In the Northwest today the rebel lumberjack is a pioneer. Just as our
fathers had to face the enmity of the Indians, so are these men called
upon to face the fury of the predatory interests that have usurped the
richest timber resources of the richest nation in the world. Just outside
Centralia stands a weatherbeaten landmark. It is an old, brown dilapidated
block house of early days. In many ways it reminds one of the battered and
wrecked union halls to be found in the heart of the city.
The evolution of industry has replaced the block house with the union hall
as the embattled center of assault and defense. The weapons are no longer
the rifle and the tomahawk but the boycott and the strike. The frontier is
no longer territorial but industrial. The new struggle is as portentous as
the old. The stakes are larger and the warfare even more bitter.
The painted and be-feathered scalp-hunter of the Sioux or Iroquois were
not more heartless in maiming, mutilating and killing their victims than
the "respectable" profit-hunters of today--the type of men who conceived
the raid on the Union Hall in Centralia on Armistice Day--and who
fiendishly tortured and hanged Wesley Everest for the crime of defending
himself from their inhuman rage. It seems incredible that such deeds could
be possible in the twentieth century. It is incredible to those who have
not followed in the bloody trail of the lumber trust and who are not
familiar with its ruthlessness, its greed and its lust for power.
As might be expected the I.W.W. Halls in Washington were hated by the
lumber barons with a deep and undying hatred. Union halls were a standing
challenge to their hitherto undisputed right to the complete domination of
the forests. Like the blockhouses of early days, these humble meeting
places were the outposts of a new and better order planted in the
stronghold of the old. And they were hated accordingly. The thieves who
had invaded the resources of the nation had long ago seized the woods and
still held them in a grip of steel. They were not going to tolerate the
encroachments of the One Big Union of the lumber workers. Events will
prove that they did not hesitate at anything to achieve their purposes.