The Centralia Conspiracy | Page 4

tragedy at

Centralia.
The lumber barons had not only achieved a monopoly of the woods but
a perfect feudal domination of the woods as well. Within their domain
banks, ships, railways and mills bore their private insignia-and
politicians, Employers' Associations, preachers, newspapers, fraternal
orders and judges and gun-men were always at their beck and call. The
power they wield is tremendous and their profits would ransom a
kingdom. Naturally they did not intend to permit either power or profits
to be menaced by a mass of weather-beaten slaves in stag shirts and
overalls. And so the struggle waxed fiercer just as the lumberjack
learned to contend successfully for living conditions and adequate
remuneration. It was the old, old conflict of human rights against
property rights. Let us see how they compared in strength.

The Triumph of Monopoly

The following extract from a document entitled "The Lumber
Industry," by the Honorable Herbert Knox Smith and published by the
U.S. Department of Commerce (Bureau of Corporations) will give
some idea of the holdings and influence of the lumber trust:
"Ten monopoly groups, aggregating only one thousand, eight hundred
and two holders, monopolized one thousand, two hundred and eight
billion eight hundred million (1,208,800,000,000) board feet of
standing timber--each a foot square and an inch thick. These figures are
so stupendous that they are meaningless without a hackneyed device to
bring their meaning home. These one thousand, eight hundred and two
timber business monopolists held enough standing timber; an
indispensable natural resource, to yield the planks necessary (over and
above manufacturing wastage) to make a floating bridge more than two
feet thick and more than five miles wide from New York to Liverpool.
It would supply one inch planks for a roof over France, Germany and
Italy. It would build a fence eleven miles high along our entire coast
line. All monopolized by one thousand, eight hundred and two holders,

or interests more or less interlocked. One of those interests--a grant of
only three holders--monopolized at one time two hundred and
thirty-seven billion, five hundred million (237,500,000,000) feet which
would make a column one foot square and three million miles high.
Although controlled by only three holders, that interest comprised over
eight percent of all the standing timber in the United States at that
time."
The above illuminating figures, quoted from "The I.W.A. in the
Lumber Industry," by James Rowan, will give some idea of the
magnitude and power of the lumber trust.
[Illustration: "Topping a Tree"
After one of these huge trees is "topped" it is called a "spar tree"--very
necessary in a certain kind of logging operations. As soon as the
chopped-off portion falls, the trunk vibrates rapidly from side to side
sometimes shaking the logger to certain death below.]
Opposing this colossal aggregation of wealth and cussedness were the
thousands of hard-driven and exploited lumberworkers in the woods
and sawmills. These had neither wealth nor influence--nothing but their
hard, bare hands and a growing sense of solidarity. And the masters of
the forests were more afraid of this solidarity than anything else in the
world--and they fought it more bitterly, as events will show. Centralia
is only one of the incidents of this struggle between owner and worker.
But let us see what this hated and indispensable logger-the productive
and human basis of the lumber industry, the man who made all these
things possible, is like.

The Human Element--"The Timber Beast"

Lumber workers are, by nature of their employment, divided into two
categories--the saw-mill hand and the logger. The former, like his
brothers in the Eastern factories, is an indoor type while the latter is

essentially a man of the open air. Both types are necessary to the
production of finished lumber, and to both union organization is an
imperative necessity.
Sawmill work is machine work--rapid, tedious and often dangerous.
There is the uninteresting repetition of the same act of motions day in
and day out. The sights, sounds and smells of the mill are never varied.
The fact that the mill is permanently located tends to keep mill workers
grouped about the place of their employment. Many of them, especially
in the shingle mills, have lost fingers or hands in feeding the lumber to
the screaming saws. It has been estimated that fully a half of these men
are married and remain settled in the mill communities. The other half,
however, are not nearly so migratory as the lumberjack. Sawmill
workers are not the "rough-necks" of the industry. They are of the more
conservative "home-guard" element and characterized by the
psychology of all factory workers.
The logger, on the other hand, (and it is with him our narrative is
chiefly concerned), is accustomed to hard and hazardous work in the
open woods. His occupation makes him of necessity