by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
Mortimer Downing, spokesman for the “silent defenders,” explained:
We decided upon the silent defense because we despair of justice for the working man being achieved through the courts. The Mooney case, the Frank Little incident, the Bisbee cases, the Chicago trials, these have convinced us of the uselessness of legal defense. We are tried in a prejudiced community … this “silence strike” is to preserve the self respect of ourselves as members of organized labor.24
After a six-weeks’ trial, all forty-six defendants were found guilty. The silent defenders, however, were given heavier sentences. Fred Esmond, weak from ten months of jail, cried out after the sentences had been passed:
I am not asking for mercy, I’ll take neither mercy nor pity from you or any representative of this government…. I want to go on record for myself and this organization as saying that we, the outcasts, have been framed up, clubbed, beaten, slugged, martyred, and murdered. Is it any wonder that I do not consider myself bound by your procedure when this court and its proceedings are a disgrace to the United States? You have done more than any I.W.W. could possibly do to drag your stars and stripes through the mire.25
In Kansas, thirty-four Wobblies were kept in county jails for over two years awaiting trial. They had been arrested by the federal government in November 1917 on charges of interfering with the Espionage Act and the Lever Act, which provided further for the national security and for controlling the distribution of food products and fuel. Most of the Kansas prisoners had been active in organizing Oil Field Workers’ Industrial Union No. 450 in Kansas and Oklahoma. Caroline Lowe, their lawyer, said they were arrested on John Doe warrants “at the suggestion of agents of the Carter Oil Company, the Sinclair Oil Company, Gypsey Oil Company and other oil companies doing business in this part of the country.”26
The Kansas prisoners suffered the worst possible jail conditions. In one of the county jails, ten of them were kept in a pie-cut revolving drum without windows. For punishment they were thrown into a pitch-dark vault in the subbasement of the jail, where they were refused food and bedding. A deputy jailor told how the guards maintained discipline: “We go in and knock the guts out of those fellows.”27 Most of the prisoners became ill; some died of TB; several became insane. Reporter Winthrop Lane, who did a series of articles on the Kansas county jails for Survey, wrote:
For a year and a half these men had been idle in body and brain. They spent their days in crawling from cell to bull pen and from bull pen to cell—seeing always the same ghastly faces in the glimmer of the electric light, hearing always the same voices, and smelling always the same smells. Their muscles, once strong, grew flabby and their minds, once alert, grew dead.28
Their indictment, while not citing specific instances where they had interfered with either national security or the production of food and fuel, mentioned “The Harvest War Song” and “Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay” from the little red songbook as examples of Wobbly intent to commit sabotage. In December 1919, after two years of torment, the defendants were brought to trial and found guilty. They were sentenced to terms ranging from one to nine years in Leavenworth Penitentiary.
The imprisonment of Wobblies round the country had a profound effect on the organization. In May 1918 Bill Haywood asked attorney George Vanderveer to go through the little red songbook and take out anything that in his opinion might be construed as advocating sabotage, violence, or crime. Eighteen songs were deleted from the 1918 edition, including Joe Hill’s “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom De-Ay,” and John Kendrick’s controversial poem, “Christians at War,” which few people knew was a parody of an earlier poem said to have been written by William Lloyd Garrison. A postwar edition of Justus Ebert’s pamphlet, The I.W.W. in Theory and Practice stated: “The war has caused the I.W.W. rejection of doctrines which it may have preached but never practiced.”29
Although some of the I.W.W. songs and poems were temporarily removed from publication, the bulk of Wobbly literature was enriched by the writings of the “class-war prisoners.” For most Wobblies a jail sentence was a badge of distinction, and the I.W.W. press called the list of Wobbly prisoners, “The Honor Roll.” While in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, Wobblies had issued a penciled prison newspaper, “The Can Opener.” They held weekly meetings at which members would make speeches, recite original poems, or tell stories. Many Wobblies took correspondence courses, book review discussions were scheduled, and, as one class-war prisoner remembered, “We always tried to find an interesting person to cell with, so the talk would be good.”30
The hundreds of prison poems, songs, and essays written during this period reflected the Wobblies’ idealism and high spirits. Some of the poems were first published in the Leavenworth New Era, the prison newspaper; others were printed in I.W.W. defense bulletins or in national magazines such as Outlook, Survey, The Liberator, New Masses, and Nation.
The number of Wobbly prisoners sentenced in the federal trials was swelled by the prisoners convicted in trials held under the criminal syndicalism laws passed by twenty-one states and two territories from 1917 to 1920. These were aimed at destroying the I.W.W. Most of the state laws followed the wording of the Idaho law, passed in 1917, which defined criminal syndicalism as “the doctrine which advocates crime, sabotage, violence, or other unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform.”31 The Idaho law further stated: “The advocacy of such a doctrine, whether by word of mouth or writing, is a felony.”32 Most of the laws stipulated a penalty of prison terms ranging from one to ten years, a fine of $1000 to $5000, or both. South Dakota imposed a maximum penalty of twenty-five years of prison, a fine of $10,000, or both. State supreme courts uniformly upheld the constitutionality of the criminal syndicalism laws.33
Defense News Bulletin, November 2, 1918.
From 1919 to 1924 in California alone, over 500 Wobblies were indicted. Of this number 164 were convicted and 128 sentenced to prison terms of one to fourteen years. In his inaugural address, California’s newly elected governor, William D. Stephens, devoted some words to the I.W.W. which reflected anti-I.W.W. sentiment in that state. He said:
These Huns of industry seek the destruction of every honest impulse and of every fair and just rule which men out of their age-long experience have created for their material benefit. These terrorists do not represent labor, but are the bitter enemies of all honest workers. During the war they did all in their power to aid the enemy. They must be suppressed with a determined hand and I would recommend the enactment of such stringent legislation as will aid and assist officers of the law in more effectively dealing with this law-defying element.34
California’s criminal syndicalism bill passed the state senate without a single opposing vote.
In most of the California criminal syndicalism trials, the prosecution used the same two witnesses who claimed they were former Wobblies and testified to the organization’s advocating and committing acts of crime and sabotage. These professional witnesses later admitted that they had been paid to make such statements. Defense witnesses who testified that they were I.W.W. members were arrested as they left the courtroom and, in turn, brought to trial under the criminal syndicalism law. In 1923 Judge Charles Busick issued a statewide injunction which enjoined the acts listed as crimes in the criminal syndicalism law. The Busick injunction eliminated jury trials, costly for the state, and speeded up the process of sentencing prisoners arrested under the law, since now a judge could sentence any Wobbly without a jury trial.
Wobbly prisoners kept active and alert throughout their jail terms. They maintained their organizational identity within the prison, elected committees, planned education programs, and circulated books and literature. They asserted their rights within the jails as they had done on their jobs. Direct action techniques were used, as far as possible, to obtain better jail conditions. In San Quentin, one fellow worker refused to work until he obtained a cot which he had been demanding for over a month. When he was thrown into solitary confinement
, thirteen other Wobblies insisted on going along to keep him company. After four days of their protest, jailors found a bed not only for the striking Wobbly but for thirty-nine other bedless prisoners as well.
In another San Quentin strike, the Wobbly prisoners stopped work after one of their group had been beaten by a prison guard. In Los Angeles Wobblies demonstrated against being beaten by police when they refused to stop singing rebel songs in the jail. Their protests attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which investigated their charge and found notorious prison abuses. The subsequent publicity eventually led to some prison reforms.
Throughout the nation I.W.W. members and sympathizers raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for legal defense, publicity about the trials, and relief for the prisoners and their families. Some mortgaged their homes. Maintaining an active defense effort for the prisoners became a major problem since the Post Office Department intercepted, delayed, and confiscated I.W.W. defense mail.
Many Wobblies, however, were opposed to legal defense, which they held was political action, detracting from organizational efforts. James Rowan, a popular leader of the lumber workers, took such a stand. In the August 31, 1918, issue of the Defense News Bulletin he wrote: “When we begin to depend on courts and lawyers instead of our own activities on the job, then we become decadent as an organization, and must soon go the way of all the unfit.”35
Solidarity, August 4, 1917.
Tensions within the organization increased when Bill Haywood and eight other I.W.W. defendants skipped bail in 1921 and sailed for Russia under false passports. Haywood, suffering from failing eyesight and severe diabetes, had been persuaded by Communist Party leaders to escape to Russia and help Lenin fight world capitalism. He knew that return to prison was certain to shorten his life, and he was assured by party officials that his bond money would be repaid. In Russia, Haywood was warmly greeted and appointed an administrator of the Kuznetz Basin Colony. A few years later, he returned to Moscow, disillusioned and ill. He died in May 1928 and his ashes were divided for burial between the Kremlin Wall and Chicago’s Waldheim Cemetery, near the graves of the Haymarket martyrs.
The Communist Party failed to repay the bond losses and the I.W.W. started a voluntary assessment to raise the $80,000 forfeited by the non-returnees.
Haywood’s flight to Russia came at a time when the I.W.W. had already grown critical of the highly centralized organization of the Third International, although the news of the Russian Revolution had at first been greeted enthusiastically by the organization. On receiving a long communication from Moscow about the goals of international communism, Haywood had told Ralph Chaplin right after the Russian Revolution, “Ralph, here is what we have been dreaming about; here is the I.W.W. all feathered out.”36 But in 1921, the report of the I.W.W. delegate George Williams, who attended the Congress of the Red Trade Union International in Moscow, attacked communist efforts to dominate workers in other countries. Developments in the Soviet Union in 1920 and 1921 made the I.W.W. realize that, as Fred Thompson wrote, “No matter how left’ the Communists might be, they were still politicians, primarily concerned with getting and holding the power to rule.”37 For the I.W.W., the philosophy and activities of the Third International were “un-Marxian.”
Government suppression of the I.W.W. was a prelude to a wider attack on all radicals. On January 2, 1920, simultaneous raids were made on radicals in over thirty cities. Approximately 2500 socialists and communists were arrested, 3000 deportation warrants were served, and over 500 persons were ordered deported. Several hundred were arrested for violating various state criminal syndicalism and criminal anarchy laws.
In November 1921 a Joint Amnesty Committee was formed to coordinate activities for the release of political prisoners. It was endorsed by many labor and religious organizations. Several delegations visited President Harding. A congressional petition, signed by fifty congressmen, declared that many political prisoners “were sentenced to terms of imprisonment more severe than those inflicted for similar offenses by any other country engaged in the war.”38 It went on to state:
They are still in prison, although every other country in Europe has released prisoners of the same class. We believe that this great Republic of ours ought to be equally humane. In the interest of an era of good feeling for which you, Mr. President, are so earnestly working, we express the hope that you will proclaim a general amnesty for political prisoners whose only offense was written or spoken opinions and not any overt act against the government.39
A children’s crusade of prisoners’ children presented Harding with a petition containing thousands of signatures demanding the release of their fathers.
By July 1922, responding to the growing pressure for release of political prisoners, President Harding let it be known that he would be sympathetic to individual pleas for clemency. But at Leavenworth Penitentiary this news was greeted with scorn. Fifty-two of the seventy-one Leavenworth I.W.W. prisoners wrote an open letter to Harding. They refused to sign individual appeals and demanded that all or none of them be pardoned. They wrote:
We are not criminals and are not in prison because we committed crimes or conspired to commit crimes. From the beginning justice has been denied us and the truth of our case withheld from the consideration of the public…. We know that we are now in prison solely for exercising the constitutional right of free speech at a time when discretion might have been the better part of altruism. If it is a crime to exercise the right for which our fathers laid down their lives, then we have no apology to offer. Free speech has always been the one thing we have prized above all others. In this regard we are unchanged…. Our “conspiracy” to oppose the war consisted in pointing out the economic causes of all wars and in showing that unemployment, reaction, and misery invariably follow in their wake.40
Antagonisms arose between prisoners willing to take individual pardons (called the “clemency hounds”) and prisoners who refused to compromise. Feelings ran so deep that delegates to the 1922 I.W.W. convention resolved to expel all members appealing for individual clemency and to circulate the names of all those who “broke solidarity” to I.W.W. halls around the country. When individual prisoners like Ralph Chaplin and Charles Ashleigh were induced by government agents to appeal individually for release, they were made a target by articulate Wobblies still in prison. As James Rowan wrote from Leavenworth: “The principle involved is vital, and the outcome may determine whether the I.W.W. is to remain a clean-cut, virile, militant organization … or become a crooked, yellow, opportunistic, fakeration dickering with the bosses and selling out the workers for the benefit of a few job-holding politicians.”41
The amnesty campaign gained momentum in all parts of the country. “Wherever we seek to suppress these radicals, a civil liberties union promptly gets busy,” said detective William Burns.42 I.W.W. activity was channeled through I.W.W. defense committees and such direct action techniques as boycotts of prison-made goods and intermittent strikes, especially on the Pacific coast and in the Northwest. A nationwide strike called by the I.W.W. in 1923 to demand the release of class-war prisoners was primarily effective in the San Pedro, California, area where 3000 Wobblies protested that state’s criminal syndicalism law, the continued jailing of political prisoners, and the hated “fink hall,” an anti-union employment bureau in that town.
A free speech fight in San Pedro, the last major I.W.W. effort of this kind, developed from the protest strike. Upton Sinclair was arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence, and hundreds of Wobblies and other liberal sympathizers were jailed in specially built stockades. A year later, San Pedro vigilantes raided the I.W.W. hall during an evening social, beat up the men and women, and dumped several young children into a cauldron of steaming coffee. Five Wobblies were taken out to the desert and tarred and feathered.
In the Northwest the May 1, 1923, protest strike was memorable for the work of I.W.W. “dehorn squads.” As Fred Thompson described it:<
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Knowing that alcohol and strikes don’t mix well, that “you can’t fight booze and the boss at the same time,” the dehorn squads told the smilo joints to close up for the duration of the strike. Those that didn’t were closed by Carrie Nation direct action or the threat of it.43
In several areas, members of the Wobbly squads were jailed by police who, as Thompson pointed out, were tolerating and perhaps profiting from the bootleggers’ establishments.
But although the cumulated pressures on President Harding brought about the release of all political prisoners in federal jails by the end of 1923, and although I.W.W. postwar organizing efforts lead to a steady increase in membership, the organization had been severely crippled by the problems, tensions, antagonisms, and factionalism of the preceding seven years. Without a doubt, the intensified public and government attack on all radicals during the war and postwar period had severely affected the I.W.W. As Bill Haywood characteristically admitted in 1919, the I.W.W. had been shaken, “as a bull dog shakes an empty sack.”44
1
“Comrades” by Lawrence Tully, was printed in Solidarity (October 10, 1914).
COMRADES
By LAWRENCE TULLY
I went into the Reichstag
My comrades there to see.
They sat in all their pomp and power
And broad humanity.
It was Comrade this and Comrade that
And “Comrade, you are first.”
And “Comrade, let me help you,
Ere with eloquence you burst.”
And then a man rose up in front
And “Comrades,” says, says he,
“We’re gathered here this blessed day,
To consider our army.”
“Our Comrades, ‘cross the Channel,
They’re arming to the teeth,