First of all comes the propaganda stage with the full force of the
editorial virulence of the trust-controlled newspapers directed against
labor in favor of "law and order," i.e., the lumber interests. All the
machinery of newspaper publicity was used to vilify the lumber worker and
to discredit his Union. Nothing was left unsaid that would tend to produce
intolerance and hatred or to incite mob violence. This is not only true of
Centralia, but of all the cities and towns located in the lumber district.
Centralia happened to be the place where the tree of anti-labor propaganda
first bore its ghastly fruit. Space does not permit us to quote the
countless horrible things the I.W.W. was supposed to stand for and to be
constantly planning to do. Statements from the lips of General Wood and
young Roosevelt to the effect that citizens should not argue with
Bolshevists but meet them "head on" were very conspicuously displayed on
all occasions. Any addle-headed mediocrity, in or out of uniform, who had
anything particularly atrocious to say against the labor movement in
general or the "radicals" in particular, was afforded every opportunity to
do so. The papers were vying with one another in devising effectual, if
somewhat informal, means of dealing with the "red menace."
Supported by, and partly the result of this barrage of lies,
misrepresentation and incitation, came the period of attempted repression
by "law". This was probably the easiest thing of all because the grip of
Big Business upon the law-making and law-enforcing machinery of the nation
is incredible. At all events a state's "criminal syndicalism law" had been
conveniently passed and was being applied vigorously against union men,
A.F. of L. and I.W.W. alike, but chiefly against the Lumber Workers'
Industrial Union, No. 500, of the Industrial Workers of the World, the
basic lumber industry being the largest in the Northwest and the growing
power of the organized lumberjack being therefore more to be feared.
[Illustration: His Uncle Planned It
Dale Hubbard, killed in self-defense by Wesley Everest, Armistice Day,
1919. F. Hubbard, a lumber baron and uncle of the dead man, is held to
have been the instigator of the plot in which his nephew was shot. Hubbard
was martyrized by the lumber trust's determination "to let the men in
uniform do it."]
No doubt the lumber interests had great hope that the execution of these
made-to-order laws would clear up the atmosphere so far as the lumber
situation was concerned. But they were doomed to a cruel and surprising
disappointment.
A number of arrests were made in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and
even Nevada. Fifty or sixty men all told were arrested and their trials
rushed as test cases. During this period from April 25th to October 28th,
1919, the lumber trust saw with chagrin and dismay each of the state cases
in turn either won outright by the defendants or else dismissed in the
realization that it would be impossible to win them. By October 28th
George F. Vanderveer, chief attorney for the defense, declared there were
not a single member of the I.W.W. in custody in Washington, Idaho or
Montana under this charge. In Seattle, Washington, an injunction was
obtained restraining the mayor from closing down the new Union hall in
that city under the new law. Thus it appeared that the nefarious plan of
the employers and their subservient lawmaking adjuncts, to outlaw the
lumber workers Union and to penalize the activities of its members, was to
be doomed to an ignominious failure.