by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
“But I’ll bet that the high lead camps have about the last word in logging machinery,” remarked the newest member.
“Forget that noise,” said Lumberjack Joe a trifle impatiently. “There is no such thing as a last word in machinery. There are machines to make machines to make machines. But the latest thing in machinery for the woods is the motor chain saw which will cut down a thirty inch tree in two minutes, and cut it low without waste. It would have made Paul Bunyan jump with joy to see one of them. That machine will make I.W.W. members out of the loggers who still think their skill makes them better than other workers, faster than all the speeches of the delegates. Say, son, if every wobbly were jailed tomorrow, the machine would produce a fresh crop of revolutionary industrial unionists within a year. We should worry!”
And Lumberjack Joe stopped with the bunch long enough to find out what his new duties were to be.
Industrial Worker, February 9, 1918.
9
George Milburn collected this unsigned I.W.W. poem and included it in The Hobo’s Hornbook (New York, 1930). Its source is not known.
THE TIMBER BEAST’S LAMENT
I’m on the boat for the camp
With a sick and aching head;
I’ve blowed another winter’s stake,
And got the jims instead.
It seems I’ll never learn the truth
That’s written plain as day,
It’s, the only time they welcome you
Is when you make it pay.
And it’s “blanket-stiff” and “jungle-hound,”
And “pitch him out the door,”
But it’s “Howdy, Jack, old-timer,”
When you’ve got the price for more.
Oh, tonight the boat is rocky,
And I ain’t got a bunk,
Not a rare of cheering likker,
Just a turkey full of junk.
All I call my life’s possessions,
Is just what I carry ’round,
For I’ve blowed the rest on skid-roads,
Of a hundred gyppo towns.
And it’s “lumberjack” and “timber-beast,”
And “Give these bums a ride,”
But it’s “Have one on the house, old boy,”
If you’re stepping with the tide.
And the chokers will be heavy,
Just as heavy, just as cold,
When the hooker gives the high-ball,
And we start to dig for gold.
And I’ll cuss the siren skid-road,
With its blatant, drunken tune,
But then, of course, I’ll up and make
Another trip next June.
10
Signed with the initials, “J. B.,” this song appeared in the Industrial Worker (October 11, 1919). It is almost identical with a poem, “The Wino’s Nose,” by Ed Anderson, which was included in a scrap-book compiled in 1919–20 by I.W.W. member E. Rose and donated some years ago to the La-badie Collection. The undated clipping is headed California Defense Bulletin, an I.W.W. publication issued in 1919–20.
In his Journal of American Folklore article, Archie Green discussed this song. He wrote:” ‘The Dehorn Song’ is no lyric masterpiece, but it reveals facets of labor folklore. It also shows that the Wobbly could poke fun at himself; he possessed a strain of humor sadly lacking in other sections of the radical movement. The song flays the drunkard but not in the saccharine tones of a temperance tract, for behind the portrait lay the militant dehorn squad—an instrument of social control developed by outcasts consciously dedicated to rebuilding society.”
The melody as well as the inspiration for “The Dehorn’s Nose” and “The Wino’s Nose” is Jim Connell’s “The Red Flag.”
THE DE-HORN’S NOSE IS DEEPEST RED
By J. B.
The De-Horn’s nose is deepest red,
The one bright spot on an empty head.
To get his booze he begs and steals,
Half-naked goes, and without meals.
Chorus
O! De-Horn why don’t you get wise?
And quit the booze and organize.
A sober mind shall win the day,
The One Big Union shows the way.
And when the De-Horn gets a job,
He’s satisfied, the dirty slob,
A pile of straw will do for bed,
On which to rest his weary head.
To stick around and fix the job,
It never pierced his empty nob,
For fifty cents will get him drunk,
And fifteen cents a lousy bunk.
But when the De-Horn gets stake-bound,
And starts to dreaming about town,
He kicks about the rotten chuck,
And never saw such a sticky muck.
O! Point to him with nose so red,
With tangled feet and soggy head,
For, all this life to him will yield,
Is just a grave in potter’s field.
11
“Anise” was the pen name of Anna Louise Strong (1885—), an American journalist and writer who has written about revolutions all around the world. Miss Strong was feature editor of the Seattle Union Record from 1916 to 1921 and reported on the Montesano (Washington) trial of the Wobblies sentenced to prison following the Centralia Armistice Day massacre in November 1919. These free-verse poems, describing the I.W.W. defendants in the trial, were in the file of I.W.W. poems in the Labadie Collection. Their source of publication is not known.
CENTRALIA PICTURES
By ANISE
1. Eugene Barnett
“I was born,” he said,
“In the hills of Carolina,
And the schooling I got
In this great free land
Of compulsory schools
Was very simple;
My MOTHER taught me
Reading and writing
And I went to school
For a three-months’ term,
And a five-months’ term!
Then
I was EIGHT years old
And my father went
As a STRIKE-BREAKER
To the West Virginia mines.
I remember the TENTS
Of the UNION miners,
Driven from their homes
CAMPING
Over the river.
They put me to work at once
UNDERGROUND
And when the inspectors came
I had to HIDE
In the old workings,
For the legal age in the mines
Was FOURTEEN years,
But neither the BOSS
Nor my FATHER
Cared about LAW!
I was caught
In the Papoose explosion
At the age of eleven,
And I ran away from home
At thirteen.
I followed MINING
All over the country
Joining the UNION
In Shadyside, Ohio.
I was SIXTEEN then
And had worked EIGHT years,
And in all those years
My only chance for schooling
Was a short time
After a FEVER,
When I was TOO WEAK
To WORK!
But somehow I managed to get
A good-looking wife
Who encouraged me
To improve myself!
We had a little girl that died
And a boy that lived,
He’s two years now
And a BRIGHT KID;
Can’t keep still!
We took a homestead
Over in Idaho
Till the government called
For MINERS,
So I came to Centralia
At the country’s call
And after the Armistice
There wasn’t much work!
I saw the raid on the hall
And the starting
Of the MAN-HUNT,
And I rode home
For my GUN
To get some law and order
In Centralia!
When they arrested me
I didn’t tell all I knew,
For I was afraid if I did
I mightn’t live to see
A court-room trial!”
2. Ray Becker
It was through the bars
Of the county jail
That he told his story,
While the jailer waited
In a corner,
And the other boys
Were washing up
For supper:
“I’m twenty-five,” he said,
“And I studied four years,
Intending to be
A SKY-PILOT!
But after I saw
The INSIDE WORKINGS
I QUIT!
Not overnight, of course,
Nor in a day,
It took some time.
For I come
From a PREACHER family!
My father has a pulpit
And one of my brothers
Has a pulpit.
But I found most people
Wouldn’t PRACTICE
What you PREACH,
And I didn’t see HOW
To get them to.
Besides,
To be real FRANK
I no longer believed
MOST of the stuff
And I didn’t want
To preach it.
Since 1915
I’ve been in the WOODS
And I joined the Wobblies
In 1917.
After the raid on our hall
I was one of the occupants
Of the ICE-BOX
And I had
An Iver Johnson .38!
That was how
I come to be HERE,—
But I figure
The only practical Christians
TODAY
Are the I.W.W.’s
And the Socialists,
And the folks
That are trying to get
A NEW WORLD!
Anyway,
Christ was a TRAMP
Without a place
To lay his head,’
And WE are tramps,
And I guess
That fifth chapter
Of the epistle of James,
Telling the RICH FOLKS
To weep and howl
For what was COMING,
Must have been written
By a WOBBLY!”
3. Bert Bland
All life’s uncertainties
Sat lightly on him,
He was of the WOODS
And YOUNG enough
To smile at danger,
Indeed, he smiled
On all the world
With joyous greeting
As if everyone he met
Gave him PLEASURE,
“I was three years old,” he said,
“When they brought me to Washington
From the Illinois farm
Where I was born.
My father, too, was born
In Illinois
In Lincoln’s time,
And my mother came
From the SOUTH,—
I guess I’m about as near
An American
As they make them,
And if I ever had ancestors
From any foreign land
They got lost somewhere
In the PRAIRIES!
I was sixteen
When I became a LOGGER
And for eight years
I’ve followed the WOODS,
It’s a great life
If you don’t weaken,
But the CAMPS
Are certainly ROTTEN!
Fourteen of us slept
In a 10 by 14 bunkhouse
Over in Raymond,
With our wet clothes
STEAMING
In the middle of the shack!
The bad conditions drove me
From camp to camp,
Twenty-two different ones
In a single year,—
And only one of them all
Had a BATH!
I’ve been a WOBBLY
For about three years
Hoping to change conditions.
When they raided our hall
I shot from the hill
To defend it,
And then I fled to the woods!
A lynching party
Had me surrounded once
But I crawled through them
About 1 A.M.
On my hands and knees,
And lay out in the hills
For seven nights.
I was the lucky guy,—
For by the time they got me
In a train-shed,
Things had quieted some,
So I missed
The TERRORIZING
The others got
In the Centralia jail,
And the worst they handed me
Was watching OILY ABEL,
The Lumber Trust’s pet lawyer
Helping the state hand
‘JUSTICE’
To rebel Lumberjacks!”
4. Britt Smith
The weight of the world
Seemed resting
On his shoulders,
He was thirty-eight
And had followed the woods
For twenty years.
He knew to the full
The lumber camps of Washington,
And he had no more
ILLUSIONS
He sawed the timbers
To build the great flume
At Electron,
Where the mountain waters
Come pouring down
To give, light and power
In Tacoma,
And to carry
The LUXURIOUS Olympian
Over the Cascades,
Softly and smoothly,
With passengers warm
And COMFORTABLE.
But he and his fellows
Had slept in a SWAMP
On cedar PLANKS,
And had no place
To WASH
After their day’s labor.
He said: “I have slept
WEEKS at a time
In WET CLOTHES,
Working
All day in the rain,
Without any place,
To DRY OUT.
I have washed my clothes
By tying them
To a stake in the river,
Letting the current
Beat them partly clean.
It was often the only place
We had for washing.”
It was HE
The LYNCHERS sought
That night of terror
When the lights went out
And they broke into the jail
And dragged forth Everest
To torture
And mutilation
And hanging,
Crying: “We’ve got Britt Smith!”
For he was secretary
Of the I.W.W.S
And lived in a little room
At the back of the hall
Which he tried to defend
In the RAID,—
It was his only HOME
He had spent his strength
And used his youth
Cutting LUMBER
For the homes of others!
Wesley Everest.
Labadie Collection photo files.
12
Wesley Everest is one of the trilogy of I.W.W. martyrs (Joe Hill, Frank Little, Wesley Everest) which has inspired tributes from Wobbly and non-Wobbly writers. John Dos Passos compared Wesley Everest to Paul Bunyan in his novel Nineteen Nineteen (New York, 1932). Robert Cantwell recreated the situation in Centralia in his story “The Hills Around Centralia,” included in the Anthology of Proletarian Literature (New York, 1935)
. Richard Brazier wrote two poems in memory of Everest, “The Ballad of Wesley Everest” and “The Hidden Grave of Wesley Everest,” and several of the other Centralia defendants paid tribute to him in verse.
This poem on Wesley Everest by Ralph Chaplin is taken from the Industrial Pioneer (July 1921). It has been frequently reprinted in the I.W.W. press.
WESLEY EVEREST
By RALPH CHAPLIN
Torn and defiant as a wind-lashed reed,
Wounded he faced you as he stood at bay;
You dared not lynch him in the light of day,
But on your dungeon stones you let him bleed;
Night came … and you black vigilants of Greed …
Like human wolves, seized hard upon your prey,
Tortured and killed … and silently slunk away
Without one qualm of horror at the deed.
Once … long ago … do you remember how
You hailed Him king for soldiers to deride—
You placed a scroll above His bleeding brow
And spat upon Him, scourged Him, crucified …
A rebel unto Caesar—then as now
Alone, thorn-crowned, a spear wound in his side!
13
Two more Tightline Johnson stories by Ralph Winstead find Johnson attempting to improve conditions in the lumber camps. After World War I, lumber companies started a piecework system, called “the gyppo system” by Wobblies, in an attempt to counter the effects of collective bargaining. As Fred Thompson wrote: “They brought it in with a sugar coating, letting men earn three and four times as much as they would make at hourly rates, but wiser heads knew this was to get it going. The need to settle prices for each operation would bring individual bargaining and eventually less pay for more work…. Opinion among I.W.W. members differed. The general sentiment was that no Wobbly would work gyppo. … A few who knew their economics suggested that given these circumstances of a money-hungry majority, and the current high rates offered for piece work, the judicious thing was for the union to allow it on the proviso that the rates be set for each operation by collective bargaining and kept so high that unit costs would exceed those resulting from an hourly rate” (The I.W.W.: Its First Fifty Years).
“Chinwhiskers, Haywire, and Pitchforks” was printed in the One Big Union Monthly (January 1921). “Johnson, the Gypo” is from the Industrial Pioneer (September 1921).
CHIN-WHISKERS, HAY-WIRE, AND PITCHFORKS
By RALPH WINSTEAD
I was moping down the skid road, sort of upending the fact that pretty soon I would have to buy a master or give the grub question the go-by. Them kind of thoughts are never frolicsome, but of themselves is not liable to superinduce these here railroad blues. I have sort of got used to havin’ the bottom of the sack just a few jingles down, and you know we are never very much concerned over what we have grown accustomed to, like the feller says of his wife.