Hellraisers Journal, Monday January 29, 1917
From Seattle, Washington: Everett Defense News Letter No. 9
Everett, Wash, Jan. 27th.
The date of the first trial has been set! The first man to be tried is Fellow Worker Thomas H. Tracy and his case comes up on March 5th. This was decided yesterday in Everett when the 74 boys pleaded “Not Guilty!” The presiding judge was J. T. Ronald, of King County, who has been appointed by Governor Lister to hear the case, as prejudice was charged by our attorneys against the Two Superior Court judges of Snohomish county.
APPLICATION MADE FOR CHANGE OF VENUE.
Our attorneys gave notice of an application for a change of venue. They will now prepare affidavits proving that there is too much prejudice in Snohomish county to warrant the boys a fair and impartial trial. The affidavits will be submitted on Feb. 2nd and the motion for change of venus will be decided upon by judge on Feb. 9th.
OUR MEN IN GOOD SPIRITS.
The 74 boys made a fine showing in the court-room on Friday. They marched in heavily guarded by a swarm of deputies, but were entirely unabashed. They answered to their names and rose, one after the other, giving, in ringing tones, their plea-it sounded more like a statement than a plea-of “Not Guilty!” There was much favorable comment in the court on the clear-cut and self-possessed appearance of the prisoners.
GIGANTIC MASS MEETING.
The campaign of publicity to give the people of America the facts of the Everett case is growing in force. On Sunday, the 21st, one of the biggest meetings ever held in Seattle took place in the Dreamland Rink where over 5,000 persons heard various speakers give the facts of the Everett Massacre. The principal speaker was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Others participating were Sam Sadler, President of the Longshoremen’s Union of Seattle and delegate to the Central Labor Council; J. A. MacDonald, Editor of the “Industrial Worker,” and H. Scott Bennett, famous Australian labor orator and ex-member of the Australian parliament. Charles Ashleigh was in the chair. The great audience was at times completely carried off its feet by the appeals of the speakers for working-class solidarity in the defense of our 74 fellow workers. A strong resolution was passed and collection of $331.52 was taken up for the defense.
STATE FEDERATIONS OF LABOR TAKE STRONG STAND.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn spoke on Wednesday before the Oregon State Federation of Labor in Salem, Oregon. The delegates were united in their hearty support of the demand for a fair trial for the boys in Everett and a Federal investigation into the whole matter.
The Washington State Federation of Labor has been holding its annual convention in Everett. This has enabled a number of the delegates to visit the docks and see for themselves the scene of the carnage. On Thursday, the convention was addressed by Miss Flynn and the response of the delegates was unanimous and enthusiastic. They cheered Gurley Flynn for some minutes after her speech. Strong resolutions were adopted calling for the bringing to justice of the murderers of the five workers, a fair trial for those in jail and a Congressional probe into the affair. The delegates passed the hat and took up a collection of $28 for tobacco and comforts for the men in jail. In the evening a crowded meeting was held in Everett, at which a large number of the delegates, together with citizens of Everett, were present. The spirit of the audience was splendid and Miss Flynn’s speech was applauded to the echoes. The collection for the defense amounted to $112.56.
PRESIDENT OF STATE FEDERATION SPEAKS OUT.
President E. P. Marsh, of the Washington State Federation of Labor, spoke his mind on the Everett affair in his opening address to the Convention. The following is a portion of his address:
I am convinced in my own mind that these men had not the slightest intention of coming to Everett to attack life or property. If that were their intent they would hardly have discussed their plans publicly, called in a reporter for the press and given him a story of their intentions. Criminals rarely warn their victims, that they are about to rob and burn and kill. These men, I tell you, were industrial zealots and beatings and inhuman abuse fed the fires of martyrdom that consumed them. The Beverly Park beating made them deadly determined that, come what might, they would establish their right to spread their industrial gospel on the streets of Everett, or anywhere else. I doubt if any of them ever dreamed they would be met with armed resistance. The day set was Sunday, a day when men rested from their employment and the working people with their families were on the streets in large numbers. They calculated to come in force, march up the streets in broad daylight, and figured that the sympathy of the larger proportion of the city’s population would prevent physical attack upon their forces such as they hitherto experienced. If there was an encounter, it would serve to still more strongly focus the eyes of the nation upon the struggle going on in Everett in the name of free speech and industrial freedom. It seems to me that this was their reasoning. That men would fall from a murderous gun fire never enter into their calculation.
AN APPEAL.
The Defense committee appeals to the workers of America and the world to manifest their solidarity and class loyalty by coming to the aid of our 74 class brothers incarcerated in Everett. These men are threatened with life-long imprisonment by the lumber interests of Washington, by the scab-herding, open-shop advocates who have for long tried to destroy free speech and organization. We have a little more than a month to prepare the defense of these men and help is urgently needed. The crime of these men was their loyalty to labor. They must be freed! Workers, will you help?
Send all contributions to Herbert Mahler, Sec’y-Treas., Everett Prisoners’ Defense Committee, Box 1878, Seattle. Wash.
Protests and resolutions should be sent to President Wilson and to Governor Lister, Olympia, Wash. Send demands to your congressmen and senators for a congressional probe into the murders of Everett, Nov. 5th, 1916. Act NOW!
SOURCE & IMAGES
Everett Defense News Letter No. 9
(Seattle, Washington)
-Jan 27, 1917 (045)
“Date Set For Trial”
-by Charles Ashleigh
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/search/collection/pnwlabor
See also:
The Everett Massacre
A History of the Class Struggle in the Lumber Industry
-by Walker C. Smith
IWW, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001106557
“The Everett County Jail” to tune of “Tramp, Tramp Tramp”
Lyrics by William Whalen
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Songs_of_the_Workers_(15th_edition)
THE EVERETT COUNTY JAIL
(Tune: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching”)
By Wm. Whalen
In the prison cell we sit
Are we broken hearted—nit
We’re as happy and as cheerful as can be,
For we know that every wob
Will be busy on the job,
Till they swing the prison doors and set us free.
CHORUS
Are you busy Fellow Workers
Are your shoulders to the wheel?
Get together for the cause
And some day you’ll make the laws.
It’s the only way to make the masters squeal.
Though the living is not grand,
Mostly mush and coffee and,
It’s as good as we excepted when we came.
It’s the way they treat the slave
In this free land of the brave
There is no one but the working class to blame
When McRea, and Veitch, and Black
To the Lumberyards go back
May they travel empty handed as they came.
May they turn in their report
That the wobs still hold the fort
That a rebel is an awful thing to tame.
When the 65 per cent
That they call the working gent
Organizes in a Union of its class
We will then get what we’re worth
That will be the blooming’ earth.
Organize and help to bring the thing to pass.