1909

__________

 

“The misery in those cells was something

never to be forgotten.”

 

A strike leader

__________

 

Calendar art - 1909. Both images in this post from the internet.

March: In an essay by Melvyn Dubofsky, he describes the work of the radical labor party, the International Workers of the World, the IWW, commonly called the “Wobblies.” 

[The Spokane, Washington] city council, acting on complaints from the chamber of commerce, prohibited street-corner orations by closing Spokane’s streets to Wobblies and all other “revolutionists.” It did so partly because the soapboxers castigated organized religion and partly because IWW oratory had a greater effect than “respectable” citizens realized upon “the army of the unemployed and poorly paid workers.” Spokane’s city council action was in accord with the observation made by a later federal investigator that the IWW’s right to speak should be restricted when the organization denounced “everything we have been taught to respect from our earlier days … all kinds of religions and religious sects.” 303/93 

(The Salvation Army people were still allowed to speak.)

 

As the number of those arrested rose, so did the fines and the length of imprisonment. … Spokane’s jail filled with Wobblies, ten to twelve men crammed in cells built to accommodate only four. The free-speech prisoners, fed a diet of bread and water twice daily, could neither lie nor sit down. One Wobbly later recalled: “The misery in those cells was something never to be forgotten.” 303/ 94

 

Referring to the member of city council as “toad-eaters,” the Wobblies said they would not be driven from the streets their members had built. The ordinance banning street speaking was ruled unconstitutional; but when the Wobblies tested the new rules, each speaker who mounted a soapbox was arrested in turn. The government, IWW leaders said, was acting “as the slugging committee of the capitalist class.” 303/95 

 

    Frank Little, a Wobblies leader, was arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence and sentenced to thirty days. Many of the workers were clubbed badly by arresting officers.

Jail life proved even worse: twenty-eight to thirty Wobblies would be tossed into an 8 x 6 foot sweat box, where they would steam for a full day while staring at bloodstained walls. After that they would be moved into an ice-cold cell without cots or blankets. Those who did not weaken from the heat of the first cell often collapsed from the chill of the second. Because Spokane’s regular jails could not accommodate the hordes of IWW prisoners, the city converted an unheated, abandoned schoolhouse into a temporary prison. There in midwinter jailers offered scantily clad prisoners two ounces of bread daily, soft pine for a pillow, and hardwood for a bed. Inside the schoolhouse guards woke the inmates at all hours of the night and then chased them from room to room. Under these conditions some Wobblies fell ill; others, no longer able to stand the strain, collapsed in the middle of the floor; still others maintained their spirits by walking around in a circle singing the “Red Flag.” Once a week the school’s jailers marched the prisoners out in order to have them bathe for allegedly sanitary reasons. Taken to the city jail, the Wobblies were stripped, thrust under an ice-cold shower, and then, frequently in frigid weather, marched back to their unheated prison. 303/96

 

The IWW won its major demands. Indoor meeting places would no longer be denied to the organization, and it could also hold peaceful outdoor meetings without police interference. Spokane agreed to respect the IWW’s right to publish the Industrial Worker and to sell it on the city’s streets. 303/99

*

April 1: Nothing ever really changes, regarding human behavior. Esteemed members of the U.S. House of Representatives are seen here, debating an important piece of legislation.