The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-02-12
Mussolini in Herrin

conspiracy entered into by the Illinois Cham
Der of Commerce, the Ku Klux Khan and the
prohibition enforcement authorities to terror
lie the union miners and their sympathizers in
Herrin and the surrounding country, break up
the United Mine Workers in that territory and
establish an armed dictatorship over the work
ers of that vicinity.
Swashbuckler Young quite evidently has the
assurance of powerful backing for any crimes
against persons and property that he may COM
NIT. We are somewhat familiar with this type
of individual and it has been our experience
that they do not go into action unless they have
about one thousand per cent the best of it.
Machine4guns cost money and Young seems to
have about as many of these as the average
gunman has automatics.
Homes of miners have been invaded without
warrant or any pretense of due process of law
simply on the pretext that they had liquor of
one kind or another on their premises; it is
significant that the names of the victims have
foreign sound and that they are members of
the United Mine Workers of America.
The reactionary interests of Illinois have
never forgiven the citizens of Williamson
county because they refused to hang wholesale
the workers who took part in the battle at the
Lester strip mine in which the scabs and gun
men got the worst of it. An enormous sum
was raised by the Illinois chamber of COM
merce for the prosecution of the miners and it
is extremely probable that what remains of the
frrrd rs nov 1faciffe. }efRfP and his 00l
per cent American cohorts in their assaults on
the lives and liberties of the workers of Will
hanson county.
The sympathetic statements concerning the
activities of Young and his Khan forces eman-
ating from prohibition enforcement headquar-
tiers in Washington, D. c., lend color to the be-
lief that this governmental agency with its new
appropriation of $50,000,0OO is the latest re-
cruit to the anti-abor legal instruments that
the United States government has placed at
the disposal of the employers. With its thou
sands of operatives responsible to no one, APP
parently able to escape the consequences of
their illegal acts because of assumption that
they are enforcing the law of the land the
prohibition enforcement branch of the federal
government becomes a valuable ally to the |
department of justice and other anti-labor
agencies.
Why Williamson county should be selected
for law-enforcing campaign when in Chicago
there is an almost virgin field for this form of
activity can be explained only by the theory
that enforcement of the prohibition law is
merely the legal veil for an orgy of terrorism
directed against the miners.
From the news dispatches it seems quite
clear that the national guard units now in
Williamson county are cooperating with the
Khan forces and that considerable number of |
them are acting a bodyguard for Young,
who has taken over the Herrin city hall, sits
at dNsk, on which a machine-gun is mounted
and issues orders to his underlings The Khan
password, according to the dispatches, is just
as effective in getting thru the military cordons
as is the military countersign
All of which indicates that the EMPLOYERS
of this country are organizing here and there
skeleton detachments, military and semi-mi-
tary forces that can be linked up with govern
ment agencies for purposes of suppression
The Herrin episode has all of the bragga-
docio and opera bouffe characteristics that
were to be remarked in the early exploits of
the fascist movement in Italy Il combines all II
the motives of puritanical morality, revenge
for the shattered prestige of employers and
hatred of organized workers, native and for
eign-Born, that distinguishes fascism the world
over.
Hired mercenaries, aided by the ignorant
and servile element of the population in an
offensive against workers in strikes, is no new
phenomenon in the United States.
An open declaration of war against the
workers of an entire community during a
period of industrial peace, so far as we know,
is without precedent in the United States and
can be taken only as an indication of the ruth
less character of the new tactics which the
rulers Of this country are preparing to adopt
In the war on labor.
There will be many Herrins in America un-
less American labor awakens to its danger
before the movement gains impetus.
G