After the passage of the ordinance on January 8, Chief of Police Keno Wilson announced he would wait until January 10 before he enforced it.
Bail money will be waiting. The 3, people who showed up the night of January 10 to witness a showdown were disappointed, however. At the last hour City Attorney W. Andrews decided that in spite of an emergency clause in the ordinance allowing immediate enforcement, he still doubted whether it could legally go into effect before a thirty-day waiting period. He advised Wilson not to enforce it until February 8. Law enforcement officials set their jaws, endured the taunts of the IWW, and grimly anticipated the day the waiting period would end.
On the night of February 8, each side turned out in full strength. Police arrested thirty-eight men and three women that evening. All these men have violated some law, whether they are street speakers or not, of that I am sure. So I am going to charge some with disturbing the peace and others with offenses which I shall figure out tomorrow.
The street speakers believed they were to be arrested for disturbing the peace or for merely violating a city ordinance, both misdemeanors. Instead, the prosecuting attorney charged them with the felony charge of conspiracy to violate a law. District Attorney H. Utley stated that any man who had no job should be put in jail, particularly if he wanted to talk about it. Some people had been jailed by February 21; more arrests came every day.
The Free Speech League, at this point, proposed to glut the jails and then to demand individual jury trials which would clog the courts and bring the legal machinery to a standstill. San Diegans girded themselves for the onslaught; they were determined to repel the agitators. District Attorney Utley offered to release those prisoners accused of conspiracy who remained in jail due to a lack of bail money, if the IWW and its allies would agree to terminate street speaking in the restricted area.
Attorney Kirk advised his clients to accept the proposal, but the IWW refused to compromise. Mass hysteria descended upon San Diego. Governor Hiram Johnson refused an appeal by the city for state troops. The Free Speech League, along with the trade unions and socialists, maintained their moral and legal support for the IWW, but ended their active participation as a pitched battle between the IWW and the citizens of San Diego grew imminent.
A horsewhip vigilante committee to deal with the hordes of IWW members had been proposed as early as February 10 by Clark Braly, a former park commissioner. San Diegans at that time thought that the police could handle the matter, and no one took the proposition seriously. By the end of the month, however, the citizenry understood that the IWW was succeeding in its endeavor to make law enforcement impossible.
The conspiracy trials for thirty-eight of the first-night violators had not even begun as it had proved impossible to impanel an impartial jury to hear the cases.
The free speech issue had become a matter of law and order versus lawlessness. At least, that is how many San Diegans viewed the issue.
Cells in the city jail experienced unhealthy overcrowding — in space for seventy-five — and stockades were erected about the city to confine the daily increasing number of prisoners. They are deliberately defying the law by forcing the police to arrest them, and then howling for mercy against the discomfort of over-crowded jails. Their appeal is in itself unjustifiable because they have deliberately created the conditions under which they suffer.
It is estimated that over 5, men came to San Diego during the free speech fight, and some prisoners, due to the crowded conditions in San Diego, had to be moved to jails in next door Orange County, California, by March 1. There was talk of trying the conspirators on the grounds of treason. The Tribune , however, did not shy from the possibility of capital punishment:.
Hanging is none too good for them, and they would be much better off dead; for they are absolutely useless in the human economy; they are the waste material of creation and should be drained off into the sewer of oblivion there to rot in cold obstruction like any other excrement. The County Supervisors, acting on recommendation of the San Diego grand jury, on March 7 authorized a mounted patrol of citizens to guard the county line in an attempt to prevent further IWW infiltration into San Diego.
The offer, unfortunately, came too late for San Diego was no longer in a mood to compromise. Never noted for their mutual cooperation, this incident probably marks the first time in the history of San Diego County that the police chief, the sheriff and the marshal had willingly worked together in the interests of law enforcement.
The first major clash came on Sunday afternoon, March I have never heard such a din in my life. More arrests for disturbing the peace followed. Newspaper headlines on March 18 announced the formation of a Committee of 1, citizens who planned to cooperate with the police.
The vigilance committee was composed of businessmen and citizens, as well as common thugs hired by those individuals who did not wish to participate personally. The vigilantes pulled the men off the trains and drove them back across the line using horsewhips and canes to speed any stragglers and to discourage any thought they might have of returning.
Camps of migrant workers in San Diego County were broken up and destroyed. Michael Hoy died on March 28 from what fellow-prisoners and one physician charged was a kick in the stomach.
The violence crested on April 5. Police Chief Wilson solved the dilemma of the overcrowded jails by ordering the prisoners transported by trucks to the city limits in the Sorrento Valley district. There were a good many of them [IWW] beat up pretty bad, and there are some unmarked graves up there on the rifle range. Of course this was cruel, but they had to be cruel. It was a question of defending their homes and property and the county against these people who were sent in here.
For awhile the vigilante tactics encouraged, rather than discouraged, the IWW. One Wobbly indicated that they would continue to go to San Diego even though they realized that some would be clubbed to death; their cause was more important than loss of life.
The vigilantes also kidnapped A. When Emma Goldman, a nationally known anarchist, came to town along with her manager, Ben Reitman, a mob of gathered around her hotel. Her visits to San Diego in previous years had caused no alarm, but on this occasion, as Reitman sat casually in a third floor window of the Hotel Montezuma, the crowd became threatening.
Police, for her own self-protection, escorted Miss Goldman to the train station, while the mob transported Reitman to the county line, stopping only long enough along the way to tar and feather him.
The outcry of state and national public opinion against such vigilante tactics forced Governor Johnson by the end of April to send a special commissioner, Harris Weinstock, to San Diego. Weinstock experienced difficulty developing his report on the situation, as public opinion generally backed the vigilante committee. San Diego Unified is one of a small number of districts that has its own police force.
All sorts of student-specific situations come up, said Barrera. A KPBS analysis showed Black students in the district were four times more likely to be detained or arrested by school police than White students.
School police were also more likely to refer White students to mental health services, the analysis found. My own reporting showed Black students are also the most disproportionately suspended group in the entire district. Barrera argues those figures would be worse if San Diego Police Department were responding to incidents on local campuses. But on the lawn of the San Diego Unified headquarters on July 2, , protestors made it clear that school police were beyond reforming.
Will Huntsberry is a reporter for Voice of San Diego. He writes about education, schools and children in San Diego County. Please reach out with tips or ideas to willh vosd. Username or Email Address. Remember Me. Sign In. Facebook Twitter Print Email. Sponsor Message. The Learning Curve. Advertise with Us. Website Coupons. Movement Mortgage Loans. Website Services.
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