The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1920-08-20

it seems incredible that = mob of
1000 American citizens could be got
ten together to set fire to the homes
of foreign people and, Is the inmates
run from the homes, kill or seriously
injure them, because two or three
Italians are considered guilty of an
infamous crime. Yet such is the case,
and semblance Of peace is restored in
this American city only by the exodus
of 5000 foreigners and the arrival of
the state troops.
One of the important causes, is the
universal practice among machine
politicians Of allowing vice and crime
to flourish in foreign sections IS q
means of getting the foreign vote.
The protection extends not only to
houses of ill-fame and gambling re-
sorts, but b even more serious
breaches of public order, such IS
pocket-picking, swindles, small rob-
berries and even bank robberies. When
the foreigners wake up and try to
get relief from these henchmen Of the
politicians their real leaders are as
sailed as radicals" or "Bolsheviki"
and clapped into Jail on trumped-up
charges.
American citizens who do not real
i1e that crime is thus protected by
their own politicians begin to think
that the foreigners as a whole are
united to shield criminals.
Evaporation becomes blind rage
when some particularly atrocious
crime is committed by foreign GRIM
inal. Contributing causes are the free
k0-l >,-hS~h k1k 10 e<o<
tional governments have given to
mob violence as a political weapon in
the last three years and the general
propaganda against the foreign-born
to create a scape goat for the prof.
teers.
Denver in the same week presents
US with a riot of another kind. Sew
eral alleged street car strikers are
shot as large crowd approaches the
car harns-shot by private guards
who made their own Interpretation of
danger to private property A mob
is said to have damaged several street
cars at another point in the city and,
curiously enough, assaulted the build
ing and machinery of the Denver
Post, a reactionary. newspaper. Be-
cause of the nature of struggle of
this kind, it is not safe to CLEAN con-
clustions from the press dispatches.
There is possibility that company
spies and gunner may have precipi-
tated the violence to arouse public in
dignation and to make their own en-
ployment the more necessary. On the
other hand. it is not hard to imagine
street car strikers turning to violence
N view of the provocation. Street
car unions are notoE5ously weak and
their members probably are not dis
ciplined to the folly Of violence as
older labor union men are. They,
therefore, have the natural reaction
Of the ordinary, Understanding
American in cases of extreme injus-
tice.
Striking for existence wages and
being put off by a company which pro-
tests Inability to pay living wages,
they find hortles of strikebreakers
brought in at exorbitant pay and pri-
vate gunner stationed around the
city to stir up trouble. And more
than this, they find the press of their
city and the commercial interests
waging a war against labor organiza-
ton of all kinds, and particularly
theirs, under the camouflage of an
"open shop" movement.
Refusal of the British government
to allow Archbishop Mannix of Aus
Italia to land in Ireland attracts con-
siderable attention here as we'll as in
the different parts of the British en-
jire. Perhaps treating prominent