CENTRALIA DEAD MARCH is a documentary novel based on the struggle of the IWW to establish better working conditions and solidarity among lumbermen, miners, railroad and migrant workers during the early part of this century. The central event in the novel is the murder of IWW leader Wesley Everest. This novel examines the long-term consequences of anti-union violence and repression.

"A dynamic piece of historical fiction written at its best." --Strike

"Churchill explores the dimensions of human behavior driven by desperation and fear as well as by idealism and a sense of honor. His skillful weaving of historical facts and fictional events produces a work that challenges." --Northeast

Churchill's documentary novel about the 1919 Armistice Day raid on the IWW Union Hall in Centralia, WA by members of The American Legion and Elks Club takes a very human look at those terrifying events. It examines the conflict of the workingman's movement for a better life through socialist thought and political action against an America which was controlled by the old boy network and robber barons. The story is told in 3 parts. The first part is the tragic love story of Wesley Everett and Lucy Neimi. Everett was the Wobbly lynched as punishment for leading a counterattack against the Legionnaires. His intelligence and dignity are so well expressed, that when he meets his fate we are truly in horror. The second part of the story is told in the form of letters from Wobbly Ray Becker from jail and later prison. His is the story of a never-ending drive for justice in the case. While all the other Wobblies were content to take parole after ten or more years behind bars, Becker desired nothing less than winning on appeal, to show that the Wobblies were not guilty of anything other than self-defense. The last part of the story is told as a mystery, one man's journey to find the truth about the shady past of the town he grew up in. It is here where the strongest conclusions are drawn about the impact of all those events back in 1919. To this day, Centralia still lives in the shadow of those events. The impact of Armistice Day 1919 on the people involved was tremendous. It was the defining moment for a generation of people in that area. Churchill deftly takes us back there to those times. He has a love for this story which shows through, and he has good reason. It is a beautiful story.

As a native of industrialized Pennsylvania I'm perplexed by how little is known of the tragedy of Centralia. I was unfamiliar myself until some years ago when I innocently passed through the area on route 61. I found a ghost town with an orderly street grid, with city blocks completely devoid of all but one or two lonely buildings, and vast abandoned fields covering what could have been orderly neighborhoods. I thought, what in the world is this? I also witnessed what I thought was a natural hot spring emitting steam from a hillside. Only over time did I learn that the hot spring was really smoke from the underground mine fire that wiped out what was once a normal small town.

DeKok's book is probably the most extensive investigation of the Centralia tragedy, especially with his coverage of the political ineptitude over decades that made a minor problem into a major disaster. Dekok reveals that the town started the fire itself in 1962 by burning trash in a landfill that had an unknown connection to an old mine shaft, which ignited the slow-burning coal in the mines beneath the town. For 19 years the slow fire affected more and more people with toxic fumes, until by 1981 tragedy struck when a gentleman had to be hospitalized and a boy fell through a flaming cave-in behind his house. DeKok covers the years and years of political and bureaucratic ineptitude that merely led to "studies" of the fire rather than action, as the people of Centralia were pawns in a game between apathetic agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, plus buck-passing between the state and the Feds. Even the citizens were torn apart by divisiveness caused by stress and anger. Eventually most of the residents chose to be relocated to other towns by the government, and DeKok's most moving coverage concerns the social agony caused by this final abandonment of the town.

As an update since this book, the fire is still slowly burning beneath much of the area. For their own strange reasons, a few residents are still hanging on in their lonely houses and still dealing with fumes and cave-ins. St. Ignatius church was demolished recently and route 61 has been permanently re-routed around the section that kept collapsing. This is the legacy of uncaring politicians and bureaucrats.

This is a fascinating book, and a very easy read for one that delves into the mires of local and state government officials dropping the ball. DeKok's attention to detail paints a picture comparable to a Stephen Soderburg film. And despite the clarity he brings to a tragic situation, he never strays far from the real story: Real everyday folks caught in a quagmire of safety issues, home ownership, health and politics.

In the midst of the first annual Armistice parade in Centralia, WA on November 11, 1919, four soldiers were slain on the streets of their hometown by members of the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union dedicated to organizing all facets of production workers into "one big union." The chaos and vigilante efforts which immediately followed the shootings resulted in the gruesome lynching of a union man believed to be responsible for the seemingly unprovoked attack and a severe imprisonment sentenced to virtually every union man in the region, regardless of culpability. Significantly, the shootings in Centralia and the struggle to gain clarity on the situation during the aftermath have been largely ignored in American history. Dismissed as a brutal clash rife with misunderstanding on both sides of the labor versus management issue, many historians have elected not to pursue the complex issues surrounding the movement gone tragically awry.

Yet Tom Copeland does a magnificent job in bringing these tragic events back to the forefront of consciousness in his biography rife with historical analysis. Copeland reprises the events from the unique perspective of attorney Elmer Smith, virtually the only lawyer in the timber industry region who was willing to champion the working class and the disenfranchised over the deep pockets of big business.

Other historical works have deliberated on the actions of both the Legionnaires and the I.W.W., or "Wobblies," on that fateful November day. Though outraged sentiment at the time demanded harsh punishments against the Wobblies, it would later be revealed that a trial laden with manipulated testimony and enforced by the intimidating presence of the U.S. Army only masked the fact that, in this instance, the Legionnaires had provoked the attack. Copeland's book, however, is the first to isolate the actions of Elmer Smith, a lawyer who not only counseled the Wobblies prior to the November attack, but who advised them that they were well within their rights to defend themselves and their I.W.W. hall against mounting aggressions from the Legionnaires and who was jailed for nearly 6 months pending trial for soliciting this (quite legal) advice to the Wobblies.

This book should be read for a number of reasons. It is, of course, particularly insightful for those of us who live in the Northwest region and within spitting distance of where the most tumultuous labor disputes in American history took place. More than that, though, it is a sobering lesson in how the wheels of government really turn for those Americans not wealthy enough to grease the axles. It is a demonstration of how the U.S. Constitution can become a suspended after-thought when the concerns of Big Business are at hand. The book also illuminates a rather ghastly period of Americana in the World War One era that many have thought best forgotten: the mighty decimating the weak; the rampant xenophobia which dictated public and business policy; the patriotic jingoism which overruled any dissent in American foreign policy. Copeland's book mostly succeeds on a humanitarian level, though, in his portrayal of plain Elmer Smith as a man of integrity, ignited by his passion for social reform and at all times gifted with an overwhelming sense of morality and human decency. It's not by coincidence that others joked of him: "What's more frightening than a working man with brains? A lawyer with a heart."

Copeland is every bit as strong in pointing out the flaw in Smith's character along side his strengths. In his zeal for supporting the Wobblies both before 1919 and in the decade after when he worked tireless for their release from prison, Smith's family suffered enormously. They were instantly social pariahs to the community of Centralia, WA and their needs were often secondary to Smith's concerns for the union. Smith's family barely scraped by financially after he was disbarred by the State of Washington and were left devastated after Smith, ignoring his own deteriorating health, died at the age of 42 from a series of bleeding ulcers. In all, Copeland does a tremendous job gathering the sentiments of Smith's surviving family and molding a 3-dimensional portrait of a human being, warts and all.

I read a review recently of the Academy Award winning documentary, "One Day in September" which chronicles the kidnapping and assassination of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. "Why should the film have been made and why should it be shown?" the Washington Post asked. "Because the world must not be allowed to forget, no matter how much it would like to." The same could be said of the tragedy in Centralia, which sadly, seems to have totally been forgotten in a truly deliberate fashion.

Social movements depend not on a few charismatic leaders, but on the efforts of countless people whose names will never be remembered in our history books. The tendency, however, is to treat movements as the result of nearly superhuman individuals who alone create structural change. In this interpretation, the average citizens' duty is simply to do nothing but wait for a leader to lead them to the promised land. The cumulative effect of such history is the disempowerment of individuals, who learn to see history as something that "happens" to them, not as something that they can help create.

Tom Copeland's book, through the telling of Elmer Smith's story, reminds us of this truth. The progress that has been made during the past century in securing stonger rights for workers is due not to a few huge individuals, but to the Elmer Smiths of the country, whose daily and usually unrewarded sacrifices created a real gain for wage earners. We can never know the stories of all who gave up their comfortable lives to work in the labor movement, or how many suffered dearly for it. But Copeland has recovered one such individual, whose story is both an inspiration to activists and a sobering reminder of the ease with which our government can redefine human rights when dealing with dissidents.

As Copeland concludes, "By fanning the fire of discontent during his lifetime, he (Smith) helped keep the flame of justice alive for generations." This book is a reminder that all progress is due to those who question conventional wisdom and refuse to consent to a system which conflicts with their conscience. It also forces us to ask a crucial question: what are we doing today to fan the fire of discontent?

I found I kept reading this book hoping something would happen. It literally took me weeks to read but I forced myself to continue on. When I reached the end I was very disappointed and felt I had been cheated. I would never recommend this book to anyone.

Although it's not as funny as Boylan's earlier "The Planets," "The Constellations: has its share of wonderful moments. Characters undergo epiphanies in tatoo parlors and on abandoned railroad bridges. An artist can't get her work taken seriously -- and then her work is taken by an ex-mentor. There's a chase that ends up back in the doomed city of Centralia, which sits above a perpetually burning coal mine. Characters and scenes -- particularly the funny sex scenes -- will stay with your for a long time to come