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

by Walker C. Smith

Judge J. T. Ronald

The Seattle women, not to be outdone, gave a banquet to the prisoners who had been transported to the Seattle county jail. The banquet was spread on tables set the full length of the jail corridor, and the menu ran from soup to nuts. An after dinner cigar, and a little boutonniere of fragrant flowers furnished by a gray-haired old lady, completed the program.

These banquets and the jail visitors, together with numerous books, magazines and papers—and a phonograph that was in almost constant operation—made the latter part of the long jail days endurable.

The defense was making strong efforts, during this time, to secure some judge other than Bell or Alston, the two superior court judges of Snohomish County, finally winning a victory in forcing the appointment of an outside judge by the governor of the state.

Judge J. T. Ronald, of King County, was selected by Governor Lister, and after the men had pleaded "Not Guilty" on January 26th, a change of venue on account of the prejudice existing in Everett's official circles was asked and granted, Seattle being selected as the place where the trial would take place.

Eleven of the prisoners were named on the first information, the men thus arraigned being F. O. Watson, John Black, Frank Stuart, Charles Adams, Harston Peters, Thomas H. Tracy, Harry Feinberg, John Downs, Harold Miller, Ed Roth and Thomas Tracy. The title of the case was "State vs. F. O. Watson et al.," but the first man to come to trial was Thomas H. Tracy. The date of the trial was set for March 5th.

On November 5th, when he was taken from the Verona to jail, Thomas H. Tracy gave his name at the booking window as George Martin, in order to spare the feelings of relatives to whom the news of his arrest would have proven a severe shock. When the officers were checking the names later he was surprised to hear them call out "Tracy, Thomas Tracy." Thinking that his identity was known because of his having been secretary in Everett for a time, he stepped forward. An instant later a little fellow half his size also marched to the front. There were two Tom Tracys among the arrested men! Neither of them knew the other! Tracy then gave his correct name and both he and "Little Tom Tracy" were later held among the seventy-four charged with murder in the first degree.

During all the time the free speech fighters were awaiting trial the lumber trust exerted its potent influence at the national capital to the end of preventing any congressional investigation of the tragedy of November 5th and the circumstances surrounding it. The petitions of thousands of citizens of the state of Washington were ignored. All too well the employers knew what a putrid state of affairs would be uncovered were the lumber trust methods exposed to the pitiless light of publicity. That the trial itself would force them into the open evidently did not enter into their calculations.

In changing the information charging the murder of C. O. Curtis to the charge of murdering Jefferson Beard the prosecution thought to cover one point beyond the possibility of discovery, which change seems to have been made as a result of the exhuming of the body of C. O. Curtis in February. Curtis had been buried in a block of solid concrete and this had to be broken apart in order to remove the body. Just who performed the autopsy cannot be ascertained as the work was covered in the very comprehensive bill of $50.50 for "Exhuming the body of C. O. Curtis, and autopsy thereon," this bill being made out in the name of the superintendent of the graveyard and was allowed and paid by Snohomish County. This, together with the fact that at no time during the trial did the prosecution speak of C. O. Curtis as having met his death at the hands of the men on the Verona, seems to bear out the contention of the defense that Curtis was the victim of the rifle fire of one of his associates.

So on March 5th, after holding the free speech prisoners for four months to the day, the lumber trust, in the name of the State of Washington, brought the first of them, Thomas H. Tracy, to trial, on a charge of first degree murder, in the King County Court House at Seattle, Washington.