On November 11, 1919, the citizens of Centralia, Washington, gathered to
watch former servicemen, local Boy Scouts, and other community groups
march in the Armistice Day parade. When the marchers swung past the
meeting hall of the Industrial Workers of the World, a group of veterans
broke ranks, charged the hall, and were met by gunshots. Before the day
was over, four of the marchers were dead and one of the Wobblies had
been lynched by the mob. Through a wealth of newly available primary
source material including previously sealed court documents, FBI records
released under the Freedom of Information Act, and interviews with
surviving witnesses, Tom Copeland has pieced together the events of that
day and has traced the fate of the men who were accused and convicted of
murdering the marchers. Copeland focuses on Elmer Smith, the local
attorney who advised the Wobblies that they had the right to defend
their hall against an anticipated attack. Although he never belonged to
the I.W.W., Smith sympathized with their interests, championing the
rights of working people and speaking on their behalf. He was originally
arrested with the Wobblies and then took up their cause in the courts,
beginning a life-long struggle to free the men who were charged with
murdering the Centralia marchers. The fight lasted for fourteen years,
during which Smith endured insults, threats, arrest, disbarment, and
reinstatement. Copeland recounts Smith's run for political office, his
speeches throughout the Northwest, and his unyielding support for the
workers' cause. In 1932 he died at the age of forty-four. The book is a
balanced treatment of the Centralia tragedy and its legal repercussions
written by apracticing lawyer. It is also a compelling human drama,
centering on the marginal life of an industrial frontier labor lawyer; a
study of radical politics of the 1920s; and a depiction of conditions of
life in the lumber camps and towns. It is thus biography as well as
legal, political, a
