f steel resting one above the other. Even with
all the windows thrown open the ventilation was so poor that the men
were made ill by the foul air.

For almost two full months after being transported to Everett the men
were held incommunicado; were not allowed to see papers or magazines or
to have reading matter of any description; were subjected to the
brutalities of Sheriff McRae and other jail officials who had been
prominent in previous outrage and participants in the massacre at the
dock; and were fed on the vilest prison fare. Mush was the principal
article of diet; mush semi-cooked and cold; mush full of mold and
maggots; mush that was mainly husks and lumps that could not be washed
down with the pale blue prison milk; mush--until the prisoners fitfully
dreamed of mush and gagged at the mere mention of the word. Finding
themselves slowly starving the men decided that it were better to
complete the job at once rather than to linger in misery. A hunger
strike was declared! Meal after meal--or mush after mush--passed and
the men refused to eat. Those who were thought to be leaders in the
miniature revolt were thrown in the blackhole where there was neither
light nor fresh air. Still the men refused to eat, so the authorities
were forced to surrender and the men had something to eat besides mush.

Great discomfort was experienced by the prisoners from having to sleep
on the cold steel floors of the unheated cells during the chill November
nights. Deciding to remedy the condition they made a demand for
mattresses and blankets from the authorities, not a man of them being
willing to have the Defense Committee purchase such supplies. The needed
articles were refused and the men resorted to a means of enforcing their
demands known as "building a battleship."

With buckets and tins, and such strips of metal as could be wrenched
loose, the men beat upon the walls, ceilings, and floors of the steel
tanks. Those who found no other method either stamped on the steel
floors in unison with their fellows, or else removed their shoes to use
the heels to beat out a tattoo. To add to the unearthly noise they
yelled concertedly with the full power of their lungs. Three score and
ten men have a noise-making power that words cannot describe. The
townspeople turned out in numbers, thinking that the deputies were
murdering the men within the jail. The battleship construction workers
redoubled their efforts. Acknowledging defeat, the ja