Now the loggers, being denied the luxury of home and family life, have but
three places they can call "home." The bunkhouse in the camp, the cheap
rooming house in town and the Union Hall. This latter is by far the best
loved of all. It is here the men can gather around a crackling wood fire,
smoke their pipes and warm their souls with the glow of comradeship. Here
they can, between jobs or after work, discuss the vicissitudes of their
daily lives, read their books and magazines and sing their songs of
solidarity, or merely listen to the "tinned" humor or harmony of the
much-prized Victrola. Also they here attend to affairs of their
Union--line up members, hold business and educational meetings and a
weekly "open forum." Once in awhile a rough and wholesome "smoker" is
given. The features of this great event are planned for weeks in advance
and sometimes talked about for months afterwards.
[Illustration: The Scene of the Armistice Day Tragedy
This is what was left of the Union hall the loggers tried to defend on
November 11th. Three of the raiders, Grimm, McElfresh and Cassagranda,
were killed in the immediate vicinity of the doorway. Several others were
wounded while attempting to rush the doors.]
These halls are at all times open to the public and inducements are made
to get workers to come in and read a thoughtful treatise on Industrial
questions. The latch-string is always out for people who care to listen to
a lecture on economics or similar subjects. Inside the hall there is
usually a long reading-table littered with books, magazines or papers. In
a rack or case at the wall are to be found copies of the "Seattle Union
Record," "The Butte Daily Bulletin," "The New Solidarity," "The Industrial
Worker," "The Liberator," "The New Republic" and "The Nation." Always
there is a shelf of thumb-worn books on history, science, economics and
socialism. On the walls are lithographs or engravings of noted champions
of the cause of Labor, a few photographs of local interest and the monthly
Bulletins and Statements of the Union. Invariably there is a blackboard
with jobs, wages and hours written in chalk for the benefit of men seeking
employment. There are always a number of chairs in the room and a roll top
desk for the secretary. Sometimes at the end of the hall is a plank
rostrum--a modest altar to the Goddess of Free Speech and open discussion.
This is what the loved and hated I.W.W. Halls are like--the halls that
have been raided and destroyed by the hundreds during the last three
years.
Remember, too, that in each of these raids the union men were not the
aggressors and that there was never any attempt at reprisal. In spite of
the fact that the lumber workers were within their legal right to keep
open their halls and to defend them from felonious attack, it had never
happened until November 11, that active resistance was offered the
marauders. This fact alone speaks volumes for the long-suffering patience
of the logger and for his desire to settle his problems by peaceable means
wherever possible. But the Centralia raid was the straw that broke the
camel's back. The lumber trust went a little too far on this occasion and
it got the surprise of its life. Four of its misguided dupes paid for
their lawlessness with their lives, and a number of others were wounded.
There has not since been a raid on a union hall in the Northwestern
District.
It is well that workingmen and women throughout the country should
understand the truth about the Armistice Day tragedy in Centralia and the
circumstances that led up to it. But in order to know why the hall was
raided it is necessary first to understand why this, and all similar
halls, are hated by the oligarchies of the woods.
The issue contested is whether the loggers have the right to organize
themselves into a union, or whether they must remain chattels--mere hewers
of wood and helpless in the face of the rapacity of their industrial
overlords--or whether they have the right to keep open their halls and
peacefully to conduct the affairs of their union. The lumber workers
contend that they are entitled by law to do these things and the employers
assert that, law or no law, they shall not do so. In other words, it is a
question of whether labor organization shall retain its foothold in the
lumber industry or be "driven from the woods."