Centralia was fast becoming the vortex of the conspiracy that was rushing
to its inevitable conclusion. Event followed event in rapid succession,
straws indicating the main current of the flood tide of labor-hatred. The
Commercial Club was seething with intrigue like the court of old France
under Catherine de Medici; only this time it was Industrial Unionism
instead of Huguenots who were being Marked for a new night of St.
Bartholomew. The heresy to be uprooted was belief in industrial instead of
religious freedom; but the stake and the gibbet were awaiting the New Idea
just as they had the old.
The actions of the lumber interests were now but thinly veiled and their
evil purpose all too manifest. The connection between the Employers'
Association of the state and its local representatives in Centralia had
become unmistakably evident. And behind these loomed the gigantic
silhouette of the Employers' Association of the nation--the colossal
"invisible government"--more powerful at times than the Government itself.
More and more stood out the naked brutal fact that the purpose of all this
plotting was to drive the union loggers from the city and to destroy their
hall. The names of the men actively interested in this movement came to
light in spite of strenuous efforts to keep them obscured. Four of these
stand out prominently in the light of the tragedy that followed: George F.
Russell, F.B. Hubbard, William Scales and last, but not least, Warren O.
Grimm.
[Illustration: Warren O. Grimm
Warren O. Grimm, killed at the beginning of the rush on the I.W.W. hall.
At another raid on an I.W.W. hall in 1918 Grimm was said by witnesses to
have been leading the mob, "holding two American flags and dancing like a
whirling dervish." His life-long friend, Frank Van Gilder, testified: "I
stood less than two feet from Grimm when he was shot. He doubled up, put
his hands to his stomach and said to me: 'My God, I'm shot.'" "What did you
do then?" "I turned and left him."]
The first named, George F. Russell, is a hired Manager for the Washington
Employers' Association, whose membership employs between 75,000 and 80,000
workers in the state. Russell is known to be a reactionary of the most
pronounced type. He is an avowed union smasher and a staunch upholder of
the open shop principle, which is widely advertised as the "American plan"
in Washington. Incidentally he is an advocate of the scheme to import
Chinese and Japanese cooley labor as a solution of the "high wage and
arrogant unionism" problem.
F. B. Hubbard, is a small-bore Russell, differing from his chief only in
that his labor hatred is more fanatical and less discreet. Hubbard was
hard hit by the strike in 1917 which fact has evidently won him the
significant title of "a vicious little anti-labor reptile." He is the man
who helped to raid the 1918 Union Hall in Centralia and who appropriated
for himself the stolen desk of the Union Secretary. His nephew Dale
Hubbard was shot while trying to lynch Wesley Everest.
William Scales is a Centralia business man and a virulent sycophant. He is
a parochial replica of the two persons mentioned above. Scales was in the
Quartermaster's Department down on the border during the trouble with
Mexico. Because he was making too much money out of Uncle Sam's groceries,
he was relieved of his duties quite suddenly and discharged from the
service. He was fortunate in making France instead of Fort Leavenworth,
however, and upon his return, became an ardent proselyte of Russell and
Hubbard and their worthy cause. Also he continued in the grocery business.
[Illustration: Hizzoner, The Jedge
In his black robe, like a bird of prey, he perched above the courtroom and
ruled always adversely to the cause of labor. Appointed to try men accused
of killing other men whom he had previously eulogized Judge John M. Wilson
did not disappoint those who appointed him. In open court Vanderveer told
him. In open court Vanderveer told this man: "There was a time when I
thought your rulings were due to ignorance of the law. That will no longer
explain them."]
Warren O. Grimm came from a good family and was a small town aristocrat.
His brother is city attorney at Centralia. Grimm was a lawyer, a college
athlete and a social lion. He had been with the American forces in Siberia
and his chief bid for distinction was a noisy dislike for the Worker's
& Peasants' Republic of Russia, and the I.W.W. which he termed the
"American Bolsheviki". During the 1918 raid on the Centralia hall Grimm is
said to have been dancing around "like a whirling dervish" and waving the
American flag while the work of destruction was going on. Afterwards he
became prominent in the American Legion and was the chief "cat's paw" for
the lumber interests who were capitalizing the uniform to gain their own
unholy ends. Personally he was a clean-cut modern young man.