I WELCOME DISORDER
livJO LABADIE
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DETROIT ^933
\*/HEN confined to the need of defense I welcome disorder in the world of work!
Why cry "Peace, peace! M*when there is no peace?
When the very air gluts with the clash of interests?
Until my opportunities for making goods
shall equal thine, Until you cease shading the sunlight of joy
from my life, Until you stop siphoning the flow of my efforts into your corrupting coffers, Until you release your grip upon my throat and let me breathe the air of freedom — The freedom to live, laugh, love and be
happy in my own way, So long as my way does not obstruct in-
vasively your way— I shall raise the hue and cry, I shall startle the dreamless slumbers of the spoilers of Toil!
Under present vogues, industrial peace means humiliation, slavery, death!
It means the gelatinous bones of our babes shall be molded into money for marauders;
That the mothers and daughters of Toil shall be driven to shame as the price of subsistence;
That mud from the wheels of the wealthv shall gleefully splash in our faces
And blind our eyes to the splendor of our own work which they enjoy, .
And the squaler of our own environs,
And the meanness of our own estate.
It means that I may work only when you let me,
And you let me only when you may take more than you give.
It means that I cannot look into your eyes with the frankness of friendship,
For how can the flowers of friendship grow in the gloom of dependence?
How can love linger in the lap of luxury and share its joy with bitterness and woe?
So long as Idleness and Privilege revel in
unearned ease 1 shall raise the hue and cry; T shall shriek my wrongs into your unwilling ears;
I shall shout with a fanatic's voice until your deadened conscience shall be aroused to sensibility; I shall clank my industrial chains until you are driven to remorse and retribution. And then I shall take you in my arms as a long-lost brother returned to the home of righteousness, Where you may know the joy of owning
only what you earn, Where you may feel the lofty dignity of a workman with no spurred loafer goading him beyond his strength and reaping no gain for its expense, Where you shall give measure for measure, Where you shall be no man's master or no
man's menial. I shall work with you in making the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, Where the art of free fingers may equal the
dreams of Aladdin, W7here even the meanest who wills may make material comforts in plentitude, without let or hindrance, Where the plague of money madness will not deaden the conscience or sear the soul.
The sunshine of peace can gladden our hearts only when the leaden clouds of injustice roll away. Pleasing Progress ordains that the fashioners of the world's wealth shall not bow in meek assent to the power of Privilege j
And nature says the underdog in the fight may bark, bite, bruise, damage, hurt, tear, growl, injure, lacerate, aye even kill if necessary! The end indeed justifies the means, and the cause of the workers is defensible indeed.
Therefore, for those who toil and tire, Who work and sweat and produce, Who are denied the fullness of their efforts I have no protesting frown when they strike, vote, fight, appeal, struggle, contest, agitate For the right to life, liberty, property,
happiness, Be it by mobs, by individuals, by unions,
by brigades, by armies; Or strive with bluster or passivity or embattled warfare, With winning words or moral suasion or abuse or satire or argument or lies or truth,
With fists or clubs or bullets or ballots or cannon or dynamite
To throw off the deadly load of industrial spoliation.
Think not that we dare not when we do not.
It is war and war is hell, and hell is disorder,
And disorder is the boiling of the industrial caldron that purifies.
It is death to those who know not, to those who hesitate,to those who are weakest,
And the world's story says the workers are weakest
Because less bloodthirsty.
The robbed are never so desperate as the robbers.
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Ah, brothers, are we eternally to have a clash of arms, a clash of classes, a clash of interests? How 1 pray and plead for the milder means;
How 1 appeal to the man in men, to leave
off the barbarities of the beasts; How I urge that ravaging storms of violence may purify the air, but they leave ruin and desolation behind; How I press that reason and patience and persistence, like growing plants that move boulders, may displace the rudest wrongs; How i strive t.o show that as warmth from the sun produces flowers brilliant with beauty out of the most repellant soilure, So may the glow of love and kindliness
and gentility, From even the bitterest enmity, the most unyielding grudge, the greatest animosity
Force a sense of justice as tough a? oak, A sympathy as balmy as a summer breeze, A fellowship as strong as the ebbing tide, A friendship as tender as a mother's love.
But—
When the milder means cannot avail,
When stubborn opulence persists in ignoring the rightful meed of Toil,
The blame for turmoil must rest,
As the fall of the angels, upon the powers of darkness;
And then, when within the realm of defense,
I welcome disorder in the world of work!
Detroit, 191 i.