The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-30
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 Ing of the word Sabotage" and then outline the doctrine in former articles, and so now will go a bit further into the question of sabotage. The simplest fern of 1t, according to one of the writers, is the case of negro picking less cotton when receiving less brug, or of bricklayer or other mechanic going slow" when the wages are poor. To bring it within these limits would be to make sabotage almost as old as hu- man nature, OF anyway, as far back as the wage system has been in vogue. 1 The watcliword of saSotage is sugges- tive: For bad wages bad work" This also seems a very direct way of getting at the boss. It gets the credit for hav- ing been the cause in many industries of substituting piece work for day work. But this move on the part of the en- ] ployer does not keep the employe from saboting.
 This is done not by reducing the out put, which would be the means of re- ducing wages; therefore, sabotage must be applied to the quality rather than the quantity of the products, thereby bringing the manufacturer in collision | with his trade.
 l It's the bitter game that has been going lon from time immemoral between capi- l tai and labor. The saboters make no pretense to playing the game according to what they are pleased to call the capitalistic rules, but economic Darwin Iians, or Old Testament believers, in an eye for an aye, and tooth for tooth; only they have modernized the express sion by advocating "a punch in the jaw in answer to 8 kick in the shins." Their motto is "A Slap for Kick"
 do not see just how they can man age under their code, but they prohibit lthe workers who practice sabotage from interfering with the consumer. They are taught that this is one thing that they must constantly keep in mind not to do anything that will react to the dis advantage or detriment of the consumer. It's advocates insist strongly on the spe- cific character of sabotage which con
 sists in hurting the boss and not the
 buyer. They want to have the purchas-
 ing public on their side.
 Get thls difference Sabotage must
 be directed against the boss either by : reducing the output or by deteriorating and making unusable the product or by disabling and paralyzing the instru- ments of production; but the consumer, according to Pouget, the author and great French exponent of sabotage, l must never suffer by the war waged ex-
 clusvely against the exploiter.
 Sabotage can be considered under two
 aspects: First as a slowing up" on work when wages and conditions are
 hot satisfactory Second, as michie- vous tampering with machinery to se-
 cure its complete immobiization during
 strike. It is hardly necessary to waste
 time on the taking it easy" part. for it
 is as old as the pyramids, and as new
 as the Panama canal It gets hold of the small boy on Saturdays, and I fear
 seizes upon us all in the spring. In la
 bor circles, however, it is the answer
 to the custom of speeding up"
 Sabotage does not find its adherents
 among the lowest class of workers but
 the best saboters are the picked men, for
 only the most intelligent and skillful
 mechanics can practice sabotage suc-
 cessfully where machinery is concerned, for only the trained know thoroughly
 the technique of their trade, as sabot- age does not consist in the clumsy and
 stupid destruction of the instruments of production, but in delicate and
 knowing operation which puts the ma
 chine out of commission only for tenn porary period.
 Bosquet claims that the simple stop
 page of work is not sufficient to realize
 the aims of strike. It is necessary,
 indeed indispensable, to insure good
 result of the conflict, that the tools, in
 struments, utensils, machines and other l means of production of the shop, mill r mine, factory, etc, also go on a strike; or, in other words, that they be put in , & ''nonrunning condition" The idea of the saboters being to keep scabs from $ finding tools and plants in what they
 call good health'
 . I haven't time here to go into the his tory of the boycott, or even to dwell
 on the fight made against it in the
 Alabama legislature, only to say it is Illegal But the saboters found out early : that the boycott was ineffective against I the manufacturer. The boycott they [ discovered was good against the mer- e chant only, 50 they put on their think. e | ing caps and invented sabotage for the
 sole and exclusive purpose of using it against the producer. You can readily Q see how dangerous a weapon it can be : the inside of the works.
 f The saboters had it IL Tor Jaures
 the great French socialist, for he con , demned 1t in his discussion on "Syndi- calism'' in the French Chamber oi | Deputies in 1907. He said: If it is a r question of systematic and methodica < propaganda of sabotage, at the risk ot
 being approved by the conservatives, do not believe that it will go very far d Sabotage is repugnant to the nature ano $ the tendencies of the working class :, Sabotage is loathsome to the technica skill of the worker, which skill repre- . sents his real wealth."
 , The saboter's answer to this was tha in sabotng machinery it wasn't for g mere Whin nor from an evil mind bn