y, but immediately re-arrested on practically the same charge. He is
not related to Britt Smith.]

[Illustration: Wesley Everest

Logger. American (old Washington pioneer stock). Joined the Industrial
Workers of the World in 1917. A returned soldier. Earnest, sincere, quiet,
he was the "Jimmy Higgins" of the Centralia branch of the Lumberworkers
Union. Everest was mistaken for Britt Smith, the Union secretary, whom the
mob had started out to lynch. He was pursued by a gang of terrorists and
unmercifully manhandled. Later--at night--he was taken from the city jail
and hanged to a bridge. In the automobile, on the way to the lynching, he
was unsexed by a human fiend--a well known Centralia business man--who
used a razor on his helpless victim. Even the lynchers were forced to
admit that Everest was the most "dead game" man they had ever seen.]

Some months previous Smith had taken a case for an I.W.W. logger. He won
it. Other cases in which workers needed legal advice came to him. He took
them. A young girl was working at the Centralia "Chronicle." She was
receiving a weekly wage of three dollars which is in defiance of the
minimum wage law of the state for women. Smith won the case. Also he
collected hundreds of dollars in back wages for workers whom the companies
had sought to defraud. Workers in the clutches of loan sharks were
extricated by means of the bankruptcy laws, hitherto only used by their
masters. An automobile firm was making a practice of replacing Ford
engines with old ones when a machine was brought in for repairs. One of
the victims brought his case to Smith. and a lawsuit followed. This was an
unheard-of proceeding, for heretofore such little business tricks had been
kept out of court by common understanding.

A worker, formerly employed by a subsidiary of the Eastern Lumber &
Railway Company, had been deprived of his wages on a technicality of the
law by the corporation attorneys. This man had a large family and hard
circumstances were forced upon them by this misfortune. One of his little
girls died from what the doctor called malnutrition--plain starvation.
Smith filed suit and openly stated that the lawyers of the corporation
were responsible for the death of the child. The indignation of the
business and professional element blazed to white heat. A suit for libel
and disbarment proceedings were started against him. Nothing could be done
in this direction as Smith had not only justice but the law