_Speech at Chicago, November 23, 1905_
We have met under the auspices and in the interests of the Industrial
Workers of the World. Organized here in Chicago, less than five months
ago, the Industrial Workers already number almost, if not quite, a
hundred thousand workingmen and women, enrolled as dues-paying members,
in a revolutionary, economic organization of the working class.
Why has this new organization been instituted? Why will not the old
trade unions that already occupy the field serve the purpose? Why a new
organization? These are questions that are up for consideration; that
address themselves to all the workers of the country, whether they favor
or oppose the new organization.
For many years I have been connected with one and another of the old
trade unions. Indeed, since February, 1875, when I first joined the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, I have been an active member of a
trade union; and during that time I have had some experience by virtue
of which I trust I have profited sufficiently to enable me to determine
whether a trade union is organized for the purpose of serving the
working class or not.
At the very threshold of this discussion I aver that the old form of
trade unionism no longer meets the demands of the working class. I aver
that the old trade union has not only fulfilled its mission and outlived
its usefulness, but that it is now positively reactionary, and is
maintained, not in the interests of the workers who support it, but in
the interests of the capitalist class who exploit the workers who
support it.
Let me cite an instance or two for illustration. The Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers has been organized about forty years. It professes
to be a trade union, an organization of and for the working class. The
organization has the favor and support of practically every railroad
corporation in the United States. The late P. M. Arthur was its grand
chief for many years. In the beginning of his official career he was
true to the working class. As the organization developed in numbers and
in power, and became a menace to the corporations, they realized the
necessity of securing control of that organization. And how did they go
about it? By making certain concessions to that so-called brotherhood,
by flattering its grand chief, by declaring that they had no objection
to a labor organization such as this brotherhood, especially while under
the supervision of so conservative a leader as Mr. Arthur. Every time
the corporations made a concession to the engineers it was at the
expense of poorly paid employes in other departments who were
unorganized; and when the men in these departments protested and finally
went out on strike, the engineers have invariably been used by the
corporation to defeat their fellow-workers, who were in revolt against
degrading economic conditions.
Mr. Arthur was, therefore, a prime favorite with the railroad
corporations. They granted him annual passes over their lines; and when
the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers met in convention, their
delegates were provided with special trains to transport them to and
from the convention, free of charge, as evidence that the corporation
appreciated the value of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
Since the engineers were organized, the firemen, conductors, brakemen,
switchmen, telegraphers and trackmen have also been organized, and
several other departments have been partially organized, and they all
have practically the same form of organization. They are all
conservative. They all operate within the bounds set and approved by the
railroad corporations. Are they, can they be true to the men who pay the
dues, to the workingmen who support them? I answer that they cannot. Not
only are they not true to the wage-workers who support them, but they
are pressed into service, politically and otherwise, when occasion
demands it, in the interest of these corporations, and to the detriment
of their own.
Only the other day, since this much-discussed matter of rate legislation
has been pending, the grand chiefs of these various brotherhoods have
been convened. By whom? By the railroad corporations. For what purpose?
This will appear as I proceed.
Just after the grand chiefs of these labor unions met with the railroad
officials, another meeting took place. Of whom? Of the representatives
of the principal of these several organizations, who, acting under the
advice of their grand officers, proceeded to the city of Washington,
held a conference with President Roosevelt, and protested that the labor
unions they represented, consisting of the railway workers of the
country, were opposed to any sort of legislation that would have a
tendency to reduce railroad rates in the United States. The announcement
also went forth at the same time that these brotherhoods would make
their political power felt in the interests of the railroad
corporations; that is to say, against the common people, the toiling
millions of the land.
What a picture, indeed!
One glance proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these unions are
exceedingly useful to the corporations; and to the extent that they
serve the economic and political purposes of the corporations, they are
the foes—and not the friends—of the working class.
The United Mine Workers, in point of numbers a powerful labor
organization, embraces a large majority of the coal miners of the
country. Is this organization of any real benefit to coal miners? What
has it actually done for them during the last few years? What have the
miners, who have paid millions of dollars from their scant earnings in
support of the organization, what have they to show in return?
These miners are well organized. They have the numbers. They ought to
have real economic power. But they lack it. And why? For the simple
reason that they are not organized upon the basis of the class struggle.
Their union principles are not right; and it is for this reason that
their organization has the hearty support of the coal operators of the
country, who, by the way, are in session in Chicago at this very time,
for the purpose of uniting, for the purpose of dealing with the miners,
not through the rank and file of their union, but, as they themselves
declare, _through their national board_.
And this is a very important point for the union miners to take into
consideration. These operators, these exploiters, who are conscious of
their class interests, propose to deal, not with the union at large, not
with the great body of the miners, not with the rank and file, not with
the common herd, not with the black beasts of burden, but with their
National Executive Board. They will fix things that are out of joint and
settle matters generally. They will arrive at mutually satisfactory
conclusions. They will harmonize beautifully. And when they do
harmonize, it will be in the interests, not of the miners who do the
work, who dig the coal, who produce the wealth, but in the interests of
the operators who own the mines and exploit the slaves of the pits.
Why, the most zealous supporter of the United Mine Workers is the coal
operator himself. The simple fact that the coal operator collects the
union dues, and discharges the miner who refuses to pay his dues, is
sufficient evidence of this fact.
The coal operator does not collect the dues from the man who happens to
belong to the Industrial Workers. He knows enough to know what is good
for him; and he knows that the miners, organized as they are at present,
can do him little harm, but can do him great good. And this is why he
wants the miners organized in the pure and simple old-fashioned way. He
knows that if they were totally unorganized they would spontaneously go
out on strike. But they cannot strike as they are now organized without
securing the sanction of their national, district and local officers;
and so the operator keeps a friendly eye upon the union which fortifies
and facilitates the exploitation of the coal diggers in his mines.
At stated periods the operators and representatives of the miners meet;
and sometimes the sessions are very spirited, the miners insisting upon
an increase, and the operators upon a decrease of wages, as was the case
at the last interstate conference, when the union officials declared
that under no circumstances would they accept a reduction, and the
delegates voted by practically a unanimous vote not to accept any
reduction, and for a while, there was every indication of a strike. But
the national officers met with the operators, and a reduction of wages
was agreed to, and then the union officers went out among the rank and
file and told them that if they were foolish enough to go out on strike
they would certainly be defeated, and that the best thing they could do
was to accept the reduction. So these union officials, backed by the
operators, virtually forced the reduction upon the miners.
The operator can well afford to support that kind of a labor union.
The United Mine Workers, under its present policy, denies and seeks to
obscure the class struggle. President Mitchell used to be quoted as
saying that the interests of the miners and the operators were
identical. He made an address the other day in which he claimed that he
had been misquoted; he had not said that their interests were identical,
but that they were reciprocal. I would like to have Mr. Mitchell show in
what way the operator who fleeces the miner reciprocates to that miner.
The simple fact is that the operator—and I don’t know why he is called
that, he doesn’t operate anything—the operator takes from the miner what
the miner produces. He serves him in that capacity, and no other.
The miners’ union denies, in effect, the class struggle, and vainly
seeks to harmonize the economic interests of these two antagonistic
classes—the exploiting masters and the exploited wage-slaves; the
robbers and the robbed. It cannot be done; not permanently at least; and
if it be done even temporarily, it is always at the expense of the
wage-slaves. Such an organization as that cannot truly serve the best
interests of the working class. It is impossible.
There are many who concur in these views, yet insist that the
organization must be changed from the inside; that it can only be
brought to its proper position by “boring from within.” I deny it. It is
historically impossible. This organization has practically run its
course. It has fulfilled its mission as a labor union, whatever that has
been. It is now practically in charge of the mine owners; and the only
way the miners can get away from that situation is to sever their
relations with that capitalist-controlled union and join and build up
one of their own upon the basis of the class struggle; and then they
will be in position to fight the capitalist class with some chance of
success.
The most important fact in all the world for workingmen to take
cognizance of is the class struggle. The Industrial Workers express
economically the interests of the working class in that struggle. The
Industrial Workers declare that there can be nothing in common between
the exploiting capitalist and the exploited wage-worker; that there is
inevitably a struggle between them, and that this struggle cannot end
until the capitalist class is overthrown, and the wage-system wiped out.
Then and then only can there be an end to class rule.
Now, if you are a workingman and if you believe that you have an
economic interest in common with that of the capitalist who employs you,
remain in the old trade union. That is where you belong. If that is your
conviction we do not want you to join the Industrial Workers. You do not
properly belong to us. You do belong to the American Federation of Labor
and its affiliated organizations. But, if you believe, as I believe,
that the working class have economic interests of their own, separate
and apart from and in conflict with the economic interests of the
capitalist class, then you should, and sooner or later will have to,
sever your relation with the old trade union and join the Industrial
Workers, the only union organized upon the basis of class struggle.
And now, let me ask, have we a class struggle? The answer comes of
itself. This struggle finds expression daily, hourly, in strikes, in
boycotts, in lockouts, injunctions, riots, assaults and bloodshed. It is
not an unmixed evil, however, for in this great world-wide class
struggle, that is shaking the foundations of civilized society
everywhere, there are being wrought out the most important problems of
our modern civilization.
The working class are in an overwhelming majority. They have the
numbers. They ought to have the power. And they would have the power if
only they were conscious of their interests _as a class_.
Every effort is put forth by the exploiting capitalist to prevent
workingmen from seeing the class struggle. The capitalist insists that
there is no such struggle. The editor in the employ of the capitalist
echoes “no class struggle.” The teacher, professor and the minister, all
of them dependent upon the capitalist for the chance to make a living,
agree that there are no classes and no class struggle. In unison they
declaim against class agitation and seek to obscure class rule that it
may be perpetuated indefinitely.
_We_ insist that there _is_ a class struggle; that the working class
must recognize it; that they must organize economically and politically
upon the basis of that struggle; and that when they do so organize they
will then have the power to free themselves and put an end to that
struggle forever.
Now, have not the workers, especially here in Chicago, had sufficient
experience during the last few years? Have they not been defeated often
enough to demonstrate the inherent weakness of the old trades union
movement? Haven’t they been enjoined by the Courts often enough? Clubbed
by the police and flung into jail often enough? Haven’t they had
experience of this kind enough to open their eyes to the fact that there
is a mighty class struggle in progress, and that there will never be any
material change in their condition until they unite their class in every
department of industrial activity?
Speaking for myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade
union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting
corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism
the capitalist class have it in their power to keep the workers divided,
to use one part of them with which to conquer and crush another part of
them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates
the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.
Object lessons are presented to you every day in the week. You have
hundreds of thousands of workers organized in Chicago, in every
conceivable kind of a union, and under the direction of an infinite
variety of leaders. I will not say that these leaders are all
incompetent or corrupt. That would not be true. But many of them are
corrupt, and in that capacity have it in their power to betray and sell
out the workers who trust them. In this position the workers will
remain—where there is no hope for them—so long as they cling to the
outgrown old trade union and its inefficient methods. We have had the
proof of this over and over again. Take all the great strikes that have
occurred in Chicago during the last few years. Have any of them been
successful? Have they not uniformly failed?
The capitalists have not entirely stamped out the defeated unions, that
is true. They have had the power to do this in the hour of the workers’
defeat, but they have refrained from doing it, because they are shrewd
enough to know that if they destroyed those unions, another and better
one would take their places. Is it not a fact that they had the butcher
workmen absolutely at their mercy, and could have compelled the members
to entirely withdraw from the unions before giving them employment? They
did not crush the unions out. When they had conquered they were
satisfied. They had driven the unionists back to their reservations and
they were perfectly satisfied that they should build up again along the
same old lines.
The Employers’ Association had the striking teamsters completely at
their mercy, and could, had they seen fit, have utterly crushed out
their union. They did not do it. In the closing part of the negotiations
the settlement hinged upon the alleged privilege of the teamsters
wearing their union badges, and this the Employers’ Association finally
conceded; and then the claim was put forth that the striking teamsters
had come out victorious. The truth is that they lost everything; but the
employer was not anxious to destroy their organization. He knew very
well that if he did a stronger one would spring from the ruins; that a
crushed union at least teaches workingmen to see its inherent defects.
The employer is shrewd enough to know that when you totally wipe out
organizations you drive the workers into solidarity.
The teamsters were entirely defeated, nothing left; and yet their
leaders boasted that they had served their organization. It reminded me
of the dispatch once sent from a field of battle by a general who had
been completely routed: “There is nothing left but honor, and d—n little
of that!”
It is true that there are some employers who are supposed to be entirely
opposed to unionism, even the old form of trade unionism. But the great
majority of capitalists, especially the shrewder, far-seeing ones,
unqualifiedly approve the pure and simple labor union. And now let me
show that between these two sections of the capitalist class there is,
after all, no vital difference with regard to the trade union movement.
C. W. Post, president of the Citizens’ Industrial Association, and David
M. Parry, president of the Manufacturers’ Association, who are opposing
the American Federation of Labor, have repeatedly said that they are not
opposed to trade unionism if it will confine itself to its “legitimate”
functions. In other words, they are not opposed to trade unionism if it
does not antagonize the capitalist class. That is their position. Now,
what is the position of the great body of capitalists who avow their
friendship for the trade union movement? Precisely the same. They are in
favor of the trade union as long as it does not menace or attack the
capitalist class; that is, as long as it doesn’t do anything. And in its
present shape it is not doing anything; and that is why the capitalists
are not opposed to it. Let these trade unions unite tomorrow; let them
declare in favor of waging this fight along the lines of the class
struggle, and they will soon find out whether these capitalists are in
favor of trade unionism or not.
The very fact that the great majority of capitalists favor trade
unionism proves that it is doing little or nothing for its members. Were
it really doing something for them it would be antagonizing the
capitalist class, and that class would fight it. But the capitalists are
not fighting the old brand of unionism; they have, in fact, formed an
alliance with it and the union is the silent partner in the firm.
You have all doubtless heard of the Civic Federation. This federation is
supposed to be fair and impartial. It is organized for the one purpose
of dove-tailing the interests of labor and capital, and every member of
this body insists that these interests can be harmonized; that there is
no necessary conflict between them. That is what Mr. Gompers says; that
is what Mr. Mitchell says; that is what Archbishop Ireland and Bishop
Potter say, and that is what they all say—that there is no necessary
conflict between capitalists and wage-workers. If there be no necessary
conflict between them, it follows that all the fighting that is going on
must be unnecessary. I suppose then that ought to be very easily ended.
A gentleman named August Belmont presides over this harmonizing body.
Not long ago, in an address, he claimed that there was no better
trade-unionist in the country than he, and he proved it during the
Interborough strike in the city of New York, when several thousand union
employes of that corporation, of which he is president, went out on
strike because they were driven to that extremity by his pernicious
policy. He proved that he was a loyal trade-unionist when he employed
James Farley, the notorious professional strike-breaker, and his army of
Hessians to take the places of his former employes. Just a little while
after Mr. Belmont had thus defeated his employes and disrupted their
unions, he met at the hospitable banqueting board of the Civic
Federation with the national officers of the American Federation of
Labor and its allied unions, and there made good his claim that he was a
true trades-unionist of the old school.
Do you think that a labor leader who is absolutely true to the working
class could sit at such a banquet with such a capitalist as Belmont? Do
you think he would be the guest of such an organization as the Civic
Federation, whose only purpose is by subtle schemes to, reduce the
trade-union movement to harmless impotency?
It is for this and this alone that the Civic Federation has been
organized. This is its real mission. The American Federation of Labor
has fallen within the fatal influence of this emasculating alliance, and
has thus proven that it is not organized to advance the true interests
of the working class.
The American Federation of Labor is now holding its annual convention in
the city of Pittsburg. What are its delegates doing there? Simply
passing the same old resolutions. Once more they are going to petition
Congress to enact an eight-hour law. They have done that over and over
again, and their petition has been as repeatedly pigeon-holed. They have
also resolved to petition Congress to restrict the powers of capitalist
courts in dealing with labor. They have done that time and again, and
what have they gained by it? Absolutely nothing. No attention has been
paid to these servile supplications. They have been disregarded, thrown
aside, treated with contempt; but the delegates solemnly meet in
convention once more to pass the same hoary resolutions, to introduce
the same stale petitions, with the same inevitable results. Now, is not
this a perfectly stupid procedure? Are these men incapable of profiting
by experience? Do they not by this time understand the nature and
essential functions of capitalist-class government?
Can they not see that we have a capitalist-class Congress, and
capitalist-class legislatures, elected in every instance by an ignorant
working class, kept ignorant, designedly, in the name of unionism, and
with the aid of the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class? And that
it is the very height of folly and depth of humiliation for a committee
of the working class to beg the representatives of the capitalist class
to legislate in the interests of the working class?
They were elected to serve the masters. And they are serving them. And
we have no right to find fault with them—at least those of us who are
responsible for their being where they are.
Now, we who have organized the Industrial Workers have had enough of
this kind of experience. We have quit the old unions. We have organized
the Industrial Workers for the purpose of uniting the working class; the
whole working class. Not only the skilled workers, not only those who
are favored, but the working class, skilled and unskilled, male and
female, in every department of activity, are united upon the principle
of Industrial Unionism.
The old unions were built up on tools that have been discarded and upon
trades that have ceased to exist.
Half a century ago the trade union was right; it was adapted to the then
existing industrial conditions. For illustration, a cooper shop was a
cooper shop. It contained coopers and coopers only, and the Coopers’
Union was organized. That embraced the coopers who were employed at
their trade in the shop. Since then there has been half a century of
industrial evolution. Compare the great cooperage establishment of today
with the cooper shop of fifty years ago, in which the old hand tools
were used, in which the apprentice learned his trade, and having
mastered this, could seize the small tools with which work was done and
virtually employ himself. There has been a marvelous change since that
time. A modern cooperage establishment is the result of industrial
evolution; and if you will visit one you will find that scores of
different kinds of labor are performed there. Indeed, you will find
almost any kind of worker there except a cooper!
Now, we behold that the form of the union must correspond to the mode of
industry. In other words, the union, like the trade, is subject to the
inexorable laws of evolution. We want a union today that expresses all
the various subdivisions of labor now engaged in a cooperage
establishment. Suppose there are 500 such employes in a plant. We
organize them all, and they are assigned to their various departments;
and if one of them has a grievance it becomes the concern of every
worker in that establishment.
How is it now? Certain departments are organized in craft unions, meet
with the officials and make an agreement or contract. They do not care
what becomes of the rest, if only they can get what they are after for
themselves. After they are thus tied up, the employes in some other
department present a grievance and are turned down and out. They go out
on strike. Those tied fast in an agreement say: “We would like to help
you, we are in sympathy with you, but you see we have an agreement, and
that agreement is sacred; it must be preserved inviolate; and while we
are in sympathy with you and hate to see you defeated and lose your
jobs, we cannot go back on our agreement.” And in this way one union is
used to crush another, labor is defeated and scabs are made by
thousands.
It is a fact that nearly all scabs and strike-breakers are ex-unionists.
Go among them and interrogate them and you will find that they will tell
you in almost every case that at heart they are in favor of union labor,
but that they were beaten by it and found this the only way of getting
even. I know of hundreds of instances, of my own knowledge, of men who
have been made scabs in precisely that way. Now, the trade unions feel
very bitter toward scabs, and pursue them relentlessly until the
unfortunates seek escape in suicide. And yet, while they so bitterly
persecute the scab, they support the union that makes the scab.
What we want today, above all things, is united economic and political
action, and we can never have that while the working class are parceled
out among hundreds, aye, thousands, of separate unions, that keep them
divided for reasons, many of which very readily suggest themselves.
Who is it that is so violently opposed to the Industrial Workers? It is
not the rank and file of the trade unions. It is their officers. And why
are they so fiercely opposed to the Industrial Workers? For the reason
that when the working class are really united a great many labor leaders
will be out of jobs.
There are at present thousands of unions. Some of them have a few
members and others have a great many; and every time, in the evolution
of industry, there is a new subdivision of labor, however minute, a new
union must be launched, clear down to the Grand International
Brotherhood of Peanut Peelers, Polishers and Packers, or whatever it may
be. And they elect a staff of their own grand international officers,
and their names are put upon the payroll; and let me say to you that
their interests are primarily in keeping themselves there.
Why should the railroad employes be parceled out among a score of
different organizations? They are all employed in the same service.
Their interests are mutual. They ought to be able to act together as
one. But they divide according to craft and calling, and if you were to
propose today to unite them that they might actually do something to
advance their collective and individual interests as workers, you would
be opposed by every grand officer of these organizations. The payroll
and expense account of the officers of the railroad brotherhoods alone
amount to more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.
There is an army of men who serve as officers who are on the salary list
who get a good living keeping the working class divided. They start out
with good intentions as a rule. They really want to do something to
serve their fellows. They leave the shops or the mines as common
workingmen. They are elected officers of a labor organization and they
change their clothes. They now wear a white shirt and a standing collar.
They change their habits and their methods. They have been used to cheap
clothes, coarse fare and to associating with their fellow-workers. After
they have been elevated to official position, as if by magic they are
recognized by those who previously scorned them and held them in
contempt. They find that some of the doors that were previously barred
against them now swing inward, and they can actually put their feet
under the mahogany of the capitalist.
Our common workingman is now a labor leader. The great capitalist pats
him on the back and tells him that he knew long ago that he was a coming
man, that it was a fortunate thing for the workers of the world that he
had been born, that in fact they had been long waiting for just such a
wise and conservative leader. And this has a certain effect upon our
new-made leader, and unconsciously, perhaps, he begins to change—just as
John Mitchell did when Mark Hanna patted him on the shoulder and said,
“John, it is a good thing you are at the head of the miners. You are the
very man. You have the greatest opportunity a labor leader ever had on
this earth. You can immortalize yourself. Now is your time.” Then John
Mitchell admitted that this capitalist, who had been pictured to him as
a monster, was not half as bad as he had thought he was; that, in fact,
he was a genial and companionable gentleman. He repeats his visit the
next day, or the next week, and is introduced to some other
distinguished person he had read about, but never dreamed of meeting,
and thus goes on the transformation. All his dislikes disappear and all
feeling of antagonism vanishes. He concludes that they are really most
excellent people and, now that he has seen and knows them, he agrees
with them that there is no necessary conflict between workers and
capitalists. And he proceeds to carry out this pet capitalist theory and
he can only do it by betraying the class that trusted him and lifted him
as high above themselves as they could reach.
It is true that such a leader is in favor with the capitalists; that
their newspapers write editorials about him and crown him a great and
wise leader; and that ministers of the gospel make his name the text for
their sermons, and emphasize the vital point that if all labor leaders
were such as he there would be no objection to labor organizations. And
the leader feels himself flattered. And when he is charged with having
deserted the class he was supposed to serve, he cries out that the
indictment is brought by a discredited labor leader. And that is
probably true. The person who brings the charge is very likely
discredited. By whom? By the capitalist class, of course; and its press
and pulpit and “public” opinion. And in the present state of the working
class, when he is discredited by the capitalists, he is at once
repudiated by their wage-slaves.
The labor leader who is not discredited by the capitalist class is not
true to the working class. If he be unswervingly loyal to the working
class he will not be on friendly terms with the capitalist class. He
cannot serve both. When he really serves one he serves that one against
the other.
The labor leader who is in high favor with the exploiters is pronounced
safe, conservative, wise and honest, and the workers are appealed to to
look to him for advice, for guidance and leadership. The unthinking
accept the advice with enthusiasm. And so the labor leader who serves
the capitalist class instead of the working class is hailed deliverer
and basks in the public favor.
But let me say to you that in spite of all this the honest and
discredited leaders will be lovingly remembered long after the popular
ones of today are forgotten.
Now, in these matters, I am not asking you to take my advice. I am not
asking you to follow me. I simply want you to think over these things
for yourselves. The very first need is that you open your eyes and see
for yourselves. Take nothing for granted.
So many of you are satisfied to blindly follow where others lead; and so
you are deceived and betrayed; you have to pay all the penalties.
It is high time you were ceasing to depend upon someone to “lead” you;
that you were opening your eyes; that you were doing your own thinking.
And that is all I am asking you to do.
I have already told you that I have had some experience and that I hope
I have in some measure profited by it. I have been involved in strikes
enough to satisfy me. I have so often been saddened by the outcome of
such strikes.
I have seen men by scores and hundreds and thousands, after striking for
weeks and months, lose their jobs. I have seen the poor wretches
blacklisted and I have seen them persecuted until they were in rags, and
their families were upon the streets, and I have said there must be
another and a better way. I have seen enough of this to satisfy me.
There is a better way. But you will never find it by pursuing the old
lines. You have got to unite the whole working class, and this can be
done. It is not an impossible task. Every worker, however limited his
mentality, ought to be able to see that there is little or nothing to be
accomplished along the old lines; that, in fact, there is no hope; that
you are engaged in an unequal struggle, and that the ultimate outcome is
certain to be defeat, despair and death.
The capitalists have at present ten thousand advantages over us. They
own and control all the sources and means of wealth production. They are
the masters of the tools; they act together. They control all the powers
of government. They can at their own sweet will shut down their mills
and factories and mines, and they can wait patiently weeks and months
and even years, until the impoverished workers become hungry and are
glad to be taken back at any terms. The capitalists have all these
advantages, and they never hesitate to do anything, everything, that may
be required to keep the working class in subjection. And they can and
will keep them there just as long as they are divided.
There is but one hope, and that is in the economic and political
solidarity of the working class; one revolutionary union, and one
revolutionary party. It is for this reason that the Industrial Workers,
an economic organization, has been launched and now makes its appeal to
you as wage-slaves aspiring to be free. You cannot be satisfied to live
and die as beasts of burden; to toil unceasingly to enrich masters who
hold you in contempt; to be dependent upon these masters for your jobs
and crawl like sycophants at their feet. You may not be satisfied, even
though you have sufficient food and clothing and shelter. You are a
human, not a hog; a man, not a mere animal. You have a manhood to
sustain; you have your freedom to achieve, and you have an intellect to
develop; and these questions will appeal to you with ever-increasing
force and compel an accounting at last, if you have the pith and purpose
of a typical, self-respecting workingman.
In the capitalist system you workers are simply merchandise; your master
can at his own will sentence you to idleness, your wife to want and your
child, perhaps, to a brothel. You cannot be satisfied with such a
slavish lot and now is the time to make up your mind to change it. In
your heart you will feel the thrill of a new-born joy. You will join the
Industrial Workers, the one international labor union that proposes to
unite all workers, that all of them may act together in harmonious
co-operation for the good of all; a union that recognizes no
aristocracy, but the whole working class; that insists that each member
shall have all the rights that are accorded every other; a union built
upon the class struggle, appealing to all workers to get together on the
right side of that struggle and achieve the emancipation of their class.
It is true that this is a stupendous task; that there are great opposing
forces; that every falsehood that malignity can devise will be put in
circulation to defeat the object of this industrial organization, but
nevertheless, those of us who have quitted the old unions and organized
the Industrial Workers have done so with the determination that no
matter what opposing forces may be set in operation, we will stand
together side by side in the true spirit of class-conscious solidarity;
we will move forward, step by step, in one solid body; we will speak the
truth as we see the truth, and defy all the opposition that may be
brought to bear against the Industrial Workers by all the capitalist
class and all its vassals and emissaries.
This organization has a mission as high and as noble as ever prompted
workingmen, or any other men, to action in this world.
The primal need of the working class is education. By education I mean
revolutionary education; the kind that enables men to see that the
twenty odd millions of wage-workers in the United States are
wage-slaves; that the economic interests of these many millions of human
beings who do all the useful work and produce all the wealth are
absolutely identical; that they must unite; that they must act together;
that they must assert their collective power. When they reach this point
they will cease to be slaves and become the masters of the situation;
they will wipe out the wage-system and walk the earth free men.
They can do this, and only _they can_ do it.
I cannot do this for you, and I want to be frank enough to say that I
would not if I could. For if I could do it for you, somebody else could
undo it for you. But when you do it for yourselves it will remain done
forever. And until you do it you have got to pay the penalty of your
ignorance, indifference and neglect. You have got to pay it to the last
farthing. Nobody on earth or in heaven can relieve you of the
consequences of your inaction. As long as you workers remain divided and
at cross purposes, instead of closing up the ranks and acting together,
you will have to pay the penalty of defeat and humiliation and slavery
and all their attendant brood and festering evils.
But day by day you are increasing the sum of your revolutionary
knowledge. You are becoming wiser by experience. The Industrial Workers
would not have been possible a few years ago. It is an outgrowth of the
very conditions I have described. It has become an imperative necessity.
The workers everywhere are beginning to recognize it, and that is why
they are flocking to its standard. That is why they are subscribing to
its principles; why they are working for it day and night with a zeal
that has never been known in the history of the organized working-class
movement; and why it is rapidly spreading over the whole country, and
increasing grandly in numbers and in power. Let me say to you that no
matter what formidable or subtle opposition may be marshaled against it
by the capitalist class the ultimate triumph of its principles is as
certain as that I stand in your presence.
There are a great many workers who insist that the old unions are good
enough; and as long as they are of that opinion that is where they
belong. So far as I am concerned I gave the old unions a fair trial. I
am sure I had no prejudice against them. I am equally sure I did all I
possibly could to build them up. For fifteen years I traveled almost
continuously over this country organizing railroad men, and all kinds of
workingmen, under the mistaken conviction that if we could only get them
into the several unions of their trades and occupations we could in some
way lift them out of their slavery. My mind was disabused. We had the
railroad men, especially in this part of the country, pretty thoroughly
organized. We had the numbers and to some extent the power, but we
didn’t know about the class struggle. We had that to learn. Then came
the great conflict with the combined railroad corporations. We defeated
them; and then we learned that the corporations control the powers of
government. We got our first vital lesson in the class struggle. All the
corporations had to do was to press the judicial button in their private
office and the judges acted promptly in obedience to the command of
their capitalist masters; the police and militia and regular troops
followed in regular order; the press and pulpit and deputy marshals did
the rest—and that was enough.
I never knew exactly how it happened until I understood the meaning of
economic determinism and the class struggle, and then it was perfectly
clear to me. And from that time I realized the imperative necessity for
a different kind of organization. I then said, we have got to organize,
not only the railroad employes, but the whole body of workers for
concerted economic and political action; organize them all, so that all
of them shall act together and assert the full measure of their power in
the interests of all. As soon as a beginning was attempted the railroad
corporations said, “This vicious thing must be stamped out of
existence,” and so, for two years, I scarcely traveled a foot without
being shadowed by detectives of the railroad corporations. No matter
where I went, the detectives were there. When I would reach the end of a
certain line the detectives who had followed me would go back where they
came from and others would take their places.
I remember when I got to Providence, Rhode Island, one night, I was
conscious that detectives were watching me very closely. I learned that
the railroad officials in New England had announced that the American
Railway Union should never get a foothold there. There were two or three
loyal men there I knew and could trust; I sent them word not to come to
the hotel and not to hold a meeting, but to come to my room at midnight,
and come one at a time. And they did come to my room one at a time and I
organized them in my room at midnight. I left the city early next
morning, and when I got to the next point I received a telegram
reporting that they were all discharged, every one of them.
Notwithstanding our secrecy the corporations knew who had entered my
room and for what purpose; and the men were summarily discharged. Why
was it that the railroad corporations would not allow the American
Railway Union to organize? For the simple reason that the American
Railway Union proposed to line up all the railroad employes as the
beginning of a thorough reorganization of the working class in general,
and the railroads did not propose to tolerate that kind of an
organization.
They were and are entirely satisfied with the old brotherhoods,
supplying their officers with annual passes and their delegates with
special trains to take them to and from their conventions. To such an
extent is this partiality carried on some railroads that if a member of
one of the brotherhoods refuses to pay his dues and is expelled by the
brotherhood, he is promptly discharged by the corporation. The
corporation favors the organizations that divide, but is implacably
hostile to the one that unites the workers.
For the same reason the capitalist newspapers have so ferociously
denounced the Industrial Workers.
They have warned workingmen that the Industrial Workers consists of
anarchists, socialists, revolutionists and chronic fault-finders and
peace-disturbers, who have been kicked out of other reputable labor
organizations; of discredited leaders who do not lead, in whom the
workers have no confidence and for whom they can have no respect.
The capitalist press is a unit in denouncing the Industrial Workers, and
practically a unit in commending the American Federation of Labor.
If you workers think that the capitalist press is a safe guide in such a
matter, you properly belong with the American Federation of Labor. But
if you believe, as I believe, and as every intelligent workingman must
believe, that the kind of labor organization that the capitalists
endorse is not the kind that is for your good—that the organization the
capitalist press condemns is the one that has working class virtue and
efficiency—then you will do as we have done; you will join the
Industrial Workers of the World.
Think it over for yourself!
Take a backward look over the last three or four years; satisfy yourself
by your own study and observation that there has been little but defeat
for the workers in the struggle during all that period; that they have
gained substantially nothing; that they are divided and disrupted and
not organized in any true sense at all. The time has come for a real
economic organization of the workers, and that organization is now in
the field and makes its appeal to all workers, and its principles and
purposes deserve the encouragement, the support and the loyalty of every
workingman who has intelligence enough to understand his best interests
and manhood enough to assert and stand by them.
I shall occupy your time no longer. I think that no great argument is
required in support of our position. The preamble to the constitution
states clearly and in few words the object of the Industrial Workers.
You will find it written there that the workers and capitalists have
nothing in common; that there are a few who have all the good things in
life, while millions writhe in poverty and cry out in despair; that
those who do nothing and produce nothing are rich, while those who do
everything and produce everything are poor; that these two classes
consist of capitalists who own tools they do not use, and of workers who
use tools they do not own; that the capitalists who own the tools have
it in their power to take and do take from the workers what they
produce, and that the workers must organize both their economic and
political power to take and hold that which they produce by their labor.
This is brief and to the point, and every workingman is capable of
understanding it.
As the chairman has stated, the Industrial Workers has no object in
concealing any part of its mission, and while it proposes to ameliorate
the condition of the workers in every way in its power as far as that is
possible in capitalist society, its ultimate object is to entirely
abolish the capitalist system, by making the workers themselves the
masters of their tools, that they may work freely, unrestrained and
unexploited; that they may secure to themselves and enjoy all the fruit
of their own labors.
This is the object of the Industrial Workers, and if it has your
approval, join it and help it to fulfill its mission, and thus hasten
the emancipation of the working class, and the brighter, happier day for
all humanity.