On the face of their indictments
these men were accused of interfering with the conduct of the war; in
reality they were sent to jail because they held and expressed certain
beliefs.
As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Ralph Chaplin did
his part to make the organization a success. He wrote songs and
poems; he made speeches: he edited the official paper, "Solidarity".
He looked about him; saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the
workers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the land and
the machinery of production; studied the problem of distribution; and
decided that it was possible, through the organization of the
producers, to establish a more scientific, juster, more humane system
of society. All this he felt, intensely. With him and his
fellow-workers the task of freeing humanity from economic bondage took
on the aspect of a faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote
their literature; made their speeches and sang their songs with
zealous devotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard a call to
duty; they were giving their lives to a cause--the emancipation of the
human race.
When the war broke out in Europe, with millions of working-men
flinging death and misery at one another, men like Chaplin, the world
over, regarded it as the last straw.
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