Free-speech protesters got the fire hose.

Such a town, as much a resort as a port city, should have collapsed instantaneously before the IWW onslaught, writes historian Kevin Starr, yet San Diego escalated the conflict.

By the end of February 1912, police had arrested so many protestors in the free-speech fight, the city and county jails were overloaded. Sheriff Jennings ordered Dr. D.B. Northrup to inspect both lockups. You have 154 men confined where you have accommodations for only 76, Northrup reported. Conditions are unsanitary. There is much sickness and liability of a severe epidemic at any time.

Each prisoner demanded a separate trial. Never before, wrote the Sun, were so manyon trial at one time in San Diego. The small, poorly ventilated courtroom required extra benches and became almost as crammed as the jail. When the bailiff called a name at the initial hearings, the prisoner answered, There!

But few could hear the reply, or the proceedings. The jail was next door to the courtroom, and Wobblies, singing at the top of their lungs, drowned everything out. The big noise irritated police so much, one threatened a cold bath: turn a fire hose on the vocalists.

Solidarity wasnt 100 percent. After two weeks of shoulder-to-shoulder confinement, a toilet in near-constant use, and rancid food twice a day, Oscar Erickson and Chris Tone wanted out. In exchange for freedom, they promised to quit the IWW and find work as mechanics.

The Wobblies strategy of flooding the jails and courts worked so well, police demanded an open-air stockade at Grape Street to handle the overflow.

And more possibly thousands more were on the way. Vincent St. John, highest ranking officer of the IWW, sent San Diego mayor James E. Wadham a letter from Chicago: The fight will be continued until free speech is established in San Diego, if it takes 20,000 members and 20 years.

The major appealed to governor Hiram Johnson for state troops. But Johnson, whose progressive views cost him the San Diego vote, said that since the city had created the problem, it could damn well get itself out.

A possible sign of things to come: on February 26, the Free Speech League held a parade of protest. People from all walks of life marched five abreast through downtown. The parade was two miles long.

Shortly after, urged on by the city council and businessmen, district attorney H.S. Utley proposed a compromise: if the IWW stopped soap-boxing, the prisoners could go free. Ernest Kirk, legal counsel for protestors, favored the proposal. On February 28, he recommended it to the IWW. But they voted him down.

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Free-speech protesters got the fire hose.