It’s great to fight for Freedom
with a Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 10, 1907
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Miss Flynn Lectures on Socialism
From the Chicago Inter Ocean of September 9, 1907:
GIRL IN HIGH SCHOOL SOCIALIST LECTURER
—–
Miss Elizabeth Flynn Mounts Dry Goods Box
on Philadelphia’s Corners to Expound the
Doctrines of Her Political Beliefs.
—–STRICKEN BY POVERTY, SHE AIMS BLOW AT CAPITALISTS
—–
Handles Rockefeller, Roosevelt, and Other Leaders
Without Gloves in Addresses to Masses
-Says Crisis Will Bring Change.
—–Special Dispatch to The Inter Ocean.
PHILADELPHIA. PA., Sept. 8.-Philadelphia is being treated to a series of lectures on socialism, delivered by a girl of 17 years. She is miss Elizabeth Flynn of New York, still in high school, and every night she expounds the doctrine of ther political faith from the top of a dry goods box at a busy corner.
Two weeks ago Miss Flynn passed her seventeenth birthday, celebrating this important occasion by delivering two powerful addresses on socialism, brimful of tart remarks about Mr. Rockefeller’s fine and about the insincerity of Mr. Roosevelt and any other politician of the capitalistic class.
Draws Picture of Capitalist.
Here are some hammer blows from her speeches:
On the one hand is the working class, on the other hand the things they need, and between the two the capitalist dragging down the working man and pushing up the price of materials he must have.
Are we going to sit around and starve ourselves waiting for the capitalist to get out of his market glue?
Mark me!The downfall of capitalism will come in some great crisis.
Tells Own Life Story.
Miss Flynn has told her own story of how she became a socialist, and told it much better than any one else could write it. Following are some paragraphs from this unusual bit of autobiography:
I once believed there were countless opportunities in our prosperous country to be successful and reach the top, and one of these choices would, of course, be mine. The poor? Why, we have the poor always with us. They were lazy, shiftless, intemperate, uneducated, and deserved no better than they had.
These ideas probably resulted from the fact that my material welfare was taken care of. We had always been comfortably situated, and I had never had any personal experience with hunger or want.
Poverty Brings Change.
Suddenly our economic conditions changed. My father, a civil engineer, who worked by contract, was defrauded out of his summer’s earnings two years in succession. He went to law, but labor power being a commodity that can be stolen with impunity, the cases are still dragging along, and as yet no one has profited but the lawyers.
During the two consecutive winters we suffered from misery and crushing but sometimes revolutionizing poverty. I became ill, lost six months from school, and had time to read, think, and reflect carefully. I became and am now a class-conscious Marxian Socialist. My economic conditions had changed, and, as in many other cases, my ideas changed in rapid order.
———-
[Photograph is from New York World of August 24, 1906 added.]
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of September 7, 1907:
Miss Flynn to speak in Chicago:
I. W. W. Convention Call:
From the Montana News of September 5, 1907:
———-
How I Became a Socialist Speaker.
Elizabeth Flynn.
Because my entire activity in the socialist movement, thus far, has been confined to lecturing and “stump speaking,” I have been classified by the editor of the Socialist Woman as a speaker and requested to tell the details of my beginnings. I am not as confident as the heading implies, however, that I have become a full fledged socialist speaker. Public speaking is art and the master of the methods of educating socialism requires time, application and experience. For my brief period of a year and a half in the movement, as an active worker, I claim only the title of a student, and hope of ultimately becoming a speaker worthy of teaching the socialist principles.
Being a member of a small debating society in a public school several years ago, I became accustomed to addressing an audience, arguing in public, and I lost all the fear and nervousness so characteristic of an amateur who attempts to think rapidly “on her feet,” as the saying goes. The subjects discussed were commonplace, my views on them even more commonplace. This glorious republic, our flag and the constitution, were my trinity of ideals, “Americanism” were my articles of faith. In short, I was one of tho thousands of law-loving, patriotic and loyal citizens that our public schools are constantly sending forth. I wanted to become a constitutional lawyer. I believed there were countless opportunities in our prosperous country to be successful and reach the top, and one of these chances would of course be mine. The poor? Why, we have the poor always with us. They were lazy, shiftless, intemperate, uneducated and deserved no better than they had!
These ideas probably resulted from the fact that my material welfare was taken care of, we had always been comfortably situated, and I had never had any personal experience with hunger or want, although we must not forget that there are millions of men and women struggling with poverty every day who still retain these notions, the deluded and exploited working class.
Suddenly our economic conditions changed, our security vanished. My father, a civil engineer who worked by contract, was defrauded out of his summer’s earnings two years in succession. He went to law, but labor-power being a commodity that can be stolen with impunity, the cases are still dragging along, and as yet no one has profitted but the lawyers. During the two consecutive winters, we suffered from misery, and crushing but sometimes revolutionizing poverty. I became ill, lost six months from school, and had time to read, think, and reflect carefully. I had theories; here was a condition that did not coincidence with my theories; the theories had to go! I began to see the hypocracy and dishonesty surrounding me and became an ironclast [iconoclast?] and a Utopian of an anarchistic trend. As I studied of the evolution of society, of the class struggle and economic factors and their power over our lives, I demanded principles more practical and organized, or scientific, and yet revolutionary, I became, and am now, a class conscious, Marxian Socialist. My economic conditions had changed, and, as in many other cases, my ideas changed in rapid order.
While this mental evolution, as it were, was occuring, I attended several courses of socialist lectures. I was preparing for active work, that I might turn my school training to account of the socialist movement, but my debut came finally through accident. At the Harlem Socialist Club a speaker was needed for an evening upon which the engaged speaker could not be present, and to fill the vacancy, I was asked by the secretary of the lecture Committee, Comrade E. L. Egerton, to speak. He frankly admits that be did it for the novelty, expecting a school-girl’s recited speech. Fortunately, I had four weeks to prepare and in January 1906, I spoke on “Women and Socialism.” It was crude and very Utopian, as a whole, but not as bad as the socialists expected. That it was a unique speech from a fifteen year-old girl, I certainly must admit myself.
Since then I have spoken continuously on the street and in halls for the Socialist party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Unity Club, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Socialist Women of Greater New York.
I appreciate now how fortunate I was when my fallacious conceptions were rapidly dispelled by hardships, for I have been introduced into movement, influencing all the fields of human activity, the grandeur and historical significance of which has never been equalled or surpassed, a movement to emancipate the working class and with it the humane race, the International Socialist Movement.-Socialist Woman
[Photograph added is from the New York Evening World of August 23, 1906.]
SOURCES
The Inter Ocean
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 9, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/34547515/
The Industrial Union Bulletin
“Official Publication of the
Industrial Workers of the World”
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Sept 7, 1907
(Source for images of notices.)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iub/v1n28-sep-07-1907-iub.pdf
Montana News
“Owned and Published by the
Socialist Party of Montana”
(Helena, Montana)
-Sept 5, 1907
(Also source for image of text.)
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024811/1907-09-05/ed-1/seq-3/
IMAGES
EGF Girl Socialist w Hat, NYW, Aug 24, 1906
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1906-08-24/ed-1/seq-3/
EGF, In court for street speaking, NY Eve Wld, Aug 23, 1906
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1906-08-23/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
The Socialist Woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Socialist_Woman
Words on fire:
the life and writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
-ed by Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall
Rutgers University Press, 1987
(See pages 6 & 274-note 16.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=mqbaAAAAMAAJ
Note: according to Baxandall, Flynn’s article above was republished by the Montana News from the Aug 1907 edition of The Socialist Woman (sadly, does not appear, as of yet, to be available online).
Note: unfortunately the article above doesn’t tell us what EGF had to say about Rockefeller’s fine, but Big Bill Haywood ‘s remarks on that subject were published. See the Duluth Labor World of Aug 10, 1907:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1907-08-10/ed-1/seq-1/
Hellraisers covers EGF, “Girl Socialist”:
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday January 1, 1907
New York, New York – Miss Flynn Lectures on Socialism
From New York Sun of Dec 31, 1906.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks in New York City: “Girl Socialist Amazes Hearers.”
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 2, 1907
New York, New York – Miss Elizabeth Flynn, “Daughter of the Reds”
From Cameron County Press (PA) of Oct 25, 1906.
& From New York Evening World of Aug 23, 1906.
Miss Elizabeth Flynn-“The Daughter of the Reds!”-Socialist Schoolgirl Orator Creates Sensation in 1906
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday January 3, 1907
From the New York Sun of Apr 8, 1906:
Interview with Miss Elizabeth Flynn
An Interview with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on First Speech: “Women Under Socialism.”
Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 4, 1907
From Her Flat in the Bronx: An Interview with Miss Flynn
From New York Evening World of August 24, 1906
Miss Flynn, 16, Plans Rejuvenation of World. Not an “out-and-out woman suffrage socialist.”
For more on the early years of
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn:
Words on Fire by Baxandall
-see link above, pages 1-9.
& “Child Prodigy,” page 73, for
2 early essays, one on Women and
one on Education.
Iron in her soul:
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the American Left
-by Helen C. Camp
WSU Press, Mar 1, 1995
(See pages xxiii-xxiv, 1-16.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=WaIEAQAAIAAJ
Rebel Girl
-by EGF
International Pub, 1979
(See pages 23-79.)
https://books.google.com/books?id=TK2y0I-E9EkC
The Rebel Girl – Cathy Richardson
Lyrics by Joe Hill