ht days without any commitment
papers, Rowan was turned over to the city police and released on
September 1st. He returned to the street corner and spoke for several
succeeding nights including "Labor Day" which fell on the 4th.
Incidentally he paid a visit to the home of Jake Michel and, after
industrial unionism was more fully explained, Michel agreed that the
craft union contract system forced scabbery upon the workers. Rowan left
shortly thereafter for Anacortes to find out the sentiment for
organization in that section.

This period of comparative peace was due to the fact that the lumber
barons realized that their actions reflected no credit upon themselves
or their city and they wished to create a favorable impression upon
Federal Mediator Blackman who was in Everett at the request of U. S.
Commissioner of Labor Wilson. It was during this time, too, that the
protagonists of the open shop were secretly marshalling their forces for
a still more lawless and brutal campaign.

Affairs gradually slipped from the hands of the Everett authorities into
the grasp of those Snohomish County officials who were more completely
dominated by the lumber interests.

"Tom," remarked Jake Michel one day to Chief of Police Kelley, "it seems
funny that you can't handle the situation."

"I can handle it all right," replied Kelley, bitterly, "but McRae has
been drunk around here for the last two or three weeks and he has butted
into my business."

It was on August 30th that the lumber trust definitely stripped the city
officials of all power and turned affairs over to the sheriff. On this
point a quotation from the Industrial Relations Commission Report is
particularly illuminating in showing a common industrial condition:

"Free speech in informal and personal intercourse was denied the
inhabitants of the coal camps. It was also denied public speakers. Union
organizers would not be permitted to address meetings. Periodicals
permitted in the camps were censored in the same fashion. The operators
were able to use their power of summary discharge to deny free press,
free speech, and free assembly, to prevent political activities for the
suppression of popular government and the winning of political control.
+I find that the head of the political machinery is the sheriff.+"

In Everett the sheriff's office was controlled by the Commercial Club
and the Commercial Club in turn was dominated, thru an inner circle, by
the lumber trust.