Acting for the trust a small committee meeting was
held on the morning of the 30th with the editor of a trust-controlled
newspaper, the secretary of the Commercial Club, two city officials, a
banker and a lumber trust magnate in attendance. A larger meeting of
those in control met in the afternoon and, pursuant to a call already
published in the Everett Herald, several hundred scabs, gunmen, and
other open shop advocates were brought together that night at the
Commercial Club.

Commissioner of Finance, W. H. Clay, suggested that as Federal Mediator
Blackman, an authority on labor questions, was in the city it might be
well to confer with him regarding a settlement. Banker Moody said he did
not think a conference would be advisable as Mr. Blackman might be
inclined to lean toward the side of the laboring men, and at a remark by
"Governor" Clough, formerly Governor of Minnesota and spokesman for the
mill owners, to the effect that there was nothing to be settled the
suggestion was not considered further.

H. D. Cooley, special counsel for a number of the mills, Governor
Clough, a prominent mill owner, and others then addressed the meeting in
furtherance of the plans already laid. Clough asked McRae if he could
handle the situation. McRae said he did not have enough deputies.

"Swear in the members of the Commercial Club, then!" demanded Clough.
This was done. Nearly two hundred of the men whose membership had been
paid for by the mill owners "volunteered" their services. McRae swore in
a few and then, for the first time in his life, found swearing a
difficulty, so W. W. Blain, secretary of the Commercial Club, who was
neither a city nor a county official, administered the remainder of such
oaths as were taken by the deputies. The whole meeting was illegal.

From time to time the deputy force was added to until it ran way up in
the hundreds. It was divided into sections A, B, C, etc. Each division
was assigned to a special duty, one to watch incoming trains for free
speech advocates, another to watch the boats for I. W. W. members, and
others for various duties such as deporting and beating up workers.
This marked the beginning of a reign of terror during which no
propertyless worker or union sympathizer was safe from attack.

About this same time the Commercial Club made a pretense of
investigating the shingle weavers' strike. Not one of the strikers was
called to give their side of the controversy, and J. G. Brown,