The I. W. W. had bobbed up again in American City, and had ventured
to open another headquarters. Peter did not dare go to the place
himself, but he coached a couple of young fellows whom McGivney
brought to him, teaching them the Red lingo, and how to worm their
way into the movement. Before long one of them was secretary of the
local; and Peter, directing their activities, received reports twice
a week of everything the “wobblies” were planning and doing. Peter
and Gladys were figuring out another bomb conspiracy to direct
attention to these dangerous men, when one day Peter picked up the
morning paper and discovered that a kind Providence had delivered
the enemy into his hands.
Up in the lumber country of the far Northwest, in a little town
called Centralia, the “wobblies” had had their headquarters raided
and smashed, just as in American City. They had got themselves
another meeting-place, and again the members of the Chamber of
Commerce and the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association had held
a secret meeting and resolved to wipe them out. The “wobblies” had
appealed to the authorities for protection, and when protection was
refused, they had printed a leaflet appealing to the public. But the
business men went ahead with their plans. They arranged for a parade
of returned soldiers on the anniversary of Armistice Day, and they
diverted this parade out of its path so that it would pass in front
of the I. W. W. headquarters. Some of the more ardent members
carried ropes, symbolic of what they meant to do; and they brought
the parade to a halt in front of the headquarters, and set up a yell
and started to rush the hall. They battered in the door, and had
pushed their way half thru it when the “wobblies” opened fire from
inside, killing several of the paraders.
Then, of course, the mob flew into a frenzy of fury. They beat the
men in the hall, some of them into insensibility; they flung them
into jail, and battered and tortured them, and took one of them out
of jail and carried him away in an automobile, and after they had
mutilated him as Shawn Grady had been mutilated, they hanged him
from a bridge. Of course they saw to it that the newspaper stories
which went out from Centralia that night were the right kind of
stories; and next morning all America read how a group of “wobblies”
had armed themselves with rifles, and concealed themselves on the
roof of the I. W. W. headquarters, and deliberately and in cold
blood had opened fire upon a peaceful parade of unarmed war
veterans.
Of course the country went wild, and the Guffeys and McGivneys and
Gudges all over the United States realized that their chance had
come. Peter instructed the secretary of the I. W. W. local of
American City to call a meeting for that evening, to adopt a
resolution declaring the press stories from Centralia to be lies. At
the same time another of Guffey’s men, an ex-army officer still
wearing his, uniform, caused a meeting of the American Legion to be
summoned; he made a furious address to the boys, and at nine o’clock
that night some two-score of them set out, armed with big
monkey-wrenches from their automobiles, and raided the I. W. W.
headquarters, and battered the members over the head with the
monkey-wrenches, causing several to leap from the window and break
their legs. Next morning the incident was reported in the American
City “Times” with shouts of glee, and District-attorney Burchard
issued a public statement to the effect that no effort would be made
to punish the soldier boys; the “wobblies” had wanted “direct
action,” and they had got it, and it would be assumed that they were
satisfied.
Then the members of the American Legion, encouraged by this
applause, and instigated by Guffey’s ex-army officer, proceeded to
invade and wreck every radical meeting-place in the city. They
smashed the “Clarion” office and the Socialist Party headquarters
again, and confiscated more tons of literature. They wrecked a
couple of book-stores, and then, breaking up into small groups, they
inspected all the news-stands in the city, and wherever they found
Red magazines like the Nation or the New Republic, they tore up the
copies and threatened the agents with arrest. They invaded the rooms
of a literary society called the Ruskin Club, frequented mostly by
amiable old ladies, and sent some of these elderly dames into
hysterics. They discovered the “Russian Peoples’ Club,” which had
hitherto been overlooked because it was an educational organization.
But of course no Russian could be trusted these days--all of them
were Bolsheviks, or on the way to becoming Bolsheviks, which was the
same thing; so Guffey organized a raid on this building, and some
two hundred Russians were clubbed and thrown downstairs or out of
windows, and an elderly teacher of mathematics had his skull
cracked, and a teacher of music had some teeth knocked out.
There were several million young Americans who had been put into
military uniform, and had guns put into their hands, and been put
thru target practice and bayonet drill, and then had not seen any
fighting. These fellows were, as the phrase has it, “spoiling for a
fight;” and here was their chance. It was just as much fun as trench
warfare, and had the advantage of not being dangerous. When the
raiding parties came back, there were no missing members, and no
casualties to be telegraphed to heartbroken parents. Some fool women
got together and tried to organize a procession to protest against
the blockade of Russia; the raiders fell upon these women, and
wrecked their banners, and tore their clothing to bits, and the
police hustled what was left of them off to jail. It happened that a
well-known “sporting man,” that is to say a race-track frequenter,
came along wearing a red necktie, and the raiders, taking him for a
Bolshevik, fell upon him and pretty nearly mauled the life out of
him. After that there was protest from people who thought it unwise
to break too many laws while defending law and order, so the
district attorney’s office arranged to take on the young soldier
boys as deputy sheriffs, and give them all badges, legal and proper.