August 19, 1917: IWW Office Raided & Martial Law Declared in Spokane

As tempers flared between militant workers and area industrialists, the City of Spokane banned public speaking in 1909 in an attempt to reduce the growing tensions between capital and labor in hopes to stifle the various worker's movements.  Within a few weeks of the new law, over 500 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were arrested as they protested the unpopular law until the Spokane Jail was overfilled with the protesters.  The word was sent out by IWW leader James Rowan that all available supporters should report to Spokane to, as the IWW newsletter read, "Come Fill the Jail in Spokane".  A picture of a jailed member on a poster is captioned, "Jailed:  We are in here for you; you are out there for us".  In a symbolic gesture of solidarity and protest, hundreds of Wobblies (IWW members) arrive in Spokane in order to violate the ordinance for the sole purpose of getting arrested.  The highly contested ordinance was overturned in March, 1910 [1].

Over the next eight years, the Spokane IWW continued to expand its influence.  By the summer of 1917, IWW discovered the breaking point of the local government, which could not contain the growing radicalism, thus prompting brief military occupation of Spokane by the National Guard and a declaration of martial law by the federal government on August 17th.  The law was used as a method of intimidation and harassment aimed at unions, organizers and militant workers involved in the Inland Northwest's sawmill strikes.  The main target of this ordinance had become members of the Industrial Workers of the World and it was used as a means to prevent any further organization of mill workers who were striking for eight hour days and clean camp conditions.  As a result of the IWW's refusal to comply, the IWW office, which was a rented hall on the corner of Stevens Street and Front Street, was raided, its documents seized and its leaders arrested [2]. 

  The IWW, formed in 1905 as a response to the growing corruption, racism, xenophobia and misrepresentation found in the dominant union organization, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), had quickly become the bane of the estbalished labor order.  The IWW became a very popular and all-inclusive labor movement with strong socialist overtones.  The mass-organization and militant rhetoric involved with the IWW, which gladly included women, immigrants and minorities into their ranks, was something industrial capitalists had little experience dealing with.  The IWW was almost immediately deemed a subversive threat by federal, state and local governments, making the decision to declare martial law an easy decision; one well-recieved by a government caught up in the red-scare era of pre-WWI America.

When martial law was declared in 1917, the National Guard, under command of the US War Department, arrested anybody with a red card (IWW membership card) and arrested anybody engaged in "seditious activity", such as organizing workers.  Although public speaking was banned, as a show of who the ordinance was geared toward, members of the patriotic organization, the Volunteers of America were still allowed to continue to speak freely [3].

[1]  Spokesman-Review, August 19, 1917.  http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=0klj8wIChNAC&dat=19170819&printsec=frontpage&hl=en.
[2]  John Duda, Wanted:  Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane, Chicago, IL:  Charles H. Kerr Publications:  2009.