Grabow riot

The Grabow riot or Grabow massacre was a violent confrontation that took place between private police hired by management and labor factions in the timber industry near Grabow (Graybow), Louisiana, on July 7, 1912. The clash left three union workers and a company thug dead, including union leader Asbury Decatur ("Kate") Hall, and an estimated fifty wounded. It was a crucial event in attempts to organize locals and unionize sawmill workers in Louisiana. There had been unrest for years in western Louisiana and eastern Texas as workers tried to organize to gain better conditions in the industry. At Grabow the main factions involved were the Galloway Lumber Company and a party of striking unionized mill workers and their supporters. The union workers were known as the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW),[1] a branch of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union (LWIU), which was affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The Brotherhood tried to recruit mill workers by giving speeches and conducting meetings at various mills. Although they had limited success in Louisiana, the LWIU became very successful from 1917 to 1924. In October 1940, Congress passed the Wages and Hours Act (later the Fair Labor Standards Act); this was upheld by the United States Supreme Court on February 3, 1941.

Grabow riot
DateJuly 7, 1912
Location
Grabow, Louisiana
GoalsBetter pay and working conditions
MethodsStrike, shootout
Parties to the civil conflict
Galloway Lumber Company's private plice
Casualties
Death(s)4
Injuries50
Arrested58
ChargedMurder; all were acquitted

Graybow riot

Wanting better working conditions and pay, workers at the little sawmill town of Grabow, Louisiana, had organized and joined the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. This was part of what is considered the 1911–1912 timber war fought between timber companies and workers in the Piney Woods of west Louisiana and east Texas. The companies had organized to cooperate in setting conditions such as wages, and most employed private police or militias to suppress union activities and labor unrest.

Given the state of arms and control, violent confrontations were frequent over labor issues in Beauregard Parish during this period. The BTW had announced its intention to strike against the major mills in DeRidder, Louisiana, and the surrounding area, and the mill owners and operators were determined to shut down the mills, and lock out and blacklist union workers before acceding to their demands. But the Hudson River Lumber Company, the Long-Bell Lumber Company's subsidiary in DeRidder, was not part of the Southern Lumber Operators Association. It honored the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (BTW) and paid cash rather than scrip to workers.

The Grabow Riot is the term given to an armed confrontation between the Galloway Company's militia and attendees at a union meeting that evening, at around 6 p.m. on July 7, 1912. Three workers and one of the armed thugs were killed. The company and police arrested numerous members of the BTW: ultimately more than 50 were tried and convicted on charges of conspiracy and murder. They were ultimately acquitted.[2] The Galloway Mill was not affiliated with the sawmill operator's association; it employed some 60–80 workers, of whom only 8–10 were present at the mill at the time of the riot.

Approximately 200 workers had been demonstrating earlier over the weekend at the large corporate mills in Bon Ami and Carson, Louisiana. They were going home from Bon Ami, some 6 miles east of Grabow, when they decided to demonstrate at Grabow. This instantaneous decision led to a violent confrontation at Grabow, resulting in 4 deaths and 50 wounded in a shoot-out of around 15 minutes and an estimated 300 shots. The timber workers and their associates, including the notorious gunman Charles ("Leather Britches") Smith, took part in this exchange of gunfire. Subsequently, 58 of the timber workers' group were tried on charges ranging from inciting a riot to murder. The trial ended in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on November 2, 1912. Most of the men were acquitted and set free; none was charged with murder or inciting a riot. Smith died soon after in a hail of gunfire from 4 deputies on September 25, 1912. There is a historical marker at the site of the riot, on what is now the property of DeRidder Airport, Louisiana.

Louisiana and Texas timber war

Mills

The Louisiana and Texas timber war of 1911–1912 had its origins in the labor uprisings that fought for better conditions in sawmills in Louisiana. The owners of these mills were rich and powerful. Men such as Richard H. Keith, John Henry Kirby (Merryville and east Texas), William Henry Sullivan, Robert Alexander Long and C.B. Sweet had vast timber holdings and many mills, as did Joseph Bentley, John Barber White (1847-1923) and his son Raymond White in 1913 with the Louisiana Central Lumber Company and Oliver Williams Fisher. These are some of the industrialists who developed sawmills and sawmill towns in Louisiana from Alexandria to Fisher and south to Lake Charles. John Galloway and his family lived at the family-owned Galloway sawmill in Graybow.[3]

The large sawmill owners were accustomed to union activities, and made plans to prevent unionizing. They formed several industry organizations, such as the Southern Lumbermen, who collaborated on freight rates, wages, and work hours. They also collaborated to deal with shortages of railroad cars, establish uniform wages and hours, and limit competition. They kept up with the labor situation and prevention of unionization. The Southern Lumbermen's Association, Southern Lumber Manufacturers' Association, Southern Lumber Operators' Association, Yellow Pine Manufacturers' Association, and Texas and Louisiana Saw Mill Association were examples of the cooperation among industry lumbermen. They were opposed to any labor organizing. As mill owners had also developed company mill towns, they exercised great power over the workers and could expel them from housing for union activities. Long-Bell was one of many very large companies that built many sawmills and towns. The Missouri Lumber and Land Exchange Company (Exchange Sawmills Sales Company), associated with the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company, had sawmills in Grandin and West Eminence, Missouri, and the Ozark Land and Lumber Company in Winona, Missouri. The Louisiana Central Lumber Company had mills in Clarks (1902), adding the Standard mill in 1906; the Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Company had mills in Fisher and Victoria; and the Forest Lumber Company had a mill in Oakdale by 1913). In 1918 the Louisiana Sawmill Company built a mill in Glenmora, and the White-Grandin Lumber Company founded one in Slagle near Leesville. The mill complexes included feeder railroad lines constructed by the companies, which also owned all the land.[4] Pacific Northwest Labor and Company/

To ensure that mill hands were and remained loyal, the owners required them to verbally profess loyalty, sign a non-compete clause, and, before it was ruled illegal, sign a Yellow-dog contract promising not to join a union. The companies used blacklisting against activist employees; given the cooperation between mills, if a man was blacklisted, he usually could not get work at any mill. Many mill companies paid wages in company scrip rather than cash. Scrips were only good only at the mill worked at, so if a man was fired, he would be unable to find work, would have no place to live, and would have no cash with which to ease his transition. This was compounded even more if a mill worker had family, and gave mill owners an absolute power and Timber magnates showed they could be vindictive. A strike would also result in a lockout and outside workers brought in.[5]

The way to gaining more profit in the lumber industry lay in saving money everywhere possible. Sawmills were set up along major railroad lines for access to shipping, the best locations were picked, and a mill town built. The towns contained everything a community would need. The housing was laid in rows on streets with street lights. The houses had electricity, water, indoor plumbing and sewer, and was furnished. The yards were landscaped with white fences. The mills provided large commissaries, schools, churches, theaters, hotels, a post office and doctors office. There was a fire department, barber shop, and sawmills around DeRidder received ice from the Hudson's Bay Ice Company. A Ford's Opera House was built for entertainment for workers. There were bunkhouses for single men.

In the early 20th century, many mills had hired black and Chinese workers in addition to whites. Chinese immigrant had been recruited for field work in the South, but most soon left the cotton fields.) Workers were racially segregated in housing and other areas, but the lumber towns still provided . These accommodations were for mill workers and spur tracks were laid to the timber and remote camps were set up for the lumbermen that were housed and fed in tents. The conditions in the woods were dangerous and less than desirable, with long hours and starting pay from $.75 to $1.25 a day.[6]

From the 1870s states began passing laws to help labor. Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson (1913 to 1921), under President President Woodrow Wilson, was friendly to labor and Congress passed many labor-friendly laws during this time. Most were either struck down or limited by the Supreme Court, especially during the Lochner era.

Unions

These uprisings centered around the Lake Charles and Alexandria in 1906–1907 and helped create the forces that would fight the timber war of 1911–1912. The Brotherhood of Timber Workers met in May 1912 in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they voted to affiliate with the powerful and militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). This alarmed the Southern Timber Association, which represented the mill owners. The Brotherhood of Timber Workers declared their intention to fight battles in DeRidder and within a 30-mile radius of it. DeRidder was then considered the center of labor unrest—it was the last area to return to work during the 1906–1907 strikes. It was seen by owners as the center of militant union activity. Both sides defined the area of conflict to be around northern Beauregard Parish (at the time still a part of Imperial Calcasieu Parish). The riot at Grabow and the ensuing court trials became the crucial events in the struggle to unionize the workers, bringing the conflict to a legal head with high national visibility. A strike and lockout on November 11, 1912, at the American Lumber Company mill at Merryville, Louisiana, about 20 miles west of DeRidder was instigated deliberately by the owners, led by association president John Henry Kirby of the Kirby Lumber Company of east Texas. The timber workers' union had been infiltrated by agents of the Burns Detective Agency who were on the payroll of the owners' association. As a result, Kirby knew that the union was in serious financial trouble because of the lengthy court proceedings following the Grabow Riot. Although the local union had affiliated with the IWW, the IWW gave no financial help, choosing to focus its efforts and priorities on the Northwest Pacific Coast timber war.

To cause a strike that would cripple the union financially, the Association blacklisted all union members associated with the Grabow riot. This gave the American Lumber Company at Merryville a pretext to dismiss 18 workers who had testified for the defense at the Grabow riot trial. The union then had no choice but to go out on strike again. This strike ruined the union financially and organizationally when in November 1912 the strikers' headquarters and soup kitchen in Merryville was attacked and destroyed by agents and friends of the mill owners. The strikers and union leaders were routed and they retreated to DeRidder. The strike was broken and the mills reopened in May 1913 using non-union labor.

These three events, occurring within six months of the Grabow riot, marked the end of the 1911–1912 Louisiana–Texas timber war. The union continued to exist as a shell until 1914, but the mills were never organized by the labor unions. This set the stage for further anti-unionism in the oil fields of Louisiana and east Texas.

By the end of 1921, the Piney Woods of Louisiana and Texas had been completely cut down, ending a 30-year boom for west Louisiana and east Texas. No effort was made by the timber companies to conserve or restore the Piney Woods, which many had thought could never be logged out. The ensuing recession left many sawmill towns deserted, including Grabow. Most of them, like Carson, Bon Ami, Neame, Ludington, and Hall, are largely forgotten; Grabow itself is remembered mainly for the riot.

Personal account

Below is an excerpt from the newspaper article "A Year of Death", which appeared in the Beaumont Sunday Enterprise-Journal, Section C, September 15, 1974. It details the recollections of Seab Rogers about the Grabow riot of July 7, 1912. Rogers was 79 years old at the time of the article.

The International Workers of the World [sic] was organizing sawmill workers and every non-union mill was (a) target. A.L. Emerson was the organizer making the sawmill rounds and speaking on this particular Sunday.

Rogers picks up the story as an eyewitness: "We had been to Merryville, Singer, Newlin and Carson and were headed for Bon Ami. Before we could get there someone came up and warned that Bon Ami was filled with gunmen and that we'd certainly be killed if we went there.

"There was 15 wagon-loads of us. Most of the men were armed. We headed for Grabow instead. I was driving the lead wagon, a brand new one pulled by a span of mules. Emerson was in my wagon.

"Somewhere along the way Emerson traded hats and coats with Decatur Hall. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we pulled up before the Grabow office and the shooting started right off.

"Three men were killed in my wagon. "Kate" Hall went down first, I guess they figured he was Emerson, what with him having Emerson's hat and coat on. Then a fellow named Martin was shot and another whose name I don't recall right off went down with him."

Leather Britches Smith

Charles Smith, nicknamed "Leather Britches", wore a pistol on each hip and carried a rifle everywhere he went. He was reportedly brought in as a hired gun by Arthur L. Emerson, then president of the Timber Workers. Some considered him a hero and benefactor of the timber workers.

The legend varies. Some thought him to be a good man unless he drank, when a different side of him would emerge. Rill (Loftin) Grantham stated that Leather Britches saved her future husband from hanging shortly after the Grabow riot.[7] Many just avoided him and some stories portray him less favourably.

A different man

Smith was also Ben Myatt of Robertson County, Texas. Arrested for the torture and vicious murder of his wife, he was brought before Judge J.C. Scott, with Frank A. Woods as prosecutor. The judge, on his own motion, ordered the trial moved to Falls County, in Marlin, Texas. Tom Connally was the prosecutor, together with Woods.

Evidence was also provided that Myatt had shot and killed a neighbor named John Cook and left him lying in a field. After he was convicted of murdering his wife in 1910 and sentenced to hang, he was transferred to Navarro County jail in Corsicana, Texas, to be tried for Cook's murder, but he escaped to Louisiana before his trial.[8]

The community of Graybow

All that remains of Graybow are some bricks, a well, a mill pond, and a historical marker put there in 2003 by the descendants of the Galloway family and the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. It is still called Graybow; it is inhabited and has churches.[9]

Other abandoned towns and communities

Bon Ami

This community is now considered the outskirts of DeRidder. A street that ran to Bon Ami from DeRidder still bears the name.[10]

Carson

Carson is located about 6.5 miles from DeRidder.[11]

Hall

Ludington

This community is within the city limits of DeRidder and is still known to local people as Ludington.[12]

Neame

The area known to local people and reflected on maps, situated in Vernon Parish, no longer exists. Once a thriving lumber town, the only known remnants are a mill pond about 3.5 miles north of Rosepine, Louisiana, on the east side of highway 171, and two abandoned grave sites, one surrounded by trees near the old Neame mill pond and the other on the west side of highway 171 in the middle of a field. The latter is located on property south of and adjacent to a saw mill bearing the name Neame. There are some headstones dating to the early 1900s. Most of the graves are decaying, and many have already disappeared.[13]

See also

References
  1. kilgorenewsherald (subscription required)
  2. "Bloody Bogalusa, 1919". www.internationalist.org. Retrieved 2019-06-02.
  3. Hammond, Murry; Haines, Lester. "List of Louisiana Sawmills and Logging Railroads in 1912". Texas Transportation Archive. Archived from the original on January 23, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  4. Canterbury, Chris. "Records of the Louisiana Central Lumber Company" (PDF). Microfilm: 1901-1945, financial records. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  5. "Strike". Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Projects: University of Washington. 1999. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  6. Dutton, Frank. "Fisher, Louisiana". Sabine Parish History. Toledobend.com. Archived from the original on February 16, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
  7. Beauregard Daily News, Sunday, March 6, 2005. -Retrieved 2010-06-08
  8. Beaumont Enterprise Journal, October 8, 1972, Louisiana Edition. Retrieved 2010-06-08
  9. Grabow, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, United States at histopolis.com
  10. Bon Ami, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, United States at histopolis.com
  11. Carson, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, United States at histopolis.com
  12. Ludington, DeRidder, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, United States at histopolis.com
  13. Neame, Vernon Parish, Louisiana, United States at histopolis.com
  • Allen, Ruth A. (1961). East Texas Lumber Workers: An Economic and Social Picture, 1870–1950. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 174–175. Special/HD/8039/.L92/U52.
  • Berry, Connie E. (1976). The Brotherhood of Timber Workers and the Grabow Incident in Southwest Louisiana. McNeese State University Thesis, (In Special Collections). Thesis/History/1976b.
  • Conlin, Joseph Robert (1969). Big Bill Haywood and the Radical Union Movement. New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 124–125. Special/HD/6509/.H3/C65.
  • Dubofsky, Melvyn (1969). We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. pp. 216–217. Special/HD/8055/.I5/D8.
  • Foner, Philip Sheldon (1966). History of the Labor Movement in the United States. Volume 4: The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905–1917, (Chapter 10: The Southern Lumber Drive includes The Grabow Affair and The Merryville Strike). New York: International Publishers. pp. 245–255. Special/HD/6508/.F57/v.4.
  • Haywood, William D. (1983). Bill Haywood’s Book: The Autiobiography of William D. Haywood (Chapter XV: The Lawrence Strike contains information on the Graybow (sic) strike against the Long-Bell Lumber Company). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, (Reprint. Originally published: New York: International Publishers, 1929.). pp. 239–253. Special/HD/6509/.H3/A32/1966.
  • Jenson, Vernon H. (1945). Lumber and Labor. (Labor in Twentieth Century America). (Chapter 10: Southern Pine). New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. pp. 71–98. Special/HD/8039/.L9/J4.
  • Marshall, Freddie Ray (1967). Labor in the South. (Series title: Harvard University Wertheim Publications in Industrial Relations). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 97. Special/HD/6517/.A13/M3.
  • Spero, Sterling D. and Harris, Abram L. (1931). The Black Worker. New York: Columbia University Press. E/185.8/.S74/1968.
  • Vance, Rupert Bayless (1935). Human Geography of the South: A Study in Regional Resources and Human Adequacy. (Social Study Series). Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Press. Special/HC/107/.A13/V3/1932.
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