The Butte daily bulletin., 1919-06-07
The Tide Flows East
John Reed in THE IIBERATOR.

industry still modified, as the pluto
Gratis were too busy scrambling for
huge profits to plan for a conversion
of industry to a peace basis. Sooner
| than take time to plan demobiliza-
ton, they preferred to close down
| war activities the moment war end
ed, and throw thousands upon thou
sands of workers into the breadlines,
where their numbers increase, week
| by week, as | write. All attempts of
these unemployed workers to protest
or to meet and consider their posi-
tion are mercilessly checked with the
threat of machine guns.
| This action was accompanied by
almost universal reduction in wages
| throughout the textile industry,
| which, as | write, threatens to extend
to the steel and other basic indus
tries. At the same time awards made
| to the workers during the war by the
| war labor board were either disre
garded or Immediately revoked.
On top of this add the rapid de-
mobilization of the army, hundreds
of thousands of men thrown penni-
| less on the alread-overcharged labor
market, no jobs available-or jobs
at wages less than before the war,
or as breakers. In the great
cities of the country these aimless,
| workless soldier-hordes are being Or
ganiZed into mobs to attack socialist
and labor meetings, wreck radical
headquarters, assault individuals.
This is the situation faced by the
| foreign-born workers, most of whom
are not protected even by the inef
! ficient labor organizations affiliated
in the A. F. of L.--or are members
of the |. w. W., which has been prac-
tically outlawed, (although the gov
ernment pretends it is not. and
whose members are bounded from
city to city, arrested and beaten, and
even lynched.
The final attack by the Industrial
autocrats on the fOreign-born work
ers came just when the powerful
general strikes in Seattle and Butte
had indicated that the working-class
! of America was at last developing
a weapon capable of combating cap
italistic tyranny. Since December
1917, foreigners active in the labor
movement had been quietly arrested
in the west, and after cursory hear
ings, alone, (no lawyers permitted),
scores have been held for deporta-
ton under the immigration laws.
The center of the movement was
in the great northwest. where the l.
w. w. had been organizing the tim
berworkers and lumbermen This
was the scene of the Everett massa-
ere, where deputy sheriffs and pri-
vate detectives fired upon a steam
boat full of labor organizers from
Seattle, and killed six.
ufacturers who inspired the Everett
massacre were behind the deporta
ton scheme. The famous "Ameri-
lean committee" of Seattle, consist
ing of the Reverend M. A. Matthews,
pastor of the First Presbyterian
church; Judge Thomas Burke, at
torney; j D. Lowman, vice-president
of the Union National bank; o. d.
! Colvin, general manager of the Pa
cific Car Foundry; j. w. Spangler,
vice-president of the Seattle Nation
al bank; A. e. Haines, general man
ager of the Pacific Steamship COM
pany; w. G.. Dawson, general man
ager w. c. Dodson company, and
William Calvert, Jr., president of the
San Juan Fishing and Packing com
pany: issued secret invitation to
the lumber companies to give NOR
al and financial support to a net
work of detectives to be placed in
the camps and mills, with the pur-
pose of securing evidence which
would lead to the ultimate eXpul-
sion of all alien agitators and pub
lishers' from the country. A fur
ther printed statement by the same
committee" showed that it was en-
dorsed by 13 lumber companies.
The credentials of one of the de
} partment of justice agents who ar
rested the aliens show that he was al
} the same time a member of the min
utemen," private secret service OF
: employers authorized during the wal
, by the department of justice, and OF
1 a private detective agency Of Chica
i go, and also membership secretary OF
l the Seattle chamber of commerce anC
I commercial club. Another sucl
S agent was on the payroll of the gov
4 ernment and large lumber com
s pany at the same time.
: What was going on in Seattle wal
: repeated more or less in other part
e of the country. Men We're arrested
e on some charge of misdemeanor, o.
d on no charge at all, held for inves
T tigation, and then ordered deported
d The investigations were a farce
o Membership in the |, w. w. wa
II ground for ordering deportation
j. Some of the reports of immigration
J. agents read like socialist cartoon
e of capitalism. For instance, thi
l. from an official in Kansas City
y The alien has no money, and i
s. liable to become one of the migra
n tory herd. X"
n In February. 1919, train load o
Is these unfortunates was taken acros
l. the country, with the intention o
j. quietly hustling them out of tn
o United States. The immigration of
* ficials interviewed reported that TIL
1T men had received adequate hearings
81 and that the courts co-operated
T. AS matter of fact these aliens hat
d been denied legal defense, had beel
l. denied habeas corpus; their chic
'b crime was that they belonged to tn
n l. w. w.
y Owing to the intervention Of Mis-