Hold the fort for we are coming.
Union men, be strong!
Side by side we battle onward;
Victory will come.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday November 22, 1916
Seattle, Washington – Solidarity! A. F. of L. Stands by I. W. W.
This past Sunday there was a demonstration of remarkable solidarity when the Central Labor Council of Seattle (A. F. of L.) joined together with the Industrial Workers of the World to demand justice for those killed in the murderous assault upon the Verona as it attempted to land in Everett on November 5th. The ship, on that day, was carrying members of the I. W. W. whose only crime was that they were about to attend a Free Speech Meeting planned for that afternoon. The Wobblies soon learned that the sentence for practicing Free Speech in the city of Everett, Washington, is Death.
The Seattle Star of November 20th reported that this was “the largest mass meeting ever held in Dreamland pavilion:”
From the Seattle Union Record of November 18, 1916:
Everett Case to Be Discussed
at the Dreamland
—–A mass meeting of Seattle citizens to learn the truth about the Everett situation, that has been suppressed by the daily press, has been called by the joint committee of investigation of the Central Labor Council of Seattle and the Industrial Workers of the World for Sunday [November 19th] afternoon at 2:30 o’clock.
Dreamland Pavilion, Seventh avenue and Union street, has been secured for the occasion, and citizens of all class in society are urged to attend and get first-hand information of what happened.
Such representative citizens as C. J. France, Robert Bridges, Rev. Sidney Strong, J. T. [Red] Doran and E. P. Marsh have accepted invitations to speak. There will be others, among them some of Seattle’s most prominent club women.
It is important that those who have been inclined to believe the stories published by the yellow press be induced to turn out to this meeting. See that your neighbor attends. Go with him.
Until Tuesday of this week the conspiracy of silence on the part of the press in the matter of the Everett massacre gave many symptoms of disintegration. It seemed to be threatened with nervous collapse, and it looked as though the facts were beginning to leak out.
But following the meeting of Seattle’s self-constituted “law and order committee” the leaks have apparently all been stopped and the campaign of withholding the truth and substituting inflammatory mental poisoning has gone on apace.
Well posted men in Seattle size up the journalistic situation in somewhat the following manner:
You couldn’t expect the Everett dailies to print the truth about the tragedy. One Seattle paper perhaps would like to tell the truth, but fears to do so. It will likely try to carry water on both shoulders, which requires much skill, and usually pleases nobody.
Obsessed on I. W. W.
Another paper that prints “all the news that’s fit to print,” has such a hereditary obsession on the subject of the I. W. W. that is sees red whenever the subject is mentioned.
The real reason, the secret machinations of the open shop interests, shows most clearly in the morning paper.
The morning paper has repeatedly printed statements about the Everett tragedy that it must have known could not be true. It has put inflammatory statements that cannot be substantiated into the mouths of people who will repudiate them later.
Even the published statements as to the songs sung on approaching Everett are inaccurate.
The P.-I.’s song. “Onward Christian Soldiers,” upon analysis will be seen to deal in striking though perhaps inelegant language with a world condition in which so-called Christian nations blasphemously invoke the aid of the Prince of Peace in a war against their brothers. But it was not sung in Everett harbor. Below is the song which was sung, entitled “Hold the Fort.” It was the English transport workers’ strike song, and has become a working class classic:
———-
[Photograph of the Wanderer added.]
Note: we expect that the Record will cover the Dreamland meeting thoroughly in its next edition (November 25th). Hellraisers will cover the meeting in full at that time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
The Seattle Star
(Seattle, Washington)
-Nov 20, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/145517455/
Seattle Union Record
(Seattle, Washington)
-Nov 18, 1916, page 1 (008)
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/pnwlabor/page/1
The Everett Massacre
-by Walker C. Smith.
IWW, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001106557
IMAGES
Everett Massacre Dreamland Mtg 11/19, Stt Str, Nov 20, 1916, p1a-b
https://www.newspapers.com/image/145517455/
Everett Massacre, WCS, page 48, Red Doran ab 1916
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;view=2up;seq=54;size=125
Everett Massacre, Hold the Fort, SUR, Nov 18, 1916 (008)
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/pnwlabor/page/1
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Seattle’s Kept Press on IWW “Song of Hate” & Joe Hill Memorial Edition of Songbook
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-seattles-kept-press-on-iwws-song-of-hate-joe-hill-memorial-edition-of-songbook/
Lyrics: Christians at War by John F. Kendrick
(scroll down to page 23.)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Songs_of_the_Workers_(9th_edition)
For more on John T. (Red) Doran, I. W. W. Organizer:
The Everett Massacre by Walker C. Smith.
(search with: Doran)
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002672635;view=2up;seq=8
For more on Ernest P. Marsh, President of Washington Federation of Labor:
-search above source with: Marsh.
FW Doran was one of the Chicago Defendants:
Evidence and cross-examination of J.T. (Red) Doran in the case of the U.S.A. vs. Wm. D. Haywood et al.
-ed by General Defense Committee
Chicago, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100663081