The “Assassin” of Wilson, part three of seven
by Louis Adamic, October 1930, American Mercury
“The idea caught on right away. Everybody thought it was a great stunt. It spread around in no time and all the wobblies in Seattle got excited about it, and they also heard about in in Tacoma, Spokane, Centralia, Walla Walla and as far down as Portland and Eureka. They even heard about in the woods hundreds of miles inland.
“We only had about a week to organize the stunt, and it had to be done more or less in secret so that it would hit them as a surprise. You see, we still weren’t thinking of playing a trick on Wilson, but merely of getting with Ole Hanson and his bunch.
“Days passed. Monday or Tuesday somebody else, I don’t know who, improved on my idea by suggesting that we pring thousands of hatbands inscribed ‘Release Political Prisoners!’, which we did. We would thus present our petition to Wilson anyhow; he could read it while he drove past us.
“Thursday and Friday nights we held special meetings all over town to instruct the wobbly mob where to assemble and how to act when Wilson came by.
“On those two nights I couldn’t sleep a wink. As I have said, it was my idea. I was as excited as hell about it. I began to see now that this wouldn’t be merely getting even with Ole, but that we were pulling a stunt on the President of the United States. I knew how susceptible Wilson was to public response. How would our lack of response affect him? And would it work? You can imagine how a thing like this can flop at the last minute. Would the public interfere when they saw us assemble?
“But it looked great. All day Friday and on Saturday in the afternoon wobblies poured into Seattle from Tacoma, Spokane, Centralia and elsewhere, including the lumber camps in the woods — hundreds of them, from everywhere.
“Then Saturday afternoon came. Wilson was in town. He had been cheered in Tacoma; in fact, he had been cheered, more or less, wherever he had stopped and given the people a chance to see him.
“In Seattle everything was closed and tens of thousands turned out to see him and hail him. The streets he was to pass along were jammed.
“The reception was scheduled for two o’clock, but we had our mob out long before one. We occupied five long blocks near the end of the route, on both sides of the street. There must have been five thousands of us; some say ten thousand, but that’s exaggerated; and we packed the sidewalks from the walls of the buildings to the curb. The great unwashed; all of us wearing grimy working clothes, blue-denim over-alls and blue working shirts with sleeves rolled — outcasts, the scum — some of them six feet and a half, great big fellows, Bohunks and squareheads, with powerful arms and necks, chests like barrels.
“We had the five blocks that we had packed out all to ourselves. The respectable mob naturally steered clear of us. We were pariahs, the ugly big boil that Dr. Ole Hanson was trying to cut open and cure.
“At first the cops were sort of excited as we began to mass together, but they didn’t know what to do about it. There were too many of us, and more were coming. Thousands of us. And some of the lumberjacks and dockwallopers looked as if they could eat five cops apiece for breakfast. Beside, how would it look if they tried to chase off the streets when, so far as they knew at the moment, all we wanted was to see the President?
“The chief of police was all flustered. He rode by us in his machine several times with a worried face, but finally — perhaps after a consultation with Ole — it was decided to let us alone. I guess they figured it was for the best. They didn’t want to have a riot in the city while the President was there. Also, by being all together we would not contaminate the good people of the town further up the street.
“Most of us wore the hatbands: ‘Release Political Prisoners!’Â We had many ex-soldiers in the movement; they wore their overseas caps and we put them out in front so that Wilson could see them.