"During the entire time of our confinement under McRae, drunken deputies came into the jail and did everything in their power to make conditions as miserable as possible for us. McRae was usually the leader in villification of the I. W. W.
"When on January 8th a change of administration took place, we called a meeting which resulted in an interview with Sheriff McCullogh. Among other things we demanded a cook. For days the sheriff stalled us off. He professed that he wanted to do things for our comfort. We gave him ample time—but there was no change in the conditions. On January 15th the matter came to a climax. For five days prior to this we had been served with what some called 'mulligan.' In reality it was nothing more or less than water slightly colored with the juice of carrots. If there had ever been any meat in it that meat was taken out before the mulligan was served. We called for the sheriff and were informed that he had gone away. We called for one of our attorneys who was in one of the outer offices at the time, but Jailer Bridges refused to let us see him. Having tried peaceful methods without success, we decided to forcibly bring the matter to the attention of the authorities. We poured the contents of the container out thru the bars and onto the floor. The boys in the upper tank did the same thing. For doing this we were given a terrible cursing by Jailer Bridges and the drunken cook, the latter throwing a piece of iron thru the bars, striking one of the boys on the head, and inflicting a long, ugly wound. The cook also threatened to poison us.
"That night when we were to be locked in, one of our jailers, decidedly under the influence of liquor, was in such a condition that he was unable to handle the levers properly and in some manner put the locking system out of commission. After probably three quarters of an hour, during which all of us and every I. W. W. in the world were consigned to hell many times, the doors were finally locked.
"'By God, you s—s-of-b——s will wish you ate that stew,' was the way in which the jailer said 'good night' to us. The significance of his words was brought back to us next morning when the time came for us to be unlocked. We were left in our cells without food and with the water turned off so we could not even have a drink. We might have remained there for hours without toilet facilities had we not taken matters into our hands. With one accord we decided to get out of the cells. There was only one way to do this—'battleship!'
An all-I. W. W. crew raising a spar tree 160 ft. long, 22½
inches at top and 54½ inches at butt, at Index, Wash.
