I.W.W IN AMERICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1750, 23 August 1917, Page 4

I.W.W IN AMERICA.

VIRTUAL REIGN OF TERROR. With extreme cunning, smacking of characteristic Teutonic intriguing, revolutionary methods are being employed in widely separated centres of American territory with the professed object of hindering the prosecution of the Avar (wi’ites the San Francisco correspondent of an exchange). Strikes, sabotage, dissemination of treasonable literature, to persuade men of military age to refuse to become conscripted, poisoning of cattle, destruction of growing crops intended for exportation to the Allied countries, and stirring up strife in a hundred different ways, arc some of the expedients adopted by the thousands of enemies within the folds of the United States domains. Underlying all these anarchistic demonstrations, the villainous band of the Kaiser is plainly discernable, and, realising the destructive tendencies of militant mobs of Industrial Workers of the World, who have been initiating"!! virtual reign of terror in various parts of America, tainted Berlin money has been showered upon those execrable enemies resident in America. As might be imagined, these tro-uble-makers are mostly foreigners whose names indicate German affiliations. Citizen home guards, however, in some centres of population have given these revolutionists a trying time, and the friends of the Kaiser have been driven unceremoniously out of town, or have been clubbed into submission. The I.WAV’s, are taking the opportunity to reduce the output of essentials by promoting strikes. Anti-draft literature is being distributed, and there is anti-draft talk wherever it is deemed safe. In Boston, a Socialistic parade, whose object, if its banners and the attitude of the marchers meant anything, was revolutionary, was promptly broken up by a mob, which lore up the revolutionary banners, ransacked the Socialist headquarters, and destroyed the contents by bon tiro. Hundreds of I.W.W. eunspiralors were arrested in the East, West, and Central States, and the most significant feature was that when ordered to produce bail even as high as 25,000 dollars, they quickly,ac-. quiesced, showing conclusively that these usually indigent troublemakers had unlimited funds, ostensibly from, German-sources. Bent on endeavouring to restrict the output of munitions for Franco, armed roving hands of desperadoes, recruited from the ranks of the 1.W.W., made a determined raid on the mines in various parts of Arizona, where they came in conflict with pickets and other armed guards. Only by the merest margin was bloodshed averted. The thousands of miners displayed their patriotism and refused to be intimidated, scattering the Germanised agitators courageously.- The visiting mischief-makers retreated with damaged heads and bodies.