OLYMPIA, WA–Washington Governor Jay Inslee has refused to pardon eight Centralia, Washington union men convicted in a controversial murder case following the 1919 Centralia Tragedy. The men, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the United Mine Workers of America, were sentenced to long prison terms following a controversial trial in 1920 marked by widely recognized witness tampering, jury intimidation, judicial prejudice and withheld evidence from the Bureau of Investigation, later known as the FBI. Five jury members later recanted their guilty verdicts after they were presented evidence withheld from them during the trial.
The pardon petition was sent to the governor in late 2023 by the North American Regional Administration of the IWW, and seconded by the United Mine Workers of America, the Washington State Council of Firefighters, the Kitsap Central Labor Council, labor historians, and surviving relatives of the union members. The governor’s decision was announced in an email from his policy advisor, Barbara Serrano, to the IWW’s Centralia Committee. The notice said the Governor was “not comfortable passing judgment on events in Centralia and a jury trial that occurred more than a century ago”.
The Centralia Tragedy and the 8 convicted unionists were memorialized in June 2024 with the dedication of monument in a Centralia city park. The monument, designed by IWW members, received unanimous approval by the City Council in October 2022. The men, Centralia-area loggers or coal miners, were Eugene Barnett, Britt Smith, Ray Becker, John Lamb, James McInerney, Loren Roberts, and brothers Bert and O.C Bland. A murder charge against their lawyer, Elmer Smith, was dropped though he was disbarred for representing them. IWW organizer Wesley Everest was pulled from jail and lynched the night of November 11, 1919. No one was ever charged with that murder.
The trial followed the 1919 Armistice Day attack on the IWW’s Centralia union hall by members of the American Legion, acting at the behest of the city’s business leaders. The union men were advised by their lawyer, Elmer Smith, that they had a right to armed defense of their offices, which had been attacked and destroyed the previous year. In the attack, four Legion men- Warren Grimm, Ben Casagranda, Arthur McElfresh and Dale Hubbard were killed. IWW member Wesley Everest was lynched that night. In the trial, no evidence was presented indicating that any of the IWW members shot any of the Legion men, and the jury recommended leniency. A ‘labor jury’ organized by Seattle, Portland, Everett and Tacoma Labor Councils sat through the trial and returned a ‘not guilty’ verdict. The guilty verdict was condemned by a number of church councils.
The convicted union members were sentenced to 25-to-40 years at Walla Walla State Penitentiary. McInerney died in prison; the rest spent between 11 and 19 years before they were paroled following pressure on the state’s governors from church, union, and civil liberties groups.