The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-01-14

Nothing plays so important part in the tragic activities of tho human race as the public nerves. Constant ly played upon, constantly awakened and constantly agitGted, it is doubt fui whether indeed more harm has not been done by them than has bcon good.
 This during the time when Hill strom's fate hung in tho balance, the newspapers interested in SUD- porting the execution for one reason or another, spread the most extra ordinary stories which under any other circumstances would have been received with amused incredul- ity. Dynamite plots, raids and at the Industrial Workers of the World of which Hillstrom was a member. and the sorry fact is that so excited had become thc popular feeling, that the stories absurd as they were, were generally believed.
 Moreover, the frequency of all legged Germanist conspiracies, labor plots and labor disorders appearing in the papers have from time to time so set the public on edge that they were ready to jump when the first small boy, having filled a paper bag full of wind and closing tight the opening exploded it surreptiti- ously.
 The conviction of many a man has been due almost entirely to the careful manner in which the news papers worked up 8 sentiment against an alleged criminal; the space and time engaged in telling stories of his villciny. Interviews with officers of the law, with jailers all these-things have cOnspired to surround the prisoner with an at moGphore Of nerves that precludet the possibility of his receiving fair trial.
 This is one of the greatest wea- pOns against labor. Inasmuch as the press is controlled for the great CT part by employers, that press is, oftener than not when laborite Is in danger, instrumental in securing a conviction by working up an ex- citation of public feeling against the man to such a degree that. withal outward conformity to the rules of jury selection, such thing as fair and impartial trial is imposs- ible.
 This development of frequent popular hysteria is by no means a modern condition heretofore unre- garded. In fact it is easily proved that it exists less today than it did in former years, not because the means of exciting it are 4ess, but because of the fact that education which establishes rule of reason is spreading faster among those who have been the most easily swayed by reason of their economic ignorance.
 Now nearly all those who easily fall prey to such artificial stimula- ton of their excitement are those who arc persuaded that their. inter. ests are jcopardized by tho party or parties against whom they are ex- cited. Thus paper attacking labor men finds that it's attacks are de- Voured with more avidity among q class antagonistic to labor than amidst the workers themselves, un- less the latter, as so many of them have, have wholly perverted con- ception of what their interests are. And it has been, always, for this reason, the effort of g. class in con- trol to persuade the workers that their interests wero identical with those of the employing class and that the closer the identify became, the closer would be the improvement in tho condition of both.
 With the growth of class conscious action and class conscious senti- ment, the wild stories of the aban- doned liars of a subserv:ent press are taken with considerable reserva- tion and there is an inclination to weigh wisely the stories and extend only that degree of credibility which an impartial reason will all low. .