Violence and the Labor Movement Part 12

At all events, in this particular instance, it was not pretended either that the strikers had invaded property or person, or that the police or militia in Albany had betrayed reluctance or inability to cope with the situation. On the contrary, the facts are undisputed that the moment the men went out Mr. Pinkerton and his myrmidons appeared on the scene, and the police of Albany declared their competency to repel any trespa.s.s on person or property. The executive of the State, too, denied any necessity for the presence of the military.

"I do not impute to the railroad officials a purpose, without provocation, to precipitate their ruffians upon a defenseless and harmless throng of spectators; but the fact remains that the ruffians in their hire did shoot into the crowd without occasion, and did so shed innocent blood. And it is enough to condemn the system that it authorizes unofficial and irresponsible persons to usurp the most delicate and difficult functions of the State and exposes the lives of citizens to the murderous a.s.saults of hireling a.s.sa.s.sins, stimulated to violence by panic or by the suggestion of employers to strike terror by an appalling exhibition of force. If the railroad company may enlist armed men to defend its property, the employees may enlist armed men to defend their persons, and thus private war be inaugurated, the authority of the State defied, the peace and tranquillity of society destroyed, and the citizens exposed to the hazard of indiscriminate slaughter."[23]

Perhaps the most extensive use of these so-called detectives was at the time of the great railway strike of 1894. The strike of the workers at Pullman led to a general sympathetic strike on all the railroads entering Chicago, and from May 11 to July 13 there was waged one of the greatest industrial battles in American history. A railway strike is always a serious matter, and in a short time the Government came to the active support of the railroads. At one time over fourteen thousand soldiers, deputy marshals, deputy sheriffs, and policemen were on duty in Chicago. During the period of the strike twelve persons were shot and fatally wounded. A number of riots occurred, cars were burned, and, as a result of the disturbances, no less than seven hundred persons were arrested, accused of murder, arson, burglary, a.s.sault, intimidation, riot, and other crimes. The most accurate information we have concerning conditions in Chicago during the strike is to be found in the evidence which was taken by the United States Strike Commission appointed by President Cleveland July 26, 1894. There seems to be no doubt that during the early days of the strike perfect peace reigned in Chicago. At the very beginning of the trouble three hundred strikers were detailed by the unions to guard the property of the Pullman company from any interference or destruction. "It is in evidence, and uncontradicted,"

reports the Commission, "that no violence or destruction of property by strikers or sympathizers took place at Pullman."[24] It also appears that no violence occurred in Chicago in connection with the strike until after several thousand men were made United States deputy marshals.

These "United States deputy marshals," says the Commission, "to the number of 3,600, were selected by and appointed at the request of the General Managers' a.s.sociation, and of its railroads. They were armed and paid by the railroads."[25] In other words, the United States Government gave over its police power directly into the hands of one of the combatants. It allowed these private companies, through detective agencies, to collect as hastily as possible a great body of unemployed, to arm them, and to send them out as officials of the United States to do whatsoever was desired by the railroads. They were not under the control of the army or of responsible United States officials, and their intrusion into a situation so tense and critical as that then existing in Chicago was certain to produce trouble. And the fact is, the lawlessness that prevailed in Chicago during that strike began only after the appearance of these private "detectives."

It will astonish the ordinary American citizen to read of the character of the men to whom the maintenance of law and order was entrusted.

Superintendent of Police Brennan referred to these deputy marshals in an official report to the Council of Chicago as "thugs, thieves, and ex-convicts," and in his testimony before the Commission itself he said: "Some of the deputy marshals who are now over in the county jail ...

were arrested while deputy marshals for highway robbery."[26] Several newspaper men, when asked to testify regarding the character of these United States deputies, referred to them variously as "drunkards,"

"loafers," "b.u.ms," and "criminals." The now well-known journalist, Ray Stannard Baker, was at that time reporting the strike for the _Chicago Record_. He was asked by Commissioner Carroll D. Wright as to the character of the United States deputy marshals. His answer was: "From my experience with them I think it was very bad indeed. I saw more cases of drunkenness, I believe, among the United States deputy marshals than I did among the strikers."[27] Benjamin H. Atwell, reporter for the _Chicago News_, testified: "Many of the marshals were men I had known around Chicago as saloon characters.... The first day, I believe, after the troops arrived ... the deputy marshals went up into town and some of them got pretty drunk."[28] Malcomb McDowell, reporter for the _Chicago Record_, testified that the deputy marshals and deputy sheriffs "were not the cla.s.s of men who ought to be made deputy marshals or deputy sheriffs.... They seemed to be hunting trouble all the time.... At one time a serious row nearly resulted because some of the deputy marshals standing on the railroad track jeered at the women that pa.s.sed and insulted them.... I saw more deputy sheriffs and deputy marshals drunk than I saw strikers drunk."[29] Harold I. Cleveland, reporter for the _Chicago Herald_, testified: "I was ... on the Western Indiana tracks for fourteen days ... and I suppose I saw in that time a couple of hundred deputy marshals.... I think they were a very low, contemptible set of men."[30]

In Mr. Baker's testimony he speaks of seeing in one of the riots "a big, rough-looking fellow, whom the people called 'Pat.'"[31] He was the leader of the mob, and when the riot was over, "he mounted a beer keg in front of one of the saloons and advised men to go home, get their guns, and come out and fight the troops, fire on them.... The same man appeared two nights later at Whiting, Indiana, and made quite a disturbance there, roused the people up. In all that mob that had hold of the ropes I do not think there were many American Railway Union men.

I think they were mostly roughs from Chicago.... The police knew well enough all about this man I have mentioned who was the ringleader of the mob, but they did nothing and the deputy marshals were not any better."[32] For some inscrutable reason, certain men, none of whom were railroad employees, were allowed openly to provoke violence.

Fortunately, however, they were not able to induce the actual strikers to partic.i.p.ate in their a.s.saults upon railroad property, and every newspaper man testified that the riots were, in the main, the work of the vicious elements of Chicago. They were, said one witness, "all loafers, idlers, a petty cla.s.s of criminals well known to the police."[33] Malcomb McDowell testified concerning one riot which he had reported for the papers: "The men did not look like railroad men....

Most of them were foreigners, and one of the men in the crowd told me afterward that he was a detective from St. Louis. He gave me the name of the agency at the time."[34]

Mr. Eugene V. Debs, the leader of that great strike, in a pamphlet ent.i.tled _The Federal Government and the Chicago Strike_, calls particular attention to the following declaration of the United States Strike Commission: "There is no evidence before the Commission that the officers of the American Railway Union at any time partic.i.p.ated in or advised intimidation, violence or destruction of property. _They knew and fully appreciated that, as soon as mobs ruled, the organized forces of society would crush the mobs and all responsible for them in the remotest degree, and that this means defeat._"[35] Commenting upon this statement, Mr. Debs asks: "To whose interest was it to have riots and fires, lawlessness and crime? To whose advantage was it to have disreputable 'deputies' do these things? Why were only freight cars, largely hospital wrecks, set on fire? Why have the railroads not yet recovered damages from Cook County, Illinois, for failing to protect their property?... The riots and incendiarism turned defeat into victory for the railroads. They could have won in no other way. They had everything to gain and the strikers everything to lose. The violence was instigated in spite of the strikers, and the report of the Commission proves that they made every effort in their power to preserve the peace."[36]

This history is important in a study of the extensive system of subsidized violence that has grown up in America. Nearly every witness before the Commission testified that the strikers again and again gave the police valuable a.s.sistance in protecting the property of the railroads. No testimony was given that the workingmen advocated violence or that union men a.s.sisted in the riots. The ringleaders of all the serious outbreaks were notorious toughs from Chicago's vicious sections, and they were allowed to go for days unmolested by the deputy marshals--who, although representatives of the United States Government, were in the pay of the railroads. In fact, the evidence all points to the one conclusion, that the deputy marshals encouraged the violence of ruffians and tried to provoke the violence of decent men by insulting, drunken, and disreputable conduct. The strikers realized that violence was fatal to their cause, and the deputy marshals knew that violence meant victory for the railroads. And that proved to be the case.

Before leaving this phase of anarchy I want to refer as briefly as possible to that series of fiercely fought political and industrial battles that occurred in Colorado in the period from 1894 to 1904. The climax of the long-drawn-out battles there was perhaps the most unadulterated anarchy that has yet been seen in America. It was a terrorism of powerful and influential anarchists who frankly and brutally answered those who protested against their many violations of the United States Const.i.tution: "To h.e.l.l with the Const.i.tution!"[37] The story of these Colorado battles is told in a report of an investigation made by the United States Commissioner of Labor (1905). The reading of that report leaves one with the impression that present-day society rests upon a volcano, which in favorable periods seems very harmless indeed, but, when certain elemental forces clash, it bursts forth in a manner that threatens with destruction civilization itself. The trouble in Colorado began with the effort on the part of the miners' union to obtain through the legislature a law limiting the day's work to eight hours in all underground mines and in all work for reducing and refining ores. That was in 1894. The next year an eight-hour bill was presented in the legislature. Expressing fear that such a bill might be unconst.i.tutional, the legislature, before acting upon it, asked the Supreme Court to render a decision. The Supreme Court replied that, in its opinion, such a bill would be unconst.i.tutional. In 1899, as a result of further agitation by the miners, an eight-hour law was enacted by the legislature--a large majority in both houses voting for the bill. By unanimous decision the same year the Supreme Court of Colorado declared the statute unconst.i.tutional. The miners were not, however, discouraged, and they began a movement to secure the adoption of a const.i.tutional amendment which would provide for the enactment of an eight-hour law.

All the political parties in the State of Colorado pledged themselves in convention to support such a measure. In the general election of 1902 the const.i.tutional amendment providing for an eight-hour day was adopted by the people of the State by 72,980 votes against 26,266. This was a great victory for the miners, and it seemed as if their work was done.

According to all the traditions and pretensions of political life, they had every reason to believe that the next session of the legislature would pa.s.s an eight-hour law. It appears, however, that the corporations had determined at all cost to defeat such a bill. They set out therefore to corrupt wholesale the legislature, and as a result the eight-hour bill was defeated. After having done everything in their power, patiently, peacefully, and legally to obtain their law, and only after having been outrageously betrayed by corrupt public servants, the miners as a last resort, on the 3d of July, 1903, declared a strike to secure through their own efforts what a decade of pleading and prayers had failed to achieve.

I suppose no unbiased observer would to-day question that the political machines of Colorado had sold themselves body and soul to the mine owners. There can surely be no other explanation for their violation of their pledges to the people and to the miners. And further evidence of their perfidy was given on the night of September 3, 1903, at a conference between some of the State officials and certain officers of the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation. Although the strike up to this time had been conducted without any violence, the State officials agreed that the mine owners could have the aid of the militia, provided they would pay the expenses of the soldiers while they remained in the strike district.

Two days later over one thousand men were encamped in Cripple Creek. All the strike districts were at once put under martial law; the duly elected officials of the people were commanded to resign from office; hundreds of unoffending citizens were arrested and thrown into "bull pens"; the whole working force of a newspaper was apprehended and taken to the "bull pen"; all the news that went out concerning the strike was censored, the manager of one of the mines acting as official censor. At the same time this man, together with other mine managers and friends, organized mobs to terrorize union miners and to force out of town anyone whom they thought to be in sympathy with the strikers.

In the effort to determine whether the courts or the military powers were supreme, a writ of _habeas corpus_ was obtained for four men who had been sent by the military authorities to the "bull pen." The court sent an order to produce the men. Ninety cavalrymen were then sent to the court house. They surrounded it, permitting no person to pa.s.s through the lines unless he was an officer of the court, a member of the bar, a county official, or a press representative. A company of infantrymen then escorted the four prisoners to the court, while fourteen soldiers with loaded guns and fixed bayonets guarded the prisoners until the court was called to order. When the court was adjourned, after an argument upon the motion to quash the return of the writ, the soldiers took the prisoners back to the "bull pen." The next day Judge Seeds was forced to adjourn the court, because the prisoners were not present. An officer of the militia was ordered to have them in court at two o'clock in the afternoon, but, as they did not appear at that time, a continuance was granted until the following day. On September 23 a large number of soldiers, cavalry and infantry, surrounded the court house. A Gatling gun was placed in position nearby, and a detail of sharpshooters was stationed where they could command the streets. The court, in the face of this military display, cited the Const.i.tution of Colorado, which declares that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil power, and pointed out that this did not specify sometimes but always, declaring: "There could be no plainer statement that the military should never be permitted to rise superior to the civil power within the limits of Colorado."[38] The judge then ordered the military authorities to release the prisoners, but this they refused to do.

At Victor certain mine owners commanded the sheriff to come to their club rooms, where his resignation was demanded. When he refused to resign, guns were produced, a coiled rope was dangled before him, and on the outside several shots were fired. He was told that unless he resigned the mob outside the building would be admitted and he would be taken out and hanged. He then signed a written resignation, and a member of the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation was appointed sheriff. With this new sheriff in charge, the mine owners, mine managers, and all they could employ for the purpose arrested on all hands everybody that seemed unfriendly to their anarchy. The new sheriff and a militia officer commanded the Portland mine, which was then having no trouble with its employees, to shut down. By this order four hundred and seventy-five men were thrown out of employment. In these various ways the mobs organized by the mine owners were allowed to obliterate the Government and abolish republican inst.i.tutions, under the immediate protection of their leased military forces.

At Telluride, also, the military overpowered the civil authorities. When Judge Theron Stevens came there to hold the regular session of court he was met by soldiers and a mob of three hundred persons. Seeing that it was impossible for the civil authorities to exercise any power, he decided to adjourn the court until the next term, declaring: "The demonstration at the depot last night upon the arrival of the train could only have been planned and executed for the purpose of showing the contempt of the militia and a certain portion of this community for the civil authority of the State and the civil authority of this district. I had always been led to suppose from such research as I have been able to make that in a republic like ours the people were supreme; that the people had expressed their will in a const.i.tution which was enacted for the government of all in authority in this State. That const.i.tution provides that the military shall always be in strict subordination to the civil authorities."[39]

While this terrorism of the powerful was in full sway in Colorado, the entire world was being told through the newspapers of the infamous crimes being committed daily by the Western Federation of Miners.

Countless newspaper stories were sent out telling in detail of mines blown up, of trains wrecked, of men murdered through agents of this federation of toilers engaged day in and day out at a dangerous occupation in the bowels of the earth. Not loafers, idlers, or drunkards, but men with calloused hands and bent backs. Stories were sent around the world of these laborers being arraigned in court charged with the most infamous and dastardly crimes. Yet hardly once has it been reported in the press of the world that in "every trial that has been held in the State of Colorado during the present strike where the members.h.i.+p has been charged with almost every perfidy in the catalogue of crime, a jury has brought in a verdict of acquittal."[40] On the other hand, a mult.i.tude of murders, wrecks, and dynamite explosions have been brought to the door of the detectives employed by the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation. It was found that many ex-convicts and other desperate characters were employed by the detective agencies to commit crimes that could be laid upon the working miners. The story of Orchard and the recital of his atrocious crimes have occupied columns of every newspaper, but the fact is rarely mentioned that many of the crimes that he committed, and which the world to-day attributes to the officials of the Western Federation of Miners, were paid for by detective agencies.

The special detective of one of the railroads and a detective of the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation were known to have employed Orchard and other criminals. When Orchard first went to Denver to seek work from the officials of the Western Federation of Miners he was given a railroad pa.s.s by these detectives and the money to pay his expenses.[41] During the three months preceding the blowing up of the Independence depot Orchard had been seen at least eighteen or twenty times entering at night by stealth the rooms of a detective attached to the Mine Owners'

a.s.sociation, and at least seven meetings were held between him and the railroad detective already mentioned.

Previous to all this--in September and in November, 1903--attempts were made to wreck trains. A delinquent member of the Western Federation of Miners was charged with these crimes. He involved in his confession several prominent members of the Western Federation of Miners. On cross-examination he testified that he had formerly been a prize-fighter and that he had come to Cripple Creek under an a.s.sumed name. He further testified that $250 was his price for wrecking a train carrying two hundred to three hundred people, but that he had asked $500 for this job, as another man would have to work with him. Two detectives had promised him that amount. An a.s.sociate of this man was discovered to have been a detective who had later joined the Western Federation of Miners. He testified that he had kept the detective agencies informed as to the progress of the plot to derail the train. The detective of the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation admitted that he and the other detectives had endeavored to induce members of the miners' union to enter into the plot; while the railroad detective testified that he and another detective were standing only a few feet away when men were at work pulling the spikes from the rails. An engineer on the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad testified that the railroad detective had, a few days before, asked him where there was a good place for wrecking the train. The result of the case was that all were acquitted except the ex-prize-fighter, who was held for a time, but eventually released on $300 bond, furnished by representatives of the mine owners.[42]

On June 6, 1904, when about twenty-five non-union miners were waiting at the Independence depot for a train, there was a terrible explosion which resulted in great loss of life. It has never been discovered who committed the crime, though the mine owners lost no time in attributing the explosion to the work of "the a.s.sa.s.sins" of the Federation of Miners. When, however, bloodhounds were put on the trail, they went directly to the home of one of the detectives in the employ of the Mine Owners' a.s.sociation. They were taken back to the scene of the disaster and again followed the trail to the same place. A third attempt was made with the hounds and they followed a trail to the powder magazine of a nearby mine. The Western Federation of Miners offered a reward of $5,000 for evidence which would lead to the arrest and conviction of the criminal who had perpetrated the outrage at Independence. Unfortunately, the criminal was never found. Orchard, a year or so later, confessed that he had committed the crime and was paid for it by the officials of the Western Federation of Miners. The absurdity of that statement becomes clear when it is known that the court in Denver was at the very moment of the explosion deciding the _habeas corpus_ case of Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners. In fact, a few hours after the explosion the decision of the court was handed down. As the action of the court was vital not only to Moyer but to the entire trade-union movement, and, indeed, to republican inst.i.tutions, it is inconceivable that he or his friends should have organized an outrage that would certainly have prejudiced the court at the very moment it was writing its decision. On the other hand, there was every reason why the mine owners should have profited by such an outrage and that their detectives should have planned one for that moment.[AF]

The atrocities of the Congo occurred in a country without law, in the interest of a great property, and in a series of battles with a half-savage people. History has somewhat accustomed us to such barbarity; but when, in a civilized country, with a written const.i.tution, with duly established courts, with popularly elected representatives, and apparently with all the necessary machinery for dealing out equal justice, one suddenly sees a feudal despotism arise, as if by magic, to usurp the political, judicial, and military powers of a great state, and to use them to arrest hundreds without warrant and throw them into "bull pens"; to drive hundreds of others out of their homes and at the point of the bayonet out of the state; to force others to labor against their will or to be beaten; to depose the duly elected officials of the community; to insult the courts; to destroy the property of those who protest; and even to murder those who show signs of revolt--one stands aghast. It makes one wonder just how far in reality we are removed from barbarism. Is it possible that the likelihood of the workers achieving an eight-hour day--which was all that was wanted in Colorado--could lead to civil war? Yet that is what might and perhaps should have happened in Colorado in 1904, when, for a few months, a military despotism took from the people there all that had been won by centuries of democratic striving and thrust them back into the Middle Ages.

Chaotic political and industrial conditions are, of course, occasionally inevitable in modern society--torn as it is by the very bitter struggle going on constantly between capital and labor. When this struggle breaks into war, as it often does, we are bound to suffer some of the evils that invariably attend war. Certainly, it is to be expected that the owners of property will exercise every power they possess to safeguard their property. They will, whenever possible, use the State and all its coercive powers in order to retain their mastery over men and things.

The only question is this, must people in general continue to be the victims of a commerce which has for its purpose the creation of situations that force nearly every industrial dispute to become a b.l.o.o.d.y conflict? When men combine to commit depredations, destroy property, and murder individuals, society must deal with them--no matter how harshly. But it is an altogether different matter to permit privately paid criminals to create whenever desired a state of anarchy, in order to force the military to carry out ferocious measures of repression against those who have been in no wise responsible for disorder.

If we will look into this matter a little, we shall discover certain sinister motives back of this work of the detective agencies. It is well enough understood by them that violence creates a state of reaction. One very keen observer has pointed out that "the anarchist tactics are so serviceable to the reactionaries that, whenever a draconic, reactionary law is required, they themselves manufacture an anarchist plot or attempted crime."[43] Kropotkin himself, in telling the story of "The Terror in Russia," points out that a certain Azeff, who for sixteen years was an agent of the Russian police, was also the chief organizer of acts of terrorism among the social revolutionists.[44] Every conceivable crime was committed under his direct instigation, including even the murder of some officials and n.o.bles. The purpose of the work of this police agent was, of course, to serve the Russian reactionaries and to furnish them a pretext and excuse for the most b.l.o.o.d.y measures of repression. In America "hireling a.s.sa.s.sins," ex-convicts, and thugs in the employ of detective agencies commit very much the same crimes for the same purpose. And the men on strike, who have neither planned nor dreamed of planning an outrage, suddenly find themselves faced by the military forces, who have not infrequently in the past shot them down.

That the lawless situations which make these infamous acts possible, and to the general public often excusable, are the deliberate work of mercenaries, is, to my mind, open to no question whatever.

Anyone who cares to look up the history of the labor movement for the last hundred years will find that in every great strike private detectives and police agents have been at work provoking violence. It is almost incredible what a large number of criminal operations can be traced to these paid agents. From 1815 to the present day the bitterness of nearly every industrial conflict of importance has been intensified by the work of these spies, thugs, and _provocateurs_. "It was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes--distracting, misleading, and betraying--that physical force was mentioned among us,"

says Bamford, speaking of the trade-union activity of 1815-1816. "After that our moral power waned, and what we gained by the accession of demagogues we lost by their criminal violence and the estrangement of real friends."[45] Some of the notable police agents that appear in the history of labor are Powell, Mitch.e.l.l, Legg, Stieber, Greif, Fleury, Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, Schroeder-Brennwald, Krueger, Kaufmann, Peukert, Haupt, Von Ehrenberg, Friedeman, Weiss, Schmidt, and Ihring-Mahlow. In addition we find Andre, Andrieux, Pourbaix, Melville, and scores of other high police officials directing the work of these agents. In America, McPartland, Schaack, and Orchard--to mention the most notorious only--have played infamous roles in provoking others, or in undertaking themselves, to commit outrages. There were and are, of course, thousands of others besides those mentioned, but these are historic characters, who planned and executed the most dastardly deeds in order to discredit the trade-union and socialist movements. The s.p.a.ce here is too limited to go into the historic details of this commerce in violence. But he who is curious to pursue the study further will find a list of references at the end of the volume directing him to some of the sources of information.[46] He will there discover an appalling record of crime, for, as Thomas Beet points out, hardly a strike occurs where these special officers are not sent to make trouble. There are sometimes thousands of them at work, and, if one undertook to go into the various trials that have arisen as a result of labor disputes, one could prepare a long list of murders committed by these "hireling a.s.sa.s.sins."

The pecuniary interest of the detective agencies in provoking crime is immense. It is obvious enough, if one will but think of it, that these detective agencies depend for their profit on the existence, the extension, and the promotion of criminal operations. The more that people are frightened by the prospect of danger to their property or menace to their lives, the more they seek the aid of detectives. Nothing proves so advantageous to detectives as epidemics of strikes and even of robberies and murders. The heyday of their prosperity comes in that moment when a.s.saults upon men and property are most frequent. Nothing would seem to be clearer, then, than that it is to the interest of these agencies to create alarm, to arouse terror, and, through these means, to enlarge their patronage. When a trade or profession has not only every pecuniary incentive to create trouble, but when it is also largely promoted by notorious criminals and other vicious elements, the amount of mischief that is certain to result from the combination may well exceed the powers of imagination.

And it must not be forgotten that this trade has developed into a great and growing business, actuated by exactly the same economic interests as any other business. With the agencies making so much per day for each man employed, the way to improve business is to get more men employed.

Rumors of trouble or actual deeds, such as an explosion of dynamite or an a.s.sault, help to make the detective indispensable to the employer. It is with an eye to business, therefore, that the private detective creates trouble. It is with a keen sense of his own material interest that he keeps the employer in a state of anxiety regarding what may be expected from the men. And, naturally enough, the modern employer, unlike a trained ruler such as Bismarck, never seems to realize that most of the alarming reports sent him are ma.s.ses of lies. Nothing appears to have been clearer to the Iron Chancellor than that his own police forces, in order to gain favor, "lie and exaggerate in the most shameful manner."[47] But such an idea seems never to enter the minds of the great American employers, who, although becoming more and more like the ruling cla.s.ses of Europe, are not yet so wise. However, the great employer, like the great ruler, is unable now to meet his employees in person and to find out their real views. Consequently, he must depend upon paid agents to report to him the views of his men. This might all be very well if the returns were true. But, when it happens that evil reports are very much to the pecuniary advantage of the man who makes them, is it likely that there will be any other kind of report?

Thousands of employers, therefore, are coming more and more to be convinced that their workmen spend most of their time plotting against them. It seems unreasonable that sane men could believe that their employees, who are regularly at work every day striving with might and main to support and bring up decently their families, should be at the same time planning the most diabolical outrages. Nothing is rarer than to find criminals among workingmen, for if they were given to crime they would not be at work. But with the great modern evil--the separation of the cla.s.ses--there comes so much of misunderstanding and of mistrust that the employer seems only too willing to believe any paid villain who tells him that his tired and worn laborers have murder in their hearts. The cla.s.s struggle is a terrible fact; but the cla.s.s hatred and the personal enmity that are growing among both masters and men in the United States are natural and inevitable results of this system of spies and informers.

How widespread this evil has become is shown by the fact that nearly every large corporation now employs numerous spies, informers, and special officers, from whom they receive daily reports concerning the conversations among their men and the plans of the unions. Thousands of these detectives are, in fact, members of the unions. The employers are, of course, under the impression that they are thus protecting themselves from misinformation and also from the possibility of injury, but, as we have seen, they are in reality placing themselves at the mercy of these spies in the same manner as every despot in the past has placed himself at the mercy of those who brought him information. It may, perhaps, be possible that the Carnegie Company in 1892, the railroads in 1894, and the mine owners in 1904 were convinced that their employees were under the influence of dangerous men. Very likely they were told that their workmen were planning a.s.saults upon their lives and property. It would not be strange if these large owners of property had been so informed.

Indeed, the economics of this whole wretched commerce becomes clear only when we realize that the terror that results from such reports leads these capitalists to employ more and more hirelings, to pay them larger and larger fees, and in this manner to reward lies and to make even a.s.saults prove immensely profitable to the detectives. So it happens that the great employers are chiefly responsible for introducing among their men the very elements that are making for riot, crime, and anarchy.

Close and intimate relations with the employers and with the men during several fiercely fought industrial conflicts have convinced me that the struggle between them rarely degenerates to that plane of barbarism in which either the men or the masters deliberately resort to, or encourage, murder, arson, and similar crimes. So far as the men are concerned, they have every reason in the world to discourage violence, and nothing is clearer to most of them than the solemn fact that every time property is destroyed, or men injured, the employers win public support, the aid of the press, the pulpit, the police, the courts, and all the powers of the State. Men do not knowingly injure themselves or persist in a course adverse to their material interests. It is true, as I think I have made clear in the previous chapters, that some of the workers do advocate violence, and, in a few cases that instantly became notorious, labor leaders have been found guilty of serious crimes. That these instances are comparatively rare is explained, of course, by the fact that violence is known invariably to injure the cause of the worker. It would be strange, therefore, if the workers did systematically plan outrages. On the other hand, it would be strange if the employers did not at times rejoice that somebody--the workmen, the detectives, or others--had committed some outrage and thus brought the public sentiment and the State's power to the aid of the employers. One cannot escape the thought that the employers would hardly finance so readily these so-called detectives, and inquire so little into their actual deeds, if they were not convinced that violence at the time of a strike materially aids the employer. Yet, despite evidence to the contrary, it may, I think, be said with truth that the lawlessness attending strikes is not, as a rule, the result of deliberate planning on the part of the men or of the masters.

There are, of course, numerous exceptions, and if we find the McNamaras on the one side, we also find some unscrupulous employers on the other.

To the latter, violence becomes of the greatest service, in that it enables them to say with apparent truth that they are not fighting reasonable, law-abiding workmen, but a.s.sa.s.sins and incendiaries. No course is easier for the employer who does not seek to deal honestly with his men, and none more secure for that employer whose position is wholly indefensible on the subject of hours and wages, than to sidetrack all these issues by hypocritically declaring that he refuses to deal with men who are led by criminals. And it is quite beyond question that some such employers have deliberately urged their "detectives" to create trouble. Positive evidence is at hand that a few such employers have themselves directed the work of incendiaries, thugs, and rioters. With such amazing evidence as we have recently had concerning the systematically lawless work of the Manufacturers' a.s.sociation, it is impossible to free the employers of all personal responsibility for the outrages committed by their criminal agents. There are many different ways in which violence benefits the employer, and it may even be said that in all cases it is only to the interest of the employer. As a matter of fact, with the systems of insurance now existing, any injury to the property of the employer means no loss to him whatever. The only possible loss that he can suffer is through the prolongation and success of the strike. If the workers can be discredited and the strike broken through the aid of violence, the ordinary employer is not likely to make too rigid an investigation into whether or not his "detectives"

had a hand in it.

Curiously enough, the general public never dreams that special officers are responsible for most of the violence at times of strike, and, while the men loudly accuse the employers, the employers loudly accuse the men. The employers are, of course, informed by the detectives that the outrages have been committed by the strikers, and the detectives have seen to it that the employers are prepared to believe that the strikers are capable of anything. On the other hand, the men are convinced that the employers are personally responsible. They see hundreds and sometimes thousands of special officers swarming throughout the district. They know that these men are paid by somebody, and they are convinced that their bullying, insulting talk and actions represent the personal wishes of the employers. When they knock down strikers, beat them up, arrest them, or even shoot them, the men believe that all these acts are dictated by the employers. It is utterly impossible to describe the bitterness that is aroused among the men by the presence of these thugs. And the testimony taken by various commissions regarding strikes proves clearly enough that strikes are not only embittered but prolonged by the presence of detectives. Again and again, mediators have declared that, as soon as thugs are brought into the conflict, the settlement of a strike is made impossible until either the employers or the men are exhausted by the struggle. A number of reputable detectives have testified that the chief object of those who engage in "strike-breaking"

is to prolong strikes in order to keep themselves employed as long as possible. Thus, the employers as well as the men are the victims of this commerce in violence.

It will, I am sure, be obvious to the reader that it would require a very large volume to deal with all the various phases of the work of the detective in the numerous great strikes that have occurred in recent years. I have endeavored merely to mention a few instances where their activities have led to the breaking down of all civil government. It is important, however, to emphasize the fact that there is no strike of any magnitude in which these hirelings are not employed. I have taken the following quotation as typical of numerous circulars which I have seen, that have been issued by detective agencies: "This bureau has made a specialty of handling strikes for over half a century, and our clients are among the largest corporations in the world. During the recent trouble between the steamboat companies and the striking longsh.o.r.emen in New York City this office ... supplied one thousand guards.... Our charges for guards, motormen, conductors, and all cla.s.ses of men during the time of trouble is $5.00 per day, your company to pay transportation, board, and lodge the men."[48] Here is another agency that has been engaged in this business for half a century, and there are thousands of others engaged in it now. One of them is known to have in its employ constantly five thousand men. And, if we look into the deeds of these great armies of mercenaries, we find that there is not a state in the Union in which they have not committed a.s.sault, arson, robbery, and murder. Several years ago at Lattimer, Pennsylvania, a perfectly peaceable parade of two hundred and fifty miners was attacked by guards armed with Winchester rifles, with the result that twenty-nine workers were killed and thirty others seriously injured. This was deliberate and unprovoked slaughter. Recently, in the Westmoreland mining district, no less than twenty striking miners have been murdered, while several hundred have been seriously injured. On one occasion deputies and strike-breakers became intoxicated and "shot up the town" of Latrobe. In the recent strike against the Lake Carriers' a.s.sociation six union men were killed by private detectives. In Tampa, Florida, in Columbus, Ohio, in Birmingham, Alabama, in Lawrence, Ma.s.sachusetts, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the mining districts of West Virginia, and in innumerable other places many workingmen have been murdered, not by officers of the law, but by privately paid a.s.sa.s.sins.

Even while writing these lines I notice a telegram to the _Appeal to Reason_ from Adolph Germer, an official of the United Mine Workers of America, that some thugs, formerly in West Virginia, are now in Colorado, and that their first work there was to shoot down in cold blood a well-known miner. John Walker, a district president of the United Mine Workers of America, telegraphs the same day to the labor press that two of the strikers in the copper mines in Michigan were shot down by detectives, in the effort, he says, to provoke the men to violence. Anyone who cares to follow the labor press for but a short period will be astonished to find how frequently such outrages occur, and he will marvel that men can be so self-controlled as the strikers usually are under such terrible provocation. I mention hastily these facts in order to emphasize the point that the cases in which I have gone into detail in this chapter are more or less typical of the b.l.o.o.d.y character of many of the great strikes because of the deeds of the so-called detectives.

Brief, however, as this statement is of the work of these anarchists "without phrase" and of the great commerce they have built up, it must, nevertheless, convince anyone that republican inst.i.tutions cannot long exist in a country which tolerates such an extensive private commerce in lawlessness and crime. Government by law cannot prevail in the same field with a widespread and profitable traffic in disorder, thuggery, arson, and murder. Here is a whole brood of mercenaries, the output of hundreds of great penitentiaries, that has been organized and systematized into a great commerce to serve the rich and powerful. Here is a whole mess of infamy developed into a great private enterprise that militates against all law and order. It has already brought the United States on more than one occasion to the verge of civil war. And, despite the fact that numerous judges have publicly condemned the work of these agencies, and that various governmental commissions have deprecated in the most solemn words this traffic in crime, it continues to grow and prosper in the most alarming manner. Certainly, no student of history will doubt that, if this commerce is permitted to continue, it will not be long until no man's life, honor, or property will be secure. And it is a question, even at this moment, whether the legislators have the courage to attack this powerful American Mafia that has already developed into a "vested interest."

As I said at the beginning, no other country has this form of anarchy to contend with. In all countries, no doubt, there are a.s.sociations of criminals, and everywhere, perhaps, it is possible for wealthy men to employ criminals to work for them. But even the Mafia, the Camorra, and the Black Hand do not exist for the purpose of collecting and organizing mercenaries to serve the rich and powerful. Nor anywhere else in the world are these criminals made special officers, deputy sheriffs, deputy marshals, and thus given the authority of the State itself. The a.s.sumption is so general that the State invariably stands behind the private detective that few seem to question it, and even the courts frequently recognize them as quasi-public officials. Thus, the State itself aids and abets these mercenary anarchists, while it sends to the gallows idealist anarchists, such as Henry, Vaillant, Lingg, and their like. That the State fosters this "infant industry" is the only possible explanation for the fact that in every industrial conflict of the past the real provokers and executors of arson, riot, and murder have escaped prison, while in every case labor leaders have been put in jail--often without warrant--and in many cases kept there for many months without trial. Even the writ of _habeas corpus_ has been denied them repeatedly.

Without the active connivance of the State such conditions could not exist. However, the State goes even further in its opposition to labor.

The power of a state governor to call out the militia, to declare even a peaceful district in a state of insurrection, and to abolish the writ of _habeas corpus_ is a very great power indeed and one that is unquestionably an anomaly in a republic. If that power were used with equal justice, it might not create the intense bitterness that has been so frequently aroused among the workers by its exercise. Again and again it has been used in the interest of capital, but there is not one single case in all the records where this extraordinary prerogative has been exercised to protect the interest of the workers. It is not, then, either unreasonable or unjustifiable that among workmen the sentiment is almost unanimous that the State stands invariably against them. The three instances which I have dealt with here at some length prove conclusively that there is now no penalty inflicted upon the capitalist who hires thugs to invade a community and shoot down its citizens, or upon those who hire him these a.s.sa.s.sins, or upon the a.s.sa.s.sins themselves. Nor are the powerful punished when they collect a great army of criminals, drunkards, and hoodlums and make them officials of the United States to insult and bully decent citizens. Nor does there seem to be any punishment inflicted upon those who manage to transform the Government itself into a s.h.i.+eld to protect toughs and criminals in their a.s.saults upon men and property, when those a.s.saults are in the interest of capital. Moreover, what could be more humiliating in a republic than the fact that a governor who has leased to his friends the military forces of an entire state should end his term of office unimpeached?

These various phases of the cla.s.s conflict reveal a distressing state of industrial and political anarchy, and there can be no question that, if continued, it has in it the power of making many McNamaras, if not Bakounins. It will be fortunate, indeed, if there do not arise new Johann Mosts, and if the United States escapes the general use in time of that terrible, secretive, and deadly weapon of sabotage. Sabotage is the arm of the slave or the coward, who dares neither to speak his views nor to fight an open fight. As someone has said, it may merely mean the kicking of the master's dog. Yet no one is so cruel as the weak and the cowardly. And should it ever come about that millions and millions of men have all other avenues closed to them, there is still left to them sabotage, a.s.sa.s.sination, and civil war. These can neither be outlawed nor even effectively guarded against if there are individuals enough who are disposed to wield them. And it is not by any means idle speculation that a country which can sit calmly by and face such evils as are perpetrated by this vast commerce in violence, by this cla.s.s use of the State, and by such monstrous outrages as were committed in Homestead, in Chicago, and in Colorado, will find one day its composure interrupted by a working cla.s.s that has suffered more than human endurance can stand.

The fact is that society--the big body of us--is now menaced by two sets of anarchists. There are those among the poor and the weak who preach arson, dynamite, and sabotage. They are the products of conditions such as existed in Colorado--as Bakounin was the product of the conditions in Russia. These, after all, are relatively few, and their power is almost nothing. They are listened to now, but not heeded, because there yet exist among the people faith in the ultimate victory of peaceable means and the hope that men and not property will one day rule the State. The other set of anarchists are those powerful, influential terrorists who talk hypocritically of their devotion to the State, the law, the Const.i.tution, and the courts, but who, when the slightest obstacle stands in the path of their greed, seize from their corrupt tools the reins of government, in order to rule society with the black-jack and the "bull pen." The idealist anarchist and even the more practical syndicalist, preaching openly and frankly that there is nothing left to the poor but war, are, after all, few in number and weak in action. Yet how many to-day despair of peaceable methods when they see all these outrages committed by mercenaries, protected and abetted by the official State, in the interest of the most sordid anarchism!

As a matter of fact, the socialist is to-day almost alone, among those watching intently this industrial strife, in keeping buoyant his abiding faith in the ultimate victory of the people. He has fought successfully against Bakounin. He is overcoming the newest anarchists, and he is already measuring swords with the oldest anarchists. He is confident as to the issue. He has more than dreams; he knows, and has all the comfort of that knowledge, that anarchy in government like anarchy in production is reaching the end of its rope. Outlawry for profit, as well as production for profit, are soon to be things of the past. The socialist feels himself a part of the growing power that is soon to rule society.

He is conscious of being an agent of a world-wide movement that is ma.s.sing into an irresistible human force millions upon millions of the disinherited. He has unbounded faith that through that ma.s.s power industry will be socialized and the State democratized. No longer will its use be merely to serve and promote private enterprise in foul tenements, in sweatshops, and in all the products that are necessary to life and to death. All these vast commercial enterprises that exist not to serve society but to enrich the rich--including even this sordid traffic in thuggery and in murder--are soon to pa.s.s into history as part of a terrible, culminating epoch in commercial, financial, and political anarchy. The socialist, who sees the root of all anti-social individualism in the predominance of private material interests over communal material interests, knows that the hour is arriving when the social instincts and the life interests of practically all the people will be arrayed against anarchy in all its forms. Commerce in violence, like commerce in the necessaries of life, is but a part of a social regime that is disappearing, and, while most others in society seem to see only phases of this gigantic conflict between capital and labor, and, while most others look upon it as something irremediable, the socialist, standing amidst millions upon millions of his comrades, is even now beginning to see visions of victory.

FOOTNOTE:

[AF] The Supreme Court sustained the action of the military authorities, Chief Justice William H. Gabbert, a.s.sociate justice John Campbell, concurring, a.s.sociate Justice Robert W. Steele dissenting. The dissenting opinion of Justice Steele deserves a wider reading than it has received, and no doubt it will rank among the most important statements that have been made against the anarchy of the powerful and the tyranny of cla.s.s government. See Report, U. S. Bureau of Labor, 1905, p. 243.

CHAPTER XII

VISIONS OF VICTORY