Workers Protest Wartime Attacks
THE LIBERATOR, Tulsa, November 9th (1918)
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the radical labor union organized in 1905, opposed America’s entry into the world war, condemning it as a capitalist’s war and a laborer’s fight. Government propaganda marginalized antiwar activists, and the 1917 Espionage Act criminalized many of their activities. The IWW became an easy target, as members reported in this article published in April 1918 describing their November 1917 run-in with the Tulsa, Oklahoma, police and Ku Klux Klan, who terrorized blacks, Jews, and immigrants, many of whom were IWW members.
Tulsa, November 9th.
[Editor’s Note: — In this story of persecution and outrage at Tulsa, Oklahoma, told in the sworn statement of one of the victims, there is direct and detailed evidence of one of the most menacing by-products of the war. Here in Tulsa, as in Bisbee and Butte and Cincinnati, patriotic fervor was used by employers with the connivance or open cooperation of local officials, as a mask for utterly lawless attacks upon workingmen who attempted to organize for better conditions. This false resort to loyalty on the part of certain war profiteers is emphasized in the recent Report of the President’s Mediation Commission. These cowardly masked upper-class mobs, calling themselves “Knights of Liberty” and mumbling hypocritical words about “the women and children of Belgium,” will not succeed in terrorizing the labor movement of America, nor will they tend to make it more patriotic.]
On November 9, 1917, seventeen men, taken from the custody of the city police of Tulsa, Oklahoma, were whipped, tarred and feathered, and driven out of the city with a warning never to return.
In a letter dated December 21, a resident of Tulsa, writes:
“I think it is only fair to say that the bottom cause of this trouble locally was that a few men, presumably belonging to the I.W.W. came into the oilfields something like a year ago and were meeting with considerable success in getting oil-field workers — especially pipe-line and tank builders — to fight for better wages and shorter hours.
“Not long after the outrage was committed in Butte, Mont., on the crippled I.W.W. leader (Frank Little), the home of J. Edgar Pew in this city was partly destroyed by some kind of explosion and Mr. and Mrs. Pew narrowly escaped being killed. The news agencies at once published it as a dastardly act of the I.W.W.’s. Mr. Pew is the vice-president and active manager of the Carter Oil Co., which by the way, is owned and controlled by Standard Oil and is one of its largest producing subsidiary companies. A few weeks after the Pew home incident, an explosion followed by a fire partially destroyed an oil refinery that is located at Norfolk, Okla. This property was under the Carter Oil Co. management. Two men lost their lives in this accident. The news agencies without exception (so far as I know) exploited this as another I.W.W. outrage.”
From this point we take up the story in a sworn statement made by the secretary of the Tulsa local.
“On the night of November 5, 1917, while sitting in the hall at No. 6 W. Brady Street, Tulsa, Okla. (the room leased and occupied by the Industrial Workers of the World, and used as a union meeting room), at about 8:45 P.M., five men entered the hall, to whom I at first paid no attention, as I was busy putting a monthly stamp in a member’s union card book. After I had finished with the member, I walked back to where these five men had congregated at the baggage-room at the back of the hall, and spoke to them, asking if there was anything I could do for them.
“One who appeared to be the leader, answered ‘No, we’re just looking the place over.’ Two of them went into the baggage-room flashing an electric flash-light around the room. The other three walked toward the front end of the hall. I stayed at the baggage-room door, and one of the men came out and followed the other three up to the front end of the hall. The one who stayed in the baggage-room asked me if I was ‘afraid he would steal something.’ I told him we were paying rent for the hall, and I did not think anyone had a right to search this place without a warrant. He replied that he did not give a damn if we were paying rent for four places, they would search them whenever they felt like it. Presently he came out and walked toward the front end of the hall, and I followed a few steps behind him.
“In the meantime the other men, who proved to be officers, appeared to be asking some of our members questions. Shortly after, the patrol-wagon came and all the members in the hall — 10 men — were ordered into the wagon. I turned out the light in the back end of the hall, closed the desk, put the key in the door and told the ‘officer’ to turn out the one light. We stepped out, and I locked the door, and at the request of the ‘leader of the officers,’ handed him the keys. He told me to get in the wagon, I being the 11th man taken from the hall, and we were taken to the police station.
“November 6th, after staying that night in jail, I put up $100.00 cash bond so that I could attend to the outside business, and the trial was set for 5 o’clock P.M., November 6th. Our lawyer, Chas. Richardson, asked for a continuance and it was granted. Trial on a charge of vagrancy was set for November 7th at 5 P.M. by Police Court Judge Evans. After some argument by both sides the cases were continued until the next night, November 8th, and the case against Gunnard Johnson, one of our men, was called. After four and a half hours’ session the case was again adjourned until November 9th at 5 P.M., when we agreed to let the decision in Johnson’s case stand for all of us. …
“Johnson said he had come into town Saturday, November 3d, to get his money from the Sinclair Oil & Gas Co. and could not get it until Monday, the 5th, and was shipping out Tuesday, the 6th, and that he had $7.08 when arrested. He was reprimanded by the judge for not having a Liberty Bond, and as near as anyone could judge from the closing remarks of Judge Evans, he was found guilty and fined $100 for not having a Liberty Bond.
“Our lawyer made a motion to appeal the case and the bonds were then fixed at $200 each. I was immediately arrested, as were also five spectators in the open court-room, for being I.W.W.’s. One arrested was not a member of ours, but a property-owner and citizen. I was searched and $30.87 taken from me, as also was the receipt for the $100 bond, and we then were all placed back in the cells.
“In about forty minutes, as near as we could judge, about 11 P.M., the turnkey came and called ‘Get ready to go out you I.W.W. men.’ We dressed as rapidly as possible, were taken out of the cells, and the officer gave us back our possessions, Ingersoll watches, pocketknives and money, with the exception of $3 in silver of mine which they kept, giving me back $27.87. I handed the receipt for the $100 bond I had put up to the desk sergeant, and he told me he did not know anything about it, and handed the receipt back to me, which I put in my trousers pocket with the 87 cents. Twenty-seven dollars in bills was in my coat pocket. We were immediately ordered into automobiles waiting in the alley. Then we proceeded one block north to 1st Street, west one-half block to Boulder Street, north across the Frisco tracks and stopped.
“Then the masked mob came up and ordered everybody to throw up their hands. Just here I wish to state I never thought any man could reach so high as those policemen did. We were then bound, some with hands in front, some with hands behind, and others bound with arms hanging down their sides, the rope being wrapped around the body. Then the police were ordered to ‘beat it,’ which they did, running, and we started for the place of execution.
“When we arrived there, a company of gowned and masked gunmen were there to meet us standing at ‘present arms.’ We were ordered out of the autos, told to get in line in front of these gunmen and another bunch of men with automatics and pistols, lined up between us. Our hands were still held up, and those who were bound, in front. Then a masked man walked down the line and slashed the ropes that bound us, and we were ordered to strip to the waist, which we did, threw our clothes in front of us, in individual piles — coats, vests, hats, shirts and undershirts. The boys not having had time to distribute their possessions that were given back to them at the police stations, everything was in the coats, everything we owned in the world.
“Then the whipping began. A double piece of new rope, 5/8 or ¾ hemp, being used. A man, ‘the chief’ of detectives, stopped the whipping of each man when he thought the victim had enough. After each one was whipped another man applied the tar with a large brush, from the head to the seat. Then a brute smeared feathers over and rubbed them in.
“After they had satisfied themselves that our bodies were well abused, our clothing was thrown into a pile, gasoline poured on it and a match applied. By the light of our earthly possessions, we were ordered to leave Tulsa, and leave running and never come back. The night was dark, the road very rough, and as I was one of the last two that was whipped, tarred and feathered, and in the rear when ordered to run, I decided to be shot rather than stumble over the rough road. After going forty or fifty feet I stopped and went into the weeds. I told the man with me to get in the weeds also, as the shots were coming very close over us, and ordered him to lie down flat. We expected to be killed, but after 150 or 200 shots were fired they got in their autos.
“After the last one had left, we went through a barbed-wire fence, across a field, called to the boys, collected them, counted up, and had all the 16 safe, though sore and nasty with tar. After wandering around the hills for some time — ages it seemed to me — we struck the railroad track. One man, Jack Sneed, remembered then that he knew a farmer in that vicinity, and he and J.F. Ryan volunteered to find the house. I built a fire to keep us from freezing.
“We stood around the fire expecting to be shot, as we did not know but what some tool of the commercial club had followed us. After a long time Sneed returned and called to us, and we went with him to a cabin and found an I.W.W. friend in the shack and 5 gallons of coal oil or kerosene, with which we cleaned the filthy stuff off of each other, and our troubles were over, as friends sent clothing and money to us that day, it being about 3 or 3:30 A.M. when we reached the cabin.
“The men abused, whipped and tarred were: Tom McCaffery, John Myers, John Boyle, Charles Walsh, W.H. Walton, L.R. Mitchell, Jos. French, J.R. Hill, Gunnard Johnson, Robt. McDonald, John Fitzsimmons, Jos. Fischer, Gordon Dimikson, J.F. Ryan, E.M. Boyd, Jack Sneed (not an I.W.W.).
“This is a copy of my sworn statement and every word is truth.”
In answer to special inquiry the writer added to his statement as follows:
“It was very evident that the police force knew what was going to happen when they took us from jail, as there were extra gowns and masks provided which were put on by the Chief of Police and one detective named Blaine, and the number of blows we received were regulated by the Chief of Police himself, who was easily recognizable by six of us at least.”
The above account is substantiated at every point by a former employee of The Federal Industrial Relations Commission, who at the request of the National Civil Liberties Bureau made a special investigation of the whole affair. His report names directly nine leaders of the mob, including five members of the police force.
The part played by the press in this orgy of “Patriotism” is illustrated by the following excerpts from an editorial which appeared in the Tulsa Daily World on the afternoon of the 9th:
Get Out the Hemp
“Any man who attempts to stop the supply for one-hundredth part of a second is a traitor and ought to be shot!. …
“In the meantime, if the I.W.W. or its twin brother, the Oil Workers’ Union, gets busy in your neighborhood, kindly take occasion to decrease the supply of hemp. A knowledge of how to tie a knot that will stick might come in handy in a few days. It is no time to dally with the enemies of the country. The unrestricted production of petroleum is as necessary to the winning of the war as the unrestricted production of gunpowder. We are either going to whip Germany or Germany is going to whip us. The first step in the whipping of Germany is to strangle the I.W.W.’s. Kill them, just as you would kill any other kind of a snake. Don’t scotch ’em: kill ’em. And kill ’em dead. It is no time to waste money on trials and continuances and things like that. All that is necessary is the evidence and a firing squad. Probably the carpenters’ union will contribute the timber for the coffins.”
“Tulsa, November 9th,” The Liberator 1 (April 1918): 15–17.
READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS