On Feb­ru­ary 6, 1919, the city of Seat­tle ground to a halt as 60,000 work­ers walked off the job in a gen­er­al strike that would last 6 days. Work­ers from all 110 unions of the Seat­tle Cen­tral Labor Coun­cil par­tic­i­pat­ed in the strike, which faced fierce oppo­si­tion from both busi­ness and gov­ern­men­tal lead­er­ship. While the strike was his­toric, it stands as a fre­quent­ly mis­un­der­stood event in U.S. labor his­to­ry. In this excerpt from Seat­tle Gen­er­al Strike: The For­got­ten His­to­ry of Labor’s Most Spec­tac­u­lar Revolt, author Cal Winslow shines a light on the truth about a strike that cap­tured the atten­tion of the nation 100 years ago.

“There will be many cheer­ing and there will be some who fear.

Both of these emo­tions are use­ful, but not too much of either.

We are under­tak­ing the most tremen­dous move ever made by LABOR in this coun­try, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!

We do not need hysteria.

We need the iron march of labor.”

Seat­tle Union Record, Feb­ru­ary 6, 1919

Thus, Anna Louise Strong, writ­ing on behalf of the strik­ers, announced the 1919 Seat­tle Gen­er­al Strike.

“Labor,” she wrote, ​“will feed the Peo­ple… Labor will care for the babies and the sick… Labor will pre­serve order…” And indeed, that it did, for five Feb­ru­ary days. There had been noth­ing like it in the US before, nor since.

At 10 am, Feb­ru­ary 6, 1919, Seattle’s work­ers struck, all of them. In doing so they lit­er­al­ly took con­trol of the city. The strike was in sup­port of ship­yard work­ers, some 35,000, then in con­flict with the city’s ship­yards own­ers and the fed­er­al government’s US Ship­ping Board, the lat­ter still enforc­ing wartime wage agreements.

Seattle’s Cen­tral Labor Coun­cil (CLC), rep­re­sent­ing 110 unions, all affil­i­at­ed with the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Labor (AFL), called the strike. The CLC’s Union Record report­ed 65,000 union mem­bers on strike. Per­haps as many as 100,000 work­ing peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed; the strik­ers were joined by unor­ga­nized work­ers, unem­ployed work­ers and fam­i­ly mem­bers. Silence set­tled on the city’s streets and water­front, ​“noth­ing moved but the tide.”

The strike ren­dered the author­i­ties vir­tu­al­ly pow­er­less – there was indeed no pow­er that could chal­lenge the work­ers. There were sol­diers in the city, and many more at near­by Camp Lewis, not to men­tion thou­sands of new­ly enlist­ed, armed deputies – but to unleash these on a peace­ful city? The reg­u­lar police were reduced to onlook­ers; the gen­er­als hesitated.

Today, this strike is large­ly for­got­ten, or worse, when remem­bered, dis­missed as a long lost cause, some­times reduced to a ​“dis­as­ter” – that is, a near fatal set­back for Seattle’s work­ing peo­ple. It was neither.

Seat­tle in 1919 was a city of 300,000. A pros­per­ous and pro­gres­sive city, it had won women’s suf­frage, pro­hi­bi­tion and plan­ning. Its pros­per­i­ty was built large­ly on its port, its munic­i­pal piers were state-of-the art, pride of the city’s reform­ers. Seat­tle was ter­mi­nus of the north­ern rail­roads, gate­way to Alas­ka, and it was two days clos­er to Chi­na than its rival, San Francisco.

Seat­tle had long been a work­ing-class des­ti­na­tion, for the adven­tur­ous as well as the vic­tims of the squalid East. Free-thinkers and utopi­ans had encamped near­by in the 1890s, intent on found­ing an indus­tri­al democ­ra­cy. Social­ists, includ­ing Eugene Debs, had encour­aged set­tling in Wash­ing­ton, ​“the most advanced” state in the union.

Seattle’s unions were allies of reform. They sup­port­ed women’s suf­frage, endorsed pub­lic own­er­ship, but were divid­ed on pro­hi­bi­tion. Nev­er­the­less, they steadi­ly shift­ed to the left in the 1910s, dri­ven by widen­ing con­flict with the employ­ers and in keep­ing with the new syn­di­cal­ism and the nation­al strike wave that began with and inten­si­fied dur­ing the war. Then, too, the inter­na­tion­al revolt – cul­mi­nat­ing in 1919 with rebel­lion in Ger­many, Hun­gary, Egypt, the Irish war of inde­pen­dence, the fate of the rev­o­lu­tion in Rus­sia still unknown.

Seattle’s social­ists, many Social­ist Par­ty mem­bers, were advo­cates of indus­tri­al union­ism; they sat at the helm of the city’s unions. Seat­tle was also home to the Indus­tri­al Work­er, the west­ern paper of the Indus­tri­al Work­ers of the World’s (IWW). It had become the base­camp for rad­i­cal work­ers through­out Wash­ing­ton, also Alas­ka, as well as Ore­gon and the min­ing towns of Montana.

When the US Com­mis­sion on Indus­tri­al Rela­tions met in the city in 1914, John R. Com­mons, Wisconsin’s labor spe­cial­ist attend­ed, observ­ing that in Seat­tle he ​“found more bit­ter feel­ing between employ­ers and employ­ees than in any oth­er US city.”

West­ern Wash­ing­ton tim­ber con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate the region­al econ­o­my, and in few indus­tries was con­flict more intense. IWW orga­niz­er James Thomp­son, tes­ti­fy­ing before the Indus­tri­al Rela­tions Com­mis­sion, report­ed the log­gers ​“breathe bad air in the camps. That ruins their lungs. They eat bad food. That ruins their stom­achs. The foul con­di­tions short­en their lives and make their short lives miserable.”

When win­ter rains made work in the woods impos­si­ble, log­gers set­tled in Seat­tle, sleep­ing in Skid Road’s flop­hous­es, seek­ing relief in its broth­els and cheap saloons. There they were joined by migrant agri­cul­tur­al­ists, redun­dant rail­road work­ers and black­list­ed min­ers. They also min­gled with Seattle’s rad­i­cals, includ­ing the rapid­ly increas­ing ranks of ship­yard work­ers — it was an explo­sive mix.

Seattle’s orga­nized labor move­ment grew in these years, though not even­ly. The bit­ter 1916 water­front strike was lost. The strike of shin­gle weavers in near­by Everett was bro­ken, bru­tal­ly and in the end only with bloody mur­der. In ear­ly Novem­ber, 1916 250 unarmed IWW’s board­ed the steamships Verona and Cal­ista in Seat­tle, set­ting sail to sup­port their embat­tled Everett fel­low-work­ers. There they were met and sur­round­ed by gun pack­ing deputes and vig­i­lantes who opened fire from both sides on the Verona as it docked. Six Wob­blies were killed, two deputies, the lat­er in the cross­fire. Sev­en­ty-four sur­vivors were charged with murder.

The recep­tion in Seat­tle of the news from Everett was first shock, then bit­ter recog­ni­tion of the ter­ri­fy­ing events, these so near to home. The mas­sacre was seen as an assault on free speech, fair play and the very notion of ​‘rights.’ Dis­be­lief then anger coursed through Seattle’s work­ing-class dis­tricts. In an act of col­lab­o­ra­tion increas­ing­ly com­mon among com­pet­ing unions, Seattle’s CLC joined in the defense of the victims.

The IWW made the Everett cat­a­stro­phe its cause célèbre. When the Wob­blies were acquit­ted, it was cause for cel­e­bra­tion; Wob­bly mem­ber­ship soared, set­ting the stage for the gen­er­al strike in the woods which fol­lowed that June. Some 50,000 log­gers struck; the strike stretched into the next year. Ulti­mate­ly, in part due to fed­er­al inter­ven­tion, it was won – the eight-hour day, dra­mat­i­cal­ly bet­ter con­di­tions in the camps, child labor banned. But not with­out cost; the employ­ers, the lum­ber­men, the author­i­ties respond­ed with sav­age repres­sion – for the log­gers, the Red Scare, the Palmer Raids as well, began in Washington’s woods, cul­mi­nat­ing in Cen­tralia in Novem­ber, where Wes­ley Ever­est, vet­er­an, log­ger, IWW mem­ber, was lynched.

In the city, CLC sec­re­tary James Dun­can, called 1917 ​“a red-let­ter year in the his­to­ry of orga­nized labor A dozen new unions have been orga­nized and all of Seat­tle unions are flour­ish­ing.” These includ­ed large num­bers of women work­ers, 1,100 ​“tele­phone girls,” hun­dreds of laun­dress­es, and hotel maids. The CLC, unlike many coun­ter­parts, under­stood the ​“vital impor­tance of the [AFL] Pacif­ic Coast movement’s cam­paign to orga­nize women work­ers in all indus­tries.” Orga­nized labor in Seat­tle grew by 300 per­cent in 1917, the closed shop the rule.

In 1919, the war behind them, Seattle’s work­ers were well orga­nized and itch­ing for a fight. It was a city, wrote Anna Louise Strong, who had become main stay at the Union Record in the time of the strike, ​“divid­ed into two hos­tile camps.” Class lines had hardened.

The sol­i­dar­i­ty of Seattle’s work­ers was, by any stan­dard, stag­ger­ing; work­ers from bar­bers to boil­er­mak­ers would cease work. There would be no pick­ets — as there were no strike­break­ers. Still, qual­i­fi­ca­tions need be made. Seat­tle and the Puget Sound coun­try were not immune to anti-Chi­nese move­ments of the 1880s and 1890s. Thus, by 1919, the Chi­nese in Seat­tle were few, and the expe­ri­ence of the Japan­ese, then the city’s largest minor­i­ty, was like­wise one of dis­crim­i­na­tion and exclusion.

The his­to­ri­an Kat­su­toshi Kurokawa, how­ev­er, has revealed change. In his study of Japan­ese immi­grants in Seat­tle, Kurokawa writes, ​“The IWWs appeal for uni­ty of work­ers of all coun­tries, and its oppo­si­tion to racial dis­crim­i­na­tion was gen­uine. The Japan­ese com­mu­ni­ty in Seat­tle under­stood this fact.” More­over, ​“In the late 1910s,” he writes, ​“pro­gres­sive and rad­i­cal activists who had no racial prej­u­dice increased their influ­ence in the Seat­tle labor move­ment.” Kurokawa points to Duncan’s inau­gu­ra­tion as a ​“mile­stone.” There were oth­ers; Seattle’s best- known social­ist, the work­ers’ ​“Joan of Arc,” Kate Sadler was a fierce oppo­nent of Asian exclu­sion. ​“Kate took to the streets to oppose it, from the skid road up and down.” Strong, pri­or to set­tling in Seat­tle, had trav­eled to Japan, then as a child wel­fare advocate.

On the eve of the strike, the Japan­ese unions approached Dun­can, offer­ing sup­port. This was accept­ed, they joined, con­tribut­ing con­spic­u­ous­ly, if some­what sym­bol­i­cal­ly, to the euphor­ic sol­i­dar­i­ty of the day. In the great meet­ing con­vened to sanc­tion the strike, ​“A Woman Who Was There,” reflect­ed on the “ high rhetoric, great emo­tion, even tears…” In the strike itself, she recalled, ​“The Japan­ese and Amer­i­can restau­rant work­ers went out side by side. The Japan­ese bar­bers struck when the Amer­i­can bar­bers struck and were giv­en seats of hon­or at the bar­bers’ union meet­ing that occurred imme­di­ate­ly thereafter.”

The Union Record, in its first strike edi­tion, con­curred: ​“Even in the midst of strike excite­ment, let us stop for a moment to rec­og­nize the action of the Japan­ese bar­bers and restau­rant work­ers who, through their own unions, vot­ed to take part in the gen­er­al strike. The strike here in Seat­tle is prov­ing the biggest demon­stra­tion of inter­na­tion­al­ism that has yet occurred in this coun­try. The Japan­ese deserve the greater cred­it because they have been denied admis­sion and affil­i­a­tion with the rest of the labor move­ment and have joined the strike of their own ini­tia­tive. We hope that this evi­dence of labor’s sol­i­dar­i­ty will have an influ­ence on the rela­tions between the two races in the future.”

Kurokawa reports these events res­onat­ed wide­ly through­out the Japan­ese pop­u­la­tion. Then, too: ​“Thus the action of Japan­ese unions toward the Gen­er­al Strike helped to change the atti­tude of orga­nized labor to Japan­ese workers.”

The gen­er­al strike as tac­tic was wide­ly iden­ti­fied with the IWW. Yet, the CLC had used the threat of a gen­er­al strike as a bar­gain­ing chip half a dozen times as a bar­gain­ing chip in fights for wages and ben­e­fits, as well as in its insis­tence that the closed shop pre­vail. But for Kate Sadler, the gen­er­al strike was about far more — the pow­er of work­ers to trans­form soci­ety: ​“We will progress to the full knowl­edge that no man is good enough to be anoth­er man’s mas­ter. That the pri­vate own­er­ship of things used in com­mon must go, and social own­er­ship take its place.”

When the ship­yard work­ers, on strike since Jan­u­ary 21, appealed to the CLC for sup­port, there was no oppo­si­tion to speak of. The work­ers, union by union, elect­ed the strike’s lead­er­ship, a strike com­mit­tee com­prised large­ly of rank-and-file work­ers. The strike com­mit­tee elect­ed an exec­u­tive com­mit­tee. These bod­ies, meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly non-stop, ensured the health, the wel­fare and the safe­ty of the city. Garbage was col­lect­ed, the hos­pi­tals were sup­plied, babies got milk – the peo­ple were fed, includ­ing some 30,000 a day at the strik­ers’ kitchens. There may have been no oth­er time before or since, when no one went hun­gry in the city.

The streets were safe — rarely safer — patrolled by an unarmed labor guard. It was report­ed that crime abat­ed. Off the streets, Seat­tle was a fes­ti­val — in the union halls, the co-op mar­kets, ​“feed­ing sta­tions,” and neigh­bor­hood cen­ters where work­ers and their fam­i­lies gath­ered. On the Sat­ur­day night there was a dance. And a mas­sive Mon­day night strike ral­ly in George­town – the crowd was so large, the build­ing, ​“set­tling,” had to be evac­u­at­ed. The meet­ing recon­vened, and with ​“great enthusiasm…it was decid­ed to make the meet­ings a reg­u­lar week­ly event… it was unan­i­mous that the strike should con­tin­ue until a liv­ing wage had been obtained by the ship­yard work­ers. …Many of those present expressed the opin­ion that the scope of the meet­ings should be enlarged to include the wives and daugh­ters of the work­ers, and to make them real com­mu­ni­ty gath­er­ings.” In all these places the strike was the top­ic – it was ana­lyzed, crit­i­cized, extolled and debat­ed and thus when these work­ers rep­re­sen­ta­tives packed the row­dy, emo­tion-filled Strike Com­mit­tee meet­ings they came pre­pared – they were mak­ing his­to­ry and they knew it.

The Seat­tle Star asked, ​“Under which flag? – the red, white and blue or the red.” The Post Intel­li­gencer, hys­ter­i­cal, appealed for fed­er­al sol­diers. The May­or, Olé Han­son, well-know­ing this was not the case, pro­claimed a rev­o­lu­tion under­way. The AFL joined in, denounc­ing the strik­ers and send­ing out from the East and Mid­west staff in hundreds.

The strike last­ed through the week­end, five work­ing days. Then singly, then in small batch­es, unions began return­ing. On Tues­day, the strike was pro­nounced off. Much is made of this, the splin­ter­ing of the strik­ers and the ​“ear­ly” end to the strike. Dun­can, sen­si­bly, would have pre­ferred all to go back togeth­er, but the truth was that there were oth­ers, many, who favored stay­ing out. The author­i­ties, how­ev­er, stub­born­ly resist­ed nego­ti­a­tion, sol­i­dar­i­ty strikes failed to mate­ri­al­ize, and the major­i­ty, vot­ing with their feet, felt they had made their point. ​“We did some­thing in this strike which has nev­er been done before,” explained Ben Neu­man of the Hoist­ing Engi­neers, a leader of the strike com­mit­tee. ​“Most of the men went back to work in good spir­its,” observed ​“the woman who was there,” ​“real­iz­ing, not indeed that they had won the recog­ni­tion of the ship­yard work­ers which they had asked for, but that per­haps they had done some­thing bigger.”

How to assess this? The dailies pro­nounced, ​“The Rev­o­lu­tion is Over.” Han­son took per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty for break­ing the strike and embarked on a nation­wide speak­ing tour to boast of this. Samuel Gom­pers at the AFL joined in extolled the ​“rev­o­lu­tion” defeat­ed and pledged to rid the unions of the rad­i­cals. But it had not been a rev­o­lu­tion nor was it intend­ed to be one. It was a strike to sup­port the ship­yard work­ers, though a very rad­i­cal strike, with, in fact, a ​“rev­o­lu­tion­ary spark” inside it. Hard­ly a ​“dis­as­ter,” far from quashed, it remains, bor­row­ing from Rosa Lux­em­burg, a link in the great chain of his­toric events, which is the pride and strength of inter­na­tion­al social­ism. Well worth celebrating.

Seattle’s work­ers, their unions intact, would live to fight anoth­er day. In the mean­time, the IWW was sat­is­fied that Seat­tle had shown the gen­er­al strike to be indeed a use­ful weapon in labor’s ​“arse­nal.” The New York Call explained the strike as an indi­ca­tion that capital’s days were num­bered. And Max East­man, the Green­wich Vil­lage intel­lec­tu­al, spoke for many when he judged that Seat­tle ​“filled with hope and hap­pi­ness the hearts of mil­lions of peo­ple in all places of the earth…[it] demon­strat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of that loy­al sol­i­dar­i­ty of the work­ing class which is the sole remain­ing hope of lib­er­ty for mankind.”