Biography
Bert Bland was a logger and IWW member at the Centralia, Washington local, and the brother of O.C. Bland. He was among the seven Wobblies convicted of second-degree murder following the November 11, 1919 Centralia Tragedy. Bland was sentenced to 25 to 40 years at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla and released in June 1933 pending formal parole papers, according to contemporary newspaper reports.
One of the eight IWW defendants tried at Montesano (Grays Harbor County), WA from January 26 to March 13, 1920 for the deaths of four American Legionnaires (Warren Grimm, Arthur McElfresh, Ben Casagranda, Dale Hubbard) during the Armistice Day, November 11, 1919 attack on the Centralia, WA IWW union hall. Convicted of 2nd-degree murder despite the IWW's defense that they were defending the union hall from an armed mob. Sentenced to 25-40 years at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. The case became a long-running cause célèbre of the IWW and the labor left, with the Centralia Publicity Committee and later the Free Ray Becker Committee organizing for parole and pardon over two decades.
The July 26, 1928 issue discusses a Centralia juror affidavit attributed to E. E. Torpen, including his account of an early acquittal vote and a leniency understanding. It presents a defense challenge to the convictions, not a court reversal, pardon or new physical release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n176-NY-jul-26-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Bert Bland, a term of 24–40 years as printed, the year 1919 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Walla Walla, Washington, Box 520. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
Page 3's Fred Beal appeal individually names the eight Centralia prisoners, placing them at Walla Walla and urging that they not be left to rot in prison. It recalls the November 11, 1919 confrontation and Wesley Everest's lynching. The ten-year anniversary is a rounded elapsed observation across the case history, not an independently measured uninterrupted individual custody total or new conviction. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The June 14, 1933 issue reports that Bert Bland had actually been released from Walla Walla prison while formal parole papers were still pending. The article prints no dispatch date. Its fourteen-year summary is rounded, not an exact measured total, and Britt Smith’s proposed release in two weeks remains prospective. Daily Worker, June 14, 1933, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n142-NY-jun-14-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
His WallaWalla prison-relief letter acknowledges a five-dollar ILD donation and expresses hope assistance would soon be unnecessary. It supplies no exact parole or physical-release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n05-may-1930-LD.pdf#page=32
1920s custody-date review: Contemporary reports published June 14 and June 17, 1933 describe Bert Bland as just released from Walla Walla, before issuance of formal parole papers. Release is recorded as June 1933, not January 1 and not the later July 1 parole date found in a retrospective account. The precise day remains unverified.
Sources: Daily Worker, June 14, 1933, page 2; The New Leader, June 17, 1933, page 8; University of Washington, Centralia Tragedy Collection.
The January 28, 1924 issue of The Daily Worker individually listed Bert Bland among the political and class-war prisoners at the state prison at Walla Walla, Washington, in an appeal to fund newspaper subscriptions for imprisoned people. This is a contemporary custody observation; the publication date does not establish admission, release, or a total period served.
The February 26, 1924 Daily Worker political-prisoner roster individually prints Bert Bland with historical prisoner number 9411. The entry appears under Washington State Penitentiary, Walla Walla. This is a contemporary institutional identifier, not a federal BOP register number. No admission or release date, individual sentence length, actual duration, organizational membership or present status is inferred.
The March 20, 1924 Daily Worker, page 3, publishes April 27 as the birthday of B. Bland, individually identified by existing prisoner number 9411. No birth year is supplied, so no complete birthdate or age is invented. This contemporary month-and-day birthday detail is preserved as attributed reporting. Original enlarged print was checked; OCR misreads of the identifiers were rejected.
Ella Reeve Bloor’s first-person visit names eight Centralia prisoners at Walla Walla: Britt Smith, Ray Becker, O. C. Bland, Bert/J. Bland, Eugene Barnett, James McInerney, John Lamb and Loren Roberts. She describes ILD monthly support and book requests. The seven-man photograph individually identifies standing Bert Bland, John Lamb, Britt Smith and Jas. McInnery, and kneeling O. C. Bland, Ray Becker and Eugene Barnett; Loren Roberts is not pictured. The article’s internal thirteenth-year phrase conflicts with its ten-year history and is not used as a measured duration.
Ben Hur Lampman’s Centralia: Tragedy and Trial, printed pages 69–70 (PDF pages 70–71), individually lists the seven men convicted of second-degree murder, then states that Judge Wilson imposed the twenty-five-to-forty-year sentences on April 5, 1920 at Montesano. March 13 was the jury verdict, as separately dated in Ralph Chaplin’s Centralia Conspiracy, printed page 77 (PDF page 79). The sentencing field is corrected to April 5; that date is not used to infer initial physical custody or a completed time served. These contemporary accounts strongly disagree about culpability and the shooting chronology; their advocacy is not adopted as an unqualified factual finding. Both the named portrait caption in Chaplin, printed page 62 (PDF page 64), and Lampman, printed page 9 (PDF page 10), say Bert Bland was captured a week after the shooting. The inherited November 11 arrest day therefore conflicts with both sources. Arrest is retained only at November 1919 month precision; November 1 is a storage placeholder, not the arrest day.
Ben Hur Lampman, Centralia: Tragedy and Trial (1920), printed pp. 69–70.
The Centralia retrospective lists Bland among those then remaining at Walla Walla, with Britt Smith and Ray Becker. This report may precede his separately documented June 1933 parole and is not used to erase that later release.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, Washington, with twenty-five to forty years, 1919. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The issue explicitly corrects the preceding June number’s page 87 caption: the pictured Centralia prisoner was Bert Bland, not John Lamb. This is a source-specific portrait identification correction; it supplies no new arrest, sentence or release and does not justify guessing the identity of other uncaptained group photographs.
The May 1920 issue individually identifies him in a photograph of eleven Centralia defendants outside the Montesano jail. The caption’s Roy Becker refers to Centralia defendant Ray Becker, not the separate Omaha prisoner Roy Becker. The accompanying March 15 Not Guilty verdict was issued by six labor observers acting as an independent labor jury; it was not the official court verdict and does not acquit all eleven defendants. The official seven convictions and individual dismissals/acquittals remain distinct.
The One Big Union Monthly, May 1920, vol. 2 no. 5, PDF page 11.
