A 1919 Industrial Workers of the World trial reminds modern union members why they fight
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Bellingham police raided the union hall at 601 W. Holly Street of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union Local 337 on Nov. 13, 1919, according to Bellingham Herald archival newspapers. The union was affiliated with the fiercely anticapitalist Industrial Workers of the World. Of the hundreds of IWW members here (also known as Wobblies) only four were targeted and arrested and charged under the state’s criminal syndicalism law — Lafayette Ady, Phillip Bochnak, Henry Larson and Jim Wilson.
Introduced in 1917 by Bellingham state Sen. E. J. Cleary, the bill was specifically intended to criminalize membership in the IWW, which was organizing workers in lumber camps and sawmills around the region, including in the infamously anti-union J.J. Donovan’s Bloedel-Donovan mill on Lake Whatcom. The law was passed on Jan. 13, 1919, making membership in the union a felony in Washington.
Organizing was forced underground. Similar federal laws against sedition and free speech targeted anti-war activists, radical unionists, anarchists and free-speech advocates. The laws were used to stifle dissent and organized opposition to militarism and capitalism and remained on the books in many states until the Supreme Court ruled against them in 1969. The rabidly conservative Bellingham Herald gushed with praise.
These were the first arrests in the state under the criminal syndicalism law, though far, far from the last. If convicted, they faced fines of up to $5,000 — around $200,000 today — and up to 10 years in prison. Bond was set at $1,500 each. Fearing for his bad health in prison, Bochnak pleaded guilty, was fined $2,000 and sent to the county “poor farm” to pay off his fine at $3 a day, or about two years. This was the first conviction under the state’s new statute.
According to Bellingham Herald archives, IWW literature seized from the union hall was the principal evidence entered by the prosecution headed by Bellingham attorneys Loomis Baldrey and Frank Radley. State Attorney General L.L. Thompson, a staunch opponent of the IWW and radicalism of any stripe, attended the trial and assisted the prosecution. As local attorneys refused to defend the men, the judge, Edward E. Hardin, appointed two rookie attorneys, Charles B. Sampley and A.C. Durham. Understandably mistrustful, Henry Larson requested to represent himself, as he had once studied law in Illinois under Clarence Darrow, but the judge denied him this right. It proved difficult to empanel a jury. Many potential jurors were dismissed by both sides.
The trial got underway on Dec. 9, 1919. On Dec. 12, a juror circulated a newspaper article reporting a Spokane judge’s injunction against membership in the IWW, the principal offense in the prosecution’s case against the Bellingham Wobblies. The judge was forced to declare a mistrial.
A new jury was seated on Dec. 16, Bellingham Herald archives show. The defense called no witnesses. During the prosecutor’s concluding argument, he attempted to sway the jury claiming that IWW’s taught the radical concept of “free love” or extramarital sex. In his closing statement, Sampley argued this was irrelevant and an attempt to prejudice the jury, as there was nothing to indicate a belief in “free love” in the mass of IWW literature taken during the raids. The judge concurred. The case went to the jury on Dec. 18. They returned with a verdict after four and a half hours: “not guilty.” This outraged the business interests of Bellingham, not to mention the Herald which editorialized on the dastardly precedent this set. Just imagine, radicals were free to advocate against capitalism and “the American way?” Horrors!
This trial, with results welcomed by Wobblies nationwide, was small potatoes compared to the many other prosecutions the union faced stemming from trials around the nation, from federal conspiracy and subversion trials of hundreds of members to the uproar resulting from the Nov. 11, 1919 Armistice Day tragedy in Centralia.
What happened to these men? Fellow Workers Ady, Larson and Wilson were released. Poor Bochnak must have kicked himself, as he spent the next two years in the county poor farm working off his fine. He was pardoned by Gov. Louis F. Hart in February 1921 on the condition that he was deported from the U.S. And this was promptly done, off to Poland as an unwelcomed immigrant.
Ady was arrested many times in Bellingham for selling IWW literature without a permit and was fined and spent time in jail or on the county work crew. He was a thorn in the side of the government, advocating at city and county council meetings for workers’ rights and better conditions for the work crew. He joined the Communist Party at some point and filed to run for the 2nd U.S. Congressional District, but so far no accessible results mention him. He was the Communist candidate for Bellingham mayor in 1931, but all the Communist candidates for city positions were ruled ineligible due to giving “improper notice” of their filings. He died in 1978 in Everett.
Larson’s radical political life is featured in the history section of the Bellingham IWW website. A painter by trade, he became active in the Painters Union. He died in Bellingham on the last day of 1934 and is buried in Ferndale’s Wildwood Cemetery.
We should remember these fighters who went before us, and the repressive laws used against them — many capitalists wouldn’t mind seeing them reintroduced. All who continue the fight against repression and for workers’ rights stand on their shoulders.
—By Dave Tucker
Dave “Tuck” Tucker is one of the membership delegates for the Whatcom-Skagit General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World. He has been an IWW member since 1981 and has organized on various jobs in a number of industries over that time. More information on joining or organizing with the IWW in the area, write bellngham@iww.org or visit bellinghamiww.com.