Part 11 (1/2)

A rope appeared from somewhere. ”Let's finish the job!” cried a voice. The rope was placed about the neck of the logger. ”You haven't got guts enough to lynch a man in the daytime,” was all he said.

At this juncture a woman brushed through the crowd and took the rope from Everest's neck. Looking into the distorted faces of the mob she cried indignantly, ”You are curs and cowards to treat a man like that!”

There may be human beings in Centralia after all.

Wesley Everest was taken to the city jail and thrown without ceremony upon the cement floor of the ”bull pen.” In the surrounding cells were his comrades who had been arrested in the union hall. Here he lay in a wet heap, twitching with agony. A tiny bright stream of blood gathered at his side and trailed slowly along the floor. Only an occasional quivering moan escaped his torn lips as the hours slowly pa.s.sed by.

”Here Is Your Man”

Later, at night, when it was quite dark, the lights of the jail were suddenly snapped off. At the same instant the entire city was plunged in darkness. A clamour of voices was heard beyond the walls. There was a hoa.r.s.e shout as the panel of the outer door was smashed in. ”Don't shoot, men,” said the policemen on guard, ”Here is your man.” It was night now, and the business men had no further reason for not lynching the supposed secretary. Everest heard their approaching foot steps in the dark. He arose drunkenly to meet them. ”Tell the boys I died for my cla.s.s,” he whispered brokenly to the union men in the cells. These were the last words he uttered in the jail. There were sounds of a short struggle and of many blows. Then a door slammed and, in a short time the lights were switched on. The darkened city was again illuminated at the same moment.

Outside three luxurious automobiles were purring them selves out of sight in the darkness.

The only man who had protested the lynching at the last moment was William Scales. ”Don't kill him, men,” he is said to have begged of the mob. But it was too late. ”If you don't go through with this you're an I.W.W. too,”

they told him. Scales could not calm the evil pa.s.sions he had helped to arouse.

But how did it happen that the lights were turned out at such an opportune time? Could it be that city officials were working hand in glove with the lynch mob?

Defense Attorney Vanderveer offered to prove to the court that such was the case. He offered to prove this was a part of the greater conspiracy against the union loggers and their hall,--offered to prove it point by point from the very beginning. Incidentally Vanderveer offered to prove that Earl Craft, electrician in charge of the city lighting plant, had left the station at seven o'clock on Armistice day after securely locking the door; and that while Craft was away the lights of the city were turned off and Wesley Everest taken out and lynched. Furthermore, he offered to prove that when Craft returned, the lights were again turned on and the city electrician, his a.s.sistant and the Mayor of Centralia were in the building with the door again locked.

These offers were received by his honor with impa.s.sive judicial dignity, but the faces of the lumber trust attorneys were wreathed with smiles at the audacity of the suggestion. The corporation lawyers very politely registered their objections which the judge as politely sustained.

The Night of Horrors

After Everest had been taken away the jail became a nightmare--as full of horrors as a madman's dream. The mob howled around the walls until late in the night. Inside, a lumber trust lawyer and his official a.s.sistants were administering the ”third degree” to the arrested loggers, to make them ”confess.” One at a time the men were taken to the torture chamber, and so terrible was the ordeal of this American Inquisition that some were almost broken--body and soul. Loren Roberts had the light in his brain snuffed out. Today he is a shuffling wreck. He is not interested in things any more. He is always looking around with horror-wide eyes, talking of ”voices” and ”wires” that no one but himself knows anything about. There is no telling what they did to the boy, but he signed the ”confession.”

Its most incriminating statement must have contained too much truth for the prosecution. It was never used in court.

When interviewed by Frank Walklin of the Seattle Union Record the loggers told the story in their own way:

”I have heard tales of cruelty,” said James McInerney, ”but I believe what we boys went through on those nights can never be equaled. I thought it was my last night on earth and had reconciled myself to an early death of some kind, perhaps hanging. I was taken out once by the mob, and a rope was placed around my neck and thrown over a cross-bar or something.

”I waited for them to pull the rope. But they didn't. I heard voices in the mob say, 'That's not him,' and then I was put back into the jail.”

John Hill Lamb, another defendant, related how several times a gun was poked through his cell window by some one who was aching to get a pot shot at him. Being ever watchful he hid under his bunk and close to the wall where the would-be murderer could not see him.

Britt Smith and Roy Becker told with bated breath about Everest as he lay half-dead in the corridor, in plain sight of the prisoners in the cells on both sides. The lights went out and Everest, unconscious and dying, was taken out. The men inside could hear the shouts of the mob diminis.h.i.+ng as Everest was hurried to the Chehalis River bridge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bert Bland

Logger. American. (Brother of O.C. Bland.) One of the men who fired from Seminary Hill. Bland has worked all his life in the woods. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World during the great strike of 1917. Bert Bland took to the hills after the shooting and was captured a week later during the man hunt.]