Tag: Seattle Union Record

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

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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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
—–

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!)

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

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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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.”

Everett Massacre, Verona Returns to Seattle, ISR Dec 1916

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.

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Hellraisers Journal: Seattle Union Record Reports on Funeral for Everett Martyrs and Mass Meeting at Dreamland

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Don’t Mourn, Organize!
-Joe Hill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday November 28, 1916
Seattle, Washington – Labor Mourns Martyrs and Gathers in Protest

The Seattle Union Record, voice of the Central Labor Council, in its November 25th edition, carried an account of the grand funeral which was held on November 18th to honor Hugo Gerlot, John Looney and Felix Baran, three of the Everett Free Speech Martyrs, who were murdered at Everett Harbor on November 5, 1916. The same edition reported on the mass public meeting, held at Dreamland on November 19th, attended by thousands, and held to protest the murderous suppression of Free Speech on the day now known as Everett’s Bloody Sunday.

Free Speech Heroes Get Grand I. W. W. Send-Off:

EVERETT-KILLED WORKERS BURIED
—–

Simple but Impressive Ceremonies at Graves
of Victims of Battle of November 5
—–

Everett Massacre, Funeral Gerlot, Looney, Baran, Nov 18, 1916, WCS

Thousands of Seattle citizens viewed the impressive funeral cortege of three of the Everett free speech martyrs on Saturday afternoon.

Leading the funeral procession was an automobile loaded with floral tributes the most elaborate of which was a massive set piece of white carnations with the motto, “Workers of the World Unite,” in red. Another portrayed the spirit of the great crowd in one pregnant word “Solidarity.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Mass Meeting Held at Seattle’s Dreamland Park; Remarkable Solidarity Between Rival Unionists

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Hold the fort for we are coming.
Union men, be strong!
Side by side we battle onward;
Victory will come.

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday November 22, 1916
Seattle, Washington – Solidarity! A. F. of L. Stands by I. W. W.

This past Sunday there was a demonstration of remarkable solidarity when the Central Labor Council of Seattle (A. F. of L.) joined together with the Industrial Workers of the World to demand justice for those killed in the murderous assault upon the Verona as it attempted to land in Everett on November 5th. The ship, on that day, was carrying members of the I. W. W. whose only crime was that they were about to attend a Free Speech Meeting planned for that afternoon. The Wobblies soon learned that the sentence for practicing Free Speech in the city of Everett, Washington, is Death.

The Seattle Star of November 20th reported that this was “the largest mass meeting ever held in Dreamland pavilion:”

Everett Massacre Dreamland Mtg 11/19, Stt Str, Nov 20, 1916, p1a
Everett Massacre Dreamland Mtg 11/19, Stt Str, Nov 20, 1916, p1b

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Seattle Union Record: IWW Not to Blame for Everett’s Bloody Sunday

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Song on his lips, he came;
Song on his lips, he went;—
This be the token we bear of him,—
Soldier of Discontent!
-Charles Ashleigh

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday November 14, 1916
Everett’s Bloody Sunday: Making Facts Known in Interest of Justice

From the Seattle Union Record of November 11, 1916:

I. W. W. NOT TO BLAME FOR FIGHT
—–

Prominent Attorney Investigating Case Believes
“Citizens Committee” Is Entirely at Fault
in Everett Affair
—–

By THOMAS R. HORNER

IWW Label, 2nd Conv, Sept 17-Oct 3, 1906

So many untruthful statements have been published concerning the I. W. W. trouble last Sunday [November 5th], at Everett, that in the interest of justice the facts should be made known, and when the facts are known the public will see that the blame of the trouble rests wholly on the “Citizen’s Committee,” organized by the mill owners to put down by force and bloodshed the Shingle Weavers and Longshoremen’s strike at that place.

The I. W. W. did not go armed to Everett. They were admonished by their leaders to go unarmed. There may have been a very few who had weapons, but the vast number were without them. This statement is proved by a circumstance that cannot successfully be denied:

When the shooting occurred the boat had just been tied to the dock alongside, and about twenty feet from the broad side of the warehouse. There is unanswerable proof there were at least three parties of deputies entrenched so as to be comparatively safe themselves, yet so they could rake the boat from three angles.

Only Few Bullets From Boat

It is plain that practically all the shots that were fired from the direction of the boat must have struck the warehouse; yet the warehouse shows that only a very few bullets came from that direction. But the riddled condition of the boat shows that the vigilantes fired hundreds of times. Moreover, the splintered sides of the warehouse show that a number of shots were fired blindly from the inside of the north warehouse, where some of the vigilantes were ambushed, thus giving good grounds for the belief that when the trouble started they became panic-stricken and began madly to fire through the board sides, and possibly wounding their own men. At the same time they were firing blindly into a regular passenger steamboat without even distinguishing between “the dreaded” I. W. W.’s and the other passengers and members of the crew who were on board the Verona.

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Hellraisers Journal: Seattle Union Record Reports on Everett Massacre, Bloody Sunday is “Second Ludlow”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Monday November 13, 1916
Seattle Central Labor Council to Support I. W. W. Defense

From the Seattle Union Record of November 11, 1916:

SEVEN DEAD AND MANY WOUNDED
IN SECOND LUDLOW ENACTED AT EVERETT

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Central Labor Council to Co-operate in Mass Meeting
—–

seattle-union-record-reports-on-ludlow-may-2-1914

At the meeting of the Central Labor Council of Seattle and Vicinity Wednesday evening the Everett situation was thoroughly discussed and a committee, consisting of Business Agent Charles W. Doyle, Secretary James A. Duncan and Editor E. B. Ault, appointed to co-operate with the committee defending the imprisoned members of the I. W. W. The committee was given power to act in the name of the council, and $100 was set aside for their use. In addition an appeal has been sent to each local to contribute to the defense fund, sending all money to the secretary of the Central Labor Council. The following resolutions were adopted:

Whereas, It appears to this council that, following a lockout and open-shop campaign by Roland H. Hartley and others of Everett, Wash., the police and businessmen of that city have attempted to ruthlessly and lawlessly suppress all street speaking and demonstrations by labor organizations, and that many unarmed men have been brutally beaten and terrorized, and the death of seven or more men and the wounding of many more, and

Whereas, A fair inquest should be held to fix the responsibility for this crime, and it appears that this has not been done, but that only witnesses favorable to the posse have been heard;

Therefore, we demand another inquest, free from control by the forces opposed to labor, and a change of venue, if that be necessary.

At a joint meeting of the committees representing the Central Labor Council and the I. W. W. on Thursday steps were taken to enforce the demand for a coroner’s investigation and plans laid for a mass meeting of Seattle citizens to be held Sunday, November 19, at 2:30 p. m. Place to be announced later.

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