It had been rumored about town that the Union Hall was to be wrecked on
this day but the loggers at the hall were of the opinion that the business
men, having driven their Secretary out of town a short time previously,
would not dare to perpetrate another atrocity so soon afterwards. In this
they were sadly mistaken.
Down the street marched the parade, at first presenting no unusual
appearance. The Chief of Police, the Mayor and the Governor of the State
were given places of honor at the head of the procession. Company G of the
National Guard and a gang of broad-cloth hoodlums disguised as "Elks" made
up the main body of the marchers. But the crafty and unscrupulous Hubbard
had laid his plans in advance with characteristic cunning. The parade,
like a scorpion, carried its sting in the rear.
Along the main avenue went the guardsmen and the gentlemen of the Elks
Club. So far nothing extraordinary had happened. Then the procession
swerved to a side street. This must be the right thing for the line of
march had been arranged by the Chamber of Commerce itself. A couple of
blocks more and the parade had reached the intersection of First Street
and Tower Avenue. What happened then the Mayor and Chief of Police
probably could not have stopped even had the Governor himself ordered them
to do so. From somewhere in the line of march a voice cried out, "Let's
raid the I.W.W. Hall!" And the crowd at the tail end of the procession
broke ranks and leaped to their work with a will.
In a short time the intervening block that separated them from the Union
Hall was covered. The building was stormed with clubs and stones. Every
window was shattered and every door was smashed, the very sides of the
building were torn off by the mob in its blind fury. Inside the rioters
tore down the partitions and broke up chairs and pictures. The union men
were surrounded, beaten and driven to the street where they were forced to
watch furniture, records, typewriter and literature demolished and burned
before their eyes. An American flag hanging in the hall, was torn down and
destroyed. A Victrola and a desk were carried to the street with
considerable care. The former was auctioned off on the spot for the
benefit of the Red Cross. James Churchill, owner of a glove factory, won
the machine. He still boasts of its possession. The desk was appropriated
by F.B. Hubbard himself. This was turned over to an expressman and carted
to the Chamber of Commerce. A small boy picked up the typewriter case and
started to take it to a nearby hotel office. One of the terrorists
detected the act and gave warning. The mob seized the lad, took him to a
nearby light pole and threatened to lynch him if he did not tell them
where books and papers were secreted which somebody said had been carried
away by him. The boy denied having done this, but the hoodlums went into
the hotel, ransacked and overturned everything. Not finding what they
wanted, they left a notice that the proprietor would have to take the sign
down from his building in just twenty-four hours. Then the mob surged
around the unfortunate men who had been found in the Union hall. With
cuffs and blows these were dragged to waiting trucks where they were
lifted by the ears to the body of the machine and knocked prostrate one at
a time. Sometimes a man would be dropped to the ground just after he had
been lifted from his feet. Here he would lay with ear drums bursting and
writhing from the kicks and blows that had been freely given. Like all
similar mobs this one carried ropes, which were placed about the necks of
the loggers. "Here's and I.W.W." yelled someone. "What shall we do with
him?" A cry was given to "lynch him!" Some were taken to the city jail and
the rest were dumped unceremoniously on the other side of the county line.
Since that time the wrecked hall has remained tenantless and unrepaired.
Grey and gaunt like a house in battle-scarred Belgium, it stands a mute
testimony of the labor-hating ferocity of the lumber trust. Repeated
efforts have since been made to destroy the remains with fire. The defense
had tried without avail to introduce a photograph of the ruin as evidence
to prove that the second hall was raided in a similar manner on Armistice
Day, 1919. Judge Wilson refused to permit the jury to see either the
photographs or the hall. But in case of another trial...?
Evidently the lumber trust thought it better to have all traces of its
previous crime obliterated.
The raid of 1918 did not weaken the lumber workers' Union in Centralia. On
the contrary it served to strengthen it. But not until more than a year
had passed were the loggers able to establish a new headquarters. This
hall was located next door to the Roderick Hotel on Tower Avenue, between
Second and Third Streets. Hardly was this hall opened when threats were
circulated by the Chamber of Commerce that it, like the previous one, was
marked for destruction. The business element was lined up solid in
denunciation of and opposition to the Union Hall and all that it stood
for. But other anti-labor matters took up their attention and it was some
time before the second raid was actually accomplished.
There was one rift in the lute of lumber trust solidarity in Centralia.
Business and professional men had long been groveling in sycophantic
servility at the feet of "the clique." There was only one notable
exception.