Nearing responds to an earlier campaign to deport ‘undesirables’ with his own list.

‘Undesirables’ by Scott Nearing from the Butte Daily Bulletin. Vol. 1 No. 213. May 5, 1919.

Away with the undesirables! Deport them; jail them; persecute them; denounce them; silence them. The undesirables must go!

Undesirable?

What is an undesirable?

Any man or woman who narrows the opportunity of a fellow human being for life, liberty and happiness is an undesirable. Every parasite; every despot; every tyrant; every monopolist; every man who lives at the expense of a fellow man is an undesirable.

No human being makes himself desirable by saying prayers or preaching patriotism, or waving a flag, or promising to save other men’s souls. Men become desirable only when they help their fellow men to live larger, stronger, happier, nobler lives.

The chambers of commerce, the boards of trade, the manufacturers’ associations and the other business organizations are deciding who is undesirable and then insisting upon a campaign to deport them, jail them, persecute them, silence them, destroy them. The business interests are doing that now. They are establishing a rule of public policy. Undesirables do not belong in the United States. They must go!

Suppose the people apply that doctrine to American life and begin with the parasites. Every able-bodied adult human being who is not doing a fair share of the world’s work, but is living on the product of other men’s labor is an undesirable. He must cease to be a parasite by taking a job. The new world is a world of workers. No one else has a legitimate place here.

A few men, highly placed, own the jobs on which millions of their fellow men depend for a living; they own the products of these jobs; they own the surplus produced by the industrial machine. They are exercising a despotic, irresponsible power over the lives of their fellows. They are undesirables. The jobs, the product and the surplus must belong to the workers. The exploiters must go.

The forests and mines, oil wells and corner lots of America are in the hands of a few monopolists who take toll from society in the form of monopoly profits. These “bag barons” represent the spirit of the middle ages. They have no place in a free government of free people. They must go!

Away with the undesirables! America is no place for them. Away with the parasites–give them jobs! Away with the exploiters–the workers must own their tools! Away with the “bag barons”–surplus wealth belongs to those who produce it! The undesirables in America must go!

The Butte Daily Bulletin began in 1917 in reaction to the labor wars in Montana, the Speculator Mine fire killing 168 miners; IWW organizing, and the murder of IWW organizer Frank Little in Butte. Future Communist leader and IWW organizer William F. Dunne and R. Bruce Smith, president of the Butte Typographical Union published the paper as an outgrowth of a strike bulletin with the masthead reading, “We Preach the Class Struggle in the Interests of the Workers as a Class.” It became daily in August 1918 and in September 1818 officers raided their offices and arrested Dunne and Smith on sedition charges. An extremely combative revolutionary paper, while unaligned, it supported the struggles of the Left Wing in the SP, reflecting the large radical Irish working class of Butte also supported Ireland’s and the Bolshevik revolution, as well as the continued campaigns of the IWW locally and national as well as the issues in Butte. It ran until May 31, 1921.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1919-05-05/ed-1/seq-1/