rceptibly
from uncomprehending belligerency into the lawless tumult of mobs, raids
and lynching! And it will be an everlasting blot upon the fair name of
America that they were permitted to do so.

The Centralia tragedy was the culmination of a long series of unpunished
atrocities against labor. What is expected of men who have been treated as
these men were treated and who were denied redress or protection under the
law? Every worker in the Northwest knows about the wrongs lumberworkers
have endured--they are matters of common knowledge. It was common
knowledge in Centralia and adjoining towns that the I.W.W. hall was to be
raided on Armistice Day. Yet eight loggers have been sentenced from
twenty-five to forty years in prison for the crime of defending themselves
from the mob that set out to murder them! But let us see how the
conspiracy was operating in Centralia to make the Armistice Day tragedy
inevitable.

The Maelstrom--And Four Men

Centralia was fast becoming the vortex of the conspiracy that was rushing
to its inevitable conclusion. Event followed event in rapid succession,
straws indicating the main current of the flood tide of labor-hatred. The
Commercial Club was seething with intrigue like the court of old France
under Catherine de Medici; only this time it was Industrial Unionism
instead of Huguenots who were being Marked for a new night of St.
Bartholomew. The heresy to be uprooted was belief in industrial instead of
religious freedom; but the stake and the gibbet were awaiting the New Idea
just as they had the old.

The actions of the lumber interests were now but thinly veiled and their
evil purpose all too manifest. The connection between the Employers'
Association of the state and its local representatives in Centralia had
become unmistakably evident. And behind these loomed the gigantic
silhouette of the Employers' Association of the nation--the colossal
"invisible government"--more powerful at times than the Government itself.
More and more stood out the naked brutal fact that the purpose of all this
plotting was to drive the union loggers from the city and to destroy their
hall. The names of the men actively interested in this movement came to
light in spite of strenuous efforts to keep them obscured. Four of these
stand out prominently in the light of the tragedy that followed: George F.
Russell, F.B. Hubbard, William Scales and last, but not least, Warren O.
Grimm.

[Illustration