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Hellraisers Journal, Friday June 14, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – The Sab-Cat Enters the Courtroom
From The Ohio Socialist of June 11, 1918:
A Second Runnymede
—–By HARRISON GEORGE
It is no new thing-this struggle for human rights. Every morning we Chicago prisoners are taken in irons from the Cook County jail, the tomb of the old “Eight-Hour Movement,” and dumped into a gloomy court room of the Federal Building. How often have court rooms served as undertaking parlors for the aspirations of rebellious workers?
Here in the sepulchral atmosphere of the Law are gathered the class conscious social forces of this age in cut and thrust contest of Capital versus Labor.
Fathoming the shadows of the big room, our eyes discern an inscription within an arch among the mural decorations-“No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold or liberties or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise damaged, but by lawful judgment of his peers. To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” Did Simon De Montfort and his followers, who forced he tyrant John to accept this Magna Charta at Runnymede, dream that six centuries later in a land whose boasted jurisprudence is based upon their great conquest, these words would lend a sanctity to such hypocritical persecution? We think of Ludlow and Lawrence, Paint Creek and Everett, of Bisbee and Butte-and we wonder why that inscription should not be painted out.
Throughout the month of April we I. W. W. men sat in the dock listening to the endless stream of questions and replies between lawyers and prospective jurors. Nebeker, the Copper Trust attorney, seeking always to constrain the issues and select employers; Vandeveer, for the I. W. W., groping in a basket of bad eggs for those the least bad, seeking to obtain men who have the social mind. “Industrial democracy”-“the class war”-“the right of revolution,” are phrases that flow like sparks from an anvil as Vandeveer, or Cleary, hammer home their questions and forged the tremendous issues. For here is a second Runnymede, and here the I. W. W. must enforce upon a tyrant master class the recognition of a new Magna Charta- the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World..
Nothing can cloud the significance of this great trial, not even Nebeker’s opening statement. There is something sly about Nebeker; his lean form and his features showing a mottled skin tightly drawn over their bony framework-something of the serpent; and when, on May 2nd at 11 a. m., he arose in court to spit forth his interdictment [interdiction/indictment?] of Industrial Unionism the forked tongue of a social reptile spoke out its venom through his thin lips.
Yet there was an element of humor (to the initiated) in Nebeker’s presentation of the case. There could not help being humor, because he read the indictment that weird legal document said to have been written by one, Oliver Pagan, assistant U. S. Attorney General, but surely inspired by the shade of Mark Twain or Bill Nye.
“The first count in this indictment,” he began, “charges these defendants with obstructing the prosecution of the war.” In witness whereof he cited numerous “overt acts” and proceeded to read “the chief and most important one”-The Preamble of the I. W. W. “Mark the atrocious import of the very first line,” he said, and in a measured, tragic stage whisper he read-“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.” Horrible! but the jurors survived. So he reiterated, “nothing in common.” “Gentlemen, this is the pernicious doctrine they pour into the ears of honest workingmen.”
And then, “The trade unions-mind you, gentlemen-The trade unions foster a state of affairs allowing one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars!” Further, and with great heat, “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A Fair Day’s Wages for a Fair Day’s Work,’ we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the Wage System’.” Terrifying indeed, and doubtless calculated to stop the war, yet no one fainted!
Continuing-“By organizing industrial we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” “[These?] people have formed a government within this government or ‘imperium in imperio’.” Nebeker sh[outed?], “and Haywood sits in his office the crowned king, and dares to send telegrams making demands upon the President of these United States, as might some foreign potentate!”
Enter now, the “Sab-cat.” This fearsome animal with glowing and belligerent aspect was led into the court room on a sting of words. Like a witch-burner of old, Nebeker materialized “the black cat” as a symbol of evil and violence. Besides, “Sabotage,” said Nebeker, “is a fraudulent scheme against employers, and no honest working man ought to be asked to do a cowardly and sneaking thing.” Especially against employers, we presume, for he added, “this sabotage tactic is an important weapon in their unremitting warfare upon employers.”
“These people, who call themselves ‘Rebels,’ practice continual warfare upon the Capitalist System, which we citizens of the United States understand to be established by the constitution [*]. Some day, when they get strong enough, our political institutions will vanish into thin air and Haywood and his cohorts will establish their new society.” [One can only hope and dream!]
“The I. W. W. does not seek to destroy the present standard of wages to make a higher standard, but to make it impossible to hire any one for any wages. They are going to seize the industries; for whom-the people who produced them? No! They will turn them over to the wage workers; for everything done by them is for the wage workers and for nobody else!”
Thus are the class lines drawn in the great legal battle now going on in Chicago. Vandeveer has stated that, “for the first time in history the social system is on trial and the evidence we shall present will shake capitalist control of industry to its foundations.” At least, here at this new Runnymede, Capital or Labor has met its conqueror; and Labor cannot-must not-go down in defeat.
———-
[Photographs added.]
*-Note: Having searched the U. S. Constitution from top to bottom, we find the word: “capitalism” to be entirely absent from that sacred document. We did, however, take note of the phrase: “common welfare.”
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SOURCE
The Ohio Socialist
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-June 11, 1918
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/022-jun-11-1918.pdf
IMAGES
WWIR, IWW Harrison George, ISR Jan 1918
https://archive.org/stream/ISR-volume18#page/n167/mode/1up
LRSB, Preamble, IWW Songs Gen Def Ed, Apr 1918
https://digital.wolfsonian.org/WOLF045327/00001/2j
See also:
The Ohio Socialist, 1917-1919
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/index.htm
Magna Carta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta
Eight-Hour Day, United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States
“Bill Nye, Frontier Humorist”
-by Charles E Rankin
https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/bill-nye-frontier-humorist
Re “Sab-Cat” enters trial:
See: Chicago Tribune of May 10, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/355072921/
Strikes and sabotage, as practiced by the Industrial Workers of the World, were introduced in evidence yesterday before Judge Landis in the form of special articles by various radical writers, including William D. Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and others. Excerpts follow:
[The excerpts are from Smith’s book on Sabotage; Trautman and Haywood also quoted. Flynn’s book not quoted from here, but often referred to during the trial.]
Search of Newspapers.com reveals that EGF’s “Sabotage” was brought up at the trial, especially by newspapers of May 4, 1918 which stated that IWW literature would be introduced by the prosecution. Evidence was presented that in July of 1917 25,000 copies of EGF’s book on sabotage were printed, but further orders were discontinued.-See Richmond (IN) Item p3 and several others.
Chicago Tribune-p5 of May 4, 1918 states that Emile Pouget’s “Sabotage” was introduced by the prosecution and paragraph’s read to jury.
Sabotage by Elizabeth Gurley flynn
https://www.iww.org/history/library/Flynn/Sabotage
Sabotage by Walker C. Smith
https://www.iww.org/history/library/WCSmith/sabotage
Sabotage by Emile Pouget
https://libcom.org/library/sabotage-emile-pouget
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Sabo-Tabby Kitten – Jim Giddings
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin
(see page 59)
https://books.google.com/books?id=n2ATBwAAQBAJ