Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 19, 1912
Grabow, Louisiana – Company Gunthugs Shoot Down Members of B. T. W.
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of July 18, 1912:
Kirby’s Thugs Shed Workers’ Blood
The Washington Times July 8, 1912
Not content with maiming and mangling the peons in their slave camps in the lumber district the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association has turned loose their gunmen to take the lives of those who dare to struggle for better conditions.
As a sequel to the degenerate actions of Kirby’s thugs there are three men lying dead in Grabow, La., and 20 others are wounded. Some of the latter are not expected to live.
Among those placed under arrest as the result of the battle between the scabs and the B T. W. men are A. L. Emerson, president of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, and J. T. Galloway, president of the Galloway Lumber Co.
The dead are A. T. Vincent, scab; Roy Martin, Cates Hall, and two unidentified men, unionists; the fatal wounded being Ed Brown and J. Tooley, union men, and Bud Hickman, farmer.
The union men were from De Ridder and nearby points. They had gathered under direction of Emerson to hold demonstration in front of the non-union mills. The objective point was Grabow, where the Galloway plant is located.
Following a series of meetings, one of which was held at Carson, amid the jeers of the company thugs and the continual din created by hoodlums hired by the Kirby interests, the band of union men marched to the Galloway mills.
There Emerson commenced to address the non-union men, asking them to be men rather than peons and to stand up for their class. The beating of tin cans and other noises created by company hirelings drowned out his voice. Suddenly an oath was heard high above all other noises and a shot pierced the body of a union man standing just beside Emerson. The shot came from the company office, it is alleged.
This was a signal for action and the scabs and thugs of the Lumber Trust had access to the guns and ammunition stored close at hand and the shooting became general.
After a battle lasting over ten minutes Emerson and the union men were forced to beak for cover. They gained the woods and made their way to their homes.
It is said that more than a score of arrests have been made upon the charge of murder. The militia has been called out, despite the protests of many persons. Especially strong in denouncing the calling of the troops are Wm. D. Haywood and Covington Hall., who were in New Orleans on business for the B. T. W. at the time of the outrage. It is thought that the presence of troops will add to the tenseness of the situation.
The feeling against Kirby’s hired murderers is growing and its echo is heard in Eastern Texas. In Oakdale, La., the company gunmen shot at H. G. Creel, leading writer for the National Rip-Saw. Creel has been instrumental in exposing Kirby’s blacklist and also is spreading broadcast the story of the shameful conditions in the Southern lumber camps. Along with the leaders of the B. T. W. there is a price upon his head, it is alleged, offered by the Lumber Trust.
The brotherhood was organized about 16 months ago and just recently decided to affiliate with the I. W. W. Organizers from the ranks of the Industrial Workers were sent into the district and were getting results. W. D. Reed, well known Colorado speaker, was also in the Southern lumber district, in the interest of the lumber workers.
The Southern Sawmill Operators’ Association has its headquarters at St. Louis, from which point it has been directing a bitter warfare against the B. T. W. The weapons used have been the boycott of B. T. W. sympathizers, the blacklist of B T. W. men, the mysterious shooting of active union men, the lockout of 5,000 men from their plants, and now open warfare on the B. T. W. and I. W. W. organizers at the hands of hired murderers, while the instigators of these cowardly deeds skulk in their palatial offices.
The B. T. W. is built of the same kind of men as the I. W. W. and against the spirit of revolution that springs alike in their breasts the guns of Kirby’s thugs are powerless.
Instead of breaking up the B. T. W. these damnable actions will awaken the spark of manhood in those who have been mere onlookers and the result will be ONE BIG UNION of toilers which will soon have control of the forests and the mills now being despoiled by Kirby and his breed of degenerate coyotes.
History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. 4 The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1917 -by Philip S Foner International Publishers, 1965
(search: grabow affair) https://books.google.com/books?id=e-KlAAAAMAAJ
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There Is Power in a Union – Utah Phillips
Lyrics by Joe Hill
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