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Show NEBEKER'S TASK! It is encouraging news that Frank K. Nebekcr, special assistant attorney general of tho United Slates, brings to ns from tho J. W. W. trial at Chicago. .Mr. Nebeker believes that moat of tho leaders were caught in tho government's govern-ment's dragnet, ami that thereby the organization was deprived of its initiative initia-tive and of much of its power to plot sabotage and violence. This genius for evil should be lacking in the organization organiza-tion for a long time, inasmuch as the evidonco seized by tho government -is certain to send the leaders to prison for years. Nowhere will tho plight of tho I. W. V. plotters awaken sympathy outside of their own organization.' As Mr. V Nebeker points out, they plotted with the utmost audacity to wreck industrial plants engaged in war work, and were prepared to wade in blood, if neees-sarv, neees-sarv, to accomplish the downfall of their own country and the triumph of tho German autocracy. And, like the liolsheviki of Russia, they had nothing to put in place of what they sought to destroy. And still, like the Bolsheviki, they were ready to let in the tide of Hun tyranny and brutality. They did not cherish a single ideal that, rose nbovo the level of hatred and revenge. Their idea of an achievement "was to slay a governor who had been elected by the votes of a majority of tho people, peo-ple, because he refused to pardon one of their most ruthless assassins. This is the class of men that Mr. Nebeker has been called upon to prosecute, prose-cute, and his fellow citizens will extend ex-tend to him their best wishes for success, suc-cess, lie is engaged in one of the most important and responsible tasks of the federal department of justice, for with tho elimination of the I. W. W. leaders lead-ers from the counsels of tho ignorant and vicious, a' murderous organization in war or in peace will have been rendered ren-dered virtually innocuous. It is by contrasting the leaders of the I. YV W. with the genuine labor leaders of the country that we are enabled to appreciate the ualities of a man such as Samuel Sam-uel Gonipcrs. No one could possibly pos-sibly be more pacific in his nature or in his philosophy than Mr. Gompers. lie was for years confirmed in the belief be-lief that there could never be another war among the great civilized nations, but when the crash came in 1014, being a reasonable man, he was willing to face conditions as they were, and later, when his own country threatened to become involved, he was ready to accept ac-cept the issue. He called the labor leaders together for a conference, and on March almost a month before war was declared, they proclaimed their readiness to meet the war patriotically if it came and to do their best to win it. Congress could hardly have received a more convincing proof of the country's coun-try's real sentiment than ' this action of men who had schooled themselves in the doctrines of pacifism and who had been accustomed, no doubt, to ascribe wars to selfish struggles for power and riches. But the evidence in this war was so clear, the issue between democracy and autocracy so inescapable, inescap-able, the tendency of autocracy to reestablish re-establish the servitude of the masses so unmistakable, that the labor leaders of the country, in advance of the action of congress, virtually indorsed a declaration dec-laration of war. To us this appears to be the zenith of enlightened patriotism. patriot-ism. VThiMi we compare it with the treacherous blows struck in the dark by the T. V. V, we realize how much be'ow the level of our normal humanity human-ity are the members cif this fearsome and yet futile organization. |