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

138 Part Fourthe picket lines, control of the strike now gravitated toward the AFL. Nevertheless, theSeattle Chamber of Commerce conveniently insisted that the IWW was running the strike.The Washington State Defense Council was unable to mediate successfully. Longshoremenhelped strikers by refusing to handle any lumber produced in mills with ten-hour workdays.The IWW called off the strike in early October. But the AFL’s negotiator, J. G. Brown,insisted that the strike was still on and that a favorable outcome was not far away. BothGovernor Lister and the National Defense Council declared that they were in favor of astandard eight-hour workday and urged the lumbermen to agree. It was the only industrynot to have accepted this national standard.Because of the overriding importance of lumber for prosecuting the war, thefederal government finally stepped in. The War Department had learned from its secretagents (who had been employed by the Grays Harbor lumberman Alex Polson beforethe war) that the Wobblies were planning a general strike on 1 January and decided tohead it off. The department assigned Lieutenant Colonel Brice P. Disque to the PacificNorthwest, instead of to overseas duty, because of his familiarity with the industry and hisacceptance by lumbermen. Even the AFL’s Samuel Gompers and some Wobblies foundDisque acceptable.A reading of The Post-Intelligencer’s front page story below the banner headline “SOLDIER SHOT IN RIOT” revealsthat it was the 300 odd soldiers and sailors who were doing the rioting as they attempted to “storm the I.W.W.hall” and failed. Still following the riot the police locked up fifty-one Wobblies. The paper’s next day report onMonday June 18, 1917 confessed that the shooter who put a bullet through Private W. E. Miller’s leg on Saturdaynight could not be identified. Not too profoundly Police Chief Beckingham concluded, “The shot was fired bysome unknown person in the dark.” Also “thirty-seven of the I.W.W. arrested were released because of lack ofevidence.” Twelve who gave their ages as between twenty-one and thrity-one were held as “slacker suspects,”and were turned over to federal authorities for possible induction into the military.