Jay Fox
He became embroiled in legal difficulties related to the 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing and after 1913 made his home in Chicago, Illinois, where he was a close political associate of future Communist Party leader William Z.
[1] Later, in 1893, while working for Illinois Central Railroad, he was a charter member of the first local of the American Railway Union and delegate at its first convention in June 1894.
After the virtual collapse of that movement following the Pullman Strike, he seems to have campaigned in several eastern US cities for William Jennings Bryan and visited England after his loss in the presidential election of 1896.
Fox continued his writing and speech making career in New York and Chicago for the next few years, marrying Esther Abramowitz sometime in the middle of the decade.
Upon joining the KOL, Fox agreed to participate in the strike because factory workers wanted the workday brought to consist of a set number of eight hours.
Fox experienced the violence of the McCormick workers where he wandered for a time to see the protestors throwing stones and then the arrival of the police who began shooting people in the crowd; some were injured and even killed.
[7] These events known as the Haymarket Riots angered many people and gave a bad impression of the labor unions due to the violence that they had incurred.
The Haymarket Riots were one of the things that set the era of worker reform into motion to help millions of people improve their lives.
Fox described Home as "a community of free spirits, who came out into the woods to escape the polluted atmosphere of priest-ridden, conventional society.
Three anarchists established the tiny town, located on the Key Peninsula in the middle of the Puget Sound, which became a focal point for like-minded individuals who were outcast by society.
In 1901, the printer of the local Home newsletter was fined for distributing an article deemed obscene by the Pierce County Superior Court.
[11] The Agitator presented readers a taste of Fox's renowned views on industrial unionism and the individual empowerment he felt that early 20th century society was lacking.
The very first issue of the publication dispersed on November 18, 1910 paid homage to those who had been sentenced to death as a result of their involvement in the Hay Market riots in Chicago around 23 years prior.
In an article Fox wrote for this issue, entitled "The Chicago Martyrs", he shares his sentiment about the workers push for an eight-hour work day.
"[12] Motivated by his reflection of these transgressions, Fox further elaborated on the happenings of the Haymarket riots by writing articles in later issues encouraging these types of measures to be taken in the future, in order to uphold an anarchist environment in Home.
Home facilitated the vigorous Jay Fox in becoming an author of great respectability to those willing to lend an ear to his views and a pesky enemy to those who would not stand for his temperament.
The ability of Fox to sway public opinion and feed the fire of anarchy was in part strengthened by his role as author and editor of Home's newspaper The Agitator.
[13] Private detective William J. Burns sought the arrest of a former resident of Home Colony, David Caplin, and his associate Matt Schmidt in connection with the case, believing the two to have been conspirators.
[13] Burns established headquarters in Tacoma early in October 1911 and began staking out the house of Jay Fox and searching his mail, convinced that as editor of The Agitator he knew the whereabouts of the two fugitives.
[14] Vose was then dispatched to New York City, where he met anarchist writer Emma Goldman and borrowed her apartment briefly, and managed to make contact with Schmidt on the pretext that he was in possession of a letter for him.
[14] Although innocent of connection with the bombing, as part of the October 1911 investigation Jay Fox was arrested on a charge of sedition, being released before trial on $2,000 bail.
[15] Charges were levied that with his friend Caplan, Fox had attempted to obtain dynamite in 1910 and had studied the art of bomb-making with him at the Home Colony.
[18] The organization's total membership never exceeded 2,000 members, although it did manage to establish local groups in Kansas City, St. Louis, San Diego, Omaha, and in Chicago.
[19] The group attracted several important activists to its ranks, including Samuel Hammersmark and Foster's future son-in-law, Joseph Manley.
