That second morning, when Peter got to his office, he found a letter
waiting for him, a letter written on very conspicuous and expensive
stationery, and addressed in a woman’s tall and sharp-pointed
handwriting. Peter opened it and got a start, for at the top of the
letter was some kind of crest, and a Latin inscription, and the
words: “Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.” The
letter informed him by the hand of a secretary that Mrs. Warring
Sammye requested that Mr. Peter Gudge would be so good as to call
upon her that afternoon at three o’clock. Peter studied the letter,
and tried to figure out what kind of Red this was. He was impressed
by the stationery and the regal tone, but that word “Revolution” was
one of the forbidden words. Mrs. Warren Sammye must be one of the
“Parlor Reds,” like Mrs. Godd.
So Peter took the letter to McGivney, and said suspiciously, “What
kind of a Red plot is this?”
McGivney read the letter, and said, “Red plot? How do you mean?”
“Why,” explained Peter, “it says `Daughters of the American
Revolution.’”
And McGivney looked at him; at first he thought that Peter was
joking, but when he saw that the fellow was really in earnest, he
guffawed in his face. “You boob!” he said. “Didn’t you ever hear of
the American Revolution? Don’t you know anything about the Fourth of
July?”
Just then the telephone rang and interrupted them, and McGivney
shoved the letter to him saying, “Ask your wife about it!” So when
Gladys came in, Peter gave her the letter, and she was much excited.
It appeared that Mrs. Warring Sammye was a very tip-top society lady
in American City, and this American Revolution of which she was a
daughter was a perfectly respectable revolution that had happened a
long time ago; the very best people belonged to it, and it was legal
and proper to write about, and even to put on your letterheads.
Peter must go home and get himself into his best clothes at once,
and telephone to the secretary that he would be pleased to call upon
Mrs. Warring Sammye at the hour indicated. Incidentally, there were
a few more things for Peter to study. He must get a copy of the
social register, “Who’s Who in American City,” and he must get a
history of his country, and learn about the Declaration of
Independence, and what was the difference between a revolution that
had happened a long time ago and one that was happening now.
So Peter went to call on the great society lady in her grey stone
mansion, and found her every bit as opulent as Mrs. Godd, with the
addition that she respected her own social position; she did not
make the mistake of treating Peter as an equal, and so it did not
occur to Peter that he might settle down permanently in her home.
Her purpose was to tell Peter that she had heard of his lecture
about the Red menace, and that she was chairman of the Board of
Directors of the Lady Patronesses of the Home for Disabled War
Veterans in American City, and she wanted to arrange to have Peter
deliver this lecture to the veterans. And Peter, instructed in
advance by Gladys, said that he would be very glad to donate this
lecture as a patriotic contribution. Mrs. Warring Sammye thanked him
gravely in the name of his country, and said she would let him know
the date.
Peter went home, and Gladys made a wry face, because the lecture was
to be delivered before a lot of good-for-nothing soldiers in some
hall, when it had been her hope that it was to be delivered to the
Daughters themselves, and in Mrs. Warring Sammye’s home. However, to
have attracted Mrs. Warring Sammye’s attention for anything was in
itself a triumph. So Gladys was soon cheerful again, and she told
Peter about Mrs. Warring Sammye’s life; one picked up such valuable
knowledge in the gossip at the manicure parlors, it appeared.
Then, being in a friendly mood, Gladys talked to Peter about
himself. They had mounted to a height from which they could look
back upon the past and see it as a whole, and in the intimacy and
confidence of their domestic partnership they could draw lessons
from their mistakes and plan their future wisely. Peter had made
many blunders--he must surely admit that. Did Peter admit that? Yes,
Peter did. But, continued Gladys, he had struggled bravely, and he
had the supreme good fortune to have secured for himself that
greatest of life’s blessings, the cooperation of a good and capable
woman. Gladys was very emphatic about this latter, and Peter agreed
with her. He agreed also when she stated that it is the duty of a
good and capable wife to protect her husband for the balance of
their life’s journey, so that he would be able to avoid the traps
which his enemies set for his feet. Peter, having learned by bitter
experience, would never again go chasing after a pretty face, and
wake up next morning to find his pockets empty. Peter admitted this
too. As this conversation progressed, he realized that the tour of
triumph his life had become was a thing entirely of his wife’s
creation; at least, he realized that there would be no use in trying
to change his wife’s conviction on the subject. Likewise he meekly
accepted her prophecies as to his future conduct; he would bring
home his salary at the end of each week, and his wife would use it,
together with her own salary, to improve the appearance and tone of
both of them, and to aid them to climb to a higher social position.
Peter, following his wife’s careful instructions, has already become
more dignified in his speech, more grave in his movements. She tells
him that the future of society depends on his knowledge and his
skill, and he agrees to this also. He has learned what you can do
and what you had better not do; he will never again cross the
dead-line into crime, or take chances with experiments in blackmail.
He will try no more free lance work under the evil influence of low
creatures like Nell Doolin, but will stand in with the “machine,”
and bear in mind that honesty is the best policy. So he will
steadily progress; he will meet the big men of the country, and will
go to them, not cringing and twisting his hat in his hands, but
with quiet self-possession. He will meet the agents of the
Attorney-General aspiring to become President, and will furnish them
with material for their weekly Red scares. He will meet legislators
who want to unseat elected Socialists, and governors who wish to
jail the leaders of “outlaw” strikes. He will meet magazine writers
getting up articles, and popular novelists looking for local Red
color.
But Peter’s best bid of all will be as a lecturer. He will be able
to travel all over the country, making a sensation. Did he know why?
No, Peter answered, he was not sure he did. Well, Gladys could tell
him; it was because he was romantic. Peter didn’t know just what
this word meant, but it sounded flattering, so he smiled sheepishly,
showing his crooked teeth, and asked how Gladys found out that he
was romantic. The reply was a sudden order for him to stand up and
turn around slowly.
Peter didn’t like to get up from his comfortable Morris chair, but
he did what his wife asked him. She inspected him on all sides and
exclaimed, “Peter, you must go on a diet; you’re getting
ombongpoing!” She said this in horrified tones, and Peter was
frightened, because it sounded like a disease. But Gladys added:
“You can not be a romantic figure on a lecture platform if you’ve
got a bay-window!”
Peter found it interesting to be talked about, so he asked again why
Gladys thought he was romantic. There were several reasons, she
said, but the main one was that he had been a dangerous criminal,
and had reformed, which pleased the church people; he had made a
happy ending by marriage, which pleased those who read novels.
“Is that so?” said Peter, guilelessly, and she assured him that it
was. “And what else?” he asked, and she explained that he had known
intimately and at first hand those dreadful and dangerous people,
those ogres of the modern world, the Bolsheviks, about whom the
average man and woman learned only thru the newspapers. And not
merely did he tell a sensational story, but he ended it with a
money-making lesson. The lesson was “Contribute to the Improve
America League. Make out your checks to the Home and Fireside
Association. The existence of your country depends upon your
sustaining the Patriot’s Defense Legion.” So the fame of Peter’s
lecture would spread, and the Guffeys and Billy Nashes of every city
and town in America would clamor for him to come, and when he came,
the newspapers would publish his picture, and he and his wife would
be welcomed by leaders of the best society. They would become social
lions, and would see the homes of the rich, and gradually become one
of the rich.
Gladys looked her spouse over again, as they started to
their sleeping apartment. Yes, he was undoubtedly putting on
“ombongpoing”; he would have to take up golf. He was wearing a
little American flag dangling from his watch chain, and she wondered
if that wasn’t a trifle crude. Gladys herself now wore a real
diamond ring, and had learned to say “vahse” and “baahth.” She
yawned prettily as she took off her lovely brown “tailor-made,” and
reflected that such things come with ease and security.
Both she and Peter now had these in full measure. They had lost all
fear of ever finding themselves out of a job. They had come to
understand that the Red menace is not to be so easily exterminated;
it is a distemper that lurks in the blood of society, and breaks out
every now and then in a new rash. Gladys had come to agree with the
Reds to this extent, that so long as there is a class of the rich
and prosperous, so long will there be social discontent, so long
will there be some that make their living by agitating, denouncing
and crying out for change. Society is like a garden; each year when
you plant your vegetables there springs up also a crop of weeds, and
you have to go down the rows and chop off the heads of these weeds.
Gladys’ husband is an expert gardener, he knows how to chop weeds,
and he knows that society will never be able to dispense with his
services. So long as gardening continues, Peter will be a head
weedchopper, and a teacher of classes of young weedchoppers.
Ah, it was fine to have married such a man! It was the reward a good
woman received for helping her husband, making him into a good
citizen, a patriot and an upholder of law and order: For always, of
course, those who own the garden would see that their head
weedchopper was taken care of, and had his share of the best that
the garden produced. Gladys stood before her looking-glass, braiding
her hair for the night, and thinking of the things she would ask
from this garden. She and Peter had earned, and they would demand,
the sweetest flowers, the most luscious fruits. Suddenly Gladys
stretched wide her arms in an ecstasy of realization. “We’re a
Success, Peter! We’re a Success! We’ll have money and all the lovely
things it will buy! Do you realize, Peter, what a hit you’ve made?”
Peter saw her face of joy, but he was a tiny bit frightened and
uncertain, because of this unusual sharing of the honors. So Gladys
was impelled to affection, mingled with pity. She held out her arms
to him. “Poor, dear Peter! He’s had such a hard life! It was cruel
he didn’t have me sooner to help him!”
And then Gladys reflected for a moment, and was moved to another
outburst. “Just think, Peter, how wonderful it is to be an American!
In America you can always rise if you do your duty! America is the
land of the free! Your example of a poor boy’s success ought to
convince even the fool Reds that they’re wrong--that any boy can
rise if he works hard! Why, I’ve heard it said that in America the
poorest boy can rise to be President! How would you like to be
President, Peter?”
Peter hesitated. He doubted if he was equal to that big a job, but
he knew that it would not please Gladys for him to say so. He
murmured, “Perhaps--some day--”
“Anyhow, Peter,” his wife continued, “I’m for this country! I’m an
American!”
And this time Peter didn’t have to hesitate. “You bet!” he said, and
added his favorite formula--“100%!”
APPENDIX
A little experimenting with the manuscript of “100%” has revealed to
the writer that everybody has a series of questions they wish
immediately to ask: How much of it is true? To what extent have the
business men of America been compelled to take over the detection
and prevention of radicalism? Have they, in putting down the Reds,
been driven to such extreme measures as you have here shown?
A few of the incidents in “100%” are fictional, for example the
story of Nell Doolin and Nelse Ackerman; but everything that has
social significance is truth, and has been made to conform to facts
personally known to the writer or to his friends. Practically all
the characters in “100%” are real persons. Peter Gudge is a real
person, and has several times been to call upon the writer in the
course of his professional activities; Guffey and McGivney are real
persons, and so is Billy Nash, and so is Gladys Frisbie.
To begin at the beginning: the “Goober case” parallels in its main
outlines the case of Tom Mooney. If you wish to know about this
case, send fifteen cents to the Mooney Defense Committee, Post
Office Box 894, San Francisco, for the pamphlet, “Shall Mooney
Hang,” by Robert Minor. The business men of San Francisco raised a
million dollars to save the city from union labor, and the Mooney
case was the way they did it. It happened, however, that the judge
before whom Mooney was convicted weakened, and wrote to the
Attorney-General of the State to the effect that he had become
convinced that Mooney was convicted by perjured testimony. But
meantime Mooney was in jail, and is there still. Fremont Older,
editor of the San Francisco “Call,” who has been conducting an
investigation into this case, has recently written to the author:
“Altogether, it is the most amazing story I have ever had anything
to do with. When all is known that I think can be known, it will be
shown clearly that the State before an open-eyed community was able
to murder a man with the instruments that the people have provided
for bringing about justice. There isn’t a scrap of testimony in
either of the Mooney or Billings cases that wasn’t perjured, except
that of the man who drew the blue prints of Market Street.”
To what extent has the detection and punishment of radicalism in
America passed out of the hands of public authorities and into the
hands of “Big Business?” Any business man will of course agree that
when “Big Business” has interests to protect, it must and will
protect them. So far as possible it will make use of the public
authorities; but when thru corruption or fear of politics these
fail, “Big Business” has to act for itself. In the Colorado coal
strike the coal companies raised the money to pay the state militia,
and recruited new companies of militia from their private
detectives. The Reds called this “Government by Gunmen,” and the
writer in his muckraking days wrote a novel about it, “King Coal.”
The man who directed the militia during this coal strike was A. C.
Felts of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who was killed just the
other day while governing several coal counties in West Virginia.
You will find this condition in the lumber country of Washington and
Oregon, in the oil country of Oklahoma and Kansas, in the copper
country of Michigan, Montana and Arizona, and in all the big coal
districts. In the steel country of Western Pennsylvania you will
find that all the local authorities are officials of the steel
companies. If you go to Bristol, R. I., you will find that the
National India Rubber Company has agreed to pay the salaries of
two-thirds of the town’s police force.
In every large city in America the employers’ associations have
raised funds to hold down the unions and smash the Reds, and these
funds are being expended in the way portrayed in “100%.” In Los
Angeles the employers’ association raised a million dollars, and the
result was the case of Sydney R. Flowers, briefly sketched in this
story under the name of “Sydney.” The reader who wishes the details
of this case is referred to Chapter LXVI of “The Brass Cheek.”
Flowers has been twice tried, and is about to be tried a third time,
and our District-Attorney is quoted as saying that he will be tried
half a dozen times if necessary. At the last trial there were
produced a total of twenty-five witnesses against Flowers, and out
of these nineteen were either Peter Gudges and McGivneys, or else
police detectives, or else employees of the local political machine.
A deputy United States attorney, talking to me about the case, told
me that he had refused to prosecute it because he realized that the
“Paul letter,” upon which the arrest had been based, was a frame-up,
and that he was quite sure he knew who had written it. He also told
me that there had been formed in Los Angeles a secret committee of
fifty of the most active rich men of the town; that he could not
find out what they were doing, but they came to his offices and
demanded the secret records of the government; and that when he
refused to prosecute Flowers they had influence enough to have the
governor of California telegraph to Washington in protest.
Questioned on the witness stand, I repeated these statements, and
the deputy United States attorney was called to the stand and
attributed them to my “literary imagination.”
In the old Russian and Austrian empires the technique of trapping
agitators was well developed, and the use of spies and “under cover”
men for the purpose of luring the Reds into crime was completely
worked out. We have no English equivalent for the phrase “agent
provocateur,” but in the last four years we have put thousands of
them at work in America. In the case against Flowers three witnesses
were produced who had been active among the I. W. Ws., trying to
incite crime, and were being paid to give testimony for the state.
One of these men admitted that he had himself burned some forty
barns, and was now receiving three hundred dollars a month and
expenses. At the trial of William Bross Lloyd in Chicago, charged
with membership in the Communist party, a similar witness was
produced. Santeri Nourteva, of, the Soviet Bureau in New York, has
charged that Louis C. Fraina, editor of the “Revolutionary Age,” was
a government agent, and Fraina wrote into the platform of the
Communist party the planks which were used in prosecuting and
deporting its members. On December 27, 1919, the chief of the Bureau
of Investigation of the Department of Justice in Washington sent to
the head of his local bureau in Boston a telegram containing the
following sentences: “You should arrange with your under cover
informants to have meetings of the Communist Party and Communist
Labor Party held on the night set. I have been informed by some of
the bureau officers that such arrangements will be made.” So much
evidence of the activity of the provocateur was produced before
Federal Judge G. W. Anderson that he declared as follows: “What does
appear beyond reasonable dispute is that the Government owns and
operates some part of the Communist Party.”
It appears that Judge Anderson does not share the high opinion of
the “under cover” operative set forth by the writer of “100%.” Says
Judge Anderson: “I cannot adopt the contention that Government spies
are any more trustworthy, or less disposed to make trouble in order
to profit therefrom, than are spies in private industry. Except in
time of war, when a Nathan Hale may be a spy, spies are always
necessarily drawn from the unwholesome and untrustworthy classes. A
right-minded man refuses such a job. The evil wrought by the spy
system in industry has, for decades, been incalculable. Until it is
eliminated, decent human relations cannot exist between employers
and employees, or even among employees. It destroys trust and
confidence; it kills human kindliness; it propagates hate.”
To what extent have the governmental authorities of America been
forced to deny to the Reds the civil rights guaranteed to good
Americans by the laws and the constitution? The reader who is
curious on this point may send the sum of twenty-five cents to the
American Civil Liberties Union, 138 West 13th Street, New York, for
the pamphlet entitled, “Report upon the Illegal Practices of the
United States Department of Justice,” signed by twelve eminent
lawyers in the country, including a dean of the Harvard Law school,
and a United States attorney who resigned because of his
old-fashioned ideas of law. This pamphlet contains sixty-seven
pages, with numerous exhibits and photographs. The practices set
forth are listed under six heads: Cruel and unusual punishments;
arrests without warrant; unreasonable searches and seizures;
provocative agents; compelling persons to be witnesses against
themselves; propaganda by the Department of Justice. The reader may
also ask for the pamphlet entitled “Memorandum Regarding the
Persecution of the Radical Labor Movement in the United States;”
also for the pamphlet entitled “War Time Prosecution and Mob
Violence,” dated March, 1919, giving a list of cases which occupies
forty pages of closely printed type. Also he might read “The Case of
the Rand School,” published by the Rand School of Social Science, 7
East Fifteenth Street, New York, and the pamphlets published by the
National Office of the Socialist Party, 220 South Ashland Blvd.,
Chicago, dealing with the prosecutions of that organization.
To what extent has it been necessary to torture the Reds in prison
in America? Those who are interested are advised to write to Harry
Weinberger, 32 Union Square, New York, for the pamphlet entitled
“Twenty Years Prison,” dealing with the case of Mollie Steimer, and
three others who were sentenced for distributing a leaflet
protesting against the war on Russia; also to the American Civil
Liberties Union for the pamphlet entitled “Political Prisoners in
Federal Military Prisons,” also the pamphlet, “Uncle Sam: Jailer,”
by Winthrop D. Lane, reprinted from the “Survey;” also the pamphlet
entitled “The Soviet of Deer Island, Boston Harbor,” published by
the Boston Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union; also for
the publications of the American Industrial Company, and the
American Freedom Foundation, 166 West Washington St., Chicago.
There may be some reader with a sense of humor who asks about the
brother of a United States senator being arrested for reading a
paragraph from the Declaration of Independence. This gentleman was
the brother of United States Senator France of Maryland, and
curiously enough, the arrest took place in the city of Philadelphia,
where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. There may be some
reader who is curious about a clergyman being indicted and arrested
in Winnipeg for having quoted the prophet Isaiah. The paragraph from
the indictment in question reads as follows: “That J. S. Woodsworth,
on or about the month of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand
nine hundred and nineteen, at the City of Winnipeg, in the Province
of Manitoba, unlawfully and seditiously published seditious libels
in the words and figures following: `Woe unto them that decree
unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have
prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away
their right from the poor of my people that widows may be their prey
and that they may rob the fatherless. . . . And they shall build
houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the
fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit, they shall
not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of
my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.’”
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