the _défi_ they hurled at the church. Only less so was the _défi_ they leveled at the flag. The I. W. W. said that the church, obedient to the dictates of big business, preached to the workers a servile obedience now for the sake of a hypothetical heaven of comfort later; "_ergo_," they said, "the church is unethical and we abjure it for a superior proletarian ethics." It considered that the flag was being made the excuse for a jingo patriotism which made the enlargement and conquest of markets and the further exploitation of labor the end and aim of patriotism. In brief, the church and the flag are made to serve commercialism. Commercialism is evil because unjust. Therefore, its servants are, _pro tanto_, evil also and rightly to be repudiated. The conflicting attitudes are well illustrated by two placards carried along Lawrence streets during the strike. The I. W. W. paraded first with, among others, a placard reading: XX Century civilization.... For the progress of the human race we have jails, gallows, guillotines, ... and electric chairs for the people who pay to keep the "_soldiers_" to kill them when they revolt against Wood and other czars of capitalism. _Arise!!! Slaves of the World!!! No God! No Master! One for all and all for one!_ The citizens (no reference here to the textile operatives) of Lawrence paraded their righteous indignation as follows: "For God and Country, The Stars and Stripes forever, The Red Flag never. A Protest against the I. W. W., Its principles and methods." Perhaps there is no better illustration of the reaction of the great bulk of the progressive citizenship of the country to the I. W. W. strike-drama than the following editorial paragraph published during the strike: On all sides people are asking: Is this a new thing in the industrial world?... Are we to see another serious, perhaps successful, attempt to organize labor by whole industrial groups instead of by trades? Are we to expect that instead of playing the game respectably, or else frankly breaking out into lawless riot which we know well enough how to deal with, the laborers are to listen to a subtle anarchistic philosophy which challenges the fundamental idea of law and order, inculcating such strange doctrines as those of "direct action," "sabotage," "syndicalism," "the general strike," and "violence"?... We think that our whole current morality as to the sacredness of property and even of life is involved in it.[587]