Ominous Utterances

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jun 18, 1914

Ominous Utterances

THE volcanic fires which are smoldering under the surface of our industrial and social life are indicated from time to time by the mutterings of discontent which come from the lips of the laboring classes. The recent utterances of Vincent St. John, national organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World, before the members of the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, are significant. According to Mr. St. John the I. W. W. “are pledged to violence,—murder if necessary,—the destruction of goods and property, any violation of the law they deem necessary to gain their point.” This labor representative claims, according to a dispatch to the Washington Post of May 22, 1914, “that if a local of the I. W. W. agrees today to work for a specified wage, it has a perfect right to break that agreement tomorrow.” The words of this union leader are given by the Post as follows:—

“The point with us is to gain our end,” said St. John. “It does not matter to us how we gain that end. If violence against human life is necessary, all right; the end justifies the means. If it means the ruin of property, all right. Again the end justifies the means.”

“If it means the isolation of a factory, the ruining of raw or finished material inside the factory or outside, all right. Again it is a case of the end justifying the means.

“Do we believe in agreements between the members of the locals of the I. W. W. and owners of industries?—No, we are against working agreements of any kind, for any length of time. That is where we differ from the trade-unions. We are a step farther. It is our belief that the workman loses by making a contract as a member with the owner of a mill, factory, or other plant.”

While St. John spoke, Joseph Ettor, accompanied by a young woman who wore neither hat nor coat, sat in the front row and nodded his head approvingly.

And these are not the sentiments of Mr. St. John alone. If they were, their expression would not be so ominous. But his sentiments are the sentiments of a large and growing class of discontented wage earners throughout the world. The doctrine of sabotage—destruction of the full property of the employer—has given place to the doctrine of syndicalism, which demands that the laboring man shall own and absolutely enjoy the full fruits of his labor, and that it is right to resort to any and every means necessary to bring about this realization.

Intensity is taking possession of the elements of society today. The world is being bound into bundles. Federations, societies, and associations are being formed which will be wheeled into line to take part in the struggles of the closing days of earth’s history. These conditions are signs of the times. They indicate where we are living. That there will be a great social conflict between the elements of society the Scriptures plainly declare. The apostle James says that in the last days the laborer shall be oppressed, and the natural result of this oppression will engender strife, hatred, and warfare. Under these conditions he admonishes the brethren to be patient unto the coming of the Lord. James 5:1-8.

The significance of the march of events in this world must not be lost from our minds. They should not grow common by association, but we should realize their import, and be admonished of the greatest of all events,—the coming of the Lord,—to which they unmistakably point.