The Spokane Chamber of Commerce demanded federal action to stop the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobbblies) “strike menace.”

The chamber said that the strikes were a threat to the state’s lumber, grain and fruit industries. It demanded that federal authorities “proceed effectively to the task of controlling and suppressing the disloyal, seditious and piratical activities of the Industrial Workers of the World.”

The chamber alleged that the Wobblies were “actively, openly and notoriously engaged in acts of intimidation, sabotage, malicious damage and outright sedition in the lumber, mining and agricultural industries of Washington and Idaho.”

The chamber said the Wobblies were imposing impossible demands “only as a cloak for ulterior, savage and destructive purposes.”

Most ominously, the chamber said that communities were now forced into “arming and organizing” themselves “against this imminent and unchecked menace.”

Meanwhile, the Wobblies were showing off their newfound power. Strikes were taking effect all around the area. “Everything is jake on Kalispell Creek,” said a Wobbly bulletin. “The I.W.W. pickets are on the job at Newport and Priest River … On Homestead Creek, the strikers won a clean-cut victory.”

Another Wobbly bulletin reported that “the jacks (lumberjacks) are taking it easy and the bosses are running their legs trying to get scabs … It is better than the circus to watch these animals in their frantic efforts to get men to scab.”