September Nineteen fifteen Ten Cents !omrad^ Third Circle of Might By Morgan Smith . ELKSKIN BOOTS and SHOES Factory operated in connection with Llano Del Rio Colony Men's 10-inch boots. $6.00 Men's 12-inch boots. 7.00 Men's 15-inch boots. 8.00 IDEAL FOOTWEAR Ladies 10-inch boots 5.00 For Ranchers and Ladies 14-inch boots 5.50 Outdoor Men Men's Elk shoes 4.00 Ladies Elk shoes. 3.50 Infants ' Elk shoes, The famous Clifford Elkskin Snoes are lightest and 1 to 5 1.50 Child's Elk shoes, 5 easiest for solid comfort and will out"wear tnree pairs to 8 1.75 Child's Elk shoes. of ordinary snoes. 81/2 to 11 2.25 We cover all lines from ladies,' men's Misses and Youths, iiy2 to 2 2.50 and children's button or lace in light handsome patterns to the high boots for moimtain, hunting, ranching or desert wear. Almost indestructible. Send in your orders by mail. Take measurement according to instructions. Out of towTi shoes made immediately on receipt of order. Send P. 0. order and state whether we shall forward by mail or express. Place stocking foot on paper, drawing pencil SALES DEPARTMENT around as per above Il- lustration. Pass tape around at lines with- out drawing tight. Give Llano del Rio Company size usually worn. 922 Higgins Building, Los Angeles, Cal. CONTENTS Leo Tolstoy. Drawn by Wm. R. Walker Cover Facts and Comment. By Frank E. Wolfe Page 5 Third Circle of IVIight By Morgan Smith Page 9 Hell For Its Makers. By Frank H. Ware Page 11 Busting the Iron Law. By George Cantrell Page 13 Where Is the Home? By Irwin Tucker Page 14 Mary Phagan Passes Judgment. By Mary White Ovington Page 14 Community Grows in Power. By R. K. Williams. .Page 15 Industrial Activity at Llano del Rio Community .. .Page 16 Earth Is Enough (Poem). By Edwin Markham. .Page 20 Our Wonderful School Page 21 A Remarkable Prediction. By Count Leo Tolstoy. .Page 22 Peace or War? By A. E. Briggs Page 22 Speak, What Think Ye of the War? (Poem).. By Ernest Desland Page 23 Picturing Our Hero. Page 23 Rights vs. Power Page 26 Should Sanity Strike? By Albert A. James Page 29 CARTOONS War's Stupendous Cost Frontispiece Jum-Jum, the Wild Man Page 6 A Year of War Page 7 "Blood! Blood! Gimme Blood!" Page 9 Kreuzland, Kreuzland Ueber Alles! Page 11 At One Gulp Page 13 When the Welsh Miners Came Up Out of the Ground Page 28 War's Stupendous Cost <##^ , —Cleveland To the Last Farthing Plain Dealer The Western Comrade Devoted to the Cause of the Workers Political Action Co-operation Direct Action VOL. Ill LOS ANGELES, CAL., SEPTEMBER, 1915 NUMBER 5 FACTS AND COMMENT By Frank E. Wolfe YEAR and a half ago a woman, who had at- Walsh has made good and Manley has made good. A tended some of the first sessions of the In- As for Connell—well, he is "Buttonhole Jim," sec- dustrial Relations Commission, made a prediction ond vice-president of the A. F. of L. Bored to that has heen most wonderfully fulfilled: distraction, interested in only a few things—the "Out of this inveistigation will come some far- militia of Christ and the welfare of the pantiff. reaehing results. The personnel of the commission AYeinstock, (Mrs.) Harriman and Commons may is poor. From Jim Connell to Harris Weinstock, make all the side reports they can write, but the labor may view the makeup with suspicion. But real report of Walsh and Manley must be printed there is Frank P. Walsh and Basil Manley, and these and given the widest circulation. men will prevent the commission from proving a Walsh has done a great work in bringing out with farce. vivid clearness the class war in America. With the "Walsh has the potentiality and fearlessness; he workers now lies the responsibility of seeing that will learn much, and will broaden as he learns and the report is made a strong weapon for the revo- in the final he will emerge as a champion of the lution. workers." Now write to vour Congressman and urge him : T h e Western Comrade ^1~ to use his efforts to get the Walsh report printed after death by deliberately planning a cold-blooded and distributed. murder. Could there be a more absurd anachronism? i!i y^ iK Deprived of every right Georgia women are brutally ' ' ' exploited, but are given- a ' square deal —if they TEXAS citizens recently burned a negro alive in & happen to be white women—after they have been public sqiiare and on the same day an Illinois assaulted by their exploiter. sheriff succeeded, only after great difficulty, in sav- Are the Georgia women who work in the fac- ing a prisoner from lynching. The spirit of mob tories and fields given a square deal? AVas there murder is not confined to the Southern States. On ever a protest from our ehivalric friends when the the contrary, there are many instances to show that girls in the pencil factory where Mary Phagan this disease is not localized or geographical. worked were forced to toil bodyracking hours on Lynchings in the United States are decreasing miserable pay ? Was there any talk of fair play for and the more atrocious tortures are fewer than in ]\Iary Phagan, alive, underpaid and overworked? Is former years. There are evidences that we are let- there any "square deal" for the young girls whose ting the ape and the tiger die and that there are lives are ground out in the cotton mills of Georgia? more humane instincts than of yore. In comment- Is there a square deal for the black women of ing on this, our moralists are always sure to bring in the horrors of complacent disregard for the laAV. To them murder under the law is at worst a "de- plorable necessity." They do not see that cold blood legalized strangling is more reprehensible than the mob murders committed in sudden heat following some maddening crime against a woman. At this hour, when thousands of men and women are exerting every effort to bring, through the in- itiative, the abolition of legal killings, our cold blooded vicarious prison lynchings are wholly un- pardonable. •« ^ m WE have been called to account by a gentleman from Georgia who resented the statement printed in this column that "as to the blood guilt of the people of that state there is no shadow of doubt." He pleaded extenuating circumstances. In a voice so rich and mellifluous that one sensed in back of it the Aoap of a black mammy's milk, the young man said "We are much misjudged. In Georgia our women have, I reckon, less political rights than in any other state. She can't (kaint) vote; she has no legal right to make a will ; she may not dispose of property; she has no control over her children—in fact no legal standing at all. 1 think that's why we believe in gi-^dng them a square deal." JUjM-JUM, the wild MAN The square deal is, apparently, given to some —New York Call The Western Comrade Georgia ? Do the tens of thousands of mulatto chil- 1 dren of that and other southern states bespeak a square deal for the white wives and sweethearts of the eliivalric gentlemen of Ja.wjy? AYe do not mean to be harsli and unjust. Neither ^^^^^Hl have we any grudge against Georgia. We plainly and frankly plead guilty to equally eold-blooded ^H^^^^nl lynehings in California as those of Georgia and Mis- ^^^^h^^^^I^I^^Hp^^^^^ sissippi. Since we printed the former article on this ^^^^^^F^H^^BHj^^ subject we strangled a man at Folsom penitentiary. Our murder was as studied and cold as that of the ^^^^K^HPV^wt^ other mob that strung up a weak, wounded and tfH^H^^^^^ shackled man near Atlanta. The difference is in ^(o^^^HB^^^^ the degree of our hypocrisy. In California we try, at least, to give women xir^P^^^PA/dHHPHHHI political and legal equality. In her proud possession of her vote the California woman follows her Chris- I^V^^^I^i^^RlL^nll tian pastor to the polls and votes to continue legal Bk^ ^^^^^^^^p^l^l lynching in California. ^^5 '^ ij^^^^^^^^^B AVe are, however, in a measure, getting away from the cobwebby maze of sophistries of our Georgia brothers who prate about chivalry and a square deal. ^^^"^^p3 . t\ . ». .!•. ^^'^'^^ 44/^~^ ARDS are out " nice, smug, society talk. ^/^"^"^^ V^ Cards are out for function at the ij|s^3^^'*%5^ a Folsom ^ penitentiary. California is about to perform an- A YEAR OF WAR other murder and this time we shall try to break Uncle Sam; "HuUy gee! I could make swell into ^Mississippi's class by making an "occasion." canned meat out of that!" Newspapers describe the official invitatons for the —L'l'^snuella de la Torratxa, Barcelona execution of the court's sentence on the person of David Fountain as "neatly engraved cards with conditions it would get it without hesitation or black borders." are not told whether there will We delay. be any fried chicken, watermelon or any of the frilly Labor in California did not want an eight-hour things that made the Starkville function such a pro- day when it voted against—or failed to vote for the nounced success. initiative measure at the last state election. The ^K 5K $M act was initiated by the Socialists of the state.