STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW

EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Volume LXXXIII] [Whole Number 193

THE I. W. W.
A Study of American Syndicalism

BY

PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN, Ph.D.
Sometime Assistant in Economics at the University of California and University Fellow at Columbia
Special Agent of the United States Department of Labor

SECOND EDITION

New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS
London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd.
1920

Copyright, 1920
BY
PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN

TO
R. O. L. B.

[PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION]

No very extensive changes are made in the new edition. The chart of early radical labor organizations, which appeared in the first edition as Appendix I, has been omitted in this edition. There is reproduced in its place a copy of the original industrial organization chart prepared by "Father" T. J. Hagerty at the time of the launching of the I. W. W. in 1905 and sometimes referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel of Fortune". This chart is believed to be of some importance as illustrating the earlier ideas of the revolutionary industrial unionists on industrial organization in relation to union structure. It has been considerably amplified by W. E. Trautmann and published in his pamphlet One Great Union, and still further developed by James Robertson who has very recently built extensions upon it in furtherance of the shop-steward propaganda in the Pacific Northwest. His version is published in a pamphlet entitled Labor unionism and the American shop steward system (Portland, Oreg., 1919).

The organization held its eleventh national convention in Chicago in May, 1919. This was the first convention held since December, 1916. It was attended by fifty-four delegates and it has been reported that forty-eight of them had never before attended a general convention of the organization. The General Executive Board reported that the organization in 1919 comprised fourteen Industrial Unions, each with its locals in various parts of the country, and a General Recruiting Union, with a total membership of 35,000. Since the convention it is reported that three new Industrial Unions have been formed: an Oil Workers' Industrial Union, a Coal Miners' Union and a Fishery Workers' Union. Nearly fifty amendments to the constitution were adopted by the delegates at the May convention. Most if not all of these have been since approved in a referendum to the membership. The proceedings of the convention have not yet been published. Since the first edition of this book appeared the I. W. W. has launched a monthly magazine called The One Big Union Monthly and several new weekly newspapers.

The writer's attention has been called to the erroneous statement (on page 235) in regard to Daniel DeLeon's theory of industrial unionism. This has been revised to accord with the facts. There is added on page 241 some interesting comment from Lenin, the Bolshevik premier of Russia, on DeLeon and on the relation between revolutionary industrial unionism, and the soviet system in Russia.

P. F. Brissenden

Washington, D. C., September, 1919.

[PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION]

This is a descriptive and historical sketch of the present drift from parliamentary to industrial socialism—as epitomized in the career of the Industrial Workers of the World in the United States. The I. W. W. is now thirteen years old. During the first half of its existence the general public hardly knew that there was such an organization. A few local communities, however, were startled into an awareness of it quite early in its history. The city of Spokane had an I. W. W. "free-speech fight" on its hands in 1909. Fresno, California, McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, and Missoula, Montana, all had their little bouts with the "Wobblies" long before the Lawrence strike of 1912 made the I. W. W. nationally prominent.

Just now the Industrial Workers of the World, as represented by more than one hundred of its members and officials, is on trial for its life in Chicago. The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to hinder and discourage enlistment and in general to obstruct the progress of the war with Germany. The specific number of crimes alleged to have been intended runs up to more than seventeen thousand. Since the war-time activities of the I. W. W. most concern us now, it is regretted that this book cannot be brought up to the minute with a final chapter on the I. W. W. and the war. But this is impossible. The trial is still in progress and almost no trustworthy evidence regarding the alleged anti-war activities is available outside of the court records.[1]

Though nowadays well aware of the existence of the I. W. W., the public still knows little about the organization and its members. Moreover, a great deal of what it does know is false. For thirteen years the I. W. W. has been rather consistently misrepresented—not to say vilified—to the American people. The public has not been told the truth about the things the I. W. W. has done or the doctrines in which it believes. The papers have printed so much fiction about this organization and maintained such a nation-wide conspiracy of silence as to its real philosophy—especially as to the constructive items of this philosophy—that the popular conception of this labor group is a weird unreality.

The current picture is of a motley horde of hoboes and unskilled laborers who will not work and whose philosophy is a philosophy simply of sabotage and the violent overthrow of "capitalism," and whose actions conform to that philosophy. This appears to be about what the more reactionary business interests would like to have the people believe about the Industrial Workers of the World. If, and to the extent that these reactionary employing interests can induce the public not only to believe this about the I. W. W. but also to believe that the picture applies as well to all labor organizations, they will to that extent ally the public with them and against labor.

The negative or destructive items in the I. W. W. program are deliberately misconstrued and then stretched out and made to constitute the whole of I. W. W.-ism. In reality they are only a minor part of the creed. There are immense possibilities of a constructive sort in the theoretic basis of the I. W. W., but the Press has done its best to prevent the public from knowing it. And it must be said that the I. W. W. agitators have themselves helped to misrepresent their own organization by their uncouth and violent language and their personal predilection for the lurid and the dramatic. Even what the Wobblies say about themselves must be taken with a certain amount of salt. This matter of the currently-received opinion of the I. W. W. has been dwelt on because the writer believes that it is not alone important to know what an organization is like; it is also very important to know what people think it is like.

The popular attitude toward the Wobblies among employers, public officials and the public generally corresponds to the popular notion that they are arch-fiends and the dregs of society. It is the hang-them-all-at-sunrise attitude. A high official of the Federal Department of Justice in one of our western states gave the writer an instance. On a recent visit to a small town in a distant part of the state he happened upon the sheriff. That officer, in reply to a question, explained that they were "having no trouble at all with the Wobs." "When a Wobbly comes to town," he explained, "I just knock him over the head with a night stick and throw him in the river. When he comes up he beats it out of town." Incidentally it may be said that in such a situation almost any poor man, if he be without a job or visible means of support, is assumed to be, ipso facto, an I. W. W. Being a Wobbly, the proper thing for him is pick-handle treatment or—if he is known to be a strike agitator—a "little neck-tie party."

Since we have been at war certain groups of employers, particularly those in the mining and lumber industries, have still further confused the issue and intensified the popular hostility to the Industrial Workers of the World. They have done this by re-enforcing their earlier camouflage with the charge of disloyalty and anti-patriotism. Wrapping themselves in the flag, they have pointed from its folds to "those disloyal and anarchistic Wobblies" and in this way still further obscured the underlying economic issues. Whatever the facts about patriotism on either side, it appears to be true that the greater part of the I. W. W.'s activities have been ordinary strike activities directed toward the securing of more favorable conditions of employment and some voice in the determination of those conditions. These efforts have been met by charges of disloyalty and by wholesale acts of violence by the employers, that is to say, they have been met by the night-stick and neck-tie party policy—as witness the wholesale deportation of "alleged Wobblies" from Bisbee, Arizona, and the hanging of Frank Little in Butte, Montana. As the President's Mediation Commission reported, "the hold of the I. W. W. is riveted, instead of weakened, by unimaginative opposition on the part of employers to the correction of real grievances."[2]

By means of an insidious extension of the I. W. W. bogey idea, either that organization itself or some other labor body or both of them are made the "goat" in disputes in which the I. W. W., as an organization, has no part. If a lumber company, for example, gets into a controversy with the shingle-weavers union of the American Federation of Labor, it has only to raise a barrage and shout through its controlled news columns that "they are 'Wobblies!'" and public opinion is against them. Nor does the misrepresentation stop there. All who openly sympathize with the alleged Wobblies are, forsooth, themselves Wobblies!

Naturally the liberals in this country have no sympathy with this night-stick attitude toward I. W. W.'s nor with the night-stick interpretation of I. W. W.-ism. The writer is bound to say, however, that he considers the liberal interpretation entirely inadequate. The liberal attitude is expressed and judgment pronounced when it has been said that the I. W. W. is a social sore caused by, let us say, bad housing. It must be evident (unless we are prepared to take the position that any organization which purposes a rearrangement of the status quo—the Single Tax League, for example—is a social sore) that the I. W. W. is much more than that. The improvement of working conditions in the mines and lumber camps would tend to eliminate the cruder and less fundamental I. W. W. activities, but it would not kill I. W. W.-ism.

We can no more dispose of the Industrial Workers of the World by saying that it is a social sore on the body politic than we can dispose of the British Labor Party or our National Security League by saying that they are sores on the Anglo-Saxon body politic. We can only completely and fairly handle the I. W. W. problem by dealing with its more fundamental tenets on their merits and acting courageously upon our conclusions. We shall be obliged seriously to study the problem of the organization of the unskilled; the question of the relative merits of craft unionism, mass unionism and industrial unionism; the question of the sufficiency of political democracy and of the possible future modifications of it and, not least, the question of democracy versus despotism in our economic and industrial life. The Wobblies insist that no genuine democracy is possible in industry until those who do the work in a business (from hired president to hired common laborer) control its management. It so happens that the British Labor Party, in its reconstruction report on Labor and the New Social Order, insists upon practically the same thing. The fact that the B.L.P. insisted in a more refined and intelligent manner than the I. W. W. may explain the almost universal obliviousness of our liberals to this item in I. W. W.-ism. The Industrial Workers of the World have even developed a structure and mechanism (crude and inadequate, naturally) for this control. The industrial union, they say, is to be the administrative unit in the future industrial democracy. All these will be dominant issues when peace breaks out, and if the Wobblies are no longer in existence the radical end of each issue will be championed by their successors in the field.

The most important item in the affirmative part of the I. W. W. program is this demand that some of our democracy—some of our representative government—be extended from political into economic life. They ask that industry be democratized by giving the workers—all grades of workers—exclusive control in its management. They ask to have the management of industrial units transferred from the hands of those who think chiefly in terms of income to those who think primarily in terms of the productive process. The Wobblies would have "capitalism" (the monarchic or oligarchic control of industry) supplanted by economic democracy just as political despotism has been supplanted by political democracy in nearly all civilized states. When the British Labor Party asks for representative government in industry, those who do not ignore the request give it serious attention. When the I. W. W. echoes the sentiment in the phrase: "Let the workers run the industries," the editors are thrown into a panic, the business world views the I. W. W. menace with aggravated alarm and the more reactionary employers hysterically clamor to have "these criminal anarchists shot at sunrise."

Perhaps the very best way to run an industrial enterprise is on the currently accepted model of the Prussian State. It is simply a moot point and the I. W. W. has challenged the Prussian method. Whatever intrinsic merit there may be in the affirmative program of the Industrial Workers of the World, it must be admitted by even its most enthusiastic members that were they today given the power they ask, they would be no less relentless Prussians than are the corporations we have with us. Even though capitalism may be ripe for replacement, the I. W. W. are a long way from being fit to replace it. The Wobblies are grotesquely unprepared for responsibility. So far their own members do not understand how relatively unimportant is their much-talked-of sabotage method. They have challenged the autocratic method, but they have done it very crudely and with a weird misplacement of emphasis. They whisper it in a footnote, as it were, to their strident blackface statements about method. "If labor is not allowed a voice in the management of the mines—apply sabotage!"

Unquestionably the I. W. W. ask too much when they ask that the producers be given exclusive control of industry. As to certain phases of management the workers (including, of course, all hand and brain workers connected with the industry) should perhaps be given entire control. The hours of labor and the sanitary conditions in any productive enterprise are primarily, if not exclusively, the concern of the producers. But the amount of the product which ought to be turned out and the price at which it ought to be sold are matters in which the consumers have no little interest. Consumers, therefore, should share in the management of the industry so far as it relates to prices and the determination of the amount to be produced.

The following pages are devoted to a mere matter-of-fact description of the Industrial Workers of the World as an organization and to a record of the facts of its history. The purpose has been throughout to write from the sources. The writer has tried to have the "Wobblies" themselves do the telling, through interviews, soap-box speeches, convention proceedings and official papers and pamphlets. The bulk of the record is based upon documents and other materials collected and impressions received since 1909 when the writer first became interested in the I. W. W.

The writer has endeavored throughout to abstain from philosophizing about the I. W. W. He is not unmindful of the fact that the interpretation of such a significant movement as is embodied in the Industrial Workers of the World is of very great importance. Indeed the time has now come when it is urgently necessary. The first intention in writing this book was to incorporate in it an attempt at an analysis and interpretation of I. W. W.-ism, as well as its orientation with other economic isms. But the bony skeleton of historical record has crowded out almost everything else and perhaps filled more pages than its importance justifies. In spite of all this the temptation to comment has been strong and sometimes irresistible. Despite the effort that has been made to be accurate and entirely fair the writer realizes that the book probably contains errors both of fact and judgment. He would greatly appreciate having his attention called to these.

The writer is under great obligation to the secretaries of scores of the local unions of the organization in various parts of the country for their valued assistance in the task of gathering the material for this study. He is especially grateful to Mr. Vincent St. John, formerly General Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W. W., for his generous response to repeated requests for documents and information. Thanks are also due for like favors to Mr. William D. Haywood, General Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W. W. and to Mr. Herman Richter, General Secretary-Treasurer of the Workers International Industrial Union (formerly the Socialist Labor Party or Detroit wing of the I. W. W.). Finally the writer wishes to express his grateful appreciation of the numerous and helpful suggestions made during the later stages of the work by Professor Henry R. Seager of Columbia University. He has also to thank Professor Seager and Mrs. C. A. Stewart for their kindness in the tiresome work of reading the proof, and Mrs. M. A. Gadsby, of the staff of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, for her assistance in the preparation of the Bibliography.

P. F. B.

San Francisco, June 9, 1918.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Since this went to press the trial has come to an end. On August 17 the case went to the jury which, after being out fifty-five minutes, returned a verdict of "guilty, as charged in the indictment." On August 30 Judge K. M. Landis imposed sentence. W. D. Haywood and fourteen others were sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment and $20,000 fine each. Thirty-three others were given six years and fined $5,000 each on the first count; ten years and $5,000 each on the second count; two years and $10,000 each on the third count; and ten years and $10,000 each on the fourth count. Thirty-three others were given five years and fines of $5,000 apiece on each of counts 1 and 2 and $10,000 each on counts 3 and 4. Twelve more were sentenced to one year and one day, with fines of $5,000 each on the first and second counts and $10,000 each on the third and fourth counts. Two of the defendants were given ten-day sentences. All sentences run concurrently. The fines imposed aggregate $2,570,000 and costs. It is announced that the case will be appealed. (U. S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Div., Criminal Clerk's Minute Book 12, pp. 61-62.)

[2] Report of the Commission, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, p. 20.

[CONTENTS]

[PART I]
BEGINNINGS

[CHAPTER I]
Forerunners of the I. W. W.

The revolutionary doctrines of the I. W. W. are spoken of today as constituting the "new unionism" or the "new socialism". It cannot be too strongly emphasized, however, that neither I. W. W.-ism nor the closely related but materially different French syndicalism are brand-new codes which the irreconcilables, here and in France, have invented out of hand within the last quarter of a century. Industrial unionism, as a structural type simply, and even revolutionary industrial unionism—wherein the industrial organization is animated and guided by the revolutionary (socialist or anarchist) spirit—hark back in their essential principles to the dramatic revolutionary period in English unionism of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In America the labor history of the seventies, and especially the eighties, teems with evidences of the industrial form and the radical temper in labor organizations. The elements of I. W. W.-ism were there; but they were not often co-existent in the same organization. Contemporary writers have not failed to call attention to the striking similarity between the doctrines of the English Chartists and those of our modern I. W. W. The bitter attacks of the Industrial Workers upon politics and politicians and their appeal to all kinds and conditions of labor were also fundamental articles in the creed of the Chartists—who stressed the economic factor almost as forcibly as do the I. W. W.'s today.[3]

In both America and England, especially during the periods referred to, there was abundant evidence of those tactics which we characterize today as syndicalistic. I. W. W. strikes were not invented in 1905. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the Knights of Labor, the International Working People's Association, the "New Unionists" in the days of Robert Owen—all these and many another group have sought to push their cause by methods now once again made notorious by the French syndicalists and the American Wobblies. The general strike—mass action—the sympathetic strike—the solidarity of all labor—these concepts seem to have their prototypes and very possibly were put into action in still more ancient periods. Osborne Ward reports some revolutionary labor activities in years preceding the Christian era. He describes a strike of the silver miners in Greece—at Laurium, some thirty miles south of Athens. "The inference is unequivocal," says Ward, "that in 413 B. C. twenty thousand miners, mechanics, teamsters, and laborers suddenly struck work; and at a moment of Athens' greatest peril, fought themselves loose from their masters and their chains." He concludes that the strike "must have been well concerted, violent and swift," and "must have been plotted by the men themselves."[4] This strike, apparently, was widely heralded, but seems to have brought no more permanent results than has the average I. W. W. strike of today. The evidence for this very ancient prototype of syndicalism is not entirely conclusive. It was dug out of the old red sandstone—and there are missing links! It will be safer not to try to trace the lineage of syndicalist organizations—much less syndicalist activities and ideas—back more than one century.

There is no doubt that the idea of economic emancipation through economic as opposed to political channels, and to be achieved by all classes of workers as workers, i. e., as human cogs in the industrial, rather than the political, state had been very definitely formulated before the end of the last century.[5] Indeed, the conception runs back well toward the beginning of the nineteenth century. The "one big union" of which we now hear so much was surely in existence in England in the early thirties. Robert Owen at that time outlined his great plan for a "General Union of the Productive Classes." Sidney and Beatrice Webb report the establishment, in 1834, of a "Grand National Consolidated Trades Union":

Under the system proposed by Owen [they say] the instruments of production were to become the property, not of the whole community, but of the particular set of workers who used them. The trade unions were to be transformed into "national companies" to carry on all the manufactures. The agricultural union was to take possession of the land, the miners' union of the mines, the textile unions of the factories. Each trade was to be carried on by its particular trade union, centralized in one "Grand Lodge."[6]

The leaders of the New Unionists "aimed not at superseding existing social structures but at capturing them in the interests of the wage earners."[7]

American prototypes of I. W. W.-ism appear much later than in England. As early as 1834, however, workingmen in the United States were discussing the attitude of the union toward politics. There was some discussion at that time by members of the National Trades Union of a proposal to have resolutions drawn up to express the views of the convention on the social, civil, and political condition of the laboring classes, and after considerable argument the word "political" was omitted.[8]

In 1864 an unsuccessful attempt was made to organize in this country a national federation of trade unions. Two years later, in Baltimore, a National Labor Congress launched a conservative political organization, called the National Labor Union—a short-lived predecessor of the Knights of Labor. Ely says that it lived only about three years and died of the "disease known as politics."[9] It is probable that a general apathy and financial weakness were contributing causes.

The most important of these forerunners of the "Wobblies" was the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor which was organized in 1869 and for the following decades carried on a remarkably successful propaganda. It had a membership of more than a million in the late eighties.[10] Soon after that the Knights suffered a decline that was even more rapid than their meteoric expansion in the early eighties and ultimately broke down and degenerated into the shadow of an organization that it has been for more than twenty years past. Carroll D. Wright thought that the Knights of Labor reached its highest membership point in 1887 when it had probably about a million enrolled. In 1898 there were about 100,000 in the organization. Colonel Wright believed that this great falling-off in membership was due to the socialistic tendencies of the organization, especially to the attempt to place all wage workers on the same level.[11]

The characteristic motto of the Knights of Labor was: "An injury to one is the concern of all"—the same slogan which is today prominent among the watchwords of the I. W. W. The Knights proposed, first to bring within the folds of organization every department of productive industry, making knowledge a standpoint for action and "industrial, moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness"; second, "to secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create ..."; third, the substitution of arbitration for strikes; and, fourth, the reduction of hours of labor to eight per day.[12] The Knights advocated government ownership of telephones, telegraphs, and railroads; emphasized the principle of coöperation; admitted women and negroes, and believed in having working-class politics in the union and the union in working-class politics. "The fundamental principle on which the organization was based was coöperation," said Grand Master Workman Powderly, "... the barriers of trade were to be cast aside; the man who toiled, no matter at what, was to receive and enjoy the just fruits of his labor...."[13]

It was originally a secret organization, but that feature was later abandoned. The following restriction on membership appears in the constitution of the Local Assemblies: "... no lawyer, banker, professional gambler, or stock broker can be admitted." Prior to 1881 physicians were also excluded. It is composed of Local Assemblies (local unions) controlled by District Assemblies, a General Assembly and a Grand Master Workman. These parts were closely related to each other in a centralized system. Centralization of administrative authority was considered highly important—indeed, it was thought indispensable in order successfully to unite every branch of skilled and unskilled labor—a task the Knights considered of prime importance. They differed, however, from our more radical I. W. W.'s of today in placing no little confidence in political methods, maintaining as they did for many years a legislative lobbying committee at Washington. In addition they believed, with the I. W. W., in the sympathetic strike, the boycott—and the necessity of solidarity among all the ranks of labor. The following excerpt from the Final Report of the United States Industrial Commission (1900) explains the administrative policy of the organization:

The fundamental idea of the Knights of Labor is the unity of all workers.... It regards this unity of interest as necessitating unity of policy and control; it conceives that unity of control can be effected only by concentrating all responsibility ... in the hands of the men who may be chosen to stand at the head of affairs. The control of the organization rests wholly in the general assembly, and ... the orders of the executive officers, elected by the general assembly, are required to be obeyed by all members. The several trades are separately organized within the order.... The Knights desired to include all productive workers, whether or not they received their compensation in the form of wages.[14]

The emphasis placed by the Knights upon the union of skilled and unskilled is significant in relation to the later efforts of the I. W. W. to effect such a union. "I saw," said Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly, "that labor-saving machinery was bringing the machinist down to the level of a day laborer, and soon they would be on a level. My aim was to dignify the laborer."[15] Mr. Powderly is reported in the same interview as saying that his greatest difficulty in getting machinists and blacksmiths to join the Knights of Labor lay in the contempt with which they looked upon other workers.

There was a much closer connection in the Knights of Labor between the central organization and the local bodies than is today the case with the American Federation of Labor, which, as its name implies, is a comparatively loose federation of autonomous "international unions." This high degree of centralization of power in the hands of the General Assembly and the national officers was a factor in the disintegration of the order. More important still was the fact of internal dissension, especially the bitter animosity arising out of the Knights' participation in politics. "... There came the question whether the organization should go into politics as a body or not. That question was probably discussed in every Local Assembly in America ... [and] those political questions coming up drove men out of the organization...."[16]

The Knights were a curious mixture of conservative and radical elements. The organization was socialistic, but rather state socialistic than anything else. Despite their arbitration clause they did not believe in the identity of interest of employer and employee. As trade unionists they were innovators and steered far from the narrow trade type of union imported from England. They said—in words—that they wanted to destroy the wage system. "To point out a way to utterly destroy this system would be a pleasure to me," said Grand Master Workman Powderly.[17] As to the Knights of Labor policy in regard to violence, Perlman says that "... although the leaders of the Knights preached against violence and what we now call sabotage both were nevertheless extensively practiced, as, for instance, in the Southwest Railway strike of 1886." He goes on to draw a parallel between the Knights and the "Wobblies," declaring that the latter preach violence without practicing it, while the Knights practiced it without preaching. He adds that the Knights of Labor adopted coöperation as their official philosophy and the I. W. W. adopted syndicalism and declares that neither practiced their doctrines very much.[18] The disrupted condition of the Knights of Labor in 1902, three years before the organization of the I. W. W., may be understood from the following press dispatch:

The rival factions of the Knights of Labor will each hold a congress at Albany this week beginning Tuesday. Each congress claims to represent the Knights of Labor in this State.... The Hayes faction has at present the books, property and paraphernalia of the Knights of Labor which were awarded to it by the courts some time ago.[19]

Simultaneously with the rise of the Knights of Labor in America came the International Workingmen's Association, the famous "International" which, springing up in Europe in the late sixties, soon spread to both sides of the Atlantic. It was first established in the United States in 1871. This first American section of the International made a slogan of the declaration that the emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves.[20] The organization appears to have been short-lived; for ten years later, in 1881, another body calling itself the International Workingmen's Association was organized at Pittsburgh. This organization, says Tridon, was "made up mostly of laborers and farmers who rejected all parliamentary action and advocated education and propaganda as the best means to bring about a social revolution."[21] In 1887, when they had about 6,000 members, they attempted to amalgamate with the Socialist Labor party, but the negotiations failed and they disbanded.[22]

Meantime the anarchists had been busy in this country. In 1881, the year which marks the birth of the American Federation of Labor (then called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada), the difference between them and those who advocated political action finally assumed definite form in the organization by the anarchist advocates of physical force of the Revolutionary Socialist party. In 1883 there was held a joint convention of the "revolutionary socialists" and the anarchists which resulted in the birth of the International Working People's Association.[23] At this convention were gathered representatives of anarchist and revolutionary socialist groups from twenty-six cities. These delegates drafted the famous Pittsburgh proclamation which demanded "the destruction of the existing government by all means, i. e., by energetic, implacable, revolutionary and international action" and the establishment of an industrial system based upon "the free exchange of equivalent products between the producing organizations themselves and without the intervention of middlemen and profit-making."[24] In the course of two years the membership of the International grew to about 7,000. Then in 1888 came the Haymarket tragedy and the International soon passed out of existence. The anarchists were in control of this organization and great stress was laid upon revolutionary tactics and direct action, with a corresponding depreciation of political action. John Most, the anarchist, had come to this country in 1882 and the organization of the International Working People's Association was largely due to his agitation here.

There is no doubt that all the main ideas of modern revolutionary unionism as exhibited by the I. W. W. may be found in the old International Workingmen's Association.[25] The I. W. W. organ, The Industrial Worker, asserts that "we must trace the origin of the ideas of modern, revolutionary unionism to the International."[26] Comparing the French cousin of our modern I. W. W. with the older Association, James Guillaume asks, "et qu'est-ce que la confédération générale du Travail si non la continuation de l'internationale?"[27] Many items in the program originally drafted by the famous anarchist, Michael Bakunin, for the International in 1868 are very similar to the twentieth century slogans of the I. W. W.

It began by declaring itself atheist, "L'alliance se déclare athée," and went on to assert that its chief work was to be the abolition of religion and the substitution of science for faith. It advocated the political, social and economic equality of the classes, to achieve which end all governments were to be abolished. It opposed not only all centralized organization, but also all forms of political action, and believed that groups of producers, instead of the community, should have control of the processes of industry.[28]

"Ennemie de tout despotisme, ne reconnaisant d'autre forme politique que la forme républicaine, et rejetant absolument toute alliance réactionnaire, elle repousse aussi toute action politique qui n'aurait pas pour but immédiat et direct le triomphe de la cause des travailleurs contre le capital."[29]

A secret organization, known as the Sovereigns of Industry, was launched at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1874. It admitted both men and women. Its Preamble stated that it was "an association of the industrial working classes without regard to race, color, nationality or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging any war of aggression upon any other class or fostering any antagonism of labor against capital ... but for mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection."[30] Its ultimate purpose, however, appeared to be the elimination of the wage system.

In the same year was formed a socialist organization called "The Association of United Workers of America."[31] This body, together with several other organizations of socialists, merged to form the Workingman's Party in 1876. The following year the name was changed to the Socialist Labor Party. The year 1874 also marks the birth of the Industrial Brotherhood, an organization somewhat similar to the Knights of Labor but which did not survive the seventies.[32]

A decade later (1884) the National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States[33] was organized. Next to the United Mine Workers this is today the strongest industrially organized union in America. This union has almost from the beginning admitted to its membership not only brewers but also drivers (of brewery wagons), maltsters, engineers and firemen employed in breweries, etc.—all workmen, in fact, who are employed in and around the breweries. Until 1896 the Brewers were a part of the Knights of Labor. Since then they have been almost continuously affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. They have, however, always insisted upon industrial unionism so far as structure is concerned and have more than once been at loggerheads with the Federation on this score. The Brewery Workmen's Union, although conservative in every other way, is cited by I. W. W.'s, no less than the Mine Workers, as a model of the correct thing in labor-union structure. In 1890 the United Mine Workers' Union of America was formed. The organization is today the largest union in this country, if not in the world. It is unquestionably the strongest industrial union in the world. Since 1905 the revolutionary industrial I. W. W.'s have looked with admiration upon the structural form of the Mine Workers' Union—and with impatient scorn upon their conservative tactics.

In England also there came at this time a high tide of sentiment for the "new unionism."

The day has gone by for the efforts of isolated trades [wrote H. M. Hyndman]. Nothing is to be gained for the workers as a class without the complete organization of labourers of all grades, skilled and unskilled.... We appeal ... to the skilled artisans of all trades ... to make common cause with their unskilled brethren and with us Social Democrats so that the workers may themselves take hold of the means of production and organize a coöperative commonwealth....[34]

What is even more significant in view of the present day I. W. W. demand for industrial control is the fact that there was constantly cropping up in the eighties the Owenite demand that the workers must be allowed to "own their own factories and decide by vote who their managers and foremen shall be."[35]

In 1888 came the famous Haymarket riots in Chicago. The effect of this tragedy was unquestionably to give the labor and socialist movements a serious setback.

The labor movement [says Robert Hunter] lay stunned after its brief flirtation with anarchy. The union men drew away from the anarchist agitators, and, taking their information from the capitalist press only, concluded that socialism and anarchism were the same thing, and would, if tolerated, lead the movement to ruin and disaster. Without a doubt, the bomb in Chicago put back the labor movement for years. It ... did more to induce the rank and file of trade unionists to reject all association with revolutionary ideas than perhaps all other things put together.[36]

Justus Ebert, who is now a member of the I. W. W., declares that the Haymarket affair "involved the new Socialist Labor party in a fierce discussion of the right course to pursue in the emancipation of labor."[37] Robert Hunter thinks that these riots really gave the French unionists the idea of the General Strike and thus helped to give form, first, to modern French syndicalism, and second, both by relay back to this side of the Atlantic and directly by its influence in this country, to American syndicalism in the form of the Industrial Workers of the World.[38]

Five years after Haymarket—in June, 1893—an industrial union of railway employees was organized in Chicago by Eugene V. Debs. A year later, at the time of the Pullman strike, it had a membership of 150,000. The failure of that strike, which by the way was an early example of I. W. W. tactics, broke down the union, and it passed out of existence in 1897.

The year 1893 also marks the beginning of the Western Federation of Miners,[39] which may well be ranked as the chief predecessor of the I. W. W. The coal miners had formed their national organization three years earlier. Both the coal and metalliferous miners' unions were built from the start upon the industrial type, that is, including in their membership in both cases "all persons employed in and around the mines." The Western Federation of Miners was organized in Butte, Montana, in 1893, and almost immediately affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. It separated from the Federation, however, in 1897 and, after a period of independent existence broken by alliances with the Western Labor Union in 1898 and with the I. W. W. in 1905, rejoined the A. F. of L. in 1911.

During the twelve years of the Western Federation's existence before the birth of the I. W. W., it figured in the most strenuous and dramatic series of strike disturbances in the history of the American labor movement. Swift on each others' heels came the terrors of Coeur d'Alene in 1893, Cripple Creek in 1894, Leadville in 1896-7, Salt Lake and the Coeur d'Alene again in 1899, Telluride in 1901, Idaho Springs in 1903, and Cripple Creek again in 1903-4. The Federation was—in its first decade particularly—as militantly radical as the coal miners' union was conservative. The strikes in which it has engaged have been usually marked by much disorder and violence.[40] During the Idaho Springs strike in 1903 an indignation meeting of the citizens was called for July 29th by the Citizens' Protective League—an association of mine owners and business men. At this meeting one of the local merchants said: "Moyer and Haywood are the arch anarchists of this country, along with Herr Most. I see that Moyer is coming to Idaho Springs tomorrow. I want to say that if the people allow him to land his feet in Clear Creek County they are dirty arrant cowards." Very shortly the meeting passed a resolution to deport the strikers, adjourned to the jail, demanded the prisoners, ordered out 14 of the 23 there incarcerated and deported them.[41]

There is no doubt that the terrible strike troubles during the nineties and the early years of this century had their effect in working union men up to the radically pioneering pitch. These struggles were surely the birth signs of the coming militant industrialism of the Industrial Workers of the World. Wm. D. Haywood, now General Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W. W., and Vincent St. John, for several years in the same position, were both active and leading members of the W. F. M. during its earlier years. The Federation was less scornful of politics than the I. W. W. The Western Miners were forced by the obvious connivance between the state and city governments and the mine operators, by the use of the militia for the suppression of strikes and by the abuse of the injunction, to consider the possibilities of political action along socialistic lines. At their convention in 1902 they resolved "to adopt the principle of socialism without equivocation."[42] This resolution was reaffirmed in 1903 and 1904. "We recommend the Socialist party," reads their statement in 1904, "to the toiling masses of humanity as the only source through which they can secure ... complete emancipation from the present system of wage slavery...."[43] "Let all strike industrially here and now, if necessary," runs another resolution (signed, by the way, by William D. Haywood), "and then strike in unity at the ballot-box for the true solution of the labor problem by putting men of our class into public office...."[44]

The Federation was not actually content, however, with political activity. It has been made quite evident that the economic weapon of the strike was not neglected. In addition to this the fundamental and at that time rarely discussed problem of employees' control in industry was seriously discussed. At the tenth convention, Wm. D. Haywood proposed that the Federation invest some of its money in mines, to be operated by its members for the benefit of the unions.[45] At the following meeting President Moyer proposed that the Federation secure control of and operate mines and levy assessments for the purpose.[46] The plan had to be given up at that time because the Federation just then faced unusual difficulties because of the strike confronting it. Nevertheless, this idea of industrial workers' control had its effect in impressing the miners with the notion that in their union "they had an agency that could carry on and control production for their own benefit."

Some conception of the unusually radical temper of the Western Federation may be had from the Preamble to its constitution. It declares that

there is a class struggle in society and that this struggle is caused by economic conditions; ... the producer ... is exploited of the wealth which he produces, being allowed to retain barely sufficient for his elementary necessities; ... that the class struggle will continue until the producer is recognized as the sole master of his product; ... that the working class, and it alone, can and must achieve its own emancipation; ... [and] finally, that an industrial union and the concerted political action of all wage workers is the only method of attaining this end.

For these reasons, the Preamble concludes, "the wage slaves employed in and around the mines, mills and smelters have associated in the Western Federation of Miners."[47]

The Western Federation of Miners was the effective agency in the formation at Salt Lake City in 1898 of the Western Labor Union. It was in this same year that the Social Democratic party (which became the Socialist party three years later) was organized in Chicago. The Western Labor Union in 1902 moved its headquarters from Butte, Montana, to Chicago, and changed its name to the American Labor Union, which in turn, and inclusive of the W. F. M., merged in 1905 with certain other radical unions to form the Industrial Workers of the World. The American Labor Union was in 1905 apparently on the verge of disruption—practically dead.[48] The Federation of Miners was always the Western (or American) Labor Union's largest and strongest component. It repudiated the American Federation of Labor. The bulk of its membership was unskilled labor and it soon had enrolled, in addition to the mine laborers, large numbers of the cooks, waiters, teamsters, and lumbermen of the western states. It was apparently the first labor organization seriously to attempt the organization of the lumber workers.[49] The Western Labor Union proposed to bring into an industrial organization western wage-workers of all crafts and no crafts; it aimed to include all kinds and degrees of labor, but until 1901 its activities were mostly confined to the mining camps of the West.[50] Indeed, Katz says that "the American Labor Union was practically only another name for the Western Federation of Miners: [being] called into existence to give the miners' union a national character."[51]

The American Labor Union was very decidedly an industrial union—more, however, by anticipation than realization.

It resembled our modern I. W. W. in some important particulars. "It believes," says one of the members, "that all employees working for one company, engaged in any one industry, should be managed through ... one authoritative head; that all men employed by one employer, in any one industry [should] be answerable to the employer through one and the same organization...."[52] The approval of its general Executive Board is required before any member local can call a strike.[53] An interchangeable or universal transfer system is provided, as it was later by the I. W. W.[54] The American Labor Union was an industrial organization of more decided political character and sympathies than is the I. W. W. It was, however, decidedly socialistic in its ultimate aim. It seemed to mark the climax of development of industrial unionism of that (political-socialist) type. It will be evident in the following pages that in 1905 began a sharp swing under the I. W. W. banner from socialist industrial unionism to anarcho-syndicalist industrial unionism.

A good many of the leaders of the American Labor Union were members of the Socialist party. "Believing that the time has come," runs the A. L. U. Preamble, "for undivided, independent, working-class political action, we hereby declare in favor of international Socialism and adopt the platform of the Socialist Party of America as the political platform and program of the American Labor Union."[55] Although it endorsed socialism, the A. L. U., unlike the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, admitted workingmen of any political views whatsoever, but resembled the latter organization in its opposition to the American Federation of Labor and its desire to build up a revolutionary labor movement.

The economic organization of the proletariat [declares the official organ of the A. L. U.] is the heart and soul of the socialist movement, of which the political party is simply the public expression at the ballot box. The purpose of industrial unionism is to organize the working class in approximately the same departments of production as those which will obtain in the coöperative commonwealth, so that, if the workers should lose their franchise, they would still possess an economic organization intelligently trained to take over and collectively administer the tools of industry and the sources of wealth for themselves.[56]

The roots of I. W. W.-ism reached out most vigorously and numerously in the western part of the United States, and the greater part of its strength today is derived from its western membership. The way was prepared for it most largely by western organizations—the Western Federation of Miners being the forerunner par excellence of modern I. W. W.-ism. Two organizations in the East, that is, having their chief strength in the East, played a highly important rôle during the decade preceding the launching of the I. W. W. These organizations were the Socialist Labor party and its trade-union "brain child," the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. Adequately to fill in this sketch of origins, it is necessary to refer briefly to these two organizations, especially to the S. T. & L. A., the Socialist Labor party's bright ideal of all that a labor union ought to be.

The Socialist Labor party was organized in 1877. It was a merger of the National Labor Union, the North American Federation of the International Workingmen's Association and the Social Democratic Workmen's Party. It was first known as the Workmen's Party of the United States. The German socialist trade-union element predominated in it.[57] The Socialist Labor party has always been emphatically Marxian and its leaders have been so decidedly doctrinaire in their interpretation of Marxian socialism and in their application of it to the practical work of socialist campaigning and propaganda that they have been not unjustly called impossibilists. Since the organization of the Socialist party in 1901 these two political parties of the socialist faith have been in open and bitter opposition to each other. The Socialist party adopted an opportunist policy, endorsed and often leagued itself with the conservative trade unions, refrained from any attempt to form or coöperate in the formation of socialist unions, and contented itself with the endeavor to make the existing unions socialistic by converting their individual members to socialism—a policy which came to be known as "boring from within." The Socialist Labor party, on the other hand, embraced a doctrinaire "impossibilist" policy, violently attacked the trade unions, made its slogan "no compromise and no political trading," and insisted that new unions, industrial in structure and socialist in purpose and principle should be created in opposition to the craft unions, whose structure and spirit it despaired of changing by "boring from within." The Socialist party has waxed strong and powerful. Its rival has languished and is today too small a group to be called a party.

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was organized in 1895, the same year which witnessed the birth of the organized syndicalist movement in France in the form of the Confédération Générale du Travail. On December 6th of that year a delegation from District Assembly 49 of the Knights of Labor met in conjunction with the Central Labor Federation of New York City and launched the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. The idea of this organization seems to have originated with Daniel DeLeon, whom his enemies called "the Pope of the S. L. P." and who was undoubtedly the leading student of Marxian socialism in this country. He was convinced that, as one of his followers expressed it, "without the organization of the workers into a class-conscious revolutionary body on the industrial field, socialism would remain but an aspiration."[58] "The S. T. & L. A." declares N. I. Stone, "was the most unique example of a socialist trade-union, anti-pure-and-simple organization in the annals of labor history...." "It came down upon us," he said, "full fledged from top to bottom as the masterpiece of our 'Master Workman' [DeLeon] and took us by surprise; but take it did...."[59]

In 1896 at the first convention of the Socialist Labor party after the organization of the S. T. & L. A. the party formally endorsed the latter organization. Mr. Hugo Vogt addressed the convention in behalf of the S. T. & L. A. "The whole of this labor movement," he said, "must become saturated with socialism, must be placed under socialist control, if we mean to bring together the whole working class into that army of emancipation which we need to accomplish our purpose."[60] He went on to explain that "in order to make it impossible for any masked swindlers to obtain influence in the Alliance, and to swing it back to the conservative side, we have provided that every officer ... shall take a pledge that he will not be affiliated with any capitalist party and will not support any political action except that of the Socialist Labor party."[61]

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was patterned very closely after the Knights of Labor. Wm. E. Trautmann called it "a duodecimo edition of the K. of L."[62] "It had the same district alliances with the same intellectuals as leaders: the same local craft organizations and the same mixed locals [as well as] the same centralized autocracy at headquarters...." He concludes that "the most fatal weakness of all was the political union of the S. T. & L. A. with the S. L. P."[63] The Alliance was, after all, a revolutionary socialist trade union rather than an industrial union. It differed from the American Labor Union and other forerunners mentioned above in this lack of industrial structure as well as in the emphasis it laid on the need of rallying to the support of the Socialist Labor party, with which organization it stood in the most intimate relations and to which most of its members belonged. It was actually sceptical about the efficacy of purely economic action. In common with I. W. W. later on, and in spite of the fact that its own locals were virtually trade or craft locals, it nourished an almost bitter hatred of the craft unions. "We simply have to go at them," said one of its members, "and smash them from top to bottom...."[64] Its animus was directed, however, at their conservatism and not so much at their craft structure.

In its "Declaration of Principles" the Alliance asserted that

the methods and spirit of labor organization are absolutely impotent to resist the aggressions of concentrated capital ...; that the economic power of the capitalist class ... rests upon institutions, essentially political, which ... cannot be radically changed ... except through the direct action of the working people themselves, economically and politically united as a class.

This Declaration concludes with the following statement of the chief object of the Alliance:

The summary ending of that barbarous [class] struggle at the earliest possible time by the abolition of classes, the restoration of the land and of all the means of production, transportation and distribution to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the coöperative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder; a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization.[65]

In the body of its constitution the objects of the Alliance are set forth more explicitly. They are declared to be to bring about the adoption of its principles

by bodies of organized labor which are still governed ... by the tenets or traditions of the "Old Unionism Pure and Simple"; to organize into local and district alliances all the wage workers, skilled or unskilled; ... to further the political movement of the working class and its development on the lines of international socialism as represented on this continent by the Socialist Labor party.[66]

The Socialist Labor party naturally greeted the Alliance with enthusiasm. After officially endorsing the Alliance, the 1896 convention passed a resolution of welcome.

We hail with unqualified joy [it declared] the formation of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a great stride toward throwing off the yoke of wage slavery.... We call upon the socialists of the land to carry the revolutionary spirit of the S. T. and L. A. into all the organizations of the workers and thus consolidate ... the proletariat of America in an irresistible class conscious army, equipped both with the shield of the economic organization and the sword of the Socialist Labor party ballot.[67]

During this S. T. and L. A. period Daniel DeLeon looked upon revolutionary unionism as being necessarily pro-political rather than pro-industrial and non-political. He then felt that the political movement must dominate the unions as they are in Germany dominated by the Social Democracy. He later became convinced that revolutionary unionism must dominate the political movement, and that the revolutionary union had a decisive mission in the Socialist movement.

The S. T. and L. A. [says Fraina] was largely a weapon to fight conservative A. F. of L. politics. The friends of the A. F. of L. roared in protest and ... split the Socialist movement to save the A. F. of L.... DeLeon's revolutionary unionism was largely a means to prevent the socialist political movement [from] being controlled by the Aristocracy of Labor and the Middle Class—two social groups which ... have certain interests in common and against the revolutionary proletariat.[68]

The composition and membership of the S. T. and L. A. in July, 1898, were as follows:

Far from being superior to the old [craft] organization(s), [says Stone] it is very much inferior.... With an insignificant membership, without controlling as much as a large factory, not to speak of a trade, at war not only with the bosses, ... but with every trade union which does not come under its mighty wing—it was unable to undertake any step of importance, in order to improve the condition of its members. The only strike of significance which it had, that at Slatersville [Rhode Island] was a failure after it had cost the Party about $1,500....[70]

The Alliance was scarcely more than a phantom organization on the eve of the launching of the I. W. W. in 1905. The same may be said of all the western unions which in that year merged in the I. W. W., except the Western Federation of Miners. The S. L. P. and the S. T. and L. A. "talk of capturing the convention to be held on June 27 [the 1st I. W. W. convention].... That convention should be not a revival, but the funeral, of the S. T. and L. A."[71] This expressed fairly well the attitude of the Socialist party men. "Born in hatred, suckled in dissension," as one socialist writer sees it, "the sole partisan trade union that ever arose to deny the principles and policies of international socialism came to destruction by its own venom, not however, until it had implanted the poison of its spirit into the Industrial Workers of the World."[72]

The main ideas of I. W. W.-ism—certainly of the I. W. W.-ism of the first few years after 1905—were of American origin, not French, as is commonly supposed. These sentiments were brewing in France, it is true, in the early nineties,[73] but they were brewing also in this country and the American brew was essentially different from the French. It was only after 1908 that the syndicalisme révolutionnaire of France had any direct influence on the revolutionary industrial unionist movement here. Even then it was largely a matter of borrowing such phrases as sabotage, la grève perlée, etc. The tactics back of the words sabotage and "direct action" had been practiced by American working men years before those words ever came into use among our radical unionists. "The Western Labor Union," says Walling, "was applying these principles in the Rocky Mountains, under the leadership of Haywood and others, several years before the French Confederation of Labor was formed...."[74] Some premonition of the power of a labor union including all—or even a large proportion of—the unskilled was given by the Western Federation of Miners, the American Labor Union, the American Railway Union, and other American organizations already referred to.

During the first five years of this century the idea of militant industrial unionism underwent rapid development. Unionists were coming to have a much broader view of the social rôle of the labor union. The actual trend of events opened the way for reorganization on new lines. The organizations which were to make up the I. W. W. were almost without exception in unprosperous straits, some of them being on the verge of disruption. All of them were bitter in their opposition to the American Federation of Labor—with which organization, indeed, few of them were affiliated. The United Metal Workers had been affiliated but withdrew in December, 1904. There was probably little left but a remnant when they joined the I. W. W. the following year. The same is true of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees. Even the American Labor Union—except its "mining division," the W. F. M.—was skirting the edge of dissolution.[75] The Socialist Labor party and its "puny child," the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, were in a bad way. Among the United Mine Workers there was dissension in many localities. There was dissatisfaction with the leaders and especially with the upshot of the strike settlement of 1902. Moreover, the miners as well as the United Brewery Workmen were embittered by constant criticism of their industrial form of organization. The latter were threatened with the prospect of a revocation of their charter by the Federation. There were thus a number of "national" organizations and many locals in other bodies which were anxious to create some central labor organization to strengthen the forces of industrial unionism. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, though on the decline, still included a considerable body of workers who were impatient of the conservatism of the A. F. of L. and desired somehow to build up a strong revolutionary (this meaning for them a Marxian socialist) organization. The Western Federation of Miners—stronger than all the others put together—was not excelled by any of them in its revolutionary zeal. It had the power as well as the enthusiasm. Moreover, it represented revolutionary industrial unionism more completely than did the smaller unions in the West and the Alliance in the East. The Alliance, in fact, was a revolutionary union without the industrial character and without much real appreciation of the meaning and importance of the idea of industrial as opposed to craft organization. The miners, however, had a big, powerful union of an emphatically industrial character and their experience had made them very militant.[76]

Much of this hard experience consisted in a gradual process of disillusionment about the virtue and goodness of the state so far as its relations with labor were concerned. The long series of violent and protracted strikes between the Western Federation and the mine operators and the rôle played therein by the state government convinced the miners that they would be more successful in gaining their political ends if they had more economic power to back up their requests. The miners were convinced, therefore, that the imperative need of the hour was for the extension to other industries of their type of industrial organization inspired by socialist aims. This would make solidarity possible, not only between skilled and unskilled in the metalliferous mines but also in all mines, all shops, all industries. They felt that then indeed would an injury to one be the concern of all.[77]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Cf. Brooks, American Syndicalism (New York, 1913), ch. vi and Tridon, The New Unionism, 4th printing (New York, 1917), p. 67.

[4] Cf. C. Osborne Ward, A history of the ancient working people, from the earliest known period to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine (The Ancient Lowly), Washington, D. C., Press of the Craftsman, 1889, p. 140.

[5] "Stellen wir also vor allem fest, das die syndikalistische Bewegung ... in ihren Tendenzen and ihrer Taktik als eine Volksbewegung, eine Bewegung in den Arbeiterkreisen selbst, entstanden ist, deren geschichtlichen Ursprung man ... bis in den Anfang der neunziger Jahre, ja selbst in die Zeit der alten Internationale zurück verlegen muss." (Ch. Cornélissen, "Ueber den internationalen Syndikalismus"—Archiv für Sozial Wissenschaft und Sozial-Politik, vol. xxx (1910), p. 151.)

[6] Webb, History of Trade Unionism (London, 1902), new ed., pp. 144-5.

[7] Ibid., p. 404. In ch. iii, the Webbs give an interesting description of this "revolutionary period" in English unionism.

[8] Commons (Ed.), Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Cleveland, O., A. H. Clark Co., 1910-11), vol. vi, pp. 211-16. Reprinted from The Man (New York), September 6, 1834.

[9] Ely, Labor Movement in America (New York, 1890), p. 69. Tridon (The New Unionism, p. 92), claims that by 1868 it had a membership of 640,000. It was apparently represented at the Basle convention of the International in 1869. Cf. also Hillquit, Morris, History of Socialism in the United States (5th ed., New York, 1910), p. 193.

[10] One of the Knights stated to the U. S. Industrial Commission (Report, vol. vii [1900], p. 420), that in 1888 the Knights of Labor had 1,200,000 members. In 1886 the organization contained nearly 9,000 local unions.

[11] Testimony before U. S. Industrial Commission, Washington, D. C., Dec. 15, 1898. Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. vii, p. 94.

[12] Constitution, Knights of Labor, pp. 3-6.

[13] T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor (Columbus, O., 1889), p. 151.

[14] Vol. xix (1902), p. 798.

[15] New York Sun, March 29, 1886, p. 1, col. 5. (Interview.)

[16] J. G. Schonfarber, testimony before U. S. Industrial Commission, Washington, D. C., Dec. 5, 1899. Report, vol. vii (1901), p. 423.

[17] Quoted by McNeill (Ed.), The Labor Movement: The Problem of To-day (New York, 1887), p. 410.

[18] Perlman, S., "Plan of an Investigation of the I. W. W." (MS. report to U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations), p. 1.

[19] "Labor Knights Dispute," The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1902, p. 24. For an excellent short historical sketch of the Knights of Labor, see Report of the Industrial Commission (1901), vol. xvii, pp. 3-24.

[20] Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ix, p. 358.

[21] Tridon, op. cit., pp. 93-94.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Cf. Ebert, Justus, American Industrial Evolution (New York: New York Labor News Co., 1907), p. 64.

[24] Tridon, op. cit., p. 93.

[25] Cf. Compte-rendu officiel du sixième congrès générale de l'association internationale des travailleurs.... Geneva, 1873 (Locle, 1874).

[26] June 18, 1910, p. 2.

[27] L'Internationale: documents et souvenirs 1864-78 (Paris, Cornély, 1905-10), vol. iv, p. vii.

[28] James Guillaume, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 132-133.

[29] Loc. cit., pp. 132-133.

[30] F. T. Carlton, "Ephemeral labor movements," Popular Science Monthly, vol. lxxxv, p. 494 (November, 1914).

[31] Vide reprint of its General Rules, published in 1874, Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ix, pp. 376-8.

[32] Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xvii, p. 3, and Powderly, T. V., Thirty Years of Labor (Columbus, Ohio, 1889), p. 126.

[33] Now the International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal and Soft Drink Workers of America.

[34] "The decay of trade unions," Justice, June, 1887, quoted by Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 396.

[35] Webb, op. cit., pp. 396-397.

[36] "The General Strike"; iii, In America and France, Oakland (Calif.) World, Dec. 28, 1912.

[37] Justus Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 63.

[38] Op. cit., Oakland World, Dec. 28, 1912.

[39] Now the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.

[40] Vide, Federal Report on "Labor disturbances in Colorado: 1880-1904," (58th Cong., 3d Sess., no. 122, 1905), pp. 107, 149.

[41] Ibid., pp. 152-155.

[42] Federal Report on "Labor Disturbances in Colorado," p. 42.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Proceedings Tenth W. F. M. Convention, Denver, 1902, p. 161.

[45] Proceedings Tenth W. F. M. Convention, pp. 163-165. Vincent St. John was also interested as a proponent of this plan.

[46] Proceedings Eleventh W. F. M. Convention (1903), pp. 33-34.

[47] Constitution and By-Laws of the Western Federation of Miners (1910), p. 3.

[48] Proceedings Sixteenth Convention W. F. M., p. 17 (Report of President C. H. Moyer).

[49] Cf. Haywood, "The timber worker and the timber wolves," International Socialist Review, vol. xiii, p. 110 (August, 1912).

[50] Proceedings Sixteenth Convention W. F. M., p. 17.

[51] Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, September 4, 1915, p. 4.

[52] "Industrial Union Epigrams," Voice of Labor, March, 1905.

[53] Preamble, Constitution and Laws of the A. L. U., p. 20.

[54] Ibid., art. ix, sec. 11 and sec. 12.

[55] Preamble, Constitution and Laws, pp. 4-5.

[56] American Labor Union Journal, Dec., 1904. Quoted by Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 82.

[57] Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 61.

[58] Katz, "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, April 24, 1915, p. 3.

[59] Stone, N. I., Attitude of the Socialists to the Trade Unions (pamphlet, New York, 1900, Volkszeitung Library, vol. ii, Apr., 1900), p. 6.

[60] Quoted by Robt. Hunter, "The trade unions and the Socialist Party," Miners' Magazine, March 7, 1912, p. 11.

[61] Hunter, loc. cit.

[62] Voice of Labor, May, 1905.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Delegate Hickey, Proceedings Tenth S. L. P. Convention, p. 220.

[65] Constitution of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance of the United States and Canada (1902), pp. 3-4. (Italics mine.)

[66] Ibid., p. 5.

[67] Proceedings, Ninth S. L. P. Convention, 1896, p. 30.

[68] Louis Fraina, "DeLeon," The New Review, July, 1914, vol. ii. p. 393.

[69] Stone, op. cit., p. 13. "At the most liberal estimate, the total strength of the Alliance did not exceed 15,000 at that time (1898)." Ibid., p. 14.

[70] Ibid., p. 15.

[71] Letter of Wm. E. Trautmann, Voice of Labor, May, 1905.

[72] Robt. Hunter, "The Trade Unions and the Socialist party," Miners' Magazine, March 7, 1912, p. 11.

[73] Vide, Cornélissen, "Ueber den internationalen Syndikalismus," Archiv für Sozial Wissenschaft und Sozial-Politik, xxx (1910), p. 150. Cf. also Industrial Worker, June 18, 1910, p. 2.

[74] "Industrialism or revolutionary unionism," The New Review, Jan. 11, 1913, vol. i, p. 47.

[75] Proceedings, Sixteenth W. F. M. Convention (Report of President Moyer), pp. 17-18.

[76] Cf. Louis Levine, "The Development of Syndicalism in America," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxviii, pp. 460-462 (Sept., 1913). Cf. also Selig Perlman, "From Socialism to Anarchism and Syndicalism" (1876-1884), pp. 269-300 (vol. ii, chap. 6), in Commons and others, History of Labor in the United States.

[77] There is an excellent description of the older industrial unions, particularly the Western Federation of Miners and the United Brewery Workmen, in William Kirk's monograph, National Labor Federations in the United States, pt. iii, "Industrial Unions," pp. 117-150, Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, ser. xxiv, nos. 9 and 10.

[CHAPTER II]
The Birth of the Organization[78]
(1905)

The Industrial Workers of the World, now more generally known as the I. W. W.[79] was organized at an "Industrial Union Congress" held in Chicago in June, 1905. This first or constitutional convention had its inception in an informal conference held in that city, in the fall of 1904, by six men of prominence in the socialist and labor movement. These conferees were: William E. Trautmann, editor of the Brauer Zeitung, official organ of the United Brewery Workmen; George Estes, President of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees; W. L. Hall, General Secretary-Treasurer of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees; Isaac Cowen, American representative of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers of Great Britain; Clarence Smith, General Secretary-Treasurer of the American Labor Union; and Thomas J. Hagerty, editor of the Voice of Labor, official organ of the American Labor Union.[80] Several others not present at this conference were at that time actively interested in the matter and coöperated in carrying out these prenatal plans. Two of them, Eugene V. Debs and Charles O. Sherman, General Secretary of United Metal Workers International Union, were destined to play important rôles in the organization.

These men were impelled by a common conviction that the labor unions of America were becoming powerless to achieve real benefits for working men and women. This feeling was confirmed and intensified by many recent events in the trade-union movement. It was not the more conservative, "aristocratic" unions alone which were found wanting. Even those labor organizations of the industrial and radical type, such as the American Labor Union, the Western Federation of Miners, and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, were believed to be, for one reason or another, quite unprepared to negotiate—much less to fight—with the ever more highly integrated organizations of employers. At the constitutional convention in June, 1905, Clarence Smith of the American Labor Union explained the reasons for initiating the movement.

This conviction of ineffectiveness in the face of opportunities for effective work was strengthened [he said] at the general convention of the International Union of United Brewery Workmen last September. It seemed clear that a united, harmonious and consistent request from all unions and organizations of the American Labor Union, backed by an administration in whom the rank and file of the brewery workers had confidence, would have brought the Brewery Workmen into the American Labor Union at that time. And what would have been true of the Brewery Workmen would have been true also of other organizations of an industrial character. It therefore seemed the first duty of conscientious union men, regardless of affiliation, prejudice or personal interest, to lay the foundation upon which all the working people, many of whom are now organized, might unite upon a common ground to build a labor organization that would correspond to modern industrial conditions, and through which they might finally secure complete emancipation from wage-slavery for all wage-workers.[81]

In order to go over the matter and discuss plans more thoroughly, it was decided to arrange for a larger meeting. On November 29 a letter of invitation was sent to about thirty persons then prominent in the radical labor and Socialist movements. This letter contained the following significant paragraph:

Asserting our confidence in the ability of the working class, if correctly organized on both political and industrial lines, to take possession of and operate successfully ... the industries of the country;

Believing that working-class political expression, through the Socialist ballot, in order to be sound, must have its economic counterpart in a labor organization builded as the structure of socialist society, embracing within itself the working-class in approximately the same groups and departments and industries that the workers would assume in the working-class administration of the Co-operative Commonwealth ...;

We invite you to meet us at Chicago, Monday, January 2, 1905, in secret conference to discuss ways and means of uniting the working people of America on correct revolutionary principles, regardless of any general labor organization of past or present, and only restricted by such basic principles as will insure its integrity as a real protector of the interests of the workers.[82]

It is noteworthy fact that, although the proposition was concurred in and the invitation accepted with enthusiasm by the great majority of those invited, agreement was not unanimous. There were two dissenters—Victor Berger and Max Hayes. It is not recorded that Mr. Berger even sent his "regrets," but Mr. Hayes explained his position at length. In a letter to W. L. Hall, December 30, 1904, he said:

This sounds to me as though we were to have another Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance experiment again; that we, who are in the trade-unions as at present constituted, are to cut loose and flock by ourselves. If I am correct in my surmises it means another running fight between Socialists on the one side and all other partisans on the other.... If there is any fighting to be done I intend ... to agitate on the inside of the organizations now in existence....[83]

The Western Federation of Miners did not lack enthusiasm for this wider venture in industrial unionism. President Moyer's report to the thirteenth convention, which met just one month before the constitutional convention of June, 1905, contained the following:

The Twelfth Annual Convention instructed your Executive Board to take such action as might be necessary in order that the representatives of organized labor might be brought together and plans outlined for the amalgamation of the entire wage-working class into one general organization. Following out these instructions at a meeting held in the month of December it was decided to send a committee to meet with the officers of the American Labor Union. This conference took place January 4.... The result ... was the Manifesto.... The question for you to decide is not one of changing the principles, policy or plan of your organization, but as to whether or not the Western Federation of Miners shall become a working part of such a movement as set forth in the Manifesto, which shall consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries.[84]

At about the same time J. M. O'Neill, the editor of the Miners' Magazine, wrote William D. Haywood, the treasurer of the Federation, that

if this convention goes on record giving its unanimous sanction to the movement that is contemplated in Chicago, such action will be heralded from the Atlantic to the Pacific, ... and will create a sentiment that will keep on crystallizing until capitalism will feel that it is threatened in the citadel of its entrenched power.[85]

The secret conference—thereafter to be known as the January Conference—was called to order in the city of Chicago on the second of January by William E. Trautmann. There were twenty-three persons present, representing nine different organizations; that is, of course, exclusive of members of the Socialist and Socialist Labor parties, who were not present formally as such. There were present five officials of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees and one member of the Brewery Workmen. Among those present were: Charles H. Moyer, President, Western Federation of Miners; W. D. Haywood, Secretary of the Western Federation of Miners; J. M. O'Neill, editor of the Miners' Magazine; A. M. Simons, editor of The International Socialist Review; Frank Bohn, organizer, Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance; T. J. Hagerty, editor of The Voice of Labor; C. O. Sherman, of the United Metal Workers; and "Mother" Mary Jones. During a three days' session plans for a proposed new labor organization were seriously discussed and carefully worked out. The report of their committee on methods and procedure was worked up by the members of the conference into a "Manifesto"[86] which contained (1) an indictment of "things as they are" in the trade-union world; (2) leading propositions and tentative plans for a new departure in labor organization; and (3) a call for a convention to organize this new union.

The first part of this document is devoted to a discussion of certain modern tendencies in the labor movement. Trade divisions among laborers and competition among capitalists are both disappearing. The machine process is more and more tending to minimize skill and swell the ranks of the unskilled and unemployed. The incidence of the machine process is fatal to labor groups divided according to the tool used. "These divisions," in the words of the Manifesto, "far from representing differences in skill or interests among the laborers, are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial distinctions." The employees, however, are united on the industrial plan and reënforce their consequent impregnable position by making use of the military power and their affiliation with the National Civic Federation.

The craft form of organization is severely criticized. It makes solidarity impossible, for it generates a system of organized scabbery, where union men scab on each other. It results in trade monopolies, prohibitive initiation fees and political ignorance. It dwarfs class consciousness and tends to "foster the idea of harmony of interests between employing exploiter and employed slave."

Passing on to the remedy proposed, the Manifesto declares that

a movement to fulfil these conditions must consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries, providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working-class unity generally. It must be founded on the class struggle ... and established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party.[87]

The phrase, "craft autonomy," is odd—for industrialists. A. M. Simons gives an explanation. He says that any union entering the I. W. W. "will retain trade autonomy in matters that concern each trade as completely as at the present time, but when it enters the field of other trades, instead of being met by trade competition ... will be met by the coöperation of affiliated unions."[88] This phrase referring to political parties was the germ of the ill-fated "political clause" of the preamble, which formulated in an indefinite way the issue on which three years later the organization split into two factions.[89] Other clauses provide that (1) all power shall rest with the collective membership; (2) all labels, cards, fees, etc., shall be uniform throughout; (3) the general administration shall issue a publication at regular intervals; and (4) that a central defense fund be established and maintained. The document concluded with a call to all workers who agreed with these principles to "meet in convention in Chicago, the 27th day of June, 1905,—for the purpose of forming an economic organization of the working class along the lines marked out in this Manifesto."

The Manifesto was signed by all those present at the January conference and sent broadcast to all unions throughout America and to the industrial unions of Europe. At this January conference there was dominant a very radical idea as to what a labor organization ought to be. The conferees decided that such an organization should not only provide a means of unifying all crafts and industries for the better protection and advancement of the immediate interests of the working class, but that it must also offer, and consciously push on towards, a final solution of the labor problem, a solution very frankly assumed to be a socialistic one.

To say that these conferees were, broadly speaking, socialists and that they outlined a socialistic program of a certain sort does not mean, as the daily press report insinuated, that the Socialist party was in any way represented in the conference or that it was a political movement. Max S. Hayes, anxious to disclaim on behalf of party Socialists any responsibility for the new undertaking, explained that

As a matter of record and fairness it should be stated that, first, not a single signer to the above call is officially identified with the Socialist Party; secondly, that not one of the signers has been seen or heard or known on the floor of the American Federation of Labor conventions as an advocate of socialism in recent years; and thirdly, it is doubtful whether any American Federation of Labor delegate, with possibly an exception or two, had the slightest knowledge that the Chicago [January] conference was to be held.[90]

The American Federation of Labor, as the embodiment of the craft idea, was the subject of bitter attack at this prenatal conference. The general opinion seemed to be that the A. F. of L. had outlived its usefulness, and that its extinction—but not necessarily the extinction of its constituent local unions—was a consummation very much to be desired.

The A. F. of L. very naturally resented its proposed annihilation.

The Socialists have called another convention to smash the American trade-union movement [said President Gompers]. Scanning the list of twenty-six signers of this call, one will look in vain to find the name of one man who has not for years been engaged in the delectable work of trying to divert, pervert, and disrupt the labor movement of the country.... We feel sure that the endorsement of the latest accession to this new movement of Mr. Daniel Loeb, alias DeLeon, will bring unction to the souls of these promoters of the latest trade-union smashing scheme. So the trade-union smashers and rammers from without and the "borers from within" are again joining hands; a pleasant sight of the "pirates" and the "kangaroos" hugging each other in glee over their prospective prey.[91]

But the members of the January conference did not propose any wholesale or indiscriminate "smashing from without." It is true they believed the Federation, as a federation, to be harmful to the interests of labor—and would have been nothing loath to "smash" it—but the federated units they proposed to take over and unite in a very different way.

Mr. A. M. Simons, who claims to have given the final draft to the Manifesto, says that "the idea expressed at the conference was to form a new central body, into which existing unions and unions to be formed could be admitted, but not to form rival unions."[92] Discussing the January conference in the International Socialist Review,[93] Mr. Simons traces this idea back to two vital tendencies of the day, viz., (1) the merging of trade lines in the class struggle, and (2) the accelerated growth of class-consciousness on the part of the capitalists. He concludes that "the only question about the desirability of forming such an organization is the question of timeliness."

The organized laborers were only a part of the concern of the conference. Over ninety per cent of those gainfully occupied are unorganized. It was, of course, realized that outside of all unions stood the overwhelming majority of all workingmen, and, as Daniel DeLeon put it, these men did not "propose to go into these organizations run by the Organized Scabbery, because they had burned their fingers thus enough. The organization of the future has to be built of the men who are now unorganized—that is, the overwhelming majority of the working men in the nation."[94]

Thus it was really hoped that much could and would be done by workingmen in the existent unions, without breaking away from these local unions. These latter must be pried away from the A. F. of L., but not themselves destroyed. By all means let us "bore from within" as far as that can be done; also when we can bore no longer, let us hammer from without and pound together new bodies from out the great unorganized mass. This, in brief, was the position of most of the industrialists. However, not all would yet go this far. Even among the Socialist leaders a note of dissent was heard expressing the belief that to "bore from within" was the only revolutionary method not absolutely suicidal.[95] Just what fate awaited these January ideas was to some extent revealed in the proceedings of the June convention.

The convention called in accordance with the Manifesto of the January conference met two hundred strong in Chicago on Tuesday, June 27, 1905. This gathering was first referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention," but since before adjournment it had organized itself as the Industrial Workers of the World, it is referred to as the First Annual Convention of the I. W. W. It was a gathering remarkable and epoch-making in more ways than one, and therefore the story of its activities is essential, not only to an understanding of the subsequent career of the organization, but as a fundamental chapter in the whole history of industrial unionism. The discussions and resolutions of the assembly and the final type of organization which grew out of them can be understood only in the light thrown on them by a study of the composition of this revolutionary group of men. Its occupational, structural, and doctrinal character should each be taken into account.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of this group of two hundred radicals was the bewildering range of occupations represented. The variety of different trades represented and the varying "quality" levels exhibited in the organization here gathered to sink all differences and become as one, were astonishingly great. The following list of the different organizations represented at the convention reveals at least forty distinct trades or occupations:

• Bakers and Confectioners Union No. 48, Montreal.[96]
• United Mine Workers No. 171.[96]
• United Mine Workers, Pittsburg, Kans.[96]
• Western Federation of Miners.
• United Brotherhood of Railway Employees.
• Journeymen Tailors Union of America No. 102, Pueblo.[96]
• United Metal Workers International Union of America.
• American Labor Union. (The A. L. U. included primarily the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and the International Musical and Theatrical Union.)
• Punch Press Operators Union No. 224, Schenectady.
• Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
• Flat Janitors Local Union No. 102, Chicago.
• Mill and Smeltermen's Union of the W. F. of M., Butte.
• Paper Hangers and Decorators, Chicago.
• Federal Union (A. L. U.) No. 252, Denver.
• United Brewery Workers No. 9, Milwaukee.[96]
• United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
• Metal Polishers and Buffers Union.
• Journeymen Tailors Protective and Benevolent Union of San Francisco.
• Journeymen Tailors of Montreal.
• Wage Earners Union of Montreal.
• International Musicians Union.
• The Industrial Workers Club, Cincinnati.
• The Industrial Workers Club, Chicago.
• Workers Industrial and Educational Union, Pueblo.

The foreign organizations were each represented by at least one delegate with full powers and instructions. The following named bodies sent uninstructed delegates:

• Metal Polishers, Buffers and Platers No. 6, Chicago.[97]
• Carpenters and Joiners No. 181, Chicago.[97]
• Scandinavian Painters, Decorators and Paper Hangers, Chicago.
• International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths and Helpers, No. 110, Chicago.
• German Central Labor Union.
• Switchmen's Union No. 29.[97]
• Bohemian Musicians Union.
• Hotel and Restaurant Workers.[97]
• Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees, Division No. 288, Chicago.[97]
• Barbers Union No. 225, Sharon, Pa.[97]
• United Labor League, Sharon, Pa.
• Utah State Federation of Labor, Salt Lake City.
• Cloak Makers and Tailors, Montreal.
• American Flint Glass Workers Union, Toledo.
• Commercial Men's Association, Court No. 1093, Milwaukee.
• Street Laborers Union, Chicago.
• Machinists, District Lodge No. 8.[97]
• International Protective Laborers Union, Dayton, Ohio.
• Typographical Union No. 49, Denver.[97]
• Central Labor Union, North Adams, Mass.
• International Longshoremen's Union No. 271, Hoboken, N. J.[97]
• Iron and Brass Molders, Schenectady.

Aside from the occupations represented above, the following were each represented by one or more individuals: machinists, tanners, electrical workers, bookbinders, editors, teachers, authors, printers, and shoe workers. An attorney-at-law from New York City presented himself at the convention. The committee on credentials recommended that he be seated as a fraternal delegate, on account of the mitigating circumstances that he wrote for several newspapers and was a "friend and sympathizer" of labor. After considerable debate the report of the committee was adopted "with the exception of that portion which refers to the attorney."[98]

This array of occupational or trade types was scarcely more extensive than that of the structural types here grouped together. Of these there were the following types. (1) the simple industrial union, wherein all workers engaged, in whatsoever capacity, in any particular industry are members of the same union. This type was represented by the Western Federation of Miners[99]—really the strongest taproot of the I. W. W. (2) The multi-industrial type, a federation of industrial unions, such as the American Labor Union, which included railway employees, engineers, and musicians. (3) The so-called "international" union, rarely more than national in scope, and merely a national association of local unions of a given trade. This type was represented by the United Metal Workers International Union of America. (4) The non-federative industrial union, like the United Mine Workers of America with industrial rather than trade units, an industrial organization which excludes federation with similar organizations in other industries, or with employers. (5) The ordinary non-federative trade unions, here seen in two types: (a) the trade amalgamation, a federation of unions wherein the constituent bodies are so united as to preserve their individuality, although trade autonomy is thereby destroyed. This type is illustrated here by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers; (b) national unions of any particular trade like the iron molders, wherein the constituent unions are more subordinated to the national body than in the amalgamation. (6) The state federation—as typified by the Utah State Federation of Labor. And finally (7) the rather unconventional type of "union," represented by the Industrial Workers' clubs and the United Labor League.

It should be understood that but a small part of the "international" or national bodies was represented as a whole. The greater number were represented by one or two locals. A number of them were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor at the time, but had become dissatisfied with the policies of that body.[100] However, some of the unions most prominent in the activities of the convention were represented as central or national bodies with all their constituent local unions. Such were the American Labor Union and the United Metal Workers.

Those of the unions present which were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, though forming a fairly large group numerically, represented no material defection from the ranks of the Federation and, generally speaking, played but a passive rôle in the work of the convention. Of the forty-three organizations seated by the credentials committee sixteen were affiliated with the Federation, but at least eleven of these were represented by but one local union. Of all these organizations which had merely local rather than national representation, the United Mine Workers of America was most widely represented, delegates from nine of its local unions being present.[101] A little study of the list of the organizations seated and the localities from which their delegates came, makes it quite evident that on the whole the strong delegations from powerful local bodies, located at strategic points, were those having no connection with the American Federation of Labor, and, conversely, that the fourteen American Federation of Labor unions just referred to were represented as a rule by small and solitary locals of doubtful strength.[102] The insignificant position of the American Federation of Labor bodies in the convention will become still more manifest by an inspection of the lists given above.[103] It will be seen that only five of the sixteen local unions of the American Federation of Labor which were present had empowered their delegates to install their respective local unions in the new organization: two locals of the United Mine Workers and one local each in the Bakers and Confectioners, the Brewery Workers and the Journeymen Tailors unions. All the locals of the United Metal Workers were so empowered. The American Federation of Labor was represented in no direct way among the five great powers of this industrialist convention.[104]

It was confidently expected by many members of the January conference that there would be an immediate secession of a number of national unions from the American Federation of Labor. But whatever may have been the hopes of the originators of the movement, the constitutional convention proved by its very make-up that this new insurgent labor body could not, at the outset at least, build a new organization out of disaffected parts of an old organization.

It has been seen that not all organizations were present on equal footing. In the first place, no union could have any influence or any active part in the proceedings of the convention unless it sent its delegates with full power to install. The January conference had drawn up certain rules governing representation in the forthcoming convention:

Representation in the convention shall be based upon the number of workers whom the delegate represents. No delegate, however, shall be given representation in the convention on the numerical basis of an organization, unless he has credentials ... authorizing him to install his union as a working part of the proposed economic organization in the industrial department to which it logically belongs.... Lacking this authority, the delegate shall represent himself as an individual.[105]

The delegates to the convention were in this way grouped into two classes: representative delegates, with voting power proportional to the number of members represented, and individual delegates with merely their own vote, and in some cases not representing any union even as uninstructed delegates. This separation of the two hundred and three delegates, according to the character of their credentials, may be shown as follows:

Including the industrial workers' clubs there were forty-three organizations represented, of which number twenty-three were represented by delegates having full power to install. The above analysis shows that of the 142,991 members presumably represented, nearly two-thirds sent delegates merely to take notes of the proceedings and report back. About one-third, some 51,000, were then prepared to cast their lot with the new undertaking. Also it appears that about one-third of the delegates wielded practically the whole voting power of the assembly.

Moreover, the balance of power within this empowered one-third was most unevenly distributed. Of the 51,000 votes aggregated by those organizations prepared to install, 48,000 votes were distributed among five organizations (these being the only ones with a voting strength of more than 1,000) as follows:

These were the organizations which were most prominent in the activities of the convention. Among their delegates were a goodly number of the most active promotors of the movement. From them—especially from the Western Federation of Miners—finally came the great bulk of the funds for establishing the new union. It is evident that, numerically speaking, one single organization, the Western Federation of Miners, held the balance of power, and of the remaining votes, three-fourths were in the control of the American Labor Union, these two bodies together outnumbering the others ten to one. The sequel was to show that the numerically weaker organizations exerted an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers, because of the great influence exerted by some of their individual delegates. Their representatives were radicals, representing more or less radical unions.

It might seem that the rôle played in the convention by an organization as comparatively weak in numbers as the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance could be accounted for, in some measure at least, by its proportionately large delegation. A glance at the table given above shows that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance with a self-estimated strength of 1450[108] had fourteen delegates, while the Western Federation of Miners, 27,000 strong, had but five delegates. This was true to but a limited extent, for in the first place the voting power of each delegate was in direct proportion to the number of members he represented. Thus Haywood and his colleagues of the Western Federation of Miners had each 5400 votes, while DeLeon and each member of his delegation had 103.6 votes. In the second place, it was a contest of personalities. The fourteen Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance delegates comprised Daniel DeLeon and thirteen others. This same prominence of the individual was more or less evident among the other delegations. Some further concentration of power is evidenced in the fact that William D. Haywood and C. H. Moyer were both empowered delegates from two organisations, since they represented the A. L. U. as well as the W. F. M.

Indeed it is rather significant that several of the organizations which finally merged into the Industrial Workers of the World had little behind them but leaders. In some cases it appears that the membership first credited was greatly exaggerated. Of the organizations installed as a part of the new body, St. John reports that three "existed almost wholly on paper."[109] Several of these labor bodies were really more shadow that substance. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the United Metal Workers, and the American Labor Union, St. John's three "paper" unions, had come upon evil days and were in an advanced stage of disintegration. Hence perhaps their presence here. They did not want to expire. They preferred to be transformed into something yet more militant.

The most significant and interesting phase of this unique body of industrialists was its many-sided intellectual character. Some of the high lights of divergent doctrine preached and defended here show more clearly than anything else how stupendous the undertaking was. Perhaps the least indefinite term which would give them all standing-room would be "revolutionary socialism," though many delegates repudiated the name socialist as being synonymous with reactionist and conservative. If socialists at all, they were socialists with a radical adjective. In reference to some the word "anarchistic" should be substituted for "revolutionary." They all believed in the "irrepressible conflict" between capital and labor. They were a unit in wishing for and aiming at the overthrow of the wages system—the downfall of capitalism. There was no place here for the "Gomperite" and his program of mutual interests of employer and employee; but the absence from the scene of the "identity of interest" and "coffin society" man did not guarantee harmony.[110]

As usual there was disagreement as to the methods to be used to reach the common end desired. Hence certain divergent types of doctrine were expounded and certain warring factions resulted therefrom. St. John enumerates four main varieties as being predominant: (1) Parliamentary Socialists—two types, impossibilist (Marxian) and opportunist (reformist); (2) Anarchists; (3) Industrial Unionists; and (4) the "labor union fakir."[111] This classification is ambiguous. No doubt the "labor union fakir," who gets into any new move of this sort for what he can get out of it, has no real economic creed except that of the profiteer, but he enters a movement of this kind as an exponent of a certain legitimate doctrine and is at least presumed to belong to that doctrinal faction. It has been seen that during the proceedings of the convention it developed that there were delegates present who were not sincere in their attitude. It is a fact, as St. John points out, "that many of those who were present as delegates on the floor of the first convention and the organizations that they represented have bitterly fought the I. W. W. from the close of the first convention up to the present day."[112] By no means all of these are necessarily fakirs, since the outcome of the deliberations of the first convention was somewhat different from that anticipated even by the signers of the manifesto.

There was present a very definite group of anarchists which, though in a rather small minority, was a constituent element in the doctrinal types represented. The term "industrial unionist" was one which really included practically all the participants. The industrial unionist may certainly be a socialist, and even of more than one variety; and it is also conceivable that the industrial unionist may be an anarchist. Consequently the term can hardly be used to mark off any particular faction in a convention of industrial unionists. The parliamentary socialists constituted one of the most powerful elements at the convention. In fact, the two main hostile groups were the impossibilists and the opportunists, the first group comprising parliamentary socialists of the Socialist Labor party and anti-parliamentary socialists, naturally having no political affiliations; and the latter comprising members of the Socialist party.

The line of cleavage then was between the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, that is, between reformist and doctrinaire elements, both parliamentary and both leaning toward industrial unionism. In a less prominent position at first was the direct-actionist group, anti-political and anarchistic. This antagonism of ideas was of course the root cause of the defection of the Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance elements three years later, and was responsible for the existence between 1908 and 1916 of two national organizations called the I. W. W. The Socialist party, or doctrinaire wing, is very logically the descendant of the doctrinaire wing at the first convention, but the direct-actionist or anti-political wing has, strange to say, grown out of and drawn its leaders from the reformist Socialist party.

These divergent creeds were given color and life by a few men who really dominated the convention. There is no organization in existence having less room for hero-worship than the Industrial Workers of the World. The manifesto provided that all "powers should rest in the collective membership." Its members seemed firmly convinced that all labor leaders (except I. W. W. organizers!) are really "misleaders" of labor, and throughout their propaganda literature there is evident this repudiation of leaders and apotheosis of the "collective membership." Nevertheless the I. W. W. has been led and misled by leaders ever since its inception. The first convention rang with the dominant notes of a handful of men: Daniel DeLeon, William D. Haywood, "Father" T. J. Hagerty, Eugene V. Debs, William E. Trautmann, A. M. Simons, Clarence Smith, D. C. Coates, and C. O. Sherman. Debs, Haywood and Simons were then, and are today, members of the Socialist party. Simons and DeLeon were leaders in the two opposing Socialist political parties, Simons in the Socialist party and editor of the Coming Nation, and DeLeon, editor of the Daily People and the one dominant and national figure in the Socialist Labor party. T. J. Hagerty was a Catholic priest. With the coöperation of James P. Thompson, and others probably, he framed the original I. W. W. Preamble. He was the designer of the chart which Samuel Gompers referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel of Fortune,"[113] and the author of a pamphlet entitled Economic Discontent.

Eugene V. Debs, the best known to them all, came into the movement with all his contagious enthusiasm and eloquence, full of optimism for the future of this new organization.

I believe it is possible [he said] for such an organization as the Western Federation of Miners to be brought into harmonious relation with the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance ... and I believe it is possible for these elements ... to combine here ... and begin the work of forming a great economic or revolutionary organization of the working class so sorely needed in the struggle for their emancipation.[114]

From the West came William D. Haywood with many years' experience with the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado. He was an experienced organizer and was full of the militant spirit of the Western Federation of Miners. He scorned agreements and contracts. Speaking of the Western Federation of Miners at the first convention he said: "We have not got an agreement existing with any mine manager, superintendent, or operator at the present time. We have got a minimum scale of wages" and "... the eight-hour day, and we did not have a legislative lobby to accomplish it."[115] And now he came to Chicago to help build up the same sort of an organization for not alone the mining industry but for all industries.

Probably the most striking figure of all was Daniel DeLeon, editor of the Daily People, a man with a university education, and a graduate of the Columbia University Law School. He was active in the organization of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance in 1895 and was an officer in the Alliance until it was merged in the I. W. W. He came to the first convention as a delegate from the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. He, too, believed that harmony was possible.

During this process of pounding one another we have both learned [he said], both sides have learned, and I hope and believe that this convention will bring together those who will plant themselves squarely upon the class struggle and will recognize the fact that the political expression of labor is but the shadow of the economic organization.[116]

He had been instrumental in creating the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, of which the Socialist Labor party was thenceforward to be the shadow. It transpired, however, that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance actually became the "shadow" or understudy of the Socialist Labor party, and this fact was looked upon by A. M. Simons and others of the Socialist Labor party as having an ominous significance for any new organization to which DeLeon might wish to hitch the Socialist Labor party as a "shadow." There seemed, in short, to be some suspicion afloat at the first convention that the Socialist Labor party proposed, through DeLeon, to tuck the I. W. W. under its wing. Hillquit asserts that "the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance had a record of having caused more disputes and schisms within the Socialist labor movement in America in recent years than any other factor, and its affiliation with the new movement was fateful for the latter."[117] And Simons declared that if DeLeon "could in some way hitch himself on to this new organization, he would be able to infuse the semblance of life into the political and economic corpses of the S. L. P. and the S. T. & L. A."[118]

DeLeon emphatically opposed the policy of "boring from within" advocated by the Socialist party opportunists. He believed it had been tried as a constructive policy and found wanting. So he proposed to build up on the outside the necessary economic organization, which finally should move "under the protecting guns of a labor political party."[119]

On the other hand, the Socialist party men believed in making use of the "boring from within" policy among the local unions, and considered it quite unnecessary for the economic organization to have any political connections whatsoever. They considered the political unity of the workers less vitally important than did the DeLeon group of doctrinaires.

These, then, were the elements of the heterogeneous labor mass, which were to be worked up together into "One Big Union." The thing that made union possible in any degree was the binding influence of common antipathies. It has been suggested that all were at one in being opposed to a capitalistic society. They had no difficulty in making common cause of their mutual hatred of the capitalistic scheme of things. They were perhaps even more able to unite because of common opposition to certain things which they believed were helping to perpetuate the capitalist system. Most prominent and powerful of these was the craft form of labor-union organization.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] The substance of chs. ii and iii was originally published in the form of a monograph: The Launching of the Industrial Workers of the World (University of California Publications in Economics, vol. iv, no. 1, Berkeley, 1913).

[79] The three letters, I. W. W., have lent themselves to various picturesque and derisive translations: "I Won't Work," "I Want Whiskey," "International Wonder Workers," "Irresponsible Wholesale Wreckers," etc. "The Wobblies" is a nickname by which they are quite commonly known, especially in the West. It is said that the I. W. W.'s were so christened by Harrison Grey Otis, the editor of the Los Angeles Times. And now, in 1917, Senator H. F. Ashurst, of Arizona, declares that "I. W. W. means simply, solely and only, Imperial Wilhelm's Warriors." (Congr. Record, Aug. 17, 1917, vol. lv, p. 6104).

[80] St. John, The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods (revised edition, 1917), p. 2. Ernest Untermann, a writer prominently identified with the Socialist party, was also present at this conference, although he is not mentioned by St. John.

[81] "The Origin of the Manifesto," Proceedings, First I. W. W. Convention, p. 82.

[82] Proceedings, First I. W. W. Convention, pp. 82-3. The letter was signed by W. E. Trautmann, George Estes, W. L. Hall, Eugene V. Debs, Clarence Smith and Charles O. Sherman. A list of those invited is given in the Proceedings, p. 89. "Mother" Mary Jones seems to have been the only woman invited to the conference.

[83] Ibid., pp. 99-100.

[84] Proceedings, Thirteenth W. F. M. Convention, p. 21. At the same time and place it was definitely recommended that the Federation take part in the convention.

[85] Letter dated May 26, 1905, published in Proceedings, Thirteenth W. F. M. Convention, pp. 230-1.

[86] The Manifesto is reproduced in the writer's Launching of the Industrial Workers of the World, pp. 46-49. The committee's report is given in the Proceedings, p. 88.

[87] Proceedings, First I. W. W. Convention, pp. 5-6.

[88] International Socialist Review, February, 1905, vol. v, p. 499. (Editorial.)

[89] Vide infra, ch. ix.

[90] International Socialist Review, vol. v, p. 501 (March, 1905). For typical press reports of the conference vide infra, p. 107.

[91] Editorial, "The Trade Unions to be Smashed Again," American Federationist, March, 1905.

[92] Private Correspondence, March 26, 1912.

[93] Feb., 1905, article entitled, "The Chicago Conference for Industrial Unionism." For a different interpretation of the Manifesto, vide Frank Bohn's article in the same journal for April, 1905.

[94] DeLeon-Harriman Debate. The S. T. & L. A. vs. The Pure and Simple Trade Union, p. 43.

[95] Among these dissenters were Max Hayes, Victor Berger and A. M. Simons. Cf. letter written by Mr. Hayes to W. L. Hall in Proceedings, First I. W. W. Convention, pp. 99-100.

[96] Affiliated with American Federation of Labor at the time.

[97] Affiliated with American Federation of Labor at the time.