The Ketchum Home near Beverly Park
CHAPTER IV.
BLOODY SUNDAY
How shall we enter the kingdom of Everett? was the question that confronted the committee in charge of affairs in Seattle on the morning of November 5th. Inquiries at the Interurban office developed the fact that sufficient cars could not be had to accommodate the crowd. The cost of making the trip by auto truck was found to be prohibitive. At the eleventh hour the committee, taking the money pooled by the members, secured the regular passenger steamship Verona, and an orderly and determined body of men filed down the steps leading from the I. W. W. headquarters and marched by fours to the Colman Dock.
Their mission was an open and peaceable one. Cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic, the band of social crusaders felt that the conquest of free speech was assured. Not for a moment did they think that the Everett Klu-Klux-Klan would dare resort to violent and criminal tactics in the broad daylight of that beautiful sunny day and in plain view of a host of conscientious Everett citizens.
Assisted by Harry Feinberg and John T. (Red) Doran, Captain Chauncey Wiman checked the number of men who went on board, stopping further entry when the legal limit of two hundred and fifty persons was reached, Feinberg joining the men on board in order to serve as the main speaker at the proposed meeting. Among those who secured passage were several who were not members of the free speech party, but in the work of checking, the tickets of these persons were not collected, their fares being paid in the lump sum that was handed to the captain. Regular passengers of the Verona were informed that their tickets would be good for the steamer Calista, lying at Pier 3. Thirty-eight additional members of the free speech band joined the regular patrons who took passage on the Calista.
Laughter and jest were on the lips of the men who crowded the Verona, and songs of the One Big Union rang out over the sparkling waters of Puget Sound. Loyal soldiers were these in the great class war, enlightened workers who were willing to give their all in the battle for bread, happiness and liberty. Men of all callings these—logger, carpenter, laborer, railroad clerk, painter, miner, printer, seaman and farmhand, all united with one common aim—the desire to gain for Labor the right of free expression.