Centralia IWW massacre

Thanks to OlyBlog for the reminder that this is the anniversary of the 1919 Centralia Massacre, which took place to the south of here, and for pointing me to a digital collection of pamphlets, leaflets, and letters concerning the shoot-out. The UW site also includes some legal history with your labor history:

Local lawyer Elmer Smith, sympathetic to the Wobbly cause, suggested going public about their fears of being raided in an attempt to gain public sympathy... Local IWW leader Britt Smith returned to lawyer Elmer Smith (no relation) for advice on defending themselves. Elmer Smith advised that it would be legal for the Wobblies to defend themselves, if attacked first... Elmer Smith was jailed as well, on the grounds of his sympathy to the IWW, and for his disapproval of US involvement in WWI.

No lawyer in Lewis County would defend the IWW members facing trial, so Ralph Pierce came down from Seattle... The trial was held in Montesano, since it was quickly agreed that a fair trial could not be obtained in Centralia. Vanderveer did not believe a fair trial could occur in Montesano either, but his motion to move the trial to Olympia was denied...

As time passed, and tempers and memories calmed, more and more people, though certainly not a majority, began to realize that an injustice had been done to the convicted men.

It's an interesting experience to go to Lewis County and see the big memorial with a doughboy from the 1914-18 war, only to walk closer and see that the inscription marks the deaths of four local members of the American Legion in 1919. In the last 15 years or so, Centralia has come to a public acknowledgement of the historical event for which it's most known. I can't claim a relative who was a veteran of that particular fight, though I did have a great-uncle (my father's uncle) who was a Wobbly in the woods of Western Washington back then.