The Centralia Conspiracy

On Armistice Day in Centralia, a parade ends in gunfire—and the first question is whether the union loggers fired on a crowd or defended their hall from a raid.

In 1919, amid the vast forests and booming lumber industry of the Pacific Northwest, workers and business interests were locked in a bitter struggle over union organizing. Ralph Chaplin opens his account with a challenge to the newspapers’ version of the Centralia tragedy, pointing to testimony that some Legion marchers carried weapons and rope. He argues that the shootings and the trial that followed cannot be understood apart from the fight between organized labor and the lumber interests—and asks whether the raid was planned to break the union. What lies behind the story the public was first told?

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