“Furthermore, on the legal side, modifications of the law of property are urged.  It is argued that modern law no longer holds the rights of private property sacred, that these rights are being constantly regulated and limited, and that in the Wheatland case the owner’s traditional rights in relation to his own lands are to be held subject to the right of the laborers to organize thereon.  It is urged that a worker on land has a ‘property right in his job,’ and that he cannot be made to leave the job, or the land, merely because he is trying to organize his fellow workers to make a protest as to living and economic conditions.  It is urged that the organizing worker cannot be made to leave the job because the job is his property and it is all that he has.”

As to “The Remedy":—­

“It is obvious that the violent strike methods adopted by the I.W.W. type agitators, which only incidentally, although effectively, tend to improve camp conditions, are not to be accepted as a solution of the problem.  It is also obvious that the conviction of the agitators, such as Ford and Suhr, of murder, is not a solution, but is only the punishment or revenge inflicted by organized society for a past deed.  The Remedy lies in prevention.

“It is the opinion of your investigator that the improvement of living conditions in the labor camps will have the immediate effect of making the recurrence of impassioned, violent strikes and riots not only improbable, but impossible; and furthermore, such improvement will go far towards eradicating the hatred and bitterness in the minds of the employers and in the minds of the roving, migratory laborers.  This accomplished, the two conflicting parties will be in a position to meet on a saner, more constructive basis, in solving the further industrial problems arising between them. . . .

“They must come to realize that their own laxity in allowing the existence of unsanitary and filthy conditions gives a much-desired foothold to the very agitators of the revolutionary I.W.W. doctrines whom they so dread; they must learn that unbearable, aggravating living conditions inoculate the minds of the otherwise peaceful workers with the germs of bitterness and violence, as so well exemplified at the Wheatland riot, giving the agitators a fruitful field wherein to sow the seeds of revolt and preach the doctrine of direct action and sabotage.

“On the other hand, the migratory laborers must be shown that revolts accompanied by force in scattered and isolated localities not only involve serious breaches of law and lead to crime, but that they accomplish no lasting constructive results in advancing their cause.

“The Commission intends to furnish a clearinghouse to hear complaints of grievances, of both sides, and act as a mediator or safety-valve.”

In the report to the Governor appear Carl’s first writings on the I.W.W.