The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industrySmith, Walker C.
History
The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry
Smith, Walker C.
Industrial Workers of the World; Lumbering -- Washington (State); Lumbermen -- Washington (State)
James Francis Billings, one of the free speech prisoners, testified that
he was armed with a Colts 41 revolver on the Verona, and shortly after
the shooting started he went to the engineer of the boat and ordered him
to get the Verona away from the dock. He threw the gun overboard on the
return trip to Seattle. Black tried to make light of the serious
injuries this witness had received at Beverly Park by asking him if all
that he received was not a little brush on the shin. The witness
answered:
"No sir. I had a black eye. I was beaten over both eyes as far as that
is concerned. My arms were held out by one big man on either side and I
was beaten on both sides. As Sheriff McRae went past me he said 'Give it
to him good,' and when I saw what was coming I dropped in order to save
my face, and the man on the left hand side kicked me from the middle of
my back clear down to my heels, and he kept kicking me until the fellow
on the right told him to kick me no more as I was all in. My back and my
hip have bothered me ever since."
Black tried to interrupt the witness and also endeavored to have his
answer stricken from the testimony but the judge answered his objection
by saying:
"I told you to withdraw the question and you didn't do it."
Vanderveer asked Billings the question:
"Why did you carry a gun on the fifth of November?"
"I took it for my own personal benefit," replied Billings. "I didn't
intend to let anybody beat me up like I was beaten on October 30th in
the condition I was in. I was in bad condition at the time."
Harvey E. Wood, an employe of the Jamison Mill Company, took the stand
and told of a visit made by Jefferson Beard to the bunkhouse of the mill
company on the night of November 4th and stated that at the time there
were six automatic shot guns and three pump guns in the place. These
were for the use of James B. Reed, Neal Jamison, Joe Hosh, Roy Hosh,
Walter S. Downs, and a man named McCortell. This witness had acted as a
strikebreaker up until the time he was subpoenaed.
Two of the defendants, Benjamin F. Legg and Jack Leonard, fully verified
the story told by Billings.
Leland Butcher, an I. W. W. member who was on the Verona, told of how he
had been shot in the leg. When asked why he had joined the I. W. W. he
answered:
"I joined the I. W. W. to better my own condition and to make the
conditions my father was laboring under for the last 25 years, with
barely enough to keep himself and family, a thing of the past."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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