Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen

In October 1917 Colonel Brice P. Disque was dispatched to the Pacific Northwest to investigate the reasons behind what was deemed an inadequate supply of spruce for the Division of Military Aeronautics of the War Department.

[3] A major meeting was held in Centralia, Washington in November bringing together representatives of 16 of the region's largest lumber companies, who were persuaded to sponsor units of a new labor-centered organization that was part and parcel of the attempt to end labor strife through militarization.

[3] Lieutenant Maurice E. Crumpacker of the US Army Signal Corps was sent on the road to various lumber camps and mills of Washington and Oregon to administer a loyalty oath to the workers there, the sole act required for membership in the LLLL.

[6] Next to the loyalty-pledged civilian workers, a total of 25,000 soldiers were committed to work in the logging camps and mills of the Pacific Northwest over the next year in the so-called Spruce Production Division.

After gaining the signed pledges of workers, the military "officer-organizers" would see that civilian members were gathered into "locals" — groups which elected grievance committees which were nominally responsible for the mediation of problems in the woods or the mill with owners and bosses.

[7] It was not until late in the summer of 1918, in the waning months of the European war, that a conference of LLLL district representatives was convened in Portland to establish a formal constitution for the organization — a document drafted in advance by Disque and his assistants.

[10] The syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World found itself isolated and submerged by the massive new de facto company union,[9] with repression of some of its leading activists adding to the IWW's difficult organizational situation.

The rival American Federation of Labor — a lesser force in this industry at this time — found its position no better despite union head Samuel Gompers's initial endorsement of the Loyal Legion.

"[11] An additional reason for the Loyal Legion's hegemony during the war related to its leading role on the issue of the 8-hour day — a major goal of American workers for decades.

[12] Pressure from Disque and the Wilson administration in Washington — the chief consumer of finished goods — was instrumental in ensuring a positive outcome, and the marathon session of lumbermen eventually yielded fruit.

In the minds of all but the most dedicated Wobblies the ferocious ideas of the class struggle evaporated in the atmosphere of patriotism, the eight-hour day, and palpable improvements of living conditions.

[17]In the view of historian Harold M. Hyman, the 4L was a largely spontaneous entity, not the product of "deliberate academic estimations conducted in a sober committee room," but rather a "reflexive, unplanned, and opportunistic creation.

"[18] Hyman depicts the Loyal Legion as a manifestation of "a kind of Progressivism in khaki" — an example of the Wilson administration's willingness to use government intervention to rationalize the competitive struggle that was part and parcel of capitalism.