Student Paper
Local Labor’s Loss. the Camas Paper Mill Strike of 1917
History 469
Washington State University Vancouver
By Daniel Getty
May 5, 2000
It was a turbulent year for sure. One could almost say the locals did not have a chance. All they were asking for were simple demands, things that we take for granted today in our modern society: an eight-hour work day, a six-day work week, overtime pay, and a little more money to put some food on the table. With these objectives in mind, over three-hundred men employed at the Crown Willamette Paper Mill in Camas, Washington went on strike on the afternoon of April 16,1917. They joined in what would collectively become the largest series of strikes in the history of the Washington state lumber industry.
During that turbulent year the papermakers of Camas would organize a local union, lose a major strike, and see their hopes of higher wages and employee benefits fade as the organized labor movement struggled for its survival in the Pacific Northwest while our nation entered the first World War. That war was the catalyst used by the giants of capital to undermine the ambitions of the budding organized labor movement in Washington state, and the Crown Willamette mill in Camas was no exception.
Labor was already on shaky ground. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) had been butting heads over the control of the American worker for over a decade. The AFL, despite being more mainstream than the radical “wobblies” of the IWW, saw their objectives fail in 1917 with the war in Europe. A workers revolution in Russia and the first “red-scare” that accompanied it
compounded the problems labor had that year. These events, coupled with record low unemployment in Washington state, led to failure for the men of Local Papermakers 100 at Crown Willamette in Camas. The year started at the paper mill with the birth of a local union in the spring, and ended with its death in the fall. It would not be until war’s end before Northwest labor interests could reorganize, and recover.
The turn of the century brought in growth and opportunity for a small mill community in Southwest Washington. Expansion began in 1905 when the Columbia River Paper Company in Camas merged with the Crown Paper Company of West Linn, Oregon. This was the first in a series of mergers for the paper mill that had been the life’s blood of the city of Camas for over twenty years. In nine years, Crown Columbia would expand its operation even further when it joined with the Lebanon Paper Company and the Willamette Paper Company. The resulting Crown Willamette Paper Company would become the second largest paper company in the world, and the backbone of the economy of an ever- expanding Camas mill town world. 1
After the turn of the twentieth century, the American worker had become fully enveloped in the industrial complex of capital. It was only natural that his next course of action was to improve his lot in life within this modern world. Historian David Brody noted that the American worker in the early twentieth century,
` stood wholly within the modern industrial order.
Only now could he fully take in his fate- what it meant
to work in a large-scale, mechanized, rationally
managed, cooperate system of production. And
only now, when it was essentially fixed, had the
time arrived for coming to terms with the industrial
system. 2.
Coming to terms with the industrial complex meant that labor had to organize. The AFL began to put together trade and craft unions before the turn of the century. Union interests began to spread beyond mainstream skilled labor to the much larger masses of unskilled workers. The newly formed IWW sought to embrace those workers and mobilize them by class as well as occupation. The vision of a worker’s utopia was espoused by the IWW propagandists who in their socialist ideals were seen as being subversive to the very identity of America: capitalism. In his examination of media perceptions of the labor movement, William Puette notes that the anti-IWW propaganda of the time, “usually pictured Uncle Sam, the symbol of America, being threatened by an anarchist, clad in the familiar garb of an immigrant and carrying the lighted bomb of industrial terrorism”.3, only sought to undermine the goals and aspirations of the labor movement.
Yet, in spite of being viewed by many as a threat to national security, the union movement continued to grow. In Washington State the rank and file membership of the Washington State Federation of Labor, an AFL affiliate, increased by 54.66% in the eighteen months between 1916 and the summer of 1917 4. The local Papermakers 100 at Crown Willamette was part of that increase. They formed a union in late April of 1917 with 400 members , a substantial majority of the Crown Willamette employees, and were assisted by Charles P. Taylor of the WSFL and organized by Oregon State Federation of Labor secretary E.J. Stack. 5 . They intended to have one of the nation’s largest paper manufactured grant them the concessions that they felt they deserved- a shorter day with more pay. Just like countless other American workers they wanted to come to terms with the industrial complex.
Unionization was seen as new hope for labor. The formation of a local union by mill employees in Camas was typical of the growth of unions statewide, especially in the lumber-related industries which were thriving in the Pacific Northwest at the time. Membership in the AFL’s International Union of Timber Workers was around 2500 in 1917. The more radical IWW affiliate, Lumberman’s International, stood at over three thousand. 6.
Both unions knew that America’s entrance into W.W.I would be advantageous to labor because of the demand for productivity. The unions felt that industry would have no choice but to deal with their demands in order to keep up with wartime production. The AFL and IWW lumber unions both called for a general strike to take place during the summer of 1917. First the IWW timber unions called for a strike to originally begin on July first, “unless employers met their demand for the eight hour day, better wages and improved conditions.”7. Not wanting to be left out, the WSFL Shingle Weavers and Timber Workers Unions called for a strike to begin on July 15th, “to grant the eight or nine hour day, higher wages, and improved camp conditions”. 8. However, some of the more zealous unions began premature strikes in April, first in Montana and Idaho, then spread into Oregon and Washington. At its peak over 50,000 timber workers were on strike in Washington state alone. By mid-summer 1917 only a fraction of Washington lumber mills were operating while three-quarters of the lumber production was shut down.
The Crown Willamette Paper mill was no exception in the labor unrest that was sweeping through the Northwest timber related industries . The headline of the April 20, 1917 Camas Post relays the woefully anticipated result of the local labor dilemma in seven simple words: “PAPER MILL EMPLOYEES WALK OUT ON STRIKE”. At noon on Monday April 16, over three hundred mill workers in Camas walked out on strike to secure a flat increase of fifty cents per day, time and a half for overtime and double time for Sunday work. On Tuesday, the mill closed. They felt they were just in their demands , as the Camas Postsympathetically notes:
. . . the people of this country in general never before saw the prices of the absolute necessities of life go ballooning
skyward more swiftly and surely than they witnessed in the
past six months. . . in the mean time the wages of the mill workers had not been increased in prices of the commodities which they must provide to sustain life.9
Mill manager Mr. Bankus issued a statement that any of the striking men could return to their jobs under pre-walkout conditions. This proposition was offered to striking mill workers at a meeting held at the Camas Opera House on the night of Wednesday, April, 18th who promptly voted it down by a margin of 270 to 30. During the next few days, representatives from the striking workers formed a committee to meet with William Lewthwaite, the First Superintendent of Crown Willamette, to discuss the demands of the men at the Camas mill. Instead of a flat fifty-cent increase, Lewthwaite offered a varying graduated pay raise as follows:
| OLD WAGE (PER DAY) | NEW WAGE (PER DAY) |
| $2.40 | $2.90 |
| $2.60 | $3.08 |
| $3.00 | $3.44 |
| $4.00 | $4.34 |
| $5.00 | $5.2510 |
Under this raise, the lowest paid workers received the largest increase, while the men in the higher mill positions received the smaller increase. This was not quite what the strikers had in mind, but they accepted the increase anyway by a margin of 286 to 29. Over-time pay was not considered, neither was time-and-a-half for Sunday work, or the eight hour day. The women in the Bag Factory, though not part of the strike, received a seventeen-cent per day increase, raising them up to $1.80 for a day’s work. However, the most significant action taken that April was the formation of a local union. Four-hundred men with the assistance of E.J. Stack, secretary of the Oregon State Federation of Labor, and the Washington State Federation of Labor secretary, Charles P. Taylor, formed the new union. The AFL was in Camas much to the dismay of the management of Crown Willamette, who preferred to deal with labor relations the old-fashioned way–by a committee of workers, away from the outside influence of a union affilliate.11.
Mill management solidified their distrust of organized labor about three weeks after the April strike ended. When mill workers picked up their paychecks on the afternoon of May 19th, they also received a circular letter emphatically stating their position. In it Crown Willamette management proclaim their attitude towards the mill employees’ new organization:
. . . In the thirty years which we have been operating,
it has never been necessary for them( mill employees)
to organize a union or unions to plead their cause, nor is
it necessary for them to do so at the present time. . .
we wish to state that we will continue to deal directly
with our employees or any committees which they
may appoint to represent them, but we positively will
not recognize any union or representatives from a
union or unions.12
This letter was the key that would open the Pandora’s box of problems for the men of Local Papermakers 100 in Camas. In the months to follow, the issue of unionization in Camas as well as the rest of the Pacific Northwest would be challenged by industry. The trump card played against labor would be based on nationalism, for on April second President Wilson brought America out of isolation and declared war on Germany. This was the weapon needed to legitimately destroy the aspirations of the organized labor movement as any impediment to production would be considered not only seditious, but un-American as well.
With America’s entrance into war in Europe, the labor movement now found itself struggling for survival. As historian Carlos Schwantes noted, in the period just before the First World War, “business antagonism to organized labor increased, and the IWW bogey was used to discredit the entire labor movement.”13 To add insult to injury in early 1917, criminal syndicalism laws were passed in the Pacific Northwest that made it illegal to advocate sabotage with the intention of industrial reform.14 This was the beginning of a concentrated effort to eliminate the IWW with it’s radical socialist ideals, and to control the more mainstream AFL affiliates, who pledged to support the war effort.
Because labor strikes hurt production, which now hindered the war effort, the IWW was seen as a threat to national security. In his examination of the IWW, Melvyn Dubofsky notes that, “no irate lumber baron, no apoplectic copper mine owner, and no outraged state official had to convince the federal government of the seriousness of the IWW menace to national security.”15 Within the federal government, the departments of Labor, War, and Justice all sought to end this threat from within. The three departments by the end of 1917 had coalesced into a government policy aimed at destroying the IWW.16 Out of fear and loathing for the IWW, federal officials came to the realization that the best way to deal with this threat was to use federal troops to prevent the IWW from disrupting wartime production.
When the AFL joined the IWW in the massive timber strikes during the summer, Washington state Governor Lister, at the request of President Wilson, created a State Council of Defense to assist the War Department in it’s efforts to solve the Northwest labor disputes. Governor Lister asked University of Washington president, Henry Suzzallo to head the SCD, and restore timber production.17 Not having their demands met, and being harassed by the military, the IWW in Spokane under James Rowan of the Western loggers and harvesters threatened to call a general strike on Monday, August 20th. According to Dubofsky, ” the Army wasted no time in answering Rowan’s threat. On Sunday, August 19, federal troops moved into Spokane and raided the local IWW headquarters, where they seized Rowan and twenty-six other Wobblies.”18 That same day, the general strike was cancelled.
Scenes like Spokane were commonplace at this time. Dembo notes that even the AFL was susceptible to harassment from federal and local government. “They found it hard to distinguish between “good” (i.e., loyal, pro-war) and “bad” (i.e., disloyal, anti-war) unions. Many of them hated all unions and were intent on using the war as a cover for their efforts to destroy them.”19 By summer’s end, the lumber strikes were losing momentum as non-union workers were hired to keep factories open and insure that there would be no loss of production. And, like the failure of the Washington lumber unions, the men of the newly formed Local Papermakers 100 in Camas would see their aspirations fail as well.
By the summer of’ ’17, westerners were all too familiar with the impending volatility of unionization. The Camas Post ran a story on September,14th reprinted from the Walla Walla Bulletin by J.G. Kegley of the SCD entitled, “PRINCIPLES OF I.W.W. MENACE TO COUNTRY.” Kegley’s article intended to discredit the Wobblies who have, “taken advantage of the present war situation to harass and embarrass the federal government in every possible manner.”20 Kegley also tries to distance the pro-war AFL from the more sinister, anti-war IWW whose actions were seen as, ” in the direct interest of Germany.” 21 With this nationalistic tone, the lynching of IWW organizers in Montana becomes a “deplorable example of righteous indignation” that should, “serve as a warning to I.W.W. ism everywhere”.22
What Kegley fails to mention is that Frank Little brought his IWW anti-war campaign to Butte, Montana in late July to offer support to local wobblies. A few days later a group of vigilantes dragged Little out of bed on the night of July 31, one eye-broken-leg-and-all, and brutally tortured him before hanging him from a railroad trestle. After Little’s body was found, there was no attempt to locate or prosecute the murderers. It was justice. The local vigilantes could act outside the law because the local officials and federal officials simply “looked the other way.” 23.
It was in this atmosphere that the men of Local Papermakers 100 plotted their next move. In September they once again asked for a pay raise, but now there was a new issue at hand: union recognition. The list of demands presented at that time that called for a “closed-shop”, meaning that the Crown Willamette Plant would hire only union members. Since mill managers had declared back in May that they would not deal with a union to arbitrate labor disputes, the closed shop clause was removed and a new list of demands was presented in mid-October. Union members in Camas and the Crown Willamette plant in Oregon City, Oregon called for a strike in both plants unless their concessions were met. They made simple demands: “Time and one half for overtime and Sunday work; twenty-five cents per day wage increase; no discrimination against employees because of membership in labor organizations. . . “. They claimed to be acting “in the interest of peace, humanity, freedom and democracy.” The management of Crown Willamette did not agree; as a result on November first over twelve-hundred men at the Camas and Oregon City mills walked out on strike. 24
This time they would not win. Even though the “closed shop” clause had been removed, it was obvious to First Superintendent Lewthwaite that, “the real fight was for unionizing the mill.” This was management’s excuse to decline arbitration. They claimed that they had just given their employees a wage increase just six months prior and because of stagnating paper prices another pay raise was not feasible at this time. With images of the violence that had surrounded labor disputes, the Post notes that while “determination may be depicted in their (the strikers’) faces, their conduct has been clean, honorable and above reproach.”25. However, the Post also records that some of the strikers had acquired temporary employment–as “special policemen”– a volatile occupation for a union striker, as time would tell.
In the following weeks the strikers decided to “go to the bat” with false claims and accusations made by mill management. Challenging a statement made by Lewthwaite, the Camas Post printed a statement from the local union on the condition of wages at the mill. This is a direct challenge to statements made by Lewthwaite printed in the Oregon Journal regarding the high wage paid at the mill. Lewthwate’s claims and the actual wages, based on the ten-hour day were as follows:
| LEWTHWAITE”S CLAIM | ACTUAL PAY |
| machinists @.44.55–.55.50 $/hr | machinists @.42.50–.48.30 $/hr. |
| carpenters @.42.25–55.50 $/hr. | carpenters @ 42.25–.50.00 $/hr. |
| millwrights @.42.25–.60.55 $/hr. | millwrights @ 42.25–.52.80 $/hr. 26 |
The Post also mentions that the mill management is contending that they were simply fighting against the “closed-shop”. The truth was that in the revised list of demands asked on October 23 removed any union question. So, the “closed shop” part of the equation was not a factor in negotiations. According to the Post, the real problem was not the fact that the striking workers wanted management to recognize their organization, but the simple fact that, “there is a local union at each of these mills and they do not intend to go out of business.”27 Stubbornness on both sides would only complicate the situation in the days to come.
On November, 9th the strikers held a meeting at the Camas Opera House to clarify their position and restate their goals and objectives. This was their time to rally around the flag of organized labor. The key speakers in this meeting were Frank Frampton, president of local Papermakers 100; George Snyder, first vice president of the IWW’s International Papermakers Union (and a former Crown Willamette employee–terminated for his union affiliation); and E.J. Stack–Secretary of the Oregon State Federation of Labor. There were over 450 people present, representing the majority of the Camas mill’s staff.28
While union members were busy singing their praises, the Crown Willamette managers were busy as well — busy at replacing the lost labor from the strike. On the same page that the Post reported the Opera House meeting, another column said that, “LOCAL MILL NOW HAS ONE MACHINE RUNNING” Almost three weeks into the strike and the paper mill was operating at 75% capacity.29 Crown Willamette had a simple solution to their problem, replace strikers with strike-breakers. They started to hire non-union labor as fast as they could. Their goal was to get the mill up to full capacity; it was strictly a financial decision. However, it only compounded the problem for the violent side of organized labor would rear its ugly head in Camas before all was said and done.
That violence came when a non-union mill worker by the name of F.W. Beech was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon on the night of November, 12. By no strange coincidence, the arresting officer was from the “special policemen” hired from the ranks of striking union mill workers, local men with local interests to protect. The Camas Post ran the story of
Mr. Beech on November 16, 1917, and claimed that it was “alleged that (he) Beech was roughly used”. The Post explains the incident that took place that evening in November. Beech crossed a picket line above Clark Street, where he joined his wife and daughter and all three went into Jellison’s store to “do some trading”. When they left the store, Beech was approached by several deputies and was arrested for carrying a pistol which, no doubt, was for his own protection from the mobs of strikers who were looming in the streets of Camas and who held little regard for the strikebreakers who replaced them. Somewhere between Camas and Vancouver it became necessary to hospitalize Mr. Beech. When his wife arrived the next day at Saint Joseph’s Memorial Hospital, she found him still unconscious even though he supposedly only received “one blow to the head”.30
From this point on, things began to unravel for Local Papermakers 100. All the worst fears of the organized labor movement were being realized. On November 23, Lewthwaite made the announcement that the Crown Willamette would “not employ union labor”31 This would be the crushing blow to the locals. After months of debating the issue, management decided once and for all that not only would they not deal with the unions, but they would discriminate from hiring union members. Just as the labor movement was dying in the Pacific Northwest, it was dying in Camas as well. By November 30 there were 453 employees working at the mill. To insure their safety, they were housed on the barges Annie Cummings, Potter and Burton to protect them from the animosity of the strikers.32 A warehouse at the mill was converted into a dining hall for the strikebreakers. The presence of these non-union workers and the violence that accompanied the affair only sought to dismantle the organization that existed to protect the workers of Crown Willamette.
By January, 1918, the men of Local Papermakers 100 were finished. Their labor had been replaced by non-union help. For the management of Crown Willamette this was not a difficult task. Because of the war, and the steady stream of people pouring into the Northwest, unemployment was at an all time low. In Washington State alone unemployment in 1917 was at -4.75%, and almost doubled to -7.53% the following year.33 During the war, unemployment would remain in negative numbers. The strikers did not have a chance as their labor was easily replaced. This was not good news for Local Papermakers 100 and the Northwest labor movement in general. Harry Edward Graham assesses the demise of organized labor in his book, The Paper Rebellion: “the loss of the Crown strike effectively destroyed the unions on the coast, and not even a token presence was maintained through the 1920s.”34
An anonymous post card from 1918 sums up the condition of labor at the Crown Willamette plant in Camas. On the front is a picture of the paper mill, it is one of the standard shots of the mill taken during that time. What makes the post card unique is the message written on the back:
The building with a 2 on is where the woman and girls are employed. It is the bag factory where they make
paper sacks. Claude likes his new job fine. He said it
nearly killed him to work the shifts. He gets 48c. hour
The are in awful in need of help. Claude said tell ever one to come that could for this is an awful nice place to work and live. 35
The unknown author of this postcard indicated that the work “nearly killed” the man referred to as Claude. We can only speculate that the reason for this is the fact that Crown Willamette management refused to shorten the length of the work day. Claude was most likely working the grueling ten hour shifts that the men of Local Papermakers 100 failed to shorten to the more desirable eight hour day. However, Claude was making .48c./hour, which would have made him $4.80 per day. This would have been an outstanding rate as the lowest paid mill worker after the April strike was at a rate of $2.90 per day. No wonder he found it “an awful nice place to work and live”.
The end of that turbulent year, 1917, was the end of organized labor at Crown Willamette. World War One, with it’s surge of nationalism became the scapegoat used by capital to squash labor interest. It would be years before the unions would gain the recognition and respect that they so dearly sought. The Crown Willamette strikes of 1917 ended in failure for the men of the Camas paper mill who, like so many other laborers at the time, sought to improve their conditions in the daily grind of industrial America. Looking back now on the events of that fateful year it is clear that the locals did not have a chance.
1. Mark Parsons. Looking Back: 100 Years of Camas and Washougal History, (Camas: Post Publications, 1983), 69.
2. David Brody. Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 3.
3. William Puette, Though Jaundiced Eyes, How the Media Veiw Organized Labor, (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1992), 79.
4. Jonathan Dembo, History of the Washington State Labor Movement, 1885-1935. (Seattle: University of Washington, Ph.D.. diss.,1978), 686.
5. “Striking Mill Men Return to Work”, Camas Post (Camas), 27 April 1917, 1.
6. Dembo, 159.
7. Ibid. 160.
8. Ibid.
9. “Paper Mill Employees Walk Out on Strike”, Camas Post (Camas), 20 April 1917, 1.
10. Ibid, 2.
11. “Striking Mill Men Return to Work”, Camas Post (Camas), 27 April 1917, 1.
12. Ibid, 2.
13. Carlos A. Schwantes, Radical Heritage Labor, Socialism, and Reform in Washington and British Columbia, 1885-1917, (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1979), 214.
14. Ibid.
15. Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press 1988), 398.
16. Ibid.
17. Dembo, 162.
18. Dubosfsky, 403.
19. Dembo, 162.
20. “Principles of IIW Menace to Country”, Camas Post (Camas), 14 September 1917.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Dubosfsky, 392.
24. “Paper Mill Employees Walk Out on Strike”, Camas Post (Camas), 20 April 1917, 1.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. “Local Unions Offer a Plain Statement”, Camas Post (Camas), 9 November 1917, 8.
28. Ibid.
29. “Local Mill Now Has One Machine Running”, Camas Post (Camas) 16 November 1917.
30. “Alleged That Beech Was Roughly Used”, Camas Post (Camas) 16 November 1917.
31. “Paper Mills Will Not Employ Union Labor”, Camas Post (Camas) 23 November 1917.
32. “542 Men Working in Camas Paper Plant”, Camas Post (Camas) 7 December 1917.
33. John P. Hering, Labor Force, Employment, and Unemployment Annual Estimates by States: 1900-1940, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1951), 41.
34. Harry E. Graham, The Paper Rebellion: Development and upheaval in Pulp and Paper Unionism, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. 1970), 29.
35. Unknown Author, Post Card of Crown Willamette Paper Mill c.1918, courtesy of The Camas-Washougal Historical Society, Washougal, Washington. p.a. 0128
Sources
Primary
Camas Post (Camas), 20 April 1917 – 4 January 1918.
Anonymous, Post Card of Crown Willamette Paper Mill c.1918, courtesy of Curtis Hughey, Washougal, Washington.
Industrial Workers of the World. Preamble and Constitution of the IWW. Organized July,7 1905, Chicago: 1916.
Secondary
Brody, David. Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the 20th Century Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Dembo, Jonathan. History of the Washington State Labor Movement, 1885-1935 . Ph.D.. diss., Seattle: University of Washington,1978.
Dubofsky, Melvyn. We Shall Be All A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press 1988.
Graham, Harry E. The Paper Rebellion: Development and upheaval in Pulp and Paper Unionism, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. 1970.
Hering, John P. Labor Force, Employment, and Unemployment Annual Estimates by States: 1900-1940, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1951.
Parsons, Mark, E. Looking Back 100 Years of Camas and Washougal History. Camas: Post Publications, 1983.
Puette, William. Through jaundiced eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor, Ithaca: ILR Press,1992.
Schwantes, Carlos A. Radical Heritage Labor, Socialism, and Reform in Washington and British Columbia, 1885-1917, Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1979.
