ule in this country must be stopped, and when mobs attack the home
of a millionaire, of a laborer, or of the I.W.W., it is not only the right
but the duty of the occupants to resist with every means in their power.
If the officers of the law can not stop these raids, perhaps the
resistance of the raided may have that effect.

"Whether the I.W.W. is a meritorious organization or not, whether it is
unpopular or otherwise, should have absolutely nothing to do with the
case. The reports of the evidence at the coroner's jury show that the
attack was made before the firing started. If that is true, I commend the
boys inside for the action that they took.

"The fact that there were some American Legion men among the paraders who
everlastingly disgraced themselves by taking part in the raid, does not
affect my judgment in the least. Any one who becomes a party to a mob bent
upon unlawful violence, cannot expect the truly patriotic men of the
American Legion to condone his act."

Vanderveer's Opening Speech

Defense Attorney George Vanderveer hurried across the continent from
Chicago to take up the legal battle for the eleven men who had been
arrested and charged with the murder of Warren O. Grimm. The lumber
interests had already selected six of their most trustworthy tools as
prosecutors. It is not the purpose of the present writer to give a
detailed story of this "trial"--possibly one of the greatest travesties on
justice ever staged. This incident was a very important part of the
Centralia conspiracy but a hasty sketch, such as might be portrayed in
these pages, would be an inadequate presentation at best. It might be
well, therefore, to permit Mr. Vanderveer to tell of the case as he told
it to the jury in his opening and closing arguments. Details of the trial
itself can be found in other booklets by more capable authors.
Vanderveer's opening address appears in part below:

May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury:--As you have already
sensed from our examination of you and from a question which I propounded
to counsel at the close of his statement yesterday, the big question in
this case is, who was the aggressor, who started the battle? Was it on the
one side a deliberately planned murderous attack upon innocent marchers,
or was it on the other side a deliberately planned wicked attack upon the
I.W.W., which they merely resisted? That, I say, is the issue. I asked
counsel what his position would be