GJ Socialists and Irish Revolutionary James Connelly

Grand Junction’s Socialist era is often portrayed as an electoral fluke that elected socialist Mayor Thomas Todd to office in 1909. But it was in reality a robust and long standing political and social movement in the Grand Valley. One of the movement’s primary organizing tactics was bringing in nationally and internationally known radical and revolutionary speakers.

James Connolly was an Irish Socialist and Revolutionary, who spent decades of his life championing Irish independence and international socialism. December 4th of 1902, the Socialist Labor Party, hosted Connolly at the courthouse to a packed house.

The Socialists Labor Party first organized in Grand Junction in 1898, They ran their first ticket of candidates in 1899, and by the time of the speech, S. B. Hutchinson held the office of Alderman for the fourth ward.

The Sentinel’s headline on December 5th, 1902, declared the speech an “Able Address,” and praising Connolly for his Irish wit and humor as he exposed capitalism as “essentially a system of wage slavery,” that will continue until “labor rises in its might and takes possession,” of the wealth labor creates, and the machinery which produced it!

Connolly’s ability as an orator kept him in demand in the states for years to come. He supported and joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905. While Connolly was playing his role in American labor and socialists’ movements he was also organizing for Irish independence. Later, he founded the Irish Citizen Army and lead it during the Easter Uprising of 1916. The Easter Uprising failed in its aims of shaking off the British yoke, and leaders were rounded up, James Connolly amongst them. He was executed by a British firing squad on May 12, 1916. Because of wounds sustained in the Uprising Connolly had to be tied to a chair for the firing squad. Connolly’s execution, more than the others, outraged the Irish people and caused many more to join the cause of Irish independence.