Part 20 (1/2)
”We object to this!” shouted Mr. Cooley, and the court sustained the objection.
Despite continual protests from the prosecution Thompson gave the ideas of the I. W. W. on many questions. Speaking of free speech the witness said:
”Free speech is vital. It is a point that has been threshed out and settled before we were born. If we do not have free speech, the children of the race will die in the dark.”
The message of industrial unionism delivered thru the sworn testimony of a labor organizer was indeed an amazing spectacle. Judge Ronald never relaxed his attention during the entire examination, the jury was spell-bound, and it was only by an obvious effort that the spectators kept from applauding the various telling points.
”There is overwork on one hand,” said Thompson, ”and out-of-work on the other. The length of the working day should be determined by the amount of work and the number of workers. You have no more right to do eight or ten or twelve hours of labor when others are out of work, despondent, committing suicide, than you have to drink all the water, if that were possible, while others are dying of thirst.
”Solidarity is the I. W. W. way to get their demands. We do not advocate that the workers should organize in a military way and use guns and dynamite. The most effective weapon of labor is economic power: the modern wage workers are the living parts of industry and if they fold their arms, they immediately precipitate a crisis, they paralyze the world. No other cla.s.s has that power. The other cla.s.s can fold their arms, and they do most of the time, but our cla.s.s has the economic power. The I. W. W. preaches and teaches all the time that a far more effective weapon than brickbats or dynamite is solidarity.
”We have developed from individual production, to social production, yet we still have private owners.h.i.+p of the means of production. One cla.s.s owns the industries and doesn't operate them, another cla.s.s operates the industries and does not own them. We are going to have a revolution. No one is more mistaken than those who believe that this system is the final state of society. As the industrial revolution takes place, as the labor process takes on the co-operative form, as the tool of production becomes social, the idea of social owners.h.i.+p is suggested, and so the idea that things that are used collectively should be owned collectively, presents itself with irresistible force to the people of the twentieth century. So there is a struggle for industrial democracy.
We are the modern abolitionists fighting against wage slavery as the other abolitionists fought against chattel slavery. The solution for our modern problems is this, that the industries should be owned by the people, operated by the people for the people, and the little busy bees who make the honey of the world should eat that honey, and there should be no drones at all in the hives of industry.
”When we have industrial democracy you will know that the mills, the mines, the factories, the earth itself, will be the collective property of the people, and if a little baby should be born that baby would be as much an owner of the earth as any other of the children of men. Then the war, the commercial struggles, the clashes between groups of conflicting interests, will be a night-mare of the past. In the place of capitalism with its one cla.s.s working and its other cla.s.s enjoying, in the place of the wages system with its strife and strikes, lockouts and grinding poverty, we will have a co-operative system where the interests of one will be to promote the interests of all--that will be Industrial Democracy.”
Thompson explained the meaning of the sarcastic song, ”Christians at War,” to the evident amus.e.m.e.nt of the jury and spectators. The witness was then asked about Herve's work on anti-patriotism in this question by attorney Moore:
”What is the att.i.tude of your organization relative to internationalism and national patriotism?”
”We object to that as incompetent and immaterial,” cried Veitch of the prosecution.
”What did you put this book in for then?” said Judge Ronald in a testy manner as he motioned the witness to proceed with his answer.
”In the broader sense,” answered Thompson, ”there is no such thing as a foreigner. We are all native born members of this planet, and for the members of it to be divided into groups or units and to be taught that each nation is better than the other leads to clashes and the world war.
We ought to have in the place of national patriotism--the idea that one people is better than another,--a broader conception, that of international solidarity. The idea that we are better than others is contrary to the Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are born free and equal. The I. W. W. believes that in order to do away with wars we should remove the cause of wars; we should establish industrial democracy and the co-operative system instead of commercialism and capitalism and the struggles that come from them. We are trying to make America a better land, a land without child slaves, a land without poverty, and so also with the world, a world without a master and without a slave.”
When the lengthy direct examination of Thompson had been finished, the prosecution questioned him but five minutes and united in a sigh of relief as he left the stand.
The next witness called was Ernest Nordstrom, companion of Oscar Carlson who was severely wounded on the Verona. Nordstrom testified rather out of his logical order in the trial by reason of the fact that he was about to leave on a lengthy fis.h.i.+ng trip to Alaska. His testimony was that he purchased a regular ticket at the same time as his friend Carlson, but these tickets were not taken up by the purser. The original ticket of this pa.s.senger was then offered in evidence. The witness stated that the first shot came from almost the same place on the dock as did the words ”You can't land here.” He fell to the deck and saw Carlson fall also. Carlson tried to rise once, but a bullet hit him and he dropped; there were nine bullet holes in him. Nordstrom was asked:
”Did you have a gun?”
”No sir.”
”Did Carlson have a gun?”
”No sir.”
”Did you see anybody with a gun on the boat?”
”No. I didn't.”
Organizer James Rowan then gave his experiences in Everett, ending with a vivid recital of the terrible beating he had received at the hands of deputies near Silver Lake. Upon telling of the photograph that was taken of his lacerated back he was asked by Veitch:
”What was the reason you had that picture taken?”
”Well,” said Rowan, in his inimitable manner, ”I thought it would be a good thing to get that taken to show up the kind of civilization that they had in Everett.”
Dr. E. J. Brown, a Seattle dentist, and Thomas Horner, Seattle attorney, corroborated Rowan's testimony as to the condition of his back. They had seen the wounds and bruises shortly after the beating had been administered and were of the opinion that a false light was reflected on the photograph in such a way that the severest marks did not appear as bad as they really were.