The Cold Millions

The Cold Millions engages with real historical events that occurred in Spokane between 1909 and 1910. The material takes a few creative liberties to better capture a key moment in the history of workers’ rights in the United States. The riots in Spokane would inspire others across the country to challenge local governments to recognize their rights to free speech and labor protections.

The start of the 20th century saw the rapid industrialization of the United States. Technological advancements enabled a massive boom in production and manufacturing. With the steady rise in the demand for jobs, employment agencies in Spokane, Washington began utilizing a predatory labor practice that exploited workers for profit. The agencies demanded that workers pay a placement fee that they would split with crew bosses in partner companies. In exchange, the workers were given jobs that they would lose within a matter of weeks, allowing agencies and crew bosses to reap greater profits with each turnover.

The Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union founded in Chicago in 1905, sought to combat this practice as early as 1908 through public campaigns that discouraged workers from patronizing the agencies’ services (Rayback, Joseph G. A History of American Labor. Free Press, 1966.). Over the next year, unrest built among the working-class citizens of Spokane. Fearing the loss of a lucrative profit system, the agencies forced the local government to pass an anti-speech law banning IWW leaders from publicly criticizing their practices. This provoked the IWW to organize a Free Speech Day on November 2, 1909, which was intended to be a peaceful protest against the employment agencies (Thompson, Fred W., and Murfin, Patrick. The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975. Industrial Workers of the World, 1976.). In three weeks, over 400 IWW members, associates, and bystanders filled the Spokane prison, forcing the city to relocate some of the prisoners to alternate sites like Fort Wright and the Franklin School.

Among those who were incarcerated was IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who would later serve as the inspiration for Joe Hill’s protest song, “The Rebel Girl.” Flynn’s imprisonment allowed her to observe the poor conditions of the women’s section of the prison, which she accused the police of operating as a brothel. She wrote an article covering her experience for the IWW newspaper, the Industrial Worker, which drove public sympathy for the incarcerated union members.

On December 20, 1909, the police conducted a raid of the IWW Hall in Spokane. Support from other chapters of the IWW poured into Spokane, and protests continued until March 1910. On March 4, the city council overturned its anti-speech law in favor of the IWW. The Spokane government also ordered the release of all union members still incarcerated at the city jail and its satellite sites, while several employment agencies saw their operating licenses revoked.

The Free Speech Riots marked a cornerstone victory for a union in its early years, emboldening workers to organize similar protests in San Diego, Sioux City, and Kansas City, among other places. Walter’s novel includes several of the details related above, including the animosity between the union and the agencies, the November Free Speech Day, and Gurley Flynn’s article on women’s prison conditions. The liberties he takes include the timing of certain events, such as introducing Gurley Flynn after the first Free Speech Day and involving her in the December police raid, which leads her to write her article.