Biography
Eugene Barnett 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.
His life dates, corrected per the curator: the University of Washington archival finding aid for his papers identifies Eugene Barnett as 1892-1973, and combined with the February 21 birthday on the contemporary prisoner birthday list his probable complete date of birth is February 21, 1892 — replacing earlier recorded dates of 1888 and a 1948 death that do not fit the finding aid. Convicted of second-degree murder after the November 11, 1919 Centralia confrontation, he received a 25-to-40-year sentence at Walla Walla (prisoner 9414) and was released in the early 1930s.
The December 24, 1931 Seattle dispatch published December 25 reports that Governor Hartley extended parole to Eugene Barnett and O. C. Bland, while four Centralia defendants remained at Walla Walla. It separately recalls an earlier temporary parole for Barnett to care for his sick wife. The parole announcement is retained as a legal event rather than an exact physical prison-exit day; Barnett’s separately documented May 1931 departure remains distinct from later executive parole. Bland’s stored April 1932 endpoint conflicts with the earlier report and is not used here to assert a complete duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n309-NY-dec-25-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
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 International Labor Defense holiday roster in the December 29, 1925 Daily Worker lists this prisoner, printed as Eugene Barnett, at Walla Walla. Its printed identifier is 9414; this is a prison number or mailing designation, not a year or a custody date. This documents confinement at the roster’s reporting time, without establishing an admission, transfer, release, new conviction or complete duration. Existing independently sourced custody chronology remains separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-ny/v02b-n297-NYE-dec-29-1925-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Eugene Barnet, 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
A letter from Walla Walla printed in the Gastonia-defense column supports the defense of Fred Beal and the other textile defendants. Barnett disputes the claim that Britt Smith’s criticism of the ILD represented the Centralia prisoners generally. These are Barnett’s attributed statements about prison solidarity and organizational disagreement, not a new detention or a completed decade counter. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n129-NY-aug-06-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
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
His WallaWalla letter reports quarantine after possible smallpox symptoms, describes an upcoming parole-board meeting, and says an unsuccessful application would send the case back to court on April5 when the minimum second-degree-murder term would have been served. These are his contemporary expectations, not proof parole was granted, release occurred or April5 was an admission date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n05-may-1930-LD.pdf#page=32
1920s custody review: Sentenced April 5, 1920, to 25-40 years, according to the Washington Senate journal. The March 13 date was the verdict, not sentencing. Physical release occurred in May 1931 to care for his wife; the January 16, 1932 Militant reports that his leave was extended indefinitely. The Senate journal separately records executive parole on December 16, 1931. Release is recorded to month precision only. The former April 5 prison-entry date duplicates sentencing and is cleared pending an admission record; no exact custody total is asserted.
Sources: 1933 Washington Senate Journal, page 56; The Militant, January 16, 1932, page 4. Original scans inspected. May 1 is a storage placeholder, not an established release day.
A prison letter printed in the February 1929 Labor Defender records Eugene Barnett still held at Walla Walla after the parole board declined to act, despite his report that the warden and parole officer supported parole. Barnett said former prosecution chief W. H. Abel visited him and offered help. Those recollections and reported expressions of doubt are attributed to Barnett; they are not an independent exoneration or a parole grant. The letter also describes a once-weekly writing limit. No release date is inferred from the parole advocacy.
In his letter printed May 1926, Barnett describes working as a cutter in the Walla Walla prison tailor shop, using an Eastman machine to cut hundreds of garments at once. He reports more than four years of that unpaid work. This is evidence about prison labor and conditions, not a new admission, completed custody counter or successful parole: the parole-board meeting mentioned in the letter remained prospective.
In his first-person autobiography in the January 1927 Labor Defender, Barnett describes growing up in a poor farming family in Caldwell County, North Carolina. He recalls beginning coal-mine work at age eight after his family moved to Lynn Siding, West Virginia, earning seventy-five cents a day for switching tracks, operating ventilation doors and signaling mule drivers. The account supplies background to his later labor activism. Its stated birth date, February 21, 1891, conflicts with the profile's 1892 year derived from an archival finding aid; the discrepancy is recorded without overwriting the stored date.
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. Barnett is described working in the prison tailor shop and painting postcards that were reproduced; one set was given to Soviet aviators in Seattle.
The two contemporary Centralia accounts disagree on Eugene Barnett’s arrest day, but both place it after the November 11, 1919 shooting rather than on that day. Chaplin’s Centralia Conspiracy, printed page 57 (PDF page 59), says he remained home until arrest the next day; Lampman’s Centralia: Tragedy and Trial, printed page 9 (PDF page 10), says a posse took him at home two days after the shooting. The inherited November 11 day is reduced to November 1919 month precision instead of selecting between November 12 and 13. November 1 is only a storage placeholder. No physical release or complete custody total is changed.
Centralia: Tragedy and Trial, printed p. 9; Centralia Conspiracy, printed p. 57.
The Centralia retrospective says Barnett had already been paroled. It supplies no new exact release day and does not replace the existing more specific parole chronology.
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.
In an open letter dated June 17, 1920 from Montesano Jail, Eugene Barnett describes his continued imprisonment following the Centralia trial. He says he was unarmed and watched the hall raid from an adjoining hotel lobby, and alleges that a mob took him without a warrant. These are his attributed recollections and defense claims. The letter also identifies him as a North Carolina-born coal miner with a wife and baby; no new arrest day, release or custody total is inferred.
Ralph Chaplin’s Centralia retrospective identifies Barnett as still imprisoned, McInerney in a photograph after interrogation, and Everest in a named portrait and burial photograph. It describes Centralia defendants’ continuing Walla Walla confinement and obstacles to their defense. The group’s approximately six years is not applied to Everest, who was lynched, or adopted as any survivor’s complete duration.
Yield Not to the Boss is explicitly captioned as written by Centralia defendant Barnett in the Grays Harbor County Jail in December 1919. This supports actual pretrial confinement in that month without inventing a precise entry date. The scan repeats this printed page at PDF 51; it is one poem, not a second custody episode.
The One Big Union Monthly, June 1920, vol. 2 no. 6, PDF page 47.
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.
