100%: the Story of a Patriot Part 33

"We charge that I. W. W. members have been denied the right of citizens.h.i.+p, and in each instance the judge frankly told the applicants that they were refused on account of members.h.i.+p in the Industrial Workers of the World, accompanying this with abusive remarks; members were denied their citizens.h.i.+p papers by judge Hanford at Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton, and judge Paul O'Boyle at Scranton, Pennsylvania.

"We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been denied the privilege of defense. This being an organization of working men who had little or no funds of their own, it was necessary to appeal to the members.h.i.+p and the working cla.s.s generally for funds to provide a proper defense. The postal authorities, acting under orders from the Postmaster-General at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., have deliberately prevented the transportation of our appeals, our subscription lists, our newspapers. These have been piled up in the postoffices and we have never received a return of the stamps affixed for mailing.

"We charge that the members of the I. W. W. have been held in exorbitant bail. As an instance there is the case of Pietro Pierre held in the county jail at Topeka, Kansas. His bond was fixed at $5,000, and when the amount was tendered it was immediately raised to $10,000. This is only one of the many instances that could be recorded.

"We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been compelled to submit to involuntary servitude. This does not refer to members confined in the penitentiaries, but would recall the reader's attention to an I. W. W. member under arrest in Birmingham, Alabama, taken from the prison and placed on exhibition at a fair given in that city where admission of twenty-five cents was charged to see the I. W. W."

Finally, for the benefit of the reader who asks how it happens that such incidents are not more generally known to the public, I will reprint the following, from pages 382-383 of "The Bra.s.s Check,"

dealing with the "New York Times," and its treatment of the writer's novel, "Jimmie Higgins":

"In the last chapters of this story an American soldier is represented as being tortured in an American military prison. Says the 'Times':

"'Mr. Sinclair should produce the evidence upon which he bases his astounding accusations, if he has any. If he has simply written on hearsay evidence, or, worse still, let himself be guided by his craving to be sensational, he has laid himself open not only to censure but to punishment.'

"In reply to this, I send to the 'Times' a perfectly respectful letter, citing scores of cases, and telling the 'Times' where hundreds of other cases may be found. The 'Times' returns this letter without comment. A couple of months pa.s.s, and as a result of the ceaseless agitation of the radicals, there is a congressional investigation, and evidence of atrocious cruelties is forced into the newspapers. The 'Times' publishes an editorial ent.i.tled, 'Prison Camp Cruelties,' the first sentence of which reads: 'The fact that American soldiers confined in prison-camps have been treated with extreme brutality may now be regarded as established.' So again I write a polite letter to the 'Times,' pointing out that I think they owe me an apology. And how does the 'Times' treat that? It alters my letter without my permission. It cuts out my request for an apology, and also my quotation of its own words calling for my punishment!

The 'Times,' caught in a hole, refuses to let me remind its readers that it wanted me 'punished' for telling the truth! 'All the News that's Fit to Print!'"