Wobblies fight police to protect freedom of speech on Philadelphia’s City Hall Plaza.

‘I.W.W. Defies Philadelphia Police’ by A Fellow Worker from Solidarity. Vol. 2 No. 38. September 2, 1911.

Attempt to Regulate Length of Meetings Successfully Resisted in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia, Aug. 28. The opening shot in another free speech fight in Philadelphia occurred last night, Sunday, the 27th, in the arrest of Fellow Workers Howard, Osborne and Brown at City Hall Plaza.

We received the first intimation of trouble brewing on Thursday evening at Frankfort and Unity streets, when we were ordered to stop at 10 o’clock, by an officer. His explanation was simply, “Orders from Headquarters.” Only the commencing of a heavy downfall of rain and the fact that the meeting was practically over, postponed fighting the issue that evening.

As soon as the committee arrived with the platform on the Plaza, they were approached by an officer who said orders were to quit at 10 o’clock.

The Socialist Party and Socialist Labor Party were holding meetings on adjoining plazas, and all three meetings proceeded regularly till a few minutes before ten.

The S.L.P. as usual strong on “law and order” had virtually said they intended to quit at 10 on prearranged plans of their campaign committee; but it was put up to them pretty strong by the fellow workers that they were quitters if they did. The Socialist Party decided to go ahead and if the speaker’s subject lasted after ten he was to continue as usual.

Meanwhile, while E.G. Flynn was talking as the principal speaker, the I.W.W. propaganda committee decided that she was to quit at ten, after an hour and half talk, and some of the men members were to make the fight. This course of action was pursued that the scheduled meetings might not be interfered with for the rest of the week, unless confronted with some more sweeping “orders” from the police, also the difficulty of securing bondsmen at a late hour Sunday night made it undesirable our fellow worker should go to jail unless necessary.

At ten o’clock the police started on the S.P., pulling the speaker from the box. and driving the crowd away, preventing the speaker from remounting the stand, but not arresting him. Next, two speakers were pulled off the S.L.P. platform, but were not arrested. However, by the time the cops arrived at the I.W.W. meeting the crowd had assumed gigantic proportions and was in an ugly mood. The police were hooted and jeered, and Fellow Worker Howard cheered to the echo as he was yanked roughly from the stand.

As Fellow Worker Osborne jumped for the stand the crowd closed in, the stand toppled over and police and prisoners were in an inextricable mass. The stand righted itself in the movements of the crowd and another fellow worker, Brown, jumped up. While pulling him down the cops drew their clubs and there was a mighty roar of indignation from the crowd, who rushed the cops shouting, “Don’t you dare hit him,” etc. The police hesitating before the menacing attitude of the crowd hastily withdrew with their prisoners and Barnes, a socialist comrade, spoke without interruption.

Whether the police sent in a riot call or thought “discretion the better part of valor,” they stayed away till the chairman triumphantly declared the meeting adjourned and the stand was removed in orderly style. Two or three officers then appeared, ordering the crowd to move on. The crowds were certainly with us to a man.

Indignation ran high at the attempted brutality on the part of the police and the unprecedented order of stopping at so early an hour. We propose to take no dictation on the length of our meeting, and consider this just as much a free speech issue as to be denied the right of speaking at all.

Now it’s 10 o’clock, later it will be 9, then ten minute talks will be the limit. We are in to win and to carry our message of industrial unionism to the toilers in this benighted Quakertown, where it is already being too well appreciated to suit the powers higher up.

The arrested fellow workers were let out at about 3 a.m. on their own recognizance. Osborne and Howard appeared at 10 o’clock hearing and were discharged. Brown was late in showing up and was held with a demand being made on the magistrate who had released them to produce him. The powers that be are after this particular magistrate’s political head, so this case may become a political issue in the pending election.

The I.W.W. has vindicated its fighting reputation again. We expect an enormous turnout on the Plaza next Sunday.

A FELLOW WORKER.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1911/v02n38-w090-sep-02-1911-Solidarity.pdf