For days the district around Centralia and the city itself were at the mercy of a mob.  The homes of all workers suspected of being sympathetic to Labor were spied upon or surrounded and entered without warrant.  Doors were battered down at times, and women and children abused and insulted.  Heavily armed posses were sent out in all directions in search of “reds.”  All roads were patrolled by armed business men in automobiles.  A strict mail and wire censorship was established.  It was the open season for “wobblies” and intimidation was the order of the day.  The White Terror was supreme.

An Associated Press reporter was compelled to leave town hastily without bag or baggage because he inadvertently published Dr. Bickford’s indiscreet remark about the starting of the trouble.  Men and women did not dare to think, much less think aloud.  Some of them in the district are still that way.

To Eugene Barnett’s little home came a posse armed to the teeth.  They asked for Barnett and were told by his young wife that he had gone up the hill with his rifle.  Placing a bayonet to her breast they demanded entrance.  The brave little woman refused to admit them until they had shown a warrant.  Barnett surrendered when he had made sure he was to be arrested and not mobbed.

O.C.  Bland, Bert Bland, John Lamb and Loren Roberts were also apprehended in due time.  Two loggers, John Doe Davis and Ole Hanson, who were said to have also fired on the mob, have not yet been arrested.  A vigorous search is still being made for them in all parts of the country.  It is believed by many that one of these men was lynched like Everest on the night of November 11th.

[Illustration:  Court House at Montesano—­And a Little “Atmosphere”

The trial was held on the third floor of the building as you look at the picture.  The soldiers were sent for over the head of the judge by one of the lumber trust attorneys of the prosecution.  Their only purpose was to create the proper “atmosphere” for an unjust conviction.]

Hypocrisy and Terror

The reign of terror was extended to cover the entire West coast.  Over a thousand men and women were arrested in the state of Washington alone.  Union halls were closed and kept that way.  Labor papers were suppressed and many men have been given sentences of from one to fourteen years for having in their possession copies of periodicals which contained little else but the truth about the Centralia tragedy.  The Seattle Union Record was temporarily closed down and its stock confiscated for daring to hint that there were two sides to the story.  During all this time the capitalist press was given full rein to spread its infamous poison.  The general public, denied the true version of the affair, was shuddering over its morning coffee at the thought of I.W.W. desperadoes shooting down unoffending paraders from ambush.  But the lumber interests were chortling with glee and winking a suggestive eye at their high priced lawyers who were making ready for the prosecution.  Jurymen were shortly to be drawn and things were “sitting pretty,” as they say in poker.