The Radical Electrician, the Socialist Shoemaker, and Esperanto

So, who's the ignoramus?

There seems to be little press attention on the arrest of John A. Bienjavsky, or indeed little attention to Mr. Bienjavsky at all. The Butte Daily Bulletin reported on February 14, 1920 that Mr. Bienjavsky had been arrested in Seattle by the “radical squad,” and that he was in possession of “a trunk load of books on electricity and radio energy, a dictionary in three languages, a collection of essays in English, Russian and Japanese, and much radical literature.” (Although the Daily Bulletin simply marks the arrest as “Wednesday,” which would imply the prior Wednesday, February 11, the Seattle Times reported on the arrest on January 29, a Thursday. Mr. Bienjavsky was arrested on Wednesday, January 28, 1920.)

Mr. Bienjavsky worked as a wireman (that is, an electrician) for the Tacoma line of the Tacoma Railway and Power Company which explains the books on electricity and radio, but maybe the not the “radical literature.” The Daily Bulletin reported that Mr. Bienjavsky was “thought to have been a university professor.” He was born in Russia in 1875, making him forty-four at the time of his arrest. The Daily Bulletin was a socialist newspaper; its masthead bore the words “We Preach the Class Struggle in the Interests of the Works as a Class.”[1]

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Think of Poor Oklahoma

34 States today. One more coming tomorrow

With today’s decision starting marriage equality in Montana (and bringing the total to 34 states), there’s now a nice solid block of the western states, a good chunk running from New England down to the upper South, and a group of Midwestern states. But this leaves Oklahoma there in the midst of states that don’t marriage equality, joined to a state that does, only by the Panhandle. Had the Republic of Texas not ceded the area, poor Oklahoma wouldn’t be adjoining any marriage equality state, saved only by a narrow connection to New Mexico.

There are parts of the country that continue to surprise me. The Sixth Circuit decision certainly caught me by surprise, though it might be the case that sends marriage equality to the Supreme Court. I would have thought the Fifth Circuit would be more likely, though we are still waiting for the appeals on that one.

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Sodomy Trial Leads to Acquittal for Accused, Jail for Witness

Don't mess with the courts

There’s tantalizingly little information about the 1899 sodomy trial of one John H. Williams in Montana. The name is common enough that in looking at one newspaper, the Anaconda Standard in that year, I was able to find several men named John Williams, not all of who could be same man: the new father, the dog racer, the retired military man, the (dead) miner, the partier, the con man, the thief, the sodomite. The first two reports on the case, refer to the accused as “John X. Williams,” but in the final story, he’s listed as “John H. Williams.” The “H” is probably correct. Likewise, John Lynch, the alleged witness, could be one of several men (although there are several men of the name in the Anaconda Standard of the time who couldn’t be the witness).

Williams was arrested on June 3, 1899 on the charge of sodomy. He was arraigned on June 5, with a hearing on June 6, leading to a trial on September 13. When the case came to court, he was acquitted, due to a lack of evidence.

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