THE I. W. W.: AN OUTLAW ORGANIZATION
To the Editor:
I wish to express my hearty appreciation of John A. Fitch’s article in The Survey of June 7, on the I. W. W. It is illuminative. The I. W. W. is the one organization that is both hated and feared by our most eminent leaders in business, politics, and religion. There are good reasons for this. The I. W. W. pays no homage to heroes and great men of the past; it has little respect for the laws of the land, because it believes these laws were made to keep them in bondage; and it entirely ignores and repudiates the church, as it holds that the church has always been an instrument to keep the people in ignorance and subjection.
Small wonder it is that this “outlaw” organization receives the contempt and anathemas of conventional, respectable people, who have been taught that everything that makes civilization better than barbarism, is due to the genius and greatness and goodness of a few men, who in turn were but the instruments of Providence. The I. W. W. tells its members to stop bowing the head and the knee to great men and even to God, and to assert the right and power that is theirs, and to depend on themselves alone for the establishment of a new system of industry.
Sound and staid business, political and religious leaders are deeply concerned with what seems to be the trend of thought and action on the part of the “lower” classes. This trend appears to be decidedly in the direction of the very principles and methods of the I. W. W. The “better” class of people believe chaos and anarchy will result if the principles and practices of the I. W. W. predominate; the I. W.W. believe they will always be oppressed, and matters go from bad to worse, if our method of doing business is not fundamentally changed. They believe so fully in the justice of their cause that they willingly accept the scorn, the contempt, the inhuman treatment inflicted on them in jail and out, that is meted out mercilessly for their uncompromising speech and attitude.
This bitter feeling of the “best” people toward the I. W. W., and the dogged persistence of the I. W. W. in their revolutionary tactics, constitute the most acute phase of what the Socialists call the class struggle. This class war will continue till one side or the other is victorious. One reason that the whole matter is so generally misunderstood is that nearly all the newspapers distort and suppress most of the news concerning the activity of the I. W. W.
Mr. Fitch’s article radiates light rather than heat.
A. E. House.
Spokane, Wash.