Revolutionary Industrial Unionism or “Syndicalism” in Germany finds its expression in “Die Freie Vereinigung Deutscher Gewerkschaften” (F.D.G.), or “The Free Union of German Unions.” This organization is inspired by the same ideals that uses the same tactics ‘that distinguish Syndicalist organizations the world over. With its program of “direct action” tactics, it is in sharp contrast with the balance of the German labor movement, to whom these modern tactics are practically unknown. It is a comparatively small organization, numbering some 20,000 members, whilst the conservative unions–Socialist, Christian, etc.–number about 2,500,000. Yet it possesses an influence entirely out of proportion to its size. It is an object of almost horror, to the political leaders of the great Socialist sick and death benefit societies, misnamed unions, who see in its violent agitation of the general strike and direct action tactics generally a threatening menace to their policy of working class non resistance to its oppressors, which is so indispensable to the success of their insurance, labor and political organizations. They leave no stone unturned to discredit the organization and its officers and use it as a general bugaboo to scare any of their own disobedient unions back into the straight and narrow path. In Germany any union that dares to exhibit the slightest degree of independence is promptly insulted by being called “localist,” the reigning central committee rattles the “Freie Vereinigung Deutscher Gewerkschaften” skeleton, and the frightened and repentant union promptly submits.

The F.V.D.G. is also called “The Localist” owing to its federative form of organization, which is the antipodes of the prevailing “Centralist” type of the balance of the German labor movement. In the centralist trades or industrial unions, the central or national committees are almost absolute masters, the local unions are dependent on their wills and are practically deprived of all independence of action. In the F.V.D.G. or “Localists” unions, it is just the opposite, the local unions retain almost complete liberty of action, being bound together nationally into industrial unions just as loosely as is compatible with effective cooperation. The alliance of these national unions forms the F.V.D.G. Each union is perfectly independent of the others and makes its own constitution, etc. The local unions of all industries also organize themselves into Gewerkschaftkartelle or District Councils, which likewise are strictly autonomous. The central or business committee of the F.V.D.G. consists of five members which are elected at the regular, biannual congress. Their functions are largely of a “post office” order, the unions retaining to themselves, all important prerogatives. The F.V.D.G. has but one official organ, “Die Einigkeit.” which is edited by the business committee. This paper is exposed to none such financial storms as beat on the devoted heads of the I.W.W. papers. All locals in industrial unions which have no paper of their own, must subscribe for as many copies of “Die Einigkeit” as they have members. These papers are distributed gratis to the members. This is a plan that the I.W.W. would do well to follow as it is a disgrace that the lives of our papers should be endangered for lack of financial support.

In Germany the workers receive very low wages, as a class they are only a week or two from hunger, therefore in anticipation of strikes or lockouts, funds must be collected in order to tide the striking or lockout workers over until they go back to work again. The big Socialist contralist unions, collect these funds by charging high dues, putting this money into the central treasury, and investing the central committee with almost absolute power, which they liberally use to prevent strikes. The local unions are even forbidden to appeal to other unions for aid without first getting permission of their national central committee and the general commission of all the centralist unions. This is called the “self help plan” and effectually puts a damper on the “solidarity” feeling amongst workers during strikes. In the F.V.D.G. a different plan is used; the industrial unions have no central strike fund treasuries and the local unions are duty bound to assess their members a half week’s wages yearly for strike purposes. They retain these funds themselves and when they deem a strike necessary they enter upon it without asking anyone’s leave. When their funds are gone, they make an appeal to the business commission of the F.V.D.G. and the latter issues appeals to all the local unions of the whole organization. There in turn assess themselves so much per member weekly as long as the strike lasts. This plan has proved to be a success, as so far, the unions have loyally lived up to their agreed on plan of “free solidarity.” This plan far from suppressing the fighting qualities of the unions, as does that in vogue in the centralist unions, stimulates them. The socialist union leaders say “The F.V.D.G. unions are utterly unreasonable, when they enter into a “loan movement” they never know when to quit.

What may to many seem to be an exaggerated form of “autonomy” prevails in regard to the congress, each union sends as many delegates as it wishes to. This plan is really -only a symptom of the universal syndicalistic contempt for majorities in congresses and committees. It is proof that these bodies in syndicalist organizations are only advisory and legislative, that the power ever rests where it belongs in, the local unions. In these basic organizations—the local unions-where the assemblies are genuinely legislative, the principle of majorities ́is rigidly upheld, not be cause it is particularly just, but because it the only known practical method of doing business. The whole superstructure–congress and committees of the French labor unions is built on this same principle. The smallest federation of 350 members gets the same representation in the C.G.T. as the largest of 90,000.

The F.V.D.G. has been developed as a result of thirty years of warfare with the centralist unions. Though the national organization of the F.V.D.G. is but fourteen years old some of its component organizations date back into the days of the “Anti Socialist” laws from 1878-1890. These Ante Socialist laws forbade labor unions which were professedly political-as were all the revolutionary unions to enter into alliances with each other; they had to remain isolated. After their enactment the labor movement became split over the question of whether it should remain political and only locally organized, or whether it should discard politics and form national centralized unions, as it was entitled to do under the law. After years of strife–even after the repeal of the Ante Socialist laws in 1890-the centralized form of union became the dominant one, and the localist organizations, the still strongly Socialist, gradually became outcasts. These ne’er-do-wells went from bad to worse, and finally wound up in the lowest depths of depravity by becoming Syndicalist. Today, these organizations alone of all the unions of Germany are entitled to be called revolutionary. Whilst all the others have vague plans of bettering the living conditions of the workers, the F.V.D.G. unions are aiming consciously to overthrow capitalism by direct action methods and when this feat is accomplished to use their own structures as the basis for the constitution of the new society.

In all the capitalist countries of the globe the syndicalist organizations are desperately fighting to get a little breathing space in the Black Hole of the modern labor movement and everywhere their most inveterate enemies are the Socialists. Here in Germany, the so-called classic land of Socialism and revolution, the Syndicalists, because of the power of the Socialists, believe that they have a more difficult task than that of any other Syndicalist organization. They even consider the German worker hypnotized by “political dope.” to be more immune from the attacks of revolutionary unionism than even the American scissor bill. However, they are not dismayed by their task but are carrying on a vigorous agitation which is bound to eventually win.

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

Unions are formed for the reason that the interests of the capitalist and the laborer are not identical and the workers can expect nothing which he has not the power to enforce. The union should at all times be the fighting machine of the working class.

The contract is a negation of the very thing for which the union was formed as it rests upon the false basis of mutual interests of the men who work and the men who work those who work.

There are many bad features about the contract. First it is a virtual agreement to scab upon any workers who have a grievance with the employer in the shop where the contract holds. It means that the engineers may run a train manned by scab firemen. It is simply a weapon in the hands of the employers which to club labor into submission.

But the worst feature of the contract is the fact that it places in the hands of a few officials the setting of the terms on which the men shall work and in that measure it destroys the initiative of the rank and file. Once the contract is signed the members lost interest in the union meeting and only attend when forced to do so by a system of fines. They figure that their wages and conditions will not be altered and therefore there is no need for striving to better their lot in life, at least not until the time for the signing of the next contract. They see that they will not be allowed to fight even if they want to, and as a consequence they lose interest in the union almost entirely, regarding the organization as a sort of machine into which they must drop so much dues per quarter to receive a guaranteed wage if the labors of the officers are effective.

The cost of living jumps each year and sometimes the result can he noted in just a month’s time. Signing an agreed seale means to tie the hands of the workers so that the rising prices act as a cut in wages against which there is no counter. And just as surely as a pugilist degenerates when out of training, so do the workers lose their strength when they sign a contract and cease to wage the class war for even so brief a period as six months. The contract, instead of freeing its users, means nothing more than added slavery.

The time is coming, is almost here now, when the very ones who are upholding the contract will curse the rank and file of the crafts for not making a bolder stand, and yet they themselves will be to blame for the apologetic spirit of the craft union movement.

Let every worker who understands his class interests preach uneeasingly against the contract. Do not talk against it on the outside and then vote in your union for its acceptance. Prepare to break any contract that has been signed if the keeping of that contract means scabbery upon your fellow workers or if it means the imposing of a worse condition on yourselves.

No contract is valid, for they one and all are obtained by the employers holding the whip of hunger over the workers. They are obtained by force. They are not agreements between equal parties, for the man with the hungry wife and child cannot be said to be on the same footing as the man whose wife is giving her poodle dog an outing at Newport.

“To Hell with all contracts” is the slogan of the I.W.W. For the craftsmen perhaps this seems too great a jump to take all at once and they will take the slight forward step that means the expiration of all contracts at the same time.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz

There is nothing so serious to the labor movement as race prejudice. The civilized world is so interlinked economically that it is practically one. Any trouble in any part of the world of any magnitude whatever affects the workers the world over. The financiers, and not the kings and presidents are the world rulers today; on the contrary they control the kings and rulers. The financier recognises no boundary lines, no colors or creeds or races when it comes to profitable investments. But he makes use of all the ancient superstitions and prejudice in the form of patriotism, religion and race hatreds to protect his investments. He knows that an international working class solidarity is his fatal enemy, in fact the only real enemy he needs fear. He, therefore, has race superiority and patriotism with their particular brand of religion upheld in season and out of season, in the schools and in the church and press. So that the workers can be imbued with the silly notion that a brown working man who believes in a brown savior, who sits cross legged on a lotus flower, instead of a white savior who is represented as banging on a cross, is too inferior to associate with. The trade unions here in San Francisco have haughtily refused to take in oriental members. Although as a matter of fact the Chinaman is the most rebellious worker in the world and there are thousands of him here. One year the Chinese butchers in Chinatown wanted to parade on Labor Day with their white comrades, but they were refused admission in the ranks. Could anything be more stupid?

Instead of labor unifying the world over we are constantly called upon to sympathize with exclusion leagues, and the California state Socialist platform has a plank favoring the exclusion of Asiatics. This is written on paper headed “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains,” etc. Whenever the capitalists want the Asiatics they get them in regardless of any exclusion leagues or laws, and the whole business simply serves to keep up race prejudice. Besides, if, the capitalists find that oriental labor is more profitable than white labor, if he can’t get them to come to him, he will go to them with the means and instruments of production. It makes no difference to the financiers where their factories are located. But the most serious aspect of this race prejudice is that the worker cannot accomplish the overthrow of the capitalist system except he stands united the world over. The worker has no nation to protect. The nations belong to his master, and therefore to protect any nation is to protect his master.

And the best way to practically get at this is for the workers to come together, regardless of the colors of their skins. A worker who proclaims himself class-conscious and then talks loftily about “greasers, dagoes, coons,” etc., is a fool. He is really nothing but race conscious. It is a remarkable fact that the capitalist class is much less race-conscious than the workers. They dine and, wine together the world over as a “cultured” class. But the fact back of that is undoubtedly that their economic interest is the same. The workers are hampered in narrow quarters, and are apt to be clannish. So we get the Italian quarters, the Russian quarters, the Japanese and Chinese quarters and so on. All of which hinders the revolutionary movement. We must get revolutionary leaders who can interchange Ideas and propaganda to break down the race barriers.

Lately in San Francisco we have had the pleasure of having a real revolutionary Hindoo speaking to us. Har Dayal had to escape from his own country on account of his revolutionary ideas. He is not a working man. The Hindoo working man has no opportunity to learn to read and write. He is ground down to the lowest pittance, but in spite of It Har Dayal told us that they had actually carried on a six-day strike as a protest against the arrest of one of their leaders. Har Dayal lives like a working man and often carries his blankets with him to his meetings so that he can roll up and sleep anywhere. He teaches Hindoo Philosophy in Stanford University, but refuses to take any pay for it, so as to be independent and free to teach whatever he likes outside.

“I teach Hindoo Philosophy to break down race prejudice,” he said, when asked about it. With several other Hindoo revolutionists there is a concerted effort to start a strong Oriental center of revolutionists, which should be very gratifying. ONE BIG UNION must Include within its walls all the workers of the world, or at least all the rebellious workers of the world regardless of their color, or we shall never succeed. For that reason we should be very glad to welcome within our ranks our Oriental fellow workers. And it is to be hoped that before many years have gone by that we see fit to send our organizers and agitators to the Orient while at the same time we become wise enough to give every encouragement to our Oriental fellow workers who are with us here to join with us.

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

The boys at Merryville, La., where a strike has been on for over a month, “are sitting tight,” and the N.I.U. of P.&L.W. and the I.W.W. may feel proud of the solidarity displayed by these fighting timbermen and their wives and daughters. Especially was this shown when the bosses tried, as they always do, to inject race prejudice into the ranks of the strikers.

For, be it known, that the many colored men belonging to Local 218, are standing pat with their white fellow slaves; and also be it known that the writer has realized for years that all the colored workers needed was for the white workers ”to meet them half way,” and they will always respond, eager and anxious to fight to better their condition.

The drawbacks to amalgamation of the white and colored men on the industrial battlefield has been the contempt and hatred of the white workers for the colored race, born, of course, of the need so cunningly sown in his ignorant mind by the Capitalist class, and always kept blooming to bear fruit for that class in the shape of low wages.

The bosses never did object to yoking up a white and a colored worker together on the job- and the poor white wage slave in our (?) Southern country has just awakened to the bitter truth that he has been made a sucker by the bosses’ cry of “white supremacy” and “negro equality.” The formation of the N.I.U. of P.&L.W. (formerly B.T.W.) is to be thanked for this eye-opener. The writer is doing all in his power to bring these forces together, and really works more on that proposition than on any other feature of organization work.

Here, in the South, we can’t dwell on this question too often, for it is vital to the growth and ultimate victory of the Forest and Lumber Workers’ organisation.

All organizers working in the South must not overlook this proposition. Dwell upon it in your talks, public and private, and remember that many white workers agree with me. Many, on account of years of estrangement from the colored race, do not know how to be friendly with their colored fellow workers, although they earnestly wish to.

The white worker is something like the schoolboy who has had a scrap and is told by his teacher to make up with his chum, he wants to, but feels abashed and is afraid he will be made fun of.

The writer also asks his fellow workers’ of the South if they wish real good feeling to exist between the two races (and each is necessary to the other’s success), to please stop calling the colored man” N*** “—the tone some use is an insult, much less the word. Call him Negro if you must refer to his race, but “fellow worker” is the only form of salutation a rebel should use.

Transcribed by Revolution’s Newsstand

VIRGINIA, Minn. The miners of the Mesaba and Iron Ranges are now fighting for their very lives, and the hovels they calls homes.

Already the Steel Trust has had fifteen workers imprisoned and one has been murdered. This territory is no longer under the laws of the United States. It is under the rule of the Steel Trust., Gunmen–men who would sell their mother for a drink of whiskey–are the virtual judges, juries and executioners. Private detectives are common as lice. All the mining companies have regiments of them warring against the workers, and given every governmental protection, under laws that deem property of far more value than human life.

Fifteen members of the I.W.W. have been arrested for unlawful assemblage, while the Steel Trust can have all the gunmen it wants, armed with guns.

Fellow Worker John Allar was shot and killed by a gunman employed by the Oliver Mining Company, a part of the Steel Trust. Fellow Worker Allar was standing on the road that leads to the mines, when a number of the gunmen came along and ordered the men to move on. They did not move fast enough to suit these paid assassins, and they shot at the strikers. At the first volley the Fellow Worker fell, shot through the body once, and twice through the head.

John Allar, murdered needlessly and ruthlessly, cooly as no beast of the jungle, infinitely superior to gunmen, kills, died saying: “My goodness, my poor wife and children.”

Paul Allar, an uncle, gives the following statement:

“John did not shoot at all when the gunmen came after him. He hollered: ‘Don’t shoot me’; and right after that he received the shots that caused his death. I ran away, and on hearing the third shot, I turned around and saw that the policeman had shot three times more at John, while he was laying on the ground.”

Frank Cornjeck, who was standing near the Fellow Worker, when he was shot said that he saw one of the gumen shoot at John. I was fifty feet away when the murder was committed. I saw a gunman jump out of an auto, and as he went up the street, he drew his gun and immediately began to shoot, firing into the boys standing on the street.

A woman, living near there said, that she saw the gunman start the shooting and murder of John Allar.

Winset Elias, a small shop-keeper, near where the shooting occurred, who was also shot, but not fatally, said he saw some men going up the street, very peacably. When they came to Third St., gunmen came and shouted to the strikers, I heard shots fired, and then I saw Allar shot, and felt a pain in my stomach, and fell on the ground.

A large number of the members of the I.W.W. have been over to the home of the widow of our murdered fellow worker. We found there three of the loveliest children made fatherless by the grasping, murderous greed of capitalism. The children are: one six years, one three years, and one three months old.

The miners are more determined than ever that they will show the fellow worker did not die in vain. They are mourning and organizing to make the conditions that caused the fellow worker’s death forever impossible.

All mines in this district are now tied up, and Organizers Sam Scarlett, Carlo Tresca, Joe Schmitt, James Gilday, Arthur Boose, H.C. Walton, Frank Russell, Veno Wessman, Leonard Allgren, G.E. Andreytechine and others are busy night and day.

Secretaries are working continually, making out cards and filing records, and even on this there is a long line of miners waiting. Over four thousand miners have joined outside of those at Hibbing and Chisholm. These two came out Saturday and most of the seven thousand miners have also joined, but the reports are not fully in yet. There are about 16,000 miners involved.

The following fellow workers have been found guilty of unlawful assemblage: Arthur Boose, Joe Green, Arvi Lehtotonen, Eleia Seppanen, and R.B. Clocker.

Funds are very badly needed; the very life of the One Big Union is in a great measure dependent on the response.

The funeral of Fellow Worker Allar, the latest martyr to the cause of the working class, was held here, Sunday, at 10 a.m., and attended by miners from the entire strike area.

No compromise and no retreat is the motto of every striker. There is a splendid spirit of solidarity among the strikers. They are mourning and organizing with an invincible determination to win.

Press Committee

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

The Rape of Justice by Michigan Officers

Frank Little, a member of the General Executive Board of the I.W.W. organizing in the Steel Trust ore areas of Michigan sends us a story showing the cold-blooded, murderous hatred and utter degeneracy of officers who are in reality thugs, pimps and scum recruited from the slums and the brothel, and given the full power of the United States government at the instigation of one of the government’s owners–the Steel Trust.

Men of the working class who have any illusions about democracy, liberty or protection under The American flag should read the statement we print in full and then blush for their ignorance in calling themselves free born American citizens!

Democracy is merely the name of the club with which gunmen maim and murder workers when the masters of industry demand such murders.

Fellow Worker Little’s statement says:

“I arrived in Iron River, Michigan, the evening of August 15th, I attended meeting on the evening of the 15th and the afternoon of the 16th at the Union Hall there. On August 17th I was on my way to the post office, when two officers stopped me and told me that they wanted to talk to me. I told them to wait till I got back, as I was in a hurry.”

No Warrant Needed.

“They then grabbed me under the arms and told me I was under arrest. I asked them for the warrant, and shoving me into the office they told me the warrant was inside. On entering the office the jailer pulled down the key of one of the cells and told me that was the only warrant they needed.

“I asked him under what charge I was arrested and he told me disturbing the peace. I asked him whose peace I had disturbed. He said ‘You damn S- of a B-, you are here trying to organize the miners.’ He then shoved me in the cell and locked me up.

“The part of the jail I was in had a window and I got a boy, who was passing, to go down to the Finns and notify them I was in jail. On the morning of August 17th a crowd began to gather around on the outside of the window and an officer locked the window, so I could not talk to any one on the outside. At about 7:30 p.m. they moved me to the women’s department, where I could not be seen from.

“That night about 10 p.m. the gunman chief of police woke me up and asked me how long it would take me to leave town, if I was released.

“I told him I would leave just as soon as I got through organizing.

“He told me to get up and put on my shoes. I asked him why and he said he was going to release me. I told him that I preferred to stay in jail till daylight. Three policemen grabbed me, put my shoes on and carried me through the basement and out the back way:

Meditating Murder

“When we reached the head of the stairs a blanket was thrown over my head. They threw me into a waiting automobile and in throwing me in twisted my left arm. Two officers sat on top of me and one of them said to the driver:

“Drive to a good pine tree, we will hang the Son of a B-!

“I did not know what direction we were going, but after we had been on the road some forty minutes they let me up, and wanted to know where the Finnish and Italian organizers were. If you tell us where those damned foreign S- of B- are, we will let you go.” I told them I did not know where they were. “They then told me that the miners of that district were getting good wages and were satisfied, and that they would allow no damn agitators in their territory; and if necessary they would get an army of gunmen to keep us out. One of the men in the machine said he was a mine owner and employing men, and his men would all stand by him.

“I then learned that there was another machine following the one I was in, with five men in it. They took me out of the machine, with three men holding me. Bringing a rope out of the automobile they put a noose around my neck and said they were going to hang me. I told them to hang away, but to expect the same kind of treatment from the working class, themselves, if they resorted to those tactics.

“One of them asked me if I was an American citizen. I told them I was, but that I was not at all proud of it.

“One of them said he did not like to hang an American, but that if they got hold of one of those damned foreigners they would hang them up. They asked me if I would leave the country. I told them that such an agreement would amount to nothing, as I considered I had the right to go wherever I pleased. One of them hit at me. I guarded my face. Another hit me on the back of the head, but did not knock me down, then someone kicked me in the groin, knocking me off my feet. They then began to kick me in the ribs and back. One of them took out his gun and put it to my head, saying: ‘I will finish the S- of a B-.

“One of them interfered, saying he would not stand for murder, but that they could tie me and throw me in the brush.

“He said, ‘If you had those damn foreigners, I would be willing to go the limit, but will not stand for the killing of this man.”

“They then tied my hands behind my back, tied my legs together and threw me in the brush.

“Soon after they had left me it began to rain hard, and soaking wet it took me two hours to free my hands. I then untied my feet and crawled to the railroad track.

“When I got there, I was sore all over from the beating I had received and did not know what direction to take. I managed to travel eighteen miles in agony at every step, and finally got to Watersmeet, Michigan.

“In my condition I could do nothing and decided to go back to Duluth, Minn.”

This ends the statement of Frank Little. He is according to a letter written to William D. Haywood, going back to the mining regions of Michigan in spite of every murderer and pimp, wearing the star that represents the authority of the government of the United States.

Workers of America, is the government of the United States a government for, by and of the people or a murderous, repressive, loathsome conspiracy against the rights, lives and liberties of the working class of the United States? Will the police of Iron River be punished?

Haymarket, Homestead. West Virginia, Michigan, Ludlow, Roosevelt, Grabow are the answers of the past to the aspiration of the workers of America. The Iron Ranges of Minnesota, Iron River and Minot, are the answer of today. The workers of America organized as a class, invincible in their power, ruthless in their demands, destructive for slavery, constructive for liberty must-and will answer of tomorrow!

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

I remember in years long gone, how I used to raise my voice and sing in school the song of my native heath: “Michigan, My Michigan.” Since, I have been disillusioned and see before me not my Michigan, but a Michigan owned and controlled, pulpit, press, law and order courts, by that monstrous oligarchy–the American Steel Trust.

For forty years the development of the Steel Trust in Northern Michigan has been a process of organization that has been squeezing out the individual mine owner and merged all these competing factions into one gigantic body–a body that subjugates all within its borders with a hand and policy of steel. It has been a body that knows no limits, that reaches high and digs deep for its prey. Like some wanton creatures’ eyes agleam with hate, its hands gory, it succeeded in casting over this beautiful land, with its rolling green and picturesque valleys the most dreadful and ominous of silences–the silence of tyranny and oppression.

“Labor is dignified and will stand on its dignity,” I said to myself as first I came within this reign of silence, where miners are watched at work or asleep by an army of arch-conspirators and arch-criminals who gloat over the prospect of kicking the guts out of any who would even address a worker, asking aid for the men who strike and fight against the enemy on the Messaba and Cuyuna ranges, or preach the benefit of organization that light and social betterment may penetrate the darkness of this all.

I arrived in Iron River the day following the kidnapping of Frank Little. I had no sooner arrived in my home state than I became marked by gunmen. My grip was forced open, while was away from the hotel. Afterwards having learned a lesson, I moved into the home of a comrade.

One of the relieving features of the situation, illumining the darkness of oppression was the red flashes of discontent. On every street corner there was subdued talk of strike.

Teaching Disrespect for Flag.

A miner’s meeting was to be held the following Sunday and, at the last hour, abandoned. Five hundred of Hell’s own citizens and small fry business men appeared at the appointed hour and took entire possession, starting, as scoundrels always do, with patriotism by pinning flags on all, using force where it was necessary. Men were forced to wear the flag which the social parasites are dragging in the dust, or were brought to jail.

A resolution favoring deportation for all agitators and even physical violence and murder was approved by the applause of the audience of gunmen and police, who flaunting the flag that was before the days of the Steel Trust supposed to represent freedom as they talked of murder.

Our task was aided. The thugs of the police, the thugs representing the business interests had cut their own throat. Despotism and intolerance breeds rebellion. The miners are now infuriated to white heat at the tyranny of the masters; they are prepared to support morally and financially their brother miners on the striking ranges of Minnesota. The following morning, Fred Jaakola and myself made our getaway and arrived in Negaunee, where mass meetings were arranged and where a great crowd, hot at the injustice of the masters of men who toil, sent their money in aid of the men who are fighting their fight.

The protest of the workers were sent to the governors of Michigan and Minnesota. Dan Foley, Chief Oliver, gunman, hearing that workers, preaching the gospel of discontent, were loose in Michigan, motored in from Virginia with deputies hot on the trail of the organizers. Trains and county roads are being guarded. What happens when we fall into the hands of the foe will, we suppose, be a repetition of the experiences of Frank Little. Violence and brutality are the only answer these curs can give the longings of the workers.

After all I am inclined to think there is a dignity of labor if we only hunt and strive for it. But labor is only dignified in revolt.

Transcribed by Revolution’s Newstand