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)
Tracy told of having been secretary of the I. W. W. in Everett for a
short time, that being the only official position he had ever held in
the organization. He explained his position on the boat at the time it
docked, stating that the first shot apparently came from the dock and
struck close to where he was sitting. Immediately the boat listed and
threw him away from the window, after which he sought a place of safety
behind the smokestack. He denied having been in any way a party to a
conspiracy to commit an act of violence, or to kill anyone.
"You are charged here, Mr. Tracy," said Vanderveer, "with having aided
and abetted an unknown man in killing Jefferson Beard. Are you guilty or
not guilty?"
"I am not guilty," replied Tracy without a trace of emotion.
The cross-questioning of the defendant in this momentous case was
conducted by citizen-deputy Cooley. His questions to the man whom he and
his fellow conspirators on the dock had not succeeded in murdering were
of the most trivial nature, clearly proving that arch-sleuth McLaren had
been unable to discover or to manufacture anything that would make
Tracy's record other than that of a plain, unassuming, migratory worker.
"Where did you vote last?" asked Cooley.
"I never voted," responded Tracy.
"Never voted in your life?" queried Cooley.
"No!" replied the defendant who for the time represented the entire
migratory class. "I was never in one place long enough!"
Then, acting on the class theory that it is an honor to be a
"globe-trotter" but a disgrace to be a "blanket-stiff," the prosecutor
brought out Tracy's travels in minute detail. This examination of the
railroad construction worker brought home to the listeners the truth of
the little verse:
"He built the road;
With others of his class he built the road;
Now o'er its weary length he packs his load,
Chasing a Job, spurred on by Hunger's goad,
He walks and walks and walks and walks,
And wonders why in Hell he built the road!"
Then there hobbled into the court room on crutches a stripling with an
empty trouser leg, his face drawn with suffering, and who was able to
get into the witness chair only by obviously painful efforts with the
assistance of Vanderveer and Judge Ronald. This was Harry Golden, whose
entire left leg had been amputated after having been shattered by a
high-power rifle bullet fired by a "law and order" deputy.
Golden stated that he had been born in Poland twenty-two years before,
and had come to the United States at the age of sixteen. He was asked:
"Why did you come to this country?"
"I came to the United States," said the witness, "because it is supposed
to be a free country."
"We object to that as immaterial!" cried prosecutor Veitch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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