This is a day which recalls to me not the heroism of our veterans in battle on foreign shores nor the endless roll call of our sacred dead who have fallen in such distant and oft-forgotten places, but of those whose struggles to survive here upon returning home have been met not with brotherhood and solidarity but with abandonment and brutal repression.  

     Veterans Day has always been a family day of remembrance for us, both my father’s and my partner Theresa’s to begin with, Navy and Army respectively and having grown up together until pulled apart by service in the Korean War. Then there are her uncles, four of her father’s older brothers who served in the Second World War; my uncles Sargent John Weeks US Army who was a Bataan Death March survivor, Commander Robert Eigell USN who was instrumental in the development of the Navy’s EOD service, and Captain Terry Baker USM who flew in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts and was also a U-2 pilot.

      I remember also my sister Erin’s partner Tom Newman, who began as a US Army Ranger LT, changed his MOS to Intelligence and earned the Special Forces patch, then vanished into the special operations community for 27 years of service, til he died of covid as a federal agent assigned to Hong Kong. Erin says the Army played the Ballad of the Green Berets at his funeral, on bagpipes, and never was there a more mournful wailing.  

     But also I think of a boy my partner Theresa partly raised, who was prescribed oxycontin in a military hospital after being wounded in Iraq and returned home as an addict, thinking he was Jesus and giving sermons to the pigeons while living in the streets of the city, and many years since last seen.

     Today I think of the plight of our veterans, far too many of whom die by suicide or wander the streets of our cities as homeless apparitions of the failures of our democracy which include the guarantee of our universal health care, housing, and material wellbeing as a precondition of our right to life, in terms of the Armistice Day Massacre of 1919, which occurred only a couple hours drive from my home, and with which I have a personal connection through the family of my partner Theresa. Her grandfather John F. McKay, an Industrial Workers of the World organizer and Socialist, was changed by this defining moment from an ideologically motivated politician and labor activist to a leader of direct action for whom unions were an instrument not simply for fairness and the dignity of labor, but for the survival of the powerless and the dispossessed.

     Her father Gene remembered when the last IWW prisoner of this incident was freed from prison and came to live with them; Ray Becker, held for twenty years because he refused to name names or give up his fellows to the police, and refused a pardon which came attached to the enormous boat anchor of recognition of the state’s right to criminalize labor unions.

      Twenty years of beatings, starvation, torture, solitary confinement in a lightless box, brutal labor, and he spoke not a word which might have saved him but damned another to anyone. That’s a man I wish I had known, and can admire as a shaping force of my partner’s family history and of the idea of labor unions and of America as a Band of Brothers.         

     I can’t think of a better example of heroism to grow up with, and I’d like to share the story as it is known with us all.

      As related in the website of the Thurston-Lewis-Mason Central Labor Council; “The trial arising from the Armistice Day massacre of 1919 in Centralia, Washington would be on many lists of the most important cases arising from labor and management clashes. It was, at the time, considered one of the most important labor management cases in the United States. The incident was on the front page of the New York Times. William “Big Bill” Haywood, head of the radical union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), was concerned that several of his members would be found guilty and sentenced to death. It seemed to some that the case might be as notorious as the Sacco and Vanzetti case. Some felt it would rank with the famous Haymarket case of 1886 in Chicago in which four men received the death penalty and were, in fact, executed.

     The county in which Centralia is located was a significant center for organized labor. At that time, seventeen unions comprised the Central Trade Council. This council in turn represented an estimated 3,000 union members. The power of organized labor was evident in the Labor Day Parade on September 1st, 1919. The unions staged a parade described as “the biggest parade ever held in Centralia.” Timber workers, coal miners, barbers, printers, carpenters, retail clerks, and railway brotherhoods all took part in the parade. Plans were announced about that time to build a new labor temple.

     The Centralia case arose as a result of deaths and injuries following gunfire near the union hall of the radical labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were called “Wobblies.” The IWW is an international union founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1905 by a few hundred socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists. Its radical nature is shown by its chief goal: the abolition of the wage system and control of the workplace by the workers.

       Conflict between labor and management had a violent history in the Northwest timber industry. IWW union halls were raided and pillaged again and again. Members of this radical union were frequently beaten and tarred and feathered and forced to leave town. In 1918, the IWW had a union hall which was located a few blocks from the union hall used by them in 1919. That hall was attacked and wrecked by participants in the 1918 Red Cross Parade. The members inside were maltreated and driven out of town.

     The union members were thus very much aware of the dangers that the 1919 parade posed to them. Both the secretary of the local and the proprietress of the hotel in which the union headquarters was located in separate meetings sought the protection from the chief of police prior to the parade. The police chief was not at all reassuring, and both parties left the meetings feeling they would be without police protection during the parade.

     Moreover, the usual turn-around point for a parade was a block and a half south of the union hall. This parade was going to turn around, according to the local newspaper, two blocks farther north, which would place the paraders in front of the union hall. Why would the parade route be changed, the members wondered, other than to raid the hall? Their attorney, Elmer Smith, had been told by a friend that the raid would occur. He advised the local union secretary accordingly.

     The union was so sure that the raid would occur that it printed one thousand leaflets and delivered them door to door in Centralia. The leaflet pointed out that a raid was going to occur and asked the citizens to do what they could to try to prevent this from happening.

     The IWW union members had a meeting and discussed what to do. The local union secretary consulted Elmer Smith, their attorney, who advised them that the union hall was, in a sense, their meeting place, and, to fact, a secretary of the IWW union local lived there. Many of the members spent a great deal of their time in the union hall on weekends or between jobs. Therefore, Elmer Smith said, the union members had a right to defend themselves in the hall against attack threatening bodily injury or injury to their property, even if such defense necessitated the use of firearms.

     The parade was scheduled to begin in the afternoon. In the morning, Attorney Elmer Smith made a trip to the IWW hall to confer again with Britt Smith. Tom Morgan, the IWW member who testified as the state’s witness, claimed to have witnessed this conversation. He testified that he saw Britt Smith pointing to the buildings across the street where IWW riflemen were to be stationed. If true, this would mean that Elmer Smith knew, and tacitly approved of the non-legal plan for self-defense. Elmer Smith only remained in the hall a few minutes.

     In the afternoon some of the IWW members left the hall to station themselves elsewhere. There were several inexpensive hotels nearby which catered to loggers who lived in the logging camps on weekdays and who regularly rented rooms on the weekend.

     The seven who remained in the hall were Wesley Everest, Ray Becker, Tom Morgan, Britt Smith, James McInerney, Mike Sheehan, and Bert Faulkner. Everest, Becker, Britt Smith, and McInerney were armed with a pistol. Two groups of defenders left the hall to station themselves elsewhere. Three men armed with rifles stationed themselves on Seminary Hill over a thousand feet east of the hall. They were Loren Roberts, Bert “Curley” Bland and Ole Hanson (Hanson was never apprehended.). O.C. “Commodore” Bland and John Lamb occupied a second floor room in the Arnold on the opposite side of Tower Avenue and a little north of the hall. “John Doe” Davis went with a concealed rifle to the Avalon Hotel on the opposite side of Tower Avenue and slightly south of the IWW hall. Davis was never apprehended. There was testimony that Eugene Barnett was also in or near the Avalon, but two witnesses corroborated his testimony that he was in the lobby of the Roderick Hotel when the gunfire took place which was next door to the IWW hall.

     Usually there are few spectators at the very end of the parade since it is quite some distance from the heart of the business district; but quite a crowd had gathered in the area near the IWW hall. Why was this so? There were many, according to one commentator, who remembered the raid eighteen months earlier of the old IWW hall which took place while a Red Cross parade was passing nearby. Some spectators had undoubtedly heard the rumors or seen the handbills passed out by the local IWW members. Those who wanted some excitement got more than they expected that day. Curiously, one of those bystanders near the IWW hall was the county prosecuting attorney.

     Warren Grim gave the command to “Halt, close up ranks!” The Centralia Legion group had already fallen well behind the Chehalis Legion group.

     Far and away the most authoritative book, and indeed the only book which treats the entire incident, is Wobbly War: The Centralia Story by John McClelland, Jr. The events in Centralia resulting in the trial are best understood by quoting extensively and summarizing the key facts from his book.

     The celebration of the first Armistice Day in Centralia was planned only four days in advance. Members of the Grant Hodge post met in the Elks hall on November 7 and decided it would be “strictly a military day.” They agreed to wear their uniforms. Everyone who had an American flag was to display it. And of course there would be a parade followed by a patriotic program.

     The line of march would be led by the Elks band followed by the Mexican border veterans, Spanish-American War veterans, Boy Scouts, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Elks lodges of both Centralia and Chehalis, and any others who wanted to march and show their patriotism. The Chehalis and Centralia Legionnaires would be the last of the marching groups. The parade route was north on Tower to Third Street, then back the same way to the high school, where a speaker was to give an oration.

     The edition of the Chronicle reporting these parade plans contained an editorial quoting a ringing resolution adopted at the recent Elks national convention pledging “all lawful means to combat the IWW and kindred organizations.” But lawful means were lacking in Centralia, or so city and county officials decided. There remained another way, used before in Centralia when action was called for and good men with right on their side were willing to act.

     Raids on IWW halls in the Northwest were so numerous and effective that by the fall of 1919 few were left. In the war on Wobblies the opening of a hall in Centralia was regarded as a setback and so it was a surprise to no one, including the IWW, when plans to do something about it were openly discussed and reported. Unless law officers intervened, a raid was sure to come. It was only a question of when.

     Raids were easy. No weapons were necessary. Raiders simply kicked in the door if it was locked, pushed any Wobblies on hand out into the street, then took everything that could be lifted or burned or smashed it. With a small hall like the one on Tower Avenue a raid could be over in minutes.

     But when should it take place? The fact that the parade route was unprecedentedly long—all the way to Third Street before turning around, a route which would cause the parade to go past the IWW hall, located between Second and Third, going and coming—was often cited as evidence that Legionnaires decided in advance that a quick raid on the hall could be accomplished as a part of the patriotic events of Armistice Day. Parades in prior years had turned at First Street.

     In any planning that was done, Legion leaders were in the forefront. Dr. Livingstone, the Legion commander, was the chairman of the Citizens Protective Association and held the office of leading knight in the Elks lodge. Warren Grimm, who succeeded Livingstone as commander of the Legion post, was a committee chairman in the protective association. Leslie Hughes, the police chief, was chaplain of the Legion, and C.D. Cunningham was historian.

     It was clear that the law was not going to provide any protection. If a mob attacked, the Wobblies would have to provide their own defense, if there was to be any.

     As Armistice Day neared, the men discussed their plight, and their courage improved. They convinced themselves that the hall had to be defended. Furthermore they felt challenged. The protective association, with its bold meetings reported in the press, seemed to be announcing its intentions to make an assault.

     On Saturday night, the Wobblies gathered in their hall to talk about what they were going to do.

     On Sunday a general meeting, open to all was held. After the meeting those who remained talked again about defense of the hall. The defense strategy was to catch them in a cross fire. Some defenders would station themselves in upstairs rooms of the rooming houses in the neighborhood where they could get a clear shot at anyone attacking the hall from the front. The Arnold and the Avalon were the closest. The Wobblies decided they had better be ready when the parade came by. Britt Smith quoted Elmer as saying, “’Britt, they are going to raid the hall. What are you going to do about it?’ I said that if they started to raid the hall, we were here, and by that I meant we were going to protect the place.”

     Seven Wobblies chose to stay where the action would be, if there were any—in the hall itself. Four of these were willing to fight with guns if need be. . .Britt Smith had to stay in the hall. It was his home. And as the paid secretary of the local IWW unit, he was regarded as the chief of the local Wobblies. He had a revolver. Bland and Lamb, walking home after the Sunday night meeting, made their decision. The hall ought to be defended and they would help. They rented a room in the Arnold, almost directly opposite the hall, and went there on Armistice Day. Bland took a rifle. Lamb went unarmed.

     Jack Davis was to be in the Avalon Hotel.

     Ben Casagranda, an enlisted man, had come back from service overseas and opened a shoeshine parlor. He married and was living in an apartment on Center Street. His wife said she wasn’t feeling well on November 11 and didn’t intend to watch the parade. “You’d better go,” her husband said. “This may be the last time you will see me.” Then he kissed her goodbye and left. Mrs. Casagranda recalled that “afterward, when I thought over what Ben had said, I became worried and finally decided to go downtown and ask him not to march in the parade. I hurried down Tower but I was too late. The parade was going by and I found that Ben was among the marchers.”

     By two o’clock the parade was moving—the band, the Boy Scouts, the color bearers, the Elks wearing their jaunty blue caps, a contingent of ex-marines and sailors, the Chehalis Legionnaires and finally the Centralia unit with Lt. Warren Grimm marching at the head. At the end, behind the Legionnaires, were several open cars carrying nurses, Red Cross workers, and citizens who just wanted to be in the parade.

     A hand held high. A shouted order. These set in motion the tragedy of Armistice Day, 1919, in Centralia. All of the parade was past the Wobbly hall except the Centralia contingent and several cars bringing up the rear. The Centralia group had fallen behind and a wide gap separated it from the Chehalis Legionnaires marching ahead. But when he reached the intersection of Tower and Second, with the men he led directly in front of the hall, Warren Grimm turned, held up his arm, and called out: “Halt, close up ranks!” The rest of the parade was moving on and the space between them and the Chehalis marchers was widening rapidly.

     Because of what happened within seconds after the order was given, the intent of the halt seemed to be to give the Centralians a chance to drop out of the parade, make a quick assault on the Wobbly hall, then resume the march, perhaps catching up with the rest of the parade before it reached the reviewing stand.

     Some of the men talked about a raid as they marched south on Tower. One of these was Dr. Frank Bickford, at forty-nine a mature and respected medical doctor who was in the front ranks. When the order to halt was given, he decided that right then was a good time to do something about the Wobblies. He turned to others near him, volunteered to take the lead, and started for the hall. When he looked back and saw no one was following him, he hesitated. Then he heard “a commotion and hollering among the platoons in the rear.” Bickford moved on and saw others from the ranks just opposite the hall running ahead of him. They reached the hall’s entrance before he did. Faulkner, standing at the window inside the hall, heard shouts of, “Let’s go get them! Grab them! At them—get them!”

     “A man at my right put his foot against the door,” Bickford later testified, “and pushed it partly open.” The gunfire from the hall signaled the other defenders. Davis from the second-story vantage point in the Avalon took aim. With his first shot, probably, he picked off Warren Grimm.

     The three men stationed on Seminary Hill heard the popping of gunfire below and began to shoot. O.C. Bland, in the Arnold, didn’t get into the action. As men ran toward the hall, Bland jumped up from his seat on the bed and shoved his rifle through a window, and a piece of glass slashed a cut in the back of his hand so deep his friend Lamb was sickened by the sight.

     The ex-soldiers who stormed into the hall found the front part of it empty. The firing, done only by Everest and Becker, while intense and rapid, was brief.

Everest, in a high state of excitement when he reached the alley behind the hall, turned south, and when he came to the alley’s entrance on Second Street saw two men in uniform running toward him. He fired at both. Casagranda, shot through the stomach, fell on the sidewalk. Watt was hit by a bullet that penetrated his midriff. Everest then turned and started north.

     Everest’s route was through three residential blocks and many vacant lots, stables, and sheds, along the alleys, four-tenths of a mile between Second Street and the Skookumchuck River, flowing swiftly just before it converged with the Chehalis [River].

     Dale Hubbard was able to find someone who handed him a pistol. He grabbed it and continued the pursuit, but when he caught sight of Everest and tried to fire, the pistol wouldn’t work.

     The fleeing Everest did not try to hide. He would pause, crouch behind a shed or fence and fire a shot at his pursuers, then run on. In a few minutes he came to the bank of Skookumchuck, thick with trees and underbrush. He saw at once that he was trapped unless he could cross the river. He could not. The river was too swift and deep and he was burdened with heavy logger’s clothes and boots. Everest crouched behind a stump near the water’s edge and waited, gun in hand.

     Hubbard moved out ahead, leveling the pistol that would not fire, and shouted at Everest to surrender. Everest responded with “defiant curses” and, when Hubbard kept coming, raised his gun and shot. Hubbard fell. Everest shot him again, and then again. That emptied his gun. Seeing him trying frantically to reload, the others rushed up. Everest reached for a long knife strapped to his belt in the back, but before he could draw it Barner was on him, grabbing his arms. Others followed, one kicking him in the head hard enough to draw blood.

     Pulled to his feet, Everest, still defiant, resisted efforts to make him move. One of his captors took off his belt and looped it around the Wobbly’s neck, using it as a leash on the long walk to the city jail nearly a mile away. Hubbard lay where he fell, gravely wounded but not dead. Soon a car and driver were found and he was taken to the Scace Hospital, the last of the Wobbly gunfire victims to receive medical attention.

     A trail of blood on the sidewalk leading past the Roderick to the corner at Second Street verified reports that one of the paraders, who was seen stumbling south away from the hall, bent over with his hands over his stomach, was shot in front of the hall.

     Others among the ex-servicemen who escaped being hit poured into the IWW hall and the Roderick lobby to finish the raid.

     They found no one in the front portion of the hall. There was some hesitation. The ex-servicemen, inside the hall, could hear the shots in the alley.

Eugene Barnett, in the lobby of the Roderick when the raid started, threw off his coat, intending to join the fight. But when the shooting began, he stayed where he was. He was still in the lobby when the uniformed men came in. He recognized William Scales as one and afterward said that another, a navy man, was carrying a gun. He said he wanted him to be careful with the gun because there was a woman—Mrs. McAllister—in the back. Barnett was not recognized then as a Wobbly and was not seized. He walked away unmolested and went uptown in time to see Everest brought in.

     Once the building had been thoroughly searched, the Legionnaires proceeded to complete what had been their original objective—the destruction of the hall. Records from Smith’s desk, including the local IWW membership list, were handed to Prosecutor Allen, who happened to be standing across the street, watching.

     It was about a mile from the banks of the Skookumchuck to the jail on Maple Street, and as Everest and his captors moved along, the crowd following them grew. The story spread quickly. This was the Wobbly who shot Dale Hubbard in cold blood out on the riverbank.

     A rope was tied around Everest’s neck and the end thrown over a spike on a telephone pole in the alley in back of the Chronicle office, near the jail. Dr. Livingstone, just arrived on the scene after leaving the hospital where he watched as his friend Grimm died, was as angry as any at the Wobblies, but could reason well enough to know that a daytime lynching would be bad. He began to clamber up the foothold spikes of the pole where he began shouting to make himself heard above the clamor of the mob. “Don’t hang him. Not here,” he yelled. “Don’t do something foolish.”

     The appeals were almost too late. Everest was lifted by the neck and his feet were off the ground before Livingstone’s frantic appeal to reason was heeded and he was let down. Quickly he was hustled across the street and pushed into a jail cell out of reach of the mob eager for a lynching. In the jail were the others who were seized in the rear of the Roderick.

     Smith was found in his office, standing with his raincoat on, beside his desk. When Smith saw the crowd outside, he took off his coat and went to the door. They wanted him to go down to the police station and give an account of himself.

     Finally Smith agreed to surrender his gun and go along.

     By this time anyone suspected of anything in connection with the Wobblies was being seized and held. The Wobbly horrors rapidly escalated into Wobbly hysteria. Smith was locked up.

     The mob around the jail continued to grow and the intensity of its temper increased. The anger intensified as the events of the afternoon became more widely known.

     As the crowd outside the jail grew to about thousand and daylight faded, the mayor and the police chief called the state adjutant general of the National Guard for help. Two officers and thirty-five enlisted men from the Tacoma company were assembled and dispatched to Centralia by special train.

     About seven that night several cars drove up near the jail with their lights out. Then, the lights of the city went out for about fifteen minutes and men entered the jail and removed Wesley Everest. Everest was placed in a car, followed by others and driven to a bridge spanning the Chehalis River about a mile away on the southwest side of town. He was hanged and shot. The body remained hanging for some time. Several cars drove out to view the sight. Later, someone cut the rope and the body drifted downstream and came to rest near the river’s edge.

     The train with the National Guardsmen arrived at 11:35 pm. Gradually, the calls for more lynchings died down. The crowd was aware that the National Guard was in town and was beginning to set up checkpoints. The crowds gradually became smaller as the night wore on.

     Was Wesley Everest emasculated in the vehicle which conveyed him to the bridge? McClelland, the leading authority on the incident, feels that it was not simply a story perpetuated by the IWW, since IWW members were in no position to do so in the days after the lynching. Years after the event, an affidavit was signed by a purported passenger in the car in which Everest was riding, which described the event in horrifying detail.

     The corpse of Everest was retrieved and brought back to the small Centralia jail where it was placed in the corridor between the rows of cells.

     Eventually, a group of prisoners were ordered to bury Everest in “Potter’s Field” while being watched over by National Guardsmen.

     The jails of Centralia and Chehalis were full. Eventually, the following were charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree: Eugene Barnett, Ray Becker, James McInerney, Britt Smith, Bert Bland, Loren Roberts, O.C. Bland, John Lamb, Mike Sheehan, and Bert Faulkner. Elmer Smith was charged as an accessory to the crime of conspiracy to commit first degree murder.

     State labor officials knew that the trial would be used by some employers to beat down the long-established, more traditional craft unions. Thus, they decided to create their own “labor jury.” “These labor jury participants,” said McClelland, “were expected to be present at the trial, and to reach their own independent verdict.” There was some disagreement within the labor union movement. As McClelland pointed out, “The Seattle Central Labor Council expressed disapproval of the methods being used by the Centralia committee—especially when it sponsored picketing in Olympia—and accused it of capitalizing on the plight of the prisoners for private ends. The Seattle Federal Employees Union also announced it was ‘voting against the IWW.’”

     Despite some opposition, Northwest labor leaders felt that the Wobblies, for all their irrationality, deserved a fair trail, and so they conceived the idea of sending a jury of their own, made up of working men, to sit through the trial and render a verdict at the same time the official verdict came in.

     Even though most craft union leaders and members did not agree with the radical beliefs and actions of the IWW, they realized that their unions were, in a sense, “on trial” as well. They realized that anti-union employers would seize upon the radical actions of the IWW and use that as an example of the type of union activity that they claimed was typical. That is to say, they would attempt to tar the craft unions with the same brush they used to tar the IWW.

     Some unions were eager to dissociate themselves from the IWW. The union which represented many employees of the Centralia Chronicle was quick to point out through a resolution that their members decried the methods used by the IWW. Unions in the Puget Sound area were aware that something would have to be done to counteract employers’ efforts to take advantage of the Centralia massacre and attempt to turn public opinion against the labor movement in general.

     Those who were selected were John O. Craft, Metal Trades Council, Seattle; Paul Mohr, Central Labor Council, Seattle; W.J. Beard, Tacoma Labor Council; T. Meyer, Everett Labor Council; William Hickman, Portland Labor Council; and E.W. Thrall, Centralia Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. “They took their assignment seriously, sitting through every session of the long trial,” according to McClelland.

     The judge at the trial explained near the beginning that this was not a trial against the Industrial Workers of the World, it was a trial against certain individuals for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. However, there was bound to be a great deal of discussion about labor unions during the course of the trial. The attorney for the defendants, George Vanderveer, argued, for example, “that industrial unionism was superior to craft unionism because a union representing all workers in an industry, such as steel, transportation, or lumber, was stronger than similar smaller AFL craft unions.” (McClelland points out that, “This was fourteen years before belated acceptance of the industrial union principle led to the formation of what became the Congress of Industrial Organizations.”)

     One case above all others must have been on the minds of the prosecution, the defense, and the judge himself. This was the famous Everett massacre IWW trial, a nine week trial which took place in early 1917, arising from an exchange of gunfire between IWW members and law enforcement officials. As a result, two law enforcement officials and at least five IWW members or sympathizers were killed.

     The gunfire took place on the waterfront of the city of Everett, a mill town located about about thirty miles north of Seattle. Seventy-four men were held for months before charges were finally filed against a few of them, and an actual trial was started against one of the seventy-four. The reason that the IWW became interested in Everett was due to a shingle weavers’ strike, which had many more members in the American Federation of Labor than in the IWW; however, the IWW had long found it profitable to “fish in troubled waters.” IWW members began to gather in Everett and made public speeches on behalf of the strikers. Some members of the business community countered by encouraging the sheriff, Donald R. McRae, to name approximately two hundred special deputy sheriffs whose job it would be to turn back IWW members who were trying to come into town.

     The IWW members had done this in several cities or towns prior to this, and were not dissuaded by the show of force by the sheriff. The IWW opened a hall and became active. An official of one of the local lumber companies provided much of the leadership within the business community. It is important to note that the IWW members were usually not breaking any law when the newly sworn in deputies forced them to turn back. The sheriff and his deputies checked very carefully on nearly everyone entering the town to learn whether they were members or sympathizers of the IWW. Of course, attempts were made to evade the sheriff’s deputies. A group of IWW members and sympathizers went by train to the small town of Mukilteo, seven miles south of Everett. They then took a small vessel to Everett, but were intercepted by the sheriff and some of his deputies. Those aboard were hauled aboard the vessel the sheriff was on and taken to the jail for nine days.

     Once again, a group of forty or so IWW members boarded a steamer on October 30, 1916 for Everett in an attempt to make speeches and agitate in favor of the strikers. A hundred or more deputies were waiting for them. The IWW members were transported a few miles south of the city to an area known as Beverly Park. The deputies formed a double line and forced the IWW members to run a gauntlet while they were beating at them with clubs or rifle butts. This presented a horrible scene with men bleeding and shouting and cursing. Eventually, the victims managed to board the interurban train, which ran between Everett and Seattle.

     One can imagine how the other train passengers were shocked by seeing all of these bleeding and injured men stumbling aboard the train. The IWW did not give up, even after such a gross invasion of their civil rights under color of authority. The IWW chartered a vessel in Seattle called the Verona. Some of the men who boarded the Verona and a smaller accompanying steamer, the Calista, were armed because of what had taken place on their previous attempts to enter the city.

     As the vessel approached the dock, they were accosted by three men: Sheriff McRae, Lieutenant Charles C. Curtis of the National Guard, and one of McRae’s deputies, Jefferson Beard. Sheriff McRae shouted, warning the passengers that they could not land in Everett. Shouts of disagreement came back from the passengers. Then a shot was fired.

     It has been debated whether the first shot came from the dock or from the Verona. Sheriff McRae had a large number of uniformed men stationed back a slight distance from the edge of the dock to be used in the event the men defied the sheriff and actually attempted to disembark from the steamer. There was much gunfire coming from both directions. Sheriff McRae himself had a bullet strike his leg and his foot. The gunfire caused the passengers to rush to the side of the ship away from the dock, and this in turn caused the steamer to list so much that some passengers not only rolled across the deck, and through the railing and into the water. The Verona’s captain got the engines into reverse and freed the lines on the dock and was soon out of gun range. The passengers managed to warn those on the smaller vessel, the Calista, to turn back.

     Two National Guard companies were sent to Everett. (One was Company M from Centralia.) It is possible that more people were killed since several passengers were in the water, but only five bodies of the IWW members and sympathizers were recovered. On shore, both Deputy Sheriff Beard and Lieutenant Curtis were killed. Law enforcement officials were waiting for the steamboat when it returned to Seattle, and seventy-four men were arrested. The two attorneys for the defendants were Fred H. Moore from Los Angeles and George F. Vanderveer of Seattle, the attorney who was now defending the Centralia Wobblies.

     The Snohomish County prosecutor must have had a difficult time preparing his case for trial, because of the number of parties involved and the knowledge that there would be much contradictory testimony. It would unduly lengthen this discussion to go into detail about where people were standing and where the shots were fired from, but it was controversial. The point is that this was no longer a simple matter of giving a businessman a badge and a gun and a club and telling him to beat someone. This was a first-degree murder case, and the prosecutor’s presentation would be countered by two unusually able attorneys. As it turned out, the trial took about nine weeks, and it is difficult to imagine a nine week trial being required for each of the other 73 defendants. It would tie up the court system for years.

     The trial was moved to King County, and the judge appointed was J.T. Ronald. Judge Ronald was very liberal in allowing testimony with regard to the events leading up to the Everett Massacre. Not only did much testimony come in about the episode of IWW members being forced to run the gauntlet in Beverly Park, but at a later time the judge actually had the jurors transported to Beverly Park so that they could see the actual scene where this took place. They were also transported to the very dock where the massacre occurred, and the Verona was navigated into the same position it was in when the shooting took place. The jury undoubtedly began to form opinions about the lines of sight from the steamboat to the dock, and whether it was possible for a person in a certain position to fire at the men on the dock. They were shown where the sheriff and the deputies claimed to be standing when the shooting took place.

     It should be emphasized that when first-degree murder has been charged, the defense is usually given considerable leeway in the introduction of evidence.

     After all of the weeks of trial, and after the testimony of countless witnesses, the jury deliberated for less than 24 hours to find the defendant not guilty. One can imagine the shock that this acquittal caused the business community and the lumber interests.

     As will be seen, the case arising from the Centralia Massacre was also a case in which the defendants were charged with first-degree murder as a result of conspiracy, or, in the case of Elmer Smith, being an accessory. Unlike the Everett case, however, it was difficult or impossible for the defense attorney, Mr. Vanderveer, to introduce evidence which tended to show a conspiracy on the part of some members of the parade, including Warren Grimm. Again and again, his attempts to introduce such evidence were objected to and the objections were sustained by the judge. It seems very probable that the reason for the restrictive approach to the attempted admission of evidence by the defense to show a conspiracy by the Legion members arose from the acquittal involved in the Everett case. Judge Wilson and the prosecution were not going to follow the path of Judge Ronald in the case that arose in Everett.

     Not surprisingly, the prosecution did what it could to discredit the labor jury, even before it rendered a “verdict.” One of the members of the “labor jury” was called as a witness by the defense counsel to corroborate some testimony of another witness. The state revealed by cross-examination that this member of the labor jury, the one from Centralia, had located at least one witness useful to the defense. There was an attempt to show partiality as a result of this action. It could, however, be argued that although it would be highly improper for a real jury member to suggest a witness for either side, these men were, in fact, not genuine jurors, but ordinary citizens, and each citizen has not only the right, but the duty, to provide the name of a witness which he feels would be necessary to do justice in the case involved. A labor juror was asked by the press if he felt the trial was fair, to which he replied in the affirmative. This was allegedly changed by the newspaper to read that the entire labor jury found the trial fair so far, even though it was the opinion of a single member. Nevertheless, the “labor jury” did render its “verdict” at the close of the case at about the same time that the official verdict came in. “The labor jury found the defendants not guilty.”

     C.D. Cunningham had the opportunity to interview witnesses, interview the prisoners, and to consider what exhibits would be necessary to build the prosecution’s case. He was faced with a very interesting situation. After a few days, he must have realized that Warren Grimm was killed by the rifle shot fired from the Avalon Hotel, and that “John Doe” Davis was probably the one who fired that shot. He also knew that John Lamb and O.C. Bland both went to the room in the Arnold Hotel, and that O.C. Bland had the rifle, and that Lamb was unarmed. He must have also known that no shots were fired from the Arnold Hotel, since Bland seriously injured his hand at the time he broke the window, presumably in an effort to fire the shot. It was a very serious wound. No shells were found on the floor, apparently, and no shots were heard by the proprietor of the hotel. He also knew that the three riflemen on Seminary Hill, over a thousand feet away, all fired their weapons and that the type of bullet which killed McElfresh was fired by Loren Roberts, and Loren Roberts alone. Burt Bland is not known to have struck anyone with his rifle shots.

     Ole Hanson, of course, got away and was never apprehended. He was certain that Dale Hubbard was killed by Wesley Everest, and that Everest killed Ben Casagranda as well when he first left the union hall and at first started to run south. Ironically, the knowledge did not help him to the extent that it should, if his goal was to convict all participants of first-degree murder. The one who killed Grimm was gone, Everest had been lynched, and Loren Roberts might well be judged insane. Undoubtedly, the object of C.D. Cunningham was to convict everyone with attorney Elmer Smith thrown into the bargain. The question was, how to do it?

     The plan that C.D. Cunningham devised was to charge all of the defendants except Elmer Smith with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. This would have the advantage of subjecting the seven Wobblies who were in the IWW hall actually defending themselves to a first-degree murder charge even if the raid on the hall preceded the pistol fire by defenders inside. It would also make prosecution easier against John Lamb and Burt Bland. The difference is you are not charging anyone except the perpetrator with the actual murder of Grimm, but you were charging the bunch of them, with the exception of Elmer Smith, with partaking in a conspiracy to wrongfully murder Warren Grimm, whether such person be in the Arnold Hotel, the Avalon Hotel, or on Seminary Hill, or in the union hall itself. Elmer Smith would be charged with being an accessory to first-degree murder.

     The law enables one to defend one’s own home, and this would include not only Britt Smith but also the other IWW members who had a right to be there and assemble there and treated as a home away from home. If someone invaded the union hall and threatened either themselves or union hall property, they have a right to resist such an attempt by the use of force. There is a requirement that the threat to the person or property must be in the presence of the defendant. This would obviously exclude those on Seminary Hill and in the nearby hotels, since it would not be possible to argue that the threat to the union hall was “in their presence.” The state would only need to prove that one of them did actually murder Warren Grimm, and that such murder was done pursuant to a plan or scheme and that the others participated in it, even if they did not fire a shot.

     The opening argument was given by Prosecutor Herman Allen. He stated that the case about to be tried would be one of the most important in the state’s history. George Vanderveer, in a brilliant move, interrupted Prosecutor Allen, and asked whether the prosecution would stand or fall on the contention that there had been no attack on the IWW hall before the firing began. Even though Prosecutor Allen was the one addressing the court, attorney Abel leaped to his feet and said, “We surely will.” He had fallen into Vanderveer’s trap. Under the state’s theory of the case, it did not matter whether the shooting was first or whether the charge to the hall was first, since the entire conspiracy was based on an illegal use of self-defense. Vanderveer had no right to interrupt the opening argument of the prosecutor, but decided to do so in hopes that someone would “take the bait.” Vanderveer no doubt felt that as the testimony developed, he would probably be able to show that the attack on the hall occurred prior to any shooting.

     According to jurors’ statements, one of the first votes that was taken by the jury was on the question of whether the hall was attacked first or whether the shooting took place first. A majority decided that the attack on the hall took place first. This, of course, had no legal relevance, but Vanderveer, as a good trial lawyer, was aware that juries are not made up of lawyers, and want to deal a sort of “rough justice,” and that this might be important to them in making their decision, regardless of any instructions from the judge. (Except to appear once briefly as a witness, Prosecutor Allen was not heard from again during the entire lengthy case.)

     In his opening statement he set forth what he expected to prove. The prosecution planned to bring several witnesses to prove that the person who murdered Warren Grimm was Eugene Barnett. They also planned to show that there was a scheme for firing at the paraders from hotels on the opposite sides of the street, as well from Seminary Hill. Several witnesses were later called in an attempt to identify Eugene Barnett with varying results. Two of the witnesses were not too sure whether Barnett was, in fact, the person who had the gun near the Avalon Hotel. The third witness, Charles Briffett, who was the superintendent of schools of Port Angeles, Washington, seemed quite sure of himself.

     It is significant that none of the witnesses picked Mr. Barnett from a photo array. They were, apparently, shown photographs of Eugene Barnett or taken to the jail and it is not known whether Eugene Barnett was specifically pointed out to them. One of the witnesses seemed unsure to the extent that the witness did not point out Mr. Barnett in court. There were several witnesses who testified that the shooting from the hall started before there was any break in the ranks of the paraders. One of those who testified was Clyde Tisdale, who was sitting in a car parked on Second Street at the southwest corner of the intersection with Tower Avenue. He too indicated that the shooting started before there was any break in the ranks. Years later, he signed an affidavit admitting that he had committed perjury by so stating. In fact, he stated in the affidavit that there was a break in the ranks before there was any shooting from the hall.

     The prosecution got the statement (termed confession by the newspapers) of Loren Roberts. The statement of Roberts was read to the jury, but the judge stated that Roberts’ statement should be used only with regard to him, Roberts, since insanity was an issue in the case. Tom Morgan, one of the men in the hall, agreed to testify as a state’s witness. Morgan stated that the shots were fired in the hall before the paraders broke ranks. The state attempted to prove by Morgan’s testimony that there was a prearranged plan which involved stationing riflemen in nearby hotels. Morgan testified that on the morning of the parade, Elmer Smith came to the hall and discussed the defense of the hall with Britt Smith. Morgan stated that he saw Britt Smith gesturing across the street toward the Avalon and Arnold Hotels in an effort to indicate that attorney Smith was aware of the plan that would be used to defend the hall.

     Towards the end of the state’s case, T.H. McCleary testified that he carried a rope in the parade. He stated he found it in the street between Pine and Main Street, and that he picked it up and Mr. Rhodes took hold of it and it came apart. “We had no idea to hang anybody with the rope,” he added.

     At the close of the state’s case, Vanderveer asked that the charges be dismissed against Sheehan, Becker, Faulkner, and McInerney, as well as Elmer Smith. This had previously been denied, but the motion was renewed by Vanderveer. Judge Wilson did grant the motion with regard to Faulkner. From that point on he was no longer a defendant, and was free to go. “Go take a seat in the audience with your mother,” said Vanderveer. Finally, the last of the 147 witnesses for the prosecution was called, and the state rested.

     Attorney George Vanderveer stated in his opening statement that he would prove the following facts: First, that Eugene Barnett was not in the Avalon Hotel. Second, that Loren Roberts was insane (and therefore any statements made by him could not be used against any of the other defendants.) Third, that Mike Sheehan was not in the hall before Monday night, and therefore took no part in planning for the defense of the hall. Fourth, he would prove that a raid on the hall was planned a few days before by Commercial Club members and other businessmen, and that the IWW members were fully justified in expecting the raid, and were entitled to make preparations to defend themselves. Finally, that the raid on the hall started before any guns were fired, and that Warren Grimm was one of the raid’s leaders.

     The trial was unusual in that all of the defendants testified except for Loren Roberts, who was supposedly insane, and Ray Becker. Eugene Barnett himself led off for the defense and denied that he was in the Avalon Hotel at any time. He stated that he was in the hotel adjoining the union hall with the hotel owners, Mr. and Mrs. McAllister. He was present there when the raid on the hall took place. He claimed he knew nothing about the proposed defense on the union hall, and took no part in it. Other witnesses were called to back up Barnett’s version.

     At this point in the trial, something very unusual occurred. On March 1st, eighty fully equipped soldiers arrived from a train and set up a campsite in the open space near the city hall. Prosecutor Herman Allen stated that the troops were there pursuant to a request he had made to Governor Hart. Attorney Vanderveer registered an objection in the strongest terms possible to the presence of the soldiers, claiming that they created an atmosphere which tended to indicate that the IWW constituted a threat to the jurors and to the legal system. Judge Wilson took no action on the matter despite the strong objections of defense counsel.

     A number of other defendants testified as well as other witnesses who emphasized that the raid on the hall started before any shooting began. Mrs. McAllister, the proprietress of the union hall, pointed out that she had sought protection from the chief of police after she had heard of the danger of a raid. Mr. McAllister also testified as to the presence of Eugene Barnett at the Roderick Hotel, which adjoined the union hall.

     One of the important witnesses of the defense was Dr. F.J. Bickford. He admitted that the attack on the hall had begun before he heard any shots fired. Bickford was one of the uniformed paraders, and he admitted actually rushing toward the hall and heard gunfire coming from the hall after someone ahead of him had pushed hard on the door to the hall. His testimony was particularly significant because it repeated the statement he had given at a coroner’s inquest shortly after the massacre and before there was time to “cook up” testimony later on.

     By the end of the trial, the defense admitted that the shot which killed Warren Grimm had come from the Avalon Hotel. However, the only person who was in the Avalon Hotel, according to the defendants, was “John Doe” Davis, who had never been apprehended. Two of the witnesses testified to the effect that Warren Grimm or someone resembling him was actively either rushing the union hall or was injured and holding his stomach and running away from the door to the union hall. In other words, they testified as to Grimm’s active involvement in the illegal rush on the hall. The prosecuting attorney’s office immediately issued warrants of arrest for the two who testified, charging them with perjury. This was done in a very public fashion. It was interpreted by Attorney Vanderveer as a trick to frighten other witnesses into not testifying. The two perjury charges were later dropped, lending some credence to this interpretation. When Attorney DeWitt Wycoff helped compose the final report of the Federal Council of Churches, he stated that the judge had the power to find in contempt anyone using improper tactics. This was a strong hint that he felt that such actions taken by the prosecuting attorney should have been punished by contempt of court.

     On March 13th, the judge read the instructions to the jury and counsel made final argument. The jury, after deliberating all day, reached the following verdict:

Elmer Smith, acquitted

Mike Sheehan, acquitted

Loren Roberts, guilty, but insane

Britt Smith, guilty of murder in the second degree

D.C. Bland, guilty of murder in the second degree

James McInerney, guilty of murder in the second degree

Bert Bland, guilty of murder in the second degree

Ray Becker, guilty of murder in the second degree

Eugene Barnett, guilty of murder in the third degree.

John Lamb, guilty of murder in the third degree.

     Judge Wilson refused to accept the verdict, saying that there is no such thing as “third degree murder.” Nor is manslaughter applicable, because manslaughter pertains to a death resulting from an unintentional and unpremeditated act. The jurors resumed their deliberations for a few hours more, and emerged with a new verdict. The new verdict was the same, except that it found Eugene Barnett and John Lamb also guilty of murder in the second degree. In addition, the following sentence was attached to the jury verdict: “We, the undersigned jurors, respectfully petition the court to extend the leniency to the defendants whose names appear on the attached verdict.”

     As it turned out, the judge did not see fit to extend any leniency to the defendants, and sentenced the eight IWW members to twenty-five years and not more than forty years. This was considered a very harsh sentence, since the statute provides that there shall be a minimum sentence of ten years. The sentence was nevertheless legal and binding, since Judge Wilson was not required to follow the petition for leniency. The appeal by Vanderveer to the state Supreme Court was denied.

     A campaign that lasted almost twenty years to free the Centralia prisoners got underway. James McInerney was still in prison when he died of tuberculosis on August 13, 1930. The remaining prisoners were freed as follows: Loren Roberts was declared sane by a jury and was the first prisoner released on August 20, 1930 after serving nearly eleven years. On May 27, 1931, Eugene Barnett became the second man to leave prison to assist and tend to his dying wife. (He was never returned to prison.) O.C. Bland was released on parole December 26, 1932. Newly elected Governor Clarence Martin paroled John Lamb on April 13, 1933, Britt Smith on June 24, 1933, and Bert Bland on July 1, 1933.

     Ray Becker, the sole remaining prisoner, refused to accept parole. Finally, his sentence was commuted to time already served on September 20, 1939. Becker had been behind bars for almost twenty years. He was taken to Portland, Oregon, and treated like a labor martyr by the American Federation of Labor. Elmer Smith, who was acquitted, died in 1932 of a hemorrhaging ulcer at the age of forty-four.”

     Ray Becker came to live at the home of his old IWW comrade, John F. McKay, after his release; my partner Theresa’s father Gene grew up with his example, a man who had been imprisoned for twenty years because he refused to give up the names of fellow union men to the police and refused to accept a pardon which required admission of guilt and recognition of the legitimate authority of the state.

     This is who I think of when I speak of solidarity and of the Oath of the Resistance as given to me by Jean Genet in Beirut in 1982; “We swear our loyalty to each other, to resist and yield not, and abandon not our fellows.”

      One of the things this means is never give up anyone to the police; another is that justice is a thing held between equals and not a relation of authority and the state to individuals and citizens, for law serves power and there is no just authority.

     Gene spoke of Ray Becker as an exemplar of the brotherhood of labor as a firewall against the inherently predatory nature of capitalism, of the fragile and hollow nature of power, force, and control when met with disobedience, and of the contingency of authority and legitimacy which requires the recognition and consent of its subjects as appropriation of power or becomes nothingness when met with refusal to submit.

     Here’s to you, Ray Becker, the man who refused to name names. If he can hold for twenty years of isolation and torture, we all not stand in solidarity with our comrades, whatever the cost may be?

     As written by Steven C. Beda in The Washington Post, in an article entitled

Why the massacre at Centralia 100 years ago is critically important today

Working-class radicalism once transcended nativist division — and can do so again; “

     Today marks the 100th anniversary of a key event in American labor history: the Centralia massacre.

     It was actually less a massacre and more a shootout between the American Legion and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical union whose members were better known as Wobblies. Taking place in Centralia, Wash., the conflict resulted in the death of four Legionnaires and the lynching of one IWW member. Although Centralia’s Wobblies claimed they had acted in self-defense, a jury convicted seven Wobblies of inciting violence at Centralia, and the federal government began a massive effort across the nation to try to wipe out working-class radicalism.

     Though it happened a century ago, the Centralia massacre still has lessons for today: When fears of immigrants, outsiders and others dominates politics, violence and repression soon follow.

     The Centralia massacre occurred at the tail end of the largest immigration wave in American history. Between 1880 and 1924, more than 20 million people came to the United States, mostly from Eastern European and Mediterranean countries. While these immigrants filled the hardest, lowest-paying and most dangerous jobs in America’s industries, native-born whites had little sympathy for them. Instead, native-born whites imagined all sorts of intellectual and physical differences between themselves and these immigrants that, they said, justified their economically marginal positions.

     Nativist conspiracy theories also fueled anti-immigrant sentiment. Industrialists like Henry Ford and leading thinkers like Madison Grant imagined that the pope or mysterious Jewish cabals were planning to overrun America with immigrants. Even President Theodore Roosevelt worried that white Americans were committing “race suicide,” effectively allowing themselves to be outbred by more reproductively fecund immigrants.

     The IWW challenged these ideas, however. Unlike most labor unions in the early 20th century, which excluded everyone except native-born, white, skilled men, the Wobblies swung their doors wide open to any and all workers, immigrant and native-born alike. The Wobblies said the entire working-class, regardless of race, ethnicity and gender, suffered equally under capitalism and had much to gain by working together to overthrow it.

     The union’s anti-capitalist politics and policy of inclusion quickly earned it the ire of business magnates and politicians. Employers in the early 20th century maintained their power by keeping workers divided. As long as white workers fought black workers and immigrant workers fought native-born workers, no one was fighting the boss. Political leaders who were often beholden to America’s industrialists were just as invested in maintaining this system.

     The Wobblies threatened to undo this order.

     The IWW eventually spread throughout the country, but no matter where it went, conflict and violence often followed. In Utah, the famous Wobbly Joe Hill was arrested, convicted and executed by firing squad on a flimsy murder charge in 1915. Five Wobblies were killed in the Everett massacre of 1916. Seventeen IWW members were tarred and feathered in Tulsa in 1917. That same year, more than 1,000 Wobblies were rounded up, put on a train car, then taken to and left in the middle of the desert after they’d tried to organize a union in Bisbee, Ariz.

     World War I only intensified native-born Americans’ disdain for the IWW. Many white Americans believed the war had been started by the sort of Eastern European radicals that the IWW was now organizing and that their continued activism threatened to bring that disorder to America’s shores. Yes, Woodrow Wilson said it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy” — but he didn’t believe immigrants should be equal participants in that democratic order. “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him,” Wilson said, “carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the Republic when he gets ready.”

     In places like Centralia, where the strength of the timber industry gave birth to a strong IWW presence, this heightened combination of nativism and WWI-fueled xenophobia proved deadly. Nov. 11, 1919, was supposed to be a celebration in Centralia. The town’s American Legion had organized a parade of World War I veterans through town. Yet many of Centralia’s World War I veterans were not in a celebratory mood. As they saw it, the Wobbly’s continued presence in town was an affront to their efforts in the war against outside forces of radicalism.

     The Armistice Day parade through town started peacefully enough. Initially the marchers followed the intended parade route, right through downtown. But then the parade’s marchers diverted course and marched several blocks, right to the IWW hall.

     Centralia’s Wobblies knew the march was probably the prologue to violence, and they’d armed themselves as a precautionary measure. For several tense minutes, Wobblies and Legionnaires traded insults and taunts. Then someone — we don’t know who — opened fire. A melee of bullets followed, and when the shooting finally ended, four Legionnaires were dead.

     Local law enforcement showed up and charged the IWW hall, arresting most of the union’s members. One Wobbly, Wesley Everest, made a break for it, killing one police officer before he was finally caught and put in jail. That evening, the lights in Centralia suddenly went out. When they came back on, Everest’s dead body was hanging from a bridge in town.

     That the Wobblies acted more out of self-defense than aggression didn’t matter much in the aftermath. The press told a story about the Wobblies as violent, bomb-throwing radicals intent on upending the American political and economic order. It was a story many Americans, primed by decades of xenophobia, nationalism and conspiracy theories about immigrants were willing to buy.

     One of those was a young man, fresh out of law school and recently hired by the Justice Department: J. Edgar Hoover. Hearing of the massacre, he convinced his boss, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, that the Wobblies were driving the country into chaos and that they needed to be stopped. With Palmer’s approval, Hoover orchestrated raids on IWW halls across the country.

     The Palmer Raids marked the beginning of America’s First Red Scare, a roughly two-year period when the federal government jailed Wobblies and other radical activists on contrived charges, deported immigrant radicals, and raided the halls and meeting places of several unions, all with the goal of wiping out working-class radicalism.

     The raids earned Hoover esteem in the ranks of federal law enforcement, and in 1924 he became director of the FBI, where he continued to suppress radical movements, from the American Communist Party in the 1950s to civil rights activists in the 1960s and 1970s.

     The Centralia massacre thus marked the end for the IWW as a major force in American politics and a new era of political repression in America. Today it should remind us that when a nation lets fear drive its politics, suppression soon follows.

     But even if the Wobblies went into decline after Centralia, their message of inclusion and working-class solidarity across race, gender and ethnicity continued to inspire activists for decades to come. Union activists in the Depression era, student activists in the 1960s and anti-apartheid activists in the 1980s all evoked the memory of Centralia and the Wobblies as a reminder that their struggles were part of a rich tradition of American radicalism that, though repressed, was never eradicated.

     So at the same time that we might remember the massacre today as a morality tale about the dangers that lurk behind xenophobia and nationalism, it should also remind us of the potential power people have when they unite against these forces.”

     As written by Aaron Goings, Brian Barnes, and Roger Snider in Counterpunch, in an article entitled Class War Violence: Centralia 1919; “November 11, 2019, will mark the 100-year anniversary of the Armistice Day Tragedy in Centralia, Washington, a horrible event in Pacific Northwest history. On Armistice Day, 1919, a mob of American Legionaires raided the Centralia Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) hall and later lynched Wesley Everest, an IWW logger.

     Many Pacific Northwest residents remain engaged in debates about the facts of the incident. Unfortunately, it’s common to hear calls for “balance” in discussions of the tragedy. Balance? Balance between the perspectives of the vigilante lynch mob and the working-class radicals fighting to form a union? Balance between the wealthy men who raided union halls and lynched Wesley Everest, and those who struggled to improve their worklives?

     Those who support the employer, vigilante, and American Legion perspective are in luck. In downtown Centralia, they have a monument to the bosses who terrorized working-class radicals throughout the Pacific Northwest. Walking through downtown Centralia today, it’s difficult to miss the massive “Sentinel” statue, a tribute to the American Legion vigilantes who died while attacking the IWW hall.

     Rejecting the false “balance” between working-class activist and employing-class vigilante, Brian Barnes and Roger Snider joined me in penning The Red Coast: Radicalism and Anti-Radicalism in Southwest Washington, published earlier this year by Oregon State University Press. We aimed to provide a working-class perspective on many of the labor struggles of the early twentieth century Pacific Northwest, including the Armistice Day Tragedy in Centralia. What follows is a chapter from the book entitled “Class War: Centralia 1919.”

     Excerpt from The Red Coast: Radicalism and Anti-Radicalism in Southwest Washington by Aaron Goings, Brian Barnes, and Roger Snider, copyright © 2019. Available from booksellers or from Oregon State University Press, 1-800-621-2736.

     “Around Centralia are wooded hills; men have been beaten beneath these trees and lynched from them. The beautiful Chehalis River flows near by; Wesley Everest was left dangling from one of its bridges. But Centralia is provokingly pretty for all that. It is small wonder that lumber trust henchmen wish to keep it all for themselves.” – Ralph Chaplin, The Centralia Conspiracy

     The Centralia American Legion and the leading businessmen of that city had more than a parade in mind when they gathered on November 11, 1919, to celebrate Armistice Day. Apparently believing that the spectacle of political violence would enhance the patriotic experience, they concocted a plan to raid the Centralia IWW Hall. IWW halls were of great practical and symbolic importance to workers. As Wobbly activist and historian Ralph Chaplin explains, the halls were loved by workers, but despised by employers. These “churches of the movement,” as public historian Robert Weyeneth called them, represented the closest thing to a home for many wandering IWW members. Chaplin noted:

     “It is here the men can gather around a crackling wood fire, smoke their pipes and warm their souls with the glow of comradeship. Here they can, between jobs or after work, discuss the vicissitudes of their daily lives, read their books and magazines and sing their songs of solidarity, or merely listen to the “tinned” humor or harmony of the much prized Victrola. Also they here attend to the affairs of their union—line up members, hold business and educational meetings and a weekly “open forum.”

     So, as the parading legionnaires passed the hall for the second time, they paused, then charged the hall, only to be surprised by the spirited defense they encountered. A volley of gunfire dropped three of the attackers, but the mob continued to press home its attack, capturing the hall. One additional legionnaire was killed in pursuit of Wesley Everest, who escaped out the back but was later captured and dragged by the neck to the jail. Later that night, he joined the ranks of IWW martyrs when he was lynched at the hands of Centralia businessmen and patriots, none of whom were ever prosecuted for his gruesome murder.

    The Armistice Day 1919 Centralia event is perhaps the single most written about event involving the IWW in the entire state of Washington. Analysis of the event has been extremely polarized, as interests representing the employing class and the working class have contested its meaning. And because of competing accounts, affidavits, and testimony, even some of the most basic facts of the case will probably never be established conclusively. What is perfectly clear is that the Centralia story must be understood in the context of the class struggle that had been raging on the Red Coast for over a decade and which had surfaced in Centralia since at least 1914. As all of the working-class accounts of the Centralia event note, violence and lawlessness were defining characteristics of the employers’ approach to this conflict.

     The IWW served as the most logical target of employers’ violence and repression because, since its inception in 1905, it represented the most advanced, class conscious, and revolutionary element of the working class in this country. The patriotic fervor of the First World War and fear that the Russian Revolution would heighten class consciousness among American workers only intensified persecution of the Wobblies. Sensing an opportunity, employers engaged both the state and the public in their efforts to crush the hated IWW. Nationally, the federal government enforced the wartime Espionage and Sedition Acts against the IWW and other radicals to imprison and deport many. In September of 1917, the federal government raided IWW halls across the country and indicted more than 160 leaders of the organization.

     At the state and local level, class warfare raged as employers mobilized both the state and the mob to lash out at class-conscious workers. Washington State was one of the great theaters of this conflict, as the teens witnessed the Grays Harbor and Pacific County Lumber Strike of 1912, multiple free speech fights, the 1916 Everett Massacre, and the 1919 Seattle General Strike.

     In Centralia, this war against workers effectively merged employers’ traditional weapons—a cooperative police, a captive legal system, and vigilante citizens’ committees—with the anti-radicalism and patriotism of the American Legion, a veterans’ organization at the fore of anti-radical activities.

     The American Legion described Centralia like this: “The city is the center of a rich timber district and the logging camps of the northwest are infested with bearers of the red card, who boast that in many districts membership in the I.W.W. is a requisite to employment.” The leadership of the Centralia Legion read like a roster of Centralia businessmen and the Legion became essentially a front organization, even the vanguard, for Northwest lumber bosses. In the words of Wobbly Ralph Chaplin, “The American Legion began to function as a cat’s paw for the men behind the scenes.” Indeed, there was nothing secret about the role of the Legion in the class war. The National Commander of the American Legion declared in 1923: “If ever needed, the American Legion stands ready to protect our country’s institutions and ideals as the Fascisti dealt with the destructionists who menaced Italy. . . . Do not forget that the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States.”

     Representatives of capital did not shy away from class conflict. An IWW organizer was run out of Centralia by the sheriff in 1914, and in early 1915 more Wobblies were “escorted” out of town by police and vigilantes. According to historian John McClelland, the local paper, the Centralia Chronicle, applauded anti-Wobbly repression and stated that it was everyone’s responsibility to keep rebel workers out of Centralia. Tom Lassiter, a partially blind newsstand operator whose stock included labor and radical papers, was victimized by the business interest on several occasions. At various times, his radical papers were destroyed, he was threatened, arrested, kidnapped, and dumped in a ditch. Yet no one was ever prosecuted for any of these acts of class violence. In Centralia, it was clear, the law was a weapon in the hands of the propertied class.

     Perhaps inevitably, class conflict in Centralia came to center on the struggle to establish and defend an IWW union hall. As Chaplin notes, the “union halls were a standing challenge to their [the employers’] hitherto undisputed right to the complete domination of the forests. . . . They were not going to tolerate the encroachments of the One Big Union of the lumber workers.” In 1917, an IWW attempt to establish a hall was met with great hostility in the employer-dominated town, and the landlord evicted the Wobblies on learning of their identity. In the spring of 1918, Centralia employers targeted the town’s new IWW hall. During a Red Cross parade, prominent businessmen, including members of the Centralia Elks, and political officials attacked and destroyed it. They beat IWW members and burned hall property and records in a street bonfire. F. B. Hubbard, the most prominent of the Centralia timber barons and president of the Washington Employers’ Association, stole the desk from the Wobbly Hall and donated it to the local Chamber of Commerce. Despite the intimidation of the business leaders, the local IWW secretary, Britt Smith, opened a new hall on north Tower Avenue on September 1, 1919. It was clear for all to see that the IWW was not easily intimidated, but neither were their enemies.

     In July 1919, George Russell, secretary of the Washington Employers’ Association, called a meeting of the Centralia Chamber of Commerce to find a way to destroy the IWW. F. B. Hubbard was picked to head a group designed to accomplish that objective. Although this was not the first meeting of Centralia business interests to combat the Wobbly threat, it marked a new level of organization on the part of capital that would not tolerate the affront the new IWW Hall afforded to its dominance.

      Plans to rid themselves of the enemy intensified with the formation of the Centralia Citizens Protective Association, the purpose of which, according to one local paper, was “to combat IWW activities in this vicinity.” Local businessmen were members of the Chamber of Commerce, the Centralia Elks, and the American Legion; many belonged to more than one of these organizations. Although the plans called for greater secrecy as to the specific methods to rid themselves of the Wobblies, too many people were aware of the plans to keep it secret. Word began to leak out, and soon it became public knowledge that the IWW would be driven out of town. Once the Armistice Day Parade was planned, the Wobblies knew that this was the pretense to attack their hall, destroy their property, and assault them.

     Initially, IWW members acted with uncommon prudence in attempting to prevent a violent attack on their hall. The owners of the Roderick Hotel, which housed the union hall and from whom the IWW rented, went to the local police with information about the planned attack. IWW members requested police protection. A trusted attorney, Elmer Smith, sought help from Governor Louis F. Hart in Olympia. The Wobblies even made a desperate appeal to the entire community. They distributed a lengthy handbill “to the law-abiding citizens of Centralia and to the working class in general,” which said, in part, “The profiteering class of Centralia have of late been waving the flag of our country in an endeavor to incite the lawless element of our city to raid our hall and club us out of town.” But Wobbly pleas to avoid violence fell on deaf ears, and the police chief declined protection.

     Finally, as a last resort, the Wobblies sought legal advice from attorney Elmer Smith to determine whether they had the legal right to defend their hall with arms. Smith affirmed that they did. This was a major move on the part of the IWW. Although it had always shown remarkable restraint, the IWW was a defiant and proud group of class-conscious workers, and by November 1919 in Centralia Washington the Wobblies had had enough of the beatings, enough of the tar and featherings, enough of the destruction of their meager property, enough of the humiliation, and enough of the criminally brutal business-patriotic element. They would defend their hall, and plans for its self-defense were laid. Radical historian Harvey O’Conner opined: “Prudent men, valuing their own skins, would have closed the hall in the face of the obvious threat. But prudence was not a Wobbly trait. Rather their shining glory stood out

     in audacity, courage, and stubbornness in defense of their rights, and for that they are remembered in history.”

     As the Armistice Day Parade got under way on the drizzly and ill-fated afternoon of November 11, 1919, the Wobblies made ready to defend their hall. They positioned armed men inside the hall and also in three locations outside the hall: in the Avalon and Arnold Hotels on the opposite (east) side of the street, and on Seminary Hill which overlooked the street from some considerable distance away. The parade route took the marchers north on Tower Avenue past the main business district to Third Street, the next side street past the IWW Hall, in a section of town occupied by businesses catering to the working class. At Third Street the marchers reversed direction to return now southbound on Tower Avenue with the Centralia American Legion contingent making up the rear of the parade. In front of the IWW Hall, the marchers paused and then rushed the hall.

     Shots rang out from the hall and then from Seminary Hill and the Avalon Hotel. Three Legionnaires—Warren Grimm, Arthur McElfresh, and Ben Cassagranda—received fatal wounds on the streets near the hall, and Dale Hubbard, the nephew of the lumbar baron F. B. Hubbard, was shot by a fleeing Wesley Everest at the edge of the Skookumchuck river. Hubbard died later that night. Several other marchers were injured, and the IWW Hall was smashed and its contents dragged to the street and burned. Wesley Everest was severely beaten and dragged back into town and thrown in a heap on the jail floor. One of the marchers who pursued Everest to the river and presumably helped drag him to the jail was Legionnaire Ed Cunningham, who was picked by the American Legion to become the Special Prosecutor in the trial against the Centralia Wobblies. According to the Legion account, “Cunningham was able to use his first-hand knowledge of the tragedy to telling effect.”

     In many of their clashes with the working class, employers hired detective agencies or relied on local or state police to combat workers, but in Centralia the American Legion served as the armed guard of the employing class. As news of the event spread, the American Legion assumed control of the town, controlled the flow of information, formed vigilante groups to hunt down suspected Wobblies, and raided establishments and homes. In touting the Legion takeover, the American Legion Weekly stated, “Though the office of the Sheriff and the Chief of Police assisted as much as possible, their forces were small and their aid nominal,” and “Posses which scoured the country about Centralia in search of fugitives were made up almost exclusively of American Legion men”

     That evening, two meetings were held at the Elks Club in which the murder of Wesley Everest was conceivably planned. At about five o’clock a group of men was told to go the armory for weapons and return to the Elks at six o’clock. At the six o’clock meeting, all assembled men who were not members of the Elks or the American Legion were asked to leave. In effect, this left the established business class and the Legion, those that could most be trusted to carry out a class lynching and protect those involved in it. This meeting lasted until about seven o’clock. At seven-thirty, someone visited the city’s power station and shut off all the lights in Centralia. Meanwhile, a lynching party entered the jail where Wesley Everest was held. The lynching party—meeting no opposition from the jailer—seized Everest and dragged him to a waiting automobile.

     The automobile that held Everest fell in with a procession of automobiles containing Centralia’s most prominent citizens, and proceeded to the Chehalis River Bridge. Radical author Harvey O’Conner graphically described the scene:

     “At the bridge Everest was dragged out and rope knotted around his neck, and his body flung over. Everest clutched at a plank; Legionnaires stamped on his fingers, and he fell. Dissatisfied with the knot, the lynchers pulled the body back up and used a longer rope, and hurled the body over again. Still dissatisfied, they hauled Everest body up a third time—by then he must have been dead—and tied a more professional knot on a longer rope and flung the body over. Then with carlights playing on the scene, they amused themselves awhile by shooting at the swaying body. Satiated at last, the mob left and darkness returned. Next morning somebody cut the rope and the body fell into the Chehalis River.”

     The next day, Everest’s mutilated body was retrieved from the river, dumped on the jail floor, and left for two days in plain view of his imprisoned fellow workers. As Centralia’s authorities were no doubt complicit in the lynching, no attempt was ever made to bring the Everest’s murderers to justice. As the Legion-led posses combed the surrounding area for more Wobblies, state authorities interrogated the jailed Wobblies by day as the enraged mobs terrorized them by night. In the woods surrounding Centralia, one posse member was shot and killed when he was mistaken by another for a Wobbly. This shooting, first reported as a murder committed by a Wobbly, was later ruled an accident.

     As this reign of terror continued in southwest Washington, the commercial press continued to churn out propagandistic accounts of how the Wobblies ambushed and murdered America’s finest young men in the streets of Centralia. Characteristic of this treatment was the front-page article in the Chehalis Bee-Nugget: “IWW Shoot into Armistice Day Parade in Centralia Tuesday. Warren Grimm, Arthur McElfresh, Dale Hubbard, and Ben Cassagranda Killed by the Assassins.” Authorities, businessmen, and Legionnaires combined to attack workers in other parts of the state and in neighboring Oregon. In Seattle, the Department of Justice seized the Union Record, the official organ of the Seattle Central Labor Council, and arrested its staff, including Harry Ault and Anna Louise Strong, on charges of sedition.

     The passions that this class war engendered were still highly visible on January 26, 1920, when eleven Wobblies, including Elmer Smith, the attorney who advised the IWW members that they had the legal right to defend their hall, were brought to trial in the town of Montesano, the county seat of neighboring Grays Harbor County. The defense faced many obstacles in the trial, beginning with a huge resource disparity. The Wobblies were represented by George Vanderveer with occasional help from his law partner, Ralph Pierce, and attorney Elmer Smith, himself a defendant in the case. Meanwhile, Special Prosecutor Ed Cunningham led a staff of six attorneys, whom Vanderveer referred to as the attorneys for the lumber trust. The Luke May Secret Service, a private detective agency paid for by lumber company funds, aided them.

     Finally, the American Legion recruited some fifty uniformed veterans to sit in on the trial by day, presumably to influence the jury. They were paid four dollars a day from funds contributed by the lumber companies and the Elks. The prosecution certainly lived up to its reputation as the counsel for the lumber trust. Special Prosecutor Cunningham was himself deeply involved in the Armistice Day violence. He was one of the members of the mob that pursued Everest to the Skookumchuck River and helped drag him to jail. He watched while the mob broke into the jail and kidnapped Everest, and was alleged to have witnessed his murder. Historian Tom Copeland observed that “as Cunningham built the case against the Wobblies, he was also shielding himself from any potential legal action for his role in the raid and lynching.”

     Cunningham’s team successfully fought off a change of venue request, claiming there was no prejudice against the IWW in either Centralia or Montesano. In a clear attempt to intimidate anyone willing to testify for the defense, the prosecution had two defense witnesses arrested for perjury when they finished their testimony. The prosecution called on the governor to have troops from Camp Lewis sent to Montesano to stand guard outside the courtroom, thereby frightening the jury into thinking that an IWW attack was imminent.

     The trial was, in fact, a mere extension of the class war, a political trial in which the authorities put the IWW on trial while pretending to adhere to the rule of law. The judge, John M. Wilson, insisted that he could try the case impartially, despite the fact that he had delivered an anti-IWW speech in the nearby town of Bucoda and had addressed the memorial service at the Centralia Elks commemorating the Legionnaires who had been killed during the Armistice Day Parade. Wilson rejected the defense’s request for a change of venue from Montesano, disallowed much of the evidence that Vanderveer tried to introduce during the trial, and made numerous prejudicial rulings that favored the prosecution and infuriated the defense. Vanderveer captured the trial’s essence in his closing statement. The prosecutors, he told the jury, “have told you this was a murder trial, and not a labor trial. But vastly more than the lives of ten men are the stakes in the big gamble here; for the right of workers to organize for the bettering of their own condition is on trial; the right of free assemblage is on trial; democracy and Americanism are on trial.”

     “In view of such a charged atmosphere,” Albert Gunns contended, “the final verdict of the jury was moderate.” The prosecution sought a first-degree murder verdict for all of the defendants, but the jury did not agree. Elmer Smith, the Wobbly attorney, was acquitted, along with one other defendant. Seven defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, and one young defendant was judged legally insane. The jury attached to their verdict a written request for leniency in sentencing, but Judge Wilson rendered stiff sentences ranging from 25 to 40 years in the state penitentiary in Walla Walla.

     Irish immigrant James McInerney, himself a veteran of the Everett Massacre and victim of torture while in the Centralia jail, died while imprisoned, “murdered,” the Industrial Worker proclaimed, “by the Capitalist class.” Most of the remaining prisoners remained incarcerated until 1933, when Governor Clarence Martin commuted their sentences.

     Several jurors were clearly uneasy with their decision, believing that they were not allowed to hear all of the important evidence. “Remarkably, two years after the trial,” Robert Weyeneth concludes, “seven of the twelve jurors voluntarily repudiated their verdict.” No member of the employing class or its “cat paws” was ever charged or even investigated for Everest’s murder or the Armistice Day hall raid that ushered in the Centralia Tragedy.”

     We can be killed, imprisoned, tortured, but we cannot be defeated so long as we cede nothing to the enemy. Who refuses to submit becomes Unconquered and free.

     Disobey and disbelieve, for there is no just authority.

     As the anarchist philosopher Max Stirner wrote; “Freedom cannot be granted; it must be seized.”

     As to the meaning and value of America’s armed services and anyone who wears our flag on their uniform in all of this, and the human beings caught in the gears of a machine as the raw material of elite wealth, power, and privilege, though the relationship of any enforcer of virtue or of authority is one of loaned power and exploitation, there is grandeur and nobility of purpose in placing ones life in the balance with those of our fellow citizens and others who cannot secure their own rights but must rely on the allyship and solidarity of others, and of service to the idea of America as a free society of equals who are guarantors of each other’s rights, regardless of our flaws and the space between our ideals and our history. For only we can make it real, this mad dream of liberty, equality, truth, and justice.

     In the words of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to the mutineers in the film Gettysburg; “This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or — or just because they like killing.

     But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground — all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free — all the way, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home. But it’s not the land. There’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value — you and me. What we’re fighting for, in the end, we’re fighting for each other.”

Ballad of the Green Berets on bagpipes

We are an Army out to set other men free

http://tlmlabor.org/the-centralia-massacre/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/11/why-massacre-centralia-years-ago-is-critically-important-today/

Wobbly War: The Centralia Story, by John M. McClelland Jr., Richard Maxwell Brown (foreword)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/931625.Wobbly_War?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=vCTwbJerKV&rank=1

Centralia Tragedy of 1919: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies, by Tom Copeland

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2438822.Centralia_Tragedy_of_1919?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=TfiDWA7XTM&rank=1

The Red Coast: Radicalism and Anti-Radicalism in Southwest Washington,

by Aaron Goings, Brian Barnes, Roger Snider

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43724192-the-red-coast?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=jfatAqf3jj&rank=2

The Unique and Its Property, by Max Stirnerhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62077979-the-unique-and-its-property?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=l6mPtZjGtN&rank=106