The Labor Journal's Strategy Against the I.W.W.
A local labor leader argues that the best defense against the Industrial Workers of the World is not police violence, but better working conditions and education.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Times without number we have had I.W.W. orators in our midst. Twice they have organized in this city. Nothing happened and their organization lived for awhile and then died. Simply because they were let alone. We let them speak and we let them organize to their heart's content. They didn't meet 'armed resistance' nor they weren't persecuted and they went their way to more fruitful fields. Knowing what we do of them, we are able to enumerate several conditions that might bring them here in droves. We might put a chip on our shoulder and dare them to come here by passing anti-street speaking ordinances... But if they do come, anyway? Well, we might emulate other cities by swearing half the male population in as special police... That is one way to meet the situation and so far it has accomplished nothing except turn cities upside down, intensify a class hatred and create an intolerable situation. Brute force may lull the tempest but it can only lull it.
“Brute force may lull the tempest but it can only lull it. Unless conditions that breed the industrial sores be done away with... the sores will remain a constant source of irritation.”
This editorial provides a fascinating 'pre-history' to the 1916 Everett Massacre, as it outlines a strategy of containment and workplace improvement as a means to suppress radicalism, contrasting it with the violent suppression tactics used in cities like Everett four years later.
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