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SAN DIEGO FREE SPEECH FIGHT

The San Diego free-speech fight of 1912 was among the most violent of the IWW’s campaigns. After the city banned speaking in a downtown "restricted district," Wobblies and their allies converged to defy the ordinance — and were met not only by police but by organized vigilantes.

Arrested men were beaten in jail, run out of town, and forced to run gauntlets; some were tortured, and the reformer Ben Reitman was abducted, beaten, and branded by vigilantes. Emma Goldman was driven from the city when she tried to lecture. The ferocity of the repression — carried out with the tacit approval of local authorities and the press — made San Diego a chilling precursor to the anti-IWW vigilantism that would erupt during World War I.