The Mena weekly star., 1919-03-20
RUIN IS CREED
 OF HE ]. W. W.
The Black Cat and the Wooden Shoe of the I. W. W. Stand for De- struction- Would End the
 Wage System.

From the Kansas City Star.
 Wichita. Kas., March l5.-The blaei eat and the wooden show arc the ofii- eial emblems of the I. w W
 That is part of the evidence that would have been introduced at the trial of the thirty-two l. " W. mem bers here this week on the charge of conspiracy against the government ii a continuance on technical objection to the indictment had not been grant ed.
 The papers and documents captured at the time the government agents raided the l. W. w headquarters in Kansas oil fields are decorated with the two emblems.
 The Emblems of Sabotage.
 Both emblems stand for sabotage the chief weapon of the l. w. w., in their plan to overthrow the present order of things, politically and indus trially, in the United States
 In the news stories in The Star the last week relating to the pending tri- aI of thirty-two members of the or der. it was told that the plan of the I. W. W. was to cripple the govern ment in the war with general strike in all the industries essential to the conduct of the war.
 As a body, the general strike is the weapon of the l. W. W. at all times. But for the individual members, al- ways and everywhere, the black cat and the wooden shoe-sabotage
 The term for the black cat in l. w. w. parlance is "sab-cat." No one seems to know the origin of the term 'sab-cat," except that it is connected with sabotage. The wooden shoe comes from the French word sabot, "shoe,' and the use of the word in connection with sabotage comes from the old European practice of the workman airing his grievance by throwing his wooden shoe into the machinery or throwing it at his employer, or using it generally as weapon of offense sor defense.
 The reader must bear in mind this almost unbelievable thing about the |. ". Wifi the literature which they carry with them means anything at all--that work" to the member of that order does not mean work in any ordinary sense of the term. To him "a job" does not bear any likeness to the word as it applies to the average Iaboring man.
 When an l. W. w. gets lon the job" he gets on to destroy and not to produce. His 'work" is to lay waste and not to conserve.
 - Employer an Enemy to Be Destroyed
 So amazing Is the revelation of the -airns and purposes of the order, as one gets it from the literature of the members, that the average citizen can hardly believe what he reads; can hardly credit the thing that is print ed before him. To get the proper con- ception of it the reader must get the viewpoint of the | W. w
 That viewpoint is that the employer of labor of any kind is the one enemy of labor who must be destroyed. It matters not whether that employer is a farmer of manufacturer. The em- ployer of labor is "boss.D and the I. W W's mission is to eliminate the boss from the industrial system. The fundamental purpose of the order is that labor shall take possession of all industry in the world, destroy all private ownership, and, as many of their official documents say: "We in- tend to take it, but we are do not in- Eend to pay for it. It is ours"
 1t is not difficult to see, therefore, why the employer, the owner in in sssastry, is the enemy of the | w. w. If the order can make the operation of his business more expensive, if it can stop his machinery for a day or an hour, even, it has increased the burden of operation for the boss, and has decreased his profits. That is a victory for the l. w. w.