Caroline Nelson was a Danish-born revolutionary Socialist, feminist and birth control activist, west coast I.W.W. leader, writer and lecturer. Here, she reports on her discussions and the work of legendary Indian activist Har Dayal in San Francisco as a response to the California State Socialist Party’s support for ‘Asiatic exclusion’ laws, and the larger fight over immigration and race within the Party in the early 1910s. Dayal moved to the Bay Area in 1911 and for three years before his 1914 deportation for distributing anarchist literature, was an I.W.W. activist, including as a local secretary.

‘Away with Race Prejudice’ by Caroline Nelson from Industrial Worker. Vol. 4. No. 29. October 10, 1912.

There is nothing so serious to the labor movement as race prejudice. The civilized world is so interlinked economically that it is practically one. Any trouble in any part of the world of any magnitude whatever affects the workers the world over. The financiers, and not the kings and presidents are the world rulers today; on the contrary they control the kings and rulers. The financier recognises no boundary lines, no colors or creeds or races when it comes to profitable investments. But he makes use of all the ancient superstitions and prejudice in the form of patriotism, religion and race hatreds to protect his investments. He knows that an international working class solidarity is his fatal enemy, in fact the only real enemy he needs fear. He, therefore, has race superiority and patriotism with their particular brand of religion upheld in season and out of season, in the schools and in the church and press. So that the workers can be imbued with the silly notion that a brown working man who believes in a brown savior, who sits cross legged on a lotus flower, instead of a white savior who is represented as banging on a cross, is too inferior to associate with. The trade unions here in San Francisco have haughtily refused to take in oriental members. Although as a matter of fact the Chinaman is the most rebellious worker in the world and there are thousands of him here. One year the Chinese butchers in Chinatown wanted to parade on Labor Day with their white comrades, but they were refused admission in the ranks. Could anything be more stupid?

Instead of labor unifying the world over we are constantly called upon to sympathize with exclusion leagues, and the California state Socialist platform has a plank favoring the exclusion of Asiatics. This is written on paper headed “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains,” etc. Whenever the capitalists want the Asiatics they get them in regardless of any exclusion leagues or laws, and the whole business simply serves to keep up race prejudice. Besides, if, the capitalists find that oriental labor is more profitable than white labor, if he can’t get them to come to him, he will go to them with the means and instruments of production. It makes no difference to the financiers where their factories are located. But the most serious aspect of this race prejudice is that the worker cannot accomplish the overthrow of the capitalist system except he stands united the world over. The worker has no nation to protect. The nations belong to his master, and therefore to protect any nation is to protect his master.

And the best way to practically get at this is for the workers to come together, regardless of the colors of their skins. A worker who proclaims himself class-conscious and then talks loftily about “greasers, dagoes, coons,” etc., is a fool. He is really nothing but race conscious. It is a remarkable fact that the capitalist class is much less race-conscious than the workers. They dine and, wine together the world over as a “cultured” class. But the fact back of that is undoubtedly that their economic interest is the same. The workers are hampered in narrow quarters, and are apt to be clannish. So we get the Italian quarters, the Russian quarters, the Japanese and Chinese quarters and so on. All of which hinders the revolutionary movement. We must get revolutionary leaders who can interchange Ideas and propaganda to break down the race barriers.

Lately in San Francisco we have had the pleasure of having a real revolutionary Hindoo speaking to us. Har Dayal had to escape from his own country on account of his revolutionary ideas. He is not a working man. The Hindoo working man has no opportunity to learn to read and write. He is ground down to the lowest pittance, but in spite of It Har Dayal told us that they had actually carried on a six-day strike as a protest against the arrest of one of their leaders. Har Dayal lives like a working man and often carries his blankets with him to his meetings so that he can roll up and sleep anywhere. He teaches Hindoo Philosophy in Stanford University, but refuses to take any pay for it, so as to be independent and free to teach whatever he likes outside.

“I teach Hindoo Philosophy to break down race prejudice,” he said, when asked about it. With several other Hindoo revolutionists there is a concerted effort to start a strong Oriental center of revolutionists, which should be very gratifying. ONE BIG UNION must Include within its walls all the workers of the world, or at least all the rebellious workers of the world regardless of their color, or we shall never succeed. For that reason we should be very glad to welcome within our ranks our Oriental fellow workers. And it is to be hoped that before many years have gone by that we see fit to send our organizers and agitators to the Orient while at the same time we become wise enough to give every encouragement to our Oriental fellow workers who are with us here to join with us.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of full issue: https://archive.org/download/v4n29-w185-oct-10-1912-IW/v4n29-w185-oct-10-1912-IW_text.pdf