The actions of the lumber interests were now but thinly veiled and their evil purpose all too manifest.  The connection between the Employers’ Association of the state and its local representatives in Centralia had become unmistakably evident.  And behind these loomed the gigantic silhouette of the Employers’ Association of the nation—­the colossal “invisible government”—­more powerful at times than the Government itself.  More and more stood out the naked brutal fact that the purpose of all this plotting was to drive the union loggers from the city and to destroy their hall.  The names of the men actively interested in this movement came to light in spite of strenuous efforts to keep them obscured.  Four of these stand out prominently in the light of the tragedy that followed:  George F. Russell, F.B.  Hubbard, William Scales and last, but not least, Warren O. Grimm.

[Illustration:  Warren O. Grimm

Warren O. Grimm, killed at the beginning of the rush on the I.W.W. hall.  At another raid on an I.W.W. hall in 1918 Grimm was said by witnesses to have been leading the mob, “holding two American flags and dancing like a whirling dervish.”  His life-long friend, Frank Van Gilder, testified:  “I stood less than two feet from Grimm when he was shot.  He doubled up, put his hands to his stomach and said to me:  ‘My God, I’m shot.’” “What did you do then?” “I turned and left him.”]

The first named, George F. Russell, is a hired Manager for the Washington Employers’ Association, whose membership employs between 75,000 and 80,000 workers in the state.  Russell is known to be a reactionary of the most pronounced type.  He is an avowed union smasher and a staunch upholder of the open shop principle, which is widely advertised as the “American plan” in Washington.  Incidentally he is an advocate of the scheme to import Chinese and Japanese cooley labor as a solution of the “high wage and arrogant unionism” problem.

F. B. Hubbard, is a small-bore Russell, differing from his chief only in that his labor hatred is more fanatical and less discreet.  Hubbard was hard hit by the strike in 1917 which fact has evidently won him the significant title of “a vicious little anti-labor reptile.”  He is the man who helped to raid the 1918 Union Hall in Centralia and who appropriated for himself the stolen desk of the Union Secretary.  His nephew Dale Hubbard was shot while trying to lynch Wesley Everest.

William Scales is a Centralia business man and a virulent sycophant.  He is a parochial replica of the two persons mentioned above.  Scales was in the Quartermaster’s Department down on the border during the trouble with Mexico.  Because he was making too much money out of Uncle Sam’s groceries, he was relieved of his duties quite suddenly and discharged from the service.  He was fortunate in making France instead of Fort Leavenworth, however, and upon his return, became an ardent proselyte of Russell and Hubbard and their worthy cause.  Also he continued in the grocery business.