July 19, 1919.
THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE The One Big Union in Canada to country.
fight THE capitalist press of Canada for months By Ben Legere mined and crippled Capitalism may be finally past has been crying out frantically swept aside and supplanted by a worker dehad been striking for two weeks previous.
against the growth of Bolshevism in the Domocracy.
The subsequent extension of the general minion. The Winnipeg strike and the strikes The Canadian general strike was unquesstrike to practically every industrial commuthat grew out of it were labeled a Revolunity in Western Canada and to many of the tionably the most important demonstration of tion. Every move made by Labor has been the spreading proletarian revolution that has denounced as an effort to set up a government important eastern cities as well was carried of Soviets. From the line of attack pursued movement, and did not find that the workers out as a norinal tactic of a new kind of labor yet been made on this continent. It was possible because a single simple idea has been by the editors and spokesmen of the Canadian sown and firmly taken root in the mind of plutocracy one would expect to find Canadian prelude to revolution nor as a serious crisis organized labor in Canada. The idea of One a in the constant conflict which they recognize denounced the One Big Union as being the preparing to march against the machine guns as existing between them and the employing under another name. It is someof the capitalist government. Yet one may class.
search the literature and propaganda of CaIn calling off the strike and returning to thing much more than that. The nadian labor in vain for emotional revolutionhas never beeri anything more than an inary appeals. There is no mention of Bolshesurgent section of Labor in America, breakvism or Soviets except to repudiate the raving ing away from the main body and with revoof the capitalist press.
lutionary ideals and program striving to reFrom a Soldier have recently returned from Western Caorganize the working class upon the one big nada after having been hastened across the union plan.
border to the freedom of my native land by Dear Friend :To find a proper parallel for the One Big the agents of the Canadian government. They noticed in the daily press that you are Union movement in the United States one held over for trial have the traditional British freedom of speech would have to imagine 88 per cent of the in Canada and took advantage of it to heard you speak in Calgary and cannot understand why it should be so, since we are three and a half million members of the Ameencourage the Calgary workers in the con living in a free and democratic country. rican Federation of Labor, voting in their struction of their One Big Union organiz am the ex soldier that spoke to you outside local unions and central labor bodies to abanation, but the Northwest Mounted Police the Allen Theatre in Calgary, after the meet don the entire theory of the of ing.
made it quite clear that freedom of speech adopt the fundamental theory of industrial could not be accorded to aliens. They tried As a soldier and ex sergeant fought for unionism as held by the and electing three years that Battle of Freedom and dehard to impress that upon me by giving me mocracy on the battle fields of Flanders and delegates to meet in convention and re organa taste of their provincial prison accomoda France. fought the monster of militarism, ize themselves in One Big Union. That is tions, but the One Big Union convinced the faced the screaming shells, the rattle of ma just what happened in Canada. Its signichine Canadian government that would be decidedly guns and inhaled the poison gas. ficance can be readily understood by anyone unwise, so they deported me instead.
The remainder of my life. will devote the spirit of Prussianism in our own who studies the evolution of labor organizDuring the past year have been in every ation and realizes that it is the skilled workpart of the United States and Canada and no Great was my zeal when marched into ers of Canada who have made this move, who where have found anything so inspiring as battle to the sound of drums.
have repudiated the theory of labor organizthe manifestation of Labor awakening Greater today is my zeal and sp rit fighting ation, which Capitalism counts upon the skillthat is making itself felt particularly from the battle of the working class.
ed workers clinging to, and are going out with Take heart, friend, your friends are today Winnipeg to the Coast. came away connumbered by the millions; thirty five thousand the developed and unimpaired machinery of vinced that Canadian Labor is leading the are today protesting in Winnipeg against the their organization to line up with their unworkers of the Western World toward inforces that oppress us.
skilled brothers in a solid phalanx of class dustrial freedom and the new society that is Ten times that number is this day ready to organization against the employing class.
already functioning from Russia aid them.
Thus the capitalists of Canada, who have considerable area of Europe almost to the The clarion call is sounded; eager thousands seen European Capitalism go tumbling to Adriatic, and is even now setting up its preare anxiously waiting to down tools if it be ruin as a result of the war and stand facing necessary. At last the workers are beginning liminary structure in Italian cities. Yet the to realize that an injury to one is an injury the threat of their own Capitalism being thing that impressed me most was the calm to all.
carried down with the wreck, do not wait ness with which the Canadian workers are So we see the dawn of better days.
for the workers to rise for revolution by force setting about their task.
Liberty will not for ever remain but fair of arms before they raise the cry of BolsheIn Canada they are proceeding with a full vision on the distant sky. It will come and vism to frighten benighted citizens who do take up consciousness that their movement is a part its abode among the children of men.
of the same historical revolution that had On with the fight, upwards and onwards not know what is going on in the world. They for ever humanity is striving.
see the handwriting on the wall and they placed the Russian working class in power realize that in the One Big Union, in spite All our petty prosecutors will some day be and dethroned Capitalism in those countries. forgotten, buried in the cemetery of oblivion.
of its calm demeanor, its restrained emotion They recognize their mission very simply by And the names of the champions of freedom, and its concentration upon the work of orgstating in the constitution of their One Big of a better day, will be inscribed in the loving anizing the working class, the power has been memory in the great red heart of humanity.
Union that they are preparing themselves for organized in Canada that will inevitably supthe day when production for profit shall be plant their system.
replaced by production for use. They have So they have launched a campaign of vioexpended little energy in verbal attacks upon work without fully achieving the definite im lent suppression which they had hitherto hesthe capitalist government, but they quietly mediate demands they were fighting for, they itated to do for fear of arousing an unorganized every branch of governmental em were also following a simple rule of procedure awakened section of the workers. Their arployees from postal clerks to policemen; and of the new unionism which they have em rest upon conspiracy charges of 48 of the for several days in Winnipeg utterly pre braced. Anyone who conceives the idea that leaders of the One Big Union, with more to vented the capitalist government of that city the Canadian general strike was a failure will come, is the beginning of a desperate attempt from functioning by simply suspending the have to learn that Labor organized as is the to smash Canada contribution to the spreadservice of its man power.
One Big Union in Canada is little concerned ing movement of proletarian revolution beIt is perfectly true that during the first few ith the nominal success or failure of its fore its full effectiveness may be applied.
days of the Winnipeg strike the General strikes. It is simply part of the business of this situation a duty devolves upon every Strike Committee functioned practically as a the day and will be repeated as a matter of propagandist of revolutionary working class worker Soviet and supplanted the power of fact part of the program whenever the oc ideals in America that is just as plain as that the municipal authorities. But the condition casion seems to require it. And from the which determines our attitude toward the was not a part of the immediate program of point of view of these workers the only suc struggling Communist government in Russia the strikers and only existed incidental to the cess or failure possible is measured by the and Hungary. The Canadian One Big Union calling of a general strike of Winnipeg Labor growth of the union organization and the ex must be suppported in every possible way and for the purpose of securing for one section tent to which the working class of Canada every possible kind of assistance that can be of the workers, in the building and metal advances in ability to conduct and administer given it in resisting the attack upon its leaders trades, two definite demands for which they the industries of the country when an under must be rendered.
across a