abotage means
anything that the imagination can devise and the passions of men adopt,
if they had the power to use it and get away with it. Oh, it is not
wrong! No matter what form it takes it is not wrong, because they say so
in their official publication. 'The tactics used are determined solely
by the power of the organization to make good in their use. The question
of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern us.' Put the two together.
Legality and illegality, those terms have no meaning to a man of the
Industrial Workers of the World. Why? Because there is no law that they
are bound to respect except the law that is made by them in their own
union hall. It is in the song book, 'Make your laws in the union hall,
the rest can go to hell.' That is the class of people that we had to
deal with, who were coming there to Everett.

"In Spokane there were twelve hundred convictions upon a valid
ordinance, and yet, after they had convicted a hundred of them they
didn't stop coming, and two hundred, and two hundred and fifty, and five
hundred, and they continued coming there until the city jail of the city
of Spokane was filled, until the county jail of Spokane county was
filled, until an old deserted school house was filled, and then until an
army post jail was filled. A species of sabotage! They weren't willing
to accept the verdict of one jury, or ten juries, or of a hundred
juries, that they were violating the law. They had made their laws in
their union halls and they were going to speak at a certain place, upon
a certain street of Spokane; and they were going to compel the citizens
of Spokane to let them speak when they pleased, where they pleased, and
say what they pleased; and they kept it up until after Spokane had the
expense of a thousand trials and had upon its hands a thousand
defendants it began to think it had better yield and let them speak when
they pleased, where they pleased and say what they pleased. And Spokane
was licked!

[Illustration: Charles Ashleigh speaking at the funeral, of Looney,
Baran and Gerlot.]

"Is it any wonder that the citizens of Everett said 'If you have no
regard for law we will meet you on your own ground; we are not going to
be bankrupted; we are not going to be hammered into defeat as they were
in Spokane; we are not going to have you sabotage us in that manner by
your numbers; we are not going to have your people coming from the
Dakotas, from Montana, from Oregon, and from all over t