Page:Sabotage (Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley).djvu/21

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SABOTAGE
19

"Boys, give up your guns. It is better for you to be shot than it is to shoot anybody." Now, sabotage is not violence, but that does not mean that I am deprecating all forms of violence. I believe for instance in the case of Michigan, in the case of Colorado, in the case of Roosevelt, N. J., the miners should have held onto their guns, exercised their "constitutional right" to bear arms, and, militia or no militia, absolutely refused to give them up until they saw the guns of the thugs and the guns of the mine guards on the other side of the road first. And even then it might be a good precaution to hold on to them in case of danger! Well, when this militia was being sent from Denver up into the mining district one little train crew did what has never been done in America before; something that caused a thrill to go through the humblest toiler. If I could have worked for twenty years just to see one little torch of hope like that, I believe it worth while. The train was full of soldiers. The engineer, the fireman, all the train crew stepped out of the train and they said, "We are not going to run this train to carry any soldiers in against our brother strikers." So they deserted the train, but it was then operated by a Baldwin detective and a deputy sheriff Can you say that wasn't a case where sabotage was absolutely necessary?