Many of the peace societies that flourished prior to 1917 were more
outspoken and more consistent in their opposition to war than were the
leaders of the I. W. W. None of these societies, however, had acquired
reputation for championing the cause of industrial under dogs, and for
demanding a complete change in the form of American economic life.
Consequently, in the prosecution, in the sentences, in the
commutations and in the pardons, the anti-war pacifists were treated
very leniently, while the revolutionary I. W. W. members were singled
out for the most ferocious legal and extra-legal attack.
Technically, Ralph Chaplin and his comrades had conspired to obstruct
the war. Actually, they had lined themselves up solidly against the
present economic order, of which the World War was only one phase.
This was their real crime.
II.
Ralph Chaplin was guilty of the most serious social offense that a man
can commit. While living in an old and shattered social order, he had
championed a new order of society and had expounded a new culture.
Socrates and Jesus, for like offenses, lost their lives. Thousands of
their followers, guilty of no greater crime than that of denouncing
vested wrong and expounding new truths, have suffered in the dungeon,
on the scaffold and at the stake.
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