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	# 2024-12-18 - Wobbly Walk Through The Siskiyous

	1920 Oregon Railroad Map (287 KB small)

	1920 Oregon Railroad Map (5 MB large)

	I found an interesting local article:

	Wobbly Walk Through The Siskiyous

	Wobbly is slang for Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

	IWW

	While reading this article, i learned a few things. I had always
	thought of the IWW as historical, but apparently it still operates.
	Anyone, anywhere can join. If there is not a local chapter, then one
	can be a member "at large." Chapters exist in Eugene, Corvallis, and
	Portland.

	> IWW local 66 had been organizing construction and power plant
	> workers in Fresno and offered to include agricultural workers as
	> well. Fresno officials considered exhortations to "struggle" and
	> seize "that which they produce" to be sufficient grounds for
	> arrest. When the IWW journal Industrial Worker urged members "to go
	> to Fresno and break the law," one hundred twelve Wobblies responded
	> in Portland. In the previous year, 1910, Wobblies successfully
	> conducted a passive resistance campaign that filled Spokane jails
	> with speakers who defied a prohibition on street corner speaking,
	> so they targeted Fresno with the Spokane tactics.

	> Like the Black Panthers a couple of generations later they were
	> judged more for what they said than by what they did.

	For the duration of the Fresno campaign, each member was assigned a
	number, and the wobblies used their numbers instead of names. At the
	end of the campaign, they burned their records.

	I was surprised to read how much the railroad employees cooperated
	with the 112 Wobblies going from Portland through to Ashland.

	> The conductor's decision to add a car in Albany for the convenience
	> of the Wobblies suggests that a rapport was developing with the
	> trainmen.

	The Eugene Daily Guard reported:

	> Meanwhile the train crew declared that the Southern Pacific had
	> added two boxcars in Portland "to avoid a confrontation."

	Below are links to historic IWW songs and a documentary.

	One Hour Of IWW Music

	Sabo Tabby Kitten

	Songs of the Wobblies

	Little Red Songbook of the IWW (1919)

	The Wobblies (1979 Documentary)

	tags: history,non-fiction,oregon,political,vagabond

	# Tags

	history
	non-fiction
	oregon
	political
	vagabond