Like its U.S. neighbors, Vancouver was a city with an active I.W.W. and militant labor movement which had innumerable free speech fights met, also like its neighbors, with repression and violence. A particularly dramatic one of those battles is described below.
‘I.W.W. Regatta in Vancouver’ from Industrial Worker, Vol. 3 No. 48. February 22, 1912.
POLICE FOOLED BY ACTIVE AGITATORS–MEGAPHONE PINCHED BY COPPERS-MEN SLUGGED BY COSSACKS–PRIVATE HOMES INVADED–PREMIER IS BUSY–CASH NEEDED.
Several sensational stunts were successfully pulled off by the free speech fighters in Vicious Vancouver, and as usual Czar Finklayofski had his Russianized Irish Cossacks on the scene with their trusty bludgeons unlimbered and in action.
That the “alien agitators” had Foolish Findlay up a tree for a time is shown by the following report from the press committee in Vancouver village.
“Sunday, February 11–Today’s free speech demonstration at Stanley Park made a hit. The speakers and the band had five boats from which to speak to the crowd on shore. The police patrol made its appearance, in company with two launches, early in the afternoon and was enthusiastically received with hoots and hisses from the crowd. The band boat arrived at 2:30 p.m. and played several revolutionary airs, with the police patrol following and tooting its whistle in a vain endeavor to drown out the music. The patrol boat kept the speakers from getting together, however, and finally one of the boats followed the patrol and by constant ridicule turned the attention of the idiotic bluecoats in their direction. The whole crew were arrested and the boat was towed to the station. Immediately the other speakers got busy and made the meeting a success. The mounted cossacks and the policemen on shore were plainly up against it. They fumed, fussed, and raged but were afraid to get their feet wet. A meeting was announced from the boats, same to be held on the Powell street football grounds as soon as the crowd could reach that point. The crowd dispersed and reached the grounds at about 4:30 where a meeting was opened d to an audience of between 8,000 and 10,000. of Fellow Workers Barber, Flood, Rohn, Wolfe, Flick, Dixon, Urban and a French speaker of held down the box in succession. All were introduced to the crowd as “John Brown” and the talks created great interest. At the grounds the slugging brigade lined up 125 strong alongside the park, and were reinforced by the Cossacks and many plain clothes men. The battle began when the prostituted hirelings of the master class proceeded to clear the park. One old man, Fred Blumberg by name, was slugged so severely that he was left lying upon the ground with blood streaming from his mouth after the crowd had been dispersed. He was taken to the hospital for treatment. Two others had to be taken away by the ambulance and the number of people who had their heads bruised by the bludgeons in the hands of the brutes in blue is hard to estimate. People were clubbed from private porches and people were forced indoors from the balconies of their own dwellings. Our megaphone, which was ten feet long and eight feet in diameter, was arrested by the brave policemen and jailed. The charge against it is not yet made public.”
If “The Englishman’s home is his castle” it is evident that Findlay and his contemptible cossacks rule the roost.
All prisoners tried so far have had the same dose handed to them “Three months” is about as far as Findlay limited intelligence goes. Perhaps it is well that the sentences are not heavier for there will be less to retract when the I.W.W. wins this skirmish in the great class war.
The fighters have issued cards bearing the words:
“Shall British Freedom of Speech and Assemblage be Denied? SAY NO!”
Carpenters union and many other labor bodies are endorsing the fight. The meetings of the Trade and Labor Council take up much of their time in discussion of the affair, and upon vote they allowed members of the I.W.W. to address them on Sunday last.
It is said that Premier “Dick” McBride will overrule the dictum of his first lieutenant, Attorney-General Bowser and allow free speech and quash the proceedings against the imprisoned men. This is given credence in view of the fact that Wilkinson and MeVety of the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council have been hurriedly summoned to Victoria to confer with McBride upon the matter.
The Salvation Army and various other of the pious penny-grabbers have laid down in this fight in order to stand in with the police department. This makes it possible for them to continue the collection of old clothes from the poor to peddle to the still poorer, and will give them an added lease of life in the sacred business of producing sanctified scabs. The difference between those who stand for principles and those who stand for pennies is here plainly shown.
In the Daily Prunejuice on St. Valentine’s Day a cartoon depicts the I.W.W. as an infant labelled “Nothing But Trouble.” Well, Mare Findley, just watch that baby grow. The child will make you earn your $5,000 per while you are in office (which won’t be many more terms).
Also we would advise the Daily Saliva and the Intellectual Twilight to compare notes before going any further. One paper in “resenting alien interference” calls Vincent St. John a coward (at long distance), while the other tells of brave but desperate deeds of a thrilling nature “a la Nick Carter” performed by the same person. Pretty raw work, that.
As the I.W.W. committee has not yet met with the mayor, and is not represented on the committees which have appeared before “hizzonner” there can be no settlement of the question. Even should the others be willing to compromise, the I.W.W. proposes to fight the matter to a conclusion if it takes twenty years.
It is proposed that a balloon be chartered and addresses made therefrom. No matter what means are used it is evident that Vancouver is getting undesired advertising.
In Vicious Vancouver with its grafting employment sharks, its pusillanimous sky pilots, its lying real estate grafters, and its thousands of unemployable men, we hear that they are to raise $10,000 to feed the people of Eastern China who are starving. Charity may cover a multitude of sins but the I.W.W. will see that it is not used as a mantle for the damnable deeds of Czar Findlayofski’s Russianized Cossacks.
Donations are needed to feed the men coming in from other parts of B.C. and from “the land of John D. and the home of the slave.” Also to advertise to the world the civic shame of vile Vancouver. Send all funds to Frank Wilson, Box 2167, North Vancouver, B.C.
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.” A victim of finances and internal disputes, the IW ceased publication in 1913, only to be revived in 1916 and surviving as a weekly, sometimes more, until 1931. Easily among the most important working class newspapers in U.S. history and an essential resource on the wobbly, and larger radical labor experience.
PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v3n48-w152-feb-22-1912-IW.pdf
