Part 7 (1/2)
b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.senger steams.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sured. 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.
a.s.sisted 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sage 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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, a.s.sembled 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 cla.s.s inst.i.tution. 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 sh.o.r.e. Pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.sageway 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 s.p.a.ce 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: