Gurley Flynn on the epic year-long free speech fight in Spokane, Washington in which she was arrested just out of high school, but already a veteran activist.

‘The Free Speech Fight at Spokane’ by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from International Socialist Review. Vol. 10 No. 6. December, 1909.

The working class of Spokane are engaged in a terrific conflict, one of the most vital of the local class struggles. It is a fight for more than free speech. It is to prevent the free press and labor’s right to organize from being throttled. The writers of the associated press newspapers have lied about us systematically and unscrupulously. It is only through the medium of the Socialist and labor press that we can hope to reach the ear of the public.

The struggle was precipitated by the I.W.W. and it is still doing the active fighting, namely, going to jail. But the principles for which we are fighting have been endorsed by the Socialist Party and the Central Labor Council of the A. F. of L.

The I.W.W. in Spokane is composed of “floaters,” men who drift from harvest fields to lumber camps from east to west. They are men without families and are fearless in defense of their rights but as they are not the “home guard” with permanent jobs, they are the type upon whom the employment agents prey. With alluring signs detailing what short hours and high wages men can get in various sections, usually far away, these leeches induce the floater to buy a job, paying exorbitant rates, after which they are shipped out a thousand miles from nowhere. The working man finds no such job as he expected but one of a few days’ duration until he is fired to make way for the next “easy mark.”

The I.W.W. since its inception in the northwest has carried on a determined, relentless fight on the employment sharks and as a result the business of the latter has been seriously impaired. Judge Mann in the court a few days ago remarked: “I believe all this trouble is due to the employment agencies,” and he certainly struck the nail on the head. “The I.W.W. must go,” the sharks decreed last winter and a willing city council passed an ordinance forbidding all street meetings within the fire limits. This was practically a suppression of free speech because it stopped the I.W.W. from holding street meetings in the only districts where working men congregate. In August the Council modified their decision to allow religious bodies to speak on the streets, thus frankly admitting their discrimination against the I.W.W.

The I.W.W. decided that fall was the most advantageous time for the final conflict because the members of the organization drift back into town with their “stake” to tide them over the winter.

A test case was made about three weeks ago when Fellow Worker Thompson spoke on the street. At his trial on November 2nd the ordinance of August was declared unconstitutional by Judge Mann. He made a flowery speech in which he said that the right of free speech was “God given” and “inalienable,” but with the consistency common to legal lights ruled that the first ordinance was now in vogue. Members of the Industrial Workers of the World thereupon went out on the street and spoke. They were all arrested and to our surprise the next morning were charged with disorderly conduct, which came under another other ordinance. It looked as if the authorities hardly dared to fight il out on the ordinance forbidding free speech. From that time on, every day has witnessed the arrests of many members of the Industrial Workers of the World, Socialists and W.F. of M. men.

On the third of November the headquarters of the I.W.W. was raided by Chief of Police Sullivan and his gang. They arrested James Wilson, editor of the Industrial Worker, James P. Thompson, local organizer, C.L. Filigno, local secretary, and A.E. Cousins, associate editor, on a charge of criminal conspiracy. E.J. Foote, acting editor of the Industrial Worker, was arrested out of the lawyer’s office on the next day. The idea of the police was presumably to get “the leaders,” as they are ignorant enough to suppose that by taking a few men they can cripple a great organization. The arrest of these men is serious, however, as they are charged with a state offense and are liable to be railroaded to the penitentiary for five years.

The condition of the city jail is such that it cannot be described in decent language. Sufficient to say, that the boys have been herded twenty-eight to thirty at a time in a 6 x 8 cell known as the sweat box. The steam has been turned on full blast until the men were ready to drop from exhaustion. Several have been known to faint before being removed. Then they were placed in an ice-cold cell and as a result of this inhuman treatment several are now in so precarious a condition that we fear they will die. After this preliminary punishment they were ordered to work on the rock pile and when they refused were placed on a diet of bread and water. Many of the boys, with a courage that is remarkable, refused even that. This is what the capitalist press sneeringly alluded to as a “hunger strike.” The majority has been sentenced to thirty days. Those who repeated the terrible crime of saying “Fellow Workers” on the street corner were given thirty days, one hundred dollars’ fine and costs. The trials have given additional proof to our much-disputed charge that justice in the United States is a farce. Fellow Worker Little was asked by the Judge what he was doing when arrested. He answered “reading the Declaration of Independence.” “Thirty days,” said the Judge. The next fellow worker had been reading extracts from the Industrial Worker and it was thirty days for him. We are a “classy” paper ranked with the Declaration of Independence as too incendiary for Spokane.

A case in point illustrates how “impartial” the court is. A woman from a notorious resort in this city which is across the street from the city hall and presumably operated under police protection appeared and complained against a colored soldier charged with disorderly conduct. The case was continued. The next case was an I.W.W. speaker. The Judge without any preliminaries asked “were you speaking on the street?” When the defendant replied “Yes” the Judge sternly ordered thirty days, one hundred dollars’ fine and costs.

Fellow Worker Knust, one of our best speakers, was brutally beaten by an officer and he is at present in the hospital. Mrs. Frenette, one of our women members, was also struck by an officer. Some of the men inside the jail have black eyes and bruised faces. One man has a broken jaw, yet these men were not in such a condition when they were arrested.

Those serving sentence have been divided into three groups, one in the city jail, another in an old abandoned and partly wrecked schoolhouse and the third at Fort Wright, guarded by negro soldiers. These outrages are never featured in the local leading papers. It might be detrimental to the Washington Water Power-owned government. The usual lies about the agitators being ignorant foreigners, hoboes and vags are current. Assuming that most of those arrested were foreigners, which is not the case, there are 115 foreigners and 136 Americans, it would certainly reflect little credit on American citizens that outsiders have to do the fighting for what is guaranteed in the American constitution. Most of the boys have money. They are not what could be called “vags,” although that would not be to their discredit, but they do not take their money to jail with them. They believe in leading a policeman not into temptation. They are intelligent, level-headed working men fighting for the rights of their class.

The situation assumed such serious proportions that a committee of the A.F. of L., the Socialist Party and the I.W.W. went before the City Council requesting the repeal of the present ordinance and the passage of one providing for orderly meetings at reasonable hours. All of these committees, without qualification, endorsed free speech and made splendid talks before the Council. Two gentlemen appeared against us. One was an old soldier over 70 years of age with strong prejudices against the I.W.W. and the other president of the Fidelity National Bank of Spokane; yet these two presumably carried more weight than the twelve thousand five hundred citizens the three committees collectively represented. We were turned down absolutely and a motion was passed that no further action would be taken upon the present ordinance until requests came from the Mayor and Chief of Police. The Mayor, on the strength of this indorsement by a body of old fogies who made up all the mind they possess years ago, called upon the acting governor for the militia. His request was refused, however, and the acting governor is quoted as saying that he saw no disturbance.

The “Industrial Worker” appeared on time yesterday much to the chagrin and amazement of the authorities. Perhaps they now understand that every member in turn will take their place in the editorial chair before our paper will be suppressed.

The organization is growing by leaps and bounds. Men are coming in from all directions daily to go to jail that their organization may live.

The fight is on to the finish and we rely upon the active co-operation of our fellow-workers everywhere. We must have funds. The legal defense of the men who are charged with penitentiary offenses will be an expensive one. Resolutions of sympathy are very encouraging but they will not pay expenses or fill jails. Our plan is to make this difficulty as expensive for the taxpayers of Spokane as possible. Let them cry quits to their Mayor and police force if they do not relish it. We can keep up the fight all winter.

Coeur D’Alene district of the W.F. of M. has passed splendid resolutions boycotting Spokane as a scab city. Pressure brought to bear upon the pocket book of the average small business man is the only plea that will ever touch him.

I hope that the readers of the International Socialist Review will realize the seriousness of the situation. It is a fight for life as far as the I.W.W. is concerned. Men and women here are willing to sacrifice everything. Surely it is not asking too much if you endorse our stand, to dig up part of your daily earnings. “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

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And now, from almost every state in the union, socialists are on the way to help their comrades in Spokane. Comrade Tom Lewis writes us from Portland, Oregon, that in response to the telegrams sent out by the I.W.W. and Socialist Party headquarters calling for men, the Portland friends arranged a meeting to call for volunteers.

“At that meeting forty men lined up. A collection was taken and handed to the little band to be used for ‘Coffee-and-‘ while the men were en route. At this time the rainy season is on and it requires men of the real stuff to volunteer to go, especially since nearly all of them will have to make their way jumping freights. Where would we be without such material!

“As the time for the men to depart approached, those who were unable to go, gave up their sweaters and overcoats to their comrades. It was an inspiring sight. Finally the word was given. ‘Boys, forward!’ and the little army of proletarians made their way through the streets of Portland in silence, while the rain splashed in the gutters. The passersby looked and wondered where the determined-looking marchers were going and the police followed them. Doubtless they expected the men to jump the freights in Portland, but we decided it would be better for them to walk to the ferry, cross to Vancouver, Wash., and at 12:30 midnight, board the ‘Workingmen’s Flyer’ — the freight. These are the men we need in our organization, men who are not afraid of the truth, men who will fight, men who have nothing to lose, but a world to gain. Strange as it may seem none of* our ‘reformer’ friends joined the band going to Spokane. But — as I have said — the night was a rainy one, and the reformers care only to lead and be looked up to. It would be well if these would-be saviors of the party got out and allowed it to become a wage-workers’ organization.”

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v10n06-dec-1909-ISR-gog.pdf