You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Friday November 3, 1916
From Washington to the Mesabi – Fellow Workers Organize and Fight
From The Vancouver World (B. C.) of October 31, 1916:
EVERETT EXPELS I. W. W.’s.
EVERETT, Wn. [Washington]. Oct 31-When word was received last night that 45 men, said to be members of the Industrial Workers of the World, were coming by boat from Seattle last night, 200 citizens gathered under the leadership of deputy sheriffs and stood guard at the wharf. When the steamer docked and the men cam ashore the waiting citizens loaded them into automobiles and drove them through town to a point beyond the south city limits, where they were liberated and warned to return to Seattle.
———-
[Photograph added.]
From The Duluth News Tribune of October 31, 1916:
I. W. W’S MEET IN ANNUAL SESSION
Plans for Strengthening Agricultural
Branch Is Discussed
Minneapolis, Minn. Oct 31. Plans for bringing about a closer co-operation and for strengthening the agricultural branch of the Industrial Workers of the World were discussed at length at the annual meeting of the agricultural workers [Agricultural Workers Organization], which opened here today, with nearly 400 delegates present from various parts of the United States. The meeting will continue four days.
William D. Haywood, general secretary of the Industrial Workers of World, in an address, advocated a strike of all farm hands in the midst of the harvest season as one means of obtaining adequate wages from farmers and compelling “fair treatment on the part of the authorities.”
[He declared:]
Our men are herded into jails for no other reason than their refusal to work long hours at ridiculously small wages.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn also urged an agricultural strike in case other measures to bring about higher wages during the harvest season failed.
Both Mr. Haywood and Miss Flynn declared that the fight in behalf of the miners on the Minnesota iron range was still in its infancy.
[Miss Flynn asserted:]
When the time is ripe, we will resume our fight on the range with renewed vigor and will continue to prosecute it until we have brought about better conditions, and the laborer has been assured justice.
Haywood declared the strike would be renewed next spring.
During the remainder of the convention, the chief object of which is to review the agricultural work of last summer and lay plans for next summer, the proceedings will be closed to all except members.
[Said E. W. Letchum of Minneapolis:]
To open our meeting to the press would mean informing the enemy in print of our campaign plans.
[Photograph added.]
From The Scranton Republican of November 1, 1916:
I. W. W. LEADER HERE.
Joe Shmidt [Schmidt] national organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, scheduled to be tried December 5 on a charge of murder of Deputy Sheriff James Myron [deputized company gunthug] during the Masba Iron Range [Mesabi] strike at Duluth. Minn., has returned to his home at 1318 Eynon street, this city, having been released on bail.
Shmidt claims that he was not near the scene of the murder at the time. Carlo Tresca and Sam Scarlett, organizers, and four other men and one woman have been indicted for the murder of Myron.
———-
[Photograph added.]
Note: Fellow Worker Joe Schmidt was released from jail in Duluth so that he could be with his wife who is gravely ill after giving birth to a baby which, sadly, died shortly after being born.
SOURCES
The Vancouver World
(Vancouver, British Columbia)
-Oct 31, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/63310703/
Note: The above small article in the Vancouver newspaper was the only article that I could find which even bothered to mention the actions of the Sheriff McRae and his posse of vigilantes in Everett on Monday, October 30th of 1916. The article certainly downplayed what was done to Wobbly Free Speech Fighters in the name of “law and order.” For more information, see below.
The Duluth News Tribune
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-Oct 31, 1916, page 9
http://www.genealogybank.com/
The Scranton Republican
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Nov 1, 1916
https://www.newspapers.com/image/48864824/
Hellraisers Journal: Mesabi Range IWW Prisoners: Orlandich Speaks Thru Interpreter; Schmidt to Visit Dying Wife
https://weneverforget.org/mesabi-range-iww-prisoners-orlandich-speaks-thru-interpreter-schmidt-to-visit-dying-wife/
The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1917
-by Philip S Foner
International Publishers, 1965
Chapters: 21-AWO, 22-Mesabi, 23-Everett
https://books.google.com/books?id=UiScKGtes8EC
IMAGES
IWW Label, 2nd Conv, Sept 17-Oct 3, 1906
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=vQlQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA3
IWW AWO, Day Book, Sept 24, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/image/77858368/
Tresca Scarlett Schmidt, ISR, Nov 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA298
See also:
“Everett Massacre (1916)” by Margaret Riddle
& source for image of Everett’s Beverly Park RR cattleguard.
http://www.historylink.org/File/9981
Incident at Beverly Park
On the evening of October 30, 1916, a small boatload of Wobblies arrived at the Everett City Dock with the intention of speaking on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore avenues. They were met by more than 200 armed deputies authorized by Sheriff McRae and were told they could only speak at a location away from the center of town. The IWW members refused, and some were beaten at the dock.
Deputies then loaded the Wobblies into waiting trucks and cars and drove them to a remote wooded area near the Beverly Park interurban station southeast of town. In darkness and a cold rain, McRae’s men formed two lines from the roadway to the interurban tracks and forced the Wobblies to run a gauntlet that ended at a cattle guard. One by one the men were beaten with clubs, guns, and rubber hoses loaded with shot. A family living nearby was startled by the shouts, curses, cries, and moans they heard and came to witness the brutal scene. The injured were left to get back to Seattle any way they could.
The Everett Massacre
by Walker C. Smith
IWW, 1917
by Project Gutenberg EBook, 2010
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31810/31810-h/31810-h.htm
For a long description of the Beverly Park Vigilante Terror, see page 70
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31810/31810-h/31810-h.htm#Page_70