00:00:11.200 - 00:00:35.800

Of salutations, friends, brothers and sisters, comrades and fellow workers, and that ought to take care of everyone in this room. If you don't know how to fit yourself into the appropriate category, you can start thinking tonight about labor tradition and forms of salutation. Friends for all

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of us, brothers and sisters for AFL craft unions, comrades for socialist and communist groups, fellow workers for the Wobblies. I have too many things to do tonight, uh. To welcome you to the Labor Archive and Research Center. We're working on an acronym LARC, and we hope

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to have a picture someday on our letterhead, you know, of a little lark sitting on top of a, perhaps a black cat or a graying mule or a stop clock in the form of a wobbly. Silent agitator. How about a globe sitting on top of the

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globe, one big union, yours for the OBU. A number of people have to be thanked for putting this together, but most of them are not here yet. Dick Ellington did the marvelous. He's a printer in the IWW, did the marvelous catalog that here's a copy right

00:01:40.640 - 00:01:57.830

up here some of you have seen, and you can get it in the reading room and that will be available. Uh, Dave Selvin is the head of the advisory board for the archive. He's a labor journalist, as many of you know. He's probably stuck in traffic

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on the Bay Bridge coming from Berkeley. Uh, a number of people in this Chicago office of the IWW Penny Skillman, Carlos Cortez, and others who put this exhibition together and had it, uh, have been sending it throughout the United States. For, for those of you who

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have seen the exhibition, Some of the things that I will say, uh, will probably make some sense for others, uh, we just may be in an air of mystery. Uh, Agnes, come on in. We have so many friends here and so many good people. If there

00:02:40.200 - 00:02:58.650

are no seats, you might want to wait till the 8:15. Wait, there's one seat up here. Is that? Come on, come on up here. OK. I, I think you know the, the archive here is part of San Francisco State University. It's part of the library system,

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but it also has a quasi-independent life with. Tremendous support from the trade unions organized and organized unions in the Bay Area and from a number of workers who are unaffiliated. Sadly, about 80% of American workers now are not in unions, and we have a tremendous responsibility.

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In the archive to pay some attention to their values, to their culture, so that we don't narrow ourselves to the formal section of organized labor that still sits in a very tight and bureaucratic relationship with the state. I, I don't know whether I ought to be

00:03:41.240 - 00:04:07.040

objective or reveal my values to you. Maybe, maybe, maybe a little of both. OK, in addition to the archive. In addition to the archive's efforts in mounting the exhibition, Uh, we have to thank those members of the IWW in the, uh, Bay Area. Uh, many of

00:04:07.040 - 00:04:29.910

you know that. IWW membership is down just a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of what it was years ago. In fact, it's so down statistically that I suppose most accountants and most statisticians would, would reduce it to insignificance, but the power of the ideas expressed by the

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Wobblies are still so far out and still so revolutionary. In this society and in other societies that the ideas have appeal and I, I would like to suggest just at a very formal level that Uh, working people in the United States. will continue to strive for

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IWW values, the democratic workplace, solidarity across lines of craft, of gender, of race, and so on, and If any of you Feel discouraged because the IWW doesn't have formal contracts or doesn't have a wide membership. Or doesn't seem to be in power, I would suggest that

00:05:25.920 - 00:05:47.280

you put your discouragement aside and you look to the root values, the, the culture created by men and women in the IWW, uh, a lasting contribution not only to our society but to people throughout the world. Uh, that, that, that's formal enough. Let, let me try

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to break some of that, uh, formality. About 1960 I left San Francisco to go east to turn from waterfront work to academic work. It was a poor choice then and it led to nothing but disaster, but In that period, uh, I passed through Chicago and got

00:06:08.760 - 00:06:31.230

acquainted with Fred Thompson. And uh Carl Keller and his colleagues then uh were uh Men in their 50s and 60s who had been longtime members of the IWW. Fred Thompson had been in jail at San Quentin, one of the criminal syndicalist defendants, just, uh, as you

00:06:31.230 - 00:06:51.880

know, he's the historian of the IWW, just a man of tremendous integrity, good sense of humor, uh. A saint by any description of the term. In that period, I introduced myself to the fellow workers in the in the Chicago office, uh, saying that I was a

00:06:51.880 - 00:07:09.950

folklorist, and that was a that was a bad move, you know, because to a man, uh, and, uh, they said. Uh, we don't want to be part of folklore, you know, we don't want to be sentimentalized. We don't want to be understood in terms of pictures

00:07:09.950 - 00:07:27.000

and poetry and songs. We're making history. We're going to change the world, and you're, you know, you, Archie, and all of your tradition-bound antiquarians, you're just going to have to get out of our path. Well, if you read the, if you read the little introduction by

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Carlos Cortez, he repeats that same theme. He says, he said, these drawings are not to be understood as part of a folklore or a folkloric tradition, but they are to be understood as calls to action, and he deals with another dichotomy, the dichotomy of academic art

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and working class art. In that period, uh, Joyce Kornbluh put together a great book, Rebel Voices, and I'll end with this anecdote. I think many of you have seen it, just a great gathering. It's in the reading room, a great gathering of wobbly poetry, art, cartoons,

00:08:08.330 - 00:08:32.440

uh, probably the best single book to deal with, uh, work culture and the culture of working people produced in the United States. Now, Uh, Joyce included hundreds of items, and one of the items was a, a picture of hobo hieroglyphics, and, uh, the, the tradition was

00:08:32.440 - 00:08:49.810

that hobos would put certain marks on doorposts and railroad cars and, uh, you know, uh, this lady will give you a good feed, uh, this lady has a mean bulldog, uh, this lady welcomes company and on and on and on and, and. When Carl Keller saw

00:08:49.810 - 00:09:06.910

that in that book, he really exploded. He just physically threw me out of the office. I had not, I didn't concoct that hieroglyphic sheet. I had nothing to do with putting it in the book, but he said, you see, you all are concerned with these. Mysterious

00:09:06.910 - 00:09:22.330

signs and symbols you think we're You know, dead, you think that we're something like the Egyptians in their pyramids, and you have to come along and decipher and decode, you know, all of our signs and symbols, he said, Oh, and he pointed to me. He said,

00:09:22.390 - 00:09:38.690

Archie, I'll tell you that you're despicable. He said, You're just as low as the sweeper boys who used to sweep out the sawdust in the saloons because maybe they could find a dime or a quarter that some fellow worker had dropped, you know, when he was

00:09:38.690 - 00:09:58.080

at the bar. And I've never forgotten that. And I've really had to struggle, I've had to struggle with that, uh, you know, is it so wrong to be a sweeper boy picking up oddments and ephemera, you know, here, here we have a labor movement that's falling

00:09:58.100 - 00:10:17.030

apart, that can't cope with the reality of the world market. We have a political leadership in Washington, more corrupt. corrupt than any leadership ever seen in this society. We're led by a man out of Disneyland who lives in a private fantasy, kind of a right-wing fantasy

00:10:17.030 - 00:10:41.070

that he tries to impose on all of his fellow citizens. And, and I would submit, given the surrealistic nature of politics and economics and Contemporary society, anyone who can cling to a wooden shoe or a stop clock or a braying donkey is probably uh real and

00:10:41.070 - 00:10:59.800

in touch with the world. That's enough for a formal introduction, as you know, we're going to do this in. Two shifts or three shifts maybe uh and we may just push some of you out at at the about 8:15 and bring another shift in. Uh, I'm

00:10:59.800 - 00:11:16.750

going to call on, uh, Hank. Uh, yeah, here he is. Uh, uh, Hank will tell you a little about himself. He's a professor on the campus. His dad, Wrote a great book and he's going to tell you about his dad's book. Maybe we can open those

00:11:16.810 - 00:11:37.990

doors in the back. Yeah, it is very hot needs air. I need air. How about the bright lights? How long do we have to subject to the subject ourselves to? The torture. How long do we have to have the bright lights? As long as he films.

00:11:42.290 - 00:12:08.940

OK, let's try at least 5 minutes because we'd like to get Hank on the film. Yeah, I think that will make a big difference. I think it's it was over Saturday. Yeah. I find myself listed in the program. For those of you who have seen the

00:12:08.940 - 00:12:30.370

program as a professor of speech and son of a wobbly. Actually, that's not exactly true because I'm not the son of a wobbly. I'm the son of two wobblers. My mother and father were both Wobblies during the Wobbly heyday 1910 to 1917. I guess I'm here

00:12:30.370 - 00:12:48.310

because my father wrote his memoirs. About 20 some years ago, and I edited them and attempted to get them published for about 20 some years. I promised I would publish them. Unfortunately, my father died 12 years ago, but they're in press at this moment with Charles

00:12:48.310 - 00:13:03.040

Cur and Company, they'll be out within a week. And you're all invited to the book party, I understand it is going to occur at City Lights bookstore sometime in the near future. In fact, Fred Thompson already mentioned, the historian of the IWW, helped me get that

00:13:03.100 - 00:13:17.930

published. I had sent him a copy of the manuscript. He sent it to Charles Curr and Company. They're the people who published first Mother Jones, Eugene B. Debs, other great radicals, and I find it terribly symbolically important that they are publishing my father's work. And by

00:13:17.930 - 00:13:37.220

the way, they are republishing Rebel Voices in paperback, and you'll be able to get that from them too. A Good House. My father's memoirs tell the story. Of grassroots wobbly activism. So that's what this reading is going to be about tonight. For those of you who

00:13:37.220 - 00:13:52.760

know it, it'll be a refresher. For those of you who don't know it, it's kind of a new look at a piece of American history which is frequently lost. Wobbly activists. There were a handful of well-known leaders at the top. If you read history of the

00:13:52.760 - 00:14:12.790

Wobblies, you read about Ralph Chaplin, you read about Big Bill Haywood, of course, you read about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and then the names sort of disappear. But real leadership in the Wobblies was functional on a day by day basis. WB leadership had no power over anybody

00:14:12.820 - 00:14:29.440

in the rank and file, but only power among the rank and file. Leadership was power that was given to the men who exercised it and women in trust and in respect for their abilities to get things done. And thus the same person might move from leading

00:14:29.570 - 00:14:46.530

one free speech fight to the rank and file simply helping to fill the jail in the next free speech fight. The Wobblies, in other words, invented participatory democracy, and they made it work. My father's story is the story of all these rank and file activist leaders

00:14:46.820 - 00:15:04.950

who were the heart, muscle, and sinew of the wobbly efforts. In its great and glorious days in that period from its inception in 1905 till its real destruction in 1917 in their efforts toward making a better world for the poor and the oppressed. I'm going to

00:15:04.950 - 00:15:25.440

read two fragments from the book. The first concerns my father's and For every man's every wb's story. Of initiation into the IWW. This was during the Aberdeen Free Speech Fight in Washington. My father had run away from home, from school, from the future as a wage

00:15:25.440 - 00:15:40.900

slave in the textile mills of Patterson, New Jersey at about the age of 10 or 12. He rode freights and hiked all over the South, the Midwest, the West. He worked in carnivals and fairs, he worked the harvest, he worked in lumber camps, and now at

00:15:40.900 - 00:16:02.320

about age 16, He was unloading ships on the Seattle waterfront. This story One night while not working, I wandered down to the slave market, as it was called, where there were unemployment offices crowded close together for 2 or 3 blocks, interspersed with saloons, hock shops, and

00:16:02.320 - 00:16:17.120

clothing stores for workers. Seeing a crowd on a street corner, I stopped to listen to a soapboxer who was speaking about industrial unionism and the free speech fight then going on in Aberdeen. After he was through, he invited all of those who wished to know more

00:16:17.140 - 00:16:33.470

about the unionism to come to the IWW hall where there would be another speaker. I was very interested, so I followed this soapboxer to the hall where a fellow named Floyd spoke, and he was followed by Tommy Whitehead. I was sold before the meeting was half

00:16:33.490 - 00:16:49.980

over. Floyd was a wonderful speaker who could make you understand by the way he had of explaining in simple language the complicated theories of industrial unionism and by his comparisons with craft unionism. At the end of his talk, he called for volunteers to go to Aberdeen

00:16:49.980 - 00:17:03.960

to help fill the jails and win back free speech and the right to organize. I was not a member, so I asked Tommy Whitehead if I could go and help. After some time while he talked with Floyd and some others, he said, What's your name, son?

00:17:04.770 - 00:17:20.500

I told him He said, you know, you might not only be thrown in jail. You could be beaten up. I said I'll take my chances with the rest of them. He called a few fellows over and told them the kid wants to go along. None of

00:17:20.500 - 00:17:34.670

them objected. About midnight some 11 or 12 of us left the hall. We went to a cheap restaurant where one of the men paid for coffee and for all of us. Then we got a streetcar and went to the freight yards where we boarded a freight

00:17:34.760 - 00:17:51.280

headed for Aberdeen. The next day when we were within 10 miles of Aberdeen, we all jumped off and went one at a time by different routes into town. We would leave after a talk with the fellow in charge. I found out when my turn came that

00:17:51.280 - 00:18:04.640

what had been troubling me all day on how we were to contact the other free speech fighters in Aberdeen had been taken care of, but no one was told until the last minute, and each one of us was to make a contact at a different place.

00:18:05.420 - 00:18:17.960

This way, if one of us was a stool pigeon, he could not tell the cops where the other fellows were to be met. I was to go to a certain street corner and stand around there for at least 10 minutes. I had a common straight pin

00:18:17.960 - 00:18:31.350

in the lapel of my coat with neither the head nor the point showing just the little part of the pin could be seen in the opening of the button hole of the lapel. I went across country 1 mile or so until I came to a well

00:18:31.350 - 00:18:46.590

traveled road and hiked my way into town. After considerable wandering around, I found the corner. We were not to ask anyone for directions as this would be a dead giveaway and we would be pinched at once. The other part of my being identified was that after

00:18:46.590 - 00:19:00.360

I had stood on the corner for the required time, I was to walk down the block where I would find a pool hall. I was to go inside and find a seat near the second table from the door. I did all this. I found the pool

00:19:00.360 - 00:19:14.250

hall, went in, and there were seats along the wall. I picked one out in what I thought was the right spot. There were 3 or 4 others sitting around, but no one near me. I had not been there long when another young fellow came in, sat

00:19:14.250 - 00:19:28.650

down next to me, and began to talk about the weather, finding a job, and everything but what I was waiting to hear. Then, when I was getting afraid I had missed my contact, he said, Here's a dime. Take the streetcar on the next corner to Hoquiam,

00:19:28.780 - 00:19:45.410

a small town adjoining Aberdeen, and go to this address, and they will tell you what's up. Then he gave me the password. I had made contact I took the dime and followed his directions, and arriving at the house, I knocked on the door. A fellow came

00:19:45.410 - 00:20:00.560

and opened it. It was quiet as hell, and I thought he was the only one there. He said, What do you want? I said You want to buy some corn? At that he smiled and said it's OK, fellows, and I was escorted inside where instead of

00:20:00.560 - 00:20:15.390

this one fellow there was hardly room to move around. There were at least 30 or 40 in the house. I had supper that night at the house, a two-story affair which shortly before had been one of the biggest whorehouses in those parts. Supper consisted of bread,

00:20:15.640 - 00:20:31.050

brown beans, coffee, and was, as I recall, very limited. As I had just arrived and had had no sleep the night before, I was not picked to go back to Aberdeen that night. About 20 of the boys left around 7 o'clock. About 10, 2 of them

00:20:31.050 - 00:20:45.410

came back. They had been beaten up. One of them had been hit on the head with a pick handle and was hurt pretty bad. The others were all in the can. The next day passed slowly. Coffee and stale doughnuts for breakfast, not enough beans and bread

00:20:45.410 - 00:21:00.070

for supper. About 2 p.m., after 10 or 12 more fellows had arrived, I was told to go upstairs to one of the rooms where 15 of us were given instructions for that night. We left about 7 p.m. and stationed ourselves at different parts of the main

00:21:00.070 - 00:21:16.560

street in Aberdeen. At 8 o'clock the first meeting started. There were about 4 or 5 of us in each spot as this made the cops and the vigilantes pickhandle brigade run from one part of town to another. We were concentrated in about 4 blocks, some of

00:21:16.560 - 00:21:30.360

us on one side of the street, some of us on the other. When the first speaker began, it was about 10 minutes before the cops and vigilantes arrived and began to swing their clubs and pick handles. I didn't know it at the time, but that night

00:21:30.360 - 00:21:43.430

marked the beginning of the end of the free speech fight. We waited on our corner for them to arrest a bunch a block up the street, but they would merely pull them off and club them. After a while we saw what was happening and to take

00:21:43.430 - 00:21:58.740

the heat off the boys up the street we started our meeting. We began by singing solidarity forever, and the crowd would start in our direction. Singing could also be heard halfway up the next block. They had started too. Some of the pick handle boys and cops

00:21:58.740 - 00:22:12.810

came our way. Some went the other while they were laying about them, hitting not only us wobblies but people in the crowd as well. Still another meeting began further up the street. We had them running back and forth, first one place, then the other. I was

00:22:12.810 - 00:22:27.320

2nd on the box at my corner, and after my opening words, fellow workers, I was grabbed and pulled off the box by a big vigilante. I ducked into the crowd and mixed with it only and only received one clout across the shoulder from a cop's club.

00:22:28.430 - 00:22:43.100

When our meeting was pretty well busted up, we hollered, There's another meeting! and started running for the next corner. Some of the crowd would always follow, and we'd start again. After about 30 minutes of this, the crowds began to thin out, and even the pick handle

00:22:43.100 - 00:22:58.560

brigade melted away. We made our way back to the house in Hoquiam, and those who were cut and hurt were taken care of. The next day, the city fathers asked for a committee to talk things over. After 5 or 6 days of meetings, the fight was

00:22:58.560 - 00:23:20.830

called off, and the Wobblies had won another round. Well, that's how my dad became a wobbly. His adventures go on. Lynn was generous enough to send me a copy of a letter from the Nevada State Archivist who is an historian. And he expressed in that letter

00:23:20.830 - 00:23:38.130

real regret that he couldn't be here tonight because he had a particular interest in, in fact, my father. He had written an article in the Nevada Quarterly Historical Quarterly about the one and only free speech fight in the history of Nevada which was organized and run

00:23:38.130 - 00:23:52.900

by my father, so he kind of wanted to be here to hear that. Well, I read that account in the historical journal. It's a very good academic account. He's a fine scholar and a fine historian. It comes out a little different in my father's telling. So

00:23:52.900 - 00:24:16.290

the second fragment I'm going to share with you is that. In my father's prose, it's called The flying squadron. The trip of the flying squadron began in Oakland at the IWW Hall. I was 19 years old at the time. John Pansner, who had been in Nevada

00:24:16.290 - 00:24:31.210

some years before in the heydays of the Western Federation of Miners, and when the IWW had Goldfield and Tonipa well organized among the culinary workers, wanted to go back and see how things were in his old stamping grounds. He asked me if I wanted to go

00:24:31.210 - 00:24:46.310

along, and I agreed. Sapho, a college kid from New York, asked if he could go, and we took him along. We went to the yards and took a freight headed for Truckee, California. We had little or no money but figured on soapboxing and selling literature, enough

00:24:46.310 - 00:25:03.970

to eat. As for sleeping, we would sleep where we could. We arrived late in the afternoon at Truckee and got off the freight just before it went into the snow sheds. From Truckee we went on to Reno next day where Sopho left us and Panzer and

00:25:03.970 - 00:25:19.840

I held some meetings. We didn't stay long in Reno but left on foot and walked across country to Virginia City, which was then a real ghost town. We rested up there and then took off across country again headed for Rawhide. I can remember it was a

00:25:19.840 - 00:25:37.110

long, dusty, hot walk along roads that were only ruts in the sand. The water was brackish and alkaline and the only water hole we came on in on our way. When we arrived in Rawhide, we found some old-time union men still there. Only one saloon was

00:25:37.110 - 00:25:52.740

left in the almost deserted gold town. About 100 or so people remained out of what had been 10,000 or 12,000. The saloon was a real western type with a long bar about 200 ft long. We held a meeting that night in the bar, and just about

00:25:52.760 - 00:26:13.340

every miner in Rawhide was there. We sold our reviews, The Industrial Worker and Solidarity and various pamphlets, Jack London's Strength of the Strong, The Right to Be Lazy, Scientific Socialism and Utopia, and others. The collection and sale of papers and pamphlets was very good. Next day

00:26:13.340 - 00:26:27.710

we walked to the railroad and jumped a freight for Tonipah. We rented a shack, bought some grub, and cleaned up for our trip from our trip. That night we held our first street meeting and were well received. I would start the meeting with a song and

00:26:27.710 - 00:26:44.980

then speak a little while and introduce Panzner, who was a very good organizer. He knew his industrial unionism and could explain it in simple, understandable terms. Our nightly meetings grew bigger and bigger as time passed, and Panzner became busy organizing the hotel and restaurant workers. In

00:26:44.980 - 00:27:01.230

just a few weeks, a charter was issued by the national office at Chicago. Panzner rented the Western Federation of Minors Hall as an office and meeting place. It was only a few weeks after they were organized that the hotel and restaurant workers gained increased wages, and

00:27:01.230 - 00:27:17.030

we began to drive to organize the other kitchen workers in town. The large boarding houses were at that time a big part of the industry in mining towns, and there was one boarding house that held out Missus Harrington's. It employed a number of kitchen workers and

00:27:17.030 - 00:27:35.170

waiters. John Pansner began carrying a sign out front stating that Mrs. Harrington was unfair to organized labor. Some miners, mostly Irish, who owed Mrs. Harrington board money, came down to bust up the union hall. I was in Goldfield that night holding some street meetings, and when

00:27:35.170 - 00:27:48.600

I got back to Tonipah next day, Panzner was in jail charged with shooting one of the miners in the foot. They had tried to get up to the office to destroy the records. Panzner told them to stay where they were. They rushed at him, and he

00:27:48.600 - 00:28:05.540

fired, hitting one of them in the foot. How he hit anyone with that gun. I shall never know. It was a small 32 caliber pistol with a broken mainspring. I had fixed it by putting the handle of a soup spoon in place of a spring. I

00:28:05.540 - 00:28:19.180

could not pull the trigger after that except by holding it with both hands and squeezing with all my might. I asked Pansner how in hell he fired that gun and hit anyone, and he said, I just pulled the trigger, but you could tell how hard it

00:28:19.180 - 00:28:31.890

must have been when he fired at a man at close range and only hit him in the foot. I began at once to organize a defense, and for the next 1 month or 6 weeks was very busy. I got a woman we both knew there, Minnie

00:28:31.890 - 00:28:47.920

Abbott, to act as treasurer and began to send out hundreds of letters for funds. We wired Fred Moore, a lawyer in Los Angeles, to defend John, and I must say that was a mistake. Not that Fred Moore was not a good lawyer, but a common mistake

00:28:47.920 - 00:29:03.900

often made by the IWW was in hiring outside lawyers to defend our members. It had been my experience that a good local lawyer can do much better and is less costly, and in labor cases you stand a much better chance of getting your man off. You

00:29:03.900 - 00:29:20.910

don't need to fight the prejudice engendered by the local law circles in bringing in outside talent. Anyway, Panzner was sent to prison for a year, and I was left alone in Tonepah. I continued to hold street meetings and lived from hand to mouth for some time.

00:29:21.960 - 00:29:35.390

About a month or more after Panzner went to jail, the cops stopped my street meetings. I was the only speaker there, so I couldn't very well fill the jail by myself. So I sent out a call to the organization to send in some free speech fighters,

00:29:35.570 - 00:29:50.240

and about 10 or so arrived in the following weeks. We decided to hold a meeting, but the law had its own ideas about filling their jails. Instead, they let me speak a little while, and then, as the others tried to follow me, they were beaten up

00:29:50.240 - 00:30:03.390

by the cops and the group of thugs they had with them. I was pulled out of the crowd by a special cop who always seemed to want to protect me. He said, Come on, you damn fool kid. He hurried me along and locked me in a

00:30:03.390 - 00:30:08.700

little jail they kept for drunks and those they just wanted to lock up for the night. You locked me,