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Title: The Everett massacre
       A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry

Author: Walker C. Smith

Release Date: March 28, 2010 [EBook #31810]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Everett Massacre

By Walker C. Smith

A History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry

[Illustration: Decoration]

I. W. W. Publishing Bureau
Chicago, Ill.


This book is dedicated to those loyal soldiers of the great class war
who were murdered on the steamer Verona at Everett, Washington, in the
struggle for free speech and free assembly and the right to organize:

     FELIX BARAN,
     HUGO GERLOT,
     GUSTAV JOHNSON,
     JOHN LOONEY,
     ABRAHAM RABINOWITZ,

and those unknown martyrs whose bodies were swept out to unmarked ocean
graves on Sunday, November Fifth, 1916.


PRINTED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL RECRUITING UNION I. W. W.




PREFACE


In ten minutes of seething, roaring hell at the Everett dock on the
afternoon of Sunday, November 5, 1916, there was more of the age-old
superstition regarding the identity of interests between capital and
labor torn from the minds of the working people of the Pacific Northwest
than could have been cleared away by a thousand lecturers in a year. It
is with regret that we view the untimely passing of the seven or more
Fellow Workers who were foully murdered on that fateful day, but if the
working class of the world can view beyond their mangled forms the
hideous brutality that was the cause of their deaths, they will not have
died in vain.

This book is published with the hope that the tragedy at Everett may
serve to set before the working class so clear a view of capitalism in
all its ruthless greed that another such affair will be impossible.

C. E. PAYNE.


With grateful acknowledgments to C. E. Payne for valuable assistance in
preparing the subject matter, to Harry Feinberg in consultation, to
Marie B. Smith in revising manuscript, and to J. J. Kneisle for
photographs.




EVERETT, NOVEMBER FIFTH

By Charles Ashleigh

["* * * and then the Fellow Worker died, singing 'Hold the Fort' * *
*"--From the report of a witness.]


         Song on his lips, he came;
           Song on his lips, he went;--
         This be the token we bear of him,--
           Soldier of Discontent!

     Out of the dark they came; out of the night
       Of poverty and injury and woe,--
     With flaming hope, their vision thrilled to light,--
       Song on their lips, and every heart aglow;

     They came, that none should trample Labor's right
       To speak, and voice her centuries of pain.
     Bare hands against the master's armored might!--
       A dream to match the tools of sordid gain!

     And then the decks went red; and the grey sea
       Was written crimsonly with ebbing life.
     The barricade spewed shots and mockery
       And curses, and the drunken lust of strife.

     Yet, the mad chorus from that devil's host,--
       Yea, all the tumult of that butcher throng,--
     Compound of bullets, booze and coward boast,--
       Could not out-shriek one dying worker's song!

         Song on his lips, he came;
           Song on his lips, he went;--
         This be the token we bear of him,--
           Soldier of Discontent!


[Illustration: Released Free Speech prisoners who visited the graves of
their murdered Fellow Workers at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, May 12, 1917.]




The Everett Massacre




CHAPTER I.

THE LUMBER KINGDOM


Perhaps the real history of the rise of the lumber industry in the
Pacific Northwest will never be written. It will not be set down in
these pages. A fragment--vividly illustrative of the whole, yet only a
fragment--is all that is reproduced herein. But if that true history be
written, it will tell no tales of "self-made men" who toiled in the
woods and mills amid poverty and privation and finally rose to fame and
affluence by their own unaided effort. No Abraham Lincoln will be there
to brighten its tarnished pages. The story is a more sordid one and it
has to do with the theft of public lands; with the bribery and
corruption of public officials; with the destruction and "sabotage," if
the term may be so misused, of the property of competitors; with base
treachery and double-dealing among associated employers; and with
extortion and coercion of the actual workers in the lumber industry by
any and every means from the "robbersary" company stores to the
commission of deliberate murder.

No sooner had the larger battles among the lumber barons ended in the
birth of the lumber trust than there arose a still greater contest for
control of the industry. Lumberjack engaged lumber baron in a struggle
for industrial supremacy; on the part of the former a semi-blind groping
toward the light of freedom and for the latter a conscious striving to
retain a seat of privilege. Nor can the full history of that struggle be
written here, for the end is not yet, but no one who has read the past
rightly can doubt the ultimate outcome. That history, when finally
written, will recite tales of heroism and deeds of daring and unassuming
acts of bravery on the part of obscure toilers beside which the vaunted
prowess of famous men will seem tawdry by comparison. Today the
perspective is lacking. Time alone will vindicate the rebellious workers
in their fight for freedom. From all this travail and pain is to be born
an Industrial Democracy.

The lumber industry dominated the whole life of the Northwest. The
lumber trust had absolute sway in entire sections of the country and
held the balance of power in many other places. It controlled Governors,
Legislatures and Courts; directed Mayors and City Councils; completely
owned Sheriffs and Deputies; and thru threats of foreclosure, blackmail,
the blacklist and the use of armed force it dominated the press and
pulpit and terrorized many other elements in each community. The sworn
testimony in the greatest case in labor history bears out these
statements. Out of their own mouths were the lumber barons and their
tools condemned. For, let it be known, the great trial in Seattle,
Wash., in the year 1917, was not a trial of Thomas H. Tracy and his
co-defendants. It was a trial of the lumber trust, a trial of so-called
"law and order," a trial of the existing method of production and
exchange and the social relations that spring from it,--and the verdict
was that Capitalism is guilty of Murder in the First Degree.

To get even a glimpse into the deeper meaning of the case that developed
from the conflict at Everett, Wash., it is necessary to know something
of the lives of the migratory workers, something of the vital necessity
of free speech to the working class and to all society for that matter,
and also something about the basis of the lumber industry and the
foundation of the city of Everett. The first two items very completely
reveal themselves thru the medium of the testimony given by the
witnesses for the defense, while the other matters are covered briefly
here.

The plundering of public lands was a part of the policy of the lumber
trust. Large holdings were gathered together thru colonization schemes,
whereby tracts of 160 acres were homesteaded by individuals with money
furnished by the lumber operators. Often this meant the mere loaning of
the individual's name, and in many instances the building of a home was
nothing more than the nailing together of three planks. Other rich
timber lands were taken up as mineral claims altho no trace of valuable
ore existed within their confines. All this timber fell into the hands
of the lumber trust. In addition to this there were large companies who
logged for years on forty acre strips. This theft of timber on either
side of a small holding is the basis of many a fortune and the
possessors of this stolen wealth can be distinguished today by their
extra loud cries for "law and order" when their employes in the woods
and mills go on strike to add a few more pennies a day to their beggarly
pittance.

Altho cheaper than outright purchase from actual settlers, these methods
of timber theft proved themselves quite costly and the public outcry
they occasioned was not to the liking of the lumber barons. To
facilitate the work of the lumber trust and at the same time placate the
public, nothing better than the Forest Reserve could possibly have been
devised. The establishment of the National Forest Reserves was one of
the long steps taken in the United States in monopolizing both the land
and the timber of the country.

The first forest reserves were established February 22, 1898, when
22,000,000 acres were set aside as National Forests. Within the next
eight years practically all the public forest lands in the United
States that were of any considerable extent had been set off into these
reserves, and by 1913 there had been over 291,000 square miles included
within their confines.[1] This immense tract of country was withdrawn
from the possibility of homestead entry at approximately the time that
the Mississippi Valley and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains had
been settled and brought under private ownership. Whether the purpose
was to put the small sawmills out of business can not be definitely
stated, but the lumber trust has profited largely from the establishment
of the forest reserves.

So long as there was in the United States a large and open frontier to
be had for the taking there could be no very prolonged struggle against
an owning class. It has been easier for those having nothing to go but a
little further and acquire property for themselves. But on coming to
what had been the frontier and finding a forest reserve with range
riders and guards on its boundaries to prevent trespassing; on looking
back and seeing all land and opportunities taken; on turning again to
the forest reserve and finding a foreman of the lumber trust within its
borders offering wages in lieu of a home, it was inevitable that a
conflict should occur.

With the capitalistic system of industry in operation, the conflict
between the landless homeseekers and the owners of the vast
accumulations of capital would inevitably have taken place, but this
clash has come at least a generation earlier because of the
establishment of the National Forests than it otherwise would. The land
now in reserves would furnish homes and comfortable livings for ten
million people, and have absorbed the surplus population for another
generation. It is also true that the establishment of the National
Forests has been one of the vital factors that made the continued
existence of the lumber trust possible.

Prior to 1895 the shipments of lumber to the prairie states from west of
the Rocky Mountains were very small, and of no effect on the domination
of the lumber industry by the trust. Also, prior to that date but a
small part of the valuable timber west of the Rocky Mountains had been
brought under private ownership. But about this time the pioneer
settlers began swarming over the Pacific Slope and taking the free
government land as homesteads. As the timber land was taken up, floods
of lumber from the Pacific Coast met the lumber of the trust on the
great prairies. The lumber trust had looted the government land and the
Indian reservations in the middle states of their timber, and had almost
full control of the prairie markets until the lumber of the Pacific
Slope began to arrive. In 1896 lumber from the Puget Sound was sold in
Dakota for $16.00 per thousand feet, and it kept coming in a constantly
increasing volume and of a better quality than the trust was shipping
from the East. It was but natural that the trust should seek a means to
stifle the constantly increasing competition from the homesteads of the
West, and the means was found in the establishment of the National
Forest Reserves.

While the greater portion of North America was yet a wilderness, the
giving of vast tracts of valuable land on the remote frontier to private
individuals and companies could be accomplished. But at this time such a
procedure would have been impossible, tho it was imperative for the life
of the trust that the timber of the Pacific Slope should be withdrawn
from the possibility of homestead entry. In order to carry out this
scheme it was necessary to raise a cry of "Benefit to the Public" and
make it appear that this new public policy was in the interest of future
generations. The cry was raised that the public domain was being used
for private gain, that the timber was being wastefully handled, that
unnecessary amounts were being cut, that the future generations would
find themselves without timber, that the watersheds were being denuded
and that drought and floods would be the certain result, that the nation
should receive a return for the timber that was taken, together with
many other specious pleas.

That the public domain was being used for private gain was in some
instances true, but the vast majority of the timber land was being taken
as homesteads, and thus taking the timber outside the control of the
trust. That the timber was being wastefully handled was to some extent
true, but this was inevitable in the development of a new industry in a
new country, and so far as the Pacific Slope is concerned there is but
little change from the methods of twenty years ago. That unnecessary
amounts were being cut was sometimes true, but this served only to keep
prices down, and from the standpoint of the trust was unpardonable on
that account alone. The market is being supplied now as formerly, and
with as much as it will take. The only means that has been used to
restrict the amount cut has been to raise the price to about double what
it was in 1896. The denuding of the watersheds of the continent goes on
today the same as it did twenty-five years ago, the only consideration
being whether there is a market for the timber. Some reforesting has
been done, and some protection has been established for the prevention
of fires, but these things have been much in the nature of an
advertisement since the government has taken charge of the forests, and
was done automatically by the homesteaders before the Reserves were
established. There has never been any restriction in the amount of
timber that any company could buy, and the more it wanted, the better
chance it had of getting it. The nation is receiving some return from
the sale of timber from the government land, but it is in the nature of
a division of the spoils from a raid on the homes of the landless.

When the Reserve were established, the Secretary of the Interior was
empowered to "make rules and regulations for the occupancy and the use
of the forests and preserve them from destruction." No attempt was made
in the General Land Office to develop a technical forestry service. The
purpose of the administration was mainly protection against trespass and
fire. The methods of the administration were to see to it first that
there were no trespassers. Fire protection came later. When the Reserves
were established, people who were at the time living within their
boundaries were compelled to submit the titles of their homesteads to
the most rigid scrutiny, and many people who had complied with the
spirit of the law were dispossessed on mere technicalities, while before
the establishment of the Reserve system the spirit of the compliance
with the homestead law was mainly considered, and very seldom the
technicality. And while the Forestry Service was examining all titles to
homesteads within the boundaries of the Reserve with the utmost care,
the large lumbering companies were given the best of consideration, and
were allowed all the timber they requested and a practically unlimited
time to remove it.

The system of dealing with the lumber trust has been most liberal on the
part of the government. A company wanting several million feet of timber
makes a request to the district office to have the timber of a certain
amount and on a certain tract offered for sale. The Forestry Service
makes an estimate of the minimum value of the timber as it stands in the
tree and the amount of timber requested within that tract is then
offered for sale at a given time, the bids to be sent in by mail and
accompanied by certified checks. The bids must be at least as large as
the minimum price set by the Forestry Service, and highest bidder is
awarded the timber, on condition that he satisfies the Forestry Service
that he is responsible and will conduct the logging according to rules
and regulations. The system seems fair, and open to all, until the
conditions are known.

But among the large lumber companies there has never been any real
competition for the possession of any certain tract of timber that was
listed for sale by request. When one company has decided on asking for
the allotment of any certain tract of timber, other companies operating
within that forest seldom make bids on that tract. Any small company
that is doing business in opposition to the trust companies, and may
desire to bid on an advertised tract, even tho its bid may be greater
than the bid of the trust company, will find its offer thrown out as
being "not according to the Government specifications," or the company
is "not financially responsible," or some other suave explanation for
refusing to award the tract to the competing company. On the other hand,
when a small company requests that some certain tract shall be listed
for sale, it very frequently happens that one of the large companies
that is commonly understood to be affiliated with the lumber trust will
have a bid in for that tract that is slightly above that of the
non-trust company, and the timber is solemnly awarded to "the highest
bidder."

When a company is awarded a tract of timber, the payment that is
required is ten per cent of the purchase price at the time of making the
award, and the balance is to be paid when the logs are on the landing,
or practically when they can be turned into ready cash, thus requiring
but a comparatively small outlay of money to obtain the timber. When the
award is made, it is the policy of the Forestry Service to be on
friendly terms with the customers, and the men who scale the logs and
supervise the cutting are the ones who come into direct contact with the
companies, and it is inevitable that to be on good terms with the
foreman the supervision and scaling must be "satisfactory." Forestry
Service men who have not been congenial with the foremen of the logging
companies have been transferred to other places, and it is almost
axiomatic that three transfers is the same as a discharge. The little
work that is required of the companies in preventing fires is much more
than offset by the fact that no homesteaders have small holdings within
the area of their operations, either to interfere with logging or to
compete with their small mills for the control of the lumber market.

That the forest lands of the nation were being denuded, and that this
would cause droughts and floods was a fact before the establishment of
the Reserves, and the fact is still true. Where a logging company
operates, the rule is that it shall take all the timber on the tract
where it works, and then the forest guards are to burn the brush and
refuse. A cleaner sweep of the timber could not have been made under the
old methods. The only difference in methods is that where the forest
guards now do the fire protecting for the lumber trust, the homesteaders
formerly did it for their own protection. In January, 1914, the Forestry
Service issued a statement that the policy of the Service for the
Kaniksu Forest in Northern Idaho and Northeastern Washington would be to
have all that particular reserve logged off and then have the land
thrown open to settlement as homesteads. As the timber in that part of
the country will but little more than pay for the work of clearing the
land ready for the plow, but is very profitable where no clearing is
required, it can be readily seen that the Forestry Service was being
used as a means of dividing the fruit--the apples to the lumber trust,
the cores to the landless homeseekers.

One particular manner in which the Government protects the large lumber
companies is in the insurance against fire loss. When a tract has been
awarded to a bidder it is understood that he shall have all the timber
allotted to him, and that he shall stand no loss by fire. Should a tract
of timber be burned before it can be logged, the government allots to
the bidder another tract of timber "of equal value and of equal
accessibility," or an adjustment is made according to the ease of
logging and value of the timber. In this way the company has no expense
for insurance to bear, which even now with the fire protection that is
given by the Forestry Service is rated by insurance companies at about
ten per cent. of the value of the timber for each year.

No taxes or interest are required on the timber that is purchased from
the government. Another feature that makes this timber cheaper than that
of private holdings, is that to buy outright would entail the expense of
the first cost of the land and timber, the protection from fire, the
taxes and the interest on the investment. In addition to this there is
always the possibility that some homesteader would refuse to sell some
valuable tract that was in a vital situation, as holding the key to a
large tract of timber that had no other outlet than across that tract.
There has been as yet no dispute with the government about an outlet for
any timber purchased on the Reserves; the contract for the timber always
including the proviso that the logging company shall have the right to
make and use such roads as are "necessary," and the company is the judge
of what is necessary in that line.

The counties in which Reserves are situated receive no taxes from the
government timber, or from the timber that is cut from the Reserves
until it is cut into lumber, but in lieu of this they receive a sop in
the form of "aid" in the construction of roads. In the aggregate this
aid looks large, but when compared with the amount of road work that the
people who could make their homes within what is now the Forest Reserves
could do, it is pitifully small and very much in the nature of the
"charity" that is handed out to the poor of the cities. It is the
inevitable result of a system of government that finds itself compelled
to keep watch and ward over its imbecile children.

So in devious ways of fraud, graft, coercion, and outright theft, the
bulk of the timber of the Northwest has been acquired by the lumber
trust at an average cost of less than twelve cents a thousand feet. In
the states of Washington and Oregon alone, the Northern Pacific and the
Southern Pacific railways, as allies of the Weyerhouser interests of St.
Paul, own nearly nine million acres of timber; the Weyerhouser group by
itself dominating altogether more than thirty million acres, or an area
almost equal to that of the state of Wisconsin. The timber owned by a
relatively small group of individuals is sufficient to yield enough
lumber to build a six-room house for every one of the twenty million
families in the United States.

Why then should conservation, or the threat of it, disturb the serenity
of the lumber trust? If the government permits the cutting of public
timber it increases the value of the trust holdings in multiplied ratio,
and if the government withdraws from public entry any portion of the
public lands, creating Forest Reserves, it adds marvelously to the value
of the trust logs in the water booms. Even forest fires in one portion
of these vast holdings serve but to send skyward the values in the
remaining parts, and by some strange freak of nature the timber of trust
competitors, like the "independent" and co-operative mills, seems to be
more inflammable than that of the "law-abiding" lumber trust. And so it
happens that the government's forest policy has added fabulous wealth
and prestige and power to the rulers of the lumber kingdom.

But whether the timber lands were stolen illegally or acquired by
methods entirely within the law of the land, the exploitation of labor
was, and is, none the less severe. The withholding from Labor of any
portion of its product in the form of profits--unpaid wages--and the
private ownership by individuals or small groups of persons, of timber
lands and other forms of property necessary to society as a whole, are
principles utterly indefensible by any argument save that of force. Such
legally ordained robbery can be upheld only by armies, navies, militia,
sheriffs and deputies, police and detectives, private gunmen, and
illegal mobs formed of, or created by, the propertied classes. Alike in
the stolen timber, the legally acquired timber, and in the Government
Forest Reserves, the propertyless lumberjacks are unmercifully
exploited, and any difference in the degree of exploitation does not
arise because of the "humanity" of any certain set of employers but
simply because the cutting of timber in large quantities brings about a
greater productivity from each worker, generally accompanied with a
decrease in wages due to the displacement of men.

With the development of large scale logging operations there naturally
came a development of machinery in the industry. The use of water power,
the horse, and sometimes the ox, gave way to the use of the donkey
engine. This grew from a crude affair, resembling an over-sized coffee
mill, to a machine with a hauling power equal to that of a small sized
locomotive. Later on came "high lead" logging and the Flying Machine,
besides which the wonderful exploits of "Paul Bunyan's old blue ox" are
as nothing.

The overhead system was created as a result of the additional cost of
hauling when the increased demand for a larger output of logs forced the
erection of more and more camps, each new camp being further removed
from the cities and towns. Today its use is almost universal as there
remains no timber close to the large cities, even the stumps having been
removed to make room for farming operations.

Roughly the method of operation is to leave a straight tall tree
standing near the logging track in felling timber. The machine proper is
set right at the base of this tree, and about ninety feet up its trunk a
large chain is wrapped to allow the hanging of a block. From this spar
tree a cable, two inches in diameter, is stretched to another tree some
distance in the woods. On this cable is placed what is known as a
bicycle or trolley. Various other lines run back and forth thru this
trolley to the engine. At the end of one of these lines an enormous pair
of hooks is suspended. These grasp the timber and convey it to the cars.

[Illustration: The Flying Machine as now used in Western logging.]

Ten to twenty thousand feet of logs a day was the output of the old
bull or horse teams. The donkey engine brought it to a point where from
seventy-five to one hundred thousand could be turned out, and the steam
skidder doubled the output of the donkey. Ordinarily the crew for one
donkey engine consists of from thirteen to fifteen men, sometimes even
as high as twenty-five, but this number is reduced to nine or even lower
with the introduction of the steam skidder. Loggers claim that the high
lead system kills and maims more men than the methods formerly in vogue,
but be that as it may, the fact stands out quite plainly that as
compared with a line horse donkey, operated with a crew of twenty-five
men, the flying machine will produce enough lumber to mean the
displacement of one hundred men.

At the same time the sawmills of the old type have disappeared with
their rotary or circular saws, dead rollers, and obsolete methods of
handling lumber, and in their place is the modern mill with its band
saw, shot-gun feed, steam nigger, live rollers, and resaw. Nor do the
mills longer turn out rough lumber to be re-handled by trained
specialists and highly skilled carpenters with large and costly kits of
intricate hand tools. Relatively unskilled workers send forth the
finished products, window sashes, doors, siding, etc., carpenters armed
only with square, hammer and saw, and classed with unskilled labor, put
these in place, and a complete house can be ordered by parcel post.

As is usual with the introduction of new machinery and methods where the
workers are not in control, the actual producers find that all these
innovations force them to work at a higher rate of speed under more
hazardous conditions for a lower rate of pay. It is true of all industry
in the main, particularly true of the lumber industry, and the mills of
Everett and camps of Snohomish county have no exceptions to test this
rule.

The story of Everett has no hint of romance. Some time in the late
seventies the representatives of John D. Rockefeller gained possession
of a tract of land in Western Washington, on Puget Sound, about thirty
miles north of Seattle. The land was heavily timbered and water
facilities made it a perfect site for mill and shipping purposes. The
Everett Land Company was organized, the tract was plotted, and the city
of Everett laid out. The leading streets, Rockefeller, Colby, Hoyt,
etc., were named for these early promoters. Hewitt Avenue was given the
name of a man who is today recognized as the leading capitalist of the
state of Washington. Even the building of those streets reflected no
credit upon the city. The work was done by what amounted to convict
labor. Unemployed workers, even tho they were plentifully supplied with
money, were arrested and without being allowed the alternative of a fine
were set to work clearing, grading, planking and, later on, paving the
streets. Perhaps it is too much to expect freedom of speech to be
allowed on slave-built streets.

In their articles of incorporation the promoters reserved to themselves
all right to the ownership and control of public utilities, such as
water, light and power and street railway systems. A mortgage of
$1,500,000 was placed upon the property. After a time the company
failed, the mortgage was foreclosed and the property purchased by Rucker
Brothers. The Everett Improvement Company was then organized with J. T.
McChesney as president. It held all rights to dispose of public utility
franchises. The firm of Stone & Webster, the construction, light, heat,
power and traction trust, secured franchises granting them the right to
furnish light and power for the city of Everett and also to operate the
street railway system for 99 years. The Everett Improvement Company owns
a dock lying to the south of the municipally owned City Dock where the
Everett tragedy was staged. Thru its alliances the shipping of Everett
is in the hands of the same group of capitalists that control all other
public utilities. The waterworks was sold to the city but has remained
in the hands of the same officials who were in charge when its title
was a private one. Everett operates under the commission form of
government.

The American National Bank was organized with McChesney as president.
The only other bank of importance in Everett was the First National.
These two institutions consolidated with Wm. C. Butler as president and
McChesney as one of the directors. The Everett Savings and Trust Company
was later organized, with the same stockholders and under the same
management as the First National Bank. The control of every public
service corporation in Everett is directly in the hands of these two
banks, and, indirectly, thru loans to industrial corporations, they
control both the lumber and the shingle mills of Snohomish County in
which Everett is situated.

Everett, the "City of Smokestacks," as its promoters have named it, is
an industrial community of approximately 35,000 people. Its main
activities are the production of lumber and shingles, and shipping. The
practically undiversified nature of its economic life binds all those
engaged in the employment of labor into a common body. The owners of the
lumber and shingle mills, the owners and officials of the banks where
the lumber men do business, the lawyers representing the mills and the
banks, the employers engaged in shipping lumber and supplies for the
lumber industry, their lawyers and their bank connections, the owners of
hardware stores that supply equipment for the mills and allied
industries, all are united by common ties and common interests and they
all support one policy. Not only are they banded together against the
wage workers but they also oppose the entrance of any kind of business
that will in any way menace their rule. They arose almost as one in
opposition to the entrance of the ship building industry into Everett,
despite the fact that it would add measurably to the general prosperity
of the city, and with a full knowledge that their harbor offered
wonderful natural facilities for that line of endeavor. In the face of
an action that threatened their autocratic power their alleged
"patriotism" vanished.

In 1912 the Everett Commercial Club was organized. In the month of
December, 1915, following a visit from a San Francisco representative of
the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, it was re-organized on the
Bureau plan as a stock concern. Stock memberships were issued to
employers and business houses and were subsequently distributed among
the employers and their employes. Memberships were doled out to persons
who would be subservient to the wishes of the small group of capitalists
representing the great corporate interests. W. W. Blain, secretary of
the Commercial Club, testified, under oath, that the Everett Improvement
Company took 25 memberships, the First National Bank took 10, the
Weyerhouser Lumber Company 10, the Clough-Hartley Mill Company 5, the
Jamison Mill Company 5, and other mills and allied industries also
purchased memberships in bulk. Organized labor, however, had no
representation at the Commercial Club.

There is nothing in the history of Everett to suggest the usual
spontaneous outgrowth of the honest endeavors of hardy pioneer settlers.
From the first day the Rockefeller interests set foot in the virgin
forests of Snohomish County up to the present time, the spirit of
democracy has been crushed by the greed and cupidity of this small and
powerful group.

The struggle at Everett was but one of the inevitable phases of the
larger struggle that takes place when a class or group that has no
property comes in contact with those who have monopolized the earth and
its resources. It was no new, marvelous, isolated case of violence. It
was the normal accompaniment of industry based upon the exploitation of
wage workers, and was of one piece with the outbreak on the Mesaba
Range, in Bayonne, Ludlow, Paint Creek, Paterson, Lawrence, San Diego,
Fresno, Spokane, Homestead and in countless other places. All these
apparently disconnected and sporadic uprisings of labor and the
accompanying capitalist violence are joined together in a whole that
spells wage slavery. As one of the manifestations of the class conflict,
the Everett tragedy cannot be considered apart from that age-long and
world-wide struggle between the takers of profits and the makers of
values.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Data on Forest Reserve taken from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
articles by Gifford Pinchot.




CHAPTER II.

CLASS WAR SKIRMISHES


"Shingle-weaving is not a trade; it is a battle. For ten hours a day the
sawyer faces two teethed steel discs whirling around two hundred times a
minute. To the one on the left he feeds heavy blocks of cedar, reaching
over with his left hand to remove the rough shingles it rips off. He
does not, he cannot stop to see what his left hand is doing. His eyes
are too busy examining the shingles for knot holes to be cut out by the
second saw whirling in front of him.

"The saw on his left sets the pace. If the singing blade rips fifty
rough shingles off the block every minute, the sawyer must reach over to
its teeth fifty times in sixty seconds; if the automatic carriage feeds
the odorous wood sixty times into the hungry teeth, sixty times he must
reach over, turn the shingle, trim its edge on the gleaming saw in front
of him, cut out the narrow strip containing the knot hole with two quick
movements of his right hand and toss the completed board down the chute
to the packers, meanwhile keeping eyes and ears open for the sound that
asks him to feed a new block into the untiring teeth. Hour after hour
the shingle weaver's hands and arms, plain, unarmored flesh and blood,
are staked against the screeching steel that cares not what it severs.
Hour after hour the steel sings its crescendo note as it bites into the
wood, the sawdust cloud thickens, the wet sponge under the sawyer's
nose, fills with fine particles. If 'cedar asthma,' the shingle weaver's
occupational disease, does not get him, the steel will. Sooner or later
he reaches over a little too far, the whirling blade tosses drops of
deep red into the air, and a finger, a hand or part of an arm comes
sliding down the slick chute."[2]

This description of shingle weaving was given by Walter V. Woehlke,
managing editor of the Sunset Magazine, in an article which had as its
purpose the justification of the murders committed by the Everett mob,
and it contains no over-statement. Shingle weavers are set apart from
the rest of the workers by their mutilated hands and the dead grey
pallor of their cheeks.

"The nature of a man's occupation, his daily working environment, marks
in a large degree the nature of the man himself, and cannot help but
mold the early years, at least, or his economic organization. Men who
flirt with death in their daily calling become inured to physical
danger, they become contemptuous of the man whose calling fails to bring
forth physical prowess. So do they in their organizations become
irritated and contemptuous at the long-drawn-out process of bargaining,
the duel of wits and brain power engaged in by the more conservative
organizations to win working concessions. Their motto becomes 'Strike
quick and strike hard,'* * *" So says E. P. Marsh, President of the
Washington State Federation of Labor, in speaking of the shingle
weavers.[3]

Logging, no less than shingle weaving, is a dangerous occupation. The
countless articles of wood in every-day use have claimed their toll of
human blood. A falling tree or limb, a mis-step on the river, a faulty
cable, a weakened trestle; each may mean a still and mangled form. Time
and again the loggers have organized to improve their working conditions
only to find themselves beaten or betrayed. Playing upon the natural
desire of the woodsmen for organization, shrewd swindlers have formed
unions which were nothing more than dues collection agencies.
Politicians have fathered organizations for their own purposes. Unions
built by the men themselves have fallen into the hands of officials who
used them for selfish personal gain. Over and over the employers have
crushed the embryonic unions only to see them rise again with added
strength. Forced by the very necessities of their daily lives, the
workers always returned to the fight with a new and better form of
unionism.

Like the loggers, the shingle weavers were routed time and again, but
their spirit never died. The Everett shingle weavers formed their union
as a result of a successful strike in 1901. In 1905 they were strong
enough to resist a proposed reduction of wages. In 1906 they struck in
sympathy with the Ballard weavers, and lost. Within a year the defeated
union was back as strong as before. By 1911 the International Shingle
Weavers Union had attained a membership of nearly 2,000, the majority of
whom were in accord with the Industrial Workers of the World. The
question of affiliation with the I. W. W. was widely discussed and was
only prevented from going to a referendum vote by the efforts of a few
officials. Further discussion of the question was excluded from the
columns of their official organ, "The Shingle Weaver," by the Ninth
Annual Convention.[4]

Following this slap in the face, the progressive members quit the union
in large numbers, leaving affairs in the hands of conservative and
reactionary elements. Endeavors were made to negotiate contracts with
the employers; and in 1913 the officials secured $30,000 from the
American Federation of Labor and made a pretense at the organization of
all workers in the woods and mills into one body. This was a move aimed
at the Forest and Lumber Workers of the I. W. W., which was feared
alike by the employers and the craft union officials because of its new
strength gained thru the affiliation of the Brotherhood of Timber
Workers in the southern states. Instead of gaining ground by the move,
the shingle weavers union lost in membership and subsequently claimed
that industrial unionism was a failure in the lumber industry.

The industrial depression of 1914-15 found all unions in bad shape.
Employers used the army of unemployed as an axe to cut wages. In the
spring of 1915 notice of a wage reduction was posted in the Everett
shingle mills. The weavers promptly struck. Scabs, gunmen, injunctions,
and violence followed. The strike failed, the wage reduction was made,
but the men returned to work relying upon a "gentlemen's agreement" that
the employers would voluntarily raise the wages of the shingle weavers
when shingles again sold for what they were bringing before the
depression. Faith in agreements had gotten in its deadly work; the
shingle weavers believed that the employers meant to keep their word.

In the spring of 1916 shingles soared to a price higher than had
prevailed for years, but the promised raise failed to materialize. With
but a skeleton of an organization to back them, a handful of determined
delegates met in Seattle in April and decided to demand the restoration
of the 1915 scale thruout the entire jurisdiction of the Shingle
Weavers' Union, setting May 1st as the date when the raise should take
effect.

At the time set, or shortly thereafter, most of the mills in the
Northwest paid the scale. Everett, where the employers had given their
"word of honor," refused the strikers' demand. The fight was on! The
Seaside Shingle Company, which held no membership in the Commercial
Club, soon granted the raise. Many of the other companies, notably the
Jamison Mill, began the importation of scabs within the month. The cry
of "outside agitators" was forgotten long enough to go outside in search
of notorious gunmen and scab-herders. The slums, the hells of
Capitalism, were raked with a fine-toothed comb for degenerates with a
record for lawless deviltry. The strikers threw out their picket line
and the ever-present class war began to show itself in other than
peaceful ways.

During May, June and July the picket line had to be maintained in the
face of strong opposition by the local authorities who were the pliant
tools of the lumber trust. The ranks of the pickets were constantly
being thinned by false arrest and imprisonment on every charge and no
charge, until on August 19th there were but eighteen men on the picket
line.

On that particular morning the Everett police searched the little
handful of pickets in front of the Jamison Mill to make sure that they
were unarmed, and when that fact was determined, they started the men
across the narrow trestle bridge that extended over an arm of the bay.
When the pickets were well out on the bridge, the imported thugs, some
seventy in number, personally directed and urged on by their employer,
Neil Jamison, poured in from either side, leaving no means of escape
save that of making a thirty foot leap into the deep waters of the bay,
and with brass knuckles and blackjacks made an attack upon the
defenseless weavers. The pickets were unmercifully beaten. Robert H.
Mills, business agent of the Shingle Weavers' Union, was knocked down by
one of the open-shop thugs and kicked in the ribs and face as he lay
senseless in the roadway. From a vantage point, thoughtfully removed
from the danger zone, the police calmly surveyed the scene.

When darkness fell that night, the pickets, aided by irate citizens,
returned to the attack with clubs and fists. The tables were turned. The
"moral heroes" had their heads cracked. Seeing that the scabs were
thoroly whipped, the "guardians of the peace" rushed to the rescue with
drawn revolvers. In the melee one union picket was shot thru the leg.

About ten nights later, Mr. Jamison herded his scabs into military
formation and after a short parade thru the main streets led them to the
Everett Theater; the party being in appreciation of their "efficiency."
This arrogant display incensed the strikers and citizens, and when the
scabs emerged from the show a near-riot occurred. Mills was present and
altho too weak from his recent injuries to have taken any active part in
the fray, he was arrested and thrown in jail in default of bail. The man
who had murderously assaulted him at the mill swore out the complaint.
Mills was subsequently tried and acquitted on a charge of inciting to
riot. Nothing was done to his assailant. And in none of these acts of
violence was the I. W. W. in any way a participant.

During this period there existed a strike of longshoremen on the entire
Pacific Coast, including the port of Everett. The wrath of the employers
fell heavily upon the Riggers and Stevedores because that body was not
in sympathy with the idea of craft contracts or agreements, and because
of the adoption by a large majority of a proposal to "amalgamate all the
unions of the Maritime Transportation Industry, between the Warehouse at
the Shipping Point and Warehouse at the Receiving Point into one big
powerful organization, meeting, thinking, and acting together at all
times."[5] The industrially united employers of the Pacific Coast did
not relish the idea of the workers grouping themselves together along
lines similar to those on which the owners were associated. The
longshoremen's strike started on June 1st and was marked by more or less
serious disorders at various points, most of the violence being
precipitated by detectives placed in the unions by the employers. The
tug boat men were also on strike in Everett, particularly against the
American Tug Boat Company owned by Captain Harry Ramwell. All of the
unions on strike in Everett were affiliated with the A. F. of L.
Striking longshoremen from Seattle aided the shingle weavers on their
picket line from time to time, and individual members of the I. W. W.,
holding duplicate cards in the A. F. of L. stood shoulder to shoulder
with the strikers, but officially the I. W. W. had no part in any of the
strikes.

[Illustration: One of the thousands who donate their fingers to the
Lumber Trust. The Trust compensated all with poverty and some with
bullets on November 5, 1916.]

Meanwhile in Seattle the I. W. W. had planned to organize the forest and
lumber workers on a scale never before attempted. Calls for organizers
had been coming in from the surrounding district and there were demands
for a mass convention to discuss conditions in the industry. Yet,
strange as it may seem to those who do not know of the ebb and flow of
labor unions, there were at that time less than half a hundred paid-up
members in the Seattle loggers branch, so great had been the depression
from 1914 to 1916. The conference was set for July 4th and five hundred
logger delegates responded, representing nearly as many camps in the
district. Enthusiasm ran high! The assembled workers suggested the
adoption of a plan of district organization along lines more in keeping
with the modern trend of the lumber industry. The loggers' union, then
known as Local 432, ratified the actions of the conference. As a
preliminary move it was decided that an organizer be secured to make a
survey of the lumber situation in the surrounding territory. General
Headquarters in Chicago was communicated with, James Rowan was found to
be available, and on July 31st he was sent to Everett to find out the
sentiment for industrial unionism at that point.

That night Rowan spoke on Wetmore Avenue fifty feet back from Hewitt
Avenue, in compliance with the street regulations. No mention was made
of local conditions as Rowan had just come from another part of the
country and was unaware that a shingle weavers strike was in progress.
His speech consisted mainly of references to the Industrial Relations
Commission Report, a pamphlet summarizing that report being the only
literature offered for sale at the meeting. Toward the end of his speech
Rowan declared:

"The A. F. of L. believes in signing agreements with the employers. The
craft unions regard these contracts as sacred. When one craft goes on
strike the others are forced to remain at work. This makes the craft
unions scab on each other."

"You are a liar!" cried Jake Michel, an A. F. of L. representative,
staunchly defending his organization.

From an automobile near the edge of the crowd, Donald McRae, Sheriff of
Snohomish County, called to Michel:

"Jake, I will run that guy in if you say so."

"I don't see any need to run him in;" remonstrated Michel. "He hasn't
said anything yet to run him in for."

Nevertheless McRae, usurping the powers of the local police department,
made Rowan leave the platform and go with him to the county jail. McRae
was drunk.

Rowan was held for an hour. Immediately upon his release he returned to
the corner to resume his speech. Police Officer Fox thereupon arrested
him and took him to the city jail. He was thrown into a dark cell for
refusing to do jail work, was taken into court next morning and absurdly
charged with peddling without a license, was denied a jury trial,
refused a postponement, not allowed a chance to secure counsel, and was
sentenced to thirty days imprisonment with an alternative of leaving
town. No ordinance against street speaking at Wetmore and Hewitt then
existed. Rowan chose to leave town. No time was set as to how long he
was to remain away. He then left for Bellingham and from there went to
Sedro-Woolley. Using an assumed name to avoid the blacklist he worked at
the latter place for a short time to familiarize himself with job
conditions, subsequently returning to Everett.

Levi Remick, a one-armed veteran of the industrial war, was next sent to
Everett on August 4th to act as temporary delegate. He interviewed a
number of people and sold some literature. Receiving orders to stop
selling the pamphlets and papers, he inquired the price of a peddler's
license and finding it prohibitive he returned to Seattle to secure
funds to open an office. A small hall was found at 12191/2 Hewitt Avenue,
a month's rent was paid, and on August 9th Remick placed a sign in the
window and started to sell literature and transact business for the I.
W. W.

The little hall remained open until late in August. Migratory workers,
strikers, and citizens generally, dropped in from time to time to ask
about the organization or to purchase papers. Solidarity and the
Industrial Worker were particularly in demand, the latter paper having
commenced publication in Seattle on April 1st, 1916. A number of Everett
citizens, desiring to hear a lecture by James P. Thompson, who had
spoken in Everett without molestation in 1915 and in March and April of
1916, made donations to Remick sufficient to cover all expenses, and it
was arranged that Thompson speak on August 22nd. Attempts to secure a
hall met with failure; the halls of Everett were closed to the I. W. W.
The conspiracy against free speech and free assembly was on in earnest!
No other course was left but to hold the proposed meeting on the street,
so Hewitt and Wetmore, the spot where the Salvation Army and various
religious and political bodies spoke almost nightly, was selected and
the meeting advertised.

Early in the morning on the day before the scheduled meeting, Sheriff
McRae, commanding a body of police officers over whom he had no official
control, stormed into the I. W. W. hall and tore from the wall all bills
advertising Thompson's meeting, saying with an oath:

"That man won't be allowed to speak in Everett!"

Turning to Remick and throwing back his coat to display the badge, he
yelled:

"I order you out of this town! Get out by afternoon or you go to jail!"

McRae was drunk. Stalking out as rapidly as his condition would permit
he staggered down the street to a near-by pool hall where the order was
repeated to the men assembled therein. These, with other workingmen, 25
in all were rounded up, seized, roughly questioned, searched, and all
those who had no families or property in Everett were forcibly deported.
That night ten more were taken from the shingle weaver's picket line and
sent out of town without due process of law. Treatment of this kind
became general.

"Not a man in overalls is safe!" declared the secretary of the Everett
Building Trades Council. "Men just off the job with their pay checks in
their pocket have been unceremoniously thrown out of town just because
they were workingmen."[6]

Remick closed the little hall and left for Seattle the next morning to
place the question of the Thompson meeting before the Seattle
membership. Shortly before noon Rowan, who had just returned to Everett,
went to the hall and finding it closed and locked he proceeded to open
it up. Within a few minutes Sheriff McRae, in company with police
officer Fox, entered the place and ordered Rowan to leave town by two
o'clock. He then tore up the balance of the advertising matter for the
Thompson meeting. McRae was drunk. Rowan went to Seattle, where the
report of this occurrence made the members more determined than ever to
hold the meeting that night.

With about twenty other members of the I. W. W., Thompson went to
Everett. The Salvation Army was holding services on the corner. Placing
his platform even further back from the street intersection Thompson
waited until the Army had concluded and then commenced his lecture.
Using the Industrial Relations Commission Report as the basis of his
talk, he spoke for about twenty minutes without interruption. Then a
body of fifteen policemen marched down the street and swung into the
crowd. The officer in charge stepped up to Thompson and requested him to
go to see the chief of police at the police station. After addressing a
few remarks to the crowd Thompson withdrew from the platform. His place
was taken at once by Rowan, who was immediately dragged from the stand
and turned over to the same officer who had charge of Thompson and his
wife. Mrs. Edith Frennette then spoke briefly and called for a song. The
audience responded with "The Red Flag," but meanwhile Mrs. Frennette and
Mrs. Lorna Mahler had been placed under arrest. In succession several
others attempted to speak but were pulled or pushed off the stand. The
police then formed a circle by holding hands around those who were close
to the platform. One by one the citizens were allowed to slip outside
the "ring-around-a-rosy" until only "desperadoes" were left. These made
no effort to resist arrest, and were started toward the city jail. The
officer entrusted with Thompson was so interested in his captive that
Rowan was able to quietly remove himself from the scene, returning to
the street corner where he spoke for more than half an hour before being
rearrested.

Aroused by this invasion of liberty, Mrs. Letelsia Fye, an Everett
citizen, arose to recite the Declaration of Independence, but even that
proved too revolutionary for the tools of the lumber trust. A
threatening move on the part of the police brought back the thought of
her two unprotected children and caused her to cease her efforts to
declare independence in Everett.

"Is there a red-blooded man in the audience who will take the stand?"
called out the gallant little woman as she stepped from the platform.
Jake Michel promptly accepted the challenge and was as promptly
suppressed by the police at the first mention of free speech.

In the jail the arrested persons were searched one by one and thrown
into the "receiving tank." When Thompson's turn came, Commissioner of
Public Safety, as Chief of Police Kelly was known under Everett's form
or government, said to him:

"Mr. Thompson, I don't want to lock you up."

"That's interesting," replied Thompson. "Why have you got me down here?"

"We don't want you to speak on the street at this time."

"Have you any ordinance against it, that is, have I broken any law?"
enquired Thompson.

"Oh no, no. That isn't the idea," rejoined Kelly. "We have strikes on,
labor troubles here, and we don't want you to speak here at all. You are
welcome at any other time, but not now."

"Well," said Thompson, "as a representative of labor, when labor is in
trouble is the time I would like to speak, but I am not going to
advocate anything that I think you could object to."

"Now, Thompson," said Kelly, "if you will agree to get right out of town
I will let you go. I don't want to lock you up."

"Do you believe in free speech?" asked Thompson.

"Yes."

"And I am not arrested?"

"No, you are not arrested."

"Come up to the meeting then," Thompson said with a smile, "for I am
going back and speak."

"Oh no, you are not!"--and Kelly kind of laughed. "No, you are not!"

"If you let me go I will go right up to the corner and speak, and if you
send me out of town I will come back," said Thompson emphatically. "I
don't know what you are going to do, but that's how I stand."

"Lock him up with the rest!" was the abrupt reply of the "Commissioner
of Public Safety."

At this juncture James Rowan was brought in from the patrol wagon, and
searched. As the officers were about to put him in the cell with the
others, Sheriff McRae called out:

"Don't put him in there, he is instigator of the whole damn business.
Turn him over to me." He then took Rowan in his automobile to the county
jail and threw him in a cell, along with B. E. Peck, who had previously
been given a "floater" out of town for having spoken on the street on or
about August 15th. McRae was drunk.

More than half a thousand indignant citizens followed the twenty-one
arrested persons to the jail, loudly condemning the outrage against
their constitutional rights. Editor H. W. Watts, of the Northwest
Worker, a union and socialist paper published in Everett, forcibly
expressed his opinion of the suppression of free speech and was
thereupon thrown into jail. Fearing a serious outbreak, Michel secured
permission to address the people surrounding the jail. The crowd, upon
receiving assurances from Michel that the men would be well treated and
could be seen in the morning, quietly dispersed and returned to their
homes.

The free speech prisoners were charged with vagrancy on the police
blotter, but no formal charge was ever made, nor were they brought to
trial. Next morning, Thompson and his wife, who had return tickets on
the Interurban, were deported by rail, together with Herbert Mahler,
secretary of the Seattle I. W. W. Mrs. Mahler, Mrs. Frennette and the
balance of the prisoners were taken to the City Dock and deported by
boat. At the instigation of McRae, and without a court order, the sum of
$13. was seized from the personal funds of James Orr and turned over to
the purser of the boat to pay the fares of the deportees to Seattle.
Protests against this legalized robbery were of no avail; the amount of
the fares was never repaid. Mayor Merrill of Everett, replying to a
letter from Mahler, promised that this money would be refunded to Orr.
His word proved to be as good as that of the Everett shingle mill
owners. Prominent members of the Commercial Club lent civic dignity to
the deportation by their profane threats to use physical force in the
event that any of the deported prisoners dared to return.

Upon their arrival in Seattle the deported men conferred with other
members of the union, telling of the beating some of them had received
while in jail, and as a result there was organized a free speech
committee composed of Sam Dixon, Dan Emmett and A. E. Soper. Telegrams
were then sent to General Headquarters, to Solidarity and to various
branches of the organization, notifying them of what had happened. At a
street meeting that night, Mrs. Frennette, Mrs. Mahler and James P.
Thompson, gave the workers the facts and collected over $50.00 for the
committee to use in its work. In Everett the Labor Council passed a
resolution stating that the unions there were back of the battle for
free speech and condemning McRae and the authorities for their illegal
actions. The Free Speech Fight was on!

Remick, in the meantime, had returned to Everett and found that all the
literature had been confiscated from the hall. The day following his
return, August 24th, Sheriff McRae blustered into the hall with a police
officer in his train. Leering at Remick he exclaimed:

"You God damn son of a b----, are you back here again? Get on your coat
and get into that auto!"

Seizing an I. W. W. stencil that was lying on the table he tore it to
shreds.

"If anybody asks who tore that up,"--bombastically--"tell them Sheriff
McRae tore it!"

Shoving Remick into the automobile with the remark that jail was too
easy for him and they would therefore take him to the Interurban and
deport him, the sheriff drove off to make good his threat. McRae was
drunk.

On the corner that night, Harry Feinberg spoke to a large audience and
was not molested. That this was due to no change of policy on the part
of the lumber trust tools was shown when secretary Herbert Mahler went
to Everett the following day in reference to the situation. He was met
at the depot by Sheriff McRae who asked him what he had come to Everett
for. "To see the Mayor," answered Mahler. "Anything you have to say to
the Mayor, you can say to me," was McRae's rejoinder. After a brief
conversation Mahler was deported to Seattle by the same car on which he
had made the trip over. McRae was drunk.

F. W. Stead reopened the hall on the 26th and managed to hold it down
for a couple of days. Three speakers appeared and spoke that night. J.
A. MacDonald, editor of the Industrial Worker, opened the meeting.
George Reese spoke next, but upon commencing to advocate the use of
violence he was pulled from the platform by Harry Feinberg, who
concluded the meeting. No arrests were made.

It was during this period that Secretary Herbert Mahler addressed a
letter to Governor Ernest Lister, informing him of the state of
lawlessness existing in Everett. A second letter was sent to Mayor
Merrill and in it was enclosed a copy of the letter to Lister. No reply
was received to the communication.

For a time following this there was no interference with street
meetings. Feinberg spoke without molestation on Monday night and Dan
Emmett opened up the hall once more. On Tuesday evening, the same night
as the theater riot, Thompson addressed an audience of thousands of
Everett citizens, giving them the facts of the arrests made the previous
week, and advising the workers against the use of violence in any
disputes with employers.

After having been held by McRae for eight days without any commitment
papers, Rowan was turned over to the city police and released on
September 1st. He returned to the street corner and spoke for several
succeeding nights including "Labor Day" which fell on the 4th.
Incidentally he paid a visit to the home of Jake Michel and, after
industrial unionism was more fully explained, Michel agreed that the
craft union contract system forced scabbery upon the workers. Rowan left
shortly thereafter for Anacortes to find out the sentiment for
organization in that section.

This period of comparative peace was due to the fact that the lumber
barons realized that their actions reflected no credit upon themselves
or their city and they wished to create a favorable impression upon
Federal Mediator Blackman who was in Everett at the request of U. S.
Commissioner of Labor Wilson. It was during this time, too, that the
protagonists of the open shop were secretly marshalling their forces for
a still more lawless and brutal campaign.

Affairs gradually slipped from the hands of the Everett authorities into
the grasp of those Snohomish County officials who were more completely
dominated by the lumber interests.

"Tom," remarked Jake Michel one day to Chief of Police Kelley, "it seems
funny that you can't handle the situation."

"I can handle it all right," replied Kelley, bitterly, "but McRae has
been drunk around here for the last two or three weeks and he has butted
into my business."

It was on August 30th that the lumber trust definitely stripped the city
officials of all power and turned affairs over to the sheriff. On this
point a quotation from the Industrial Relations Commission Report is
particularly illuminating in showing a common industrial condition:

"Free speech in informal and personal intercourse was denied the
inhabitants of the coal camps. It was also denied public speakers. Union
organizers would not be permitted to address meetings. Periodicals
permitted in the camps were censored in the same fashion. The operators
were able to use their power of summary discharge to deny free press,
free speech, and free assembly, to prevent political activities for the
suppression of popular government and the winning of political control.
+I find that the head of the political machinery is the sheriff.+"

In Everett the sheriff's office was controlled by the Commercial Club
and the Commercial Club in turn was dominated, thru an inner circle, by
the lumber trust. Acting for the trust a small committee meeting was
held on the morning of the 30th with the editor of a trust-controlled
newspaper, the secretary of the Commercial Club, two city officials, a
banker and a lumber trust magnate in attendance. A larger meeting of
those in control met in the afternoon and, pursuant to a call already
published in the Everett Herald, several hundred scabs, gunmen, and
other open shop advocates were brought together that night at the
Commercial Club.

Commissioner of Finance, W. H. Clay, suggested that as Federal Mediator
Blackman, an authority on labor questions, was in the city it might be
well to confer with him regarding a settlement. Banker Moody said he did
not think a conference would be advisable as Mr. Blackman might be
inclined to lean toward the side of the laboring men, and at a remark by
"Governor" Clough, formerly Governor of Minnesota and spokesman for the
mill owners, to the effect that there was nothing to be settled the
suggestion was not considered further.

H. D. Cooley, special counsel for a number of the mills, Governor
Clough, a prominent mill owner, and others then addressed the meeting in
furtherance of the plans already laid. Clough asked McRae if he could
handle the situation. McRae said he did not have enough deputies.

"Swear in the members of the Commercial Club, then!" demanded Clough.
This was done. Nearly two hundred of the men whose membership had been
paid for by the mill owners "volunteered" their services. McRae swore in
a few and then, for the first time in his life, found swearing a
difficulty, so W. W. Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club, who was
neither a city nor a county official, administered the remainder of such
oaths as were taken by the deputies. The whole meeting was illegal.

From time to time the deputy force was added to until it ran way up in
the hundreds. It was divided into sections A, B, C, etc. Each division
was assigned to a special duty, one to watch incoming trains for free
speech advocates, another to watch the boats for I. W. W. members, and
others for various duties such as deporting and beating up workers.
This marked the beginning of a reign of terror during which no
propertyless worker or union sympathizer was safe from attack.

About this same time the Commercial Club made a pretense of
investigating the shingle weavers' strike. Not one of the strikers was
called to give their side of the controversy, and J. G. Brown,
international president of the Shingle Weavers' Union, was refused
permission to testify. The committee claimed that the employers could
not pay the wages asked. An adverse report was returned and was adopted
by the club.

Attorneys E. C. Dailey, Robert Fassett, and George Loutitt, along with a
number of other fair minded members who did not favor the open shop
program, withdrew from membership on account of these various actions.
Their names were placed on the bulletin board and a boycott advised.
Feeling against the organization responsible for the chaotic conditions
in Everett finally became so strong that practically all of the
merchants whose places were not mortgaged or who were not otherwise
dependent upon the whims of the lumber barons, posted notices in their
windows,


     "WE ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE COMMERCIAL CLUB."


Their names, too, were placed on the bulletin board, and the boycott and
other devices used in an endeavor to force them into bankruptcy.

Prior to these occurrences and for some time thereafter, the club was
addressed by emissaries of the open shop interests. A. L. Veitch,
special counsel for the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, on
one occasion addressed the deputies on labor troubles in San Francisco
and the methods used to handle them. Veitch was later one of the
attorneys in the case against Thomas H. Tracy, and he was employed by
the state, it being stipulated that he receive no state compensation. H.
D. Cooley, lumber mill lawyer and former prosecuting attorney, also
spoke at different times on the open shop questions. Cooley was likewise
an attorney for the prosecution in the Tracy case and he, like Veitch,
was retained by "interested parties." Cooley was one of the anti-union
speakers at a meeting of the deputies which was also addressed by F. C.
Beach, of San Francisco, president of the M. & M., Robert Moody,
president of the First National Bank of Everett, Governor Clough, mill
magnate, F. K. Baker, president of the Commercial Club, and Col. Roland
H. Hartley, open shop candidate for the nomination as governor of
Washington at the pending election. Leigh Irvine, of Seattle, secretary
of the Employers' Association, and Murray, president of the National
Association of Manufacturers, were also active in directing the
destinies of the Commercial Club.

A special open shop committee was formed, the nature of its operations
being apparent when the following two quotations from its minutes, taken
from among others of similar purport, are considered:

"Decided to go after advertisements in labor journals and the
Northwestern Worker."[7]

"Matter of how far to go on open shop propaganda at the deputies meeting
this morning was discussed. Also the advisability of submitting pledges.
Mr. Moody to take up matter of the legality of pledges with Mr. Coleman.
Note: At deputies meeting all speakers touched quite strongly on the
open shop, and as far as it was possible to see all in attendance seemed
favorable."[8]

Just how far they finally did go is a matter of history. At the time,
however, there were appropriations made for the purchase of blackjacks,
leaded clubs, guns and ammunition, and for the employment of
detectives, labor spies, and "agents provocateur."[9]

[Illustration: Joe (Red) Doran  Capt. Jack Mitten  The Launch Wanderer.]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Sunset Magazine, February 1917. "The I. W. W. and the Golden Rule."

[3] Supplemental report on "Everett's Industrial Warfare," by President
Ernest P. Marsh to State Federation of Labor convention held at Everett,
Wash., from January 22 to 26, 1917.

[4] Vol. 9, No. 2, The Shingle Weaver, Special Convention Number,
February, 1911.

[5] Proposition No. 5, submitted to referendum of membership of Pacific
Coast District I. L. A., Riggers and Stevedores Local 38, at their
annual election on Jan. 6, 1916.

[6] Dreamland Rink Meeting, Seattle, Nov. 19th, over 5,000 in
attendance.

[7] Minutes of Open Shop Committee, Sept. 27th.

[8] Minutes of Open Shop Committee, October 29.

[9] The incidents of the foregoing chapter are corroborated by the sworn
testimony of prosecution witnesses Donald McRae, sheriff of Snohomish
County; and D. D. Merrill, Mayor of Everett; and by witnesses called by
the Defense, W. W. Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club: J. G. Brown,
International president of the Shingle Weavers' Union; W. H. Clay,
Commissioner of Finance in Everett; Robert Faussett, Everett attorney;
Harry Feinberg, one of the defendants; Mrs. Letelsia Fye, Everett
citizen; Jake Michel, Secretary Everett Building Trades Council; Herbert
Mahler, Secretary Seattle I. W. W. and subsequently secretary of the
Everett Prisoners' Defense Committee; Robert Mills, business agent
Everett Shingle Weavers' Union; James Orr, and Levi Remick, I. W. W.
members; James Rowan, I. W. W. organizer; and James P. Thompson,
National Organizer for the I. W. W. and a speaker of international
reputation.




CHAPTER III.

A REIGN OF TERROR


No sooner had Mediator Blackman left Everett than the "law and order"
forces resumed their hostilities with a bitterness and brutality that
seems almost incredible. On September 7th Mrs. Frennette, H. Shebeck,
Bob Adams, J. Johnson, J. Fred, and Dan Emmett were dragged from the
platform at Hewitt and Wetmore Avenues and were literally thrown into
their cells. Next morning Mrs. Frenette was released but the men were
"kangarood" for 30 days each. Petty abuses were heaped upon them and
Johnson was cast into the "black hole" by the sheriff. Some of the men
were severely beaten just before their release a few days afterward.

When Fred Reed and James Dwyer were arrested the next night for street
speaking, the crowd of Everett citizens, in company with the few I. W.
W. members present, followed the deputies to the county jail, demanding
the release of Reed, Dwyer and Peck, and those who had been arrested the
night before. In its surging to and from the crowd pushed over a
post-rotted picket fence that had been erected in the early days of
Everett. This violence, together with cries of "You've got the wrong
bunch in jail! Let those men out and put the 'bulls' in!" was the basis
from which the trust-owned press built up a story of a riot and
attempted jail delivery. On the same flimsy basis a warrant was issued
charging Mrs. Frennette with inciting a riot.

The free speech committee sent John Berg to Everett that same day to
retain an attorney for the men held without warrants. He secured the
services of E. C. Dailey, and, while waiting to learn the result of the
lawyer's efforts, he went to the I. W. W. hall only to find it closed. A
man was there waiting to get his blankets to go to work and Berg
volunteered to get them for him. He then went to the county jail and
asked for McRae. When McRae came in and learned that Berg wanted to see
the secretary in order to get the keys to the hall, he yelled out:

"You are another I. W. W. Throw him in jail, the old son-of-a-b----!"

Without having any charges placed against him, Berg was held until the
next morning, when McRae and a deputy took him out in a roadster to a
lonely spot on the county road. Forcing him to dismount, McRae ordered
Berg to walk to Seattle under threats of death if he returned, and then
knocked Berg down and kicked him in the groin as he lay prostrate. McRae
was drunk. Berg subsequently developed a severe rupture as a result of
this treatment. He managed to make his way to Seattle and in spite of
his condition returned to Everett that same night.

Undaunted by their previous deportations, and determined to circumvent
the deputies who were seizing men from the railroad trains and regular
boats, a body of free speech fighters, on September 9th, took the train
to Mukilteo, a village about four miles from Everett, and there, by
pre-arrangement, were taken aboard the launch "Wanderer."

The little boat would not hold the entire party and six men were towed
behind in a large dory. There were 17 first class life preservers on
board, the captain borrowing some to supplement his equipment.

When the "Wanderer" reached a point about a mile and a half from the
Weyerhouser dock a boat was seen approaching. It was the scab tug
"Edison," belonging to the American Tugboat Company. On board was
Captain Harry Ramwell, Sheriff McRae and a body of about sixty deputies.
When the "Edison" was about 200 feet away the sheriff commenced
shooting--but let Captain Jack Mitten tell his own story.

"The first shot went over the bow. I don't know whether there was one
or two shots fired, then there was a shot struck right over my head onto
the big cast iron muffler. The next shot came on thru the boat,--I had
my bunk strapped up against the wall,--and thru the blanket,--and the
cotton in the blanket turned the bullet,--and it struck flat on the
bottom of the bunk.

"I shut the engine down and went out to the stern door and just as I
stepped out there was a shot went right by my head and at the same time
McRae hollered out and says 'You son-of-a-b--, you come over here!' Says
I, "If you want me, you come over here." With that they brought their
boat and my boat up together. Six shots in all were fired.

"McRae commenced to take the people off the boat and when he had them
all off he kicked the pilot house open and says, 'Oho, there is a woman
here!' Mrs. Frennette was sitting in the pilot house. Anyhow, they took
her and he says, 'You'll get a one piece suit on McNeil's island for
this,' and then he says to Cap Ramwell--Cap Ramwell was sitting on the
side--'This is Oscar Lindstrom, drag him along too.'

"Then they were going to make fast the line--they had made fast my stern
line--and as I bent over with the line McRae struck me with his revolver
on the back of the head, and when I straightened up he struck me in
here, a revolver about that long. (Indicating.) I said something to him
and then he ran the revolver right in here in my groin and he ruptured
me at the same time. I told him 'It's a fine way of using a citizen.' He
says, 'You're a hell of a citizen, bringing in a bunch like that,' he
says, 'to cause a riot in this town.' I says, 'Well, they are all union
men anyway.' He says, 'You shut your damn head or I will knock it clean
off!' and I guess he would, because he had whiskey enough in him at the
time to do it.

"There was a small man, I believe they call him Miller, he saw him
standing there and he says, 'You here, too?' and he hauled off and
struck him in the temple and the blood flowed way down over his face
and shirt. He struck him again and staggered him. If he hadn't struck
him so he would have gone inboard, he would have gone over the edge,
close to the edge.

"Then there was a man by the name of Berg, it seemed he knowed John
Berg. He said, 'You ----, I will fix you so you will never come back!'
and then he went at Berg, but Berg was foxy and kept ducking his head.
He rapped him on the shoulders two or three different times, I wouldn't
say how often, but he didn't draw blood on Berg. (An I. W. W. member
named Kurgvel was also beaten on the head and shoulders.)

"They drove us all in alongside of the boiler between the decks, down on
the main deck of the "Edison" and kept us there till they docked and got
automobiles and the patrol wagon and filed us off into them and took us
to jail."

The arrest of Captain Mitten and acting engineer Oscar Lindstrom made
twenty-one prisoners in all, and these were jailed without any charge
being placed against them. As Berg was taken into the jail, McRae cursed
him roundly, ordering two deputies to hold him while a beating was
administered over the shoulders and back with a leather strap loaded
with lead on the tip.

The men were treated with great brutality within the jail. One young
fellow was asked by the deputies, "Are you an I. W. W.?" and each time
the lad answered "Yes!" he was thrown violently against the steel walls
of the cell, until his body was a mass of bruises. Mitten was denied a
chance to communicate with his Everett friends in order to get bail. The
nights were cold and the prisoners had to sleep on the bare floor
without blankets.

At the end of nine days all the men were offered their liberty except
Mitten. They promptly refused the offer. "All or none!" was their
indignant demand, and Peck and Mitten were set at liberty with the rest
as a result of this show of solidarity.

Upon his release Captain Mitten found that the life preservers had been
stolen from his boat, and the flattened bullet removed from his bunk.
Scotty Fife, the Port Captain of the American Tugboat Company, told
Captain Mitten that he had straightened up the things on the "Wanderer!"

Thus to the crimes of unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, theft,
deportation, assault and physical injury, the lumber trust added that of
piracy on the high seas. And all this was but a taste of what was yet to
come!

Organizer James Rowan returned to Everett from Anacortes on the
afternoon of September 11th and was met at the depot by three deputies
who promptly took him to the county jail. There were at that time
between thirty and forty other members of the I. W. W. being unlawfully
held. Rowan learned that these men had been taken from their cells one
at a time and beaten by the deputies, Thorne and Dunn having especially
severe cuts on the face and head.

Rowan's story of the outrage that followed gives a glimpse of the
methods employed by the lumber trust.

"As soon as I dropped off the train at Everett I was met by three
deputies. One of them told me the sheriff wanted to see me and I asked
if he was a deputy. He said, 'Yes,' and showed me a badge. Then I went
up with two of the deputies to the county jail. In a minute or two
Sheriff McRae came in and he was pretty drunk. He caught hold of me and
gave me a yank forward, and he says, 'So you are back, eh?' and I says
'Yes.' And he says 'We are going to fix you so you won't come back any
more.' There was some more abusive talk and then I was searched and put
in a cell.

"Just after dark that night I was taken out of the cell, my stuff was
given back, and McRae says, 'We are going to start you on the road to
Seattle.' With a deputy he took me out to the automobile and McRae drove
the automobile, and we had some conversation. McRae seemed to feel very
sore because I told the people on the street that the jail was lousy,
and he says 'We wanted you to get out of here and you would not do it,
and now,' he says, 'Now instead of dealing with officers you have to
deal with a bunch of boob citizens, and there is no telling what these
boobs will do.' There was more talk that is not worth repeating and most
of it not fit to repeat anyhow.

"We went out in the country until we came to where the road crosses the
interurban tracks about two miles from Silver Lake and McRae told me to
get out. He then pointed down the track and says, 'There is the road to
Seattle and you beat it!' so I started down the track.

"I hadn't gone far, maybe 50 or 75 yards, when I met a bunch of gunmen.
They came at me with guns. They had clubs and they started to beat me up
on the head with the butts of their guns and with the clubs. They all
had handkerchiefs over their face except one. They threw a cloth over my
head and beat me some more on the head with their gun butts and then
they dragged me thru the fence at the right-of-way and went a little
ways back into the woods. Then they held me down over a log about
eighteen inches or two feet in diameter. There were about a dozen of
them I would say. Two or three held each arm and two or three each leg
and there were four or five of them holding guns around my ribs--they
had the guns close around my ribs all the time, several of them--and
they tore my clothes off, tore my shirt and coat off. Then one of them
beat me on the back, on the bare back with some kind of a sap, I don't
know just what kind it was, but I could hear him grunt every time he was
going to strike a blow. I was struck fifty times or more.

"After he got thru beating me they went back to the fence toward the
road and I picked up my scattered belongings and went down to Silver
Lake, taking the first car to Seattle."

[Illustration: Organizer James Rowan;

Showing his back lacerated by Lumber Trust thugs.]

Rowan exhibited his badly lacerated and bruised back to several
prominent Seattle citizens, and then had a photograph made, which was
widely circulated. Contrary to the expectation of the lumber barons this
treatment did not deter free speech fighters from carrying on the
struggle. Instead, it brought fresh bodies of free speech enthusiasts to
the scene within a short period.

The personnel of the free speech committee changed continually because
of the arrest of its members. On Sunday, September 10th, at a mass
meeting in Seattle Harry Feinberg and William Roberts were elected to
serve. Roberts had just come down from Port Angeles and desired to
investigate conditions at first hand, so in company with Feinberg he
went to Everett on the 11th. They met Jake Michel, who telephoned to
Chief of Police Kelley for permission to hold a street meeting.

"I have no objection to this meeting," replied Kelley, "but wait a
minute, you had better call up McRae and find out."

Attempts to reach McRae at the Commercial Club and the sheriff's office
met with failure. Meanwhile Feinberg had gone ahead with the meeting,
the following being his sworn statement of what transpired:

"I went to Everett at 7:30 Monday night. I got a box and opened a
meeting for the I. W. W. There must have been three thousand people on
the corner, against buildings and looking out of the windows.

"I spoke about 35 minutes, with the crowd boisterous in their applause.
Three companies of deputies and vigilantes, about one hundred and fifty
thugs in all, marched down the street and divided up in three companies.
One of the deputies came up and told me he wanted me and grabbed me off
the box.

"They took me up to the jail, took my description, and my money and
valuables, which were not returned. By that time Fellow Worker Roberts
was brought in. A drunken deputy came in and grabbed me by the coat and
dragged me out of the jail, with the evident permission of the officers.
The vigilantes proceeded to beat me up on the jail steps. There were
anyway fifty deputies waiting outside and all of them crowded to get a
chance to hit me. They gave me a chance to get away finally and shot
after me, or in the air, I could not tell which, but I was not hit by
the bullets."

The sworn statement of William Roberts corroborated the foregoing:

"I took the box after Fellow Worker Feinberg had been arrested. The
crowd were extreme in their hostility to the lawlessness of the
officers. I told them to keep cool, that the I. W. W. would handle the
situation, in their own time and way. They arrested me, and, right
there, they clubbed me on the head. They brought me to the jail, where
Feinberg was at the desk. They took me out of the jail and threw me into
the bunch of vigilantes with clubs. They started beating me around the
body. One of them said: 'Do anything, but don't kill him!'

"Finally one of them hit me on the head and I came out of it and as I
was getting away they shot in the air. A bunch of them then jumped into
an automobile, came after me and again clubbed me. One of them knocked
me out for ten minutes, according to one of the women who were watching.

"While we were in the jail, two men we did not know were brought into
the jail with their heads cut open. The vigilantes were clubbing women
right and left, and a young girl, about eight years of age, had her head
cut open by one of Sheriff McRae's Commercial Club tools."

Roberts ran down the street to the interurban depot, where he hid behind
a freight car until just before the car left for Seattle. Feinberg, with
his face and clothing covered with blood, got on the same car about a
mile and a half from Everett and the two returned to Seattle.

John Ovist, a resident of Mukilteo who had joined the I. W. W. in
Everett on Labor Day, got on the box and said, "Fellow comrades----" but
got no further. He was knocked from the box. Ovist states: "Mr. Henig
was standing alongside of me when Sheriff McRae came up and cracked him
over the forehead with a club. I don't know what else happened to him
for just then Sheriff McRae came in front of me and pushed the fellow
off the box. When the two fellows were arrested I started to speak and
McRae took me and turned me over to one of them--I don't know what you
call them--deputies, or whatever they are. He had a white handkerchief
around his neck and he took me toward the county jail. There was a
policeman standing in front of the jail. If I am not mistaken his name
is Ryan, a short heavy-set fellow. I walked by him. Of course, I never
thought he was going to hit me, but I felt something over behind. He hit
me with a club behind the ear and cut my head until it was bleeding
awful."

"When we came to the county jail, Henig, he was in there already. His
face was red and he was full of blood. And they took us into the toilet
to have us wash the blood off, and when I came back I heard screams and
pounding.

"Then the sheriff recognized me, he had been down in Mukilteo before,
and he says, 'What are you doing up here?' I said, 'Well, I didn't come
up here, they brought me up here.' He says, 'You are a member of the I.
W. W., too.' So I told him, 'I don't see why I should come and ask you
what organization I should belong to!' So he opened the gate and says,
'Here is a fellow from Mukilteo,' he says. 'Beat it!' And I seen, I
guess--a hundred and fifty or maybe two hundred, I didn't have time to
count them, right out back of the jail lined up in lines on either side.
And I had to run between them and come out the other end. They banged me
on the head with clubs, and all over. I looked bad and I felt worse. I
had blue marks on my shoulders and on my hips and under my knees.

"I got thru them and there was a couple ran after me, but I beat it
ahead of them. I guess they intended to club me. I ran down to that
depot where the electric car goes thru to Seattle and then I turned to
look around because the car was at Hewitt and Colby, and as I went down
the walk two men stopped me and asked me if I hadn't had enough. They
told me to beat it, and as I turned around the same policeman, Ryan, I
think his name is, hit me on the forehead and then pulled his gun and
said, 'Beat it!' He was drunk and they were all swearing at me.

"After I got a block or so, there were two or three shots. I walked two
more blocks and then was so dizzy I had to rest. Finally I walked
further and an automobile came past me and I tried to holler but they
didn't hear me. And then I walked a little further and the stage came
along and they picked me up."

Eye witnesses declared that officer Daniels was one of those who fired
shots at the fleeing men after they had been forced to run the gauntlet.

Frank Henig, an Everett citizen, tells what happened in these words:

"I will start from the time I left the house. My wife and I, and the
little baby were going to the show. When we got on Wetmore there was a
big crowd standing there. I had worked the night before in the mill and
I had cedar asthma, so I said to my wife, 'I would like to stay out in
the fresh air,' And she said, 'All right, I will meet you at nine
o'clock at Wetmore and Hewitt.'

"There was quite a crowd and I got up pretty close in front so I could
hear the speaker. I stood there a little while and finally the sheriff
came along with a bunch of deputies, and the speaker said, 'Here they
come, but now people, I will tell you, don't start anything, let them
start it.'

"They took him off the box and arrested a couple of others with him, and
then immediately after that the Commercial Club deputies came along in a
row. They had white handkerchiefs around their necks. So I looked out
there and the crowd commenced to yell and cheer like, and McRae got
excited and started toward me, saying, 'We have been looking for you
before.' When he said that I stopped--before that I had tried to get
farther back--I stopped and he got hold of me. Meanwhile Commissioner
Kelley came up and took care of me and McRae walked away a little way.
Kelley had hold of my right arm and he pinched me a little bit, and I
said 'Let go Kelley and I will go with you.'

"We stood there a few minutes longer and McRae came back. Kelley said
'Come along with me,' and just as I said 'All right,' McRae grabbed me
by the coat and hit me on the head with a black club fastened to his
strap with a leather thong. I was looking right at him and he knocked me
unconscious. Then Kelley picked me up and shook me and I came to again,
and I fell over the curb of the sidewalk.

"Kelley then turned me over to Daniels, a policeman in Everett, and he
turned me over to a couple of Commercial Club deputies. Then Fred Luke
came along and said, 'I will take care of him.' So we walked a little
ways and he said, 'You better go to the doctor and have that dressed.' I
said to him, 'Oh, I guess it ain't so bad,' and so he said, 'Come along
with me and we will wash up at the jail.' I said, 'All right,' and while
I was going up the steps to the jail, why a policeman by the name of
Bryan or something like that,--a little short fellow, well anyhow he got
canned off the force for being drunk, that is how I heard of him,--when
I was kind of slow walking along because I was bleeding pretty bad, he
said, 'Hurry up and get in there, you low-down, dirty son-of-a-b----'
And I answered, 'I guess I ain't arrested, I don't have to hurry in
there.' So he cursed some more.

"I went into the jail and washed up and came back into the office of the
county jail. The fellows that they had arrested were sitting in the
chairs and McRae came in and grabbed one of the I. W. W.'s--I guess they
were I. W. W.'s, anyway one of them that was arrested--and he says,
'What in hell are you doing up here, don't you know I told you to keep
away from here?' and while he was going in the door into the back office
I saw him haul off with his sap, but I don't see him hit him, but the
little fellow cried like a baby.

"McRae came back and he looked at me and said, 'What in hell are you
doing up here?' I didn't know what to say for a little while and then I
said, 'I didn't do nothing, Mac, I don't see what you wanted to sap me
for.' And he said, 'I didn't sap you,' he said, 'Kelley hit you.' Then I
said to him, 'My wife says for me to meet her down at the corner of
Wetmore and Hewitt at nine o'clock and I would like to go down there and
meet her.' So he said, 'All right, you go; you hurry and go.' I was
going out the front door and he said, 'No, don't go out there. If you go
out there, they will kill you!' He led me to the back door of the jail,
I don't know where it was, I never was in jail in my life before, and he
said, 'Hurry and beat it, and pull your hat down over your head so they
wont know you.' But when I got to town everybody knew, because there was
blood still running all over my face after I washed up."

Henig endeavored to prosecute McRae for his illegal and unwarranted
assault but all attempts to secure a warrant met with failure. Lumber
trust law operates only in one direction.

In this raid upon the meeting McRae smashed citizens right and left,
women as well as men. He was even seen to kick a small boy who happened
to get in his path. Deputy Sam Walker beat up Harry Woods, an Everett
music teacher; another deputy was seen smashing an elderly gentleman on
the head; still another knocked Mrs. Louise McGuire, who was just
recovering from a sprained knee, into the gutter; and Ed Morton, G. W.
Carr and many other old-time residents of Everett were struck by the
drunken Commercial Club thugs.

Mrs. Leota Carr called up Chief of Police Kelley next morning, the
following being an account of the conversation that ensued:

"I said, 'What are you trying to kill my husband for?' and he kind of
laughed and said he didn't believe it, and I said, 'Did you know they
struck him over the head last night and he could hardly go to work
today?' He said, 'My God, they didn't strike him, did they?' and I
said, 'They surely did!' And he said 'Why there isn't a better man in
town than he is,' and I said, 'I know it.' It surprised me to think that
he thought I didn't know it myself. And then I said, 'These here
deputies are making more I. W. W.'s in town than the I. W. W.'s would in
fifty years.' And he said, 'I know it.' Then I said, 'Why do you allow
them to do it? You are the head of the police department.' He replied,
'McRae has taken it out of my hands; the sheriff is ahead of me and it
is his men who are doing it, and I am not to blame.'"

At the city park four nights after this outrage, only one arrest for
street speaking having occurred in the meantime, the aroused citizens of
Everett met to hear Attorney E. C. Dailey, T. Webber, and various local
speakers deal with the situation, and to view at first hand the wounds
of Ovist, Henig and other towns people who had been injured. Thousands
attended the meeting, and disapproval of the actions of the Commercial
Club and its tools was vehemently expressed.

This remonstrance from the people had some effect. The Commercial Club,
knowing that all arrests so far had been unlawful, took steps to
"legalize" any further seizing of street speakers at Hewitt and Wetmore
Avenues. The lumber interests issued an ordinance preventing street
speaking on that corner. The Mayor signed it without ever putting it to
a reading, thus invalidating the proposed measure. This made no
difference; henceforth it was a law of the city of Everett and as such
was due to be enforced by the lumber trust.

During the whole controversy there had not been an arrest made on the
charge of violation of any street speaking ordinance. With the new
ordinance assumed to be a law, Mrs. Frennette went to Everett and
interviewed Chief Kelley. After telling him that the I. W. W. members
were being disturbed and mistreated by men who were not in uniform, she
said:

"It seems that there is an ordinance here against street speaking and
we feel that it is unjust. We feel that we have a right to speak here.
We are not blocking traffic and we propose to make a test of the
ordinance. Will you have one of your men arrest me or any other speaker
who chooses to take the box, personally, and bring me to jail and put a
charge against me, and protect me from the vigilantes who are beating
the men on the street?"

Kelley replied that so far as he was concerned he would do the best he
could but McRae had practically taken the authority out of his hands and
that he really could not guarantee protection. So a legal test was
practically denied.

Quiet again reigned in Everett following the brutalities cited. A few
citizens were manhandled for too openly expressing their opinion of mob
methods and several wearers of overalls were searched and deported, but
the effects of bootleg whiskey seemed to have left the vigilantes.

On Wednesday, Sept. 20th, a committee of 2000 citizens met at the Labor
Temple and arranged for a mass meeting to be held in the public park on
the following Friday. The meeting brought forth between ten and fifteen
thousand citizens, one-third of the total population at least, who
listened to speakers representing the I. W. W., Socialists, trades
unions and citizens generally. Testimony was given by some of the
citizens who had been clubbed by the vigilantes. Recognizing the hostile
public opinion, Sheriff McRae promised that the office of the I. W. W.
would not again be molested. As he had lied before he was not believed,
but, as a test, Earl Osborne went from Seattle to open up the hall once
more.

For a period thereafter the energies of the deputies were given to a
course of action confined to the outskirts of the city. Migratory
workers traveling to and from various jobs were taken from the trains,
beaten, robbed and deported. As an example of McRae's methods and as
depicting a phase of the life of the migratory worker the story of
"Sergeant" John J. Keenan, sixty-five years old, and still actively at
work, is of particular interest:

"I left Great Falls, Mont., about the 5th of September after I had been
working on a machine in the harvest about nine miles from town. The boys
gathered together--they were coming from North Dakota--and we all came
thru together. We had an organization among ourselves. We carried our
cards. There was a delegate with us, a field delegate, and I was
spokesman, elected by the rank and file of the twenty-two. There was
another division from North Dakota on the same train with us, going to
Wenatchee to pick apples. We were going to Seattle. I winter in Seattle
every year and work on the snow sheds.

"We carried our cooking utensils with us, and when we got off at a
station we sent our committee of three and bought our provisions in the
store, and two of the cooks cooked the food, and we ate it and took the
next train and came on. This happened wherever we stopped.

"We arrived in Snohomish, Wash., on Sept. 23rd at about 8:45 in the
morning. When the committee came down I sent out and they brought me
back the bills--I was the treasurer as well--one man carried the funds,
and they brought back $4.90 worth of food down, including two frying
pans, and when I was about cooking, a freight train from Everett pulled
in and a little boy, who was maybe about ten years old, he says, 'Dad,
are you an I. W. W.?' I says, 'I am, son.' 'Well,' he says, 'there are a
whole bunch of deputies coming out after you.' I laughed at the boy, I
thought he was joshing me.

"About half an hour after the boy told me this the deputies appeared. In
the first bunch were forty-two, and then Sheriff McRae came with more,
making altogether, what I counted, sixty-four. The first bunch came
around the bush alongside the railroad track where I was and the sheriff
came in about twenty minutes later with his bunch from the opposite way.

"In the first bunch was a fat, stout fellow with two guns. He had a
chief's badge--a chief of police's badge--on him. He was facing toward
the fire and he says, 'If you move a step, I will fill you full of
lead!' I laughed at him, says I, 'What does this outrage mean?' There
was another old gentleman with a chin beard, fat, middling fat, probably
my own age, and he picked up my coat which was lying alongside me and
looked at my button. He says, 'Oh, undesirable citizen!' I says, 'What
do you mean?' He says, 'Are you an I. W. W.?' I says, 'I am, and I am
more than proud of it!' 'Well,' he says, 'we don't want you in this
county.' I says, 'Sure?' He says, 'Yes.' I says, 'Well, I am not going
to stay in this county, I am going to cook breakfast and go to Seattle.'
He says, 'Do you understand what this means?' I says, 'No.' He says,
'The sheriff will be here in a few minutes and he will tell you what it
means.' I heard afterward that this man was the mayor of Snohomish.

"I was sitting right opposite the fire with my coffee and bread and meat
in my hand when Sheriff McRae came up and says, 'Who is this bunch?' So
a tall, black deputy, a tall, dark complected fellow, says, 'They are a
bunch of harvest hands coming from North Dakota.' McRae says, 'Did you
search these men?' And he says, 'Yes.' 'Did you find any shooting arms
on them?' He says, 'No.' They had searched us and we had no guns or
clubs.

"McRae then asked, 'Who is their leader?' and this old gentleman that
spoke to me first, he says, 'They have no leader, but that old man over
there is the spokesman.' So he came over to me and says, 'Where are you
going?' I says, 'I am going to Seattle.' Then he used an expression that
I don't think is fit for ladies to hear. I says, 'My mother was a lady
and she never raised any of us by the name you have mentioned, and,' I
says, 'I don't think I have done anything that I will have to walk out
of the county.' He says, 'Do you see that track?' I says, 'Yes.' He
says, 'Well, you will walk down that track!' I says, 'But for these
twenty-one men that are here in my hands I wouldn't walk a foot for
you.' He says, 'You get out. I am going to shoot all these things to
pieces.' I says, 'You will shoot nothing to pieces, I bought them with
my hard-earned money.' He says, 'All right, take them with you.' Then he
shot up the cans and things, and he says, 'That is the track to Seattle
and you go up it, and if I ever catch you in this county again you will
get what you are looking for.'

"So we walked up the hill toward Seattle and there is a town, I think
they call it Maltby, and we got there between four and five o'clock in
the evening. Fellow Worker Thornton, Adams and Love were the committee
men and they asked me how I felt. I told them my feet were pretty sore.

"I went over to the station agent and found out that there was a freight
due at 9:30 but that sometimes it didn't get in until three in the
morning. I then asked permission to light a fire and cook some coffee,
and after we were thru eating we lay down.

"About 9:30 the train came along and I called the men. As the train was
backing up I saw some light come, and one auto throwing her searchlight,
and I counted four automobiles. That is all I could count but there were
a whole lot of them coming. I says, 'Men, we have run up against a stone
wall.'

"Fellow Worker Love and I--he came off the machine with me in Great
Falls--we were first in line and Sheriff McRae and two other men with
white handkerchiefs around their necks came forward first and he says,
'You son-of-a-b----, I thought you were going to Seattle?' I says,
'Ain't I going to Seattle? I can't go till the train goes,' I says,
'you've had me walking now till I have no foot under me. What do you
mean by this outrage? My father fought for this country and I have a
right here. I am on railroad property and have done nothing to anybody.'
McRae then hit Fellow Worker Love on the head and I yelled 'Break and
run, men, or they will kill you!' He turned around then and he said to
me, 'You dirty old Irish bastard, now I will make you so you can't run.
I'll show you!' With that he let drive and hit me, leaving this three
cornered mark here (indicating place on head). And when the others went
up the track he says, 'Get now, God damn your old soul, or I will kill
you!' I says, 'Sheriff, look here, you are a perfect gentleman, you are,
to hit a fellow old enough to be your father.' He made as if to hit me
again and then Fellow Worker Love came back and says, 'Have a heart!' I
says 'You run,' and he says 'No, they are not going to kill you while I
am here.' And Fellow Worker Paterson came back down the track and I
says, 'What is the matter, Paterson, are you crazy? Get the men and tell
them to go over the line. Don't stay in this county or they are liable
to murder you!' Then Love and I went off the track into the thick bushes
and lay down till next morning.

"At daylight we got up, went down to the junction and gathered up
fifteen of the men. When the train pulled in the trainman asked me where
I was going and I said I was going to Seattle. He says, 'Do you carry a
card?' 'Yes,' says I. 'Produce!' says he. That is the word the trainmen
use. So I put my hand in my pocket and pulled it out. 'You better get
back in the caboose, you are hurt,' he said. He saw the blood where
Fellow Worker Love had bandaged my head with his handkerchief. 'No,'
says I, 'Where the men are riding is good enough for me.' So we went to
where the interurban comes in and I was seven men short. I paid
two-fifty into Seattle, and we came in, and I made a report to the
Seattle locals."

Incidents similar to this were of almost daily occurrence, scores of
deportations taking place during the month of September. Then on the
26th, despite his promises to refrain from molesting the hall, McRae
entered the premises, forcibly seized Earl Osborne, the secretary, took
him a long distance out in the country, and at the point of a gun made
him start the thirty-mile trip on foot to Seattle. On the 29th of
September the Everett authorities arrested J. Johnson and George Bradley
in Seattle. Johnson was held on an arson charge but no legal warrant for
his arrest was issued until October 17th, or until he had been in jail
for nineteen days. Then the charge against him was that he had set fire
to a box factory--but this was soon changed when it was learned by the
authorities that the box factory had not caught fire until after Johnson
was in jail, and for the first charge they substituted the claim that
Johnson had burned the garage of one Walter Smith, a scab shingle weaver
deputy. George Bradley, who had been deported from Everett after having
served one day as secretary, was accused of second degree arson as an
alleged accomplice. Each man was told that the other had confessed and
the best thing to do was to make a clean breast of matters, but this
scheme of McRae's fell thru for two reasons: the men were not guilty,
and they had never seen or heard of each other before. Johnson was in
jail fifty-eight days without a preliminary hearing. Both men were
released on property bonds, and the trials were "indefinitely
postponed," that still being their status at this writing.

No further attempts were made to open the hall after Osborne's
deportation until October 16th when the organization in Seattle again
selected a man to act as secretary in Everett. Thomas H. Tracy took
charge on that date, remaining in Everett until a few days prior to
November 5th, at which time he resigned, his place being taken by
Chester Micklin.

During the month of October there were between three and four hundred
deportations, the vigilantes operating mainly from the Commercial Club.
Many of these "slugging parties" were attended by Mayor D. D. Merrill,
Governor Clough, Captain Harry Ramwell, T. W. Anguish, W. R. Booth,
Edward Hawse, and other "pillars of society" in Everett. Most of the men
were deported without any formalities whatever, and the methods used in
handling the others may well be judged by frequent entries on the police
blotter to the effect that men arrested by Great Northern detective Fox
were ordered turned over to Sheriff McRae by Mayor Merrill. The railroad
company, acting in conjunction with the lumber trust, put on a private
army, and had its men roughly dressed to resemble honest workingmen.
Cases of "hi-jacking" became quite numerous about this time, but no
redress from this highway robbery could be had.

On the question of the hiring of armed forces by the railroads the
Industrial Relations Commission Report has this to say:


     "Under the authority granted by the several states the railroads
     maintain a force of police, and some, at least, have established
     large arsenals of arms and ammunition. This armed force, when
     augmented by recruits from detective agencies and employment
     agencies, as seems to be the general practice during industrial
     disputes, constitutes a private army clothed with a degree of
     authority which should be exercised only by public officials; these
     armed bodies, usurping the supreme functions of the state and
     oftentimes encroaching on the rights of citizens, are a distinct
     menace to public welfare."


A number of the men deported during September and October were not
members of the I. W. W., some even being opposed at the time to the
tenet of the organization, "The working class and the employing class
have nothing in common," but almost without exception the non-members
who suffered deportation made it a point to join the union when the
nearest branch or field delegate was reached. In Everett, delegates
working quietly among the millmen, longshoremen, and other workers, were
also getting numerous recruits as the class struggle stood forth in its
naked form. All the efforts of the lumber trust to suppress the I. W. W.
were as tho they had tried to quench a forest fire with gasoline.

[Illustration: Beverly Park]

[Illustration: A close up view of Beverly Park showing cattle guards.]

It was on October 30th that forty-one men left Seattle by boat in a
determined effort to reach the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore Avenues in
order to test the validity of the alleged ordinance prohibiting free
speech at that point. They were the first contingent of an army of
harvesters who were just returning from a hard season's labor in the
fields and orchards. The party was double the size of any free speech
group that had tried to enter Everett at any previous time.

They were met at the dock by a drunken band of deputies, most of whom
wore white handkerchiefs around their necks as a means of
identification. The deputies were armed with guns and clubs, and they
outnumbered the I. W. W. body five to one. Several of the lawless crew
were so intoxicated they could scarcely stand, and one in particular had
to be forcibly restrained by his less drunken associates from attempts
to commit murder in the open. The I. W. W. men were clubbed with gun
butts and loaded clubs whenever their movements were not swift enough to
suit the fancies of the drunken mob. John Downs' face was an
indistinguishable mass of blood where Sheriff McRae had "sapped up" on
him and split open his upper lip. Boat passengers who remonstrated were
promised the same treatment unless they kept still. In its mad frenzy
the posse struck in all directions. So blindly drunk and hysterical was
deputy Joseph Irving that he swung his heavy revolver handle with full
force onto the head of deputy Joe Schofield. He continued the insane
attack, while McRae, awry-eyed and lusting for blood, assisted in the
brutal task until warning cried from the other vigilantes showed them
their mistake. Schofield was carried to an automobile and hastened to
the nearest drug store, where it was found necessary to call a physician
to take three stitches to bind together the edges of the most severe
wound.

The prisoners were loaded into large auto trucks and passenger cars,
more than twenty of which were lined up in waiting, and were taken out
to a lonely wooded spot near Beverly Park on the road to Seattle. McRae,
with deputies Fred Luke, William Pabst and Fred Plymale, took one I. W.
W. out in their five-passenger Reo, McRae afterward endeavored
unsuccessfully to prove an alibi because his own car was in a garage.
Deputy Sheriff Jefferson Beard also took out a prisoner.

Upon their arrival at Beverly the prisoners were made to dismount at
the point of guns and stand in the cold drizzling rain until their
captors had formed two lines reaching from the roadway to the interurban
tracks. There in the darkness the men were forced to run stumbling over
the uneven ground down a gauntlet that ended only with the cruel sharp
blades of a cattle guard, while on their unprotected heads and shoulders
the drunken outlaws rained blow after blow with gun-butts, black-jacks,
loaded saps and pick-handles. In the confusion one boy escaped from Ed
Hawse, but before he could get away into the brush this bully, weighing
about 260 pounds, bore down upon him, and with a couple of other
deputies proceeded to beat him well-nigh into insensibility. Deputies
who lost their clubs in the scramble aimed kicks at the privates of the
men as they passed down the line. Deputy Fred Luke swung at one man with
such force that the leather wrist thong parted and the club disappeared
into the woods. With drunken deliberation Joseph Irving cracked the head
of man after man, informing each one that they were getting an extra
dose because of his mistake in beating up a brother deputy. In the thick
of it all, smashing, kicking, and screaming obscene curses at the
helpless men and boys who dared demand free speech within the territory
sacred to the lumber trust, was the deputy-sheriff of Snohomish County,
Jefferson E. Beard!

A few of the men broke the lines and ran into the woods, a bullet past
their heads warning others from a like attempt. Across the cattle guard,
often sprawling on hands and knees from the force of the last blows
received, went the men who had cleared the gauntlet. Legs sank between
the blades of the guard and strained ligaments and sprained ankles were
the result. One man suffered a dislocated shoulder at the hands of a
Doctor Allison, another had the bridge of his nose broken by a blow from
McRae, and dangerously severe wounds and bruises were sustained by
nearly all of the forty-one.

So horrible were the moans and outcries of the stricken men, so bestial
were the actions of the infuriated deputies, that one of their own
number, W. R. Booth, sickened at the sight and sound, went reeling up
the roadway retching as he left the brutal scene.

Attracted by the curses of the deputies, the sound of the blows, and the
moans and cries of the wounded men, Mrs. Ruby Ketchum came to the door
of her house nearly a quarter of a mile away, and remained there
listening to the hideous din, while her husband, Roy Ketchum, and his
brother, Lew, went down to the scene of the outrage to investigate. The
Ketchum brothers reported that the deputies were formed in two lines
ending in six men, three on each side of the cattle guard. A man would
be taken out of the car and two deputies would join his arms up behind
him meanwhile hammering his unprotected face from both sides as hard as
they could strike with their fists. Then the man was started down the
line, one deputy following to club him on the back to make him hurry,
and the other deputies striking with clubs and other weapons and kicking
the prisoner as he progressed. Just before reaching the cattle guard he
was made to run, and, in crossing the blades, the three men on the east
side of the track would swing their clubs upon his back while the men on
the west clubbed him across the face and stomach. This was repeated with
the men as fast as they were dragged from the autos. They also heard the
sound of blows and then cries of "Oh my God! Doc, don't hit me again,
doc, you're killing me!" Lew Ketchum took deputy Fred Luke by the coat
tails and pulled him back from the cattle guard, asking, "What are you
doing, what is going on here?" and Luke replied, "We are beating up
forty-one I. W. W.'s."

Harry Hubbard tells the story in these words from the time the autos
arrived at Beverly:

"I got out of the car with another fellow, Rice, and I says, 'We had
better stay together, it looks to me like we were going to get tamped
up,' and somebody grabbed hold of him, and I stood a minute, and then I
ran by one fellow up into the woods. Just as I got out of the radius of
the automobile lights I fell over a stump on the edge of the embankment.
I was in kind of a peculiar predicament and I had to get hold of the
stump to pull myself up, and just as I did that some fellow behind me
swung with a blackjack and grazed my temple, knocking me to my knees. I
got up and he grabbed hold of me and we both fell down the bank
together. Then two or three others grabbed me, and this Hawse had me by
the collar, and Sheriff McRae walked up and said 'You are the
son-of-a---- that was over here last week,' and I answered, 'I was
working here last week.' Then he said, 'Are you an I. W. W.?' I said,
'Yes,' and he hit me an upward swing on the nose. He repeated, 'You are
an I. W. W., are you?' and again I said, 'Yes.' He then swore at me and
said, 'Say that you ain't!' and I replied, 'No, I won't say that I
ain't,' and he hit me three more times on the nose.

"Then the man who was holding my left wrist with one hand and my
shoulder with the other, said, 'Wait a minute until I get a poke at
him,' and McRae said, 'All right, doc,' and then someone else said 'All
right Allison, hit him for me!' This fellow they called Doc Allison hit
me and blackened my eye. McRae swore at me, he seemed to be intoxicated
and he looked and acted like a maniac, he said 'If you fellows ever come
back some of you will die, that's all there is to it.' I said, 'I don't
think there is any necessity for killing anybody,' and he answered 'I
will kill you if you come back,' and he raised his blackjack and said
'Run!' I said 'I wont run,' and he hit me again and I dropped to the
ground. He raised his foot over my face, and used some pretty raw
language, and as he stood there with his heel over my face I grabbed
hold of a fellow's leg and pulled myself along so instead of hitting my
face his heel scraped my side. Then I got some kicks, three of them in
the small of the back around my kidneys.

"When I got up I walked thru the line, there were twenty or thirty
different ones hollered for me to run, but I was stubborn and wouldn't
do it. And when I got to the cattle guard and stood at the other side
kind of wiping the blood off my face I heard some one coming and I said,
'Four Hundred," and he said 'Yes,' and he was crying. It was a young boy
and I walked down the track with him afterward.

"At the City Hospital in Seattle next day the doctor told me my nose was
badly fractured and that I had internal injuries. A few days later my
back pained me severely and I passed blood for a time after that."

C. H. Rice, whose shoulder was dislocated, gives about the same version.

"Two big fellows would hold a man until they were thru beating him and
then turn him loose. I was turned loose and ran probably six or eight
feet, something like that, and I was hit and knocked down. As I
scrambled to my feet and ran a few feet again I was hit on the shoulder
with a slingshot. This time I went down and I was dazed, I think I must
have been unconscious for a moment because when I came to they were
kicking me, and some of them said, 'He is faking,' and others said, 'No,
he is knocked out.' I remember seeing some of the boys during that time
running by me, and when they got me up I started to run a bit farther
and was knocked down again.

"Then they called for somebody there, addressing him as Dr. Allison, and
he grabbed my arm and pulled me up, and he raised my arm up and said,
'Aw, there is nothing the matter with you,' and jerked it down again. My
arm was out of place, it seemed way over to one side, and I couldn't
straighten it up.

"As I was going over the cattle guard several of them hit me and some
one hollered 'Bring him back here, don't let him go over there.' They
brought me back and this doctor said 'You touch your shoulder with your
hand,' and I couldn't. He says 'There is nothing the matter with you.'

"Then the fellow who was on the dock, and who had been drinking pretty
heavily, because they would have to shove him back every once in a
while, he shouted out 'Let's burn him!' About that time Sheriff McRae
came over and got hold of my throat and said, 'Now, damn you, I will
tell you I can kill you right here and there never would be nothing
known about it, and you know it.' And some one said, 'Let's hang him!'
and this other fellow kept hollering 'Burn him! Burn him!' McRae kept
hitting me, first on one side and then the other, smacking me that way,
and then he turned me loose again and hit me with one of those
slingshots, and finally he said 'Oh, let him go,' and he started me
along, following behind and hitting me until I got over the cattleguard.

"I went down to the interurban track until I caught up with some of the
boys. They tried to pull my shoulder back into place and then they took
handkerchiefs and neckties, and one thing and another, and made a kind
of a sling to hold it up. We then went down to the first station and the
boys took up a collection and the eight of us who were hurt the worst
got on the train and went to Seattle. The others had to walk the
twenty-five miles into Seattle. Most of us had to go to the hospital
next day."

Sam Rovinson was beaten with a piece of gaspipe, but taking advantage of
the fact that the shooting when Archie Collins made his escape had
attracted the attention of the deputies he got thru the gauntlet with
only minor injuries. Rovinson testifies that McRae said to him:

"This time we will let you off with this, but next time you come up here
we will pop you full of holes."

"I just came up here to exercise my constitutional right of free
speech," expostulated Rovinson.

"To hell with free speech and the Constitution!" shouted McRae, "You are
now in Snohomish county, and we are running the county!"

After the deputies had returned to town the two Ketchum brothers took
their lanterns and went out to the scene thinking they might find some
of the men out there hurt, with a broken leg, or arm or something, and
that they could be taken to their house to be cared for. No men were
seen, but three covered with blood were found and after examination were
returned to where they had been picked up.

Early next morning some of the deputies, frightened at their cowardly
actions of the previous night, were seen at Beverly Park making an
examination of the ground. Two of them approached the Ketchum residence
and asked if any I. W. W.'s had been found lying around there. After
being assured that they had stopped short of murder, the deputies
departed.

A little later an investigation committee composed of Rev. Oscar McGill
of Seattle, and Rev. Elbert E. Flint, Rev. Jos. P. Marlatt, Jake Michel,
Robert Mills, Ernest Marsh, E. C. Dailey, Commissioner W. H. Clay,
Messrs. Fawcett, Hedge, Ballou, Houghton and others from Everett, made a
close examination of the grounds. In spite of the heavy rain and
notwithstanding the fact that deputies had preceded them, the committee
found blood-soaked hats and hat bands and big brown spots of blood
soaked into the cement roadway. In the cattle guard was the sole of a
shoe, evidently torn off as one of the fleeing men escaped his
assailants.

"Hearing of the occurrence I accompanied several gentlemen, including a
prominent minister of the gospel of Everett, next morning to the scene.
The tale of that struggle was plainly written. The roadway was stained
with blood. The blades of the cattle guard were so stained, and between
the blades was a fresh imprint of a shoe where plainly one man in his
hurry to escape the shower of blows, missed his footing in the dark and
went down between the blades. Early that morning workmen going into the
city to work, picked up three hats from the ground, still damp with
blood. There can be no excuse for nor extenuation of such an inhuman
method of punishment," reported President E. P. Marsh to the State
Federation of Labor.

J. M. Norland stated that "there were big brown blotches on the pavement
which we took to be blood. They were perhaps two feet in diameter, and
there were a number of smaller blotches for a distance of twenty-five
feet. In the vicinity of the cattle guard the soil was disarranged and
there were shoe marks near the cattle guard. You could also notice
where, in their hurry to get across, they would go in between, and there
would be little parts or shreds of clothing there, and on one there was
a little hair."

All that day the talk in Everett centered around the crime of the
preceding night. Little groups of citizens gathered here and there to
discuss the matter. The deputies went about strenuously denying that
they had a hand in the infamous affair, and friends of long standing
refused to speak to those who were known positively to have been
concerned in the outrage. A number of the ministers of the city
conferred regarding a course of action, but finding the problem too deep
for them to solve they left it to up to the individual. Various Everett
citizens, representing a large degree of public sentiment, felt that the
thing to do was to hold an immense mass meeting in order to present the
facts of the hideous crime to the whole public. This plan met with
immediate approval from many quarters, and the I. W. W. in Seattle was
notified of this desire by mail, by telephone, and by means of citizens'
delegations. Rev. Oscar McGill conferred with secretary Herbert Mahler
and was quite insistent upon the necessity for such a meeting, as the
Everett papers had carried no real information about the affair in
Beverly. He brought out the fact that there had been thousands in
attendance at the mass meeting in the Everett city park a month or so
previous to this occurrence, and the speakers were then escorted by a
large body of citizens from the interurban depot to the meeting place,
and the feelings of the people were such that similar or even more
adequate protection would be given were another meeting held. He
suggested that the meeting be held in broad daylight and on a Sunday.
That the plan met with the approval of the I. W. W. membership was shown
by its adoption at a meeting the night following the trouble at Beverly
Park. And the date selected was Sunday, November 5th.

Immediately steps were taken to inform the various I. W. W. branches in
the Northwest of the proposed action. Telegrams were sent to Solidarity,
and a ringing call for two thousand men to help in the fight for free
speech was published in the Industrial Worker. In addition to
telegraphing the story and its attendant call for action to the unions
of the Pacific Coast there were various members selected from among the
forty-one who had been beaten, and these were dispatched to different
points to spread the tale of Everett's atrocities, and to gain new
recruits for the "invading army" of free speech fighters.

Seeking the widest possible publicity the free speech committee had
printed and circulated thousands of handbills in Everett to call
attention to the proposed meeting.


                         CITIZENS OF EVERETT
                              ATTENTION!

     A meeting will be held at the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore Aves.,
     on Sunday, Nov. 5th, 2 p. m. Come and help maintain your and our
     constitutional right. +Committee.+


The authorities in Everett were notified, the editors of all the Seattle
daily papers were requested to have representatives present at the
meeting, and reporters were called in and told of the intentions of the
organization. During the week frequent meetings were held in the hall in
Seattle to arrange for the incoming free speech fighters, and without an
exception all these meetings were held with no examination of
membership books and were open to the public. With their cards laid upon
the table the members of the Industrial Workers of the World were
preparing to call the hand of the semi-legalized outlaws of Snohomish
county who had cast aside the law, abrogated the Constitution of the
United States, and denied the right of free speech and free assembly.

Following the Beverly affair the Commercial Club redoubled its
activities. Blackjacks and "Robinson-clubs," so called because they were
manufactured especially for the deputies by the Robinson Mill, were set
aside for revolvers and high power rifles, and the ranks of the deputies
were enlarged by the off-scouring and scum of the open shop persuasion.

McRae entered the I. W. W. hall on Friday, Nov. 3rd, the day Thomas H.
Tracy turned the office over to Chester Micklin, and abruptly said "By
God, I will introduce myself. I am Sheriff McRae! I won't have a lot of
sons-of-bitches hanging around this place like in Seattle."

Micklin looked at the drunken sheriff a moment and replied, "The
constitution guarantees us free speech, free assembly, and free----"

"To hell with the Constitution," broke in McRae. "We have a constitution
here that we will enforce."

"You believe in unions, you believe in organized labor, don't you?"
asked Micklin.

"Yes, I belonged to the shingle weavers at one time," returned McRae,
"but when the shingle weavers went out on strike I donated $25.00 to
their strike fund and they gave me a rotten deal and sent the check back
to me, and to hell with the shingle weavers and the rest of the unions!"

Then, as he was leaving the hall, McRae pulled from his pocket a letter;
took from it a black cat cut from pasteboard and stuck it in the
secretary's face, saying "That's the kind of ----s that is in your
organization!"

Next morning the sheriff raided the hall and seized the men who were
found there, with the exception of the secretary. Turning to Micklin he
said boastfully "I'll bet you a hundred dollars you ----s won't hold
that meeting tomorrow!" McRae was drunk.

The arrested men were searched and deported and, as was the case in
every previous arrest and deportation, there was no resistance offered,
no physical violence threatened, and no weapons of any character found
upon any of the I. W. W. men.

That night the deputies were secretly assembled at the Commercial Club
where they were given their final instructions by the lumber trust and
ordered to report fully armed and ready for action at the blowing of the
mill whistles. With these preparations the open shop forces were ready
to go to still greater lengths to uphold "law and order!"

The answer of the I. W. W. to this damnable act of violence at Beverly
Park and to the four months of terrorism that had preceded it was a call
for two thousand men to enter Everett, there to gain by sheer force of
numbers that right of free speech and peaceable assembly supposed to
have been guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States.[10]

[Illustration: The Ketchum Home near Beverly Park]

FOOTNOTE:

[10] (The incidents in the foregoing chapter are corroborated by the
sworn testimony of I. W. W. men who were shot at, beaten, robbed, and
abused; by citizens of Everett and Seattle who were also beaten and
mistreated or who witnessed the scenes; by physicians, attorneys, public
officials, members of craft unions, and by deputies who hoped to make
amends by testifying to the truth for the defense.)




CHAPTER IV.

BLOODY SUNDAY


How shall we enter the kingdom of Everett? was the question that
confronted the committee in charge of affairs in Seattle on the morning
of November 5th. Inquiries at the Interurban office developed the fact
that sufficient cars could not be had to accommodate the crowd. The cost
of making the trip by auto truck was found to be prohibitive. At the
eleventh hour the committee, taking the money pooled by the members,
secured the regular passenger steamship Verona, and an orderly and
determined body of men filed down the steps leading from the I. W. W.
headquarters and marched by fours to the Colman Dock.

Their mission was an open and peaceable one. Cheerful, optimistic,
enthusiastic, the band of social crusaders felt that the conquest of
free speech was assured. Not for a moment did they think that the
Everett Klu-Klux-Klan would dare resort to violent and criminal tactics
in the broad daylight of that beautiful sunny day and in plain view of a
host of conscientious Everett citizens.

Assisted by Harry Feinberg and John T. (Red) Doran, Captain Chauncey
Wiman checked the number of men who went on board, stopping further
entry when the legal limit of two hundred and fifty persons was reached,
Feinberg joining the men on board in order to serve as the main speaker
at the proposed meeting. Among those who secured passage were several
who were not members of the free speech party, but in the work of
checking, the tickets of these persons were not collected, their fares
being paid in the lump sum that was handed to the captain. Regular
passengers of the Verona were informed that their tickets would be good
for the steamer Calista, lying at Pier 3. Thirty-eight additional
members of the free speech band joined the regular patrons who took
passage on the Calista.

Laughter and jest were on the lips of the men who crowded the Verona,
and songs of the One Big Union rang out over the sparkling waters of
Puget Sound. Loyal soldiers were these in the great class war,
enlightened workers who were willing to give their all in the battle for
bread, happiness and liberty. Men of all callings these--logger,
carpenter, laborer, railroad clerk, painter, miner, printer, seaman and
farmhand, all united with one common aim--the desire to gain for Labor
the right of free expression.

Among their number, however, were two individuals of a breed reckoned
among the lowest order of the human species; two "stool pigeons," low
informers upon whom even a regular detective looks down with contempt.
One of these, carrying an I. W. W. card and in the employ of Snohomish
county and the Everett Commercial Club under the direction of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency, had sneaked out of the I. W. W. headquarters
long enough to telephone Lieutenant Hedges of the Seattle Police force
that there was a boatload of I. W. W. men leaving for Everett. There was
no secret in connection with the trip, but that there exist such class
traitors, relatively few as they are, to whom the enemies of the workers
can look for information is one of the sad features of the class
struggle. The "stool's" message was relayed to the Everett authorities
and, after being revised by the advocates of the open shop, it finally
reached the deputies in the form of a report that a boatload of I. W.
W.'s, armed to the teeth, were about to invade, pillage, and burn the
city.

At one o'clock the mill whistles blew, the mill deputies armed with
their mill clubs, mill revolvers, rifles and shotguns, assembled at the
mill headquarters--the Commercial Club--and from there were transported
in mill automobiles down the alleys and back streets to the City Dock.

Citizens were driven from the dock and a rope, guarded by armed
deputies, was stretched across the land end to prevent access by any
save men with guns. Part of the equipment of the Naval Militia was
stored in readiness at the Commercial Club--a stubborn fact for those
who deny that government is a class institution. At the Pacific Hardware
Company, deputy Dave Oswald had an auto load of rifles and ammunition
prepared for immediate transportation and use. In Captain Ramwell's
office, at the point where the rope was stretched, there were stacked a
number of high-power rifles, brought there from the same source. It is
even rumored that there was a machine gun on the dock. On the scab
tugboat Edison, moored at the north side of the dock, men armed with
rifles lay in waiting. The Everett Improvement Dock to the south was
also prepared for action. Hundreds of deputies were admitted to the City
Dock and were lined up under the direction of Sheriff McRae,
Deputy-Sheriff Jefferson Beard, and Lieutenant Charles O. Curtis, of the
Officers' Reserve Corps of the National Guard of Washington. Boards were
removed from the sides of the warehouses so as to command a view of the
landing place, and sacks of potatoes and lumber were used as partial
barricades. A few of the deputies were in the west warehouse at the
extreme end of the dock, but the majority of them were in the larger
warehouse to the east of the open docking space. Plentifully supplied
with ammunition and "booze," the cowardly deputies lay hidden in this
ambush. The scene was set and the tragedy of November Fifth about to be
staged.

As the Verona cleaved the placid, sunlit waters of the Bay and swung up
to the City Dock at Everett, shortly before two o'clock, the men were
merrily singing the English Transport Workers' strike song,


           "HOLD THE FORT!"

     We meet today in Freedom's cause,
       And raise our voices high;
     We'll join our hands in union strong,
       To battle or to die.

           CHORUS

       Hold the fort for we are coming,
       Union men be strong.
       Side by side we battle onward,
       Victory will come!

     Look, my comrades, see the union,
       Banners waving high.
     Reinforcements now appearing,
       Victory is nigh.

     See our numbers still increasing;
       Hear the bugle blow:
     By our union we shall triumph
       Over every foe.

     Fierce and long the battle rages,
       But we will not fear.
     Help will come whene'er it's needed,
       Cheer, my comrades, cheer!


From a hillside overlooking the scene thousands upon thousands of
Everett citizens sent forth cheer after cheer as a hearty welcome to the
"invading army." High up on the flag-pole of the Verona clambered Hugo
Gerlot, a youthful free speech enthusiast, to wave a greeting to the
throng that lined the shore. Passenger Oscar Carlson and his friend
Ernest Nordstrom, from their position on the very bow of the boat,
caught the spirit of the party and endeavored to join in the song that
resounded louder and clearer as many of the men left the cabins to go
out upon the deck.

Completely filling the bow of the boat and blocking the passageway on
either side, the singers crowded to the rail in the usual joyously
impatient manner of holiday excursionists, and then for the first time
observed a body of deputies march from the large warehouse and settle
into lines across the back and sides of the open landing space on the
dock, where Curtis, McRae, and Beard were stationed.

Waiting until Captain Ramwell's wharfinger, William Kenneth, had made
fast the bowline to prevent the boat from backing out, Sheriff Donald
McRae gave his belt holster a hitch to bring his gun directly across his
middle and then lurched forward to the face of the dock. Holding up his
left hand to check the singing, he yelled to the men on board:

"Who is your leader?"

Immediate and unmistakable was the answer from practically every member
of the Industrial Workers of the World:

"We are all leaders!"

Angrily jerking his gun from its holster and flourishing it in a
threatening manner, McRae cried:

"You can't land here!"

"The hell we can't!" came the reply as the men stepped toward the partly
thrown-off gang plank.

A shot rang out from the immediate vicinity of deputy W. A. Bridges,
then another, closely followed by a volley that sent them staggering
backward. Many fell to the deck. Evidently the waving of McRae's
revolver was the prearranged signal for the carnage to commence. The
long months of lumber trust lawlessness had culminated in cowardly,
deliberate, premeditated and foul murder!

Young Gerlot crumpled up and slid part way down the flag pole, then
suddenly threw out both arms and crashed lifeless to the deck, his
bullet-torn and bleeding body acting as a shield for several who had
thrown themselves prostrate. Passenger Oscar Carlson threw himself flat
upon the forward deck and while in that position seven bullets found
their way into his quivering flesh, life clinging to the shattered form
by a strange vagary of fate. With a severe bullet wound in his abdomen,
Ed Roth swayed back and forth for a moment and then toppled forward on
his face.

When a bullet whistled past the head of Captain Chauncey Wiman, and
another tore a spoke as thick as a man's wrist from the pilot wheel
beneath his hand, he deserted his post to barricade himself behind the
safe with a mattress, remaining in that position until the close of the
hostilities.

At the first shot and during the first volley the unarmed men wildly
sought cover from the deadly leaden hail. Those who had not dropped to
the deck, wounded or seeking shelter, surged to the starboard side of
the boat, causing it to list to an alarming degree, the fastened bowline
alone preventing it from capsizing. Several men lost their footing on
the blood-slimed decks and were pitched headlong overboard. There,
struggling frantically in the water,--by no possible chance
combatants--a storm of rifle bullets churning little whirlpools around
their heads, one by one they were made the victims of lumber trust greed
by the Hessianized deputies stationed at the shore end of the City Dock
and upon the dock to the south. The bay was reddened with their blood.
Of all who went overboard, James Hadley alone regained the deck, the
rest disappearing beneath the silent waters to be dragged by the
undertow out to an unknown and nameless ocean grave.

Young Joe Ghilezano seized the rail preparatory to jumping overboard,
but seeing two men shot dead while they were in the water he lay down on
the deck instead. While there a bullet pierced his hip, another went
thru his back close to the spine, and a third completely tore off his
left knee cap. Harry Parker slipped over the starboard side in order to
gain the lower deck, and a rifle bullet from the vicinity of the tug
Goldfinch, along the Everett Improvement Company Dock, ranged thru his
back from left to right, just as his friend, Walter Mulholland, also
wounded, pulled him in thru a hole torn in the canvas wind shield. An
abdominal wound laid Felix Baran low. The thud of bullets as they struck
the prostrate men added to the ghastly sound caused by the firing of
rifles and revolvers, the curses of the deputies and the moans of the
wounded men.

Following the first volley the deputies who had been out in the open
scuttled into the warehouses on either side. Thru their scattering ranks
the scabs on the tug Edison poured their rifle fire toward the men on
the Verona. Lieutenant C. O. Curtis pitched forward and fell dead upon
the dock--the victim of a rifle bullet. One of the fleeing deputies
paused behind the corner of the waiting room just long enough to
flinchingly reach out his hand and, keeping his head under cover,
emptied his revolver without taking aim. Deputy Sheriff Jefferson Beard
fell mortally wounded as he turned to run, and was dragged into the
warehouse by some of the less panic stricken murderers. Sheriff McRae,
with a couple of slight wounds in his left leg and heel, was forced to
his knees by the impact of bullets against the steel jacket which he
wore, remaining in a supplicating attitude for a few seconds while he
sobbed out in a quavering tone, "O-o-oh! I'm hit! I-I'm hit!! I-I-I'm
hit!!!"

Placed on board the Verona to serve the interests of the lumber trust,
what were the two Pinkerton operatives doing while the boat was landing
and just before the first heavy firing commenced? Their actions were
shrouded in mystery. But, as if anticipating something, one was seen
directly after the first shot scurrying into hiding where he lay
shivering until long after the firing had ceased. The other, while under
cover, was struck on the head by a glancing bullet. He became so enraged
at this lack of thoughtfulness on the part of his degenerate brothers
that he emptied his revolver at their backs as they broke for cover.
From a safe position on the dock, deputy H. D. Cooley, with a pair of
field glasses, was tremblingly trying to spy for the approach of the
Calista.

Inside the waiting room and the warehouses the drink-crazed deputies
ran amuck, shooting wildly in all directions, often with some of their
own number directly in the line of fire--bullet holes in the floor and a
pierced clock case high up on the waiting room wall giving mute evidence
of their insane recklessness. One deputy fled from the dock in terror,
explaining to all who would listen that a bullet hole in his ear was
from the shot of one of his associates on the dock.

"They've gone crazy in there!" he cried excitedly. "They're shootin'
every which way! They shot me in the ear!"

Thru the loopholes already provided, and even thru the sides of the
warehouses they blazed away in the general direction of the boat, using
revolvers and high powered rifles with steel and copper-jacketed
missiles. Dum-dums sang their deadly way to the Verona and tore gaping
wounds in the breasts of mere boys--an added reward by the industrial
lords for their first season of hard labor in the scorching harvest
fields. John Looney was felled by a rifle bullet and even as he fell
shuddering to the deck another leaden missile shattered the woodwork and
impaled one of his eyeballs upon a spear of wood, gouging it from the
socket.

At the foot of the dock, protected by the Klatawa slip, (Indian name for
runaway) C. R. Schweitzer, owner of a scab plumbing establishment, fired
time after time with a magazine shotgun, the buckshot scattering at the
long range and raking the forward deck with deadly effect. The pilot
house was riddled and the woodwork filled with hundreds of the little
leaden messengers that carried a story of "mutual interests of Capital
and Labor." Deputy Russell and about ten others assisted in the
dastardly work at that point, pouring shot after shot into the
convulsive struggling heaps of wounded men piled four and five deep on
the deck. One boy in a brown mackinaw suddenly rose upright from a
tangled mass of humanity, the blood gushing from his wounds, and with an
agonized cry of "My God! I can't stand this any longer!" leaped high in
the air over the side of the boat, sinking from sight forever, his
watery resting place marked only by a few scarlet ripples.

Two bodies, one with the entire throat shot away, were found next
morning washed up on the beach, and that fact was reported to the
Everett police by Ed. and Rob. Thompson. That night some men fishing in
a little sailboat far out in the bay saw five weighted objects about six
feet long, and apparently wrapped in canvas, thrown overboard from a
launch, but in none of the daily papers was there any mention of bodies
having been found. Six uncalled-for membership cards, deposited by men
who took passage on the Verona, may represent as many murders by the
cowards on the dock. Those cards are made out to Fred Berger, William
Colman, Tom Ellis, Edward Raymond, Peter Viberts, and Chas. E. Taylor.
Some of the deputies gloatingly declared that the death toll of the
workers was twelve men at the lowest count.

So wanton was the slaughter of the helpless men and boys that strong men
who witnessed the scene turned away vomiting. From the hillside the
women--those whom the deputies were pretending to protect from the
"incoming horde,"--casting aside all womanly fears, raced to the dock in
a vain endeavor to stop the commission of further crime, crying out in
their frenzy, "The curs! The curs! The dirty curs! They're nothing but
murderers!" They, as well as the men who tried to launch boats to rescue
the men in the water, were halted by the same citizen deputies whose
names head the list of Red Cross donors.

For a short period of time, seemingly endless hours to the unarmed and
helpless men on the boat, the rain of lead continued. Tho the boat had
righted itself, the men were still unable to extricate themselves from
the positions into which they had been thrown. Near the top of one heap
lay Abraham Rabinowitz, a young Jewish college graduate, and as he
struggled to regain his footing a bullet tore off the whole back part
of his head, his blood and brains splashing down over Raymond Lee and
Michael Reilly who lay just beneath him. Rabinowitz died in the arms of
Leonard Broman, his "pal" in the harvest fields, without ever having
regained consciousness.

"Hold me up, fellow workers!" suddenly called out Gus Johnson as he was
fatally stricken by a bullet. "I want to finish the song." Then, above
the din of the gunfire and curses of the deputies, the final verse of
"Hold the Fort" rang out in defiance of industrial tyranny, and with the
termination of the words "Cheer, my comrades, cheer!" the bright red
death-foam flecked the ever-to-be silent lips of the brave Swedish
revolutionist.

Splintering the stairways, seats and woodwork, and wounding many of the
men crouched in hiding, thousands of rounds of ammunition found their
way into the boat during the ten long minutes of the onslaught. Finally,
with a 41 Colts revolver to enforce his demand, J. F. Billings ordered
engineer Ernest Shellgren to back the boat away from the dock. With no
pilot at the wheel the propeller churned madly backward for a moment,
the bowline drew taut and snapped, and the Verona pulled away from the
murderous crew of vigilantes. Not content with the havoc they had
wrought at close quarters some of the deputies continued to fire as long
as the boat was within range, a bullet from a high powered rifle
shattering the left leg of Harry Golden, a youth of twenty-two years,
when the boat was far out in the bay. Amputation of the limb was
necessary, a cork leg daily reminding young Golden of the majesty of the
law.

The Verona with its grim cargo of dead and wounded steamed toward
Seattle, meeting the steamer Calista about four miles out, stopping just
long enough for Captain Wiman to shout thru his megaphone, "For God's
sake don't land! They'll kill you! We have dead and wounded on board
now."

With unaccustomed fingers the uninjured men bathed the wounded, tearing
up shirts and underclothing in order to bind up their injuries, and
making the men as comfortable as possible during the two and one half
hour return trip.

A few of the men on board had been armed. These voluntarily threw
overboard their revolvers, together with the few empty shells that lay
scattered upon the deck, George Reese alone having to be forced to
discard the "souvenirs" he had picked up.

It was a quiet crowd that pulled into Seattle, not only because they
realized that the class struggle is not all jokes and songs, but also in
deference to the sufferings of their wounded comrades. This same spirit
animated the men when they were met by drawn cordons of police at the
Seattle dock, their first thought and first words being, "Get the
wounded fellows out and we will be all right." In the city jail, located
on the floor above the hospital, the same generous consideration of
their wounded fellow workers' condition led them to forego the
demonstration usually attending the arrest and jailing of any body of I.
W. W. members.

The four dead members, their still forms covered with blankets, were
first removed from the boat and taken to the morgue. Police and hospital
ambulances were soon filled with the thirty-one wounded men, who were
taken to the city hospital. The uninjured men were then lined up and
slowly marched to the city jail. From the Calista the thirty-eight I. W.
W. members were taken and placed in the county jail.

At the hospital, Felix Baran, shot in the abdomen, slowly and painfully
passed away from internal hemorrhage. Dr. Mary Equi, of Portland, Ore.,
who examined the body, stated that with surgical attention there would
have been more than an even chance of recovery.

No one will ever know how many brave workers were swept out to sea and
lost, but Sunday, November Fifth, of the year Nineteen-sixteen, wrote
in imperishable letters of red on the list of Labor's martyrs who gave
up their lives in Freedom's Cause the names of


     FELIX BARAN;
     HUGO GERLOT;
     GUSTAV JOHNSON;
     JOHN LOONEY;
     ABRAHAM RABINOWITZ.


French, German, Swedish, Irish, and Russian Jew,--these are the true
internationalists of the world-wide brotherhood of toil who died for
free speech and the right to organize in this "land of liberty." To them
Courtenay Lemon's tribute to the I. W. W. applies with full force.

"Again and again its foot-free members, burning with an indignation and
a militant social idealism which is ever an inscrutable puzzle to local
authorities, have hastened to towns where free speech fights were on,
defied the police, braved clubbings, and voluntarily filled the jails to
overflowing, to the rage and consternation of the police and taxpayers.
It has acted as the flying squadron of liberty, the unconquered
knight-errantry of all captive freedoms; and the migratory workers who
constitute a large part of its membership, ever on the march and
pitching their camp wherever the industrial battle is thickest, form a
guerilla army which is always eager for a fight with the powers of
tyranny. Whether they disagree with its methods and aims, all lovers of
liberty everywhere owe a debt to this organization for its defense of
free speech. Absolutely irreconcilable, absolutely fearless, and
unsuppressibly persistent, it has kept alight the fires of freedom, like
some outcast vestal of human liberty. That the defense of traditional
rights to which this government is supposed to be dedicated should
devolve upon an organization so often denounced as 'unpatriotic' and
'un-American,' is but the usual, the unfailing irony of history."[11]

Baran, Gerlot, Johnson, Looney, Rabinowitz,--these names will be a
source of inspiration to the workers when their cowardly murderers have
long been forgotten.

Those who survived their wounds, saving as pocket pieces the buckshot,
copper and steel jacketed and dum-dum bullets extracted from their
persons, were; mentioning their more serious wounds:

Harry Golden, age 22, shot in left leg, making amputation necessary.

Joseph Ghilazano, age 20, shot in shoulder and both legs, entire
knee-cap shot off and replaced with a silver substitute.

Albert Scribner, age 32, severely wounded in hip, probably lamed for
life.

Mario Marino, age 18, shot thru the lungs.

Edward Roth, age 30, severely wounded in abdomen.

Walter Mulholland, age 18, shot in buttock.

Carl Bjork, age 25, wounded in back.

Harry Parker, age 22, shot above abdomen, in back, and in legs.

John Ryan, age 21, wounded in right shoulder and left leg.

Leland E. Butcher, age 28, shot in the left leg.

J. A. Kelly, age 31, shot in right leg.

Hans Peterson, age 32, wounded in head.

Fred Savery, age 25, wounded in hip.

Steve Sabo, age 21, shot in left shoulder.

Robert Adams, age 32, shot in left arm.

Owen Genty, age 26, wounded in right kidney.

C. C. England, age 27, shot in left knee.

Nick Canaeff, age 35, shot in left arm.

Albert Doninger, age 20, wounded in left arm.

Brockman B. Armstrong, age 35, wounds on head.

E. J. Shapeero, age 24, wounded in right leg.

Carl Burke, age 25, shot in back and shoulder.

Ira Luft, age 27, shot in right side of back.

George Turnquist, age 26, wounded in left leg.

George Brown, age 21, shot in back.

D. J. McCarthy, age 37, shot in side of head and in right leg.

John Adams, age 28, wounded in right elbow.

Edward Truitt, age 28, shot in right elbow.

Others on the boat who were wounded were Oscar Carlson, passenger, nine
severe bullet wounds in all parts of his body; L. S. Davis, ship
steward, wounded in the arm, and Charles Smith, Pinkerton "stool pigeon"
with a slight scalp injury.

The wounded men were none too well treated at the city hospital, only a
part of the neglect being due to the overcrowded condition of the wards.
Wounds were hastily dressed and in some cases the injured men were
placed in jail at once where they had to care for themselves as best
they might.

In Everett the deputies left the dock when the Verona had steamed out of
the range of their rifle fire, taking with them the corpse of gunman C.
O. Curtis, office manager of the Canyon Lumber Company, and
deputy-sheriff Jefferson Beard, whose wounds caused his death the
following morning. The injured deputies were H. B. Blackburn, James A.
Broadbent, R. E. Brown, E. P. Buehrer, Owen Clay, Louis Connor, Jr.,
Fred Durr, A. J. Ettenborough, Athol Gorrell, Thomas Hedley, Joe Irving,
James Meagher; Donald McRae, J. C. Rymer, Edwin Stuchell, and Charles
Tucker. Hooted, hissed, and jeered at by the thousands of citizens on
the viaduct and hill above the dock, these self-immolated prostitutes to
the god of greater profits were taken to the hospitals for treatment.

Among the crowd of citizens was Mrs. Edith Frennette, who had been in
Everett a couple of days in connection with a lumber trust charge
against her, and with her were Mrs. Lorna Mahler and Mrs. Joyce Peters,
who had come from Seattle to attend the proposed street meeting. Making
the claim that Mrs. Frenette had threatened the life of Sheriff McRae
with a gun and had tried to throw red pepper into his eyes as he was
being transported from the dock, the Everett authorities caused the
arrest of the three women in Seattle as they were returning in an auto
to meet the Verona at the Seattle dock. They were held several days
before being released, no charges having been placed against Mrs. Mahler
or Mrs. Peters, and the case against Mrs. Frenette was eventually
dismissed, just as had been all previous charges made by McRae. These
three arrests brought the total number of free speech prisoners up to
two hundred and ninety-four.

What were the feelings of the Everett public directly following the
massacre can best be judged from the report of an Everett correspondent
to the Seattle Union Record, the official A. F. of L. organ.

"Your correspondent was on the street at the time of the battle and at
the dock ten minutes afterward. He mingled with the street crowds for
hours afterwards. The temper of the people is dangerous. Nothing but
curses and execrations for the Commercial Club was heard. Men and women
who are ordinarily law abiding, who in normal times mind their own
business pretty well, pay their taxes, send their children to church and
school, pay their bills, in every way comport themselves as normal
citizens, were heard using the most vitriolic language concerning the
Commercial Club, loudly sympathizing with the I. W. W.'s. And therein
lies the great harm that was done, more menacing to the city than the
presence of any number of I. W. W.'s, viz., the transformation of
decent, honest citizens into beings mad for vengeance and praying for
something dire to happen. I heard gray-haired women, mothers and wives,
gentle, kindly, I know, in their home circles, openly hoping that the I.
W. W.'s would come back and 'clean up.'"

Corroborating this is the report of President E. P. Marsh to the State
Federation of Labor.

"A dangerous situation existed in Everett after the battle of November
5. Public feeling ran high and anything might have happened. Half a
thousand citizens were under arms enraged at the Industrial Workers of
the World and deadly determined to stamp out their organization in
Everett. It is no exaggeration to say that literally thousands of the
working people of Everett were just as enraged toward the members of the
Commercial Club who participated in the gun battle. * * * As an instance
of how high the feeling ran let me tell you that on the following
morning the mayor of the city appeared on the (shingle weavers') picket
line with a high power rifle and told the union pickets that he had
every reason to believe that an attempt might be made by snipers to pick
them off. He asked them to scatter as much as possible, make no
demonstration whatever, and declared he would defend them with his life
if necessary."

Mayor Merrill, equally guilty with the deputies who were on the dock,
taking advantage of a means of spreading information that was denied to
the workers, directly after the massacre spoke from a soap box on the
corner of Wetmore and California Avenues, telling all who would listen
that he was not responsible for the trouble as the Commercial Club had
taken the power away from him and put it in the hands of McRae. The
insincerity of this vacillating lackey of the lumber trust was
demonstrated by his brutal treatment of young Louis Skaroff, who with
Chester Micklin and Osmond Jacobs, had been arrested and thrown into
jail when the three, bravely taking their lives in their hands,
attempted to speak on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore two hours after
the tragedy. It was on Monday night about ten o'clock that the night
jailer took Skaroff into a room where Mayor Merrill and a man posing as
an immigration officer were seated. The fake immigration officer tried
to frighten the prisoner with threats of deportation, after which the
jailer beat Skaroff across the head. Merrill arose and took a hand in
the proceedings, buffeting the boy back and forth until he fell to the
floor. Then, with the aid of the jailer, Skaroff's fingers were placed,
one by one, beneath the legs of an iron bed in the room while the
ponderous mayor jumped up and down on the bed, mashing and tearing
flesh and knuckles. Upon regaining consciousness the mutilated boy found
himself in the jail corridor, crushed beneath Merrill's massive form,
the mayor having grasped Skaroff by the hair in order to repeatedly
hammer the lad's head against the hard cement floor. Finding that
Skaroff's spirit could not be broken the cowards finally desisted.
Skaroff was released at the end of eleven days.

Chaos reigned in Everett following the tragedy. That night over five
hundred deputies patrolled the streets, fearing just retribution for
their criminal misdeeds. Those who had been on the dock as parties to
the massacre were overheard saying to each other, "We must stick
together on this story about the first shot coming from the boat."
Certain officials called for the state militia which was mobilized in
Seattle but not used. One militiaman, a young lad named Ted Kennedy,
refused to serve, claiming that it was the same as strike duty. The fact
that the militia was mobilized at once, and that Governor Ernest Lister
went to Everett to confer with officials and mill owners there, when he
had refused to furnish protection or even to make an investigation at
the request of the I. W. W. a short time before showed the governor's
bias in favor of the employers. In this lumber district the militia was
apparently the property of the mill owners.

A hastily gathered coroner's jury in Everett on November 6th brought in
a verdict that C. O. Curtis and Jefferson F. Beard met death from
"gunshot wounds inflicted by a riotous mob on the Steamer Verona at the
city dock." If any of the jury dissented from its false statement they
were too spineless to express their opinion. The deliberations were
under the direction of Coroner A. R. Maulsby and the members of the jury
were Adam Hill, C. E. Anthony, O. H. King, Chris Culmback, C. Sandstein,
and Charles F. Manning.

The inquest was a farce. Those who were outside the "deadline" and who
were willing to swear that the first shots came from the dock were not
permitted to testify, only sympathizers with the Commercial Club being
called as witnesses. No real attempt to take testimony was made. The
Seattle Central Labor Council on November 8th appropriated $100 for a
more complete investigation after branding the Everett inquest as
fraudulent in the following resolution:


     "Whereas, It appears to this council that, following a lockout and
     open-shop campaign by Roland H. Hartley and others of Everett,
     Wash., the police and business men of that city have attempted to
     ruthlessly and lawlessly suppress all street speaking and
     demonstrations by labor organizations, and that unarmed men have
     been brutally beaten and terrorized, and

     Whereas, This policy culminated in a bloody battle on Sunday,
     November 5, resulting in the death of seven or more men and the
     wounding of many more, and

     Whereas, A fair inquest should be held to fix responsibility for
     this crime, and it appears that this has not been done, but that
     only witnesses favorable to the bosses have been heard;

     Therefore, we demand another inquest, free from control by the
     forces opposed to labor, and a change of venue, if that be
     necessary."


Capitalism stood forth in all its hideous nakedness on that day of red
madness, and public opinion was such that the striking shingle weavers
had but to persistently press their point in order to win. A conference
of prominent men, held in Everett on Monday, decided that the situation
could be relieved only by a settlement of the strike. The mill men, when
called in, abruptly refused to grant a single demand so long as the men
were still out, an attitude they could not have maintained for long.
Listening to the false advice of "friends of labor" and "labor leaders"
the shingle weavers, albeit grudgingly, returned to their slavery,
unconditional surrender being the price they were forced to pay for the
doubtful privilege of "relieving the social tension." But with the pay
envelopes that could not be stretched to cover the increased cost of
living, the weavers, discouraged to an extent and lacking their former
solidarity, were forced to down tools again within a few weeks by the
greatest of all strike agitators--Hunger.

[Illustration: MAYOR GILL SAYS I. W. W. DID NOT START RIOT

Seattle Executive Places Blame for Sunday Tragedy on Citizens of
Everett--Gives Prisoners Tobacco.

Providing the I. W. W.'s. whose attempted armed invasion of Everett last
Sunday resulted in seven deaths and injuries to forty-nine persons, with
every comfort possible. Mayor H. C. Gill yesterday afternoon personally
directed the carrying of 300 warm blankets and an assortment of tobacco
to the 250 prisoners now held in the city jail.

In this manner Gilt replied to criticism in Seattle and Everett for not
having stopped the I. W. W's from going to the Snohomish County city. He
supplemented this today by assailing Sheriff Donald McRae, of Snohomish
County and the posse of special deputies who met the invading I. W. W.'s
at the boat.

"In the final analysis," the mayor declared, "it will be found these
cowards in Everett who, without right or justification, shot into the
crowd on the boat were the murderers and not the I. W. W.'s.

Calls Them Cowards.

"The men who met the I. W. W.'s at the boat were a bunch of cowards.
They outnumbered the I. W. W.'s five to one, and in spite of this they
stood there on the dock and fired into the boat, I. W. W.'s, innocent
passengers and all.]

[Illustration: "McRae and his deputies had no legal right to tell the I.
W. W.'s or anyone else that they could not land there. When the sheriff
put his hand on the butt of his gun and told them they could not land,
he fired the first shot, in the eyes of the law, and the I. W. W.'s can
claim that they shot in self-defense."

Mayor Gill asserted the Everett authorities have no intention of
removing the I. W. W.'s now in jail here to Snohomish County.

"They are afraid to come down here and get them," he declared, "because
Everett is in a state of anarchy and the authorities don't know where
they're at."

Asked what he would have done at Everett Sunday when the I. W. W.'s
appeared at that city, the mayor said he would have permitted them to
land.

"After they had been allowed to come ashore," he said, "I would have had
them watched. Then if they violated the law I would have had them thrown
in jail. There would have been no trouble that way."

No Fight in Seattle.

"Because Everett has been reduced to a state of anarchy by their
high-handed methods of dealing with this situation it is no reason they
are going to attempt to bring their fight down in Seattle, at least
while I am mayor.

"If I were one of the party of forty I. W. W.'s who was almost beaten to
death by 300 citizens of Everett without being able to defend myself, I
probably would have armed myself if I intended to visit Everett again.

"If the Everett authorities had an ounce of sense, this tragedy would
have never happened. They have handled the situation like a bunch of
imbeciles, and they have been trying to unload these men onto Seattle.
You don't see any disturbances here, because we don't use nickel
methods."

The mayor charged that Everett officials were inconsistent in their
handling of this situation. He said that they permit candidates for
office to violate the city ordinances by speaking on the streets and yet
run the I. W. W.'s out of town if they endeavor to mount a soap box.]

The prisoners in Seattle were held incommunicado for several days. They
were fed upon the poorest grade of prison fare, and were made to sleep
on the winter-chilled cement floors without blankets. But Mayor Hiram
Gill, realizing that public sentiment was with the imprisoned men,
ordered that they be placed upon a proper diet, be given blankets and
be allowed to see relatives and friends. On November 8th in the Seattle
Times there appeared a statement by Gill that played a very important
part in riveting the attention of the people upon the real criminals in
the case. As the Times is a notoriously conservative and labor-hating
sheet, being largely responsible for the raid on the I. W. W. and
Socialist Halls on July 19, 1913, and for the attack by drunken sailors
and soldiers on the I. W. W. hall on June 16, 1917, it can hardly be
accused of exaggeration in favor of the workers in this interview.

Following the publication of this interview the Seattle Chamber of
Commerce, Seattle's "Commercial Club," endeavored to father a movement
looking to the recall of Gill from office. Back of this attempt were
Judge Thomas Burke, Louis Lang, Jay Thomas, and four stall-fed
ministers, the Reverends W. A. Major, E. V. Shailer, Wood Stewart and
Carter Helm Jones. Of these, Thomas represented the liquor interests,
Lang was the former police chief who had been discharged in disgrace and
was herding scabs on the waterfront, Burke was chief spokesman for the
low-wage open-shop interests, and as to the preachers--the less said the
better. The lumber and shipping trusts had adequate representation at
the "Law and Order" meeting as the attempted recall gathering was
styled. But the whole thing fell flat when Gill himself offered to sign
the recall for the opportunity it would give him to tell the real facts
about the Everett case and the interests lined up behind the prosecution
and the recall.

On the night of the tragedy a report was circulated in Seattle to the
effect that every known I. W. W. would be arrested on sight. The answer
to this was a street meeting at which nearly ninety dollars were
collected as the first money toward the Everett Prisoners' Defense, and
the packing of the hall for weeks thereafter by members and sympathizers
who had not attended meetings for a long time. A temporary committee was
chosen to handle the work of the defense of the imprisoned men, and this
committee acted until November 16th, at which time at a mass meeting of
I. W. W. members Herbert Mahler was elected secretary of the Everett
Prisoners' Defense Committee, Charles Ashleigh, publicity agent, and W.
J. Houser, Morris Levine and Thomas Murphy as the committee. Richard
Smith was afterward chosen to take the place vacated by Levine. This
committee functioned thruout the case and up until the final audit of
their account on June 12, 1917.

Within the jail a process of selection had gone on. One by one the free
speech prisoners were taken from their cells and slowly led past a
silent and darkened cell into whose gloomy depths the keenest eye was
unable to penetrate. Again and again they were marched past the
peephole, first with hats on and then with them off, while two sinister
looking fingers were slid out of a narrow opening from time to time to
indicate those who should be held.

"I'd give two of my fingers," muttered one of the prisoners bitterly,
"to know the skunk that belongs to those two fingers."

Little did he and his fellow workers realize that they were to learn
later, thru the development of the trial, that the principal person
engaged in the despicable work was George Reese, a member of the I. W.
W. and of the I. L. A. It was on learning this that many of the actions
of Reese were made clear; his connection with dock riots during the
longshoremen's strike, his establishment of a "flying squadron" to beat
up scabs on the waterfront, his open boast on the floor of I. L. A.
meetings that his pockets were lined with money gained by robbing the
strike-breakers after they had been beaten up and his advice to other
strikers to do likewise, his activities just prior to the various dock
fires, his seemingly miraculous escape in every instance when strikers
were arrested, his election as delegate from the longshoremen to the
Seattle Central Labor Council, his requests of prominent I. W. W.
members that they purchase various chemicals for him, his giving of
phosphorus to members of the I. L. A. and the I. W. W. with instructions
as to how and where to use it, his attempts to advocate violence at an
Everett street meeting, his gathering of "souvenirs" on the Verona--all
actions designed either to aid the employers in their fights against the
workers or to furnish an excuse for his further employment as an
"informer."

Well may the question be asked--What was Reese doing just as the Verona
docked in Everett on November 5th? Was Reese merely a "stool pigeon" or
was he an "agent provocateur?"

Aiding Reese in the selective process was Charles Smith, the other
Pinkerton operative who had been on the boat. One of the men first
picked out was I. P. McDowell, alias Charles Adams, and this individual
was weak enough to fall for the promise of immunity offered by agents of
the lumber trust if he would point out the "leaders" and then take the
stand to swear that the men on the boat were armed and the first shot
came from one of them. McDowell pointed out some of the men, but lacking
the nerve to carry out the last part of the program he was held with the
rest for trial. The seventy-four men thus picked were formally charged
with murder in the first degree. The first charge carried the names of
C. O. Curtis as well as that of Jefferson Beard, but later the name of
Curtis was dropped from the information. The men so charged were:

Charles Auspos, alias Austin, age 38, teamster, born in Wisconsin.

James D. Bates, age 29, steam fitter, born in Illinois.

E. M. Beck, age 45, laborer, born in New York.

Charles Berg, age 22, laborer, born in Germany.

J. H. Beyer, age 56, painter, born in Michigan.

J. F. Billings, age 35, cook, born in Nebraska.

Charles Black, age 23, laborer, born in Pennsylvania.

J. J. Black, age 27, longshoreman, born in Massachusetts.

John W. Bowdoin, age 35, laborer, born in Sweden.

Frank Boyd, age 43, laborer, born in Illinois.

Pete Breed, age 26, laborer, born in Holland.

W. H. Brown, age 40, laborer, born in Maryland.

H. T. Cheetman, age 25, carpenter, born in Florida.

Fred Crysler, age 26, laborer, born in Canada.

Charles H. Cody, age 46, painter, born in Montana.

William Coffin, age 34, motorman, born in California.

Clarence Cyphert, age 35, logger, born in Washington.

Roy Davis, age 47, laborer, born in California.

William Davis, age 35, cook, born in Maryland.

Axel Downey, age 17, laborer, born in Iowa.

John Downs, age 28, sailor, born in Colorado.

Adolph Ersson, age 26, laborer and sailor, born in Sweden.

Harry Feinberg, age 25, cleaner and dyer, born in Illinois.

Charles Hawkins, age 28, laborer, born in Indiana.

Charles Haywood, age 46, miner, born in Minnesota.

E. F. Hollingsworth, age 29, fireman, born in North Carolina.

J. E. Houlihan, age 36, miner, born in Ireland.

Alfred Howard, age 28, coal packer, born in New York.

Harvey Hubler, age 21, teamster, born in Illinois.

Oscar Johnson, age 24, laborer, born in Sweden.

Victor Johnson, age 37, laborer, born in Finland.

J. A. Kelly, age 31, logger, born in Ohio.

Theodore Lauer, age 29, laborer, born in New York.

William Lawson, age 32, laborer, born in Washington.

Jack Leonard, age 27, laborer, born in Kentucky.

Pat Lyons, age 48, laborer, born in England.

Jim Mack, age 31, laborer, born in Ireland.

Joseph Manning, age 28, automobile repairer, born in Pennsylvania.

Laurence Manning, age 26, laborer, born in New York.

Ed Miller, age 48, painter, born in New York.

Harold Miller, age 21, gas fitter, born in Kansas.

John Mitchell, age 38, miner, born in Illinois.

George Murphy, age 28, laborer, born in Kentucky.

Louis McCall, age 24, laborer, born in Texas.

I. P. McDowell, alias Charles Adams, age 28, printer, born in Illinois.

C. D. McLennan, age 48, longshoreman, born in Georgia.

Carl Newman, age 30, laborer, born in Sweden.

John Nugent, age 38, laborer, born in New York.

Malachi O'Neill, age 34, blacksmith, born in Ireland.

Earl Osborne, age 33, logger, born in North Carolina.

Jack Paterson, age 24, laborer, born in Illinois.

Harston Peters, age 32, laborer, born in Virginia.

James Powers, age 47, sheet metal worker, born in Massachusetts.

John Rawlings, age 26, laborer, born in Wisconsin.

Michael J. Reilly, age 23, laborer, born in New York.

John Ross, age 36, laborer, born in Massachusetts.

Ed. Roth, age 31, longshoreman, born in New York.

Thomas Savage, age 50, machinist, born in New York.

E. J. Shapeero, age 23, timekeeper, born in Pennsylvania.

William Shay, age 28, laborer, born in Massachusetts.

H. Shebeck, age 24, laborer, born in Wisconsin.

Albert Shreve, age 40, laborer, born in Illinois.

H. Sokol, age 26, laborer, born in Russia.

D. Stevens, age, 21, longshoreman, born in Canada

Robert Struick, age 24, farmer, born in Michigan.

Frank Stewart, age 35, logger, born in Canada.

Tom Tracy, age 30, crane driver, born in Pennsylvania.

Thomas H. Tracy, age 36, teamster, born in Nebraska.

Edwart Truitt, age 28, longshoreman, born in Pennsylvania.

F. O. Watson, age 35, blacksmith, born in Louisiana.

James Whiteford (Kelly), age 36, cook, born in New York.

Abraham B. Wimborne, age 22, buss-boy, born in England.

William Winn, age 44, miner, born in Maryland.

All of these men, with the exception of J. H. Beyer, were heavily
handcuffed and secretly transferred to Everett, forty-one being taken in
the first contingent and the balance later.

Meanwhile the I. W. W. branches in Seattle had communicated with the
General Headquarters of the organization and steps had been taken to
secure legal aid. Attempts to enlist the services of Frank P. Walsh,
former chairman of the Industrial Relations Commission, were
unsuccessful. For various reasons other well known attorneys refused to
ally themselves with the defense.

Attorney Fred H. Moore of Los Angeles, responding to the call from
Seattle, reached Seattle just one week after the tragedy, on Sunday,
November, 12th. Moore acted as chief counsel for the defense. He had
first come into prominence thru his connection with the great free
speech fight waged in Spokane, Wash., during the fall of 1909 and the
spring of 1910. During that fight he handled the legal end of the cases
of many hundreds of free speech fighters whose arrests ran into the
thousands. He was also connected with various other cases in connection
with the Industrial Workers of the World, notably that of Jack Whyte and
others arrested in the contest for free speech in San Diego, Cal. and
the famous Ettor-Giovannitti case that developed from the great strike
of textile workers in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912. His sympathy with the
workers and his understanding of the class struggle made him invaluable
to the defense.

Of equal importance was attorney George F. Vanderveer, who was called
into the case a little later than Moore. Vanderveer was formerly the
prosecuting attorney for King county, in which position he won a
reputation for clever and merciless cross-examination. One of Seattle's
most prominent and brilliant lawyers, his wide acquaintance with all
classes of people and his comprehensive knowledge of conditions in King
and Snohomish counties, coupled with his keen satire and compelling
logic, gave a force to the case that cannot be underestimated.

Attorney E. C. Dailey of Everett, Caroline A. Lowe of Kansas City, Mo.,
and Harry Sigmond and J. L. Finch, both of Seattle, completed the list
of counsel for the defense.

After being held in the Seattle city jail for nine days without any
charge having been placed against them, one hundred twenty-eight men who
were on the Verona were released, small bodies of them being sent out at
different periods in order to avoid demonstrations from the public.
Those who were released were:

James Agen, Frank Andrews, Brockman Armstrong, W. D. Beachy, J. H.
Beyer, John Bolan, J. Bonfield, Elmer Brisbon, Leonard Broman, George
Brown, James Burns, Martin Cable, Val Calze, A. L. Cameron, James
Carlough, J. H. Carr, Ray Clark, Joseph Cline, Archie Collins, Robert
Conning, Nick Conaieff, Joseph Costello, R. F. Dalton, Frank Dante, C.
W. Davis, Lawrence Davis, Albert Doninger, John Donohue, William Dott,
Joseph Dougherty, Ned Dustard, J. H. Elliott, C. C. England, John
Fitzpatrick, A. Fletcher, Russell Free, Alfred Freeman, Ben Freeman,
James Freeman, John Gibson, Frank Gillarkey, P. A. Gragler, Charles
Gray, James Gray, Paul Grossman, Ed Gruberg, Raymond Gurber, Robert
Hansen, Joe Harris, L. W. Harris, Arnold Hensel, Roy Howell, G. H.
Isenberg, Carl Jacobson, George Johnson, Ray Johnson, John Karne, Henry
Krieg, Fred Laveny, Henry Lea, Raymond Lee, William Ledingham, Charles
Leider, Ira Luft, Ed Lynn, George Maguire, William Micklenburg, August
Miller, Dennis Miller, Frank C. Miller, John Miller, Frank Millet, Roy
Mitchell, William Montgomery, William Moore, James Murray, Leo McCabe,
J. McCoy, Bernard Narvis, Al. Nickerson, Ben Noll, Tom Norton, Tom
O'Connor, Jack Osborne, E. Peckman, Hans Peterson, A. Pilon, Ira Porter,
Max Ramsey, Edward Rays, Herman Rechlenberg, Frank Reiner, Ernest Rich,
John J. Riley, C. H. Ross, M. Rountell, Steve Sabo, J. L. Samuel, Joe
Sarracco, Ed Schwartz, Carl Schultz, H. Stredwick, Arthur Shumek,
Charles Smith, Harry Smith, E. J. Smith, Cecil Snedegar, Frank Sofer,
Stanley Stafl, Raymond St. Clair, John Stroka, Mike Stysco, C. Thomas,
Richard Tibbs, John Utne, Joseph Vito, John Walker, Benny Warshawsky, F.
Westwood, Ben Whitehead, Arley Whiteside, William Wilke, H. Wilson,
Frank Wise, and Charles Wolskie.

Most of these were mere boys. Mere boys--but undaunted by their recent
terrible experience on the Verona where the open shop fiends had fired
upon them without warning. Mere boys--and yet they loyally marched
straight to the I. W. W. hall as soon as they were released, there to
inquire about the condition of their wounded fellow workers and to gain
news of those who had been taken to Everett to answer charges of first
degree murder. Mere boys--youthful enthusiasm shining on their beardless
faces. Scattered among them were a few men of middle years, and here and
there a grey head stood out in bold relief--but the majority of them
were mere boys, youthful soldiers in the Social Revolution, fine and
clean and loyal material called together by the compelling ideal of a
New Society.

The predominance of young blood in the organization was noted in the
report of the 1912 convention, where it was shown that ninety per cent
of the membership were under thirty years of age, due of course to the
fact that the modern tendency is to displace the older men in industry.
As one wit has put it "If a man works as hard as the employers want him
to he is worn out at forty-five; if he isn't worn out at forty-five he
is not the kind of worker the employers want." Others have noted the
percentage of the very young. John Graham Brooks, for instance, in
"American Syndicalism--The I. W. W." has this to say:

"Of the same nature as a characteristic is the +youth+ of the membership.
The groups I saw in the West bore this stamp so unmistakably as to
suggest bodies of students at the end of a rather jolly picnic. The
word 'bum' usually applied to them in that region does not fit them.
There are plenty of older men, as there are men with every appearance of
being 'down and out'--with trousers chewed off at the heels, after the
manner of tramps, but in face and bearing they are far from 'bums.' In
one of the speeches the young were addressed as 'best material;' because
they could stand the wear and tear of racking journeys. They were free
from family responsibilities, and could at any moment respond to the
call of duty."

Bearing out this idea, tho along a somewhat different line, is an
excerpt from an article by Anna Louise Strong which appeared in the
Survey magazine just prior to the trial. This and other articles,
together with the personal efforts of Miss Strong, whose official
standing as a member of the Seattle School Board and as Executive
Secretary of the Seattle Council of Social Agencies gave weight to her
opinion, did much toward creating a favorable public sentiment during
the trial. Says Miss Strong:

"The boys in jail are a cheerful lot. The 'tanks' which contain them are
the tanks of the usual county jail, much overcrowded now by the unusual
number. Bunks crowded above each other, in full sight thru the bars; a
few feet away, all the processes of life open to the casual beholder.
But they sit in groups playing cards or dominoes; they listen to tunes
played on the mouth-organ; most of all they sing. They sing whenever
visitors come, and smile thru the bars in cheerful welcome. Theirs is
the spirit of the crusader of all ages, and all causes, won or lost,
sane or insane. Theirs is the irresponsibility and audacious valor of
youth. When they disliked their food, says a conservative newspaper,
they went on strike and 'sang all night.' Sang all night! What sane
adults in our drab, business-as-usual world would think of doing that?
Who, in fact, could think of doing it but college boys or Industrial
Workers of the World, cheerfully defying authority?"

Thru an absurd and laughable error J. H. Beyer, one of the seventy-four
men charged with first degree murder, was among those who were released.
Beyer immediately sought out and told attorney Moore his story. Then
this "hardened criminal" walked the street of Seattle after public
announcement had been made that he was willing to be taken to Everett to
be incarcerated with the rest of his fellow workers, and that he awaited
rearrest. The prosecution made no move to apprehend him, so on December
14th Beyer went to Everett and asked the authorities to lock him up. The
Snohomish officials shamefacedly granted this unique request but they
absolutely refused to refund the money Beyer had paid to deliver himself
up to "Justice."

Before leaving Seattle Beyer made this statement: "I have waited here
nearly a month since my release from the Seattle jail, yet no officer
from Everett has come for me. In justice to the other boys accused I
feel that I should share their lot as well as the accusation. I do not
fear returning to Everett and giving myself up for I am confident that
we shall be all exculpated. I am fifty-three years of age and have had
many and varied experiences in my career, but I never expected to be
accused of crime because I endeavored to assert my constitutional right
of Free Speech."

The same day that Beyer surrendered himself, bonds of $50 each were
secured for thirty-eight men who had been selected from the Verona and
Calista and held on charges of unlawful assembly. Bail was given by
James Duncan, Secretary of the Central Labor Council, and E. B. Ault,
editor of the Union Record, both of Seattle. The released men were Dewey
Ashmore, E. Belmat, C. Burke, L. E. Butcher, James Callahan, Harry
Chase, Charles Day, A. J. Deach, Charles Ellis, J. Ford, Owen Genty, Hy
Gluckstad, Frank Goff, James C. Hadley, Steve Heletour, A. O. Hooper, C.
C. Hulbert, H. P. Hunsberger, C. L. Johnson, R. W. Jones, Joe Kelley, F.
Lansing, W. O. Lily, E. McBride, William McGregor, R. Nicholson, David
O'Hern, Harry Parker, J. Ryan, Sam Scott, Mark Skomo, Thomas Smye, and
F. Thorpe.

Altho an inquest had been held over the dead gunmen at such an early
date after the tragedy and with such haste as to seem suspicious,
repeated demands for an inquest over Labor's dead were of no avail. No
such inquest was ever held. Only by strong protest were the bodies kept
from the potter's field.

Thirty-eight charged with unlawful assembly, seventy-four in jail
accused of first degree murder, thirty-two severely wounded and at least
two of these crippled for life, six unaccounted for and probably shot
and drowned, and five known dead in the city morgue,--this was the
answer of the tyrannical timber barons to Labor's demand for free speech
and the right to organize within the confines of the Lumber Kingdom.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] Courtenay Lemon, "Free Speech in the United States." Pearson's
Magazine, December 1916.




CHAPTER V.

BEHIND PRISON BARS


"One of the greatest sources of social unrest and bitterness has been
the attitude of the police toward public speaking. On numerous occasions
in every part of the country the police of cities and towns have, either
arbitrarily or under the cloak of a traffic ordinance, interfered with
or prohibited public speaking, both in the open and in halls, by persons
connected with organizations of which the police or those from whom they
receive their orders did not approve. In many instances such
interference has been carried out with a degree of brutality which would
be incredible if it were not vouched for by reliable witnesses. Bloody
riots frequently have accompanied such interference, and large numbers
of persons have been arrested for acts of which they were innocent or
which were committed under the extreme provocation of brutal treatment
by police or private citizens.

"In some cases this suppression of free speech seems to have been the
result of sheer brutality and wanton mischief, but in the majority of
cases it undoubtedly is the result of a belief by the police or their
superiors that they were 'supporting and defending the Government' by
such invasion of personal rights. There could be no greater error. Such
action strikes at the very foundation of government. It is axiomatic
that a government which can be maintained only by the suppression of
criticism should not be maintained. Furthermore, it is the lesson of
history that attempts to suppress ideas result only in their more rapid
propagation."

The foregoing is the view of the Industrial Relations Commission as it
appears on page 98 and 99 of Volume One of their official report to the
United States Government.

[Illustration: Jail at EVERETT]

The growth of a public sentiment favorable to the Industrial Workers of
the World was clearly shown on November 18th, at which time the bodies
of Felix Baran, Hugo Gerlot and John Looney were turned over to the
organization for burial. Gustav Johnson had already been claimed by
relatives and a private funeral held, and the body of Abraham Rabinowitz
sent to New York at the request of his sister.

Thousands of workers, each wearing a red rose or carnation, formed in
line at the undertaking parlors and then silently marched four abreast
behind the three hearses and the automobiles containing the eighteen
women pall bearers and the floral tributes to the martyred dead.

To the strains of the "Red Flag" and the "Marseillaise" the grim and
imposing cortege wended its way thru the crowded city streets, meeting
with expressions of sorrow and sympathy from those who lined the
sidewalk. Delegations of workers from Everett, Tacoma, and other
Washington cities and towns were in line, and a committee from Portland,
Ore., brought appropriate floral offerings. The solidarity of labor was
shown in this great funeral procession, by all odds the largest ever
held in the Northwest.

Arriving at the graveside in Mount Pleasant cemetery the rebel women
reverently bore the coffins from the hearses to the supporting frame,
surrounded by boughs of fragrant pine, above the yawning pit. A special
chorus of one hundred voices led the singing of "Workers of the World,
Awaken," and as the song died away Charles Ashleigh began the funeral
oration.

Standing on the great hill that overlooks the whole city of Seattle, the
speaker pointed out the various industries with their toiling thousands
and referred to the smoke that shadowed large portions of the view as
the black fog of oppression and ignorance which it was the duty of the
workers to dispel in order to create the Workers' Commonwealth. The
entire address was marked by a simple note of resolution to continue
the work of education until the workers have come into their own, not a
trace of bitterness evincing itself in the remarks. Ashleigh called upon
those present never to falter until the enemy had been vanquished.
"Today," he said, "we pay tribute to the dead. Tomorrow we turn, with
spirit unquellable, to give battle to the foe!"

As the notes of "Hold the Fort!" broke a moment of dead silence, a
shower of crimson flowers, torn from the coats of the assembled
mourners, covered the coffins and there was a tear in every eye as the
bodies slowly descended into their final resting place. As tho loath to
leave, the crowd lingered to sing the "Red Flag" and "Solidarity
Forever." Those present during the simple but stirring service were
struck with the thought that the class struggle could never again be
looked upon as a mere bookish theory, the example of those who gave
their lives in the cause of freedom was too compelling a call to action.

But the imperious exactions of the class war left no time for mourning,
and ere the last man had left the graveside the first to go was busily
spreading the news of an immense mass meeting to be held in Dreamland
Rink on the next afternoon. At this meeting five thousand persons from
all walks of life gathered to voice their protest against the Everett
outrage and to demand a federal investigation. The labor unions, the
clergy, public officials and the general citizenry, were represented by
the speakers. This was the first of many mass meetings held by the
aroused and indignant people of Seattle until the termination of the
case.

[Illustration: Funeral of GERLOT, LOONEY and BARAN]

The "kept" press carried on a very bitter campaign against the I. W. W.
for some few days after the dock tragedy, but dropped that line of
action when the public let them understand that they were striking a
wrong note. Thereafter their policy was to ignore, as far as possible,
the entire affair. Practically the only time this rule was broken was in
the printing of the song "Christians At War" by John F. Kendrick, taken
from the I. W. W. song book. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer gave a
photographic reproduction of the cover page of the book and of the page
containing the song. The obvious intent was to have people think that
this cutting satire was an urge for the members of the I. W. W. to do in
times of peace those inglorious things that are eminently respectable in
times of war. Later the Times, and several other papers, reproduced the
same cover and song, the only change being that certain words were inked
out to make it appear that the song was obscene. And tho the P.--I. had
published the song in full the Times placed beneath their garbled
version these words, "The portions blotted out are words and phrases
such as never appear in The Times or in any other decent newspaper." The
simultaneous appearance of this song in a number of papers was merely a
coincidence, no doubt; there is no reason to believe that the lumber
trust inspired the attack!

Allied as usual with the capitalist press and "stool pigeons" and
employers' associations in a campaign to discredit the workers involved
in the case, was the moribund Socialist Labor Party thru its organ, the
Weekly People.

The entire I. W. W. press came to the support of the imprisoned men as a
matter of course. The Seattle Union Record and many other craft union
papers, realizing that an open shop fight lay back of the suppression of
free speech, also did great publicity work. But no particular credit is
due to those "labor leaders" who, like J. G. Brown, president of the
Shingle Weavers' Union, grudgingly gave a modicum of assistance under
pressure from radicals in their respective organizations.

The Northwest Worker of Everett deserves especial praise for its
fearless and uncompromising stand in the face of the bitterest of
opposition. This paper had practically to suspend publication because of
pressure the lumber trust brought to bear on the firm doing their
printing. This, with the action recorded in the minutes of the
Commercial Club, "decided to go after advertisements in labor journals
and the Northwest Worker," shows that a free press is as obnoxious to
the lumber lords as are free speech and free assembly.

It scarcely needs noting that the International Socialist Review
rendered yeoman service, as that has been its record in all labor cases
since the inception of the magazine. Several other Socialist
publications, to whom the class struggle does not appear merely as a
momentary quadrennial event, also did their bit. Diverse foreign
language publications, representing varying shades of radical thought,
gave to the trial all the publicity their columns could carry.

Just why seventy-four men were picked as prisoners is a matter of
conjecture. Probably it was because the stuffy little Snohomish county
jail could conveniently, to the authorities, hold just about that
number. The men were placed four in a cell with ten cells to each tank,
there being two tanks of steel resting one above the other. Even with
all the windows thrown open the ventilation was so poor that the men
were made ill by the foul air.

For almost two full months after being transported to Everett the men
were held incommunicado; were not allowed to see papers or magazines or
to have reading matter of any description; were subjected to the
brutalities of Sheriff McRae and other jail officials who had been
prominent in previous outrage and participants in the massacre at the
dock; and were fed on the vilest prison fare. Mush was the principal
article of diet; mush semi-cooked and cold; mush full of mold and
maggots; mush that was mainly husks and lumps that could not be washed
down with the pale blue prison milk; mush--until the prisoners fitfully
dreamed of mush and gagged at the mere mention of the word. Finding
themselves slowly starving the men decided that it were better to
complete the job at once rather than to linger in misery. A hunger
strike was declared! Meal after meal--or mush after mush--passed and
the men refused to eat. Those who were thought to be leaders in the
miniature revolt were thrown in the blackhole where there was neither
light nor fresh air. Still the men refused to eat, so the authorities
were forced to surrender and the men had something to eat besides mush.

Great discomfort was experienced by the prisoners from having to sleep
on the cold steel floors of the unheated cells during the chill November
nights. Deciding to remedy the condition they made a demand for
mattresses and blankets from the authorities, not a man of them being
willing to have the Defense Committee purchase such supplies. The needed
articles were refused and the men resorted to a means of enforcing their
demands known as "building a battleship."

With buckets and tins, and such strips of metal as could be wrenched
loose, the men beat upon the walls, ceilings, and floors of the steel
tanks. Those who found no other method either stamped on the steel
floors in unison with their fellows, or else removed their shoes to use
the heels to beat out a tattoo. To add to the unearthly noise they
yelled concertedly with the full power of their lungs. Three score and
ten men have a noise-making power that words cannot describe. The
townspeople turned out in numbers, thinking that the deputies were
murdering the men within the jail. The battleship construction workers
redoubled their efforts. Acknowledging defeat, the jail officials
furnished the blankets and mattresses that had been demanded.

A few days later the men started their morning meal only to find that
the mush was strongly "doped" with saltpeter and contained bits of human
manure and other refuse--the spite work, no doubt, of the enraged
deputies. Another battleship was started. This time the jailers closed
all the windows in an effort to suffocate the men, but they broke the
glass with mop-handles and continued the din. As before, the deputies
were defeated and the men received better food for a time.

On November 24th an official of the State Board of Prisoners took the
finger prints and photographs of the seventy-four men who were innocent
until proven guilty under the "theory" of law in this country, and,
marking these Bertillion records with prison serial numbers, sent copies
to every prison in the United States. In taking the prints of the first
few men brute force was used. Lured from their cells the men were
seized, their hands screwed in a vise, and an imprint taken by forcibly
covering their hands with lampblack and holding them down on the paper.
When the others learned that some had thus been selected they voted that
all should submit to having their prints taken so the whole body of
prisoners would stand on the same footing. Attorney Moore was denied all
access to the prisoners during the consummation of this outrage.

After obtaining permission of the jail officials a committee of Everett
citizens, with the voluntary assistance of the Cooks' and Waiters'
Union, prepared a feast for the free speech prisoners on Thanksgiving
Day. When the women arrived at the jail they were met by Sheriff McRae
who refused to allow the dinner to be served to the men. McRae was
drunk. In place of this dinner the sheriff set forth a meal of moldy
mush so strongly doped with chemicals as to be unfit for human
consumption. This petty spite work by the moon-struck tool of the lumber
trust was in thoro keeping with the cowardly characteristics he
displayed on the dock on November 5th. And the extent to which the daily
press in Everett was also under the control of the lumber interests was
shown by the publication of a faked interview with attorney Fred Moore
published in the Everett Herald under date of November 29th, Moore
having been credited with the statement that the prison food deserved
praise and the prisoners were "given as good food and as much of it as
they could wish."

During the whole of McRae's term as sheriff there was no time that
decent food was given voluntarily to the prisoners as a whole. At times,
with low cunning, McRae gave the men in the upper tank better food than
those confined below, and also tried to show favoritism to certain
prisoners, in order to create distrust and suspicion among the men. All
these attempts to break the solidarity of the prisoners failed of their
purpose.

On one occasion McRae called "Paddy" Cyphert, one of the prisoners whom
he had known as a boy, from his cell and offered to place him in another
part of the jail in order that he might escape injury in a "clubbing
party" the deputies had planned. Cyphert told McRae to put him back with
the rest for he wanted the same treatment as the others and would like
to be with them in order to resist the assault. In the face of this
determination, which was typical of all the prisoners, the contemplated
beating was never administered.

McRae would oftentimes stand outside the tanks at a safe distance and
drunkenly curse the prisoners and refer to them as cowards, to which the
men would reply by repeating the words of the sheriff on the dock,
"O-oh, I'm hit! I-I'm h-hit!! I-I-I'm h-h-hit!!!" Then they would burst
forth with a song written by William Whalen in commemoration of the
exploits of the doughty sheriff, a song which since has become a
favorite of the migratory workers as they travel from job to job, and
which will serve to keep the deeds of McRae fresh in the minds of the
workers for many years to come.


                        TO SHERIFF McRAE

     Call out your Fire Department, go deputize your bums;
     Gather in your gunmen and stool pigeons from the slums;
     You may resolute till doomsday, you ill-begotten knave;
     We'll still be winning Free Speech Fights when you are in your
       grave!

     You reprobate, you imp of hate, you're a traitor to the mind
     That brought you forth in human shape to prey upon mankind.
     You are lower than the snakes that crawl or the scavengers that
       fly;
     You're the living, walking image of a damn black-hearted lie!

     We'll still be here in Everett when your career is ended,
     And back among the dregs of life your dirty hide has blended;
     When you shun the path of honest wrath and fear the days to come,
     And bow your head to the flag of red, you poor white-livered bum!

     For the part you played in Everett's raid that fateful Sunday morn,
     May your kith and kindred live to curse the day that you were born;
     May the memory of your victims haunt your conscience night and day,
     Until your feeble, insect mind beneath the strain gives way!

     Oh, Don McRae, you've had your day; make way for Freedom's host:
     For Labor's sun is rising, soon 'twill shine from coast to coast!
     The shot you fired at Everett re-echoes thru the night
     As a message to the working class to organize and fight!

     Those graves upon the hillside as monuments will stand
     To point the way to Freedom's goal to slaves thruout the land;
     And when at last the working class have made the masters yield,
     May your portion of the victory be a grave in the Potter's Field!


The end of the first week in January brought about the change in the
administrative force of Snohomish county that had been voted at the
November election. A new set of lumber trust lackeys were placed in
office. James McCullogh succeeded Donald McRae as sheriff, and Lloyd
Black occupied the office vacated by Prosecuting Attorney O. T. Webb.

The advent of a new sheriff made some slight difference in the jail
conditions, but this was more than offset by the underhanded methods
used from that time on with the idea of breaking the solidarity of the
free speech fighters. Liquor was placed in the bathrooms where the men
could easily get hold of it, but even among those who had been hard
drinkers on the outside there were none who would touch it. Firearms
were cunningly left exposed in hopes that the men might take them and
attempt a jail break, thus giving the jailers a chance to shoot them
down or else causing the whole case to be discredited. The men saw thru
the ruse and passed by the firearms without touching them.

Working in conjunction with the prosecuting attorney was H. D. Cooley.
This gentleman was one of the deputies on the dock, having displayed
there his manly qualities by hiding behind a pile of wood at first, and
later by telling others to go with rifles to head off the Calista which
he had spied approaching from the direction of Mukilteo. Cooley had a
practice among the big lumbermen, and in the case against the I. W. W.
he was hired by the state with no stipulation as to pay. The general
excuse given for his activities in the case, which dated from November
6th, was that he was retained by "friends of Jefferson Beard" and other
"interested parties."

Attorney A. L. Veitch was also lined up with the prosecution. He was the
same gentleman who had lectured to the deputies during the preceding
fall as a representative of the Merchants' and Manufacturers'
Association, and had told the deputies how to handle "outside
agitators." Veitch was also employed by the state as a matter of
record, but there was a direct stipulation that he receive no pay from
state funds. He also was employed by "friends of Jefferson Beard" and
other "interested parties."

With Veitch there was imported from Los Angeles one Malcolm McLaren, an
M. and M. detective and office partner with Veitch, to act as "fix-it"
man for the lumber trust. McLaren was at one time an operative for the
infamous Wm. J. Burns, and Burns has well said "Private detectives,
ninety per cent of them, as a class, are the worst of crooks,
blackmailers and scoundrels." Under McCullogh's regime this open-shop
gumshoe artist had free access to the jail with instructions to go as
far as he liked.

Just what the prisoners thought about jail conditions during the time
they were incarcerated is given in the following report which was
smuggled out to the Industrial Worker and published on March 3rd:

"'Everything is fine and dandy on the outside, don't worry, boys.'"

"This is the first thing we heard from visitors ever since we
seventy-four have been incarcerated in the Snohomish County Jail at
Everett.

"While 'everything is fine and dandy on the outside' there are, no
doubt, hundreds who would like to hear how things are on the inside. Let
us assure everyone on the outside that 'everything is fine and dandy' on
the inside. We are not worrying as it is but a short time till the
beginning of the trials, the outcome of which we are certain will be one
of the greatest victories Labor has ever known, if there exists a shadow
of justice in the courts of America.

"One hundred days in jail so far--and for nothing! Stop and think what
one hundred days in jail means to seventy-four men! It means that in the
aggregate the Master Class have deprived us of more than twenty years of
liberty. Twenty years! Think of it, and a prospect of twenty more before
all are at liberty.

"And why?

"There can be but one reason, one answer: We are spending this time in
jail and will go thru the mockery of a trial because the masters of
Everett are trying to shield themselves from the atrocious murders of
Bloody November Fifth.

"After being held in Seattle, convicted without a trial, except such as
was given us by the press carrying the advertising of the boss and
dependent on him for support, on November 10th forty-one of us were
brought to Everett. A few days later thirty more were brought here.

"We found the jail conditions barbarous. There were no mattresses and
only one blanket to keep off the chill of a Puget Sound night in the
cold, unheated steel cells. There were no towels. We were supplied with
laundry soap for toilet purposes, when we could get even that. Workers
confined in lower cells were forced to sleep on the floors. There were
five of them in each cell and in order to keep any semblance of heat in
their bodies they had to sleep all huddled together in all their
clothing.

"The first few days we were in the jail we spent in cleaning it, as it
was reeking with filth and probably had never been cleaned out since it
was built. It was alive with vermin. There were armies of bedbugs and
body lice. We boiled up everything in the jail and it is safe to say
that it is now cleaner than it had ever been before, or ever will be
after the Wobblies are gone.

"When we first came here the lower floor was covered with barrels, boxes
and cases of whiskey and beer. This was moved in a few days, but
evidently not so far but McRae and his deputies had access to it, as
their breath was always charged with the odor of whiskey. It was an
everyday occurrence to have several of the deputies, emboldened by
liquid courage and our defenseless condition--walk around the cell
blocks and indulge in the pastime of calling us vulgar and profane
names. Threats were also very common, but we held our peace and were
content with the thought that 'a barking dog seldom bites.'

"The worst of these deputies are gone since the advent of sheriff
McCullogh, but there are some on the job yet who like their 'tea.' About
two weeks ago every deputy that came into the jail was drunk; some of
them to the extent of staggering.

"When we first entered the jail, true to the principles of the I. W. W.,
we proceeded to organize ourselves for the betterment of our condition.
A 'grub' committee, a sanitary committee and a floor committee were
appointed. Certain rules and regulations were adopted. By the end of the
week, instead of a growling, fighting crowd of men, such as one would
expect to find where seventy-four men were thrown together, there was an
orderly bunch of real I. W. W.'s, who got up at a certain hour every
morning, and all of whose actions were part of a prearranged routine.
Even tho every man of the seventy-four was talking as loudly as he could
a few seconds before ten p. m., the instant the town clock struck ten
all was hushed. If a sentence was unfinished, it remained unfinished
until the following day.

"When the jailer came to the door, instead of seventy-four men crowding
up and all trying to talk at once, three men stepped forward and
conversed with him. Our conduct was astonishing to the jail officials.
One of the jailers remarked that he had certainly been given a wrong
impression of the I. W. W. by McRae. He said, 'this bunch is sure
different from what I heard they were. You fellows are all right.' The
answer was simply: 'Organization.' Instead of a cursing, swearing,
fighting mob of seventy-four men, such as sheriff McRae would like to
have had us, we were entirely the opposite.

"Time has not hung heavy on our hands. One scarcely notices the length
of the days. Educational meetings are frequent and discussions are
constantly in order. Our imprisonment has been a matter of experience.
We will all be better able to talk Industrial Unionism than when we
entered the jail.

"The meals! Did we say 'meals?' A thousand pardons! Next time we meet a
meal we will apologize to it. Up to the time we asserted our displeasure
at the stinking, indigestible messes thrown up to us by a drunken brute
who could not qualify as head waiter in a 'nickel plate' restaurant, we
had garbage, pure and simple. Think of it! Mush, bread and coffee at
7:30 a. m., and not another bite until 4 p. m. Then they handed us a
mess which some of us called 'slumgullion,' composed of diseased beef.
Is it any wonder that four of the boys were taken to the hospital? But
we will not dwell on the grub. Suffice it to say we were all more or
less sick from the junk dished out to us. We were all hungry from
November 10th until January 22nd. One day in November we had beans.
Little did we surmise the pains, the agony contained in that dish of
innocent looking nutriment, beans. At two in the morning every man in
the jail was taken violently ill. We aroused the guards and they sent
for a doctor. He came about eight hours later and looked disappointed
upon learning that we were not dead. This doctor always had the same
remedy in all cases. His prescription was, 'Stop smoking and you will be
all right.' This is the same quack who helped beat up the forty-one
members of the I. W. W. at Beverly Park on October 30th, 1916. His nerve
must have failed him or his pills would have finished what his
pickhandle had started.

"During the entire time of our confinement under McRae, drunken deputies
came into the jail and did everything in their power to make conditions
as miserable as possible for us. McRae was usually the leader in
villification of the I. W. W.

"When on January 8th a change of administration took place, we called a
meeting which resulted in an interview with Sheriff McCullogh. Among
other things we demanded a cook. For days the sheriff stalled us off. He
professed that he wanted to do things for our comfort. We gave him ample
time--but there was no change in the conditions. On January 15th the
matter came to a climax. For five days prior to this we had been served
with what some called 'mulligan.' In reality it was nothing more or less
than water slightly colored with the juice of carrots. If there had ever
been any meat in it that meat was taken out before the mulligan was
served. We called for the sheriff and were informed that he had gone
away. We called for one of our attorneys who was in one of the outer
offices at the time, but Jailer Bridges refused to let us see him.
Having tried peaceful methods without success, we decided to forcibly
bring the matter to the attention of the authorities. We poured the
contents of the container out thru the bars and onto the floor. The boys
in the upper tank did the same thing. For doing this we were given a
terrible cursing by Jailer Bridges and the drunken cook, the latter
throwing a piece of iron thru the bars, striking one of the boys on the
head, and inflicting a long, ugly wound. The cook also threatened to
poison us.

"That night when we were to be locked in, one of our jailers, decidedly
under the influence of liquor, was in such a condition that he was
unable to handle the levers properly and in some manner put the locking
system out of commission. After probably three quarters of an hour,
during which all of us and every I. W. W. in the world were consigned to
hell many times, the doors were finally locked.

"'By God, you s--s-of-b----s will wish you ate that stew,' was the way
in which the jailer said 'good night' to us. The significance of his
words was brought back to us next morning when the time came for us to
be unlocked. We were left in our cells without food and with the water
turned off so we could not even have a drink. We might have remained
there for hours without toilet facilities had we not taken matters into
our hands. With one accord we decided to get out of the cells. There was
only one way to do this--'battleship!'

[Illustration: An all-I. W. W. crew raising a spar tree 160 ft. long,
221/2 inches at top and 541/2 inches at butt, at Index, Wash.]

[Illustration: Another view of the same operation.]

"Battleship we did! Such a din had never before been heard in Everett.
Strong hands and shoulders were placed to the doors which gave up their
hold on the locks as if they had been made of pasteboard, and we emerged
into the recreation corridors. The lumber trust papers of Everett, which
thought the events of November 5th and the murder of five workers but a
picnic, next day reported that we had wrecked the jail and attempted to
escape. We did do a little wrecking, but as far as trying to escape is
concerned that is a huge joke. The jail has not been built that can hold
seventy-four I. W. W. members if they want to escape. We had but decided
to forcibly bring the jail conditions to the attention of the
authorities and the citizens. We were not willing to die of hunger and
thirst. We told Sheriff McCullogh we were not attempting to escape; he
knew we were not. Yet the papers came out with an alleged interview in
which the sheriff was made to say that we were. It was also said that
tomato skins had been thrown against the walls of the jail. There were
none to throw!

"Summing up this matter: we are here, and here we are determined to
remain until we are freed. Not a man in this jail would accept his
liberty if the doors were opened. This is proven by the fact that one
man voluntarily came to the jail here and gave himself up, while still
another was allowed his liberty but sent for the Everett authorities to
come and get him while he was in Seattle. This last man was taken out of
jail illegally while still under the charge of first degree murder, but
he preferred to stand trial rather than to be made a party to schemes of
framing up to perjure away the liberties of his fellow workers.

"Signed by the workers in the Snohomish County Jail."

If the authorities hoped to save money by their niggardly feeding policy
the battleship of January 19th, mentioned in the foregoing account,
convinced them of their error. With blankets tied to the cell doors they
first tore them open and then twisted them out of shape. Taking a small
piece of gaspipe they disarranged the little doors that controlled the
locking system above each cell, and then demolished the entire system of
locks. Every bolt, screw and split pin was taken out and made useless.
While some were thus engaged others were busy getting the food supplies
which were stacked up in a corner just outside the tanks. When Sheriff
McCullogh finally arrived at the jail, some three hours later, he found
the prisoners calmly seated amid the wreckage eating some three hundred
pounds of corned beef they had obtained and cooked with live steam in
one of the bath tubs. Shaking his head sadly the sheriff remarked, "You
fellows don't go to the same church that I do." The deputy force worked
for hours in cleaning up the jail, and it took a gang of ironworkers
nine working days, at a cost of over $800.00, to repair the damage done
in twenty minutes. Twenty of the "hard-boiled Wobblies" were removed to
Seattle shortly after this, but it was no trouble for the men to gain
their demands from that time on. They had but to whisper the magic word
"battleship" to remind the jailers that the I. W. W. policy, as
expressed in a line in Virgil, was about to be invoked:


     "If I cannot bend the powers above,
       I will rouse Hell."


Lloyd Black, prosecuting attorney only by a political accident, soon
dropped his ideals and filled the position of prosecutor as well as his
limited abilities allowed, and it was apparent that he felt the hands of
the lumber trust tugging on the strings attached to his job and that he
had succumbed to the insidious influence of his associates. He called
various prisoners from their cells and by pleading, cajoling and
threatening in turn, tried to induce them to make statements injurious
to their case.

Fraudulently using the name of John M. Foss, a former member of the
General Executive Board of the I. W. W. and then actively engaged in
working for the defense, Black called out Axel Downey, a boy of
seventeen and the youngest of the free speech prisoners, and used all
the resources of his department to get the lad to make a statement.
Downey refused to talk to any of the prosecution lawyers or detectives
and demanded that he be returned to his cell. From that time on he
refused to answer any calls from the office unless the jail committee
was present. Nevertheless the name of Axel Downey was endorsed, with
several others, as a witness for the prosecution in order to create
distrust and suspicion among the prisoners.

About this time the efforts of Detective McLaren and his associates were
successful in "influencing" one of the prisoners, and Charles Auspos,
alias Charles Austin, agreed to become a state's witness. Contrary to
the expectation of the prosecution, the announcement of this
"confession" created no sensation and was not taken seriously on the
outside, while the prisoners, knowing there was nothing to confess, were
concerned only in the fact that there had been a break in their
solidarity. "We wanted to come out of this case one hundred per cent
clean," was the sorrowful way in which they took the news.

Auspos had joined the I. W. W. in Rugby, North Dakota, on August 10th,
1916, and whether he was at that time an agent for the employers is not
known, but it is evident that he was not sufficiently interested in
industrial unionism to study its rudimentary principles. It may be that
the previous record of Auspos had given an opportunity for McLaren to
work upon that weak character, for Auspos started his boyhood life in
Hudson, Wisconsin, with a term in the reformatory, and his checkered
career included two years in a military guard house for carrying
side-arms and fighting in a gambling den, a dishonorable discharge from
the United States Army, under the assumed name of Ed. Gibson, and
various arrests up until he joined the I. W. W.

This Auspos was about 33 years of age, five foot eleven inches tall,
weight about 175 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, medium complexion but
face inclined to be reddish, slight scar on side of face, and was a
teamster and general laborer by occupation, his parents living in Elk
River, Minn.

And while Auspos had by his actions descended to the lowest depths of
shame, there were those among the prisoners who had scaled the heights
of self-sacrifice. There were some few among them whose record would
look none too well in the light of day, but the spirit of class
solidarity within them led them to say, "Do with me as you will, I shall
never betray the working class." James Whiteford, arrested under the
name of James Kelly, deserves the highest praise that can be given for
he was taken back to Pennsylvania, which state he had left in violation
of a parole; to serve out a long penitentiary sentence which he could
have avoided by a few easily told lies implicating his fellow workers in
a conspiracy to do murder on November 5th.

Shortly after the attempted "frame-up" with Axel Downey there was a
strong effort made to bring pressure upon Harvey Hubler. A "lawyer" who
called himself Minor Blythe, bearing letters obtained by
misrepresentation from Hubler's father and sister, attempted to get
Hubler from his cell on an order signed by Malcolm McLaren, the
detective. With the experience of Downey fresh in mind, Hubler refused
to go out of the tank, even tho the "lawyer" stated that he had been
sent by Hubler's father and could surely get him out of jail.

The next day twelve armed deputies came into the jail to force Hubler to
accompany them to the office. The prisoners as a whole refused to enter
their cells, and armed themselves with such rude weapons as they could
find in order to repulse the deputies. The concerted resistance had its
effect and a committee of three, Feinberg, Peters and Watson,
accompanied Hubler to the office. Hubler there refused to read the
letter, asking that it be read aloud in the presence of the other men.
The detectives refused to do this and the men were put back in the tank.

That afternoon, with two other prisoners, Hubler went out of the tank
to wash his clothes. The jailers had been awaiting this opportunity and
immediately locked the men out. The gunmen then overpowered Hubler and
dragged him struggling to the office. The letter was then read to
Hubler, who made no comment further than to say that the I. W. W. had
engaged attorneys to defend him and he wished to be taken back where the
rest of the men were.

Meanwhile the men in the tanks had started another battleship. A hose
had been installed in the jail since the previous battleship and the
deputies turned this upon the men as soon as the protest started. The
prisoners retaliated by taking all mattresses, blankets, clothing and
supplies belonging to the county and throwing them where they would be
ruined by the water, and not knowing what was happening to Hubler they
shouted "Murder" at the top of their voices. While the trouble was going
on several members of the I. W. W., many Everett citizens, and one
attorney tried to gain admittance to the jail office to learn the cause
of the disturbance, but this was denied for more than an hour. Hubler
was finally brought back and the battleship ceased. The county had to
furnish new bedding and clothing for the prisoners.

After this occurrence the prisoners were allowed the run of the
corridors and were often let out to play ball upon the jail lawn, with
only two guards to watch them. There were no disorders in the jail from
that time on.

A committee of Everett women asked permission to serve a dinner to the
imprisoned men and when this was granted they fairly outdid themselves
in fixing up what the boys termed a "swell feed." This was served to the
men thru the bars but tasted none the less good on that account.

[Illustration: Judge J. T. Ronald]

The Seattle women, not to be outdone, gave a banquet to the prisoners
who had been transported to the Seattle county jail. The banquet was
spread on tables set the full length of the jail corridor, and the menu
ran from soup to nuts. An after dinner cigar, and a little boutonniere
of fragrant flowers furnished by a gray-haired old lady, completed the
program.

These banquets and the jail visitors, together with numerous books,
magazines and papers--and a phonograph that was in almost constant
operation--made the latter part of the long jail days endurable.

The defense was making strong efforts, during this time, to secure some
judge other than Bell or Alston, the two superior court judges of
Snohomish County, finally winning a victory in forcing the appointment
of an outside judge by the governor of the state.

Judge J. T. Ronald, of King County, was selected by Governor Lister, and
after the men had pleaded "Not Guilty" on January 26th, a change of
venue on account of the prejudice existing in Everett's official circles
was asked and granted, Seattle being selected as the place where the
trial would take place.

Eleven of the prisoners were named on the first information, the men
thus arraigned being F. O. Watson, John Black, Frank Stuart, Charles
Adams, Harston Peters, Thomas H. Tracy, Harry Feinberg, John Downs,
Harold Miller, Ed Roth and Thomas Tracy. The title of the case was
"State vs. F. O. Watson et al.," but the first man to come to trial was
Thomas H. Tracy. The date of the trial was set for March 5th.

On November 5th, when he was taken from the Verona to jail, Thomas H.
Tracy gave his name at the booking window as George Martin, in order to
spare the feelings of relatives to whom the news of his arrest would
have proven a severe shock. When the officers were checking the names
later he was surprised to hear them call out "Tracy, Thomas Tracy."
Thinking that his identity was known because of his having been
secretary in Everett for a time, he stepped forward. An instant later a
little fellow half his size also marched to the front. There were two
Tom Tracys among the arrested men! Neither of them knew the other! Tracy
then gave his correct name and both he and "Little Tom Tracy" were later
held among the seventy-four charged with murder in the first degree.

During all the time the free speech fighters were awaiting trial the
lumber trust exerted its potent influence at the national capital to the
end of preventing any congressional investigation of the tragedy of
November 5th and the circumstances surrounding it. The petitions of
thousands of citizens of the state of Washington were ignored. All too
well the employers knew what a putrid state of affairs would be
uncovered were the lumber trust methods exposed to the pitiless light of
publicity. That the trial itself would force them into the open
evidently did not enter into their calculations.

In changing the information charging the murder of C. O. Curtis to the
charge of murdering Jefferson Beard the prosecution thought to cover one
point beyond the possibility of discovery, which change seems to have
been made as a result of the exhuming of the body of C. O. Curtis in
February. Curtis had been buried in a block of solid concrete and this
had to be broken apart in order to remove the body. Just who performed
the autopsy cannot be ascertained as the work was covered in the very
comprehensive bill of $50.50 for "Exhuming the body of C. O. Curtis, and
autopsy thereon," this bill being made out in the name of the
superintendent of the graveyard and was allowed and paid by Snohomish
County. This, together with the fact that at no time during the trial
did the prosecution speak of C. O. Curtis as having met his death at the
hands of the men on the Verona, seems to bear out the contention of the
defense that Curtis was the victim of the rifle fire of one of his
associates.

So on March 5th, after holding the free speech prisoners for four months
to the day, the lumber trust, in the name of the State of Washington,
brought the first of them, Thomas H. Tracy, to trial, on a charge of
first degree murder, in the King County Court House at Seattle,
Washington.




CHAPTER VI.

THE PROSECUTION


The King County Court House is an imposing, five story, white structure,
covering an entire block in the business section of the city of Seattle.
Its offices for the conduct of the county and city business are spacious
and well appointed. Its corridors are ample, and marble. The elevator
service is of the best. But the courtrooms are stuffy little dens, illy
ventilated, awkwardly placed, and with the poorest of acoustics. They
seem especially designed to add to the depressing effect that invariably
attends the administration of "law and order." The court of Judge
Ronald, like many other courts in the land, is admirably designed for
the bungling inefficiencies of "justice." Yet it was in this theater,
thru the medium of the Everett trial, that the class struggle was
reproduced, sometimes in tragedy and sometimes in comedy.

To reach the greatest trial in the history of labor unionism, perhaps
the greatest also in the number of defendants involved and the number of
witnesses called, one had to ascend to the fourth floor of the court
house and line up in the corridor under the watchful eyes of the I. W.
W. "police," C. R. Griffin and J. J. Keenan, appointed by the
organization at the request of the court. There, unless one were a
lawyer or a newspaper representative, it was necessary to wait in line
for hours until the tiny courtroom was opened and the lucky hundred odd
persons were admitted to the church-like benches of J. T. Ronald's
sanctum, where the case of State versus Tracy was on trial.

Directly in front of the benches, at the specially constructed press
table, were seats provided for the representatives of daily, weekly and
monthly publications whose policies ranged from the ultra conservative
to the extreme radical. Here the various reporters were seen writing
madly as some important point came up, then subsiding into temporary
indifference, passing notes, joking in whispers, drawing personal
cartoons of the judge, jury, counsel, court functionaries and
out-of-the-ordinary spectators,--the only officially recognized persons
in the courtroom showing no signs of reverence for the legal priesthood
and their mystic sacerdotalism.

Just ahead of the press table were the attorneys for the prosecution:
Lloyd Black, a commonplace, uninspired, beardless youth as chief
prosecutor; H. D. Cooley, a sleek, pusillanimous recipient of favors
from the lumber barons, a fixture at the Commercial Club, and an
also-ran deputy at the dock on November 5th, as next counsel in line;
and A. L. Veitch, handsome in a gross sort of a way, full faced, sensual
lipped, with heavy pouches beneath the eyes, a self-satisfied favorite
of the M. & M., and withal the most able of the three who by virtue of
polite fiction represented the state of Washington. From time to time in
whispered conference with these worthy gentlemen was a tall, lean, grey,
furtive-eyed individual who was none other than the redoubtable
Californian detective, Malcolm McLaren.

At right angles to this array of prosecutors the counsel for the defense
were seated, where they remained until the positions were reversed at
the close of the prosecution's case. Chief counsel Fred H. Moore,
serious, yet with a winning smile occasionally chasing itself across his
face and adding many humorous wrinkles to the tired-looking crow-feet at
the corners of his eyes; next to him George F. Vanderveer, a strong
personality whose lightning flashes of wit and sarcasm, marshalled to
the aid of a merciless drive of questions, were augmented by a smile
second only to Moore's in its captivating quality; then E. C. Dailey,
invaluable because of his knowledge of local conditions in Everett and
personages connected with the case; and by his side, at times during
the trial, was H. Sigmund, special counsel for Harry Feinberg.

Seated a little back, but in the same group, was a man of medium height,
stocky built, slightly ruddy complexion, black hair, and twinkling blue
eyes. He was to all appearances the most composed man in the courtroom.
A slight smile crept over his face, at times almost broadened into a
laugh, and then died away. This was Thomas H. Tracy, on trial for murder
in the first degree.

To the rear of the defendant and forming a deep contrast to the
determined, square-jawed prisoner was the guard, a lean, hungry-looking
deputy with high cheek bones, unusually sharp and long nose and a pair
of moustachios that drooped down upon his chest, a wholly useless and
most uncomfortable functionary who could scarce seat himself because of
the heavy artillery scattered over his anatomy.

The court clerk, an absurdly dignified court bailiff, a special
stenographer, and Sheriff McCullogh of Snohomish county, occupied the
intervening space to the pulpit from which Judge J. T. Ronald delivered
his legal invocations.

The judge, a striking figure, over six feet in height and well
proportioned, of rather friendly countenance and bearing in street
dress, resembled nothing so much as a huge black owl when arrayed in his
sacred "Mother Hubbard" gown, with tortoise-shell rimmed smoked glasses
resting on his slightly aquiline nose and surmounting the heavy, closely
trimmed, dark Vandyke beard.

To the right of the judge as he faced the audience was the witness
chair, and across the whole of the corner of the room was a plat of the
Everett City Dock and the adjacent waterfront, together with a smaller
map showing part of the streets of the city. The plat was state's
exhibit "A." Below these maps on a tilted platform was a model of the
same dock, with the two warehouses, waiting room, Klatawa Slip, and the
steamer Verona, all built to scale. This was defendant's exhibit "1."

Extending from these exhibits down the side of the railed enclosure,
were seats for two extra jurors. The filling of this jury box from a
long list of talesmen was the preliminary move to a trial in which the
defendant was barely mentioned, and which involved the question of
Labor's right to organize, to assemble peaceably, to speak freely, and
to advocate a change in existing social arrangements. Capital was lined
up in a fight against Labor. There was a direct reflection in the courts
of the masters of the age-long, world-wide class struggle.

The examination of talesmen occupied considerable time. Each individual
was asked whether he had read any of the following papers: The
Industrial Worker, The Socialist World, or the Pacific Coast
Longshoreman. The prosecution also inquired as to the prospective
juror's familiarity with the I. W. W. Song Book and the various works on
Sabotage. Union affiliations were closely inquired into, and favorable
mention of the right to organize brought a challenge from the state. The
testing of the talesmen was no less severe on the part of the defense.

Fifty-one talesmen were disqualified, after long and severe legal
battles, before a jury was finally secured from among the voters and
property owners who alone were qualified to serve. The jury, as
selected, was rather more intelligent than was to be expected when
consideration is taken of the fact that any person who acknowledged
having an impression, an opinion, or a conclusion regarding the merits
of the case was automatically excused from service. Those who were
chosen to sit on the case were:

Mrs. Mattie Fordran, wife of a steamfitter; Robert Harris, a rancher;
Fred Corbs, bricklayer, once a member of the union, then working for
himself; Mrs. Louise Raynor, wife of a master mariner; A. Peplan,
farmer; Mrs. Clara Uhlman, wife of a harnessmaker in business for
himself; Mrs. Alice Freeborn, widow of a druggist; F. M. Christian, tent
and awning maker; Mrs. Sarah F. Brown, widow, working class family;
James R. Williams, machinist's helper, member of union; Mrs. Sarah J.
Timmer, wife of a union lineman, and T. J. Byrne, contractor. The two
alternate jurors, provided for under the "Extra Juror" law of
Washington, passed just prior to this trial, were: J. W. Efaw, furniture
manufacturer, president of Seattle Library Board and Henry B. Williams,
carpenter and member of a union.

Judge Ronald realized the importance of the case as was shown in his
admonition to the jury, a portion of which follows:

"It is plain, from both sides here, that we are making history. Let us
see that the record that we make in this case,--you and I, as a
court,--be a landmark based upon nothing in the world but the truth. We
may deceive some people and we may, a little, deceive ourselves; but we
cannot deceive eternal truth."

On the morning of March 9th Judge Ronald, the tail of his black gown
firmly in hand, swept into the courtroom from his private chambers, the
assembled congregation arose and stood in deep obeisance before His
Majesty The Law, the pompous bailiff rapped for order and delivered an
incantation, the Judge seated himself on the throne of "Justice," the
assemblage subsided into their seats--and the trial was opened in
earnest. Prosecuting Attorney Lloyd Black then gave his opening
statement, the gist of which is contained in the following quotations:

"You are at the outset of a murder trial, murder in the first degree.
The defendant, Thomas H. Tracy, alias George Martin, is charged with
murder in the first degree, in having assisted, counselled, aided,
abetted and encouraged some unknown person to kill Jefferson Beard on
the 5th of November, 1916.

"* * * As far as the state is concerned, no one knows or can know or
could follow the course of the particular bullet that struck and
mortally wounded and killed Jefferson Beard.

"* * * The evidence further will show that the first, or one of the
first, shots fired was from the steamer Verona and was from a revolver
held in the hand of Thomas H. Tracy.

"* * * As to the killing of Jefferson Beard itself the probabilities
are, as the evidence of the state will indicate, that he was killed by
someone on the hurricane deck of the Verona because the evidence will
show that the revolver shots went thru his overcoat, missing his coat,
and thru his vest, and had a downward course, so that it must have come
from the upper deck. The evidence will show that Thomas H. Tracy was on
the main deck firing thru an open cabin window.

"* * * Of the approximately 140 special and regular deputies of
Snohomish County about one-half were armed, some with revolvers, some
with rifles and some with clubs.

"* * * When the fusilade had come from the I. W. W.'s on the Verona, a
portion of the deputies ran thru a door into this warehouse,
(indicating): a portion of them went into that warehouse, and used some
of the knotholes there, and some shot holes thru which they could see, *
* *"

Black then gave a recital of the lumber trust version of the events
leading up to November 5th, bringing in the threats of an alleged
committee who were said to have declared "that they would call thousands
of their members to the city of Everett, flood the jails, demand
separate trials, and tie up and overwhelm the court machinery, and that
the mayor should consider that they had beaten Spokane and killed its
chief, killed Chief Sullivan of that city, that they had defeated
Wenatchee and North Yakima, and now it was Everett's turn."

"* * * That in furtherance of their threats that they would burn the
city of Everett, that a number of mysterious fires took place, fires
connected with some person who was opposed to the I. W. W. * * * And in
addition, the I. W. W. members were arrested at different times
preceding this trouble on the 5th of November and phosphorus was found
upon their person either in cans or wrapped up.

"* * * At different times, the evidence will show, Sheriff Donald McRae
and other peace officers of the city of Everett, including Mayor
Merrill, received anonymous letters, and also received direct statements
from the I. W. W. that they would get them; and, as one speaker put it,
he says 'Sheriff McRae will wake up some day and say '"Good morning,
Jesus!"'

Black continued his recital of events, admitting the "Wanderer"
incident, but he tried to sidestep the criminal actions at Beverly Park.

"Now, there happened at Beverly Park an incident that the State in this
action doesn't feel that it has anything to do with this particular
cause."

Ironical laughter at this juncture caused the removal of several
spectators from the courtroom. So disconcerted was Black that he
proceeded to give away the real cause of action against the I. W. W.

"The I. W. W. organization itself is an unlawful conspiracy, an unlawful
conspiracy in that it was designed for the purpose of effecting an
absolute revolution in society and in government, effecting it not by
the procedure of law thru the ballot, but for effecting it by direct
action. The I. W. W. meant to accomplish the change in society, not by
organization as the labor unions hope to get higher wages, not to get
into effect their theory of society by the ballot, as the Socialists
hope, but that they expressly state that the election of a Socialist
president will accomplish no good, and that sabotage should be employed
against government ownership as well as against private production, so
that directly they might put into effect their theories of government
and society."

The defense reserved the right to make their opening statement at the
close of the prosecution's case, thus leaving the state in the dark as
to the line of defense, and forcing them to open their case at once.

Lester L. Beard and Chester L. Beard, twin sons of the deceased deputy
sheriff, testified as to the condition of their father's clothing,
Attorney Vanderveer drawing from Lester Beard the admission that his
father was an employment agent in Seattle in 1914.

Following them, Drs. William O'Keef Cox, H. P. Howard, and William P.
West testified to having performed an autopsy on Beard and described the
course of the bullet upon entering the body. Dr. West was an armed guard
at the land end of the City Dock on November 5th, Dr. Cox was also on
the dock as a deputy, and Dr. Howard carried a membership in the
Commercial Club. They were the physicians present when the autopsy was
performed.

The next witness, Harry W. Shaw, a wood and coal dealer of Everett,
admitted having joined the citizen deputies because of a call issued by
the sheriff thru the Commercial Club. Shaw went to the dock on November
5th, carrying, as he claimed, a revolver with a broken firing pin which
he had hoped to have repaired on that Sunday on the way to the dock. He
was close to Beard when the latter fell and helped to carry him from the
open space on the dock into the warehouse. He afterward accompanied
Beard to the hospital in an automobile and returned to the dock with
Beard's unfired revolver in his possession. He swore that he had seen
McRae sober three times in succession! When asked by Attorney Moore he
gave an affirmative answer to this pertinent question:

"You knew that the matter of the enforcement of the city ordinances of
Everett was peculiarly within the powers of the police department of the
city, didn't you?"

Owen Clay was then called to the stand. Clay had been made bookkeeper of
the Weyerhouser Mill about a year and a half before this, and had been
given a membership in the Commercial Club at the time. He was injured in
the right arm in the trouble at the dock and then ran around the corner
of the ticket office, after which he emptied his revolver with his left
hand. Attorney Vanderveer questioned this witness as follows:

"Who shot Jeff Beard in the right breast?"

"I don't know."

"Did you do it?"

"I don't know."

"Thank you! That's all," said Vanderveer with a smile.

The next witness was C. A. Mitchell, employee of the Clark-Nickerson
Mill. He testified that he belonged to Company "B" under the command of
Carl Clapp. His testimony placed Sheriff McRae in the same position as
that given by the preceding witness, about eight to ten feet from the
face of the dock in the center of the open space between the two
warehouses, but unlike Clay, who testified that McRae had his left hand
in the air, he was positive that the sheriff had his right hand in the
air at the time the shooting started.

W. R. Booth, engaged in real estate and insurance business, a member of
the Commercial Club, and a deputy at the dock, was next called. Attorney
Cooley asked this witness about the speech made at an unspecified street
meeting. Vanderveer immediately objected as follows:

"We object to that as immaterial and calling for a conclusion of the
witness. He does not know who was speaking, nor whether he was
authorized to do it, or brought there by the Industrial Workers of the
World, or a hireling of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' society. It
has happened time and time again that people are employed by these
capitalists themselves to go out and make incendiary speeches and cause
trouble, and employed to go out and fire buildings and do anything to
put the opposition in wrong."

When questioned about McRae's position on the dock, Booth stated that
the sheriff had both hands in the air. This witness admitted having been
a member of the "Flying Squadron" and being a participant in the outrage
at Beverly Park. He named others who went out with him in the same
automobile, Will Seivers and Harry Ramwell, and stated that A. P.
Bardson, clerk of the Commercial Club, was probably there as he had been
out on all the other occasions. He said that he would not participate in
the beating up of anyone, and that when the affair started he went up
the road for purposes of his own. He was asked by Vanderveer as to the
reason for continuing to associate with people who had abused the men at
Beverly Park, to which he replied:

"Because I believe in at least trying to maintain law and order in our
city."

During the examination of this witness, and at various times thruout the
long case, it was only with evident effort that Attorney Vanderveer kept
on the unfamiliar ground of the class struggle, his natural tendencies
being to try the case as a defense of a pure and simple murder charge.

W. P. Bell, an Everett attorney representing a number of scab mills, a
member of the Commercial Club and a deputy on the dock, testified next,
contradicting the previous witnesses but throwing no additional light
upon the case. He was followed by Charles Tucker, a scab and gunman
employed by the Hartley Shingle Company and a deputy on the dock. Tucker
lied so outrageously that even the prosecution counsel felt ashamed of
him. He was impeached by his own testimony.

Editor J. A. MacDonald of the Industrial Worker was called to the stand
to show the official relation of the paper to the I. W. W. and to lay a
foundation for the introduction of a file of the issues prior to
November 5th. A portion of the file was introduced as evidence and at
the same time the state put in as exhibits a copy of the I. W. W.
Constitution and By-Laws, Sabotage by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Sabotage
by Walker C. Smith, The Revolutionary I. W. W. by Grover H. Perry, The
I. W. W., Its History, Structure and Methods by Vincent St. John, and
the Joe Hill Memorial Edition of the Song Book.

Herbert Mahler, former secretary of the Seattle I. W. W. and at the
time Secretary-Treasurer of the Everett Prisoners' Defense Committee,
was next upon the stand. He was asked to name various committees and to
identify certain telegrams. The unhesitatingly clear answers of both
MacDonald and Mahler were in vivid contrast to the mumbled and
contradictory responses of the deputies.

William J. Smith, manager of the Western Union Telegraph Company was
then called to further corroborate certain telegrams sent and received
by the I. W. W.

As the next step in the case prosecutor Black read portions of the
pamphlet "Sabotage" by Smith, sometimes using half a paragraph and
skipping half, sometimes using one paragraph and omitting the next,
provoking a remonstrance from Attorney Vanderveer which was upheld by
the Court in these words:

"You have a right to do what you are doing, Mr. Black, but it don't
appeal to my sense of fairness if other omissions are as bad as the one
you left out. You are following the practice, but I don't know of an
instance where there has been such an awful juggling about, and it is
discretionary with the Court, and I want to be fair in this case. I want
to let them have a chance to take the sting out of it so as to let the
jury have both sides, because it is there. Now, Mr. Vanderveer, I am
going to leave it to you not to impose upon the Court's discretion. Any
new phases I don't think you have the right to raise, but anything that
will modify what he has read I think you have the right to."

Thereupon Vanderveer read all the omitted portions bearing upon the
case, bringing special emphasis on these two parts:

"Note this important point, however. Sabotage does not seek nor desire
to take human life."

"Sabotage places human life--and especially the life of the only useful
class--higher than all else in the universe."

With evidences of amusement, if not always approval, the jury then
listened to the reading of numerous I. W. W. songs by Attorney Cooley
for the prosecution, tho some of the jurymen shared in the bewilderment
of the audience as to the connection between the song "Overalls and
Snuff" and defendant Tracy charged with a conspiracy to commit murder in
the first degree.

D. D. Merrill, Mayor of Everett, next took the stand. He endeavored to
give the impression that the I. W. W. was responsible for a fire loss in
Everett of $100,000.00 during the latter part of the year 1916.
Vanderveer shot the question:

"From whom would you naturally look for information on the subject of
fires?"

"From the Fire Chief, W. C. Carroll," replied the mayor;

"We offer this report in evidence," said Vanderveer crisply.

The report of the Fire Chief was admitted and read. It showed that there
were less fires in 1916 that in any previous year in the history of
Everett, and only four of incendiary origin in the entire list!

The prosecution tried to squirm out of this ticklish position by stating
that they meant also the fires in the vicinity of Everett, but here also
they met with failure for the principal fire in the surrounding district
was in the co-operative mill, owned by a number of semi-radical
workingmen at Mukilteo.

The mayor told of having been present at the arrest of several men taken
from a freight train at Lowell, just at the Everett city limits. Some of
these men were I. W. W.'s, and on the ground afterward there was said to
have been found some broken glass about which there was a smell of
phosphorus. The judge ruled out this evidence because there were other
than I. W. W. men present, no phosphorus was found on the men, and if
only one package were found it would not indicate a conspiracy but might
have been brought by an agent of the employers. This was the nearest
the prosecution came at any time in the trial in their attempt to
connect the I. W. W. with incendiary fires.

A tense moment in this sensational trial came during the testimony of
Mayor Merrill, when young Louis Skaroff was suddenly produced in court
and the question flashed at the cringing witness:

"Do you recognize this boy standing here? Do you recognize him, Louis
Skaroff?"

"I think I have seen him," mumbled the mayor.

"Let me ask you if on the 6th day of November at about ten o'clock at
night in a room in the City Hall at Everett where there was a bed room
having an iron bedstead in it, in the presence of the jailer, didn't you
have an interview with this man?"

Merrill denied having mutilated Skaroff's fingers beneath the casters of
the bed, but even the capitalist press reported that his livid face and
thick voice belied his words of denial.

And Prosecutor Lloyd Black remarked heatedly, "I don't see the
materiality of all this."

Merrill left the stand, having presented the sorriest figure among the
number of poor witnesses produced by the prosecution.

Carl Clapp, superintendent of the Municipal Waterworks at Everett, and
commander of one of the squads of deputies, followed with testimony to
the effect that sixty rifles from the Naval Militia were stored in the
Commercial Club on November 5th. At this juncture the hearing of further
evidence was postponed for a half day to allow Attorney Vanderveer to
testify on behalf of Mayor H. C. Gill in a case then pending in the
Federal Court.

On several other occasions Vanderveer was called to testify in this case
and there were times when it was thought that he also would be indicted
and brought to trial, yet with this extra work and the threat of
imprisonment hanging over him, Vanderveer never flagged in his keen
attention to the work of the defense. It was commonly thought that the
case against Gill and the attempt to involve Vanderveer were moves of
the lumber trust and Chamber of Commerce directed toward the I. W. W.,
for in the background were the same interested parties who had been
forced to abandon the recall against Seattle's mayor. Gill's final
acquittal in this case was hailed as an I. W. W. victory.

Upon the resumption of the trial the prosecution temporarily withdrew
Clapp and placed Clyde Gibbons on the stand. This witness was the son of
James Gibbons, a deceased member of the I. W. W., well and favorable
known in the Northwest. James Gibbons was killed by a speeding
automobile about a year prior to the trial, and his widow and son,
Clyde, were supported by the I. W. W. and the Boiler Makers' Union for
several months thereafter.

Clyde Gibbons, altho but seventeen years old, joined the Navy by
falsifying his age. Charity demands that the veil be drawn over the
early days of Clyde's training, yet his strong imagination and general
untruthfulness are matters of record. He was shown in court to have
stolen funds left in trust with him by Mrs. Peters, one of the persons
against whom his testimony was directed. It is quite probable that the
deceit about his age, or some other of his queer actions, were
discovered and used to force him to testify as the prosecution desired.
The following testimony bears out this idea:

"Who was it that you met at the Naval Recruiting Station and took you to
McLaren?"

"I don't know his name."

"Well, how did you get to talking to this total stranger about the
Everett matter?"

"He told me he wanted to see me in the judge's office."

"And they took you down to the judge's office, did they?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when you got to the judge's office you found you were in Mr.
McLaren's and Mr. Veitch's and Mr. Black's office in the Smith
Building?"

"Yes, sir."

Gibbons testified as to certain alleged conversations in an apartment
house frequented by members of the I. W. W., stating that a party of
members laid plans to go to Everett and to take with them red pepper,
olive oil and bandages. Harston Peters, one of the defendants, had a gun
that wouldn't shoot and so went unarmed, according to this witness.
Gibbons also stated that Mrs. Frenette took part in the conversation in
this apartment house on the morning of the tragedy, whereupon Attorney
Moore asked him:

"On directing your attention to it, don't you remember that you didn't
see Mrs. Frenette at all in Seattle, anywhere, at any time subsequent to
Saturday night; that she went to Everett on Saturday night?"

"Well, I am quite sure I saw her Sunday, but maybe I am mistaken."

The judge upheld the defense attorneys in their numerous objections to
the leading questions propounded by prosecutor Black during the
examination of this witness.

Clapp was recalled to the stand and testified further that Scott Rainey,
head of the U. S. Naval Militia at Everett, had ordered Ensign McLean to
take rifles to the dock, and that the witness and McLean had loaded the
guns, placed them in an auto and taken them to the dock, where they were
distributed to the deputies just as the Verona started to steam away.

Ignorance as to the meaning of simple labor terms that are in the
every-day vocabulary of the "blanketstiff" was shown by Clapp in his
answers to these queries:

"What is direct action?"

"Using force instead of lawful means."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, either physical force, or conspiracy."

"You understand conspiracy to be some kind of force, do you?"

"It may be force."

When asked where he had obtained information about sabotage, this
witness said that he had looked up the word in Webster's Unabridged
Dictionary, a work in which the term is strangely absent.

Clapp was the first witness to admit the armed character of the deputy
body and also to state that deputies with guns were stationed on all of
Everett's docks.

After excusing this witness, Cooley brought in copies of two city
ordinances covering street speaking in Everett. One of them which
allowed the holding of meetings at the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore
Avenues was admitted without question, but the other which purported to
have been passed on September 19, 1916, was objected to on the ground
that it had not been passed, was never put upon passage and never moved
for passage in the Everett City Council.

Richard Brennan, chauffeur of the patrol wagon, A. H. Briggs, city dog
catcher, and Floyd Wildey, police officer, all of Everett, then
testified regarding the arrest of I. W. W. members during August and
September. Wildey stated that on the night of August 30 four or five
members of the I. W. W. came away from their street meeting carrying
sections of gaspipe in their hands. This was thought to be quite a blow
against the peaceful character of the meeting until it was discovered on
cross-examination that the weapons were the removable legs of the street
speaking platform.

David Daniels, Arthur S. Johnson, Garland Queen, J. R. Steik, M. J. Fox
and, later on, Earl Shaver, all of whom were police officers in Everett,
gave testimony along somewhat the same lines as the other witnesses from
Everett who owed their jobs to the lumber trust. They stated that the I.
W. W. men deported on August 23rd, had made threats against McRae and
several police officers.

Ed. M. Hawes, proprietor of a scab printing and stationery company,
member of the Commercial Club and citizen deputy, gave testimony
similar to that of other vigilantes as to the trouble on November 5th.
When asked if he had ever known any I. W. W. men offering resistance,
Hawes replied that one had tried to start a fight with him at Beverly
Park. Having thus established his connection with this infamous outrage,
further questioning of this witness developed much of the story of the
brutal gauntlet and deportation. Hawes told of one of his prisoners
making an endeavor to escape, and when asked whether he blamed the man
for trying to get away, answered that he thought the prisoner was a
pretty big baby.

"You thought he was a pretty big baby?" queried Vanderveer.

"Yes, sir."

"Or do you think the men were pretty big babies and cowards who were
doing the beating?"

The witness had no answer to this question.

"How much do you weigh?" demanded Vanderveer sharply.

"I weigh 260 pounds," replied Hawes.

Frank Goff and Henry Krieg, two young lads who were severely beaten at
Beverly Park, were suddenly produced in court and the big bully was made
to stand alongside of them. He outweighed the two of them. It was
plainly evident who the pretty big baby was!

Howard Hathaway, law student and assistant to the state secretary of the
Democratic Central Committee, was forced to admit his connection with
the raid upon the launch "Wanderer" and also upon the men peacefully
camping at Maltby. His testimony was mainly for the purpose of making it
appear that James P. Thompson had advocated that the shingle weavers set
fire to the mills and win their strikes by methods of terrorism.

Two newspaper reporters, William E. Jones of the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, and J. J. Underwood of the Seattle Times, were
placed upon the stand in order to lay the foundation for an introduction
of an article appearing in the P-I on Sunday morning, November 5th.
Jones testified that he was present at the Seattle police station when
Philip K. Ahern, manager of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, requested
the release of Smith and Reese, two of his operatives who had been on
the Verona. Underwood stated that upon hearing of the treatment given
the I. W. W. men at Beverly Park he had exclaimed, "I would like to see
anybody do that to me and get away with it."

"You meant that, did you?" asked Vanderveer.

"You bet I meant it!" asserted the witness positively.

The two reporters proved to be better witnesses for the defense than for
the prosecution.

Sanford Asbury, T. N. Henry, Ronald Johnson, John S. Donlan, and J. E.
Gleason, then testified regarding the movements of the men who left
Seattle on the Verona and Calista on the morning of November 5th. They
uniformly agreed that the crowd was in no way disorderly, nor were their
actions at all suspicious. The defense admitted that the Verona had been
chartered but stated that there were passengers other than I. W. W.
members on board.

The first witness from the Verona was Ernest Shellgren, the boat's
engineer, who testified that he was in the engine pit when the boat
landed and heard crackling sounds telegraphed down the smoke stack that
he knew an instant later were bullets. He was struck by a spent bullet
and ran to various places on the boat seeking shelter from the hail of
lead that appeared to come from all directions, finally returning to the
boiler as the safest place on the boat. He stated that he saw one man
firing a blue steel revolver from the boat, only the hand and revolver
being in his line of vision. The only other gun he saw was one in the
hands of the man who asked him to back the boat away from the dock
during the firing. He also stated that the I. W. W. men on the way over
to Everett comported themselves as was usual with any body of
passengers.

Shellgren was asked if he could identify John Downs or Thomas H. Tracy
as being connected with the firing in any way and he stated that he
could not do so. The defense objected to the use of Downs' picture, as
it did on every occasion where a picture of one of the prisoners was
used, on the grounds that the photographs were obtained by force and in
defiance of the constitutional rights of the imprisoned free speech
fighters.

Seattle police detectives, Theodore Montgomery and James O'Brien, who
made a search of the Verona upon its return to Seattle, testified to
having found a little loose red pepper, two stones the size of a goose
egg tied up in a cloth, and a few empty cartridges. These two witnesses
also developed the fact that in no case were regular bandages used on
the wounded men, thus establishing the fact that no serious trouble was
anticipated.

James Meagher, occupation "home owner," member of the Commercial Club
and citizen deputy, testified that a hundred shots were fired from the
Verona before a gun was pulled on the dock, one of the first shots
striking him in the leg. This witness was asked:

"Did you see a single gun on the boat?"

"No sir," was his mumbled response.

The prosecution witnesses disagreed as to the number of lines of
deputies stretched across the back and sides of the open space on the
dock, the statements varying from one to four files.

Chad Ballard, Harry Gray, and J. D. Landis, of the Seattle police
detective bureau, and J. G. McConnell, Everett Interurban conductor,
testified to the return and arrest of Mrs. Frenette, Mrs. Mahler and
Mrs. Peters, after the trouble on November 5th. The police officers also
told of a further searching of the Verona on its return. The defense
admitted that some of the members had red pepper in their possession and
stated that they would ask the judge to instruct the jury that red
pepper is a weapon of defense and not of offense and that murder cannot
be committed with red pepper.

Elmer Buehrer, engineer at the Everett High School, and citizen deputy,
gave testimony that was halting, confused and relatively unimportant. He
was prompted by the prosecution to such an extent that Attorney
Vanderveer at the close of one question said, "Look at me and not at
counsel."

"Look where you please," cried Cooley angrily.

"Well, look where you please," rejoined Vanderveer. "He can't help you."

It was apparent that the only reason for putting on this witness and
former witness Meagher was because of a desire to create sympathy thru
the fact that they had been wounded on the dock.

Edward Armstrong, master mariner on the Verona, testified that he had
thrown out the spring line and lifted out the gate when the firing
started. He fell to the deck behind a little jog, against the bulkhead,
and while in that position two bullets went thru his cap. Altho this
witness stated that he judged from the sound that the first shot came
from some place to the rear of him, his testimony as to the attitude of
McRae was as follows:

"I seen him with his right hand hanging on the butt of the gun."

"And that was before there was any shooting?"

"Yes sir."

As to the condition of the boat after the trouble he gave an affirmative
answer to the question:

"You know that the whole front of the pilot house and the whole front of
this bulkhead front of the forward deck leading to the hurricane deck is
full of B. B. shot, don't you?"

James Broadbent, manager of the Clark-Nickerson Mill, and a citizen
deputy, followed Armstrong with some unimportant testimony.

L. S. Davis, steward on the Verona, also stated that McRae committed the
first overt act in taking hold of his gun. He was asked:

"He had his hand on his gun while he was still facing you?"

"Yes sir. I could see it plainly," answered Davis.

[Illustration: Pilot house of the "Verona" riddled with rifle bullets
at Everett]

"That was before he started to turn, before he was hit?"

"Yes sir."

Davis was wounded in the arm as he was on the pilot house steps.

He was asked about the general disposition, manner and appearance of the
men on the Verona on the way over to Everett, and answered:

"I thought they were pretty nicely behaved for men--for such a crowd as
that."

"Any rough talk; any rough, ugly looks?"

"No sir."

"Any guns?"

"No."

"Any threats?"

"I didn't hear any threats."

"Jolly, good-natured bunch of boys?"

"Yes."

"Lots of young boys among them, weren't there?"

"Yes, quite a few."

Davis stated that three passengers got off at Edmunds on the way up to
Everett, thus establishing the fact that there were other than I. W. W.
men on board.

R. S. "Scott" Rainey, commercial manager of the Puget Sound Telephone
Company and a citizen deputy, was called and examined at some length
before it was discovered that he was not an endorsed witness. This was
the second time that the prosecution had turned this trick. Vanderveer
objected, stating that there would be two hundred endorsed witnesses who
would not be used.

"Oh no!" returned Mr. Veitch.

"Well," said Vanderveer, "a hundred then. A hundred we dare you to
produce!"

"We will take that dare," responded Veitch. But the prosecution failed
to keep their word, and deputy Dave Oswald of the Pacific Hardware
Company, who during the various deportations tried to have the I. W. W.
men stripped, covered with hot tar, rolled in feathers and ridden out
of town on a rail, and a number of his equally degenerate brother
outlaws were never produced in court.

Rainey testified that he had seen a quantity of murderous looking
black-jacks in the Commercial Club for distribution to the deputies. He
also saw men fall overboard from the Verona and saw none of them
rescued. He thought there were twenty-five men with guns on the boat,
and he did his firing at the main deck.

"And you didn't care whether you hit one of the twenty-five or one of
the other two hundred and twenty-five?" scornfully inquired Vanderveer.

"No sir," said the miserable witness.

The next witness called was William Kenneth, city dock wharfinger in the
employ of Captain Ramwell. This witness testified that there were
numerous holes in the warehouses that were smooth on the inside and
splintered on the outside, thus indicating that they were from shots
blindly fired thru the walls from within. On being recalled on the
Monday morning session of March 26th the witness said he wished to state
that he was unable to testify from which direction the holes in the
warehouses had been made. It appeared that he had discovered the bullet
marks to have been whittled with a penknife since he had last viewed
them.

Arthur Blair Gorrell, of Spokane, student at the State University, was
on the dock during the trouble and was wounded in the left shoulder
blade. He stated that he knew that McRae had his gun drawn before he was
shot.

Captain K. L. Forbes, of the scab tugboat Edison, next took the witness
chair. He didn't like the idea of calling his crew scabs for the
engineer carried a union card. When questioned about the actions of the
scab cook on the Edison, this witness would not state positively that
the man was not firing directly across the open space on the dock at the
Verona, and in line with Curtis and other deputies.

Thomas E. Headlee, ex-mayor of Everett, bookkeeper at the
Clark-Nickerson mill, and a citizen deputy, said he went whenever and
wherever he was called to go by the sheriff.

"Then it's just like this," said Vanderveer, "when you pull the string,
up jumps Headlee?"

This witness tried to blame all the fires in Everett onto the I. W. W.
and the absurdity of his testimony brought this question from the
defense:

"Just on general principles you blame it on the I. W. W.?"

"Sure!" replied the witness, "I got their reputation over in Wenatchee
from my brother-in-law who runs a big orchard there."

Lewis Connor, member of the Commercial Club, and his friend, Edwin
Stuchell, university student, both of whom were deputies on the dock on
November 5th, then testified, but developed nothing of importance.
Stuchell's father was part owner of the Eclipse mill and was said to
have been on the board of directors of the Commercial Club. These
witnesses were followed by Raymond E. Brown, owner of an Everett shoe
store, a weak-kneed witness who had been sworn in as a deputy by W. W.
Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club.

One of the greatest sensations in this sensational trial was when former
sheriff Donald McRae took the stand on Tuesday, March 27th.

McRae was sober!

The sheriff was fifty years of age, of medium height, inclined to
stoutness, smooth-shaven, with swinish eyes set closely on either side
of a pink-tinted, hawk-like nose that curved just above a hard, cruel
and excessively large mouth. The sneering speech and contemptible manner
of this witness lent weight to the admissions of his brutality that had
been dragged from reluctant state's witnesses thru the clever and
cutting cross-examination conducted by Moore and Vanderveer.

McRae told of his former union affiliations, having once been
International Secretary of the Shingle Weavers' Union, and on another
occasion the editor of their paper--but he admitted that he had never in
his life read a book on political economy.

He detailed the story of the arrests, deportations and other similar
actions against the striking shingle weavers and the I. W. W. members,
the recital including an account of the "riot" at the jail, the
deportation of Feinberg and Roberts, the shooting at the launch
"Wanderer" and the jailing of its passengers, and the seizing of
forty-one men and their deportation at Beverly Park. McRae's callous
admissions of brutality discounted any favorable impression his
testimony might otherwise have conveyed to the jury.

He admitted having ordered the taking of the funds of James Orr to pay
the fares of workers deported on August 23rd, but denied the truth of an
account in the Everett Herald of that date in which it was said that I.
W. W. men had made some remarks to him "whereupon Sheriff McRae and
police officer * * promptly retaliated by cracking the I. W. W.'s on the
jaw with husky fists."

Regarding the launch "Wanderer" the sheriff was asked:

"Did you strike Captain Mitten over the head with the butt of your gun?"

"Certainly did!" replied McRae with brutal conciseness.

"Did any blood flow?"

"A little, not much."

"Not enough to arouse any sympathy in you?"

"No," said the sheriff unfeelingly.

"Did you strike a little Finnish fellow over the head with a gun?"

"I certainly did!"

"And split his head open and the blood ran out, but not enough to move
you to any sympathy?"

"No, not a bit!" viciously answered McRae.

"Did you hit any others?" inquired Vanderveer.

"No, not then."

"Why not?"

"They probably seen what happened to the captain and the other fellow
for getting gay."

As to the holding of Mitten in jail for a number of days on a charge of
resisting an officer, and his final release, McRae was asked:

"Why didn't you try him on that charge?"

"Because when we let the I. W. W.'s go they insisted on him going, too,
and I said, 'all right, take him along.'"

"You did whatever the I. W. W.'s wanted in that?"

"Well, I was glad to get rid of them," remarked the sheriff.

McRae said that none of the men taken to Beverly Park were beaten on the
dock before being placed in automobiles for deportation, but on
cross-examination he admitted that one of the deputies got in a mix-up
and was beaten by a brother deputy. The sheriff stated that he took one
man out to Beverly Park in a roadster, and had then returned to Everett
to attend a dance given by the Elks' lodge.

In relating the events on November 5th, McRae's story did not differ
materially from that of the witnesses who had already testified. He
stated that a bullet passed thru his foot, striking the heel of his
shoe, and coming out of the side. The shoe was then offered in evidence.
He testified that another shot struck the calf of his leg and passed
completely thru the limb. Both these wounds were from the rear. His
entire suit was offered in evidence. The coat had nine bullet holes in
it, yet McRae was not injured at all in the upper portion of his body!
The sheriff stated that he fired twenty shots in all, and was then
removed to the Sister's Hospital while the shooting was still in
progress.

McRae then identified Ed Roth, James Kelly and Thomas H. Tracy as three
of the I. W. W. men who were most active in firing from the Verona. In
his identification of Tracy, McRae stated that the defendant was in the
second or third cabin window aft the door, and was hanging out of the
window with his breast against the sill and his elbow on the ledge.
Vanderveer then placed himself in the position described by the sheriff
and requested McRae to assume the same attitude he was in at the time he
saw Tracy. Upon doing this it was apparent that the edge of the window
sill would have cut off all view of Tracy's face from the sheriff, so
McRae endeavored to alter his testimony to make it appear that Tracy's
face was a foot or more inside the cabin window. This was the first
identification of Tracy or other men on the boat that was attempted by
the prosecution.

The sheriff stated that there were only twenty or twenty-five armed men
on the Verona, and he admitted, before he left the stand, that he had
told Attorney Vanderveer it was a pity that the spring line on the
Verona did not break when the boat tilted so as to drown all the I. W.
W.'s in the Bay.

Charles Auspos, alias Charles Austin, followed McRae as the state's
witness second in importance only to the ex-sheriff. The testimony of
these two was relied upon for a conviction.

Just why Auspos joined the I. W. W. will never be known, but his claim
was that he could not work in the Dakota harvest fields or ride on the
freight trains without an I. W. W. card. He was asked:

"When you did line up, you were then willingly a member, were you?"

"Yes sir."

"And you did not go to Yakima and come back to Seattle to fight for free
speech because you were compelled to do so?" asked Moore.

"No," replied Auspos, "there was no compulsion."

[Illustration: Arrival of the VERONA at SEATTLE]

Auspos stated that he was willing to take a chance in the fight for free
speech and that the worst he expected was something similar to the
happenings at Beverly Park. That he was not so willing in his testimony
was shown by the uneasy actions of the prosecution lawyers, who moved
from place to place around the court room during the examination of
this witness, with the view of having him look one of them in the eyes
at all times during his recital. At one time Black nearly climbed into
the jury box, while Cooley fidgeted in his chair placed directly in the
middle of the aisle, and Veitch stood back of the court clerk on the
opposite side of the court room, trying to engage the attention of the
hesitating witness.

The testimony was to the effect that Auspos had reached Seattle on
Saturday, November 4th, and had slept in the I. W. W. hall that night.
Next morning at about eleven o'clock he returned from breakfast and was
again admitted with examination for a membership card. A meeting was in
progress in the gymnasium but was too crowded for him to be able to get
in. There was no secrecy, however, just as there was no oath of fealty
demanded of a worker upon joining the organization. The witness claimed
that he and one of the defendants, J. E. Houlihan, were standing
together in the hall when "Red" Doran called Houlihan aside into the
gymnasium. Two minutes later Houlihan returned and said, "I made it."
"What did you get?" Auspos declared he then asked his partner, receiving
the reply, "A thirty-eight." Auspos claimed he saw Earl Osborne cleaning
a gun in the gymnasium that same morning, and there was a rifle or
shotgun in a canvas case in one corner. He said that men were breaking
up chairs to obtain legs as clubs and that he, with others, was
furnished with a little package of red pepper.

Regarding his actions upon the Verona the witness stated that he and
James Hadley came up the steps from the freight deck to the passenger
deck just as the boat was nosing against the dock and that he walked
across the deck to a point within three feet of the rail. His
description of the motion of McRae's hands differed from that given by
the deputy witnesses and was such as would indicate the drawing of a gun
from a belt holster. He testified that McRae swung around to the right
just before being shot, thus contradicting McRae, who had declared that
the turn he had made was to the left. The witness in a rather indefinite
manner stated that the first shot came from the boat. All the damaging
claims in the testimony of Auspos were severely shaken by the
cross-examination conducted by Moore, and Auspos finally admitted that
the only point on which he wished to have his evidence differ from the
statement he had made to Vanderveer prior to the trial was in the matter
of the firing of the first shot. Auspos made no attempt to identify
anyone on the boat as having a firearm.

During the examination some reference was made to "Red" Downs, at which
Judge Ronald remarked:

"I am a little confused. Did he say 'Red' Downs or 'Red' Doran?"

"There are two of them," responded Moore.

"Lots of red in this organization," cut in prosecutor Cooley, amid
laughter from the spectators.

Attorney Moore brought from Auspos the admission that the plea of "Not
Guilty" was a true one and he still believed that he and the other
prisoners were not guilty of any crime. Yet such are the peculiarities
of the legal game that an innocent man can turn state's evidence upon
his innocent associates.

After uncovering the previous record of Auspos, he was asked about his
"confession" as follows:

"Mr. McLaren and you had reached an understanding in your talk before
Mr. Cooley came?"

"Yes sir."

"The question of what you are to get in connection with your testimony
here has not as yet been definitely decided?"

"I am going to get out of the country."

"You are not going to get a trip to Honolulu?" asked Moore with a smile
as he concluded the cross-examination of Auspos.

"No sir," stammered the tool of the prosecution unconvincingly.

It was at this point that the prosecution introduced several additional
leaflets and pamphlets issued by the I. W. W. Publishing Bureau, the
principal reason being to allow them to appeal to the patriotism of the
jury by referring to Herve's pamphlet, "Patriotism and the Worker," and
Smith's leaflet, "War and the Workers."

The next witness after Auspos was Leo Wagner, another poor purchase on
the part of the prosecution. He merely testified that a man on the
Calista had said that the men were armed and were not going to stand for
being beaten up. Objection was made to the manner in which Cooley led
the witness with his questions, and when Cooley stated that it was
necessary to refresh the memory of the witness, Vanderveer replied that
the witness had been endorsed but a few days before and his recollection
should not be so very stale.

When this witness was asked what he was paid for his testimony he
squirmed and hesitated until the court demanded an answer, whereupon he
said:

"I got enough to live on for a while."

William H. Bridge, deputy sheriff and Snohomish county jailer, was the
next witness. He stated on his direct examination that the first shot
came from the second or third window back from the door on the upper
cabin. Black asked Bridge:

"How do you know there was a shot from that place?"

"Because I saw a man reach out thru the window and shoot with a
revolver."

"In what position was he when shooting?"

"Well, I could see his hand and a part of his arm and a part of his body
and face."

"Who was the man, if you know?"

"Well, to the best of my judgement, it was the defendant, Thomas H.
Tracy."

Under Vanderveer's cross-examination this witness was made to place the
model of the Verona with its stern at the same angle as it had been at
the time of the shooting. The witness was then asked to assume the same
position he had been in at the time he said he had seen Tracy. The
impossibility of having seen the face of a man firing from any of the
cabin windows was thus demonstrated to the jury.

Then to clinch the idea that the identification was simply so much
perjury, Vanderveer introduced into evidence the stenographic report of
the coroner's inquest held over Jefferson Beard in which the witness,
Bridge, had sworn that the first shot came from an open space just
beneath the pilot house and had further testified that he could not
recognize the person who was doing the firing.

Walter H. Smith, a scab shingle weaver, and deputy on the dock, followed
with a claim to have recognized Tracy as one of the men who was shooting
from the Verona. He also stated that he could identify another man who
was shooting from the forward deck. He was handed a number of
photographs and failed to find the man he was looking for. Instead he
indicated one of the photographs and said that it was Tracy. Vanderveer
immediately seized the picture and offered it in evidence.

"I made a mistake there," remarked Smith.

"I know you did," responded Vanderveer, "and I want the jury to know
it."

The witness had picked out a photograph of John Downs and identified it
as the defendant.

The prosecution then called S. A. Mann, who had been police judge in
Spokane, Wash., from 1908 into 1911, and questioned him in regard to the
Spokane Free Speech fight and the death of Chief of Police John
Sullivan. Here attorney Fred Moore was on familiar ground, having acted
for the I. W. W. during the time of that trouble. Moore developed the
fact that there had been several thousand arrests with not a single
instance of resistance or violence on the part of the I. W. W., not a
weapon found on any of their persons, and no incendiary fires during
the entire fight. He further confounded the prosecution by having Judge
Mann admit that in the Spokane fight a prisoner arrested on a city
charge was always lodged in the city jail and one arrested on a county
charge was always placed in the county jail--a condition not at all
observed in Everett.

Moore also brought out the facts of the death of Chief Sullivan so far
as they are known. The witness admitted that Sullivan was charged with
abuse of an adopted daughter of Mr. Elliott, a G. A. R. veteran; that
desk officer N. V. Pitts charged Sullivan with having forced him to turn
over certain Chinese bond money and the Chief resigned his position
while under these charges; that the Spokane Press bitterly attacked
Sullivan and was sued as a consequence, the Scripps-McRae paper being
represented by the law firm of Robertson, Miller and Rosenhaupt, of
which Judge Frank C. Robertson was the head; that the Chronicle and
Spokesman-Review joined in the attack upon the Chief; and that when
Sullivan was dying from a shot in the back the following conversation
occurred between himself and the dying man: "I said to him 'John, who do
you suppose did this?' He says, 'Judge F. C. Robertson and the Press are
responsible for this.' I said, 'John, you don't mean that, you can't
mean it?' He says, 'That is the way I feel.'"

Judge Ronald prevented the attorneys from going very deeply into the
Spokane affair, saying:

"I am not going to wash Spokane linen here; we have some of our own to
wash!"

C. R. Schweitzer, owner of a scab plumbing shop, aged 47, yet
grey-haired, brazenly admitted having emptied a shotgun into the unarmed
boys on the Verona. It was the missiles from the brand-new
shotgun--probably furnished by Dave Oswald--that riddled the pilot house
and wounded many of the men who fell to the deck when the Verona
tilted. Schweitzer fired from a safe position behind the Klatawa slip.
Why the prosecution used him as a witness is a mystery.

W. A. Taro, Everett Fire Chief, testified regarding the few incendiary
fires that had occurred in Everett during the year 1916, but failed to
connect them with the I. W. W. in any way. D. Daniels, Everett police
officer, testified to a phosphorous fire which did no damage and was in
no way connected with the I. W. W.

Mrs. Jennie B. Ames, the only woman witness called by the prosecution,
testified that Mrs. Frennette was on the inclined walk at the Great
Northern Depot, at a point overlooking the dock, and was armed with a
revolver at the time the Verona trouble was on. Police officer J. E.
Moline also swore to the same thing, but was badly tangled when
confronted with his own evidence given at the preliminary hearing of
Mrs. Frennette on December 6th, 1916.

Never was there a cad but who wished himself proclaimed as a gentleman;
never a bedraggled and maudlin harlot but who wanted the world to know
that she was a perfect lady. The last witness to be called by the
prosecution was John Hogan--"Honest" John Hogan if prosecutor Lloyd
Black was to be credited.

"Honest" John Hogan was a young red-headed regular deputy sheriff, who
was a participant in the outrage on the City Dock on November 5th.
"Honest" John Hogan claimed to have seen the defendant, Thomas Tracy,
firing a revolver from one of the forward cabin windows. "Honest" John
Hogan had the same difficulty as the other "identifying" witnesses when
he also was asked to state whether it was possible to see a man firing
from a cabin window when the stern of the boat was out and the witness
in his specified position on the dock. "Honest" John Hogan was sure it
was Tracy that he saw because the man had a week's growth of whiskers on
his face.

And this ended the case for the prosecution.

As had been predicted there were hundreds of witnesses who were endorsed
and not called, and almost without an exception those who testified were
parties who had a very direct interest in seeing that a conviction was
secured. But thru the clever work of the lawyers for the defense what
was meant to have been a prosecution of the I. W. W. was turned into an
extremely poor defense of the deputies and their program of "law and
order." From the state's witnesses the defense had developed nearly the
whole outline and many of the details of its side of the case.

When the state rested its case, Tracy leaned over to the defense lawyers
and, with a smile on his face, said:

"I'd be willing to let the case go to the jury right now."




CHAPTER VII.

THE DEFENSE


The case for the defense opened on Monday morning of April 2nd when
Vanderveer, directly facing the judge and witness chair from the
position vacated by the prosecution counsel, moved for a directed
verdict of not guilty on the ground that there had been an absolute
failure of evidence upon the question of conspiracy, any conspiracy of
which murder was either directly or indirectly an incident, and there
was no evidence whatever to charge the defendant directly as a principal
in causing the death of Jefferson Beard. The motion was denied and an
exception taken to the ruling of the court.

Fred Moore made the opening statement for the defense. In his speech he
briefly outlined the situation that had existed in Everett up to and
including November 5th and explained to the jury the forces lined up
against each other in Everett's industrial warfare. Not for an instant
did the attention of the jury flag during the recital.

Herbert Mahler, secretary of the I. W. W. in Seattle during the series
of outrages in Everett, was the first witness placed upon the stand.
Mahler told of the lumber workers' convention and the sending of
organizer James Rowan to make a survey of the industrial situation in
the lumber centers, Everett being the first point because of its
proximity to Seattle and not by reason of any strikes that may have
existed there. The methods of conducting the free speech fight, the
avoidance of secrecy, the ardent desire for publicity of the methods of
the lumber trust as well as the tactics of the I. W. W., were clearly
explained.

Cooley cross-examined Mahler regarding the song book with reference to
the advocacy and use of sabotage, asking the witness:

"How about throwing a pitchfork into a threshing machine? Would that be
all right?"

"There are circumstances when it would be, I suppose," replied Mahler.
"If there was a farmer deputy who had been at Beverly Park, I think they
certainly would have a right to destroy his threshing machine."

"You think that would justify it?" inquired Cooley.

"Yes," said the witness, "I think that if the man had abused his power
as an officer and the person he abused had no other way of getting even
with him and that justice was denied him in the courts, I fully believe
that he would be. That would not hurt anybody; it would only hurt his
pocketbook."

"Now what is this Joe Hill Memorial Edition?"

"Joe Hillstrom, known as Joe Hill, had written a number of songs in the
I. W. W. Song Book and he was murdered in Utah and the song book was
gotten out in memory of him," responded Mahler.

"He was executed after having been convicted of murder in the first
degree, and sentenced to death. And you say he was murdered?" said
Cooley.

"Yes," said Mahler with emphasis. "Our contention has been that
Hillstrom did not have a fair trial and we are quite capable of proving
it. I may say that President Wilson interceded in his behalf and was
promptly turned down by Governor Spry of Utah. Hillstrom was offered a
commutation of sentence and he refused to take it. He wanted a retrial
or an acquittal. When the President of the United States had interceded
with the Governor of Utah, when various labor organizations asked that
he be given a retrial, and a man's life is to be taken from him, and
people all over the country ask for a retrial, that certainly should be
granted to him."

James P. Thompson was placed upon the stand to explain the principles of
the I. W. W. The courtroom was turned into a propaganda meeting during
the examination of the witness. One of the first features was the
reading and explanation of state's exhibit "K," the famous I. W. W.
preamble which has been referred to on various occasions as the most
brutally scientific exposition of the class struggle ever penned:


                          I. W. W. PREAMBLE

     The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
     There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
     millions of the working people and the few, who make up the
     employing class, have all the good things of life.

     Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers
     of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and
     the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.

     We find that the centering of the management of industries into
     fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with
     the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions
     foster a state of affairs which allow one set of workers to be
     pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby
     helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions
     aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that
     the working class have interests in common with their employers.

     These conditions can be changed and the interests of the working
     class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all
     its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if
     necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any
     department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

     Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair
     day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary
     watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

     It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
     capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for
     the every day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on
     production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By
     organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new
     society within the shell of the old.


"Men in society represent economic categories," said Thompson. "By that
I mean that in the world of shoes there are shoemakers, and in the world
of boats there are seamen, and in this society there are economic
categories called the employing class and the working class. Now,
between them as employing class and working class there is nothing in
common. Their interests are diametrically opposed as such. It is not the
same thing as saying that human beings have nothing in common. The
working class and the employing class have antagonistic interests, and
the more one gets the less remains for the other.

"Labor produces all wealth," continued Thompson, "and the more the
workers have to give up to anyone else the less remains for themselves.
The more they get in wages the less remains for the others in the form
of profits. As long as labor produces for the other class all the good
things of life there will be no peace; we want the products of labor
ourselves and let the other class go to work also.

"The trades unions are unable to cope with the power of the employers
because when one craft strikes the others remain at work and by so doing
help the company to fill orders, and that is helping to break the
strike. If a group of workers strike and win, other workers are
encouraged to do likewise: if they strike and lose, other workers are
discouraged and employers are encouraged to do some whipping on their
own account.

"We believe in an industrial democracy; that the industry shall be owned
by the people and operated on a co-operative plan instead of the wage
plan; that there is no such thing as a fair day's pay; that we should
have the full product of our labor in the co-operative system as
distinguished from the wage system.

"Furthermore," went on the witness, as the jury leaned forward to catch
his every word, "our ideas were suggested to us by conditions in modern
industry, and it is the historical mission of the workers to organize,
not only for the preliminary struggles, but to carry on production
afterward."

"We object to this!" shouted Mr. Cooley, and the court sustained the
objection.

Despite continual protests from the prosecution Thompson gave the ideas
of the I. W. W. on many questions. Speaking of free speech the witness
said:

"Free speech is vital. It is a point that has been threshed out and
settled before we were born. If we do not have free speech, the children
of the race will die in the dark."

The message of industrial unionism delivered thru the sworn testimony of
a labor organizer was indeed an amazing spectacle. Judge Ronald never
relaxed his attention during the entire examination, the jury was
spell-bound, and it was only by an obvious effort that the spectators
kept from applauding the various telling points.

"There is overwork on one hand," said Thompson, "and out-of-work on the
other. The length of the working day should be determined by the amount
of work and the number of workers. You have no more right to do eight or
ten or twelve hours of labor when others are out of work, despondent,
committing suicide, than you have to drink all the water, if that were
possible, while others are dying of thirst.

"Solidarity is the I. W. W. way to get their demands. We do not advocate
that the workers should organize in a military way and use guns and
dynamite. The most effective weapon of labor is economic power: the
modern wage workers are the living parts of industry and if they fold
their arms, they immediately precipitate a crisis, they paralyze the
world. No other class has that power. The other class can fold their
arms, and they do most of the time, but our class has the economic
power. The I. W. W. preaches and teaches all the time that a far more
effective weapon than brickbats or dynamite is solidarity.

"We have developed from individual production, to social production, yet
we still have private ownership of the means of production. One class
owns the industries and doesn't operate them, another class operates the
industries and does not own them. We are going to have a revolution. No
one is more mistaken than those who believe that this system is the
final state of society. As the industrial revolution takes place, as the
labor process takes on the co-operative form, as the tool of production
becomes social, the idea of social ownership is suggested, and so the
idea that things that are used collectively should be owned
collectively, presents itself with irresistible force to the people of
the twentieth century. So there is a struggle for industrial democracy.
We are the modern abolitionists fighting against wage slavery as the
other abolitionists fought against chattel slavery. The solution for our
modern problems is this, that the industries should be owned by the
people, operated by the people for the people, and the little busy bees
who make the honey of the world should eat that honey, and there should
be no drones at all in the hives of industry.

"When we have industrial democracy you will know that the mills, the
mines, the factories, the earth itself, will be the collective property
of the people, and if a little baby should be born that baby would be as
much an owner of the earth as any other of the children of men. Then the
war, the commercial struggles, the clashes between groups of conflicting
interests, will be a night-mare of the past. In the place of capitalism
with its one class working and its other class enjoying, in the place of
the wages system with its strife and strikes, lockouts and grinding
poverty, we will have a co-operative system where the interests of one
will be to promote the interests of all--that will be Industrial
Democracy."

Thompson explained the meaning of the sarcastic song, "Christians at
War," to the evident amusement of the jury and spectators. The witness
was then asked about Herve's work on anti-patriotism in this question by
attorney Moore:

"What is the attitude of your organization relative to internationalism
and national patriotism?"

"We object to that as incompetent and immaterial," cried Veitch of the
prosecution.

"What did you put this book in for then?" said Judge Ronald in a testy
manner as he motioned the witness to proceed with his answer.

"In the broader sense," answered Thompson, "there is no such thing as a
foreigner. We are all native born members of this planet, and for the
members of it to be divided into groups or units and to be taught that
each nation is better than the other leads to clashes and the world war.
We ought to have in the place of national patriotism--the idea that one
people is better than another,--a broader conception, that of
international solidarity. The idea that we are better than others is
contrary to the Declaration of Independence which declares that all men
are born free and equal. The I. W. W. believes that in order to do away
with wars we should remove the cause of wars; we should establish
industrial democracy and the co-operative system instead of
commercialism and capitalism and the struggles that come from them. We
are trying to make America a better land, a land without child slaves, a
land without poverty, and so also with the world, a world without a
master and without a slave."

When the lengthy direct examination of Thompson had been finished, the
prosecution questioned him but five minutes and united in a sigh of
relief as he left the stand.

The next witness called was Ernest Nordstrom, companion of Oscar Carlson
who was severely wounded on the Verona. Nordstrom testified rather out
of his logical order in the trial by reason of the fact that he was
about to leave on a lengthy fishing trip to Alaska. His testimony was
that he purchased a regular ticket at the same time as his friend
Carlson, but these tickets were not taken up by the purser. The original
ticket of this passenger was then offered in evidence. The witness
stated that the first shot came from almost the same place on the dock
as did the words "You can't land here." He fell to the deck and saw
Carlson fall also. Carlson tried to rise once, but a bullet hit him and
he dropped; there were nine bullet holes in him. Nordstrom was asked:

"Did you have a gun?"

"No sir."

"Did Carlson have a gun?"

"No sir."

"Did you see anybody with a gun on the boat?"

"No. I didn't."

Organizer James Rowan then gave his experiences in Everett, ending with
a vivid recital of the terrible beating he had received at the hands of
deputies near Silver Lake. Upon telling of the photograph that was taken
of his lacerated back he was asked by Veitch:

"What was the reason you had that picture taken?"

"Well," said Rowan, in his inimitable manner, "I thought it would be a
good thing to get that taken to show up the kind of civilization that
they had in Everett."

Dr. E. J. Brown, a Seattle dentist, and Thomas Horner, Seattle attorney,
corroborated Rowan's testimony as to the condition of his back. They had
seen the wounds and bruises shortly after the beating had been
administered and were of the opinion that a false light was reflected on
the photograph in such a way that the severest marks did not appear as
bad as they really were.

Otto Nelson, Everett shingle weaver, gave testimony regarding the
shingle weavers' strikes of 1915 and 1916 but was stopped from going
into detail by the rulings of the court. He told also of the peaceful
character of all the I. W. W. meetings in Everett, and stated that on
one occasion police officer Daniels had fired two shots down one of the
city streets at an I. W. W. man who had been made to run the gauntlet.

H. P. Whartenby, owner of a five-ten-fifteen cent store in Everett, said
that the I. W. W. meetings were orderly, and further testified that he
had been ordered out of the Commercial Club on the evening of November
5th but not until he had seen that the club was a regular arsenal, with
guns stacked all over the place.

To establish the fact that the sidewalks were kept clear, that there was
no advocacy of violence, that no resistance was offered to arrest, and
that the I. W. W. meetings were well conducted in every particular, the
defense put on in fairly rapid succession a number of Everett citizens:
Mrs. Ina M. Salter, Mrs. Elizabeth Maloney, Mrs. Letelsia Fye, Bruce J.
Hatch, Mrs. Dollie Gustaffson, Miss Avis Mathison, Mrs. Peter Aiken,
Mrs. Annie Pomeroy, Mrs. Rebecca Wade, F. G. Crosby, and Mrs. Hannah
Crosby. The fact that these citizens, and a number of other women who
were mentioned in the testimony, attended the I. W. W. meetings quite
regularly, impressed the jury favorably. Some of these women witnesses
had been roughly handled by the deputies. Mrs. Pomeroy stated that the
deputies, armed with clubs and distinguished by white handkerchiefs
around their necks, invaded one meeting and struck right and left. "And
they punched me at that!" said the indignant witness.

"Punched you where?" inquired Vanderveer in order to locate the injury.

"They punched me on the sidewalk!" answered the witness, and the solemn
bailiff had to rap for order in the court room.

Cooley caught a Tartar in his cross-examination of Mrs. Crosby. He
inquired:

"Did you hear the I. W. W.'s say that when they got a majority of the
workers into this big union they would take possession of the
industries and run them themselves?"

"Why certainly!"

"You did hear them say they would take possession?"

"Why certainly!" flashed back the witness. "That's the way the North did
with the slaves, isn't it? They took possession without ever asking
them. My people came from the South and they had slaves taken away from
them and never got anything for it, and quite right, too!"

"Then you do believe it would be all right, yourself?" said Cooley.

"I believe that confiscation would be perfectly right in the case of
taking things that are publicly used for the public good of the
people----."

"That's all," hastily cut in Cooley.

"That they should be used then by the people and for the people!"
finished the witness.

"That's all!" cried Cooley loudly and more anxiously.

Frank Henig, the next witness, told of having been blackjacked by
Sheriff McRae and exhibited the large scar on his forehead that plainly
showed where the brutal blow had landed. He stated that he had tried to
secure the arrest of McRae for the entirely unwarranted attack but was
denied a warrant.

Jake Michel, secretary of the Everett Building Trades Council, gave
evidence regarding a number of the I. W. W. street meetings. He was
questioned at length about what he had inferred from the speeches of
Rowan, Thompson and others. Replying to one question he said:

"I think the American Federation of Labor uses the most direct action
that any organization could use."

"In a strike?"

"Yes."

"And by that you mean a peaceful strike?" said Cooley suggestively.

"Well, I haven't seen them carry on very many peaceful ones yet,"
replied Michel.

Cooley asked Michel whether Rowan had said that "the workers should form
one great industrial union and declare the final and universal strike;
that is, that they should remain within the industrial institutions and
lock the employers out for good as owners?"

"I never heard him mention anything about locking anyone out; I think he
wanted to lock them in and make them do some of the work!" answered
Michel.

"You haven't any particular interest in this case, have you?" asked
Cooley with a sneer.

"Yes, I have!" replied Michel with emphasis.

When asked what this particular interest was, Michel caused
consternation among the ranks of the prosecution by replying:

"The reason I have that interest is this; I have two sons and two
daughters. I want to see the best form of organization so that the boys
can go out and make a decent living; I don't want my girls to become
prostitutes upon the streets and my boys vagabonds upon the highways!"

Harry Feinberg, one of the free speech prisoners named on the first
information with Watson and Tracy, was then placed on the stand and
questioned as to the beating he had received at the hands of deputies,
as to the condition of Frank Henig after McRae's attack, and upon
matters connected with various street meetings at which he had been the
speaker. Mention of the name of George Reese brought forth an argument
from the prosecution that it had not been shown that Reese was a
detective. After an acrimonious discussion Vanderveer suddenly declared:

"Just to settle this thing and settle it for now and all the time, I
will ask a subpoena forthwith for Philip K. Ahern and show who Reese is
working for."

The subpoena was issued and a recess taken to allow it to be served. As
Vanderveer stepped into the hall, detective Malcolm McLaren said to him,
"You can't subpoenae the head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency!"

"I have subpoenaed him," responded Vanderveer shortly as he hurried to
the witness room.

While awaiting the arrival of this witness, Feinberg was questioned
further, and was then taken from the stand to allow the examination of
two Everett witnesses, Mrs. L. H. Johnson and P. S. Johnson, the latter
witness being withdrawn when Ahern put in an appearance.

Vanderveer was very brief, but to the point, in the examination of the
local head of the Pinkerton Agency.

"Mr. Ahern, on the fifth day of November you had in your employ a man
named George Reese?"

"Yes sir."

"For whom was he working, thru you, at that time?"

"For Snohomish County."

"That's all!" said Vanderveer triumphantly.

Cooley did not seem inclined to cross-examine the witness at any length
and Vanderveer in another straightforward question brought out the fact
that Reese was a Pinkerton employe during the Longshoremen's
strike--this being the time that Reese also was seated as a delegate to
the Seattle Trades Council of the A. F. of L.

A portion of the testimony of Mrs. L. H. Johnson was nearly as important
as that concerning Reese. She recited a conversation with Sheriff McRae
as follows:

"McRae said he would stop the I. W. W. from coming to Everett if he had
to call out the soldiers. And I told him the soldiers wouldn't come out
on an occasion like this, they were nothing but Industrial Workers of
the World and they had a right to speak and get people to join their
union if they wanted to. And he said he had the backing of the millmen
to keep them out of the city, and he was going to do it if he had to
call the soldiers out and shoot them down when they landed there, when
they came off the dock."

[Illustration: Cutting off top of tree to fit block for flying machine.]

This clearly indicated the bloodthirsty designs of the millmen and the
sheriff at a time long before November 5th.

G. W. Carr, Wilfred Des Pres, and J. M. Norland testified to the
breaking up of peaceably conducted I. W. W. meetings, Des Pres also
telling of rifles having been transported from the Pacific Hardware
Company to the dock on November 5th. All three were Everett citizens.
Black asked Norland if he knew what sabotage was, to which Norland
replied:

"Everybody that follows the labor movement knows what sabotage is."

There was a sensation in court at this question for it was the first and
only time that any of the prosecution counsel correctly pronounced the
word sabotage!

W. W. Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club, altho an unwilling
witness, gave much information of value to the defense. He was forced to
produce the minutes of the "open shop committee" and give up the story
of how control of the club was purchased by the big interests, how the
boycott was invoked against certain publications, and finally to tell of
the employment of Pinkerton detectives prior to November 5th, and to
give a list of the deputies furnished by the Commercial Club.

During the examination of this witness some telegrams, in connection
with the testimony, were handed up to the judge. While reading these
Judge Ronald was interrupted by a foolish remark from Black to
Vanderveer. Looking over his glasses the judge said:

"Every time I start to read anything, you gentlemen get into a quarrel
among yourselves. I am inclined to think that the 'cats,' some of them,
are here in the courtroom."

"I will plead guilty for Mr. Black, Your Honor!" said Vanderveer
quickly, laughing at the reference to sabotage.

Testimony to further establish the peaceable character of the I. W. W.
meetings and the rowdyism of the police and deputies was given by
witnesses from Everett: Gustaf Pilz, Mrs. Leota Carr, J. E. McNair, Ed
Morton, Michael Maloney, Verne C. Henry and Morial Thornburg. The
statements of these disinterested parties regarding the clubbings given
to the speakers and to citizens of their acquaintance proved very
effective.

Attorney H. D. Cooley for the prosecution was placed upon the witness
stand and Vanderveer shot the question at him:

"By whom were you employed in this case, Mr. Cooley?"

"Objected to as immaterial!" cried Veitch, instantly springing to his
feet.

But the damage had been done! The refusal to allow an answer showed that
there were interested parties the prosecution wished to hide from the
public.

Levi Remick related the story of the deportation from Everett, and was
followed on the witness stand by Edward Lavelly, James Dwyer, and Thomas
Smye, who testified to different atrocities committed in Everett by
McRae and the citizen deputies. Their evidence had mainly to do with the
acts of piracy committed against the launch "Wanderer" and the
subsequent abuse of the arrested men. A little later in the trial this
testimony was fully corroborated by the statements of Captain Jack
Mitten. During Mitten's examination by Black the old Captain continually
referred to the fact that the life preservers and other equipment of his
boat had been stolen while he was in jail. The discomfiture of the
youthful prosecutor was quite evident.

J. H. Buel impeached the testimony of state's witness Judge Bell who had
made the claim that a filer at the Clark-Nickerson mill had been
assaulted by a member of the I. W. W. Vanderveer asked this witness:

"What was the name of the man assaulted?"

"Jimmy Cain."

"Who did it?"

"I did."

"Are you an I. W. W.?"

"No sir."

"Were you ever?"

"No sir."

Louis Skaroff followed with a detailed story of the murderous attack
made upon him by Mayor Merrill in the Everett jail, his story being
unshaken when he was recalled and put thru a grilling cross-examination.

William Roberts, who had been beaten and deported with Harry Feinberg,
related his experience. The childish questions of Black in regard to the
idea of abolishing the wages system nettled this witness and caused him
to exclaim, "the trouble is that you don't understand the labor
movement."

James Orr then told of having his money stolen by the officials so they
might pay the fares of twenty-two deported men, and John Ovist followed
with the tale of the slugging he had received upon the same occasion
that Feinberg, Roberts and Henig were assaulted.

Attorneys George W. Loutitt and Robert Faussett, of Everett, stated that
the reputation of McRae for sobriety was very bad. Both of these lawyers
had resigned from the Commercial Club upon its adoption of an open shop
policy.

Thomas O'Niel testified regarding street meetings and other matters in
connection with the case. Cooley asked the witness how many people
usually attended the meetings.

"It started in with rather small meetings," said the witness, "and then
every time, as fast as they were molested by the police, the crowd kept
growing until at last the meetings were between two and three thousand
people."

The witness said he had read considerable about industrial unionism, and
tho he was shocked at first he had come to believe in it.

"Until now you are satisfied that their doctrines taken as a whole are
proper and should be promulgated and adopted by the working class?"
inquired Cooley.

"In this way," answered O'Niel, "it was not the I. W. W. literature that
convinced me so much as the actions of the side that was fighting them."

"That is, you believe they were right because of the actions of the
people on the other side?" said Cooley.

"Yes," responded the witness, "because I think there are only two people
interested in this movement, the people carrying on the propaganda and
the people fighting the propaganda, and I saw the people who were
fighting the propaganda use direct action, sabotage, and every power,
political and industrial, they used it all to whip this organization,
and then I asked myself why are they fighting this organization. And the
more deeply I became interested, the more clearly I saw why they were
doing it, and that made me a believer in the I. W. W."

Mrs. Louise McGuire followed this witness with testimony about injuries
she had received thru the rough treatment accorded her by citizen
deputies engaged in breaking up a street meeting.

W. H. Clay, Everett's Commissioner of Finance, was brought on the stand
to testify that he was present and active at the conference that
resulted in the formation of the citizen deputies.

John Berg then related his experiences at the time he was taken to the
outskirts of Everett and deported after McRae had kicked him in the
groin until a serious injury resulted. Owing to the fact that the jury
was a mixed one Berg was not permitted to exhibit the rupture. This
witness also told his experience on the "Wanderer" and his treatment in
the jail upon his arrest.

Oscar Lindstrom then took the stand and corroborated the stories of the
witnesses who had testified about the shooting up of the "Wanderer" and
the beating and jailing of its passengers. H. Sokol, better known as
"Happy," also told of his experience on the "Wanderer" and gave the
facts of the deportation that had taken place on August 23rd.

Irving W. Ziegaus, secretary to Governor Lister, testified that the
letter concerning Everett sent from the Seattle I. W. W. had been
received; Steven M. Fowler identified certain telegrams sent from
Everett to Seattle officials by David Clough on November 5th; after
which Chester Micklin, who had been jailed in Everett following the
tragedy, corroborated parts of the story of Louis Skaroff.

The evidence of state's witness, Clyde Gibbons, was shattered at this
stage of the trial by the placing of Mrs. Lawrence MacArthur on the
stand. This witness, the proprietor of the Merchants Hotel in Everett,
produced the hotel register for November 4th and showed that Mrs.
Frennette had registered at that time and was in the city when Gibbons
claimed she was holding a conversation in an apartment house on Yesler
Way in Seattle.

The defense found it necessary to call witnesses who logically should
have been brought forward by the prosecution on their side of the case.
Among these was the famous "Governor" Clough, citizen deputy and open
shop mill owner. David Clough unwillingly testified to having been
present at the deportation of twenty-two I. W. W. members on August
23rd, having gone down to the dock at 8:30 that morning, and also to his
interest in Joseph Schofield, the deputy who had been injured by his
brother outlaws on the dock just before the Beverly Park deportations.

Mahler and Micklin were recalled for some few additional questions, and
were followed on the stand by Herman Storm, who gave testimony about the
brutal treatment received by himself and his fellow passengers on the
launch "Wanderer." John Hainey and Joseph Reaume also gave details of
this outrage.

"Sergeant" J. J. Keenan, who had become a familiar figure because of his
"police" duty in the outer court corridor from the inception of the
trial, then took the witness stand and recounted his experiences at
Snohomish and Maltby, his every word carrying conviction that the
sheriff and his deputies had acted with the utmost brutality in spite of
the advanced age of their victim. John Patterson and Tom Thornton
corroborated Keenan's testimony.

A surprise was sprung upon the prosecution at this juncture by the
introduction on the witness stand of George Kannow, a man who had been a
deputy sheriff in Everett and who had been present when many of the
brutalities were going on. He told of the treatment of Berg after the
"Wanderer" arrests.

"He was struck and beaten and thrown down and knocked heavily against
the steel sides of the tank, his head striking on a large projecting
lock. He was kicked by McRae and he hollered 'My God, you are killing
me,' and McRae said he didn't give a damn whether he died or not, and
kicked him again and then shoved him into the tank."

The gauntlet at the county jail was described in detail and the spirit
of the free speech fighters was shown by this testimony:

"Yes, I heard some of them groan. They all took their medicine well,
tho. They didn't holler out but some of them would groan; some of them
would go down pretty near to their knees and then get up, then they
would get sapped again as they got up. But they never made any real
outcries."

The witness stated that "Governor" Clough was a regular attendant at the
deportation parties and so also were W. R. Booth, Ed Hawes, T. W.
Anguish, Bill Pabst, Ed Seivers, and Will Taft. He described McRae's
drunken condition and told of drunken midnight revels held in the county
jail. His testimony was unshaken on cross-examination.

Mrs. Fern Grant, owner of the Western Hotel and Grant's Cafe, testified
that Mrs. Frennette was in her place of business in Everett on the
morning of the tragedy, thus adding to the evidence that Clyde Gibbons
had perjured himself in testifying for the prosecution.

A party of Christian Scientists, who had attended a lecture in Everett
by Bliss Knapp, told of the frightful condition of the eight men who had
taken the interurban train to Seattle following their experience at
Beverly Park. Mrs. Lou Vee Siegfried, Christian Science practitioner,
Thorwald Siegfried, prominent Seattle lawyer, Mrs. Anna Tenelli and Miss
Dorothy Jordan were corroborated in their testimony by Ira Bellows,
conductor on the interurban car that took the wounded men to Seattle.

Another break in the regular order of the trial was made at this point
by the placing on the stand of Nicholas Conaieff, member of the I. W.
W., who was to leave on the following day with a party of Russians
returning to their birthplace to take part in the revolution then in
progress. Conaieff stated that the first shot came from the dock. His
realistic story of the conditions on the Verona moved many in the
courtroom to tears. In his description Conaieff said:

"I was wounded myself. But before I was wounded and as we were lying
there three or four deep I saw a wounded man at my feet in a pool of
blood. Then I saw a man with his face up, and he was badly wounded,
probably he was dead. There were three or four wounded men alongside of
me. The conditions were so terrible that it was hard to control one's
self, and a young boy who was in one pile could not control himself any
longer; he was about twenty years old and had on a brown, short, heavy
coat, and he looked terrified and jumped up and went overboard into the
water and I didn't see him any more."

Mrs. Edith Frennette testified to her movements on the day of the
tragedy and denied the alleged threats to Sheriff McRae. Lengthy
cross-examination failed to shake her story.

Members of the I. W. W. who had been injured at Beverly Park then
testified. They were Edward Schwartz, Harry Hubbard, Archie Collins, C.
H. Rice, John Downs, one of the defendants, Sam Rovinson and Henry
Krieg. Any doubt as to the truth of their story was dispelled by the
testimony of Mrs. Ruby Ketchum, her husband Roy Ketchum, and her
brother-in-law Lew Ketchum, all three of whom heard the screams of the
victims and witnessed part of the slugging near their home at Beverly
Park. Some members of the investigation committee who viewed the scene
on the morning after the outrage gave their evidence as to the finding
of bits of clothing, soles of shoes, bloodstained hats and loose
hat-bands, and blotches of blood on the paved roadway and cattle guard.
These witnesses were three ministers of the gospel of different
denominations, Elbert E. Flint, Joseph P. Marlatt, and Oscar H. McGill.
The last named witness also told of having interviewed Herbert Mahler,
secretary of the I. W. W. in Seattle, following a conference with
Everett citizens, with the object of having a large public demonstration
in Everett to expose the Beverly Park affair and to prevent its
repetition. It was after this interview that the call went out for the
I. W. W. to hold a public meeting in Everett on Sunday, November 5th.
Mahler was recalled to the stand to verify McGill's statement in the
matter of the interview.

This testimony brought the case up to the events of November 5th and the
defense, having proven each illegal action of the sheriff, deputies and
mill owners, and disproven the accusations against the I. W. W.,
proceeded to open to the gaze of the public and force to the attention
of the jury the actual facts concerning the massacre on the Verona.

An important witness was Charles Miller, who viewed the tragedy from a
point about four hundred feet from the Verona while on the deck of his
fishing boat, the "Scout." He stated that the Verona tilted as soon as
the first shots came. Miller placed the model of the boat at the same
relative position it had occupied as the firing started on Bloody Sunday
and the prosecution could not tangle up this witness on this important
point. The "identification" witnesses of the prosecution were of
necessity liars if the stern of the Verona was at the angle set by
Miller.

C. M. Steele, owner of apartment houses and stores in Everett, stated
that he had been in a group who saw an automobile load of guns
transported to the dock prior to the docking of the Verona, this auto
being closely followed by a string of other machines. The witness tried
to get upon the dock but was prevented by deputies who had a rope
stretched clear across the entrance near the office of the American Tug
Boat Company. He saw the boat tilt as the firing started and noticed
that the stern swung out at the time. This testimony was demonstrated
with the model. Harry Young, chauffeur, corroborated this testimony and
told of rifle fire from the dock.

Mrs. Mabel Thomas, from a position on Johnson's float quite near the
Verona, told of the boat listing until the lower deck was under water,
almost immediately after the firing started. Mrs. Thomas testified that
"one man who was facing toward the Improvement Dock, raised his hands
and fell overboard from the hurricane deck as tho he were dead. His
overcoat held him to the top of the water for a moment and then he went
down. One jumped from the stern and then there were six or seven in the
water. One got up thru the canvas and crawled back in. One man that fell
in held up his hands for a moment and sank. There were bullets hitting
all around him."

Mr. Carroll Thomas, husband of the preceding witness, gave the same
testimony about the men in the water and stated that he saw armed men on
the Improvement Dock.

The testimony of Ayrold D. Skinner, a barber in Everett at the time of
the tragedy and who had been brought from California to testify, was
bitterly attacked by Veitch but to no avail. When the Verona landed
Skinner was so situated as to command a view of the whole proceedings.
He told of the boat listing, the men falling in the water and being
shot, and his testimony about a man on board the tug "Edison" firing a
rifle directly across the open space on the dock in the direction of the
Verona was unshakeable. This witness also testified that about ten
deputies with rifles were running back and forth in a frightened manner
and were firing from behind the Klatawa slip. The witness saw Dick
Hembridge, superintendent of the Canyon Lumber Company, Carl Tyre,
timekeeper, Percy Ames, the boom man, and a Dr. Hedges. The last two
came up to where the witness was, each bearing a rifle. Skinner stated
that he said to Ames, "Percy, what is the world coming to?" and Ames
broke down as tho he felt something were wrong. Then Dr. Hedges came
running up from where the boat was, he was white in the face, and he
cried "Don't go down there, boys; they are shooting wild, you don't know
where in hell the shots are coming from."

Carl Ryan, night watchman of the Everett Shingle Company, N. C. Roberts,
an Everett potter, Robert Thompson and Edward Thompson testified about
the angle of the boat, as to rifles on the dock, the shooting from the
tug "Edison" and from the Improvement Dock, in support of witnesses who
had previously testified.

Alfred Freeman, I. W. W. member who was on the Verona, testified about
the movements of those who made the trip to Everett and told of the
conditions on the boat. His testimony, and that of numerous other I. W.
W. witnesses, disproved the charges of conspiracy.

I. W. McDonald, barber, John Josephson, lumber piler, and T. M. Johnson,
hod carrier, all of Everett, stated that the shots from the boat did not
come until after there had been considerable firing from the dock. These
witnesses were among the thousands of citizens who overlooked the scene
from the hillside by the Great Northern depot.

[Illustration: VERONA AT EVERETT DOCK.

under same tide condition as at time of Massacre.]

On Wednesday, April 18th, the jury, accompanied by Judge Ronald, the
attorneys for both sides, the defendant, Thomas Tracy, and the court
stenographer, went in automobiles to Everett to inspect the various
places mentioned in the court proceedings. The party stopped on the way
to Everett to look over the scene of the Beverly Park outrages of
October 30th. No one spoke to the jury but Judge Ronald, who pointed out
the various features at the request of the attorneys in the background.

After visiting the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore Avenues, the party went
to the city dock. Both warehouses were carefully examined, the
bulletholes, tho badly whittled, being still in evidence. Bulletholes in
the floor, clock-case, and in the walls still showed quite plainly that
the firing from within the warehouse and waiting room had been wild.
Bullets imbedded in the Klatawa slip on the side toward the Bay also
gave evidence of blind firing on the part of the deputies. In the floor
of the dock, between the ship and the open space near the waiting room,
were several grooves made by bullets fired from the shore end of the
dock. These marks indicated that the bullets had taken a course directly
in line with the deputies who were in the front ranks as the Verona
landed.

The party boarded the Verona and subjected the boat to a searching
examination, discovering that the stairways, sides, and furnishings were
riddled with shot holes. The pilot house, in particular, was found to
have marks of revolver and high power rifle bullets, in addition to
being closely marked with small shot holes, some of the buck-shot still
being visible.

The captain swung the boat out to the same angle as it had been on
November 5th, this being done at a time when it was computed that the
tide would be relatively the same as on the date of the tragedy. Someone
assumed the precise position at the cabin window that Tracy was alleged
to have been in while firing. The jury members then took up the
positions which the "identification witnesses" had marked on a diagram
during their testimony. The man in the window was absolutely invisible!

A photograph was then taken from the point where "Honest" John Hogan
claimed to have been when he saw Tracy firing and another view made by
a second camera to show that the first photograph had been taken from
the correct position. These were later introduced as evidence.

No testimony was taken in Everett but on the re-opening of court in
Seattle next morning Frank A. Brown, life insurance solicitor, testified
that McRae dropped his hand just before the first shot was fired from
somewhere to the right of the sheriff. He also identified a Mr.
Thompson, engineer of the Clark-Nickerson mill, and a Mr. Scott, as
being armed with guns having stocks. Mike Luney, shingle weaver, told of
a fear-crazed deputy running from the dock with a bullethole in his ear
and crying out that one of the deputies had shot him. Fred Bissinger, a
boy of 17, told of the deputies breaking for cover as soon as they had
fired a volley at the men on the boat. It was only after the heavy
firing that he saw a man on the boat pull a revolver from his pocket and
commence to shoot. He saw but two revolvers in action on the Verona.

One of the most dramatic and clinching blows for the defense was struck
when there was introduced as a witness Fred Luke, who was a regular
deputy sheriff and McRae's right-hand man. Luke's evidence of the
various brutalities, given in a cold, matter-of-fact manner, was most
convincing. He stated that the deputies wore white handkerchiefs around
their necks so they would not be hammering each other. He contradicted
McRae's testimony about Beverly Park by stating positively that the
sheriff had gone out in a five passenger car, and not in a roadster as
was claimed, and that they had both remained there during the entire
affair. He told how he had swung at the I. W. W. men with such force
that his club had broken from its leather wrist thong and disappeared
into the woods. When questioned about the use of clubs in dispersing
street crowds at the I. W. W. meetings he said:

"I used my sap as a club and struck them and drove them away with it."

"Why didn't you use your hands and push them out?" asked Cooley.

"I didn't think we had a right to use our hands," said the big
ex-deputy.

"What do you mean by that?" said the surprised lawyer.

"Well," replied the witness, "what did they give us the saps for?"

Cooley also asked this witness why he had struck the men at Beverly
Park.

"Well," replied the ex-deputy, "if you want to know, that was the idea
of the Commercial Club. That was what they recommended."

Luke, who was a guard at the approach to the dock on November 5th, told
of having explained the workings of a rifle to a deputy while the
shooting was in progress. The state at first had contended that there
were no rifles on the dock and later had made the half-hearted plea that
none of the rifles which were proven to have been there were fired.

Following this important witness the defense introduced Fird Winkley, A.
E. Amiott, Dr. Guy N. Ford, Charles Leo, Ed Armstrong, mate of the
Verona and a witness for the state, and B. R. Watson, to corroborate the
already convincing evidence that the stern of the Verona was swung quite
a distance from the dock.

Robert Mills, business agent of the Everett Shingle Weavers, who had
been called to the stand on several occasions to testify to minor
matters, was then recalled. He testified that it was his hand which
protruded from the Verona cabin window in the photographs, and that his
head was resting against the window jamb on the left hand side as far
out as it would be possible to get without crawling out of the window.
As Mills was a familiar figure to the entire jury and was also possessed
of a peculiarly unforgettable type of countenance, the state's
identification of Tracy was shown to have been false.

The Chief of Police of Seattle, Charles Beckingham, corroborated
previous testimony by stating that the identification and selection of
I. W. W. men had been made from a dark cell by two Pinkerton men, Smith
and Reese, aided by one of the defendants, I. P. McDowell, alias Charles
Adams.

Malcolm McLaren was then placed upon the stand and the admission secured
that he was a detective and had formerly been connected with the Burns
Agency. Objection was made to a question about the employment of McLaren
in the case, to which Vanderveer replied that it was the purpose of the
defense to prove that the case was not being prosecuted by the State of
Washington at all. In the absence of the jury Vanderveer then offered to
prove that McLaren had been brought from Los Angeles and retained in the
employ of certain mill owners, among them being "Governor" Clough and
Mr. Moody of the First National Bank, and that McLaren had charge of the
work of procuring the evidence introduced by the state. He offered to
prove that Veitch and Cooley were employed by the same people. The court
sustained the objection of the state to the three offers.

Testimony on various phases of the case was then given by Mrs. Fannie
Jordan, proprietor of an apartment house in Seattle, Nick Shugar, Henry
Luce, Paul Blakenship, Charles W. Dean, and later on by Oliver Burnett.

Captain Chauncey Wiman was called to the stand, but it happened that he
had gone into hiding so soon after the boat landed that he could testify
to nothing of particular importance. From his appearance on the witness
stand it seemed that he was still nearly scared to death.

Another surprise for the prosecution was then sprung by placing Joseph
Schofield on the witness stand. Schofield told of having been beaten up
at the city dock by Joseph Irving, during the time they were lining up
the forty-one I. W. W. men for deportation. The witness displayed the
scar on his head that had resulted from the wound made by the gun butt,
and described the drunken condition of McRae and other deputies on the
occasion of his injury. And then he told that "Governor" Clough had gone
to his wife just a couple of days before he took the witness stand and
had given her $75.00. This deputy witness was on the dock November 5th,
and he described the affair. He swore that McRae had his gun drawn
before any shooting started, that there were rifles in use on the dock,
that a man was firing a Winchester rifle from the tug Edison. He was
handed a bolt action army rifle to use but made no use of it. Schofield
voluntarily came from Oregon to testify for the defense.

Chief Beckingham resumed the stand and was asked further about McDowell,
alias Adams. He said:

"We sent a man in with this man Adams, who was in constant fear that
somebody might see him, and he would stand way back that he might tip
this man with him and this man's fingers came out to identify the I. W.
W. men who were supposed to have guns."

"What inducements were made to this man Adams?" asked Vanderveer.

"In the presence of Mr. Cooley and Mr. Webb and Captain Tennant and
myself he was told that he could help the state and there would be no
punishment given him. He was taken to Everett with the impression that
he would be let out and taken care of."

Another ex-deputy, Fred Plymale, confirmed the statements of Fred Luke
in regard to McRae's use of a five passenger car at Beverly Park and
showed that it was impossible for the sheriff to have attended a dance
at the hour he had claimed. The efforts of the prosecution to shake the
testimony that had been given by Fred Luke was shown by this witness who
testified that he had been approached by Mr. Clifford Newton, as agent
for Mr. Cooley, and that at an arranged conversation McRae had tried to
have him state that the runabout had been used to go to the slugging
party.

Walter Mulholland, an 18 year old boy, and Henry Krieg, both of whom
were members of the I. W. W. and passengers on the Verona, then
testified in detail about the shattering gun fire and the wounding of
men on board the boat. Mulholland told of wounds received, one bullet
still being in his person at that time. Krieg, not being familiar with
military terms, stated that there were many shells on the deck of the
Verona after the trouble, and the prosecution thought they had scored
quite a point until re-direct examination brought out the fact that
Henry meant the lead bullets that had been fired from the dock.

E. Carl Pearson, Snohomish County Treasurer, rather unwillingly
corroborated the testimony of ex-deputies Luke and Plymale in regard to
the actions of McRae at Beverly Park.

The witness chair seemed almost to swallow the next nine witnesses who
were boys averaging about twelve years in age. These lads had picked up
shells on and beneath the dock to keep as mementos of the "Battle."
Handfuls of shells of various sizes and description, from revolver,
rifle and shotgun, intermingled with rifle clips and unfired
copper-jacketed rifle cartridges, were piled upon the clerk's desk as
exhibits by these youthful witnesses. After the various shells had been
classified by L. B. Knowlton, an expert in charge of ammunition sales
for the Whiton Hardware Company of Seattle for six years, the boys were
recalled to the stand to testify to the splintered condition of the
warehouses, their evidence proving that a large number of shots had been
fired from the interior of the warehouses directly thru the walls. The
boys who testified were Jack Warren, Palmer Strand, Rollie Jackson,
William Layton, Eugene Meives, Guy Warner, Tom Wolf, Harvey Peterson,
and Roy Jensen. Veitch, by this time thoroly disgusted with the turn
taken by the case, excused these witnesses without even a pretense of
cross-examination.

Completely clinching this link in the evidence against the citizen
deputies was the testimony of Miss Lillian Goldthorpe and her mother,
Hannah Goldthorpe. Miss Goldthorpe, waitress in the Commercial Club
dining room, picked up some rifle shells that had fallen from the rifles
stacked in the office, and also from the pocket of one of the hunting
coats lying on the floor. She took these home to her mother who
afterward turned them over to Attorney Moore. She also identified
certain murderous looking blackjacks as being the same as those stored
in the Club. It is hardly necessary to state that the open-shop
advocates who continually prate about the "right of a person to work
when and where they please" were not slow about taking away Lillian's
right to work at the Commercial Club after she had given this truthful
testimony!

James Hadley, I. W. W. member on the Verona, told how he had dived
overboard to escape the murderous fire and had been the only man in the
water to regain a place on the boat.

"I saw two go overboard and I didn't see them any more," said Hadley.
"Then I saw another man four feet from me and he seemed to be swimming
all right, and all of a sudden he went down and I never saw him any
more. I was looking right at him and he just closed his eyes and sank."

Mario Marino, an 18 year old member of the I. W. W., then told of the
serious wounds he had received on the boat. He was followed by Brockman
B. Armstrong, another member of the union, who was close to the rail on
the port side of the boat. He saw a puff of smoke slightly to the rear
of McRae directly after the sound of the first shot. A rifle bullet cut
a piece out of his forehead and a second went thru his cap and creased
his scalp, felling him to his knees. Owen Genty was shot thru the kidney
on the one side of him, and Gust Turnquist was hit in the knee on the
other. As he lay in the heap of wounded men a buckshot buried itself in
the side of his head near the temple. As the Verona was pulling out he
tried to crawl to shelter and was just missed by a rifle bullet from the
dock situated to the south.

Archie Collins, who had previously testified about Beverly Park, was
then called to the stand to tell of the trip to Everett and the trouble
that resulted. Prosecutor Black displayed his usual asininity by asking
in regard to preparations made by Verona passengers:

"What were they taking or not taking?"

"There might be two or three million things they were not taking," cut
in Judge Ronald chidingly.

Black's examination of the various witnesses was aptly described by
Publicity Agent Charles Ashleigh in the Industrial Worker, as follows:

"His examinations usually act as a soporific; heads are observed nodding
dully thruout the courtroom and one is led to wonder whether, if he were
allowed to continue, there would not be a sort of fairy-tale scene in
which the surprised visitor to the court would see audience, jury,
lawyers, judge, prisoner and functionaries buried in deep slumber
accompanied only by a species of hypnotic twittering which could be
traced eventually to a dignified youth who was lulled to sleep by his
own narcotic burblings but continued, mechanically, to utter the same
question over and over again."

During this dreamy questioning Black asked about the men who were
cleaning up the boat on its return trip, with a view to having the
witness state that there were empty shells all over the deck. His
question was:

"Did you pick anything up from the floor?"

Instantly the courtroom was galvanized into life by Collin's startling
answer:

"I picked up an eye, a man's eye."

The witness had lifted from the blood-stained deck a long splinter of
wood on which was impaled a human eye!

The story of Fred Savery was typical of the unrecognized empire builders
who make up the migratory class. Fred was born in Russia, his folks
moving to Austria and then migrating to Canada when the lad was but two
years old. At the age of nine he started at farm work and at twelve he
was big enough to handle logs and work in the woods. Savery took the
stand in his uniform of slavery, red mackinaw shirt, stagged-off pants,
caulked shoes, and a battered slouch hat in his hand. The honest
simplicity of his halting French-Canadian speech carried more weight
than the too smooth flowing tales told by the well drilled citizen
deputies on whom the prosecution depended for conviction.

Cooley dwelt at great length on the constant travel of this witness, a
feature incidental to the life of every migratory worker. Even the judge
tired of these tactics and told the prosecution that there was no way to
stop them from asking the interminable questions but it was merely a
waste of time. But all of Cooley's dilatory tactics could not erase from
the minds of the listeners the simple, earnest, sincere story Fred
Savery told of the death of his fellow worker, Hugo Gerlot.

Charles Ashleigh was then placed upon the witness stand to testify to
having been selected as one of the speakers to go to Everett on November
5th. He stated that he had gone over on the Interurban and had returned
that afternoon at four o'clock. After the prosecution had interrogated
him about certain articles published subsequent to the tragedy Ashleigh
was excused.

To impeach the testimony of William Kenneth, wharfinger at the City
Dock, the defense then introduced Peter Aikken of Everett. Following
this witness Owen Genty, one of the I. W. W. men wounded on the Verona,
gave an account of the affair and stated that the first shot came from a
point just to the rear of the sheriff.

Raymond Lee, a youth of 19 years, told of having gone to Everett on the
day of the Beverly Park affair in order to mail free speech pamphlets
directly to a number of Everett citizens. He went to the dock at the
time of the deportation, getting past the deputies on a plea of wanting
to see his uncle, his youth and neat appearance not being at all in
accord with the current idea of what an I. W. W. member looked like. Lee
was cross-questioned at great length by Veitch. This witness told the
story of the death of Abraham Rabinowitz on the Verona in these few,
simple words:

[Illustration: View of Beverly Park, showing County Road.]

"Rabinowitz was lying on top of me with his head on my leg. I felt my
leg getting wet and I reached back to see what it was, and when I pulled
my hand away it was covered with blood. He was shot in the back of the
brain."

James McRoden, I. W. W. member who was on the Verona, gave corroborative
testimony about the first shot having been from the dock.

James Francis Billings, one of the free speech prisoners, testified that
he was armed with a Colts 41 revolver on the Verona, and shortly after
the shooting started he went to the engineer of the boat and ordered him
to get the Verona away from the dock. He threw the gun overboard on the
return trip to Seattle. Black tried to make light of the serious
injuries this witness had received at Beverly Park by asking him if all
that he received was not a little brush on the shin. The witness
answered:

"No sir. I had a black eye. I was beaten over both eyes as far as that
is concerned. My arms were held out by one big man on either side and I
was beaten on both sides. As Sheriff McRae went past me he said 'Give it
to him good,' and when I saw what was coming I dropped in order to save
my face, and the man on the left hand side kicked me from the middle of
my back clear down to my heels, and he kept kicking me until the fellow
on the right told him to kick me no more as I was all in. My back and my
hip have bothered me ever since."

Black tried to interrupt the witness and also endeavored to have his
answer stricken from the testimony but the judge answered his objection
by saying:

"I told you to withdraw the question and you didn't do it."

Vanderveer asked Billings the question:

"Why did you carry a gun on the fifth of November?"

"I took it for my own personal benefit," replied Billings. "I didn't
intend to let anybody beat me up like I was beaten on October 30th in
the condition I was in. I was in bad condition at the time."

Harvey E. Wood, an employe of the Jamison Mill Company, took the stand
and told of a visit made by Jefferson Beard to the bunkhouse of the mill
company on the night of November 4th and stated that at the time there
were six automatic shot guns and three pump guns in the place. These
were for the use of James B. Reed, Neal Jamison, Joe Hosh, Roy Hosh,
Walter S. Downs, and a man named McCortell. This witness had acted as a
strikebreaker up until the time he was subpoenaed.

Two of the defendants, Benjamin F. Legg and Jack Leonard, fully verified
the story told by Billings.

Leland Butcher, an I. W. W. member who was on the Verona, told of how he
had been shot in the leg. When asked why he had joined the I. W. W. he
answered:

"I joined the I. W. W. to better my own condition and to make the
conditions my father was laboring under for the last 25 years, with
barely enough to keep himself and family, a thing of the past."

Another of the defendants, Ed Roth, who had been seriously wounded on
the Verona, gave an unshaken story of the outrage. Roth testified that
he had been shot in the abdomen at the very beginning of the trouble and
because of his wounded condition and the fact that there were wounded
men piled on top of him he had been unable to move until some time after
the Verona had left the dock. This testimony showed the absurdity of
McRae's pretended identification of the witness. Roth was a member of
the International Longshoremen's Association and had joined the I. W. W.
on the day before the tragedy.

John Stroka, a lad of 18, victim of the deputies at Beverly Park and a
passenger on the Verona, gave testimony regarding the men wounded on the
boat.

The next witness was Ernest P. Marsh, president of the State Federation
of Labor, who was called for the purpose of impeaching the testimony of
Mayor Merrill and also to prove that Mrs. Frennette was a visitor at the
Everett Labor Temple on the morning of November 5th, this last being
added confirmation of the fact that Clyde Gibbons had committed perjury
on the stand.

To the ordinary mind--and certainly the minds of the prosecution lawyers
were not above the ordinary--the social idealist is an inexplicable
mystery. Small wonder then that they could not understand the causes
that impelled the next witness, Abraham Bonnet Wimborne, one of the
defendants, to answer the call for fighters to defend free speech.

Wimborne, the son of a Jewish Rabbi, told from the witness stand how he
had first joined the Socialist Party, afterward coming in contact with
the I. W. W., and upon hearing of the cruel beating given to James
Rowan, had decided to leave Portland for Everett to fight for free
speech. Arriving in Seattle on November 4th, he took passage on the
steamer Verona the next day.

Prosecutor Black asked the witness what were the preparations made by
the men on the boat.

"Don't misunderstand my words, Mr. Black," responded Wimborne, "when I
say prepared, I mean they were armed with the spirit of determination.
Determined to uphold the right of free speech with their feeble
strength; that is, I never really believed it would be possible for the
outrages and brutalities to come under the stars and stripes, and I
didn't think it was necessary for anything else."

"Then when these men left they were determined?" inquired Black.

"Yes, determined that they would uphold the spirit of the Constitution;
if not, go to jail. There were men in Everett who would refuse the right
of workingmen to come and tell the workers that they had a way whereby
the little children could get sufficient clothing, sufficient food, and
the right of education, and other things which they can only gain--how?
By organizing into industrial unions, sir, that is what I meant. We do
not believe in bloodshed. Thuggery is not our method. What can a handful
of workers do against the mighty forces of Maxim guns and the artillery
of the capitalist class?"

"Did you consider yourself a fighting member?" questioned Black.

"If you mean am I a moral fighter? yes; but physically--why, look at me!
Do I look like a fighter?" said the slightly built witness.

"Did you or did you not expect to go to jail when you left Portland?"
asked the prosecutor.

"My dear Mr. Black, I didn't know and I didn't care!" responded Wimborne
with a shrug of his shoulders.

Wimborne joined the I. W. W. while in the Everett County Jail.

Michael J. Reilley, another of the defendants, testified as to the
firing of the first shot from the dock and also gave the story of the
death of Abraham Rabinowitz. Vanderveer asked him the question:

"Do you know why you are a defendant?"

"Yes, sir," replied Reilley, "because I didn't talk to them in the city
jail in Seattle. I was never picked out."

Attorney H. D. Cooley was recalled to the stand and was made to admit
that he was a member of the Commercial Club and a citizen deputy on the
dock November 5th. He was asked by Vanderveer:

"Did you see any guns on the dock?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you see any guns fired on the dock?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you see any guns fired on the boat?"

"No sir."

"Did you see a gun on the boat?"

"I did not."

"You were in full view of the boat?"

"I was."

Yet the ethics of the legal profession are such that this attorney could
justify his actions in laboring for months in an endeavor to secure, by
any and all means, the conviction of the men on the boat!

Defendant Charles Black testified that McRae dropped his hand to his
gun and pulled it just as one of the deputies fired from a point just
behind the sheriff. Black ran down the deck and into the cabin, passing
in front of the windows from which the deputies had sworn that heavy
firing was going on.

Leonard Broman, working partner with Abraham Rabinowitz, then took the
stand and told his story. When asked what were the benefits he received
from having joined the I. W. W., the witness replied:

"They raised the wages and shortened the hours. Before I joined the I.
W. W. the wages I received in Ellis, Kansas, was $3.00 for twelve hours
and last fall the I. W. W. got $3.50 for nine hours on the same work."

Ex-deputy Charles Lawry told of various brutalities at the jail and also
impeached McRae's testimony in many other particulars.

Dr. Grant Calhoun, who had attended the more seriously injured men who
were taken from the Verona on its return to Seattle, told of the number
and nature of the wounds that had been inflicted. On eight of the men
examined he had found twenty-one serious wounds, counting the entrance
and exit of the same bullet as only one wound. Veitch conducted no
cross-examination of the witness.

Joe Manning, J. H. Beyers, and Harvey Hubler, all three of them
defendants, gave their testimony. Manning told of having been seated in
the cabin with Tracy when the firing commenced, after which he sought
cover behind the smokestack and was joined by Tracy a moment later.
Beyers identified Deputy Bridge as having stood just behind McRae with
his revolver drawn as tho firing when the first shot was heard. This
witness also corroborated the story of Billings in regard to demanding
that the engineer take the boat away from the dock. Hubler verified the
statements about conditions on the Verona and also told of being taken
from his jail cell by force on an order signed by detective McLaren in
an attempt to have him discharge the defense attorneys and accept an
alleged lawyer from Los Angeles.

[Illustration: THOMAS H. TRACY]

Harry Parker and C. C. England told of injuries sustained on the
Verona, and John Riely stated there was absolutely no shooting from the
cabin windows, that being impossible because the men on the boat had
crowded the entire rail at that side.

Jerry L. Finch, former deputy prosecuting attorney of King County, gave
impeaching testimony against Wm. Kenneth and Charles Tucker. Cooley
asked this witness about his interviews with the different state's
witnesses:

"If you talked with all of them, you would probably have something on
all of them?"

The judge would not let Finch answer the question, but there is no doubt
that Cooley had the correct idea about the character of the witnesses on
his side of the case.

In detailing certain arrests Sheriff McRae had claimed that men taken
from the shingleweavers' picket line were members of the I. W. W. B.
Said was one of the men so mentioned. Said took the witness stand and
testified that he was a member of the longshoremen's union and was not
and had not been a member of the I. W. W.

J. G. Brown, president of the International Shingleweavers' Union,
testified that the various men arrested on the picket line in Everett
were either members of the shingle weavers' union or else were
longshoremen from Seattle, none of the men named by McRae being members
of the I. W. W. The testimony of Brown was also of such a nature as to
be impeaching of the statements of Mayor Merrill on the witness stand.

Charles Gray, Robert Adams, and Joe Ghilezano, I. W. W. men on the
Verona, then testified, Adams telling of having been shot thru the
elbow, and Ghilezano giving the details of the way in which his kneecap
had been shot off and other injuries received.

The murderous intentions of the deputies were further shown by the
testimony of Nels Bruseth, who ran down to the shore to launch a boat
and rescue the men in the water. He was stopped in this errand of mercy
by the deputies.

Civil Engineer F. Whitwith, Jr., of the firm of Rutherford and Whitwith,
surveyed the dock and the steamer Verona and made a report in court of
his findings. His evidence clearly showed that there was rifle, shotgun
and revolver fire of a wild character from the interior of the
warehouses and from many points on the dock. He stated that there were
one hundred and seventy-three rifle or revolver bullet marks, exclusive
of the B-B and buckshot markings which were too numerous to count, on
the Verona, these having come from the dock, the shore, and the
Improvement Dock to the south. There were sixteen marks on the boat that
appeared as tho they might have been from revolver fire proceeding from
the boat itself. There were also small triangular shaped gouges in the
planking of the dock, the apex of the triangles indicating that bullets
had struck there and proceeded onward from the Klatawa slip to the open
space on the dock where deputies had been stationed. The physical facts
thus introduced were incontrovertible.

Defendant J. D. Houlihan gave positive testimony to the effect that he
had not spoken privately with "Red" Doran in the I. W. W. hall on the
morning of November 5th, that he had received no gun from Doran or
anyone else, that he did not have the conversation which Auspos imputed
to him, that he had no talk with Auspos on the return trip. All efforts
to confuse this witness failed of their purpose.

In verification of the testimony about deputies firing on the Verona
from the Improvement Company Dock the defense brought Percy Walker upon
the stand. Walker had been cruising around the bay in a little gasoline
launch and saw men armed with long guns, probably rifles or shotguns,
leaning over a breastwork of steel pipes and firing in the direction of
the Verona.

Lawrence Manning, Harston Peters, and Ed. J. Shapeero, defendants, told
their simple straightforward stories of the "battle." Peters stated
that as he lay under cover and heard the shots coming from the dock he
"wished to Christ that he did have a gun." Shapeero told of the wounds
he had received and of the way the uninjured men cared for the wounded
persons on the boat.

Mrs. Joyce Peters testified that she had gone to Everett on the morning
of November 5th in company with Mrs. Lorna Mahler. The reason she did
not go on the Verona was because the trip by water had made Mrs. Mahler
ill on previous occasions. She saw Mrs. Frennette in Everett only when
they were on the same interurban car leaving for Seattle after the
tragedy.

Albert Doninger, W. B. Montgomery and Japheth Banfield, I. W. W. men who
were on the Verona, all placed the first shot as having come from the
dock immediately after the sheriff had cried out "You can't land here."

N. Inscho, Chief of Police of Wenatchee, testified that during the time
the I. W. W. carried on their successful fight for free speech in his
city there were no incendiary fires, no property destroyed, no assaults
or acts of violence committed, and no resistance to arrest.

H. W. Mullinger, lodging house proprietor, John M. Hogan, road
construction contractor, Edward Case, railroad grading contractor,
William Kincaid, alfalfa farmer, and John Egan, teamster, all of North
Yakima and vicinity, were called as character witnesses for Tracy, the
defendant having worked with or for them for a number of years.

The defense followed these witnesses with Oscar Carlson, the passenger
on the Verona who had been fairly riddled with bullets. Carlson
testified that he was not and never had been a member of the I. W. W.,
that he had gone to Everett with his working partner, Nordstrom, as a
sort of an excursion trip, that he had purchased a one way ticket which
was taken up by the captain after the boat had left Seattle, that he
intended returning by way of the Interurban, and that the men on the
boat were orderly and well behaved. He told of having gone to the very
front of the boat as it pulled into Everett from which point he heard
the first shot, which was fired from the dock. He fell immediately and
while prostrate was struck with bullet after bullet. He then told of
having entered suit against the Vashon Navigation Company for $50,000.00
on account of injuries received. Robert C. Saunders, of the law firm of
Saunders and Nelson, then testified that he was handling the case for
Carlson and had made out the affidavit of complaint himself and was
responsible for the portion that alleged that a lawless mob were on the
boat, Carlson having made no such statement to him at any time.

Charles Ashleigh was recalled to the stand to testify to having
telephoned to the Seattle newspapers on November 4th, requesting them to
send reporters to Everett the next day. He was followed on the stand by
John T. Doran, familiarly known as "Red" on account of the color of his
hair. Doran stated that he was the author of the handbill distributed in
Everett prior to the attempted meeting of November 5th. He positively
denied having given a gun to Houlihan or anyone else on November 5th.
Upon cross-examination he said that he was in charge of the work of
checking the number of men who went on the Verona to Everett, and had
paid the transportation of the men in a lump sum.

As the next to the last witness on its side of the long-drawn out case
the defense placed on the stand the defendant, Thomas H. Tracy. The
witness told of having been one of a working class family, too large to
be properly cared for and having to leave home and make his own way in
the world before he was eleven years old. From that time on he had
followed farming, teaming and construction work in all parts of the
west, his bronzed appearance above the prison pallor giving evidence of
his outdoor life.

Tracy told of having been secretary of the I. W. W. in Everett for a
short time, that being the only official position he had ever held in
the organization. He explained his position on the boat at the time it
docked, stating that the first shot apparently came from the dock and
struck close to where he was sitting. Immediately the boat listed and
threw him away from the window, after which he sought a place of safety
behind the smokestack. He denied having been in any way a party to a
conspiracy to commit an act of violence, or to kill anyone.

"You are charged here, Mr. Tracy," said Vanderveer, "with having aided
and abetted an unknown man in killing Jefferson Beard. Are you guilty or
not guilty?"

"I am not guilty," replied Tracy without a trace of emotion.

The cross-questioning of the defendant in this momentous case was
conducted by citizen-deputy Cooley. His questions to the man whom he and
his fellow conspirators on the dock had not succeeded in murdering were
of the most trivial nature, clearly proving that arch-sleuth McLaren had
been unable to discover or to manufacture anything that would make
Tracy's record other than that of a plain, unassuming, migratory worker.

"Where did you vote last?" asked Cooley.

"I never voted," responded Tracy.

"Never voted in your life?" queried Cooley.

"No!" replied the defendant who for the time represented the entire
migratory class. "I was never in one place long enough!"

Then, acting on the class theory that it is an honor to be a
"globe-trotter" but a disgrace to be a "blanket-stiff," the prosecutor
brought out Tracy's travels in minute detail. This examination of the
railroad construction worker brought home to the listeners the truth of
the little verse:


     "He built the road;
     With others of his class he built the road;
     Now o'er its weary length he packs his load,
     Chasing a Job, spurred on by Hunger's goad,
     He walks and walks and walks and walks,
     And wonders why in Hell he built the road!"


Then there hobbled into the court room on crutches a stripling with an
empty trouser leg, his face drawn with suffering, and who was able to
get into the witness chair only by obviously painful efforts with the
assistance of Vanderveer and Judge Ronald. This was Harry Golden, whose
entire left leg had been amputated after having been shattered by a
high-power rifle bullet fired by a "law and order" deputy.

Golden stated that he had been born in Poland twenty-two years before,
and had come to the United States at the age of sixteen. He was asked:

"Why did you come to this country?"

"I came to the United States," said the witness, "because it is supposed
to be a free country."

"We object to that as immaterial!" cried prosecutor Veitch.

The witness described the firing of the first shot and told of his
attempts to find a place of safety. He said he was wounded in the hand
as he attempted to climb into a life boat. He remained on the starboard
side of the starboard life boat until the Verona had backed out into the
bay. Then just as he was starting to raise up a rifle bullet struck his
leg, taking a course thru the limb and emerging at the knee.

"That is on your left--?"

"On my left, yes, which I ain't got; I lost it!" said the witness.

"Did I understand you to say you stood up to see something before you
were shot?" asked Veitch.

"Why, sure!" replied Golden contemptuously. "I had my two legs then."

Veitch wished to learn the exact location of the witness at the time he
was shot and to that end referred to the model with the remark:

"Look here. Here is the boat as it was at the dock."

"I don't like to look at it!" said Golden heatedly. "I lost my leg on
that boat!"

[Illustration: EVERETT from the water. To the left G. N. Depot from
where bystanders viewed battle.]

The witness was in evident pain during the examination, having just had
a hospital treatment applied to his raw stump, and was rather irritable
as a consequence. He answered several questions rather sharply and
proceeded to explain his answers. At one of these interruptions Judge
Ronald exclaimed to the witness angrily:

"When he asks you a question answer yes or no! If you want to live in
this country try and live like an American!"

"I take an exception to Your Honor's remarks!" said Moore emphatically.

The judge grudgingly allowed an exception to his uncalled for statement.

In concluding his examination Veitch asked the witness:

"What is your name in Polish?"

"I am not Polish; I am a Jew," replied Golden. "Well, what is your
family name in Poland?" asked the prosecutor.

"Goldenhaul, or something like that. Now I call myself Golden. When we
come to this country--."

"Never mind," interposed Veitch hurriedly.

"When we come to this country for good luck we always change the name,
you know," finished Golden, and added bitterly, "I sure did have good
luck!"

This ended the case in chief for the defense, the marshalling of such a
mass of testimony from a host of disinterested witnesses, men, women and
children, putting it on an entirely different footing from the
prejudiced testimony brought forward by the prosecution.

In rebuttal of testimony produced by the defense the prosecution
introduced a series of witnesses. As in their case in chief every one of
the parties who testified were in some way concerned in the case as
deputies, jailers, police officers, dance hall habitues, detectives, and
the like. The witnesses were W. P. Bell, Dr. F. R. Hedges, E. E. Murphy,
Charles Hall, Rudolph Weidaur, W. J. Britt, Percy Ames, Harry Blackburn,
Reuben Westover, Harry Groger, W. M. Maloney, Albert Burke, W. R.
Conner, A. E. Andrews, David D. Young, Howard Hathaway, George Leonard
Mickel, Paul Hill, E. C. Mony, B. H. Bryan, all of whom were deputies,
D. C. Pearson, W. H. Bridge, and "Honest" John Hogan, all three jailers
and deputies, Robert C. Hickey, city jailer, David Daniels and Adolph
Miller, police officers, Charles Manning and J. T. Rogers, personal
friends of McRae, Oscar Moline, dance hall musician, Albert McKay, of
the Ocean Food Products Company located on the Everett Improvement Dock,
T. J. McKinnon, employe of McKay, R. B. Williams, contractor, John
Flynn, agent Everett Improvement Dock, W. W. Blain and F. S. Ruble,
secretary and bookkeeper respectively of the Commercial Club and also
deputies, A. E. Ballew, Great Northern depot agent, H. G. Keith, Great
Northern detective, Charles Auspos, who was shown to be in receipt of
favors as state's witness, and George Reese, Pinkerton informer and
"stool pigeon."

One deputy, H. S. Groger, stated on cross-examination that he
continuously fired at a man on the boat who appeared to be trying to
untie the spring line. Outside of this evidence of a desire for
wholesale slaughter nothing developed of sufficient importance to
warrant the production of sur-rebuttal witnesses, except in the
testimony of Auspos and Reese.

Auspos testified that defendant Billings in the presence of John
Rawlings had stated in the Everett County jail that he had a gun that
made a noise like a cannon. This was intended to controvert the
testimony of Billings.

Reese related a conversation that Tracy was alleged to have carried on
in his presence on the Verona as it was bound for Everett. He stated
that a launch was seen approaching and someone remarked that it was
probably coming to head them off, to which Tracy replied "Let them come;
they will find we are ready for them, and we will give them something
they are not looking for." This was intended as impeachment of Tracy.

Cross-examination of this informer brought out the fact that he was a
Pinkerton agent at the time he was holding the office of delegate to the
Central Labor Council of the American Federation of Labor. Reese stated
that he was employed on the waterfront during the longshoremen's strike
with instructions to "look for everybody who was pulling the rough
stuff, such as threatening to burn or attempting to burn warehouses, and
shooting up non-union workers, and beating them up and so forth." He had
been in the employ of the Pinkerton Agency for six weeks this last time
before he was ordered to go down and join the I. W. W. He stated in
answer to a question by Vanderveer:

"I was instructed to go down there and find out who these fellows were
that was handling this phosphorus and pulling off this sabotage and the
only way I could find out was to get a card and get in and get
acquainted with them."

Attorney Moore in the absence of the jury offered to prove that Reese
had practically manufactured this job for himself by promoting the very
things he was supposed to discover. Moore stated some of the things he
would prove if permitted by the court:

"That on or about August 1st Reese went to one J. M. Wilson, an official
of the longshoremen's union, and endeavored to get $10.00 with which to
buy dynamite to blow up a certain city dock; that on September 20th the
witness gave Percy May, a member of the longshoremen's union, a bottle
of phosphorus with instructions to start a fire at Pier 5; that in the
month of July the witness opposed a settlement of the longshoremen's
strike and when members of the union argued that they could remain out
no longer as they had no money, Reese clapped his pockets and said, 'you
fellows wouldn't be starving if you had the nerve that I have got. Why
don't you go out and get it, take it off the scabs the way I do;' that
in September Feinberg had to make Reese leave the speaker's stand in
Everett because he was talking on matters harmful to industrial union
propaganda; that on November 4th the witness went to the place where
Feinberg was employed and left a suit of clothes to be pressed, saying
to Feinberg, after he had ascertained that Feinberg was thinking of
going to Everett on the following day, "mark the bill 'paid' so I will
have a receipt if you don't come back;" that on August 16th, the day
before the big dock fire in Seattle, Reese went to the down-town office
of the same dye works in which Walker C. Smith was manager and in charge
of the purchase of chemicals and tried to get Smith to purchase for him
some carbon disulphide to be used in connection with phosphorus; that in
the month of November in the Labor Temple, in the presence of Sam
Sadler, Reese had said to Albert Brilliant that if the longshoremen had
any guts they would go out with guns and clean up the scabs on the
waterfront; and that Reese tried to get other men to co-operate with him
in a scheme to capture a Government boat lying in the Sound during the
progress of the longshoremen's strike."

The court refused to allow the defense to go into these matters so the
only showing of the true character of Reese was confined to examination
as to the perjury he had committed in his initial sworn statement to the
defense.

The sur-rebuttal of the defense occupied but a few minutes. It was
admitted that Mr. Garver, the court reporter, would swear that Reese had
made an initial statement to the defense counsel and that the same had
been taken down stenographically and sworn to. Charles Tennant, captain
of the detective force of the Seattle police department, testified to
having telephoned to the sheriff's office in Everett on November 5th to
give the information that a boatload of I. W. W. men had left for
Everett. He did not describe the body of men in any way and had not said
that they were armed. This was for the purpose of showing that somewhere
between the time that Jefferson Beard received the message and the time
it was transmitted to the deputies some one had inserted the statement
that the men on the boat were heavily armed. John Rawlings, defendant,
testified that no such conversation as that related by Auspos had
occurred in the presence of defendant Billings. Thomas H. Tracy denied
making the threats ascribed to him by Reese, and this closed the
hearing of evidence in the case.

Outside the courtroom on the day the last of the evidence was introduced
there was in progress one of the largest demonstrations of Labor ever
held in the Pacific Northwest. The date was May first, and International
Labor Day was celebrated by the united radicals of the entire city and
surrounding district. Meeting at the I. W. W. hall at 10:30 in the
morning, thousands of men and women fell into a marching line of fours,
a committee pinning a red rose or carnation on each marcher. Fifteen
solid blocks of these marchers, headed by Wagner's Band, then wended
their way thru the streets to Mount Pleasant Cemetery and grouped
themselves around the graves of Baran, Gerlot and Looney--Labor's
martyred dead.

There, upon the hillside, in accordance with his final wishes, the ashes
of Joe Hill were scattered to the breeze, and with them were cast upon
the air and on the graves beneath, the ashes of Jessie Lloyd and Patrick
Brennan, two loyal fighters in the class struggle who had died during
the year just passed.

A fitting song service, with a few simple words by speakers in English,
Russian, Swedish, Hungarian and Italian, in commemoration of those who
had passed away, completed the tribute to the dead.

Nor were the living forgotten! The great crowd drifted from the
graveside, but hundreds of them reassembled almost automatically and
marched to the King County jail. Standing there, just outside of the
very heart of the great city, the crowd, led by the I. W. W. choir, sang
song after song from the revolutionary hymnal--the little red song book,
each song being answered by one from the free speech prisoners confined
in the jail. The service lasted until late in the day and, to complete
the one labor day that is as broad as the world itself, a meeting was
held in one of the largest halls of the city. At this meeting the final
collection for the Everett Prisoners' Defense was taken and at the
request of the imprisoned men one half of the proceeds was sent to aid
in the liberation of Tom Mooney and his fellow victims of the Merchants'
and Manufacturers' Association in San Francisco.

There remained but the reading of the instructions of the court and the
addresses by the counsel for either side to complete this epoch making
case and place it in the hands of the jury for their final verdict.




CHAPTER VIII.

PLEADINGS AND THE VERDICT


The instructions of the court, carefully prepared by Judge J. T. Ronald,
required sixty-five minutes in the reading. These instructions were
divided into twenty-three sections, each section representing a
different phase of the case. Herewith is presented the first section in
its entirety and a summary of the remaining portion:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury:

"My responsibility is to decide all questions of law in this case; yours
to decide one question of fact. With these instructions my
responsibility practically ends, your commences. You have taken a solemn
oath that 'you will well and truly try and true delivery make between
the State of Washington and the prisoner at the bar, whom you have in
charge, according to the evidence.'

"There is no escape from the responsibility which has come to you, save
in the faithful effort to render a true verdict. Any verdict other than
one based upon pure conscience will be an injustice. An honest juror
yields to no friendship, nor bears any enmity. He is moved by no
sympathy, nor influenced by any prejudice. He seeks the approval of no
one, nor fears the condemnation of anyone--save that one unerring,
silent monitor, his own conscience. Disregard this whispering voice in
yourself and you may fool the public, you may fool the defendant, you
may, hereafter, with some effort, even close your own soul to her
whispering reproaches and enjoy the ill-earned plaudits of the selfish
or biased friend or interest whom you sought to please, but be assured
you will not change the truth, you will not deceive justice which, at
some time, and in some way, will collect from you the penalty which is
always sooner or later exacted from those who betray the truth.

"So let me urge that in deciding the issue of facts which is now your
responsibility you be guided by these instructions which you have sworn
to follow, and by their conscientious application to the evidence in
this case.

"Do not permit yourselves to be swayed by sympathy, influenced by
prejudice, or moved in the least by a consideration of what might or
might not meet the approval or the condemnation of any person or class
of persons, or of interest whatever. To do so will be an act alike
dishonest, violative of your oath, substituting for a fair and impartial
trial an unfair and a partial one. This is an epoch in your lives to
which you will ever look back. Be sure that when you do you may face the
smiling approval of your conscience rather than its stinging reproach.

"The guilt or innocence of this defendant is a single question of fact
to be determined by the evidence alone. If this evidence shows defendant
to be guilty, then no sympathy, no desire for approval, no fear of
condemnation, can make him innocent; if the evidence fails to show him
guilty, then no prejudice, no desire for approval, no fear of
condemnation, can make him guilty. The issue is a momentous one, not
only to the defendant, who, if innocent, deserves the deepest sympathy,
for the accusation made against him is a serious one; but likewise to
the public and to society at large, and the tranquility and security of
our different communities.

"A false verdict against the defendant conflicts with the purpose and
the laws of the State as effectively as a false verdict in his favor.
The State has no higher duty or interest than to preserve all its
citizens from suffering under unfounded accusations. If, on the other
hand, the guilt of the defendant has been shown, a false verdict of
acquittal would not only be a breach of your oaths, but it would inflict
a grievous wrong upon the State. If a true verdict calls for conviction,
the misfortune to the defendant is not in the verdict, nor in the
penalty, but in the fact it was his conduct which makes the verdict
true. You alone of all the world, and who now possess all the facts, are
therefore responsible for the verdict in this case. The law is not
concerned about conviction merely--but it is concerned, deeply
concerned, that juries shall conscientiously and fearlessly declare the
truth. Whether it be conviction, or whether it be acquittal, a true
verdict is justice--a false is injustice."

Judge Ronald followed this lecture on civic righteousness and personal
duty with more specific instructions to the jury, of which the following
are excerpts.

"In this case you must answer the question--Is this defendant guilty or
innocent? * * * Keep constantly in mind this issue and do not go astray
to discuss any other of the many issues that may be suggested by or may
lay hidden among the great mass of evidence in this case. Whether the
Industrial Workers of the World shall or shall not speak at a certain
place in the City of Everett is not an issue here. * * * Whether the
open or the closed shop shall prevail is not a subject for your
consideration.

"Every defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent. * * *
You must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the facts necessary
to show guilt before you can convict. * * * You should give the phrase
'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' its full meaning and weight as
explained and defined to you in these instructions. On the other hand,
you should not magnify nor exaggerate its force and fail to return a
verdict of guilty simply because the evidence does not satisfy you of
guilt to an absolute certainty. No crime can be proved to an absolute
certainty.

"It does not follow because every one of the facts which are disputed
between the parties may not be established beyond a reasonable doubt,
that there cannot be a conviction. At the same time you will bear
carefully in mind that all facts which are necessary to establish the
conclusion of guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

"There are two facts necessary to convict this defendant:

(1) That some person on the boat unlawfully killed Jefferson Beard.

(2) That this defendant aided, incited or encouraged such shooting.

"If you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of these two facts, then
you must convict, no matter what may be your belief concerning any other
question in dispute in this case; if you have a reasonable doubt as to
either of these two facts, then you must acquit."

The instructions then went into detail as to the rights of the workers
to organize, to bargain in regard to compensation, hours of labor and
conditions of work generally, to go on strike, to persuade or entice
their fellow workers by peaceful means from taking the positions which
they have left, to assemble at public places where such meetings are not
prohibited by law and ordinance, and "no person, either private citizen
or public official, has any right to deny, abridge or in any manner
interfere with the full and free enjoyment of those privileges and any
person who attempts to do so is himself guilty of an unlawful act."

After reciting such acts attributed to the workers in this case as were
in violation of law, the instructions went on to state that "a sheriff
has no authority to arrest any person without a warrant except upon
probable cause for believing such person has violated a law of the
state; nor has he authority after making such arrest to hold his
prisoner in custody for a longer time than is reasonably necessary to
cause proper complaint to be filed, and an opportunity given for bail. *
* * A sheriff has no right or authority to interfere with or prevent any
person from violating a city ordinance, nor has he the right or
authority to arrest for violations of city ordinances" unless "the act
threatened, or the act done, in violation of such ordinance be at the
same time violation of a state law."

The instructions then outlined the scope of criminal conspiracy, stating
that it was unnecessary for one conspirator to know all of the other
conspirators but that common design is the essence of the charge of
conspiracy. The acts of one conspirator become the acts of any and all
conspirators. In the eyes of the law the sheriff and the deputies also
constituted in this case but one personality, the sheriff being bound by
the acts of his deputies and the deputies being authorized by the powers
of the sheriff. Also the ordinance dated September 21st, 1916, was held
to be a valid one.

"Now whether any of the Industrial Workers of the World have been, prior
to November 5, 1916, guilty of encouraging disrespect for law, or of
unlawful assemblage, or of riot, is not the question on trial here. They
could all be guilty of all the acts or offenses heretofore mentioned,
and still this defendant be innocent of this particular crime charged on
November 5th, or they could all be innocent of all the acts mentioned,
and defendant still be guilty of the main charge here.

"Again, whether the sheriff or any of his assistants have been guilty of
any of the acts charged against them is not on trial here. They could
all be guilty of all the acts charged and still be the victims of
unjustifiable shooting from that boat, or they could all be innocent of
any offense, and still be the aggressors and cause of that shooting on
the dock wherein Jefferson Beard lost his life.

"One of the questions in this case is the question--Which side was the
aggressor on that occasion?

"In determining who was the aggressor it is your duty to consider all
the facts and circumstances surrounding the situation, the relations of
the parties to each other, their intentions toward each other, and all
the things they did. You will also consider the past conduct of all the
parties, any acts of violence or other assaults that may have been
committed, and any threats that may have been made, and the character
as known and understood by each other.

[Illustration: Victims at Morgue.

John Looney  Hugo Gerlot, Felix Baran  Abe Rabinowitz]

"Therefore, simplify your deliberations and determine first the
question: Did somebody on the boat unlawfully kill Jefferson Beard? If
somebody on the boat did not kill Beard, then of course Tracy could not
be guilty of aiding John Doe to do something which John Doe did not do.
But if the State has satisfied you beyond a reasonable doubt that Beard
was killed by a shot fired by somebody on the boat, then such killing is
either unlawful, in which case John Doe would be guilty of one of three
degrees of unlawful or felonious homicide, viz., murder in the first
degree, murder in the second degree, or manslaughter; or it is
justifiable in which case John Doe would not be guilty. Hence you will
render one of four verdicts in this case--

1. Guilty of murder in the first degree, or

2. Guilty of murder in the second degree, or

3. Guilty of manslaughter, or

4. Not guilty.

"It is very desirable that you reach a verdict in this case. The law
requires that your conclusion shall be unanimous. It is not required
that any one of you should surrender his individual freedom of
judgement, but it is well that each of you should have in mind that your
true verdict cannot ordinarily be reached except by mutual consideration
and discussion of all the different views that may suggest themselves to
any of your number. The jury room is no place for pride of opinion. A
verdict which is the result of real harmony, or that growing out of
open-minded discussion between jurors, and a willingness to be
convinced, with a proper regard for the opinions of others, and with a
reasonable distrust of individual views not shared by their fellows, is
a fair yielding of one reason to a stronger one; such, having in mind
the great desirability of unanimity, is not open to criticism. The law
contemplates that jurors shall, by their discussions, harmonize their
views if possible, but not that they shall compromise and yield for the
mere purpose of agreement. One should not surrender his conscientious
convictions.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I commit the case to your
hands. Listen to the arguments. Regardless of what may be counsel's
recollection of testimony, you must take and follow your own
recollection. You are not required to adopt any view which counsel may
suggest in argument, but you should give close attention to all they
say. Take up your task fearlessly, with but one single aim--to discharge
the obligations of your oaths. You have no class to satisfy--simply the
dictates of your own conscience."

Taken as a whole the instructions were distinctly unfavorable to the
defendant, not because of any particular bias of the judge whose
political ambitions might have made him desirous of establishing a
record for fairness, but by reason of the fact that the law itself on
the question of criminal conspiracy is archaic and absurd, being based
upon precedents established when the use of electricity and steam power
were unknown, when the stage coach was the fastest means of locomotion
and the tallow dip the principal form of illumination. This law, like
all other statute law, was created thru the desire of the ruling class
to protect property, therefore it contained no element of justice when
applied to the modern proletariat, the twentieth century worker stripped
of everything but his power to labor.

Following the reading of the court's instructions prosecutor Black made
his argument, Vanderveer and Moore for the defense addressing the jury
in turn, and Cooley making the concluding plea for the state. This
arrangement gave Veitch no chance to turn loose his oratorical
fireworks, much to the chagrin of the gentleman who had been so kindly
loaned to the prosecution by the Merchants' and Manufacturers'
Association.

Black's lengthy address was a whine for pity because of his youth and a
prayer for relief from the dire straits and legal bankruptcy into which
Snohomish County had fallen. It is summarized in the following:

"We are at the close of a great trial. A great deal of evidence has been
introduced; practically two million five hundred words. From the
standpoint of the attorneys who have tried this case the evidence has
been very complicated because it had in it a great mass of evidence that
was only remotely connected with the real issue at bar. You as jurors
have a very simple question to decide in this case.

"Thomas H. Tracy is charged with the crime of murder in the first
degree, not that he himself killed Jefferson Beard, but that he, Thomas
H. Tracy, aided, incited and encouraged some unknown one to kill
Jefferson Beard of Everett, on last November 5th.

"I repeat first that some person on the boat unlawfully killed Jefferson
Beard; secondly that this defendant, aided, incited and encouraged such
shooting.

"I come before you as the prosecuting attorney of Snohomish County.
Owing to the exigencies of politics I was elected to office a few days
after November 5th, the time of this catastrophe. Two months and a few
days after, I took office and found a man charged with a crime that I
did not have the power of prosecution over up to that time. Mr. Webb,
then prosecuting attorney, who had started the action and initiated and
seen fit to collect some of the evidence, was not able to complete the
prosecution on account of the size of the trial.

"I am a young man without the experience that any man ought to have in
the prosecuting of a case like this, a case the size of which has never
been experienced in the State of Washington, and in many ways an
absolutely pioneer case in criminal trials the world over.

"So the State has been hampered in that at the outset a young man, a new
prosecuting attorney, has come into office and to him there has come a
case that no man could read up concerning, and a large piece of
battle--it is the State's contention, a battle between hundreds of men
on the boat and a large number of deputies on the dock, a battle
absolutely and surely initiated by firing from the boat, but still a
battle;--a case without parallel in the criminal history of this State
or of the United States.

"It happens that fortunately the State has had assistance in this case.
The State of Washington, thru its county commissioners, requested the
assistance in this case of Mr. Cooley, whom you have all grown to know,
a man who formerly for four years was prosecuting attorney of Snohomish
County, and who since that time has been associated as assistant counsel
in practically all the criminal prosecutions of Snohomish County that
have required assistance.

"And in addition to this the State has been fortunate in having, at the
request of the county commissioners, the assistance of Mr. Veitch, a
young man it is true, but one who thru years of service in the district
attorney's office in Los Angeles County had experience in criminal
trials, and especially because of his connection with what are known as
the conspiracy murder trials in Los Angeles County, and also in
assisting the federal prosecution at Indianapolis. It has been necessary
in this kind of a case for the State to have assistance.

"Now I told you my friends that I came here as prosecuting attorney of
Snohomish County. I am also a deputy prosecuting attorney of King County
under Mr. Lundin. After I was appointed I was very unpleasantly
surprised by one statement. A little phrase, 'without pay,' so that I
don't know whether really I am a deputy prosecuting attorney or not,
because I found that in public office a man always likes to see the
warrant come at the end of the month!

"You are a jury in this case from King County because the defendant and
the other defendants filed an affidavit to the effect that they didn't
expect that a jury selected in Snohomish County would give the defendant
a fair trial. The State is happy in your selection and knows that you
will follow the dictates of your conscience and is likewise confident
that you cannot help but believe that Jefferson Beard was killed by
someone shooting from the Verona, and that Thomas H. Tracy, alias George
Martin, incited, aided and encouraged in that shooting.

"Now, the witnesses on the dock are men of Everett, men of family, men
who are laborers, but with families; men who are clerks, with interests
in Snohomish County; men who hold some important positions, as lawyers;
people with families, people who by residence have established
reputation for truth and veracity; men who have established themselves,
have made themselves successful, sometimes in merely that they have
established a small home, or who have lived in Everett and have made
friends and acquaintances. That is the class of men that were on the
dock.

"There are only two classes of people who know anything about the
shooting. The people on the dock are one set, and the people on the boat
are the other.

"The people on the boat, with but one or two exceptions, are men who have
established no reputation for truth and veracity, have been successful
in the world in no way, even from the standpoint of stable friends,
living here and there, unfortunately; perchance, with some of them it is
due to unfortunate circumstances and environments, and they have been
unlucky, but still they haven't established stable friends in any
community.

"Then there are the three boatmen on the boat--and those three men,
unprejudiced, unbiased, not deputies and not Commercial Club members,
but merely laborers, they know where the first shot came from, and they
tell, and their testimony absolutely and entirely contradicts the
testimony of the defense in this case from start to finish.

"And when you look at that red face and red hair and that honest
expression of big Jack Hogan John Hogan here, and his honest blue eyes,
it doesn't seem to me that you can have any more doubt than I have that
Jack Hogan saw Tracy.

"Now, these men that come on the stand all confess they had a common
design. Their common design they say, was that about two o'clock in
Everett they were going to speak at the corner of Wetmore and Hewitt
Avenues, that is their common design.

"The court tells you that the purpose that they admit was unlawful, so
Tracy, by the testimony adduced in his favor, was one of the men having
a common design for an unlawful purpose. Tracy, regardless of his
location, regardless of whether he fired or not, is guilty.

"The sheriff and his deputies could have been guilty of everything
claimed against them previous to this and the defendant still be guilty
of helping and encouraging someone else to unjustifiably kill Jefferson
Beard.

"Under the Court's instructions there were acts done at Beverly Park
that were unlawful. There is no question about that. Instead of this
being a weakness on the State's part, it seems to me that it is an added
strength. Because the I. W. W. used Beverly Park for what purpose? They
jumped on it with desire, deeming it a fortunate circumstance because
they wanted to inflame men to invade Everett. They jumped on this, the
men at the head of the conspiracy, they jumped on Beverly Park because
they could use it to inflame their members. How do we know? Their own
statements! Their telegrams! 'Advertise conditions and send volunteers.'
Volunteers for what? Volunteers for what? When a man represents things
and so helps to make men mad he wants these men up there as volunteers
for retaliation. And the Court has instructed you that if these men went
up there with the purpose of retaliating, they are guilty. Tracy having
been one of a common design makes it central, vital, in good conscience
as citizens, that you return your verdict asked by the state.

"Any time a murder is committed it is important that prosecution be had
and conviction secured. That is always vital from the standpoint of
protection to society. The police, the sheriff's office, and the
officials of all cities and states of the United States sometimes
forget themselves, I take it, sometimes do things they shouldn't do,
sometimes do things they should be censured for, but the fact that they
had is no reason that murder is to be excused or justified, because if
you did, we would have no society. That is true in an ordinary murder
case. That is overwhelmingly true in this case.

"The I. W. W. is an organization that realizes the great truth in
combating government. They have stumbled upon an overwhelmingly
successful instrument in fighting society. What is that? To commit a
violation of the law in numbers, to violate the law by so many people
that only a few can be prosecuted and even if they are convicted, the
great majority go scott free. They built better than they knew when they
stumbled upon the great secret that the violation of a law in great
numbers would protect practically all of the violators. And this trial
itself is proof of that.

"Snohomish County can ill afford the expense of this one trial; can ill
afford the expense of two or three trials after this; would be
overwhelmed with debt to convict all the men who are in this conspiracy,
if there were a conspiracy it can't do it; most of them are safe from
prosecution and they know it; and the only protection that Snohomish
County has, and King County has, and the State of Washington has, and
the United States has, is that when something happens like this a
conviction be secured against a man who is guilty, not because you are
convicting all, because you can't, you are helpless--but because that at
least is the voice of warning to the men that if you lead an attempt you
may be the one of the great number that will be caught. It is important
from the standpoint of citizens of the State of Washington to establish
the principle that crimes cannot be committed by numbers with impunity,
that while it is fairly safe, it won't be absolutely safe. We have no
protection. That is the vital part of this case. We have no protection.

[Illustration: JOHN LOONEY]

"If this case were just that of murder committed by one man acting
alone, the importance of your verdict would be of small significance,
compared with the importance of your verdict in a criminal case where
the members are part of an organization. True, the society has no doubt
a great many aims that are desirable to improve the welfare of the
workingman. But it has one aim, one vital aim, in its platform to bring
upon it the condemnation of thinking, sober men and women residing
permanently in the State of Washington, and that is sabotage.

"We are not claiming that the killing of Jefferson Beard was in the
exercise of sabotage. We are saying that sabotage along with the
conscious withdrawal of efficiency, sabotage along with the destruction
of property, may also mean crime.

"The I. W. W. members did not come to Everett for the purpose of
employment; they were men who were wanderers upon the face of the earth,
who desired to establish themselves nowhere, and none of them, as far as
this witness stand is concerned, expected to work in Everett or to put
sabotage in effect in Everett by working slow. The only way they could
use sabotage in Everett was by the destruction of property. The mayor
became alarmed, and the sheriff, after their repeated threats in their
papers. But whether you believe sabotage to be good, bad, or
indifferent, really is not vital in this case except as a circumstance.

"Now, the Wanderer. The Wanderer did not happen the way they said it
happened. The sheriff did shoot after they refused to stop. The sheriff
did hit some of them with the butt of his gun. The sheriff brought them
into Everett because they constituted an unlawful assemblage. The
sheriff did the only thing he could do. He filed charges against them
and they were arraigned in court. Twenty-three men cannot be tried
quickly when each one demands a separate trial by jury. Twenty-three
trials would stop the judicial machinery for three months. They could
not be tried and so the sheriff turned them loose. Maybe he did hit them
harder than he should have. Policemen do that! Sheriff do that! Lots of
time they hit men when it is not necessary. Hit them too hard,
sometimes. They don't always understand exactly what they are supposed
to do. But the I. W. W. exaggerated the matter and used it to incite
retaliation on the fifth. So the Beverly Park incident, and all other
incidents, if true to the last syllable of the defense testimony, merely
in this case extenuated the motive on November 5th.

"Now then, why did the State select Tracy? The State's evidence was to
the effect that Tracy was not only a member of the conspiracy, but was
firing. Several State's witnesses recognized Tracy. There was another
reason. What was that? Some of these men, some of these boys, flitting
here and there from job to job, with never more than a dollar or two in
their pockets, were inflamed intentionally by people who misrepresented
conditions. They did not have any right to be inflamed; they did not
have any right to go to Everett and they are guilty of murder if they
went up there to retaliate for any wrong, actual or conceived. But the
State has preferred to put on first a man who was in the forefront of
the conspiracy; the man that appeared to be an important cog of that
conspiracy, and that man is Tracy.

"Tracy knew that a great many people of Everett were alarmed and
disturbed. Tracy knew that the I. W. W. did not want anything in
Everett, had no interests there, no friends there except as they were
disturbing conditions. Tracy knew the purposes and Tracy went back to
Seattle so he could lead this excursion to Everett. Tracy is a man of
determination. He knew the situation and he was prominent enough to be
selected by the organization as a stationary delegate. And if any man
knew what they intended to do in Everett, it undoubtedly was Tracy. So,
regardless of whether he fired or not, Tracy was one of the men who were
on the inside. Tracy is a part of the conspiracy that happened. But no
man, my friends, on that boat, that went up there with a common design
to break the ordinance has been sinned against because he is in jail.

"Now, my friends, you want in good faith to follow the instructions of
the court. It seems to me that the only question you have to decide is
the one the court told you to decide--Was Beard killed unlawfully by a
shot from the boat, and did Tracy aid, encourage or incite that killing?

"The murder of Jefferson Beard was a premeditated murder. Following the
instructions of the court, separating the wheat from the chaff, and
deciding that one question, we of the State are confident that you as
jurors and good citizens, as honest, sincere and conscientious citizens,
will protect Snohomish County--we believe that your verdict will say 'We
are convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Tracy is guilty, and,
being so convinced, we are going to protect Snohomish County as we would
our own.' I thank you!"

Vanderveer handled the case from two different viewpoints--that of a
first degree murder trial and also as a section of the class struggle.
His address was a masterly array of invincible logic and satire.
Omitting his readings from the transcript of evidence, his speech was
substantially as follows:

"This cause is, as the counsel for the state has told you, one of
momentous importance not only to the defendant but to a class--a large
class of people of whom today he stands merely as an unfortunate single
member, fighting their battle.

"We do not ask in this case for mercy, we do not ask for sympathy, but
it is essential, absolutely essential that we should have cold, stern
justice; justice for the defendant, justice for those who have oppressed
him, those who have denied him his rights. We hope this case is the
beginning of a line of prosecution which will see that justice is done
in the Everett situation.

"It is not the defense who outlined the issues in this case, it was the
State who determined that. They have chosen their fighting ground, and
we had to meet them on that battle. In the beginning of this case the
State, thru Mr. Black, told you that it would prove a conspiracy of very
formidable proportions, a conspiracy in the first place to commit acts
of violence and to incite acts of violence, a conspiracy to commit
arson, a conspiracy to overrun all law and order in Everett and bring on
a condition of chaos. The claim was a very formidable one. The evidence
has been very silly. The State ought to apologize, in common decency,
for ever having suggested these things.

"What is the evidence about the fires? The fire marshall's report, made
by a man who would naturally try to enlarge the performance of his
duties and impress upon the public the manner in which he discharged
them, reports only four fires of incendiary origin for the entire year.
Every one of these were discovered before they did five cents worth of
damage. Who had notice of them? Was it the I. W. W. who set them or was
it Reese or some paid employe of the Pinkerton Agency? Can you conceive
that an organization embracing as many members as this does, bent upon
the destruction of Everett, could not set one fire at least that would
do some damage. It is nothing but a hoax!

"As to force and violence, who did they put on to prove it? Young Howard
Hathaway, a mere boy, whose father represents some mill companies in
Everett. Then Sheriff McRae, and McRae couldn't tell you one thing that
he heard at the street meetings. Then they put on Ed Hawes, the big
brute that out at Beverly called the little boy a coward, a baby,
because he wouldn't stand there and be slugged with guns and clubs. And
what did Hawes say? That he looked up sabotage in the International
Dictionary! And you can search that book until you are black in the face
and you won't find a word in there about sabotage. Why, if sabotage is
such a terrible thing, did Hawes, having heard all about it at the
street meeting, have to go home to look it up at all?

"At these meetings there was not one thing said that could invite
criticism, there was not one thing said that could justify or invite
censure or abuse; there was not one disorderly thing done but was done
by the officers of the law themselves, and they went in recklessly,
without excuse, without right, they clubbed Henig, they clubbed Carr, a
former member of the council, and they roughed women around and knocked
them down. Why? Because these people were mill owners, their hirelings
and their representatives, who had been instructed in the propaganda of
the open shop by employes, aides and emissaries of the Merchants' and
Manufacturers' Association.

"A lot of people went to the jail one night, a thousand, maybe. They
hooted, they cat-called, and they hissed. Is it any wonder they did?
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to tell you there is no surer verdict on
earth than the verdict of a crowd; and the verdict of that crowd
condemned what the deputies had done.

"Finally they say there was a conspiracy on the 5th of November to go to
Everett and to hold their meeting at all hazard, to brook no opposition,
to ride rough-shod over it, to oppose everyone and anything that stood
in the way of accomplishing their purpose. I ask you to think just for a
moment how foreign that is to everything you know about the I. W. W. and
their operations and behavior in Everett. Not one witness for the state
could tell you an incident where one of them resisted arrest, could tell
you an occasion where one of them had advocated violence, could tell you
one occasion where any one of them had committed any acts of violence.

"These people wrote to Governor Lister calling his attention to the
violations of the law on the part of the officers of Everett; they wrote
to Mayor Merrill, enclosing a copy of that letter and calling on him to
restore the order that had been violated by the officers of the law;
they scattered handbills all over Everett, among its best homes and in
its business streets, calling upon the good citizens to come to their
meeting on November 5th at Wetmore and Hewitt, to come and help maintain
your own and our constitutional privileges; they mailed to the citizens
of Everett on October 30th, seven or eight hundred copies of a little
pamphlet calling upon them to intervene and stop the brutality of
officers of the law; they questioned Governor Lister at a public meeting
and again called his attention to the conditions in Everett; they called
in the reporters, called the newspapers and notified the editors that
they were going to Everett and asked them to have representatives
present: Are these the acts of conspirators?

"You know how that meeting was called and why it was called. You know it
from ministers of the gospel, you know it from the lips of those whom
you cannot help but believe. And it was called for Sunday, the day when
people ordinarily resent disorders of the kind that had occurred there.
It was called for the daytime, when ordinarily abuse and violence are
not attempted. And this big crowd went up there on this fine Sunday
afternoon because in number there is strength and in numbers there is
protection against brutality.

"At first the deputies had taken out one or two and abused and beaten
them; then they had taken five or six; they had taken eighteen; finally
they had taken forty-one. But I ask you, would you believe it possible
that they could take two hundred or three hundred people in broad
daylight and do to them what had been done to the others? Yet the
evidence in this case shows convincingly and conclusively they intended
to do substantially that thing. They intended to run those men into a
warehouse; they didn't intend to let one of them get away. And had they
gotten them into that warehouse you don't know, I don't know, nobody
knows what would have happened!

"That is the evidence of conspiracy in this case. They have claimed no
other conspiracy; they have offered no other evidence of conspiracy,
either to set fires or to incite violence, or to override all opposition
on November 5th. Their evidence doesn't stand even if unanswered--and no
evidence could be more successfully answered.

"What evidence is there that Tom Tracy had anything to do with such a
conspiracy, if there were one? Their most willing tools, Auspos and
Reese, don't say a word about Tracy.

"What does the identification by McRae amount to? He identifies Tracy as
the man who leaned out of the window and shot at him. Now at the time
this shot was fired McRae had his back turned to the man who shot it. He
says himself he did, and he was shot thru the heel, which seems to prove
it. That, by the way, suggests to me that it was not an I. W. W. who
shot McRae. The man who shot him must have thought McRae a hero, like
the gentleman of mythological fame who was killed by an arrow thru the
heel which no I. W. W. does, I assure you. Or else he thought that McRae
wore his brains there.

"But I am not going to discuss McRae at great length either now or at
any other stage of this case, because the greatest kindness I can do him
is to forget him. The man is a perjurer! He lied! He was not mistaken.
He deliberately, cold-bloodedly lied about almost everything in this
case wherein his conduct as an officer was questioned. He lied about
'Sergeant' Keenan! He lied about shooting at the "Wanderer," and you saw
the bullet holes. He lied about Berg and about Mitten, and finally, and
last of all lied, and we have proven it conclusively, about being out to
Beverly Park.

"Bridge's identification of Tracy does not agree with that of Smith, and
Bridge does not even agree with his own testimony given at the coroner's
inquest. Smith picked out a photograph and said it was Tracy and that
picture resembles Tracy about as much as I do some of you jurors. Bridge
and Smith say that Tracy fired three shots, and Hogan says he fired only
one. And you know, ladies and gentlemen, that Hogan did not see this man
at all. You know that he did not even see the window at which he
pretends this man was sitting when the shot was fired. You know it
because you went there to the dock and you saw the boat lined up to a
mathematical certainty by the shot marks, and you saw a photograph taken
with the camera placed by John Hogan exactly where he said he was
standing himself. And there wasn't a one of you who could identify Bob
Mills, with his long nose and angular features, with everything that
makes identification easy, when he was in the position attributed to
Tracy. And when you came around from there to where you could look
directly at the place, the reflected glare of the sunshine left nothing
but a blank background.

"There were one hundred and forty deputies looking toward the place
where the first shot was supposed to have been fired. They have produced
on the witness stand only about one in ten. We challenged them to bring
them all on, we dared them to do it, and Mr. Cooley said 'I accept that
dare!'--look it up Mr. Cooley on page 1802 of the transcript--but he did
not dare accept that dare. Mr. Cooley knows what those nine-tenths would
testify to. Twelve out of their sixteen witnesses who testified about
the first shots said that their brother deputies were mistaken as to
even the place on the boat where the first three shots came from.

"I venture, ladies and gentlemen, that with a bit of the kind of work
the State has employed in this case, a little bit of the same zeal that
was employed on Auspos, a little bit of the same zeal that was employed
with Reese, a little bit of the help of McLaren of Los Angeles, I can
take these one hundred and forty-five men and pick out four men who will
honestly and truthfully testify that they saw anything, and I say that
with no reflection on their honesty either, because the power of
suggestion is enormous. It is not surprising that four people have come
here to say they saw Tracy. It is not surprising that three out of the
four should have been proven, conclusively, convincingly and absolutely,
not to know what they were talking about.

[Illustration: FELIX BARAN

Dark lines on body caused by internal hemorrhage; Portland doctor said
life might have been saved by operation.]

"The court has told you that in this case it is not a question of who
shot first, not a question of which side shot first, it is a question of
who was the aggressor, who made the first aggressive movement, who did
the first hostile thing. The man who did a thing to excite fear was the
aggressor, and that man was McRae when he pulled his gun. McRae clearly
did that before there was any shooting.

"In determining who the aggressor was, you are entitled--not only
entitled but must take into account the past behavior of all parties.
And what does that show you? Was it the I. W. W.'s who had never offered
violence, who had never done an act of violence, who had decried and
deplored violence, as members of their audiences told you, and advised
caution against it? Or was it McRae and his deputies?

"It is only formally correct to refer to these as deputies. They had
commissions, but in nothing else in the world did they bear the remotest
resemblance to officers of the law, not in their conduct, not in their
training, not in their purposes, not in anything. They were the
hirelings of either the mill owners of Everett or the Commercial Club.
Did you ever in your life before hear of officials taking their
instructions from representatives of an industrial movement? Did you
ever before hear of deputy sheriffs being instructed in the propaganda
of the open shop, being instructed in the methods employed at Minot
unlawfully to prevent street speaking? That is where the first mistake
in this case was made. First in the selection of that kind of men;
second in the deliberate attempts which were made to color their
actions, to pervert them, to make them the tools of the employers.

"That is the reason Henig and Carr were beaten, that is the reason
Feinberg and Roberts were beaten, that is the reason men and women were
knocked down in the crowds, that is the reason that this boy, Schwartz,
was taken out by McRae and chased zigzag down the road in mortal terror
of being run down by the sheriff's automobile, that is the reason
'Sergeant' Keenan was hit over the head with a gun, that is the reason
James Rowan was taken out and beaten black and blue. How do you suppose
Rowan got those marks on his back? Did he put them there for fun, or
were they put there by somebody else's rotten, dirty brutality? If you
didn't know a thing about him except what you know about Beverly and
these other incidents, and it was deep darkness where this happened, I
venture you would all say off-hand, 'It must have happened at Everett,
anyway. There is no place else that I know of where they do such
things.'

"Black says the "Wanderer" has been greatly misrepresented to you, that
the things we claim happened did not happen there at all. Well, there is
a lot of evidence that they did happen. There are a lot of people who
could have denied it. There are a whole crew of deputies who could have
come up here and denied it. Why didn't they? Because they were ashamed
of it and they knew they could not stand the grilling that was awaiting
them in the court room. It is true, certainly! And I say here that
nothing but providential intervention prevented McRae on that day from
being a cold-blooded murderer! That is the manner of man you are
considering. You are considering whether he was the aggressor, he or the
people he shot at.

"Counsel says that Louis Skaroff lied. Now I am very frank to confess
that when we produced that story on the witness stand I feared you would
not believe it, not because I doubted the truthfulness of his statement
but because the story itself is so brutal and inhuman that I questioned
whether there could be found anywhere in the county twelve persons who
would think such things could possibly happen just thirty miles away.
But when one of their own witnesses went on the stand here, in rebuttal,
and told you that Louis Skaroff came out of that room with his arms
above his head, crying, with the blood running from his finger tips, I
knew that you knew that Louis Skaroff had told the truth.

"The state has been very reluctant in this case to admit that there were
rifles on the dock, because if the deputies went there with rifles there
was a reason for it. You could not find a rifle on that dock until we
proved--what? That rifle shells were around the dock in great numbers;
we proved it by innocent, clean little boys who picked up the shells;
until we proved by witnesses that the rifles were there and were being
shot; until we proved by a rifle bullet with human blood and a man's
hair on it that the use made of the rifles was a deadly one.

"Who was the aggressor? Even now the State doesn't like to admit,
because the State knows it is fatal to their case to admit, and
notwithstanding hopeless to deny, that there were helpless men in the
water being shot at. They do not like to admit that a man was so
impressed with the inhumanity of the thing that he ran from the depot to
the boat house hoping to effect a rescue of the men and was stopped by
the armed deputies. The State does not like to admit the evidence of
their own deputy witness, Groger,--whose actions I want the counsel for
the state to explain and justify if he can--who repeatedly fired at a
man who was trying to untie the boat so the unarmed men could escape.

"Counsel said that if there was any intention to start trouble men would
not have lined up as they were on the dock in an exposed position. And I
ask you, if there was not an intention to start trouble why were they
kept in the warehouse until the boat had almost tied up? If that was not
an ambuscade, what on earth was it? If they did not intend to start
trouble why was it McRae waited until the line was out and made fast.
Why was it, then, he did not say to the captain, 'Take your boat out?'
He said he was afraid they would go somewhere else. Well, when he told
those boys they could not land he expected them to go away. Or did he
expect them to go away? Which was it?

"The manner in which McRae handled this thing indicates nothing so much
as that he intended to get them there and administer to them another of
the things that he calls a lesson, another of the things that other
people call infamous, damnable brutality.

"Counsel says there have been mistakes made. He doesn't want to
apologize for them, but clearly he doesn't want to be held responsible
for them. There were mistakes made. Beverly was one! The "Wanderer" was
one! From the beginning to the end of all their operations in Everett
everything has been a mistake--a mistake because the ordinary processes
of law and the rights of other people were ignored. There was no
ordinance prohibiting speaking. The boys were yielding implicit, careful
obedience to such law as there was. McRae unblushingly tells you that
the reason he made arrests was because there were labor troubles in
Everett and the shingle mill owners didn't want things embarrassed by
the truth, by the disclosures contained in this little report of the
Industrial Relations Commission.

"They were not afraid of the I. W. W.'s going up there to incite
violence, to advise disorder, to invoke a reign of terror. Reigns of
terror are the employers' specialty! They were afraid of cold fact.
Never a man went up there to speak on the street and used that little
Industrial Relations report but was thrown in jail for it--Thompson,
Rowan, Feinberg, Roberts, all.

"It's nice to enjoy the powers, the position and authority of a dictator
who can repeal, amend and modify, ignore, disregard laws when it suits
his fancy, but it's kind of tough on other people. That's what McRae
did!

"On the 5th of March, nearly nine weeks ago, His Honor called this case
from his bench 'State versus Thomas H. Tracy,' and my friend Mr. Cooley
rose from his chair and said 'Your Honor, the State is ready.' I say to
you, Mr. Cooley, you slandered the fair name of your state! What has the
State of Washington to do with this thing? The name of the State of
Washington in such a case as this should stand for law and order and
decency. The State is supposed to protect the innocent against abuse and
injustice and you who are now running this case do not now maintain
these things, or if you do, you protect them only when convenience
requires it.

"It is not the State of Washington versus Thomas H. Tracy at all, and if
the decent people of Everett who know the facts could decide what course
this action should take it would never be here. Even the title of the
case is a mistake. It is the case of the Commercial Club of Everett, the
mill owners of Everett, against Labor. This is an attempt, just as all
the actions for months have been an attempt, to keep Labor out of its
rights in Everett. The same people who took possession of the machinery
of law in Everett, who took possession of the sheriff and furnished him
with guns and clubs and murderous things like that and instructed him
how to act, the same people who employed detectives to set fires in
order that they might manufacture evidence and public sentiment against
these boys, those same people are today prosecuting this case.

"I don't know where Governor Clough was on November 5th. I suspect he
was not anywhere where there was any danger, but I know the smoke had
not left the decks of the Verona before he was hot-footing it to the
telegraph office,--Governor Clough, not the prosecuting attorney, not
the sheriff, nobody but Clough and Joe Irving, the man who was so drunk
that he beat up Schofield,--to send a telegram to Judge Burke of the
Chamber of Commerce of Seattle, to the Mayor of this City and to the
Chief of Police of this City to arrest the whole bunch of them.

"Then right away they got their other emissaries at work, Reese and
Smith, down here with two fingers out of the door of a darkened cell,
deciding for the State of Washington who should be prosecuted in this
case, and H. D. Cooley, who surely then was not a prosecuting attorney,
giving them legal counsel and directing their energy, taking out the
men, preparing statements, and getting ready for the work he was going
to do in this case, because his employers wanted it.

"There is a conspiracy in this case, a conspiracy supported by evidence,
a conspiracy of men in the Commercial Club to take over the machinery of
government, and by it club these fellows out of their rights, club them
out of Everett, club them out of all contact with the workers in order
that they might not bring to them the gospel of their organization.

"But I say to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that this struggle,
the struggle of Capital against Labor, the struggle of the Commercial
Club against the I. W. W., which is just one phase of the bigger one,
this struggle is going on in spite of Cooley, this struggle is going on
in spite of McLaren, this struggle is going on in spite of Arthur L.
Veitch of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, this struggle
is going on in spite of McRae, this struggle is going on in spite of the
Commercial Club, because it is founded on a principle so big, so
wholesome, and so decent, so righteous, that it must live. And it will
go on until in this country we have industrially that which we have
struggled so long and hard for and finally won politically; until we
have democracy.

"There is nothing in revolution, gentlemen, that is wrong. We came to
the condition in which we now find ourselves by revolution; first the
grand American revolution and then the revolution against chattel
slavery. It was nothing more nor less than revolution, because slavery
was then entrenched under the highest law of the land, the decision of
the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. We took it out of the courts
and slavery was wiped out. Slavery again will be wiped out!

"The thing about this case which makes it of most serious importance,
the thing about this case which makes it of public interest, the thing
about this case which has so enlisted the sympathy of every one
connected with it, which makes us feel the importance of a just verdict,
is that it is not merely the liberty of a man that is at stake, but in a
larger measure than you know there is at stake in your verdict in this
case the rights of the working people, their right to organize, their
right to protect themselves, their right to receive and enjoy the fruits
of their labor.

"There is involved the question of whether or not the working people
shall receive justice or forever must be victimized by organized
capitalists. There is involved the question of whether or not such
things as have gone on in Everett for the last six months may continue
forever with the endorsement of the jury or whether the working people
on the other hand may go and discuss their wrongs and grievances and
strive for their rights.

"As I have confidence in the righteousness of this cause and the
integrity of this purpose, so I have confidence that your verdict will
be not guilty."

Attorney Fred Moore closed the case for the defense with one of the
greatest speeches ever delivered in a court room, a speech that seered
its way to the minds and hearts of the jurors. Far more than a defense
of Thomas H. Tracy it was an explanation of the industrial problems
underlying society, the class warfare rooted in industry and manifesting
itself on November 5th. It was a sustained and definite statement of the
aims and objects of the I. W. W. and Moore showed, not only a great
knowledge of the problems of the working class, but a wonderful command
of satire and irony. Following is an abridgement of Moore's speech to
the jury:

"May it please the court, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury; For a
period of something like five hundred years the Anglo-Saxon has seen fit
to place the final adjustment of the question of justice in the hands of
twelve men. In the evolution of the law, that number has been increased
until now in this state we have fourteen. Likewise, in the evolution of
the law and in the face of the vast amount of public protest, and in the
face of the most reluctant world, we have enlarged the term jurors to
include women jurors. This is the first time that I personally have ever
tried a lawsuit in which ladies sat in the jury.

[Illustration: HUGO GERLOT]

"The state has told you why this case is one of grave responsibility for
them. Allow me to tell you why this is one of grave responsibility for
you. One hundred and ninety-six witnesses have appeared for the
defendant in this case. Yesterday, counsel brought home the fact that
many of these witnesses were not residents of this community, were
without homes, without any permanent places of abode. All true. The
responsibility that you have in this case is commensurate with the fact
that the case reveals to you, as it were, a cross-section of our lives.
You who are property-qualified have a responsibility to pass upon the
liberties and the lives of a body of men who are propertyless. If there
is any change in men's thoughts and views as they acquire a home, as
they settle down, as they marry, as they bring into the world children,
then I ask you in all fairness to attempt to put yourselves in the
places of this defendant and of this defendant's witnesses who have
taken the stand, and to realize that your responsibility here is
commensurate with the fact that the testimony reveals, as it were, a
most deplorable condition of modern life. In other words, your
responsibility here is that of measuring out absolute and complete
justice between warring elements in our modern life, not for one moment
allowing your judgment to be swerved by the fact that one class of
witnesses here are witnesses of social position, are witnesses of
property qualifications, are witnesses with homes, while, on the other
hand, the witnesses called by the defense were witnesses from the four
parts of the earth, witnesses whose only claim to your consideration is
that they have built the railroads, that they have laid the ties, that
they have dug the tunnels, that they have harvested the crops, that they
have worked from one end of the country to the other, in season and out,
floating from job to job.

"In most jurisdictions, the defendant has the opportunity of either a
grand jury investigation or of a preliminary; in other words, he is in
some degree advised of what evidence he is going to be called upon to
meet. In this case, we came in here on the 5th day of March with no
information whatsoever relative to the State's case other than that
given us from the four corners of the instrument on file here, known as
the information, together with the fact that on that information there
were the names of some three hundred or more witnesses. That was all we
had. We were further handicapped in view of the fact that we did not
have behind us all the resources of the State of Washington and the
county of Snohomish, neither did we have behind us all of the resources
of various business interests, neither did we have behind us all the
resources of allied business on this west coast, as represented by Mr.
Veitch."

Mr. Veitch: To which I take an exception, if the court please.

The Court: Exception allowed.

Mr. Veitch: On a matter of personal privilege, I have a right to
characterize that statement as a deliberate misstatement of the fact.

Mr. Moore: Mr. Veitch has not seen fit to explain why he was here.

Mr. Veitch: I am employed by friends of Mr. Jefferson Beard. If that is
not enough--

Mr. Moore: That is outside of the record.

The Court: Both of you are outside of the record. Proceed Mr. Moore.

"Suffice it to say that we are here as the frank and honest
representatives of the defendant and of the defendant's organization. We
do not have behind us the power of the State, or the power of any
interest other than the defendant himself and of his organization.

"Mr. Black complained that the State had been hampered in this cause. Is
it fair to say that the state has been hampered when on the fatal
November the 5th. Judge Bell and Mr. Cooley were both on the dock? Judge
Bell would have us believe that he was unarmed, and so far as we know
Mr. Cooley was unarmed. Then why were they on the dock? Judge Bell was
there as the representative, as he himself has testified, of a number of
lumber mills, and Mr. Cooley was there likewise; both citizen deputies;
both there; both unarmed if their testimony is to be believed. Again Mr.
Cooley was, in the matter of a few hours, down here at the Seattle jail.
Certainly he was not there to represent the defendant Tracy. Who was he
there to represent? He was either there in a private capacity,
representing private clients, or he was there in a public capacity
representing a public client, namely, Snohomish County. Wherein do you
find the evidence of the State being hampered, sir? From the beginning
to the end the State has moved majestically, exercising all the power
that it had. Mr. Black has had able assistance in this cause, the able
assistance of Mr. Cooley, the able assistance of Mr. Veitch, the able
assistance of the man behind Mr. Cooley and Mr. Veitch, Mr. McLaren.
Yet, all the resources of the State have failed to produce one scintilla
of evidence against the defendant Tracy here so far as tending to
indicate that he did counsel, aid, incite, abet, or encourage anyone to
fire any shot, except the testimony of George Reese produced at the
eleventh hour on rebuttal. I intend to treat of our friend Mr. Reese
later.

"It is significant that out of all that mass of testimony that has been
introduced in this case up to this time not one single bit of testimony
has been introduced or any argument had upon that testimony dealing with
the object and principles and purpose of the Industrial Workers of the
World. Mr. Black did not refer to it. Mr. Cooley has the final say. I
anticipate his argument for the State. They have that old reliance, that
old faith, if you will, in the trial of a case of this character, namely
conspiracy; hallowed by age.

"Way back in the sixteenth century the tub women on the banks of the
river Thames were indicted for conspiracy in attempting to raise wages.
The chandlers in London were likewise later indicted. The stonebreakers
in New York, the carpenters in Boston. From time immemorial the charge
of conspiracy has been leveled against the ranks of labor. Indeed, it
was only in the reign of Queen Victoria that labor unions became other
than simple conspiracies. Up to that time labor unions were within a
classification themselves of criminal conspiracy.

"Knowing that under the charge contained in the information we might be
called upon to meet evidence of conspiracy, we then commenced a careful
survey of all the facts in connection with the Everett tragedy. And
what did we find? We found not a hint of conspiracy!

[Illustration: Dead body of Abraham Rabinowitz.]

"James Rowan had come into Everett without knowledge at the time that
there was any trouble there. He had not been advised that there was any
possibility of trouble. From all the prior history of Everett he had no
reason to anticipate trouble. Thompson had spoken there and many others
had spoken there. Rowan was charged with a violation of the peddling
ordinance. He had been given an arbitrary floater out of town and had
exercised his right to come back, was seized again and taken to the city
jail; the sheriff goes there and arbitrarily demands Rowan from the
Chief of Police. These things happened prior to any acts that by any
remote possibility could be charged to us. There was no literature in
the town at that time other than the Industrial Relations report. What
at that time did we have to conspire about? We had no object.

"And as with Rowan so it was with Thompson, Remick and others. If there
was a conspiracy to violate a city ordinance why did not the city
officials make arrests and charge the men with such violations? The
record is silent. Why wait until Tom Tracy is on trial for murder, and
then at the eleventh hour spring this delightfully specious argument?

"I can almost hear ringing in my ears the impassioned plea of Mr. Cooley
in closing this case. He is going to read this, 'The question of 'right'
and 'wrong' does not concern us.' He is going to say that is the I. W.
W. philosophy. My God, did it ever concern the sheriff of Snohomish
County? Does it seem very much to concern others who are attempting this
prosecution?

"We were told in connection with the argument of counsel that Hickey was
not on trial. They might have said that sheriff McRae was not on trial;
they might have said that Bill Pabst was not on trial; they might have
said that Joe Irving was not on trial; they might have said that the
Commercial Club was not on trial; they might have said that all the men
that have been guilty of all the brutality in that County during the
months of August, September and October were not on trial. We know it!
Why are they not on trail?

"Deprivation of due process of law and confiscation of property! And yet
Mr. Cooley is going to urge that the I. W. W. does not believe in
government; he is going to urge that the I. W. W. does not respect the
law. That kind of law never gets the respect of anyone. I hang my head
in shame before such a history of usurpation and seizure of public
authority as has been shown in this case.

"Are you going to give the stamp of your approval to this sort of thing?
When you bring in a verdict in this case for the State you give your
approval to Donald McRae. I beg of you to not put the seal of your
approval upon lawlessness, official lawlessness, the kind of lawlessness
that is worse, tenfold worse, than any private lawlessness.

"You are asked to stamp with your endorsement, to give your approval, to
a man; a public official, the chief executive officer of a municipality,
Mayor Merrill, who admits on the witness stand that he allowed a little
group of members of the Commercial Club to take the power of the police
department out of his office and turn it over to the sheriff of the
county.

"Had the State put on Governor Clough and others on their side of the
case we might have wrung from their reluctant lips the evidence of what
occurred at the meeting on August 30th at the Commercial Club. But the
State was careful not to put him on. Indeed, the most significant and
outstanding thing in all this case is not who they put on, but who they
did not put on. Neil Jamison did not testify in this case for the State;
Governor Clough did not testify in this case for the State; Joe Irving
did not testify in this case; Colonel Hartley did not testify in this
case; Captain Ramwell did not testify. Why didn't Kelly, Chief of
Police, take the stand? You might go down the line and you will find
that the assets of all the witnesses for the State combined would total
but a few thousand dollars, while you could take the remaining witnesses
for the State who did not testify and you could build up an enormous
fortune, running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We didn't
call them because we cannot cross-examine our own witnesses.

"Is the administration of the law to be made a farce? Shall the State be
allowed to blow hot and cold; one minute hot on the enforcement of the
law, the next minute cold when the shoe pinches, and then hot again when
they can use the law for the advancement of the interests of their
prosecution? They say McRae and Hickey are not on trial; there is no
promise that they shall ever be on trial!

"Let me say to you that no one violates the law, I care not who it is,
just for the fun of violating the law. Jails are not pleasant places to
abide in. People who violate the law and go to jail do so either because
they are deliberately criminal or because they want to focus attention
on some public issue. However, Mr. Black is too kind and considerate
when he gives all this credit to the I. W. W.

"The facts are, if you go back into the history of the Revolutionary
Days, that our forefathers urged and banded together and combined and
federated, and if you will, conspired to violate the Stamp Act of the
British Government, and were willing to go to jail if necessary. They
went even further! They threw the British tea into Boston Harbor.
Violation of the law? Yes, if you want to call it such, but the
indignant protest of a people as against the enforcement of an unjust
law.

"I might urge upon you that the State at that time wanted to absolutely
suppress any speech whatsoever, because they had constituted the chief
of police, the sheriff, the arresting officer, as the executive, the
legislative and the judicial department of our government. The sheriff
executed the law in person, the sheriff declared the question of guilt
himself, the sheriff ordered deportations, and the sheriff took physical
charge of the deportations. Isn't it impossible to avoid a fight when
someone usurps unlawfully and illegally the legislative and judicial
functions of government? Isn't it time to fight? If it isn't then we
may as well cease any attempt to administrate the law!

"In the phraseology of these boys 'Fight' means a moral adherence to
principle, a firm determination to face the authorities in the
administration of the law, and if necessary to be arrested. But the
State would have you put into it now a more sinister meaning, entirely
new and foreign to its former use.

"The State brought in the death of Sullivan of Spokane in their opening
and abandoned it in their close. One of the exploded hopes of the State!
They counted on North Yakima and Wenatchee to show violence and arson,
and they failed most miserably. They have failed in their identification
of the defendant. Now, their forlorn and bankrupt plea here is the
charge of conspiracy.

"The court has told you that this is a murder case. Why then has the
State cumbered the record with the I. W. W. preamble and constitution?
Why with two pamphlets on sabotage? Why with an I. W. W. song book and
such matters? Why?

"Because out of some of the phraseology here, phraseology far removed
from you and me, they may build up a condition of prejudice which may
result in your returning a conviction on a smaller degree of evidence
than you would otherwise require. Mr. Cooley is going to stand here and
read little, short, listed extracts from the context of the whole. The
pamphlets he has introduced on the question of patriotism and the worker
is the foundation from which Mr. Cooley will appeal to your prejudices
and passions.

"We are not afraid of the evidence. We are afraid of this deep-grained
interest that goes down into men's conscience and that reached back a
thousand years.

"Remember that behind this case are many women and children whose cause
these boys represent; whose cause these boys are attempting to fight
for. They fight because they must! They fight because to do anything
else is suicide. You could not have stopped the American Revolution with
all the powers of the British government. Since this jury was empaneled
you have had the collapse of one of the greatest powers of modern times.
I refer to Russia. It has passed from an absolute monarchy to a stage of
a republic.

"The trial of this cause is the presentation of a great social issue,
the greatest issue of modern times, namely, what are we going to do
today with the migratory and occasional workers? These migratories, they
are the boys who have told their story on the stand.

"If there is one principle that is ground into Anglo-Saxon thought it is
that of liberty of the press and freedom of speech. Those two things
stand as the bulwark of our liberty. They are the things for which the
Anglo-Saxon has fought from time immemorial. Away back in the eighteenth
century Charles Erskine, a member of the British bar, defended Thomas
Paine for having written the 'Rights of Man'. Case after case was fought
out during that period when English thought was budding into fruition;
when English thought was being tremendously influenced by the French
Revolution and when those thoughts were bearing fruit in England. Time
and time again the British crown attempted to throttle freedom of speech
and liberty of the press. Time and time again Charles Erskine's voice
was raised in the House of Lords in protest. Time and time again the
British courts and finally the British jurors, gave voice to the
doctrine that freedom of speech and liberty of the press may not be
invaded except insofar as that subject, that document, is accompanied
with acts; that you may not convict men for what they think; you may
convict men only for what they do. Freedom of discussion thru the press
and thru the public forum are the mainstay and the backbone of social
development and social evolution. Only in that way, thru freedom of
thought and freedom of discussion, may you fan the wheat from the chaff.

"Why, if this I. W. W. literature is all the State claims it is, why
doesn't the State act in the way the law says they should act, prefer
charges, arrest someone, bring the literature before a duly qualified
body, a court with jurisdiction, and try the matter out? The State has
not done that; the State will not do that; and we are in the position of
a man fighting in the dark, without knowledge of what character of
argument the State proposes to make.

"I do know that the name of Joe Hill is going to be paraded in front of
this jury. The I. W. W. song book dedicated to Joe Hill, with the
inscription 'Murdered by the authorities of the State of Utah, November
19th, 1915.' I cannot go into the conditions that surround that tragedy,
but I can call your attention to one or two things that bear upon the
question of the type of the man. Before he died, written in his cell on
the eve of the execution, was Joe Hill's last will:


     My will is easy to decide,
     For there is nothing to divide.
     My kin don't need to fuss and moan--
     Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.

     My body? Ah, if I could choose,
     I would to ashes it reduce,
     And let the merry breezes blow
     My dust to where some flowers grow.

     Perhaps some fading flower then
     Would come to life and bloom again.
     This is my last and final will.
     Good luck to all of you,       JOE HILL.


"This is the type of man you are asked, because he was honored, because
some odd hundred thousand workers who suffer and who wander and who live
in the jungles of labor as he did, and because he wrote songs that they
understood, songs that because their songs, to judge as the author of
the songs and bring in a verdict against Tom Tracy. Mr. Cooley will
parade the songs one by one. Remember that behind any words he voices,
any thought he expresses, behind it all was a human soul, a human soul
passed, a human soul that lived as you and I, a human soul that had
rights that had been trampled upon, and who attempted to voice those
things.

"With all the oratory he can display Mr. Cooley will read the song,
'Christians at War.' A song that Mr. Thompson designated as a satire.
You recollect that when the European war broke out both parties in that
conflict called to their aid and said they were acting under divine
guidance; that the Kaiser was fighting under the name of God, and that
the British and French governments were allied with the Almighty. It is
not for me to attempt a settlement of that dispute. History will say
that of all the tragedies of the Twentieth Century, the most tragic
thing of our modern life is that we of different nationalities, but
bound together by all other ties, should be engaged in a death grapple.
But that is not the issue here. But I cannot at this time anticipate
wherein and how this literature presented by the State helps you to
decide the question of who was the aggressor on November 5th.

"Who was the aggressor on July 31st when James Rowan was arrested and
brought into the city court? McRae comes in and tells him to get out of
town. An intervening series of events and Levi Remick is run out of
town. Who was the aggressor? Sheriff McRae! On August 22nd Rowan and
Remick were both in the union hall. McRae comes in and orders them out
of town. Who was the aggressor? That night Thompson and others came up
to Everett--who was the aggressor then? Next morning, with Kelly
treating them half way white, along comes McRae and takes away one of
the boy's money. Who was the aggressor? We come now to the deputies
meeting at the Commercial Club on August 30th. Who was the aggressor?
Had any of their members been beaten up? Had anything happened to their
members whatsoever? Not at all! Yet murderous blackjacks were put into
the hands of the membership of the club. Was James Rowan the aggressor
when he was railroaded out of town and beaten? Who was the aggressor at
the time of the 'Wanderer' outrage? Old Capt. Mitten, old John Berg,
Edith Frenette? Who was the aggressor with Henig? With Feinberg? With
Roberts? You have the testimony of Cannow, you have the testimony of
Schofield, you have testimony showing the instructions given to the
deputies. No one denies it. Here is a series of acts leading up to
October 30th, in which on each and every occasion McRae and his
deputies, either regular or citizen deputies, were the aggressors. I
said, who were the aggressors? Is there any question in your mind who
was the aggressor up to Beverly Park? Any question in God's world who
had done the dirty work up to that time? The State would have you
believe that the I. W. W., with its membership coming from the four
corners of the country, changed complexion practically over night,
changed their whole ideas and their methods. I do not believe it and you
do not believe it.

[Illustration: Part of 78 prisoners of County Everett Wn. Released
May 8, 1917.]

"The excuse the State gives for the actions of the deputies is that in
the case of large numbers they could not give due process of law.
Gentlemen, I refuse to believe that the Government is bankrupt in its
capacity to protect itself thru legal and lawful measures of law
enforcement. I have yet to sit in a court room and hear a plea on social
and governmental bankruptcy such as is the plea of counsel for the
State.

"The machinery of the government was there but it was not the kind of
machinery that McRae wanted to use. It was not the kind Clough wanted to
use. It was not the kind of machinery the executive committee, whoever
they were, sitting behind the closed doors of the Commercial Club,
wanted to use.

"And these members and leaders of the Commercial Club passed resolutions
stigmatizing their own citizens, member of their own community, property
owners in their own town, as well as the I. W. W., when they declared
for an open shop. How do they stigmatize them? 'Professional agitators!'
Yes. Lloyd Garrison was a professional agitator. Wendell Phillips was a
professional agitator. The men who fought the battle that lay the ground
work that made Abraham Lincoln possible, the men who are at work to
better American politics, those men have all been professional
agitators.

"Now on the boat they were ninety-nine percent I. W. W.'s, just a few
passengers had bought their passage before. On the dock they were all
citizen deputies, persons interested therein, and persons satisfactory
to the men who had been stationed there to see that nobody but the right
ones got on the dock. That means that as far as the first shot was
concerned the two classes of witnesses are in some degree interested
parties. The State put on a total of twenty-two witnesses, one of them
not a deputy, all of whom testified that the shot came, or they thought
it came from the dock, and of that number thirty-seven were I. W. W.'s,
and twenty-four were not members at all but were Everett people from all
walks of life.

"Now counsel is going to discount the value of the testimony of these
citizens. Well, Mr. Cooley, we used the only kind of witnesses that you,
in all of your care exercised in advance on November 5th, left for us.
In the exercise of the highest degree of judicial advance knowledge they
saw to it that nobody got any closer to the end of the dock than the
landing. We could not help that. You barred us from the dock; you barred
us from access to the facts. We did all we could to get the facts, and
if we couldn't get any closer it was not our fault. And the man who
barred us from access to the facts is the man who is least qualified to
come into court now and urge that our witnesses are disqualified in the
face of the evidence that they disqualified them. But those witnesses
could testify, and they did testify, to the very definite and specific
facts--the first tipping of the boat, the rushing of the men, the volley
firing, all of those matters.

"At the eleventh hour there came into this case a man by the name of
Reese, a member, if you will, of the I. W. W. Back in the Chicago
stockyards they have a large pen where they keep the cattle which are to
be driven to slaughter. In that place they have had for years a steer
that has performed the function of going into the big pen where all the
cattle are, and, after mingling with them, then walking out thru a gate.
He is trained to do it, he is skilled at it, this steer--and after
walking around with the poor peaceful cattle that don't know they are
about to be killed, this steer then goes up an incline, the gate is
opened and the other cattle follow, and when he gets to the top of the
incline there is a door and he turns to the right thru this door to
safety and his followers turn to the left to death. That's George Reese!
Proud of him? George Reese, the man who reported day by day with his
confederates! To whom? During one period to the Pinkerton agency in
regard to the longshoremen's union; during another period on behalf of
the Pinkerton Agency to the Commercial Club in Everett. George Reese! A
man who doesn't even come under the approximately dignified title of a
detective; a man whom Ahern, of his own agency says, 'Well, he wasn't a
detective, we used him as an informer.' Informer! A human being that has
lost its human color.

"In connection with the testimony of Reese let me call your attention to
the Industrial Relations Commission Report, a report that our friends of
the Commercial Club had read and knew all about:

"'Spies in the Union: If the secret agents of employers, working as
members of labor unions, do not always instigate acts of violence, they
frequently encourage them. If they did not they would not be performing
the duties for which they are paid. If they find that labor unions never
discuss acts of violence they have nothing to report to those employing
them. If they do not report matters which the detective agencies
employing them can use to frighten the corporation to cause their
employment, they cannot continue long as spies. Either they must make
reports that are false, in which case discovery would be inevitable, or
they must create a basis on which to make a truthful report. The union
spy is not in business to protect the community. He has little respect
for the law, civil or moral. Men of character do not engage in such
work, and it follows that the men who do are, as a rule, devoid of
principle and ready to go to almost any extreme to please those who
employ them.'

"That is the descriptive adjective, definition and analysis of the
character of union informants made by the National Industrial
Commission, appointed by President Wilson, and composed of nine men, all
men of national standing, three representatives of labor, three
representatives of capital and three representatives of the general
public. That is their definition, description and classification of that
character of testimony.

"Mr. Vanderveer closed yesterday by saying that this struggle, whatever
your verdict is, will win. If yours is a verdict of 'not guilty,' Tom
Tracy must take up again the job of finding a job, the endless tragedy
of marching from job to job, without home, wife or kindred. His offense
consists of being a migratory worker. I beg of you to render a verdict
that has due regard and consideration for the tragedy of our twentieth
century civilization that does not as yet measure out economic justice.

"Your verdict means much. The wires tonight will carry the word all over
this land, into Australia, New Zealand and thruout the world. Your
verdict means much to the workers, their mothers, their children, who
are interested in this great struggle. We are not in this courtroom as
the representatives of one person, two persons or three persons; our
clients run into five or six hundred thousand. We are here as the
mouthpiece of the workers of America, organized and unorganized, and
they are all behind our voices.

"Tom Tracy stands here in your control. You are the ones to determine
whether or not he shall walk out free, whether or not he shall be
branded for all times with the most serious felony known to the law,
namely, that of a murderer. Can you find it in the evidence to bring in
a verdict of guilty in this case?

[Illustration: Singing to the Prisoners.]

"In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we want no compromise here. When
you retire to your jury room I beg of you not to compromise with any
verdict other than not guilty. We don't want manslaughter in this case,
we don't want second degree murder in this case; it is either first
degree murder or an acquittal, one or the other. Allow none of those
arguments that we, as lawyers, know are made in the juryroom to
influence your honest verdict in this case. We ask at your hands, and we
believe with all the sincerity of our souls, that the evidence warrants
it, we ask a verdict of not guilty for the defendant, Thomas H. Tracy!"

If the speech of prosecutor Black was a whine, that of prosecutor Cooley
was a yelp and a snarl. Apologies, stale jokes, and sneers at the
propertyless workers followed one another in close succession. The gist
of his harangue was as follows:

"In this case I am going to try simply in the closing argument to select
a few of the monuments that it seems to me stand out in this case and
that point a way to a proper verdict.

"Now, in the first place, a whole lot has been said here as to the
nature of the controversy that existed for a number of months before
November the 5th, 1916, between two classes of individuals there at
Everett. Upon the one side were the people who were living in the city
of Everett, who had made their homes there, who had come there for the
purpose of carrying out their future destiny in that city. It was their
home. Their interests were there. Their families were there. And upon
the other side were a class of people who did not claim Everett as their
home, who did not come there for the purpose of amalgamating with the
citizenship of the city of Everett. They were not coming there because
they had work there, nor because they were seeking work there; they were
not citizens of Everett, nor were they seeking to become citizens of
Everett, and there arose a controversy between the citizens of Everett
on the one hand and these people from the four corners of the earth upon
the other. The first thing we want to inquire into to find out if we can
from the testimony in this case exactly what was the nature of that
trouble that existed between them. Why was it that upon the one hand
there was a band of people congregated down here in the city of Seattle
from all over the land and making one excursion after another,
attempting to break into the city of Everett? Why was it that there were
citizens of Everett up there seeking to do only one thing, asking only
one thing, that these people keep away from Everett?

"Was it a fight to win the right of free speech on the one hand? Was it
a fight on the other hand of a group of individuals who were simply
seeking to force the open shop? Or was it a fight of a more serious
nature on either hand?

"I grant you that the origin of the trouble arose because a man was
seeking to speak upon the streets of Everett and he was stopped. But
long before November 5th that original incident was lost sight of and
forgotten. The controversy had grown to a magnitude that overshadowed
the original incident. It was necessary in order that you might
understand the situation with which the people of Everett were
confronted that you should be apprised of the nature of the organization
to which those people belong, that you should be apprised of the nature
of the place in the world that they had attained, and that you should be
apprised of the nature of their propaganda that they were seeking to
inject into the city of Everett and that locality.

"I want to say right here and now that I have the highest regard for
organized labor. Labor has the right to organize. There is not any
question about it; there is not any dispute about it. Labor has
organized and it has made a manful fight, and all down the pages of
history you will find that labor, thru its organization and thru its
lawful methods pursued under its organization, has gradually bettered
its condition.

"It is not a question, and never has been in this case, as to the right
of the labor men to organize; the right of the laboring man to use all
of the lawful methods for the purpose of bettering his condition. The
question in this case is as to whether any organization, whether it be
a labor organization or any other, has the right to use unlawful
methods; whether it has the right, because it may have the power, to use
unlawful methods.

"Now there were coming into the city of Everett people representing this
organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World. What was the
propaganda that they were seeking to introduce there? They put upon the
stand their chief exponent in this part of the country, to tell you what
their purpose was in coming to the city of Everett, and what the
doctrines were that they were teaching to the people that congregated
there in the city of Everett. Mr. Thompson was upon the stand for about
two days, and he delivered to this jury a lecture, which he says was a
resume of three lectures that he gave up there in the city of Everett.
He was asked whether or not he talked on sabotage and he told you what
he had to say about it. He said sabotage was 'a conscious withdrawal of
efficiency, a folding of the arms.' But Thompson says it is never the
destruction of property, and yet the organization that sends him out to
talk on sabotage puts out right along with him the literature that has
been adopted by the I. W. W. as a part of their propaganda, defining
what sabotage really is and it gives the lie to Mr. Thompson. It may
mean working slow; it may mean poor work; it may mean folding of arms;
it may mean conscious withdrawal of efficiency. So far sabotage is legal
and anyone has a right to use it. But it may mean the spoiling of a
finished product, it may mean the destruction of parts of machinery, it
is the destruction of property. 'Sabotage is a direct application of the
idea that property has no rights that its creators are bound to
respect.' It does not say that certain kinds of property has no rights,
but that there is no property that has any rights that are bound to be
respected. But Thompson says that is not sabotage.

"Sabotage is what? Where is that old song book? Let us see whether it
means simply the folding of the arms. (Cooley dived into a mass of
pamphlets, but being unable to locate the song book he came up with
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's pamphlet on Sabotage, reading from it as
follows:) 'Sabotage itself is not clearly defined. Sabotage is as broad
and changing as industry, as flexible as the imagination and passions of
humanity.' Why, if it consisted simply of a folding of the arms, if it
consisted simply of the withdrawal of efficiency, there would not be
much flexibility to it, would there, and the passions of humanity would
have nothing to do with it? That language means that sabotage means
anything that the imagination can devise and the passions of men adopt,
if they had the power to use it and get away with it. Oh, it is not
wrong! No matter what form it takes it is not wrong, because they say so
in their official publication. 'The tactics used are determined solely
by the power of the organization to make good in their use. The question
of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern us.' Put the two together.
Legality and illegality, those terms have no meaning to a man of the
Industrial Workers of the World. Why? Because there is no law that they
are bound to respect except the law that is made by them in their own
union hall. It is in the song book, 'Make your laws in the union hall,
the rest can go to hell.' That is the class of people that we had to
deal with, who were coming there to Everett.

"In Spokane there were twelve hundred convictions upon a valid
ordinance, and yet, after they had convicted a hundred of them they
didn't stop coming, and two hundred, and two hundred and fifty, and five
hundred, and they continued coming there until the city jail of the city
of Spokane was filled, until the county jail of Spokane county was
filled, until an old deserted school house was filled, and then until an
army post jail was filled. A species of sabotage! They weren't willing
to accept the verdict of one jury, or ten juries, or of a hundred
juries, that they were violating the law. They had made their laws in
their union halls and they were going to speak at a certain place, upon
a certain street of Spokane; and they were going to compel the citizens
of Spokane to let them speak when they pleased, where they pleased, and
say what they pleased; and they kept it up until after Spokane had the
expense of a thousand trials and had upon its hands a thousand
defendants it began to think it had better yield and let them speak when
they pleased, where they pleased and say what they pleased. And Spokane
was licked!

[Illustration: Charles Ashleigh speaking at the funeral, of Looney,
Baran and Gerlot.]

"Is it any wonder that the citizens of Everett said 'If you have no
regard for law we will meet you on your own ground; we are not going to
be bankrupted; we are not going to be hammered into defeat as they were
in Spokane; we are not going to have you sabotage us in that manner by
your numbers; we are not going to have your people coming from the
Dakotas, from Montana, from Oregon, and from all over the various parts
of the state of Washington, and camping down on us until we surrender to
you. We are going to keep you out of here.' Now, that may not have been
strictly legal, but it was human nature.

"There is not hint anywhere in the argument of either counsel for the
defense in this case as to what was ever done in the city of Everett by
the I. W. W. that would constitute new methods and new tactics. Do you
remember the testimony over a period of time there before Labor Day that
they allowed them to speak without interference and a meeting was held
there and every time they went up with a chip on their shoulder and were
not satisfied when no one interfered with them. When they were there
speaking on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore somebody was going around
the city of Everett distributing a nasty stinking chemical in the
theater building, into the store buildings, into the business houses,
into the automobiles. And the paper in the next issue gloats over it and
intimates that the reason the officers did not arrest Feinberg was
because they were evidently too busy chasing a cat of malodorous
tendencies. When Thompson was upon the stand and was being questioned
about sabotage and about cats; he could tell you what a cat was, he got
a bit halting in his speech when he was asked what it meant when they
said that the claws of the cat had been sharpened, when he was asked
what a 'sabcat' meant, but when he was asked as to what a cat of
'malodorous tendencies' was he said he didn't know unless it was a
skunk. But by that was meant that the skunk accomplishes sabotage. You
never heard of a skunk that did sabotage by simply a withdrawal of
efficiency, never!

"Now as to incendiary and phosphorous fires. Fire Chief Terrell tells
you that up to the date of September 28th, the date of the first known
phosphorous fire in Everett, that up to that time, in all of his
experience upon the fire force of the city of Everett, it never had come
to his knowledge or observation in any way that a phosphorous fire had
ever occurred in the city. It occurred there, known to be a phosphorous
fire, and within a period of two months at least two other fires
occurred, mysterious, the origin unknown because the fire had progressed
to such an extent that no one could tell how it did start."

Mr. Vanderveer: Didn't your detective go to work September 21st?

Mr. Cooley: Yes sir, he did.

"And they would have you believe that the detective was up there setting
those fires. That, I know, is an insinuation not supported by any
evidence in this case, and the detective wasn't working up there, he was
operating down here in the city of Seattle. He was sending his reports
to Blain before the Wanderer started out, before the men started out on
October 30th, and that goes a good way to explain how it happened how
these people were met on these different excursions and were not
permitted to come within the city of Everett. They were trying to get
into the city of Everett, to use their own judgment, to act on their own
initiative, according to instructions that had gone out. And the
officers stopped the thing before it started.

"What were they coming to Everett for, these forty-one men who were met?
Were they coming to hold a street meeting? Forty-one men, enthused with
the enthusiasm of the belief in their grand and glorious doctrine that
they are teaching, forty-one men starting out as crusaders to carry the
gospel of their organization to the benighted of Everett, forty-one
going up there to be martyrs, to be beaten for the cause, and nothing
else!

"I have told of the tactics and methods advocated, used and encouraged,
by this peculiar, particular organization, so you can judge the
character, purpose and intentions of the individuals that were seeking
from time to time to force themselves into the city of Everett, in order
that you may judge the two hundred and sixty that left on the Verona on
November the 5th.

"But there is another matter you should likewise take into consideration
in determining the character of the individuals of that crowd.
Regardless of all environment, regardless of the effect of all
legislation, regardless of all social conditions, men are born--not all
with the same propensities, not all with the same natural ambitions, not
all with the same qualifications, and out of the entire mass of humanity
there is a certain percentage that were born without any ambition, born
without any incentive; they go thru life without any incentive,
constantly tired. Now I am not here to say that all the I. W. W.'s are
that kind of people. I am not here to say that because a man is a member
of the I. W. W. he is a tramp or a hobo. But there is a class that has
been recognized in this country ever since the country existed, a class
that don't want to work, that would not work if you gave them an
opportunity. These are a percentage, I don't know how large, and I say
that every one of these people are members of the I. W. W. organization
or should be. Why? Well, in the first place, you don't have to show any
qualification for any line of work. You don't have to make proof of
anything whatever to become a member of that organization. And is there
any inducement for a man who has been drifting here and there, walking
the ties, counting the mile posts as he walks from one place to another,
to join that organization? It gives him a pass upon every freight train
that travels the length and breadth of the land. One of the best
inducements in the world.

"There is another class of people in this country that are born with
criminal instincts implanted in their very natures; they are scattered
all over this land and we have them with us and we will always have them
with us. There are men who are driven to crime thru misfortune; there
are men who commit crime under the influence of environment; but there
is a percentage of men who are habitual, natural and instinctive
criminals. Now I don't say that because a man is a member of the I. W.
W. he is necessarily and instinctively a criminal, but I do say that
every habitual, instinctive criminal, who knows that he intends to
violate the law upon every opportunity to satisfy his own criminal
desire, has every inducement to become a member of that organization.

"There are a few uncontested and undisputed facts in connection with the
occurrence at the dock. Jefferson Beard was killed on that dock. No
doubt about that! The defendant was on the boat. No question about that!
There is no question that the conversation between McRae and the people
on the boat occurred substantially in the language that you have heard
repeated here by witnesses for the State and for the defense, all
agreeing that the conversation preceded the shooting. There is no
dispute that McRae turned partially away from the boat and that one of
the first three shots fired hit McRae while he was turning. The burden
of the whole argument of the defense was that when somebody on the boat
saw McRae put his hand on his gun he was justified in shooting. It is
not material whether Tracy shot Jefferson Beard or somebody else. It is
not material whether Tracy fired a gun or not, provided the evidence in
this case satisfies you beyond a reasonable doubt that Tracy was a party
to the conspiracy to go up to the city of Everett to violate an
ordinance of the city of Everett.

"But have you any doubt that Tracy was seen on the boat? Hogan saw the
window and he saw a man with his face at the window shooting in his
direction. Hogan wasn't thinking of the exact angle at which the boat
was standing to the dock, but he knows he was standing at such an angle
to the boat that he could see a man in a certain place on the boat. And
he testified he did see him.

"It wasn't Thomas Tracy that was looking out of that window, it was
Martin. It wasn't Thomas Tracy dressed for the occasion, it wasn't
Thomas Tracy shaven for a picnic, it wasn't Thomas Tracy wearing a
Sunday countenance, it wasn't Thomas Tracy gazing placidly out of a mild
blue eye! It was Thomas Tracy, alias Martin, with his face drawn down
into a scowl of hatred, with his eyebrows lowering over his eyes, gazing
at John Hogan, not only gazing at him thru a window, but gazing at him
over a gun! And if there is anything that would impress itself into the
memory and recollection of a man it is the remembrance of a face filled
with venomous hatred, the eyes shooting daggers at you while he is
gazing at you over the muzzle of a gun--and you are not going to forget
that!

"Counsel for the defense says this is an important trial, that important
questions are involved, that the verdict in this case will have a great
deal to do with the ultimate future of the working man and organized
labor. I don't think that matters of that kind should enter the minds of
the jurors in arriving at a verdict, but if it does, I want to
supplement what counsel for the defense has said. I want to say that in
my mind a verdict in this case will have much to do with the future
success and the future advancement of honest labor in every line and in
all organizations. It will have much to do with clarifying the situation
insofar as this one organization is concerned. Every organization don't
preach the doctrines that are preached by this organization, and if this
jury by its verdict does not support that kind of method and that kind
of procedure it will aid in purifying an organization that otherwise
might do a world of good, but as it stands today, uttering the
propaganda that it does, pursuing the tactics that it does it, is a
menace not only to society, but is a menace to the welfare of the other
labor organizations that believe in pursuing lawful methods, in a lawful
manner. This is an important case in that regard.

"I believe that it is a fortunate thing that a jury of King County and a
jury from the city of Seattle should have been called to try this case.
The seed was not planted in Snohomish County! The plot was not hatched
in Snohomish County! It was hatched down here in Seattle. The expedition
started out from Seattle, not this one alone but many of them. Seattle
was the base, the enemy's base, and it was from here that they started.
Just down here almost in sight of this court house is the place where we
claim the plot was formed, and it has come back here, and we come into
court and lay it at your feet. They returned here, they have brought the
case here for trial, and we are satisfied. Now we lay it before you and
say,--'As citizens of Seattle do justice to the city of Everett and
Snohomish County.'"

With these words ringing in their ears the twelve jurors retired for
their deliberations, the court having entered an order discharging from
further service the two alternate jurors, Efaw and Williams.

Retiring shortly before noon, the jury consulted for nearly twenty-two
hours, taking ballot after ballot only to find that there were some who
steadfastly refused to agree to any compromise verdict. Then, shortly
after nine o'clock on May 5th, two full calendar months after the start
of the trial and just six months to the day from the time of the tragedy
of the Verona, Foreman James R. Williams announced the result of their
deliberations, and the word sped out to the many hundred thousands who
had spent an anxious and sleepless night;

"We, the jury, find the defendant, Thomas H. Tracy, NOT GUILTY!"




CHAPTER IX.

SOLIDARITY SCORES A SUCCESS


"I. W. W. Not Guilty!"

In this headline the daily papers of Seattle, Washington, gave the
findings of the jury. With an unbroken series of successful prosecutions
of Labor to the credit of the Merchants and Manufacturers Association
this, the first great victory for the working class on the Pacific
Coast, was a bitter pill for the allied employers and open shop
interests to swallow.

With Tracy freed and the I. W. W. exonerated, there was nothing for the
Snohomish County officials to do but to release the rest of the free
speech prisoners. Yet the same contemptible spirit that had marked their
actions from the very start of the trouble led them to hold the
prisoners for several days and to try to make a few of the men think
that there would be a trial of a second prisoner.

Part of the men were released in Seattle and part in Everett. All went
at once to the I. W. W. hall upon gaining their freedom, and from there
nearly the whole body of released men went to Mount Pleasant cemetery to
visit the graves of their dead fellow workers.

Returning to the hall, those who had previously been delegates, or who
had fitted themselves for the work while in jail, immediately took out
credentials and started on an organizing campaign of the Northwest, with
the uniting of the workers in the lumber industry as their main object.

[Illustration: Gus Johnson  Felix Baran  John Looney]

[Illustration: Hugo Gerlot  Abraham Rabinowitz]

The dearth of workers due to the war, the tremendous advertisement the
I. W. W. had received because of the tragedy and the trial, and the
spirit of mingled determination and resentment that had grown up in the
jail, made the work easy for these volunteer organizers. Members joined
by the dozen, then by the score, and finally by the hundreds.

Seattle had but two officials under pay on November 5th--Herbert
Mahler, secretary of the I. W. W., and J. A. MacDonald, editor of the
Industrial Worker. By July 4th, 1917, one year from the time of the
loggers' convention at which there were only half a hundred paid up
members, the I. W. W. in Seattle had thirty people under pay, working at
top speed to take care of the constantly increasing membership, and
preparations were under way to launch the greatest lumber strike ever
pulled in the history of the industry with the eight hour day as the
main demand. That strike in which thousands of men stood out for week
after week in the face of persecution of every character, in the face of
raids upon their halls and the illegal detention of hundreds of members
by city, county, state and federal agents, and in the face of
deportations by mobs of lumber trust hirelings, deserves a volume to
itself.

This activity in the lumber industry reflected itself in all other
lines, particularly so in construction projects all over the Northwest.
Demands for literature, for speakers, for organizers, flooded the
offices of the organization and many opportunities to organize had to be
passed by simply because there were not enough men capable of taking up
the work.

Part of this growth was of those who had interested themselves in the
trial. Many of those who had gone on the witness stand for the defense
afterwards took out membership cards in the I. W. W. The women of
Everett,--considerably more inclined toward revolutionary ideas than the
men there, by the way,--were among the first to ask for a "red card."

Too great praise cannot be given to those who voluntarily gave their
services to the defense and thus helped to bring about a verdict of
acquittal. Thru the work of Mr. A. L. Carpenter a great deal of valuable
information was secured and it was thru his efforts that Deputy Joseph
Schofield was brought from Oregon to testify for the defense. For his
activity on behalf of organized labor Mr. Carpenter received the rebel's
reward--he was discharged from his position as district manager of a
large corporation. Scores of Everett citizens gave splendid assistance
to the defense, asking only that their names be withheld on account of
the Commercial Club blacklist.

All persons directly in the employ of the defense proved their worth.
Deserving special mention in their work of investigation were Rev. T. T.
Edmunds, W. A. Loomis and John M. Foss. The Reverend Edmunds, being no
follower of a "cold statistical Christ" and having more of
humanitarianism than theology or current religion in his makeup, was
able to gain information where many another investigator might have
failed. The expert services of Loomis were of no less value, while the
particular merit of the work of John Foss was that he went to Everett
immediately after the catastrophe, at a time when chaos still reigned
and when the blood-lust of the deputies had not yet completely given way
to craven fear, and worked there night and day until a verdict of
acquittal for his fellow workers was practically assured. Both as an
investigator and as correspondent to the I. W. W. press, C. E. Payne,
familiarly known as "Stumpy," proved himself invaluable. Charles
Ashleigh handled the publicity for the Everett Prisoners' Defense
Committee in an able and efficient manner, while to Herbert Mahler
credit is due for the careful and painstaking handling of the large fund
raised to fight the case thru the courts.

"Justice" is an expensive luxury in the lumber kingdom. Independent of
the large amount of money spent directly by individuals and by branches
of the I. W. W. the cost of the verdict of acquittal was $37,835.84.
Nearly thirty-eight thousand dollars! Thirty-eight thousand dollars to
free innocent workers from the clutches of the law! The victims in jail
and the murderers at liberty! But then, the last thing expected of
"Justice" is that it be just.

Whence came the fund that, as a token of solidarity, set the free speech
prisoners at liberty? In the financial statement of the Everett
Prisoners Defense Committee it is set forth in full. Summarized, this
report shows that Labor united in the defense of the prisoners, that,
while this case was more largely financed directly thru the I. W. W.
than any other trial of the organization, there were many and generous
contributions from local unions of the American Federation of Labor,
from the Workers' Sick and Death Benefit Fund, from various other
working class societies and from sources so numerous as to make special
mention impossible. But these receipts varied from a dollar bill sent by
"A poor Working Stiff" from North Bend, Oregon, to a donation of $3.75
from the Benevolent Society for the Propagating of Cremation at Yonkers,
New York.

Hundreds of dollars were raised in Seattle by the I. W. W. thru smokers,
dances, theatrical benefits, entertainments and collections by speakers
who told the story of Bloody Sunday before societies of every kind and
character. The Dreamland Rink meetings, attended in every instance by
thousands of people, were the means of bringing hundreds of dollars to
the defense. A considerable fund was raised directly within the
organization by the sale of embossed leatherette membership card cases
issued in memoriam to the martyred dead. In Seattle notable service was
rendered by the International Workers' Defense League.

[Illustration: May First at Graveside of Gerlot, Baran and Looney.]

The nature of the case demanded heavy expenditures unlike those required
in any of the previous trials in which I. W. W. members were involved.
Many of the witnesses were men who had beaten their way from long
distances thru storms and snow to be in readiness to testify in behalf
of their imprisoned fellow workers, and most of these had to be
maintained at a relief station until called upon the stand. The care of
the wounded was an added item, and there were many necessary
expenditures for the big body of prisoners held as defendants. To each
of the men who was released at the end of the six months imprisonment
there was given a sum of $10. Owing to the sweeping nature of the
conspiracy charges and because of the large number of witnesses endorsed
by the State, all of whom required investigation, there was a large sum
required for use in taking these necessary legal precautions. Heavy
charges were also made for the work of the stenographers who recorded
the evidence, this being an item borne by the State in most parts of the
country. The totals of these expenditures were as follows:


     Counsel fees in full       $8,470.00
     Legal investigation         8,955.36
     Court stenographers         3,354.30
     Miscellaneous legal expense 1,304.20
     Office expense              1,942.53
     Publicity work              4,830.44
     Miscellaneous accounts      8,457.37
                               ----------
     Total expenditures        $37,314.20


A balance of $521.64 was sent to the General Headquarters of the I. W.
W. and this, with $581.36 which remained in the General Office from the
sale of voluntary assessment stamps, was set aside as a fund to be used
for the maintenance of Harry Golden, Joseph Ghilezano and Albert
Scribner, three of the boys who were seriously injured on the Verona.

The financial report was audited by E. G. Shorrock and Co., certified
accountants, and by a committee composed of Harry Feinberg and J. H.
Beyer, representing the prisoners, C. H. Rice, representing the Seattle
unions of the I. W. W., and General Executive Board member, Richard
Brazier, representing the General Headquarters of the I. W. W. The
statement made to contributors to the fund concluded with these
expressive words:

"On behalf of the defendants, and the Industrial Workers of the World,
we take this opportunity to express our grateful appreciation to all
contributors, and to all the brave men and women who assisted us so
nobly in this great struggle to save seventy-three workingmen from a
living death at the hands of the Lumber Trust and the allied commercial
bodies of the Pacific Coast.

"It was the solidarity of the working class, and that alone, which
brought about this great victory for labor, so let us turn fresh from
victory, with determined hearts and unquellable spirit to unflinchingly
continue the struggle for the liberation of all prisoners of the class
war, remembering always that greatest expression of solidarity, 'An
injury to one, is an injury to all.'


     "THE EVERETT PRISONERS DEFENSE COMMITTEE.

     THOMAS MURPHY,
     CHARLES ASHLEIGH,
     WM. J. HOUSER,
     RICHARD SMITH,
     HERBERT MAHLER, Sec'y-Treas."

     Seattle, Wash.,
     June 12th, 1917.




CHAPTER X.

THE BANKRUPTCY OF "LAW AND ORDER"


The facts in this case speak pretty well for themselves. To draw
conclusions at length would be an impertinence. He who runs may read the
signs of decay of Capitalism, the crumbling of a social system based
upon the slavery and degradation of the vast majority of mankind. And
from the lips of the prosecution counsel--the Voice of the State--we
have the open and frank acknowledgement of the bankruptcy of law and
order, the failure of government as it is now administered.

It is no part of this work to attack The Law. The Law is august,
majestic in its impartial findings and the equality of its judgements,
always however with due allowance for those subtle distinctions so
incomprehensible to the masses which exist between high finance,
kleptomania and theft. The Law strips no one of his possessions; under
its beneficent reign the rich retain their wealth and the poor keep
their poverty. Founded on dogma and moulded by tradition, The Law stands
as a mighty monument to Justice. It is ever in this way that we show our
respect and reverence for the dead. Being an outgrowth of precedent it
gains added sanctity with each fresh proof of antiquity, differing in
this regard from automobiles, eggs, women, hats, the six best sellers,
and the commoner things of life. Surrounded by mysticism, surcharged
with the language of the dead, and sustained by force, who is there
would have the temerity to question the sanctity of The Law?

It remained for Attorneys Black and Cooley--and not for the outcast
industrial unionists, socialists or anarchists--to charge that The Law
is a bankrupt institution, and it was for the citizen-deputies--and not
for the despised workers--to prove the truth of the indictment. Truly
Society moves in a mysterious way its blunders to reform!

With the true logic of the counting-house Cooley admitted that the mill
owners had formed a mob to protect themselves from the rabble, they had
pursued illegal methods to prevent the breaking of The Law, they had
jailed men in order to preserve Liberty, they had even blacklisted union
men in order to give to every man the right to work where, when and for
whom he pleased. There is no escaping such logic if one owns property.
Of course those who possess no property are the natural enemies of
property, and law being based upon property, they are defiers of The
Law, and Society being upheld only by observance of The Law, they are
the foes of Society. It is not best to kill them in too large numbers
for they are useful in doing the work of the world, but they must be
kept in fear and trembling of The Law and made to respect it as sacred
and inviolable, even if we do not. So argued Black and Cooley.

But the whine of Black, the snarl of Cooley, the moody silence of
Veitch, alike served as a confession that "law and order" was a failure.
The plea of the State was that all law is the creature of property and
when the power of the law proves inadequate in its function of
protecting the accumulations of wealth the possessors of property are
justified in supplementing The Law with such additional physical or
brute force as they can muster, or in casting aside The Law altogether,
as it suits their convenience. To the workers The Law must remain sacred
while to the leisure class Property is the thing to worship, for however
much robbery is to be condemned, the proceeds of robbery are always to
be respected.

Their further contention was that the streets are for traffic, for
maintaining commerce, in other words to aid in the gathering of property
and to enhance the property values already cleared. Out of the
graciousness of their hearts the business men and employers allow the
pedestrians to use the streets incidental to the purchase of goods or to
journey to and from their tasks in the factories, mines, mills and
workshops. That the streets might be used for social, religious,
political or educational purposes does not enter their calculations,
their ledgers carry no place for such entries on the profit side. Free
speech is tolerated at times provided nothing of importance is said.

Two trials were going on in the court room at the same time; that of
Thomas H. Tracy and the I. W. W. before a property-qualified jury, and
that of the existing system of law enforcement before the great jury of
the working class. And just as surely as was the verdict that of
acquittal for Tracy and his union, was there a most decided judgment of
Guilty upon "law and order." For Tracy was not freed by the law but by
the common sense of the jury who refused to consider him guilty and
viewed him as a class rather than as an individual. Under the existing
conspiracy laws he might well have been considered technically guilty.
But "law and order" technically and otherwise was proven guilty, and the
charge that Capitalism is guilty of first degree murder, and a host of
other crimes, was clearly proven.

Why? Why all the brutality depicted herein? Why?

The answer is that we are living in an insane social system in which
money ranks higher than manhood.

To be more specific the outrages at Everett had their roots in the
belief that the men who labor, and especially the migratory and the
unskilled element, form an inferior caste or class to those who exploit
them. The dominant class viewed any attempt to claim even the same civil
rights as an assault upon their supremacy and integrity,--this to them
being synonymous with social order and civilization. This is always more
evident where a single industry dominates, as evidenced by the
occurrences at Ludlow, in the coal district, Mesaba in the iron ore
section, and Bisbee where copper is the main product. Everett
controlled by the lumber interests clinches the argument.

A community dominated by an industry, impelled by a desire for high
profits; or under the spell of fear or passion, whether justified or
not, cannot be restrained by law from a summary satisfaction of its
desires or a quieting of its apprehensions. Before such a condition the
fabric of local government crumbles and lynch law is substituted for the
more orderly processes designed to attain the same end. The Everett
outrages were no example of the rough and ready justice of primitive
communities. The outlaws were in full possession of local government,
legislative, judicial, and executive, yet they fell back upon brute
force and personal violence and attempted to protect the lumber trust
profits by tactics of terrorism.

Insofar as the law can be wielded for their immediate purpose a
capitalistic mob, such as these at Everett, will clothe their violence
in the form of ostensible legal process, yet often the letter and the
spirit of their own class-influenced laws will be ruthlessly thrust
aside. They want law and order, efficacious, impartial, august, in the
eyes of the general citizenry, but they want exemption of their class
from the rule of the law on certain occasions. Strongly would they deny
that all law is class law, made, interpreted and administered in behalf
of a privileged property-owning class, yet the facts bear out this
contention.

The conception of impersonal and impartial legalism has been generally
accepted along with traditional moral opinion and the naive belief in
the excellence of competitive, individualistic, and unrestrained
business. But this historical case has proven, as nothing else could
prove, that these bonds are relaxing and the faith and formulas
underlying the whole legal establishment are the subject of attack by an
increasingly large and uncompromising army of dissenters.

From the developments of the Everett situation one can sense the rising
tide of industrial solidarity. It was the unity of the workers that won
the great case. It will be the unity of Labor that will win the world
for the workers, just as the embryonic democracy of the toilers in its
blind groupings has already cracked the shell of the industrial
autocracy of the present day.

At present we are at the parting of the ways. There is not sufficient
faith in the Law to hold the dying wage system together and there is not
a sufficiently clear conception of the solidaric ideal of a new society
to bind the rebellious elements to a definite program. So chaos reigns
in society and events like those at Everett may be expected to arise
until the struggle of the exploited takes on a more constructive form
and develops the necessary power to overthrow capitalism and all its
attendant institutions.

Industrial unionism is the only hope of the disinherited and
dispossessed proletariat. It is the voice of the future. It spells at
once Evolution and Revolution. Its assured success means an end to
classes and class rule and the rearing of a race of free individuals.

The strength of the workers is in industry. Every worker, man, woman or
child, has economic power. The control of industry means the control of
the world.

He who strives to bring the workers closer together so that their
allied forces in an industrial organization may overthrow the wage
system and rear in its place an Industrial Republic in which slavery
will be unknown and where joy will form the mainspring of human
activity, pays the highest homage to those who, in order that the spirit
of Liberty might not perish from the land, gave their lives at Everett,
Washington, on Sunday, November 5th, 1917:


     FELIX BARAN,
     HUGO GERLOT,
     GUSTAV JOHNSON,
     JOHN LOONEY,
     ABRAHAM RABINOWITZ.


FINISH

       *       *       *       *       *

SONGS

Of The Workers

The Latest

I. W. W. SONG BOOK

General Defense Edition

Contains sixty-four pages of satirical, humorous and inspiring songs of
labor. Parodies on the well known popular airs. Wherever the English
language is spoken, there will be found countless numbers of workers
singing these real rebel songs.

[Illustration]

PRICES

Single Copies Ten Cents

$5.00 a Hundred

Address

I. W. W. Publishing Bureau

1001 W. Madison St., Chicago, Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *

I. W. W. LITERATURE

I. W. W. Publishing Bureau

1001 W. Madison St., Chicago

Pamphlets at 10c Each, or 3.50 Per Hundred

     I. W. W. History, Structure & Methods (St. John), revised
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     Revolutionary Writings (Kelly Cole)


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     Opening Statement of G. F. Vanderveer, 25c 100  20.00
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     Indictment, 25c per copy                   100  20.00


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