War Comes to the Big Bend Page 5

  His sudden upflashing love had a few hours back seemed a calamity. But out there beside the whispering wheat, under the passionless stars, in the dreaming night, it had turned into a blessing. He asked nothing but to serve. To serve her, his country, the future! All at once, he who had always yearned for something unattainable, had greatness thrust upon him. His tragical situation had evoked a spirit from the gods.

  To kiss that blue-eyed girl’s sweet lips would be a sum of joy, earthly, all-satisfying, precious. The man in him trembled all over at the daring thought. He might revel in such dreams, and surrender to them, since she would never know, but the divinity he sensed there in the presence of those stars did not dwell on a woman’s lips. Kisses are for the present, the all too fleeting present, and he had to concern himself with what he might do for a girl’s future. It was exquisitely sad and sweet to put it that way, although Kurt knew if he had never seen Lenore Anderson he would have gone to war just the same. He was not making an abstract sacrifice.

  The wheat fields rolling before him, every clod of which had been pressed by his bare feet as a boy; the father whose changeless blood had sickened at the son he had born; the life of hope, freedom of action, of achievement, of wonderful possibility—these seemed lost to Kurt Dorn, a necessary renunciation when he yielded to the call of war.

  But no loss, no sting of bullet or bayonet, no torturing victory of approaching death could balance in the scale against the thought of a picture of one American girl—blue-eyed, red-lipped, golden-haired as she stepped somewhere in the future, down a summer lane, or through a blossoming orchard, on soil that was free.

  Chapter Four

  Toward the end of July eastern Washington sweltered under the most torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable climate with cool summers and mild winters. And this unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere been free from humidity.

  The haze of heat seemed like a pall of thick smoke from distant forest fires. The sun rose, a great, pale red ball, hot at sunrise, and it soared blazing white at noon, to burn slowly westward through a cloudless coppery sky at last to set, sullen and crimson, over the ranges.

  Spokane, being the only center of iron, steel, brick, and masonry, in this area, resembled a city of furnaces. Business was slack. The asphalt of the street left clear imprints of pedestrians’ feet; bits of newspaper stuck fast to the hot tar. Down by the gorge, where the great green river made its magnificent plunges over the falls, people congregated, tarried, and were loath to leave, for here the blowing mist and the air set into motion by the falling water created a temperature that was relief.

  Citizens talked of the protracted hot spell, of the blasted crops, of an almost sure disaster to the wheat fields, and of the activities of the IWW. Even the war, for the time being, gave place to the nearer calamities impending.

  Montana had taken drastic measures against the invading IWW. The governor of Idaho had sent word to the camps of the organization that they had five days to leave that state. Spokane was awakening to the menace of hordes of strange idle men who came in on the westbound freight trains. The railroads had been unable to handle the situation. They were being hard put to it to run trains at all. The train crews that refused to join the IWW had been threatened, beaten, shot at, and otherwise intimidated.

  The Chamber of Commerce sent an imperative appeal to representative wheat raisers, ranchers, lumbermen, farmers, and bade them come to Spokane to discuss the situation. They met at the Hotel Davenport where luncheon was served in one of the magnificently appointed dining halls of that most splendid hotel in the West.

  The lion of this group of Spokane capitalists was Riesinberg, a man of German forebears, but all American in his sympathies, with a son already in the Army. Riesinberg was president of a city bank and of the Chamber of Commerce. His first words to the large assembly of clean-cut, square-jawed, intent-eyed Westerners were: “Gentlemen, we are here to discuss the most threatening and unfortunate situation the Northwest was ever called upon to meet.” His address was not long, but it was stirring. The Chamber of Commerce could provide unlimited means, could influence and control the state government, but it was from the visitors invited to this meeting, the men of the outlying districts, which were threatened, that objective proofs must come and the best methods of procedure.

  First facts to come out were that many crops were ruined already, but, owing to the increased acreage that year, a fair yield was expected; that wheat in the Big Bend would be a failure, though some farmers here and there would harvest well; that the lumber districts were not operating on account of the IWW.

  Then it was that the organization of men who called themselves Industrial Workers of the World drew the absorbed attention of the meeting. Depredations already committed stunned the members of the Chamber of Commerce.

  President Riesinberg called upon Beardsley, a prominent and intelligent rancher of the southern wheat belt. Beardsley said: “It is difficult to speak with any moderation of the outrageous eruption of the IWW. It is nothing less than rebellion, and the most effective means of suppressing rebellion is to apply a little of that ‘direct action’ which is the favorite diversion of the IWWs.

  “The IWW did not intend to accomplish their treacherous aims by anything so feeble as speech . . . they scorn the ballot box. They are against the war, and their method of making known their protest is by burning our grain, destroying our lumber, and blowing up freight trains. They seek to make converts not by argument, but by threats and intimidation.

  “We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is too mild a punishment.

  “We are too ‘civilized’ to apply the old Roman law. ‘Spare the conquered and extirpate the rebels,’ but at least we could intern them. The British have found it practicable to put German prisoners to work at useful employment. Why couldn’t we do the same with our rebel IWWs?”

  Jones, a farmer from the Yakima Valley, told that businessmen, housewives, professional men, and high-school boys and girls would help to save the crop of Washington to the nation in case of labor trouble. Steps already had been taken to mobilize workers in stores, offices, and homes for work in the orchards and grain fields, should the IWW situation seriously threaten harvests.

  Pledges to go into the hay or grain fields or the orchards with a statement of the number of days they were willing to work had been signed by virtually all the men in North Yakima.

  Helmar, lumberman from the Blue Mountains, spoke feelingly: “My company is the owner of a considerable amount of timbered lands and timber purchased from the state and from individuals. We have been engaged in logging that land until our operations have been stopped and our business paralyzed by an organization, and other lawless persons acting in sympathy with them.

  “Our employees have been threatened with physical violence and death.

  “Our works are picketed by individuals who camp out in the forests and who intimidate and threaten our employees.

  “Open threats have been made that our works, our logs, and our timber will all be burned.

  “Sabotage is publicly preached in the meetings, and in the literature of the organization it is advised and upheld.

  “The open boast is made that the lumbering industry, with all other industry, will be paralyzed by this organization, by the destruction of property used in industry and by the intimidation of laborers who are willing to work.

  “A real and present danger to the property of my company exists. Unless protection is given to us it will probably be burned and destroyed. Our lawful operations cannot be conducted because laborers who are willing to work are fearful of their lives and are subject to abuse, threats, and violence. Our camps, when in operation, are visited by individuals belonging to the said o
rganization, and the men peaceably engaged in them threatened with death if they do cease work. All sorts of injury to property by the driving of spikes in logs, the destruction of logs, and other similar acts are encouraged and recommended.

  “As I pointed out to the sheriff of our county, the season is a very dry one and the woods are and will be, unless rain comes, in danger of disastrous fires. The organization and its members have openly and repeatedly asserted that they will burn the logs in the woods and burn the forests of this company and other timber holders before they will permit logging operations to continue.

  “Many individuals belonging to the organization are camped in the open in the timbered country, and their very presence is a fire menace. They are engaged in no business except to interfere with the industry and to interfere with the logging of this company and others who engaged in the logging business.

  “We have done what we could in a lawful manner to continue our operations and to protect our employees. We are now helpless and place the responsibility for the employees upon the board of country commissioners and upon the officers of the county.”

  Next President Riesinberg called upon a young reporter to read paragraphs of an IWW speech he had heard made to a crowd of three hundred workmen. It was significant that several members of the Chamber of Commerce called for a certain paragraph to be reread. It was this: “If the working men could only stand together you could do in this country what has been done in Russia,” declared the IWW orator. “You know what the working men did there to the slimy curs, the gunmen, and the stool pigeons of the capitalistic class. They bumped them off. They sent them up to say ‘Good Morning, Jesus.’”

  After a moment of muttering and another silence the president again addressed the meeting. “Gentlemen, we have Anderson of the Walla Walla country with us today. If there are any of you present who do not know him, you surely have heard of him. His people were pioneers. He was born in Washington. He is a type of the men who have made the Northwest. He fought the Indians in early days and packed a gun for the outlaws . . . and today, gentlemen, he owns a farm as big as Spokane County. We want to hear from him.”

  When Anderson rose to reply, it was seen that he was pale and somber. Slowly he gazed at the assembly of waiting men, bowed, and began impressively. “Gentlemen an’ friends. I wish I didn’t have to throw a bomb into this here campfire talk. But I’ve got to. You’re all talkin’ IWW. Facts have been told, showin’ a strange an’ sudden growth of this here four-flush labor union. We’ve had dealin’s with them for several years. But this year it’s different . . . All at once they’ve multiplied and strengthened. There’s somethin’ behind them. A big unseen hand is stackin’ the deck . . . An’, countrymen, that tremendous power is German gold!”

  Anderson’s deep voice rang like a bell. His hearers sat perfectly silent. No surprise showed, but faces grew set and hard. After a pause of suspense in which his denunciation had time to sink in, Anderson resumed.

  “A few weeks ago a young man, a stranger, came to me, an’ asked for a job. He could do anythin’, he said. An’ I hired him to drive my car. But he wasn’t much of a driver. We went up in the Big Bend country one day an’ on that trip I got suspicious of him. I caught him talkin’ to what I reckoned was IWW men. An’ then, back home again, I watched him an’ kept my ears open. It didn’t take long for me to find discontent among my farmhands. I hire about a hundred hands on my ranches durin’ the long off season, an’ when harvest comes around a good many more. All I can get, in fact . . . Well, I found my hands quittin’ me, which was sure unusual. An’ I laid it to that driver.

  “One day not long ago, I run across him hobnobbin’ with the strange man I’d seen talkin’ with him on the Big Bend trip. But my driver . . . Nash he calls himself . . . didn’t see me. That night I put a cowboy to watch him. An’ what this cowboy heard, put together two an’ two, was that Nash was assistant to an IWW leader named Glidden. He had sent for Glidden to come to look over my ranch. Both those IWW men had more money than they could well carry . . . lots of it gold. The way they talked of this money proved that they did not know the source, but the supply was unlimited.

  “Next day Glidden could not be found. But my cowboy had learned enough to show his methods. If these proselytes could not coax or scare trusted men to join the IWW, they tried to corrupt them with money. An’ in most cases they’re successful. I’ve not yet sprung anythin’ on my driver, Nash. But he can’t get away, an’ meanwhile I’ll learn much by watchin’ him. Maybe through Nash I can catch Glidden. An so, gentlemen, here we have a plain case. An’ the menace is enough to chill the heart of every loyal citizen. Anyway you put it, if harvests can’t be harvested, if wheat fields an’ lumber forests are burned, if the state militia has to be called out . . . anyway you put it, our government will be hampered, our supplies kept from our Allies . . . an’ so the cause of Germany will be helped!

  “The IWW have back of them an organized power with a definite purpose. There can absolutely be no doubt that that power is German. The agitators an’ leaders throughout the country are well paid. Probably they, as individuals, do not know who pays them. Undoubtedly a little gang of men makes the deals, handles the money. We read that every U.S. attorney general is investigating the IWW. The government has determined to close down on them. But lawyers an’ law are slow to act. Meanwhile the danger to us is at hand.

  “Gentlemen, to finish, let me say that down in my country we’re goin’ to rustle the IWW in the good old Western way.”

  Chapter Five

  The Walla Walla Valley was the Garden of Eden of the Northwest. The name owed its origin to the Indians that once inhabited the valley, and it meant Many Waters. The southern slope rose to the Blue Mountains from whence flowed down the innumerable brooks that, uniting to form streams and rivers, abundantly watered the valley.

  The black reaches of timber extended down to the grazing uplands, and these bordered on the sloping, golden wheat fields, which in turn contrasted so vividly with the lower green alfalfa pastures, and then came the orchards with their ruddy, mellow fruit, and lastly the bottom lands where the vegetable gardens attested to the wonderful richness of the soil. So from the mountainside the valley seemed a series of colored benches, stepping down, black to gray and gray to gold and gold to green with purple tinge, and on to the perfectly ordered, many-hued floor with its innumerable winding, tree-bordered streams, glinting in the sunlight.

  The extremes of heat and cold never visited the Walla Walla Valley. Spokane and the Big Bend country, just now sweltering in a torrid zone, might as well have been in the Sahara for all the effect it had on this garden spot of all the Inland Empire. It was hot in the valley, but not unpleasant. In fact, the greatest charm in this secluded vale was its pleasant climate, all the year around. No summer cyclones, no winter blizzards, no cloudbursts or bad thunderstorms. It was a country that, once lived in, could never be left.

  There were no poor inhabitants in that great area of twenty-five hundred miles, and there were many who were rich. Prosperous little towns dotted the valley floor, and the many smooth, dusty, much-used roads all led to Walla Walla, a wealthy and fine city.

  * * * * *

  Anderson, the rancher, had driven his car to Spokane. Upon his return he had with him a detective, who he expected to use in the IWW investigations, and a neighbor rancher. They had left Spokane early and had endured almost insupportable dust and heat. A welcome change began as they slid down from the bare desert into the valley, and, once across the Snake River, Anderson began to breathe freer and to feel he was nearing home.

  “God’s country,” he said as he struck the first long, low swell of rising land, where a cool wind from off the wooded and watered hills greeted his face. Dust there still was, but it seemed a different kind, and smelled of apple orchards and alfalfa fields. Here were hard, smooth roads, and Anderson sped his car miles and miles through a country that was a verdant, fragrant bower, and across bright shady streams and b
y white little hamlets.

  At Huntsville he dropped his rancher neighbor, and also the detective, Hall, who was to go disguised into the districts overrun by the IWW. A farther run of forty miles put him on his own property.

  Anderson owned a string of farms and ranches, extending from the bottom lands to the timberline of the mountains. They represented his life of hard work and fair dealing. Many of these orchard and vegetable lands he had had farmers work on shares. The uplands of wheat and grass he operated himself. As he had accumulated property, he had changed his place of residence from time to time, at last to build a beautiful and permanent home, farther up on the valley slope than any of the others.

  It was a modern house, white, with a red roof, and situated upon a high level bench, with the waving gold fields sloping up from it and the green square of alfalfa and orchards below, it appeared a landmark from all around, and could be plainly seen from Vale, the nearest little town, five miles away.

  Anderson had always loved the open, and he wanted a place where he could see the sun rise over the distant valley gateway, and see it set beyond the bold black range in the west. He could sit on his front porch, wide and shady, and look down over two thousand acres of his own land. But from the back porch no eye could have encompassed the limit of his broad, swelling slopes of grain and grass.

  From the main road he drove up to the right of the house, where under a dip of wooded slope, clustered barns, sheds, corrals, granaries, engine and machinery houses, a store, and the homes of hired men—formed a little village in itself.