The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industrySmith, Walker C.
History
The Everett Massacre: A history of the class struggle in the lumber industry
Smith, Walker C.
Industrial Workers of the World; Lumbering -- Washington (State); Lumbermen -- Washington (State)
"It is not a question, and never has been in this case, as to the right
of the labor men to organize; the right of the laboring man to use all
of the lawful methods for the purpose of bettering his condition. The
question in this case is as to whether any organization, whether it be
a labor organization or any other, has the right to use unlawful
methods; whether it has the right, because it may have the power, to use
unlawful methods.
"Now there were coming into the city of Everett people representing this
organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World. What was the
propaganda that they were seeking to introduce there? They put upon the
stand their chief exponent in this part of the country, to tell you what
their purpose was in coming to the city of Everett, and what the
doctrines were that they were teaching to the people that congregated
there in the city of Everett. Mr. Thompson was upon the stand for about
two days, and he delivered to this jury a lecture, which he says was a
resume of three lectures that he gave up there in the city of Everett.
He was asked whether or not he talked on sabotage and he told you what
he had to say about it. He said sabotage was 'a conscious withdrawal of
efficiency, a folding of the arms.' But Thompson says it is never the
destruction of property, and yet the organization that sends him out to
talk on sabotage puts out right along with him the literature that has
been adopted by the I. W. W. as a part of their propaganda, defining
what sabotage really is and it gives the lie to Mr. Thompson. It may
mean working slow; it may mean poor work; it may mean folding of arms;
it may mean conscious withdrawal of efficiency. So far sabotage is legal
and anyone has a right to use it. But it may mean the spoiling of a
finished product, it may mean the destruction of parts of machinery, it
is the destruction of property. 'Sabotage is a direct application of the
idea that property has no rights that its creators are bound to
respect.' It does not say that certain kinds of property has no rights,
but that there is no property that has any rights that are bound to be
respected. But Thompson says that is not sabotage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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