The I.W.W. is the representative in this country of the labor movement of
the rest of the world It is the representative in the United States of the
idea that capitalism is wrong: that no man has a right, moral or
otherwise, to exploit his fellow men, the idea that our industrial efforts
should be conducted not for the profits of any individual but should be
conducted for social service, for social welfare. So the I.W.W. says
first, that the wage system is wrong and that it means to abolish that
wage system. It says that it intends to do this, not by political action,
not by balloting, but by organization on the industrial or economical
field, precisely as employers, precisely as capital is organized on the
basis of the industry, not on the basis of the tool. The I.W.W. says
industrial evolution has progressed to that point there the tool no longer
enforces craftsmanship. In the place of a half dozen or dozen who were
employed, each a skilled artisan, employed to do the work, you have a
machine process to do that work and it resulted in the organization of the
industry on an industrial basis. You have the oil industry, controlled by
the Standard Oil; you have the lumber industry, controlled by the
Lumbermen's Association of the South and West, and you have the steel and
copper industry, all organized on an industrial basis resulting in a
fusing, or corporation, or trust of a lot of former owners. Now the I.W.W.
say if they are to compete with our employers, we must compete with our
employers as an organization, and as they are organized so we must protect
our organization, as they protect themselves. And so they propose to
organize into industrial unions; the steel workers and the coal miners,
and the transportation workers each into its own industrial unit.
This plan of organization is extremely distasteful to the employers
because it is efficient; because it means a new order, a new system in the
labor world in this country. The meaning of this can be gathered, in some
measure, from the recent experiences in the steel strike of this country,
where they acted as an industrial unit; from the recent experiences in the
coal mining industry, where they acted as an industrial unit. Instead of
having two or three dozen other crafts, each working separately, they
acted as an industrial unit. When the strike occurred it paralyzed
industry and forced concessions to the demands of the workers. That is the
first thing the I.W.W. stands for and in some measure and in part explains
the attitude capital has taken all over the country towards it.
In the next place it says that labor should organize on the basis of some
fundamental principle; and labor should organize for something more than a
mere bartering and dickering for fifty cents a day or for some shorter
time, something of that sort. It says that the system is fundamentally
wrong and must be fundamentally changed before you can look for some
improvement. Its philosophy is based upon government statistics which show
that in a few years in this country our important industries have crept
into more than two-thirds of our entire wealth. Seventy-five per cent of
the workers in the basic industry are unable to send their children to
school. Seventy-one per cent of the heads of the families in our basic
industries are unable to provide a decent living for their families
without the assistance of the other members. Twenty-nine per cent of our
laborers are able to live up to the myth that he is the head of the
family. The results of these evils are manifold. Our people are not being
raised in decent vicinities. They are not being raised and educated. Their
health is not being cared for; their morals are not being cared for. I
will show you that in certain of our industries where the wages are low
and the hours are long, that the children of the working people die at the
rate of 300 to 350 per thousand inhabitants under the age of one year
because of their undernourishment, lack of proper housing and lack of
proper medical attention and because the mothers of these children before
they are born and when the children are being carried in the mother's womb
that they are compelled to go into the industries and work and work and
work, and before the child can receive proper nourishment the mother is
compelled to go back into the industry and work again. The I.W.W.'s say
there must be a fundamental change and that fundamental change must be in
the line of reorganization of industry, for public service, so that the
purpose shall be that we will work to live and not merely live to work.
Work for service rather than work for profit.
[Illustration: James McInerney
(After he had undergone the "Third degree".)
McInerney had a rope around his neck nearly all night before this picture
was taken. One end of the rope had been pulled taut over a beam by his
tormentors. McInerney had told them to "go to hell." "It's no use trying
to get anything out of a man like that," was the final decision of the
inquisitors.]
To Kill an Ideal...
Some time in September, counsel told you, the I.W.W., holding these
beliefs, opened a hall in Centralia. Back of that hall was a living room,
where Britt Smith lived, kept his clothes and belongings and made his
home. From then on the I.W.W. conducted a regular propaganda meeting every
Saturday night. These propaganda meetings were given over to a discussion
of these industrial problems and beliefs. From that district there were
dispatched into nearby lumber camps and wherever there were working people
to whom to carry this message--there were dispatched organizers who went
out, made the talks in the camps briefly and sought to organize them into
this union, at least to teach them the philosophy of this labor movement.
Because that propaganda is fatal to those who live by other people's work,
who live by the profits they wring from labor, it excited intense
opposition on the part of employers and business people of Centralia and
about the time this hall was opened we will show you that people from
Seattle, where they maintain their headquarters for these labor fights,
came into Centralia and held meetings. I don't know what they call this
new thing they were seeking to organize--it is in fact a branch of the
Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association of the United States, a national
organization whose sole purpose is to fight and crush and beat labor. It
was in no sense a local movement because it started in Seattle and it was
organized by people from Seattle, and the purpose was to organize in
Centralia an organization of business men to combat this new labor
philosophy. Whether in the mouths of the I.W.W., or Nonpartisan League, or
the Socialists, it did not make any difference; to brand anybody as a
traitor, un-American, who sought to tell the truth about our industrial
conditions.