in order that you might know it, and
that he said was his position, that he would stand and fall and be judged
by it, and I say to you now that is our position, and we will stand or
fall and be judged by that issue.

In order that you may properly understand this situation, and the things
that led up to it, the motives underlying it, the manner in which it was
planned and executed, I want to go just a little way back of the
occurrence on November 11th, and state to you in rough outline the
situation that existed in Centralia, the objects that were involved in
this case, the things each are trying to accomplish and the way each went
about it. There has been some effort on the part of the state to make it
appear it is not an I.W.W. trial. I felt throughout that the I.W.W. issue
must come into this case, and now that they have made their opening
statement, I say unreservedly it is here in this case, not because we want
to drag it in here, but because it can't be left out. To conceal from you
gentlemen that it is an I.W.W. issue would be merely to conceal the truth
from you and we, on our part, don't want to do that now or at any time
hereafter.

The I.W.W. is at the bottom of this. Not as an aggressor, however. It is a
labor organization, organized in Chicago in 1905, and it is because of the
philosophy for which it stands and because of certain tactics which it
evolves that this thing arose.

[Illustration: James McInerney

Logger. Born in County Claire, Ireland. Joined the Industrial Workers of
the World in 1916. Was wounded on the steamer "Verona" when the lumber
trust tried to exterminate the union lumberworkers with bullets at
Everett, Washington. McInerney was one of those trapped in the hall. He
surrendered to officers of the law. While in the city jail his neck was
worn raw with a hangman's rope in an effort to make him "confess" that the
loggers and not the mob had started the trouble. McInerney told them to
"go to hell." He is Irish and an I.W.W. and proud of being both.]

A Labor Movement on Trial

The I.W.W. is the representative in this country of the labor movement of
the rest of the world It is the representative in the United States of the
idea that capitalism is wrong: that no man has a right, moral or
otherwise, to exploit his fellow men, the idea that our industrial efforts
should be conducted not for the profits of any individual but should be
conducted for social service, for social we