ed several score into the church of St. Alphonsus while mass
was being celebrated. Many arrests followed this bold attempt to emulate
the French Revolutionists. Though sympathizers raised $7500 bail for the
ringleader, Tannenbaum loyally refused to accept it as long as any of
his "army" remained in jail. Squads of his men entered restaurants, ate
their fill, refused to pay, and then found their way to the workhouse.
So for several months a handful of unemployed, some of them professional
unemployed, held the headlines of the metropolitan papers, rallied to
their defense sentimental social sympathizers, and succeeded in calling
the attention of the public to a serious industrial condition.

At Granite City, Illinois, another instance of unrest occurred when
several thousand laborers in the steel mills, mostly Roumanians and
Bulgarians, demanded an increase in wages. When the whistle blew on the
appointed morning, they gathered at the gates, refused to enter, and
continued to shout "Two dollars a day!" Though the manager feared
violence and posted guards, no violence was offered. Suddenly at the
end of two hours the men quietly resumed their work, and the management
believed the trouble was over. But for several successive mornings this
maneuver was repeated. Strike breakers were then sent for. For a week,
however, the work went forward as usual. The order for strike breakers
was countermanded. Then came a continued repetition of the early morning
strikes until the company gave way.

Nor were the subtler methods of sabotage forgotten in these
demonstrations. From many places came reports of emery dust in the
gearings of expensive machines. Men boasted of powdered soap emptied
into water tanks that fed boilers, of kerosene applied to belting,
of railroad switches that had been tampered with. With these and many
similar examples before them, the public became convinced that the
mere arresting of a few leaders was futile. A mass meeting at Ipswich,
Massachusetts, in 1913, declared, as its principle of action, "We have
got to meet force with force," and then threatened to run the entire
local I.W.W. group out of town. In many towns vigilance committees acted
as eyes, ears, and hands for the community. When the community refused
to remain neutral, the contest assumed a different aspect and easily
became a feud between a small group of militants and the general public.
In the West this contest assumed its most aggressive form.