The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry

by Walker C. Smith

"Was it a fight to win the right of free speech on the one hand? Was it a fight on the other hand of a group of individuals who were simply seeking to force the open shop? Or was it a fight of a more serious nature on either hand?

"I grant you that the origin of the trouble arose because a man was seeking to speak upon the streets of Everett and he was stopped. But long before November 5th that original incident was lost sight of and forgotten. The controversy had grown to a magnitude that overshadowed the original incident. It was necessary in order that you might understand the situation with which the people of Everett were confronted that you should be apprised of the nature of the organization to which those people belong, that you should be apprised of the nature of the place in the world that they had attained, and that you should be apprised of the nature of their propaganda that they were seeking to inject into the city of Everett and that locality.

"I want to say right here and now that I have the highest regard for organized labor. Labor has the right to organize. There is not any question about it; there is not any dispute about it. Labor has organized and it has made a manful fight, and all down the pages of history you will find that labor, thru its organization and thru its lawful methods pursued under its organization, has gradually bettered its condition.

"It is not a question, and never has been in this case, as to the right of the labor men to organize; the right of the laboring man to use all of the lawful methods for the purpose of bettering his condition. The question in this case is as to whether any organization, whether it be a labor organization or any other, has the right to use unlawful methods; whether it has the right, because it may have the power, to use unlawful methods.

"Now there were coming into the city of Everett people representing this organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World. What was the propaganda that they were seeking to introduce there? They put upon the stand their chief exponent in this part of the country, to tell you what their purpose was in coming to the city of Everett, and what the doctrines were that they were teaching to the people that congregated there in the city of Everett. Mr. Thompson was upon the stand for about two days, and he delivered to this jury a lecture, which he says was a resume of three lectures that he gave up there in the city of Everett. He was asked whether or not he talked on sabotage and he told you what he had to say about it. He said sabotage was 'a conscious withdrawal of efficiency, a folding of the arms.' But Thompson says it is never the destruction of property, and yet the organization that sends him out to talk on sabotage puts out right along with him the literature that has been adopted by the I. W. W. as a part of their propaganda, defining what sabotage really is and it gives the lie to Mr. Thompson. It may mean working slow; it may mean poor work; it may mean folding of arms; it may mean conscious withdrawal of efficiency. So far sabotage is legal and anyone has a right to use it. But it may mean the spoiling of a finished product, it may mean the destruction of parts of machinery, it is the destruction of property. 'Sabotage is a direct application of the idea that property has no rights that its creators are bound to respect.' It does not say that certain kinds of property has no rights, but that there is no property that has any rights that are bound to be respected. But Thompson says that is not sabotage.

"Sabotage is what? Where is that old song book? Let us see whether it means simply the folding of the arms. (Cooley dived into a mass of pamphlets, but being unable to locate the song book he came up with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's pamphlet on Sabotage, reading from it as follows:) 'Sabotage itself is not clearly defined. Sabotage is as broad and changing as industry, as flexible as the imagination and passions of humanity.' Why, if it consisted simply of a folding of the arms, if it consisted simply of the withdrawal of efficiency, there would not be much flexibility to it, would there, and the passions of humanity would have nothing to do with it? That language means that sabotage means anything that the imagination can devise and the passions of men adopt, if they had the power to use it and get away with it. Oh, it is not wrong! No matter what form it takes it is not wrong, because they say so in their official publication. 'The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good in their use. The question of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern us.' Put the two together. Legality and illegality, those terms have no meaning to a man of the Industrial Workers of the World. Why? Because there is no law that they are bound to respect except the law that is made by them in their own union hall. It is in the song book, 'Make your laws in the union hall, the rest can go to hell.' That is the class of people that we had to deal with, who were coming there to Everett.

Charles Ashleigh speaking at the funeral, of Looney, Baran and Gerlot.

"In Spokane there were twelve hundred convictions upon a valid ordinance, and yet, after they had convicted a hundred of them they didn't stop coming, and two hundred, and two hundred and fifty, and five hundred, and they continued coming there until the city jail of the city of Spokane was filled, until the county jail of Spokane county was filled, until an old deserted school house was filled, and then until an army post jail was filled. A species of sabotage! They weren't willing to accept the verdict of one jury, or ten juries, or of a hundred juries, that they were violating the law. They had made their laws in their union halls and they were going to speak at a certain place, upon a certain street of Spokane; and they were going to compel the citizens of Spokane to let them speak when they pleased, where they pleased, and say what they pleased; and they kept it up until after Spokane had the expense of a thousand trials and had upon its hands a thousand defendants it began to think it had better yield and let them speak when they pleased, where they pleased and say what they pleased. And Spokane was licked!