Sabotage and strikes were the common methods of the I. W. W. organization, which at the time of the trial numbered over 100,000 members, mostly scattered in the West in many trades. They managed strikes in widely scattered parts of the Union, and as they grew bolder, they planned in war times a general strike of all branches of labor, all over the United States. They first began work among the lumber-jacks, then among the miners. They meant to include all harvest hands in harvest time, all agricultural labor, indeed, labor of every sort. It was the plan to demand a six hour day and $6.00 a day, even for all farm labor; which, as all Americans now carrying the war prices of living can see, would inevitably have raised the price of food unspeakably had it succeeded. When opposed, they wrecked and burned and ruined, maimed, murdered.
“Big Bill” Haywood, the I. W. W. leader, execrated “military preparedness.” He called sabotage—that is to say, secret industrial wrecking—the “weapon of the disinterested.” Perhaps in peace times our fatuousness as a people would have caused us to pay small attention even to the series of I. W. W. outrages. We would have absorbed the discomforts and the crimes in our old careless, cowardly way. But now we were at war. We were making ships and airplanes, cannon and small arms and munitions and clothing and equipment. We needed the labor of every loyal man as much as we needed money and soldiers. And it was about this time that Frank H. Little (an I. W. W. leader who was lynched in Butte, Montana, soon after) wrote a letter to the general board of the I. W. W., demanding that the board should take action against the draft law requiring service in the Army.
This, coupled with the evidence of strikes, and the prospect of paralysis in many essential government activities, was going too far. It was known that the I. W. W. intended to get at the marine workers, then all allied industries. That would have meant the end of the war, or of our activity in the war.
Now, therefore, these arrogant and lawless men, never else than malcontents, became traitors. In order to work out to the quotient of ruin these vague theories about the “rights of man,” they cast aside what shred of patriotism they ever may have had to cover their nakedness of manhood, and declared themselves ready to cripple and leave helpless before her merciless foe this republic of America, whose whole theory from the foundation has been that of the rights of man, who fought in all her wars for the rights of man and has asked only in this peace the recognition of the rights of man. Ah, they were so wise, these ruffians!
But now they ran against our espionage law and its new teeth. Secretly watched for months by the many agents of the Government and its auxiliaries, the I. W. W. was at last found with sufficient goods on it to warrant the movement of the law’s forces. The charges were made that I. W. W. members had violated the espionage act; that they had fostered strikes to delay the output in war munitions; that they had spoiled industrial material; that they had been guilty of acts of violence against men not of their views; that they had violated the postal laws; that they had violated the statutes against conspiracy. The indictments were framed on those general lines, and the long arm of Uncle Sam, not that of any state or county or city, reached out for the accused.
By this time the agitations of the I. W. W. had covered Montana, Arizona and Colorado, were reaching into Utah and Nevada, and had Minnesota and Michigan next on the list. But pari passu with the I. W. W. activities had gone on those of certain other alphabetical organizations, to wit, D. J. and A. P. L.
Mr. Clabaugh, the storm center of the Chicago Bureau of Investigation, worked long months with the Government attorneys. Mr. Frank Nebeker, the trial lawyer, was an assistant U. S. Attorney General of Salt Lake City, and he was on this case for over a year. It was he who directed the raids. He was assisted by Mr. Claude Porter, of Des Moines, Iowa, U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa—now Assistant to the U. S. Attorney General in Washington. Mr. Porter came on as Special Assistant in place of Mr. Frank C. Dailey of Indianapolis, who had resigned. These men and their aids brought together, as has been said, the most elaborate legal records ever known. That they had the evidence is proved by the results of the trial—ninety-seven convictions out of the ninety-nine accused and tried. The A. P. L. got the evidence.
These men and Mr. Clabaugh were all in conference with U. S. Attorneys all over the country from Detroit west, and in conference with the governors of many states as well. Everything was kept secret. Then, one day, a wire flashed across the country which set the law afoot. At the same moment, two o’clock, Central time, on the afternoon of September 5, 1917, one hundred I. W. W. offices were raided. The Web had done its work! One hundred and sixty-five frightened insects struggled where but now a like number of arrogant and boastful traitors had strutted free. At one time Mr. Clabaugh took down to the Department of Justice in Washington a large trunk full of papers—incriminating documents once property of the I. W. W. It would take such reading of these unspeakable documents by all the American public as these officers of the law gave them, before America ever could know what foul sort of traitors she has been welcoming here at her own table.
Some of these arrested suspects were bailed out, others held in prison. Of the total arrested, ninety-nine were brought to trial. The case began before that staunch fighting man, Judge Landis—who had a son in the U. S. aviation corps himself—on Monday, April 1, 1918, and a month was spent in selecting a jury. In all this work, the A. P. L. was active, and more than once its men choked off alleged illegal enterprises—for the defendants were desperate now. The opening statement was made by Mr. Nebeker on May 2, and examination of witnesses followed for six weeks, when the Government rested till Wednesday, June 19. Mr. George Vandever, for the defense, made the opening statement on Monday, June 24. Judge Landis charged the jury Saturday, August 17. The jury brought in its verdict in fifty-five minutes and on one ballot. The statements of the prisoners were taken on Thursday, August 29, and sentence was passed by Judge Landis at 2:00 P. M., August 30, 1918.
The jury had needed but little time for deliberation. The judge in reading his instructions, dismissed the fifth count of the indictment, charging a conspiracy to violate the postal laws of the United States. After telling the jury that it had exclusive domain over the determination of the facts of the case, while it must take the law from the Court, Judge Landis said it was within the province of the court to give his opinion regarding the evidence.