We have found now a road that leads straight where we want to go."
This road is direct action. With ironical by-play, the writers and speakers tell us that capitalism has been their one great teacher in the ways of direct action and sabotage. "We have many times used chemicals to spoil products, but the private profit-makers taught us everything we know, by making us partners in all the lying processes of adulteration. In trying to defraud the consumer, they have educated us. We have had to connive and help in this whole cheating process,—clothing, candies, building materials, paints, spices, bread, soups, and a hundred others in commonest use—we have been instructed to the last detail, how to cheat the consumer into the belief that he was getting one thing, when he was getting what he never would have touched had he known the truth." "Did the soldiers in Cuba eat Chicago 'embalmed beef' when they found it out?"
In one of the most recent I. W. W. pamphlets are the following passages meant for instruction. They illustrate "direct action" assuming forms scarcely distinguished from sabotage.[1]
"A glance over the yearly reports of health and poor food commissions and government inspectors will reveal a few facts to the point. Here we see that millions of eggs are condemned in the store houses. The food commissioners discover that there are 'spots' No. 1 and spots No. 2 and 'Roses' in the market. These spots and roses, sorted according to the degree that
- ↑ Direct Action and Sabotage, W. E. Trautmann, p. 23.
