Page:The General Strike (Haywood, ca 1911).pdf/18

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THE GENERAL STRIKE

of L.'s membership did a great deal in the way of moral support, and they furnished a great deal of money. That trial cost $324,000—my trial. I don't look worth that much, but I am in my own estimation. Of the total amount the outside organizations contributed $75,000, the Western Federation of Miners put up nearly $250,000. There was a tremendous agitation throughout the country and the officials of the organization felt that the trade unions had come to them in a crisis and that they ought to join hands with the A. F. of L. movement. I feel that they assisted in that crisis, but it wasn't through the trade union machine—it was through the working class. Gompers never said a word until a Socialist in the central labor body here made him open his mouth. The officials of the trade unions never came to our relief. It was the Socialists, the S. L. P.'s, the I. W. W.'s, some trade-unionist members of local unions, local officials. It wasn't the machine. So, while I feel and I know I owe my life to the workers of the nation, it is to the working class of the nation that I am under obligation, not to any subdivision of that class. That is why I am here now. That is why I am talking working-class solidarity, because I want to see the working class do for themselves what they did for me.

Q.—What do you think about the Socialist movement in Germany?

A.—I think I know something about Germany, and if you want my opinion I will say that the Socialist movement in Germany seems to me to be a topheavy one; that is, that the force comes from the top down—that is not a purely democratic movement, coming from the working class up.

Q.—Is it the capitalist class, or is it a labor movement, or both combined, or some conditions in between them that has anything to do with the insurrection in Mexico?

A.—I think the capitalist class are responsible for the insurrection in Mexico. Incidentally, the revolutionists, Magon, Villareal, Sarabia and Rivera, and their fol-