The governors of Oregon,
Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada met to plan laws for
suppressing the I.W.W. Similar legislation was urged upon
Congress. Senator Thomas, in a report to the Senate, accused the
I.W.W. of cooperating with German agents in the copper mines and
harvest fields of the West by inciting the laborers to strikes
and to the destruction of food and material. Popular opinion in
the West inclined to the view of Senator Poindexter of Washington
when he said that "most of the I.W.W. leaders are outlaws or
ought to be made outlaws because of their official utterances,
inflammatory literature and acts of violence." Indeed, scores of
communities in 1917 took matters into their own hands. Over a
thousand I.W.W. strikers in the copper mines of Bisbee, Arizona,
were loaded into freight cars and shipped over the state line. In
Billings, Montana, one leader was horsewhipped, and two others
were hanged until they were unconscious. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a
group of seventeen members were taken from policemen, thoroughly
flogged, tarred, feathered, and driven out of town by vigilantes.
The Federal Government, after an extended inquiry through the
secret service, raided the Detroit headquarters of the I.W.W.,
where a plot to tie up lake traffic was brewing. The Chicago
offices were raided some time later; over one hundred and sixty
leaders of the organization from all parts of the country were
indicted as a result of the examination of the wagon-load of
papers and documents seized.
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