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Show THE CITIZEN 4 them at the hearing to show that they had not taken out citizenship paper would not dare to express an opinion contrary to the generally accepted views of organized labor at the moment. papers for the reason that they would not swear allegiance to a govThe acts of the union members in Seattle were the negation of ernment they were seeking to destroy. and coercion Obviously if we devise adequate exclusion laws and enforce them freedom, of free speech and a free press. By intimidation of the paper established a censorship as despotic as that by the proper surveilliance on both sides of the oceans the problem of the employes once enforced by the kaiser. And these acts were intended to have a deportation will never again be as serious as it is today. will hardly dare to call its continuing effect, for the soul and a very much contaminated soul it is for the present its COERCING THE PRESS own if organized labor so much as wrinkles its brow to frown. It is pleasant to record a case in cheering contrast to that which which has been the theme of many of the SPEAKING Red kept press, journals of late, the report of the joint legislative has added to the disgrace of Seattle. In Beaumont, Texas, there are committee in New York is illuminating. It will be recalled that we printers who are willing to fight for their papers even in defiance of a discussed the subject several weeks ago and declared that the radical Trades Assembly boycott. The two daily papers in that city, the Enterprise and the Journal, journals qualified more thoroughly than any other for inclusion in the are having difficulty with the Trades Assembly, the latter boycotting class of the kept press. the papers in an effort to place them under a sort of duress in their The New York joint legislative committee investigated forty-tw- o editorial expressions. & radical newspapers and periodicals and found only two that were The printer delegates, at a meeting of the Trade Assembly did The others were supported by gifts from persons in this their best to prevent the boycott, but were defeated, withdrew from country or by propaganda funds sent out of Bolshevik Russia. the assembly and remained loyal to the publishers. In the same article we remarked that We have known journals, One of the printer delegates, at the close of the meeting gave out even unions labor criticise afraid to were that owned, capitalistically a statement, in the course of which he said : in a friendly spirit for fear of losing subscriptions, and we added that We could not and cannot tolerate the tactics enforced last night, In that sense they were kept journals kept by the labor unions. and we will not be parties to any attempt to muzzle or influence the A remarkable case in point is described in the Oregon Voter of policy of any newspaper which is in its business relations entirely fair November 29, a Portland, Oregon, publication. with our organization. forced of Seattle was recently by The Daily Our union is the oldest in the city. It was for many years the own its resolutions employes means of perpetuating this same Trades Assembly which last adopted by organized labor to publish night malicious, reckless, shameless, lying, depraved, in refused effect condemning to give its representatives a fair and considerable anarchistic. malignant and hearing. an open We are bound by contract to the publishers of this city not to It appears that Edwin Selvin of the Business Chronicle, shop journal, published an editorial including a paragraph which was take part in or countenance any boycott of their business, and we construed by the union men as a direct incitement to the lynching of propose to live up to our contract. revolutionaries and the imprisonment or deportation of Red agitators. GARBLING HISTORY Rightly or wrongly the union men also deduced that Mr. Selvin urged and of Labor Federation American of the they the lynching of leaders had him arrested on the charge of publishing matter of a character trust that when President Wilson fulfills his ambition to retire from politics and write history he will present his facts tending to incite murder or assassination. Prior to his arrest Selvin took a copy of his editorial to the Post-- . in better perspective than he did in one of his western speeches while e advertisement, to ad- discussing the Congress of Vienna and the Monroe Doctrine. He said: Intelligencer and had it inserted as a The last great vertise his publication. The advertisement was run in two early edipeace conference was held in Vienna, tions of the Intelligencer and was then excluded because all the labor back in the year of 1815, if I remember correc.tly. The conference of Vienna was intended to check the revolution-ar- y unions of the paper went on a strike. The spirit of the time. That was intended to check the revolution trying to maintain an appearance of announced that the editor had excluded the advertisement as not only in Europe, but throughout the world. The British represoon as he saw it. The employes were not content to let off so lightly sentatives at that conference were alarmed because they heard it the paper that they should have been loyal to and immediately took whispered that European governments were proposing to extend their power to the western hemisphere to the Americas ; and the action to humiliate and degrade it. The Seattle Union Record, organ of organized labor, came out prime minister of Great Britain suggested to Mr. Rush, the ambassais familiarly dor of the United States at the court of Great Britain, that he put it with the assertion that the P-- I, as the in the ear of Mr. Monroe, .who was then president, that this thing was known, had excluded the advertisement under threat of a walkout by ' afoot, that it might be profitable to say something about it. . its employes. Thereupon Mr. Monroe uttered his famous Monroe Doctrij;: On the following day the P-- I printed in large type on its front that- - any European power that sought either to colonize this saying the own its resolutions the denouncing employes adopted by page western hemisphere, or to interfere with its political institutions, or P-paper as a liar, anarchist and traitor. Along with this the I pubto extend monarchial institutions to it, would be regarded as having lished an attempted exculpation. done an unfriendly; act to the United States. Since then no power The unions also published the fact that at their dictation the P-- I has dared interfere with the of the Americas. had been compelled to exclude an advertisement of the Associated That is the famous Monroe Doctrine; we love it, because it was the. Industries of Seattle. first effective dam built up against the tide of autocratic power. : do. Our With the local Seattle issues we have nothing to opinion If Mr. Wilson had merely blundered regarding facts of history in first the is that the advertisement should have been .excluded place, we should not feel concerned, but, while professing to tell all that is but the management of the paper had the right to make its own deto be found in the league covenant and accusing his opponents of cision without being subjected to union censorship. suppressing the facts, he himself suppresses a whole clause of the Our point is that many papers in which capitalists have risked Monroe Doctrine a clause Which has a vital bearing in every disvast sums of money are really controlled by fear of labor unions, and cussion of entangling foreign alliances. more so today than ever before because of the domination of. unions But to set the matter in the clearest light let us begin with the by. Reds who have forced their way into official positions. Congress of Vienna. It was held in 1814, nearly a decade before Those who complain of a controlled press are frequently those President Monroe promulgated his doctrine in 1823. who believe most fervently in just that kind of a press. A labor union Other conferences, which resulted in the Holy Alliance, were Post-Intelligen- . cer self-sustaini- ng. Post-Intelligen- it-a- cer s WE full-pag- so-call- ed Post-Intelligenc- self-respe- er, Post-Intelligen- ct, cer self-determinat- ion |
