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Tuesday December 14, 1915
From Archives of The Workingman's Paper: Gurley Flynn on the Spokane Jail

Fresh from her victorious one-woman fight for Free Speech with the city of Paterson, New Jersey (see photograph at right), Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn plans to continue her struggle to establish the rights of union organizers to speak to the silk workers in that city. With this struggle in mind, Hellraisers offers an article, written by Miss Flynn for the December 11, 1909, edition of The Workingman's Paper in which she described her experience in the county jail at Spokane during the I. W. W. Free Speech Fight in that city which took place during the winter of 1909 and 1910.

Miss Flynn came to Spokane as a young married woman, having married John A. Jones in Lake County, Minnesota on January 7, 1908. The newly weds arrived in Missoula, Montana, in time to play an active role in that victorious struggle for Free Speech. They then moved on to the fight for Free Speech in Spokane, Washington, where Gurley Flynn was arrested as an I. W. W. "agitator."

Miss Flynn's article gives us some idea of the special hardships endured by women when prisons and jails employ male guards rather than matrons. The male guards are often less than trustworthy to be in charge of the keys which give them unfettered access to women prisoners, day and night.

From The Workingman's Paper of December 11, 1909:

Story of My Arrest and Imprisonment

By ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

On Tuesday morning, Nov. 30 [1909], at about 8 o'clock, I was walking toward the I. W. W. hall. As I reached the corner of Stevens and Front avenue I was accosted by Officer Bill Shannon, with the demand: "Are you Miss Flynn?" I replied, "Yes," whereupon he grunted, "Well, we want you." I asked, "Have you a warrant?" "Naw, we haven't," he rejoined, when the other officer stepped up and remarked, "There is one in the station."

I accompanied them to the station, where I was booked and a warrant read for criminal conspiracy. I was then taken to the chief's office, where Prosecuting Attorney Pugh put me through the "third degree." Mr. Moore, attorney for the I. W. W., came to the door and asked for the chief, demanding to see me, but they unceremoniously slammed the door in his face. The chief said: "Let him wait till we get through." At that time there were present besides the chief and prosecuting attorney, Commissioner Tuerke, a stenographer and several other officials unknown to me.

I refused to answer the prosecuting attorney when he fired the first question, saying "I don't know who you are." Indignantly the chief introduced us with the necessary formality: "This is the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Pugh; Miss Flynn, the I. W. W. organizer." They were all extremely courteous, probably due to the information conveyed to them over the phone that my physical condition [she was pregnant] was such that it would be dangerous to be otherwise. But the ordeal of a rapid fire of questioning is not as easy as it looks from the outside.

Every trick known to a shyster lawyer is resorted to. Every appeal made to the honesty, sincerity and truthfulness of the average citizen, that the questioners presumably had no respect for themselves. Frankly, the only mistake I made was to talk at all; but what I "forgot," "refused to answer," "didn't remember," and "couldn't recall" would fill a book. A man they would have put in a sweat-box and broken his physique and spirit, and eventually got him so faint and sick that he wouldn't know what he was saying.

The idea of the third degree is evident-namely, to trap you into attempting to prove yourself innocent, into forgetting that it is up to them to prove you guilty. Some of the cross-questions were entirely humorous. For instance. Mr. Pugh remarked: "You know it's useless denying what is an apparent fact, easily proven by scores of witnesses." To which I retorted, "Well, why do you ask me so many questions about an apparent fact?" The chief of police was anxious to know if Katherine Flynn [Elizabeth's sister], who signed the Irish Socialist Communication happened to be any relation of mine. Irish on both sides of this fight annoys the chief in face of his assertion that we are all foreigners. [Note: Elizabeth and her family were, at that time, well-known members of the Irish Socialist Federation.]

With an assumption of innocence, Pugh asked: "Who are the executive committee, and who handles the finances?" The first I didn't know, the second I refused to answer. He asked, "Do you know?" And I answered, "Of course I know." And he asked, "You refuse to answer?" I said, "I certainly do." He asked, "Did you say so and so in your speeches?" to which I replied, "I talked so much I don't know what I said." They all gave me the laugh, and he asked if that statement wouldn't probably, if published, injure my reputation as a speaker. Anxious he was for me to maintain my standing as an agitator, indeed!

Finally he said, with a very smooth preliminary about not caring to prosecute a woman, that I might go if I would state that I had no connection with the free-speech fight, was not in sympathy with the tactics of the I. W. W., and had not induced men to go to jail. I refused to either deny or affirm, declined to be tried and found guilty or adjudged innocent, in the chief's office, and that settled me.

I was allowed to see Mr. Moore and Mr. Rogers in the chief's office after which I was taken to the county jail in the patrol wagon. The morning "Spokesman-Review" had a story that I had requested to be taken across the river in a hack. The idea never occurred to me, and if it had I would have known better than to lay myself open to be refused. The "Review" lied as usual.

I was placed in a cell with two other women, poor miserable specimens of the victims of society. One woman is being held on a charge that her husband put her in a disorderly house. The other is serving 90 days for robbing a man in a disorderly resort in Spokane. Never before had I come in contact with women of that type, and they were interesting. Also, I was glad to be with them, for in a jail one is always safer with others than alone. One of the worst features of being locked up is a terrible feeling of insecurity, of being at the mercy of men you do not trust a moment, day or night.

These miserable out-casts of society did everything in their power to make me comfortable. One gave me the spread and pillow cover from her own bed when she saw my disgust at the dirty gray blankets. I could not eat the heavy, soggy food, stews, etc., nor drink the terrible stuff called coffee; but the girls gave me fruit that had been sent into them. They moderate their language, apologize for their profanity and pathetically try to conform to some of the standards of decency when they see that you are "different." They have been so accustomed to being ill-used and brow-beaten they rather expect it, yet become indignant when it is done to another. In the morning they gave me soap and clean towels that I might not have to use common soap or dirty jail towels.

The jailers are on terms of disgusting familiarity with these women, probably because the latter cannot help themselves or don't care. Imprisonment does not seem to have any horrors for them. Content to sleep and eat, they seem to be as happy inside of jail as out. They are unconscious of their degradation and solicit no sympathy. Perhaps they shouldn't be conscious, for society is to blame and not they.

I was put in with them about 11 o'clock, yet the lights were burning bright and they showed no sign of retiring. Three little iron beds were the furnishings of our sleeping facilities, so I threw my cloak over me and tried to sleep. The younger girl still remained up, though she turned the light down that I might sleep. Several times she went to and fro, asking if she disturbed me.

Finally the jailer came, opened the cell door and took her out. She remained a long time, and when she returned I gathered from the whispered conversation with the older one, the following: that he had taken her down to see a man on the floor below-a sweetheart she called him to me afterward. She went again and remained a long time, and whispering told the other woman that "Bert" (I judged to be the jailer) would have brought "Jack" up for this woman, indicating me. "They don't trust her," she said.

Perhaps I am justifying her suspicion in writing this. But the whole performance bore the earmarks to me of a putrid state of morals inside the county jail of Spokane. Taking a woman prisoner out of her cell at the dead hours of night several times to visit sweethearts looked to me as if she were practicing her profession inside of jail as well as out! And what particular interest did that man "Bert," so intimately designated by his first name, have in the matter? It would bear investigation. Readers may well imagine the horrible night of restlessness I put in.

Early in the morning a man by the name of Bigelow, jailer, I presume, came into the cell with breakfast. Instead of leaving it in the ante-room of the cell and going about his business, he marched straight into the room where we were all still in bed. He laid his cold hand on my cheek and I awoke with a start. My anger blazed up and said, "Take your hand off me. I didn't come here to be insulted." He murmured some inarticulate excuse, "Of course not," or words to that effect, and got out.

It certainly is a shame and disgrace to this city that a woman can be arrested because of union difficulties, bonds placed so high that immediate release is impossible, thrown into a county jail, where sights and sounds, horrible, immoral and absolutely different from her ordinary, decent mode of life can be forced upon her. Her privacy invaded while trying to steal some sleep by a brute of a man in a jail that hasn't attained the ordinary standard of civilization that requires a matron for the care of women prisoners. This all for law and order! "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

[Photograph and paragraph breaks added.]

SOURCE

Fellow Workers and Friends:
I.W.W. Free Speech Fights as Told by Participants
-ed by Philip Sheldon Foner
Greenwood Press, Jan 1, 1981
The Workingman's Paper
(Seattle, Washington)
December 11, 1909
https://books.google.com/books?id=y4yxAAAAIAAJ

Jan 7, 1908
MN Marriages (MOMS)
EGF m. JA Jones in Lake Co
https://www.moms.mn.gov/Default

IMAGES
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, on trial in Paterson, LOC, Nov 29, 1915
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/89713937/
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Mrs JA Jones), LOC (date: about 1910?)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005686058/

See also:

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Acquitted of Inciting to Riot in Paterson, New Jersey
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-elizabeth-gurley-...
Hellraisers Journal: Paterson Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of Inciting to Riot
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-paterson-praised-...
Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Her Long Free Speech Contest with Paterson
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hellraisers-journal-elizabeth-gurley-...

For more on Spokane Free Speech Fight:
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=7357

The International Socialist Review, Volume 10
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
C. H. Kerr & Company, July, 1909—June, 1910
https://books.google.com/books?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ
ISR-Dec 1909 on Spokane FSF
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ISR-Jan 1910: "Shame of Spokane" by EGF
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ISR-Feb 1910: "Barbarous Spokane" By Fred W. Heslewood
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...
ISR-March 1910: "Latest News from Spokane" by EGF
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcove...

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JOE HILL’S “THE WHITE SLAVE”
http://politicalfolkmusic.org/wordpress/joe-hill-the-white-slave/

Girls in this way, fall every day,
And have been falling for ages,
Who is to blame? You know his name,
It's the boss that pays starvation wages.
A homeless girl can always hear
Temptations calling everywhere.