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

by Walker C. Smith

So wanton was the slaughter of the helpless men and boys that strong men who witnessed the scene turned away vomiting. From the hillside the women—those whom the deputies were pretending to protect from the "incoming horde,"—casting aside all womanly fears, raced to the dock in a vain endeavor to stop the commission of further crime, crying out in their frenzy, "The curs! The curs! The dirty curs! They're nothing but murderers!" They, as well as the men who tried to launch boats to rescue the men in the water, were halted by the same citizen deputies whose names head the list of Red Cross donors.

For a short period of time, seemingly endless hours to the unarmed and helpless men on the boat, the rain of lead continued. Tho the boat had righted itself, the men were still unable to extricate themselves from the positions into which they had been thrown. Near the top of one heap lay Abraham Rabinowitz, a young Jewish college graduate, and as he struggled to regain his footing a bullet tore off the whole back part of his head, his blood and brains splashing down over Raymond Lee and Michael Reilly who lay just beneath him. Rabinowitz died in the arms of Leonard Broman, his "pal" in the harvest fields, without ever having regained consciousness.

"Hold me up, fellow workers!" suddenly called out Gus Johnson as he was fatally stricken by a bullet. "I want to finish the song." Then, above the din of the gunfire and curses of the deputies, the final verse of "Hold the Fort" rang out in defiance of industrial tyranny, and with the termination of the words "Cheer, my comrades, cheer!" the bright red death-foam flecked the ever-to-be silent lips of the brave Swedish revolutionist.

Splintering the stairways, seats and woodwork, and wounding many of the men crouched in hiding, thousands of rounds of ammunition found their way into the boat during the ten long minutes of the onslaught. Finally, with a 41 Colts revolver to enforce his demand, J. F. Billings ordered engineer Ernest Shellgren to back the boat away from the dock. With no pilot at the wheel the propeller churned madly backward for a moment, the bowline drew taut and snapped, and the Verona pulled away from the murderous crew of vigilantes. Not content with the havoc they had wrought at close quarters some of the deputies continued to fire as long as the boat was within range, a bullet from a high powered rifle shattering the left leg of Harry Golden, a youth of twenty-two years, when the boat was far out in the bay. Amputation of the limb was necessary, a cork leg daily reminding young Golden of the majesty of the law.

The Verona with its grim cargo of dead and wounded steamed toward Seattle, meeting the steamer Calista about four miles out, stopping just long enough for Captain Wiman to shout thru his megaphone, "For God's sake don't land! They'll kill you! We have dead and wounded on board now."

With unaccustomed fingers the uninjured men bathed the wounded, tearing up shirts and underclothing in order to bind up their injuries, and making the men as comfortable as possible during the two and one half hour return trip.

A few of the men on board had been armed. These voluntarily threw overboard their revolvers, together with the few empty shells that lay scattered upon the deck, George Reese alone having to be forced to discard the "souvenirs" he had picked up.

It was a quiet crowd that pulled into Seattle, not only because they realized that the class struggle is not all jokes and songs, but also in deference to the sufferings of their wounded comrades. This same spirit animated the men when they were met by drawn cordons of police at the Seattle dock, their first thought and first words being, "Get the wounded fellows out and we will be all right." In the city jail, located on the floor above the hospital, the same generous consideration of their wounded fellow workers' condition led them to forego the demonstration usually attending the arrest and jailing of any body of I. W. W. members.

The four dead members, their still forms covered with blankets, were first removed from the boat and taken to the morgue. Police and hospital ambulances were soon filled with the thirty-one wounded men, who were taken to the city hospital. The uninjured men were then lined up and slowly marched to the city jail. From the Calista the thirty-eight I. W. W. members were taken and placed in the county jail.