ntry until we came to where the road crosses the
interurban tracks about two miles from Silver Lake and McRae told me to
get out. He then pointed down the track and says, 'There is the road to
Seattle and you beat it!' so I started down the track.

"I hadn't gone far, maybe 50 or 75 yards, when I met a bunch of gunmen.
They came at me with guns. They had clubs and they started to beat me up
on the head with the butts of their guns and with the clubs. They all
had handkerchiefs over their face except one. They threw a cloth over my
head and beat me some more on the head with their gun butts and then
they dragged me thru the fence at the right-of-way and went a little
ways back into the woods. Then they held me down over a log about
eighteen inches or two feet in diameter. There were about a dozen of
them I would say. Two or three held each arm and two or three each leg
and there were four or five of them holding guns around my ribs--they
had the guns close around my ribs all the time, several of them--and
they tore my clothes off, tore my shirt and coat off. Then one of them
beat me on the back, on the bare back with some kind of a sap, I don't
know just what kind it was, but I could hear him grunt every time he was
going to strike a blow. I was struck fifty times or more.

"After he got thru beating me they went back to the fence toward the
road and I picked up my scattered belongings and went down to Silver
Lake, taking the first car to Seattle."

[Illustration: Organizer James Rowan;

Showing his back lacerated by Lumber Trust thugs.]

Rowan exhibited his badly lacerated and bruised back to several
prominent Seattle citizens, and then had a photograph made, which was
widely circulated. Contrary to the expectation of the lumber barons this
treatment did not deter free speech fighters from carrying on the
struggle. Instead, it brought fresh bodies of free speech enthusiasts to
the scene within a short period.

The personnel of the free speech committee changed continually because
of the arrest of its members. On Sunday, September 10th, at a mass
meeting in Seattle Harry Feinberg and William Roberts were elected to
serve. Roberts had just come down from Port Angeles and desired to
investigate conditions at first hand, so in company with Feinberg he
went to Everett on the 11th. They met Jake Michel, who telephoned to
Chief of Police Kelley for permission to hold a street meeting.

"I have no objection to this meeti