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| Title | Labor spy report by Agent #106 to Broussais Beck, February 1, 1920 |
| Author | Unknown |
| Date of Publication | 1920 |
| Notes | In this report to Broussais Beck on February 1st, 1920, "Agent #106" provides details from a speech given by Walter Thomas Mills of North Dakota to a capacity crowd at the Labor Temple. Mills speaks on the topic of "Industrial Democracy", and cautions the crowd that they live in a "government by special privilege" run on Wall Street. He promises that the war has brought popular change to the governments of Europe, and that when Americans get their chance they will vote Wilson out of office. Mills denounces the fact that servicemen have returned to a country that will not let them vote unless "their grandparents were naturalized", and insists that all who fought in the war have earned the right to vote. He concludes by explaining the "Plumb plan" to the crowd, expressing it as the principle that "only those that are directly effected [sic] by the Railroads be permitted to run them". |
| Contextual Notes | Broussais Coman Beck (1886-1936) was a prominent Seattle businessman and rowing enthusiast. He was educated at the University of Washington and at Yale, graduating from the latter university in 1911. He returned to Seattle later in the 1910s to work as the store manager for the Bon Marche. In the wake of the Seattle general strike of 1919, Beck paid spies to infiltrate the labor movement in Seattle, and received frequent reports from his agents (often accompanied by clippings or ephemera relating to labor organizations) in 1919 and 1920. Due to the information acquired through these reports, the Bon Marche was centrally important to the alliance of Seattle employers who organized against labor, a group called the Associated Industries of Seattle -- and, consequently, the Bon Marche became the target of increased pressure and boycotts by organized labor in this time period. |
| Subjects (LCSH) | Beck, Broussais C., 1886-1936; Labor movement--Washington (State)--Seattle; Labor unions--Washington (State)--Seattle; Business intelligence--Washington (State)--Seattle; Union busting--Washington (State)--Seattle; United States--Politics and government--1913-1921 |
| Geographic Coverage | United States--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Digital ID Number | PNW00891 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or inquire about permissions contact: photos@u.washington.edu. |
| Digital Collection | Pacific Northwest Historical Documents
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| Repository | University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division. |
| Repository Collection | Broussais C. Beck papers. Accession No. 0155-001. Box 1/20 |
| Object Type | Typescript
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| Physical Description | 1 leaf; 28 x 21.5 cm. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original text or image at 150 dpi saved in TIFF format, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm software's JPEG2000 Extension. 2011. |
| Restrictions | For information on permissions for use and reproductions please visit UW Libraries Special Collections Reproduction & Use page: http://content.lib.washington.edu/sc-use.html |
