James Connolly raises the red flag and fights for free speech in 1906. Then living in Elizabeth, New Jersey and a member of the Socialist Labor Party, Connolly leads S.L.P. and Italian Socialist Federation members in protesting to the mayor of Newark over occasions of police confiscating red flags, including on May Day, with Connolly announcing a challenge, the next time and date they plan to parade ‘the banner of our political faith.’

‘The Red Flag in Newark’ by James Connolly from The Weekly People. Vol. 16 No. 14. June 30, 1906.

NEWARK RED FLAG PROTESTANTS SEND SCORCHING MEMORIAL TO MAYOR.

They Want to Know by What Right the Police Suppress Political Symbols; and Show That Such Action Is a Violation of the Constitution.

Newark, N.J., June 21. The inclosed memorial has been sent to the Mayor of Newark, with a request for an inter- view for a deputation to lay the matter before him:

To His Honor, the Mayor of Newark, N.J.,

Sir:

The deputation presenting this memorial consists of citizens of Newark, and represents larger bodies of citizens organized respectively as an Italian Socialist Federation and a Socialist Labor Party. Our purpose in approaching you is to exchange views on the subject of certain illegal actions of the police of this city on two separate occasions, viz: the 18th of March, 1906, and the 1st of May, also in this current year. On the former occasion the police, without warrant and, we maintain, in flagrant violation of the rights of the tenants, entered the hall of the Italian Socialist Federation at 72 Seventh avenue, and forcibly removed a red flag displayed from the windows in company with the stars and stripes. On the second occasion the police stopped a peaceful parade of workingmen on Seventh avenue, and forcibly took possession of a red flag borne by them.

Your memorialists maintain that these acts were without proper legal sanction, and were also contrary to the spirit of the United States Constitution.

The Constitution of this country guarantees to all citizens the rights of free assembly and public discussion, and the right to agitate for a change in the laws under which they live, an inherent part of that right of public assemblage, discussion and agitation is the right to display mottoes, emblems, transparencies and banners indicative of the character of the assemblage and of the political faith of its participants.

This right is not only guaranteed by the Constitution but is a fact recognized by the common law of every State in the Union.

Indeed, free exercise of the right of political discussion is inconceivable without the right to proclaim your political faith by such means of agitation. He would indeed be a daring tyrant or tardy servant of tyrannical usurpation who would attempt to prohibit the carrying of transparencies bearing words holding forth the political creeds of its bearers, such right is allowed even in Newark, and by what fanciful interpretation of the law can a line be drawn distinguishing between a banner and a transparency, rating the one legal and the other illegal? Or are we to be told that it is the color of the flag that makes the difference in free America? What words which are legal and law abiding on blue, white, purple, green or orange flags become treasonable if displayed on flags whose color is red? Such quibbling is childish and utterly unworthy the dignity of a city of this great nation. Your memorialists respectfully maintain that the acts heretofore cited were a violation of the constitutional rights of the citizens, we therefore ask you to request the return of the flag in the wrongful possession of the police to its proper owners, and notify you as head of the city that the bodies here represented intend to hold a demonstration of protest on Saturday, June 23, 8 p.m., at the corner of Seventh avenue and Cutler street, and as a test of our constitutional rights to bear with us the banner of our political faith–the Red Flag of Socialism.

We have the honor to be, for the committee,
James Connolly.

New York Labor News Company was the publishing house of the Socialist Labor Party and their paper The People. The People was the official paper of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), established in New York City in 1891 as a weekly. The New York SLP, and The People, were dominated Daniel De Leon and his supporters, the dominant ideological leader of the SLP from the 1890s until the time of his death. The People became a daily in 1900. It’s first editor was the French socialist Lucien Sanial who was quickly replaced by De Leon who held the position until his death in 1914. Morris Hillquit and Henry Slobodin, future leaders of the Socialist Party of America were writers before their split from the SLP in 1899. For a while there were two SLPs and two Peoples, requiring a legal case to determine ownership. Eventual the anti-De Leonist produced what would become the New York Call and became the Social Democratic, later Socialist, Party. The De Leonist The People continued publishing until 2008.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-people-slp/060630-weeklypeople-v16n14.pdf