U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [377]
-458-of the spruces and the shiny storefronts of the town. Warren O. Grimm commanded the Centralia section of
the parade. The exsoldiers were in their uniforms.
When the parade passed by the union hal without halt-ing, the loggers inside breathed easier, but on the way back the parade halted in front of the hal . Somebody whistled through his fingers. Somebody yel ed, "Let's go. . . at 'em, boys." They ran towards the wobbly hal . Three men crashed through the door. A rifle
spoke. Rifles crackled on the hil s back of the town, roared in the back of the hal . Grimm and an exsoldier were hit.
The parade broke in disorder but the men with
rifles formed again and rushed the hal . They found a few unarmed men hiding in an old icebox, a boy in uniform at the head of the stairs with his arms over his head. Wesley Everest shot the magazine of his rifle out,
dropped it and ran for the woods. As he ran he broke through the crowd in the back of the hal , held them off with a blue automatic, scaled a fence, doubled down an al ey and through the back street. The mob fol-lowed. They dropped the coils of rope they had with them to lynch Britt Smith the I.W.W. secretary. It was Wesley Everest's drawing them off that kept them
from lynching Britt Smith right there.
Stopping once or twice to hold the mob off with
some scattered shots, Wesley Everest ran for the river, started to wade across. Up to his waist in water he stopped and turned.
Wesley Everest turned to face the mob with a
funny quiet smile on his face. He'd lost his hat and his hair dripped with water and sweat. They started to rush him.
"Stand back," he shouted, "if there's bul s in the crowd I'l submit to arrest."
-459-The mob was at him. He shot from the hip four
times, then his gun jammed. He tugged at the trigger, and taking cool aim shot the foremost of them dead. It was Dale Hubbard, another exsoldier, nephew of one of the big lumber men of Centralia.
Then he threw his empty gun away and fought
with his fists. The mob had him. A man bashed his
teeth in with the butt of a shotgun. Somebody brought a rope and they started to hang him. A woman el-bowed through the crowd and pul ed the rope off his neck.
"You haven't the guts to hang a man in the day-time," was what Wesley Everest said. They took him to the jail and threw him on the
floor of a cel . Meanwhile they were putting the other loggers through the third degree. That night the city lights were turned off. A
mob smashed in the outer door of the jail. "Don't shoot, boys, here's your man," said the guard. Wesley Everest met them on his feet, "Tel the boys I did my best," he whispered to the men in the other cel s. They took him off in a limousine to the Chehalis River bridge. As Wesley Everest lay stunned in the
bottom of the car a Centralia business man cut his penis and testicles off with a razor. Wesley Everest gave a great scream of pain. Somebody has remembered that after a while he whispered, "For God's sake, men, shoot me. . . don't let me suffer like this." Then they hanged him from the bridge in the glare of the head-lights. The coroner at his inquest thought it was a great
joke.
He reported that Wesley Everest had broken out
of jail and run to the Chehalis River bridge and tied a rope around his neck and jumped off, finding the rope
-460-too short he'd climbed back and fastened on a longer one, had jumped off again, broke his neck and shot
himself ful of holes.
They jammed the mangled wreckage into a pack-ing box and buried it. Nobody knows where they buried