Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

City Politics, 1904 - 1916121Courtesy, U.W. Libraries, Special CollectionsThis photograph of the IWW “fort” at 1115 Hewitt Avenue in Everett was recorded sometime after the docksideshooting of the “Everett Massacre” and during the trial. One of those posing members holds a “Workers RememberYour Dead Poster,” which Everett historian/librarian Margaret Riddle notes was issued following the Massacre.another beaten to death the next day. By 21 September, 850 strikebreakers were workingthe private docks, except for Rothschild’s.The federal mediator William Blackman was able to get the WEU and unionrepresentatives together on 1 October. They reached a tentative agreement. But beforeunion voting could take place, fifty strikers attacked strikebreakers who were headed to theGrand Trunk dock to be paid. The WEU then reneged on the agreement and submitted alist of one thousand names from which deputies could be selected to protect strikebreakers.On 4 October the ILA called off the strike. The terms of maritime employment remainedthe same, for the most part, until the historic 1934 maritime strike.Two epitaphs were written by participants in this climactic strike. One, by JamesRoston, an African American, describes the key role that blacks played in the strike. Blackshad been excluded from the ILA. Consequently, marine employers regularly used them aswell as Chinese and Filipinos as strikebreakers. The race card lay ready for the employersto play when they needed to disrupt union organizing. The black-owned NorthwestEnterprise credited Roston with playing a decisive role in breaking the 1916 strike bysupplying strikebreakers through his Northwest Stevedores and Truckers Association. Therace factor would not be minimized in the maritime trades until the ILA eliminated thecolor line during the 1934 strike. Kenneth Kerr, editor of the Railway and Marine News,wrote a second epitaph in the magazine’s February 1917 issue. “No greater victory for theemployers was ever recorded. Not one point was gained by the striking longshoremen.