A traveling I.W.W. organizer, Forrest Edwards, and local Socialist Party activist, Arthur Edwards, describe the workings of the city’s law-‘n-order ‘Broadcloth Mob’ against striking lumber workers around Port Angeles, Washington.

‘The Strike in Port Angeles’ from Commonwealth (Everett). No. 130. June 26, 1913.

PORT ANGELES CITIZENS IN FULL SYMPATHY WITH THE I.W.W.

LAW BREAKERS–Who They Are and What They Seek to Accomplish.

The strike situation in the Port Angeles country has reached a very critical stage. During eight days of biter fighting between the Lumber Trust on the one side and the Lumber Workers on the other, there has not been, up to date, a single arrest made in connection with the strike. According to the chief of police this is the most effective and the most orderly strike he has ever seen or heard of. The “Broad Cloth Mob,’ consisting of Real Estate sharks, Saloon Keepers, and Capitalist Pimps of all descriptions, mobbed, on one of their back streets, the organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, Forrest Edwards, and a property owning resident, and put them aboard the steamer with a free ticket for Seattle and ordered never to return under pain of death. They came back the following day and were met at the boat by about 100 reds who escorted them down the street leaving the sharks standing on the wharf with a look of despair on their faces.

Who are these gentlemen we refer to? Here they are: Law Breaker Day of Pick Handle fame from Aberdeen, and his man Friday, Mr. Abbot, both proprietors of the Merchants Hotel and Bar (Worker get out your note book so that you will know where to buy beer when you come up here), John Cain, Bull Real Estate Shark and the man who tried to bribe the organizer into breaking the strike, Mayor Mead, Loyal Aldwell, Tom Aldwell, G.M. Lauridson, Sam Johnson, and others whose names will appear in print later, but suffice it to say that the above list will be sufficient to give you an idea of the social standing of the lawless element that is causing much trouble in the Fair City of Port Angeles. The citizens have taken a hand in the matter and say they are going to find out whether they will be ruled by Statute Law or Mob Law. They called a meeting, not of the Socialist party, of the I.W.W., or any political party, but of citizens who do not belong to any one particular organization. These citizens will get behind the prosecution of these men who hound peaceable men out of town, and whose only function in any community is to sap the life blood out of the community and give nothing in return.

The Lumber Workers have shut off the income of these parasites by simply folding their arms. The machinery died; it will not take on the form of life again until the lumber- jacks come back to town and again apply their hands to the axe, the saw, and the engine.

The “Broadcloth Mob” cannot deal with labor when it folds its mighty arms and lays in the shade of a tree till the master is forced to come and ask him to go to work. Labor forces them to break their own laws and resort to mob law, thus revealing the astounding fact “that those who shout Law and Order the loudest have the least respect for those laws and are the first to break them.”

Yours for Solidarity of Labor,

FORREST EDWARDS.

Attempt to Have Meeting Reject Resolution Denouncing Forceable Deportation of I.W.W. Fails by Arthur Edwards

At the mass meeting called Monday evening the citizens and workingmen of Port Angeles expressed their con- tempt for the “Broad Cloth Mob” and declared themselves in favor of the Industrial Workers of the World, with its peaceable methods of conducting a strike. The resolution adopted by the meeting is as follows:

“Whereas, This being a peaceable and law abiding community, believing that the laws of our country were made for all classes of people, whether rich or poor, and whereas on Wednesday last a certain select few, with the sanction of the Commercial Club, did organize and appoint a committee which went out upon the streets of the city and forcibly and without due process of law, and against the laws of this city and state, took two peaceable men, one of them a permanent resident of this city, and forced them aboard the steamship and compelled them to leave the city,

“Therefore, Be it resolved that we, the citizens of Port Angeles, in mass meeting assembled, do most earnestly and emphatically protest against such mob violence, from whatever source it may come, and place ourselves squarely before the world as in favor of statute law and against mob law.”

The slippery, slimy, unfair, and disgusting methods of the mob, who call themselves the representatives of “Law and Order,” but who in reality are the representatives of the commercial interests of the city, cannot but meet the disapproval of all respectable and thinking citizens.

They first rented the hall to the committee and then held the keys until after they had packed the house with scabs from the surrounding strike lumber industries. The mob next attempted to elect their own chairman. Failing in this they endeavored to throw discredit upon the meeting by speaking against the above resolution. Such men as Judge Lindsay, of Seattle, Tom Aldwell, and ex-Prosecuting Attorney Richie harangued the merits of patriotism and the danger of dynamiting, and tried to show that the resolution stood against patriotism and in favor of dynamiting.

The entire meeting was stormy and nearly precipitated into a riot. The mob with their scabs realized after two hours of mental dynamite that it could not swing the crowd to its support and so bolted the meeting before adjournment. This left only the respectable citizens in the hall, who passed the resolution, adjourned and went home.

The representatives of the present system can meet the arguments of labor only by acts of violence. They drive the workers back to work by some force or another, and to do this they resort to any means which will gain their ends. They are the first to break the laws they have made to protect their own interests.

The meeting scored a victory for the revolutionary forces of this community and hence a victory for all communities. They were able to wrest this victory only by joining their forces. And how were they able to agree in this time of despotism and anarchy? For years the Socialists have carried on propaganda and economic educational work. Up to the time of the strike the years of work had never bore fruit, but since the strike has been on, the individuals have been called upon to declare on which side s they stood. It found out whether these a fellows had just been talking or really believed what they were saying. lines of cleavage have been drawn very sharply. The strike and industrial agitation has solidified the revolutionary forces. It has weeded out all who refuse to fight, thus building up a fighting organization. The present strong industrial organisation was possible only by building largely upon the years of Socialist educational work. On the other hand the every day struggle on the economic field furnishes a guide by which the revolutionary forces may wage the contest. The industrial organization furnishes a field for the application of the Socialist principles. Socialist theories are useless unless applied to the industrial field, and so also industrial unionism is impossible without Socialist theory.

The Socialists of Port Angeles are in fighting trim at present. They have already demonstrated the power of solidarity of labor and direct action to get results. They are not going to stop here, but they are going to revoke Pick Handle Day’s saloon license for taking a hand in deporting the two citizens mentioned in the resolution. Following this they will proceed to recall their mayor, who has taken an active part in the fight against the workers. Once they are in motion they will do many things that will promote the interests of their class. All this is excellent training to develop a militant organization. It is, however, only the beginning of the great class struggle which is now beginning to show Itself In all parts of the world.

ARTHUR EDWARDS

The Commonwealth was a Socialist Party-aligned paper based in Everett, Washington that began in February, 1911. First edited by O.L. Anderson, the weekly paper was quickly involved in the state’s very fractious inner Socialist Party life. Editors followed the changing political fortunes with Anna A. Maley directing The Commonwealth from September, 1911 until May, 1912, who also focused the paper nationally. Maley left the paper to run for governor in 1912, the first woman and first Socialist in the state to run for that office, winning a respectable 12% of the vote. Six more editors followed Maley, including Maynard Shipley. The paper’s orientation was left and supported the I.W.W. when many S.P. papers were denouncing them. The Commonwealth struggled, like nearly all left publications in history, with money financially and sold to the Socialist Party of Snohomish County in April, 1914 to be reborn as The Washington Socialist.

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