‘Vincent St. John in Cincinnati’ from The Industrial Union Bulletin. Vol. 1 No. 24. August 10, 1907.

Vincent St. John, on Monday evening, July 29, at Cosmopolitan Hall, faced the largest and most enthusiastic audience that hall ever contained. It was simply jammed; the three aisles and the corridor leading to the hall were packed with wage slaves.

On every face was a smile of satisfaction, and every mind was full of but one thought. “Haywood is free.” The suspense, the uncertainty, the mental tension of four long months was over. He whom the capitalist class had selected as its victim, he whose blood was to atone to that class for the temerity of the working class for even dreaming of such a thing as its economic emancipation, was acquitted; more than that, they were to hear and see a man, a comrade of that same Bill Haywood, a fellow victim of this hellish plot of the capitalist conspirators, and with breathless attention they sat or stood, their ears drinking in every word, listening, not to an orator, but to a plain working man like themselves.

He told of the wrongs their class had suffered in the West, of the bitter fight of determined resistance that class had put up against the mine owners. He explained the new form of organization known as the I.W.W. and told them why the A.F. of L. was the willing tool of the capitalist class, not only in the West, but the North and South and East as well. He told them why the A. F. of L. was obsolete, as an agency through which the workers might better their conditions. He made plain to them the fact that the workers must unite upon both the economic and political fields if they would wrest from the capitalist class the tools of production and when he wound up by telling them that Haywood’s acquittal was purely and simply a victory for every member of the working class, that great audience went wild: they cheered, and clapped and whistled, for almost five minutes, and when he had finished they stormed the stage.

If the vindictive Gooding, or the chagrined Borah, could have seen this western miner at that moment they would have ground their teeth in rage, or if Teddy Roosevelt could have witnessed the sight of this “undesirable citizen.” actually holding a reception, it would have seriously affected his liver.

St John, in a plain, unassuming way, like a teacher in mathematics explaining a problem, spoke for about one hour and a half: all this time there was no applause, but the closest attention, and it was only when he declared that Haywood’s acquittal was not a personal victory for Haywood, but a victory for every member of the working class, that the storm of applause came. The capitalist press of the city had its representatives at this meeting; each naper had a man. and it sure did look like an important affair, with the press table in front of the stage surrounded by artists and quill drivers galore.

Each paper gave the affair a great deal of space the next day, the Post featuring St. John on the first page, under the heading. “Inner Circle Man Tells of Arrests; Persecuted Miner Describes Career in and- Out of Jail; Message to Working men,” with a large and good-looking likeness of Vincent, and almost two solid columns of space.

Two of the local members of the I.W.W. deserve praiseworthy mention in connection with this meeting. Ernest Vaupel, the chairman of the meeting, through whose efforts considerable space was secured in the capitalist press, as advance notices of the St. John meeting, and Harry Slomer, who held the boards until the arrival of St. John, who was late, not reaching the hall until 9 o’clock. Slomer’s address was not only able but brilliant; at times it almost reached the plane of oratory, and he not only curbed the impatience of the great audience, but turned them over to St. John in a pleasant state of mind. We had to actually tear St. John away from the capitalist reporters, and we hiked him over to our own headquarters, where we had him to ourselves until about two o’clock, and plied him with questions, until some good-natured slave volunteered the information that it was just possible that he was the kind of animal that sometimes slept, and with a tired smile Vincent agreed that he was one of that kind.

The A.F. of L., although represented by ten or twelve lieutenants of the Gompers machine, when questions were called for held their peace. This little big man of the west had “ripped them up the hack.” but they were silent.

COMMITTEE.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v1n24-aug-10-1907-iub.pdf