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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
November 3, 2016     Shelton Mason County Journal
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November 3, 2016
 
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Page A-4 - Shelton-Mason County Journal- Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016 KOMEN COMMENT A lhundred years ago this aturday occurred "the oodiest battle in Pacific Northwest labor history." That brutal phrase has been forever affixed to Everett for what happened on Nov. 5, 1916. It was a Sunday afternoon on the city's waterfront, when the steamer Verona entered Port Gardner Bay and approached the dock at • the foot of Hewitt Av- By JOHN enue. Aboard were 300 Wobblies -- members KOMEN of the radical Industrial Workers of the World. The IWW championed the working class with tactics that alarmed the public and angered businesses, especially mill owners and timber barons. So Everett hadl een warned that a group of"armed anarchists" was on its way, perhaps to burn down the city. Everett had a strong repu- tation as a union town. But it wasn't the IWW, it was the Shin- gle Weavers Union, a rival of the Wobblies, that was the labor power in the town. The shingle weavers were on strike, and despite their union's antipathy toward the IWW, the Wobblies supported the strike, especially with street speeches and demonstrations. Earlier in the year, 40 of the IWW demonstrators had been rounded up by deputies, taken to Beverly Park just outside Ever- ett and there they were brutal- ized. Beaten by clubs, some se- verely injured, they were forced to walk the 25-mile interurban railway track to Seattle. It was with this violent background the steamer Verona, loaded with Wobblies, headed for Everett. Waiting at the dock was Sno- homish County Sheriff Donald McRae and 200 citizens he had "deputized." They were armed. "Boys, who's your leader?" the sheriff reportedly shouted at the Verona. "We are all leaders!" was the retort from the Wobblies on deck. With that, Sheriff McRae told them they could not land. He pulled his pistol as the men aboard prepared to swing a gangplank dockside. Then a single shot was heard. Where it came from no one knows, but it started what one account says was "about 10 min- utes of intense gunfire. Most of it came from the vigilantes on the dock." Some of the Wobblies also had weapons, and in the ensuing battle and confusion, as the Verona's skipper tried to maneuver away from the dock, five Wobblies were killed outright or fatally wounded and two "citizen deputies" were slain. At least 47 men were wounded. The Verona made it back to Seattle. Seventy-four Wobblies were arrested and tak- en to jail in Everett. Gov. Ernest Lister sent in National Guard troops, and the stage was set for a trial in an atmosphere of fear and distrust. "The men were kept waiting for trial so long that some public sympathy was aroused," wrote John McClelland Jr. in "The Wobbly War." There were plans to try the 74 with four crimes each. "But since seventy-four men were far too many to try simultaneously, a beginning was made by trying just one." Thomas Tracey was his name. He was accused of firing the shot that killed one of the two slain on the dock. Defended by George Vanderveer, who won.fame as a Wobbly attorney, Tracey was acquitted. The 73 others had earlier been released from jail, but not before they had waged Wobbly demonstrations, includ- ing a hunger strike. The Everett Massacre -- as it became known -- preceded by three years the more famous Centralia Massacre on Armi- stice Day, Nov. 11, 1919. Three American Legion members -- World War I veterans -- were killed and an IWW member was lynched from a bridge across Centralia's Chehalis River. • John Komen, who lives on Mason Lake, was for 40 years a reporter and editor, television news executive and anchorman, national TV network news cor- respondent, producer, colum- nist, editorial writer and com- mentator. His column, Komen Comment, appears each week in the Shelton-Mason County Journal. JOURNAL EDITORIAL eo go? We've jumbled a few things around in this week's news- paper. What we call our Living section usually runs three or four pages and includes our obituaries, commu- nity calendar of events and stories promoting upcom- ing events. Usually guest columns and the Harstine Island News run in these pages, as does our church directory. We've moved them all to the last few pages of the B (second) Section. We do this because we consider the information, especially the obituaries, as vitals. Public notices, obituar- ies, births and the events we share together are those things that tell the history of our community. A hundred years from now, when a researcher goes back to look through the pages we printed this week in 2016, chances are pretty good that they'll be • looking for obituaries, so we've decided to make them a permanent fixture on our inside back cover. There's more reasoning behind this decision: We're trying to make the entire second section more vital to you, dear reader. Without getting too tech- nical about it, our press has limitations, and by beefing- up the second section it expands our opportunities in the first section. Our smartest readers (those who regularly peruse the public notices) will see that we've also changed how we offer what are sometimes called "legals." They will now be min- gled in with more visual elements designed to invite you to keep turning pages, all the way through this week's paper. We understand that this will cause some confusion. We apologize for that and hope that you, and your fellow Journal faith- ful, will find the entire paper more inviting and easy to read the whole way through. I THIS ISN'T HOW IMAGINED DOWNTOWN IN SHELTON WOULD LOOK TODAY. SHELTON-MASON COUNTY USPS 492-800 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mason County Journal, P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Published weekly by the Mason County Journal at 227-W. Cota St., Shelton, Washington. Mailing address: P.O. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584 Telephone: (360) 426-4412 Website: www.masoncounty.com Periodicals postage paid in Shelton, Washington. The Mason County Journal is a member of the Washington News- paper Publishers Association. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $42 per year ($33 for six months) for Mason County addresses; $58 per year ($43 for six months) in the state of Washington but outside Mason County; and $66 per year ($53 for six months) out of state. Owned and published by Shelton-Mason County Joumal, Inc. Publisher: Tom Mullen Newsroom: Adam Rudnick, editor Gordon Weeks, reporter Brianna Loper, reporter Michael Heinbach, reporter Kariann Farrey, proofreader Advertising: John Lester, ad manager Theresa Murray, ad representative Front office: Donna Kinnaird, bookkeeper Dave Pierik, circulation and classifieds manager Delivery: Paul Kinnaird, Gary Larimer Composing room: William Adams, technology and design manager Linda Frizzell, graphics All editorial, advertising and legal deadlines are 5 p.m. the Monday prior to publication. To submit a letter to the editor, email adam@masoncounty.com.