‘Workers and Racial Hate’ Letter by David Burgess from Industrial Worker (Spokane). Vol. 2. No. 11. June 4, 1910.

Seattle, Wash., May 19, 1910.

Editor, Industrial Worker:

It would seem that an effort is to be made to revive the old superstition of “race antagonism,” based upon the assumed inferiority of the race which happens to be in the minority. This will be done under pretense of preserving racial integrity.

Tribal integrity was once believed to be essential to social progress, but that delusion was banished by actual necessity.

Afterwards, “national integrity” became a living issue, but industrial development relegated that impotency to the lumber room. Today we are witnessing an attempt to perpetuate this hoary folly under the alluring but deceptive claim of the inferiority of the Chinese and Japanese. To give dignity to this limping pretense, reference is made to the “race war” in the South.

It is true that “race antagonism” is one of the chief assets of the masters in the South, but I can see in this fact no reason for the slaves promoting and exaggerating the part that it plays in the industrial problems of the South. “Race antagonism” is never invoked unless large numbers of negroes become “insulting,” and by this is meant that they are demanding more of their product. At such times, stories are circulated of the attempted assault upon some white women by some negro who is considered dangerous to the material interests of the industrial masters in the district affected. Unless this “dangerous” negro shows signs of quick repentance, direct charges are made against him, and he is given over to the mob. If this example is not sufficiently effective in bringing the laborers into subjection to the masters, other examples follow, so that in some instances there ensues a race war — a war of extermination, directed against the more rebellious negroes.

When the negroes are sufficiently terrorized, the passions of the masters suddenly cool, the Lord Jesus is invoked, the negroes come slowly and sullenly out of the swamps and proceed to create wealth for the Christian masters on the terms of the masters, and as they create a stream of profits, they ponder upon the mysterious ways of a “kind” providence.

One writer in commenting on the contention that the working class must teach working class solidarity says: “They (the Utopian Socialists, as this writer terms those who believe in class solidarity) insist upon the inherent Brotherhood of Man as incurably as any Christian and contemptuously brush aside the tremendous fact of race antagonism.”

What is it that makes “racial antagonism” a tremendous fact? Competition between races. All students will admit this. If the Chinese and Japanese are excluded from the United States, we shall not thereby avoid such competition as creates race antagonism, but, on the contrary, there will ensue such bitter competition as will possibly stir whole races into acrimonious passion, and not having such knowledge of each other as would come from working with one another, sad results are most likely to follow. Then the masters will use “race antagonism” as a most powerful factor in forcing down wages of the wage earners in both races.

Had the Italians been excluded, it is probable that we should now have as good an understanding of our mutual interests as is now the case? What is true of the Italians is most likely true of all other nationalities which are largely represented in this country. If true of practically all such nationalities, why not true of races?

The working class should be taught that it has only one enemy on this earth, and that enemy is the capitalist class and its comical defenders, those who teach that there is virtue in such shabby superstitions as “race antagonisms.”

There is another difficulty to be encountered in the practical application of “race antagonisms.” If those who believe in the existence of five races, four of whom are inferior, should cultivate five “race antagonisms,” and then suddenly find that there really are only three races, they would have two “race antagonisms” on their hands that they would not know what do with.

If they can dispense with two “race antagonisms,” why not dispense with all of them?

I assume that it is the duty of the working class to teach the solidarity of the interests of the working class, regardless of the race that some section of the class happens to belong to.

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://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v2n12-w64-jun-11-1910-IW.pdf