly to see her sweetheart. After a long time she returned. This was repeated several times during the night. She told the other woman the jailer had said they’d “have brought Jack up here only for her being here”—indicating me. I said in my article that the performance looked to me as if she were expected to ply her trade inside the jail. In the morning, the chief jailer came with our breakfasts —sour bread and weak coffee. He opened the door, marched right into our quarters where we were in bed and put his hand on my face to wake me up. I was startled and insulted and told him so. I also told the whole world or as much of it as I could reach through the press. It caused a furor in the city of Spokane.

The unspeakable Chief Sullivan (who was shot sitting at his window a few months later after the fight was over, undoubtedly by one of the thousands he had brutally attacked), said he had been in office for 20 years and no woman had ever complained before. Therefore I must be lying. The sheriff said the grand jury had recommended that women matrons be put in the jails but the commissioners had done nothing. One of the police captains evoked a storm of protest from women when he said: “Those women back there don’t want a woman to care for them; only hardened or low women are kept in jail.” My story helped to focus nation-wide attention on the much more terrible expe

A peculiar system of trials prevailed there. I was tried first in a lower court with a jury of six—two retired farmers and four businessmen —one in real estate, one in mining, and another the president of a drygoods company; no worker or woman on the jury, of course. The newspapers said I was considered “one of the most dangerous of the IWWs.” I was convicted, sentenced to 90 days and released the same day on bail. The second trial, on appeal, took place before a higher court with a jury of twelve. C. L. Filigno, the secretary, and I were tried together as co-conspirators. The prosecutor said of me: “If she had not formed a dangerous organization, had not sung the Red Flag song, had not called Justice Mann an illiterate old fool, had not preached the gospel of discord and discontent, I would have ignored her.”

I was ably defended by Fred Moore, then a young local attorney. Mrs. Stafford, an officer of the Women’s Club, testified she had heard me speak and there was nothing wrong with my remarks. The president, Mrs. House, was ready to substantiate this, but was not allowed to testify. During my testimony the judge asked me upon what I based my speeches. I replied: “The Bill of Rights.” He said: “But you’re not a lawyer. How can you interpret them?” I answered: “They are in plain English, your Honor, anyone can understand them. They were not written for lawyers but for the people!” To my great embarrassment, I was acquitted and Filigno was found guilty. By this time I was obviously pregnant and even the fast-fading Western chivalry undoubtedly came into play.

It was during the Spokane free speech fight that I recall first meeting William Z. Foster. He mentions in his book* having been in Missoula, so I may have met him earlier. He came there as a reporter for a Seattle left-wing Socialist paper, Dr. Titus’ Workingman’s Paper, formerly the Seattle Socialist. I only wish I had changed as little in appearance in the last 50 years as has Foster. When I met him in Spokane during the free speech struggle, he was 28 years old. He was tall, slender, blue-eyed and soft spoken, much thinner than he is now—a regular “skinny marink,” he described himself. His hair was not quite so thin as it is today. But in spite of serious illness he has not aged as

The hall had been closed down, the defense office had been moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in charge of Fred Heslewood. Over 600 men had been arrested. Our forces were seriously depleted, although we were boldly and publicly announcing a spring renewal of the free speech fight. The committee resorted to a tactical move at the suggestion of Foster. They approached the mayor offering to negotiate an end of hostilities. The city was full of floaters and the authorities feared they were all IWWs.

The mayor was tired of the whole business. It was costing the city $ 1,000 a week. The taxpayers were grumbling. He had previously said that he knew the employment agencies were crooks and claimed he had helped men get thousands of dollars back. He offered to put the ordinance on ice, allow the IWW to open up their hall and hold street meetings unmolested. It was accepted as a practical victory. All prisoners were released and pending cases dropped. So ended this famous struggle.

I Meet Tom Mooney

One of my speaking trips on behalf of the Spokane fight took me into the mining area of Idaho, which included the towns of Wallace, Mullen and Burke. I came with a spoken credential that opened every miner’s door and purse: “St. John sent me!” That area had been the scene of violent class struggle just a few years before—and Vincent St. John, under the name of John Magee, had been there to represent the Western Federation of Miners. Saint told me to look up certain people, especially an old lady in Mullen who kept a boarding house. I went to this strange little town in a deep narrow canyon, built along one street with the railroad track in the middle. It was so close to the houses that you could step off the train on to the porches. The little old lady welcomed me warmly and told me hair-raising stories of the Saint and his narrow escapes from spies and company thugs. “Only a few of us knew it was him, St. John, and we never told!” she said proudly. She told me of the bull pen, built to imprison the striking miners and of armed camps of guards, how mines were dynamited and

It is hard to say now, after so many years, why I had so completely fallen out of love with him. But I knew I had. Whether it was the age difference or a difference in temperament and approach to my work, I knew that it had come to an end and I said so. He wanted me to go with him to Butte, where he would get a job in the mines. He proposed I should give up speaking and traveling and settle down to live with him in one place. We had been married two years and three months, but had lived together very little of that time. His attitude was undoubtedly a normal one, but I would have none of it. I did not want “to settle down” at nineteen. A domestic life and possibly a large family had no attractions for me. My mother’s aversion to both had undoubtedly affected me profoundly. She was strong for her girls “being somebody” and “having a life of their own.” I wanted to speak and write, to travel, to meet people, to see places, to organize for the IWW. I saw no reason why I, as a woman, should give up my work for his. I knew by now I could make more of a contribution to the labor movement than he could. I would not give up. I have had many heartaches and emotional conflicts along the way but always my determination to stick to my self-appointed task has triumphed. But it wasn’t easy in 1910.

I talked to the Heslewoods first. Fred thought I was a little off my mental balance, “maybe affected by pregnancy,” he said anxiously. Otherwise why should I want to leave my husband at that time? Myrtle Heslewood was all sympathy, but she frightened me by proposing that she adopt my baby. I decided to go home to my mother. I knew she would understand and help me solve my problem. I did not want to give my baby away. So I turned my face homeward. It took five days by train from Spokane to New York, changing at Chicago. It is a wonder with the jolting of the train in those days that I did not have the baby en route. But I made it home in safety. I had to stay over a couple of hours in Chicago. St. John met me at the station. I told him of my decision, which did not seem to surprise or shock him. After he took one look at me, his main concern was to get me on a homebound train as soon as possible. He went to the ticket office to find what was the first train out.