Part 25

There has been reference in this book to the Centralia case. No one can consider that he understands the technique of holding down the Reds until he has studied this case, and therefore every friend of “Big Business” should send fifty cents, either to the I. W. W. Headquarters, 1001 West Madison Street, Chicago, or to the “Liberator,” New York, or to the “Appeal to Reason,” Girard, Kansas, for the booklet, “The Centralia Conspiracy,” by Ralph Chaplin, who attended the Centralia trial, and has collected all the details and presents them with photographs and documents. Many other stories about the I. W. W. have been told in the course of “100%.” The reader will wish to know, are these men really so dangerous, and have the business men of America been driven to treat them as here described. The reader may again address the I. W. W. National Headquarters for a four-page leaflet with the quaint title, “With Drops of Blood the History of the Industrial Workers of the World has Been Written.” Despite the fact that it is a bare record of cases, there are many men serving long terms in prison in the United States for the offense of having in their possession a copy of this leaflet, “With Drops of Blood.” But the readers of this book, being all of them 100% Americans engaged in learning the technique of smashing the Reds, will, I feel sure, not be interfered with by the business men. Also I trust that the business men will not object to my reprinting a few paragraphs from the leaflet, in order to make the public realize how dangerously these Reds can write. I will, of course, not follow their incendiary example and spatter my page with big drops of imitation blood. I quote:

“We charge that I. W. W. members have been murdered, and mention here a few of those who have lost their lives:

“Joseph Michalish was shot to death by a mob of so-called citizens. Michael Hoey was beaten to death in San Diego. Samuel Chinn was so brutally beaten in the county jail at Spokane, Washington, that he died from the injuries. Joseph Hillstrom was judicially murdered within the walls of the penitentiary at Salt Lake City, Utah. Anna Lopeza, a textile worker, was shot and killed, and two other Fellow Workers were murdered during the strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frank Little, a cripple, was lynched by hirelings of the Copper Trust at Butte, Montana. John Looney, A. Robinowitz, Hugo Gerlot, Gustav Johnson, Felix Baron, and others were killed by a mob of Lumber Trust gunmen on the Steamer Verona at the dock at Everett, Washington. J. A. Kelly was arrested and re-arrested at Seattle, Washington; finally died from the effects of the frightful treatment he received. Four members of the I. W. W. were killed at Grabow, Louisiana, where thirty were shot and seriously wounded. Two members were dragged to death behind an automobile at Ketchikan, Alaska.

“These are but a few of the many who have given up their lives on the altar of Greed, sacrificed in the ages-long struggle for Industrial Freedom.

“We charge that many thousands of members of this organization have been imprisoned, on most occasions arrested without warrant and held without charge. To verify this statement it is but necessary that you read the report of the Commission on Industrial Relations wherein is given testimony of those who know of conditions at Lawrence, Massachusetts, where nearly 900 men and women were thrown into prison during the Textile Workers’ Strike at that place. This same report recites the fact that during the Silk Workers’ Strike at Paterson, New Jersey, nearly 1,900 men and women were cast into jail without charge or reason. Throughout the northwest these kinds of outrages have been continually perpetrated against members of the I. W. W. County jails and city prisons in nearly every state in the Union have held or are holding members of this organization.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been tarred and feathered. Frank H. Meyers was tarred and feathered by a gang of prominent citizens at North Yakima, Washington. D. S. Dietz was tarred and feathered by a mob led by representatives of the Lumber Trust at Sedro, Wooley, Washington. John L. Metzen, attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World, was tarred and feathered and severely beaten by a mob of citizens of Staunton, Illinois. At Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mob of bankers and other business men gathered up seventeen members of the I. W. W., loaded them in automobiles, carried them out of town to a patch of woods, and there tarred and feathered and beat them with rope.

“We charge that members of the Industrial Workers of the World have been deported, and cite the cases of Bisbee, Arizona, where 1,164 miners, many of them members of the I. W. W., and their friends, were dragged out of their homes, loaded upon box cars, and sent out of the camp. They were confined for months at Columbus, New Mexico. Many cases are now pending against the copper companies and business men of Bisbee. A large number of members were deported from Jerome, Arizona. Seven members of the I. W. W. were deported from Florence, Oregon, and were lost for days in the woods, Tom Lassiter, a crippled news vender, was taken out in the middle of the night and badly beaten by a mob for selling the Liberator and other radical papers.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been cruelly and inhumanly beaten. Hundreds of members can show scars upon their lacerated bodies that were inflicted upon them when they were compelled to run the gauntlet. Joe Marko and many others were treated in this fashion at San Diego, California. James Rowan was nearly beaten to death at Everett, Washington. At Lawrence, Massachusetts, the thugs of the Textile Trust beat men and women who had been forced to go on strike to get a little more of the good things of life. The shock and cruel whipping which they gave one little Italian woman caused her to give premature birth to a child. At Red Lodge, Montana, a member’s home was invaded and he was hung by the neck before his screaming wife and children. At Franklin, New Jersey, August 29, 1917, John Avila, an I. W. W., was taken in broad daylight by the chief of police and an auto-load of business men to a woods near the town and there hung to a tree. He was cut down before death ensued, and badly beaten. It was five hours before Avila regained consciousness, after which the town ‘judge’ sentenced him to three months at hard labor.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been starved. This statement can be verified by the conditions existing in most any county jail where members of the I. W. W. are confined. A very recent instance is at Topeka, Kansas, where members were compelled to go on a hunger strike as a means of securing food for themselves that would sustain life. Members have been forced to resort to the hunger strike as a means of getting better food in many places. You are requested to read the story written by Winthrop D. Lane, which appears in the Sept. 6, 1919, number of `The Survey.’ This story is a graphic description of the county jails in Kansas.

“We charge that I. W. W. members have been denied the right of citizenship, and in each instance the judge frankly told the applicants that they were refused on account of membership in the Industrial Workers of the World, accompanying this with abusive remarks; members were denied their citizenship papers by judge Hanford at Seattle, Washington, and judge Paul O’Boyle at Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been denied the privilege of defense. This being an organization of working men who had little or no funds of their own, it was necessary to appeal to the membership and the working class generally for funds to provide a proper defense. The postal authorities, acting under orders from the Postmaster-General at Washington, D. C., have deliberately prevented the transportation of our appeals, our subscription lists, our newspapers. These have been piled up in the postoffices and we have never received a return of the stamps affixed for mailing.

“We charge that the members of the I. W. W. have been held in exorbitant bail. As an instance there is the case of Pietro Pierre held in the county jail at Topeka, Kansas. His bond was fixed at $5,000, and when the amount was tendered it was immediately raised to $10,000. This is only one of the many instances that could be recorded.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been compelled to submit to involuntary servitude. This does not refer to members confined in the penitentiaries, but would recall the reader’s attention to an I. W. W. member under arrest in Birmingham, Alabama, taken from the prison and placed on exhibition at a fair given in that city where admission of twenty-five cents was charged to see the I. W. W.”

Finally, for the benefit of the reader who asks how it happens that such incidents are not more generally known to the public, I will reprint the following, from pages 382-383 of “The Brass Check,” dealing with the “New York Times,” and its treatment of the writer’s novel, “Jimmie Higgins”:

“In the last chapters of this story an American soldier is represented as being tortured in an American military prison. Says the `Times’:

“`Mr. Sinclair should produce the evidence upon which he bases his astounding accusations, if he has any. If he has simply written on hearsay evidence, or, worse still, let himself be guided by his craving to be sensational, he has laid himself open not only to censure but to punishment.’

“In reply to this, I send to the `Times’ a perfectly respectful letter, citing scores of cases, and telling the `Times’ where hundreds of other cases may be found. The `Times’ returns this letter without comment. A couple of months pass, and as a result of the ceaseless agitation of the radicals, there is a congressional investigation, and evidence of atrocious cruelties is forced into the newspapers. The `Times’ publishes an editorial entitled, `Prison Camp Cruelties,’ the first sentence of which reads: `The fact that American soldiers confined in prison-camps have been treated with extreme brutality may now be regarded as established.’ So again I write a polite letter to the `Times,’ pointing out that I think they owe me an apology. And how does the `Times’ treat that? It alters my letter without my permission. It cuts out my request for an apology, and also my quotation of its own words calling for my punishment! The `Times,’ caught in a hole, refuses to let me remind its readers that it wanted me `punished’ for telling the truth! `All the News that’s Fit to Print!’”

End of Project Gutenberg’s 100%: The Story of a Patriot, by Upton Sinclair