The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1918-04-19

NEW YORK, April 15.-At time
when the nations whole thought and
energy should be going into sue
cessful and speedy prosecution OF
the war, public attention is being
diverted to the trial of more than
100 members of the l. w. w. in a
federal court at Chicago on the
charge of a seditious conspiracy to
obstruct the war.
Back of the immediate question of
the guilt or innocence of these men
and of what should be done with
them, lies a deeper question. 1t is
the question of why we should have,
in free America, any considerable
body of men who feel themselves
outlawed by society and who burn
with hostility toward our institu-
tions.
That thousands of lumber work
ers, miners and migratory farm and
construction laborers are members
of such body is beyond question.
That they have held back essential
war industries, that many of them
speak with distrust of the Govern
ment and assail its motives, is
equally beyond question, although
we have the testimony of Mr.. Rob-
ert Bruere of the New York Eve
ming Post that this distrust is not
so general among them as might
be supposed, and that now, and par
ticularly since the German invasion
of Russia, very many of them are
cooperating in fine spirit with
Colonel Disque of the Regular Army,
who is in charge Of spruce produc-
tion on the Pacific Coast.
But the main fact remains-that
we do have. in this country a labor
organization bitterly hostile to our
established institutions and con-
temptuous of our government--so
hostile and so contemptuous that
even in this critical hour they have
not been able to grasp the issues
and to abandon, except very slowly,
their attitude of hostility and op-
position.
The purpose of this article is not
to call in question the wisdom of
necessity of dealing with these men
Or with their spokesmen-with a
firm hand. That question is here
waived. There remains the more
vital one of why there ever came
to be such group, and of how the
conditions that produced it can be
dealt with so that the group, instead
of increasing, will disappear. And
to think that this result can be at
tanned merely by prosecutions, or
without fundamental changes in our
social and economic order, is sheer
folly.
1t is first and last story of the
land and our other natural re-
sources. 1t is a story of the pass
ing of these common treasures into
the hands of comparative few who
hold them in monopoly control, there
by limiting and controlling the op-
pOrtunities of their fellow men to
live free and Independent lives.
There were no |. w. w. in the days
when any hard working and am
bilious man could obtain quarter
section of land and have it for his
own. But the free land suitable for
farming went long ago, and with it
went a whole era of American life
the era of free opportunity and
sturdy individualism based on the
knowledge that if any man failed of
independence and well-being it was
his own fault.
More and more land is passing
into the control of spectators and
absentee owners. More and more
farm boys are forced into the cities
or into the casual labor market
where they become acquainted with
the evils of irregular employment
unemployment, economic insecurity
migration from place to place, and
finally, in many instances, vaga'
bondage that comes upon then
slowly, as a result of the circum
stances of their life-of the many
discouragements met with in the eff
fort to get on. Partly this has beer
due also to the lack of planning il
our educational systemic dumping
on the labor market each year hun
dreds of thousands of boys from
the farm who know no trade ant
must face the risks and insecuritie
of the unskilled labor market.
And just as the average farm bo.
can no longer hope to become al
-