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Title: Everlasting Murder Author: Max Baginski Date: April 1911 Language: en Topics: Mother Earth, capitalism, Kate Sharpley Library Source: Retrieved on 23rd May 2022 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/mcvg3d Notes: Originally published in Mother Earth, v.6, no.2, April 1911. Republished in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 91–92, October 2017 [Double issue]
War or peace – the slaughter continues, for the character of capitalist
society is so inexorably murderous that no amount of moralizing can
mitigate it.
Horrified we witness the carnival of death, fain to believe that these
catastrophes are “accidental,” exceptional, while in reality the
destruction of human life, industrial murder because of greed and
inhumanity, is an established institution. In a society where profit is
paramount and the fate of the toilers a negligible quantity, what other
result can be expected than the most cynical indifference to the lives
of the workingmen.
The hundred and forty-five victims of the fire at the shirtwaist factory
of Blanck & Harris, in Washington Square, New York, have been murdered
by capitalism. The helpers and executioners in the massacre were the
owners of the scab shop, the officials of the public safety department,
the administration of the City of New York, and the government and
legislature at Albany. These are the guilty. But as they control the
machinery of “justice,” they will acquit themselves. Within a few weeks
the terrible crime will be all but forgotten and – the business of
murder will continue.
May the terrible tragedy help to clarify our vision. Our grief is
profound; may it bear emotions and resolves strong and effectual, worthy
of our great sorrow.
With terrible clearness this crime has demonstrated how useless are the
laws for the protection of the lives of the toilers. The laws are there;
the rules and regulations are there; the highly paid officials are
there; only the actual protection is not there. Government and
officialdom are necessary, it is said, for the protection of life and
property. In truth, they are capable of dooming the starving wretch to a
few years’ prison for stealing fifteen cents. They are indeed most
faithful guardians of property. But when it concerns the effective
protection of the workman’s life against wholesale capitalist murder,
the governmental Providence yawns and sleeps in the bureaus; or pretends
to sleep, well knowing that it must not seem too watchful if it wishes
to enjoy the sympathy and good will of the wealthy pillars of society.
This officialdom is the “stall”[1] that decoys the capitalist victim. It
is not its business to make such crimes as the Triangle fire impossible.
Its duty is superficially to mask – by its laws, dignity, and authority
– the plutocratic greed which is responsible for such holocausts.
In their simple trustfulness the “common people” believe that the
governmental Providence is ever on the alert to prevent such accidents;
meanwhile this good Providence is concerned mainly in removing the
obstacles in the way of plutocratic exploitation and ensuring its own
position and aggrandizement.
Heavy is the penalty for this error. Because the toilers believe that
the government machinery is designed for their protection, they neglect
themselves to take steps to insure their safety. Hence official
protection is not only useless; it is positively dangerous, often fatal.
May this be the first lesson to be learned from the murder of our
comrades. And may we also realize that labor possesses the power, by
means of united and direct action, forever to put a stop to the
wholesale slaughter of capitalist greed. Henceforth let our motto be:
Away with the deceptive hope for salvation from “representatives,”
politicians, and officeholders. Let us act for ourselves, on the spot:
the control of the factories should be in the hands of those who work in
them; the means: direct action and the general strike, and sabotage,
which has accomplished such splendid results in the syndicalist movement
of France and Italy.
It is the workers – not the landlords, manufacturers, or bosses; not the
city or State authorities – that risk in the factories their health and
life. It is therefore they who should also have the right to determine
the conditions under which they will work and of taking such precautions
as may be necessary to safeguard them, not only on paper, but in
reality. Labor would indeed deserve to be charged with immaturity and
lack of independent judgment if it will still longer continue to trust
its fate to the plutocratic regime and its servants, and be persuaded to
abstain from independent direct action. All too long the toilers have
felt themselves mere “hands” and subjects. It is time to remember their
rights as human beings and to realize their strength to assert these.
The power of labor seems weak only because it is never fully manifested.
The workingmen still fail to realize their tremendous possibilities and
the great tasks they could accomplish, because they do not dare to act
for themselves, without go-betweens, politicians, and arbitration
boards. It is these that paralyze independent action on the part of
labor and strive to divert its every effort into channels profitable to
capitalism.
Not merely fire escapes and safe exits can the workers secure by the
exercise of their economic power, through direct action and general
stoppage of work. They are also able – though naturally after a hard
struggle – entirely to abolish the industrial system of wholesale
slaughter and exploitation.
Upon this aim to concentrate our efforts, to work for it in the
factories and shops, and finally to achieve this noble purpose be our
vow at the grave of our hundred and forty-five murdered fellow workers.
[Baginski writes shortly after the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Company
fire of Saturday, March 25, 1911. 146 people died, mostly young Jewish
and Italian immigrant women workers. They died because the doors were
locked. Because there were no sprinkers. Because the fire escape tore
away from the brick wall. The fire, despite his fears, was not ‘all but
forgotten’ and spurred both fire safety codes and unionisation,
particularly of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. Over a
hundred years on the Grenfell Tower fire reminds us “In a society where
profit is paramount and the fate of the toilers a negligible quantity,
what other result can be expected than the most cynical indifference to
the lives of the workingmen.” – though this was killing of working class
men and women and children where they lived.]
[1] Stall: the assistant of a pickpocket who jostles the passengers in
the streetcar, or starts a fight to give his partner an opportunity to
rob the people.