Part 9 (1/2)
”A dangerous situation existed in Everett after the battle of November 5. Public feeling ran high and anything might have happened. Half a thousand citizens were under arms enraged at the Industrial Workers of the World and deadly determined to stamp out their organization in Everett. It is no exaggeration to say that literally thousands of the working people of Everett were just as enraged toward the members of the Commercial Club who partic.i.p.ated in the gun battle. * * * As an instance of how high the feeling ran let me tell you that on the following morning the mayor of the city appeared on the (s.h.i.+ngle weavers') picket line with a high power rifle and told the union pickets that he had every reason to believe that an attempt might be made by snipers to pick them off. He asked them to scatter as much as possible, make no demonstration whatever, and declared he would defend them with his life if necessary.”
Mayor Merrill, equally guilty with the deputies who were on the dock, taking advantage of a means of spreading information that was denied to the workers, directly after the ma.s.sacre spoke from a soap box on the corner of Wetmore and California Avenues, telling all who would listen that he was not responsible for the trouble as the Commercial Club had taken the power away from him and put it in the hands of McRae. The insincerity of this vacillating lackey of the lumber trust was demonstrated by his brutal treatment of young Louis Skaroff, who with Chester Micklin and Osmond Jacobs, had been arrested and thrown into jail when the three, bravely taking their lives in their hands, attempted to speak on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore two hours after the tragedy. It was on Monday night about ten o'clock that the night jailer took Skaroff into a room where Mayor Merrill and a man posing as an immigration officer were seated. The fake immigration officer tried to frighten the prisoner with threats of deportation, after which the jailer beat Skaroff across the head. Merrill arose and took a hand in the proceedings, buffeting the boy back and forth until he fell to the floor. Then, with the aid of the jailer, Skaroff's fingers were placed, one by one, beneath the legs of an iron bed in the room while the ponderous mayor jumped up and down on the bed, mas.h.i.+ng and tearing flesh and knuckles. Upon regaining consciousness the mutilated boy found himself in the jail corridor, crushed beneath Merrill's ma.s.sive form, the mayor having grasped Skaroff by the hair in order to repeatedly hammer the lad's head against the hard cement floor. Finding that Skaroff's spirit could not be broken the cowards finally desisted.
Skaroff was released at the end of eleven days.
Chaos reigned in Everett following the tragedy. That night over five hundred deputies patrolled the streets, fearing just retribution for their criminal misdeeds. Those who had been on the dock as parties to the ma.s.sacre were overheard saying to each other, ”We must stick together on this story about the first shot coming from the boat.”
Certain officials called for the state militia which was mobilized in Seattle but not used. One militiaman, a young lad named Ted Kennedy, refused to serve, claiming that it was the same as strike duty. The fact that the militia was mobilized at once, and that Governor Ernest Lister went to Everett to confer with officials and mill owners there, when he had refused to furnish protection or even to make an investigation at the request of the I. W. W. a short time before showed the governor's bias in favor of the employers. In this lumber district the militia was apparently the property of the mill owners.
A hastily gathered coroner's jury in Everett on November 6th brought in a verdict that C. O. Curtis and Jefferson F. Beard met death from ”gunshot wounds inflicted by a riotous mob on the Steamer Verona at the city dock.” If any of the jury dissented from its false statement they were too spineless to express their opinion. The deliberations were under the direction of Coroner A. R. Maulsby and the members of the jury were Adam Hill, C. E. Anthony, O. H. King, Chris Culmback, C. Sandstein, and Charles F. Manning.
The inquest was a farce. Those who were outside the ”deadline” and who were willing to swear that the first shots came from the dock were not permitted to testify, only sympathizers with the Commercial Club being called as witnesses. No real attempt to take testimony was made. The Seattle Central Labor Council on November 8th appropriated $100 for a more complete investigation after branding the Everett inquest as fraudulent in the following resolution:
”Whereas, It appears to this council that, following a lockout and open-shop campaign by Roland H. Hartley and others of Everett, Wash., the police and business men of that city have attempted to ruthlessly and lawlessly suppress all street speaking and demonstrations by labor organizations, and that unarmed men have been brutally beaten and terrorized, and
Whereas, This policy culminated in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle on Sunday, November 5, resulting in the death of seven or more men and the wounding of many more, and
Whereas, A fair inquest should be held to fix responsibility for this crime, and it appears that this has not been done, but that only witnesses favorable to the bosses have been heard;
Therefore, we demand another inquest, free from control by the forces opposed to labor, and a change of venue, if that be necessary.”
Capitalism stood forth in all its hideous nakedness on that day of red madness, and public opinion was such that the striking s.h.i.+ngle weavers had but to persistently press their point in order to win. A conference of prominent men, held in Everett on Monday, decided that the situation could be relieved only by a settlement of the strike. The mill men, when called in, abruptly refused to grant a single demand so long as the men were still out, an att.i.tude they could not have maintained for long.
Listening to the false advice of ”friends of labor” and ”labor leaders”
the s.h.i.+ngle weavers, albeit grudgingly, returned to their slavery, unconditional surrender being the price they were forced to pay for the doubtful privilege of ”relieving the social tension.” But with the pay envelopes that could not be stretched to cover the increased cost of living, the weavers, discouraged to an extent and lacking their former solidarity, were forced to down tools again within a few weeks by the greatest of all strike agitators--Hunger.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAYOR GILL SAYS I. W. W. DID NOT START RIOT
Seattle Executive Places Blame for Sunday Tragedy on Citizens of Everett--Gives Prisoners Tobacco.
Providing the I. W. W.'s. whose attempted armed invasion of Everett last Sunday resulted in seven deaths and injuries to forty-nine persons, with every comfort possible. Mayor H. C. Gill yesterday afternoon personally directed the carrying of 300 warm blankets and an a.s.sortment of tobacco to the 250 prisoners now held in the city jail.
In this manner Gilt replied to criticism in Seattle and Everett for not having stopped the I. W. W's from going to the Snohomish County city. He supplemented this today by a.s.sailing Sheriff Donald McRae, of Snohomish County and the posse of special deputies who met the invading I. W. W.'s at the boat.
”In the final a.n.a.lysis,” the mayor declared, ”it will be found these cowards in Everett who, without right or justification, shot into the crowd on the boat were the murderers and not the I. W. W.'s.
Calls Them Cowards.
”The men who met the I. W. W.'s at the boat were a bunch of cowards.
They outnumbered the I. W. W.'s five to one, and in spite of this they stood there on the dock and fired into the boat, I. W. W.'s, innocent pa.s.sengers and all.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”McRae and his deputies had no legal right to tell the I.
W. W.'s or anyone else that they could not land there. When the sheriff put his hand on the b.u.t.t of his gun and told them they could not land, he fired the first shot, in the eyes of the law, and the I. W. W.'s can claim that they shot in self-defense.”
Mayor Gill a.s.serted the Everett authorities have no intention of removing the I. W. W.'s now in jail here to Snohomish County.
”They are afraid to come down here and get them,” he declared, ”because Everett is in a state of anarchy and the authorities don't know where they're at.”
Asked what he would have done at Everett Sunday when the I. W. W.'s appeared at that city, the mayor said he would have permitted them to land.
”After they had been allowed to come ash.o.r.e,” he said, ”I would have had them watched. Then if they violated the law I would have had them thrown in jail. There would have been no trouble that way.”