Walker C. Smith

The pamphlets reprinted in this collection were first published in the 1910s amidst great controversy; the significant works included are "Direct Action and Sabotage" by William E. Trautmann, "Sabotage: Its History, Philosophy and Function" by Walker C. Smith, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's "Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers' Industrial Efficiency." Even then, the tactics of direct action and sabotage were often associated with the clandestine activity of a militant minority or the desperate acts of the unorganized. The activist authors of the texts in this collection challenged the prevailing stereotypes. As they point out, the practice of direct action, and of sabotage, have been an integral part of the everyday work life of wage-earners in all times and places; direct action is recognized as a valuable and effective tactic by many movements around the globe, and remains a cutting edge tool for social change.

The Everett Massacre (also known as Bloody Sunday) was an armed confrontation between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union, commonly called "Wobblies". It took place in Everett, Washington on Sunday, November 5, 1916. The tragic event marked a time of rising tensions in Pacific Northwest labor history. This book is a compelling and emotionally gripping contemporary account of that tragic event. ---Excerpt--- In ten minutes of seething, roaring hell at the Everett dock on the afternoon of Sunday, November 5, 1916, there was more of the age-old superstition regarding the identity of interests between capital and labor torn from the minds of the working people of the Pacific Northwest than could have been cleared away by a thousand lecturers in a year. It is with regret that we view the untimely passing of the seven or more Fellow Workers who were foully murdered on that fateful day, but if the working class of the world can view beyond their mangled forms the hideous brutality that was the cause of their deaths, they will not have died in vain. This book is published with the hope that the tragedy at Everett may serve to set before the working class so clear a view of capitalism in all its ruthless greed that another such affair will be impossible.