Item Detail
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31003
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2
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English
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“We are not seeking trouble and so will just go along quietly just now” : The IWW’s 1913 Free-Speech Fight in Salt Lake City
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Utah in the Twentieth Century
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Logan, UT
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Utah State University Press
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263-284
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In the late-twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries, Utah was one of the most Republican and conservative states in the country. As John S. McCormick and John R. Sillito, historians of socialism in Utah, note, however, Utah also has a rich radical tradition. It was not just a place where Joe Hill, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobbly, organizer, was executed in 1915. It was also a place where the Socialist Party thrived, and where in the early twentieth century, the IWW led both strikes and free speech fights. As this chapter makes clear, responses in 1913 to the IWW’s demand for the right to hold public rallies in Salt Lake City included the contention that the public expression of radical ideas and beliefs should be suppressed and thereby the right of free speech should be abridged. McCormick and Sillito carefully detail the events and confl icts between the IWW and Salt Lake City police, governmental authorities, and even private citizens. Their study raises the question whether it is ever acceptable for a minority message to be silenced by majority violence and intolerance." [Author]