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)
Cross-examination of this informer brought out the fact that he was a
Pinkerton agent at the time he was holding the office of delegate to the
Central Labor Council of the American Federation of Labor. Reese stated
that he was employed on the waterfront during the longshoremen's strike
with instructions to "look for everybody who was pulling the rough
stuff, such as threatening to burn or attempting to burn warehouses, and
shooting up non-union workers, and beating them up and so forth." He had
been in the employ of the Pinkerton Agency for six weeks this last time
before he was ordered to go down and join the I. W. W. He stated in
answer to a question by Vanderveer:
"I was instructed to go down there and find out who these fellows were
that was handling this phosphorus and pulling off this sabotage and the
only way I could find out was to get a card and get in and get
acquainted with them."
Attorney Moore in the absence of the jury offered to prove that Reese
had practically manufactured this job for himself by promoting the very
things he was supposed to discover. Moore stated some of the things he
would prove if permitted by the court:
"That on or about August 1st Reese went to one J. M. Wilson, an official
of the longshoremen's union, and endeavored to get $10.00 with which to
buy dynamite to blow up a certain city dock; that on September 20th the
witness gave Percy May, a member of the longshoremen's union, a bottle
of phosphorus with instructions to start a fire at Pier 5; that in the
month of July the witness opposed a settlement of the longshoremen's
strike and when members of the union argued that they could remain out
no longer as they had no money, Reese clapped his pockets and said, 'you
fellows wouldn't be starving if you had the nerve that I have got. Why
don't you go out and get it, take it off the scabs the way I do;' that
in September Feinberg had to make Reese leave the speaker's stand in
Everett because he was talking on matters harmful to industrial union
propaganda; that on November 4th the witness went to the place where
Feinberg was employed and left a suit of clothes to be pressed, saying
to Feinberg, after he had ascertained that Feinberg was thinking of
going to Everett on the following day, "mark the bill 'paid' so I will
have a receipt if you don't come back;" that on August 16th, the day
before the big dock fire in Seattle, Reese went to the down-town office
of the same dye works in which Walker C. Smith was manager and in charge
of the purchase of chemicals and tried to get Smith to purchase for him
some carbon disulphide to be used in connection with phosphorus; that in
the month of November in the Labor Temple, in the presence of Sam
Sadler, Reese had said to Albert Brilliant that if the longshoremen had
any guts they would go out with guns and clean up the scabs on the
waterfront; and that Reese tried to get other men to co-operate with him
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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