Covington Hall has to return to the era of the foremothers to find a metaphor for the scab-herders and boss detectives of his time–the were-wolf.

‘Were-Wolves Hunting Down Workers’ by Covington Hall from Industrial Union Bulletin. Vol. 1 No. 46. January 11, 1908.

In the olden folklore we read of a terrible thing, half-man and half-wolf, which our foremothers called the were-wolf. This terrible thing, more cowardly than the wolf, more heartless than a Pinkerton detective, was never known to meet its victim in open battle, but, skulking and slinking along through dark and gloomy forests when the snow lay deep and soft upon the ground, it hung upon the trail of its victim hour on hour, stopping ever and anon in the pursuit to send its demoniac howl, blood-curdling, through the darkness; and so, hour by hour, it hunted until its victim, dazed and exhausted, unable longer to offer resistance, sank upon the lonely snow-clad road, and then the were-wolf leaped from the jungle and sent its fangs down into the throat of its helpless prey. The were-wolf never sprang until its victim fell, and of all blood it loved best the blood of the brave, the innocent and the pure.

The patron saints of the were-wolves were Belial and Moloch, the gods of lust and gold–gods in whose temples women were outraged, and on whose altars babies were sacrificed in an awful but vain endeavor to sear out of the human heart forever the divine dream of freedom and equality.

The were-wolves, like their gods and masters, hated right and justice; honor and virtue were to them but infamies; truth a criminal fit only for the gallows; liberty their license to revel on the corpses of the nations their gods and masters had enslaved, degraded and dehumanized.

The were-wolves bred in all colors white, black, yellow, brown, red; but, whatever their color, they always bred true to their nature, white-livered and merciless cowards ever ready to do the bidding of their gods and masters, no matter how low the work or how pitiless the deed.

The were-wolves were never lean and gaunt and hungry, for though their masters despised them, the masters knew that the were-wolves would lap even their polluted blood were they denied their usual feed for a moment’s time.

Treason was their father, Hypocrisy their mother, and the scab is an offshoot from them through the jackal. Such was the were-wolf.

***

A few days after Small issued his order to the striking telegraphers to abandon their fight, there gathered in front of the union’s meeting place things in the shape of men, some in white-bosomed and some in flannel shirts, called by way of flattery. not were wolves, but “chief operators,” “chief linemen,” “local managers,” etc., who, lurking in the shadows of the sky scrapers, waited and watched, hoping to hear the despairing cry of defeat come sobbing through the open windows of the room where the workers, starvation and treason staring them in the face, were debating what was to them a matter of life and death: and then as a ringing cheer came through the open windows, the lurkers in the shadows of the skyscrapers hurriedly crossed the open street and were seen in their true natures–the were-wolves of the Western Union-Postal Telegraph Trust, out hunting for the blood of victims. But there was yet worse to see and hear.

A few days before the strike collapsed a little woman, a woman with starving babies clinging to her knees, a woman driven at last by hunger to do what she had rather die than do, if she alone were to die, went back to the office and pleaded to be reinstated in her position if only for her starving children’s sake; but the Western Union chief were-wolf told her that she had not treated him right (imagine a werewolf making such a statement!); and that regardless of the divine duty that had been imposed by the sacred fact of motherhood, there was no place for her within the holy precincts of the trust. Which means in naked words that in the sunny South, whose soil has been baptized time and again and again with the blood of heroes and heroines, we have lived to see a were-wolf of the lords of greed and gold apply the blacklist to a woman! Great God! How low the sons of the men who followed Lee and Grant to Appomattox have fallen! This little mother of whom I have written–the starving strikers gathered for her what mites of gold they could, and thereby proved what has been so often proven before, the inherent nobility of the poor–this little mother and her brave comrade workers must take to the streets or starve for their “disloyalty,” so says the Trust; while it keeps in its employ a thing for which there is no name in any language in the world, a thing which, sick unto death, homeless and moneyless, was taken pity on by his fellow workers, who out of their slender earnings made up a purse, who cared for him and sent him away to healing waters, and when through their charity he was healed–this thing came back to scab upon the men and women who had given him his life! And this thing and his kind are what the Trust calls “loyal,” while men and women who dared to stand up for their class are blacklisted and hunted down by the were-wolves of the Trust. Workingmen, the were-wolves are already preparing the grave of liberty; the trust magnates are hoisting the black flag on the hills ’round Valley Forge, and the plutocracy even now is chanting the funeral song of the republic. Awaken!

***

Brothers! You and I and all of us who must sell our brains and hands in order to eat, we know that even for the strongest man the way through earth is strewn with thorns and fire. How much harder, then, must it be for her whose earthly duty it is to bear and rear the race?

And knowing this, what kind of men are we who refuse to come together and organize the might, the might of a united working class, which alone can put an end to all this shame and misery?

Are we so educated and steeped in the philosophy of graft that we are lost to manhood and honor; that we would rather continue on the road of degradation, with the chains of slavery linking ’round us, than to make a supreme effort to re-establish the republic?

Is Socialism to be done to death by Faction?

Are we going to surrender all hope of democracy, all that makes us human and life worth the living without one single effort?

I, for one, do not believe you have fallen so low, and I plead with you to leave the camps of Faction and to march as one against the citadels of Oppression!

I plead with you to gather around the blood-red banner of the I.W.W.–the banner of peace, the banner of justice, the banner of freedom–and banish slavery from the earth, finally and forever!

Answer the roll call, O my comrades! Answer ere it is too late!

Covington Hall.

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/iub/v1n46-jan-11-1908-iub.pdf