Biography
Britt Smith was 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 September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Britt Smith, a term of 25–40 years, 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
1920s custody-date review: The June 14, 1933 Daily Worker still described Britt Smith as awaiting parole in two weeks, contradicting the former May 1 release. University of Washington historical documentation places his parole in 1933. Year precision is retained until the physical-release day can be established; an announced future parole is not treated as a completed release.
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 Britt Smith 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 Britt Smith with historical prisoner number 9408. 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.
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.
Ben Hur Lampman, Centralia: Tragedy and Trial (1920), printed pp. 69–70.
The Centralia retrospective lists Smith among those then remaining at Walla Walla, with Bert Bland and Ray Becker. Its publication-time account documents the defense campaign and does not displace the separately recorded later 1933 parole.
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; source prints Britt Lamb, retained as a roster inconsistency rather than a new identity. 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 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.
