Denver labor bulletin., 1918-08-31
SIZING UP THE l. W. W.
AND THE OTHER LIBERALS
By GERTRUDE ATHERTON.

1t is a matter of great regret to
me, as to many others, that the
leaders of the Industrial Workers of
the World were not peremptorily
court martialed and the worst of them
as peremptorily~ shot. The only sort
of lawyers that could be induced to
defend such vermin will use every
legal trick to get them off, and it will
take juries of very high intelligence
to remain cool and detached in the
face of appeals for liberty, justice, the
abominable capitalistic class that is
responsible for this rebellion of the
outraged proletariat and all the rest
of it.
No one will deny that the more
ignorant and stupid of the working
class have been shamelessly exploited
by the great employers of this coun-
try. They have been enticed from Eu-
rope or from the Atlantic seaboard
under false pretenses, herded like cat
tie, forced to live in foul conditions,
and, instead of finding themselves with
the steady job promised them, turned
adrift after four months of more or
less lucrative work. The capitalist
has labored to increase his capital
and that of his stockholders, and
looked upon the ignorant scum of
Europe or the failures among the ma
tive born Americans as he would look
upon so much machinery to increase
production. Not one of the exploited
has ever shown hir,self capable of
rising in the world on his own merits
beyond the position of agitator and
hater-in-chief of a class to which he
would give his eyes to belong.
Moreover, the manner in which the
immigrant has been treated at our
ports, even when belonging to the best
of his kind, has long been a source of
modification to every thinking Amer
lean, enough to make anarchists of
every one of these bewildered and
miserable creatures.
But this spirit among the powerful
and the successful toward the masses
is as old as time, and human nature
is proverbially short-sighted. In this
country, where the successful never
rest and where success is the goal
toward which every able man strives
with all the energy Of his being,
haunted by the brevity of life; where
Legislation is lenient and individual
ism rampant, this state Of affairs has
come about in the most natural man.
ner in the world. 1t would be aston
ishing if it had not, human nature
being what it is. Barring the inter-
vention of this war, methods would
have grown worse instead of better,
and the result would have been a So
cial upheaval. But the inevitable re-
suit of this war will be pruning of
capitalistic tyranny and a healthy in
vasion of Socialism from the top, to
say nothing of the general awaken
ing and desire for the betterment of
mankind, which will remove so many
of the proletariat grievances that
they will not have half a leg to
stand on.
1t is a pity it could not come
sooner, but history is history; our
war did not come until it was due.
Moreover, people, particularly when
moderately successful, never rouse
themselves to reform until they have
received a severe jolt.
That, however, is for the future,
and there is only one way to deal
with the present problem-extermi-
nate it. When a careless farmer has
permitted his fields TO be invaded by
gophers, rats, rattlesnakes and other
vermin, he cannot afford to sit down
and reproach himself and invent ex-
cuses for the invaders; he makes a
clean sweep and kills them off, sweeps
away the formidable menace to his
prosperity. Then, a wiser man, he
takes measures TO keep his fields and
granaries free from vermin in the fu-
ture, and watches increasingly. But
he exterminates first
To reason with an /. w. w. would
profit as much as TO reason with a
rattlesnake, charged with poison and
waiting its opportunity to strike. In
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