The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1917-07-19

The /. w. w. is reasonable or
ganization.
1t is seeking to bring about revo-
luton in this country.
It is an enemy more serious in its
purposes and its character and more
deadly to free institutions than is the
imperial German government, because
a war with Germany may be ended by
treaty-and even if the German mill
tary power should win, there would
still be room, opportunity and incen-
tive for self-development; and civili-
cation would continue to advance even
tho its character would necessarily
be changed.
The I. w. w. has declared that its
purpose is to destroy society, to over
turn civilization, to stamp out the in
dividuality of the individual, to erase
the notion of private property of any
sort, whether Of money, land, rights,
mental attainment or manual skill,
from the minds of men and thus to
usher in an era of universal servitude
of the fit to the unfit, the skilled work
man to the unskilled, the intelligent to
the unintelligent, the aspiring to the
unaspiring, and the man who has
something of his own to the empty
handed.
Hobo's Nightmare
It has always been the nightmare
dream of the ''hobo" and of the degen-
crate that some day his willful inca
pacity and ignorance, coupled with
his hatred of those who are capable
and striving, would some day clog the
wheels of industry and befoul its ma
chinery so that industry must cease
and that all men would Of necessity be
reduced to the sordid level of his own
incapacity, inability and want.
It has remained for the /. w. w. to
incorporate that nightmare dream into
an organization desperately bent upon
an attempt to realize it. 1t is needless
to say that this organization is not an
outgrowth of the hobo class. Those at
the head of this organization who have
skillfully seized upon the big army of
the willfully ignorant, unskilled and
unfit, and who have set themselves
the task of recruiting this army to full
war strength by preaching the doc
trines of discomfort and class hatred,
are, themselves, men of criminal in
stinct, criminal training and criminal
experience, who are outlaws from So
ciety and who see the possibility of
using the tremendous force of organ
lied ignorance, incapacity and class
hatred in avenging themselves upon
society which has outlawed them for
their crimes.
Hostility to Industry
Ordinarily such an organization as
this may be controlled to a certain ex-
tent; it is always menace as long as
it is permitted to work, disseminate it's
literature and extend into new terri
tory its branch organizations, all of
whose members are taught to manifest
their class-hatred by works of de-
struction, despoilation of property and
continual, never-ending acts of HOSTILE
ty upon every form of industry.
When this country is at war, how
ever, and has enemies sufficiently rich
and powerful and resourceful to fin
ance this movement and to tender it
extraordinary encouragement and sup
port for sinister reasons of its own.
then the menace is increased a thous-
and-fold and, if disregarded, may
spread like a besome of destruction
until it is utterly and fatally beyond
control.
There is today an imperative neces-
sity that the federal government, the
state governments, county and munich
pal authorities, trade unions, property
owners, employers of labor, business
men and the law-abiding people gen.
orally of this country of ours, should
be informed, and that right speedily,
concerning the character, structure,
purposes and methods of the I.W.W.
which has it's headquarters in Chicago
and it's organizations in every indus
trial center, disseminating its seditious
literature, threatening production at
its source, and actually carrying its
threats into execution, and blatantly
making it's boast that it will paralyze
the activities of this nation in it's food
production, transportation and manu-
featuring enterprises at a time when
all these are needed for efficient ma
tional action.
Source of Danger
Thu Io~oo- - L. 1san