To Tom Mooney, Jim Larkin, Warren Billings, Alex Howat, Ben Gitlow, Ralph Chaplin, Harry Winitsky, Harrison George, Fred Mooney, Frank Keener, Niccolo Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Vincent St. John, Jim Thompson, and the hundreds of Labor’s champions, now prisoners of war in capitalist jails:
DEAR BROTHERS AND COMRADES:—
We send you greetings from THE LABOR HERALD and the workers whose aspirations we voice. In creating this new weapon for our common struggle, the struggle for Labor’s complete emancipation, we turn to you to pledge our faith.
The high mission for which you suffer, and to which we are dedicated, calls for the deepest loyalty, devotion and courage. These first virtues of the working-class movement which you embody, are the very basis of all of Labor’s cause.
But you have been almost deserted by Labor’s ranks. Only here and there have a few strong voices been raised, and a few arms wielded, in your behalf. Only in brief, spasmodic moments has Labor moved to bring you justice; and then has been confused, disunited and drugged, by the lies, the tricky arguments, the traitorous actions, of pretended “leaders.”
For years you have lain in the rotten capitalist jails! With deepest shame must we write the record of how you have been deserted! We know, and the workers of America know, that it is only because you were fighters in our own struggle—the struggle against capitalistic exploitation, against the degrading wages system, against the vicious and corrupt society which destroys all beauty and joy in the lives of the working people.
And the measure of our shame shall be the measure of our passionate cry to the workers of the whole land—“To action! Our brothers are being tortured for fighting our battles for us! Masters! open the prisons, before Labor is forced to act independently to that end!”
Brothers in prison! The heart of the working class is sound! In spite of all the forces of darkness and corruption which have prevented your class from coming to your rescue, your brothers in the trade unions of America know why you suffer. They move restlessly in the knowledge of their base desertion of you. They are going to move to your defense!
THE LABOR HERALD pledges to you that we will shout this message to all our class, in every labor hall and labor home, until our class rises to do justice. So long as we have voice it shall never be raised without carrying this call as a vital, pressing, urgent demand of a militant labor movement!
Labor! Act at Once to Rescue Your Prisoners of War!
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