ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN’S RECORD OF STRUGGLE ©

- Heroine of
American labor

*

Ree 50 years ago, a 16-
year-old schoolgirl with two
dark pigtails down her back, ac-
companied by her father, mother,
two sisters and a brother, trudged
through a snowy January night,
to make her first speech about
Socialism. -

The scheolgirl was Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn, and that night at
the Harlem Socialist Club in New
York was the ‘first time she
“taught and advocated” the prin-
ciples of socialism in public.

_Today, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
is serving a five year sentence in
the Women’s Reformatory at. Al-
derson, West Virginia, for advo-
cating those same principles. She
was tried and sentenced, along
with other leaders of the U.S.

~Communist party in 1952.

On August 7, Elizabeth will be
5 and people of many countries
will be sending her birthday greet-
ings, including, I am sure, many
readers of this paper.

In this half-century, Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn has become one of
the great figures of the U.S. labor
movement.

~

*

She was lucky in her parents.
They were Irish immigrants who
vurned with indignation against
injustice, poverty and racial op-
pression, and they brought their
cnildren up to be the same.

Elizabeth nas told how she was
reared: “Heroes in our home,”
she said, “were men like_Debs,

John Mitchell, the miners’ leader,

and Father McGlynn, excommuni-
cated for his fight for labor; vil-
lians were such as President
Cleveland, who used troops
against the railroad strikers.” °

_When—shortly after her debut
as a speaker at the Harlem Club

By SHEILA LYND

ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

-— Elizabeth was arrested for
obstruction, making a speech on
socialism at a street corner, and
was expelled from school, her
father was furious. proud and
delighted all in one.

Ai that time she was a girl
of quite astonishing beauty, with
that combinatior of soft black
hair, vivid blue eyes and a milk-
white skin that seems to be speci-
fically Irish.

The arrested schoolgirl got her
p.cture in the papers,
Broadway producer offered her
a part in a play on the strength
of it. But Elizabeth replied polite-

iy, “I want to speak my own

lines, not someone else’s.”

It wasn’t long before she was
speaking her own lines in defense
of the militants of the Industrial
Workers of the World — the
famous ‘Wobblies,” who» were
fighting for the freedom of speech
necessary to organization.

The prisons were so full of

Wobblies that concentration
camps were built to hold them.
At the age of 18, she had her-
self been twice arrested, and

twice successfully defended her

and a>

cwn case in court—just as she
defended her own case in 1952.

The attempts to smash the
IWW were attempts to prevent
the building of trade unionism in
the United States; they failed in
spite of their ferocity and a great
wave of strikes spread through
the country.

*
One of the greatest of that

time was the Lawrence textile
strike of 1912, when 25,000 work-
ers of 25 nationalities, speaking
some 45 different dialects, stood
together. and fought ‘and won.
And there in the centre of that
battle was “Gurley,” as they call-
ed her affectionately.

By now Elizabeth was more
than a beautiful girl. She ‘had
become a magnificent orator, a
fearless organizer, one who could
inspire and lead wisely thous-
ands of working people.

The Lawrence strike made her
e legend, and from then on
wherever there was a_ strike
struggle she would be invited to
help.

In 1914 she became chairman
of the Labor Defense Council,
set up to fight on behalf of mili-
tants who wére constantly being
arrested, framed, and sometimes
murdered by the employers’ pri-

. vate armies of thugs.

Already she was an expert in
such work, and deeply involved

_in the defense of. Tom Mooney,

whose release from jail she help-
ed to achieve many years later
=I doso.

In 1915 it was Elizabeth who
organized the defense of Joe Hill,
who was framed and executed.

In 1919 Elizabeth heard that
a eouple of young Italians were
in trouble—charged with murder-
ing a pay-roll guard for the
money that was on him.

At once she travelled to Ded-

for nearly half a century, wherever Am erican workers have demonstrated for their rights,
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has been in the forefront of their struggle. ee

\

4 beet Sunday, August 7, is a
day of significance to the
U.S. labor movement, to all
democratic people of the Am-
ericas in fact, because on that
day one of the truly great
champions of the American
working class will be 65. years
of age. It will be the birthday
of our incomparable comrade,
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn—fight-
ing representative of the heroic

ment.

It is true that Elizabeth will
celebrate her 65th birthday in
a capitalist prison, incarcerat-
ed by the U.S. government on
the charge that she is a Com-
munist. That fact will make

- even more ardent the feelings

ers in the United States who
literally. “learned about the
labor movement from her.”

A reminder of Elizabeth’s
birthday will bring to many a
thousand working men and wo-
men stirring memories.

,

Some will flush with excite-
ment at the memory of the
flaming speeches of the girl
who became an example of
invincible enthusiasm to strik-
ing textile workers in New
England. :

Some will draw a quick

breath at the memory of Gur-
ley Flynn’s all-out effort in the

of the martyred Sacco and Van-
zetti.

Send ‘greetings |
on 65th birthday

age of the U.S. labor move—

of tens of thousands of work-—

heroic battle to save the lives.

e ees

Her dynamism, no Jess than
the impact of her moving pub
lic speeches, made her 4 key
figure in that struggle. ie
every sphere of working-class
activity Elizabeth Gurley #ly™
has made outstanding contr ;
butions to the cause of Amer

can labor. i ia

To those who, like ‘myself,
are privileged to know hel
personally, Elizabeth's be
day is a reminder of her 4 |
quenchable enthusiasm,
irrepressible humor and ie
calm confidence in the coming
victory of our class.

The fact that she 1S eae
capitalist prison cell one
diminish her confidence ce
it provides an additiona a
on for democratic Canadiay> |
who love and admire het py |
express their sentiments 9 |
mailing a birthday card bet |
August 7 wishing her one,
health on this her 65th P ay le
day. She knows that evr,
such card will be, also, @ Mies
for her early freedom.

Sending a card is simples
should be a printed pirat |
éard. Nothing should be ‘|
ten on the card unless 7 tt
the name of the sender a
should be addressed to ice et
beth Gurley Flynn, Post OF.
Box A, Alderson, West ©
ginia, USA.

Let's give Elizabeth Ce
Flynn hundreds of i
from Canada on August '

ham jail in Massachusetts, where.

she managed to see one of the

young men, called Sacco, who-

cheerfully assured her _ that
“someone had made_a mistake.”
He expected to be out in a day
or two. ®

For the next seven years her
whole life was given to the de-
fense of Sacco and Vanzetti, rais-
ing money to retain the best
lawyers to fight for them, pains-
takingly collecting the proofs
that the murder had really been
the work of a gang of thugs,
and rousing the American labor
“movement to protect: the two
innocent victims.

When, despite world protest,
Sacco and Vanzetti were execut-
ed, it almost broke her heart
and spirit, and she became so
seriously ill that five years later
she was told she could never re-
turn to an active life, her heart
was permanently affected. .

But in these years, if she
couldn’t travel and speak, Eliza-

Exiles return home

‘ hike PRAGUE
Mere than 100 Soviet citizens

some of whom have never
seen the USSR, are leaving Czech-
oslovakia for the Soviet Union
this week, :

They are former Russians and
Ukrainians who left their home-
land at the time of the 1917 Oc-
tober Revolution or after, and
their children born in Czechoslo-
vakia. .

_ After the Soviet Army freed.

Eastern Europe, many Russian
and Ukrainian exiles applied for

and were granted Soviet citizen-

ship.

Over the past year many) of
these former exiles have applied
for permission to return home,

_doctor promised that § dids 2

"82 yr peace its,
gates, to the fight fo agro 1

the USSR.

beth read and thought: pare
dustrial action enough, ¢° ‘print
tional fights in the factories rs
socialism, when the employ” ry,
owned the’ State?

“When an old friend ;
her 1a copy of a speech ‘qpoult
Dimitrov made in 198 male
working-class unity and. “evils
of the Communists in 4° jad
it, she recognized where eh
always stood.

She joined the U.S. Co
ist party in 1936,

oust
or eotd

he

not live a year if she ¢

threw herself straight into

struggle once more. sist

; opaee

Back to the fight for SE osy
democracy, back to ae ‘

against fascism, for
for civil liberties. -

Today she is one of the 5 9 is
proofs that the capitalist % nos! i
the enemy of the nobles» (opr
selfless and most courageo" ia
bers of mankind. y

This week’s contingent ou ng
the first of thousands T°" gast
to the Soviet Union fo™
European countries. coon

All have volunteered £0F a
ing to take a part in UY jp
agricultural extension sehen

It is understood that theY ee a
families and househo et
will travel free and that 2° yow
been guaranteed adequate mse!
ances ‘until. they get the?” ”
settled in their new Urea pi

Uzbekistan is one 0% | wh)
of the Soviet Union ipo!
many of the homew:
Soviet citizens are goinS ©
numbers. ating

hay tyerrenre seam anrvennrese