Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 14, 1919
Seattle, Washington – Union Record, Confiscated and Returned
From The Nation of December 13, 1919:
A Newspaper Confiscated—And Returned
By ANNA LOUISE STRONG
[Part I of II.]
SEATTLE has a way of making labor history. The third week in November saw not only the confiscation and later the return of the property of The Seattle Union Record, the mouthpiece of organized labor in that city, but produced as by-products several actions new in the history of unionism. The newspaper’s plant was seized without warning by the United States Attorney, held throughout a week’s time through various court delays, and at last returned on order of the court, which stated that it was illegally held. The mailing of the paper was held up for over a week by the local postmaster on the ground that he was “in doubt” concerning its mailability.
The Seattle Star of November 13, 1919
Meantime, the labor movement of the city, which was obviously expected by the authorities to indicate its anger in some storm or upheaval, remained calm and self-controlled, and began voting a day’s pay per member for “a bigger, better Union Record.” Several unions displayed spontaneously the extent to which solidarity of feeling has transcended in Seattle the actual craft lines of organization. The union teamsters, sent to The Union Record office to haul away the confiscated files, records, and papers, obstinately refused to handle them until the marshal appealed to the secretary of The Union Record’s board of control, whom he had just arrested. Mr. Rust then went out and told the teamsters “It’s all right, boys; go ahead.” And they went ahead.
The immediate cause of the seizure of The Union Record and the arrest of its editors was stated to be two editorials printed on November 11 and 12. The first of these dealt with the coal strike, and was an argument for political action. It pointed out that the strikers, successful on the economic field, were compelled to give in by the use of the courts, a political weapon. The miners, said this editorial, were right in obeying the courts, and had shown true Americanism in submitting to the law of the land, even if that law had been wrongfully administered. The weapon which must be used to correct such conditions was the ballot. “If the workers of the nation are worthy of being called free men they will, at the next election, kick into the discard the present governing class and in its stead elect to positions of power men and women who have some slight conception of the meaning of terms, and whose idea of language is not that it shall be used to confuse and confound.”
The last statement which I have quoted was the section of the editorial which it was claimed was actionable under the Espionage law! The other editorial concerned the Centralia shooting, in which five men lost their lives. The word which first came to the press was that members of the I. W. W. had fired from their hall into the Armistice Day parade, killing four soldiers. That same evening one of the I. W. W. was taken from the city jail and lynched. Posses of citizens were hunting through the woods around Centralia for suspects; a reign of terror was on. The Union Record urged caution and soberness, a withholding of judgment until more facts should come out. The editorial which was objected to as seditious was headed: “Don’t Shoot in the Dark.” It read:
Violence begets violence.
Anarchy calls forth anarchy.
That is the answer to the Centralia outrage.
The reason for it is found in the constant stream of laudation in the kept press of un-American, violent, and physical attacks upon the persons of those who disagree with the powers that be.
The rioting which culminated in the deaths of three returned service men in Centralia was the result of a long series of illegal acts by these men themselves—acts which no paper in the State was American enough to criticize except The Union Record.
The rest of the editorial was a plea for law and order by “rich and poor alike.” “The Union Record,” it stated, “has never printed a line advocating that anybody ‘be stood up against a wall and shot.’ It has never countenanced physical violence for the redress of grievances.”
These were the editorials for which the paper was seized and its editors arrested. I have quoted the supposedly incriminating parts. Anyone reading them would be astonished at the flimsiness of the excuse and would at once come to the conclusion that they were only the occasion, not the cause. The cause itself was three-fold.Labor in the State of Washington has organized politically. It has put up candidates for the coming school and port elections, candidates who were admitted to have a very good chance. One of these candidates was president of the board of trustees of The Union Record, and as such was arrested for sedition. The election was about two weeks off, and many members of organized labor believed that the political reason was a dominant one.
Secondly, a wide-spread and well-organized attack is being made on organized labor in Seattle through the newly organized Associated Industries, which has the avowed intention of making Seattle an open-shop town. Large sums of money are being spent by this organization for advertisements in the newspapers. Pressure is brought on merchants who deal with unions. It is generally believed in labor circles that the most determined attempt ever made to break the labor forces is now on, reinforced, perhaps, by eastern capital as well as by local funds, and that this group is mainly behind the attack.
The other newspapers of the city have been feeling the competition of The Union Record, which has grown in a year and a half to a circulation equal to that of any other. They have kept alive the suspicions and bitternesses left by the general strike, and have never lost an opportunity to make it appear that The Record was a “Bolshevist” organ. The opportunity for attack came through the Centralia shooting. Feeling ran high over the account of an unarmed armistice parade, whose marchers were shot down by “reds.” “Terrorize the Reds” was a headline appearing in one newspaper. Exhortations to violent reprisals, more or less veiled, were the order of the day. The calm suggestion of The Union Record that there might be two sides to the question, coupled with its statement that a feud of many months’ standing had been going on in Centralia, during which the business men had again and again disregarded the law in their raids on the I. W. W.—this provoked an angry reaction. In fact, had the Government not seized the plant of The Record, threats of lawless raids upon it were freely made by several so-called patriotic organizations.
Gradually more facts came to light concerning the Centralia outrage. The coroner’s jury refused to fix the guilt, because of much testimony to the effect that the men in the parade began a raid on the I. W. W. hall and forced open the door before the shooting started. Much more testimony came out to the effect that the coming raid had been common talk in Centralia for two or three weeks. The member of the I. W. W. who was lynched turned out to be, not the man the citizens’ posse intended to kill, but an overseas veteran. This fact, suppressed by the other newspapers and printed by The Union Record, was stated in court by the United States Attorney to be another instance of the violation of the Espionage law by the labor paper!
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