The Salvation Army gets a pass as authorities try, and fail, to clamp down on I.W.W. street speaking in the Canadian port city.

‘Free Speech Fight in Vancouver, B.C.’ from Industrial Worker. Vol. 1 No. 15. June 24, 1909.

The fight for free speech conducted by the revolutionary unionists here in Vancouver has ended as suddenly as it started, with a clear cut victory for the revolutionists. It was a fight started by the police, without the consent of the powers that be, but they were compelled to capitulate as soon as the economic interests of their masters was interfered with. From all appearances it was a concerted effort on the part of the police to keep the streets clear of obstruction for the benefit of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, but it evolved into a well-planned more to clear the streets of all labor agitators, especially those bearing the brand of the I.W.W. The first person to be summoned was a member of the I.W.W., who was fined $5. The case was appealed, and once again we got it where the turkey got the axe. The next was a real estate grafter, but who is, when stripped of his capitalist clothes, every inch a revolutionist and a man. He was fined $100 or 30 days hard labor, and the sudden rise of the fine from $5 to $100 is due on one side to the size of the bank book and on the other to the fact that the aforesaid land peddler had been conducting a vigorous inquiry into some of the police court scandals, in which the parasite on the bench had been meting out justice with the sword instead of the scales. The next one to appear before His Honor was a peddler of religious dope, one who is not a member of any particular denomination, a kind of a Christ, yet who does not preach the same doctrine that Christ did. He refused to pay the fine of $25 imposed upon him, preferring to go to jail, but as His Honor was not in an imprisoning mood he was released. During all this procedure the press of Vancouver advertised the matter and pointed to the fact that discriminating methods had been used by the police in allowing the Salvation Army to hold forth on the streets when and where they chose, while trying their hardest to stop everyone else. The socialist local held a well attended mass-meeting in the city. hall, in which they censured the magistrate in some of his recent decisions. They also conducted a street meeting the next evening, during the course of which the burly minions of the law interfered and tried to stop the meeting, but when the speaker refused to give his name and address they moved off like the whipped curs they always are when they run up against a person who has the manhood or womanhood to stand true to their own convictions.

I.W.W. Meeting.

The next evening a meeting was held by the I.W.W., at which the police appeared in force. They endeavored to take our speaker’s name, but again they found they had run up against the wrong man, and the same speaker has held street meetings during the past two weeks! without any further molestation. All is over for the present; a victory gained by the revolutionists; not by any great power they possessed, but by an economic factor which the police overlooked in their mad gallop for honors and to prove to their masters how useful they are in keeping the streets clear of all “undesirable citizens.” This economic factor that determined the revolutionist victory is the Salvation Army. The public opinion here was: clear the streets of all denominations or let them all stay; no discrimination should be shown. The police may have desired to clear the streets of all organizations, religious or Socialistic (excepting, of course, those who pay $5 a day to use the streets to sell “tiger-fat” or some other patent medicine), but, not having the power to chase the Salvation Army they had perforce to conform to the public opinion and allow us all to speak unmolested. Some may wonder how it is that in Canada, and more especially in this province of British Columbia, that the Salvation Army is a factor that can demand special privileges which in the United States it lacks; that is, being able to speak on the streets regardless of whether there is a movement on foot to prohibit free speech or not.

The “Salvation Army.”

In numerous instances in the United States when the police, with the powers that be behind them to back them up, desire to prevent labor agitators from using the streets to preach the gospel of freedom from wage slavery, they have invariably prevented all religious denominations (in order to make their crusade more effective) from using the streets also. Now, in Canada it is different; they do not attempt to prevent the Salvation Army from speaking (unless, as in the present instance here in Vancouver) public sentiment can be aroused to the extent that discrimination has been shown, and thus force them to prevent all, or allow all to speak. The economic basis of the Salvation Army is that they preach their doctrine in the open when, and where they choose, and if they lose that privilege it is a sign of decay, a sign that they are no longer of any use to capitalist society: such being the case capitalism will no longer support it as they do in Canada, with government grants of no less than $15,000, granted by the British Columbia legislature a few months ago, and government bounties on every wage-slave they land in Western Canada. The economics of capitalism demand an organized, systematic labor bureau, in order to keep the world’s market for men supplied far in excess of the demand. This organization is dressed in different clothes, according to the different economic developments it is found in. Throughout the British Empire it is attired in a religious garb, the chief of which bears the brand of the notorious S.A. In the United States the Salvation Army does not, to any great extent, fill the bill as a labor bureau, and consequently does not receive the same privileges. Capitalism grants no favors to any organization unless it can produce economic results that are beneficial to capitalist society, so you see, why the revolutionists of Vancouver won such a “bloodless victory. and you can rest assured that we shall take every advantage of it, in using the streets to advocate industrial union.

FRED C. LEWIS, W. TAYLOR, Press Committee L. U. No. 322, I.W.W.

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/iw/v1n15-jun-24-1909-IW.pdf