Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 13, 1918
Legal Defense of Industrial Workers of the World Sabotaged
From The Liberator of November 1918:
IN the midst of our rejoicing over the second disagreement in the Masses case, comes news of continued persecution of the I. W. W. Not content with its power to arrest and hold in prison for months under outrageous bail, workingmen known to be penniless, agents of the Department of Justice, aided by Post Office officials, deliberately prevent the friends of these men from collecting the funds which are absolutely necessary to ensure them a fair hearing. This discrimination against men “presumed to be innocent” was notorious in the Chicago case. We learn from the Civil Liberties Bureau that the same methods are being employed to weaken the defense in the remaining I. W. W. cases. And we know from our own experience that letters to I. W. W. branches are returned as “unmailable” under the supreme power exercised by Mr. Burleson under the second Espionage Act. Words cannot be found to express the indignation that any real Democrat must feel at this continued reign of terror.
We print below a memorandum recently sent to the President by the National Civil Liberties Bureau.
I. Interference by Agents of the Department of Justice
1. The original raid on general headquarters of the I. W. W. at Chicago, and at local headquarters throughout the country, took place on September 5th, 1917. The indictments were voted by the Federal grand jury at Chicago on September 28th. Great masses of evidence were then in possession of the Government. Nevertheless, agents of the Department of Justice continued to raid the general and local headquarters of the I. W. W. both with and without search warrants, in order, they stated, to secure additional evidence. In these raids were seized the apparatus and material with which the defense committee was conducting its work of preparing for the trial, which began April 1st, 1918. The raids at the Chicago office took place in December, 1917. The other raids on local headquarters are too numerous to mention. The property taken consisted of typewriters, addressographs, mimeographs, stationery, card-index lists, cash and other facilities for conducting the affairs of the defense. Some of this property was returned after examination. Much of it was not. The raids and the holding of the property constitute a procedure unparalleled in modern criminal prosecutions. They are obviously open to the suspicion of being conducted not so much to obtain evidence as to embarrass the defense.
2. Agents of the Department of Justice also arrested the active members of the I. W. W. defense committee at many points in the country, stopped their meetings, and seized their funds. This was done at Seattle, Wash., New York City, San Francisco and other places. In few or none of the cases of arrest of defense committee members did any prosecution follow. The practical effect and presumptive object of their arrest and detention was to make difficult the collection of defense funds.
3. On June 22 there appeared in the “New Republic,” published at New York City, an advertisement asking “liberals” to subscribe to the defense fund of the I. W. W. so that they might be assured a fair trial. This advertisement was signed by Robert W. Bruere, John Dewey, John A. Fitch, Percy Stickney Grant, Carlton J. H. Hayes, Inez Haynes Irwin, Helen Keller, Jas. Harvey Robinson, Thorstein Veblen, George P. West and Walter E. Weyl. These are all well-known and impartial students of industrial questions. The advertisement was an argument only for the American right of a fair trial. Yet the “New Republic” was advised by an agent of the Department of Justice not to reprint it, under threat of getting into difficulty with the law.
4. A pamphlet entitled “The Truth About the I. W. W.” published by the National Civil Liberties Bureau for the sole purpose of presenting the facts as stated by distinguished industrial investigators during the war, was forbidden transportation by the express companies under orders of the Department of Justice and otherwise hampered in circulation, although never declared non-mailable.That it was a careful, judicial piece of work is evident from the fact that it was edited by a committee among whom were John Graham Brooks, Robert W. Bruere, Prof. Carlton H. Parker of the University of Washington and labor representatives of the War Department. George P. West, Associate Editor of the Public, and John A. Fitch, industrial editor of the Survey. The general defense committee at Chicago had similar difficulties with express packages containing only defense news literature. Many such packages were returned to the defense committee’s headquarters by the American Express Company, acting under orders of agents of the Department of Justice. The names and addresses of the consignees, and the dates of the shipments have been furnished us by the general defense committee.
5. The conduct of certain agents of the Department of Justice in intimidating witnesses for the defense is a matter of public record during the trial at Chicago, and was the subject of severe censure by Judge Landis.
II. Interference by the Post Office Department
1. First-class mail from the general defense committee was held up in such quantities in Chicago in the months of January and February 1918 that the defense committee was obliged to resort to subterfuge to get its matter into the mails. The chief postal inspector in Chicago told Attorney George F. Vanderveer, counsel for the I. W. W. on February 27th that 300 sacks of mail, most of it I. W. W. literature, were being held up at Chicago.
2. Registered letters mailed by the general defense committee were held for months in the Chicago post office, opened, officially sealed and later delivered. Full particulars about the dates on which these letters were sent the person to whom sent and the dates finally delivered, have been furnished. Many letters mailed in March were not delivered until July. Between sixty and seventy checks sent in registered letters had to be duplicated by the organization, because of non-delivery of the originals until months after mailing.
3. First-class mail was frequently opened, being received after delay by the person to whom sent, marked “officially sealed.” There was no indication that such mail was opened upon proper search warrants as provided by law.
4. The interference with third-class mail in the early days of the defense committee’s activities was so great that all third-class mail had to be abandoned, and printed matter was sent first-class.
[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
The Liberator
(New York, New York)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/
November 1918
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1918/09/v1n09-nov-1918-liberator.pdf
IMAGE
WWIR IWW Remember the Boys in Jail, OH Sc p3, Aug 21, 1918
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/030-aug-21-1918.pdf
See also:
Note: the above Memorandum was also published here:
The Silent Defenders, Courts and Capitalism in California
by Harvey Duff (see page 73)
IWW, 1919?
http://debs.indstate.edu/d855s5_1920.pdf
The Truth about the IWW
Facts in Relation to the Trial at Chicago
National Civil Liberties Bureau, 1918
https://books.google.com/books?id=G1I2AQAAMAAJ
More Truth about the I.W.W.
Facts in relation to the trial at Chicago by competent Industrial Investigators and noted Economists.
IWW Chicago, 1918
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003303421
https://www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/images/publications/sl_moretruth/sl_moretruth.pdf
Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 4, 1918
Reprinted from The Masses
“The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part I from the International Socialist Review
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday January 5, 1918
Reprinted from The Masses
“The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part II from the International Socialist Review
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