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)
"Now, the Wanderer. The Wanderer did not happen the way they said it
happened. The sheriff did shoot after they refused to stop. The sheriff
did hit some of them with the butt of his gun. The sheriff brought them
into Everett because they constituted an unlawful assemblage. The
sheriff did the only thing he could do. He filed charges against them
and they were arraigned in court. Twenty-three men cannot be tried
quickly when each one demands a separate trial by jury. Twenty-three
trials would stop the judicial machinery for three months. They could
not be tried and so the sheriff turned them loose. Maybe he did hit them
harder than he should have. Policemen do that! Sheriff do that! Lots of
time they hit men when it is not necessary. Hit them too hard,
sometimes. They don't always understand exactly what they are supposed
to do. But the I. W. W. exaggerated the matter and used it to incite
retaliation on the fifth. So the Beverly Park incident, and all other
incidents, if true to the last syllable of the defense testimony, merely
in this case extenuated the motive on November 5th.
"Now then, why did the State select Tracy? The State's evidence was to
the effect that Tracy was not only a member of the conspiracy, but was
firing. Several State's witnesses recognized Tracy. There was another
reason. What was that? Some of these men, some of these boys, flitting
here and there from job to job, with never more than a dollar or two in
their pockets, were inflamed intentionally by people who misrepresented
conditions. They did not have any right to be inflamed; they did not
have any right to go to Everett and they are guilty of murder if they
went up there to retaliate for any wrong, actual or conceived. But the
State has preferred to put on first a man who was in the forefront of
the conspiracy; the man that appeared to be an important cog of that
conspiracy, and that man is Tracy.
"Tracy knew that a great many people of Everett were alarmed and
disturbed. Tracy knew that the I. W. W. did not want anything in
Everett, had no interests there, no friends there except as they were
disturbing conditions. Tracy knew the purposes and Tracy went back to
Seattle so he could lead this excursion to Everett. Tracy is a man of
determination. He knew the situation and he was prominent enough to be
selected by the organization as a stationary delegate. And if any man
knew what they intended to do in Everett, it undoubtedly was Tracy. So,
regardless of whether he fired or not, Tracy was one of the men who were
on the inside. Tracy is a part of the conspiracy that happened. But no
man, my friends, on that boat, that went up there with a common design
to break the ordinance has been sinned against because he is in jail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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