I.W.W. IN AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 11, 8 October 1918, Page 6

I.W.W. IN AMERICA

A STINGING BLOW.

"The Mining and Scientific Press" of San Francisco, in' the courso of a leading articlo on the convictio'n of a gang of I.W.W. leaders, made the following comment (on September 7);—

"Bolshevism in America received a> stinging blow when Haywood and 14 other leaders of tho I.W;W. organisation were sentenced to 20 years' in tho Federal penitentiary by Judge Landis at Chicago after a' trial by jury that elided on August 30. Besides these, 80 others were 'sentenced to shorter terms of imprisonment, together with the imposition of lines ranging from 20,000 dollars on Haywood and tho other ringleaders, to 5000 dollars on the keser agitators. The combined concurrent' sentences of tho 95 I.W.W.'s make a. total of 807 years, and their fines to 3,130,000 dollars (£626,000). It remains to be seen whether tho judgment of the Court will be reversed iiv a new trial, but if it be justified by the evidence, as it seems to be, wo hope it will stand as a warning against the attempt to destroy the democratic organism of the United States. The trial lasted 128 days, the accused were well defended, they received the justice to which they were entitled. The four counts of the indictment included charges of conspiracy to thwart the national prosecution of the war/to interfere with the production of material needed for the war, to obstruct the enforcement of tho draft, and to violate the espionage law. The Judge laid stress on the I.W.W. preamble declaring eternal hostility to the employing class,. on the action of the j executive board in expelling members that had entered military service, and on the concerted plan to incite strikes and sabotage with a view , to impeding the Government in waging war. Among those sentenced arc several identified with the worst outrages that have marked labour disorders in the mining districts of the West, notably W. D. Haywood and Vincent St. John, whose names recall the strikes at Cripple Creek, Telluridt, Butte, and Warduer in years gone-by, -ind, ineradicabjj', the assassinations of Arthur L. Collins in 1904 and of Governor Steunenber,g of Idaho in 1908. The trfal has proved the I.W.W. organisation to be not only anti-social in time of peace, but traitorous in time of war. It. is to be hoped that the infamy stamped upon this Bolshevist organisation will prevent it forever from exertingr any further influence among working men in the United States and will prevent them from ever again being terrorised into participation with the political incendiarism of a gang of . outspoken criminals. The evidence at the trial showed how large a part sabotage plays in the methods of terrorism used by the I.W.W. They tried it against ,the Government in 'tone of war and thereby invited the merciful punishment oi an outraged democracy—in any non-democratic country they would have seen their last sunrise long ago. We note that the Socialist Party has been impelled to vrash its hands of, them; it was high time to do so, for the I.W.W. is not socialistic in any sense, it is anti-social; it is as much opposed to a socialistic organisation of society as to anj other; it is purely and maliciously destructive, like the criminal idiots thiit' have brought the Russian revolution; from a honetul success to a miserable fiasco, from intelligent reformation, to political chaos and industrial collapse.. "There is no more room for the Bolshevist idea in the United States than there is for the Prussian; the effort to destroy all social order is as repugnant to the American as tho attempt to create a militaristic tyranny. We shall fight the Bolshevist at home as relentlessly as the Prussian abroad, and it is well that we fight the one with tho left hand while wo ■ use the right hand against the other, for each is equally the' foe of deVnoeracy. The Prussian and the Bolshevist alike are the enemies of rq leesentative government and of that ordered way of living we call civilisation."