The Solidarity of the Everett Teamsters
A local union steps in to provide a dignified burial for a brother who died in poverty, proving that labor organization offers more than just strike activity.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock, a funeral procession wended its way from Jerread's chapel on Broadway to the Evergreen cemetery, where the remains of R. Hanson were tenderly laid away. It is no uncommon thing, this solemn procession to the silent hillside city; scarcely a day passes that some funeral procession does not pass over Everett’s streets. But this particular funeral bears a lesson that we want to bring home. It illustrates a phase of unionism to which the public pays scant heed. Mr. Hanson was a member of the teamsters' union. It is not our province to tell of the struggles and privations he endured while trying to earn a competence for himself and dependents. He passed over and left his dependents in straightened circumstances. No one was interested—no one cared how or where he was laid away. Did we say no one cared? His union did, though it owed him nothing as far as cold dollars went. His union stepped into the breach and, with the aid of Johnny Tassill, gave him a decent burial and paid all the tribute and respect of which they were capable. Here is the lesson: Trade unionism isn't all strikes and boycotts and industrial turmoil. There is a deeper, tenderer side: a spirit of brotherly love and affection. 'The strong shall help the weak.' Remember this when you hear trade unions maligned.
“Trade unionism isn't all strikes and boycotts and industrial turmoil. There is a deeper, tenderer side: a spirit of brotherly love and affection.”
Mutual aid societies and union-funded burials were once the bedrock of working-class survival in Everett before the advent of modern social safety nets. Today, this 'brotherly love' framework has largely vanished into institutional insurance, yet the underlying struggle of workers unable to afford end-of-life expenses remains a persistent reality in the region's current cost-of-living crisis.
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