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

by Walker C. Smith

"Is it any wonder that the citizens of Everett said 'If you have no regard for law we will meet you on your own ground; we are not going to be bankrupted; we are not going to be hammered into defeat as they were in Spokane; we are not going to have you sabotage us in that manner by your numbers; we are not going to have your people coming from the Dakotas, from Montana, from Oregon, and from all over the various parts of the state of Washington, and camping down on us until we surrender to you. We are going to keep you out of here.' Now, that may not have been strictly legal, but it was human nature.

"There is not hint anywhere in the argument of either counsel for the defense in this case as to what was ever done in the city of Everett by the I. W. W. that would constitute new methods and new tactics. Do you remember the testimony over a period of time there before Labor Day that they allowed them to speak without interference and a meeting was held there and every time they went up with a chip on their shoulder and were not satisfied when no one interfered with them. When they were there speaking on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore somebody was going around the city of Everett distributing a nasty stinking chemical in the theater building, into the store buildings, into the business houses, into the automobiles. And the paper in the next issue gloats over it and intimates that the reason the officers did not arrest Feinberg was because they were evidently too busy chasing a cat of malodorous tendencies. When Thompson was upon the stand and was being questioned about sabotage and about cats; he could tell you what a cat was, he got a bit halting in his speech when he was asked what it meant when they said that the claws of the cat had been sharpened, when he was asked what a 'sabcat' meant, but when he was asked as to what a cat of 'malodorous tendencies' was he said he didn't know unless it was a skunk. But by that was meant that the skunk accomplishes sabotage. You never heard of a skunk that did sabotage by simply a withdrawal of efficiency, never!

"Now as to incendiary and phosphorous fires. Fire Chief Terrell tells you that up to the date of September 28th, the date of the first known phosphorous fire in Everett, that up to that time, in all of his experience upon the fire force of the city of Everett, it never had come to his knowledge or observation in any way that a phosphorous fire had ever occurred in the city. It occurred there, known to be a phosphorous fire, and within a period of two months at least two other fires occurred, mysterious, the origin unknown because the fire had progressed to such an extent that no one could tell how it did start."

Mr. Vanderveer: Didn't your detective go to work September 21st?

Mr. Cooley: Yes sir, he did.

"And they would have you believe that the detective was up there setting those fires. That, I know, is an insinuation not supported by any evidence in this case, and the detective wasn't working up there, he was operating down here in the city of Seattle. He was sending his reports to Blain before the Wanderer started out, before the men started out on October 30th, and that goes a good way to explain how it happened how these people were met on these different excursions and were not permitted to come within the city of Everett. They were trying to get into the city of Everett, to use their own judgment, to act on their own initiative, according to instructions that had gone out. And the officers stopped the thing before it started.

"What were they coming to Everett for, these forty-one men who were met? Were they coming to hold a street meeting? Forty-one men, enthused with the enthusiasm of the belief in their grand and glorious doctrine that they are teaching, forty-one men starting out as crusaders to carry the gospel of their organization to the benighted of Everett, forty-one going up there to be martyrs, to be beaten for the cause, and nothing else!

"I have told of the tactics and methods advocated, used and encouraged, by this peculiar, particular organization, so you can judge the character, purpose and intentions of the individuals that were seeking from time to time to force themselves into the city of Everett, in order that you may judge the two hundred and sixty that left on the Verona on November the 5th.

"But there is another matter you should likewise take into consideration in determining the character of the individuals of that crowd. Regardless of all environment, regardless of the effect of all legislation, regardless of all social conditions, men are born—not all with the same propensities, not all with the same natural ambitions, not all with the same qualifications, and out of the entire mass of humanity there is a certain percentage that were born without any ambition, born without any incentive; they go thru life without any incentive, constantly tired. Now I am not here to say that all the I. W. W.'s are that kind of people. I am not here to say that because a man is a member of the I. W. W. he is a tramp or a hobo. But there is a class that has been recognized in this country ever since the country existed, a class that don't want to work, that would not work if you gave them an opportunity. These are a percentage, I don't know how large, and I say that every one of these people are members of the I. W. W. organization or should be. Why? Well, in the first place, you don't have to show any qualification for any line of work. You don't have to make proof of anything whatever to become a member of that organization. And is there any inducement for a man who has been drifting here and there, walking the ties, counting the mile posts as he walks from one place to another, to join that organization? It gives him a pass upon every freight train that travels the length and breadth of the land. One of the best inducements in the world.

"There is another class of people in this country that are born with criminal instincts implanted in their very natures; they are scattered all over this land and we have them with us and we will always have them with us. There are men who are driven to crime thru misfortune; there are men who commit crime under the influence of environment; but there is a percentage of men who are habitual, natural and instinctive criminals. Now I don't say that because a man is a member of the I. W. W. he is necessarily and instinctively a criminal, but I do say that every habitual, instinctive criminal, who knows that he intends to violate the law upon every opportunity to satisfy his own criminal desire, has every inducement to become a member of that organization.