The Centralia Conspiracy | Page 2

point.
There is no question that the whole affair was the outcome of a
struggle--a class struggle, if you please--between the union loggers and
the lumber interests; the former seeking to organize the workers in the
woods and the latter fighting this movement with all the means at its
disposal.
In this light the Centralia affair does not appear as an isolated incident
but rather an incident in an eventful industrial conflict, little known and
less understood, between the lumber barons and loggers of the Pacific
Northwest. This viewpoint will place Centralia in its proper perspective
and enable one to trace the tragedy back to the circumstances and
conditions that gave it birth.
But was there a conspiracy on the part of the lumber interests to
commit murder and violence in an effort to drive organized labor from
its domain? Weeks of patient investigating in and around the scene or
the occurrence has convinced the present writer that such a conspiracy
has existed. A considerable amount of startling evidence has been
unearthed that has hitherto been suppressed. If you care to consider
Labor's version of this unfortunate incident you are urged to read the
following truthful account of this almost unbelievable piece of
mediaeval intrigue and brutality.
The facts will speak for themselves. Credit them or not, but read!

The Forests of the Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is world famed for its timber. The first white

explorers to set foot upon its fertile soil were awed by the magnitude
and grandeur of its boundless stretches of virgin forests. Nature has
never endowed any section of our fair world with such an immensity of
kingly trees. Towering into the sky to unthinkable heights, they stand
as living monuments to the fecundity of natural life. Imagine, if you
can, the vast wide region of the West coast, hills, slopes and valleys,
covered with millions of fir, spruce and cedar trees, raising their
verdant crests a hundred, two hundred or two hundred and fifty feet
into the air.
When Columbus first landed on the uncharted continent these trees
were already ancient. There they stood, straight and majestic with green
and foam-flecked streams purling here and there at their feet, crowning
the rugged landscape with superlative beauty, overtopped only by the
snow-capped mountains--waiting for the hand of man to put them to
the multitudinous uses of modern civilization. Imagine, if you can, the
first explorer, gazing awe-stricken down those "calm cathedral isles,"
wondering at the lavish bounty of our Mother Earth in supplying her
children with such inexhaustible resources.
But little could the first explorer know that the criminal clutch of Greed
was soon to seize these mighty forests, guard them from the human
race with bayonets, hangman's ropes and legal statutes; and use them,
robber-baron like, to exact unimaginable tribute from the men and
women of the world who need them. Little did the first explorer dream
that the day would come when individuals would claim private
ownership of that which prolific nature had travailed through centuries
to bestow upon mankind.
But that day has come and with it the struggle between master and man
that was to result in Centralia--or possibly many Centralias.

Lumber--A Basic Industry

It seems the most logical thing in the world to believe that the natural

resources of the Earth, upon which the race depends for food, clothing
and shelter, should be owned collectively by the race instead of being
the private property of a few social parasites. It seems that reason
would preclude the possibility of any other arrangement, and that it
would be considered as absurd for individuals to lay claim to forests,
mines, railroads and factories as it would be for individuals to lay claim
to the ownership of the sunlight that warms us or to the air we breathe.
But the poor human race, in its bungling efforts to learn how to live in
our beautiful world, appears destined to find out by bitter experience
that the private ownership of the means of life is both criminal and
disastrous.
Lumber is one of the basic industries--one of the industries mankind
never could have done without. The whole structure of what we call
civilization is built upon wooden timbers, ax-hewn or machine finished
as the case may be. Without the product of the forests humanity would
never have learned the use of fire, the primitive bow and arrow or the
bulging galleys of ancient commerce. Without the firm and fibrous
flesh of the mighty monarchs of the forest men might never have had
barges for fishing or weapons for the chase; they would not have had
carts for their oxen or kilns for the fashioning of pottery; they would
not have had dwellings, temples or cities; they would not have had
furniture nor