Ralph Chaplin is serving a twenty year sentence in the Federal
Penitentiary, not as a punishment for any act of violence against
person or property, but solely for the expression of his opinions.
Chaplin, together with a number of fellow prisoners who were sentenced
at the same time, was accused of taking part in a conspiracy with
intent to obstruct the prosecution of the war. To be sure the
Government did not produce a single witness to show that the war had
been obstructed by their activities; but it was argued that the
agitation which they had carried on by means of speeches, articles,
pamphlets, meetings and organizing campaigns, would quite naturally
hamper the country in its war work. On the face of their indictments
these men were accused of interfering with the conduct of the war; in
reality they were sent to jail because they held and expressed certain
beliefs.
As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Ralph Chaplin did
his part to make the organization a success. He wrote songs and
poems; he made speeches: he edited the official paper, "Solidarity".
He looked about him; saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the
workers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the land and
the machinery of production; studied the problem of distribution; and
decided that it was possible, through the organization of the
producers, to establish a more scientific, juster, more humane system
of society. All this he felt, intensely. With him and his
fellow-workers the task of freeing humanity from economic bondage took
on the aspect of a faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote
their literature; made their speeches and sang their songs with
zealous devotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard a call to
duty; they were giving their lives to a cause--the emancipation of the
human race.
When the war broke out in Europe, with millions of working-men
flinging death and misery at one another, men like Chaplin, the world
over, regarded it as the last straw. Was it not bad enough that these
exploited creatures should be used as factory-fodder? Must they be
cannon-fodder too? Why should they fight to increase the economic
power of German traders? of British manufacturers? The war was a
capitalist war between capitalist nations. What interest had the
workers in these nations? in their winnings or in their losses? So ran
the argument.
The I. W. W. was not primarily an anti-war organization In theory it
had abandoned political activity to devote itself exclusively to
agitation and organization on the field of industry. Practically its
funds and its energies were expended upon industrial struggles. Long
before the war, the I. W. W. had made itself known and feared for its
conduct of strikes, its free speech fights, and its ability to put the
sore spots of American industrial life on the front page of the daily
press and to keep them there until the people had become aroused to
the wrongs that were being perpetrated. It was in this domain of
industry that the I. W. W. was functioning, and it was among the
business interests that the determination had been reached to rid the
country of the organization at all costs.
Had the chief offense of the I. W. W. consisted in its expressed
opposition to the war, it would not have been singled out for attack.
Many of the peace societies that flourished prior to 1917 were more
outspoken and more consistent in their opposition to war than were the
leaders of the I. W. W. None of these societies, however, had acquired
reputation for championing the cause of industrial under dogs, and for
demanding a complete change in the form of American economic life.
Consequently, in the prosecution, in the sentences, in the
commutations and in the pardons, the anti-war pacifists were treated
very leniently, while the revolutionary I. W. W. members were singled
out for the most ferocious legal and extra-legal attack.
Technically, Ralph Chaplin and his comrades had conspired to obstruct
the war. Actually, they had lined themselves up solidly against the
present economic order, of which the World War was only one phase.
This was their real crime.