Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on the “Glory” of War and Thoughts on Breeding for War

Defend your country?
What ground do you own?
-not even enough to stand on, perhaps,
much less enough to bury yourself in!
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Tuesday May 30, 1916
St. Louis, Missouri - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks on Preparedness

Robert Minor, Breed Mother Breed, NY Call, Aug 8, 1915.png
From the New York Call of August 8, 1915
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Hellraisers Journal: Remembering James Connolly in 1910, the year he left America and returned to Ireland.


The great appear great to us, only because
we are on our knees:
LET US RISE.
-James Connolly
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Sunday May 14, 1916
Remembering James Connolly's Departure from New York City

In New York City on July 14, 1910, A Farewell Dinner was held for James Connolly:

James Connolly, NYC Farewell Dinner, July 14, 1910.png

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn & Sara Bard Field on "Patriotism" from The Masses

Let those who own the country, who are howling for and profiting
by preparedness, fight to defend their property.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Friday March 17, 1916
From The Masses: "Do You Believe in Patriotism?" Part I

In the March issue of The Masses, various Socialist writers respond to the question, "Do you believe in Patriotism?" Today Hellraisers features the answers to that question from two prominent Socialist women, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Sara Bard Field. Tomorrow's edition will feature the responses of John Sloan and Charles Erskine Scott Wood. K. R. Chamberlin also offers an artistic answer to the question:

Artist K. R. Chamberlain on Patriotism

Patriotism by KR Chamberlain, The Masses, Mar 1916.png
PATRIOTISM by K. R. Chamberlain.
The Editor, the Munition Maker and Investor: "Outrage! American Killed in Mexico! War!"
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Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Lectures Brooklyn Audience on the Limitation of Births

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Monday January 17, 1916
Brooklyn, New York - Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Lectures on Limitation of Birth

Saturday's Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the I. W. W. organizer, Gurley Flynn, addressed a Brooklyn audience Friday evening on the subject of birth control. As is usual when covering events conducted by members of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Eagle must first begin by mocking the event before briefly describing Miss Flynn's presentation:

FEE ROUTS AUDIENCE AT FLYNN SEX TALK
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Girl Orator's Listeners, Mostly Juveniles,
Exit When Money Is Sought.
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Marxist org.png

About a half-hundred half-grown boys and girls with a sprinkling of adults listened with avid interest to a talk by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the I. W. W. leader, on the subject of limitation of births last night. The meeting was held in Plaza Hall, Grand and Havemeyer streets, with the avowed intention of teaching poor mothers to improve their economic condition. The interest continued until an effort was made to collect the 15-cent fee, with which it was hoped to defray the expenses of the lecture, when there was a rush to get out.

The lecturer scheduled for the evening was Mrs. Margaret H. Sanger, who is expounding her doctrine on the subject taken up by Miss Flynn in various parts of the country. She was ill, however, and could not keep her engagement. Dr. Frank Harris made an address touching upon the same subject from the view point of a medical practitioner. Dr. Joseph Slavitt presided.

Hellraisers Journal: Gurley Flynn, Labor's Joan of Arc, "Left Paterson Authorities Still Afraid"


She’s a little woman, is Gurley Flynn, and Irish all over.
The Celt is in her gray blue eyes and almost black hair,
and in the way she clenches her small hands into fists when she’s speaking.

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Thursday December 16, 1915
From The Outlook: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Labor's Joan of Arc, Feared by Paterson Authorities

An editorial from yesterday's Outlook defends Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, whom the silk workers call: "Labor's Joan of Arc." The Outlook supports Gurley's right to free speech in the city of Paterson, although they consider her and members of her organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, to be radicals and agitators. Yesterday's editorial follows an article from the November 24th edition which detailed the invasion of Paterson on November 11th by Miss Flynn and a group of prominent New York women. On that day, the Chief of Police stood before the door of the hall and refused to allow Miss Flynn to go inside to speak to the working men and woman of that city. We present, today, both offerings from The Outlook, beginning with the article of November 24:

FREE SPEECH IN PATERSON
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Free Speech at Paterson, NY Women, NY Trib, Nov 21, 1915.png

Hellraisers Journal: Gurley Flynn's Victory at Paterson Recalls 1909 Free Speech Fight at 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.
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, on trial in Paterson, Nov 29, 1915.png

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.

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Her Long Free Speech Contest with Paterson

Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Gets Chief Bimson as mad as sin;
When Chief Bimson gets mad as sin,
Sweetly smiles Miss Gurley Flynn.

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Monday December 13, 1915
From The Survey: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Victorious in Long Contest with Paterson

The Survey of December 11th described the long one-woman free speech fight, a contest fought between Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the city of Paterson, New Jersey, which ended on the evening of November 30th with a victory for Miss Flynn:

ELIZABETH FLYNN'S CONTEST WITH PATERSON
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Without Sunday from Fort Wayne (IN) News of Mar 20, 1915, cropped.png

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN, I. W. W. leader in the Paterson strike of 1913, was acquitted last week of the charge of inciting to riot that had been pending since the jury disagreed in her first trial in July, 1913. This is the last of the cases growing directly out of the strike of two years ago that will be tried, and the verdict sets Miss Flynn free to continue her contest over free speech with the Paterson authorities.

Chief of Police Bimson said that the trial narrowed down to a question of the veracity of the police officials and Miss Flynn’s supporters, “and evidently the police hadn't been believed.”

The calling of the case to trial at this time came as a surprise. In the summer of 1913, three strike leaders were tried following similar indictments—Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca and Miss Flynn herself. Feeling in Paterson at that time was bitter against the I. W. W. and the defense believed that it would be difficult to obtain a fair trial. Nevertheless a Passaic county jury disagreed in the first trial of Quinlan. A second trial resulted in his conviction with a sentence of two to seven years in the penitentiary. Attorneys for the defense then secured an order from Supreme Court Justice Minturn directing that in the other cases pending, juries should be drawn from outside Passaic county. Tried before so-called “foreign” juries, Tresca was acquitted, and in the case of Miss Flynn the jury disagreed. No move toward a new trial was made at the time.

Hellraisers Journal: Paterson Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of Inciting to Riot

The constitution of the United States is on trial-I'm not!
-Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Sunday December 12, 1915
From The Washington Times: People of Paterson, New Jersey, Praised for Acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

In a section of the Times reserved for editorials on subjects of interests to women, there was expressed in the December 9th edition, high praise for the "law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson." The topic at hand was the acquittal of Miss Gurley Flynn on charges of inciting to rioting:

Women, editorials on, W (DC) Tx, Dec 9, 1915, text.png
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Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Without Sunday from Fort Wayne (IN) News of Mar 20, 1915, cropped.png

The law-abiding and law-reverencing good people of Paterson are to be congratulated on the acquittal of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. They are to be congratulated because the effort of the Paterson police, responsive to suggestions from lawless elements in the community, to substitute Russian for American government has failed. The greatest winner by the verdict is Paterson.

The verdict is important as vindicating free speech, freedom of orderly assemblage, and freedom of orderly and legal organization. It is also important as tending strongly to shift the burden of presumption when lawlessness occurs in connection with industrial disputes. Formerly, when violence occurred during a strike, or bombs exploded, or labor agitators were charged with having incited to riot, the public assumed that the strikers were responsible. But it now appears that in many cases things are not as they seem. Private detective agencies are used and public police forces permit themselves to be used to arrange for crimes.

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