“These criminal thugs call us a band of outlaws bent on destruction.  This they do in an attempt to hide their own dastardly work in burning our hall and destroying our property.  They say we are a menace; and we are a menace to all mobocrats and pilfering thieves.  Never did the I.W.W. burn public or private halls, kidnap their fellow citizens, destroy their property, club their fellows out of town, bootleg or act in any ways as law-breakers.  These patriotic profiteers throughout the country have falsely and with out any foundation whatever charged the I.W.W. with every crime on the statute books.  For these alleged crimes thousands of us have been jailed in foul and filthy cells throughout this country, often without charge, for months and in some cases, years, and when released re-arrested and again thrust in jail to await a trial that is never called.  The only convictions of the I.W.W. were those under the espionage law, where we were forced to trial before jurors, all of whom were at political and industrial enmity toward us, and in courts hostile to the working class.  This same class of handpicked courts and juries also convicted many labor leaders, socialists, non-partisans, pacifists, guilty of no crime save that of loyalty to the working class.

“By such courts Jesus the Carpenter was slaughtered upon the charge that ‘he stirreth up the people.’  Only last month 25 I.W.W. were indicted in Seattle as strike leaders, belonging to an unlawful organization, attempting to overthrow the government and other vile things under the syndicalist law passed by the last legislature.  To exterminate the ‘wobbly’ both the court and jury have the lie to every charge.  The court held them a lawful organization and their literature was not disloyal nor inciting to violence, though the government had combed the country from Chicago to Seattle for witnesses, and used every pamphlet taken from their hall in government raids.

“In Spokane 13 members were indicted in the Superior Court for wearing the I.W.W. button and displaying their emblem.  The jury unanimously acquitted them and the court held it no crime.

“In test cases last month both in the Seattle and Everett Superior Courts, the presiding judge declared the police had no authority in law to close their halls and the padlocks were ordered off and the halls opened.

“Many I.W.W. in and around Centralia went to France and fought and bled for the democracy they never secured.  They came home to be threatened with mob violence by the law and order outfit that pilfered every nickel possible from their mothers and fathers while they were fighting in the trenches in the thickest of the fray.

“Our only crime is solidarity, loyalty to the working class and justice to the oppressed.”

“Let the Men in Uniform Do It”

On November 6th, the Centralia Post of the American Legion met with a committee from the Chamber of Commerce to arrange for a parade-another “patriotic” parade.  The first anniversary of the signing of the armistice was now but a few days distant and Centralia felt it incumbent upon herself to celebrate.  Of course the matter was brought up rather circumspectly, but knowing smiles greeted the suggestion.  One business man made a motion that the brave boys wear their uniforms.  This was agreed upon.