Making America Hazardous for Democracy

by Nick Bland

A demonstrative sampling of the absence of the manifest freedoms of protest and dissent in United States between 1909-1920 at the wishes of power elites.

"Article One
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances...
...Article Four
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
-The Constitution of the United States of America, Amendments I and IV (1)

What do civil liberties on paper, and a paper tiger have in common?

Both may serve as an effective form of protection...but only if used to start a fire that will burn down a police headquarters, prior to the their equipping themselves for the day's tasks of violently repressing your liberties.

The Myth is Built, Again

As the bloodbath 20th century drew to a close, I remember having received in my own state sponsored civics class indoctrination the absurd myth that there exists a freedom of speech and assembly within this country. That one's voice will be heard. I believed what this propaganda told me...with some suspicion, but still, altogether, I believed. Thus was the myth built within my mind, as it has been with so many people within mine own and other American generations.

But reaching further back in time, long before my own...nearly 220 years ago, the drafters of the Constitution somehow failed, because the system has wrought injustices upon its own citizenry that would seem to belong to a history of ancient Mesopotamian kingly empires. Perhaps it was a weakness of the Constitution itself, or the system of government in the United States, of the players within American society in the twentieth century, or perhaps a combination of all these key factors that resulted in the oppressive atmosphere of the twentieth century, and more specifically the time spanning 1909-1920, pertaining to the absence of rights mentioned within amendments I and IV.

Political dissent, indeed in any form, deserves (and in practice needs) a vigorous defense against state repression. Such is the price of a free society. It is only just that a person should be permitted to express themselves regarding any issue that suits their preference for discussion, and in any way which suits their fancy. Protesting may rightly be seen as a type and extension of an individual's freedom of speech, and freedom of expression, and should be protected vigilantly.

While those civil liberties exist for the citizen in the United States on paper, in tangible reality one possesses only the absence of such today, just as Americans possessed the same absent liberties nearly a hundred years ago. Numerous instances within that century, and even within the time I shall cover, have demonstrated the truth of this claim. It would be indeed a voluminous work to attempt the documentation of every instance wherein Americans' first amendment rights were violated in even just this single span...and that is beyond my scope. Instead, I'll show a survey of only some of the large scale forces of state repression of political dissent, along with some specific examples. But like many tentacles of a massive and evil octopus, these crash down and crush numerous innocents whose only crime is believing in and attempting to freely express themselves, while others are made extensions of, and thus empowering the tentacles. But the monstrous appendages are all singular manifestations and extensions of a much larger whole. Viewing them, one should be able to envision this underlying whole, this truth regarding what sort of society we Americans actually exist in.

The Power Elite

C. Wright Mills, in his landmark work "The Power Elite", posited an interesting framework for comprehending modern American society. Though written about fifty years ago, the essential features of the society he sought to describe remain as appropriate for a discussion of the present, as well as of the period I cover.

His ideas consist essentially of the claim that there is an elite class who control virtually all of American society, because power is so concentrated and centralized within their grasp. "The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences."(2) He elaborates further:

The people of the higher circles may also be conceived as members of a top social stratum, as a set of groups whose members know one another, see one another socially and at business, and so, in making decisions, take one another into account. The elite, according to this conception, feel themselves to be, and are felt by others to be, the inner circle of 'the upper social classes.' They form a more or less compact social and psychological entity...(2)

As a consequence, the "power elite" control American society. Mills goes on to claim that the top institutions of the economy, the political order, and the military order are the three branches through which this control originates and is exercised over our society, over us. And their motives are often anything but noble or beneficent...(2)

1: Jesus Slaughters in Ludlow

Back in 1913, there was perhaps never a greater disparity between the richest and the poorest American people in this country's history. This was the age of the "robber barons", the trusts, the monopolies and cartels. It was also, economically speaking, for most people an age of a very different sort of America, such as that which existed for the residents of a mining and "company town" (so-called because the entire town was literally owned by the company) in Colorado:

The houses, according to one observer, were 'shabby, ugly, and small.' Most of them had only two or three rooms...There were few provisions for sanitation: refuse was dumped without care in or near the camp, and the water supply was often pumped directly from the mines and used without filtration. As a result, diseases arose easily and spread rapidly. (3)

We may see now the economic differences between those who lived in such abject poverty, and the owner of the "company town" whose name became synonymous with incredible wealth: John D. Rockefeller. His fortune in 2002 dollars was $13,140,000,000, and his wage was $31.70 a second!(18) Although this divide was perhaps at no greater extreme in the entire U.S. in the early years of the twentieth century (1913), still, such a divide was as prevalent in American society, I think, as the atrocious conditions under which the residents of the company town lived. (The middle class was, at that time, not nearly as large as it is today.)

Due to living under such terrible circumstances, a miner would, I suspect, be driven to demand better pay, better living conditions, better everything-and not out of greed, but out of sheer survival. This wasn't so easy, though: "The miner who protested lost simultaneously his job, his dwelling, and his right to remain in the community."(3) That was the fate existing for a person who lost their job, for since the company owns the town, you can therefore be ordered out of town at will.

Here is a sample of just what the 30,000 Greek, Italian, Slavs and Mexican (3) miners endured as working conditions:

No land and no building could be occupied without permission of the company. Not only the miners' dwellings, but the school and the church were the property of the company, with the result that teachers and ministers were supervised, if not openly selected, by the company.(3)

Sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables, camp marshals, elections commissioners, judges, juries, coroners, and even access to voting booths were under the complete control of the company, if not owned outright by the company. Even the state government was partially under their sphere of power.(3) Thus, the miners were denied access to even the oblique and miniscule access to the political process that comes through republican election of representatives. And most pertinently to my discourse:

The rights of free speech, free press, and free assembly were arbitrarily suppressed: periodicals were censored, public speakers were expelled, and even the freedom of speech in informal gatherings was curtailed through the fear of spies.(3)

Because of the conditions here, on the gorged eastern Rocky mountains, like in so many other places of work across America, the laborers decided, indeed were forced by the circumstances to strike.(3)

On September 1913, 9,000 miners, with their families and meager possessions, left the company towns. They went down into the canyons and set up tent colonies, thus beginning a 15-month strike. It was "not so much a struggle for higher wages or other tangible advantages as a revolt against a political, economic, and social despotism." But in a bloody foretaste of the strikers' future, Gerald Lippiat, a United Mine Workers (UMW) organizer, was shot dead immediately after the strike was called by a "detective" in the employ of a mining company.(3)

Already, the immense resources of the companies were brought to bear in the purchasing of a small army and arsenal.(3) Swarms of mercenaries (326 in one county alone!) were skimmed from the scum of America, then deputized without any inspection of previous records...as the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations puts it: "That many guards deputized in this illegal fashion and paid by the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company were men of the lowest and most vicious character has been clearly established."(3)

Once present within the mining towns, the behaviors of such miscreants would be an easy matter to predict. Robberies, holdups, burglaries, attempts at rape, assault, arbitrary detentions and arrests, and general harassment came from these mercenaries, who acted with impunity (being as they were, the agents of law).(3)

During previous strikes, the mining companies resorted to violence in order to terrorize the miners back to work, and this strike would be no exception. But what was perhaps exceptional was how the strikers were determined this time, to return the favor of any violence they encounter at the hands of company "deputies" and "detectives." The strikers equipped themselves with "pistols, shotguns, and rifles," and eventually the UMW decided it prudent, after forces on the company side swelled immensely, to openly distribute arms.(3)

The tensions were building on both sides, and as the months went by, there were a number of skirmishes, a number of attempts at negotiation that the Colorado governor failed to kickstart, and also a number of Colorado state militia and National Guardsmen who had arrived to protect(of course), the mine properties and workers...who wished to return from the strike.(3)

Although the National Guard was supposed to be impartial, Lieutenant K.E. Linderfelt, sent by General Chase of the National Guard to determine if Guardsmen were necessary (prior of course to their being sent in larger numbers), instantly went into the employ of the mine company and began transporting strikebreakers. It had been found also that the state militia, possibly through bribery, had become agents also of the mine company: "The militia have tried to persuade strikers to go back to work, in some instances threatening and abusing them at the same time..."(3)

Eventually, it did seem that a scenario of detente and negotiation was beginning to develop, as a new round of negotiations developed. But after some of the strikers unwisely turned in their weapons, negotiations failed for the last time in 1913. Under pressure to allow the National Guard to transport strikebreakers to and from the mines, pressure from "bankers, the Chamber of Commerce, the Real Estate Exchange of Denver, and the editors of the 14 largest newspapers in the state," not to mention the mine operators themselves, Governor Ammons abandoned control of the strike zone to general Chase. "Instantly," general Chase issued an order suspending civil law, and strikers were held "incommunicado" and "without charge" in jail.(3)

When Mother Jones attempted to visit one of the towns (Trinidad), she too had her Constitutional rights "trampled upon," by twice being imprisoned and held incommunicado... once in a "'insanitary and rat-infested cell.'"(3)

National Guard Troops, dropping all pretense at impartiality, had characters like Linderfelt (who was so drunk off of power that, during the abuse of a young man, proclaimed: "I am Jesus Christ, and my men on horses are Jesus Christs, and we must be obeyed"). Who were employed simultaneously as Colorado National Guardsmen, and mine company thugs. The architects of this strategic advantage in the mine companies boasted of it in a letter to Rockefeller: "'this movement has the support of the governor and other men in authority.'" Rockefeller himself was "the actual owner of the most powerful of the coal companies in Colorado," and "the supporter of their anti-union policies."(3)

This simmering situation was brought to a raging boil in the early spring of 1914, beginning in the Ludlow tent colony. The mine forces established a machine gun emplacement that bore down on the tent colony, and let off two explosive charges. It's unknown who fired the first shot, but soon Ludlow became a scene of Hellish slaughter. Some of the strikers fought against an overwhelming force, but eventually the residents of Ludlow either fled or were killed. Once the people unfortunate to remain in the battlezone were left helpless, men, women, and children were put to death by the firings of coal tar or machine gun. Linderfelt, not to withhold his contribution to the massacre, broke a rifle stock over the head of a captured leader of Ludlow (who had earlier that day attempted a peaceful resolution, and then remained during the battle to watch over the women and children). That man was subsequently shot. From this scene of carnage and death of 21, there began a small war that left 51 dead.(3)

Rockefeller was, subsequently, excoriated by the press and public for his role. Five picketed his New York office, were arrested, but other '"mourners"' took their place. Nevertheless, police continued coercive state silencing in order to safeguard Rockefeller's enjoyment of ill-gotten gains, but there would be instead of his freedom from conscience at the expense of the public's freedoms of speech, quite the reverse. Not through the justness of the state but via the determination of an outraged American public, a "free Silence League" formed in response to police repression, and demonstrators took over the role of an apparently absent or silent angel on Rockefeller's shoulder. They demonstrated before Rockefeller's home, and were by the state repressed. In response, the ever-present, ever-vigilantly libertarian Industrial Workers of the World (IWW...more on them later) unleashed a "free speech fight," and were by the state repressed.(3)

A "free-speech fight" was essentially an organized and deliberate violation of a law that was forbidding free speech (but which was of course invalid, because of its blatant unconstitutionality). To illustrate, there is the example of Spokane in the summer of 1909. Yet again we see here the elites of business and government working together for the suppression of civil liberties at will, when agents of employers known as "sharks," angered by the presence of speechifying and singing not to mention organizing IWW members in the streets, convinced the City Council to pass an unconstitutional ordinance banning street meetings. In response, the IWW prepared for a "Free-Speech Day" by gathering some of its members for Nov. 2, while the city government prepared by gathering rocks with which to put them to work, following their arrest.(11)

The first day of the fight for free speech, man after man mounted the box to say, "Friends and Fellow Workers" and be yanked down, until 103 had been arrested, beaten and lodged in jail. A legend runs that one man, unaccustomed to public speaking, uttered the customary salutation, and still un-arrested, and with no police by the box, paused, with nothing more to say, and in all the horrors of stage fright, hollered: "Where are the cops?"(11)

What is also critical to note is of how the rights laid out in the first amendment, along with other civil liberties, were before, and during the troubles at the Colorado mines, violated by the implements of the state (that is, the militia, the national guard of Colorado, and all of the assorted positions of local government enumerated previously).

What must be duly noted too, is a certain discrepancy between the official and actual role of the state, akin to the professed versus actual civil liberties of American citizens. For if it were the case that the state were an institution whose members were dedicated solely to the protection of laws and civil liberties, then the collusion seen in some previous and upcoming examples between business and government makes little sense. The actions of the state, if such were the case, should rather be directed in a completely opposing vector (for example, the city of Spokane, if its true interests were maintaining genuine law and order, would take steps to halt the violence of sharks and Pinkertons, rather than the free speech and assembly of Wobblies). Since that isn't the case, another paradigm, namely that of the a power elite theory, enables one to make sense of these events.

It may be seen through this bloody and savage episode, that there are a number of recurring themes. These may illuminate what the political and social machinery of the scenario was, and perhaps in many ways today, remains. The state, through the coercive force of economic elites against political elites who don't go quite far enough in their favor (such as the governor of Colorado being willing to protect mine property but unwilling to guarantee an undermining of the strike via escorting of strikebreakers), pressures either capitulation or abandonment of military control. That is when the state fails to abide by their interests, which in this episode was true of the Colorado state level, but certainly not of the smaller jurisdictions, which, it was seen, were somehow stuffed into the overflowing pockets of the mining companies. The one given this control, or general Chase of the military elite, is also put under the spell of the economic elite, if not through bribery, than through some other means, such as the "more or less compact social and psychological entity" which binds the power elite together. Otherwise his behavior makes little sense. Remember such connections, and remember also that these types of connections, though they might go through innumerable permutations, remain in their fundamental essence the same in this and other episodes that take place later on in U.S. history...

2: "Iron-Heeled" "Americanism"

The "Industrial Workers of the World" or IWW was a union which had its greatest membership and influence in the earlier half of the 20th century. It unfortunately did fade in membership and influence following organized and brutal terrorism by what the members of IWW referred to as the "Iron Heel" of America. This in spite of a limited resurgence of interest during the 70's in the IWW. (4)

It's members were known as "Wobblies," because during a strike in Vancouver, B.C., a Chinese person was unable to pronounce "W," pronouncing the union name instead as "I-Wobble-Wobble."(5)

Formed on June 27, 1905, this union possesses a dual purpose, quoted from their publications:

"First, to improve conditions for the working class day by day. Second, to build up an organization that can take possession of the industries and run them for the benefit of the workers when capitalism shall have been overthrown."(4)

Or, as one of the influential characters of IWW's genesis, "Big Bill" Haywood stated at the opening address of its founding convention: "What we want to establish at this time is a labor organization that will open wide its doors to every man that earns his livelihood either by his brain or by his muscle."(13) That organization would take the form of, to use an IWW phrase "One Big Union."(5)

And another quote, this time from the preamble of the IWW Constitution:

Between these two classes [the working and the employing classes] a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.(19)

Obviously, such goals would easily raise the alarms of the economic, if not the political elites of the time (or any time). To make absolutely sure they get the message, James Thompson, an organizer for IWW told government investigators: "the IWW is aiming not only to better our condition now but to prepare for the revolution." His words towards businessmen weren't particularly assuaging either: "You are doomed. The best thing you can do is to look for a soft place to fall." Thus was the IWW upraised.(4)
But so too was Uncle Sam's merciless "Iron heel."

There were a number of IWW-led political and economic actions in the years extending from its founding all the way to the beginning of the U.S.'s crossing of the Atlantic, its own Rubicon, in WWI. I had already spoken of the "free-speech fight," and there were additional actions centered around the issues of labor and unionization. Too numerous for my scope, I'll mention a few of vignettes to represent this time of large-scale and dramatic labor struggles the Wobblies were engaged in:(4)

In early 1913, at the burgeoningly successful rubber factories of which Akron became famous for, the IWW organized the rubber workers with perhaps a greater measure of success...beginning with the slogan:

"Less booze for the bosses! More bread for the workers!" By February 18 IWW agitation had increased the strikers' ranks to 14,000, mass picketing had shut down the city's major rubber plants, and the Wobblies proclaimed complete control of the walkout.

Only a week later, Akron's employers and public authorities responded to the IWW threat with outright repression. Police broke the picket lines and escorted strikebreakers to work. They arrested IWW leaders and clubbed protesting strikers into submission. Riots erupted across the city. These police-precipitated outbursts of violence became an excuse for further repression. Local businessmen, sanctioned by public officials, organized vigilante committees to drive IWW organizers from Akron. They stimulated a back-to-work movement which pleaded with the rubber workers to endorse God and Country [and last but not least, domination of the economic kind, by guess who?](4)

Do you see again the confluence of power elites, working together to maintain their domination of common American people?

Later, on August 3rd of that same year, there was a mass meeting organized by a veteran Wobbly (Ford), at the Durst Ranch (named after the owner) in Wheatland, California. At this meeting, Ford was advocating for a general strike to insure basic decencies in working and camp conditions for the workers:

...Durst panicked. Unsure about what two thousand agitated migrants might do, and unsurer still of what was actually being done at the mass meeting, Durst did precisely what other employers threatened by the IWW had done in the past and would do in the future: he turned to the law, calling in the Yuba County district attorney, the sheriff, his deputies, and a special posse....
As the law officers arrived a the meeting ground, what followed was perhaps inevitable. Durst expected the outnumbered authorities to disperse the crowd. Carrying out his wishes, a group of deputies approached the speaker's platform to arrest Ford, while another deputy, in an effort to intimidate the crowd, fired his shotgun in the air. The simultaneous attempt to seize Ford and the unwarranted warning shot transformed an orderly audience into an unruly mob, one which vented its anger on the poorly disciplined deputies, who themselves now resembled nothing so much as a mob. Before the violence subsided four men...lay dead; many more were wounded or beaten.(4)

In a particularly telling and disturbing revelation of how the various components of the power elite do unite within American society, and trample civil liberties under the "Iron heel" at will, there was the shameful example of my own state:

Washington State's council of defense, representing business, organized labor (meaning the AFL) and the public (whatever that meant), waged a multi-faceted struggle against the IWW. It searched the state for evidence of disloyalty, it took into custody 'irresponsible,' 'seditious,' and 'disloyal' IWW ringleaders, and it investigated the causes of labor disturbances. Where the state's power proved insufficient to the occasion, it unhesitatingly called for federal troops.(4)

It's obvious what that council is "defending": the interest of the economic, political, and military elites.

State repression at times reached its most extreme form possible in the United States, as in this bloody tragedy:

On November 5, 1916, a group of Wobblies boarded the passenger boat, Verona, bound from Seattle for Everett, Washington, a lumber-mill town from which the IWW had been forcibly expelled a short time before[clearly a violation of civil liberties]. When the Verona docked, it was confronted by an armed posse under sheriff Donald McRae of Snohomish County, and a gunfight erupted. The Verona escaped into Puget Sound by snapping its shore lines, and passengers counted between five and eleven dead and thirty-one wounded.(12)

Popular opinion, in conformity with the evidence of the event, condemned McRae as the aggressor.(12,5)

It wasn't always, indeed likely wasn't usually bloodshed experienced by the very poor and the unionizing in their encounters with puppets of the elite (police). There were other forms of unconstitutional and unconscionable state repression that involved force, yet didn't result usually in blood being spilled. There were, for instance, "vagrancy" laws, which made the absence of the means to sustain oneself a misdemeanor punishable by, ironically enough, fines or forced labor (read: slavery). But there were also less overt ways the state dealt with very poor people it at times encountered...it simply forced the "vagrants" out of town (obviously an unconstitutional practice). Such was the treatment received by some of America's most poor, including about four dozen IWW members in Centralia, Washington on February 5, 1915, who were force-marched out of that city by about a hundred "special policemen."(14) I already mentioned the unconstitutionality of these vagrancy laws, much less the ways they have been implemented, but it bears repeating.

Such activities of the Wobblies, the exhausted and exploited workers, the U.S. government and its brethren economic and military elites would continue up towards WWI, and after.(4)

Some Christians believed at the time of WWI that it was literally all Hell breaking loose. However muted by their patriotic fervor and no less fervent experiences with French women, American soldiers certainly existed for a time in a kind of Hell abroad. Americans lived in another sort of Hell at home. In both cases, though, most Americans were astonishingly blithely unconscious to their own horrific existences.

Once the war began for America in 1917, it seemed virtually all the country was swallowed whole by a nightmarish, jingoistic hysteria in which American society transformed, like a werewolf, into a creature of bestial, insane and savage violence directed at certain domestic "enemies." In the panic of a perceived crisis, Constitutional rights instantly disappeared in a puff of smoke like a magician in a moving picture, leaving only the evil poison gas of state oppression that to some was repulsive, to many was either undetected or mistaken for the sweetness of liberty, and for still others was the heady intoxicant of power, from which they became drunken. Such was the time of the phrase bandied about to justify ruthlessness: "100% Americanism," meaning, rejection of all things "Un-American," and embracing of all things "American."(7) A time in which foreigners, dissent, and generally all things deemed "Un-American" by the popular imaginations that were spellbound by the armchair Crusader president Wilson, either surrendered themselves utterly to the absolute will of Uncle Sam, or experienced his wrath that ranged from insult to brutal and humiliating death.

Few received as great an onslaught against their civil liberties and basic humanity just prior to, during and soon after this period of tricolored mouth-foaming militarism as did the Wobblies, and the reasons for this are numerous: the IWW had a reputation of "troublemaking" and radicalism, some of its members were foreigners, it opposed as an organization the war, its members weren't usually the sort of people to be easily coerced into praising authority, and the list could perhaps go on and on. Partially due to the war, but also by a retaliation of the connected economic elites for a lumber strike in 1917, there was a series of concerted attacks upon the IWW by the state and assorted power elites, with all their powers and puppets, of which this timeline is but a small sampling:

1917: "The Department of Justice sponsored an American Protective League, which by June of 1917 had units in six hundred cities and towns, a membership of nearly 100,000. The press reported that their members were 'the leading men in their communities...bankers...railroad men...hotel men." Their methods included reading others' mails and entering homes and office places, with neither consent nor warrant. Here we have another blatant example of the collusion existing in America amongst the various types of power elites. In this case, the political elites sponsor a very amateur and very illegal spying group, in clear violation of basic laws against burglary, not to mention the first and fourth amendments to the Constitution.(8)
April 3, 1917: State militiamen and marines raid and vandalize a wobbly HQ in Kansas City, while police watch, and then leave with the vandals.(4)
April 6, 1917: America enters WWI when Congress declares war on Germany.(7)
April 21, 1917: Federal troops used to break IWW strikes in Eureka Montana, with the governor asking for such.(4)
Summer, 1917: "The states organized vigilante groups. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, set up by state law, closed saloons and moving picture theaters, took count of land owned by aliens, boosted Liberty bonds, tested people for loyalty. The Minneapolis Journal carried an appeal by the Commission 'for all patriots to join in the suppression of antidraft and seditious acts and sentiment.'" Such an activity, however, is amongst the most anti-patriotic of activities, if one is an American, because of blatant rejection of some of the most basic civil liberties contained in the Constitution. (8)
June 1917: ...[T]he Espionage Act passes. "...it had a clause that provided penalties up to twenty years in prison for 'whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the U.S...'" In the end, 900 people are imprisoned Unconstitutionally under the Act. "(The Espionage Act...approved by the Supreme Court, has remained on the books all these years since World War 1, and although it is supposed to apply only in wartime, it has been constantly in force since 1950, because the United States has legally been in a 'state of emergency' since the Korean war. In 1963, the Kennedy administration used a bill [[unsuccessfully]] to apply the Espionage Act to statements uttered by Americans abroad; it was concerned, in the words of a cable from Secretary of State Rusk to Ambassador Lodge in Vietnam, about journalists in Vietnam writing 'critical articles...on Diem and his government' that were 'likely to impede the war effort.')" This is yet another example of the sort of shredding of the Constitution by the power elites at their will that I have described already.(8)
June 15, 1917: Postmaster General Burleson was given sanction via the Espionage act to deny mailing any material which is of a "treason[ous]" nature. He had earlier begun such unconstitutional actions, but proceeded then even further by removing second-class mailing privileges from publications which "'impugn the motives of the government and thus encourage insubordination.'" (He must mean therefore, something truthful and pertinent.) But if this fellow truly wishes to eliminate "insubordination," he would do well to lock himself in a cage, for his violation of the constitution, the "Supreme law of the land," as it is written, through his suppression of free speech, is therefore an example of "Supreme" "insubordination." Further, he stated he would use his powers harshly against papers that "criticize 'improperly our allies'" in WWI.(7)
June 16, 1917: Soldiers and sailors attacked Seattle wobbly HQ, then police arrested not the criminals, but the victims; 41 Wobblies altogether!(4)
July 12, 1917: "Bisbee and Jerome, Arizona, [were] sites of infamous deportations of striking copper workers... officials at the Phelps Dodge copper company combined forces with the Citizens Protective League led by the local sheriff to round up over 1,000 strikers, stuff them into sealed boxcars, and send them off into the scorching desert...[S]uch a flagrant violation of human rights was too much for the Justice Department, which prosecuted the vigilantes, but evidently not for the U.S. Supreme Court, which acquitted them."(10) Wobblies were the principle organizers of this strike. They were denounced by the U.S. government as being German agents, while quixotically enough, the plan implemented to get rid of the Wobblies was designed by a German army captain.(11)
September 5, 1917: "...In a series of nationwide raids, agents from the Department of ["]Justice["] ransacked the halls and headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World. They seized correspondence, journals, pamphlets, and office furnishings; everything from desks and typewriters to paper clips. Shortly thereafter, federal, local, and state authorities herded hundreds of men into jails of Chicago, Wichita, Omaha, Tulsa, Spokane, Seattle, and many other American cities. A year later many of those arrested took up more permanent residence in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas."(4)
May, 1918: In a raid on IWW headquarters in Centralia, Washington, Wobblies were beaten, doors and windows were thrashed, valuables like a typewriter, phonograph and even a desk were stolen, and papers and other items were hauled into the street for a bonfire. Following this, the Wobblies were driven out of town. Later, a blind newspaper salesman who sold the IWW's publication "Industrial Worker," had his newsstand overturned and newspapers driven into some mud, and then he himself was kidnapped, dumped in a ditch out of town, and warned to not come back. However, both he and the Wobblies eventually both did.(16)
June, 1918: Not himself a Wobbly, but another example of a dissident being wrongfully repressed is that of socialist Eugene Debs who on this date gives a speech, the following being an excerpt: "'Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder...And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles...'" He spoke the truth about the power elite indeed, was arrested, tried, and then sentenced to 10 years in prison for violating the Espionage Act.(8)
November 11, 1918: End of World War I when German representatives sign an armistice.(7)
Feb. 9, 1919: In Seattle during the General Strike, Wobbly Walter Smith was jailed for distributing the leaflet: "Russia did it"(9)
September 1919: Wobblies return and lease another HQ in Centralia, Washington.
Nov.11, 1919 (Armistice Day): A cabalist branch of the ironically named "Citizen's Protective League" plotted against the local IWW prior to this day, and it eventually was "practically an open secret" amongst the citizens of Centralia, Washington that there would be a raid against IWW headquarters akin to one that had taken place in May of 1918. With the police chief refusing to protect the HQ on the grounds that he had insufficient forces to oppose a large group of marching Legionnaires (which is bullshit because police at other times and places, and even in Centralia back in 1915, sheriffs did manage to hastily create small armies of "special police" and "deputies" to terrorize Wobblies and strikers within only a fraction of the time that the chief had now before the upcoming Armistice parade). The Legionnaires attacked the HQ once again, but this time, Wobblies didn't prostrately take what the editor of one Tacoma Newspaper called "the virile Americanism of frontier vigilantes." Of necessity taking the law and an assorted arsenal into their collective hands, once the Legionnaires rushed the HQ, Wobblies fired upon them in self-defense. Yet their mistake wasn't in trying to fight back, it was in having insufficient forces for the task. Thus, the patriots swarmed against the gunmen and soon overpowered them. The result was that several Wobblies were taken to jail, and four of the attacking mob were slain. One of the Wobblies was then taken at night, when all the lights coincidentally went out for fifteen minutes through the town. He was believed to have been castrated in a car en route to a railroad trestle, where he was hung once, then taken back up and hung again with a longer rope, then riddled with rifle-fire as his body dangled. It was then later on cut down and left in the Chehalis river for nearly a whole day, then picked up very tardily by the local coroner (himself a president of the "Citizens' Protective League," of which the aforementioned terror cabal branched from), and taken to the jail to be displayed to the Wobblies who were left to view it for two days. Later, at a belated inquest, Livingstone (aka the coroner, or perhaps a better name would be "man of death") was conveniently absent. Later on, however, he was present at the Elks Club (the original site where the cabal was founded), where he gave this informal verdict as coroner, likely wearing the antlers of that club's members (when horns would be more appropriate for him): "Everest [the man who was lynched] had broken out of jail, had fled to the river, had hanged himself, had then climbed back the [sic] rope to replace it with a longer one, had jumped again, had then shot himself several times, and finally had drowned in the river after cutting the rope."(16)
Late 1919-early 1920: In response to red scare hysteria, US attorney General Palmer added power to his Department's bureau of investigation by creating an anti-radical section called the "General Intelligence Division," and placed the zealous J. Edgar Hoover in charge. Later, Palmer conducted the infamous "Palmer Raids" against first the Union of Russian Workers and then Communist Party offices on November 7, 1919 and January 2 1920, respectively. Both operations were conducted simultaneously in dozens of cities, netting in the process hundreds, in the latter raids, thousands of people suspected of "subversion." (But in fact, given the unconstitutional and repressive actions of the government, would it have been immoral or even illegal to have been practicing "subversion" at that time?) Many were deported, being as they were non-citizens, and without the same legal rights as Americans. Such raids clearly are not done with respect for, but rather in violation of basic civil liberties, for while it might have been legally permissible for the government to deport non-citizens, it was however illegal to interfere with the freedom of speech, because the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution makes no distinction between citizen and foreigner in stating that there shall be no interference with free speech, and so by attempting to do such, through even indirect means, is unconstitutional. Needless to say, what remained of the Wobblies after all the previous crushing force of the "Iron heel," of course would be targeted.(7)

Thus:
For two or three years the story of the IWW is a story of dreary and repetitive raids and arrests, trials and appeals, fund-raising for defense committees and recriminatory pamphleteering. The attack of the "master class" jolted the IWW, and it forced it to turn all of its energies and resources to its own legal defense. The IWW really ceased as a labor union of any kind and became merely a harried victim, its actions marked not by the élan of the prewar years but by the desperate preoccupations of a cornered animal. The baited and wounded IWW...sank gradually into that vast limbo of public forgetfulness. By the 1930s people erroneously talked of the IWW in the past tense.(16)

After the smoke cleared in 1920, the IWW was still hanging in there. By this time America, much like their tragically fated President, though it was the age of the foolishly conceived Prohibition, had overindulged on the Red, White, and Blue liquors of "100%[proof?] Americanism" to an injurious extent, and now lay effete. But unlike Wilson, the American people had lost their zest for and desire to express the unjust politics manifested by the ruthless quashing of difference in a quest for an assumed superior, yet in reality maddeningly stale, unnatural and lifeless homogeneity that comes with pure "100% Americanism." As one imbibes of "100% Americanism," the greater is one's love of country, yet the lesser are the legitimate reasons for such love. Unfortunately, like the hungover who swears something like how he/she shall "never, never again touch a drop of that evil venom" and does truly believe this because of the nausea that even the thought of it produces, the rejection of politics following a peculiarly American political spree (of which the above pages of state repression during the war era were but a small taste), would have nearly fatal consequences for the U.S. government, but actually fatal consequences for many Americans who starved to death in the great depression (if only their respective fates were exchanged).(17)

Sobriety (of the Unenforced and for the U.S. Government Undesirable Kind)

Perhaps the American people did to a degree, even if it were subconscious, recognize the horrific consequences of an unquestioning, unswervingly obedient "Patriotism" that characterized the nation during WWI. Perhaps people became first bored and tired, then outright spurning against a politics that consists of an endless feasting upon identical saccharine platitudes and trite slogans to a point of vomitous surfeit. Perhaps a combination of the two accounts for the in some ways good, but in other ways "perilously prosperous" "roaring twenties."(17,10)

As I said earlier, the Wobblies still exist today, but generally suffered the same fate as the rabid patriotism of Wilson's "Americanism": extreme diminishment of social influence through great marginalization, with occasional punctuations followed by a return to marginalization.(16)

But running as a sort of controlling spine through all this history of popular society is the history of a very antipopulist sort, of a group that maintains a tradition of separation of itself from the "masses," as a necessary precondition for justifying the domination of such: the power elite. While American politics largely slept, the elites tightened their grip, nearly lost control in the Great Depression, but caught hold of it once more, and retains a firm grip on your leash and the leashes of your kind today. Though lynchings are a lot more uncommon, violent police suppression of free speech has become a regular feature of modern politics. Just observe the WTO protests in Seattle, for example (15). (When I viewed video images back while this was happening in 1999, that is when the myth of American freedoms of speech and assembly, was rightfully shattered.) When the power elites wished it, civil liberties were taken away, and this situation continues today. Knowledge of violent terror tactics police arbitrarily use against peacefully assembled citizens has virtually become common knowledge, and perhaps the power elite wishes it this way, to terrorize, exploit and bend the will of the people till their backs break via the power elite's insatiable rapine. Indeed, the violent state suppression of speech and assembly has become a barbaric American tradition. If you don't believe me, find out the meaning of these nouns: McCarthyism. Bull Connor. COINTELPRO. MOVE9. Mumia Abu Jamal. Free Speech Zone.

["The star-spangled banner" plays on a kazoo in the background.]

"Fucking Hell! Why not just look at the latest issue of our own college paper, and see a demonstration of how a demonstration, which was peaceful (against the loading of the fucking stupid-assed named "Stryker" vehicles being loaded at the port of Tacoma to be shipped off for an unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, and just fucking paragon of idiocy and all things wrong Iraq war), was subjected to arbitrary police violence and arrests, I assume in order to silence dissent through terror ([sigh] again). The police drew a line on the ground to delimit what areas would and would not be permissible for protesters to enter, I presume around the port of Tacoma. Now this is constitutionally questionable, but under the circumstances considered necessary in order to enable the port to operate. OK, granted...the police said that if the protesters didn't cross the line, then they wouldn't be arrested. Guess what happened? The protesters didn't cross the line. Then the police transformed into pigs when they arbitrarily marched into the protesters, and started beating them. "...footage includes protesters being repeatedly struck in the ace with uplifted bicycle tires by bike cops." Riddle me this, riddle me that, who were the people arrested for engaging in an attack? THE PROTESTERS!!! HA, HA! I'm laughing...because justice is a joke in the United States. It's part of a tradition, and our American Heritage."(20)

[Kazoo playing abruptly, stridently ends, as though the instrument were yanked out of the player's mouth.]

"Friends and Fellow Workers, I'm afraid the situation has become serious and dire. People have not only a constitutionally protected right, but a basic human right, to fight back against attackers, regardless of whether or not the state organizes and supplies the attackers and pays them a salary, regardless of how rich and/or scheming the puppetmaster behind the scenes is who orders them or their boss around, regardless of whether or not the attackers wear a badge. Why does it suddenly become wrong to shoot an attacker in self-defense, just because that attacker has a fucking badge? Answer: it doesn't. Sad that it's come to this, but protesters should start arming themselves with guns, and read aloud the first two amendments of the constitution aloud to the police prior to a protest, and then inform them that if the police start threatening their civil rights and/or themselves physically, that since the police would be unwilling to uphold the law, it therefore falls upon the citizenry to do so through the exercise of any force necessary for their protection of their bodies and freedoms. If the police start wearing bullet proof clothing, brandish rocket propelled grenades, and repeat the warning. Whatever it takes. This is ugly, this is scary, this is not blissfully comfortable somnambulistic middle class sheepishness...this is fighting for your human rights, and for self defense if nothing else. If you don't care enough about your rights and/or personal safety, or that of your brothers and sisters to act, then remember that such a course of action is a defense of your Constitution. This is the cause of justice, period. And if you'll all desert me to battle the horde of savages alone, as I fight to protect you, fine. Remember though, as you hear my blood dripping a sad song into the gutter, that it was our unwillingness to deal with this problem effectively before that has caused the problems of police repressing peaceful protesters, and these police WILL NOT change their acts of unconstitutional repressions until we FORCE THEM TO. Until then, you can get clubbed in the head and then arrested for assault if you want, but I REFUSE TO PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT. Give me a revolver, and I'll give you 6 solutions to the problems of these pig assaults."

Upon viewing this history, and the history of the WTO protests in Seattle during the wrecked ministerial conference of 1999, I had found that modern American society is ruled by a small group of elites, who exercise in practice absolute authority, and attack dissent with ruthless and violent suppression at will with impunity (for they are creators, financiers, and enforcers of law on their terms, not the Constitution's). The American people like ourselves are sometimes violently terrorized into obedience and submissive exploitation when the power elite deem it necessary, but always there's a repetition of the big lie of "Democracy" and "Freedom" and "Representation" being the form of government in the United States, when really it is essentially the same oppressive system of master and servant that plagued the politics of Western Civilization since its origins in Mesopotamia. This is the ugly and grim reality of what lies behind the mask of "Democracy."

A reasonable observer of this history, along with a comparison of more recent acts of unconstitutional repression of civil liberties, forces one to conclude that indeed the American people do possess the freedom of speech...that one's voice will be heard... if it happens to be a scream of agony as blood flows across one's face from a cracked skull, or a wheezing gurgling cough from the inhalation of chemical weapons, all courtesy of the protectors of our rights (police).

Consider that when tensions heated up, civil liberties, or perhaps the illusion of such, like an invisible (imaginary?) phlogistonic vapor, were the first things to evaporate...if in fact they were ever really there. For were they? Consider an autocratic ruler, such as a king, and his subjects. If one such subject does speak in a way not to the liking of the king, but the absolute ruler does nothing in response, then does the subject possess in the manifest political institution to which he is subjected, the freedom of speech? Though such a freedom may be acquired under any circumstances at the cost of sufficient will, on the level of the manifest political institution, there is no such freedom, because the person's speech was free only by the monarch's allowance of such...which could disappear at any time. And though in this country there exists the Constitution with its bold declarations of civil liberties and rights, the difference in terms of the protections of said liberties and rights in the contexts of the various episodes I showed, between this elitist Republican political order and an elitist Monarchical political order, is literally paper-thin. For in these episodes, it was seen how freedoms of speech were withdrawn by any of the economic, military, or political power elites whensoever it suited their fancy, in the same ways of a kingly tyrant. Therefore, within the United States, if you manage to speak freely, you do so because you are allowed, not because you are in practical politics free to do so at your discretion. For being as you are a sort of slave livestock, the discretion of your speech is not yours, but the power elites'. Though a monarch or power elite may allow your speech almost always, you still do not have freedom on the level of manifest political institutions. How, then, is modern political society any different than a monarchical tyranny, save in the names and personages that have taken the king's sceptre and wield it with the same brutal authority?

It now falls upon us, under such actually repressive circumstances, to first see beyond the paper-thin illusions of "Democracy," and then to ask ourselves if there may be now, in our time, a greater security and measure of liberty possible for ourselves, produced from this and other true historical learnings. It now falls upon us to ask, therefore, if another greater system may be adopted, and another improving step upon our collective political condition be adopted. Such questions, and actions manifesting from their answers, are the procedure of progress, and must be asked to begin the process, lest progress in a matter so crucial for humanity as politics be abandoned, and humankind remain mired in a dark age. Lest you and your fellows of this and all subsequent generations be victimized by the same exploitation and brutality of the power elites and their empty-headed puppets.

How long before you, before we say: "ENOUGH!"? Is there something better? Then let's make it ourselves, and not trust in the antiquated engine of disaster that is the paradigm of "master and servant," but a new one of only peers, who will create together a new world.

As the rapper Immortal Technique spat:
Escape the emptiness
'Cause that shit is slow and it kills
The flow and the skill
I made y'all believe it at last
You can make the future
But it starts with leaving the past.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

It might seem astonishing to some that in the United States there has been not merely the repression, but the extremely violent repression of such well-known and basic civil liberties as the freedom of speech and assembly, at any time in the history of this country. Perhaps more astonishing still would be the knowledge that there has been the violent repression of others also. What would generate even more amazement amongst many Americans who believed what they heard in public school civics and American government classes would be the true statement that in the very limited span of just 11 years from 1909 to 1920, there were enough instances of state repression of civil liberties to have filled an article of this size, and more. I believe that literally volumes could be written that are nothing but timelines of the sort I had presented, were such violations fully documented. And then, when one considers not just those eleven but the total nearly 231 years of American history and all the instances of similar repressions of what are supposed to be Constitutionally guaranteed rights, there would surely be a timeline of such an awesome length that an entire lifetime could be spent doing nothing other than attempting to read the entire bloody and outrageous chronology, without ever reaching past indeed a few years time. As such, there was a world of information available, and considering the history education the American people receive in public schools, which amounts to a philosophy of dehumanization to becoming the livestock of power elites, a vast alternate dimension of truth, not of the American Dream (nightmare?) that we live in. From this alternate dimension, it is easy to merely scrape the surface and attain a prodigious level of information, as I have done writing this paper, as you have done in reading it. What is hard, given its actual historical ubiquity, is to exclude this vast amount of facts from a historical analysis of the United States at any time (as dark wizards of Americana I am sure are very aware).
Getting back to the hypothetical individual who would study the hypothetical chronology I mentioned before, if humankind is to have a hope for salvation, for a new society in which the brutalities and exploitations of elites against the non-elites are finally abandoned as a tradition (dating back to the origins of Western Civilization), then while that reader is still quite young, he or she should discover, as I have upon viewing video footage of police shooting tear gas at peaceful protesters at the "Battle of Seattle," not only the specific instances of the injustices by the elites and/or their puppets. He or she should discover the overall outline of the social order, of the red, white and blue dragon that crushes lawful dissent and exploits the people with the power of state, of armed forces and of the "mother's milk" of politics: money, at its will, with impunity. Of brutal savages enslaving the people and violently crushing protestations from the latter. Of the same tradition of master and servant continuing, as I have said, today.

If there is to be hope for humankind, he or she must see this dragon of the power elite, and what it does. If there is to be hope for humankind, a righteous indignation should well up within one's soul, against the beast. If there is to be hope for humanity, a courageous attack be waged by whatever weapons are available and effective, against the dragon when it comes to rape or kill you. If there is to be hope for humankind, the beast must be slain. If there is to be hope for humankind, from its meat should the people feed, from its scales should ships, dwellings, clothing and useful necessaries be fashioned, from its blood should fields be fertilized, and from its claws, horns and bones should tools be crafted. And lastly, what is created in the aftermath must be founded upon sound principles of genuine liberty, pragmatism, equality, and most of all genuine democracy, and fashioned from a knowledge and avoidance of mistakes made by ancestors, in the general and in the particulars, and be vigilantly protected. Otherwise the dragon regenerates itself, with new colors, as has happened.
Someday, if the human species does not annihilate itself through vested and inevitably misused, awesome power in the hands of squabbling cyclopean elites, a person or more likely a group of people will lift the sword of justice and plunge it through the heart of the dragon, slaying the loathsome beast. I wish to see such in my time.

1) Adler, Mortimer J. et al.. Brittanica Great Books #40. Chicago: Robert P. Gwinn, 1990.
This is a great resource for students of the American government. It has the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, Constitution of the United States, and about 84-85 Federalist papers. It's part of the "Great Books of the Western World" series of Brittanica.
2) Mills, Charles Wright. The Power Elite. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.
A classic of political science and sociology, it wells deserves this status. Not only is it well written, it is also offers a very compelling way of understanding American society, and has arguments that are pertinent today. It's very intelligent.
3) Yellen, Samuel. American Labor Struggles. New York: Arno, 1969.
This is a selection of 10 different labor struggles of American history, chosen by the author on the criteria of how well they overall represent the struggles of labor in General. It was well written, with numerous different quotations from different sources and perspectives sandwiched in between an almost equal amount of the author's voice, creating a rich mixture of flavors in the text, and thus a rich perspective on the events covered.
4) Dubovsky, Melvyn. We Shall Be All; A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969.
Though I felt the author had something of a mild opinion injected into the history, overall I would not say that there was anything written that was erroneous. He give an exhaustively detailed history of the IWW from before its founding in 1890 to 1924, and one is sure to find out what they want to know regarding the Wobblies in this huge book of 484 pages.
5) Shaffer, Deborah and Bird, Stewart. The Wobblies (video). New York: West Glen Films, 1979.
This is a great video to introduce people to who the Wobblies are. It also covers the milieu of their heyday (around 1905 to 1925), the eyewitness accounts and stories of Wobblies alive at the time the film was made, as well as some of the history and perspectives of the IWW.
6) Edwards, George C. Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy. New York: Longman, 2001.
This book pisses me off. Its obviously a high school American government textbook, and is designed to socialize people into a life of enslavement as American citizens. It is designed to make them become socialized as fat livestock for the power elite rancher masters. It is designed to convince you that you are free, when you are not, and so is one of those rare sorts of books that makes you less knowledgeable and aware as you read it. If one were to read this book, and to believe everything it says, than in the strange reasoning of paradoxical Americana, up is down, Democracy is Republicanism, and "freedom is slavery" as Orwell would say. Here is an example of how they want to program your mind: democracy is defined in the glossary as: "A system of selecting policymakers and of organizing government so that policy represents and responds to the public's preferences." BULLSHIT! That's Republican government, dammit! I wouldn't trust its opinions, nor the overall picture one gets if they were to read it...DON'T READ IT. If you must use it, keep it as a handy sort of reference regarding the U.S...but with a skeptical and wary eye at all times. You will have to read between its lines. It's designed for brainwashing, but nevertheless cannot outright lie on a lot of facts that are readily provable, such as dates of events and names of miscellaneous Acts and cases etc., and on this score is useful.
7) Kennedy, David M.. Over Here. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
This book gives an interesting history of the United States during WWI. It covers a lot of ground that is frankly very shocking, although what isn't shocking is that much of the information contained within would be deliberately withheld from a narrative of American history during this time period in an American public school. It is well written and enjoyable because the information contained within is so fascinating.
8) Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
This book is a modern classic, and deserves that status. It has a history that is easy to understand yet skillfully delivered, and is essentially an attempt to retell American history from the perspectives of ordinary people, as a sort of countervailing history to the more traditional approach that people are more likely to be familiar with, in which history seems to be some sort of clay that only "great men" were able to shape...and the results of their sculpting upon the ordinary people weren't considered historically relevant, generally. This book may have revolutionized the historian's craft. It delivers a terrifying picture of what American was like for Americans, and is worth reading, to get a counterbalancing perspective on U.S. history from what you learned in the public schools.
9) Friedheim, Robert L. The Seattle General Strike. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964.
This book goes into agonizing detail about an event that took place for only a few days in February, 1919 in you-know-where. You'll find out all the info on what was basically a vast and quixotic, peaceful though disorganized, eerie sympathy strike for some shipyard workers.
10) Dawley, Alan. Changing the world. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.
This give a history of the progressive movement in the early years of the twentieth century, and also delves into some of the peculiar neuroses that help define the American personality, especially regarding foreign policy.
11) Murfin, Patrick and Thompson, Fred. The IWW: It's First Seventy Years. Chicago: Industrial Workers of the World, 1976.
This is a history of the IWW, by the IWW. Interesting to see events from their perspective.
12) Conlin, Joseph Robert. Bread and Roses Too; Studies of the Wobblies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1969.
This was a book meant to cover a topic (IWW) that hadn't received much attention in nearly fifty years at the time it was written. But it does have a pretty palpable and strong opinion within.
13) Industrial Workers of the World. The Founding Convention of the IWW Proceedings. New York: Merit publishers, 1969.
This is a VAST stenographic record of the founding IWW convention of Chicago in 1905. The IWW itself originally made the records, which the publishing firm simply published. The detail is excruciating...so if you want to know something about the IWW convention, look here.
14) McClelland, John M. 1915 Wobbly War: The Centralia Story. Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 1987.
This is a historical text that details the events leading up to and including one of the more famous trials in American history, in which it was widely believed that the Wobblies found guilty were innocent of wrongdoing.
15) Independent Media Center. Showdown in Seattle: Five Days that Shook the WTO (video). New York: Deep Dish Television, 1999.
This is a video that is very biased, and also presents not a very general and facts-based account, but rather a very subjective series of eyewitness testimonies dominates the video. Still, one is able to discover some interesting information, on account of how independent media made it. One gleans from the sparse facts conclusive evidence of police misconduct, violations by the state of civil liberties through extraordinary violence, amongst some other information.
16) Tyler, Robert L.. Rebels in the Woods: The IWW in the Pacific Northwest. Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon Books, 1967.
This is a worthwhile read, focusing on the history of the IWW in the Pacific Northwest. Thus it is more detailed than just an overall history.
17) Leuchtenburg, William E. The Perils of Prosperity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
This book covers the history of the US from just before WWI to just after the great depression, and offers several useful subjective thoughts of the author. Also there are some interesting details covered regarding this time span, and a general picture of society at this time is given if one reads the whole book.
18) Forbes, B.C.. "America's Richest: The First Rich List" Forbes. 27 September, 2002. Forbes.com. <http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/27/0927richest_print.html>
This is an older listing from a previously published "rich list," I believe the first Forbes ever put out, put up this time on the net. It lists the richest Americans in 1918, with Rockefeller topping the list.
19) International Workers of the World. "Preamble to the IWW Constitution" Preamble to the IWW Constitution. 1905. Industrial Workers of the World. <http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml>
I went from the homepage of the IWW to here, but there is a great diversity of other information available from its homepage.
20) Needer, Tori. "Anti-War Protest Leads to Arrests." Cooper Point Journal. 8 March 2007: 1.
I found this newspaper covering a very wide range of topics, all related in some way, usually, to Evergreen. An Evergreen protester was on the scene.