o say these
illuminating lines were not intended for the perusal of the working class.
But now that we have obtained them and placed them before your eyes you
can draw your own conclusion. There are many, many more records germane to
this case that we would like to place before you, but the Oligarchy has
closed its steel jaws upon them and they are at present inaccessible. Men
are still afraid to tell the truth in Centralia. Some day the workers may
learn the whole truth about the inside workings of the Centralia
conspiracy. Be that as it may the business interests of the Northwest
lumber country stand bloody handed and doubly damned, black with guilt and
foul with crime; convicted before the bar of public opinion, by their own
statements and their own acts.

Failure and Desperation

Let us see for a moment how the conspiracy of the lumber barons operated
to achieve the unlawful ends for which it was designed. Let us see how
they were driven by their own failure at intrigue to adopt methods so
brutal that they would have disgraced the head-hunter; how they tried to
gain with murder-lust what they had failed to gain lawfully and with
public approval.

The campaign of lies and slander inaugurated by their private newspapers
failed to convince the workers of the undesirability of labor
organization. In spite of the armies of editors and news-whelps assembled
to its aid, it served only to lash to a murderous frenzy the low instincts
of the anti-labor elements in the community. The campaign of legal
repression, admittedly instituted by the Employers' Association, failed
also in spite of the fact that all the machinery of the state from
dog-catcher down to Governor was at its beck and call on all occasions and
for all purposes.

Having made a mess of things with these methods the lumber barons threw
all scruples to the winds--if they ever had any--threw aside all
pretension of living within the law. They started out, mad-dog like, to
rent, wreck and destroy the last vestige of labor organization from the
woods of the Northwest, and furthermore, to hunt down union men and
martyrize them with the club, the gun, the rope and the courthouse.

It was to cover up their own crimes that the heartless beasts of Big
Business beat the tom-toms of the press in order to lash the "patriotism"
of their dupes and hirelings into hysteria. It was to hide their own
infamy that the loathsome war dance was started that developed pe