A DIABOLICAL GOSPEL

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 78, 28 September 1918, Page 4

A DIABOLICAL GOSPEL

The Industrial Workers of the World and the Russian Bolsheviks have followers or admirers in New Zealand—few in number, it is true, but yet possessed of a vocal power and general restlessness far in excess of their numerical strength. It is therefore important to examine somewhat closely the source from which they draw their ideals and inspiration. It happens that the evidence given in the great I.W.W. trial at Chicago, whether it succeeds or fails in establishing the specific charge before the Chicago Court, throws a flood of light on the I.W.W. movement, its aims and its methods.. In the course of an analysis of the evidence, a writer in the Outlook quotes from the " Preamble," with its unqualified blessing of class war, and goes on to observe that, in their campaign against property, the members of the I.W.W. refuse to regard as binding "all accepted standards of ethics. . . . This is expressed by their historian as follows: As a revolutionary organisation, the Industrial Workers of the vVorld aims to use any and all tactics that will cot the results sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the power of tho organisation to make good .in their -use. The questions of " right " and " wrong " do not concern us. In short, the I.W.W. advocates the use of militant " direct action " tactics to tho full extent of our power to make good: St. John History Structure Methods. Ii follows, from the above, that sabotage becomes at once a justified and even/ a noble practice. The Outlook contributor quotes as follows from " one of their writers ": Sabotage is the destruction of profits,to gain a definite, revolutionary, economic end. It has many forms. It may mean the destroying of raw materials destined for a scab factory or a shop. It may mean tha spoiling of a finished product. It may mean the destruction of parts of machinery or the disarrangement of a whole machine, where that machine is the one upon which the other machines are depending for material. Translating the sabotage principle into practice, the literature of the I.W.W. contains " hundreds of methods . ranging from the misplacing of signallights on railways to introducing bedbugs into first-class hotels." Yet the professors of sabotage are capable of exercising a fine discrimination in matters of "loyalty." The following letter from the managing editor of one of the I.W.W. papers seems to have a familiar ring: I have in this issue soft-pedalled the war talk. My reason is that if we came out strong there are hundreds of the boys who would pull stunts that would do the movement no good and land them on the inside of a gaol, when they could be doing effective work on. the inside of tho industry. I am not scared of g_aols. I have sampled | a good many; but if I go it will not bo over arguments in regard to flags. In this utterance its author is frank, simply because he was not on a public platform, and never expected his letter to see the light of day. But perhaps pride of place should be given to a, parody on "Onward, Christian Soldierß," which the writer in the Outlook says is " one of the widely circulated publications" of the 1.W.W., and from which, we quote three verses: Onward, Christian Soldiers! Duty's way is plain; Slay your Christian neighbours, or by them be slain; Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill, God above is calling; you to rob and rape and kill; All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high; If you love the Holy. Ghost, go murder, pray, and die. Onward, Christian Soldiers! Rip and tear and smite! Let tho gentle Jesus bless your dynamite; Splinter skulls with "shrapnel, fertilise tho sod; Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God. Smash tho doors of every home, pretty" maidens seize; Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please. Onward, Christian Soldiers! Drench the land with gore; Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor. Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too; Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do. . ' File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well; God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell. Wo have not quoted all the interesting things disclosed by the Outlook, but sufficient to show how necessary it is to extirpate the I.W.W. influence. Members of the 1.W.W., says the Outlook writer, state with pride that their class war Preamble was "adopted by the Bolsheviks, without amendment, as "their guiding light." Thus the two blighting influences have been morally linked up, and the result is seen in the Russia of to-day. To labour the obvious moral is unnecessary. But it is worth while emphasising that though the gap between Puussia and the ordered and organised democracies'appears to bo great, it is not unbridgeable; and no country in the world is 6afe from anarchy if it permits a too dangerous play with the diabolical weapons of class-war.