 |
| Dr. Marie Equi arriving for her trial on sedition charges with Dr. Ruth Barnett. |
Free speech or bombs was the choice that C.E.S. Wood gave
the United States in his defense of Dr. Marie Equi for violation of the World
War I sedition law. Equi, called ‘Doc” by her friends, was convicted and
sentenced to three years in prison at her San Francisco trial in 1919, but
President Woodrow Wilson shortened her sentence and she only served ten months
in San Quentin. Her crime: unfurling a
banner emblazoned “Down With the Imperialist War!” during a protest. By 1920,
when she reported to prison and seventy years before George H.W. Bush gave
Portland the nickname Little Beirut, Doc was a veteran protestor who raised her
voice loudly for Worker’s rights and Women’s rights. One of the least-known
episodes of her life occurred in Portland in 1912, before her political
radicalization. It was her first major confrontation with the corruption of the
Portland city government and set the tone for the events of the following
summer during the Oregon Packing Company strike.
Like many of Equi’s causes it began with a personal
fight, in this case with George Prettyman who worked as the superintendant of
the Medical Building, at the corner of SW Park and Alder, where she kept her
office since the building opened in 1908. Dr. Equi specialized in women’s
health and provided a full range of medical services, including abortion which
was illegal under Oregon law. Michael Helquist provides good background on the
abortion laws and their enforcement in Portland prior to 1920 in his recent
contribution to the Oregon HistoricalQuarterly. According to Helquist abortion laws were selectively enforced
and many doctors chose to provide them although they could be risking a lot.
Julia Ruutila, another famous Portland radical who did the most extensive
research on Equi’s life and knew her personally, said that Doc performed
abortions because “she believed that women should have the right of choice and
should not be forced to bear a child.” That would be about right. Portland’s “Stormy
Petrel of Politics” did things because she believed in them and because she
cared very deeply for other people, especially young women.
Dr. Equi testified in court that she and George Prettyman
had been very friendly until they had a falling out over a young woman, Helen Noble
that he had brought to her for treatment of a “bad disease.” There is little
doubt that the “disease” was pregnancy and that Noble was a prostitute, a
victim of a “white slave” gang that was being protected by important members of
the city’s judiciary system. Prettyman, who had been an engineer for Multnomah
County for many years, is a mysterious character who is described by the Oregonian as a special Sheriff’s deputy,
although there is no other indication that he had a connection with law
enforcement. In most of the newspaper coverage he is described as janitor of
the Medical Building, but it is clear that he was much more than a janitor. Doc
“cured” the young woman’s “disease” and gave her a good talking too, saying
that Prettyman should marry her. Equi was probably unaware that Prettyman was
already married to another woman, who would later charge him with serious
domestic violence. Prettyman was offended and refused to pay for the medical
procedure, most likely threatening to charge Equi for performing the illegal
operation.
Equi withheld her rent in an effort to collect what
Prettyman owed her and over the next few months things escalated. It is
difficult to tell what actually happened between Equi and Prettyman, because
their accounts are at such odds. Often the testimony of the two parties sounds
like the squabbling of children as they hurl accusations at each other, but it
all came to a head on the evening of May 17, 1912. Dr. Equi and her associate
Dr. Bessie M. Gardner worked late in their office that evening and by the time
they were ready to leave the building was empty. Prettyman, either by accident
or as a practical joke, had pulled heavy gates across the stairwell, locking
the two doctors upstairs. When they were unable to use the stairs they rang for
the elevator, but Prettyman refused to bring it up. The two women dropped eggs
from the sixth floor in an effort to get Prettyman’s attention and the fight
was on. Prettyman brought the elevator to the sixth floor more than once, but
either he refused to let the women on or they refused to ride with him. Finally
Dr. Equi went into the reception room that she shared with Dr. Baird and
telephoned the police.
 |
| "College Girls" at the annual suffragist gathering at Oaks Park in 1912. Second from the left is Dr. Bessie Gardner, third is Louise Bryant Turlinger. |
Prettyman barged into “Dr. Baird’s” office and attempted
to handcuff Dr. Equi. Doc was never one to submit to arrest with “lamblike
obedience.” The two of them scuffled and Equi was severely bruised before she
pulled a handgun from her purse and pressed it into Prettyman’s stomach. The
threat calmed the situation down and the police finally arrived to sort out the
“riot.” For over a year Equi, with the assistance of her good friend attorney
C.E.S. Wood, pursued criminal charges against Prettyman and a civil suit
against the Medical Building, but it was in vain. Judge George Tazwell, of the
Police Court, had a reputation for being very severe with most criminals, but
he could be surprisingly lenient at times. Prettyman’s charges were dismissed,
along with several charges that came before Tazwell’s court over the years. The
civil suit was eventually dismissed and Dr. Equi relocated her office.
1912 was an important year in Marie Equi’s life. For six
years she had been a public figure in Portland because of the heroic relief
effort she organized after the San Francisco earthquake. She had used that
celebrity to promote the cause of Women’s Suffrage, but she had serious
political disagreements with the women who ran the women’s groups in Portland.
Her lesbianism was a factor, but the basic disagreement was over the place of
Abigail Scott Duniway in the movement. Duniway who had led the still
unsuccessful movement since the 1870s was the target of her sisters
frustrations and the aging leader was being forcibly retired just as the goal
was about to be achieved. Most of the women of the new generation were
conservative feminists who fit into the mainstream of Portland business and
society. Dr. Marie Equi emphatically was not. In many ways she had taken over
the role of “people’s doctor” that ex-mayor and current Senator Harry Lane had
played so well.
In 1905 C.E.S. Wood told the National American WomanSuffrage Association Conference that although he supported the vote for women
that voting meant nothing without economic equality. In 1912 when women finally
achieved the vote in Oregon, Dr. Equi realized that her old friend was right.
She began more and more to work for economic equality and the rights of workers
and the unemployed. In 1913, standing up for another young woman in the Oregon
Packing Company strike, Doc’s politics would begin to be more radical and
militant. Between 1893, when “The Dalles Sensation” confronted a dishonest
employer with a horsewhip, and 1912 when Doc and Prettyman fought, Marie Equi
was non-violent. After the confrontation with Prettyman violence, used in self
defense became a common occurrence for Doc as she took to the streets in
strikes, a struggle over birth control and protest against the war.
Dr. Marie Diana Equi "Doc" shortly before her death in 1952.
For a look at how the abortion laws were enforced in the
1950s you should see my new book, with JB Fisher Portland on the Take. If you find value in my work and would like to support more local history like this I hope you will join my campaign at www.patreon.com/jdchandler
