Some idea of the nature and seriousness of that propaganda may be had from the meagre reports which have reached this country. A writer in the Sunset Magazine[699] says that the striking coal miners
had Australia at their mercy.... In vain did the government plead with the strikers for coal to start troop and wheat ships.... As a last resort, the leaders ... were arrested.... The Industrial Workers of the World, the militant aggressive organization whose doctrine of a general rebellion is rapidly spreading through the "paradise of labor," demanded the release of the miners [and] threatened to burn down Sydney if their demands were not complied with. They made good. Night after night the incendiary work went on in Sydney.... Terrorized by the handful of industrial rebels, the commonwealth was forced to yield. The strike leaders were finally released [and] the demands of the strikers were granted.
A month later the New York Times published some special correspondence on the subject. It appears that in October, 1916, charges were preferred against 15 I. W. W.s in New South Wales.[700] These charges involved, in Sydney, according to this report, treason, and wholesale arson amounting to $1,250,000. The chief issue involved was the conscription policy of the government, to which the I. W. W. was opposed. They were brought to trial on October 10th. The warrant against them charged that they were preaching sabotage by means of surreptitious pamphlets and openly upon the streets. Further, the warrant alleged, says the Times correspondent, "that they plotted rebellion against the King; that they conspired to burn down buildings in Sydney ... endeavored to put force or restraint upon the Parliament of New South Wales, [and that] they endeavored to intimidate and overawe Parliament."[701]
Their anti-war campaign at last became so obnoxious to the government that the House of Representatives, in December, 1916, passed a statute, called "The Unlawful Associations Act," which practically made it a criminal offense to be a member of the I. W. W.; the apparent intention of the authorities being to arrest all prominent I. W. W. speakers and hold them for the duration of the war.[702]
The Australian Unlawful Associations Act[703] is to "continue in force for the duration of the present war and a period of six months thereafter, but no longer." Section 3 runs in part as follows: "The following are hereby declared to be unlawful associations, namely: (a) the association known as the Industrial Workers of the World; and (b) any association which, by its constitution or propaganda, advocates or encourages, or incites or instigates to, the taking or endangering of human life, or the destruction or injury of property...." The act imposes the penalty of imprisonment for six months upon any person who "continues to be a member of an unlawful association," who "advocates or encourages [or who "prints or publishes any writing advocating or encouraging">[ ... the taking or endangering of human life, or the destruction or injury of property," who "advocates or encourages ... any action intended or calculated to prevent or hinder the production, manufacture or transport ... of troops, arms, munitions or war-like material," or who "knowingly gives or contributes money or goods to an unlawful association."
In Australia as in the United States there were prior to the war two I. W. W. organizations in existence: a political I. W. W. and a non-political I. W. W. In that country, however, the political group (counterpart of the Detroit wing in the United States) has been by all odds the more influential. Although both these groups were pretty well smothered by the war and the Unlawful Associations Act, the I. W. W. industrial union idea made its appearance in another form in the summer of 1918. In July of that year representatives of some of the most powerful unions of New South Wales held a conference in Sydney. This so-called "Industrial Conference Board" drew up a constitution for an organization on the I. W. W. model, adopted the I. W. W. preamble almost word for word, and launched "The Workers Industrial Union of Australia."[704] Four of the six clauses of the preamble are almost identical in phrasing with that of the American I. W. W. The other two clauses are worded as follows:
Between these two classes [proletarian and capitalist] the struggle must continue until capitalism is abolished ... by the workers uniting in one class-conscious economic organization to take and hold the means of production by revolutionary industrial and political action. "Revolutionary action" means to secure a complete change, namely the abolition of capitalistic class ownership of the means of production—whether privately or through the state—and the establishment in its place of social ownership by the whole community.... We hold that, as the working class creates and operates the socially operated machinery of production, it should direct production and determine working conditions.[705]
In the United States the Federal government has enacted no law analogous to the Australian Unlawful Associations Act. Several of the individual States, however, have passed so-called "criminal syndicalism" laws and the United States Senate on May 6, 1918, passed a so-called anti-sabotage bill[706] which the newspapers declared was aimed at the I. W. W. The State laws referred to are quite generally understood to be directed against that organization. None of these statutes, however, mentions the I. W. W. by name. The Senate bill referred to declares to be unlawful any association
one of whose purposes or professed purposes is to bring about any governmental, social, industrial or economic change within the United States by the use, without authority of law, of physical force, violence or physical injury to person or property, or by threats of such injury, or which teaches, advocates, advises or defends the use ... of physical force, violence or physical injury to person or property, or threats of such injury, to accomplish such change or for any other purpose, and which, during any war in which the United States is engaged, shall by any such means prosecute or pursue such purpose or professed purpose, or shall so teach, advocate, advise or defend....[707]