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

War Time: Preparedness to Belligerency139Courtesy, University of Washington Libraries, Special CollectionsStanding with uniformed soldiers of the Signal Core, members of the Loyal Loggers attend a flag lowering—orraising—ceremony at a lumber mill at Aloha, near Ilwaco on the Olympic Peninsula. Standing at attention but notin uniforms, many of the “loyal loggers” are hidden behind the flag.Based on his prior experience, Disque decided to employ soldiers alongside civilianworkers and to create a civilian agency consisting of workers and lumbermen to deal withissues of working conditions and wages. To implement the first part of his program, heestablished the Spruce Production Division in the War Department. To implement thesecond part, he organized the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, the 4 Ls. NeedingGompers’s approval before negotiating with the lumbermen, Disque won him over bydownplaying the significance of the 4 Ls. Having gained Gompers’s approval, Disquereturned to the region, only to discover that a Lieutenant Crumpacker had been workingclosely with the lumbermen, promoting the 4 Ls. Against his will, Disque accepted whatCrumpacker had accomplished during his absence. The historian Harold Hyman, in hisSoldiers and Spruce, maintains that the Loyal Legion, not the Spruce Production Division,became the “primary instrument of Army policy.” Robert Tyler, in his Rebels of the Woods,writes that the 4 Ls filled the vacuum left by the failure of the AFL and IWW to establishnegotiations with the lumbermen. According to Tyler, the government created “its ownlabor organization,” the only one it would accept. The legion really was the government’sown creature, the perfect company union.The lumbermen blamed Henry Suzzallo, as head of the Washington State DefenseCouncil, and his chief assistant, Carleton Parker, for all the reform measures being calledfor, including the eight-hour workday. Edwin Ames was so impressed with the 4 Ls that heurged that all responsibility for labor negotiations be transferred to Disque; at the same time,he was organizing the Lumbermen’s Protective League to resist the imposition of the eighthourworkday. Once the threat of a general strike dissipated, the lumbermen concluded thatno reform was needed after all. Disque consented to the lumbermen’s request that they beallowed to expand the 4 Ls elsewhere. Also, he held over their heads the threat of a labor