“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been tarred and feathered.  Frank H. Meyers was tarred and feathered by a gang of prominent citizens at North Yakima, Washington.  D. S. Dietz was tarred and feathered by a mob led by representatives of the Lumber Trust at Sedro, Wooley, Washington.  John L. Metzen, attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World, was tarred and feathered and severely beaten by a mob of citizens of Staunton, Illinois.  At Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mob of bankers and other business men gathered up seventeen members of the I. W. W., loaded them in automobiles, carried them out of town to a patch of woods, and there tarred and feathered and beat them with rope.

“We charge that members of the Industrial Workers of the World have been deported, and cite the cases of Bisbee, Arizona, where 1,164 miners, many of them members of the I. W. W., and their friends, were dragged out of their homes, loaded upon box cars, and sent out of the camp.  They were confined for months at Columbus, New Mexico.  Many cases are now pending against the copper companies and business men of Bisbee.  A large number of members were deported from Jerome, Arizona.  Seven members of the I. W. W. were deported from Florence, Oregon, and were lost for days in the woods, Tom Lassiter, a crippled news vender, was taken out in the middle of the night and badly beaten by a mob for selling the Liberator and other radical papers.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been cruelly and inhumanly beaten.  Hundreds of members can show scars upon their lacerated bodies that were inflicted upon them when they were compelled to run the gauntlet.  Joe Marko and many others were treated in this fashion at San Diego, California.  James Rowan was nearly beaten to death at Everett, Washington.  At Lawrence, Massachusetts, the thugs of the Textile Trust beat men and women who had been forced to go on strike to get a little more of the good things of life.  The shock and cruel whipping which they gave one little Italian woman caused her to give premature birth to a child.  At Red Lodge, Montana, a member’s home was invaded and he was hung by the neck before his screaming wife and children.  At Franklin, New Jersey, August 29, 1917, John Avila, an I. W. W., was taken in broad daylight by the chief of police and an auto-load of business men to a woods near the town and there hung to a tree.  He was cut down before death ensued, and badly beaten.  It was five hours before Avila regained consciousness, after which the town “judge” sentenced him to three months at hard labor.

“We charge that members of the I. W. W. have been starved.  This statement can be verified by the conditions existing in most any county jail where members of the I. W. W. are confined.  A very recent instance is at Topeka, Kansas, where members were compelled to go on a hunger strike as a means of securing food for themselves that would sustain life.  Members have been forced to resort to the hunger strike as a means of getting better food in many places.  You are requested to read the story written by Winthrop D. Lane, which appears in the Sept. 6, 1919, number of `The Survey.’  This story is a graphic description of the county jails in Kansas.