Was it not bad enough that these
exploited creatures should be used as factory-fodder? Must they be
cannon-fodder too? Why should they fight to increase the economic
power of German traders? of British manufacturers? The war was a
capitalist war between capitalist nations. What interest had the
workers in these nations? in their winnings or in their losses? So ran
the argument.
The I. W. W. was not primarily an anti-war organization In theory it
had abandoned political activity to devote itself exclusively to
agitation and organization on the field of industry. Practically its
funds and its energies were expended upon industrial struggles. Long
before the war, the I. W. W. had made itself known and feared for its
conduct of strikes, its free speech fights, and its ability to put the
sore spots of American industrial life on the front page of the daily
press and to keep them there until the people had become aroused to
the wrongs that were being perpetrated. It was in this domain of
industry that the I. W. W. was functioning, and it was among the
business interests that the determination had been reached to rid the
country of the organization at all costs.
Had the chief offense of the I. W. W. consisted in its expressed
opposition to the war, it would not have been singled out for attack.
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