Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Duluth, Minnesota 1908 4- ir + £ jL 5K«a p&ftt'Ss ILL sw*UH»
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- TOM TRACY AQUITTED 223
- 224 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH
- TOM TRACY AQUITTED 225
- 226 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH
- ARRESTED FOR VAGRANCY 227
- 228 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH
- SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY” 229
- 230 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH
- SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY”
222 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH a high fever from a festering leg wound. On Dr. Equi’s demand, he was removed immediately to a private hospital, but only an amputa tion saved his life. He had come to this country at 16 from Poland, seeking "“liberty.” Now, six years later, he was a cripple. He had been shot on November 5. It was on Sunday when the Everett massacre happened. A simple flyer had been distributed in Everett, calling for an IWW open-air meeting at 2 p.m. at Hewett and Westmore Streets. It said: “Come and help maintain your own and our Constitutional privileges.” This was part of the prewar campaign of the IWW to organize the lumber industry, which centered there. The Shingle Weavers Union, not IWW but an independent union, had carried on a successful strike in the Northwest. Only one mill, the Jameson Mill, held out. The IWW co operated on the picket line and through their street meetings which had not been molested up to August 1916. Then a reign of terror, led by drunken Sheriff McRae and an employers’ outfit, the Commercial Club, was let loose on Everett. Meetings were broken up, speakers ar rested and beaten. Roads were guarded by deputy sheriffs against IWW entering the city. Groups of IWWs were deported out of the city, in a condition which sent many to the hospitals with broken limbs and internal injuries. Citizens of Everett rallied against these outrages and held one meeting in September. Over 2,000 people came to the public park to hear James P. Thompson of the IWW speak. On November 5, 1916, a delegation of 250 IWWs left Seattle for Everett on a regular passenger boat, the Verona. The overflow, and many regular passengers, took another boat, the Calista. The Everett authorities were tipped off by two Pinkerton detectives who were stool pigeon passengers on the Verona, pretending to be IWWs. As it pro ceeded, one of them raised his hand in a signal and the little boat was ambushed from three sides in a deadly fusillade from the dock and the adjoining piers. It listed and some men fell overboard. It then backed out into the stream and, bullet-scarred and bloody, with a grim load of dead, dying and wounded men, returned to Seattle. En route they warned the Calista to turn back.The known IWW death toll was five—Felix Baron, Hugo Gerlot, Gustav Johnson, John Looney and Abraham Rabinowitz. They were French, German, Swedish, Irish and Russian-Jewish. Two bodies were later found on a nearby beach and six who were checked onto the Ve rona were missing, probably wounded and swept overboard. When the TOM TRACY AQUITTED 223 two boats docked in Seattle, 38 IWWs were arrested from the Calista and 236 from the Verona. The men arrested were surprisingly young. Thirty were severely wounded. A passenger, not an IWW, was shot nine times and one of the Pinkerton stool pigeons had a scalp wound. In Everett there were two dead, C. O. Curtis, an office manager of the Canyon Lumber Company, who was armed and shooting at the boat, and Jefferson Beard, a deputy sheriff. About 16 were injured, including Sheriff McCrae. They were hooted and jeered at by Everett citizens as they were taken to the hospital. Mayor Gill of Seattle, who was criticized in the Everett and Seattle papers for allowing the IWW to board the two boats, replied heatedly: “In the final analysis it will be found these cowards in Everett, who without right or justification shot into a crowd on the boat, were a bunch of cowards. They outnumbered the IWWs five to one and in spite of this they stood there on the dock and fired into the boat— IWWs, innocent passengers and all. McRae and his deputies had no legal right to tell the IWWs or anyone else that they could not land there.” Efforts to start a recall movement against Mayor McGill fell flat. He ordered that decent food, blankets and tobacco be furnished to the IWWs in the city jail. Tom Tracy Aquitted Nine days after the arrests, all but 74 men were released. These were charged with the murder of Jefferson Beard and C. O. Curtis. They had been picked out by the two Pinkertons. The prisoners were se cretly taken out of the jail, heavily handcuffed and taken to the Sno homish County jail in Everett The others were released quietly in small groups, in an effort to avoid public interest. Thirty-eight IWWs, taken from the Calista, were charged with unlawful assemblage. Conditions in the Everett jail under Sheriff McCrae were frightful, and only a little better after January 8, 1917, when a new Sheriff, McCullogh, took over. The IWWs cleaned the place from top to bot tom and finally gained food demands, blankets, etc., by “battleship” methods—literally hammering the jail apart. Committees of women were allowed to bring cooked food to the prisoners in Seattle and later in Everett. I was at one of the “banquets” served on tables set the full length of the jail corridor—a full meal topped off with cigars and flow ers. Finally, as the date of trial drew near, Judge Ronald from Seattle
Meanwhile, I had spoken in every city and hamlet in King County and vicinity and in many throughout the state—as far north as Bel lingham and Port Angeles, west to Gray’s Harbor, east to Spokane and south to Vancouver and Portland, Oregon. One of the most impres sive meetings at which I spoke was held in Everett during the month of February, on a Sunday afteroon in a large hall. I said in opening: “We are here this afternoon to present to you the workers’ side of the Everett situation.” I spoke of it as “a segment, a miniature of what la bor is enduring everywhere, all the time,” and instanced the women and men shot and killed in the year 1916 in Bayonne, New Jersey, Standard Oil Company stronghold, “where the Statue of Liberty out in the bay casts her gleaming light into the very windows of the work ers’ homes,” and where gunmen shot a young Polish girl through the forehead as she was looking out the window, killing her instantly. A worker, not a striker, who ran in fear had 42 bullets shot into his fleeing body. I spoke of those beaten, shot, arrested on the Mesabi Range. I spoke of what I had seen in Lawrence and finally of what had hap pened right here in Everett. The working-class audience listened atten tively, with profound sympathy and then gave a large collection for the defense. Wherever I spoke the reaction of the people was the same, especial ly in labor circles. We told the story of what had really happened—the deputies had killed their own men in the crossfire. Because this was true, the murder charge against the IWWs involving Curtis’ death was dropped after the body of Curtis was exhumed and examined. In the course of my work on this case I sometimes had an escort, as a sort of bodyguard, although I had no trouble anywhere. One was a tall, lean, young lumberjack, who was greatly embarrassed at this assignment, “riding the cushions with a lady organizer.” He wouldn’t talk, and fin ally in desperation, I looked out the car window at the majestic Olym pic Mountains in the distance and remarked: “The scenery around here is certainly beautiful.” He answered me laconically: “Can’t enjoy the scenery under the capitalist system!” I had an amusing experience with another escort—this time self-appointed, a wiry little fellow who
I made a trip to California in the Spring of 1917 to speak at the State Building Trades Convention, which was held at Marysville. This sleepy little town was where Ford and Suhr had been tried three years before. Minor was there, representing the Mooney defense. A most re pulsive misleader of labor, P. H. McCarthy, was chairman of the con vention. Our friends there, including Anton Johannsen, had to fight to get us the floor, but they succeeded and the delegates gave both of us a rousing welcome and passed resolutions supporting our appeal. 1 went on to San Francisco and spoke with George Speed at an IWW meeting for Mooney’s defense. This meeting was held at the Moose Temple and was one of the first public gatherings held in San Francisco in defense of Mooney and Billings. I went to see them in jail where they were held pending court proceedings. Billings was very young-looking, red-haired and spirited. Tom looked much older and paler than the rosy-cheeked youth I had met in Idaho eight years be fore, but was full of fighting spirit. At his request I went to see his mother and met his devoted brother John. I also went to see Rena Mooney who was in a women’s jail far out of the city—a long trolley- car ride across flat marsh country. I could not persuade any women I knew in San Francisco to accompany me, so great was the terror of being connected with this case. She had pleaded with the authorities for a piano—she could keep occupied and soothe and entertain all the miserable inmates if she had her beloved piano. But they ridiculed the idea. So she was very restless and unhappy and worried about Tom when I arrived. She was both surprised and glad to see me but shocked that I had been allowed to come alone. I returned to Seattle. I did not attend the two-month trial hut con tinued to travel around the state and speak on the case. War was de clared while the trial was going on—in April 1917—less than six months after Woodrow Wilson had been reelected on the slogan, “He kept us out of war!” The IWW had been carrying on a steady organi zational campaign in the lumber and copper mining industries. Long before the declaration of war, the IWW had announced their demands for an eight-hour day in both industries. Aside from general declara 226 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH tions against war, the IWW had concentrated on the struggle for the right to organize and for shorter hours and better job conditions. It was in this connection that May Day was celebrated by the Seat tle IWW in 1917. Strangely enough, the women on the Tracy jury, of which there were six, had decorated the courtroom with green flower ing branches. Some of us (eternal optimists!) dared to take it for a good augury in the case. We held a memorial at the graves of those who had been killed on the Verona. Then the crowd returned to sur round the city jail and sing songs from The Little Red Song Book, which were answered with other songs from inside the walls. In the evening a great mass meeting was held at which Mrs. Kate Sadler, a local Socialist and a wonderful speaker, spoke with me. She had been at the St. Louis Convention of the Socialist Party held April 7, 1917, one day after war was declared. There, a' resolution on war was passed, which read as follows: “The Socialist Party of the United States in the present grave crisis, solemnly re-affirms its allegiance to the principle of internationalism and working-class solidarity the world over, and proclaims its unalterable opposition to the war just declared by the Government of the United States.” Mrs. Sadler spoke along this line and in this spirit. We of the IWW, as I recall, spoke more specifi cally of the class struggle in the United States, which we considered our main concern. The trial drew to a close. I went to speak at Cle Elum, a mining area where there were a large number of Italians who knew me from the East. It was agreed I was to proceed homeward from there. What was my joy to receive a wire on the train on May 5 from Herbert Mahler, Secretary of the Defense Committee, that Tom Tracy had been acquitted and expressing appreciation for my work. (All the oth er cases were dismissed and all prisoners freed.) The railroad conduc tor who delivered it to me said: “Well, it must be good news. You look so pleased.” I told him what it was. He looked astounded and then asked, probably thinking I was a relative of Tracy: “What’s your interest in it?” He would not believe I was an IWW organizer. He said they always rode the rods, not the cushions.
On my way home from Seattle, I stopped at Chicago and visited the IWW headquarters. This was the last time I was there. I remarked at ARRESTED FOR VAGRANCY 227 an informal meeting with the editors and others that I thought certain IWW pamphlets should be revised and some should be taken out of circulation. The reasons I gave were valid; loose phrases or bad for mulations like “Right or wrong does not concern us!” in St. John’s pamphlet, taken out of context, were misleading and could easily be distorted. I had seen in Seattle how they could be used in trials against our members, and I said I was going to request the general ex ecutive board not to reprint my pamphlet on “sabotage.” The new orientation of the IWW toward job organization and mass action and away from individual action, like sabotage, I felt was correct. I no longer agreed with the contents of the pamphlet and felt it had served its purpose to defend Boyd, arrested in Paterson four years before. “Why put ammunition in the hands of the enemy?” I asked. After the discussion, Haywood, in an unfriendly tone, said: “What’s the matter, Gurley? Are you losing your nerve?” He ordered a new edition printed with a lurid cover, designed by Ralph Chaplin, of black cats and wooden shoes. But the executive board stepped in and ordered that it should not be published. Other pamphlets were lat er either discarded or reedited to fit the new position of the organiza tion, which was becoming more and more a labor union setup. When I came home to our crowded way of life in the Bronx flat, I felt ashamed of the burden my mother carried so uncomplainingly and I decided I must stay home a while and relieve her. Carlo was showing the reaction from his imprisonment and the hectic pace he had kept up since his release. I was really tired after ten years of con tinuous intensive activity and the nervous strain of strikes and trials. In spite of a state of war in the world, I longed for a quiet and peaceful summer with my loved ones. Carlo had some Italian friends who lived at South Beach, Staten Island. We decided to take a small bungalow there and all try to rest, relax and recuperate. We found one in a pleasant camp, on top of a green hill with beautiful trees looking out over the Lower Bay, opposite Coney Island. We could see all the ocean liners, freighters, troop ships. It was a thrilling sight to see the great ship of that day, the Leviathan, come into view. The camp had its own beach and in no time Fred began to flourish and became an excellent swimmer.Most of the people around us were Italian workers, nice friendly people who feasted on spaghetti and wine out under the trees. We joined them. I began to put on weight at that time. Italian food was 228 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH my nemesis. Next door were two brothers and their families, German acrobats who practiced their stunts in the back yard. The owner of the place was Irish-American, a strong nationalist who was delighted to meet Nora Connolly, the daughter of James Connolly, James Larkin and other Irish who visited us. We went there every summer in late June and stayed until mid-September for nine years through 1925, when Carlo and I separated. Staten Island is a large and beautiful is land in New York Harbor, facing both the lower and upper bays. Then it was even more inaccessible than today, as there were no bridges. The ferry ride of about 20 minutes past the Statue of Liberty was pleasant. The cares of the city seemed to fall away on this trip. I stayed home with Fred, cooked and did a little gardening, went in the water daily and had a real vacation for the first time in my life. The family came and went as they liked and we all enjoyed it immensely. But there were bound to be interruptions in our kind of life. There came an invitation to me from the Mesabi Range for the big annual picnic of the Finnish Socialists in July, when workers came from all over the mining area and from the lumber camps. If it had been from anywhere else in the country I probably would have re fused. But my heart was enlisted in that area and I felt a responsibility to it. Over the protest of Carlo and my family, off I went again. I con soled myself that it should only take a few days of travel up and back, and one day to speak. I decided not to stop in Chicago, to save time and to avoid further friction with Big Bill. I really loved and respected Bill Haywood and hated to fight with him .When I arrived in Duluth I went to the Holland Hotel where I had stayed innumerable times the year before, during the strike and after. The clerks welcomed me. I went a couple of blocks to the local IWW hall and found they were worried about my coming back to the Range; they thought the Finns should not have asked me to come. They were planning to take me there by car right away so I could stay safely in Virginia in somebody’s home until the meeting hour at the picnic. The hot breath of war hysteria was in the air. They said there was a lot of agitation against the IWW and if I were questioned I should make it clear I had come for the Socialist picnic which had been a respected annual event there for many years. I returned to the hotel to check out, but almost immediately Sheriff Meining and a couple of federal men came to interview me about my plans, especially how long I was staying. This was seven years before “SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY” 229 J. Edgar Hoover headed the FBI and they were not as well publicized then as they became later. In fact, we identified GM as they were then called, more with enforcing the Mann Act than with any other activity. Later, prohibition became their special job. They asked me if I was going to advise anyone to evade the draft. I assured them I was not and that my visit was limited to this picnic. They left, apparently satis fied. But while they were there—and probably with their knowledge— the City Council of Duluth was holding a special meeting at which they passed a so-called wartime emergency ordinance to the effect that anyone in the city who did not have a visible means of support could be arrested for “vagrancy.” Within a few minutes the police raided the IWW hall and arrested everyone there. A couple of them came to the hotel and arrested me, much to the surprise of the hotel people. This was on a Saturday. The picnic was to take place Sunday. We were held over the weekend in a jail overlooking beautiful Lake Supe rior. We were refused bail, and after the picnic was over I was re leased on condition I leave town. I had nothing else to do. My speak ing date was ruined and I returned home. Later, Scott Nearing went there to speak at a Socialist peace meeting and the same thing hap pened to him. A month later the Duluth IWW office was wrecked by a mob of soldiers. I returned to the Range a few years later to speak in defense of Sacco and Vanzetti and had no trouble. "Safe for Democracy” After war was declared a mounting wave of hysteria and mob violence swept the country. It was not shared by the vast majority of American people who became increasingly intimidated. Printed signs were tacked up in public places: “Obey the law and keep your mouth shut!” signed by Attorney General Gregory. The victims of mob viol ence were varied—Christian ministers, Negro and white, advocates of peace on religious, moral or political grounds; Socialists, IWWs, mem bers of the Non-Partisan League, which was strong among farmers in the Middle West; friends of Irish freedom, and others. Some individu als, both men and women, who made chance remarks on war, con scription or the sale of bonds were tarred and feathered, beaten some times to insensibility, forced to kiss the flag, driven out of town, forced to buy bonds, threatened with lynching. 230 WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH In mob raids on halls, newspapers, headquarters of organizations and printing plants, uniformed soldiers took part without rebuke from the government. Inoffensive Germans, residents of this country for years, parents of American-born children, were suspected as potential “spies” and attacked merely for being German, even though they said or did nothing. This spirit of mob violence was one of the most dan gerous and shameful manifestations in our country, all in the name of making the world “Safe for Democracy.” From April 1917, to March 1919, the American Civil Liberties Bureau listed nearly 500 such acts of mob violence against individuals. Undoubtedly there were many more which were not recorded. The IWW had long planned a struggle for the eight-hour day in the lumber industry and for the end of notorious abuses, both there and in the copper industry. The price of copper and lumber went up with the war demand, but accidents and speedup increased on the jobs. The cost of living soared skyward. Among the miners, a blacklist system prevailed, known as “the rustling card.” All over the country the IWW became increasingly the main target of mob violence. Its organizers were beaten, tarred and feathered, and deported. Its halls were at tacked and wrecked in Oakland, Seattle, Yakima, Aberdeen, Duluth and other places. The press screamed “German gold” at the IWW. The government did nothing to repress violence, which was spread on a mass scale by the employers whose fat war profits were threatened by the demands of the workers exploited in their industries. Some 50,000 lumber workers in the Northwest and 40,000 copper miners in Montana, Arizona and New Mexico were on strike at one time during 1917, under the leadership of the IWW. That it was effective as a un ion in wartime was the real reason for the ferocious attacks on the or ganization. On June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the Speculator mine in Butte, Montana. One hundred and seventy-eight men were burned to death 2,400 feet below the surface of the earth. A sympathetic strike was called by an independent union. Among the demands was union su pervision of safety appliances. Meanwhile the speedup practices and the blacklist system had caused a strike in Jerome, Arizona. On July 10, 1917, 80 copper miners involved in this struggle were loaded in cattle cars and deported to California by gunmen of the United Vedde Copper Company. They were turned back at the California state lin e and lodged in jail in Prescott.“SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY” Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 2.03 Mb. Share with your friends:
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