Today in Labor History February 17, 1906: The authorities arrested "Big Bill" Haywood and two others on trumped up charges for the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Stuenenberg. Clarence Darrow successfully defended them, telling jurors, "If at the behest of this mob you should kill Bill Haywood, he is mortal, he will die, but I want to say that a million men will grab up the banner of labor where at the open grave Haywood lays it down . . ." The actual perpetrator was a one-time WFM union member named Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association.

Haywood and his WFM comrades had been framed by James McParland, an agent for the Pinkertons Detective Agency. This was the same James McParland who framed dozens of Irish coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s, whom he, and the media, had falsely branded as terrorists (Molly Maguires). Ten of them were executed in one day—the 2nd largest mass execution in U.S. history after the 1862 mass execution of 38 Dakota warriors. My novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, is about one of these Irish miners, a teenager named Mike Doyle.

Read more on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

Read more on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

You can get a copy of Anywhere But Schuylkill here:
keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $27 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, I will send you a signed copy! (Shipping included)

#workingclass #LaborHistory #BigBillHaywood #IWW #WFM #union #strike #mining #socialism #clarencedarrow #pinkertons #mollymaguires #terrorism #racism #irish #books #novel #historicalfiction #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History January 19, 1920: Crystal Eastman, Roger Nash Baldwin, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (from the IWW) and others founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Their original focus was freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and supporting conscientious objectors. In 1923, they defended author Upton Sinclair after he was arrested for trying to read the First Amendment during an IWW rally. In 1925, they persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee's anti-evolution law in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Clarence Darrow, an ACLU member, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. In 1926, they defended H. L. Mencken, who deliberately broke Boston law by distributing copies of his banned American Mercury magazine and won their first major acquittal. However, they kicked Elizabeth Gurley Flynn off their board in 1940 because of her Communist affiliations. And they refused defend Paul Robeson and other leftists in the 1950s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #elizabethgurleyflynn #communism #aclu #evolution #uptonsinclair #PaulRobeson #clarencedarrow #hlmencken #freespeech #antiwar #education #school #freeppress #journalism #firstamendment @bookstadon

"That these property laws are purely arbitrary is shown by the slightest thought. The criminal statutes forbid extortion and swindling, and yet the largest part of business is extortion, and much of the balance is swindling. When the law forbids extortion and swindling, it simply forbids certain forms and methods of these acts, and these forms and methods are the ones not practiced by the ruling class. They are so small and insignificant as not to constitute business but only petty annoyance to the ruling class. ... Real extortion is taking for any service more than it is fairly worth by means of agencies created by the extorter to despoil his victim, and this is the business of the business world. Nearly every street-car line and every gas plant in the world operates its business by means of special privileges, and from one-half to three-fourths of the money they receive is extorted from that portion of the community that has no redress."

-- #ClarenceDarrow, Resist Not Evil, Ch. XIV
Rules Governing Penal Codes and Their
Victims

#quote #extortion

"All energy manifests itself along lines of least resistance, and the first energies of man are devoted to the procurement of the means of life. It is only where organized tyranny has made violence and force the line of least resistance that men will deviate from the normal path, and so long as the cupidity and brutal selfishness of man shall make this the line of least resistance, all the laws on earth cannot overcome the primal instincts and feelings upon which life depends.
A race that would starve, or beg, or accept alms before violating the brutal laws that fence the children of nature from their source of life, would quickly degenerate into abject slavery and finally into nothingness. All so-called criminals do not reason out the cause that placed them where they are. Instinctively they feel that they are doing what they must. This class have generally lived for years, sometimes for generations, so near the border line, have lived such precarious lives that their callings and avocations have grown as natural and normal as monopolizing the earth has grown to another class."

-- #ClarenceDarrow, Resist Not Evil, Ch. XIV
Rules Governing Penal Codes and Their
Victims

#quote #penalcode

Today in Labor and Writing History July 10, 1925: The Scopes "Monkey Trial" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was a high school science teacher accused of violating the Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee wrote about it in their play “Inherit the Wind” (1955). However, they said that their play was a response to the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt and a statement in support of free speech. Ronald Kidd's 2006 novel, “Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial,” was also based on the Scopes Trial. Scopes was defended by labor Clarence Darrow, who had defended Eugene Debs, during the Pullman strike (1893); and Big Bill Haywood against false murder charges (1905); and the McNamara brothers for the false charges in the L.A. Times bombing (1910).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #scopes #evolution #education #teaching #science #clarencedarrow #freespeech #censorship #playwright #theater #historicalfiction #mccarthy #communism #fiction #novel #author #writer @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 9, 1907: Big Bill Haywood went on trial for murder in the bombing death of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. Clarence Darrow defended Haywood and got him acquitted. Steunenberg had brutally suppressed the state’s miners. Haywood had been framed by a Pinkerton agent provocateur named James McParland, the same man who infiltrated the Pennsylvania miners’ union in the 1870s and got 20 innocent men executed as Molly Maguires. You can read about that in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.”

Read my article on Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

And my article on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #BigBillHaywood #clarencedarrow #deathpenalty #AgentProvocateur #pinkertons #mollyMaguires #AnywhereButSchuylkill #historicalfiction #books #author #writer #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History February 17, 1906: The authorities arrested "Big Bill" Haywood and two others on trumped up charges for the murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Stuenenberg. Clarence Darrow successfully defended them, telling jurors, "If at the behest of this mob you should kill Bill Haywood, he is mortal, he will die, but I want to say that a million men will grab up the banner of labor where at the open grave Haywood lays it down . . ." The actual perpetrator was a one-time WFM union member named Harry Orchard, who was also a paid informant for the Cripple Creek Mine Owners' Association.

Haywood and his WFM comrades had been framed by James McParland, an agent for the Pinkertons Detective Agency. This was the same James McParland who framed dozens of Irish coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s, whom he, and the media, had falsely branded as terrorists (Molly Maguires). Ten of them were executed in one day—the 2nd largest mass execution in U.S. history after the 1862 mass execution of 38 Dakota warriors. My novel, Anywhere But Schuylkill, is about one of these Irish miners, a teenager named Mike Doyle.

Read more on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

Read more on the Molly Maguires here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/13/the-myth-of-the-molly-maguires/

Pick up a copy of Anywhere But Schuylkill here:
keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $27 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, I will send you a signed copy! (Shipping included)

#workingclass #LaborHistory #BigBillHaywood #IWW #WFM #union #strike #mining #socialism #clarencedarrow #pinkertons #mollymaguires #terrorism #racism #irish #books #novel #historicalfiction #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History January 19, 1920: Crystal Eastman, Roger Nash Baldwin, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (from the IWW) and others founded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Their original focus was freedom of speech, primarily anti-war speech, and supporting conscientious objectors. In 1923, they defended author Upton Sinclair after he was arrested for trying to read the First Amendment during an IWW rally. In 1925, they persuaded John T. Scopes to defy Tennessee's anti-evolution law in The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. Clarence Darrow, an ACLU member, headed Scopes' legal team. The ACLU lost the case and Scopes was fined $100. In 1926, they defended H. L. Mencken, who deliberately broke Boston law by distributing copies of his banned American Mercury magazine and won their first major acquittal. However, they kicked Elizabeth Gurley Flynn off their board in 1940 because of her Communist affiliations. And they refused defend Paul Robeson and other leftists in the 1950s.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #elizabethgurleyflynn #communism #aclu #evolution #uptonsinclair #PaulRobeson #clarencedarrow #hlmencken #freespeech #antiwar #education #school #freeppress #journalism #firstamendment @bookstadon