Weathering the Storm

Through it all the industrialists clung to their Red Cards and to the One Big Union for which they had sacrificed so much.  Time after time, with incomparable patience, they would refurnish and reopen their beleaguered halls, heal up the wounds of rope, tar or “billy” and proceed with the work of organization as though nothing had happened.  With union cards or credentials hidden in their heavy shoes they would meet secretly in the woods at night.  Here they would consult about members who had been mobbed, jailed or killed, about caring for their families—­if they had any—­about carrying on the work of propaganda and laying plans for the future progress of their union.  Perhaps they would take time to chant a rebel song or two in low voices.  Then, back on the job again to “line up the slaves for the New Society!”

Through a veritable inferno of torment and persecution these men had refused to be driven from the woods or to give up their union—­the Industrial Workers of the World.  Between the two dreadful alternatives of peonage or persecution they chose the latter—­and the lesser.  Can you imagine what their peonage must have been like?

Sinister Centralia

But Centralia was destined to be the scene of the most dramatic portion of the struggle between the entrenched interests and the union loggers.  Here the long persecuted industrialists made a stand for their lives and fought to defend their own, thus giving the glib-tongued lawyers of the prosecution the opportunity of accusing them of “wantonly murdering unoffending paraders” on Armistice Day.

Centralia in appearance is a creditable small American city—­the kind of city smug people show their friends with pride from the rose-scented tranquility of a super-six in passage.  The streets are wide and clean, the buildings comfortable, the lawns and shade trees attractive.  Centralia is somewhat of a coquette but she is as sinister and cowardly as she is pretty.  There is a shudder lurking in every corner and a nameless fear sucks the sweetness out of every breeze.  Song birds warble at the outskirts of the town but one is always haunted by the cries of the human beings who have been tortured and killed within her confines.

A red-faced business man motors leisurely down the wet street.  He shouts a laughing greeting to a well dressed group at the curb who respond in kind.  But the roughly dressed lumberworkers drop their glances in passing one another.  The Fear is always upon them.  As these lines are written several hundred discontented shingle-weavers are threatened with deportation if they dare to strike.  They will not strike, for they know too well the consequences.  The man-hunt of a few months ago is not forgotten and the terror of it grips their hearts whenever they think of opposing the will of the Moloch that dominates their every move.