Spokane Police Storm an IWW Street Meeting, Jailing 19 Organizers
A squad of ten officers broke up a free-speech rally by the Industrial Workers of the World in downtown Spokane, arresting 19 and leaving six already serving time with $100 fines.
Spokane — Making a grand rush into the midst of a crowd of 3,000 people gathered on Main Avenue Sunday afternoon, a squad of ten policemen arrested and dragged off to the city jail 19 members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were attempting to hold street meetings. Six members of the organization are now doing time on the rock pile with $100 fines hanging over them, and it is expected that the same thing will happen to the new prisoners.
“Making a grand rush into the midst of a crowd of 3,000 people ... a squad of ten policemen arrested and dragged off to the city jail 19 members of the Industrial Workers of the World.”
Street-corner organizing and police response are an old Spokane story; the IWW fights over free speech and public space echo modern debates about protest permits, encampments, and who gets to occupy downtown sidewalks. The mass arrest also shows how quickly labor organizing could be treated as a public-order problem rather than protected speech.
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