Hellraisers Journal: Everett Class War Prisoners Released After Tracy Acquittal, Honor Murdered Fellow Workers

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Pray for the dead and
fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday May 13, 1917
Seattle, Washington – Mount Pleasant Cemetery

Following the acquittal of Tom Tracy, the Everett Free Speech Fight Prisoners have been released. They immediately visited the Mount Pleasant Cemetery were three of five Everett Martyrs lie buried:

Everett Free Speech, Class War Prisoners at Cemetery, May 12, 1917, WCS

Their next action was to turn themselves in at the I. W. W. Union Hall, to be assigned as needed. They have spent the time in jail studying in preparation to become capable union organizers.

———-

Everett Massacre Martyrs of Nov 5, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal: May Day in Seattle: IWW Martyrs Honored, Joe Hill’s Ashes Scattered, Prisoners Serenaded

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Don’t waste any time in mourning-organize.
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday May 2, 1917
Seattle, Washington – I. W. W. Honors Martyrs on May Day

May Day 1917 Seattle, At Graveside of Martyrs, Everett Massacre, WCS

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Members and supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World celebrated International Workers’ Day by honoring their martyred dead with a grand march to the graves of three of the five Free Speech Fighters who were murdered at Everett last November. Joe Hill’s ashes were scattered to the winds, after-which the marchers made their way to the King County jail to sing for the I. W. W. boys imprisoned there.

May Day 1917 Seattle, Singing to Prisoners, Everett Massacre, WCS 277

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Hellraisers Journal: “Everett Brutality Revealed in Tracy Case!” by Charles Ashleigh for Defense News Letter

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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday March 27, 1917
Seattle, Washington – The Trial of Tom Tracy Continues

Everett Massacre, EDNL 17, Mar 23, 1917

Everett Massacre, Poster, Remember by M. Pass, IW Nov 25, 1916

SEATTLE, WASH., March 23rd,-Slowly the history of the foul attacks on Free Speech and the right of Labor to organize is emerging in the course of the trial of Thomas Tracy, the first of 74 workingmen charged with the killing of Deputy Jeff Beard on the waterfront of Everett, Wash, on Bloody Sunday, Nov. 5th. These 74 men are tried for the killing of one deputy. Nobody, however, is being tried for the death of five workingmen on that red day. The trial of Tracy is, in reality, the trial of Labor.

EVERETT MAYOR TAKES STAND.

One of the star witnesses for the Prosecution was Mayor Merrill of Everett. He didn’t turn out quite such a star as they thought he would. Under the rigid cross-examination of Attorneys Moore and Vanderveer for the Defense Merrill showed that he was either a rotten Mayor and a good witness or a good Mayor and a very prevaricating witness. A dramatic moment in court was when he was confronted with Louis Scaroff [also Skaroff], a boy who has sworn that the Mayor beat him up brutally in a bedroom in the City Jail and that his fingers were placed, one by one, under the leg of a bed upon which the Mayor and two other men then sat. Even the capitalistic press of Seattle remarked that the Mayor’s face whitened and his voice thickened when faced with the victim of his beastlike brutality.

THE SORDID STORY OF BEVERLY PARK.

On October 30th, 41 men, coming from Seattle to Everett to hold a meeting were met at the Everett Dock, loaded into automobiles and taken to Beverly Park, a lonely spot on the outskirts of Everett. There they were severely beaten up and made to run the gauntlet. The story of Beverly Park is gradually emerging under the insistent pressure of the Defense’s cross-examination. One Hawes, who keeps a scab stationery and printing establishment in Everett, admitted that he was one of the guards on that occasion. He also was forced to admit that the deputies were strung out on either side of the road and that the workingmen were made to proceed on foot towards Seattle, which means they had to pass down between the two lines. This is virtually admitting the gauntlet. He stated that some of the men “got a swat or two” which is the most definite admission of violence so far. Hawes stated that he ran after one man who tried to get away off the road into the woods. When asked why he did that he said the man was a “big baby.” Hawes, himself, stands about six feet two inches and says he weighs 250 pounds. At this moment, Fred Moore brought in two lads who were among the Beverly victims.

“Stand up!” commanded Attorney Vanderveer, and the hulking fellow stood up. Then the two boys were placed next to him, reaching about to his armpits.

“Are these the big babies you talked about?” thundered Vanderveer.

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Hellraisers Journal: Trial of I. W. W. Class-War Prisoner Thomas H. Tracy Begins in Seattle, Washington

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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday March 6, 1917
Seattle, Washington – Tracy Proudly Displays His I. W. W. Button

IWW Button, libcom Sioux City FSF 1915

As the trial of our Class-War Hero, Tom Tracy, gets underway in Seattle, a reporter for The Seattle Star describes the Fellow Worker:

Tracy, the defendant,…is a young-looking, heavy-set man, in a blue flannel shirt and red tie, with his I. W. W. button in evidence on his coat lapel.

He told reporters before the trial began that he is 36 years old, was born in Nebraska, and has done road construction work principally, in several Western states. He watched the slow progress of drawing and examining jurors with evident interest, but with an air of detachment.

From The Seattle Star of March 5, 1917:

I.W.W. TRIAL OPENS WITH
FIGHT ON JURY
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BY MABEL ABBOTT

Everett Class War Prisoners 1916-17, Thomas H Tracy

The first of 74 I. W. W. murder trials resulting from the riots in Everett, November 5, 1916, got under way before Judge Ronald Monday.

After an hour and a half of examination as to whether he is an I. W. W., whether he is a member of the Employers’ association, what newspapers he reads, and whether he forms his opinions upon what they contain, J. H. Hicks, 5225 15th ave, N. E., proprietor of Hicks’ cafeteria, was challenged for cause Monday morning by Attorney George Vanderveer, representing Thomas H. Tracy, I. W. W.. on trial for participation in the shooting of Deputy Sheriff Jefferson Beard, at Everett, November 5, and excused by Judge Ronald from sitting in the case.

If examination of jurors proceeds at the same rate, with even a reasonable number of challenges, the selection of the jury will take two or three days, at least.

Tracy is the first of the 74 I. W. W. charged with first degree murder, to be tried. All have asked for separate trials.

Important Fight

The setting of the big fight indicates that it will rank in importance with the McNamara dynamiting trial in Los Angeles and the Ettor and Giovanitti trials in Lawrence, Mass.

Among the array of lawyers in the court room when the trial opened, were A. L. Veitch, of Los Angeles, who is credited with the convictions of the McNamaras, who assists the prosecution in the present case, and Fred H. Moore, also of Los Angeles, who defended Ettor.

The state is also represented by Prosecutor Black, of Snohomish county, and H. D. Cooley, of Everett. For the defense, besides Moore, are George H. Vanderveer. O. N Hilton, of Denver, and C. E. S. Wood, of Portland.

Tracy Wears I. W. W Button

Tracy, the defendant, who sits behind this legal battery, is a young-looking, heavy-set man, in a blue flannel shirt and red tie, with his I. W. W. button in evidence on his coat lapel.

He told reporters before the trial began that he is 36 years old, was born in Nebraska, and has done road construction work principally, in several Western states. He watched the slow progress of drawing and examining jurors with evident interest, but with an air of detachment.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Remember the Fifth of November,” by Walker C. Smith, for the International Socialist Review

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Today we pay tribute to the dead.
Tomorrow we turn, with spirit unquellable,
to give battle to the foe!
-Charles Ashleigh

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday January 16, 1917
From Seattle, Washington: The Everett Martyrs Remembered

In this month’s edition of the International Socialist Review, Walker C. Smith gives a moving account of the great mass funeral given by the Industrial Workers of the World to honor our fallen fellow workers, Hugo Gerlot, Felix Baran, and John Looney. Gus Johnson and Abraham Rabinowitz are also honored as martyrs. They were buried separately by their families.

Everett Martyrs, Death Masks, ISR, Jan 1917

Remember the Fifth of November

By WALKER C. SMITH

“Do you remember the fifth of November,
With its gunpowder, treason and plot?
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!”

THIS ancient English verse in commemoration of the exploits of Guy Fawkes applies so undeniably well to the operations of the murderous master-class mob on Bloody Sunday at Everett, Wash., that it should be accorded a place among the songs of the social revolution.

Why should we forget that five members of our class were shot down in cold blood by the scab-loving lackeys of the lumber trust on November 5, 1916? Why should we forget that many of our brothers were punctured by the poisonous copper bullets and soft lead slugs from the guns of the open-shop camoristas [camorristas] acting for the commercial clubs on the Pacific coast? Why should we forget that seventy-four stalwarts of labor, absurdly charged with first degree murder, are at the mercy of the half-crazed sheriff of Snohomish county and thirty-four more are imprisoned in the King county bastile on the charge of unlawful assembly? I see no reason why any of these things “should ever be forgot” by the working class.

Felix Baran, Hugo Gerlot, Gus Johnson, John Looney, Abe Rabinowitz-French, German, Swedish, Irish, Jewish—these are the true internationalists who died in the fight for free speech in this “land of liberty.” In the words of Courtenay Lemon, “That the defense of traditional rights to which this government is supposed to be dedicated should devolve upon an organization so often denounced as ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘un-American’ is but the usual, the unfailing irony of history.” The names of those who are martyrs to the cause of free speech will be a source of inspiration to the workers when their cowardly murderers have long been forgotten.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Everett Martyrs “were of the earth’s disinherited, the down-trodden, reviled and shunned.”

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Don’t Mourn, Organize!
-Joe Hill

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 13, 1916
From the Seattle Union Record: Red Flowers for Martyred Workers

In this week’s edition of the Union Record, Wilbur Maitre Fairbanks offers his view of the funerals held on Saturday, November 18th, for Fellow Workers Felix Baran, Hugo Gerlot and John Looney, who were murdered by Sheriff McRae and his gang of deputized company gunthugs on November 5th, a day which will go down in history as Everett’s Bloody Sunday.

IMPRESSIONS MADE BY FUNERAL
OF MURDERED WORKERS
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Everett Massacre, Funeral Gerlot, Looney, Baran, Nov 18, 1916, WCS

Over that crowd at Ninth and Union as it formed itself into line of march behind the dead hung Hugo’s “seven jaws of misery-night, solitude, nakedness, weakness, ignorance, hunger and thirst.” The night of despair, the solitude of social contempt, weakness against brutal persecution, ignorance of the reason for today’s despair and of what the abuse and degradation of tomorrow might be, hunger and thirst for just a place on God’s footstool whereon to live, to hope, to labor and to love.

Those men, every one, were of the earth’s disinherited, the down-trodden, reviled and shunned. Sorrow beat the requiem of that death march. A sepulchre and a tomb-one for those yet living, the other for the dead. Yet, tragically portentious as was that spectacle, there were those upon the curb who smiled, jested and even sneered. (Praises, be, these were few in number!)

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Everett Martyrs “were of the earth’s disinherited, the down-trodden, reviled and shunned.””