Biography
James McInerney was an Irish-born logger and I.W.W. member, actively working to organize among Pacific Northwest lumber workers. In 1916 he was wounded aboard the steamer Verona in the Everett Massacre, when I.W.W. members were fired upon by police and vigilantes while trying to depart a steamship to support local striking shingle weavers. After the massacre he was held in jail for months before charges were dropped. In 1919, he was arrested along with 65 other I.W.W. members after a mob of American Legionnaires stormed the Centralia I.W.W. union hall, leading to seven deaths. While jailed he was tortured in attempts to extract a confession that would blame the violence on the I.W.W., but he refused to give one. McInerney was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 to 40 years in the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. He died in prison in 1930; 2,000 people attended his funeral.
The December 25, 1931 Centralia retrospective recalls one imprisoned defendant, printed MacIntire, dying of tuberculosis. The cohort and death context correspond to McInerney’s already recorded Centralia death in custody. This is corroboration of that death, without a second person, case, new date or release to freedom. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n309-NY-dec-25-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The Seattle obituary dated August 14, 1930 reports McInerney’s death in the Walla Walla prison hospital at 8:21 a.m. on Wednesday, August 13, with tuberculosis and spinal meningitis. It identifies County Clare, Ireland as his birthplace. The movement’s allegations that earlier jail abuse contributed to his illness are attributed claims. The obituary’s rounded eleven years is not substituted for the separately documented custody dates. Source: https://files.libcom.org/files/Industrial%20Worker%20%28August%2023%2C%201930%29.pdf#page=1
Sam Darcy’s September 29,1930 Daily Worker polemic, page 4, places McInerney’s funeral two days before the August 22 Sacco-Vanzetti commemoration, hence August 20,1930. It says Yetta Stromberg, Seattle ILD district organizer, sought funeral speaking and wreath participation and describes a dispute with the IWW arrangements committee. The competing organizations’ criticisms are attributed political claims, not new criminal findings. This adds funeral history without changing his already established prison death. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n234-NY-sep-29-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints James McInerny, 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 In particular, McInerney had already died before this issue; this recycled row is not evidence that he was alive on September 8.
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 review: The Industrial Worker of August 23, 1930, page 1, reports that James McInerney died in the Walla Walla prison hospital on August 13, 1930. That date was already correctly stored as death in custody but incorrectly duplicated as release. The release field for the Centralia case is cleared while the death-in-custody endpoint is retained. The separate 1916-17 Everett detention and its release are unchanged. This is a death in custody, not a discharge from prison. Existing photograph retained.
Source: Industrial Worker, August 23, 1930, page 1, original obituary visually inspected (repository description).
The issue reports McInerney’s death in Walla Walla imprisonment from tuberculosis said to have been contracted in prison, and announces an August 20 funeral in Centralia with Seattle ILD participation. The announcement is dated before this August 21 issue and is preserved as reported; it is not a new death day or proof that the funeral occurred. The article’s rounded eleven years is not a measured service interval. The existing separately documented August 13 death endpoint is not replaced.
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.
The Centralia retrospective reports McInerney died of tuberculosis in August 1930 while imprisoned. This corroborates the month of the existing death-in-custody record without replacing its independently documented exact day.
The opening captions and family-relief article report McInerney’s death from tuberculosis while imprisoned in the Centralia case at Walla Walla. The retrospective wording recently/this year in a January issue is not used to invent a death day or change the independently sourced chronology.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The prison-birthday notice prints JamesMcInery,August15,and correspondence Box520-9410 at WallaWalla. The spelling and prisoner number corroborate the existing Centralia prisoner; no birth year or exact custody endpoint is supplied.
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.
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.
