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Enter stage left, a Frenchman named Luigi Galleani who preached violence as a necessary means to the capitalist movement oppressing the working class. Galleani, 1861-1931, an offspring of the middle class, grew up with grand aspirations: he studied law at the University of . Alas, his good intentions turned him into an anarchist promoting hate propaganda.
After being blacklisted, Galleani fled to the US where he became a prominent member of society calling for justice and industrial standards. Using Canada and Mexico as safe houses, he plotted against the American government, part of his plot was a series of publications called the Cronaca Sovversiva, a subversive chronicle outlining the aims of anarchy and protest, most notably a book entitled, the End of Anarchism? When we talk about property, State, masters, government, laws, courts, and police, we say only that we don't want any of them. His freedom of speech came to a grinding halt, Sedition Act of 1918.
Enter stage right, John D. Rockefeller Jr. 1874-1960, and the Interchurch Movement, son of a billionaire, heir to Standard Oil, a Baptist. Rockerfeller used his political sway to push his industrial agenda, was even involved in a bribery scandal; of course, Rockefeller was absolved and the head of the company took the fall. Galleani blamed Rockefeller for the severe conditions the workers endured. In retaliation, he mastermind a bomb plot against Rockefeller and key government officials. After his plot was unmasked, Galleani was shown leniency: they feared he would become a martyr; and in June 1919, he was deported, probably due to his connection with the mob. Twelve years later, on November 4, 1931, Galleani died, not from a bullet or any thing related to the anarchy movement, but from a heart attack. Makes you think. With their champion defeated, the people slowly returned to work as the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labour commenced hearings on the strike, with President Wilson as principal liaison. Chairman, John Fitzpatrick, 1871-1946, a blacksmith by trade, led the charge demanding compensation, describing workers as living like paupers. Discussions on low wages, poor working conditions, and civil rights were the orders of the day. But like all guilty parties looking for scapegoats, once again pointed at leaders involved with the Communists Parties, the Reds. Prosecutors argued a national and international conspiracy involving the Soviet Union; there was no proof so the acquisitions were dismissed and the debate raged on.
Things eventually died down, and in 1923 AD, the corporation yielded to governmental pressures and adopted the eight hour shift; a small price to pay, after the sacrifice, nothing was accomplished, which is pretty much how the story goes:
Once upon a time there was a beautiful world where the sights and sounds of spring graced the land and air all year round, a land of milk, honey and honest people who shared and helped each other. Then one day a strange man, a gypsy man and his dust, swirled into town; the dust, like a dark storm cloud blocked the sun, bringing fear and darkness over the land; the townspeople hugged each other in fright, shaking in their boots, clenching their young ones, hoping it was a nightmare. But the children new better; they had seen him before; he was the Sandman, dust to dust, dust to dust, he whispered in their ears. After a year or so, the townsfolk had an idea, what if we blew and blew and blew, what if we blew so hard the wind swept the gypsy man and his dust away. So they blew and blew and blew; they blew until they were blue in the face. And the gypsy man was hurled away, for a season; so the town rejoiced and celebrated, spring once again graced the sky; the birds, singing love songs, the children swinging from the trees, if only for a season.
Special thanks to Joseph Pulitzer, who coined freedom of the press, " an institution should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
For an encore, Wilson declared a 1 world order over the League of Nations as partial payback for their debts: there is no validity to any vote of the assembly unless in that vote also the representative of the United States concurs. The people were in an uproar; if the President had supreme power internationally, it was only a matter of time before they no longer lived in a society where majority rules. Strike! Down with dictatorship and industrial capitalism.
They had fought and starved themselves for democracy, not to replace one autocrat, aristocrat for another; if only they had known the WWI was neither about democracy or dictatorship, but something called Uranium and the Theory of Relativity.
Was Wilson for or against human rights?