The Industrial Army’s Plea from Behind Bars
A committee of incarcerated laborers writes to the ladies of the relief corps, describing the cruel conditions of their transport to Spokane.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The ladies' relief corps of the Industrial Army held a meeting last night. A letter from a committee of the county jail, addressed to the ladies, was read and ordered spread on the minutes. The letter is dated May 18, and signed by John Byers, G. G. Lister, P. J. Flynn, D. Evans and I. L. Howell. On behalf of their fellow sufferers, they thank the ladies for the many acts of kindness extended, especially the gifts of clothing, of which many of the men were in sore need. The committee recounts the hardships forced on them when arrested. According to the account, they were obliged to leave Yakima at midnight, minus their blankets; ordered into box cars 'without regard to age, color or previous condition,' and taken to Spokane, where they were permitted to peep through such holes as some of the men sawed in the side of the box car in order to ventilate it, the air having become foul and unbearable. As one illustration of the cruelty, one man was forced to leave his shoes at Yakima and had to travel under guard through a succession of broken bottles and gravel to the cars. This man was finally given a pair of shoes by a doctor who attended him for wounds received at Yakima. The men have no complaint to make against the county jail authorities or the sheriff, who they say are doing the best they can under the circumstances.
“Ordered into box cars without regard to age, color or previous condition.”
This account of the 'Industrial Army'—a wave of unemployed men who marched on Washington D.C. during the 1894 depression—highlights the brutal treatment of labor protesters in the Pacific Northwest. It echoes modern concerns regarding the criminalization of poverty and the treatment of those displaced by economic collapse.
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