MOTHER EARTH

B U L E T I N

VOL. I

JANUARY, 1918, NEW YORK

NO. 4

Farewell, Friends and Comrades!

The Supreme Court of the United States has spoken. Rest in peace, dear Fatherland! Firm stands the guard at Washington.

The draft law has been declared constitutional. The good citizen need worry no more about the justice of forced military service: it is constitutional. Involuntary servitude should give the free sovereign no more anxiety: it is constitutional and democratic. The humanity of forcing men to bear arms in violation of their conscience may not be questioned any more: it is constitutional, it is democratic, it is final.

The highest judicial tribunal of the United States has sustained the verdicts of the lower courts of the various states, EN MASSE. Without wasting its time on facts or arguments, the United States Supreme Court has decided, virtually, that the government has the right to do anything it pleases, and that there in no more to be said about it.

The decision also upholds the so-called conspiracy cases appealed from New York, Ohio, and other States, and affirms the sentences of Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Morris Becker and Louis Kramer, convicted in New York for anti-draft agitation.

The action of the Court does not surprise us. We expected it. But we cannot refrain from expressing the pain we have felt at the limited social vision of the well-meaning friends who were so naively hopeful of legal justice, in spite of the all-too-numerous lessons to the contrary.

Be of good cheer, good friends and comrades. We are going to prison with light hearts. To us it is more satisfactory to stay behind prison bars than to remain MUZZLED in freedom. Our spirit will not be daunted, nor our will broken. We will return to our work in due time.

This is our farewell to you. The light of Liberty burns low just now. But do not despair, friends. Keep the spark alive. The night cannot last forever. Soon there will come a rift in the darkness, and the New Day break even here. May each of us feel that we have contributed our mite toward the great Awakening.

The BULLETIN will continue, with your help, even in our absence. It will have a thorny path, but we know we may depend on your interest and co-operation as generously and faithfully as you have helped in the past. By means of the BULLETIN we shall keep in touch with you, while we are in retirement, and you shall hear the voices that cannot be stifled by stone walls. Au revoir, some day,

EMMA GOLDMAN
ALEXANDER BERXMAN

P. S. Direct word from friends is a great joy to the prisoner. Mail will reach Emma Goldman at State Prison, Jefferson City, Mo. Alexander Berkman, Louis Kramer and Morris Becker are to be addressed at U. S. Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga. The prison rules require correspondents to sign full name and address.

The Trotsky Idea

Alexander Berkman

Only a few weeks ago the American press and jingo intellectuals were unanimous in denouncing Lenin and Trotsky as the agents and spies of the Kaiser. The Boylsheviki were branded as the tools of Prussian militarism, and anyone who dared to protest in this country against that infamous misrepresentation, was himself considered guilty of sedition.

All of a sudden the tune has changed. Quite unblushingly the New York Times, heretofore foaming at the mouth at the very mention of the Boylsheviki now writes: "The reactionary press (in England) has misrepresented Trotsky as an agent of Germany." It would be rather interesting to know what peculiar kind of journalism the ultra chauvinist Times regards as reactionary.

Wilson himself, in his latest peace message, was moved to acknowledge that the "Russian people," whose spokesmen now are the Boylsheviki, "will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind."

This tribute to Trotsky, though somewhat belated, is at least indicative of some understanding of the soul of Russia. No doubt it is a bitter pill for certain quarters, but it may lead the American people to revise their newspaper-made opinions of the Lenins and Trotskys, and help them to appreciate the true character of the Russian revolution.

Trotsky -- for the time being personifying the spirit of revolutionary -- Russia has in two short months done more for peace and humanity than all the diplomats and politicians of the combined governments of the world. He has torn the mask off diplomacy, and shown to the world that diplomacy itself is one of the chief causes of the war. He proved that revolutionary consciousness and frankness of purpose is a veritable David to the diplomatic Goliath. The undiplomatic honesty of Trotsky has wiped diplomacy off the map. There is a grave menace to ALL government in such smashing of the sacrosanct.

By far the greatest significance of Trotsky is the effect of his peace negotiations on the German people themselves. He has done more to discredit Prussian junkerism in Germany than all the military activities of the allies. Moreover, it is only too evident that the German government is more afraid of the Trotsky propaganda among German forces than of Allied artillery. Prussian militarists know that revolutionary IDEAS are more fatal to autocracy than the armed legions of the Entente. That is the true reason why Germany is loath to continue the peace parleys with Russia.

The world diplomats have entirely missed the mark. They fear a separate peace between Russia and Germany. Yet a separate peace may prove the undoing of Kaisertum. A general peace, on the contrary, will enable Prussian militarism, with the aid of its armies, to hold its own against an uprising at home. But with the necessity of keeping up the war against the Allies, a separate peace with Russia would prove a terrible menace to German militarism at home.

The original idea of Trotsky was a GENERAL peace with the initiative taken by Russia. But the Allies failing to join in his efforts, he may work for a separate peace -- a proletarian peace -- fully aware of the moral debacle it involves for Prussian autocracy and militarism.

The Great Hope

Emma Goldman

The attitude of dense ignorance and stupidity toward the most gigantic event since the French Revolution, the Boylsheviki movement in Russia, is not typically American. All great movements have met with the same fate in every land, since stupidity and ignorance have never been the monopoly of any particular country.

The Boylsheviki like all revolutionary movements, have faced three characteristic stages. First, calumny, misrepresentation, hatred, opposition, and persecution. After that came ridicule, scoffing, and cheap deriding of the movement. Finally, in the third stage, recognition though stinted and grudging.

It took the greet movements of the past more than a century to pass these varying stages, and that at the expense of untold suffering and sacrifice. The Boylsheviki have swept on and all but reached the third stage in just a few months. That itself is the most striking proof of how thoroughly the Russian soil was fertilized by the blood of her great martyrs since 1825. The Boylsheviki merely voice the inarticulate Russian people who, oppressed and suppressed for centuries, have not yet acquired the power of speech.

Yes, the Boylsheviki are beginning to be recognized. In fact they have struck like lightning into the hearts and minds of the masses everywhere; yes, even the hitherto so contented and self-satisfied American workers. To be sure, there is still a vast mass which regards as gospel truth the adulterated mental food it finds in the Press. It has not yet learned that American journalism is the worst poison mixer and scurrilous falsifier of great ideals. But thinking people have learned from bitter experience not to believe the papers. These days almost the sole medium of information is the spoken word. But as most lecturers in America are either woefully ignorant on all matters Russian, or too poor of vision to grasp the vast and world-wide significance of the Russian Revolution, the people everywhere are at a loss to account for the miracle which is now holding the world in awe.

That explains, no doubt, the tremendous interest and response aroused by my lecture: on the Boylsheviki and other phases of the Russian Revolution. In fact, never in my thirty years' experience have American audiences turned out in such numbers nor evinced such spontaneous interest as they have during my visit in Chicago and Detroit. Never did they respond with such warmth and enthusiasm to the message of the Boylsheviki. Aye, "illiterate, backward" Russia is yet going to become the spiritual awakener of the American masses, the bugle call to battle against the powers which have kept the peoples of the world in bondage.

The meetings in Chicago were arranged by the Nonpartisan Radical League, a body consisting of militant radicals. Among the most active in the League are our comrades William Nathanson, Billov, the Goodmans, and Slater, who were assisted by scores of other Comrades: Sadie Bernstein, C.V. Cook, Sara and Harry Gruber, Ben Reitman. Sveda, and several of the younger rebels, the Baers, Sachs, etc. All worked like beavers against great obstacles, zero weather, and the difficulty of securing halls, but all enjoyed the fruits of their labors in tremendously enthusiastic meetings. There were nine in all, and a farewell banquet attended by 175 friends united by the spirit of solidarity and devotion that made me realize how very worth while it is to be ready to pay the price for one's ideal. It was a glorious farewell and an inspiring memory to take with me to Jefferson prison.

Detroit was the next city of joy. Four meetings arranged by Comrades Jake and Minnie Fishman and J. Yanovitch, with the co-operation of a Serbian Comrade, Mrs. Marcowitz, a most interesting and rare type of woman. There were also some others who helped, as they always do when there is important work on hand.

An overzealous Chief of Police came near depriving the Detroit people of an opportunity to hear the truth about the Boylsheviki, but our old friend Lee Smits, of the Detroit News, helped to change the official mind, and all went well to the end.

As in Chicago, the halls proved entirely too small for the mass of eager humanity that came to learn about the Boylsheviki, their aims and aspirations. At one meeting fully a thousand people were turned away. But most inspiring of all was the spirit of the people present. It was beautiful to see the light of understanding on the eager faces of my hearers as I portrayed the historic background which prepared Russia for the social and economic demands of the Boylsheviki. It was all very wonderful. Never again will I doubt the revolutionary possibilities of the American workers. If only one could reach them with the social truth now proclaimed to the whole world by the heroic Boylsheviki.

My last meeting in Detroit on the Spiritual Awakening of Russia would have capped the climax of interest; but it had to be given up. A hurry call from New York, informing me that the government demands our immediate surrender to the Federal authorities, compelled me to cut short what would have proven the most inspiring tour I ever made and my most worth-while contribution to the American understanding of the Boylsheviki.

With it all, America itself was not forgotten. A campaign for the amnesty of all political prisoners as soon as peace is concluded was suggested at the farewell banquet in Chicago and placed before a huge audience in Detroit. The response was unanimous and overwhelming. Plans will be formed and the movement launched before we are taken back to prison.

To be sure, the American government is loath to recognize political prisoners. Like the ostrich hiding his head in the sand to deceive the hunter, our Democracy refuses to face the fact that every city has its quota of war casualties, men and women in prison for their political beliefs and activities. All other countries, whether monarchical or republican, recognize the right of amnesty. Will America, now engaged in war to make the would safe for democracy, refuse to do less than imperialistic Germany, autocratic Russia under the Tsar, monarchical England, or republican France?

It must be put to the test. New is the time to awaken public interest in cases like those of Louise Olivereau, doomed to 45 years in the Colorado penitentiary (concurrent sentence of ten years on condition of good behavior); Daniel H. Wallace, serving 20 years in the Federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas; eleven Italians condemned in Milwaukee to 25 years each, among them a woman with her little child taken away from her, and scores of others in every prison throughout the land, all convicted of "crimes" of a political nature, the result of the war and conscription, and whose sentences must end with the war.

Two lectures were scheduled for Ann Arbor, the Michigan seat of learning. They could not be held because the antiquated Daughters of the antiquated American Revolution scared the poor German Mayor of Ann Arbor into suppressing the meetings. Little did these poor revolutionary mummies realize that they were instrumental in starting Russian revolutionary underground agitation among the students of Ann Arbor, a large number of whom gathered in a private house and there listened breathlessly to the dangerous story of the dangerous Boylsheviki of Russia and their effect upon Boylshevism in America.

The flames lighted by the Russian people will illumine the horizon and point the path of the peoples everywhere back to the Internationale, back to a deeper and better understanding of economic ad social freedom.

The Milwaukee Frame-Up

E.G.

We are constantly assured in America that a man charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. But that does not prevent the daily occurrence of men and women from the people being found guilty even though they prove their innocence by the most authentic evidence. The practice of frame-ups is common in the police departments of every city. But the public still adheres to the credulous belief that if an unfortunate victim is in the hands of the authorities he must be guilty, for surely the police wouldn't deliberately take away a man's liberty and life.

Well, the Frame-up in San Francisco which was given no publicity by the press of this country until the demonstration for Mooney in Petrograd, exploded the faith in the methods of the Police. True, Billings continues to languish in prison. The noose is still awaiting Mooney. Fickert is back in the saddle to resume his criminal activities. Yet the San Francisco Frame-up is written in letters of fire upon the minds of the people, and unless Mooney and the others go free, San Francisco will go down to infamy for one of the blackest crimes upon Labor since 1887.

Now comes the news a another frame-up in Milwaukee so cruel, deliberate and revolting as to arouse even the sluggish minds and hearts of those who never care what happens to others just so they are allowed to exist.

In the M. E. BULLETIN of September the beginning of this latest frame-up was reported. But for the benefit of those who have net read the issue, I will give excerpts from the statement prepared by the attorney of the eleven Italian victims who were framed up by an ex-priest and members of the police department of Milwaukee.

A group of Italian Anarchists, Socialists, I.W.W.'s and others of general liberal leanings organized a little social club where they gathered for entertainment, amateur theatricals, dances and occasional lectures on social topics. Their activities and success aroused the ire and envy of an unfrocked Catholic priest, who found it more profitable to use the methods of the Evangelic church to save souls. Especially was he enraged over the audacity of the young Italian who would attend the Reverend's soul saving open air meetings and heckle him as to the greater importance of saving the bodies of the people. At any rate, the heckling continued at every meeting until finally the ex-priest went to the police with the story that a dangerous lot of Anarchists, pro-Germans, I.W.W.'s had desecrated the American flag, denounced the President, etc., etc. Of course the reverend gentleman was given "protection."

On the ninth of September, just a the Italians were filing out of their club room after a lecture on Socialism by La Duca, Secretary of the Italian Socialist branch, Reverend Guiliani shouted to police: "Here go the Anarchist, pro-German, I.W.W.'s!"

Immediately the police and detectives charged the crowd with drawn clubs and guns. Antonio Fornasier an Anarchist, was killed instantly; nevertheless, 10 shots were fired into the body of the dead man. Augusto Marinelli, another Anarchist, was mortally wounded. He died in the hospital five days later. Tostalia was slightly wounded in the shoulder.

In the general shooting several policemen were slightly injured. The usual hysterical arrests and round-up of Italians began. Anyone who could not prove good standing or respectable connections were dragged off to jail, among them the young wife of one of the men, Mary Nardini, the mother of a five-year-old child. The club rooms were raided and the "dangerous" evidence, consisting of pictures of Karl Marx and Peter Kropotkin, as well as Anarchist and Socialist literature, was confiscated. Then, after a process of elimination, eleven Italians, ten men and one woman, were held as the originators of the police riot. Though charged with the shooting, the defendants were really tried and convicted for the bomb explosion that happened long after they were attested and while they were in jail. Witnesses for the defense were arrested and terrorized, so that of fifty witnesses only six dared appear at the trial. We quote from the statement of the attorney of the prisoners:

"On November 24th Miss Richter, the Evangelist's chief aide was supposed to find a bomb beneath the Evangelical Church. She got some member of the choir of that church to deliver the bomb to the police station. The bomb was supposed to have been under the church for several days. At the time this bomb was delivered to the police station, the Evangelical minister was out of the city. The bomb exploded in the police station. Killing eleven persons and injuring others. At once the bomb explosion was associated with these defendants, the most preposterous thing in the world, because the defendants and their friends would be the last ones to place a bomb or to do anything of that kind out the eve of their trial, for nothing would prejudice more their chance of acquittal than anything of that kind.

"I never spoke to these defendants except through an interpreter and never without a stenographer being present. The first time I spoke to them was in jail and after that I never saw them nor spoke to them except through an interpreter in the courtroom. The whole matter was investigated and the story above was fully corroborated. The defendants were forced to go to trial on the very morrow of the burial of those eleven people, with prejudice and feeling running high. Although we believe that we were entitled to nine challenges, we were only allowed four, and out of 37 men examined over half were excused because of prejudice, and some of the men were made to qualify on the jury who had little education and fitness to sit in judgment upon a case that involved understanding and reading and scanning and perusing matters of historical and economic significance and importance.

"Captain Sullivan, a very efficient and honorable officer, told me that he would be willing to let the whole bunch go free if the perpetrator of that bomb could be found; he believing honestly that the defendants were associated with that bomb throwing; I believing honestly that neither these defendants nor their associates had anything to do with the bomb whatever. There are many who believe that the bomb was placed by a friend of the Evangelist, some believe it was placed by an alien enemy, and others attribute it to a German. I make no personal comment on these statements.

"The tragedy which otherwise might hive been the joke of the whole trial, was that W.C. Zabel, the Socialist prosecutor, permitted himself and his assistants to misinterpret philosophic and economic excerpts from some of the master works of the world into criminal, anarchistic doctrines and make Karl Marx and the red flat the objects of his vituperous attacks."

After the farce of a trial, the jury was out seventeen minutes, returning a verdict of guilty. Then the Socialist Prosecuting Attorney, W. C. Zabel, delivered himself of a wild patriotic harangue that Milwaukee must be rid of the murderous Anarchists and undesirables, and suggested a vote of thanks to the instigator of the whole terrible business, Rev. Guiliani.

The ten men and Mary Baldini were given 25 years each, and the State appropriated Mary's five-year-old child, although her people are anxious and well able to take care of the child.

It goes without saying that such a terrible trim, cannot go unchallenged. Already an International Defense League has been organized in Chicago to begin a campaign of publicity so that the people may learn of this latest outrage in Milwaukee. For that and the appeal money is most urgently needed.

Send all communications and funds to William Judin, 1006 S. Ashland Blvd., care of Workers' Institute, Chicago. Ill. Arrange meetings! Bring the matter to the attention of the people! The eleven unfortunate victims of Milwaukee must be saved!

In the Trenches

In the Federal Court of Kansas City. Mo. nine people have been convicted, on December 6, for alleged conspiracy against the Draft Act. Judge Van Valkenburg gave all but one of them the maximum penitentiary sentence of two years and also fined each of the nine $1,000. The one woman in the case, Lenora Warneson, mother of a babe of four months, he did not send to the "pen," solely because "this court does not want to set the precedent of sending babies to jail." The defendants are going to appeal and have retained Redmond S. Brennan of the firm of Frank P. Walsh; he states that there is sufficient reversible error in the record to make the case worth contesting.

The nine people are: Lenora Warneson, known throughout the country as a staunch anti-militarist school teacher; Raymond I. Moore, Secretary International Radical Club and former Socialist candidate; Earl R. Browder; William E. Browder; Edward W. Eagan; Harry I. Doile, and Elea Luboshey. All but the last two are militant trade unionists, the first five being members of the Office Workers' Union, Eagan of the Iron and Tin Workers Union, and Doile, of the Typographical Union.

After war was declared, in the absence of a war-time program of the A.U.A.M., this group (except Doile and Luboshey, who were NOT members) formed the Federation for Democratic Control to work for the maintenance of civil liberties and to prevent the passage of conscription. When the latter became a fact, an injunction suit was filed against the state and city officials charged with the execution of registration. In the midst of this case, while the attorney was filing the appeal, some of the defendants were arrested in the courtroom and charged with conspiracy against the draft. This was on May 31; on June 6 a special grand jury returned an indictment against the nine people named above, and also a tenth, H.D. Kleinschmidt, who had helped rain funds to test the legality of the draft law.

The government based its case upon insinuation and innuendo. Thus it was shown that Doile (whose only connection with the others, by the way, was that of printer of its literature) had printed the Federation's declaration of principles; Kleinschmidt swore that Luboshey (who was not a member of the Federation) had given him some of the cards bearing the legend ("Kill Conscription-Don't Register") which were alleged in the indictment as one of the overt acts of the conspiracy), and that he (Kleinschmidt) had distributed them; therefore, by implication, Doile had printed these cards. The government's charges were supported by secret service agents, government officials, and reporters and editors of the capitalist press. Most of it was pure fabrication. Kleinschmidt told a perjured story full of contradictions when he turned states evidence. Samples of the government's testimony: Fred Tate, chief of the secret service agency, swore that he took an I.W.W. card from Eagan and that the color of the card was BLUE! Kleinschmidt testified that he was out of town on the date when the alleged cards were distributed. The judge's instructions to the jury were unfair and highly prejudicial against the defendants. The jury was made to understand that if it did not bring in a verdict of guilty, its members would be disloyal.

*     *     *

As previously reported in the Bulletin, Daniel H. Wallace, president and organizer of the League of Humanity, with headquarters in Chicago, Ill., has been condemned under the Espionage Act to twenty years prison for a lecture delivered by him in Davenport, Iowa on July 25th, 1917.

Wallace is the author of "Shanghaied into the European War," a unique book representing his experience of eleven months in the trenches ofFrance,Belgiumand the Dardanelles . He is now in the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kas., and no doubt he must be envying Karl Liebknecht, convicted in undemocratic Prussia of high treason and punished only with four years and one month prison.

*     *     *

It is not in the interest of those engaged in war to make known the number of conscientious objectors in the various camps and prisons. With the newspaper conspiracy of silence on this subject, the public at large is now under the impression that the great protest against conscription has fallen flat, and that conscientious objectors have at the last moment proven false to their convictions. Only occasionally, hidden in some corner of the papers, one is permitted to learn that there are still men who will not be daunted, no matter what the cost.

In a special to the New York Times the following case is reported from Camp Dix, Wrightstown, N.J.:

Not even the remission of the death sentence, that probably would have been carried out to-day had it not been revoked by. Brig. Gen. J. S. Mallory before relinquishing his command of Camp Dix, has failed to alter the defiance of military authority maintained by Rudolph J. Vrena, a drafted man from North Jersey. Verna, a Bohemian, although he has spent all but six months of his 27 years in the United States, bases his objection to becoming a soldier on his claim of being an International Socialist.

Vrena is the first man drafted into the national army to be sentenced by court-martial to the penalty of "death by musketry," for refusing to obey the order of Major J.E. Wilson to sign the declaration of a soldier and his assignment card and prepare for his physical examination. He pleaded not guilty, but was convicted on the first charge, and the court agreed on the death sentence. Brig. Gen. Mallory vetoed his sentence. Vrena, resting on his cot, displayed little interest in the outcome of his case this afternoon.

"I'll not pose as martyr. I am a Socialist of the most radical branch. We believe in universal brotherhood, and I am obliged, no matter what the consequences, to refuse to become part of the army, at least until assured that labor is to have a part in settling the questions at stake." Vrena has refund to don a uniform.

Evidently the Boylsheviki are not confined to Russia. Significant, is it not?

Another very interesting case is that of H. Austin Simons, a young American and brilliant writer, now at Camp Grant, Rockford, Ill. The case is reported in the Chicago American as follows:

H. Austin Simons, "conscientious objector," received a sentence of eight years before Judge Advocate Lieutenant Charles F. Dyer of the Three Hundred and Forty-second Regiment. When told of his sentence by the Chicago Evening American correspondent he merely smiled.

He took up his pen and "poemed" a bit to show his feelings have not been disturbed. His verse, written extemporaneously, follows:

"No moment more for weeping;
Now courage comes-free, uplifting,
With her I go to the long agony,
And I will be sweet and glad in my great beauty,
And with my love cheat the bitter seasons
Of their bitterness."

"What are then principles on which you object to wear the uniform of Uncle Sam?" His answer was:

"A humanitarian principle, which makes it impossible for me to do any thing that will contribute to the death of another person. In the second place, a conviction that it as my duty to live for the future; and the belief that I cannot serve the future properly by going into military service."

His last principle was that his life was dedicated to a creative impulse art particularly the art of literature; as art is creative and war is absolutely and entirely destructive.

"I am following the dictates of my conscience." were his final words.

During the trial another question asked of the objector was, do you believe in God? His answer was, "Yes, a God." "You have a God of your own, then?" Simons' face lit up for a moment end he answered, "A God that is believed in by the philosophical world."

Are They Going to Hang Tom Mooney

Ben Martin

Of the labor struggle on the Pacific Coast, in which the trump play of the employers was the most picturesque perjury conspiracy in history, the question is being asked, "What is the outcome: are they going to hang and imprison men after the world has gasped at the brazen fraud of their trials?"

We very much fear that the answer is, "Yes."

If this were not true, why are the two defendants who were acquitted after the perjury exposures held in jail to this day exactly as though they had been found guilty? Indeed, it is astonishing to bear half-awake persons ask whether the sentences corruptly obtained against Billings and Mooney are going to be enforced, while the sentence against Billings has already been enforced; for Billings in now actually in Folsom Penitentiary serving a life sentence, and it is intended to keep him there until he dies; while Estelle Smith, the chief witness who caused his conviction, has retracted her testimony and brands the whole case as a foul frame up, naming District Attorney Fickert and the detective Martin Swanson as instigators of the conspiracy.

Are they going to enforce the fraud-born decrees? They don't even bother to answer Estelle Smiths accusations- except that they are "unworthy of reply!" Estelle Smith is good enough to send Billings to a life of torture but is "unworthy of reply," when she recants!

Anyone who has cut his eye teeth in public affairs is aware that every process of law is a mere cover for something else. Behind every national, International or local set of Society's machinery is a powerful class interest. When Leon Trotsky, the New York Jew, published the secret treaties that laid bare the sordid agreements and purposes of the world war, he exposed nothing new nothing but the condition that exists in exact duplicate in the rotten politics of New York, and perhaps worse in self-righteous politics. It is the system. It is the same thing in Patagonia, Berlin, Bucharest and California wherever private capital reigns.

When Frank C. Oxman falsely swore that he saw labor unionists commit the parade murders, he did not do it for fun, nor did he do it solely to win a few thousand dollars of reward. His was the voice of a great class demand, in committing that perjury; he would not have had the courage to do it without the moral backing of a powerful, self-justifying social force.

The Oxman crime was exposed by a bit of honesty in an unexpected quarter responding to another great social demand the interests of the awakening masses.

Estelle Smith has recently told one of the most remarkable stories ever suppressed by the newspapers, the bold details of how she, with a peculiar native ability for playacting (which we had occasion to appreciate when she made her dramatic appearance against Billings), was used as instructress for a group of perjurers gathered in a dental office to rehearse.

Estelle Smith's mother, Mrs. Alice Kidwell, has gone even further then the daughter into detail, and the story of how the employers' clique of California was able to command the death of its enemies through the gutter of police-trained perjury, is known as far a it an be known without the consent of newspaper capital.

But it is only the naive who will imagine that mere words of exposure will thwart the iron will that has decreed this attack upon Labor. The interest is still there; the will is unbroken, the motive has not been changed one whit by exposures. Capital was merely temporarily embarrassed. As soon as it can overcome the embarrassment, and the move to do so is now in progress, its will will be enforced. Oxman's acquittal was demanded and obtained by agreement between judge, defendant and the district attorney who hired the lawyer for the defendant. With Labor asleep, Capital is all-powerful and controls all the machinery of "justice;" It can do as it pleases, and it pleases that Billings rot and Mooney die.

Labor came very near waking up in this wonderful case. The newspapers are keeping quiet now until Labor can sink back into deeper slumber. Then Mooney will hang as if to show its power and its contempt for the rights of its subject class, Capital, through its contemptible servant, Judge Dunn, is keeping Weinberg and Mrs. Mooney in jail, after their acquittal, for the coming slaughter. And Nolan, who everyone thought had at least escaped from the murderous mesh, they now announce they will hang, too. They don't even let him know what the specific charge against him is, since the "high explosive" that a detective swore was found in his home, has proven to be Epsom salts.

These victims will live or die, the victory will be won or lost, according as Labor allows it or not. No other power can do it; there is no other power than the two, Labor and Capital.

The report of the Federal Commission for the investigation of the cases has not been published at the time of going to press.

Indictment As A Social Institution

Joe Dunn

In Russia of the old regime, everybody was born indicted. A blanket indictment for sedition was considered as covering the entire population, suspended only during the forbearance of the Tsar.

But in democracies it is different. The status of being under indictment is not born in one, but is voted upon individuals singly or in groups. This gives a power of discrimination in class making. The merit system can be applied. In America we have a newly-created class of the Indicted. It includes all persons who write on advanced social questions. All persons who think, if they can be caught thinking. Those who engage in discussion of the problem of freeing labor are rounded up with especial care and put into the class of the Indicted. Then all are placed under bail or under lock and key and the social order with the Unindicted in ascendancy is rendered safe.

The Indicted can be put in jail, fleeced or hanged at the pleasure of the Unindicted. It is a surprisingly facile luxury. A committee of the Unindicted can say, "Twenty thousand dollars," and, presto! one of the Indicted will have to pay up in a jiffy. Or "Ten years in prison!" and, just like magic, off goes an Indicted for whatever length of time the committee of the Unindicted may please to say. It is awfully easy. Try it yourself: "Ten thousand dollars! Twenty thousand dollars! Two years in prison! Fifteen years! Forty years! Life! Hanging! One is just as easy to say as another.

The Indicted are expected to go about with a weak-kneed, hang-dog look, end to be very much restricted in their actions.

It is a perfect riot of luxury for the Unindicted.

Why Has Academic Freedom
Been Abolished?

Prince Hopkins

Recently we have witnessed a spectacle that puzzled many people. When our Republic entered upon a course of action the war that vitally concerned every citizen, citizens were deprived of the right to say that this policy was unwise and should be reversed. Had this deprivation been accompanied by a tearing off of the mask, a frank avowal that from a capitalist viewpoint the Prussian form of government had proved its efficiency, all would have understood the measure as a simple coup d' tat. But what makes the situation vastly more interesting to a psychologist is the fact that the very party which has shown itself so cynically contemptuous of trusting democratic principles in a supreme test, has justified each autocratic step in the name of "democracy" or of "liberty." In the scientific analysis of motives, it is a fundamental principle that we should base our judgment upon the evidence of men's actions, rather than upon what they declare with their lips.

In taking our side in any controversy, we ought to judge the aims of the two opposing parties, not so much by what they profess, as by the weapons and tactics that the parties choose to employ. Especially is it true that we should avoid depending too much upon the avowed ideals that the parties put forth for the consumption of outsiders in the present age, because the present is essentially an age of camouflage. To-day we have the spectacle a some twenty nations engaged in a terrific war in which it is manifestly impossible that all the nations can be fighting either unselfishly or on the defensive, and yet every nation engaged in the conflict excuses itself on the ground of absolute necessity, and even puts forward certain idealistic aims as additional justification for its barbarities. What is true of nations is no whit less true of individuals. Hypnotists will tell you that when you have told a hypnotized subject that on awakening from his sleep he will perform some action, as, for example, that he will rush to the window and look out, when he awakes, he will perform this action in due course, but on your questioning him as to why he did so he will not reply simply that he acted in response to an unreasoning impulse to rush to the window. Instead, he will evolve a rational justification for his act such as that he saw a fire engine dash along the street; and he will persuade even himself that this was the true reason. We always try to make our actions seem to be rational, when as a matter of fact, they are usually simply impulsive or instinctive. Bearing this in mind, we must not be surprised at the actions of financiers who profess, and in many ways put into practice, very high motives in the small details of their daily conduct, but whose entire public policy is guided by sordid interests of their social class, if not of their individual selves. We are not to consider that these men are consciously selfish in all cases, though they sometimes are so, but we must regard them as not fully understanding themselves and their own motives, and as projecting these personal motives into their social theories. When you hear of a governor who sends his militia to break up a peaceful assembly, or of a college president who must have his faculty intellectually docile, or of a mayor who makes belief in a military policy a requirement for membership on the school board in short, wherever some one declines to play fair, it is profitable to enquire "What class, or what greed, owns this human tool?"

Test out this theory by the showing of the war. Don't the men whose welfare is linked with the success of big banking houses and manufacturing establishments line up squarely for a foreign policy that will down their Teutonic rivals in the world-market? And why did these men purchase, almost openly, the control of the "public press" save that they realized that the masses' realization of where lay their own interests would cause those masses to decline the sufferings and sacrifices of a war which would bring them no good unless their judgment could be warped by misrepresentation of the facts.

To deny your opponent the right to state his case, is always a dangerous policy, since it at once excites hatred and mistrust. We therefore look to see such action only on the part of men who feel their case to be very hopeless, or know they lack the brains to defend it, or who are prompted by unworthy motives which they cannot confess to.

Certainly there is no lack of brains to defend the party of wealth. There are always able, honest brains to be hired by him who can pay for them. Therefore one or both of the other motives must be at the bottom of the present intolerance.

The anti-war patty has only asked for a "fair field and no favor." In answer to the militarists' hypnotic iteration and reiteration of old disproven arguments, these pacifists have brought out continuously new and more clinching evidence for their contentions; they have been far from despair of ultimate triumph along this line. The I.W.W. against whom the newspaper reports of setting fire to wheat-fields, spiking logs in the saw-mills, importing firearms, and accepting German gold, have never even been formally lodged by the government, and yet are charged against them by the papers these man have not retaliated with lynch-law for lynch-law, but have gone to prison like the early Christian martyrs with songs of a transcendent hope upon their lips.

How has it been now with the party that represents "law and order" and how with what has been called our "better controlled class" Surely we shall find their utterances to be free from all vulgar soap-box extravagance? Surely they will conduct their side of the quarrel with well-bread tolerance, even if with a disdainful hauteur in their reserve? Surely the best people, with aristocratic confidence in their case and their own ability, need never wallow in the muck of foul play?

Or has this party, on the contrary, mysteriously avoided free discussion, and drawn sophistical distinctions between free speech and "license," putting into the category of "license" every statement that seriously endangered its interests? Has it supported its mayoralty candidate with a million-and-a-half-dollar campaign contribution, and in the same campaign has it shown to every eye its control over the press, by swinging six of the seven available dailies into line? Has it mistrusted the people even while it preached a mission of democracy? Has it implied that college students were not mature enough to discuss public questions impartially, and secured the discharge eminent professors because was distrustful of their political position? Has it stooped so low as to catch even little children in its net, importuning them and sending them upon the streets to importune others for money to buy its bonds? Has it set them to work at drudging task to aid the military? Finally, has it peremptorily discharged all teachers who would not lend themselves to converting our public schools into mental straitjackets, to the end of indoctrinating childish minds with the official dogma, and warping innocence can not defend itself?

Gentlemen of the jury, the facts are known to you. The law also is known to you the psychological law that a man's conscience is disclosed by the way be fights his cause.

How meekly shall we stand for these things?

The Surgeon's Duty

Alexander Berkman

"How can you Anarchists approve of Trotsky and support the Russian Boylsheviki?" a pacifist friend recently asked me. "Most of the Boylsheviki are Social Democrats," he added; "believers in government. Moreover, Trotsky has resorted to methods of suppression as in the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. Can you explain why you support him?"

I shall try. As Anarchists we believe neither in government nor in violence, both of which are indeed synonymous in our philosophy. And no doubt we, the Anarchists would be the first to oppose the Socialist Boylsheviki should they attempt to establish themselves as a PERMANENT government with the power to "impose its authority upon the people. We believe, however, that the Russian Boylsheviki consisting as they do of Social Democrats, Social Revolutionists, Syndicalists and Anarchists do not represent the narrow-minded socialist type whose ideal is a strongly centralized Socialist government. On the contrary, we have reason to believe that the Boylsheviki in Russia are the expression of the most fundamental longing of the human soul that demands fullest individual liberty within the greatest social well being. That is why they have become, and are permitted to remain the public voice of revolutionaryRussia.

As to the Boylshevik activities at the present moment, and the immediate program of Lenin and Trotsky I can only say that an extraordinary situation may demand extraordinary measures.

It is most unfair to judge Trotsky and his co-workers on the basis of actions forced upon them by the stress of a most momentous crisis. Take, for instance, the suppression of the Constituent Assembly. We know Trotsky and his views. We know that Trotsky does NOT believe in the limitation of the freedom of the press and assembly, or indeed in suppression of any kind. But Russia is in the midst of a revolution, the greatest socio-economic upheaval of all times. A revolution is not a pacifist pink tea affair. A revolution is the reaction against the oppression of ages, and a violent reaction at that. As such it involves, necessarily, force and violence. It will be the great marvel of the future that this most momentous of all revolutions has been accomplished with comparatively so little violence, but has, on the contrary, been characterized by the greatest forbearance toward the hereditary tyrants, the most wonderful tolerance and kindest humanity.

It is the capitalist atrocities and governmental tyranny that produce crime and violence in time of peace, wholesale slaughter in war, and culminate in violent revolutions. Revolution is inherent in every social system based on slavery, and only the abolition of the system itself will usher in an era where force and violence will be things of the past.

Those that pretend to loathe violence and yet permit present conditions to continue, are in reality directly responsible for the perpetuation of the evil.

Russia is now by no means in a normal condition where our heart's desire of universal peace and brotherhood can actually be practiced. The great passion to make the world fit for such conditions, to clear the way for them, in the supreme justification of the Lenins and Trotskys, and is at the same time the explanation of our support.

The proletariat of Russia has suffered and bled for centuries. At last they have overthrown Tsarism and got rid of their tyrants. Shall they now meekly submit to a new set of bloodsuckers fastening themselves on their vitals? The Constituent Assemby was the saddle of the bourgeois exploiters eager to climb upon the back of the Russian proletariat. Away with the saddle!

Oh, my good man, when the patient's life is in grave danger, the surgeon is justified nay, it is his sacred duty to perform an operation.

A Greeting

Dear Comrade:

Your letter has found me way up here among the hills, and it has burst open the door of a chamber in my heart from which long pent-up thoughts rush out tumultuous, irresistible. For months I have been out of touch with the world, the world of struggle, of striving of achievement. My beloved teacher has been ill.

We have been reading everything we could lay our hands on, and trying to catch up with the world. It is somewhat of a race; for as you know, things are moving very rapidly just now. Among other things we read of your arrest and "farcical trial." My heart was troubled, and I wanted to do something and I was trying to make up my mind what to do when your letter came. Believe me, my very heart-pulse is in the revolution that is to inaugurate a freer, happier society. Can you imagine what it is to sit idle in these days of fierce action, of revolutions and daring possibilities? I am so full of longing to serve, to love and be loved, to help things along and to give happiness, it seems as if the very intensity of my desire must bring fulfillment. But alas, nothing happens. I sit out here among the quiet hills under the pines and READ about the things I long to do with my whole heart. I cannot keep the pang of bitterness out of my reflections these days. Why have I this passionate desire to be part of a noble struggle when fate has sentenced me to days of ineffectual waiting? There is no answer. It is tantalizing almost to the point of frenzy.

But one thing is sure. You can always count upon my love and support. Those who are blinder than I because they refuse to see tell us that in dangerous times like these wise men hold their tongues. But you are not holding your tongue, nor are the I.W.W. comrades holding their tongues --- blessings upon you and them --- "Keep out of their vulgar brawls," beg those who are near to me in blood, but not in spirit. "Vulgar brawls" that is what they call your efforts to raise up those whom the cruel system under which we live has beat down and crushed. No, comrade, you must not hold your tongue. Your work must go on, even though all earthly powers combine against it. Never were courage and fortitude so terribly needed as now. Society on the war-path is an unmitigated ruffian. It knocks down every decent sentiment and noble ideal in the human heart, and regards those who retain the capacity to think as "slackers," traitors, cowards.

You have been arrested and condemned to the penitentiary for "obstructing the operation of the military laws of the United States ." What did you really do? You spoke and wrote openly against conscription against forcing men to fight, whether they wish to or not. Your magazine was confiscated without any reason being given you for holding it up. Other radical and Socialist papers have been suppressed, and in some instances the editors arrested without warrants Meetings have been broken up, literature burnt in the streets, citizens beaten and shot because they dared speak against militarism. When we consider the lynching of Frank Little in Butte, the lawless deportation of the miners from Bisbee, the expulsion of Fred Moon, the attorney for their wives and children, and the shameful "frame-up" in the Mooney case, we cannot but realize the need of brave men and women to protest against such despotism. How can there be a democracy unless people think and speak their minds freely --- unless the minority is treated with tolerance and justice? All the outrages I have enumerated are the negation of every principle of democracy, and we are told that we must enter the Great War in order to make the world safe for democracy.

We frequently hear it asserted that this country does not want you or your kind --- meaning those who oppose the ruling classes, those who fight against governments and authorities and the police for liberty and the elimination of poverty. You are told that this is a country of law and order where free men live. Are men free in a land where ten million Negroes are exposed to disenfranchisement eviction and lynching? Are men free when whatever the workers have got has been wrested from employers by strike after strike? Was it law and order to deny you bail? It is law and order to break up meetings of protest, opinions of the people? All the atrocities of this impious war are committed in obedience to law and order. It would be considered treason if any man in the armies of the countries at war refused to perpetrate these crimes at the command of his superiors. Behold the ruin of European civilization. It was accomplished in the name of law and order. The light of the spirit is more important to a people than a hundred victories. He who destroyeth that light kills more than the body politic he slays the nation's soul. Yes comrade, America has need of you and your kind. Long may you abide among us until your mission is fulfilled.

My heart aches for the people of all the nations. They do not hate one another. They do not want war. They want peace and liberty to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I have traveled the length and breadth of the land, and I know that the people want peace. I am told on good authority that the people of Great Britain, Germany and Russia want peace. They could rejoice in a peace without victory. What military victory could compensate them for this terrible waste of human life and treasure? We know that words once spoken will make their way. Although they fall upon the stony ground watered with tears and blood, yet they will spring up, and great shall be the harvest. They may imprison you, they may kill you; but the ideas for which you and my other comrades do battle are indestructible. In the years to come you will be honored and loved for a devotion to humanity that life could not tire, or death quench, or calumny shake. When the veil of prejudice and ignorance is torn away from the eyes of men, and they see with the sight God has given them, they will wonder at the blindness and stupidity of the generation that put such a woman in jail. For they will then see as I see now what you stand for.

I send you greetings from the everlasting hills glorious symbols of the Eternal God that shall Prevail. With a love that grows as I know more of you, I am,

Faithfully your comrade,

Helen Keller

Books on War and Militarism

UNDER FIRE, by Henri Barbusse. E.P Dutton & Co., New York ($1.50)

The author, a soldier in the French army, relates what he saw and experienced in the trenches. He writes as a keen observer of conditions and men who is not blinded by national hatreds and prejudices. The soldier he knows from intimate personal acquaintance is not the soldier of the bragging patriotic newspaper brand, who is described as most willing to split the head of the enemy, because he is imbecile enough to believe what he read in the paper, namely, that this enemy is the 'outcast of the universe." Barbusse's soldiers are men, "good fellows of all kinds, rudely torn away from the joy of life. Like any other men whom you take in the mass, they are ignorant and of narrow outlook disposed to be led and to do as they are bid." They act under the instinct of self-preservation and cling desperately to the hope of pulling through. One of them, Volpatte, has both his ears neatly shot off. It makes him happy. He says to a comrade: "Old man, it's a good wound after all. I shall be sent back, no mistake about it." Faradet, of the same squad, remarks on this occasion: "At the beginning it sounded comic when I heard them wish for a good wound. But all the same, and whatever can be said about it. I understand now that it's the only thing a poor soldier can hope for if he isn't daft."

Life in the trenches consists chiefly of dirt, stink and lice, and when the squad is sent to a village to rest up and the soldiers are just dying to find a little comfort for themselves, the answer is: "No you see, I've got officers under officers, that is, you see, it's the mess for the band and the secretaries, and the gentlemen of the ambulance."

The nation demands your life, but the spoils belong to your superiors.

* * * * * ** * * * * *

A GERMAN DESERTER'S WAR EXPERIENCE. B.W. Huebech, New York ($1.00).

Fourteen months the writer endured it on the western front, compelled to fight and to march with his regiment through burning cities and villages, the fleeing inhabitants of which scatter in all directions. Then he succeeded in making his escape into Holland, and from there arrived in a coal-bunker on these shores. As a civilian he is a miner, a working man opposed to the war from the very beginning. What he learns of its beastly practice teaches him that be was right thousand times right in his opposition. When the mobilization orders came the soldiers did not know who was to be the enemy. Even after the human cattle had already been entrained for the shambles, nobody took the trouble to give any information. They care very close to the Belgian frontier before they were told by their captain that the Belgian was their enemy. "If we had been told," says the author, "the Hollander is your enemy, we would have been compelled to believe it, and would have shot him by order, for they give us our enemy and our friend according to the requirements of their own interests."

Sometimes it happens that this state of affairs does not create enough enthusiasm among the soldiers for the killing and burning business. Then the singing of patriotic songs may enliven them. But the company, tired and footsore, is not in a mood to sing. Up steps one of the officers and shouts at the men, "I tell you sing, you swine!" And the "swine" obey and sing, miserably though it sounds. There you have the wonderful discipline, the virtue, and the manhood of military life!

The revolutionary philosophy of the Boylsheviki may find a large field for action if Germanyhas many more young workingmen who hold opinions and convictions similar to those of the German soldier who wrote this book.

MILITARISM -- By Karl Liebknecht -- B.W. Huebach, New York ($1.00).

This book, translated from the German, is anti-militaristic from every point of view. It is not a pacifist treatise. Its arguments are those of the social revolutionist who knows that wars are the logical results of international capitalistic competition, and who is absolutely opposed to militarism because it has ever been the tool of the ruling classes to keep the proletariat in submission. By giving many examples of bloody military interference in strikes, etc., taken from the modern history of monarchies as well as of republics, the writer furnishes irrefutable evidence on this point. The American reader's attention may be especially called in this connection to pages 140-147. Considering that the German original of the book was published about eleven years ago, when talk of world peace and disarmament was much abroad, Liebknecht proved himself a prophet when he scornfully dismissed the twaddle of bourgeois pacifists a la Carnegie: "All the alleged plans for disarmament are thus seen to be for the present nothing but foolery, phrase-making and attempts at deception. The fact that the Tsar was the chief originator of the comedy at The Hague puts the true stamp on all of them."

The strongest features of the book are those parts which deal with the professional war promoters, the Krupps, Stumms, the Metal Trust, Powder Trust, etc. Karl Liebknecht's undaunted courage has earned him the special hatred of the German government. He was arrested after having spoken at an antimilitarist demonstration, and in the summer of 1916 he was sent to the penitentiary for four years and one month. High treason it was, the Court said the usual reward in these days for those who love humanity and champion the cause of labor.

The three books make very good reading.

A Letter

(Conclusion)

Years have passed since. The object of my dreams has become a naked reality. I am in America, among Americans, and in American schools. I am learning the American ideals, customs, and traditions.

But alas! The same phrase I heard fifteen years ago from the Russian Captain, telling me to get out of the land if I don't eat pork, I hear now repeating itself in just a slightly modified form: "If you don't like this land, you should get out of it!" To be sure, it comes no longer from a Russian Captain but from a member of an American board of education, who wishes to deprive Mr. Moore of his diploma because he dares to stand firm for what his conscience tells him to be right. Think of it! Freedom of conscience, which was practically the watchword for the founders of this Republic!

Granting that Mr. Moore has committed a political offense, and disobeyed the law, the law provides the punishment, and Mr. Moore was perfectly aware of it, and submitted quietly and unresistingly.

There is no disgrace in being a political offender. We do not condemn O'Connel, Skeffington, Casement, of Ireland, who were executed in the most cruel and brutal manner, even though they were political offenders. Nor do we condemn Warren Hastings, John Brown, Garibaldi, Joan of Arc, Mme. Breshkovsaya, and hundreds of others, too numerous to mention. Not even Germany's '48ers. The greatest men in the world's history were for some reason or other political offenders. Even George Washington broke the laws of King George. But, as one of the members of the school board said: "He got away with it."

Mr. Moore has not stolen anything, nor has he robbed anyone, nor has he murdered anyone. He simply chose the alternative which the law provided for everyone who wanted to choose it, i.e., registration or go to jail.

Yet, along comes a member of the honorable school board and states, "It would be improper to confer a diploma on a criminal under his present circumstances," and "Let us wait until all disability is removed."

To my question whether "forced registration" would be considered as removing the disability, it was emphatically answered "No! All he (Mr. Moore) will have to do is register." Very well, then; where is the difference between the "forced registration," which our government will ultimately being to bear upon Mr. Moore and the "voluntary registration" which the honorable board demands of him in order that he should get his diploma? I confess that I do not see the difference, and I am inclined to think that neither do the gentlemen. It is simply the alternative of "eating the pork or of getting out of the land."

MAURICE FRUCHT.

History To Be

Current events are chronicled, primarily, by newspaper reporters persons, generally, of no superior intelligence, and selected chiefly for their "instinct for news" and the knack of securing a "scoop." Superficially in observation, inadequacy of understanding, exaggeration, and even downright misrepresentation are the main characteristics of such description. Thus the press at the very outset often turns a false light upon events of importance, and the reading public becomes the unconscious victim of misinformation. The reader is still further deluded by the editorial bias which interprets important events from the narrow viewpoint of the particular group interests the editor happens to serve and often share.

Special contributors, magazine writers, etc., though of superior understanding than the average reporter, unfortunately but inevitably approach their task of investigation already influenced in some degree by the initial newspaper misinformation and the public atmosphere of prejudice already formed.

Subsequently a history of the event in written, based on contemporary chronicles and "data," and that is the reason why most of so-called history is so positively and mischievously false.

Vide the terrible judicial assassination of the pioneer idealists of America, in Chicago, in 1887, written down in American "history" as a "riot on the Haymarket that caused the death of a number of police officers, the murderous perpetrators expiating their crime on the gallows."

True history will be written only when the struggle of the classes will have been abolished and no social group will be vitally interested in distorting the truth and misleading the people.

FUNDS

Money collected at E.G. lectures in Chicago and Detroit for the following purposes:

For the use of the I.W.W. prisoners in Cook County jail: Chicago, $216.50; Detroit, $76.00. Amount turned over to the Non-Partisan Radical League, Chicago.

For the Italian Victims of the Milwaukee Frame-Up: Chicago, $175.50; Detroit, $76.00. Amount turned over to Secretary Checki and Judin.

For the Appeal of Louise Olivereau: Chicago, $21.50; Detroit, $139.00

Appeal for Comrade Levine: Chicago, $25.00.

MOTHER EARTH BULLETIN Sustaining Fund: Chicago meeting, $75.00; Banquet, $59.00. Promised pledges for Sustaining Fund, $40.00.

Campaign for Amnesty for the Political Prisoners in America on conclusion of Peace: Detroit, $167.60.

$170.00 collected in New York City for the I.W.W. was given as follows: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, for trip to Chicago in re New York cases, $150.00; for care of boys in Cook County jail, $20.00.