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

Washington repealed the law in 1937, but most of them are still on the books and while generally inoperative they are coiled like sleeping serpents, capable of striking whenever reaction is in the saddle. During the war, and even afterward, until peace was formally declared, the federal Espionage Act was used to prosecute large numbers of Socialists and IWWs. But after the advent of “peace,” vicious nationwide onslaughts continued under these new state laws, designed to rivet the spirit of the Espionage Act upon the American people. The IWWs were the first victims of the criminal syndicalist laws, but membership in this particular organization was not specified, as it was in the Australian law, which made possible the wholesale prosecution of Communists as well, after 1919. These laws were the forerunners of the Smith Act of today. They were actually anti-free speech legislation. Like the Smith Act, they were directed primarily against utterances— teaching and advocacy, verbal or written—and organizations disseminating ideas on political or social changes. The “by force and violence” then—as now—was read by stool pigeons’ interpretations into the articles and books, though there were not so many to quote from in the 20s as there were in the 50s. The prosecution was not concerned with the actual use of force and violence, which would have required evidence of actual overt acts.

From a legal standpoint, there were plenty of laws on the statute books dealing with the use of force and violence which made such laws as the original criminal syndicalist laws superfluous. The real purpose was to prevent political and trade union organization, and the discussion of vital problems of the people. These laws caused the arrest of eleven hundred people. It would be hard to convey the human suffering, the mental torture, the loss of liberty, the broken homes, the cost in dollars for defense, inflicted upon militant American workers in this decade.

The state of California alone spent a million dollars on criminal syndicalist prosecution. In the IWW cases they had a team of paid stool pigeon witnesses, Diamond and Couts, who traveled from place to place testifying against workers. The Sacramento Bee said of the IWW in 1919: “It would be waste of time to have them arrested and tried. The best thing is to shoot them and not wait for sunrise either.

On his return to California, he found so many of his former coworkers in jail that he became secretary of the Defense Committee. He was soon arrested under the infamous Busick injunction which made IWW membership sufficient ground for imprisoment without trial (also a forerunner of modem anti-Red procedure). The next letter I received from this veteran, who had fought “to make the world safe for democracy,” was from San Quentin Prison, in a humorous vein: “Well, here I am, Gurley, home at last!”

Another California criminal syndicalist prosecution was that of Anita Whitney. She had been a member of the Oakland Socialist Party and her local, part of the left wing, had voted to go into the Communist Party in 1919. She spoke at a meeting under the auspices of the new organization. An American flag was draped over the piano in the hall. When she was prosecuted, a big to-do was made over this to the jury and it was called “desecrating the flag.” She was convicted and sentenced under the law. Her case, along with the Gitlow case in New York, became test cases before the U. S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of this type of law. The cases dragged until 1927 when the Supreme Court upheld the laws. Miss Whitney was pardoned by the governor of California. Another group was similarly pardoned by the governor of Illinois. By this time, the laws were becoming null and void through the pressure of public opinion and the campaign against them. But in 1924 there were 105 members of the IWW in San Quentin and Folsom prisons and 53 awaiting trial. In this year a brutal raid on the IWW hall in San Pedro brought indignation to a high point. Men were tarred and feathered and women and children scalded with boiling coffee. These state laws flared up again in the class struggle of the 30s in California and elsewhere.

“511”—MEETING PLACE FOR MANY MINDS

Mrs. Hannah Sheey Skeffington. Irish Socialist.

ISaUBD BY AUTHORITY OFTBB

One such event occurred later, in Sing Sing prison on St. Patrick’s Day. It was decided to have a celebration and Jim was permitted to speak. He was a Catholic, attended church regularly, and spoke with great reverence of the good St. Patrick. The Irish guards standing around the hall were very pleased. Then he told how St. Patrick had driven all the snakes out of Ireland. “And where did they go?” thundered Larkin. “They came to America to become politicians, policemen, detectives—and prison guards!” The prisoners cheered to the rafters and the celebration was summarily dismissed.

I went with my sisters to an Irish house party for Liam Mellows, who had been in the Tombs while I was there. I was anxious to meet him. When I mentioned our common experience, one of the guests said in quite a shocked tone: “And what were you in jail for?” Before I could answer, Mellows replied: “Don’t you know there is a struggle for peace and freedom here, too?” I had Fred with me that night. There were two frosty-looking middle-aged ladies, the Misses Kelley, who finally asked a $64 question: “To which of the Miss Flynns does the little boy belong?” My sister Bina answered: “Hush—don’t tell anybody! But we really don’t know!”

One of my first experiences with the Irish Nationalists had been a visit that Carlo Tresca and I paid in 1914 to the offices of the Irish World, where we met its famous editor, Patrick Ford. He was then quite an old man. Carlo wanted to borrow a cut of the Homestead strike scene which had appeared in its columns. When we introduced ourselves as leaders of the then recent Paterson strike, he said something about “IWWs—oh! anarchists—direct actionists, eh?” I had heard of him for years from my father, who was his great admirer. I could not contain myself and said: “Well, Mr. Ford, my father tells me how he collected money when he was a boy to send to your paper for a ‘Dynamite Fund’ to blow up the British Parliament.” His eyes began to twinkle and he said: “All right! All right! Maybe you’re right. You can have the cut.”

Strange as it may seem now, there was a strong natural affinity between the Irish Republic, which had been proclaimed first in the Easter

Years later, in 1948, during an election contest between De Valera and Dr. McCarten, a startling piece of information came to light in regard to these Soviet-Irish negotiations. It was revealed that in 1920 the representatives of the Irish Republic in New York City had loaned the Soviet representatives (who sorely needed dollars) approximately $20,000. They had received as security precious Russian jewels worth many times the amount. The jewels were smuggled into the United States originally—and then out again, when they were taken to Dublin, Mr. De Valera stated. They were placed in the vault of the Bank of Ireland where they probably still remain. This is a dramatic variant of the “Moscow gold” legend.

Dr. McCarten broke with De Valera after 1921 over the truce and the treaty between De Valera and Lloyd George, which resulted in the shameful partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and precipitated a horrible two years of civil war. Liam Mellows was shot in Mountjoy Jail in December 1922 by order of the Free State.

This came as a shock to his American friends who knew him as a valient fighter for Irish freedom. The fratricidal struggle between those who had been in prison and exile together gnawed like a cancer at the vitals of the Irish movement. Even when peace finally came, the British grip on the six Northern Counties belied national independence. The situation in Ireland then and since has not measured up to the expectations of the Irish people and their kinsfolk around the world. The population of this strangely sterile country has fallen alarmingly in the past three decades. Its development industrially and in rural areas has been retarded by its isolation from progressive countries. Censorship has stifled its press and literature. Creative mental life is limited, causing its best sons, like Sean O’Casey, to seek refuge in self-imposed exile. Large numbers of the younger generation have gone away to live in England and elsewhere. A dour and puritanical state, in the image of the fanatically Catholic professor of mathematics, De Valera, has curtailed human freedom and attempted to crush the joy of life. Equal rights for women, guaranteed by the earlier proclamations of Connolly, were stricken from the 1937 constitution, causing Mrs. Skeffington to

It is not strange that Woodrow Wilson collapsed before his second term expired. He spoke fluently and freely on all subjects as a “liberal,” but his sorry deeds belied his words. “Self-determination” and “make the world safe for democracy” were the most vulnerable. Demonstrations and delegations of advocates of peace, “Hands off Russia,” freedom for Ireland, amnesty for political prisoners and last, but not least, “Votes for Women,” confronted him at every turn. His administration was faced with the great steel strike of 1919-20. His plans to join the League of Nations were defeated by the Senate. Members of his administration resigned in protest over various issues —a secretary of state over war, a collector of the New York port over suffrage, the issue that perhaps plagued him most.

World War I made many radical changes in the lives of American women. It brought to an end the “lady” type. The labor shortage was great, the need of trained workers acute. At the end of 1918, nearly three million women were employed in food, textile and war industries. Occupations hitherto regarded as “men’s work” were open to woman. They worked as conductors on street cars. For the first time they were trained as radio operators. Women volunteered for the motor corps in the army and wore uniforms for the first time. “Farmerettes,” wearing bloomers, went from the cities to farms. Women did relief work, sold war bonds, organized canteens for the armed forces, joined nursing units. Thousands emerged from their homes into public life. Many remained in industry, either from necessity or choice, when the war ended.

Under the exigencies of war, the Department of Labor finally set up a Women in Industry division under Mary Van Kleeck, which became the Women’s Bureau in 1920. The need for adequate labor standards and for protective legislation for women was pressing. A demand for equal opportunities at skilled trades and professions and resistance to pressure to go back to the home grew apace. Unions of women were growing. All of this added fuel to the increasing demand of women for