The Everett massacre Part 8

A few of the men on board had been armed. These voluntarily threw overboard their revolvers, together with the few empty sh.e.l.ls that lay scattered upon the deck, George Reese alone having to be forced to discard the "souvenirs" he had picked up.

It was a quiet crowd that pulled into Seattle, not only because they realized that the cla.s.s struggle is not all jokes and songs, but also in deference to the sufferings of their wounded comrades. This same spirit animated the men when they were met by drawn cordons of police at the Seattle dock, their first thought and first words being, "Get the wounded fellows out and we will be all right." In the city jail, located on the floor above the hospital, the same generous consideration of their wounded fellow workers' condition led them to forego the demonstration usually attending the arrest and jailing of any body of I.

W. W. members.

The four dead members, their still forms covered with blankets, were first removed from the boat and taken to the morgue. Police and hospital ambulances were soon filled with the thirty-one wounded men, who were taken to the city hospital. The uninjured men were then lined up and slowly marched to the city jail. From the Calista the thirty-eight I. W.

W. members were taken and placed in the county jail.

At the hospital, Felix Baran, shot in the abdomen, slowly and painfully pa.s.sed away from internal hemorrhage. Dr. Mary Equi, of Portland, Ore., who examined the body, stated that with surgical attention there would have been more than an even chance of recovery.

No one will ever know how many brave workers were swept out to sea and lost, but Sunday, November Fifth, of the year Nineteen-sixteen, wrote in imperishable letters of red on the list of Labor's martyrs who gave up their lives in Freedom's Cause the names of

FELIX BARAN; HUGO GERLOT; GUSTAV JOHNSON; JOHN LOONEY; ABRAHAM RABINOWITZ.

French, German, Swedish, Irish, and Russian Jew,--these are the true internationalists of the world-wide brotherhood of toil who died for free speech and the right to organize in this "land of liberty." To them Courtenay Lemon's tribute to the I. W. W. applies with full force.

"Again and again its foot-free members, burning with an indignation and a militant social idealism which is ever an inscrutable puzzle to local authorities, have hastened to towns where free speech fights were on, defied the police, braved clubbings, and voluntarily filled the jails to overflowing, to the rage and consternation of the police and taxpayers.

It has acted as the flying squadron of liberty, the unconquered knight-errantry of all captive freedoms; and the migratory workers who const.i.tute a large part of its membership, ever on the march and pitching their camp wherever the industrial battle is thickest, form a guerilla army which is always eager for a fight with the powers of tyranny. Whether they disagree with its methods and aims, all lovers of liberty everywhere owe a debt to this organization for its defense of free speech. Absolutely irreconcilable, absolutely fearless, and unsuppressibly persistent, it has kept alight the fires of freedom, like some outcast vestal of human liberty. That the defense of traditional rights to which this government is supposed to be dedicated should devolve upon an organization so often denounced as 'unpatriotic' and 'un-American,' is but the usual, the unfailing irony of history."[11]

Baran, Gerlot, Johnson, Looney, Rabinowitz,--these names will be a source of inspiration to the workers when their cowardly murderers have long been forgotten.

Those who survived their wounds, saving as pocket pieces the buckshot, copper and steel jacketed and dum-dum bullets extracted from their persons, were; mentioning their more serious wounds:

Harry Golden, age 22, shot in left leg, making amputation necessary.

Joseph Ghilazano, age 20, shot in shoulder and both legs, entire knee-cap shot off and replaced with a silver subst.i.tute.

Albert Scribner, age 32, severely wounded in hip, probably lamed for life.

Mario Marino, age 18, shot thru the lungs.

Edward Roth, age 30, severely wounded in abdomen.

Walter Mulholland, age 18, shot in b.u.t.tock.

Carl Bjork, age 25, wounded in back.

Harry Parker, age 22, shot above abdomen, in back, and in legs.

John Ryan, age 21, wounded in right shoulder and left leg.

Leland E. Butcher, age 28, shot in the left leg.

J. A. Kelly, age 31, shot in right leg.

Hans Peterson, age 32, wounded in head.

Fred Savery, age 25, wounded in hip.

Steve Sabo, age 21, shot in left shoulder.

Robert Adams, age 32, shot in left arm.

Owen Genty, age 26, wounded in right kidney.

C. C. England, age 27, shot in left knee.

Nick Canaeff, age 35, shot in left arm.

Albert Doninger, age 20, wounded in left arm.

Brockman B. Armstrong, age 35, wounds on head.

E. J. Shapeero, age 24, wounded in right leg.

Carl Burke, age 25, shot in back and shoulder.

Ira Luft, age 27, shot in right side of back.

George Turnquist, age 26, wounded in left leg.

George Brown, age 21, shot in back.

D. J. McCarthy, age 37, shot in side of head and in right leg.

John Adams, age 28, wounded in right elbow.

Edward Truitt, age 28, shot in right elbow.

Others on the boat who were wounded were Oscar Carlson, pa.s.senger, nine severe bullet wounds in all parts of his body; L. S. Davis, ship steward, wounded in the arm, and Charles Smith, Pinkerton "stool pigeon"

with a slight scalp injury.

The wounded men were none too well treated at the city hospital, only a part of the neglect being due to the overcrowded condition of the wards.

Wounds were hastily dressed and in some cases the injured men were placed in jail at once where they had to care for themselves as best they might.

In Everett the deputies left the dock when the Verona had steamed out of the range of their rifle fire, taking with them the corpse of gunman C.

O. Curtis, office manager of the Canyon Lumber Company, and deputy-sheriff Jefferson Beard, whose wounds caused his death the following morning. The injured deputies were H. B. Blackburn, James A.

Broadbent, R. E. Brown, E. P. Buehrer, Owen Clay, Louis Connor, Jr., Fred Durr, A. J. Ettenborough, Athol Gorrell, Thomas Hedley, Joe Irving, James Meagher; Donald McRae, J. C. Rymer, Edwin Stuch.e.l.l, and Charles Tucker. Hooted, hissed, and jeered at by the thousands of citizens on the viaduct and hill above the dock, these self-immolated prost.i.tutes to the G.o.d of greater profits were taken to the hospitals for treatment.

Among the crowd of citizens was Mrs. Edith Frennette, who had been in Everett a couple of days in connection with a lumber trust charge against her, and with her were Mrs. Lorna Mahler and Mrs. Joyce Peters, who had come from Seattle to attend the proposed street meeting. Making the claim that Mrs. Frenette had threatened the life of Sheriff McRae with a gun and had tried to throw red pepper into his eyes as he was being transported from the dock, the Everett authorities caused the arrest of the three women in Seattle as they were returning in an auto to meet the Verona at the Seattle dock. They were held several days before being released, no charges having been placed against Mrs. Mahler or Mrs. Peters, and the case against Mrs. Frenette was eventually dismissed, just as had been all previous charges made by McRae. These three arrests brought the total number of free speech prisoners up to two hundred and ninety-four.

What were the feelings of the Everett public directly following the ma.s.sacre can best be judged from the report of an Everett correspondent to the Seattle Union Record, the official A. F. of L. organ.

"Your correspondent was on the street at the time of the battle and at the dock ten minutes afterward. He mingled with the street crowds for hours afterwards. The temper of the people is dangerous. Nothing but curses and execrations for the Commercial Club was heard. Men and women who are ordinarily law abiding, who in normal times mind their own business pretty well, pay their taxes, send their children to church and school, pay their bills, in every way comport themselves as normal citizens, were heard using the most vitriolic language concerning the Commercial Club, loudly sympathizing with the I. W. W.'s. And therein lies the great harm that was done, more menacing to the city than the presence of any number of I. W. W.'s, viz., the transformation of decent, honest citizens into beings mad for vengeance and praying for something dire to happen. I heard gray-haired women, mothers and wives, gentle, kindly, I know, in their home circles, openly hoping that the I.

W. W.'s would come back and 'clean up.'"

Corroborating this is the report of President E. P. Marsh to the State Federation of Labor.