remuneration for a job and the amount or kind of labor it requires of him, it is not uncommon for him to skimp his service as far as possible. This is the spirit of sabotage disconnected with the labor union and without revolutionary intent. Giovannitti says: "A certain simple thing which is more or less generally practised and thought very plain and natural, as, for instance, a negro picking less cotton when receiving less grub, becomes a monstrous thing, a crime and a blasphemy when it is openly advocated and advised." 3 When workers came to generalize about conditions of employment and decided or rather realized that speeding up resulted in wage reductions and when they tacitly agreed among themselves without organization to "go slow" they were practising sabotage even if it did not deserve the name of a revolutionary measure.

Pouget points out that "ca cannie" was preached to workers through a pamphlet issued in 1895 which declared that if labor was to be treated like a commodity in the market, labor like other commodities would give poor service for poor prices.

Sabotage is no new thing. It is probably as old as labor performed for others. Why is it considered a menace? Giovannitti answers: "It is simply because there is no danger in any act in itself when it is determined by natural instinctive impulse and is quite unconscious and unpremeditated, it only becomes dangerous when it becomes the translated practical ex

pression of an idea even through or rather because this idea has originated from the act itself."4

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'told the if starva

Sabotage as an organized method in the United States is in an early stage of advocacy. Its actual use according to those preaching it is negligible. A speaker for the Industrial Workers striking silk workers in Paterson that tion forced them back to the slavery and growing degradation from which they had revolted, if their strike were lost, if the hunger of their children broke their power of resistance, they should use sabotage in the mills and in the dye shops." No workers were arrested for committing sabotage nor was it known that any sabotage was committed in Paterson, but the advocate was arrested, sentenced to hard labor in prison and fined under what is known as the " Anarchy Statutes." No act resulted from his speech but he was sentenced for advocating destruction. He did not advocate destruction but injury. The court made no distinction. The sabotage issue before the law is at present an issue of free speech.

But should sabotage extend to destruction as a revolutionary measure it has its defence: "If the instruments of production rightfully belong to the workers, it means that they have been pilfered from them and that the capitalist class detains them in an immoral way. It is legal for the bourgeois to keep them in accordance to its own laws, but surely it is not

'ethically justifiable' from the point of view of our aforesaid comrades (the Socialists). If these instruments of production are ours they are so as much now as they will be a hundred years hence. Also being our property we can do with it whatever we best please, we can run them for our own good as we surely will; but if we so choose we can also smash them to pieces. It may be stupid but it is not dishonest. The fact that the burglars have them in their temporary possession does not in the least impeach our clear title of ownership. We are not strong enough to get them back just now but we cannot forego any chances of getting something out of them."

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But the Industrial Workers consider destruction stupid" and it is the intention to direct its use, as the French syndicates have directed it through the aid of the skilled workers. Their purpose is to put a machine "out of commission" temporarily, to delay production as a strike delays it; they propose to injure the profits in materials by lowering the quality of workmanship for the time being or until such time as an employer will concede demands. There is no ground for the assumption that the carefully planned injury would have destructive effects on the worker's character. His injurious or destructive act is committed to prevent other injury or destruction which is to him far more injurious and destructive. He destroys or injures a machine as an owner would

destroy it if its continued operation was destructive.

The Industrial Workers are less concerned at present with the practice than they are with inculcating their conception of it. They recognize it as the refinement of industrial warfare and believe that its clumsy or unintelligent use would do more harm to their cause than a postponement of the use until the workers understand it as a weapon as they now understand a strike.

CHAPTER XVII

LIMITATION OF OUTPUT

Restriction of production by capital, by labor-Labor restrictions a defense against wage reductions-Speeding up and cutting wage rates-Experience of Bricklayers-Turning the saving from machine production to labor's account-Restrictions on entrance to trades-I. W. W. opposition to restrictions on labor.

WHATEVER may be the social results of production, the original object of the promoters as well as the workers is self interest. Capital withdraws from wealth-creating enterprises or extends them, depending solely on the comparative ability of the industry to create profits. When labor undertakes to regulate production in the interest of wages, it is often assumed that production is not a matter of individual enterprise, but of social concern.

Capital undertakes to create, determine, and supply the market for the consumption of goods on terms advantageous to itself. One of its methods of increasing the market is to decrease the cost of production. The largest item in that cost is labor. The greater the number of workers who compete for a job, the lower will be the wage rate or the labor cost. Capital restricts production and the amount of labor it will buy.

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