The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-05-19
AYWOOD'S LIFE
DEDICATED TO
AMERICAN LABOR
Led Militant Struggles
Turnout U. S.
Continued from page Onel

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instead of including all workers in
it's ranks.
Haywood first became a national
figure in the labor movement in
1907, when he was prosecuted with
Meyer and Pettibone, two other Off
GERS of the Western Federation Of
Miners, in one of the earlier Ameri-
can "frame-up" cases, charged with
the murder of ex-governor Steunen-
berg of Idaho.
William E. Borah brought himself
into "liberal" prominence which he
now has by acting as special prose-
cutor in the case and demanding the
death penalty for Haywood, Meyer
and Pettibone.
The /. w. w. at its second conven-
ton devoted almost half of its session
to the case of the imprisoned leaders.
The question Of the general strike
and other means of mass pressure
to secure their release were con-
sidered. After about fifteen months
in prison, the three militants were
acquitted in July 1907. Their release
was definitely attributed to the agita-
ton conducted by the labor movement.
In 1908 Haywood visited Europe,
and there met leaders of the Confed-
Grafton Generate du Travail. In 1910
he was delegated from the socialist
party to the international labor and
socialist congress in Copenhagen,
where he spoke also for the l. W. W.
and met many of the European lead
ers. After this congress he visited
the mining districts of Great Britain.
Famous Lawrence Strike.
Haywood was associated with Ettor
and Giovannitti in the great Lawrence
strike in 1912. During the silk weav=
ers' strike in Paterson he served three
weeks in jail after refusing bail while
other strikers were still imprisoned.
He was sentenced to six months in
Jail for disorderly conduct in the
Lowell strike. -
AS the entry of the United States
into the world war became imminent,
Haywood inevitably became center
of revolutionary opposition to the
He was bounded at
every step by department of justice
agents and detectives. Early in 1920
he was arrested for violation of the
espionage act and he, with ninety
one others, was convicted. Haywood,
as the leader, was sentenced to twenty
years. Imprisonment. After his con-
viction he left the United States for
the Union of Socialist Soviet Re
publics.
During the period of his trial and
conviction, Haywood came to the
conclusion that the only effective
revolutionary struggle was through
the Communist Party and the Com
munist International. He joined the
Communist Party of America.
In the Soviet Union Haywood be-
came the head of a cooperative COM
munity, the Kuzbas Colony, in ST.
IBERIA, but his health, already shat
tered before his escape from Amer
lea, broke down. He had been invalid
during the last five years Of his life
in Soviet Russia. Just before his
death he had finished writing the
storyrof his life in the American class
struggle, up to the point of his ar
rival in Russia.
Shortly before his death Haywood
completed writing the story of his
life, which is soon to be published by
the International Publishers.
Haywood was one of the founders
of the International Labor Defense,
the organization for aiding the de-
tense of victims of capitalist courts
in the class struggle.
A Giant of Class Struggle.
"Big Bill" Haywood, the great one
eyed giant of the American class
struggle, was one of the first leaders
of American stock to grasp the
breadth of the labor movement. Grip
pie Creek and the great Pullman strike
taught him the strength and the
weakness of the labor movement, and
until his death the internal warfare,
the scabbing of unions upon each
other, Infatuated and grieved him.
Too much dreamer underneath his
furious and continuous activity, yet
he foresaw with wider vision than
most of his contemporaries the neces-
sity of the solidarity of all labor,
skilled and unskilled, against the on
slaughts of the capitalists. But his
greatest skill and his greatest art
was as an organizer of masses. He
knew how to make every striker in
crowd speak through him. He knew
how to make thrilling propaganda
out of every incident in the struggle,
from the "desecrated flag" at Grip
pie Creek, to the pregnant mothers
of Paterson patiently marching in
the picket line, beaten and martyred
by the police. Haywood gave words
to thousands who lacked words just
as they lacked wages and food. He
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