The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-20
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Isn't 1t funny how when you get inter- ested in a subject, you think everybody else Is? Now, my excuse for spinning out articles on sabotage comes from the fact that the more I looked into it the bigger it got and then a few said they were informing, and more and more the
 word is getting into the papers.
 
 Now, am going to try and keep from going into the doctrines of the subject and content myself with bringing to my readers attention some specific instances riety of ways in which it can be applied,
 and already many have felt it's evil eff fects in their lines of business. Sabotage as form of revolt is as old as human exploitation, says Pouget; but
 Balzac in his 'Maison Nucingen." apro- pos of the bloody riots of Lyons in 1881, gives us clear picture of sabotage in connection with the silk industry. He said in his own brilliant and incisive way ''The commerce of Lyons is a coni-
 merce without courage; it does not man. ufacture an ounce of silk without its le- ing demanded and paid for. When the demand is low, the worker starves; when he works he has barely enough to live on. They raise flag with the motto: Bread or Death They will show an early picture of sabotage: lit was the workers revenge against the needless masters.
 "The spinner who had up to then trans formed into threads the silk that was weighed to him in cocoons, put fairness out of the door and began to oil his fin gers. Of course, he gave back with fas- tidious scrupulosity the exact weight, but the silk was all stained with oil and the silk market was thus infested with de- fective merchandise which could have caused the ruin of Lyons and loss of a goodly share of the French com merce.
 But this incipient outbreak of sabotage
 was long before it was organized and had come out into the open and whipped the French government into line on more
 than one occasion when the administra-
 tion had failed to give ear to the de- mands of some of the nations servants. It has been bold in tackling not only big industries. but the very state itself. Bosquet and Renault have publicly com plained that the strikers have not only to reckon, with the scabs, they must also
 mistrust the army. All who have kept
 know the habit of replacing the strikers with the soldiers was becoming before the war more and more systematic. cited in a former article how the tel egraphers turned "the trick' and made the government give them an increase. It will also be remembered that Gueraid. secretary of the Railway Mems union, de- livered an incendiary speech. in which he boldly affirmed that the railway men would not stop at any means to defend their syndical liberty and made allus;on to an ingenious and cheap method of combat. With cents worth of certain ingredient utilized in peculiar way, he declared 1t will be easy for the railway men to put the locomotives in such a condition as to make 1t impossible to run thenl.' If the great war had not have
 come on this threat made quarter of a century before would no doubt have
 been put in effect if the government
 hadn't prevented general strike oy calling on the soldiers. and by ruse outwitted the men.
 The cooks of Paris indulged in the pastime of giving the proprietors an op- ject lesson in sabotage. First. the cooks in a great restaurant. having some un- settled grievances with their employers, remained the whole day at their places before the red hot stoves, but in the rush hours when the clients were swarming the dining rooms, nothing was found in the pots but stones that had been boiling l for hours together with the restaurant clock. The walters in New York saboted | the hotels and cafes and went on strike after the guests were taking their seats to be served
 At Bedford. Indiana. in 1908. several