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

He published a monthly magazine, The Harp. Many poems from his own pen appeared. It was a pathetic sight to see him standing, poorly clad, at the door of Cooper Union or some other East Side hall, selling his little paper. None of the prosperous professional Irish, who shouted their admiration for him after his death, lent him a helping hand at that time. Jim Connolly was anathema to them because he was a “So’—cialist.”

He had no false pride and encouraged others to do these Jimmy Higgins tasks by setting an example. At the street meetings he persuaded those who had no experience in speaking to “chair the meeting” as a method of training them. Connolly had a rare skill, bom of vast knowledge, in approaching the Irish workers. He spoke the truth sharply and forcefully when necessary, as in the following from The Harp of November 1900:

To the average non-Socialist Irishman the idea of belonging to an international political party is unthinkable, is obnoxious, and he feels that if he did, all the roots of his Irish nature would be dug up. Of course, he generally belongs to a church—the Roman Catholic Church—which is the most international institution in existence. That does not occur to him as atrocious, in fact he is rather proud than otherwise that the Church is spread throughout the entire world, that it overleaps the barriers of civilization, penetrating into the depths of savagedom, and ignores all considerations of race, color or nationality. . . . But although he would lay down his life for a Church which he boasts of as “Catholic” or universal, he turns with a shudder from an economic or political movement which has the same characteristics.

Connolly published The Harp here as the official organ of the Irish Socialist Federation, and moved it to Dublin in 1910.

When William D. Haywood, then secretary of the Western Federation of Miners, opened the first convention of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, he said: “This is the Continental Congress of the working class.” George Speed, a veteran trade unionist who had

The IWW was a militant, fighting, working class union. The employing class soon recognized this and gave battle from its birth. The IWW identified itself with all the pressing immediate needs of the poorest, the most exploited, the most oppressed workers. It “fanned the flames” of their discontent. It led them in heroic struggles, some of which it organized. Others jumped in to give leadership after the strike had started. The memorable accusation against Jesus, “He stirreth up the people!” fitted the IWW. It set out to organize the unorganized, unskilled foreign-born workers in the mass production industries of the East and the unorganized migratory workers of the West, who were largely American bom and employed in maritime, lumber, agriculture, mining and construction work. In the East and South, it reached workers in textile, rubber, coal maritime and lumber and in a variety of smaller industries. In New York City, for instance, there were IWW locals in clothing, textile, shoe, cigar, rattan, piano, brass and hotels. In the West there was a Cowboys’ and Broncho Busters’ local of the IWW. The entire working class of the fabulous town of Goldfield, Nevada, was organized in 1906 by Vincent St. John into the IWW. The Italian laborers at the U.S. Army’s West Point were once organized in the IWW. I recall speaking to them there, about 1911.

I joined in 1906, belonging to Mixed Local No. 179 in New York City, a sort of catch-all local. How I got by the strict qualification that one must be an actual wage worker, I cannot recall. Possibly it was due to my extreme youth and the fact that all the work I did was for the movement, sometimes paid for and often not. A special provision regarding “Women and juniors,” passed at the 1906 convention, may be the explanation. My first experience with the IWW was a trip up the Hudson River to Schenectady, New York, by the night boat to Albany that summer to speak at a Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone protest meeting at Brandywine Park. It was a mass gathering. Later that year the IWW had a strike of approximately 3,000 men against the General Electric Company. They did not leave the plant but stayed by their


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machines and stopped production. This action was the first “sit-down” strike in the East as far as I know. The AFL threatened to take up the charter of any local which joined the IWW in Schenectady in a sympathetic strike. Our strike ended rather quickly.

My first personal strike experience was in Bridgeport, Connecticut in the summer of i907 with the Tube Mill workers, largely Hungarian. I was much amused to hear an overenthusiastic young may say to Ella Reeve Bloor in 1938, during the big CIO drive: “Mother, we had a strike in Bridgeport—the first one they ever had there!” She replied indignantly: “I led a strike of corset workers there before you were bom. How about you, Elizabeth?” When I told him that my first strike there was actually over 30 years before, he was speechless. Here, for the first time, I participated in strike committee meetings, mass picketing and daily meetings in two languages, with sad Hungarian violin music for entertainment. For a short time I stayed in the home of a striker, sleeping with the woman and the baby, while the men slept on the kitchen floor. Later, a strike sympathizer got me a room for myself. The strike meetings were in the vicinity of the mill, where the workers lived. In the evening we went downtown and held street meetings on a main thoroughfare to acquaint the people of the city with the conditions and the demands of the striking workers. We gained considerable support this way, which helped to settle the strike.

The first IWW convention I attended was in Chicago in 1907—I had just passed 17 years, and was still in high school. My family and friends were hesitant about letting me go, but I was determined. Local 179 elected me as its delegate. They had no funds, but sufficient was collected among the members of the Unity Club. I paid $18 fare and sat up all the way in a daycoach. Arriving in Chicago at the Wabash Avenue Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad, I was quite appalled to be all alone, so far from home. I had the address of a friend, Mrs. Josephine Conger Kanako, who had invite^ me to stay with her while there. She was the editor of a magazine, The Socialist Woman. She was a tall, thin, plain-looking woman, whose husband was Japanese, and quite short. They were an incongruous but apparently happy pair. He subsequently returned to Japan and died there of tuberculosis.

I made my way to where she lived and found her a charming woman. But it was way out on the South Side, on Cottage Avenue, and the convention was on North Clark Street at the old Brandt Hall. After a few days I moved to the home of William E. Trautman, who was then Secretary of the IWW.

While I was speaking that noon in 1907, a pleasant, smiling, round-faced man came across the park, accompanied by several others, and stood quietly on the edge of the crowd, listening to me. When I had concluded he came through the crowd and someone said: “Shake hands with Mayor Johnson, Miss Flynn.” I liked him but wasn’t sure whether my class-conscious socialist principles would allow me to be friends with him. However, he resolved that quickly enough by saying: “Come on for lunch with us!” And I was lifted right off the platform. Some of my comrades looked very dubious. I feared I was being a traitor to the working class right then and there, but others said: “Sure, go ahead, what’s the harm?”

So off I went in a big car to his home on Euclid Avenue. I remember meeting Fred Howe and Mrs. Howe and Peter Witt. I was quite embarrassed though I tried to appear calm, as if being whisked away by mayors was an everyday occurrence to me. He took me for a ride all over the city and told me his plans for its improvement. He was proud of the three-cent fare in vogue there. He was direct and forthright. He told me of his disappointment that his daughter had left the stage to marry some titled foreigner and he hoped she’d quit him for good. The politicians and big interests crushed him later and his heart broke. (Some five years later I saw Peter Witt who was then mayor of Cleveland and he gave me a contribution for the Lawrence strikers* in memory of Tom Johnson!) Marie Jennie Howe and Frederick G. Howe, to whom Johnson introduced me the day of the luncheon, took

* See below, “The Lawrence Strike of 1912.”


ROARING PITTSBURGH

81

me to hear him speak that evening, and remained my good friends for years. Fred Howe was in charge of Ellis Island in the Wilson administration. His talented wife was a minister and a suffrage leader.

It was quite an experience hearing Tom Johnson speak that night —he was informal, used simple language, argued with the audience. He had a good sense of humor, was always pleasant, yet sharp and quick in retort. He was loved by the people and hated by the rich as “a traitor to his class.” He described himself as a convert from plutocracy to democracy, a rarity in all periods.

When I left Cleveland, he gave me a letter of introduction to the mayor of Youngstown, so “you won’t have any trouble there.” My unusual experience greatly puzzled the local Socialist Labor Party, whose party was “purest of the pure.” The young daughters of the house where I stayed were excited and thrilled over it, but the SLP elders were worried as to whether I had compromised them beyond repair by my socializing with a “capitalist mayor.” Tom L. Johnson corresponded with me after that. He gave my unemployed father an engineering job that lasted quite a while. He died a few years later. There is a statue of him in the square in Cleveland, near the stone platform where I spoke—a belated tribute to a man who did so much for his city. I always waved a greeting as I passed by in later years.

Roaring Pittsburgh

From Cleveland I went to Warren, Elyria, Akron, Youngstown and Pittsburgh. Youngstown was uneventful. I did not need my letter to the mayor. It’s great to be young and to see places like these with the eyes of wonder and enthusiasm. In Elyria I visited a glass factory and saw workers blow electric bulbs on the ends of long glass tubes. In Pittsburgh I lived up on a hill, where we had to go through a tunnel or up an incline railroad to get there. In the daytime we couldn’t see the city below for smoke.

I will never forget my first visit to Pittsburgh—the great flaming mills on both sides of the Ohio River, the roar and crash of the blast furnaces, the skies lit up for miles around at night, the smoke, gas-laden air, the grime and soot that penetrated every comer. Industries fascinate me and wherever possible I visited them. This was much easier years ago. I visited the Heinz plant of the 57 varieties in Allegheny City, now the North Side of Pittsburgh. The fingers of the girl packers


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moved so fast as the jars and cans passed along the belt-line, you could hardly see them. Visitors were treated to a plateful of samples and given a souvenir spoon with a pickle-shaped handle. The horses were well cared for, I noted, in tiled stalls, groomed and well fed. In my speeches, I contrasted this with the hotels workers lived in there.

I also visited the Homestead plant, scene of the grim battle of 15 years before, when 300 armed Pinkerton detectives came up the Allegheny River in boats and fired upon the strikers gathered on the shore. A battle ensued in which six workers were killed. The Pinkertons were taken captive by the strikers and driven out of town. I was allowed to go through the plant, but had to sign a paper first absolving the company of all responsibility for accidents which might happen there. I felt as if I were entering an inferno. It was fascinating—the crashing noises, the unexpected bursts of flame, the heat, the sweating toilers, some stripped to the waist, attending the great furnaces and caldrons. We walked miles, saw all the processes that turned the raw red ore into a finished product. My speeches were improved by all this first-hand information.

I also was taken to visit a coal mine somewhere near Pittsburgh. It was in the side of a mountain, not down a shaft. I heard the cracking of the coal roof, an ominous sound. Water dripped down the sides. This was long before the noisy cutting and loading machines used today. Then the sad-faced mules, who did all the hauling, were stabled down in the depths of the earth. It is a saying that miners are superstitious about women coming into the mines, but I found no resentment, only friendly smiles. The little lamps in their caps lit up the gleaming eyes in the dust-covered faces of the coal diggers. To me they were then, and have remained, the unsung heroes of labor, who daily take their lives into their hands that we may have light, heat and power. They were then, and are now, the source of tremendous profits for absentee mine owners. They live in shacks in remote backwood camps, in lonely hills and hollows, or drab little towns, without adequate hospitals, sanitation, water supply, light, housing, roads, social recreation or educational facilities. Whatever they have gained, and it is little enough, has been by the strength of their union in bitter struggles. No wonder that no American coal miner ever wants his son to follow his footsteps into the dark, dangerous bowels of the earth!

Wherever I traveled in my earlier years I always tried to see the local industrial establishments. Later I become too “notorious” to be al

When I left Pittsburgh after about two weeks’ stay, the local surprised me, giving me two weeks’ organization salary—$36. (The IWW paid $18 a week and expenses.) It included a $20-gold piece. But I had not been rated an organizer before and had never drawn so much money at one time. I felt proud and affluent.

After reporting to the various IWW locals in New York on the convention and my trip, life became singularly dull. I had tasted of travel and the wanderlust was in my blood. I did not want to return to school. I resented the adult interference with my life by the members of the Unity Club and by my father especially. He had a penchant for personal conflicts, had quarreled with Connolly and others, and expected me to carry all his grudges. In August 1907 I had my 17th birthday. When the comrades assembled, my mother said to my father: “It’s ridiculous. There isn’t a person under forty!”

That summer I tried my wings again in a visit to Paterson, New Jersey. I stayed there a week or ten days, speaking every night in the large IWW Hall, which was located on one of the main streets of the Silk City. I met many workers during my stay, whom I came to know six years later at the time of our big IWW strike there.

One of the delegates to the recent IWW convention, J. A. Jones of Minnesota, began a correspondence with me, urging me to come on a