Omaha daily bee., 1915-12-16
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn


Three weeks ago. under the title Free Speech 10
Paterson" The outlook told the story Of the second
expulsion from without any legal proceed
ing Of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Later she was put
on trial charge OF exciting riot and lawlessness
by a speech made long ago. She was acquitted ana
her followers and many also who do not at all agTes
with the propaganda OF the Industrial Workers OF
the World. Of which she is an exponent. regarded
her acquittal as victory for free speech
what is she-this Elizabeth Gurley Flynn who
was tried again in Paterson last week and quickly
acquitted? A strange sort Of woman. hated that
a citys lawful authorities frankly break the law
20 keep her out. championed that society women
factory girls teachers writer's lawyers poor students
and folks who saw her "chipped In TO raise
her a defense fund-what IL she?
To sIlk-nill owners and capitalists generally she
s that Flynn woman loudmouthed agitator, CRATER
seditious criminal who ought to be run out OF town
or hanged" All they know is that when she comes
their fall idle and empty and their workers,
thronging about a swear they won't go back
until the tells them 10. SO the factory own
refuse 70 talk the strike with this woman,
and she Is arrested and tried sometimes for one
thing. sometimes another.
She's little woman, Is Gurley Flynn. and Irish
all The Celt is in her gray-blue eyes and
almost black hair In the way she clencnes her small
hands into fists when she's speaking. On her mothers
side her great-grandfather Ryan killed in battle
with the English and her grandfather Flynn fleJ
TO America with price on his head for sabotage
against the British government Sabotage in Feniap
days7" asks. and Miss Flynn smiles she ex
plains that when forbidden their immemorial right Of
fishing certain rivers he and his associates pois
oned the streams saying. 'If can't have our own
neither shall the English"
Sixty years later Miss Flynn finds the wrongs
OF the proletariat moving than the cause OF
Irish nationalism. but her ansgonism TO constituted
authority inbred. She reared without
girlhood with almost no childhood for at Is she
her first speech 'materiastic socialist" before
her fathers club At II she and he arrested for
cart-tail speaking in New York City. Here Is her
own curt schedule from that time: ct have been
arrested in New York. in Missouls. Mont.
in Spokane. Wash. twice In Philadelphia. twice
in Paterson-never convicted"
Elizabeth Flynn in the last four years has led
three big strikes the struggle of the textile
the mills OF Lawrence. Mass; then short but bitter
walters strike in New York city; and in 1913 eight
months of war between the silk-m owners and their
employees in Patterson, N. ]. In each struggle she
she has made herself hated and feared by
she calls masters" while those derides as EEK
plotted" love and trust her In they trusted
her with their little Like the Pied Piper,
she left the city followed by the childrn OF the
workers. whom she carried off to New York TO be
fed and cared for until the strike Lahore
Joan of Arc" they call her, and one, an italian,
said OF her; Women and children. and any man
that nka mother and sister. llka Miss Flynn and
listen"
In Paterson she has left the authorities stilI
afraid. Since the strike "Gurley" has been forbidden
TO speak to the working people When she persisted
an old indictment was revived against her Although
the judge before whom che tried the same
who watched the police bar her from a meeting and
these same police witnesses against her a
! jury from another county promptly acquitted her
Her defense had been undertaken by a committee OF
women. none of whom identified with Industrial
disputes Their support could not be explained only
by their belief in tho sincerity OF their labor leader
whom they called friend Now that she is free they
seek Injunction to make the legal authorities Of
Paterson obey tn law.