Spokane Anarchists in the Park

Spokane anarchists will likely be protesting in the park this Fourth. And the police will continue their war against them. So I think it is appropriate to take a look at an earlier time when anarchists were warred against.

For the first scene of this anarchist war we go to Milwaukee on September 9, 1917. America has recently jumped into the ongoing world war in April. It is Sunday and an open air “loyalty rally’ is being held in the Italian section of town. Reverend Augusto Giuliani, pastor of the Italian Evangelical Church, is presiding. It just so happens that the rally is near the clubhouse of the local Francisco Ferrer Circle, a radical group of anarchists who are disciples of Luigi Galleanni, a man considered by his enemies to be a dangerous foreigner. He and his followers oppose the war, the draft, and capitalism. Some people even say that upon hearing Galleanni speak, one feels like going out and shooting the first cop to cross one’s path, though there is no evidence that was ever done. The Reverend finishes his speech and the crowd begins to sing ‘America’ when members of the Ferrer group rush the platform and rip down the American Flag, acting a little like last years protester in Spokane who picnicked on the flag. The police on hand in Milwaukee open fire, killing two anarchists and wounding another in the back. Two detectives are slightly wounded as the anarchists defend themselves. So begins a deadly and unfortunate concatenation of events.

The attack on the American flag by the anarchists had its reasons. For example, anarchists were being targeted as unpatriotic and subject to persecution by both official and unofficial flag wavers. The tone had been set by President Wilson in his Flag Day address of June 14, 1917, three months after America entered the war, when he threatened, “Woe to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution.” The National Security League, the American Defense Society, and the American Protective League, among others, were formed as private bands of super patriots, ready and able to dish out punishment to any who they considered anti-war. And in case the hooligans needed guidance, Attorney General Gregory agreed that radical agitators of any kind were obstructing the war effort and offered this, “May God have mercy on them, for they need expect none from an outraged people or an avenging Government.”

The day after his Flag Day speech, Wilson signed the Espionage Act, which among other questionable provisions, set a broad prohibition against what could be sent through the mails. This was especially hurtful to the anarchists who published and read a number of widely distributed newspapers. Then, on May 16, the Sedition act further curtailed America’s liberties by making it a serious crime to, for example, utter, print, write, or publish any “ disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” against the government, constitution, or flag. There’s that flag again. Other victims of this persecution were such as a sitting congressman Victor Berger and Eugene Debs. In 1912 Debs had gotten 900,000 votes in his quest for the office of President of the United States. Yet, in the fall of 1918 he was sentenced to ten years in jail for an anti-war speech. Though the above occurred after the Milwaukee events, the war hysteria was up to full steam by that time, and these later examples are an accurate reflection of the persecution the anarchists were under prior to Milwaukee.

But the anarchists had plenty to be mad about long before the war issues surfaced. I pause here to touch on just one of those provoking events before I take further inventory of the parallels to the present.

On April 20, 1914, the Ludlow Massacre took place during a coal mining strike in Colorado. The state militia shot and killed five miners and a boy. They then poured oil on the tents, set them on fire, and smothered to death eleven children and two women. As if this was not enough, after the strike, three prisoners, including a leader of the strike, were savagely beaten, then murdered. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was the principal owner of the Ludlow mines and fully supported the bloody activities of the soldiers. Provoked anarchists, heavily involved for years in the issues of labor justice, took immediate action. Anarchists in New York City, including Alexander Berkman, hatched a plot to blow up Rockefeller’s home near Tarrytown, New York in retaliation for Ludlow. The plan went awry when the bomb intended for Rockefeller blew up in a tenement on Lexington Avenue, killing three anarchists. That same day, anarchists were roughed up and arrested by the police throughout New York City. In other words more tit for tat.

The flag theme, of course, is one tie of the present to the Milwaukee incident. but I believe it is an important one, a sort of "indicator" issue. So let’s stay there. A few of those on the left have suggested recently that they themselves expropriate the flag as a symbol to ballyhoo a progressive brand of Americanism. This may seem appealing but let’s face it, the American flag has war written all over it. And Bush has summed up the dominant sentiment behind it with his “if you are not with us you are against us” rants. I believe this sentiment prevails for most of those who give any thought at all to a meaning behind the flag, but there are also a huge number who never actually articulate any idea behind their flag waving; it is all irrational emotion. And there is the additional point that businesses are practically compelled to fly the flag if they want to avoid a boycott or worse. The anarchists in the early part of the twentieth century loved America, just as nearly all protesters today do, but the power structure would not listen to them and refused to recognize that brand of patriotism. This was exemplified dramatically in 1921 during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti ( itself an indirect result of the Milwaukee affair) when the bully prosecutor unfairly ridiculed and badgered Nicola Sacco as the defendant tried in broken English to express what it was he loved about America. No, jingoism is here to stay.

Anyway, the anarchists in Spokane are following in a proud tradition of protest. Let us hope that the police and vigilantes don't repeat history with a retaliatory response that escalates for years and gets people really hurt.