by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
One little shell might spoil them all
Or give them such a twist,
They would be of no use to me;
I guess I won’t enlist.
I love my country, yes, I do,
I hope her folks do well.
Without our arms, and legs and things,
I think we’d look like hell.
Young men with faces half shot off
Are unfit to be kissed,
I’ve read in books it spoils their looks;
I guess I won’t enlist.
10
The unsigned “Yellow Legs and Pugs” was printed in Solidarity (May 5, 1917).
YELLOW LEGS AND PUGS
If soldiers all were pugilists there would not be a war,
For pugilists would want to know what they were fighting for.
FOR INSTANCE
If Tommy Atkins had been told to beat up Herman Schmitz
And Herman had been told to blow the other into bits,
And if they had been pugilists they would have answered “No!
We will not fight unless we get a section of the dough.
We will not risk our arms and legs and shed our ruddy gore
While you who fatten on the fight make millions by the score.
Although it is a noble stunt to redden hill and dale, We will not fight unless we get a portion of the kale.”
And thus the world-wide warfare would be ended in a minute,
For bankers would not start a war if there were nothing in it.
11
This sworn testimony of the secretary of the I.W.W. local in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is an account of how I.W.W. members in that city were beaten, tarred, and feathered by a vigilante mob. It was printed in the Liberator (April 1918).
TULSA, NOVEMBER 9, 1917
“On the night of November 5, 1917, while sitting in the hall at No. 6 W. Brady Street, Tulsa, Okla. (the room leased and occupied by the Industrial Workers of the World, and used as a union meeting room), at about 8:45 P.M., five men entered the hall, to whom I at first paid no attention, as I was busy putting a monthly stamp in a member’s union card book. After I had finished with the member, I walked back to where these five men had congregated at the baggage-room at the back of the hall, and spoke to them, asking if there was anything I could do for them.
“One who appeared to be the leader, answered ‘No, we’re just looking the place over.’ Two of them went into the baggage-room flashing an electric flashlight around the room. The other three walked toward the front end of the hall. I stayed at the baggage-room door, and one of the men came out and followed the other three up to the front end of the hall. The one who stayed in the baggage-room asked me if I was afraid he would steal something.’ I told him we were paying rent for the hall, and I did not think anyone had a right to search this place without a warrant. He replied that he did not give a damn if we were paying rent for four places, they would search them whenever they felt like it. Presently he came out and walked toward the front end of the hall, and I followed a few steps behind him.
“In the meantime the other men, who proved to be officers, appeared to be asking some of our members questions. Shortly after, the patrol-wagon came and all the members in the hall—10 men were ordered into the wagon. I turned out the light in the back end of the hall, closed the desk, put the key in the door and told the officer’ to turn out the one light. We stepped out, and I locked the door, and at the request of the leader of the officers,’ handed him the keys. He told me to get in the wagon, I being the 11th man taken from the hall, and we were taken to the police station.
November 6th, after staying that night in jail, I put up $100.00 cash bond so that I could attend to the outside business, and the trial was set for 5 o’clock P.M., November 6th. Our lawyer, Chas. Richardson, asked for a continuance and it was granted. Trial on a charge of vagrancy was set for November 7th at 5 P.M. by Police Court Judge Evans. After some argument by both sides the cases were continued until the next night, November 8th, and the case against Gunnard Johnson, one of our men, was called. After four and a half hours’ session the case was again adjourned until November 9th at 5 P.M., when we agreed to let the decision in Johnson’s case stand for all of us….
“Johnson said he had come into town Saturday, November 3d, to get his money from the Sinclair Oil & Gas Co. and could not get it until Monday, the 5th, and was shipping out Tuesday, the 6th, and that he had $7.08 when arrested. He was reprimanded by the judge for not having a Liberty Bond, and as near as anyone could judge from the closing remarks of Judge Evans, he was found guilty and fined $100 for not having a Liberty Bond.
“Our lawyer made a motion to appeal the case and the bonds were then fixed at $200 each. I was immediately arrested, as were also five spectators in the open court-room, for being I.W.W.’s. One arrested was not a member of ours, but a property-owner and citizen. I was searched and $30.87 taken from me, as also was the receipt for the $100 bond, and we then were all placed back in the cells.
“In about forty minutes, as near as we could judge about 11 P.M., the turnkey came and called ‘Get ready to go out you I.W.W. men/ We dressed as rapidly as possible, were taken out of the cells, and the officer gave us back our posessions, Inger-soll watches, pocketknives and money, with the exception of $3 in silver of mine which they kept, giving me back $27.87. I handed the receipt for the $100 bond I had put up to the desk sergeant and he told me he did not know anything about it, and handed the receipt back to me, which I put in my trousers’ pocket with the 87 cents. Twenty-seven dollars in bills was in my coat pocket. We were immediately ordered into automobiles waiting in the alley. Then we proceeded one block north to 1st Street, west one-half block to Boulder Street, north across the Frisco tracks and stopped.
“Then the masked mob came up and ordered everybody to throw up their hands. Just here I wish to state I never thought any man could reach so high as those policemen did. We were then bound, some with hands in front, some with hands behind, and others bound with arms hanging down their sides, the rope being wrapped around the body. Then the police were ordered to ‘beat it,’ which they did, running, and we started for the place of execution.
“When we arrived there, a company of gowned and masked gunmen were there to meet us standing at present arms.’ We were ordered out of the autos, told to get in line in front of these gunmen and another bunch of men with automatics and pistols, lined up between us. Our hands were still held up, and those who were bound, in front. Then a masked man walked down the line and slashed the ropes that bound us, and we were ordered to strip to the waist, which we did, threw our clothes in front of us, in individual piles-coats, vests, hats, shirts and undershirts. The boys not having had time to distribute their possessions that were given back to them at the police stations, everything was in the coats, everything we owned in the world.
“Then the whipping began, A double piece of new rope, 5/8 or ¾ hemp, being used. A man, ‘the chief’ of detectives, stopped the whipping of each man when he thought the victim had had enough. After each one was whipped another man applied the tar with a large brush, from the head to the seat. Then a brute smeared feathers over and rubbed them in.
“After they had satisfied themselves that our bodies were well abused, our clothing was thrown into a pile, gasoline poured on it and a match applied. By the light of our earthly possessions, we were ordered to leave, Tulsa, and leave running and never come back. The night was dark, the road very rough, and as I was one of the last two that was whipped, tarred and feathered, and in the rear when ordered to run, I decided to be shot rather than stumble over the rough road. After going forty or fifty feet I stopped and went into the weeds. I told the man with me to get in the weeds also, as the shots were coming very close over us and ordered him to lie down flat. We expected to be killed, but after 150 or 200 shots were fired they got in their autos.
“After the last one had left, we went through a barbed-wire fence, across a field, called to the boy
s, collected them, counted up, and had all the 16 safe, though sore and nasty with tar. After wandering around the hills for some time—ages it seemed to me—we struck the railroad track. One man, Jack Sneed, remembered then that he knew a farmer in that vicinity, and he and J. F. Ryan volunteered to find the house. I built a fire to keep us from freezing.
“We stood around the fire expecting to be shot, as we did not know but what some tool of the commercial club had followed us. After a long time Sneed returned and called to us, and we went with him to a cabin and found an I.W.W. friend in the shack and 5 gallons of coal oil or kerosene, with which we cleaned the filthy stuff off of each other, and our troubles were over, as friends sent clothing and money to us that day, it being about 3 or 3:30 A.M. when we reached the cabin.
“The men abused, whipped and tarred were Tom McCaffery, John Myers, John Boyle, Charles Walsh, W. H. Walton, L. R. Mitchell, Jos. French, J. R. Hill, Gunnard Johnson, Robt. McDonald, John Fitzsimmons, Jos. Fischer, Gordon Dimik-son, J. F. Ryan, E. M. Boyd, Jack Sneed (not an I.W.W.).
“This is a copy of my sworn statement and every word is truth.”
* * *
“It was very evident that the police force knew what was going to happen when they took us from jail, as there were extra gowns and masks provided which were put on by the Chief of Police and one detective named Blaine, and the number of blows we received were regulated by the Chief of Police himself, who was easily recognizable by six of us at least.”
12
The material seized in the September 5, 1917, raids on I.W.W. halls, headquarters, and homes throughout the country was presented to the grand fury of the United States District Court of Illinois. On September 28 members and leaders of the I.W.W. were arrested and indicted on five counts. From that time until the Chicago trial opened on April 1, 1918, many of the prisoners were confined in Chicago’s Cook County Jail. This report on I.W.W. prison activities at the Chicago fail was written by Bill Haywood. It was printed in the Liberator (May 1918).
ON THE INSIDE
By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD
Clang! clang! a bell rang out, big iron doors slid back, the auto patrol wheeled up to the rear entrance of the Cook County Jail; and here we are.
We are in the wing of the “old jail,” a room about 60 by 60 with a double row of cells four tiers high; our cells face the alley to the west. Cells are six by eight, about eight feet high with ceiling slightly sloping to the rear.
This cell is parlor, bedroom, dining room and lavatory all in one. Decorations black and white—that is, the interior is painted solid black on two walls, black half way on the other two walls. The ceiling is mottled white. Wash bowl, toilet, water-pipe, small bench, a narrow iron bunk, flat springs, corn husk mattress, sheet and pillow case of rough material, blanket, tin cups and spoons, constitute the fittings of our temporary homes where we spend twenty hours out of every twenty-four, involuntary parasites, doing no more service to society than the swell guys who loll around clubs or attend the functions at fashionable resorts.
The reveille of this detention camp is the sharp voice of the “runner,” “Cups out! Cups out!”
It is the beginning of a new day. The light streams through the grated door and falls in a checkered pattern across the cell floor.
Bill Haywood.
United Press International, Inc., photo.
One stretches his body on the narrow cot and awakens to the fact that he is still in jail, accepting the situation philosophically, wondering, some of us perhaps, what manner of independence and freedom it was that our forefathers fought for in this country.
A prison cell is the heritage we gain for the blood and lives our forefathers gave; they fought for religious freedom and left us with minds free from superstitious cant and dogma; they waged war for political justice; they carried on the struggle against chattel-slavery—these were the titanic battles that were fought, bringing us to the threshold of the greatest of all wars—the class war—in which we are enlisted as workers, against all kinds of exploiters.
Abolish the wage system, is our battle cry. With an idea that is imperishable, Organization and Education as our weapons, we are invulnerable.
With thoughts of this kind imprisonment becomes a period of improvement. It may be remarked that members of the Industrial Workers of the World have had many opportunities to take advantage of these enforced vacations.
Many thousands of members of the I.W.W. have in the past few years wakened in cells similar to this, to the reveille of “Cups out! Cups out!” until the jails have become recognized as a temporary home—a detention camp of the Master Class-where we are confined or interned as it were, not as criminals, but as victims—prisoners of the class war. Over 400 members of the I.W.W. are in jail in different parts of this country at present.
So we roll out, wash and dress to snatches of I.W.W. songs from other cells, make the beds, sweep out and are ready for “breakfast.” The cell doors are unlocked by the guard at 9:30; we have the range of the narrow corridor until 11:30; dinner at 12 M.; out again at 1:30 until 3:30. In the Wing of the “old” jail these hours are spent in diverse ways. Here there are none but members of the I.W.W. Every day there is a physical culture class—breathing and exercise—to help keep the boys in good health in spite of the dismal damp and cold of the jail. The afternoons are devoted to discussion, gossip and song. Business meetings are held at regular intervals and a big entertainment is held each Sunday with recitations, dramatic sketches and songs. There are 48 men confined in this part of the jail.
In the “big tank,” or main portion of the “old jail,” there are about 58 members incarcerated. These men are locked up and must exercise with about five hundred criminals of all walks of crime.
It is on this side that all executions take place. There are three black holes on the corner wall into which the beams of the gallows are adjusted. When the gallows are not in use an old piano takes their place and this grewsome spot is sanctified each Sunday by sermons and religious hymns. It was in this corner that the martyrs of the eight hour movement of ‘87 danced upon the air, and that Parsons, over thirty years ago, delivered his unforgettable prophecy: “The day will come when our silence will be more eloquent than the voices you strangle today.”
Of course it is impossible for the I.W.W. men on this side of the jail to hold business meetings and entertainments as they do in the “wing,” but, nevertheless, the spirit of all is characterized by the cheery buoyancy and unbreakable determination of the One Big Union.
The class-war prisoners have a prison library that is remarkable in many respects. It contains many of the finest works on Sociology, Economics, History and poetry that are obtainable, as well as novels by the best modern novelists. A new book is always welcomed with great enthusiasm. These books were nearly all donated by members or sympathizers on the outside. One is safe in saying that more books have been read in this gloomy old institution since the I.W.W. boys have been held there than were ever read in the place before.
The prison fare, never too plentiful, has, on account of war conservation, almost reached the point of starvation. Only one piece of coarse prison bread is now served with each “meal.” In the morning the menu consists of a dry piece of “punk” and a cupful of a libelous decoction of “coffee,” at noon, stew, fish or sausage—usually of a quality that is fairly nauseating. For supper, “coffee” and dry bread again with an occasional cupful of suspicious “soup.”
Aside from the poor food and ventilation, overcrowding is the chief cause of discomfort and illness. Three, and sometimes four, men are locked up twenty hours out of every twenty-four in a cell about as large as the average bathroom in a city dwelling. Sunlight seldom filters through the grimy, gray, and iron-barred window panes—nothing but the sickly glare of electric lights, day and night.
In spite of the brave efforts the men are making against this unwholesome environment, the poor food, foul air and the prison chill have made awful inroads upon their health.
One young Russian fellow-worker, Jancharick, who entered the jail in rugged health, was taken out to a hospital—spitting blood—and just in time to die. Nigra, an Italian miner who was terribly beaten up in the Springfield, 111., jail, before being brought to Chicago, is in a hospital suffering the tortures of hell because of lack of proper treatment for his wounds while in the Cook County jail. Miller, a textile worker and member of the General Executive Board, was forced to undergo an operation because of an ulcerous growth, probably caused by the foul air and rotten food. Kimball, an Arizona miner and one of those deported from Bisbee last July, has been released on bail after a great deal of effort. He is now a physical wreck—“spitting up his lungs” as his fellow workers say; a mere shadow of his former self. MacDonald, Ashleigh and Lossieff are each either on the sick bed or near it, and many other fellow-workers have lost vitality that can never be regained.
Then there is the case of Henry Meyers. His incarceration cost him his reason. Day by day he became more secretive and morose. With furtive glance he sulked about among the hundreds of prisoners in the “bull pen.” One of them had told him that he would be hung. Beneath the weight of worry and fear his sensitive artist mind gave way. Like a frightened animal he ran wild around the galleries until captured by the guards. He is now in the madhouse at Kankakee—his reason has fled.
Cover of the Can Opener, a penciled newspaper put out by I.W.W. prisoners in Cook County Jail, Chicago.
Labadie Collection file.
It was he who painted the well known picture of Joe Hill. He made the death masks of our martyred members who were murdered on the “Verona,” that fateful Sunday morning in November, 1916. It was his deft fingers that shaped the clay that forms the face of fearless Frank Little that hangs upon the wall of the Chicago Recruiting Union.
This young fellow worker I do not believe ever committed a crime. He united his strength with others to improve conditions of all. Now his mind has lapsed; he is dead to the life he knew; his strong body is as useless as a burned-out cinder. This is but another indictment of the frightful system under which we are living. And this is only one of the stories that could be written of this frightful place. Be it recorded now that we are pledged to a new method of living—a new society, where injustice will not be known, where jails and prisons such as this will be things of the past, and where a human being will enjoy a friendly communal interest from the cradle to the grave.