social system in which
money ranks higher than manhood.

To be more specific the outrages at Everett had their roots in the
belief that the men who labor, and especially the migratory and the
unskilled element, form an inferior caste or class to those who exploit
them. The dominant class viewed any attempt to claim even the same civil
rights as an assault upon their supremacy and integrity,--this to them
being synonymous with social order and civilization. This is always more
evident where a single industry dominates, as evidenced by the
occurrences at Ludlow, in the coal district, Mesaba in the iron ore
section, and Bisbee where copper is the main product. Everett
controlled by the lumber interests clinches the argument.

A community dominated by an industry, impelled by a desire for high
profits; or under the spell of fear or passion, whether justified or
not, cannot be restrained by law from a summary satisfaction of its
desires or a quieting of its apprehensions. Before such a condition the
fabric of local government crumbles and lynch law is substituted for the
more orderly processes designed to attain the same end. The Everett
outrages were no example of the rough and ready justice of primitive
communities. The outlaws were in full possession of local government,
legislative, judicial, and executive, yet they fell back upon brute
force and personal violence and attempted to protect the lumber trust
profits by tactics of terrorism.

Insofar as the law can be wielded for their immediate purpose a
capitalistic mob, such as these at Everett, will clothe their violence
in the form of ostensible legal process, yet often the letter and the
spirit of their own class-influenced laws will be ruthlessly thrust
aside. They want law and order, efficacious, impartial, august, in the
eyes of the general citizenry, but they want exemption of their class
from the rule of the law on certain occasions. Strongly would they deny
that all law is class law, made, interpreted and administered in behalf
of a privileged property-owning class, yet the facts bear out this
contention.

The conception of impersonal and impartial legalism has been generally
accepted along with traditional moral opinion and the naive belief in
the excellence of competitive, individualistic, and unrestrained
business. But this historical case has proven, as nothing else could
prove, that these bonds are relaxing and the faith and formulas
underlying the whol