New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1918-05-15
EIaOo Sides 70 The Question.

Two Sides 10 The Question.
Chicago at present is the scene Of the
t.ial of more than one hundred members
Of the Industrial Workers OF the World
for conspiracy to interfere with the
governments prosecution OF the war.
Everybody, off hand, says Soak ss: the
1. w. W. But most people know little II !.
about the organization except what they
read in the more sensational newspapers.
Most people don't know that the l..
w. W. organization has suffered as
much as it has inflicted suffering. Great
employing corporations, mining and
lumber, long carried things with high
hand in the far northwest. The labor
in that region was not high-class intel
lectually. When it revolted and struck
back at the employers it committed some
atrocities - no doubt of that. But it
secured some amelioration OF working
conditions in places that were n06 much
better than slave pens. And the l.
w. w. are not always and everywhere
irreconcilable sabotagists. They have
not always and everywhere acted in a
way to check war production. Even
in the west they were not regarded as
so extremely vicious so long as they
fought the big corporations. They were
killed, tarred and feathered and ridden
on rails only when the farmers believed
rumors that the organization was going
to destroy granaries and crops. 1t IS
not of record that the I, w. W. destroyed
any crops or that they even tried to do
so. They have been accused OF holding
back production Of airplanes by stopping
the cutting of the necessary timber, but
now we know that the delay in supplying
ai1planes is done nearer to Washington
and the delayers are not "rough-necks"
but intellectualist experts. The I. w.
w. corresponds to the syndicalist move
ment in Europe. 1t believes in the
perpetual strike, more or less. Its
membership includes men who occasion
ally go out with a drill and can OF
stsoup' and crack a safe in country
bank. It doesn't take in many men IN
the skilled trades. Some of its members
are hoboes. They haven't much or any
respect for law. Some of their leaders
have denounced the war as capitalist
adventure. Most of them put loyalty
to the proletariat above loyalty to
country. Doubtless many Of the men
being tried at Chicago are guilty OF
some violation of the espionage or other
war acts. If so, let them suffer. But
we must not forget that the I. w. W.
revolt is not wholly causeless.' Men do
not 90 to such extremes as they without
some justification in injustice. The
men in the I. w. w. are in violent
protest against wrongs that are not
denied. Sentencing one hundred! or
one thousand I. W. WIS. to the peni-
Tertiary will not stop the revolt. The
way to do that is to correct the social
and economic wrongs that provoke
revolt. There have been and there are
lawless men and organizations that have
pursued courses of oppression which
could not but generate lawlessness in
protest. Those big business interests
are not above using the war sentiment
as means of breaking up the l. w! w.
organization. TIE l. W. W. remedial
methods are not right. Perhaps they
do more harm than they can ever do
good. But granting all that, let us re-
member that there wouldn't be any such
organization or methods if this country
were wholly "safe for democracy.
Punish the seditious, the reasonable,
the incendiary, yes; but don't let the
exploiters of the unskilled workers get
away with their graft, don't let them
control judges and pick juries and employ
deputy sherifs as their janiza1ies to
force men to work for less than the value
of their labor.