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Ebook has 404 lines and 46682 words, and 9 pages

FLORENCE KIPER FRANK

The Moving-Picture Show

We sat at a moving-picture show. Over a little bridge streamed the Belgian refugees, women, children, boys, dogs, horses, carts, household goods--an incongruous procession. The faces were stolid, the feet plodded on--plodded on!

"See!" said my friend, "sometimes a woman turns to look at a bursting shell."

I murmured, "How interesting!"

And my soul shuddered. It shuddered at sophistication.

The man who had taken the pictures told us about them. He had been not more than three weeks ago in Belgium....

"Huzza!" sang my ancestor of five thousand years back. He led a band of marauders into an enemy's village. They ripped things up and tore about the place singing and looting. There was nothing much left to that village by the time they got through with it.

But the people many miles away did not behold his exploits. Alas, there were no moving-picture shows in those days!

The Modern Woman With a Sense of Humor

There was a Modern Woman with a sense of humor.

"I shall," she said, "teach to women the absurdity of bearing children to be killed by cannon."

"The absurdity!" exclaimed the men of the State, aghast at levity.

"Yes," answered she, "it isn't worth the trouble!" And she lifted her eyebrows and smiled, but in her eyes there was Knowledge.

And the men of the State were more terrified by the phenomenon of The Modern Woman with a Sense of Humor than by any phenomenon that had before confronted them.

The Incredible Adventure of Spring

The year was again a-foot on the incredible adventure of Spring. The earth broke into blossoming, and the nights were moon-drenched and astir with the whisperings of wet winds. It was a really thrilling time of the year to be alive--and therefore, besides all these breathless and miraculous adventures of the grass and flowers, many innocent and unsuspecting souls had started out on the incredible adventure of being born.

But the war-writers kept on writing that for man to reach true exaltation and vibrancy of spirit, he must blow out the brains of as many people as possible.

Man and His Machines

He has builded him machines--man the Maker--using great cunning of hand and of brain. And has not Bergson told us that thus has he evolved that tool, the Intellect--through the dim ages of his making!

He has builded him states, politics, all the intricate architecture of institutions.

Now who would think that what he himself has builded--builded through the thousands of years of endeavor--should thus turn about, ungrateful, to destroy and to rend him?

The Annual Banquet

"We shall not, this year," said my rich friend--a Lady--"while the people of Europe are starving and fighting--we shall not this year have our large annual banquet."

But had she walked not a mile from her home, she would have seen in her own city men starving, and fighting because of the terrible dread of starving. And not this year alone had they been doing it, but for many years of large banquets.

However, if all Ladies and Gentlemen felt acutely all these matters, what would become of our institution of Large Banquets--or, indeed, of the Divine Privileges of Monarchs!

What a Veneer Is Civilization

"War," wrote the journalists, "reveals what a veneer is civilization. Man's real emotions, instinctive, primitive, brutal, leap to ascendency."

But I did not believe the journalists, because I knew better men's emotions. Indeed, what tore asunder my heart was the depth and beauty of the emotions of men and women. There was nothing--at least very little--the matter with their emotions.

But with their thinking apparatus--ah, that is a different story!

Lawson, Caplan, Schmidt

ALEXANDER BERKMAN

I don't know of anything more tragic and pitiful than the superstition that "Justice will triumph." What this metaphysical conception of "justice" really signifies, how it is to be expressed in applicable terms, is impossible to determine in view of the multiplicity of individual antagonisms and class interests.

But somehow we all believe in "justice"; yet the criterion of each is the degree of the attainment of his own purpose.

From time immemorial we humans have been clamoring for "justice," divine and earthly. Hence our slavery. And Kaiser and Czar both claim justice on their side, and millions are slaughtering each other to attain the particular justice of their respective masters.

In this blessed land of ours, justice is ranked high, and labor is constantly basing its appeals and demands on justice. But perhaps--let us hope--the John Lawson case has somewhat jolted the popular faith in the metaphysical conception, at least so far as it manifests itself in the Colorado courts. It is safe to say that there is no intelligent man in that state who does not know that the stage for Lawson's conviction had been set long before his trial. He was an intelligent, active agitator. He sought to crystallize the rebellious dissatisfaction of the miners into effective action:--sufficient reason for the Rockefeller-controlled state to eliminate, most emphatically, such an undesirable element.

In Colorado, as well as throughout the rest of the country, most people know that a great "injustice was done Lawson." What are the people of Colorado doing about it? Not a thing. The cheerful idiot, otherwise known as the good citizen, cares for justice only in the degree in which it affects his own pocket. And the masses of labor who do feel themselves and their cause injured by the railroading of Lawson to prison--they call the verdict a "miscarriage of justice"--applaud Professor Brewster who wired Lawson: "Unbelievable. Counsel friends keep cool. Justice will be done."

And the people of Colorado remain inactive, in the belief that the Supreme Court, the Governor, or maybe the Holy Ghost will see to it that justice is done.

Yet the Lawson lesson has not been entirely lost. It is possible that it has shed a light that will reflect itself on coming fights between labor and capital. It is more than probable that the lesson has already borne fruit in the more aggressive attitude of labor in some parts of the country. It has helped ever-growing numbers to realize that to expect "justice" in the struggle between labor and capital means to doom the toilers to defeat.

It will be highly interesting to watch the effect of the Lawson outrage upon the approaching trial of David Caplan and Mathew Schmidt, the aftermath of the McNamara case, in Los Angeles, California. The history of this case is illuminating of our legal and social "justice":

The labor unions in California have for the last nine years fought a bitter fight against the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, the Western branch of the Steel Trust. Every means, legal and illegal, has been used by the employers to exterminate the unions and paralyze the workers. And they have practically succeeded in breaking every labor organization in the Steel Industry from New York to San Francisco.

Hardly ten days passed, when the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association broke every promise they made. They began the prosecution of labor men in Los Angeles and Indianapolis, and did everything in their power to railroad to prison the most effective members of the unions. And now, four and a half years later, they have arrested David Caplan in Seattle and Mathew Schmidt in New York, and brought them across the country to Los Angeles to put them on trial for complicity with the McNamaras.

This perfidious activity of organized capital has made labor in California realize that the courts are controlled by the employers, and that labor cannot expect justice. They now understand what a fatal mistake was made in the case of John Lawson. The workers depended on the innocence of Lawson for his acquittal. They failed to act, expecting justice to be done.

At least some of the labor elements on the Coast are awakening to the situation. They feel that they cannot expect justice from the courts of the exploiters. They have now determined that more aggressive and militant action is necessary, if labor is not to be submerged by the oppression of capital. They are beginning to see that throughout the country the masters are picking out the most effective and intelligent fighters from the ranks of the workers and railroading them to prison, to terrorize labor and stifle the spirit of liberty and independence. The Lawson case, the case of Ford and Suhr, of Rangel and Cline, of Joe Hill, and the many other cases now pending in the courts of New York and elsewhere, all show what capital intends to do to labor.

Is labor really going to keep quiet and submit to this persecution and slavery? The unions on the Coast have determined that they will not. They are calling upon every one in sympathy with labor to join the great movement to stop the aggression of capital. They have decided on strong militant tactics to defend the workingman, his family and his union against the tyranny of the bosses.

They have issued the call to every central body, affiliated unions and radical organizations, to join hands at this most critical moment. This is not a question of theory or of philosophic ism. It is the great war of labor against capital, a struggle of life and death. In this struggle all local and theoretic differences may be safely forgotten, and all friends of labor make common cause.

I have been sent as a special delegate by some of the California unions to help organize the solidaric and militant forces of labor throughout the country. It is evident how significant this case is for the workers in general. It is imperative that they combine in solidaric unity in this vital matter, to register in mighty accents the sentiments and determination of the oppressed. Thus were Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone torn from the clutches of the jungle beast. Thus were returned to liberty Ettor and Giovannitti, Carlo Tresca, and other fighters for the better day. But whenever the workers failed to sound the tocsin of solidarity and make their gesture of protest, their prisoners of war have invariably remained the hostages of the enemy.

Organizations and individuals who are willing to give us their moral and financial assistance, should immediately send resolutions and funds to Tom Barker, Secretary Building Trades Council of Los Angeles, and Treasurer of the Caplan-Schmidt Defense Fund. Address, 201 Labor Temple, Los Angeles, California. My own address for the present is 917 Fine Arts Building.

Father and Daughter

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

The church is a hulk of shadow, And dark is the church's spire. But the cross is as black as iron Against the sunset's fire.

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