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Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 28, 1919
New York, New York – Defense Committee Statement on Persecution of I. W. W.
From The Ohio Socialist of March 26, 1919:
Defense Committee Tells of
Persecution of I. W. W.
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The New York Defense Committee of the I. W. W. has issued the following statement in regard to the government’s activities in persecuting that organization:
With the war-time prosecutions being pushed relentlessly by the U. S. government and with a fresh outburst of capitalist persecution everywhere […..against?] radical labor elements, the I. W. W. is being driven to redoubled efforts to raise the large sum needed to protect its members throughout the country and defend the right of the organization to carry on its work as a labor union.
The New York Defense Committee of the I. W. W. has been reorganized and has mapped out an energetic money-raising and publicity campaign. The labor organizations of New York and vicinity and radical groups and individuals throughout the country are going to be appealed to for help in meeting the financial demands of the situation.
The committee, in its appeal for the support of all friends of the radical labor movement, points to the fact that, in addition to 93 I. W. W.’s convicted in the famous Chicago trial last summer and sentenced to 807 years’ imprisonment and fined aggregating $2,570,000, 46 members were convicted last January in the Sacramento bomb frame-up. Besides there, 34 more are to be tried in Wichita this month, while 28 are still awaiting trial in Omaha and 27 in Spokane, in addition to scores of individual cases throughout the western states, either under the Espionage act or under state laws against “criminal syndicalism” enacted within the past year for the express purpose of crushing the I. W. W.
