But even as these lines are written the jails and prisons of America are filled to overflowing with men and women whose only crime is loyalty to the working class.  The war profiteers are still wallowing in luxury.  None has ever been placed behind the bars.  Before he was lynched in Butte, Frank Little had said, “I stand for the solidarity of labor.”  That was enough.  The vials of wrath were poured on his head for no other reason.  And for no other reason was the hatred of the employing class directed at the valiant hundreds who now rot in prison for longer terms than those meted out to felons.  William Haywood and Eugene Debs are behind steel bars today for the same cause.  The boys at Centralia were conspired against because they too stood “for the solidarity of labor.”  It is simply lying and camouflage to attempt to trace such persecutions to any other source.  These are things America will be ashamed of when she comes to her senses.  Such gruesome events are paralleled in no country save the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm or the Russia of the Czar.

This picture of labor persecution in free America—­terrible but true—­will serve as a background for the dramatic history of the events leading up to the climactic tragedy at Centralia on Armistice Day, 1919.

While in Washington...

All over the state of Washington the mobbing, jailing and tar and feathering of workers continued the order of the day until long after the cessation of hostilities in Europe.  The organization had always urged and disciplined its members to avoid violence as an unworthy weapon.  Usually the loggers have left their halls to the mercy of the mobs when they knew a raid was contemplated.  Centralia is the one exception.  Here the outrages heaped upon them could be no longer endured.

In Yakima and Sedro Woolley, among other places in 1918, union men were stripped of their clothing, beaten with rope ends and hot tar applied to the bleeding flesh.  They were then driven half naked into the woods.  A man was hanged at night in South Montesano about this time and another had been tarred and feathered.  As a rule the men were taken unaware before being treated in this manner.  In one instance a stationary delegate of the Industrial Workers of the World received word that he was to be “decorated” and rode out of town on a rail.  He slit a pillow open and placed it in the window with a note attached stating that he knew of the plan; would be ready for them, and would gladly supply his own feathers.  He did not leave town either on a rail or otherwise.

In Seattle, Tacoma and many other towns, union halls and print shops were raided and their contents destroyed or burned.  In the former city in 1919, men, women and children were knocked insensible by policemen and detectives riding up and down the sidewalks in automobiles, striking to right and left with “billy” and night stick as they went.  These were accompanied by auto trucks filled with hidden riflemen and an armored tank bristling with machine guns.  A peaceable meeting of union men was being dispersed.