Subversive?: The Life and Times of Terry Pettus

The following program is a presentation of KCET Yes Seattle. Funding for this program was provided in part by a grant from the Washington commission for the Humanities a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. I don't know a single person in life having learned more from them and from Terry Peponis. So there's always a very very high in my estimation. Of humanity or to stand tall. How long can one hour my ideas or words change. But basically I'm the same person I've always been. And now our top news stories for August 1953 peace in Korea after three years of bloody fighting. Dead or alive. Our boys in uniform returned home surprised to

American intelligence the Russians exploding hydrogen bomb in Iran with help from the CIA. Javal have a levy overthrows a government that nationalized British and American oil company budget cuts in Washington DC. Congress supported President Eisenhower's demand for reduced federal spending. Prison riots in Washington state violence fires actually leaving one dead and billions of dollars in damage. I read trial continues in Seattle Communist Party press watching Harry Potter and six other red standing up plotting the violent overthrow of the government. Here.

Today Terry Pettis is nearly 80. He lives quietly in a houseboat on Seattle's Lake Union. Thirty years have come and gone since he was branded subversive and Pedes is no longer an outcast. Instead he's become something of a local hero. We'll fight him right down to the last ditch and we will win. We will win. He's the leader of an organization representing Seattle's 450 houseboat families. He's been appointed to city boards and honored by the mayor for his civic contributions. But Teri Perez hasn't retreated from political controversy. He has seen much remembered much and lived with passionate intensity from a troubled.

And turbulent time. I think had we prevailed. Had this progressive movement prevail which the Communist Party was a party not the whole party. The state would be a better state today. My brother the money really didn't just look back over and tell the story begins in Terre Haute Indiana where his father was a Protestant minister. Jesus was always a matter of law. I never heard anything about a vengeful God. Because Dad I believe was what you call a Christian Socialists. The World Socialist Party in those days was made up of enormous number of preachers ministers. And. Socialist Eugene Debs also lived in Terre Haute in the Pedes neighborhood. Debs was so popular that when he ran for president even Terese Boy Scout Troop passed out

campaign literature. After high school. He became a reporter moved to Minneapolis where he met and married Burha Petersen. It would be almost inseparable until her death in 1970. When Terry found a job at a Seattle star in 1947. The move was. Gentle was a boisterous lively city Tarion Burha found its people in politics fascinating. With artist Kenneth Callahan and drank confiscated moonshine The police gave reporters publican's round the state Dan and Terry a pragmatist became a Republican precinct committeeman. But the Republicans were not the only politics in town.

The night was when I had. To go down to the so-called free speech corner down in Skid Row and the Wobblies had their. Meeting on one corner. And the Salvation Army would be over on the other corner. Seattle's radical Wobblies lived with memories of the 1919 general strike and a dream of one big union for all workers. One of the Wobblies speakers there was a guy always wore a hat. I forget what the hell his name was but Jesus he was a beautiful ostrich. Oh my god. Get out the Salvation Army band. Now that took a bit of doing you know. Well the Wobblies were past their prime and all unions found rough sailing in the prosperous 20. Then suddenly.

The bubble burst. You believe me. To. Be. Back. Well during the depression I was one of the lucky ones. Anyways I was working on that to accomodate a ledger as a general assignment reporter of most of the time. But one of the things that I did have an opportunity to do as reporters to. Cover a lot of the stories about the Depression there was to put it bluntly mass misery. Local governments tried with a few dollars to soup kitchens and that but it was a drop in the bucket. Soon as there were millions of unemployed without public welfare and money

starved in the streets. But Terry saw that life wasn't grim for everyone. PED's sometimes dined in restaurants while people ate on of cans. It was a contrast that toward his conscience. It made. You. Think. That this system for. A society that has been changed to be built on the exploitation of other people. Shall not survive. The only way it survived over the years is the pouring out of the pouring of misery the oppression of other people it's crushing. That must be a more humane way for the human kind. When. Society collapsing all around them. Some people saw

personal means of escape. But others began to consider collective answers to their common misery. The unemployed citizens league mobilized for Seattle labor. They took care of the question of eviction sometimes by more or less direct action if you tried to make that put the people back in a house with the teller with the light company if they shut off light the junk switch was a very popular little instrument. Have you seen one slow piece of metal. They pull the meter off they'd slam one of those back and then make the connection. The only difference is when electricity was the main metered anymore. Seattle's Hooverville. Beer League members developed a remarkable self-help and barter system in the Republic of the penniless. What Terry saw in the shanty town convinced him that ordinary people could work cooperatively and run their own lives. It was a community of the dispossessed. It was a community of

people who society rejected. It was probably the most part of the community neighborhood in Seattle. It was policed self-governed. But it was a place where people depended upon each other and they built a community. Of that hyperbole. We have heard. Franklin Roosevelt's words inspired a confidence that may not have been intended as poorly paid workers began demanding the right to bargain collectively. The streets of American cities became battleground. Erupting on San Francisco's waterfront 1934 Longshore strike rock

confrontation. Death and violence that paralyzed the entire city. With the opposition of course said it was heavily infiltrated by communists you know as if workers can do anything until somebody comes along and tells them hey you're starving or you know. You got here you're being mistreated. Scenes of open warfare between strikers police and militiamen repeated themselves in Portland Tacoma and Seattle. Pay and working conditions were especially poor in the timber camps of the Pacific Northwest. In 1935 timber workers went on strike demanding union recognition 50 cents an hour. To come up Milltown was a focal point. The National Guard was called in to disperse picket lines and Terry Pedes then a reporter for a Tacoma paper found himself in the thick of a violent battle. I remember most about it from a personal standpoint. That I always succeeded

in getting on the wrong side of the lines it was on the tear gas to somebody that. I used to chalk up 6 or 7 serious episodes a day. So it was that it was a kind of a gruesome ping pong game of some kind of soldier beach on the teargassed of them and they'd be painted on and back in here I was right downtown to Coney Island and gas was going all over the lumber industry it was determined you know. They'd had a fair amount of success since they were war World War One. The wobblers impose a dollar a day on and they were not about to tolerate it. But they got my name inspired by the gains of striking workers that US became the first reporter in the Pacific Northwest to join the American Newspaper Guild the organized guild locals and all three Tacoma daily and in a string of thirty six we got the first citywide agreement in the United States and Tacoma which listed everyone's spirits.

Encouraged us help reporters photographers with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to form a chapter of The Guild. They want a union recognition. But William Randolph Hearst the famous owner of the P-I flatly refused to negotiate. Hearst had crushed strikes in other cities. So when Terri's gilled brothers in Seattle began picketing he was afraid they were doomed to defeat. We didn't know that the labor movement in this town would give a wait. Take a crack at Hearst Tower. He was everybody's favorite enemy. So that morning with about 20 to kill people on the picket line could God in of everybody else going through for a few minutes later here. Come on army. From the waterfront they were the first few minutes later. Here come the Teamsters. BECK decided to get on the bandwagon and boy they can mobilize too and people come. The

teachers union from the University. This was August first part of August and other people. Well by mid morning that wasn't a picket line that was just one linning mass of humanity around that building. Was shut down at the Post-Intelligencer sent shock waves throughout Washington state battle lines form hundreds of wealthy women marched on the Capitol in Olympia demanding that the governor break the strike. To their surprise they were met by crowds of strike supporters and a governor who thought it best to remain neutral. As the strike dragged on and angry hurt threatened to pull a guy out of Seattle. Terry remembers how Mayor Jhonny door elected with labor support through her words back at him. So we're going to leave Seattle. Randolph Hearst he can drag it out you know a mile and a half and here's parah more

Mary in the evenings. We don't want them in Seattle. We hope you leave right away. Mr. Hurst we don't like your kind here. Corrupting our city and trying to destroy this great labor movement. Oh lordy daddy is really something. Come on man. Don't go. Don't get me wrong. All. Gone. Go go go go go. Go go. Labor Day 1936 with the Post-Intelligencer still on strike a unified and confident labor movement. Twenty five thousand marchers strong filled the streets of Seattle. In November first surrounded for the first time to recognize. The.

Most significant thing to me is. This is the last time. That this of movement in Seattle move has one. Showing. The power. Because these unions the mass unions that were involved in that back on one side and the waterfront on the other were already squaring off and hurricane and fight over where house and ours come just at the right time a year later less than a year later. These unions are at each other's throat. Exuberant Terry has left Seattle in the spring of 1937 for a hero's welcome at the National Guild convention on his return. He faced an unpleasant surprise. At a time when I got back from the convention my newspaper in June in 1937 at a concert and Tacoma ledger. This continued publication.

Terry found his next job in South Bend Washington as editor of the well up a harbor pilot. In South Bend he and Burha led a successful local campaign for public power. And it was then that we got very active in the Commonwealth Federation and organized a Commonwealth Federation unit in city county. Washington Commonwealth Federation was a political coalition formed in 1935 unions formed groups and middle class socialists. They soon found a wide audience of more radical proposal. Washington. Federation. Policy. And. State. Generally in that time. People were beginning to assert that there was a there was a new class of rights that in addition to the property rights which are firmly ensconced in the state

and federal constitution there are human rights and along those rights the rights to have a job and if there are no jobs available then the right to aid to help from the government until such time as those jobs are available. So we went out and got candidates from labor or from farm to run for precinct committeeman in the next election and filed them Gamelin cost buck a piece made it whether they had a dollar we had a dollar. Organizing in precinct after precinct Commonwealth Federation activists believe they could use the democratic party to advance their ideas. They met with immediate success Federation members overwhelmed conservative 1946 the Democratic convention. So all of a sudden in one fell swoop for God's sake we control the Democrat Party. And our party.

We dropped that program. When the convention was over. Watching the Democratic Party at the doors of platform calling for production for use instead of profit expanded relief and the nationalization of banks railroads energy and communications. Euphoria soon ran into reality however internal conflicts split the Federation rival unions and political factions radical and liberal fought for dominance and though many Commonwealth candidates were elected to office they were a minority in the state legislature and only their most moderate reform proposals passed. Let it determine Terry patas plunged deeper into politics and as he did he found that many of the most committed and effective activists he met were members of the Communist Party. I then become quite acquainted with the number of communists including some of the communists and in South Bend and entertainment in that area. I

also hadn't by time made an acquaintance of a number of other people who I believed who were communists high up in the labor movement during the Guild strike. And I actually some of them talk to me about the party and then 1938 I remember someone gave me a copy of the program of it and I had watched people that I thought were a communist dedicated people hardworking people and I felt something that a person should belong to our printer or to also a member of the Communist Party and his wife ran virtually a sale on that little wind up. I have a pilot. Early in 1939 that US was contacted in South Bend by Buthelezi who had become a Seattle city councilman and president of the Washington Commonwealth Federation needed an editor a couple of us went down to see him and talk to him and of course I was instantly and chatted.

The pay was less than half what he'd been accustomed to as readily accepted the Lacy's offer being moved to Seattle and began work on the Commonwealth Federation newspaper a Washington dealer. First and foremost they were the prime articulations of the policies that we adopted. And second they were almost Furnas supporters that you could ever imagine. With writers like famous actors Frances Farmer. The new deal reached a wide audience and urged its readers to organize against social injustice. I think the greatest contribution made us in that moment was that we got people to act even in public affairs. We had we helped show people that you can do things you have something that's invaluable you have the right to vote. The public business is the business of the public. And that you should participate. That

politics is something that you don't do on election day. You work out all the year round and our organisations in the Western Commonwealth Federation I think our greatest contribution that we've made active citizens out of a lot of Passey people play with the breath of life. It takes a long time to get used to the notion that you haven't got such fights to carry on them or if they're carried on you're not doing it. It was just it was just the way to the way to live the way there exist the way the way to be a human being the way all the way to seek peace the way to see justice the way to seek security and you know every every value that social value that a person would have wasn't involved in the struggles we had we had never tired of them. We work nights on nights all days and we never tired of it but as the authorities drew to a close. Justice Peace and Security seemed like utopian dreams like that

in. Germany. Italy. Japan. Military dictatorships have gained power idiology fascism bitterly anti-communist and filled with dreams of world domination. They turn bullets bombs and bayonets on their neighbors. Hoping to avoid war. Western democracies declare their neutrality and refuse the aid of the countries under attack. Russia had given age of ill fated I in Spain but was militarily weak desperate to buy time. Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with the anti-communist Hitler. The Nazi blitzkrieg in old west. Many people who I respected very much the people in the communist party left the communist party over it because of the fact that the Soviet

Union would make even a non-aggression agreement with this horrible monster we called it for a reason the Nazis. Disagreed with Despite misgivings about Soviet policies. Said I still had faith in the world's first socialist experiment. The German army pushed deep into Russia. Terry Pedes and other American Communist clamored for American intervention on the side of the Soviets and Washington Commonwealth Federation was divided. Many members felt America should stay out of the war. Then in December 1941. Terry Pedes was speaking to a Commonwealth meeting in Tacoma and a man rushed to the podium and handed him a note. I said turn to the audience. I said this has just come in over the air. I think he told me it was a b c whatever the Japanese had bombed

Pearl Harbor. It is hard to describe what happened to that audience. I wrote them. You know what do you say and what can you say. Some people have said some people start to cry and there is feelings of incredulity. I remember there was a gasp. You know what has happened. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We interrupt this program to bring you a special bullet to the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Hawaii by air. President Roosevelt has just announced. All of a sudden unemployment has been. Missed disappear all of a sudden motion was hiring people to sort not for

chrissake. They could do that. But as I'm saying that you know you can get into the army or you can get a job and more industry if you can hear thunder see lightning and eat much all of a sudden depression disappear. The Commonwealth Federation acted quickly mobilizing scrap metal drives and support for the war effort. And Terry Potter's radical began to feel like a pillar of society. It's hard for people I know I've talked to to imagine a war in which everybody was in virtually everybody supporting a war like myself who go down to the draft board and literally protest

my classification and demanding that I be drafted and they didn't do it on any kind of ILO's in an essential I was essential to the war industry as the editor of a paper a few years later I was being charged and sentenced to prison for being editor I'd pay for the thing that is most remarkable about it is the way that it united people. And the main. To terrific unity. And a feeling that developed that this was a just war. During the war years the new dealer was renamed the new world Pedes urged the opening

of an American Front against Hitler and a renewed assault on domestic social problems. The new world campaigned against racial discrimination and anti-Semitism supported equal pay for women championed expanded public services like mass transit. Old age pensions and free medical care. And when the 1944 elections came around the Federation was ready. I was working in the shipyards and. I went down. And filed to run for office had to go to a lender that had happened to be the first of May. So I never went back to the shipyard the next day one of the conservative Gina said. So where were you yesterday marching on a mayday parade. And I said No I went down and to run for Congress he said you did. Rather it started I mentioned primarily the issue was to win the war against fascism and that the country needed unity for this and to

gain unity of course you have to have a representative organized labor in these in these high posts. So it was time for us to ask somebody who had calluses on his hands on his ass. That was my way of diminishing my speech and of course everybody worked for me very hard. I did a lot of Monday night shipyard. Lacy and many other Commonwealth candidates were elected to office in the Washington legislature. Their reform proposals passed easily. And as American soldiers returned home victories over the Nazis. Harry Potter looked forward optimistically to the future. I think I shared with me a million for the fall. I hope. That this will. Work. For. A very. It would be better for us.

Life was returning to normal in western Washington. In the spring of 1945. The Washington Commonwealth Federation was abolished. Its leaders felt they had succeeded in bringing progressive ideas to the Democratic Party. But for Terry patas and his fellow radicals it was the calm before the storm. In. I remember. That.

Word came. And we first got to report a practice was in the city had disappeared. I remember I talked to dad on the phone. Somehow I felt so little stir. I felt something terribly wrong had happened. I don't know why it was a bleak. And I said that I am not you know very religious but that you better pray for us all. I'm never saying that. Franklin Roosevelt was dead and his successor Harry Truman was far more conservative. And under his mis leadership we began to lose first the political structure that we had built. And second the gains which we had accomplished. Truman lifted wartime price control. A new wave of strikes spread across the country as workers demanded the wages keep pace with skyrocketing prices. Wartime unity had been shattered. The backlash came quickly. Republicans turned to the

communists in striking unions were a threat to American security and growing American fears in post-war Soviet expansion. As Robert the court. And it's not just the election of November 5th 1946 has been decided. The Republicans have won control of both the Senate and the House. And by a substantial majority. My defeat was part and parcel of that thing and of course the state of Washington we lost practically every strong position we had had we had a strong influence in the legislature where the Washington Commonwealth Federation had had backed 45 percent of the members of the state legislature the state of the House of Representatives and a number of the senators and we had a strong group in there that have been there for years who were progressive strong progressives really fought for the people in King County we lost every one of them. So that really was a clean up and.

The Republicans wasted no time in keeping their promises. Washington's new Republican legislature created a Kanwal committee to investigate subversive activities in the state. The company charged the communist dominated the Washington Old Age Pension union of Seattle Labor College Repertory Theatre. While protesters marched outside committee chairman Albert Cantwell a Spokane Republican from microsleep pressed his attack on communism. And. The Cantwell Committee set out very interestingly to act in a certain direction when it attacked the university. The fountain shall we say of intellectual freedom. The faculty were terrorized. Eventually several tenured faculty members were fired. Others were put on probation and the university was humiliated. Can all Committee carry on this witch hunt for about a year. It made a report to the legislature which the

legislature never adopted. The legislature never really recreated it but nevertheless there was the opening gun for what became and nationwide an era of repression. It isolated people who had been leaders progressive leaders in times past like Tom rabbit who was a state senator and Bill panic and many others who had been active in the state legislature and were picked up by the committee and interrogated and discredited. The point were many people who called themselves friends of these people before wouldn't even talk to them anymore wouldn't didn't want to be seen with him might endanger them and might lose their jobs. Though already dead the Washington Commonwealth Federation was a special can well target and as evidence of considerable communist influence in the Federation mounted many former members rush to disavow their activities.

But Terry Peres was not one of them. We have nothing to apologize for. The movement was first raised the issue of fair employment for equal pay for equal work for women. That was back in the 30s. That introduced and fought and got into the legislature. The first fair employment practices law. In the early 40s. That organization that fought for and got one of the best old age pension programs. In the 40s. The first state that got the medical and health program not only for old people but later extended it to people who were on leave and to. Apologize for that. The desperate to stop the onrush the cold war Russia has formed a new party in 1948.

I'm. Happy. You. Make. My. Point. But on Election Day Truman beat doing. Henry want us no less than a million votes. My brother only gave the money right. And just look back over. Do you call them brother. No it rubber no feverish anti-communism swept America celebrated Blackhearts Paul Robeson sang on union picket lines and defriended known communists was attacked by a hostile crowd.

I am more than just a bag over here. You know you call when Rose and asked his old friend Terry pennance to arrange a concert for him in Seattle. That was met with fierce opposition from conservative union Mr Rogosin as I told these gentlemen that they have four honorary membership in the trade union movement that he made in the country. His life had been devoted to the trade union movement. And here they were attempting to sabotage his concert. In the broader war against communist armies in Korea and trials of leading American Communists on charges of treason. It was dangerous to be a radical of any stripe especially in a city as depended on the military and Seattle. The.

Three we have security and this guy. But Terry Pedes wasn't hiding. He had become an editor of a Communist Party paper the people's work. The Communist Party was especially active men in fighting racial discrimination tracking idealistic young civil rights activists like Paul Bollen. Technician fighting for new principles. To fight for fair housing. And fighting for. For. Human decency. One towards the other. Remains

very going humanistic interest. Captured my imagination at the time and I thought it was worth the warning. Means to measure my life too. In the summer of 1952 Seattle celebrated its centennial. Terry Pederson Paul Bowland were arrested by FBI agents. They and five co-defendants were charged with conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. John Kafa was one of them. The Communist Party in the late 40s and 50s was scarcely going around advocating the withdrawal of government by force and violence. What it was doing was opposing the McCarthy period opposing the involvement of the United States in the Korean War. Ironically at that time. His party had membership cards and had a printed constitution which they gave everybody

say only. That Constitution has never amended as long as I was in the Communist Party. One of the reasons that you can get expelled was to advocate the violent overthrow the government. Prosecution witnesses charge that even though the defendants had never actually advocated violence. Communist doctrine and activities in other countries were evidence of intent. Was ridiculous. You had people for example testifying against Terry Pedes and other co-defendant Paul Bollen who were testifying about things that happened before. Paul was being born in a country that was five or six years old. There was no such thing as a conspiracy to do anything. Yes I wandered into an people. To pick up the same point story here in 1947 14 the trade well stores. Those companies sought to keep

blacks out of employment and basically all black communities. Apparently this is why the government told that I was dangerous and that I was somehow threatening the establishment. The trial drove defendant William Pennock to his grave through an overdose of sleeping pills a week after Pennock died. Terry Petters took the witness stand. Terri Pedes was a particular target because he was an editor a publicist a writer and a very effective one. Pedes argued that he believed an American democratic freedoms and was opposed by all. I told the jury and the judge that I hope did for ever a time came and the United States where a government deprived the American people of their basic fundamental constitutional and democratic rights. I hope that I would have the courage to take up arms against them.

The examination or cross-examination of the prosecutor in this case has always consisted of just one series of questions. Who else was a member of the Communist Party along with you. Well the minute you name someone else under those circumstances you're involving them in the possibility of all sorts of harassment of terror and so forth. So naturally those who testified refused to identify that is my position to the court was that I would discuss any of my activities and affiliations I would discuss any activities with my co-defendants. But I would not talk about other people. The judge immediately knowing this is going to happen. Sentence them at once to spend all the rest of the time of the trial in jail and Terry spent almost 60 days in jail while the trial was in progress. Paul Boland told the court he joined the Communist Party because of its commitment to civil rights.

And as I spoke to the jury the prosecutor was busy taking notes. And of course raise his voice and says yes. Paul don't you want these rights now. And my rejoinder was no I wanted them yesterday. Now it's too late. I saw some grand and angry that the prosecutor had the nerve to question my requirement of human rights and human dignity and decency. Now the trial lasted six months. Fifteen thousand pages of evidence and testimony led to the verdict. Terry Pedes and his co-defendants faced a frightening future. Released from jail on appeal. They had lost jobs friends. Honor. Even a life. Five years passed and with them the threat of prison. An appeals court overturned the convictions.

But government attacks had crushed the Communist Party. It isolated and internally rigid. In 1958 Terry Peters decided it was time to leave the party. He settled down with Berka in their houseboats and earned a meager living writing stories for magazines. He had spent 20 years immersed in politics and needed a vacation but he wouldn't be out of the limelight for long. Lake Union in the shadow of downtown Seattle. His home to a colorful colony of houseboats one of the city's most picturesque attractions. It is a place of pride a neighborly spirit unique and diverse. But Lake Union wasn't always as clean as it is today. What two years ago this was a threatened community like unioned was dying from pollution

once again Terry Pettit's became an activist. He organized the floating homes association to represent the concerns of house voters and persuaded his neighbors to take the first steps and clean up the lake. So we started to work with the city council to try to solve a problem. There was no store around us like we should have been 60 70 years ago. Houseboats are very visible so people always say look at those houseboats that are polluting this nice lake. They didn't realize that around the lake all of the buildings were also dumping directly into the lake. But worst of all when we examine the problem with the health department of Lake Union and water pollution we discovered that the city had 13 sort of falls into this lake. It was a lesson to us and fortunately you had a city government that would listen but we're attempting to do is play is to find ways of reconciling the legitimate private interests of the property

and the very legitimate public interest. It's a natural resource which was given to the city but probably the ice age. And it's something that has to be shared and utilized. Terry Pedes floating homes Association in fight after fight stopping freeways from cutting like Union all the rest of the city stopping giant waterfront condominiums from pushing out the houseboats controlling rents on the houseboat mortgages and building parks where people could enjoy the lake. We in a sense save a union. And I'm proud of that most people because we accepted the fact that we could not. Wage a battle just for a houseboat on a very narrow issue. Let's put. It what we have to do is concern ourselves first with the entire lake because that is our community and it's something that belongs to all people. This movement led to the enactment of a Shortlands Management Act in which we project over certain items of our state.

These things to me are very important. It seems to me that anyone who calls themselves a progressive or radical is not concerned with the physical well-being of the preservation of these natural resources. It's simply not done. I don't call Terry Pedes Mr. Foley homes for nothing. In fact if it weren't there wouldn't be any floating homes in Seattle. There's just been an incredible number of things that have happened that could destroy the floating homes community and one by one. Terry has responded to the organized the community and now overcoming the problems. I think we owe him a tremendous damage. The city of Seattle is named next Sunday. Terry Pettis day usually the city of Seattle is about as discriminating as an epidemic of measles when it comes to those special days which is to say nearly anyone can get one. And not everybody always wants them. You know there is something monumentally inane to set aside time or days for people national peanut

butter wheat National Be nice to your dog catcher day. And finally the city has demonstrated a little class with a day for Terri Pettis. Now you must understand the irony of all of this the beautiful bittersweet irony of Danny for Terry 45 years ago. Probably the entire establishment of this city would not have minded at all if someone had shot Terri and dumped him in his beloved Lake Union forty years ago. Because. All. I'm. Asking. You. This. Morning. Is. What. Is. Going. To. Sing. Songs.

This. One was. Song. Words to. The. Tireless community his dedication know how eloquence has inspired others to follow in his footsteps. And where he has demonstrated wisdom and the courage to speak the quality of life city has been threatened and where as this community mindedness community mindedness and experience led to his appointment in service and such public bodies in order to adjust and the advisory committee on Sherline s ruling today and where

he is single handedly spearheaded the fight to preserve and protect the floating on the community in Seattle and the diversity in my county Union and morasses sense of history binds us a link to our city's past and its future. Now there right right near the city of Seattle to proclaim March 7th 1982 is Terry s.c.s. It. Down to two things one I'm not this. Mission. I want this true story like. Should be. Saying as to how I feel. It's almost impossible to find

something to are. Only going into the absence of Berger. So many people have said these things nice things about me. But. It's really saying a lot of people. For more than 40 years. These are all things. We were able to do together. And. This is Mission. The other thing I want to say is. I'm privileged to live in a caring community. My. Family. And I love you all. In recent years Terri Pena's has turned his political energies to problems closer to home. But when 15000 demonstrators filled Seattle Center to protest the arms race Terry was

with him. He feels there is no cause more important now than preventing nuclear war. What does disturb me is looking around at young people and future generations. That we have the power today to deprive them of a great and marvelous thing called life from the experience of life. And it's very real. Despised in one era honored in another. Terry Pedes has been an active committed life. Carried or battered by the changing winds of public opinion. He has come in from the rain now running quietly between walls covered with memories and hundreds of bones. But though his ideas may have changed somewhat over the years. His heart still holds to a youthful dream. Well if I if I had my druthers I would say that some time you know they say this great movement that did something that has never been done in the history

of society. And that is that people became so conscious of their dependence upon each other so conscious of the power that they have collectively that they would create a society a sharing society a society that eliminated as near as we could all privilege and tried to eliminate all of the the ills that can be eliminated from society a society in which people as a group had control over their own lives. And we never had that. That was the dream of the old Deb socialist movement the so-called democratic socialist movement it was never articulated completely. But some day I think the most radical thing that people could do would be to give real to true democracy that is to give democracy a chance. We've never tried it

yet. It's worth trying. You know Joe Hill. I remember a song writer who was executed. Before he died he sent a telegram to the headquarters in Chicago said no more not a. Wise thing to do. And I would love to be able to be remembered as those are my last words. Were. Are. Here.

For. Funding for this program was provided in part by a grant from the Washington commission for the Humanities a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The preceding program was a production of KCET Seattle