100 years ago in Spokane: Arrests and intrigue build in street-speaking controversy

From our archives, 100 years ago

The street-corner speaking controversy continued to build in Spokane.

Three more Wobblies were arrested on downtown streets after they defied Spokane’s street-speaking ordinance.

“I am an I.W.W. (Wobblie) and I am proud of it!” bellowed James W. Mack, 32, as he commenced to orate.

“You’ll have to cut it, kid,” said policeman Robert Higginbotham.

“There’s a million more of us on the way!” shouted Mack, predicting a return of the Free Speech Fight of 1909, when thousands of Wobblies descended on Spokane.

That was the extent of Mack’s speech, because officers hustled him off to jail.

From the street-evangelism beat: On a related note, the case of Sister Della, arrested the day before for street-speaking, took an unusual turn.

Her husband, Edward Allen, told the court that Sister Della had been “a mental prisoner” of the Gideon band of missionaries, which was headed in Spokane by Sister Bilkiss.

He said that he and Della had lived together happily for several years and had a 4-year-old daughter. But then a year earlier, she “yielded to inducements” to join the Gideon band, and refused to come home. He, her parents, her brother and her child begged her to come home. Yet she “refused to speak to them, even to notice them.”

That all changed in court, when she was brought before the judge for violating the street-speaking ordinance. She told the judge she wanted to return to her husband. The judge released her on that condition.

Sister Della broke into tears, and walked past a line of Gideon missionaries, “shielded by an arm of her husband,” and with her child clinging to her dress.