The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-07-15
TRADE UNIoNISM NOT ENOUGH.
Fails of Full Accomplishment, Said Ettor
To Audience in Barre.

| Joseph j, Ettor of New York, mem
Der of the general executive board of the
Industrial Workers of the World, and
o man to whom is credited much of the
success of the organized protest against
labor conditions in Lawrence last year,
told an audience of some 300 people in
the opera house last evening that work
ingmen should go farther than to or
ganze by trades, that they should band
together by industries and that direct
action would solve many of the problems
which the workers are seeking to solve
in gaining better working and living
conditions His two hours address on
Working Glass Unionism vs.. Trades I'm
ionismp dealt almost exclusively with
the |. w. w. program, its methods of
spreading class consciousness and its de-
claration Of hope for the future.
1t was Ettor's first appearance in
Barre, and while the audience seldom
waxed wildly enthusiastic over his re-
marks, there was a quiet kind Of salts
faction evident and most everybody
there seemed to be rather favorably inn
pressed with the speakers manner and
address. Calls band was present and
played several selections before and aft
er the speechmaking Ettor was intro
duced by John Giovannitti. Here are
some of the contentious which the T. w
w. leader made in the course of his
comparisons between trades unionism
and the kind of class unionism for which
the Industrial Workers profess to stand:
Every claim which argues that men,
women and children who comprise the
30.000,000 laborers in these United States
are living in free country to-day is a
humbug
Capitalism takes yearly toll of 45,-
600 lives in America. That is not all,
for that number includes only those
who die accidentally Stonecutters who
die OF tuberculosis are not a part of
this toll. but they are sacrificed on the
altar of capitalism and it is not the
fault Of the present system that they
die slowly
Capitalism is an organized system
of robbery and debauchery. It's crimes
number baby poisoning, for babies are
fed on patent medicines that are pois-
oned to make dividends for the drug
gists.
"Workers are divided into two ele-
ments. lhere rs the UNCONSCIOUS camp
in which the workingmen band together
in trades unions. The idea is fundamen.
tally wrong. Then there is the con-
scious camp, wherein the workers are
as class and by given in
dustries. In this conception of unionism
lies the hope Of every worker.
~'There should be no contracts with
the bosses. 1t is the employers class
that repudiates the signed contract and
leaves the worker without the oppor
tunity for direct action.
The workingman has no country He
has only his union organization; without
it he is stripped of any weapon with
which to combat capitalism.
"May labor expect any quarter from
capitalsml You have only to look to
the recent insurance Investigations, to
the Triangle shirt waist fac
tory FIRE in New York, to recall the
Chicago vice investigation; to consider
the revelations OF Colonel Mulhall
Eve want more unionism. Trades un-
ions limit unity We are not out for
shorter hours and higher wages. We
must control the means OF production,
which rightfully constitute the property
VI the workers and the workers alone"