The Centralia Conspiracy | Page 8

had always been.
Strange to say, almost the first really important clash occurred in the
very heart of the lumber trust's domain, in the little city of Aberdeen,
Grays Harbor County--only a short distance from Centralia, of mob
fame!
[Illustration: Eugene Barnett
(After the man-hunt)
Coal miner. Born in North Carolina. Member of U.M.W.A. and I.W.W.
Went to work underground at the age of eight. Self educated, a student
and philosopher. Upon reaching home Barnett, fearful of the mob, took
to the woods with his rifle. He surrendered to the posse only after he
had convinced himself that their purpose was not to lynch him.]
This was in 1912. A strike had started in the saw mills over demands of
a $2.50 daily wage. Some of the saw mill workers were members of the
Industrial Workers of the World. They were supported by the union
loggers of Western Washington. The struggle was bitterly contested
and lasted for several weeks. The lumber trust bared its fangs and
struck viciously at the workers in a manner that has since characterized
its tactics in all labor disputes.

The jails of Aberdeen and adjoining towns were filled with strikers.
Picket lines were broken up and the pickets arrested. When the wives of
the strikers with babies in their arms, took the places of their
imprisoned husbands, the fire hose was turned on them with great force,
in many instances knocking them to the ground. Loggers and sawmill
men alike were unmercifully beaten. Many were slugged by mobs with
pick handles, taken to the outskirts of the city and told that their return
would be the occasion of a lynching. At one time an armed mob of
business men dragged nearly four hundred strikers from their homes or
boarding houses, herded them into waiting boxcars, sealed up the doors
and were about to deport them en masse. The sheriff, getting wind of
this unheard-of proceeding, stopped it at the last moment. Many men
were badly scarred by beatings they received. One logger was crippled
for life by the brutal treatment accorded him.
But the strikers won their demands and conditions were materially
improved. The Industrial Workers of the World continued to grow in
numbers and prestige. This event may be considered the beginning of
the labor movement on Grays Harbor that the lumber trust sought
finally to crush with mob violence on a certain memorable day in
Centralia seven years later.
Following the Aberdeen strike one or two minor clashes occurred. The
lumber workers were usually successful. During this period they were
quietly but effectually spreading One Big Union propaganda
throughout the camps and mills in the district. Also they were
organizing their fellow workers in increasing numbers into their union.
The lumber trust, smarting under its last defeat, was alarmed and alert.
[Illustration: Bert Faulkner
American. Logger. 21 years of age. Member of the Industrial Workers
of the World since 1917. Was in the hall when raid occurred. Faulkner
personally knew Grimm, McElfresh and a number of others who
marched in the parade. He is an ex-soldier himself. The prosecution
used a great deal of pressure to make this boy turn state's evidence. He
refused stating that he would tell nothing but the truth. At the last
moment he was discharged from the case after being held in jail four

months.]

A Massacre and a New Law

But no really important event occurred until 1916. At this time the
union loggers, organized in the Industrial Workers of the World, had
started a drive for membership around Puget Sound. Loggers and mill
hands were eager for the message of Industrial Unionism. Meetings
were well attended and the sentiment in favor of the organization was
steadily growing. The A.F. of L. shingle weavers and longshoremen
were on strike and had asked the I.W.W. to help them secure free
speech in Everett. The ever-watchful lumber interests decided the time
to strike had again arrived. The events of "Bloody Sunday" are too well
known to need repeating here. Suffice to say that after a summer replete
with illegal beatings and jailings five men were killed in cold blood and
forty wounded in a final desperate effort to drive the union out of the
city of Everett, Washington. These unarmed loggers were slaughtered
and wounded by the gunfire of a gang of business men and plug-uglies
of the lumber interests. True to form, the lumber trust had every union
man in sight arrested and seventy-four charged with the murder of a
gunman who had been killed by the cross-fire of his own comrades.
None of the desperadoes who had done the actual murdering was ever
prosecuted or even reprimanded. The charge against the members of
the Industrial Workers of the World was pressed. The case was tried in
court