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The first number of the Sosialisti appeared on 4 June 1914, and daily publication began a week later. The first issue had included a statement of aims and purposes, filling the entire first page, and prepared chiefly by Leo Laukki, proclaiming that the paper would be "under direct control of the masses" and would preserve absolute liberty of speech. The leading position of industrial workers was acknowledged as the keystone, support of industrial unionism was proclaimed, but at the same time "the inevitability of state control" was defended. "This newspaper," it was stated, "is absolutely on the side of unqualified socialistic class struggle, demanding its approval by all to whom it lends support, because this newspaper considers that the struggle of the working class against capitalism is not only against the economy but the form of government also, and both simultaneously." The new paper was acknowledged as an official organ by the IWW authorities, and the oratorical talents at its disposal were put into action to gain support for the paper. Of course the socialists proclaimed the paper to represent nonsocialistic views and to be outside the pale, disruptive, a scab paper to be denied all support and to be forbidden in socialist circles, and demanded that future assessments and funds collected for the Workers' Institute be withheld. This naturally led to a strong counter-attack by the Sosialisti.

The first annual meeting of the Socialist Publishing Company in Duluth elected a new board of directors: Antti Mönkkönen, Ivar Ruohomäki, Nestor Toivonen, A. Turunen, J. G. Helin, H. Hermanson, Victor Salo from Duluth and Victor E. Salo from Bessemer.


Teollisuustyöläinen (Industrial Worker) and Industrialisti: Due chiefly to the demands by the chapters in Butte and Duluth, the line was made considerably sharper in an extraordinary meeting called for October 1915, when the original staff of the Sosialisti was dismissed and Leo Laukki was appointed editor-in-chief, with Fred Jaakkola and Taavi Heino named his assistants. When the original proclamation of the IWW made in 1908 was proclaimed the credo of this newspaper in the spring of 1917, its name had already been changed to Teollisuustyöläinen (The Industrial Worker). When a case before the courts found this paper guilty of defamation of character in a suit brought by a Crosby strikebreaker, the newspaper either did not have the money to pay the fine levied against it or did not want to pay, so it

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