A little experimenting with the manuscript of “100%" has revealed to the writer that everybody has a series of questions they wish immediately to ask: How much of it is true? To what extent have the business men of America been compelled to take over the detection and prevention of radicalism? Have they, in putting down the Reds, been driven to such extreme measures as you have here shown?
A few of the incidents in “100%" are fictional, for example the story of Nell Doolin and Nelse Ackerman; but everything that has social significance is truth, and has been made to conform to facts personally known to the writer or to his friends. Practically all the characters in “100%" are real persons. Peter Gudge is a real person, and has several times been to call upon the writer in the course of his professional activities; Guffey and McGivney are real persons, and so is Billy Nash, and so is Gladys Frisbie.
To begin at the beginning: the “Goober case” parallels in its main outlines the case of Tom Mooney. If you wish to know about this case, send fifteen cents to the Mooney Defense Committee, Post Office Box 894, San Francisco, for the pamphlet, “Shall Mooney Hang,” by Robert Minor. The business men of San Francisco raised a million dollars to save the city from union labor, and the Mooney case was the way they did it. It happened, however, that the judge before whom Mooney was convicted weakened, and wrote to the Attorney-General of the State to the effect that he had become convinced that Mooney was convicted by perjured testimony. But meantime Mooney was in jail, and is there still. Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco “Call,” who has been conducting an investigation into this case, has recently written to the author: “Altogether, it is the most amazing story I have ever had anything to do with. When all is known that I think can be known, it will be shown clearly that the State before an open-eyed community was able to murder a man with the instruments that the people have provided for bringing about justice. There isn’t a scrap of testimony in either of the Mooney or Billings cases that wasn’t perjured, except that of the man who drew the blue prints of Market Street.”
To what extent has the detection and punishment of radicalism in America passed out of the hands of public authorities and into the hands of “Big Business?” Any business man will of course agree that when “Big Business” has interests to protect, it must and will protect them. So far as possible it will make use of the public authorities; but when thru corruption or fear of politics these fail, “Big Business” has to act for itself. In the Colorado coal strike the coal companies raised the money to pay the state militia, and recruited new companies of militia from their private detectives. The Reds called this “Government by Gunmen,” and the writer in his muckraking days wrote a novel about it, “King Coal.” The man who directed the militia during this coal strike was A. C. Felts of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who was killed just the other day while governing several coal counties in West Virginia.
You will find this condition in the lumber country of Washington and Oregon, in the oil country of Oklahoma and Kansas, in the copper country of Michigan, Montana and Arizona, and in all the big coal districts. In the steel country of Western Pennsylvania you will find that all the local authorities are officials of the steel companies. If you go to Bristol, R. I., you will find that the National India Rubber Company has agreed to pay the salaries of two-thirds of the town’s police force.
In every large city in America the employers’ associations have raised funds to hold down the unions and smash the Reds, and these funds are being expended in the way portrayed in “100%.” In Los Angeles the employers’ association raised a million dollars, and the result was the case of Sydney R. Flowers, briefly sketched in this story under the name of “Sydney.” The reader who wishes the details of this case is referred to Chapter LXVI of “The Brass Cheek.” Flowers has been twice tried, and is about to be tried a third time, and our District-Attorney is quoted as saying that he will be tried half a dozen times if necessary. At the last trial there were produced a total of twenty-five witnesses against Flowers, and out of these nineteen were either Peter Gudges and McGivneys, or else police detectives, or else employees of the local political machine. A deputy United States attorney, talking to me about the case, told me that he had refused to prosecute it because he realized that the “Paul letter,” upon which the arrest had been based, was a frame-up, and that he was quite sure he knew who had written it. He also told me that there had been formed in Los Angeles a secret committee of fifty of the most active rich men of the town; that he could not find out what they were doing, but they came to his offices and demanded the secret records of the government; and that when he refused to prosecute Flowers they had influence enough to have the governor of California telegraph to Washington in protest. Questioned on the witness stand, I repeated these statements, and the deputy United States attorney was called to the stand and attributed them to my “literary imagination.”
In the old Russian and Austrian empires the technique of trapping agitators was well developed, and the use of spies and “under cover” men for the purpose of luring the Reds into crime was completely worked out. We have no English equivalent for the phrase “agent provocateur,” but in the last four years we have put thousands of them at work in America. In the case against Flowers three witnesses were produced who had been active among the I. W. Ws., trying to incite crime, and were being paid to give testimony for the state. One of these men admitted that he had himself burned some forty barns, and was now receiving three hundred dollars a month and expenses. At the trial of William Bross Lloyd in Chicago, charged with membership in the Communist party, a similar witness was produced. Santeri Nourteva, of, the Soviet Bureau in New York, has charged that Louis C. Fraina, editor of the “Revolutionary Age,” was a government agent, and Fraina wrote into the platform of the Communist party the planks which were used in prosecuting and deporting its members. On December 27, 1919, the chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice in Washington sent to the head of his local bureau in Boston a telegram containing the following sentences: “You should arrange with your under cover informants to have meetings of the Communist Party and Communist Labor Party held on the night set. I have been informed by some of the bureau officers that such arrangements will be made.” So much evidence of the activity of the provocateur was produced before Federal Judge G. W. Anderson that he declared as follows: “What does appear beyond reasonable dispute is that the Government owns and operates some part of the Communist Party.”
It appears that Judge Anderson does not share the high opinion of the “under cover” operative set forth by the writer of “100%.” Says Judge Anderson: “I cannot adopt the contention that Government spies are any more trustworthy, or less disposed to make trouble in order to profit therefrom, than are spies in private industry. Except in time of war, when a Nathan Hale may be a spy, spies are always necessarily drawn from the unwholesome and untrustworthy classes. A right-minded man refuses such a job. The evil wrought by the spy system in industry has, for decades, been incalculable. Until it is eliminated, decent human relations cannot exist between employers and employees, or even among employees. It destroys trust and confidence; it kills human kindliness; it propagates hate.”
To what extent have the governmental authorities of America been forced to deny to the Reds the civil rights guaranteed to good Americans by the laws and the constitution? The reader who is curious on this point may send the sum of twenty-five cents to the American Civil Liberties Union, 138 West 13th Street, New York, for the pamphlet entitled, “Report upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice,” signed by twelve eminent lawyers in the country, including a dean of the Harvard Law school, and a United States attorney who resigned because of his old-fashioned ideas of law. This pamphlet contains sixty-seven pages, with numerous exhibits and photographs. The practices set forth are listed under six heads: Cruel and unusual punishments; arrests without warrant; unreasonable searches and seizures; provocative agents; compelling persons to be witnesses against themselves; propaganda by the Department of Justice. The reader may also ask for the pamphlet entitled “Memorandum Regarding the Persecution of the Radical Labor Movement in the United States;” also for the pamphlet entitled “War Time Prosecution and Mob Violence,” dated March, 1919, giving a list of cases which occupies forty pages of closely printed type. Also he might read “The Case of the Rand School,” published by the Rand School of Social Science, 7 East Fifteenth Street, New York, and the pamphlets published by the National Office of the Socialist Party, 220 South Ashland Blvd., Chicago, dealing with the prosecutions of that organization.
To what extent has it been necessary to torture the Reds in prison in America? Those who are interested are advised to write to Harry Weinberger, 32 Union Square, New York, for the pamphlet entitled “Twenty Years Prison,” dealing with the case of Mollie Steimer, and three others who were sentenced for distributing a leaflet protesting against the war on Russia; also to the American Civil Liberties Union for the pamphlet entitled “Political Prisoners in Federal Military Prisons,” also the pamphlet, “Uncle Sam: Jailer,” by Winthrop D. Lane, reprinted from the “Survey;” also the pamphlet entitled “The Soviet of Deer Island, Boston Harbor,” published by the Boston Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union; also for the publications of the American Industrial Company, and the American Freedom Foundation, 166 West Washington St., Chicago.
There may be some reader with a sense of humor who asks about the brother of a United States senator being arrested for reading a paragraph from the Declaration of Independence. This gentleman was the brother of United States Senator France of Maryland, and curiously enough, the arrest took place in the city of Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. There may be some reader who is curious about a clergyman being indicted and arrested in Winnipeg for having quoted the prophet Isaiah. The paragraph from the indictment in question reads as follows: “That J. S. Woodsworth, on or about the month of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, at the City of Winnipeg, in the Province of Manitoba, unlawfully and seditiously published seditious libels in the words and figures following: ‘Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away their right from the poor of my people that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless. . . . And they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.’”
There has been reference in this book to the Centralia case. No one can consider that he understands the technique of holding down the Reds until he has studied this case, and therefore every friend of “Big Business” should send fifty cents, either to the I. W. W. Headquarters, 1001 West Madison Street, Chicago, or to the “Liberator,” New York, or to the “Appeal to Reason,” Girard, Kansas, for the booklet, “The Centralia Conspiracy,” by Ralph Chaplin, who attended the Centralia trial, and has collected all the details and presents them with photographs and documents. Many other stories about the I. W. W. have been told in the course of “100%.” The reader will wish to know, are these men really so dangerous, and have the business men of America been driven to treat them as here described. The reader may again address the I. W. W. National Headquarters for a four-page leaflet with the quaint title, “With Drops of Blood the History of the Industrial Workers of the World has Been Written.” Despite the fact that it is a bare record of cases, there are many men serving long terms in prison in the United States for the offense of having in their possession a copy of this leaflet, “With Drops of Blood.” But the readers of this book, being all of them 100% Americans engaged in learning the technique of smashing the Reds, will, I feel sure, not be interfered with by the business men. Also I trust that the business men will not object to my reprinting a few paragraphs from the leaflet, in order to make the public realize how dangerously these Reds can write. I will, of course, not follow their incendiary example and spatter my page with big drops of imitation blood. I quote:
“We charge that I. W. W. members have been murdered, and mention here a few of those who have lost their lives:
“Joseph Michalish was shot to death by a mob of so-called citizens. Michael Hoey was beaten to death in San Diego. Samuel Chinn was so brutally beaten in the county jail at Spokane, Washington, that he died from the injuries. Joseph Hillstrom was judicially murdered within the walls of the penitentiary at Salt Lake City, Utah. Anna Lopeza, a textile worker, was shot and killed, and two other Fellow Workers were murdered during the strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts. Frank Little, a cripple, was lynched by hirelings of the Copper Trust at Butte, Montana. John Looney, A. Robinowitz, Hugo Gerlot, Gustav Johnson, Felix Baron, and others were killed by a mob of Lumber Trust gunmen on the Steamer Verona at the dock at Everett, Washington. J. A. Kelly was arrested and re-arrested at Seattle, Washington; finally died from the effects of the frightful treatment he received. Four members of the I. W. W. were killed at Grabow, Louisiana, where thirty were shot and seriously wounded. Two members were dragged to death behind an automobile at Ketchikan, Alaska.
“These are but a few of the many who have given up their lives on the altar of Greed, sacrificed in the ages-long struggle for Industrial Freedom.
“We charge that many thousands of members of this organization have been imprisoned, on most occasions arrested without warrant and held without charge. To verify this statement it is but necessary that you read the report of the Commission on Industrial Relations wherein is given testimony of those who know of conditions at Lawrence, Massachusetts, where nearly 900 men and women were thrown into prison during the Textile Workers’ Strike at that place. This same report recites the fact that during the Silk Workers’ Strike at Paterson, New Jersey, nearly 1,900 men and women were cast into jail without charge or reason. Throughout the northwest these kinds of outrages have been continually perpetrated against members of the I. W. W. County jails and city prisons in nearly every state in the Union have held or are holding members of this organization.
“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been tarred and feathered. Frank H. Meyers was tarred and feathered by a gang of prominent citizens at North Yakima, Washington. D. S. Dietz was tarred and feathered by a mob led by representatives of the Lumber Trust at Sedro, Wooley, Washington. John L. Metzen, attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World, was tarred and feathered and severely beaten by a mob of citizens of Staunton, Illinois. At Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mob of bankers and other business men gathered up seventeen members of the I. W. W., loaded them in automobiles, carried them out of town to a patch of woods, and there tarred and feathered and beat them with rope.
“We charge that members of the Industrial Workers of the World have been deported, and cite the cases of Bisbee, Arizona, where 1,164 miners, many of them members of the I. W. W., and their friends, were dragged out of their homes, loaded upon box cars, and sent out of the camp. They were confined for months at Columbus, New Mexico. Many cases are now pending against the copper companies and business men of Bisbee. A large number of members were deported from Jerome, Arizona. Seven members of the I. W. W. were deported from Florence, Oregon, and were lost for days in the woods, Tom Lassiter, a crippled news vender, was taken out in the middle of the night and badly beaten by a mob for selling the Liberator and other radical papers.
“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been cruelly and inhumanly beaten. Hundreds of members can show scars upon their lacerated bodies that were inflicted upon them when they were compelled to run the gauntlet. Joe Marko and many others were treated in this fashion at San Diego, California. James Rowan was nearly beaten to death at Everett, Washington. At Lawrence, Massachusetts, the thugs of the Textile Trust beat men and women who had been forced to go on strike to get a little more of the good things of life. The shock and cruel whipping which they gave one little Italian woman caused her to give premature birth to a child. At Red Lodge, Montana, a member’s home was invaded and he was hung by the neck before his screaming wife and children. At Franklin, New Jersey, August 29, 1917, John Avila, an I. W. W., was taken in broad daylight by the chief of police and an auto-load of business men to a woods near the town and there hung to a tree. He was cut down before death ensued, and badly beaten. It was five hours before Avila regained consciousness, after which the town ‘judge’ sentenced him to three months at hard labor.
“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been starved. This statement can be verified by the conditions existing in most any county jail where members of the I. W. W. are confined. A very recent instance is at Topeka, Kansas, where members were compelled to go on a hunger strike as a means of securing food for themselves that would sustain life. Members have been forced to resort to the hunger strike as a means of getting better food in many places. You are requested to read the story written by Winthrop D. Lane, which appears in the Sept. 6, 1919, number of ‘The Survey.’ This story is a graphic description of the county jails in Kansas.
“We charge that I. W. W. members have been denied the right of citizenship, and in each instance the judge frankly told the applicants that they were refused on account of membership in the Industrial Workers of the World, accompanying this with abusive remarks; members were denied their citizenship papers by judge Hanford at Seattle, Washington, and judge Paul O’Boyle at Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been denied the privilege of defense. This being an organization of working men who had little or no funds of their own, it was necessary to appeal to the membership and the working class generally for funds to provide a proper defense. The postal authorities, acting under orders from the Postmaster-General at Washington, D. C., have deliberately prevented the transportation of our appeals, our subscription lists, our newspapers. These have been piled up in the postoffices and we have never received a return of the stamps affixed for mailing.
“We charge that the members of the I. W. W. have been held in exorbitant bail. As an instance there is the case of Pietro Pierre held in the county jail at Topeka, Kansas. His bond was fixed at $5,000, and when the amount was tendered it was immediately raised to $10,000. This is only one of the many instances that could be recorded.
“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been compelled to submit to involuntary servitude. This does not refer to members confined in the penitentiaries, but would recall the reader’s attention to an I. W. W. member under arrest in Birmingham, Alabama, taken from the prison and placed on exhibition at a fair given in that city where admission of twenty-five cents was charged to see the I. W. W.”
Finally, for the benefit of the reader who asks how it happens that such incidents are not more generally known to the public, I will reprint the following, from pages 382-383 of “The Brass Check,” dealing with the “New York Times,” and its treatment of the writer’s novel, “Jimmie Higgins”:
“In the last chapters of this story an American soldier is represented as being tortured in an American military prison. Says the ‘Times’:
“‘Mr. Sinclair should produce the evidence upon which he bases his astounding accusations, if he has any. If he has simply written on hearsay evidence, or, worse still, let himself be guided by his craving to be sensational, he has laid himself open not only to censure but to punishment.’
“In reply to this, I send to the ‘Times’ a perfectly respectful letter, citing scores of cases, and telling the ‘Times’ where hundreds of other cases may be found. The ‘Times’ returns this letter without comment. A couple of months pass, and as a result of the ceaseless agitation of the radicals, there is a congressional investigation, and evidence of atrocious cruelties is forced into the newspapers. The ‘Times’ publishes an editorial entitled, ‘Prison Camp Cruelties,’ the first sentence of which reads: ‘The fact that American soldiers confined in prison-camps have been treated with extreme brutality may now be regarded as established.’ So again I write a polite letter to the ‘Times,’ pointing out that I think they owe me an apology. And how does the ‘Times’ treat that? It alters my letter without my permission. It cuts out my request for an apology, and also my quotation of its own words calling for my punishment! The ‘Times,’ caught in a hole, refuses to let me remind its readers that it wanted me ‘punished’ for telling the truth! ‘All the News that’s Fit to Print!’”
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