THE _Coup_ OF THE "PROLETARIAN RABBLE"
(1906)
The second convention was the occasion of the first split in the ranks
of the Industrial Workers of the World. At this time the friction
seemed to be chiefly personal, whereas the second schism in 1908 was
primarily due to differences in regard to principles and policies.
It is true that principles and policies were involved in the feud of
1906, but they lurked obscurely in the background, while personal
antagonisms--charges and counter-charges of graft, corruption and
malfeasance in office--held the center of the stage. From the inception
of the movement the year before a smouldering dissension developed
between the poorer and less skilled groups of workers--largely
migratory and casual laborers, the "revolutionists" or the "wage-slave
delegates" as they were called in the second convention--these on
the one side, and the more highly skilled and strongly organized
groups called (by the other side) the "reactionaries" or the
"political fakirs." It might be remarked in passing that, in
this ultra-revolutionary I. W. W., the "conservatism" of the
"reactionaries" ought to be heavily discounted and the radicalism
of the "revolutionists" raised to the _n_th degree to get the true
perspective! Involved with this group hostility was the trouble stirred
up by various members of the two Socialist political parties.
The first years [writes Mr. St. John] was one of internal
struggle for control by these different elements. The two
camps of socialist politicians looked upon the I. W. W. only as
a battle-ground on which to settle their respective merits and
demerits. The labor fakirs strove to fasten themselves upon the
organization that they might continue to exist if the new union
was a success.[222]
But all this internal antagonism was very obscure. It evidenced itself
chiefly in the personal fight between the Sherman-Hanneman-Kirkpatrick
faction and the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction at the second
convention, which finally resulted in the deposition of C. O. Sherman
as General President. Mr. St. John has described the situation as it
appeared from his side of the controversy. At the second convention it
soon developed, he says,
that the administration of the I. W. W. was in the hands of
men who were not in accord with the revolutionary program
of the organization. Of the general officers only two were
sincere--the General Secretary, W. E. Trautmann, and one
member of the Executive Board, John Riordan. The struggle for
control of the organization formed the second convention into
two camps. The majority vote of the convention was in the
revolutionary camp. The reactionary camp, having the chairman,
used obstructive tactics in their effort to gain control of the
convention. They hoped thereby to delay the convention until
enough delegates would be forced to return home and thus change
the control of the convention. The revolutionists cut this knot
by abolishing the office of president and electing a chairman
from among the revolutionists.[223]
The revolutionists, who were referred to later by their opponents
as the "proletarian rabble" of the "beggars," held a pre-convention
conference in Chicago on August 14, 1906. This little "curtain-raiser"
was called by Local Union No. 23 of the Department of Metal and
Machinery which on July 20 sent out a letter to the various I. W.
W. locals in Chicago, which declared that "developments during the
past year have proven to us that the constitution does not come up to
the requirements of the rank and file ...," and urged a preliminary
conference to consider the following propositions:
First. Is a president necessary in our form of organization?
Second. Shall this organization be the expression of the
membership?
Third. Who shall direct the organization work?
Fourth. Shall the local unions receive a copy of the minutes of
the General Executive Board sessions?
Fifth. Shall the local unions be represented at the National
Convention, as set forth in Article VI., General Constitution?
Sixth. Any other question that the Conference may deem
necessary to discuss.[224]
The conference met with delegates present from about sixteen local
unions and unanimously decided that a president was unnecessary, that
all organizers, lecturers, etc., should be nominated by the local
unions and elected by the "rank and file," that each local should
receive reports of all Executive Board sessions, which, moreover,
should be open to the rank and file, and that every local union be
represented at the approaching convention by at least two delegates.
Whereas, the day is at hand [runs their resolution] when
we must abolish anything that pertains to aristocratic
power or reactionary policy, the office of president of a
class-conscious organization is not necessary. The rank and
file must conduct the affairs of the organization directly
through an executive board or central committee ... and,
whereas a president can only be in one place at one time and
can only personally organize the working class in the district
in which he is; he, therefore, can only act in the capacity
of an organizer.... [Moreover], the expense of a president
[$150 per month] would support at least four class-conscious
organizers....[225]
Commenting on the conference, J. M. O'Neill remarks that "there
is a vast difference between being class-conscious and being
class-crazy."[226]
An inkling of the beautifully chaotic condition of affairs no later
than December, 1905, is given by the comments of Max Hayes in the
_International Socialist Review_ for January, 1906.
I am told by a prominent member of the I. W. W. [he says] that
not all is lovely in that organization, that the original
industrialists and the departmentalists are lining up to give
battle, and that in some places where the DeLeonites and
the Anarchists had combined and held control the Socialists
obtained possession of the machinery.... "If a convention were
held next month," an industrialist writes, "the element in
control in Chicago last July wouldn't be one, two, three, and
I predict that at the next convention the academic vagaries
forced upon us by the DeLeon-Anarchist combine will be dropped
for a plain fighting program that everybody can understand and
conjure with." Rumors are in the air that the Western Miners
and President Sherman and his friends are souring on DeLeon and
Secretary Trautmann and his followers.[227]
The principal charge against President Sherman was that of misdirected
and generally extravagant expenditure of the funds of the organization.
The auditing committee at the 1906 convention reported that "the
expenditures of the ex-General President show gross extravagance and
strong evidence of corruption. During a period of thirty-three days he
flung away on a junketing trip, not a single local being organized by
him at any time, the sum of $731.55...."[228] William. E. Trautmann,
the General Secretary-Treasurer, reported that he was "compelled to pay
bills under protest for services never rendered, or for such things
as should be considered an insult and outrage against the entire
membership."[229]
The opponents of Sherman did not believe that these alleged offenses
were either the most important or the most dangerous of his pernicious
activities. When the case finally came before the Master in Chancery,
there was among the affidavits filed in the case of St. John _versus_
Sherman one by a certain Lillian Farberg,
who swears that Sherman ... told her that a conference had been
held at Denver, which was attended by himself (Sherman), James
Kirwan, J. M. O'Neill, and Victor Berger (of Milwaukee). At
this conference Sherman said an understanding had been reached
that the Western Federation of Miners should endorse the
Industrial Workers of the World, that later at the convention
of the I. W. W. such action would be taken as would result
in the radical element [the "tramps" and "beggars"] being
thrown out of the organization, and that Victor Berger at the
conference had promised that if this was done the Socialist
party would endorse the I. W. W.[230]
The foregoing charges were flatly denied by J. M. O'Neill, the editor
of the _Miners' Magazine_; at the fifteenth convention of the W. F. M.,
he repudiated these and other accusations made by the "DeLeon coterie"
and offered $500 reward for the establishment of the truth of any of
them.[231] Delegate Parks, one of the "wage slave" delegates, declared
that
... it is the general opinion of the members of the
revolutionary element of this convention that there was among
some of the departments of the Industrial Workers of the World
corruption, graft, and fakiration which would put to shame the
worst of the American Federation of Labor.[232]
Immediately on the adjournment of the 1907 convention, ex-President
Sherman issued a statement "to officers and members of all local
unions and all departments of the Industrial Workers of the World"
in which he declared, "that the recent convention ... violated the
constitution in various ways"; "that the convention was controlled by
the members of the Socialist Labor Party under the leadership of Daniel
DeLeon," and that this "most disgraceful gathering" was "illegal and
unconstitutional."[233] A month later Sherman issued on his own behalf
a letter to the I. W. W. membership, in which he denied the various
charges of extravagance and connivance at illegal tactics on his part.
In this letter Sherman says that "not a vote was cast on any important
matter in this so-called convention until DeLeon had been consulted, or
he had given them the 'wise business wink.'"[234]
As far as parliamentary convention tactics are concerned there is
no doubt that both factions displayed a lofty contempt for parlor
etiquette. Several months later William D. Haywood wrote to St. John
in regard to this matter. He emphatically condemned "Shermanism," but
goes on: "You were entirely too harsh, unnecessarily so; the Gordian,
presidential and other knots that you cut with a broad axe were only
slip knots that could have been easily untied." "In this way," he
concludes, "much dissension could have been avoided."[235] An anarchist
sympathizer with the "proletarian rabble" frankly writes: "Some might
claim that the action of the convention of 1906 was illegal ... [but]
in a crisis there is no question of legality. It is the time for
deeds...."[236]
Seven days had elapsed since the opening of the convention before the
reports of officers were given. During this time--nearly half the time
the convention was in session--almost nothing was accomplished. This
delay made very plausible indeed the accusation made by the "wage
slave" delegates that the reactionaries had deliberately planned to
force them out of the convention by resort to these dilatory tactics.
Whether or not the Sherman faction had decided on such tactics, there
is no question but that the freezing out of the "wage slaves" would be
a very natural result. Article VI. of the Constitution provided that
"the expenses of delegates attending the convention shall be borne by
their respective organizations." Now many of the local unions could
afford to provide their delegates with adequate expense money; others
could afford but very inadequate provision for expenses. Thus, most
of the delegates from unions in the Mining Department--and those in
general from the relatively better established unions--were quite
well provided for, the Miners' delegates, _e. g._, receiving mileage
plus five dollars per day expense money for every day they were away
from home. The great majority, however, were paid nothing but mileage
and were obliged to pay their own expenses and had come with funds
absolutely insufficient for a prolonged meeting. Delegate Lingenfelter,
in a speech in support of an unsuccessful motion to allow proxies to
delegates who were compelled to leave on account of lack of funds, said:
These dilatory tactics that have been pursued by the
opposition have prolonged the convention, due to their express
determination, in my opinion, to freeze out these wage slave
delegates.... Only last night the boys came to me and said: ...
"We can't stand it any longer; we are going broke; we can't
sleep in boxcars and eat handouts and remain here."[237]
The "beggars" gained the upper hand. Mr. DeLeon succeeded in putting
through a motion to suspend the above mentioned article of the
Constitution concerning delegates' expenses, and a resolution was
finally passed which authorized the payment of $1.50 per day from the
general treasury to all without the necessary expense money.[238]
In this way the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction secured control
of the convention and brought about the deposition of President
Sherman--the first and last President of the Industrial Workers of the
World. The convention now proceeded to consider some of the problems
of industrial unionism which had cropped out in the course of twelve
months' experience. Meanwhile ex-President Sherman and his followers
had decided to stand pat--but not on the floor of the convention. They
took possession of the General Headquarters and with the assistance of
the police successfully held them against all comers.
Upon entering the premises of the General Headquarters the
members of the General Executive Board [newly elected] were
prevented from entering by thugs engaged by members of the old
General Executive Board and two members [of the new board],
Vincent St. John and Fred Heslewood, were attacked by these
sluggers.[239]
This picturesque situation is explained to the membership in an
official announcement issued by the new Executive Board in behalf of
the "proletarian rabble":
Sherman and his hired sluggers are now in forcible possession
of the general office and all the books, records, papers,
roster of local unions, mailing list and other property of the
organization, necessitating legal procedure on our part to oust
them and regain control of the office and property.... The
majority of the General Executive Board was his perfect tool.
They winked at his irregularities, endorsed his extravagance
and lent their efforts to perpetuate him in this organization
as they are now lending their assistance to help him disrupt
it.[240]
The success of the "beggars, tramps, and proletarian rabble," that is
to say, of the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction, was hardly complete.
They were officials without an office in which to do business, without
equipment of any sort, and without money. Secretary St. John writes
that they "were obliged to begin work after the second Convention
without the equipment of so much as a postage stamp." The financial
routine in the general office had required the signature of the
president on all checks and prohibited the withdrawal of funds from
the bank without that signature. Now the President was deposed, the
office abolished, and the deposed President refused to sign the
necessary requisitions so that the four thousand dollars belonging to
the I. W. W. in the Prairie State Bank of Chicago was safely out of
reach of both factions.[241]
The matter was at last taken to the Court of Chancery and a restraining
order issued prohibiting Sherman and his friends from appropriating the
property of the Industrial Workers of the World. The findings of the
Master in Chancery were in substance as follows:
1. That the Industrial Workers of the World is a voluntary
association consisting of about 62,000 members residing in
various cities and villages throughout the United States and
Canada.
2. That its 1906 convention was legal and valid.
3. That the acts of Mr. C. O. Sherman after that convention
were illegal, and,
4. That the "attempted abolition" of the office of General
President was illegal and void.[242]
The findings were on the whole favorable to the "wage slaves" faction,
but even so the latter were in a rather forlorn position now, having
been abandoned to their fate by the Western Federation of Miners (whose
delegates supported Sherman, some of them bolting the convention
before its adjournment), and by the Socialist party. Before long the
Western Federation finally withdrew its support from the Sherman
faction and early in the year 1907 the "would-be usurpers" gave up
the struggle,[243] but the Western Federation of Miners did not come
back into the fold. They decided to withhold payment of dues to either
faction pending their anticipated and formally realized secession at
their convention in May, 1907.
Mr. Sherman had made a desperate fight. He and his followers conducted
what was virtually a duplicate even if spurious general office and
organization of the I. W. W. The Shermanites, who had retained control
of the "_Industrial Worker_,"[244] the journal of the organization,
continued its publication for several months at Joliet, Illinois.
Herein were published refutations of the charges set forth by the
"DeLeon-Anarchist Combine" in their special series of _Bulletins of the
Industrial Workers of the World_. With the surrender of the Shermanites
the "Industrial Worker" was discontinued, and the Trautmann-DeLeon-St.
John faction--now _the_ I. W. W.--established the _Industrial Union
Bulletin_ as a weekly organ.
The now triumphant revolutionists considered that the whole
trouble was due to an attempt to sell out to the capitalists, to
make the organization a conservative--and therefore a perfectly
harmless--association. Mr. Trautmann insisted that their "sole
object when forcibly taking possession of headquarters and all their
documents" was to destroy all evidence of their plots for
surrendering the Industrial Workers of the World to the
employing class and their agents. The stenographic report of
the second convention will prove the falsity of every charge
made against the "tramps" and "beggars" who saved the I. W. W.
to continue its work as the revolutionary economic organization
of the working class of America.[245]
"The danger was great," declared Daniel DeLeon in his speech at the
adjournment of the 1906 convention. "The conspiracy was deep laid. We
see it appearing in the papers from Denver all the way across to New
York. It was a conspiracy to squelch the revolution in this convention,
and to start over again another American Federation of Labor."[246]
DeLeon's sentiments regarding the schism of 1906 are particularly
worthy of note, because of the fact that he was destined two years
later to figure with seceders in a split of that same "DeLeon-Anarchist
Combine" which was now victorious and of one mind in overthrowing
"usurpers" and apparently in harmony in every way. But in two years the
"DeLeon-Anarchist Combine" was to change to the DeLeonites _versus_
the Anarchists, each of whom was to constitute a separate organization
called the Industrial Workers of the World.
Socialist party leaders were as firmly convinced as was DeLeon that
there was a "deep-laid conspiracy," but they believed that _DeLeon_
was the arch conspirator. When the Seventh International Socialist
Congress met in Stuttgart in 1907, Morris Hillquit and J. Mahlon Barnes
presented the Socialist version of the affair.[247] The fatal trouble
from the very beginning, they thought, was the inclusion in the I. W.
W. of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the "_enfant chétif_" (as
they expressed it) of the Socialist Labor party.[248] They go on to
tell how this alleged conspirator prepared the ground for the "capture"
of the convention in the interest of this "_enfant chétif_":
Several months before the 2nd Convention, the Alliance, under
the direction of the adroit chief of the Socialist Labor party,
Daniel DeLeon, planned to take possession of the administration
of the I. W. W., and by means of a skillful manipulation of
the delegates, succeeded in obtaining a majority for itself
in the convention. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance,
indeed, dominated the convention. It completely modified the
constitution of the organization, abolished the office of
General President, and chose a new Executive Board from among
its friends and adherents. But the triumph of the Alliance did
not last. In conformity with the constitution of the I. W. W.,
the acts of the convention are not valid unless ratified by
a referendum of the members.... The leaders of the Alliance
refused to submit the acts of the convention to a vote of the
members, and the old officials immediately declared them null
and void. The division was therefore complete in the ranks
of the I. W. W. The two factions maintained rival bodies of
officials and the dispute was carried to the courts, which
pronounced in favor of the old administration [Sherman, _et
al._]. The great majority of the members supported the original
organization directed by Mr. Sherman in the capacity of
President, while the number of adherents to the DeLeon faction
did not exceed 2000 members.[249]
Vincent St. John offers some interesting testimony against the
allegation that DeLeonism dominated the second convention:
It is my opinion [he says] that they [the Shermanites] are,
because of lack of argument with which to sustain a wrong
position, hoping to cause the prejudice which exists against
DeLeon and the Socialist Labor party to blind many to the true
state of affairs, a prejudice to which I plead guilty to having
had, but which I was unable to justify upon investigation,
a prejudice which exists against this organization and man
because it and he stood upon the ground that we now occupy
fourteen years ago, struggling against grafters and traitors,
and for which they have paid the penalty in being slandered and
vilified. This is no eulogy of DeLeon or the S. L. P.... It is
my conclusion.[250]
These conflicting opinions are presented for what they are worth. On
both sides they should be taken with salt. The writer makes no attempt
to pass judgment except to point out that the Socialist party report
to the Stuttgart Congress is obviously in error in claiming that
the Master in Chancery pronounced in favor of the old (_i. e._, the
Sherman) administration.[251]
The "proletarian rabble" recognized that the power of the opposition
would be fatally undermined if it lost the active support of the
Western Federation of Miners. It has been seen that they did finally
lose that support when the W. F. M. finally cut loose entirely from
anything and everything calling itself I. W. W. This--the most
staggering defection of all that the young I. W. W. had to face--had
been rather plainly foreshadowed as early as the fall of 1905. Within
three months of the adjournment of the first convention the report was
circulated among various unions in the West that the Western Federation
had refused to join the Industrial Workers of the World.[252] This
rumor was without foundation. The Western Federation _did_ join the I.
W. W.
Immediately after the close of the first convention
[according to Secretary Trautmann's report] the officers of
the Western Federation of Miners reported to the members of
that organization the actions of the first convention, and a
referendum was issued for the purpose of having the work of the
delegates ratified by the rank and file. At the end of August,
notice was received that the members of the Western Federation
of Miners had approved, by a big majority, the actions of
the delegates in installing that organization as an integral
part of the Industrial Workers of the World, and on September
1, 1905, the Western Federation of Miners became the Mining
Department of the Industrial Workers of the World.[253]
But this was not to be for long. Although the break did not come for
some months after the second I. W. W. convention, some premonitory
evidences of disaffection came to the surface at that meeting. As will
be seen, there were several things which aggravated the trouble in the
Mining Department. The deposition of President Sherman by the delegates
to the second convention, and the consequent confusion, especially
in regard to finances, resulted in the bolting of the convention by
the delegates of the Mining Department (the Western Federation of
Miners).[254] From the close of the second convention until the summer
of 1907 the Western Federation was nominally a part of the Industrial
Workers of the World, but was all this time becoming more and more
alienated in spirit. For all practical purposes, January 1, 1907, may
be regarded as marking the termination of the Federation's connection
with the I. W. W. This whole controversy between the I. W. W. and its
Mining Department, _i. e._, between the "proletarian rabble" (the
Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction) on the one hand, and on the other
the "reactionaries" (the Sherman-Hanneman faction), supported for the
most part by the Western Federation of Miners--all this frenzy of
squabbling is given a great deal of space in the _Miners' Magazine_
(the official journal of the Western Federation) during the last three
months of 1906.[255]
The men most prominent in the activities of the second convention were
Daniel DeLeon, Vincent St. John, C. O. Sherman, and Wm. E. Trautmann.
Members of the Socialist party were less prominent and numerous than
they had been a year before. Neither Mr. Simons nor Mr. Debs was
present at the 1906 meeting. The Socialist Labor party contingent was,
however, quite as strong as ever--one of its new delegates being Mr.
Paul Augustine, later the National Secretary of the Socialist Labor
party.[256] DeLeon's influence was as strong as ever. He was declared
to have controlled the convention--this was reiterated by individuals
both inside and outside. Ex-President Sherman, in a speech in his own
defense on the convention floor, said:
Delegate DeLeon has controlled this convention.... But, ...
while I endorse the underlying principles that are advocated
by the Socialist Labor party ... I am opposed to their tactics
and I do not hesitate to say that time will demonstrate to the
working class that their tactics are suicide [_sic_] to the
movement.[257]
The members of the Socialist party, naturally biased against the
Socialist Labor party, were quite ready to accuse its representatives
of steam-roller methods at the 1906 convention. As before, these
insinuations were quite correct in that the Socialist Labor party,
through its unofficial representatives, most of all through DeLeon,
did thus indirectly have a great deal of influence in the convention.
But it is yet open to question whether this influence was a pernicious
one. Moreover, the dominant policy of the convention was not an unmixed
DeLeon policy and the dominant group contained another element, _viz._,
the more thoroughgoing non-, or rather, _anti_-political faction,
attaching to no political party whatever. The chief spokesmen of this
element were William E. Trautmann, the Secretary-Treasurer, and Vincent
St. John,[258] who was to succeed the former in that office several
years later. He was a member and official of the Western Federation
of Miners, and a radical and enthusiastic devotee of the principle of
industrial unionism. He emphatically opposed the action of the Western
Federation officials at the 1906 convention and instead of following
the majority bolt from the I. W. W., he bolted the Western Federation
and was elected a member of the General Executive Board of the I. W.
W.[259]
These two men represented the alleged Anarchist end of the so-called
"DeLeon-Anarchist combine" and were the real spokesmen of the more
revolutionary element. They would have preferred to have had the
political clause of the Preamble stricken out, but were not powerful
enough to swing the majority of the delegates to that position and
finally agreed as a compromise to stand with DeLeon and his followers
for the retention of the political clause. The fight over the political
clause was thus postponed to a later convention.
The financial problem was from the first made more difficult by a kind
of dual unionism which was contrary to the spirit, at least, of the
I. W. W. law, but which was tolerated because quite unavoidable. The
involuntary connection of many local unions with more than one general
organization resulted in the subjection of such unions to the payment
of dues to each central organization. To relieve this excessive burden
of taxation it was decided by the General Executive Board to make a
discount from the regular dues in favor of all locals thus situated.
This discounting policy, felt to be necessary in order to hold many
unions in the organization, meant a loss of revenue which could ill be
borne.
Moreover, in consideration of some material equipment in the way of
office furniture and supplies, seals and charters were furnished free
of charge to all unions formerly with the American Labor Union or the
Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. To top all, the mismanagement
and extravagance resulting from discord in the general office, and
incompetence among the officials, almost strangled the organization
before its first anniversary. Debts were contracted with manufacturers
and
the inability to pay ... nearly endangered the very existence
of the organization, when threats were made to disclose the
real state of affairs to parties who were straining every nerve
to see the smashing of the I. W. W.... Personal loans had to be
contracted to deposit money at the bank when the account was
overdrawn and for three months in succession the constant fear
that these conditions would become known kept the real workers
on the administration from engaging enough assistance to carry
on the necessary work....[260]
Despite these difficulties there was turned into and expended from the
General Defense Fund (in addition to the voluntary subscriptions) the
sum of $8,910.00 in behalf of twelve different strikes. The report of
the auditing committee showed that there was on hand August 22, 1906, a
net balance of $3,555.92.[261]
FOOTNOTES:
[222] In a letter quoted by Brooks, _American Syndicalism: the I. W.
W._, p. 85.
[223] _The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods_ (1917 ed.), p. 6.
[224] "I. W. W. Conference Proceedings," _Miners' Magazine_, Sept. 6,
1906, p. 12.
[225] "I. W. W. Conference Proceedings," _loc. cit._, pp. 12, 13.
[226] "That Conference at Chicago," _Miners' Magazine_, Sept. 6, 1906,
p. 7.
[227] _International Socialist Review_, vol. vi, p. 435.
[228] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1901), p. 587.
[229] _Ibid._, p. 58.
[230] _Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin No. 4_, Dec, 1, 1906.
[231] _Proceedings, 15th W. F. M. Convention_ pp. 177-8.
[232] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1906), p. 226.
[233] Statement dated Oct. 4, 1906, _Miners' Magazine_, Oct, 11, 1906,
col. 2, p. 7.
[234] Letter dated Nov. 6, 1906, _Miners' Magazine_, Nov. 22, 1906, p.
11. Sherman published another letter in his own defence in the _Miners'
Magazine_ of Nov. 1, 1906, pp. 10-11.
[235] Letter dated Ada County Jail, Boise, Idaho, March 17, 1907.
Published in _Proceedings 15th Convention, W. F. M._ (1907), p. 584.
[236] Jean Spielman, _Mother Earth_, Dec. 1907, p. 458.
[237] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1906), p. 20.
[238] By a vote of 378 to 237, _ibid._, pp. 80, 94.
[239] William E. Trautmann, "A statement of facts," _Industrial Workers
of the World Bulletin, No. 4_, Dec. 1, 1906. _cf._ St. John, _I. W. W.,
History, Structure and Methods_ (3rd ed., 1913), p. 7.
[240] _Machinists' Monthly Journal_, vol. xviii, pp. 1109-10 (Dec,
1906). This announcement is dated Oct. 5, 1906 and carries the
following postscript: "Until we can get charge of the office again we
will be unable to furnish local secretaries with due stamps...." p.
1110.
[241] Mr. Sherman could not draw the money because the signature of the
Secretary-Treasurer was also necessary.
[242] These statements are condensed from the report given in the
_Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin, No. 4_, Dec. 1, 1906.
[243] "The W. F. M. officials supported the old officials of the
I. W. W. for a time financially and with the influence of their
official organ. The same is true of the Socialist party press and
administration. The radical element in the W. F. M. was finally able
to force the officials to withdraw that support. The old officials of
the I. W. W. then gave up all pretense of having an organization." (St.
John, _The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods_, 1917 ed., p. 7.)
[244] There is no connection between this paper and the _Industrial
Worker_ later published as a weekly at Spokane, Washington. Nor is this
latter the same Journal as the _Industrial Worker_ recently published
in Seattle. All are I. W. W. organs.
[245] "A Statement of Facts," _Industrial Workers of the World
Bulletin_, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906.
[246] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1906), p. 610.
[247] In the Report of the Socialist party of America to the Seventh
International Socialist Congress, _L'Internationale ouvrière et
socialiste. Édition française_, vol. i, pp. 23-32, "Les mécontents de
la Fédération."
[248] _Loc. cit._, p. 30. "La Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance a
obtenu le record d'avoir provoqué plus de disputes et de schismes au
sein des mouvements socialistes et ouvrièrs en Amérique, pendant ces
dernières années, que n'importe quel autre organisime, et son adhésion
au mouvement a été fatal à celui-ci." _Ibid._
[249] Translated from the French. _Loc. cit._, pp. 30-31.
[250] "Vincent St. John on the I. W. W. Convention," Letter to the
Editor, _Miners' Magazine_, Nov. 8, 1906, pp. 5-6.
[251] _Cf. supra_, p. 145. The report of the Master in Chancery,
_Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin_, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906.
[252] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_, p. 107.
[253] _Ibid._, pp. 50-51.
[254] The bolting delegates were: Mahoney, McMullen, Hendricks and R.
R. McDonald.
[255] Especially important are the various reports on the Second I. W.
W. Convention, appearing in the issue of October 18th.
[256] In general the members of the two Socialistic parties were
arrayed in opposing camps--the Socialist party men siding with the
Shermanites and the Socialist Labor men with DeLeon, of course.
[257] _Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1906), p. 271.
[258] Vincent St. John had been a member of the Western Federation of
Miners since 1894 and was in 1906 a member of the executive board of
that organization, but refused to leave the convention and join the
seceding Miners in 1907, choosing rather to bolt the W. F. of M. and
remain with the I. W. W.
[259] "St. John has given the mine owners of the [Colorado mining]
district more trouble in the past year than any twenty men up there. If
left undisturbed he would have the entire district organized in another
year." (Statement attributed to mine-owners' detectives and printed in
the _Rocky Mountain News_, Feb. 28, 1906, and quoted by Geo. Speed in a
letter to the _Weekly People_, April 7, 1906, p. 5, col. 1.)
[260] Report of General Secretary-Treasurer, _Proceedings, Second I. W.
W. Convention_, pp. 57-8.
[261] For complete itemized statement cf. the report of the auditing
committee, _vide Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention_ (1906), pp.
579-94. The cash balance was for some time after the close of the
convention inaccessible to the general officers. _Cf. supra_, p. 145.