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

166 Part FiveThe foreboding warning printed on 4 February, 1919 inThe Seattle Star.Mayor Hanson met with the GSCon 6 February to ensure electrical service,imploring Duncan (who was not a GSCmember) to intervene. Duncan pleadedhelplessness. Hanson pronounced LeonGreen (author of the rumor of an electricalpower shutdown) an “alien, slacker,Bolsheviki, and IWW.” Green’s role inthe strike has never been established.He might well have been a provocateur,instead of an irresponsible radical. YetGreen was presumed by all parties to beacting with authority. The strike leaderswere unable to stifle Green’s rumor, andthe damage to the strike was irreparable.The P-I gave full play to the rumor,along with alleged assertions from someradicals that they would spread the strikeacross the state.On 5 February the Star outdiditself with its patriotic flare. Under theheadline “UNDER WHICH FLAG?”the paper opined that this was more thana general strike—it was “an acid test of American citizenship—an acid test of all thoseprinciples for which our soldiers and sailors fought and died.” The paper then asked again,“Under which flag do you stand?”Historically, the Star’s publishers hadconsidered their paper to be the voice of labor. However,its circulation was cut in half when the Union Recordbecame the first trade union daily in the country in April1918. The Star’s role during the strike was probablycolored by this circumstance, although it had alreadybecome extremely patriotic during the war, transformingitself as the Municipal League had.The P-I greeted its readers the morning the strikebegan, 6 February, with a front-page cartoon depictinga red flag, with the Stars and Stripes below it, hangingover Seattle. Its front-page editorial read, “Today israised the issue between American Democracy and theorganized forces of revolt, insurrection, and rebellion.We will let Mr. Piez settle the shipyard strike. . . . If heOpposite page: Anna Louise Strong’s troubling editorial is reprintedhere with her portrait, beside a facsimile of the editorial as it appearedin the Union Record, 4 February, 1919.James Spangler