ipitate haste. Too many eye
witnesses had seen Grimm stagger wounded from the doorway of the hall to
suit the prosecution. Van Gilder knew at which place Grimm had been shot
but it was necessary that he be placed at a convenient distance from the
hall. It is reported on good authority that Grimm, just before he died in
the hospital, confessed to a person at his bedside: "It served me right, I
had no business being there."

A workingman, John Patterson, had come down town on Armistice Day with his
three small children to watch the parade. He was standing thirty-five feet
from the door of the hall when the raid started. On the witness stand
Patterson told of being pushed out of the way by the rush before the
shooting began. He saw a couple of soldiers shot and saw Grimm stagger
away from the doorway wounded in the abdomen. The testimony of Dr.
Bickford at the corner's inquest under oath was as follows:

"I spoke up and said I would lead if enough would follow, but before I
could take the lead there were many ahead of me. Someone next to me put
his foot against the door and forced it open, after which a shower of
bullets poured through the opening about us." Dr. Bickford is an A.E.F.
man and one of the very few legionaires who dared to tell the truth about
the shooting. The Centralia business element has since tried repeatedly to
ruin him.

In trying to present the plea of self defense to the court, Defense
attorney Vanderveer stated:

"There was a rush, men reached the hall under the command of Grimm, and
yet counsel asks to have shown a specific overt act of Grimm before we can
present the plea of self-defense. Would he have had the men wait with
their lives at stake? The fact is that Grimm was there and in defending
themselves these men shot. Grimm was killed because he was there. They
could not wait. Your honor, self defense isn't much good after a man is
dead."

The prosecution sought to make a point of the fact that the loggers had
fired into a street in which there were innocent bystanders as well as
paraders. But the fact remains that the only men hit by bullets were those
who were in the forefront of the mob.

Through the Hall Window

How the raid looked from the inside of the hall can best be described from
the viewpoint of one of the occupants, Bert Faulkner, a union logger and
ex-service man. Faulkner described how he had dropped in at the hall on
Armistice Day and stood watching the parade fr