The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1917-02-15
TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

Tom Mooney, active trade uhiomSt
and Socialist Of San Francisco, has
been sentenced to death on a framed
up charge of being an accomplice in
the preparedness parade bomb ex-
plosion. Warren X. Billings was
sentenced to life Imprisonment a
s' io ago on the same charge
AM there are three others--Mrs.
Mooney Ed. Nolan and Israel Vein
berg-yet to be tried. Robert Minor,
the famous cartoonist, is in Jail on a
framed-up charge for writing up the
case.
The whole thing is a contemplate
frame-up, and in spite of the fact
that p witnesses swore to seeing the
defendants in other places than the
scene of the explosion, in spite of
several remarkable photographs of
different scenes in the case, in spite
of five witnesses testifying to the
fact that the bomb came from over
head instead of from a suit case, as
the State contends, in spite of the
fact that time and time again the
states witnesses perjured themselves,
and that three of the witnesses are
notorious crooks from the Barbary
Coast and have served Jail sentences,
in spite of the fact that the defend
ants proved that the prosecuting at
torney and traction men had offered
q bride of $4,000 to men to frame up
this affair, in spite Of the fact that
the defendants proved that the po-
lice broke up the sidewalk and walls
after the explosion had taken place,
yes, in spite of the fact that every
piece of the states evidence was
proven to be made up" the jury
found Mooney guilty, and the work
ers of San Francisco are stunned.
If this kind of thing continues
every active rebel in the country will
be caught in the meshes of capitalist
conspiracy and it is certainly high
time that the Socialist Party took a
more active part in the capturing of
political power. Our efforts are di-
rected at the getting of the whole
pudding while the master class are
nimbly stealing the plums.
Of all the ruthless, dirty, con-
temptible pieces of work that has
been laid at the doors of the ruling
class, this last piece is the worst be-
cause it has been done so openly.
Year in and year out we preach
to the workers the necessity for poll
teal action and then we divide the
workers because they happen to have
some pet idea in their heads that we
disagree with and which we claim
has no bearing on the class struggle
nor the abolishing of wage slavery.
We are the greatest dividers of the
working class that has ever preached
for the solidarity of the working
class.
Conditions are getting damnable
desperate and those among US who
arc So1CSlI With mounting SOClanSC
phrases had better get down to real
business. If we have not come to the
conclusion that the working class are
a lot of ignorant, spineless slaves
then we are indeed hopeless our
selves. All the slaves want is to be
fooled and it is so damned easy to
fool the slaves that we might just as
well give the capitalist class credit
for knowing it and using it for their
own ends.
The question of "what is the mat
ter with the Socialist Party?" is be-
coming a mighty important question
and the sooner we get together in a
convention and thrash this thing out
the sooner will the party be in bet
ter position to cope with the corrupt,
vicious and murderous actions of the
ruling class.