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Title: Radical Politics, Radical Love Author: Tom Cook Date: 1997 Language: en Topics: birth control, GLBT, queer, biography, IWW Source: Retrieved on 11 July 2012 from http://web.archive.org/web/20100715165213/http://bitter.custard.org/intimate/fling/equi.htm Notes: This essay was originally published as two separate articles in the Summer/Fall issue of Northwest Gay and Lesbian Historian [Vol. 1, No. 3], and the June 1997 issue [Vol. 1, No. 4]
Personally acquainted with many of America’s radicals in the first half
of the Twentieth century, Portland physician and suffragist, Dr. Marie
Equi was arrested with birth control advocate Margaret Sanger in 1916,
and was sentenced to San Quentin Prison for her anti-war views in 1920.
Yet it was only recently that her extraordinary life as an open lesbian
has been acknowledged. This silence surrounding her affections ended in
1983 when historian Nancy Krieger, a University of Washington grad
student, uncovered documents at the National Archives that revealed
Equi’s rumored love affair with Portland resident Harriet Speckart.
Marie Diana Equi was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts on April 7,
1872, the daughter of Italian and Irish parents. She spent her youth in
Italy with her paternal grandfather, and while still a young woman
suffered from a bout of tuberculosis, the deadly killer of its day, that
sent many westward in search of a recuperative, dry climate.
In 1893, Equi moved west to The Dalles, Oregon following her longtime
friend, Bess Holcomb. Holcomb had accepted a teaching position, and the
two friends lived together rather quietly in what historians refer to as
a “Boston marriage.” That was until July 21, 1893 when a local
newspaper, The Times-Mountaineer broke the following story of how Marie
(identified as “Miss Aqua”), angered over a pay dispute between Bess and
Bess’s employer, a Rev. Orson D. Taylor, took him to task by flogging
him in public.
“Considerable excitement prevailed on Washington Street near the noon
hour today, and the blocks in the immediate vicinity of O. D. Taylor’s
office were thronged by an anxious throng. Our reporter was not present,
but learned from eye-witnesses that Miss Aqua, armed with a raw hide
whip, paraded in front of Rev. O.D. Taylor’s real estate office, and
threatened that gentleman with a horsewhipping if he appeared on the
outside. He no doubt considered “discretion the better part of valor”
and locked himself on the inside. She maintained her position on the
sidewalk, so we are informed, for nearly an hour and a half, and during
that time the gentleman kept himself barricaded behind a locked door.
From information gleaned from parties who claimed to be acquainted with
the circumstances, the grievance seems to be that Miss Holcomb — a
member of the faculty of Wasco Independent Academy — in settlement for
services last year, had been paid by Rev. O. D. Taylor, the president of
the board of directors, $100 less than the amount he promised to pay
her. Another version of the matter, and we presume the correct one, is
that Rev. O. D. Taylor promised Miss Holcomb $100 individually, more
than the amount allowed by the directors, and this he has refused to
pay.
Her personal friend and companion is Miss Aqua [sic], a spirited young
lady, who says that she will not tamely submit to see Miss Holcomb
cheated out of $100 of her salary, and that she will whip O. D. Taylor
if it is the last act of her life. The sympathy of the crowd was with
the young lady, and if she had horse-whipped the reverend gentleman the
fine would have been subscribed within five minutes. Miss Holcomb is a
scholarly and highly accomplished young lady, and is held in high
estimation in this community. Miss Aqua is very much attached to her,
and her friendship amounts to adoration.”
Subsequent articles revealed that Equi had in fact, succeeded in her
mission to avenge the wrong done to her companion. A competing
newspaper, The Dalles Chronicle, reported that Equi,
“...with flashing eyes, stepped into the private office of Mr. Taylor,
armed with a horsewhip and demanded satisfaction. He claimed ignorance
of the nature of the demand and shut the intruder out, who was also
accompanied by Miss Holcomb.
For the rest of about an hour, Miss Aquia [sic] walked up and down the
streets oblivious of the presence of a hundred men who were enjoying the
sensation and making all manner of remarks.”
Simultaneously a warrant had been issued for Equi’s arrest, but was not
served in time. At about two o’clock on that Friday afternoon, Equi met
the Rev. Taylor at a place called William Mitchell’s Corner. According
to The Chronicle article, “she began applying her lash, and Mr. Taylor
turned and held her hands. She then commenced kicking him, and the crowd
forced Mr. Taylor to relinquish her hold.” whereupon, “she rained blows
thick and fast upon his back.”
Taylor succeeded in running away, with Equi in hot pursuit only to be
apprehended by the Sheriff, who promptly arrested her. She was held
under bond of $250, but charges of assault and battery were dismissed.
The Dalles Chronicle, which took a dim view of the sensational public
display, insinuated that the relationship between the two women was not
altogether wholesome. It noted that the two women,
“...are friends of long standing. There has been an ardent affection
between them since they were both school girls in Wellesley
College...the singular infatuation between them, it is reported, has
been the cause of Miss Holcomb’s almost total estrangement from her
family. Her father is reputed to be wealthy, but refused to furnish a
home to Miss Aguia [sic], at the solicitation of Miss Holcomb. Since
then they have been constantly in each other’s society, and for over a
year have been in The Dalles. Recently Miss Holcomb entered a homestead
and the two have been living on it ever since, and have been much
admired for their pluck. It is evident that both have a good share of
that quality, though the manifestation of it on the street today cannot
be seriously commended. However, she [Equi] is a queen today, and offers
of financial backing are numerous.”
The following day, a more sympathetic Times reporter interviewed the two
women at their homestead, which newspaper accounts indicated was located
“about two miles west of the city,” and “near Snipe’s Ranch.” Holcomb
flatly denied the rumors of family estrangement reported in The
Chronicle. The Times defended the couple in their edition, adding:
“The ladies are not desirous of being made subjects of public criticism;
but, as they have no male relatives west of the Rocky Mountains, are
determined to protect themselves in the best manner possible. They are
ladies in the fullest sense of the term; and demand consideration that
such should receive from every gentleman...they desire to be left alone
in their isolated home...and will remain in the future indissoluble
friends which nothing can separate.”
The reporter found them “very comfortably situated in their cosy little
home,” adding that “Miss Equia [sic] had recovered from her excitement,
and was in a very talkative mood.” The center table was “covered with
beautiful bouquets of flowers,” which had been sent by admirers in the
city, and some businessmen presented Marie with a dress pattern to
replace the frock torn during the altercation.
The Times account made light of the fact that Taylor, a Baptist
minister, could be chastised by a young “brunette, of slight form and
sanguine temperament,” and in frail health. Of Marie the newspaper
remarked, “...her likes and dislikes are intense, and she would as
quickly defend the reputation of a friend as she would her own. Of a
jovial disposition, she is an entertaining conversationalist, and her
language shows a nice and discriminating use of words.”
It would seem more than a bit odd that a prominent minister should
become the butt of jokes, and an unorthodox woman the heroine of this
little episode in Marie Equi’s life, were it not for the fact that just
three days following his flagellation at the hands of Equi, the Rev. O.
D. Taylor was indicted by a Portland grand jury on charges of embezzling
from scores of Wasco County investors in a shady real estate scheme.
Despite public sympathy in The Dalles, the board of directors of the
school refused to make good on Bess Holcomb’s salary. The citizens of
the community in a characteristic gesture of frontier justice, raffled
off the rawhide, and the proceeds amounting to over one hundred dollars,
were given to the two young ladies from Wellesley College.
A few years after the incident at The Dalles, Equi and Holcomb left for
San Francisco, where Holcomb found work again as a teacher. Marie
entered college, and eventually returned to Portland to be one of the
first woman graduates from the University of Oregon Medical School in
1903.
Her early medical labors in rural Oregon were hardly routine and
demanded a great deal of self sacrifice, a trait that she exemplified
when in 1906 after the San Francisco Earthquake, she helped to organize
a team of Oregon physicians and nurses that journeyed to the beleaguered
city. For her humanitarian work she was given a special commendation by
the U.S. Army.
That same year according to historian Nancy Krieger, author of “Queen of
the Bolsheviks: The Hidden History of Dr. Marie Equi,” [Radical America,
Vol. 17:5], Dr. Equi met the young Harriet Speckart, daughter of Adolph
and Henrietta Speckart. Harriet initially was hired as Equi’s medical
assistant, and so began a relationship that was to last over twenty
years. They shared apartments in the old Nortonia Hotel (now the Mark
Spencer Hotel) for a few years, later moving to various apartment houses
and hotels on the westside of Portland.
Speckart was the niece of Olympia Brewing Co. founder, Leo Schmidt who
in 1906 became aware of Speckart’s relationship with Equi, and hired a
private detective to uncover information about Dr. Equi. Despite the
Schmidt family’s attempts to break up the women’s friendship, Speckart
remained loyal to Equi even when threatened with disinheritance from her
family fortune.
While residing and working out of the Oregon Hotel, the two became
neighbors of another Portland physician, Dr. Alys Bixby Griff. Griff had
been widowed, and set up practice with a young assistant by the name of
Ruth Cohen, later made infamous as Dr. Ruth Barnett whose abortion
clinic was shut down by the city in the 1950’s. Dr. Griff and Dr. Equi
were two of only a handful of doctors in Portland who would perform
abortions, and for years they served working women as well as many who
were listed on the social register.
Equi’s commitment to the struggles of working women intensified in 1913
when she joined the picket line at the Oregon Packing Co., then located
at Southeast Eighth and Belmont streets. The owners of the company
called on the city’s police to clear the sidewalks of the women strikers
whom the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies) had come to aid.
Arrested with the workers, Dr. Equi was injured by a police officer
while attending to one of the workers. The police brutality she
witnessed that day moved her to espouse anarchy and the destruction of
capitalism from that point on. Equi joined the I.W.W. movement (although
she could not become a paid member of the organization by virtue of her
profession), and quickly established herself as a beloved and respected
figure in its ranks.
In 1916, she was again arrested, this time with Margaret Sanger, when
the noted birth control advocate appeared in Portland. Dr. Equi assisted
Sanger in the writing of her pamphlets, and they became life-long
friends, although there are indications that Marie’s affection for
Margaret went further. In a letter dated, Oct. 20, 1916, she wrote to
Sanger, “My sweet, sweet girl. I love you with an ecstasy and
understanding of spirit that you alone have imparted to me thru the very
brightness and flow of your intellect...my arms are around you. I kiss
your sweet mouth in absolute surrender.”
In her recent work on Sanger [Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the
Birth Control Movement in America, Simon & Schuster, 1992], biographer
Ellen Cheslen, noted, “years later on depositing this letter in her
papers at Smith College, Margaret penciled in the following description
of Marie: “a rebellious soul, generous kind, brave, but so radical in
her thinking that she was almost an outcast. Upon arrival she captured
every well known woman who comes to Portland. Her reputation is Lesbian,
but to me she was like a crushed falcon which had braved the storm and
winds of time and needed tenderness and love. I liked Marie always.”
In 1915 Equi adopted an infant girl, and with Harriet raised the child.
Years later as a student at Portland’s Lincoln High School, sixteen year
old Mary Equi would make newspaper headlines as the youngest woman ever
to fly an airplane solo in the Pacific Northwest. In a 1932 newspaper
article, she remarked, “Math is my favorite subject,” and admitted that
“she doesn’t crochet, ‘goodness, no!’ — but likes horseback riding,
hiking, swimming and golf.” Mary called Harriet and Marie, her “ma and
da.”
That same year Harriet married I.W.W. member Tom Morgan only to divorce
him suddenly two months later, citing “reasons of health” according to
Equi researcher Sandy Polishuk [The Radicalization of Marie Equi, 1971,
unpublished manuscript at the Oregon Historical Society]. Morgan
“complained bitterly to some fellow I.W.W. members about how ‘Doc stole
his wife,’ writes Krieger. “The daughter of one of those members, Julia
Ruutilla, 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.”
In fact, her lesbian loves were known to investigators from the U.S.
Dept of Justice (now the F.B.I.) who spied on Equi’s personal life, and
as a result became aware of her affair with Irish nationalist Kathleen
O’Brennan and others. See “Report of Special Agent Bryon”.
Marie’s sharp turn to the left in her political beliefs, more and more
brought her at odds with the establishment of big business, politicians,
and all those who were invested with the duties of maintaining the
public order. In 1916 she had joined the American Union Against
Militarism, and was asked to protest at a huge war preparedness parade
in downtown Portland. During the rally, Equi unfurled at large banner
reading, “PREPARE TO DIE, WORKINGMEN, J.P. MORGAN & CO. WANT
PREPAREDNESS FOR PROFIT.” Her appearance touched off a minor riot among
the crowd; the banner was torn from her hands, and she was forced to
kiss the flag. This event along with other speeches she had delivered in
Lowndsdale Square, and at the I.W.W. Hall, brought the attention of the
police to her activities.
On December 31, 1918, Marie Equi was found guilty of sedition (as were
countless others opposing American involvement in one of Europe’s
bloodiest wars) under a newly amended Espionage Act. The law “forbade
criticism of the U.S. government, the constitution, the military, the
flag, navy or uniform.” At her trial, Special Agent William Bryon of the
Dept. of Justice, called her “an anarchist, a degenerate, and an
abortionist.” At the end of the trial, the U.S. prosecutor, Barnett
Goldstein, contemptuously referred to her as an “unsexed woman” in a
thinly-veiled comment on her lesbianism. She demanded an apology,
protesting that “a man born in Russia should sit in judgement of an
American born woman.” During the next year and a half, her attorneys
fought vainly to have her conviction overturned. Mary Equi in her later
years would recall how she and her mother were spat upon in the streets
of Portland during this period.
In October 1920 she entered San Quentin prison to serve a three year
term which was later commuted to a year and a half. “From what I heard,
Dr. Equi was a terrible inmate, always rebelling against the rules,”
mentioned her friend Ruth Barnett years later. “Dr. Griff and I took
care of her patients for her while she was in the federal penitentiary.
I remember that first Christmas she was there, she wrote me and asked me
to buy Christmas presents for about twenty of the other women
prisoners.”
While in prison, Equi wrote a letter to a friend questioning her
self-worth, and expressing her fears about being “queer.” In her
friend’s reply she was advised 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.”
During her incarceration in San Quentin prison, Equi’s personal
correspondence was copied and read by agents of the United States
Department of Justice. Copies of her letters can still be found to this
day in her files which are now housed in the National Archives facility
in College Park, Maryland. Of prime interest to the Department of
Justice were efforts made by Equi’s friends to secure a pardon on her
behalf. J. Edgar Hoover who was then Assistant Director of the Bureau of
Investigation, made mention of this to a superior in a letter dated
April 29, 1921, noting also that Equi was “associated with Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn, Anita Whitney and Emma Goldman...and was a professional
abortionist.”
From 1928 to 1936, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the well-known I.W.W.
agitator and communist, lived with Equi. Equi had nursed Flynn back to
health a few years earlier following a heart attack while Flynn was on a
speaking tour of the west coast on behalf of Saccho and Vanzetti.
Also among these letters, we can document an extensive correspondence
between Marie and Harriet during the period of Marie’s imprisonment.
These letters poignantly reveal the emotional difficulty of Marie’s
separation from her lover and child. The letters reveal Marie’s intense
concern that the two of them be provided for during her absence, and
that some degree of stability was attained for her little daughter’s
childhood. Harriet had moved with Mary to Seaside, Oregon where they
continued living even after Marie’s parole in 1921. Harriet died on May
15, 1927 at her home in Seaside, Oregon, and young Mary Equi eventually
returned to live with her “da” at their residence, 1423 SW Hall street.
Marie Equi’s life had its share of contradictions. For instance, her
fiery denunciations of capitalism do not square with the fact that upon
her death, she left an estate valued at over $100,000, much of it in
industrial stockholdings. Historian Arthur Spencer, who was a boyhood
friend of Equi’s grandson, recalls visiting at their home on Upper Hall
street. He described Marie Equi as a “holy terror” even then in her old
age, although her years of political activism had long since passed.
Marie Equi died on July 13, 1952 in Portland’s Fairlawn Hospital.
This essay was compiled based on the research of Sandy Polishuk, Nancy
Krieger, and additional research on The Dalles incident by GLAPN
researcher Tom Cook. Special thanks to Arthur Spencer for bringing our
attention to Dr. Equi, and to photo librarian, Susan Seyl of the Oregon
Historical Society for providing the stunning images from their
collection, some of them never before published.