💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › nancy-krieger-queen-of-the-bolsheviks.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 13:03:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Queen of the Bolsheviks
Author: Nancy Krieger
Date: 1983
Language: en
Topics: IWW, queer, anti-militarist, GLBT, health
Source: Retrieved on January 12, 2013 from http://dl.lib.brown.edu/pdfs/1142531057993427.pdf
Notes: From Radical America, vol 17., no. 5, September-October 1983

Nancy Krieger

Queen of the Bolsheviks

Now forgotten, Dr. Marie Equi (1872–1952) was a physician for

working-class women and children, a lesbian, and a dynamic and

flamboyant political activist. She was a “firebrand in the causes of

suffrage, labor and peace, in Portland in the ’teens, ’20s, and

’30s.”[1] A reformer turned revolutionary, Equi earned the nickname

“Queen of the Bolsheviks,” one which spoke to her often imperious

character as well as to her politics. Equi’s political development was

framed by intense and significant changes within the US economy and

society and its role in world politics, upheavals which laid the basis

for the many movements in which she was involved: Progressive, women’s,

socialist, radical labor, and anti-imperialist. Spanning the period from

the consolidation of northern industrial capitalism to the emergence of

the US as the dominant imperialist power, Equi’s life serves as a

chronicle of her times and illuminates how one person was affected by

and sought to change world events.

How is it that Equi was once notorious and is now forgotten? And why is

it important to remember her? According to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Equi

gained her reputation “as the stormy petrel of the Northwest” by being

“among the most feared and hated women in the Northwest because of her

outspoken criticisms of politicians, industrialists and so-called civic

leaders, and all who oppressed the poor.”[2] Equi has been forgotten,

however, in part because few written records of her life or thoughts

exist, in part because her later years were years of decline, but mainly

because she was the sort of person traditional historians would rather

ignore: a powerful woman, a lesbian, and a revolutionary and militant

fighter for the working class. Yet it is precisely for these reasons

that Equi should be remembered. Equi’s political development, her

successes and shortcomings, and her rich and vivid life are sources of

both inspiration and critical lessons for all who, like Equi, would act

to rid the world of exploitation and oppression.

Equi’s Life: The Early Years

Equi’s political consciousness received its initial molding from both

her immigrant parents and her childhood experiences as a worker in the

oppressive textile mills of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Equi’s mother

came from Ireland, fleeing economic stagnation and repression; she

staunchly opposed England’s military and economic domination of

Ireland.[3] Equi’s father, a stonemason and activist in the Knights of

Labor, had come from Italy where he had fought with Garibaldi to oppose

papal rule.[4] Together, they raised her to “abhor absolutism, monarchy

and oppression.”[5]

Equi, born on April 7, 1872, entered the mills when she was 8 years old

in 1880. At age 13, she developed tuberculosis. Equi recovered, unlike

most who were stricken with TB, because she was given the opportunity to

go to Florida for a year. Equi then left the US to live with her

grandfather in Italy in 1886 — the year of the first national strike for

the eight-hour day, the first May Day, and the Haymarket massacre — and

she remained there for three years. [6]

Finding Her Own Path

Equi returned to the US at the age of 17 in 1889, to a nation still rife

with anti-radical and anti-immigrant sentiment. Rather than return to

the mills, Equi joined the mass exodus of Americans seeking to create a

new life in the, West. Different even then, Equi did not homestead with

a family but went with another woman, her friend Bess Holcolm, who had

been promised a teaching job in The Dalles, a young city in the

burgeoning state of Oregon.[7] When they arrived, the school

superintendent went back on his word and denied Bess her position. His

refusal led to the first documented case of Equi’s flamboyant and feisty

personality, her passionate commitment to justice, and her determination

to let no one stand in her way. As reported in one Oregon newspaper,

Equi surprised the superintendent in the streets of The Dalles, and —

with a horsewhip — “administered a vigorous lashing in the presence of a

large crowd of people.”[8] Needless to say, Bess got her job.

While Bess taught, Equi studied to enter medical school — a fairly

unusual ambition for a working class woman (even though outright

opposition to women entering medical school was beginning to wane by the

close of the nineteenth century).[9] Equi’s determination to be a doctor

was inspired by her desire to help people. It may also have been fueled

by her own bout with TB, her admiration for other women doctors, and her

goal of having a profession in which she could have complete control of

her work.

Equi entered medical school in 1900, attending the Physicians and

Surgeons Medical College in San Francisco because the University of

Oregon medical school did not admit women. When the University of Oregon

changed its policy one year later, Equi transferred and graduated in

1903.[10] Still loyal to her working class background, Equi established

herself as a physician for working-class women and children and became

known as an expert diagnostician.[11] She developed a close network of

friends with other professional and college women, relishing independent

minds. Equi soon became an outspoken proponent of woman’s suffrage and

the need for women to be involved in social reform. She spoke on both

topics at the 1905 National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s

convention held in Portland.[12] Equi also organized Portland’s doctors

and nurses to go down to San Francisco to assist victims of the

devastating 1906 earthquake. There, she “was given the rank of ‘doctor’

in the United States Army, the only woman ever so honored” up to that

point, and President Theodore Roosevelt even gave Equi an award for her

services.[13]

In 1906 Equi also became lovers with Harriet Speckart.[14] Their

relationship lasted over 15 years. Apart from their being lesbians,

their living together — although unusual — was not unheard of. An

increasing number of professional and upper-middle-class women were

beginning to establish households together at that time, and in Boston

such arrangements were becoming so common that they were called “Boston

marriages.”[15] This rise in women-only households was in part a product

of people being concentrated in large urban centers, and it was also a

significant reflection of a fundamental change in women’s position in

industrialized societies: women as a group were beginning to be able to

survive as independent wage earners, and were no longer tied by

necessity to a family economy or a husband’s wage. These conditions, in

addition to the increased awareness of the need for birth control and

the distinction for women between sex for procreation and sex for

pleasure, also led to an increase in the viability and visibility of

lesbian households.

Despite the gradually increasing public awareness of homosexuality, the

vast majority of people thought homosexuality was unnatural and that

homosexuals were sick and depraved people. Even for a person as

self-confident as Equi, it would have been hard to ignore this dominant

view. Moreover, the Progressive opinion on homosexuality in this era

also did little to build homosexuals’ self-esteem. The fundamental

assumption of these advocates of homosexual rights was that

homosexuality was an incurable congenital condition (although it could

be induced “artificially”), and that therefore homosexuals should not be

persecuted by anti-homosexual legislation, but should be allowed to live

in peace.[16] These advocates did, however, provide an invaluable

service to homosexuals: they validated the existence of homosexuality

and encouraged research on the reasons for its existence.

Although Equi apparently did not denigrate herself for being a lesbian

and was open about it with her friends and political acquaintances, it

does seem she harbored some doubts as to whether being homosexual was

“normal.” Years later, when she was in prison in 1921, Equi expressed in

a letter her fears about being “queer,” but was advised by her friend

not to worry about her relationship with her “full-bosomed mate”:

What you say about yourself being queer, well — I must convince you that

you are not. It is a fact you have dared to do the unestablished thing,

and therefore the unapproved, that you are looked upon as queer. So

Marie D’Equi, be good, and take the advice of a friend: you are

perfectly sane, though perhaps unusually out of the ordinary....

Continue to act, think, look as you have for years past, and somebody

will be glad to see you unchanged when you get out.[17]

Wearing tailored suits and fedora-like hats, having intense affairs and

crushes as well as her long-lasting and serious relationship with

Harriet, Equi heeded this advice, and acted, thought, and looked as she

wanted to throughout her life.

Equi’s commitment to women and her personal experiences of

discrimination led her to devote energy to women’s suffrage, a campaign

in which she played an instrumental role. At the same time, her

working-class background and her experiences as a doctor compelled Equi

to become a vocal advocate for her patients. In both cases, her goal was

reform through the legislative process, and she upheld the politics of

the newly emerging Progressive Party, which sought not to challenge the

fundamental property relations of capitalism but instead curb its

excesses through legislation. In her suffrage work, Equi opposed not

only men who were simply against women’s suffrage, but also the liquor

interests, which feared that women would vote for prohibition. In 1912,

the year Equi led the Oregon “Votes for Women” march and women at long

last won the vote in Oregon, Equi was on the executive committee of the

State Equal Suffrage League as well as on the executive board of the

Progressive Party, plus serving as president of the Women’s Eight Hour

League.[18] Through these organizations, Equi met many dynamic and

progressive women, some of whom became friends for life, such as

Charlotte Anita Whitney, then a vice-president of the American Equal

Suffrage Association and later one of the leading women in the Communist

Party. This intense combination of friendship and political work was to

occur many times in Equi’s life, with friendships evolving or ending as

Equi’s own politics changed. At this point, however, Equi and all these

women shared the Progressive notion of evolutionary improvement under

capitalism. It was not until a violent cannery strike in Portland in

1913, led by the Industrial Workers of the World, that events changed

Equi’s mind.

Radicalization

The women who struck the Oregon Packing Company fruit cannery in July

1913 were primarily immigrants, the kind of people for whom Equi was

both physician and advocate; it was one of Equi’s patients who involved

Equi in the strike.[19] The main strike issue was low wages. The women

received $2.50 to $4.50 a week, far below the minimum of $10 per week

that the Consumers League of Oregon had found to be the pay Portland

working women needed simply to survive.[20] The strikers’ lot was fairly

typical: the Consumers League had also discovered that virtually

two-thirds of Portland’s working women received less than this

subsistence wage. Besides wages, other strike issues included long hours

(which sometimes could span from 6:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with the doors

to the building locked so as to ensure the women remained the full

shift) and unsanitary conditions.[21]

In the course of the strike, the newly created Industrial Welfare

Commission, a product of the Progressive Era, ignored its own recently

established law forbidding “the working of women or minors in any

occupations for unreasonable hours, under conditions detrimental to

health and morals, or for wages inadequate to maintain them.”[22] They

did this by settling with the cannery owners for a wage of $6 per week,

without ever consulting the strikers.[23] Equi witnessed this betrayal

and she also discovered that the right to free speech was only a

relative right, one to be revoked by a mayor or governor when confronted

by militant workers demanding better conditions. Finally, Equi also saw

the police attack unarmed women strikers, and it was this brutality

which caused Equi’s decisive break with the Progressive movement.

Equi described the event that triggered her radicalization in an

interview she gave a year later. Recounting one of the numerous free

speech fights during the strike — a tactic that was a hallmark of the

IWW, who needed to have the right to speak at Street meetings to reach

the unemployed, unorganized, and those on strike — Equi recalled that:

An Indian girl [Mrs. O’Connor] got on to a box to speak. She was about

to become a mother in a few months. The mounted police would leap from

their horses’ backs, hitting the heads of working men in the crowd. When

they pulled that girl from the box — that was where I went wild. All the

fighting blood rose in my heart. I got on the box and said things. They

took the Indian girl to the courthouse. I followed and got in.[24]

Once there, Equi made clear that her determination to see justice done

and to free Mrs. O’Connor knew no bounds:

Deputy Sheriff Downey tried to restrain the infuriated woman [Equi], She

gave him a right arm swing in the jaw. Night Watchman Fifer, a meek

little man, tried to remonstrate with Dr. Equi, but her ready fist

caught him below the left eye. He grappled with her and threw her out

bodily on the sidewalk, where she landed on all fours. But Dr. Equi was

nothing daunted by these experiences, which she merely took as temporary

reverses. Gaining entrance, she persuaded the elevator man to take her

up to the jail on the top floor, where she opened up her batteries of

vituperation on Sheriff Word and his deputies. She raked them fore and

aft. While the IWW’s peered over each other’s shoulders, quite

forgetting their arrests in their admiration for the gattling-gun

qualities of vituperation, so that they had to be spoken to several

times before they were booked. “You’re a cowardly, atavistic creature!

You’re a primitive puppy! You beat your wife, and you would beat your

baby if it cried at night so you couldn’t sleep. You’re a caveman,

that’s what you are.” These remarks were directed at Deputy Sheriff O.N.

Ford.... Mrs. O’Connor was not booked, but was allowed to depart from

jail, escorted by Dr. Equi.[25]

This attack on Mrs. O’Connor hit Equi at several levels: as a worker’s

advocate, a woman, and a physician appalled to see a pregnant woman

attacked. Galvanized by this gross injustice, and her own experience in

the jail, Equi threw herself into supporting the strike, creating more

front-page stories. Two days later, at a street meeting called in

defiance of a prohibition by the mayor, Equi was arrested; she stabbed

the patrolman with a hatpin that the newspapers rumored was

poisoned.[26] The police held Equi in jail and told her friends —

including Harriet — that “they could have the choice of restraining

[Equi] in a sanatorium, having her committed to the insane asylum, sent

to the penitentiary, or removed from the State permanently.”[27] Equi

refused to leave the State, and the police released her a few days later

and never tried her; Equi claimed that this was because she would have

testified about the brutal treatment she received in jail.[28]

The events of the cannery strike fundamentally altered Equi’s life. The

strike radicalized Equi through exposing her to both police brutality

and to the weaknesses of the politics of the Progressive Party. As Equi

herself said:

It was my experiences during that strike that made me a socialist....

Previous to that time I was a Progressive.... Any betterment of

conditions must come about by direct action, in other words,

militancy.[29]

Equi, confronted by the stark conditions of the class struggle, learned

that legislated reform, though necessary and critical, could never by

itself end the exploitation and oppression intrinsic to the capitalist

system. The scope of her political vision broadened considerably, and

she began to perceive how the different struggles she had been involved

in were framed by class relations. Equi also saw the State act forcibly

to protect the interests of the ruling class. Thrilled by the militancy

of the IWW, its commitment to organizing the unorganized, and its

recognition — as stated in its preamble — of the “historic mission of

the working class to do away with capitalism,” Equi underwent a profound

change. She began to perceive the present as history, to see history and

politics as the expression of class conflict, and to realize that with

this understanding one can change history. Accordingly, Equi entered a

period where her life became inextricably bound with the history and

politics of her times.

The Radical

Having “declared war against the organized forces of capitalism,”[30]

Equi the radical and socialist rapidly made a place for herself in

virtually every Progressive movement in Portland. Equi did not confine

her work to purely economic or industrial issues, as the IWW often did.

Bringing her class analysis to what she viewed as short-sighted and

single-issue reform movements, Equi argued that they would amount to

little if they were not linked in the effort to end capitalism and

create socialism, as she expressed in a 1914 interview:

Certainly I am a suffragist. But I am far from believing that woman

suffrage is a panacea for every political ill. I am not a

Prohibitionist, though I recognize the liquor evil is a great national

curse. To my mind, the liquor evil, the social evil, unemployment and

all the great social and economic problems that confront us are merely

symptoms of the greater evil of capitalism.[31]

Having said this, Equi — a woman for whom words were a call to action —

took up a multitude of specific issues, all tied to her strategic vision

of how capitalism could be overthrown.

From 1913 to 1915, Equi worked mainly with the IWW, campaigning for

better conditions for lumber-workers. Risking arrest, she participated

in the IWW’s national campaign to organize the unemployed during the

severe economic depression of 1913, and succeeded in obtaining much

needed relief, food and shelter for many of Portland’s unemployed. In

the spring of 1914, Equi traveled back East to meet with other

activists, visit her family and get some rest.[32] The content and

complexity of her political work changed, however, with the outbreak of

the imperialist World War I in August 1914.

Soon after the war started, Equi joined the newly formed American Union

Against Militarism (AUAM), based on the belief that the US would

eventually play a military role in the conflict to ensure its stake in

the outcome. AUAM published anti-militarist analyses of the war, lobbied

in Washington against preparedness and conscription, and also campaigned

against US imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, seeking to

impress upon the US public that the true reason for the war was economic

profiteering.[33]

Not one to lead a tranquil life, in the spring of 1915, when Equi became

involved with AUAM, she and Harriet adopted a baby girl. The child,

Mary, was born March 15, 1915; Equi at this point was 43 years old and

Harriet was 32. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but which may

have had to do with the adoption, Harriet temporarily married an IWW

organizer, James F. Morgan, on March 18, 1915, and divorced him on May

29, 1915.[34] Morgan was not pleased with this turn of events, and

complained bitterly to some fellow IWW members about how “Doc stole his

wife.” The daughter of one of these IWW members, later to become a

friend of Equi’s, overheard this and asked her father what the word

“lesbian” meant. Defending Equi staunchly, the father replied that

anyone’s sexuality was the preference of the individual, and that “Dr.

Equi was a wonderful woman and that this was quite well known in the

labor world and anyone with any brains didn’t criticize it.”[35] His

support for Equi, at a time when lesbianism was perceived as deviant

behavior in the Progressive as well as conservative sectors of society,

is yet another indication of how well respected Equi was.

Within a year of Mary’s adoption, Equi had established herself as an

outspoken critic of the war and the preparedness movement in the US.

This put her at loggerheads with the bulk of Oregon’s predominantly

conservative, white, and US-born population, its big businesses

(particularly lumber), and its superpatriotic and jingoistic

newspapers.[36] In April 1916, Equi spoke so forcefully at an

anti-preparedness meeting that the organizers forbade anyone to follow

her, for fear a riot would erupt.[37] On June 4, 1916 — national

Preparedness Day, a day on which 150,000 in Chicago, 120,000 in New York

City and thousands in other cities marched for the war[38] — Equi outdid

herself by carrying her anti-imperialist politics into the heart of

Portland’s Preparedness Day Parade.

Portland’s parade included 15,000 to 20,000 participants. At the request

of the AUAM, Equi carried into this crowd a banner which read:

Prepare to Die, Workingmen, J.P. Morgan & Co. Want Preparedness for

Profit. “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”

Not surprisingly, two nearby contingents attacked and tore the banner

down, and the police took Equi into custody.[39] Released later that

day, Equi followed this protest with another one. Borrowing a pair of

linesmen’s spurs from a friend, she climbed to the top of a telephone

pole (having practiced weeks beforehand to pull off this stunt) and,

while giving an antiwar speech, unfurled yet another banner “Down With

the Imperialist War.” She succeeded in attracting a huge crowd and

arousing the wrath of the police, who could not get her down to arrest

her. Totally frustrated, the police called the fire station to get the

fire truck and ladder to get Equi down, but what they did not know was

that the firemen were Equi’s friends, because the care she gave their

wives and girlfriends. The firemen accordingly “took their own sweet

time” to respond to the call, by which point Equi had finished her

speech and the police had despaired of arresting her.[40]

A few weeks after this incident, Margaret Sanger arrived in Portland as

part of her national speaking tour on the need for legal birth control.

At this point, Equi already had been providing abortions for years to

any who needed them, based on her belief that women should have children

only when they wanted them and were able to care for them.[41] Once

Sanger came into town, Equi immediately became involved in her visit. In

the first few days of Sanger’s visit, Equi revised Sanger’s pamphlet on

birth control, Family Limitation, to make it more accurate medically. On

June 19, when Sanger gave her talk, police arrested three men for

selling the pamphlet on the grounds that it was “obscene literature” —

though it was only after the arrests that the City Council hastily

passed an ordinance to ban it as “obscene.”[42] Since Sanger had to

leave town for a few days to give her talk in Seattle, Equi took over

the defense effort, a task she gladly accepted because of her rapidly

developing bond with Sanger. Passionate about her ideas, her work, her

politics, and her friendships, Equi was quick to make friends with a

woman who was equally passionate, equally involved in politics, and

equally willing to put herself on the line. It was as if the isolation

caused by being a political pariah in society at large could almost be

compensated for by such intimate and sustaining friendships.

Once Sanger returned, a rally was held for the arrested men. It turned

into a wild demonstration, and police arrested Equi, Sanger, and several

other women. Their trial received much publicity, and supporters met

them with signs saying, “Poverty and Large Families go Hand in Hand” and

“Poor Women are Denied what the Rich Possess.”[43] The judge found all

the defendants guilty, but fined only the men who sold the pamphlets,

and then waived the fee. Although Sanger’s visit to Portland and the

tumult that ensued may not have helped the birth control movement much

in Sanger’s estimation,[44] it did cement the friendship between Sanger

and Equi. During the years that followed, Equi wrote many letters to

Sanger expressing her deep love, admiration, and even passion for her,

and Sanger responded with her deep feelings for Equi; there is no

evidence, however, that the two were ever lovers.

Equi’s commitment to ending the oppression of women, as demonstrated by

her suffrage and birth control work, nonetheless was now framed by the

overall class struggle, as epitomized by the war.

In the fall of 1916, rich Republican women campaigned for the Republican

president candidate, Charles Evans Hughes, because he was pro-suffrage.

They ignored the fact that he also supported US entry into the war.

Those women toured the nation on a train dubbed “The Golden Special.”

When the train arrived in Portland, Equi greeted it with a banner

asking, “Which Goose Laid the Golden Egg?”[45] Her point was to make

clear that these women could afford to campaign for Hughes only because

their husbands were wealthy and wanted Hughes elected. Equi followed

this confrontation with another, by leading a Street corner pro-Wilson

demonstration which drowned out the Hughes rally in a building across

the Street. She vividly described this incident with great relish in a

letter to Sanger:

Hey Beloved Girl! It sure has been a good Friday for me.... We sure did

have a strenuous time — Put the Hughesites entirely out of business. I

was arrested in the afternoon. Detained 1 hour. Bail $100 — an attempt

was made to lodge an insanity complaint — am sending you the Portland

paper with the picture of the banner. We had 5000 people at 6^(th) and

Alder... Say it was the richest thing ever pulled off — and a complete

surprise — even to the Democrats. I do not believe in either man but

choose the lesser of the two evils.... No football game here in the West

ever had the rooting we pulled off. I stood on my little old table — and

started the Wilson Yell... the reception that bunch of Wall Streeters

got — they will remember it to their last days.... Deliver a body of

women over lock-stock-and-barrel to the Republican Party! Solidarity of

women! Having me arrested was an example of it![46]

This incident also bore testimony to how much Equi had changed in the

past four years. Before 1913, women’s suffrage was virtually the be-all

and end-all of her politics, but by 1916 she was at a new stage where

she viewed that particular struggle in terms of how it was framed by the

larger picture of class relations and class conflict.

A few days after this demonstration, Equi was plunged back into IWW

activity by the November 4, 1916, Everett Massacre. Equi immediately

traveled up to Everett and took charge of the wounded IWW members. She

also investigated the deaths of those slain, and testified that “with

surgical attention there would have been more than an even chance of

recovery” for one of the dead men.[47] Then, on November 19, Equi was

given the honor of being the Oregon IWW delegate to release Joe Hill’s

ashes to the winds on the first anniversary of his execution,[48] as

delegates were doing in every other State of the union (except Utah,

where Hill had been framed and shot) and in “every country of South

America, in parts of Europe and Asia, in Australia, New Zealand and

South Africa.”[49] The main theme of Equi’s political work, however,

remained her antiwar activism, one spurred on by the US’s entry into the

war on April 2, 1917.

The War Years

As soon as the US government declared war, it took immediate steps to

squelch domestic dissent. Congress rapidly passed the Espionage Act,

which stated that “if anyone shall make or convey false statements with

intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or

naval forces... he shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000

or imprisonment for not more than twenty years or both.”[50] This harsh

sentence ensured that the government’s version of reality would be the

gauge by which to measure “truth.” To build public prowar sentiment, the

government helped create and promote the formation of “patriotic”

societies to encourage citizens to inform on “subversives opposed to the

war. The chief example of this was the Justice Department’s American

Protective League. By the end of 1917, it had units in 600 towns and

cities with a membership of 100,000 (which would increase to 250,000 in

1918), and it claimed by the end of the war to have brought more than 3

million cases of “disloyalty” to light.[51] The government also cracked

down on antiwar activists in numerous ways: for example, the Post Office

confiscated mail and newspapers by the ton, and a new “radical clause”

permitted the deportation of aliens suspected of being IWW members.[52]

Under the banner of “national security,” the government moved in to

eradicate the IWW for once and for all, and it was through this attack

that the government was finally able to convict Equi for her political

work.

The timing of the government’s campaign against the IWW was set by the

IWW’s launching of a successful strike for the eight-hour day in the

Pacific Northwest lumber industry in June 1917. Because timber had

strategic significance for the military, the government moved quickly.

On a plan agreed to by the Council of National Defense, the Attorney

General, the Secretary of Labor, President Wilson, the Department of

Justice, the US Post Office and the American Protective League, the

government launched numerous raids nationally on the IWW during

September, charging most of its leaders and hundreds of its members with

violation of the Espionage Act.[53] In the forests of the Pacific

Northwest, where Equi had close ties with the IWW, the government sent

in 45,000 soldiers to act as timber-workers. It also created the Loyal

Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen (also known as the 4Ls), a

superpatriotic organization dedicated to the concept of “open shop” and

the elimination of the IWW, with members willing to serve as

strikebreakers and as spies on IWW members.[54] The intensity of the

government’s attacks on the IWW was also heightened by the success of

the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917. Despite the fact that the IWW

was essentially an anarcho-syndicalist organization, and not

Marxist-Leninist, the US government responded to the IWW as if it were

the Bolshevik threat itself. In May 1918, the government passed the

Sedition Law, an amendment to the Espionage Act, to finish off what

little remained of the IWW and opponents of the war. This new law

forbade criticism of the US government, the constitution, the military,

flag, navy, or uniforms, and it increased the length of prison terms and

fines that could be imposed.[55] It was this new law which finally

snared Equi.

Equi was arrested for an antiwar speech she gave at the IWW hall in

Portland on June 27, 1918. Her antiwar agitation had reached the point

where its effectiveness mandated that the US government attempt to

silence her. Indicted secretly on June 29, Equi was charged with

insulting the flag, soldiers, and the ally Great Britain — all for

saying that workers should not participate in a war where they would be

killing fellow workers at the bidding of their masters, and for praising

the Easter Rebellion in Ireland.[56] The men who supplied evidence to

the State against Equi were employees of the Military Intelligence

Bureau, the branch of the US Army’s Intelligence Department that had

close ties with the 4Ls. It was these men who credited Equi with saying

that military men were “scum,” a charge Equi consistently denied,

stating that she knew most soldiers were working-class youths without

any real options and that she would not insult them; her target was

those who profited off the war. Throughout her trial, Equi and others

contended that the lumber interests were out to “get” Equi on account of

her work with the IWW, a charge that was essentially substantiated.[57]

From the time of her arrest to the end of her trial, the Department of

Justice also paid Margaret Lowell Paul to be a full-time informant on

Equi. Paul met Equi through Kathleen O’Brennan, one of the main

activists in Equi’s defense campaign. Paul became friends with O’Brennan

by pretending to know members of the New York City chapter of the Sinn

Fein, an Irish revolutionary organization to which O’Brennan belonged.

O’Brennan, in turn, had met Equi during her 1918 trip to Oregon to

lecture on the Irish cause; shortly after meeting Equi, O’Brennan became

infatuated with her and the two ended up having an affair.[58]

After various delays, Equi’s trial finally began on November 12, one day

after the end of World War I. Lasting nine days, the trial consisted of

a succession of operatives from the 4Ls, policemen, and “upstanding

citizens” — some from the American Protective League — who testified to

Equi’s bad reputation for loyalty. Many gave evidence about acts Equi

had carried out or remarks she had made regarding her opposition to the

war prior to the US’s entry into the war and the enactment of the

Espionage Act; the judge allowed this testimony to be used as evidence,

despite Equi’s lawyer’s protests. These charges were countered by

witnesses who spoke on behalf of Equi, ranging from assorted IWW members

to physicians and other “respectable citizens.” The highlight of the

trial was the confrontation between Equi and the prosecutor; one

newspaper commented that “from the first question until adjournment of

court such a battle of wits was on as is seldom seen in a courtroom

between a woman and a man.”[59] After arguing with her lawyer as to the

best way to proceed, Equi used the trial as a political platform:

Not even the warnings and protests of her lawyer... could tighten the

break on her tongue. The woman would answer a question of the Government

prosecutor with another question; she aired her views on industrialism,

poverty, crime, the wage scale, child welfare, child labor, Liberty

Bonds, militarism, vice, IWW songs, IWW principles, who started the war,

and sundry and various topics.[60]

At the end of the trial, the prosecutor launched into a vitriolic

one-and-a-half-hour diatribe against Equi and the IWW. Attacking Equi

for being an “unsexed woman,”[61] he stormed that,

“The red flag is floating over Russia, Germany, and a great part of

Europe. Unless you put this woman in jail, I tell you it will float over

the world!”[62]

Finally, he appealed to the Jury’s patriotic sentiments “with a stirring

comparison of the red, white, and blue flag and the red flag favored by

Dr. Equi and ended with quoting ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’”[63] making

crystal clear that the political purpose of the trial was to build

consensus for the US’s war and foreign policy, as well as to silence

critics such as Equi. Within three hours, the jury concluded Equi was

guilty.[64] Equi insisted the trial was a frame-up, and the long process

of appeals began.

The judge sentenced Equi to three years in jail and a fine of $500 on

December 31, 1918. He stated that her crime was expressing her views,

not simply having them.[65] The verdict and sentence demonstrated that

US citizens do not have the right to effectively criticize government

policy, despite the existence of the first amendment, when the

overriding interests of the ruling class are at stake. When Equi left

the courtroom after being sentenced, she got into a violent scuffle with

William Bryon, the chief Department of Justice agent assigned to her

case who, in his numerous reports on Equi, revealed his utter loathing

for her on account of her being “an anarchist, a degenerate [i.e.,

lesbian] and an abortionist.”[66] Equi asked Bryon if he was “satisfied”

with the outcome and ready to go after another innocent woman. In

response, Bryon hit Equi and shoved Harriet to the floor when she tried

to come to Equi’s aid.[67] Indicative of the support Equi still had in

an overwhelmingly repressive climate, the Oregon State Federation of

Labor unanimously passed a resolution condemning Bryon’s actions and

demanded that he be removed from Equi’s case.[68]

Equi spent the next year and a half appealing her case. It was a period

in which the nation was gripped by a Red Scare of massive proportions,

well captured by a phrase from John Dos Passos’ novel 1919: “To be a red

in the summer of 1919 was worse than being a hun or pacifist in the

summer of 1917.”[69] Equi’s case went to the Ninth Circuit Court of

Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld her conviction on October 27,

1919.[70] In response, Equi gave a speech addressing the fate of

political prisoners and stated:

We may think we live in a free country, but we are in reality nothing

but slaves. When President Wilson recently said we are at war he spoke

the truth for once. But it is not a war against another nation, but a

never-ending class war within our own country.[71]

After yet more appeals and delays, Equi was finally ordered to San

Quentin on October 19, 1920, her sentence commuted to a year and a

half.[72] Before leaving, she sent Mary to live with Harriet at

Harriet’s house in Seaside, on the coast of Oregon; Harriet remained in

Seaside until her death in 1927, never to live in Portland or with Equi

again.[73]

In some ways prison was a relief for Equi. She wrote to Sanger that:

“When I left Portland for here it was as if I had dropped from my

shoulders an out-worn garment — all the bitterness — the hatred — that

had been displayed towards me.[74]

While in prison, Equi corresponded with many personal and political

friends, and Harriet wrote to her almost every day. For a period of

several months, the Department of Justice copied all letters to and from

Equi, and used this information to try to track down Kathleen O’Brennan

as well as compile a memorandum on Equi for J. Edgar Hoover (one filled

with inaccuracies). These letters reveal the deep ties that existed

between Equi and her dear friends, and the support she received from IWW

members and other radicals who had never even met her. They also reveal

Equi’s unwavering commitment to the abolishment of capitalism, her

conviction that she had been right to speak out against the war, and her

opinions on the need for prison reform.[75]

Equi was released on September 10, 1921, only to face the lonely and

arduous task of rebuilding her life and reestablishing her practice

without Harriet or a Progressive movement to welcome her. No longer the

turbulent ’teens, the world Equi faced was relatively hostile to her and

her ideas, and revolutionary change in the US seemed further away than

ever: The IWW had been effectively destroyed; the Communists, small in

number, were only just beginning to gain influence; the traditional

women’s movement had virtually disbanded after women obtained suffrage

in 1920; the birth control movement was more and more in the hands of

the eugenicists; the anti-imperialist movement was muted; and the US

economy seemed prosperous, still riding high on the profits made during

the war.

The Decline

Equi’s decline as a political activist began after her release from

prison. Attributable mainly to her age and the impairment of her health

by jail, Equi’s lessened activity was also a reflection of the general

lack of revolutionary or even Progressive political work in Portland, as

also expressed by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. With the exception of

the Communist Party, which Equi apparently was not interested in

joining, there existed no outlet for her revolutionary politics. Despite

her own relative lack of political involvement, Equi did maintain her

connections with other political activists. In 1926, Elizabeth Gurley

Flynn moved in with Equi, having suffered a breakdown in the course of

her strenuous campaign for Sacco and Vanzetti; Flynn, previously the key

woman leader of the IWW, knew Equi through past political work. Equi

supported and took care of Flynn while she rested and recuperated.

Although there is not definitive evidence the two were lovers, it is

certain they had an intense, emotionally-involved and occasionally

stormy relationship.[76] Despite their ups and downs, each deeply cared

for and respected the other, as Flynn expressed in a letter to her

sister:

[Equi] was not the easiest person to get along with, she had a high

temper from her Irish-Italian origin, but she had a brilliant mind, a

Progressive spirit, and had been in prison for her opposition to World

War I, and I admired her a great deal.[77]

Flynn ended up living with Equi for ten years, from the midst of the

“Roaring Twenties” to the middle of the Depression.

In 1930, when Equi was 58, she suffered a heart attack, one that left

Equi virtually bed-ridden for the rest of her life. Flynn now took care

of Equi. In an attempt to keep in touch with the world, Equi invited the

new generation of activists to her home. One activist recalled:

Whenever we went to visit her, she was always exhilarated... and talked

and talked. She was fascinating to listen to.... When she was in bed...

she used to renew her life forces by talking — and she was a marvelous

talker.”

In the summer of 1934, Equi left her bed to make her last documented

public political act, one which took place during the monumental dock

strike, which tied up shipping on the entire West Coast. According to

The Hook, the official union bulletin, after Portland police severely

wounded four strikers,

An elderly, gray-haired lady, 62 years of age, walked into the office of

the Long-shoremen at the Labor Temple this afternoon. She said that she

wanted to do something for the boys down on the line and more

specifically, the four boys that are lying on cots in the hospitals of

the city. She has donated $250 to be used exclusively for medical and

hospital attention.... We have Dr. Marie Equi to thank for the above

donation and also for the wonderful moral support she extended us.[78]

Though Equi’s days of political activism were over, she continued to

call herself a Red and insisted that others call her a Red also. When

the Portland police issued a Red List in 1934, prompted by Communist

involvement in the ILA strike, and omitted Equi’s name,

“Equi was absolutely livid with annoyance. She called up the chief of

police and she threatened to sue the police department. She wanted it

reissued with her name, ‘Dr. Marie Equi, Queen of the Bolsheviks,’ at

the head of the list.”[79]

It was Flynn, however, and not Equi, who was to become the leading woman

in the Communist Party USA. In 1936, despite Equi’s protests, Flynn left

for New York City to join the party, and she soon became the first woman

to sit on its national board.

Equi lived until 1952, her last sixteen years nowhere evident in the

public record. During her last years, the McCarthy era raged on. This

Red Scare was similar to that which had engulfed the nation after World

War I. During the Korean War, the same Espionage Act under which Equi

had been convicted was resurrected as the US entered a “state of

emergency,” and the Espionage Act remains on the books to this day.[80]

Equi died on July 12, 1952, at the age of 80, virtually a forgotten

woman. She lived on only in the memory of her friends, who knew her as a

“woman of passionate conviction, and a real friend of the have-nots of

this world.”[81]

Equi’s life deserves to be remembered. It is clear that who Equi was and

how she developed both personally and politically were intimately linked

with world events. Equi traversed a route familiar to many who were

galvanized to take up Progressive political work on account of one

issue, only to eventually arrive at the conclusion that all such issues

are connected to the overall class struggle that shapes the development

of society. It is to Equi’s credit that she overcame the narrowness of

single-issue reform groups and renounced her belief in gradual change.

Making links between the different struggles going on about her, in her

own life as well as in the world at large, Equi instead became an

advócate of socialism and revolutionary change.

Equi’s revolutionary politics sprang out of and were shaped by her

passion for life. Equi’s concern for others and her decision to be a

physician and political activist were firmly grounded in her generous

spirit, bolstered by the memory of her working-class origins, and were

more than just an intellectual response to suffering and world events.

Full of intense emotions and unquenchable curiosity, independent and

head-strong, Equi was never one to be dominated in any manner, and words

were always to be translated into action. Equi lived openly as a

lesbian, and established herself in a profession where she was dependent

on no one else for her livelihood. Through her medical and political

work, Equi came into contact with other dynamic and Progressive women,

such as Sanger and Flynn, and established an integrated fulfilling world

of personal, professional, and political bonds. Motivated by her

deep-seated desire to see justice done, sustained by her inner vitality,

and capable of getting her way on account of her often domineering

manner, Equi truly earned her nickname “Queen of the Bolsheviks.” Her

life stands as an inspirational and instructive account of how one

person, conscious of her place in history, chose to link with others to

create, in the words of the IWW, “a new world from the ashes of the

oíd,” free from exploitation, oppression, and human degradation.

Equi’s life, and the broadness of her vision, stand as an impressive

challenge to those in the many relatively isolated Progressive movements

within the US today. Her record, embedded in the sensational accounts of

the cannery strike, her work with the IWW, the Preparedness Day March,

the birth control demonstrations and earlier suffrage work, and her

anti-imperialist activities and Espionage Act trial, speaks to all in

the Progressive, feminist, labor, and solidarity or anti-intervention

movements. Her experiences with the Progressive Party are a challenge to

those who maintain that socialism can be achieved solely through the

electoral process or through economic measures only, and to those who

minimize the deep-seated and violent nature of class struggle in our

society.

Nancy Krieger is currently a student in the Graduate School of Public

Health at the University of Washington. For the past three years she has

been a member of the steering committee of SeaCosh (Seattle Coalition

for Occupational Safety and Health), working on issues of reproductive

hazards, shop steward rights and on solidarity work with occupational

safety and health work in Nicaragua.

Finally, I would like to thank Rosalyn Baxandall and Sandy Polishuk for

their interest, assistance, and support.

[1] Oregonian, 15 July 1952, p. II. (Note: This newspaper will be

abbreviated as “Oreg.”)

[2] Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Rebel Girl (NY: International

Publishers, 1975), pp. 197–98.

[3] Letter from Equi to Sara Bard Field, 29 May 1921, in Department of

Justice files. (Note: These files will be referred to as “DOJ files.”).

[4] Joe Lukes, letter, 6/19/81.

[5] Oregon Daily Journal, 19 November 1918, p. 4. (Note: This newspaper

will be abbreviated as “ODJ”.).

[6] Sandy Polishuk, interview, 3/31/81.

[7] Ibid.

[8] ODJ, 19 July 1913, p. 5.

[9] May Roth Walsh, “Doctors Wanted: No Women Need Apply” — Sexual

Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1938–1975 (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1977). p. 179.

[10] Sandy Polishuk, “The Radicalization of Marie Equi,” unpublished

paper, 1971. Note: This paper will be referred to as “RME”).

[11] Julia Ruutilla, interview, 6/6/81.

[12] Ida Husted Harper, The History of Woman Suffrage, VoL VI, 1900–1920

(NY: J.J. Little & Ives Co. 1922), p. 149.

[13] ODJ, 19 July 1913, p. 5; New York Times, 15 July 1952, p. 21.

[14] Report of Agent Bryon, 19 September 1918, and letter from Equi to

Harriet Speckart, 22 May 1921, DOJ files.

[15] Oral presentation by Boston Gay and Lesbian History Project, June

1980.

[16] Sheila Rowbotham and Jeffrey Weeks, Socialism and the New Life: The

Personal and Sexual Politics of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis

(London: Pluto Press, 1977), p. 161.

[17] Letter from Mark Avramo to Equi, 31 March 1921, DOJ files.

[18] Inez Rhodes, letter, 4/17/81: Oreg., 9 March 1912, p. 4; Polishuk,

RME, p. 2.

[19] Polishuk, RME, pp. 4–5.

[20] Report of the Social Survey Committee of the Consumen League of

Oregon on the Hours, Wages and Conditions of Work and Cost and Standard

of Living of Women Wage Earners in Oregon with Special Reference to

Portland (Portland, OR: Consumers League of Oregon, 1913), p. 20.

[21] Portland News, 28 June 1913, p. I.

[22] ODJ, 19 May 1913, p. 1.

[23] ODJ, 3 July 1913, p. 2

[24] New York World, 5 April 1914, Sec. M, p. 4.

[25] Oreg., 16 July 1913, p. 1, p. 3.

[26] Oreg., 18 July 1913, p. 5.

[27] Evening Telegram, 18 July 1913, p. I. (Note: This papcr will be

abbreviated as “ET”.).

[28] New York World, 5 April 1914, Sec. M, p. 4.

[29] New Bedford Evening Standard, 17 March 1914, p. 3.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Blanche Weisen-Cooke, ed., <em>Crystal Eastman on Women and

Revolution (NY: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 12–13.

[34] Polishuk, 3/31/81.

[35] Julia Ruutilla interview.

[36]

E. Kimbark MacColl, The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in

Portland, Oregon, 1915 to 1950 (Portland, OR: The Georgian Press,

1979), p. 139.

[37] Polishuk. RME, p. 125.

[38] ODJ, 4 June 1916, Sec. 1, p. 6.

[39] ODJ, 4 June 1916, Sec. 1, p. 6.

[40] Julia Ruutilla interview.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Oreg., 8 September 1966, p. 36.

[43] ODJ, 25 November 1971, p. 5.

[44] Margare! Sanger, Margara Sanger: An Anthology (NY: W.W. Norton &

Co„ 1938), p. 206.

[45] Polishuk, RME, p. 25.

[46] Equi letter lo Sanger, 2 October 1916, Library of Congress.

[47] Walker C. Smith, The Everett Massacre (Chicago: IWW Publishing

House, n.d.), p. 94.

[48] Inez Rhodes letter.

[49] Philip S. Foner, The Case of Joe Hill (NY: International

Publishers, 1965), p. 92.

[50] James P. Foreit, The Industrial Worker in the Northwest 1909–1931:

A Study of Community-Newspaper Interaction, Thesis, University of

Washington, 1969, p. 138.

[51] H.C. Peterson and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War, 1917–1918

(Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), p. 19.

[52] Roben Tyler, Rebels of the Woods: The IWW in the Pacific Northwest

(Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Books, 1967), p. 141.

[53] Peterson and Fite, p. 62.

[54] Charlotte Todes, Labor and Lumber (NY: International Publishers,

1931), pp. 141–143.

[55] Polishuk, 3/31/81.

[56] Judgment Roll #8099, United States vs. Marie Equi. Registrar No.

7968, Indictment, 29 June 1918.

[57] Workers Un¡te: A Presentation of the Case of Dr. Marie Equi,

November 1919, p. I.

[58] Report of Agent Bryon, 4 September 1918, DOJ files.

[59] ODJ, 19 November 1918, p. 14.

[60] Oreg., 19 November 1918, p. I.

[61] ODJ, 21 November 1918, p. 2.

[62] Flynn, p. 252.

[63] Oreg., 21 November 1918, p. 2.

[64] ET, 31 December 1918, p. 1.

[65] Judgment Roll #8099, Judge Bean, Instructions to the Jury, p. 84.

[66] Repori of Agent Bryon, 9 September 1918, DOJ files.

[67] ET, 31 December 1918, p. 1.

[68] Workers Unite, p. 6.

[69] John Dos Passos, Nineteen Nineteen, ¡n USA (NY: Random House,

1939), p. 457.

[70] ODJ, 27 October 1919, p. 1.

[71] Oreg., 1 November 1919, p. 9.

[72] Letter from Equi to Sanger, 29 October 1920, Library of Congress.

[73] Polishuk, 3/31/81.

[74] Letter from Equi to Sanger, 24 November 1920, Library of Congress.

[75] DOJ files.

[76] Polishuk, 3/31/81.

[77] Rosalyn Baxandrall, “Dreams and Dilemmas: Introduction to Elizabeth

Gurley Flynn’s Writings on Women,” unpublished paper, 1982, p. 30.

[78] International Longshoremen Association, “The Hook,” Vol. 2, No. 11,

II July 1934.

[79] Julia Ruutilla interview.

[80] Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (NY: Harper &

Row, 1980), p. 357.

[81] Julia Ruutilla interview.