If these things do not result in the conviction being reversed by a higher court, what shall we think of justice in Southern California? I wish to ask also—why did the morning newspapers both give only the prosecutor’s speech and ignore completely the truly noble words of Ryckman and Pandit?
Bear in mind that this man Steelink has committed no overt act; he is simply charged with being secretary of an organization of persecuted men. The judge instructed the jury to find him not guilty unless it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that an overt act had been committed. But the jury disregarded this instruction, and gave preference to the bitter and furious prejudice of District Attorney Woolwine. Never, in my life have I listened to a more unfair, a more inhuman and cruel speech than this; the speech of a man who has absolutely no sense of the social wrongs of our time.
District Attorney Woolwine says I. W. W.’s are thinking only of their selfish ambition. What he means is that they want some of the fruits of their own labor. Is this such a base ambition—considering the ambition of some of the people to take all that labor produces, leaving the laborer a bare existence?
I tell you, Mr. Editor, that the questions brought up by this I. W. W. trial are deeper than Mr. Woolwine’s vision ever carried; they are not to be settled by putting men into jail. It is an old and wise saying that there is no agitator but injustice; and it is this agitator we must seek to drive from our midst. What a just government has to do is to answer the complaints of the oppressed, and to bring them justice. A government which fails to do this cannot survive—not by all the cruel force it can summon. If revolution comes in America, it will be because of such exhibitions of criminal tyranny as were given in the court-room by District Attorney Wool wine.
Sincerely,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
April 22, 1920.
JUDGE FRANK WILLIS,
Los ANGELES, CAL.
Your Honor: I entered the sanctuary, and gazed upward to the stained glass dome, upon which were inscribed four words: Peace, Justice, Truth, Law—and I felt hopeful. Before me were men who had violated no constitutional right, who had not the slightest criminal tendency, who were opposed to violence of every kind, knowing it retards their cause.
The trial proceeded. I looked again at the beautiful stained glass dome, and whispered to myself those majestic-sounding words: “Peace, Justice, Truth, Law.” I listened to the prosecutors; the law in their hands was a hard, sharp, cruel blade, seeking insistently, relentlessly for a weak spot in the armor of its victims. I listened to their Truth, and it was Falsehood; their Peace was a cruel and bloody War; their Justice was a net to catch the victims at any cost—at the cost of all things but the glory of the Prosecutor’s office.
I grew sick at heart. I can only ask myself the old, old question: “What can we, the people, do? How can we really bring Peace, Justice Truth and Law to the world?” Must we go on bended knees and ask our public servants to see that Justice is done to the defenseless, rather than this eternal prosecuting of the world’s noblest souls? You will find these men guilty, and sentence them to be shut behind iron bars—iron bars which should never be for human beings, no matter .what their crime, unless, you want to make beasts of them. Is that your object Sir? It would seem so; and so I say that we must over-turn the system that is brutalizing, rather than helping and uplifting men.
It is obvious and heartbreaking that the favored class of Pasadena has no interest in the less favored class. Consider, for example, the futile struggle to keep alive the children’s camp at Devil’s Gate. Why is it that the rich all rush to pour out a small portion of their unearned increment so that human destruction may go on, but when construction is proposed for the sickly lives of little children at home, they turn deaf ears, when asked a few hundred dollars!
Why is it that the “great unwashed” have more sympathy and human fellowship than those who receive so much? The poor never let a neighbor suffer, they divide the only loaf of bread, while the other class does not worry. I suppose the poor are merciful because they have had struggles. The time is coming when the rich may do some struggling!
Yours for Peace, Justice, Truth and Law,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
July 29, 1920.
THOMAS LEE WOOLWINE,
District Attorney,
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
Dear Sir: It has been reported to me that you have quoted me as saying that I had one million dollars with which to fight your election. Now I never saw or expect to see a million. I would not be so disgraced, but I am not saying that I would not use the resources of the million to combat a man as dangerous as you are to the good of the State—and that State actually paying you for such ghastly jobs as you do!
What an opportunity you have had to mete out justice, and to go down in history as one human being who understands the struggles of humanity towards a juster world! But no, you and your attitude make more enemies of the “status quo” than the most extreme Anarchist, whom you pretend to loathe. I suppose you are a member of the Church and call yourself a Christian.
Why do you persist in hounding Sydney Flowers, editor of the “Dugout,” an idealist you could never comprehend, an ex-service man who fought in the “war to end war”; he has good reasons to hate war, and he has the constitutional right to say so. Be sure, the more you persecute him, the wider will be the influence of his spirit in telling the truth about the greatest atrocity, war, and everything that belongs to it.
It is never too late for a human being to repent and right about face and see the vision of a society of real human beings.
Yours truly,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
November 2, 1920.
MR. BALEY,
Department of Justice,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Dear Sir: I talked with you in your office on October 13th about injustices perpetrated by your organization. Seeing your lack of sympathy and understanding toward men who stood by our constitution, its guarantee of rights and civil liberties, and who are still in jail for so doing—while all other countries, supposedly less enlightened, released theirs automatically at the signing of the armistice—I feel I must try to make you see how, by such acts of suppression and violence, our government is actually fostering the revolution it thinks to forestall. I venture to enclose some pamphlets, which express my views much better than I am able to do. If after reading these you do not change your tactics, your great white building must needs change its name to the Department of Injustice. Remember, this is my government as well as yours, and I want to be able to defend it to all the, world—which just now I cannot do.
Yours for the new day, when there will be real freedom and real justice to all humanity,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
November 22, 1920.
JOHN SPARGO,
OLD BENNINGTON, VT.
My Dear Mr. Spargo: I have your letter and without paying any attention to the personalities I will try briefly to discuss the facts. You have, of course, studied these questions far more deeply than I, and yet even I can see in your letter a number of statements which you would have great difficulty in vindicating. You say that all the Socialist delegations which have come back from Russia have been against the Bolsheviks. This is certainly not true. They have split about half and half—just as you and I have done. You challenge me to name a single Socialist who has come back from Russia and has stood up for the Bolsheviks. Well, of course, it is easy for you to argue that way, by the simple plan of saying that anyone who supports Bolshevism is not a Socialist. You say that about Lansbury. I wonder if you will say that about T. W. Williams and about the French delegates, I have just read that the German Congress of the Independent Socialist party has voted two to one for the Third International, and it is generally believed that the French Congress next month will do the same.
You make your argument easy, because you fail to distinguish between advocacy of Bolshevism and objection to capitalist war upon the Russian people. I am not advocating B
olshevism for America, or for any other country, but I do say that world capitalism should let the Russian people alone. You, on the other hand, have given all the support to intriguers of the old regime and to the murderous starvation blockade. I fail to see how any man who calls himself a Socialist can do that. Whether you are conscious of it or not, the simple fact is that your influence has been given to the ends of the very worst reactionaries in the world. That is what you are doing today, and that is what you count for today. And how you can bear up in the face of such a situation I cannot imagine. It seems to me one of those cases of how far the pride of learning can carry a man astray, and how much safer it is to trust to that “instinct” for freedom which you so ridicule and despise.
Yours truly,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
December 3, 1920.
MR. JOHN SPARGO,
OLD BENNINGTON, VT.
My Dear Mr. Spargo: It was indeed kind of you to be so explicit to me, whom you consider lacking in intelligence and discrimination on political and economic questions. As a matter of fact all our “intellectual” periodicals uphold Russia and oppose the blockade. So I have felt that I was in very good company. You condemn the Soviet spy system, but how can it surpass our own in stupidity and terrorism? Why not use some of your great energy and ability to correct some of our own flagrant evils? I will suggest fourteen points:
1. The Department of Justice and its instigation of violence.
2. Our barbarous and medieval treatment of prisoners.
3. Our child labor.
4. Our profiteers.
5. Our slums.
6. Our prison treatment of conscientious objectors and I. W. W’s.
7. The Russian blockade.
8. Our backing of French vengeance on Germany.
9. The moral failure of our churches.
10. Our munitioning of Poland.
11. Our laws against birth control.
12. The control of our political parties by Big Business.
13. H. C. L.
14. All the other details of our heartless economic system.
I submit, Mr. Spargo, that any one of the above is more worthy of your attention than the task of correcting what you consider tyranny in Russia.
Yours truly,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
December 31, 1920.
MR. CHARLES GARLAND,
BUZZARD’S BAY, MASS.
Dear Mr. Garland: I have read with the greatest interest your tilt with Mr. Sinclair, especially his last letter to you and Mrs. Garland. I was moved to tears at his straight appeal to your understanding of the world’s misery, and the power of that million dollars, not only to alleviate the misery, but to change the system under which we live and suffer. I am one of those who cannot be happy while human beings anywhere starve and die as the result of exploitation by the few. I am praying for a system of co-operation under which we may be as one big family working for one another, instead of against one another as now. But how can we teach the people, when all capital is arrayed against it and the only ones who understand are too poor to do anything except go to jail.
You have this golden opportunity—literally golden—to help in making the world safe for humanity. We have had to beg from other millionaires and we have concluded that they must be taxed—that is the only way to extract their money from them. But in your case it would be different, because you understand, and you feel the responsibility, and you would not leave the money to a trusteeship to perpetuate a system which you know is unjust. You would yourself see that the money is used to establish a more just distribution of this world’s opportunities. I know no one better fitted to advise you than Upton Sinclair.
Most earnestly yours,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
January 14, 1921.
EDITOR,
The Los Angeles Times,
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
Dear Sir: Did you by any chance happen to read in the “Times” this morning the wonderful speech of Lenin, and also the editorial about Schwartz’s experience in Russia? Which one are we to take as truth, and which as false?
Lenin speaks of reactionary Socialists, such as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Millerand; and we have many lesser lights in our country, whom we call renegades to the cause of Socialism. Or was this Schwartz a spy?
Socialism is the embodiment of a great truth, and for this all capitalistic, and thus militaristic nations are making frantic efforts to crush the Soviets. How can one read that speech of Lenin’s and not realize that Russia has the greatest leader among men, a leader struggling against the stranglers of freedom, liberty and justice everywhere?
You say that millions of children have starved to death because of the Soviet Government. That is not true; you know that millions have starved on account of the drought, and more on account of the infamous blockade! The Russian government feeds its children and women, while right here in Los Angeles they starve, and our “free” government does nothing about it! We leave it to the whims of a few individuals and charity organizations, and think we have done our duty. Yes, we are free to starve under our free government!
Yours truly,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
February 15, 1921.
MR. HARRY HALDEMAN,
The Better America Federation,
Los ANGELES, CAL.
Dear Sir: It is difficult for me to express my sorrow at such manifestations of ignorance and prejudice as you showed in that leaflet which was distributed in front of the Trinity Auditorium last Sunday. Did you take the trouble yourself to come and hear the men whom you denounced, or are you one of those bulwarks of our local social order who are actually afraid to listen to discussions of change? By the kind of thing that you sent out on Sunday, you only expose yourself to ridicule by thinking people.
You challenge the Americanism of Irwin Tucker—whose great grandfather was with Washington at Valley Forge! Would you have dared to quote in your leaflet the sentences from the Declaration of Independence concerning the right of a people to change or abolish their government? We radicals want to abolish poverty, so you say that we are not Americans! We want social justice, and no American can want that! We have President Wilson’s word for it, that suppression leads to revolution; but perhaps you do not consider President Wilson an American!
No, all that you really care about is business for profit, and out of your surplus you hand back a little in the form of charity, and think that all is well with the world. But the workers are coming to realize that charity is simply a dope to keep them satisfied with it.
I have seen the pamphlets which you are trying to distribute among the children in the schools; our children are to be taught that to desire equal opportunity and equal obligations for all is to be un-American. True Americanism is to suppress and jail the people who venture to express their ideas. True Americanism is to burn millions of dollars worth of supplies and hospital buildings, which the American people entrusted to the Red Cross—to burn them rather than to let them be used by the people of Russia!
I weep when I see such wickedness committed by an institution we were taught to reverence. I weep that governments should commit such crimes, and not see the frightful consequences in the way of social revolt, which it is making inevitable!
Sincerely,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
April 12, 1921.
WILBUR HALL,
The World’s Work,
GARDEN CITY, LONG ISLAND.
Dear Sir: Just having read your introduction to Mr. Gregory’s article in “Stemming the Red Tide,” in which you say it was stemmed by starvation, I am moved to ask: Do you think that solves the question of Bolshevism? Is that the only argument you can use against any new idea or experiment in government? Starvation, of course, will kill anything; but Bolshevism, which evidently you do not understand, is only a reaction, and the inevitable reaction, from starvation, and from governmental tyranny, which you applaud. Bolshevism is only a blundering effort to apply Socialism,
which every thinking person admits is an ideal difficult of attainment on this sphere, not merely because of the innate selfishness of human beings, but mainly because of the ruthlessness and intrigue of ruling classes.
“Bolshevism stopped by the Poles!” Have you never read that the Poles were the aggressors, egged on and supported by the Allies?
Sincerely,
KATE CRANE GARTZ.
April 18, 1921.
MR. GUIDO BRUNO,
NEW YORK CITY.
Dear Guido Bruno: Thank you for taking such infinite pains to explain in detail your point of view on society as it is, and your satisfaction in it. I can only say, I am surprised, having thought you were one of us. Now I see you prefer the world of Rockefeller and his kind. Such a world as he has made for the few thousand within his radius is what I want for all human beings.
How can you say Rockefeller is playing for big stakes and Eastman for puny? Is money greater than humanity? The people who subscribe for stock in the “Liberator” do not want a money return—their only intent is getting more justice, abolishing poverty, gaining a feeling of security against man-made ills.
Do you think Mr. Eastman sought the proprietorship of a non-dividend paying paper such as the “Masses” (and all radical papers, as you must know) for his own aggrandizement? No—there was no one else willing to take the responsibility, for the cause of human freedom. As to his seeking political power—what happens to Socialists who do? You must know that the capitalist newspapers would not print his “stuff.” All radicalism is a labor of love. Can Frank Harris pay his employees as highly as Rockefeller? You say conditions can never be changed, no matter how much of their lives Sinclair and Eastman give to the cause; and yet you say that Rockefeller has shown that it can be done by one individual!
Every individual belongs to the mass, and only through leavening the mass will the individual be able to function. Yes, Jesus lived and died for the masses, that every individual might live and find happiness. If all lived according to the Golden Rule, you say! But alas and alack, the capitalist system makes fighters of us all.
Kate Crane Gartz Page 4
