Hellraisers Journal: “The Voyage of the Verona” by Walker C Smith for the International Socialist Review

Q: “Who is your leader?”
A: “We are all leaders!”
-Industrial Workers of the World

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday December 4, 1916
From Seattle, Washington – FW Smith on Everett’s Bloody Sunday

In this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review we find Fellow Worker Walker C. Smith’s description of the tragic voyage of the Verona:

The Voyage of the Verona

By WALKER C. SMITH

FIVE workers and two vigilantes dead, thirty-one workers and nineteen vigilantes wounded, from four to seven workers missing and probably drowned, two hundred ninety-four men and three women of the working class in jail—this is the tribute to the class struggle in Everett, Wash., on Sunday, November 5. Other contributions made almost daily during the past six months have indicated the character of the Everett authorities, but the protagonists of the open shop and the antagonists of free speech did not stand forth in all their hideous nakedness until the tragic trip of the steamer Verona. Not until then was Darkest Russia robbed of its claim to “Bloody Sunday.”

Early Sunday morning on November 5 the steamer Verona started for Everett from Seattle with 260 members of the Industrial Workers of the World as a part of its passenger list. On the steamer Calista, which followed, were 38 more I. W.W. men, for whom no room could be found on the crowded Verona. Songs of the One Big Union rang out over the waters of Puget Sound, giving evidence that no thought of violence was present.

It was in answer to a call for volunteers to enter Everett to establish free speech and the right to organize that the band of crusaders were making the trip. They thought their large numbers would prevent any attempt to stop the street meeting that had been advertised for that afternoon at Hewitt and Wetmore avenues in handbills previously distributed in Everett. Their mission was an open and peaceable one.

The Seattle police, knowing that I. W. W. men had been jailed, beaten and deported from Everett, singly and in crowds, during the past six months, without committing a single act of personal violence in retaliation, made no attempt to detain the men, but merely telephoned to the Everett authorities that a large number had left for that city. Two Pinkerton detectives were on board the Verona, according to the police and to members of the I. W. W. The capitalist press of Seattle and Everett claim that all the I. W. W. men were armed “to the teeth.” On behalf of the I.W. W. some have made the counter claim that the men were absolutely unarmed, as was the case in all former “invasions.” Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Helsell, King County, who is assisting the prosecutor of Snohomish County, has stated in an interview that the number of armed workers was between eighteen and twenty-five. This would mean that less than ten per cent of the men were armed even were the higher figure a correct one.

Following the receipt of the telephone message from Seattle, Sheriff Donald McRea cleared the Municipal dock—owned by the city of Everett—of all citizens and employes, and after the erection of a temporary barricade of heavy timbers, the several hundred gunmen, scabs, militiamen, ex-policemen and other open shop supporters who had been deputized to do vigilante duty, were stationed at points commanding any incoming boats. These semi-legalized outlaws were provided with high power rifles, side arms and many rounds of ammunition. It has been reported that a machine gun was in readiness for service on the dock. Scabs located on the Everett Improvement dock, lying to the south of the Municipal dock, also had a part to play. The scene was set, and the tragedy of the Verona was about to be staged.

As the Seattle boat swung up to the wharf shortly before 2 o’clock the I. W. W. men were merrily singing the English Transport Workers’ strike song, “Hold the Fort:”

When the singers, together with the other passengers, crowded to the rail so they might land the more quickly, Sheriff McRae called out to them:

“Who is your leader?”

Immediate and unmistakable was the answer from every I. W. W.:

“We are all leaders!”

Angrily drawing his gun from its holster and flourishing it in a threatening manner, McRae cried:

“You can’t land here.”

“Like hell we can’t!” came the reply from the men as they stepped toward the partly thrown off gang plank.

A volley of shots sent them staggering backward and many fell to the deck. The waving of McRae’s revolver evidently was the prearranged signal for the carnage to commence.

The few armed men on board, according to many of the eye-witnesses, then drew revolvers and returned the fire, causing consternation in the ranks of the cowardly murderers barricaded on the dock. Until the contents of their revolvers were exhausted the workers stood firm. They had no ammunition in reserve. The unarmed men sought cover but were subjected to a veritable hail of steel jacketed soft-nosed bullets from the high power rifles of the vigilantes. The sudden rush to the off shore side of the boat caused it to list to about thirty degrees. Bullets from the dock to the south and from the scab tugboats moored there apparently got in their destructive work, for a number of men were seen to fall overboard and the water was reddened with their blood. No bodies were recovered when the harbor was dragged the next day. On the tugboat Edison, the scab cook, a mulatto, fired shot after shot with careful and deadly aim at the men on the off-shore side of the boat, according to the Pacific Coast Longshoreman, the official I. L. A. paper. This man had not even a deputy badge to give a semblance of legality to his murders. That the gun men on the two docks and on the scab boats were partly the victims of their own cross fire is quite likely.

After ten minutes of steady firing, during which hundreds of rounds of ammunition were expended, the further murder of unarmed men was prevented by the action of Engineer Ernest Skelgren, who backed the boat away from the dock with no pilot at the wheel. The vigilantes kept up their gunfire as long as the boat was within reach.

On a hilltop overlooking the scene thousands of Everett citizens witnessed the whole affair. The consensus of their opinion is that the vigilante mob started the affair and are wholly responsible.

Many angry citizens made demonstrations against the vigilantes as they left the dock with automobiles containing the corpse of gunman Lieut. C. O. Curtis, who had fallen early in the fight, and twenty wounded vigilantes, among whom were Jeff Beard, Chief Deputy Sheriff and former Sheriff of Snohomish county, who later died in the hospital, and Sheriff McRae with three bullet wounds in his legs. The recovery of some of the gunmen is still in doubt.

Mrs. Edith Frenette, who was later arrested in Seattle together with Mrs. Joyce Peters and Mrs. Lorna Mahler, is held on the allegation that she tried to throw red pepper in the eyes of the sheriff and then drew a revolver to shoot him as he was being removed from the dock. Mrs. Frenette was out on $1,000 bail on an unlawful assembly charge made by the Everett authorities.

An Everett correspondent, writing to the Seattle Union Record, official A. F. of L. organ, makes the following statement of the temper of the people:

Your correspondent was on the street at the time of the battle and at the dock ten minutes afterward. He mingled with the street crowds for hours afterwards. The temper of the people is dangerous. Nothing but curses and execrations for the Commercial Club was heard. Men and women who are ordinarily law abiding, who in normal times mind their own business pretty well, pay their taxes, send their children to church and school, pay their bills, in every way comport themselves as normal citizens, were heard using the most vitriolic language concerning the Commercial Club, loudly sympathizing with the I. W. W’s. And therein lies the great harm that was done, more menacing to the city than the presence of any number of I. W. W’s, viz., the transformation of decent, honest citizens into beings mad for vengeance and praying for some thing dire to happen. I heard gray-haired women, mothers and wives, gentle, kindly, I know, in their home circles, openly hoping that the I. W. W.’s would come back and “clean up.”

Terrorism and chaos reigned in Everett following the tragedy. Over six hundred deputies patrolled the streets. A citizen who slipped into the prohibited area claims that he overheard a group of panic stricken citizen-deputies say: “We must stick together on this story about the first shot from the boat.”

Certain officials called for the state militia and, without investigating, Governor Lister ordered mobilization and soon some of the naval militiamen were on the scene. Some militiamen, knowing that the call practically amounted to strike duty refused to go to the armory.

The Verona, with its cargo of dead and wounded, steamed toward Seattle, meeting the Calista four miles out from Everett. Captain Wyman stopped the Calista and cried out through his megaphone, “For God’s sake don’t land. They’ll kill you. We have dead and wounded on board now.”

In Seattle large bodies of police—with drawn revolvers—lined the dock awaiting the return of the two steamers. At 4:40 p. m. the Verona reached the dock and the first words of the I. W. W. men were, “Get the wounded fellows out and we’ll be all right.” The four dead members, their still bodies covered with blankets, were first removed from the boat and taken to the morgue. Police and hospital ambulances were soon filled with the thirty-two wounded men, who were taken to the city hospital. The uninjured men were then lined up and slowly marched to the city jail. The thirty-eight men taken from the Calista were placed in the county jail.

A competent physician is authority for the statement that Felix Baran, the I. W. W. man who died in the city hospital, would have had more than an even chance of recovery had he been given proper surgical attention upon his arrival in the hospital.

Up to this writing no inquest has been held over the five dead fellow workers.

The Seattle I. W. W. has been denied the bodies and unless relatives come forward to claim them the men will be buried as paupers. A request that the I. W. W. be allowed to hold a public funeral for the four men met with a denial. It was claimed that the display of these men to the general public would tend to incite a riot and disorder. The even hand of capitalist justice is shown by the fact that at the same time this ruling was made the funeral of gunman C. O. Curtis took place in Seattle with Prosecuting Attorney Alfred H. Lundin as one of the pallbearers. This funeral was held with military honors, Lieut. Curtis having been in the officers’ reserve corps of the National Guard of Washington, and formerly of the Adjutant General’s staff.

A hastily gathered coroner’s jury in Everett viewed the bodies of gunmen C. O. Curtis and Jeff F. Beard, and retiring long enough to put their instructions in writing, had laid these deaths at the door of the I. W. W.—”a riotous mob on the steamer Verona.” The Seattle Central Labor Council on November 8 characterized the inquest as a farce and appropriated $100 for a complete investigation. They also demanded that a fair and exhaustive inquest be held, with full examination of all available witnesses.

The men in jail were held incommunicado for several days and were not allowed even the prison bill of fare—being given only bread and coffee. Mayor H. C. Gill, being aware of the fact that the public generally were sympathizing with the men, directed that they be placed upon the regular prison diet, and that they be allowed to see relatives and friends. He also saw personally to the comfort of the prisoners by providing them with 300 warm blankets and an assortment of tobacco. In an interview which appeared in a Seattle paper the mayor made the following statement:

In final analysis it will be found that these cowards in Everett who, without right or justification, shot into the crowd on the boat, were murderers and not the I. W. W.’s.

“The men who met the I. W. W.’s at the boat were a bunch of cowards. They outnumbered the I. W. W.’s five to one. and in spite of this they stood there on the dock and fired into the boat, I. W. W.’s, innocent passengers and all.

McRae and his deputies had no legal right to tell the I. W. W.’s or any one else that they could not land there. When the sheriff put his hand on the butt of his gun and told them they could not land, he fired the first shot, in the eyes of the law, and the I. W. W.’s can claim that they shot in self-defense.

Speaking of the men in jail, Gill said:

These men haven’t been charged with anything. Personally I have no sympathy with the I. W. W.’s. The way I have handled them here in the past ought to be proof enough of that, but I don’t believe I should have these men tortured just because I have them in jail.

If I were one of the party of forty I. W. W.’s who was almost beaten to death by 300 citizens of Everett without being able to defend myself, I probably would have armed myself if I intended to visit Everett again.

The mayor charged that Everett officials were inconsistent in their handling of this situation. He said that they permit candidates for office to violate the city ordinances by speaking on the streets and yet run the I. W. W.’s out of town if they endeavor to mount a soap box.

[Said Mayor Gill:]

Why hasn’t a Benson [Socialist] supporter just as much right to speak in the streets as a McBride or a Hughes supporter?

Passenger Oscar Carlson was at the very front of the Verona when the firing commenced. He now lies in the city hospital with a number of serious bullet wounds. His affidavit has been taken. In an interview he speaks of the I. W. W. attitude on the voyage to Everett as follows:

I never expected to have any shooting. All I heard was “They may not let us land.” I didn’t hear any threat of violence—it seemed funny. I was not acquainted and knew but two by sight only.

Although in a weakened condition, Carlson stated that he saw no guns and continued the interview long enough to say,

I tell you as it comes to me now, it seems one shot came from the dock first, then three or four from the other side, then all sides at once.

Ernest Nordstrom, another passenger, practically substantiates all of Carlson’s statement.

As was to be expected, the entire capitalist press united in their opposition to the I. W. W.’s in this fight. Their tactics have embraced everything from outright lies to the petty trick of placing the words “Jew,” “Irish,” etc., after the names of I. W. W. men in their newspaper references in order to create the idea that the whole affair is the work of “ignorant foreigners.” To combat these capitalist forces there are in the immediate vicinity three official organs of the A. F. of L. [and?], the Industrial Worker [I. W. W.], the Northwest Worker [S. P. A.] of Everett and the Socialist World [S. P. A.] of Seattle. These are weekly papers, but the publicity they have already given the case is swinging public opinion to the side of the workers.

To arrive at an understanding of the tragedy of the Verona some knowledge of the events that preceded it is necessary.

Everett has been in a more or less lawless condition ever since the open shop lumber men imported thugs and scabs to break the shingle weavers’ strike of six months ago. Union men were beaten and one picket was shot in the leg. Demands for organization brought the I. W. W. on the scene. Headquarters were opened and street meetings started to inform the Everett workers of conditions in the mills and in the northwest lumber industry generally. Obeying orders from the Commercial Club the I. W. W. hall was closed by the police. Speakers were arrested and deported. Members of the I. W. W. from Seattle, some of them striking longshoremen, aided the shingle weavers in the maintaining of their picket line. Deportation entirely without legal process continued for some time. On September 9 Sheriff McRae and a bunch of vigilantes fired a volley of shots at the launch Wonder and arrested the captain, together with twenty I. W. W. men who were on board. Meanwhile the police were raiding the I. W. W. hall and all of those arrested were taken to jail, where they were severely beaten. Jury trials were denied and finally the prisoners were turned over to the vigilante mob, who clubbed them and illegally deported them. These tactics continued for some time, and increased in their intensity to such an extent that the citizens of Everett, some ten or fifteen thousand in number, gathered in a protest meeting on September 20. There were speakers representing all factions of the labor revolutionary movement, as well as citizens who had come to tell of the beatings they had received at the hands of the vigilantes.

Then, on October 30, occurred an outrage greater than all the preceding ones—an outrage exceeded only by the wanton murder of the I. W. W. men on the steamer Verona. Forty-one I. W. W. men, entirely unarmed and accused of no crime, were taken from a boat on which they were passengers, and at the point of guns, were searched and abused by a mob of deputized drunks. They were then thrown into automobiles and with armed guards, who outnumbered them five to one, were taken to a lonely country spot, where they were forced to run the gauntlet of the vigilantes who rained blows upon their unprotected heads and bodies with saps, clubs, pickhandles and other weapons. In this mob of 200 fiends were lawyers, doctors, business men, members of the chamber of commerce, “patriotic” militiamen, ignorant university students, deputies and Sheriff McRae. As a result of a peaceable attempt to assert a constitutional right forty-one members of the I. W. W. were sent to Seattle hospitals, with injuries ranging from dangerously severe bruises to broken shoulders.

The answer of the I. W. W. to this damnable act of violence and to the four months of terrorism that had preceded it was a call issued through the Industrial Worker for two thousand men to enter Everett, there to gain by sheer force of numbers that right of free speech and peaceable assemblage supposed to have been guaranteed them by the constitution of the United States. Then came the tragedy on the steamer Verona.

The prosecution made its first legal move on Friday, November 10, when forty-one men were singled out, heavily handcuffed and secretly transported to Everett. They are charged with first degree murder. The other men are held on the technical charge of unlawful assembly, pending the filing of more serious charges.

The defense of the men will be under taken by Lawyer Fred H. Moore, assisted by Judge Hilton, Arthur Leseuer, Col. C. E. S. Wood and local Seattle attorneys, according to present advices.

The prosecution is backed by the Chamber of Commerce, the Commercial Club, the Employers’ Association, the Lumber Trust and other upholders of the open shop. These men will stick at nothing to convict the prisoners so as to cover the murders committed by their hirelings.

An immediate and generous response is the only means of preventing a frame-up and wholesale conviction of these men. They have fought their class war. Are you game to back them up financially? Let your response go at once to the

DEFENSE COMMITTEE,
Box 85, Nippon Station, Seattle, Wash.

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