The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1919-11-01

| Pitts burg, Pa.--Wlth the steel
strike apparently settling into a long
drawn out struggle, local officials are
not concerned so much over the pros
poets of disorder arising from this
specific industrial situation as they
are over an eruption of l. w. W.'ism
unconnected with the strike.
Mayor Babcock has received copies
of the l. w. w. literature that was
distributed among the COlored people
Of Akron, Ohio. Pittstburg alone has
black population of $4,000, while the
district here about has many brought
from the south in the stress of war
work.
Agitation has been going on here
among the Colored residents for
months, according to reports to the
! police, and it is frankly feared in
many quarters that trouble may come
TO a head in the municipal elections
/ in the city.
Throughout this land of liberty, So
called says the pamphlet, the Ne
gro worker is treated as an inferior;
he is underpaid in his work and over
charged in his rent, he is poked about
cursed and spat upon; in short, he
is treated, not as a human being, but
as an animal, as a beast of burden
for the ruling class. When he tries to
improve this condition, he is showed
back into the mire of degradation and
poverty and told to keep his place
''He has, however, one weapon the
master class fears--the power to fold
his arms and refuse to work for the
community until he is guaranteed fair
treatment. Remember how alarmed
the south became over the emigration
of Colored workers two years ago and
what desperate means were used to
try to keep them from leaving the
mills and cotton fields?
The only power of the Negro is his
power as a worker; his one weapon
is the strike Only by organizing and
refusing to work for those who abuse
him can he put an end to the injus-
tice and oppression he now endures.
Most labor organizations, however,
shut their doors to the Colored peo-
pie. The American Federation of La
Dor excludes him from any of its
unions as an inferior In those to
which he is admitted he is treated as
an inferior. The Negro has no chance
in the old line trade unions. They
do not want them. They admit him
only under compulsion and treat him
with contempt Their officials who
discourage strikes for higher wages
or shorter hours are always ready as
in the case of the switchman's
union to permit a strike to prevent
the employment of Colored men.
This narrow minded policy of ex.
cluding the Negro from the trade
unions of the country forces him to
become a strike breaker against his
will by closing legitimate occupations
to him. The consequence is racial
conflicts such as the frightful tragedy
in East st. Louis, ILL.,, in 1917.
There is one international labor
organization in this country that ad-
mits the Colored worker on a footing
of absolute equality with the hites-
the lluuSlIldl " "OIhSTS Ol tic WOliu'
The pamphlet then offers the Negro
absolute equality in the ranks of the
I. w. W., and pleads that the organ
ization aims for more than mere
less work and more pay"
"But the l. w. w, does not limit its
aims as do the trad e unions" con
tinues the pamphlet. "to less work
and more pay. It's greatest object is
the complete emancipation of the
working class, AS long as the work
ers hold their Jobs only by permission
of some employer they are not free
AS long as there is one class that
lives in ease and idleness off their
labor they are industrial slaves
Freedom for the workers will come
only when everybody does his share
of the work of the world and when
the workers take control of the in
dustries and operate them-not as at
present for the benefit of the leisure
class, but for the welfare of society as
a whole"