ether with his parents and four brothers he had
left his home in Minnesota to seek fame and fortune in the woods of
Washington. He had worked his way through McAlester College and the Law
School of the University of Minnesota. He was young, ambitious, red-headed
and husky, a loving husband and the proud father of a beautiful baby girl.
Nature had endowed him with a dangerous combination of gifts,--a brilliant
mind and a kind heart. His name was just plain Smith--Elmer Smith--and he
came from the old rugged American stock.

Smith started to practice law in Centralia, but unlike his brother
attorneys, he held to the assumption that all men are equal under the
law--even the hated I.W.W. In a short time his brilliant mind and kind
heart had won him as much hatred from the lumber barons as love from the
down-trodden,--which is saying a good deal. The "interests" studied the
young lawyer carefully for awhile and soon decided that he could be
neither bullied or bought. So they determined to either break his spirit
or to break his neck. Smith is at present in prison charged with murder.
This is how it happened:

Smith established his office in the First Guarantee Bank Building which
was quite the proper thing to do. Then he began to handle law suits for
wage-earners, which was altogether the reverse. Caste rules in Centralia,
and Elmer Smith was violating its most sacred mandataries by giving the
"working trash" the benefit of his talents instead of people really worth
while.

Warren O. Grimm, who was afterwards shot while trying to break into the
Union Hall with the mob, once cautioned Smith of the folly and danger of
such a course. "You'll get along all right," said he, "if you will come in
with us." Then he continued:

"How would you feel if one of your clients would come up to you in public,
slap you on the back and say 'Hello, Elmer?'"

"Very proud," answered the young lawyer.

[Illustration: Elmer Smith

Attorney at law. Old American stock--born on a homestead in North Dakota.
By championing the cause of the "under-dog" in Centralia Smith brought
down on himself the wrath of the lumber trust. He defended many union men
in the courts, and at one time sought to prosecute the kidnappers of Tom
Lassiter. Smith is the man Warren O. Grimm told would get along all right,
"if you come in with us." He bucked the lumber trust instead and landed in
prison on a trumped-up murder charge. Smith was found "not guilty" by the
jur