A few years before the birth of the Industrial workers of the World the
lumber workers had started to organize. By 1905, when the above mentioned
union was launched, lumber-workers were already united in considerable
numbers in the old Western afterwards the American Labor Union. This
organization took steps to affiliate with the Industrial Workers of the
World and was thus among the very first to seek a larger share of life in
the ranks of that militant and maligned organization. Strike followed
strike with varying success and the conditions of the loggers began
perceptibly to improve.
Scattered here and there in the cities of the Northwest were many locals
of the Industrial Workers of the World. Not until 1912, however, were
these consolidated into a real industrial unit. For the first time a
sufficient number of loggers and saw mill men were organized to be grouped
into an integral part of the One Big Union. This was done with reasonable
success. In the following year the American Federation of Labor attempted
a similar task but without lasting results, the loggers preferring the
industrial to the craft form of organization. Besides this, they were
predisposed to sympathize with the ideal of solidarity and Industrial
Democracy for which their own union had stood from the beginning.
The "timber beast" was starting to reap the benefits of his organized
power. Also he was about to feel the force and hatred of the "interests"
arrayed against him. He was soon to learn that the path of labor unionism
is strewn with more rocks than roses. He was making an earnest effort to
emerge from the squalor and misery of peonage and was soon to see that his
overlords were satisfied to keep him right where he 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.]