This campaign to use the criminal law to destroy the IWW began before World War One and extended through the Red Scare into the 1920s. This program was sponsored by politicians, newspapermen, and elites at every level of society, in addition to powerful Western capitalists in lumber, mining, agriculture, and other industries. Conservatives played a crucial role. But Progressives—the direct ancestors of today’s liberals—were also central to this campaign. Progressives’ ranks were dominated by those who viewed the IWW’s radicalism and its militancy as unacceptable affronts to their vision of a well-ordered society and who embraced the use of the law as a means of putting the union in check. From local police like Bemidji’s Frank Ripple, to important state officials, like John Lind—the former governor of Minnesota and head of that state’s Public Safety Commission—to Woodrow Wilson himself, Progressives were at the forefront of this effort. Ultimately, their campaign resulted in several thousand IWW members being arrested and jailed and hundreds imprisoned on criminal syndicalism and Espionage Act charges.