CHAPTER X_The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism

THE I. W. W. ON THE "CIVILIZED PLANE"

(1908-1915)

The Detroit faction of the I. W. W. which in 1915 changed its name to

the Workers' International Industrial Union, never attained a strength

at all comparable to that of the direct-actionist group. In Appendix

IV are given what membership figures are available for both locals and

individual members. For the total membership, the figures in columns

3 and 4 (Table A) are probably the most accurate. They show that the

Detroiters had in 1910, two years after the schism of 1908, about 3,500

members. The following year their membership was about the same, but

in 1912 it very nearly reached 11,000. That was the year of maximum

membership, as it was also, except possibly for the year 1916, for the

Chicago faction. In every year the figures show a very much smaller

membership for the Detroit than for the Chicago faction. The difference

in favor of the direct-actionists is still more marked in regard to the

number of local unions. The Secretary-Treasurer of the Detroit faction

says that only one new local was organized in 1909--the year following

the split.[474] The following table shows the growth of local union

membership:[475]

DETROIT I. W. W.--MEMBERSHIP FIGURES

-------+-------------------------------+---------+------------

| New locals formed. | |

| | Defunct | Total No.

Year. |--------+-------------+--------| locals. | of locals.

-------+--------+-------------+--------+---------+------------

1908-9 | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 23

1910 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 16 | 14

1911 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 6 | 26

1912 | 7 | 25 | 32 | 24 | 34

1913 | 6 | 16 | 22 | 17 | 39

1914 | 5 | 9 | 14 | 4 | 49

1915 | 1 | 1 | 2 | .. | 51[476]

-------+--------+-------------+--------+---------+------------

The reports of membership from the Detroit office are probably

generous, to say the least. The Secretary wrote on October 23, 1911:

"Our membership at present is about 10,000. Locals ... in nearly all

states as well as Canada. Organizations identical with ours ... in

principle and method are active in England, Australia and Africa."[477]

On March 30, 1912, he wrote that the membership had "passed the 20,000

mark." When the Detroiters held their national convention in 1913--it

was called by them the Sixth I. W. W. Convention--there were 17 locals

represented by delegates and the Secretary reported a membership of

11,584. Twenty-two new locals had been organized, he said, during the

year ending September, 1913.[478] "The principal reverse," says the

correspondent of the _Weekly People_, "was the lapsing of 14 locals,

an unfortunate occurrence caused solely by the financial inability of

headquarters to send out organizers...." The local unions represented

at the convention included the silk workers of Paterson, N. J.; car

and foundry, carpenters', and a "mixed" union in Detroit; a metal

and machinery, and a "mixed" local in Chicago; metal workers of Erie,

Pa.; hotel and restaurant, "public service" and lumber workers in

Seattle; mattress makers in Columbus, Ohio; and "mixed" locals in

Lynn, Mass., San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, and New York

City. The convention voted down a resolution to change the name of the

organization and alter the "political clause" of the Preamble--the

vital part of it which kept the I. W. W. high and dry on the civilized

plane.[479] The Secretary reports that while the membership of the

Detroit faction includes workers from nearly all industries the chief

industries represented are the following: textile, garment making,

metal and machinery, tobacco, food stuffs, furniture, transportation,

automobile, building, lumber, printing, shoe making, and public

service.[480]

The DeLeonites probably held a convention in 1914, but the writer

has not come across any report of it. In September, 1915, they held

an "Eighth I. W. W. Convention" in Detroit. A brief report of the

proceedings in their official organ indicates that, in addition to

three officers, there were present seven accredited delegates from the

following cities: Hartford, Conn., St. Louis, Columbus, Detroit and

Cristobal, Panama.[481]

Not only were DeLeonite locals fewer in number than the

direct-actionist locals, but their average length of life was

undoubtedly shorter. The General Secretary-Treasurer says that the

more important reasons for the disbanding of locals were opposition

by employers after strikes, the removal of members to other cities

in search of work, and the lack of men and women for the work of

organizing.[482] In reply to a letter addressed to the secretary of a

certain local in New York, the writer was informed that "there is now

no such local union."

We had an organization [the former secretary says] under the

Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, which was begun in 1897 and

which, though greatly reduced, was continued until the I. W. W.

was organized in 1905. [Then] ... it grew to about 250 members,

but after the split in 1908 it began to decline, and though we

tried several times to reorganize, we failed and it has gone

out of existence.[483]

Another typical case is that of a cigarmakers' local in Baltimore,

which, according to its former secretary, started in November, 1913,

with 22 members and "increased the wages of all the cigarmakers in

the city from 50 cents to $1.00 per thousand." In January, 1914, the

local had 350 members. Then came evil days. "The strike forced on us by

the Royal Havana ... demoralized the membership [and] the S[ocialist]

P[arty] members added to the confusion by creating dissensions. In

the year 1915 the organization was non-existent," and remains so,

probably.[484]

The Detroit faction being much less exclusively reliant on the more

strictly economic methods of carrying on the labor struggle, was

naturally much less addicted to strikes. Nevertheless they did conduct

a number of them. In May, 1910, the laborers of the Michigan Malleable

Iron Company of Detroit, after being on strike two weeks, were given

an increase in wages. In April, 1911, the DeLeonites conducted a

strike of structural-iron painters in New York, in which 200 men

were involved. The following month they called out 40 machinists

in Canton, Ohio. Their most important strike efforts were made in

1911 and 1912 in the silk mills of Paterson and Passaic, N. J., and

Easton, Pa. In these strikes the two I. W. W.s very often clashed.

Rudolph Katz, of the Detroiters, reports that during the silk strike

of 1911-12 "the silk workers of Paterson ... joined the Detroit I. W.

W. _en masse_" but that "in the midst of the strike Wm. D. Haywood

was brought to Paterson and Passaic ... and the apple of discord was

thrown among the strikers."[485] The Socialist Labor party reported

the Paterson-Passaic situation to the Socialist Congress at Vienna

in 1914: "In the big textile strike in Passaic, N. J.," their report

says, "this organization [_i. e._, the S. L. P. or Detroit I. W. W.]

was fought by both the Socialist party and the Chicago I. W. W.-ites,

with Haywood leading this opposition and the capitalist press ably

supporting their flank.... That strike of 4,000 men, women and children

was lost through such treachery." The report adds that a few months

earlier in 1912 "the Detroit I. W. W. won a great strike of 6,000

silk weavers."[486] On December 20, 1913, one of the Paterson members

of the DeLeonite faction sent the following dispatch to the _Weekly

People_: "Local 152, Bummery Bunch, did their best to pack last night's

meeting [of the Paterson silk workers] but only partly succeeded. Many

legitimate delegates raised their voices against anarchy expressed

through sabotage and direct action...."[487] Contrary to the foregoing

evidence, the testimony of Adolph Lessig before the United States

Commission on Industrial Relations seems to indicate that there were

no serious differences between the two I. W. W.s during the Paterson

strike. Lessig says that there was no attempt to either quarrel or get

together.[488]

In 1913 the Detroiters were also concerned in several smaller strikes.

They report a successful strike of textile workers at Mystic, Conn.,

in January; a successful strike involving 50 Philadelphia mechanics in

August, and one involving 16 cigarmakers in Baltimore, who won the wage

increase demanded. In 1914 and 1915 a few San Francisco ladies' tailors

were on strike against the piecework system and alleged bad treatment.

They were both reported as successful.

The two I. W. W.s continued to hate each other quite as much as they

hated the capitalists, reformers, progressives, and Socialists. St.

John has a paragraph in his historical sketch of the (Chicago) I.

W. W. which may very well stand as the official expression of the

direct-actionists' opinion of the doctrinaires. He says:

The politicians [_i. e._, the Socialist Laborites] attempted to

set up another organization claiming to be the real industrial

movement. It is nothing but a duplicate of their political

party and does not function at all. It is committed to a

program of the "civilized plane," _i. e._, parliamentarism.

Its publications are the official organs of a political sect

that never misses an opportunity to assail the revolutionary

workers while they are engaged in combat with some division

of the ruling class. Their favorite method is to charge the

revolutionists with all the crimes that a cowardly imagination

can conjure into being. "Dynamiters, assassins, thugs,

murderers, thieves," etc., are stock phrases. Their only virtue

is that they put their assertions into print, while the other

wing of the politicians [the Socialist party men] spread their

venom in secret.[489]

In May, 1914, St. John testified as the official representative

of the I. W. W. before the United States Commission on Industrial

Relations. The Detroit I. W. W.s, he said, "have no information--do

not give out any information; have no organization except on paper,

and are committed to the program of capturing plates at the political

pie-counter ... and trading ... on the name of the I. W. W. That is the

way they keep alive."[490] At the Seattle hearings of the Commission in

August, 1914, James P. Thompson, at one time the General Organizer of

the Chicago I. W. W., expressed himself on the subject of the other I.

W. W. He said that the Detroiters were "quite different from the I. W.

W."

They stole our name [he went on]. They have a political idea

instead of the union idea.... After the 1908 convention, when

the politicians of the Socialist Labor Party found themselves

outside of the I. W. W., they held a conference in Paterson, N.

J., and they decided they would [have] an organization of their

own, with a political clause; and when they came to decide on a

name there was much debate. [The name "Socialist Labor Union"

was proposed.] ... But another motion prevailed, and they stole

the name of the I. W. W., and called themselves the Industrial

Workers of the World, although they don't amount to much.[491]

What the doctrinaires thought of the direct-actionists--or at least

what their leaders wanted workingmen in general to think of them--is

of equal importance. In a leaflet published by the Detroit faction we

are told that "the anarchist element that still calls itself the I. W.

W. proceeded from the close of the 1908 convention to reveal its true

nature by its actions. The western official organ of this element '_The

Industrial Worker_,' of Spokane, Wash., began to advocate theft, petty

larceny, chicken-stealing, breaking up small employment agencies, and

also advised the workers to 'strike at the ballot-box with an ax.'"[492]

When the doctrinaires held their 1915 convention (the "Eighth I. W. W.

Convention") General Secretary Richter, in his report, took pains to

pay his compliments to the direct-actionists.

The anarcho-syndicalist aggregation [he said], the so-called

"Chicago I. W. W." which in 1908 with great blare of trumpets

was going to show the workers how to get out of capitalism,

_via_ "sabotage" and "direct action" in double-quick time--what

is left of them has a precarious existence, trimmed to a

frazzle by the relentless forces of social progress, their

panaceas shrivelled, they make indeed a sorry-looking

crowd.[493]

A few months before this, Richter remarked: "Many of the followers of

the Saint [St. John] and 'Big Bill' [Haywood] are a sadder but wiser

lot. Hundreds have already joined the Socialist [meaning the Detroit]

I. W. W., and more are on the way."[494]

The Chicago I. W. W. was bracketed with the American Federation of

Labor as being equally with it a snare and a delusion to the working

class.

We find the Bummery [the Chicago I. W. W.] denying the

ballot-box; we find the American Federation of Labor denying

the class struggle and proclaiming the identity of interest

between master and slave; we find the Socialist party of

America ... seeking the support of the craft union; ... we

find the Socialist Labor party which says the workers must own

collectively the land and the tools; ... we find the I. W. W.

of Detroit which says the workers must come together on the

political and industrial fields....[495]

A sober explanation of the DeLeonites' position as compared with the

American Federation of Labor and the "Bummery" was made by Rudolph Katz

to the Commission on Industrial Relation. He said that the Chicago I.

W.W.s look upon the ballot as a gift from the capitalist class. The

Detroit I. W. W.s consider the ballot "a conquest of civilization,

and," continued Katz,

we are going to use it. Now a body that repudiates the ballot

naturally has to take something else, such as sabotage and

direct action. Now the American Federation of Labor does not

preach sabotage, but it practices it; and the Chicago I. W. W.

preaches sabotage but does not practice it.... The position

that we take [he concluded] is that if we have the majority,

and the capitalists [and] officials who count the ballots ...

refuse to count us in, well,--then there will be a scrap. But

we are going to test the peaceful method first.[496]

The DeLeonites cite the recent strike of the clothing workers in

Baltimore in support of their strictures on the Federation and the

Chicago I. W. W. They call it "a desperate attempt" by the "Bummery" I.

W. W. and the American Federation of Labor to crush out the Amalgamated

Clothing Workers. The strike was directed, they say, by leaders of

the United Garment Workers, the American Federation of Labor, and the

Chicago I. W. W.[497]

The struggle that is raging in Baltimore between the

Amalgamated Clothing Workers, on the one side, and the American

Federation of Labor and the Bummery I. W. W. on the other

side, is a struggle of clean _versus_ corrupt unionism.... In

this Baltimore affair we have revealed the kinship between the

Bummery I. W. W. and the American Federation of Labor. These

are both nothing more than parasites upon workingmen....[498]

The Detroiters and the Socialist Labor party fight the

anarcho-syndicalist faction of the I. W. W., according to the report of

the party to the International Socialist Congress at Brussels in 1911,

because the direct-actionists "advocate physical force exclusively; at

the same time it [the Socialist Labor party] gives all possible support

to the workers who, even under the otherwise baneful leadership of

anarchy, are trying to throw off the yoke of the capitalist masters and

the reactionary trade-union lieutenants of those masters."[499]

The doctrinaires consider the Chicago I. W. W.s anarchists and

themselves socialists--but socialists of a simon-pure Marxian stripe

as opposed to the opportunist socialism of the Socialist party. In

one of their propaganda leaflets they declare that "the only labor

organization in the United States today which is wholly dominated by

anarchists is the so-called Industrial Workers of the World, with

headquarters, in Chicago, Ill."[500] A propaganda leaflet already

quoted sums up in very characteristic fashion the theoretical position

of the DeLeonites:

This, then, is the inspiring task of the I. W. W., and its

purpose and reason of being: To decry the ballot, which is

a civilized method of settling social issues; to advocate

physical force only; to preach petty larceny, rioting,

smashing machines, and all these things that come under

the term "direct action," is unnecessary, and also invites

disaster to the workers and helps the forces of reaction. Such

measures are suicidal and condemned by civilization. For these

reasons the _bona fide_ I. W. W. sets its face like flint

against any organization that teaches such tragedy-producing

tactics. The working class cannot "sabotage," cannot dynamite

itself into possession of the plants of production. Its only

requisite and available _might_ is its sound, class-conscious,

properly-constructed Industrial Union. With such it is

irresistible. By such agency, and by it alone, can it take

permanent possession of the tools of production, and only in

that way can civilization be saved from a catastrophe. As has

been well said, "Right without Might is a fool's pastime; Might

without Right is the sport of the savage."[501]

Eugene Debs, who was one of the leading spirits in the organization

of the I. W. W. in 1905, and who thought that the elimination of

the political clause by the Chicago faction in 1908 was a monstrous

blunder, endorsed the position of the DeLeonites on political action.

"This faction," said Debs, "is corner-stoned in the true principles of

unionism in reference to political action."[502] He thought that there

was "no essential difference between the Chicago and Detroit factions

of the I. W. W." "If I am right in believing that a majority of the

rank and file of the Chicago faction favor political action," he said,

"then there is no reason why this majority should not consolidate

with the Detroit faction, and thus put an end to the division of

these forces."[503] Debs was of the opinion that, if the I. W. W. had

continued as it began, "a revolutionary industrial union, recognizing

the need of political as well as industrial action, instead of being

hamstrung by its own leaders and converted ... into an anti-political

machine, it would today be the most formidable labor organization in

America, if not the world."

The end of the bifurcated era of I. W. W. history came in September,

1915, when the DeLeonites at their national convention (called the

"Eighth I. W. W. Convention") changed their name to the Workers'

International Industrial Union, and the _Weekly People_[504] announced:

"The Industrial Workers of the World as founded at Chicago in 1905

is no more." The reason given by the Detroiters for the change was

virtually that the "Bummery" had disgraced the letters "I. W. W."

"The name I. W. W.," declared Fellow Worker Crawford, "has come to be

associated with petty larceny and other slum tactics. It is up to us to

choose a new name so as to escape the odium attached to the one we now

bear."[505] Their attitude was more fully explained in an announcement

by the General Secretary-Treasurer in their official journal.

While the principles, methods and form of organization adopted

in 1905 have stood the test of time [the announcement runs]

a new element has asserted itself under the name of I. W. W.

whose practices and beliefs are different and opposed to

socialist Industrial Unionism. The capitalists and their

hirelings, quick to exploit any condition that serves their

interests, boosted along the shouters of "sabotage" and "direct

action" with such success since 1906 that today "I. W. W."

stands for lunatics on a rampage, in the public mind and a

large portion of the workers.[506]

The name Socialist Labor Union, originally proposed in 1908,

was again discussed and considered very seriously because their

desire was appropriately to label an organization which claimed to

stand for "socialist class unionism." Finally, however, the name,

Workers' International Industrial Union, was decided upon "as most

appropriate for the designation of the economic wing of the Socialist

movement."[507]

The W. I. I. U. soon issued a "Manifesto of Socialist Industrial

Unionism" which explained the principles of the newly-christened

organization. The W. I. I. U., declares the Manifesto,

refuses to conduct the class struggle on the lines of a

dog fight. It does not sanction lawlessness on the part of

employers, the capitalists and their hirelings by doing

likewise. It condemns "sabotage" and all such childish

practices by any one as useless for the working class and

harmful to real progress.[508]

FOOTNOTES:

[474] _Private correspondence_, Feb. 17, 1915.

[475] Arranged from figures given by Secretary-Treasurer Richter in

letter dated Feb. 17, 1915.

[476] Includes 15 mixed locals.

[477] _Private correspondence._

[478] Report of the convention by Russell Palmer, _Weekly People_,

September 27, 1913.

[479] Palmer, _op. cit._

[480] _Private correspondence_, H. Richter, Feb. 17, 1915. "Public

service" refers, for the most part, to unskilled laborers working for

municipalities--on street work, etc.

[481] _Industrial Union News_, October and November, 1915.

[482] _Private correspondence_, Secretary H. Richter, Feb. 17, 1915.

[483] _Private correspondence_, H. D. Deutsch, April 23, 1916.

[484] Letter from the former secretary, April 14, 1916.

[485] "With DeLeon since '89," _Weekly People_, Jan. 22, 1916, p. 3.

[486] _Weekly People_, Aug. 22, 1914, p. 2, cols. 2, 3. Report of

Socialist Labor party to the International Socialist Congress, Vienna,

Aug. 23-9, 1914.

[487] "R. H. P." in _Weekly People_, Dec. 27, 1913, p. 1.

[488] _Report of Testimony U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations_,

vol. iii, p. 2456.

[489] "The I. W. W. History, Structure and Methods" (1st ed.), pp. 9-10.

[490] _Report of Testimony, U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations_,

vol. ii, p. 1458.

[491] _Ibid._, vol. v, pp. 4240 (Aug. 12, 1914).

[492] "_The Two I. W. W.'s_" (Detroit I. W. W. leaflet).

[493] _Industrial Union News_, October, 1915, p. 3, col. 5.

[494] "The I. W. W. and its Activities," _The Weekly People_, March 20,

1915, p. 2, col. 2.

[495] _Weekly People_, February 21, 1913, p. 2.

[496] _Report of Testimony, U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations_,

vol. iii, p. 2482.

[497] _Weekly People_, Aug. 19, 1916, pp. 1-2.

[498] _Weekly People_ (Editorial), Aug. 19, 1916, p. 4, col. 4.

[499] "Le Socialist Labor party combat ceux-ci parce qu'ils prêchent

'seulement la force physique', mais en même temps je donne tout l'appui

qu'il peut aux travailleurs qui, même sous la direction autrement

funeste de l'anarchie, tentent de se délivrer du joug des maîtres

capitalistes et de leurs réactionnaires lieutenants des syndicats de

métier." ["L'Unité socialiste en Amérique: Memoire de la Commission

Executive Nationale du Socialist Labor party (Parti Socialiste

Ouvrière) au Bureau Socialiste Internationale"--Bulletin Périodique du

Bureau Socialiste Internationale. _2e_ année, no. 7, p. 30. (Brussels,

1911).]

[500] Detroit I. W. W. leaflet, "Two Enemies of Labor."

[501] Detroit I. W. W. propaganda leaflet, "The Two I. W. W.'s."

[502] "A Plea for Solidarity," _International Socialist Review_, March,

1914, vol. xiv, p. 536, col. 2.

[503] _Ibid._, p. 537, col. 1.

[504] October 9, 1915, p. 1.

[505] Report of the convention, _Industrial Union News_, October, 1915,

p. 2.

[506] H. Richter, "The Workers' International Industrial Union,"

_Industrial Union News_, January, 1916, p. 1.

[507] H. Richter, _ibid._

[508] W. I. I. U. leaflet No. 1, "Principles of the W. I. I. U."

PART III

THE DIRECT-ACTIONISTS

CHAPTER XI

FREE SPEECH AND SABOTAGE

The existence between 1908 and 1915 of two national labor organizations

bearing the name, Industrial Workers of the World (or "I. W. W."),

with labels of identical design--bodies closely paralleling each

other in scope and structure despite their disparity in doctrine and

tactics--makes it very difficult to discuss either group, or I. W.

W.-ism in general, without ambiguity. The I. W. W. which has been most

advertised in the United States is the Chicago, or "Direct-Actionist,"

or "Anarcho-Syndicalist," or "Anti-Political," or "Bummery" or "red" I.

W. W. This is the I. W. W. which was actively interested in the strikes

at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Wheatland, California, and many other

places, and in "free speech" fights at Spokane, Fresno, and San Diego.

They are the "Wobblies" of the West. In this present work they are

considered, entirely without prejudice to the admittedly more "correct"

and consistent position of the doctrinaires of the Detroit wing, to be

_the_ I. W. W. The doctrinaires are the socialistic, pro-political,

"yellow" I. W. W.

It is proposed in these chapters to sketch the main lines of

development of the Chicago organization from 1908 to the present

time, as well as to indicate the general character of its activities

from year to year. The important and bitterly fought struggle at the

seventh and eighth conventions in 1912 and 1913 over the question of

decentralization is described as faithfully as possible. The relations

between the I. W. W. and the Socialist party are set forth, especially

in connection with the adoption of the famous _sabotage_ clause by

the Socialist party at its Indianapolis convention in 1912. The newer

phases of the organizing and propaganda work of the I. W. W., the

free-speech fights, and its increased activity among the unskilled and

floating laborers are described. No attempt is made here to go into

the various strikes and free-speech controversies in more than a very

cursory manner. This is not because their importance is underestimated.

The writer feels that the field work of the "Wobblies" is really the

most significant part of their history, if for no other reason than

that the I. W. W. expends perhaps more energy in proportion to its

strength and resources in propaganda, organizing and advertising

work afield than does almost any other labor organization in the

country. The more striking episodes in the career of the I. W. W.,

like the Lawrence strike and the Wheatland hop riots, have, however,

been extensively written up in the magazines and recorded as well

in scientific journals and government reports. On the contrary, the

vicissitudes of the career of the I. W. W. as an organized body of

workers have never even been recited.

The split of 1908 left the direct-actionists in almost as weak a

condition as the doctrinaires. The weakness of the latter has been

chronic. The former were able to develop great strength because they

had modified their theories to the extent necessary to make some

appreciable application of them to the actual conditions of economic

life. They were confronted by conditions and met them at the cost

of doctrinal consistency. They were unconscious pragmatists and the

result is that they have made themselves felt to a much greater

extent than the doctrinaires. They have been strikingly successful as

gadflies--stinging and shocking the _bourgeoisie_ into the initiation

of reforms. If the "anarcho-syndicalist" I. W. W. may not properly be

called a successful organization, there is at least this much to be

said for it: it has been a far less _unsuccessful_ organization than

has the doctrinaire faction.

For some time after the split in 1908 the Industrial Workers of the

World scarcely more than kept alive. The membership dwindled and

locals expired by the score. Between September, 1908, and May 1, 1910,

only sixty-six new local unions were chartered.[509] Only in 1911 did

their number begin to increase, and even then it was a halting and

fitful progress. Levine writes that the I. W. W. had "shrunk to a mere

handful of leaders, revolutionary in spirit and ideals, and persevering

in action, with a small, scattered and shifting following and an

unsatisfactory administrative machinery."[510]

During the year 1909 the organization was actively interested in a

number of strikes. The most important of these was the McKees Rocks

(Pennsylvania) strike in which 6,000 employees of the Pressed Steel Car

Company were out for two months. Other strikes of the year involved the

lumbermen at Somers and Kalispell, Montana; Eureka, California, and

Prince Rupert, B. C.; the sheet and tin plate workers at New Castle

and Shenango, Pennsylvania; and the farm laborers at Waterville,

Washington. Secretary Trautmann believed that these "constant

irritative strikes" were more than all else responsible for the fact

that less than one-third the gross membership was active (dues-paying)

membership. These strikes, he said, involved half the membership in the

course of one year.[511]

It was in this same year that the I. W. W. made its bow to the American

public as the militant jail and soap-box belligerent in the free-speech

fight. As early as April, 1906, there was a minor clash between

the police and the "Wobblies," but it was not until nearly three

years later that the I. W. W. free-speech epidemic assumed national

proportions. Since 1909 the I. W. W.s have attracted quite as much

attention by their dramatic free-speech controversies with municipal

authorities here and there as they have by the time-honored resort

to the strike. During the next few years after the schism of 1908

these free-speech struggles became rather frequent. The Pacific slope

is the most fruitful soil for these conflicts. Labor is more mobile

there, and when the organizers in any particular town are arrested for

preaching revolution a more effective call to "foot-loose Wobblies"

for an "invasion" is possible. On the Pacific slope the "Wobblies"

almost literally broke into the jails by hundreds. They came to speak,

but with the nearly certain foreknowledge that they would be collared

by the police before they said many words. They simply crowded the

jails, and in this way, as they intended, clogged the machinery of

municipal administration by making themselves the guests of the city

in such numbers as to be no inconsiderable burden to their real hosts,

the taxpayers. Vincent St. John, then Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W.

W., recently told the United States Commission on Industrial Relations

that "wherever any local union becomes involved in a free-speech fight

they notify the general office and that information is sent to all the

local unions, ... with the request that if they have any members that

are foot-loose to send them along." Mr. St. John stated, however, that

the general (_i. e._, the national) organization does not in any way

finance or manage these free-speech fights except to contribute, so far

as possible, at the call of the locals. The management of the struggle

is in the hands, of the local union or unions most interested.[512]

The same tactics are pursued in nearly every instance--a policy of

sullen non-resistance on the part of the I. W. W. and of wholesale

jailing by the authorities. The trouble always seems to begin because

local authorities are revolted by--or at least nervously apprehensive

about--either the substance of the I. W. W. speeches or the language in

which their ideas are conveyed, or both. The remarks are alleged to be

seditious, incendiary, unpatriotic, immoral, _etc._, or, whether they

are any or all these or none of them, they are alleged to be profane

or vulgar beyond the limits of forbearance. In the judgment of the

writer the latter charge can be laid at the door of the I. W. W. with

far greater justification than can the former. Refinement is not the

Wobblies' long suit. How could it be? Our town fathers ought to be

somewhat more tolerant of a want of refinement which is more or less

inevitable under the conditions--for which conditions, moreover, they

are in part responsible.

As to the first charge, it can only be remarked that suppression of

what authorities think is subversive and seditious almost invariable

has the same effect as would an effort to smother an active volcano.

The ideas get expressed anyhow--and more bitterly, with the added

circumstance that those who try to do the smothering are burnt.

Of course, it is not easy to determine at just what point language

becomes directly provocative to violence. This limit of possible

official tolerance is far less often reached than would be indicated

by the actual conduct of local officials in these circumstances. "It

cannot be considered as provocative of immediate disorder," says

Police Commissioner Arthur Woods, of New York, "if speakers criticize,

no matter how vehemently, the existing order of things, or if they

recommend, no matter how enthusiastically, a change which they believe

would improve things."[513] When George Creel was police commissioner

in Denver he took a similar position and worked on the theory that all

ideas could be safely given a hearing. He is reported to have given

the following answer to an I. W. W. committee which applied to him

for a "soap-box permit": "Go ahead, boys; speak as much as you like;

only there's just one favor I'm going to ask. I wish you wouldn't

spout directly under the army headquarters. They're not important, but

they're childish, and they'll make me lots of bother if you do."[514]

The result: nothing more happened than happens when the mine operators

say that the leaders of the United Mine Workers ought to be taken out

and shot. There was free speech but no fight.

After the experience of Spokane, Fresno, and San Diego some members

of the organization at least recognized that no matter how absolute

their right to pitch into established institutions from every angle,

the sober necessities of a successful propaganda for revolutionary

industrial unionism demanded more concentration upon that subject. In

September, 1913, Ewald Koetgen, a member of the General Executive

Board, made this suggestion to the delegates at the eighth convention:

If you confine yourself strictly to the propaganda of

industrial unionism, and then they prohibit you from using the

street corner, you have a much stronger case. Many ... attack

everybody, the police, the city officials, religion, politics,

and everything else. They speak about everything under the

sun and these pretexts are used in order to keep them off the

street, whereas, in a good many cities, the organizer could go

and speak on industrial unionism, and be left there a whole lot

longer....[515]

In the fall of 1909 there were no less than three important free-speech

campaigns conducted by the I. W. W. These were staged at Missoula,

Montana; Spokane, Washington; and New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1910

small "fights" were conducted in the spring and summer in Wenatchee

and Walla Walla, Washington, and during the fall a much more important

one at Fresno, California. This latter struggle continued until March,

1911. From this time until the end of the year 1913 hardly a mouth

elapsed that did not witness a more or less important free-speech

controversy between the Wobblies and the municipal authorities in some

part of the United States. In the five-year period, 1909-1913, there

were at least twenty free-speech campaigns of importance, continuing

under definite I. W. W. direction for periods ranging from a few days

to more than six months. The most important of these disturbances

was that at San Diego, which broke out about February 1, 1912, and

continued until late the following summer. Since 1913 free speech has

been a less important issue with the I. W. W., and there have been

comparatively few such disturbances.

Paterson, New Jersey, Aberdeen, South Dakota, Old Forge, Pennsylvania,

and Everett, Washington, are almost the only cases of any great

importance. The most serious of these was the Everett free-speech

controversy which culminated in the fatal tragedy of November 6, 1916.

The attitude of the residents of the cities where free-speech

fights have been staged was naturally bitterly hostile. This was

most strikingly noticeable in business and commercial circles and

was of course reflected in the daily press. In San Diego during the

free-speech fight the local papers, almost without exception, kept up

a running fire of editorial abuse of the I. W. W.s. "Hanging is none

too good for them," said the _Tribune_; "they would be much better

dead, for they are absolutely useless in the human economy; they are

the waste material of creation and should be drained off into the

sewer of oblivion there to rot in cold obstruction like any other

excrement."[516] In the face of such a tirade it is interesting to read

the report of the Special Commissioner sent by Governor Hiram Johnson

to investigate the disturbances in San Diego. Commissioner Weinstock

took pains to follow up the stories of the brutality and cruelty of the

self-constituted citizens' committee of Vigilantes not only to the I.

W. W.s but also to any who were outspoken enough to defend them or who

were alleged to have aided and abetted them. Mr. Weinstock says that he

"is frank to confess that when he became satisfied of the truth of the

stories ... it was hard for him to believe that he was not sojourning

in Russia, conducting his investigation there instead of in this

alleged 'land of the free and home of the brave.'"[517]

The organization made no attempt to hold a convention in 1909, but in

May, 1910, the fifth convention met in Chicago. On the first day there

were twenty-two delegates present, representing forty-two local unions

in the following states: California, Colorado, Montana, Rhode Island,

Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, Arizona,

Indiana, and in British Columbia. Judging from the very fragmentary

records available there was little business of any importance

transacted at this meeting. The delegates adopted a resolution to

"reaffirm the original [Industrial Union] Manifesto of 1905,..."[518]

and dispersed.

In September, 1911, fifteen months later, a somewhat more successful

convention was held. This sixth annual meeting of the I. W. W. was in

point of size almost as insignificant as the preceding one, thirty-one

delegates from eleven states being present. In addition to the regular

delegates there were present three "fraternal delegates" from the

Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Twenty-one locals were represented

in addition to the locals included in the Textile Workers National

Industrial Union of the I. W. W.--the only "national industrial union

at that time included in the organization."[519] The convention was

harmonious, and there is, therefore, the less to chronicle. "Most

of the delegates were young men full of the fire and enthusiasm of

youth. 'Intellectuals' were conspicuous by their absence."[520] We

are told that very few changes were made in the organic law of the

organization. Proposals were made, however, by the score. In the

appendix to the _Minutes_ is a list containing seventy resolutions

which were presented on the floor of the convention.[521] The question

of politics was scarcely touched upon. An anti-parliamentary resolution

was voted down without discussion. The bulk of the delegates were

undoubtedly _non_-parliamentarians, that is to say, indifferent about

politics and legislative action. An official report of the convention

in the _Industrial Worker_ says that the report of General Organizer

Trautmann, which it declared would be published later in _Solidarity_,

was a scathing indictment of the criminal alliance between the

A. F. of L. fakirs and the self-styled revolutionary socialist

politicians, who, as the report shows, time and again have

acted in full concert in defeating strikes rather than to allow

the workers to win with I. W. W. methods--methods whose success

spells ruination for the political and craft union movements

which are sucking the life blood of the working class.[522]

Mr. Trautmann later transfered his allegiance to the Socialist Labor

party faction. The _Weekly People_ (the official S. L. P. organ) of

July 26, 1913, published (on page 2) a letter from Trautmann to Eugene

V. Debs in which he says:

In the convention of 1911 of the Industrial Workers of

the World my report contained a scathing attack on the

anti-political politicians and the never-will-I-work scavengers

who pose as organizers and spokesmen of the organization. The

convention ordered that report to be printed ... [but] Vincent

St. John and his clique put away the report and it never

appeared.

Official reports of the convention claimed that there had been "a

gradual increase in the moral, financial and numerical strength of the

I. W. W." This claim is not entirely justified by available figures.

The number of locals in the organization was but slightly, if any,

greater. Fewer charters were issued and more locals disbanded in 1911

than in 1910. The membership figures are conflicting, those furnished

by the Secretary-Treasurer making a less favorable showing than those

of Professor Barnett.[523] Mr. St. John says that the membership of the

organization in good standing in October, 1911, was about 10,000.

We do not claim anything [he said] except membership in good

standing; as a matter of fact, however, the General Office has

issued 60,000 due books in the past eighteen months and of

this number only about one in ten keeps in good standing, due

to the kind of work the membership of the most part follow.

They are engaged in construction, harvesting and working in

the woods, _etc._ This means that they are out of touch with

the organization the greater part of the year either on the

job or moving about the country looking for work, and of

course they cannot and do not keep in good standing, but as

they drift into town they pay up. In passing, it may be stated

that the above number is the largest membership the I. W. W.

has had since its inception, except when the W. F. of M. was

supposed to be a part of the organization. I know that the

second annual convention reports claim 60,000 members, but the

books of the organization did not justify any such claim; in

fact, the average paid-up membership with the W. F. of M. for

the first year of the organization was 14,000 members in round

numbers.[524]

There was at this time a very considerable gain in particular

industries, such as metal working and railroad and building

construction. This development is indicated in Table 1, which shows the

average membership of the I. W. W. in the specified industries during

the period 1910-1913:

TABLE 1[525]

AVERAGE MEMBERSHIP (CHICAGO) I. W. W.--1910-1913, BY INDUSTRIES

----------------------------------+----------------------------

| Average Membership.

|------+------+------+-------

Industry. | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913

----------------------------------+------+------+------+-------

Textile | 4300 | 4397 | 9637 | 1550

Lumber | 1200 | 800 | 1227 | 650

Marine transport | .. | .. | .. | 2100

Metal | 200 | 2000 | 144 | 300

Automobile | 300 | 500 | 83 | 150

Hotel and Restaurant | 150 | 100 | 151 | 50

Building Construction | 150 | 600 | 204 | 1200

Railroad Construction | 1000 | 1800 | 2366 | 1755

Tobacco | 100 | 400 | 200 | 450

Packing House | 100 | 75 | 69 | 50

Public Service | .. | .. | .. | 1700

Coal Mining | 200 | 200 | 207 | 250

Railroad Transportation | .. | .. | .. | 100

Street Railways | .. | .. | .. | 50

Farm Workers | .. | .. | .. | 100

Oil | .. | 50 | 61 | 50

Rubber | .. | .. | .. | 150

Furniture | .. | .. | .. | 100

Electric Power | .. | .. | .. | 150

Reed and Rattan | .. | .. | .. | 100

Amusement | .. | 25 | 130 | 50

Musical Instruments (Piano, etc.) | 100 | 200 | 226 | 450

Leather | .. | .. | 150 | ..

Mixed Locals | 1300 | 1537 | 3532 | 2800

|------+------+------+-------

| 9100 |12834 |18387 |14305

----------------------------------+------+------+------+-------

If figures are ever misleading, they are so in reference to the

"Wobblies." They are presented, however, in the belief that they have

some significance. The organization was now unquestionably picking

up. In 1910 there had been a number of I. W. W. strikes--nine at any

rate in which the organization was actively interested. In April, the

farm hands of North Yamhill, Oregon, who "had been handing out the

principles of revolutionary unionism in huge, raw chunks,"[526] walked

out on account of the discharge of some of their number. In August, the

Gas Works' laborers in southern California, chiefly Mexicans, were out

for about two weeks for higher wages. The settlement as reported fixed

wages at $2.25 and provided that only I. W. W.s were to be employed in

the future. A strike of the window cleaners in Providence for a wage

increase and the closed shop was reported won. These instances will

give an idea of the character of the strikes and the workers involved.

In 1910 there appear to have been very few strikes in which the I. W.

W. was interested. Such meager data as are available about I. W. W.

strikes have been gathered together in Appendix VIII.

Although 1911 was an inactive year as regards strikes, the condition of

the organization was not nearly so hopeless as it had been.

Despite the prevailing "hard times," [writes "The Commentator"]

the I. W. W. is (in February, 1911) upheld by six weekly

papers of its own.... Far from being weak and emaciated, as

in 1907, the I. W. W. is putting up a robust fight for free

speech and assemblage at Fresno, Cal.; and is giving the Shoe

Manufacturers' Association of Greater New York the struggle

of their lives--a struggle in which for the first time the

employers combat an organization which means to make the shop

the collective property of the workers....[527]

Another indication of growth was the expansion of the I. W. W. press.

At the close of the fourth convention the I. W. W. had only one

paper, the _Industrial Union Bulletin_, which suspended publication

early in 1909 and whose place was filled by the _Industrial Worker_

(II.) (Spokane), which in turn passed out in September, 1913. The

_Industrial Worker_ (I.) was published from January, 1906, until

the summer of 1907. The _Industrial Worker_ (III.) (Seattle) began

publication in April, 1916, and continues to appear.[528] It is stated

in _Solidarity_, July 2, 1910, that in that year the I. W. W. had seven

papers in as many different languages.

During the twelve months preceding the sixth convention (September,

1911) seventy locals were organized and forty-eight disbanded. They

were distributed among specified industries, as shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2[529]

_Industry_ _Organized_ _Disbanded_

Metal and machinery 11 10

Food stuffs (Bakers) 2 2

Recruiting locals 13 8

Tobacco 1

Building 4 4

Shoe 1 1

Public Service 8 4

Clothing 3 3

Furniture 1

Mining (coal) 4

Transportation 7 2

Smelting 1

Lumber 9 4

Farming 2 2

Car building 2 4

Steel 1 4

-------------

70 48

Secretary-Treasurer St. John presented an interesting classification of

the reasons given for the disbanding of these forty-eight local unions.

He distributes them as follows:

Disrupted by lack of interest 22

Disrupted by strike 6

Disrupted by other organizations 6

Work closing down 5

Disrupted by members leaving locality 2

Incompetent secretary 2

Disrupted by internal dissension 1

Members left for Mexico 1

No record 3

---

48[530]

It was at this meeting that the question of the authority of the

general administration over the rank and file was first seriously

considered in the I. W. W. A number of constitutional changes were

proposed and most of them were brought forward with the more or less

definite idea of minimizing, or at least modifying in some way, the

authority of the national officers and the other members or the General

Executive Board. These amendments originated chiefly from local unions

in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States. The debates lasted several

days and involved a rather thorough discussion of the relations

between the different parts of the organization. All of these proposed

amendments were lost, the delegates being of the opinion probably that

few constitutional changes were necessary.[531]

At this (1911) convention, W. Z. Foster presented his report as

representative of the I. W. W. at the seventh conference of the

International Labor Secretariat which met at Budapest in August.

He was unable to make a very favorable report. The international

conference, after giving an entire day to a discussion of the question

of the admission of the I. W. W., refused it unanimously despite

the fact that his claims were backed by the representatives of the

_Confédération Générale du Travail_ of France.[532] At about this time

the French syndicalists were facing a serious crisis, which threatened

them as well with complete division. They escaped then, but there have

since developed two groups in the C. G. T.: the "red" (revolutionary)

syndicalists, and the "yellow" (conservative) syndicalists.[533]

Karl Kautsky quotes M. Lagardelle as having admitted in 1911 that "the

present crisis compels a general revision of the facts and the ideas

of syndicalism. After a glorious beginning we find ourselves faced

with that which is generally the result of forced marches in complete

exhaustion."[534]

The I. W. W. had had no direct contact with French syndicalism previous

to 1908. Moreover, its relations with the French movement have not at

any time been as close or as definite as is generally imagined. The

I. W. W. _organization_ is an indigenous American product, if there

ever was such a thing. The tactics used have come in part through the

reading by I. W. W.s of the writings of Pouget, Sorel, Lagardelle, and

others of the French syndicalist school. This contagion of ideas has

also spread through personal contacts. In 1908 William D. Haywood went

to Europe and there met some of the leaders of the C. G. T. Again in

1910 he was present at the International Labor and Socialist Congress

at Copenhagen. He nominally represented the Socialist party of America,

but he also, in an unofficial way, championed the cause of American

syndicalism as it had been developed by the Industrial Workers of the

World.[535]

The biennial conference of the International (Labor) Secretariat

met at Budapest, Hungary, August 10-12, 1911. The entire first day's

session was taken up with a lengthy argument over the admission of W.

Z. Foster, the I. W. W. delegate. His credentials were finally rejected

since he had only the support of the French _Confédération Générale du

Travail_.[536] President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor,

in his report to its convention held later on in the same year, refers

to "the repudiation of the so-called Industrial Workers of the World"

at the Budapest conference. "Inasmuch," he said, "as the would-be

delegate for the corporal's guard that composes the Industrial Workers

of the World professed to support the policies and program of the

_Confédération Générale du Travail_ of France, his pretensions were

supported by the latter organization."[537] James Duncan, the A. F. of

L. delegate at Budapest, reported that "a misguided man, named Foster,

from Chicago, claiming to represent an alleged organization of labor

in America, called the International [_sic_] Workers of the World, had

been for some time in Paris ..." and had apparently convinced the C.

G. T. that he should be recognized at the Budapest conference instead

of the A. F of L. representatives. "During the discussion Foster lost

control of his temper," said Duncan; "he even threatened

assault ...--ocular demonstration of what an I. W. W. really is(!) ...

[But] the Frenchmen were not dismayed at their tricolor being smudged

with I. W. W. mire."[538]

French syndicalism, then, has entered the I. W. W. to give it certain

characteristic strike tactics and a set of foggy philosophical

concepts about the General Strike, the "militant minority," _etc._

To this extent the I. W. W. is a syndicalist union. In structure it

is a decentralized body (to the extent that it has any body to be

decentralized), whereas the C. G. T. is decidedly centralized. In its

organization and in its attitude toward compatriot labor bodies it is

at variance with the French Confédération. The French idea has taken

more definite form in the United States in the shape of the Syndicalist

League of North America.

The Syndicalist League is a propaganda body rather than a labor

organization. It is directed largely against the I. W. W.--opposing

syndicalism to the industrialism of the American organization. It

believes in the possibility of reforming the American Federation of

Labor from within and condemns the dual-unionism of the I. W. W. It

is optimistic regarding the craft union. "It is aware," says William

English Walling, "that it will be impossible to secure a revolutionary

majority in these organizations, whether of a socialistic or of an

anarchistic character, and it has imported for this contingency

the French syndicalistic theory of the power of the 'militant

minority.'"[539] A number of the anarchists were inclined to favor the

Syndicalist League because they feared the "centralized government" of

the I. W. W.[540]

In this connection it may be well to note here the organization in

New York City in October, 1912, of the Syndicalist Educational League

with Hippolyte Havel, secretary, and Harry Kelly, treasurer. This,

we are informed, "is an organization of active propagandists formed

for the purpose of spreading the idea of syndicalism, direct-action

and the general-strike among the organized and unorganized workers of

America."[541]

In 1911 the trial of the MacNamara brothers for the dynamiting of the

_Los Angeles Times_ building was stirring the country. The I. W. W.

so vigorously championed the cause of the indicted men that the _San

Francisco Chronicle_ was moved to say:

... Now comes every socialist agitator and every rascal who

calls himself a socialist, and declares that even the arrest

of the indicted men is an "outrage." That hobo gang which

calls itself the "Industrial Workers of the World" calls for a

"general strike" as a protest against the alleged "kidnapping"

of the men who have been indicted.[542]

A few days later the _Industrial Worker_ carried in capitals on the

front page the following

OFFICIAL I. W. W. PROCLAMATION!

"AROUSE! PREPARE TO DEFEND YOUR CLASS!"

"A general strike in all industries must be the answer of the

workers to the challenge of the masters! Tie up all industries!

Tie up all production! Eternal vigilance is the price of

liberty." Issued Apr. 25, 1911, by the Industrial Workers of

the World.[543]

When the seventh convention met in 1912 the General Executive Board

declared that the MacNamara case "demonstrated beyond doubt that no

legal safeguard can be invoked to protect any member of the working

class who incurs the enmity of the employers by standing between them

and unlimited exploitation of the workers." Furthermore, it charged

that the A. F. of L. "did not come to their assistance as it should

have done ... [because] the moral support guaranteed these members

of the working class was practically _nil_ so far as the American

Federation of Labor was concerned."[544]

These militant utterances of the I. W. W. served to increase a growing

hostility to that organization in the Socialist party. This increasing

opposition was directed against the methods and tactics of I. W.

W.-ism rather than against its criticism of capitalist society, its

form or organization or its idea of the character of the society of

the future. The Socialists objected in general to the whole philosophy

of direct action, and more particularly to certain phases of direct

action--_viz._, the use of _sabotage_ and violence in general.

One I. W. W. official defines direct action as the "withdrawal of labor

power or efficiency from the place or object of production."[545]

Emma Goldman, a prominent anarchist, describes it as the "conscious

individual or collective effort to protest against or remedy social

conditions through the systematic assertion of the economic power

of the workers."[546] Professor Hubert Lagardelle, one of the

_intellectuels_ of the French syndicalist movement, explains that

"Direct Action is opposed to the indirect and legalized action of

democracy, of Parliament and of parties. It means that instead of

delegating to others the function of action (following the habit of

democracy), the working class is determined to work for itself."[547]

_Sabotage_ has been defined by the leading English Syndicalist, Tom

Mann, as "the taking of advantage for personal or class gain."[548]

Pouget says that "le sabotage est la mise en pratique da la maxime: à

mauvaise paye, mauvais travail."[549] In its mildest form sabotage is

simply the time-honored trade-union practice--restriction of output.

Gustav Hervé, the editor of _La Guerre Sociale_, advocates its use as

a kind of _gymnastique révolutionnaire_ or training for the revolution

which many socialists believe may be precipitated by the violence of

the capitalists, in the guise, perhaps, of martial law. It may be

convenient to think of direct action as the _inclusive_ term. Thus it

may take the form of concerted abstention from work and be simply a

strike, or it may take the form of working "in a way detrimental to the

boss" and be one kind of _sabotage_.

An interesting example of the I. W. W.'s press campaign for the methods

of _sabotage_ and direct action was furnished when in the summer of

1913 the I. W. W. locals of Los Angeles began the publication of a

semi-official weekly paper called _The Wooden Shoe_. This name was

selected on the strength of the legend that the word _sabotage_ was

coined in France when a workman with a grievance threw his _sabot_

or wooden shoe into the machinery and so clogged it and stopped

production. This kind of direct action is picturesquely advocated on

the front page of each issue of this paper. Grouped around the title

heading--_The Wooden Shoe_--are the following boxed mottoes and slogans:

"A kick in time saves nine."

"Kick your way out of wage slavery."

"Our coat-of-arms: The shoe rampant."

"A kick on the job is worth ten at the ballot-box."

"Immediate demands: Wooden shoes on all jobs."

"The foot in the wooden shoe will rock the world."

"An injury to one is the concern of all."

These tactics had been more and more _talked about_ if not practised

by the I. W. W. for several years past. Indeed, it is safe to say

that the practical application of those forms of direct action which

the "Wobblies" consider expedient was becoming constantly more

general. When the Socialists met in convention at Indianapolis in

May, 1912, the problem of the proper attitude for the Socialist party

to take toward the I. W. W., and more especially toward the "direct

action" propaganda, was made the occasion of a violent controversy.

The discussion centered on a motion to insert a new clause in the

constitution of the Socialist party providing (in Article II, Sec.

6) that "any member of the party who opposes political action or

advocates crime, _sabotage_, or other methods of violence as a weapon

of the working class to aid in its emancipation shall be expelled from

membership in the party...."[550] After a long debate the amendment was

adopted by a vote of 191 to 90, and the now famous Article II., Sec. 6,

became a party law.[551] During the discussion there were some quite

violent criticisms made of direct action and violence. Delegate W. R.

Gaylord said: "We do not want any of it. None of it! We don't want the

touch of it on us. We do not want the hint of it connected with us.

We repudiate it in every fibre of us."[552] Victor Berger expressed

himself very emphatically on the "sabotage clause."

I desire to say [he declared] that articles in the _Industrial

Worker_, of Spokane, the official organ of the I. W. W.,

breathe the same spirit, are as anarchistic as anything

that John Most has ever written. I want to say to you,

comrades, that I for one do not believe in murder as a

means of propaganda; I do not believe in theft as a means

of expropriation; nor in a continuous riot as a free-speech

agitation. Every true Socialist will agree with me when

I say that those who believe that we should substitute

"Hallelujah, I'm a bum" for the _Marseillaise_, and for the

_Internationale_, should start a "bum organization" of their

own. (Loud laughter and great cheering.)[553]

It was not alone the advocacy of "direct action" which incurred for the

I. W. W. the enmity of the Socialists. The latter felt that when the

I. W. W. in 1908 "repudiated political action," it really declared war

on the Socialist party. That party obviously could not consistently

approve of the Detroit I. W. W. because that faction was really the

ward of a rival political organization, the Socialist Labor party.

Ernest Untermann, who was one of the founders of the Industrial Workers

of the World, said at a previous convention of the Socialist party:

"When we organized the I. W. W., we hoped that it would be both a

political and an economic organization.... Instead of that, from the

very outside there crept in an element that made for disintegration,

and today the I. W. W. has drifted back toward syndicalism."[554] He

declared, moreover, that the I. W. W. deeply in debt to the Socialist

party, as he intimated, had ungratefully obstructed the work of the

party:

We helped the I. W. W. in its fight for free speech in Spokane

and for working-class power on the coast, [he said] and yet

while our speakers were collecting money [in San Francisco] ...

to help the I. W. W., the fighters from the I. W. W. were on

the outside of our meetings and knocking.... They sent their

fighters over to Local Oakland, right across the bay, with the

avowed purpose of breaking up that local and destroying the

activity of the Socialist party.... I shall be true to the

principle of industrial unionism, but the I. W. W. can go to

hell. (Applause.)[555]

Finally the last tie that connected the I. W. W. with the Socialist

party was broken when, in February, 1913, William D. Haywood was

recalled from the National Executive Committee of the party.[556]

FOOTNOTES:

[509] _Cf._ Appendix iv, Table A. The industrial distribution of

fifty-nine of these is given in _Solidarity_ (May 14, 1910) as follows:

Quarry workers 1

Bakery workers 1

Metal and machine

workers 3

Building workers 8

Lumber workers 2

Public service

workers 2

Hotel workers 2

Packing house

workers 2

Garment workers 1

Glass workers 1

Coal miners 7

Harbor workers 1

Steel workers 5

Car builders 5

Transportation

workers 1

Wood workers 1

Textile workers 1

Mixed locals 15

[510] "The development of syndicalism in America," _Political Science

Quarterly_, vol. xviii, p. 470 (Sept., 1913).

[511] Report of the General Secretary-Treasurer to the Fourth

Convention, _Industrial Union Bulletin_, Oct. 24, 1908. For list of

strikes, _vide_ Appendix viii.

[512] _Industrial Relations_ (Testimony at hearings). vol. ii, pp.

1460, 1461.

[513] Ninth annual meeting of the American Sociological Society,

Dec., 1914. _Publications_, vol. ix, "Restrictions upon freedom of

assemblage," p. 32.

[514] "Free, Speech Fights of the I. W. W." Report to the U. S.

Commission on Industrial Relations. Typewritten MS., p. 20.

[515] _Proceedings_, p. 102, col. 1-2.

[516] San Diego _Tribune_, March 4, 1912 (editorial).

[517] Harris Weinstock, _Report to the governor of California on the

disturbances in the city and county of San Diego in 1912_, p. 16.

[518] Proceedings, _Industrial Worker_ (II), June 25, 1910, p. 3.

[519] _Minutes of the Sixth Convention_ (Typewritten MS.), pp. 1-3.

[520] B. H. Williams, "The Sixth I. W. W. Convention," _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xii. p. 302, November, 1911.

[521] Appendix to the _Minutes_, pp. 1-9.

[522] _Industrial Worker_ (II), Sept. 28, 1911, p. 4. col. 1.

[523] See Appendix iv, Table A.

[524] Letter to the author, Oct. 13, 1911.

[525] Compiled from figures furnished by General Secretary St. John

(Letter of Feb. 1, 1915).

[526] _Industrial Worker_, April 23, 1910.

[527] "The I. W. W., its Strength and Opportunity," _Solidarity_, Feb.

25, 1911, p. 3, col. 1.

[528] Since this was written its publication has been suspended by the

government.

[529] From report of General Secretary-Treasurer St. John to Sixth

Convention; in Appendix to _Minutes_.

[530] Report to the Sixth Convention. Appendix to _Minutes_. In

appendix vi, the causes for suspension of locals are shown by

individual unions.

[531] B. H. Williams, "Sixth I. W. W. Convention," _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xii, pp. 300-302, Nov., 1911.

[532] _International Socialist Review_, vol. xii, p. 245, October, 1911.

[533] Cf. F. Challaye, _Le syndicalisme révolutionnaire et le

syndicalisme réformiste, passim._

[534] _Chicago Evening World_ (July 13, 1912).

[535] _Compte Rendu_ (Ghent, 1911), p. 42.

[536] _Proceedings, Thirty-first Annual Convention, A. F. of L._

(Atlanta, Ga., Nov., 1911), p. 29.

[537] _Ibid._

[538] _Ibid._, p. 149. Report of James Duncan, delegate to the Budapest

Conference. This report is also published in pamphlet form.

[539] _Internationalist Socialist Review_, Mar., 1913, vol. xiii, p.

667, col. 1.

[540] This view is presented by Harry Kelly, "A Syndicalist League"

(a plea for the launching of a Syndicalist League in the United

States), _Mother Earth_, Sept., 1912. Cf. also Foster, Wm. Z., and

Ford, E. D., _Syndicalism_, which ably draws the distinction between

the semi-anarchistic and semi-conservative syndicalism of the C. G. T.

which some writers have tried to import, out of hand, into the United

States, and the Industrial Socialism of the I. W. W.

[541] _Mother Earth_, Nov., 1912, vol. vii, p. 307.

[542] May 2, 1911 (Editorial). Reprinted in _Solidarity_, May 20, 1911.

p. 4, col. 1.

[543] May 11, 1911.

[544] _On the Firing Line_, pp. 7-9.

[545] William E. Trautmann, _One Great Union_, p. 24. note.

[546] _Syndicalism_ (New York, Mother Earth Publishing Assn.), p. 9.

[547] _Le Mouvement Socialiste_, December, 1908, vol. xxiv, p. 453.

[548] Interview in the New York _World_, Aug. 3, 1913, Sec. N, p. 1,

col. 8.

[549] _La Confédération Générale du Travail_ (2nd ed., Paris, n. d.),

p. 46.

[550] _Vide, National Constitution of the Socialist Party_ (Chicago,

Socialist Party, 1914), p. 2.

[551] _Proceedings, National Convention of the Socialist Party, 1912_,

pp. 136-7. In an analysis of the vote, W. J. Ghent has shown (_National

Socialist_, June 1, 1912) that between 67 and 75 per cent of the

delegates who voted against the clause "were not proletarians."

[552] _Proceedings_, p. 123. col. 1.

[553] _Ibid._, p. 130.

[554] _Proceedings, National Socialist Congress_, Chicago, May,

1910, p. 281. See also Untermann, _No compromise with the I. W. W._,

typewritten MS. (published in 1913 in the New York _Call_ and the

_National Socialist_).

[555] National Convention of the Socialist Party, _op. cit._, p. 163,

col. 1.

[556] Since this chapter was written several laws have been enacted

which have been more or less directly aimed at the Industrial Workers

of the World. Australia led off with the "Unlawful Associations Act"

passed by the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth in December,

1916. (Reported in the _New York Times_, December 20, 1916, p. 5. col.

2. Cf. _infra_, p. 341.) Within three months of the passage of the

Australian Act, the American States of Minnesota and Idaho passed laws

"defining criminal syndicalism and prohibiting the advocacy thereof."

In February, 1918, the Montana legislature met in extraordinary session

and enacted a similar statute. (These three state laws are printed in

appendix x.) _Vide_ also _infra_, pp. 344-6.

At Sacramento, on January 16, 1919, according to daily press reports,

all of the 46 defendants in the California I. W. W. conspiracy case

tried there in the Federal District Court were found guilty of

conspiring to violate the Constitution of the United States and the

Espionage Act and with attempting to obstruct the war activities of the

Government. All of the defendants were members--or alleged members--of

the I. W. W. and the case is similar to the one tried in Chicago in

1918. On January 17 Judge Rudkin is reported to have sentenced 43 of

the defendants to prison terms of from one to ten years (_New York

Times_, January 17 and 18, 1919.) The trial is reported in _The Nation_

of January 25, 1919. _Cf. supra_, p. 8.

CHAPTER XII

LAWRENCE AND THE CREST OF POWER (1912)

The year 1912 marks the high tide of I. W. W. activity. From Lawrence,

Massachusetts, to San Diego, California, these restless militants

stirred the nation with their startling strike and free-speech

propaganda. Reports of strikes and free-speech activities in

_Solidarity_ and the _Industrial Worker_ show a higher frequency for

both these types of industrial warfare in 1912 and 1913 than for any

other corresponding period in the organization's career. During the

years 1911, 1912 and 1913 there were some fifteen free-speech fights

of considerable importance--more than have been staged in all the rest

of its history before or since.[557] The dynamic prominence of this

period is less marked for the free-speech propaganda than for the then

strange and novel syndicalist strike propaganda of the I. W. W. The

strike activities were, however, confined quite largely to a shorter

period--1912 and 1913. As already noted,[558] the years 1909 and 1910

were more crowded with I. W. W. strike activities than any previous

period. These fat propaganda and lean organizing years were followed

by twelve months of a general all-round leanness which was only saved

from complete sterility by about half a dozen rather lively free-speech

fights. Then followed the "Wobblies'" two big years, during which more

than thirty "I. W. W. strikes"[559] ran their course in different

parts of the country. In Table 3 are given what facts are available

concerning I. W. W. strike activities in 1912.

Overshadowing all others in importance was the gigantic strike of the

textile workers at Lawrence. This great struggle set new fashions in

strike methods. It Americanized the words, "sabotage," "direct action,"

and "syndicalism" and revealed to the hitherto ignorant public the

manner and effectiveness with which these alleged French importations

could be applied to an existing industrial situation. Lawrence,

together with San Diego, and one or two other "free-speech" cities,

really introduced the Industrial Workers of the World to the American

public. The organization and its activities were known to students of

the labor problem and to others who happened to be on the spot when a

fight was on, but they were not known to the great body of citizens.

Lawrence and the free-speech fights made the name of this little group

of intransigents a household word, hardly less talked about and no whit

better understood than the words "socialist" and "anarchist."

On January 11, about 14,000 of the textile operatives left their work.

During the strike, which continued until March 14, this number was

increased to 23,000. According to a Federal report, "the immediate

cause of the strike was a reduction in earnings, growing out of the

State law which became effective January 1, 1912, and which reduced the

hours of employment for women, and for children under 18 years of age

from 56 to 54 hours per week."[560] At the beginning of the struggle

only a small minority of the operatives were organized.

TABLE 3.

I. W. W. STRIKES IN 1912 (PARTIAL LIST).[561]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

No. | | | s.| -ed.| ed. | |

-----+-------------+---------------+---+------+--------+-------+-----------

10|Electrical |Fremont, O. | 1| 30| ..| ...|Lost.

| | | | | | |

161}|Textile and |Haverhill, | 2| 572| 60|7 weeks|Won.

169}| Shoe Wkrs. |Mass. | | | | |

| | | | | | |

194|Clothing |Seattle, Wash. | 10| ..| 15| A few|

| | | | | | 2 mos.|

327|R. R. |Prince Rupert, | | | | |

| Construction|B. C. | 2| 2,350| 12| ...|Won.

| | | | | | |

| |Crossing, B. C.| 1| ..| ..| ...|Won.

| | | | | | |

327|R. R. | | | | | |

| Construction|Lytton, B. C. | 1| 5,000| 300| 7|Compromise.

| L. W.,[562] |Pac. N. W. | | | | |

| | | | | | |

| involved | | 2| 7,000|hundred"| wks.,|Compromise.

| | | | | | 1-2|

| | | | | | mos.|

| | | | | | |

436|Textile |Lowell, Mass. | 2|18,000| 26| ...|1 won, 1

| | | | | | |

557|Piano |Boston | 1| 200| ..| 5|Lost.

| | | | | | |

20|Textile |Lawrence | 5|29,000| 333| ...|Won.

| | | | | | |

157|Textile |New Bedford | 1|13,000| ..| ...|...

| | | | | | |

==================================================================

| | | |

Total strike | No. | Aggregate | No. of | No. of

expenditures. | involved. | duration. | arrests. | convictions.

-----------------+-----------+-----------+----------+-------------

$101,504.05 | 75,152 | 74 weeks. | 1,446 | 577

------------------------------------------------------------------

Up to the beginning of the strike [says the Federal report just

quoted] there was little or no effective organization among

the employees, taken as a whole. A few of the skilled crafts,

composed principally of English-speaking workers, had their own

separate organizations, but the 10 crafts thus organized had at

the time of the strike only approximately 2,500 members. The

Industrial Workers of the World had also some years before this

established an organization in Lawrence. At the beginning of

the strike they claimed a membership of approximately 1,000.

They had at different times names on their rolls in excess

of this number, but it is estimated by active members of the

organization that at the beginning of January, 1912, there

were not more than 300 paid-up members on the rolls of the

Industrial Workers.[563]

This statement of the situation is borne out by Mr. John Golden's

testimony before the House Committee on Rules. He said that when the

strike broke out, "according to the official books of the Industrial

Workers of the World, they had 287 members."[564]

During the period of the strike there were many violent demonstrations

and numerous acts of violence on the part of deputies, police, and

militiamen, as well as on the part of the strikers. Early in the

strike, Joseph J. Ettor and Wm. D. Haywood, both I. W. W. officials,

came to Lawrence and thereafter figured prominently in the conduct

of the strike, preaching "solidarity," "passive resistance," "direct

action," and "sabotage" as means to victory. The daily press reports of

the strike greatly exaggerated the violence of the strikers and almost

uniformly neglected to mention acts of violence on the other side.

In the I. W. W. press the situation was reversed, and the lawlessness

of the constituted authorities greatly overdrawn. A writer who is,

at any rate, not sympathetic with the I. W. W. describes the strike

activities. He says that shortly after five o'clock (a.m., January 29,

1912), when it was still dark, an attack was made upon the street-cars,

during which the trolleys were pulled off the feed-wire, the windows

smashed with chunks of ice, the motormen and conductors driven off,

and the passengers in some cases not allowed to leave the cars, and

in others, pulled from the cars and thrown into the streets.[565] And

while conferences were still going on, according to the same authority,

the leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World

made a determined effort, by violence and intimidation of

various sorts to prevent those wishing to resume work from

reaching the mills. The endless chain system of picketing

was put into force, and women ... who did not work in the

mills, along with "strong arm" men, were pressed into service.

Women were assaulted by men, and pepper thrown in the eyes of

operatives and police officers. Early in the morning powerful

men followed, threatened, and seized girls on their way to the

mills, twisting their wrists, snatching their luncheons, and

terrorizing them generally. During the night strangers visited

the homes of the workers and threatened to cut their throats if

they persisted in going to work....[566]

On the other hand, there is fairly conclusive evidence that the advent

of Ettor and Haywood resulted, if not in the entire elimination of

violent tactics, at least in their marked reduction and shifting of

emphasis to the tactics of passive resistance. According to one who

was on the spot, the riots occurred

before Ettor's organization was effected, when the strikers

gathered about the mills as an organized mob and mill bosses

turned streams of water upon them in zero weather. After the

"blood-stained anarchists" arrived on the scene, a policy of

non-resistance to the aggressions of the police and the militia

prevailed.[567]

Howsoever passive the strikers may have been in their attitude to the

police and the militia, they were probably quite aggressive in their

campaign to win recruits to the ranks of the strikers. A Lawrence mill

overseer reports that the I. W. W. strike committee[568] did it in this

way:

The addresses of the men working are given to a committee. They

are visited after nine o'clock at night by strangers, generally

Poles: "Working today?" "Yah." (The man speaking has a sharp

knife and is whittling a stick.) "Work tomorrow?" "I d'no." "If

you work tomorrow, I cut your throat." "No, no. I no work."

"Shake." And they shake hands.[569]

There is strong evidence of at least one attempt on the part of

the business and commercial interests of Lawrence to discredit the

strikers. In three places in the city a total of twenty-eight sticks of

dynamite were found. The strikers declared that it had been "planted."

Later a business man of Lawrence, who had no connection with the

strikers, was arrested and finally tried and "convicted of conspiracy

to injure by the planting of dynamite." He was fined $500.00![570]

There was great friction between the I. W. W. and the locals of other

labor organizations. The Socialists and I. W. W.s accused the American

Federation of Labor leaders of trying to break the strike. "All the

mechanical crafts," we read in a pro-I. W. W. journal, "including

engineers, firemen, electrical workers, machinists and railroaders ...

remained at work, scabbing on their fellows with the full sanction ...

of their officials."[571] In the face of this antagonism the rank and

file of the A. F. of L. membership contributed liberally to the strike

fund, giving about $11,000 to the cause of the strikers. Socialist

contributions are placed at $40,000 and those of the I. W. W. local

unions at $16,000.[572] The Federal investigators report that "these

relief funds came from all sections of the country and average $1,000 a

day throughout the strike."[573]

The Lawrence strike furnished the opportunity for some parading of the

idea of a general strike. William D. Haywood, in his first speech to

the strikers after his arrival in Lawrence, said: "If we prevail on

other workers who handle your goods to help you out by going on strike,

we will tie up the railroads, put the city in darkness and starve the

soldiers out."[574] This agitation became more vigorous, however, after

the strike itself and during the subsequent trial of the two I. W. W.

agitators, Ettor and Giovannitti.

They were in jail at Salem, Massachusetts, at the time of the seventh

I. W. W. convention in September, 1912, and the General Executive

Board, in its report, threatened that unless these "fellow-workers are

acquitted the industries of this country will feel the power of the

workers expressed in a general tie-up in all industries...."[575]

In addition to the general strike, a boycott was demanded. Under the

caption, "Boycott Lawrence," a heavily headlined announcement was

printed on the front page of the _Industrial Worker_.[576] It ran in

part:

_Boycott Lawrence.... Railroad men: Lose their cars for them!

Telegraphers: Lose their messages for them! Expressmen: Lose

their packages for them! Boycott Lawrence! Boycott it to the

limit!..._

Let nothing, cars, messages, packages, mails or anything

whatsoever that bears the sign, label or address of an official

of the Wool Trust, or of a bank, business house, or prostituted

newspaper, which favors them, or of a judge, policeman or

cossack, or any one who lends the slightest aid to the

mill-owners, go on its way undisturbed!

_Boycott Lawrence!_

Against the bludgeons of _Industrial Despotism_ bring the

silent might of the _Industrial Democracy_!

_Boycott Lawrence!_

The result of the strike was a decided victory for the strikers. The

Federal government's investigators reported that

some 30,000 textile mill employees in Lawrence secured

an increase in wages of from 5 to 20 per cent; increased

compensation for overtime; and the reduction of the premium

period from four weeks to two weeks. Also, as an indirect

result of the Lawrence strike, material increases in wages

were granted to thousands of employees in other textile mills

throughout New England.[577]

It is a significant fact that the highest percentages of increases in

wages were given to the unskilled employees. The General Executive

Board of the I. W. W. reported the range of wage increases as being

"from 5 per cent for the highly paid workers to 25 per cent for the

lowest paid workers."[578] Moreover, there were other effects, no

less important. This strike demonstrated that it was possible for

the unskilled and unorganized workers (preponderantly immigrants of

various nationalities) to carry on a successful struggle with their

employers. It showed what latent power there is in the great masses

of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Moreover, it demonstrated the

power of a new type of labor leaders over the ignorant and unskilled

immigrant workers. A writer who has little sympathy for revolutionary

unionism says concerning Joseph J. Ettor:

This man ... steeped in the literature of revolutionary

socialism and anarchism, swayed the undisciplined mob as

completely as any general ever controlled the disciplined

troops ... [and was able] to organize these thousands

of heterogeneous, heretofore unsympathetic and jealous

nationalities, into a militant body of class-conscious workers.

His followers firmly believed, as they were told, that success

meant that they were about to enter a new era of brotherhood,

in which there would be no more union of trades and no more

departmental distinctions, but all workers would become the

real bosses in the mills.[579]

The Lawrence Citizens' Association reports that Ettor

avowed himself an advocate of the doctrine of "direct action,"

of violence, as a believer in the philosophy of force, for he

proclaimed time and again ... that "he who has force on his

side has the law on his side." He also advocated destroying the

machinery of employers who did not grant all the demands of the

strikers.[580]

The effect of the strike on the membership of the I. W. W. in Lawrence

was to increase it greatly but only temporarily. Just after the

strike the organizers claimed 14,000 members in Lawrence. In October,

1913, there were 700.[581] An investigator for the Federal Commission

on Industrial Relations reports that they had over 10,000 members

immediately after the strike.[582] The I. W. W. itself claimed 20,000

in Lawrence in June, 1912, as well as 28,000 in Lowell, and boasted

that "in nearly every town in the New England states there are locals

ranging from 800 to 5,000 in membership."[583] The Federal investigator

referred to puts the Lawrence membership of the I. W. W. in 1914 at

about 400 and says that local I. W. W. officials attribute this low

figure to unemployment, but he himself thinks that other factors

entered.[584] The wage increase gained was, he said, offset by the

increased speed required on the machines.

This amounted to 50 per cent. Another factor was the forced scattering

of I. W. W. leaders after the strike. He found in 1914 only one of

eight local I. W. W. leaders who were there at the time of the strike

and reports that the employers established a system of espionage in the

mills.[585]

Lawrence made the I. W. W. famous, especially in the East. It stirred

the country with the alarming slogans of a new kind of revolution.

Socialism was respectable--even reactionary--by comparison. The

"Wobblies" frankly abjured the rules under which, as they would

express it, the capitalist game is played. They said: "If it serves

our interests as members of the working class to obey certain accepted

canons of conduct, we will obey them because it would be detrimental

to our class to disobey them." Lawrence was not an ordinary strike.

It was a social revolution _in parvo_. St. John is said to have

written to Haywood, "a win in the Lawrence mills means the start that

will only end with the downfall of the wage system."[586] This was

a class war and the I. W. W. insists that the principle of military

necessity justifies it in a policy of _schrecklichkeit_, at least to

property, which on the syndicalist hypothesis was stolen anyway, in

the beginning. The I. W. W. abjures current ethics and morality as

_bourgeois_, and therefore inimical to the exploited proletarian for

whom a new and approved system of proletarian morality is set forth.

In this proletarian code the sanctions of conduct are founded on the

(material) interests of the proletarian, _as such_. The criterion is

expediency--effectiveness to one particular end, the overthrow of

the wage system and the establishment of--something else--the words

_industrial democracy_ or _coöperative commonwealth_ are commonly

used in reference to that nebulous future state that all radicals

see as in a glass, more or less darkly. This means that staid old

New England was confronted with an organization which derided all

her fond moralities. The most shocking _défi_ of these I. W. W.s was

the _défi_ they hurled at the church. Only less so was the _défi_

they leveled at the flag. The I. W. W. said that the church, obedient

to the dictates of big business, preached to the workers a servile

obedience now for the sake of a hypothetical heaven of comfort later;

"_ergo_," they said, "the church is unethical and we abjure it for a

superior proletarian ethics." It considered that the flag was being

made the excuse for a jingo patriotism which made the enlargement and

conquest of markets and the further exploitation of labor the end and

aim of patriotism. In brief, the church and the flag are made to serve

commercialism. Commercialism is evil because unjust. Therefore, its

servants are, _pro tanto_, evil also and rightly to be repudiated.

The conflicting attitudes are well illustrated by two placards carried

along Lawrence streets during the strike. The I. W. W. paraded first

with, among others, a placard reading:

XX Century civilization.... For the progress of the human race

we have jails, gallows, guillotines, ... and electric chairs

for the people who pay to keep the "_soldiers_" to kill them

when they revolt against Wood and other czars of capitalism.

_Arise!!! Slaves of the World!!!

No God! No Master!

One for all and all for one!_

The citizens (no reference here to the textile operatives) of Lawrence

paraded their righteous indignation as follows:

"For God and Country,

The Stars and Stripes forever,

The Red Flag never.

A Protest against the I. W. W.,

Its principles and methods."

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the reaction of the great

bulk of the progressive citizenship of the country to the I. W. W.

strike-drama than the following editorial paragraph published during

the strike:

On all sides people are asking: Is this a new thing in the

industrial world?... Are we to see another serious, perhaps

successful, attempt to organize labor by whole industrial

groups instead of by trades? Are we to expect that instead of

playing the game respectably, or else frankly breaking out into

lawless riot which we know well enough how to deal with, the

laborers are to listen to a subtle anarchistic philosophy which

challenges the fundamental idea of law and order, inculcating

such strange doctrines as those of "direct action," "sabotage,"

"syndicalism," "the general strike," and "violence"?... We

think that our whole current morality as to the sacredness of

property and even of life is involved in it.[587]

At the seventh convention held in Chicago in September, 1912, there

were present forty-five industrialists; twenty-nine of these being

delegates from as many regular local unions; one delegate each

represented the two National Industrial Unions which were component

parts of the I. W. W., viz., the Textile Workers and the Forest and

Lumber Workers; seven were General Executive Board members, and seven

"fraternal delegates" from the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Locals in

eight states and in British Columbia were represented.[588] During the

time the convention was in session, Joseph J. Ettor, a member of the

General Executive Board, was awaiting trial in the Essex County jail in

Salem, Mass. He wrote to the delegates that

all of the past term's progress is mainly due to the policies

adopted, particularly by the sixth annual convention, and ...

I feel it an urgent duty on my part to advise that as much

as conditions will allow, the lines laid down by the last

convention be ratified....[589]

The General Executive Board specifically recommended to the convention

the use of direct action as a weapon of the working class.

The only effective weapon that the workers have with which

to meet this condition [runs the Board's report] is to [sic]

render unproductive the machinery of production with which

they labor, and have access to. Militant direct action in the

industries of the world is the weapon upon which they must rely

and which they must learn to use.[590]

With the growing interests of the I. W. W. in the workers in the

agricultural and lumber industries came a realization of the need

for some kind of a land policy. Delegate Covington Hall presented a

petition which was adopted as a resolution by the convention:

Why not ... proclaim today [the resolution asks] what we will

be compelled to proclaim tomorrow--a land policy? Why not

base this policy on the motto of the Russian peasant, "Whose

the sweat, his the land," and couple this with a new I. W. W.

motto: "Whose the sweat, theirs the machines"? In other words,

proclaim that we will recognize no title to machinery except

that which vests its ownership in the users.[591]

The most important aspect of this convention was the sentiment which

was evidenced by some of the delegates in favor of reducing the power

of the national administration--the central office--often referred to

in this and following conventions as "Headquarters." This agitation

for decentralization was not particularly successful, but the idea

was given a hearing. At the following convention a much more extended

discussion took place and the subject will be resumed in connection

with the discussion of that meeting.[592] At this 1912 meeting the

question of decentralization came up in the discussion of a motion

to give the General Executive Board jurisdiction over the calling,

management and settlement of all free-speech fights. The alleged object

of the motion was to restrict the number of such controversies. The

"Wobblies" had been even more inclined to overindulge in free-speech

fights than in strikes, and some thought this appetite might be kept

in better control if it were made more difficult for locals to get

support for such struggles from the national office. The motion was

lost by an overwhelming majority. The vote expressed a significant

reaction from the traditional I. W. W. policy of centralization. That

the latter policy was still strong was indicated in the overwhelming

defeat of motions to deprive the General Executive Board of its power

over the strike activities of the organization.[593] The policy of the

convention was centralist on strike and decentralist on free-speech

fights. The editor of _The Agitator_, an anarchist exponent of

industrial unionism, believes that this was due to the fact that

the I. W. W. had had much experience of "free-speech fighting" and

realized the need for local autonomy, whereas it had had limited strike

experience and so had "not yet learned the danger of allowing a few

men ... to control its strike activities." The writer imagines that

geography was also a factor. The proponents of continued centralization

of strike power were the more disciplined eastern members. The

defenders of local autonomy in free-speech fights were the western

"Wobblies," and the nature of their life and experience bred in them

much of the anarchistic spirit of individualism.

The Socialist Labor party and the doctrinaires of Detroit thought

that this convention was a very insignificant gathering. One of the

DeLeonites described it: "About thirty men acting in the capacity of

delegates and about a score of onlookers, leaning with their backs

against the walls leisurely smoking their pipes or chewing tobacco....

This constituted the convention...."[594] It is interpreted differently

by one who is with the direct-actionists at least in sympathy. He says:

It is a significant proof of the sound base of the I. W. W.

philosophy that the tremendous growth of the past year has

not brought with it the germ of opportunism. There was no

suggestion of a desire on the part of any of the delegates

to swerve from the uncompromising and revolutionary attitude

of the organization; nor was there any reaching out for

"respectability." Every man was a "Red," most of them with jail

records, too.... All striving ... to hasten the day when "the

whistle will blow for the Boss to go to work."[595]

FOOTNOTES:

[557] _Cf._ appendix vii.

[558] _Supra_, p. 261 _et seq._

[559] An "I. W. W. strike" may or may not be managed by the I. W. W.

Also, it may be managed by I. W. W. leaders, but include no appreciable

proportion of "Wobblies" among the strikers. The writer has endeavored

to exclude here all strikes in which the I. W. W. did not in some way

actively participate. _Cf._ appendix viii.

[560] _Report on Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence, Mass._, 62nd

Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document No. 870, p. 9.

[561] Compiled from data in St. John, _I. W. W. History, Structure,

Methods_ (1917 ed.), pp. 20-23.

[562] National Industrial Union of Forest & Lumber Workers.

[563] _Op. cit._, p. 11.

[564] _Hearings on the Lawrence Strike_ (Washington, Government

Printing Office, 1912), p. 75.

[565] McPherson, _The Lawrence Strike of 1912_ (Reprint from Sept.,

1912, _Bulletin_ of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers), p.

25.

[566] _Ibid._, pp. 43-44.

[567] Mary K. O'Sullivan, "The Labor War at Lawrence," _Survey_, vol.

xxviii, p. 73 (April 6, 1912).

[568] The chairman of the committee belonged to the I. W. W. but its

personnel included those with other affiliations. (_The Strike of

Textile Workers in Lawrence, Mass._ [Federal report], p. 66.)

[569] "Statements by people who took part." _Survey_, April 6, 1912,

vol. xxviii, no. 1, p. 76.

[570] Federal report, _op. cit._, p. 39.

[571] L. H. Marcy and F. S. Boyd, "One Big Union Wins," _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xii, p. 624, Apr., 1912.

[572] _Ibid._, pp. 618-619.

[573] Federal report. _op. cit._, p. 66.

[574] Mary E. Marcy, "The Battle for Bread at Lawrence," _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xii, p. 538, March, 1912.

[575] _On the Firing Line_, p. 20. This is a pamphlet containing

extracts from the report of the General Executive Board to the Seventh

Convention. The report is published in full in _The Industrial Worker_

(Oct. 24, 1912).

[576] March 21, 1912.

[577] Federal report, _op. cit._, p. 15.

[578] _Ibid._

[579] McPherson, _op. cit._, pp. 9-10. For a different view _see_ W.

E. Weyl, "The Strikers at Lawrence," _Outlook_, Feb. 10, 1912, p. 311.

Weyl thinks that "the workers' real attitude is that of the ordinary

trade-unionist."

[580] "Lawrence as it really is--not as syndicalists, anarchists,

socialists, suffragists, pseudo-philanthropists, and muck-raking yellow

journalists have painted it." _Congressional Record_, vol. xlviii, no.

82, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session, March 18, 1912, p. 3544.

[581] R. F. Hoxie, "The Truth About the I. W. W.," _Journal of

Political Economy_, vol. xxi, p. 786 (Nov., 1913).

[582] Selig Perlman, "The Relations between Capital and Labor in the

Textile Industry in New England." Report to the Commission, typewritten

MS., p. 12.

[583] _Industrial Worker_, July 4, 1912, p. 1, col. 4.

[584] Perlman. _op. cit._, p. 17.

[585] Perlman, _op. cit._, pp. 12-16.

[586] McPherson, _op. cit._, p. 15.

[587] Editorial, "After the Battle," _Survey_, vol. xxviii, no. 1,

April 6, 1912, pp. 1-2.

[588] _Report of the Seventh Convention_, pp. 2-3. Wm. E. Trautmann,

who had gone over to the Socialist Labor party faction, charged that

"two-thirds of the voting power of the whole convention" was lodged

in the hands of two delegates, one of whom was a paid officer. ("Open

letter to Wm. D. Haywood," _Weekly People_, May 31, 1913. p. 2.)

[589] Letter dated September 14, 1912, _Report of the Seventh

Convention_, pp. 26-27.

[590] _Industrial Worker_, Oct. 24, 1912, p. 4, col. 3.

[591] _Report of the Seventh Annual Convention_, pp. 9, 24.

[592] _Vide infra_, p. 305 _et seq._

[593] "The I. W. W. Convention," _The Agitator_, Oct. 15, 1912.

[594] Arthur Zavels, "The Bummery 'Congress'", _Weekly People_, Oct.

12, 1912, p. 1.

[595] J. P. Cannon, "Seventh I. W. W. Convention," _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xiii, p. 424, col. 2 (Nov., 1912).

CHAPTER XIII

DUAL UNIONISM AND DECENTRALIZATION

In 1913 the visit of Tom Mann, the well-known English labor leader and

advocate of revolutionary unionism, revived the discussion of "dual

unionism" and the respective merits of what the French Syndicalists

called _la pénétration_ and _la pression extérieure_,[596] or what

the American "Wobbly" calls "boring from within" and "hammering from

without," respectively. Even before his visit a growing minority had

been feebly protesting against the accepted I. W. W. policy of creating

a new organization without regard to existing labor (or craft) unions

in the locality instead of allowing the unorganized--and especially

the radicals--to enter the old unions (of the A. F. of L.) and

"bore from within" their conservative shells to let in the light of

revolutionary industrial unionism. This renewed interest was largely

due to the exchange of ideas with European radicals at international

congresses. The policy in Europe and in England has been precisely

"the boring from within" policy, and European unions--especially the

_Confédération Générale du Travail_ of France--has prospered by it

both in numbers and influence. In 1911, William Z. Foster, a member

of the I. W. W., visited Europe and made a careful examination of the

labor organizations there. He returned fully convinced that the I. W.

W. should change its policy on "dual unionism" and begin to "bore from

within" the American Federation of Labor.

In connection with the proposal of his name for the office of editor of

the _Industrial Worker_ he sent a letter on the subject to that paper.

He makes such a cogent exposition of the case against dual unionism

that the greater part of it is here given:

The question, "Why don't the I. W. W. grow?" is being asked

on every hand, as well within our ranks as without. And

justly, too, as only the blindest enthusiast is satisfied at

the progress, or rather lack of progress, of the organization

to date. In spite of truly heroic efforts on the part of our

organizers and members in general ... the I. W. W. remains

small in membership and weak in influence. It is indeed time to

examine the situation and discover what is wrong.

The founders of the I. W. W. at its inception gave the

organization the working theory that in order to create a

revolutionary labor movement, it was necessary to build a new

organization separate and apart from the existing craft unions

which were considered incapable of development. This theory and

its consequent tactics has persisted in the organization, and

we later comers have inherited them and, without any serious

investigation, accepted the theory as an infallible dogma.

Parrot-like and unthinking, we glibly re-echo the sentiment

that "craft unions cannot become revolutionary unions," and

usually consider the question undebatable. Convincing arguments

in favor of the theory I have never seen nor heard--I used to

accept it without question like the vast majority of the I.

W. W. membership does now, and in practice it has achieved

the negative results shown by the I. W. W. today with its

membership of but a few thousands. The theory's strength is

due to its being the one originally adopted by the founders of

the I. W. W., and to me this is but a poor recommendation, as

these same founders, in addition to giving us a constitution

manifestly inadequate to our needs and the changing and

ignoring of which occupies a large share of our time, made

the monumental mistake of trying to harmonize all the various

conflicting elements among them into one "Happy Family"

revolutionary organization--a blunder which cost the I. W.

W. three years of internal strife to rectify and one that

gives these founders--who have mostly quit the organization,

anything but an infallible reputation. And if we look about us

a little, at the labor movements of other countries in addition

to considering our own experiences, we will be more inclined

to question this theory that we have so long accepted as the

natural one for the revolutionary labor movement. It has been

applied in other countries and with similar results as here.

The German syndicalist movement, with a practically stationary

membership of about 15,000, is a pigmy compared to the giant

and rapidly growing socialist unions with their 2,300,000

members. The English I. W. W. is ridiculously small and weak;

the German syndicalist organization, the English I. W. W. and

the American I. W. W., using the same dual organization tactics

in the three greatest capitalist countries, are all afflicted

with a common stagnation and lack of influence in the labor

movement. On the other hand, in those countries where the

syndicalists use the despised "boring from within" tactics,

their revolutionary movements are vigorous and powerful.

France offers the most conspicuous example. There the C. G. T.

militants, inspired by the tactics of the anarchists who years

ago, discontented at their lack of success as an independent

movement, literally made a raid on the labor movement, captured

it and revolutionized it, and in so doing developed the new

working-class theory of syndicalism, have for one of their

cardinal principles to introduce [_sic_] competition in the

labor movement by creating dual organizations. By propagating

their doctrines in the old unions and forcing them to become

revolutionary, they have made their labor movement the most

feared one in the world. In Spain and Italy, where the rebels

are more and more copying French tactics, the syndicalist

movements are growing rapidly in power and influence. But it

is in England where we have the most striking example of the

comparative effectiveness of the two varieties of tactics. For

several years the English I. W. W. with its dual-organization

theory carried on a practically barren agitation. About a

year ago, Tom Mann, Guy Bowman and a few other revolutionists,

using the French "boring from within" tactics, commenced in the

face of a strong I. W. W. opposition to work on the old trades

unions, which Debs had called impossible. Some of the fruits of

their labors were seen in the recent series of great strikes in

England. The great influence of these syndicalists in causing

and giving the revolutionary character to these strikes which

sent chills along the spine of international capitalism, is

acknowledged by innumerable capitalist and revolutionary

journals alike.

Is not this striking success of "boring from within" after

continued failure of "building from without" tactics, which is

but typical of the respective results being achieved everywhere

by these tactics, worthy of the most serious consideration on

the part of the I. W. W.? Is it not time that we get up off our

knees before this time-honored dual organization dogma and give

it a thorough examination? And I'll promise--or threaten--that

if I am elected editor the matter will get as thorough an

investigation as lays in my power.... At Berlin a few months

ago Jouhaux, secretary of the C. G. T. [_Confédération Générale

du Travail_], in a large public meeting advised them to give

up their attempt to create a new movement and to get into the

conservative unions where they could make their influence felt.

At Budapest he extended the same advice to the I. W. W. _via_

myself, and I am frank to state that I am convinced that it

would be strictly good tactics for both movements to adopt it.

I am satisfied from my observations that the only way for the

I. W. W. to have the workers adopt and practice the principles

of revolutionary unionism ... is to give up its attempt to

create a new labor movement, turn itself into a propaganda

league, get into the organized labor movement and by building

up better fighting machines within the old unions than those

possessed by our reactionary enemies, revolutionize those

unions even as our French syndicalist fellow-workers have so

successfully done with theirs.[597]

Upon the arrival of Mr. Mann, Mr. Foster again took up the cudgels for

the opponents of dual unionism.

Among many of the syndicalists [he said] the sentiment is

strong, and growing ceaselessly, that the tactics followed by

the I. W. W. are bad, and that endeavors should be made inside

the A. F. of L.; that it is in the existing unions that the

syndicalists must struggle without ceasing....[598]

Mr. Mann agreed with him. In a speech published in the _International

Socialist Review_[599] he expressed his belief that "if the fine

energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the A. F. or L. or

into the existing trade-union movement ... the results would be

fifty-fold greater than they now are." He went on to "urge the

advisability, not of dropping the I. W. W., but certainly of dropping

all dual organizations and serving as a feeder and purifier of the big

movement." William D. Haywood replied that "it might as well be said

that if the fine energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the

Catholic church, that the results would be the establishment of the

control of industry."[600] He went on to show that it is well-nigh

impossible for the unskilled man to get into the A. F. of L., even when

he does desire to do so, because of what Haywood characterizes as "a

vicious system of apprenticeship, exorbitant fees," _etc._[601] Mr.

Haywood's fellow-worker, Joseph J. Ettor, joined him in his attack on

Tom Mann's position:

The theory that what is needed to save the Federation is the

energetic and vigorous men who are now in the I. W. W. is on

a par with the "socialist" advice of [_sic_] how to save the

nation; but we don't want to save the Federation any more than

to save the nation. We aim at destroying it. The Socialists

advised us to roll up our sleeves and become active politically

within capitalism--"We must capture the government for the

workers," _etc._ We tried, but the more we fooled with the

beast the more it _captured us_. Our best men went to "bore

from within" capitalist parliaments, and city councils, only

to be disgusted, thrown out, or fall victims of the game and

environment in which they found themselves.... We learned at an

awful cost particularly this: That the most unscrupulous labor

fakers now betraying the workers were once our "industrialist,"

"anarchist" and "socialist" comrades, who grew weary of the

slow progress we were making on the outside, went over, and

were not only lost, but ... became the greatest supporters of

the old and [the] most serious enemies of the new.[602]

Mr Mann's attitude was not appreciably changed during his trip through

the United States. His reaction to the situation so far as the

principle of "dual unionism" is concerned is explained in an article

contributed to a French journal. He wrote:

As the situation appears to me after many deep conversations

and discussions with working men of all conditions, I say

very emphatically that the I. W. W. should work in harmony

with the American Federation of Labor. There is not the least

necessity for having two organizations. The field of action is

wide enough for all to be able to coöperate in the economic

struggle....

The greatest danger to which it [the A. F. of L.] is subject

at present is the firm hold the politicians have on it. Their

influence grows in the unions as well as in the Federation, and

that because the energetic, militant, enthusiastic men (_les

hommes énergiques et ardents_) who comprise the I. W. W. refuse

to work on the inside of the unions, so that they leave a free

field to the politicians, to whom the task becomes relatively

easy.... We know what comes to pass when politicians get

control of the unions and direct them.[603]

In reporting the eighth convention of the "Bummery" I. W. W., the

_Weekly People_[604] declared that the St. John crowd was in control

and that a wooden shoe was made use of in calling the convention in

order and attempting to maintain it in order. This meeting continued

in session from the 15th to the 29th of September, 1913. There were

present thirty-nine delegates and the seven members of the Executive

Board. Three national industrial unions were represented: the Textile

Workers by two delegates having thirty-one votes; the Forest and Lumber

Workers (formerly the Brotherhood of Timber Workers) by one delegate

with thirteen votes; and the Marine Transport Workers by one delegate

with forty-two votes. The other thirty-five delegates represented

eighty-five local unions with one hundred and ninety-two votes.[605]

Attention has been called to the rather tepid discussion of the problem

of centralization at the 1912 convention.[606] During the intervening

year this question had called forth such bitter factional animosity

in the organization that we find it in 1913 divided into two hostile

camps and threatened again with disruption. The issue is significantly

comparable to the "states' rights" controversy in our political

history. The I. W. W. _administration_ and its supporters were, very

naturally, "centralists." They favored a strong federal government

for the I. W. W. and attacked the "decentralizers'" program for the

emasculation of the general administration and the establishment of

a loose confederation of sovereign local unions--the states' rights

program in industry. The states' rights doctrine failed of acceptance

in the I. W. W. as it has failed in American politics. Nevertheless,

the decentralization crisis in the I. W. W. deserves more than passing

notice. In the first place, the doctrine was not annihilated in 1913;

it was merely smothered. The I. W. W. may yet be "unscrambled." In

the second place, this issue is perhaps the most fundamental one

ever given wide discussion by the I. W. W. membership. It involves

directly the whole question of the structure of the organization,

the proper distribution of functions and authority among the several

parts of the organization and, indirectly, questions of efficiency

in carrying on propaganda and organizing work and of the relative

merits of authoritarian (state) socialism and so-called "voluntary

socialism." As the two groups lined up at Chicago in 1913, we may say

that the controversy between the administration's supporters and the

defenders of the local unions was, on the whole, a struggle between the

western membership, individualistic and tainted with anarchism, and the

eastern membership, more schooled to subordination--infected with state

socialism.

The attack of the decentralizers took the form of specific resolutions

for the abolition of various features of the general administration

and the restriction of the powers of the Executive Board and general

officers. The abolition of the office of president in 1906 was in

part an expression of this revolt against centralized authority. But

now, with the presidency eliminated, with very little organization

at the best, with a degree of central power and authority which the

United Mine Workers of America would consider mild indeed, and with

a constantly shifting membership of less than 15,000, we find that

there is actually a little group of western locals which assumes that

there is already a dangerous centralization of power and authority

at "Headquarters." Some five hundred resolutions were introduced at

the convention and a large number of these were assorted decentralist

proposals for giving the local union relatively greater power--demands,

in other words, for readjustments which were expected to result in

increased "local autonomy." This local autonomy was to be secured for

the benefit of the "rank and file," _i. e._, the individual members,

and particularly for the "rank and file" membership of the "mixed"

locals so predominant in the western part of the country. From the

standpoint of the mixed local, "the disease within the I. W. W.

is ... the gigantic machine formation attempted to be [_sic_] foisted

upon it by the authoritarian socialists who presided at its birth...."

"Decentralization deals essentially," we are told, "with the right of

the locals to _control_ themselves and through their combined wills

to run the general organization."[607] Following up the attack, the

knights of the rank and file proposed to abolish, _inter alia_, the

General Executive Board, the office of the General Organizer, and the

national convention![608] One wonders that the Constitution itself

was not put bodily on the _index_! Indeed, a year later, a leader in

the movement in California did write an article to show that the I. W.

W. Preamble is syndicalistic, and the Constitution state-socialistic,

therefore that the latter should be abolished.[609] For two weeks the

delegates wrangled over propositions of this kind and the general

subject of decentralization. Two and a half days were devoted to the

proposal to abolish the General Executive Board. This action was

desired by locals in southern California and other parts of the West,

as well, as by a few of the eastern locals.[610] Concerning their

demands, a supporter of the administration said:

They [the decentralizers] claim they will never submit to the

rule of a minority of four or five men.... They do not want to

submit to the rule of the G. E. B. composed of four or five,

but they will submit to the authority of the General Secretary

and the General Organizer whom they want to function in the

place of the G. E. B. The authority of the minority of five or

seven men is something terrible, but the authority and rule of

the minority of two is not so terrible.[611]

The locals of Calgary [Canada], Portland, Oregon, Seattle and

Spokane, Washington, and Phoenix, Arizona, presented a resolution

asking that "the function of the headquarters [_i. e._, the general

administration] be reduced to a mere correspondence agency." No action

was taken.[612] "We ... are working ... to overthrow this [wages]

system," said a decentralist fellow-worker, "and we claim ... that

the rank and file of the proletariat will have to do this themselves."

The General Executive Board members, according to this delegate,

"place themselves in exactly the same position over these people [the

workers] and put themselves in the same [position of] unique power

over them as the capitalist class."[613] Said another: "The minority

in this organization is ... ruling ... today, namely, the G. E. B. I

am certainly in favor of abolishing the G. E. B. I don't see any use

for it. I don't see what they can do for the rank and file."[614]

According to the majority report of the constitution committee (which

was lost) all authority was, in the absence of the G. E. B., to be

vested in the General Secretary-Treasurer and the General Organizer,

both responsible to the rank and file.[615] In line with the foregoing

was a resolution providing for a reduction in the per-capita tax of

"mixed" locals from fifteen to five cents per month. The proponents of

this resolution insisted that the "mixed" locals bore more than their

share of the financial burden--that they practically supported the

national organization.[616] The proposition was given extended debate

and finally killed. Naturally it was opposed by the General Executive

Board.[617]

This attack on the already weak central authority took the form of

an attempt, first, to abolish the G. E. B.; second, to cut down

the financial support of the general office; third, to abolish the

convention and substitute for it the initiative and referendum; fourth,

to place agitators under the direct control of the rank and file; and

fifth, to make the general officers mere clerical assistants. The only

real success achieved by the decentralizers in these efforts in 1913

was the introduction into the I. W. W. constitution of a provision for

the initiative and referendum.[618] The introduction of the referendum

feature is another illustration of the unconscious tendency to follow

the lines of our political development. Note, too, that the I. W. W.

referendum advocates hailed from those very states which have recently

attracted attention by introducing this feature into their political

structure. The I. W. W. is now much more decentralized than it was

in 1905 or even 1913, and it appears to be drifting toward further

changes in that direction. So far, the movement away from what little

centralized power it could boast may be seen in two phases: (1) The

abolition of the presidency; (2) the placing of the General Executive

Board under the control of a general referendum which can be initiated

at any time and upon any subject by request of not less than ten locals

in not less than three different industries.

In discussing the proposed abolition of the convention, Delegate B.

E. Nilsson asserted that only at the second and fourth conventions

had anything worth while been done, and that in both these cases all

that had been accomplished had been done against the constitution, and

concluded with the statement that "this [eighth convention] has cost us

over $3,000 and it isn't worth three cents."[619] Delegate Elizabeth

Gurley Flynn advocated the abolition of the convention. She said that

it was not genuinely representative, inasmuch as all the locals could

not afford to send delegates.[620] The proposal was finally defeated.

In general, the decentralizers--anarchistic advocates of the doctrine

of the militant minority--found themselves decidedly in the minority,

and so far unsuccessful. "Fully a hundred of the resolutions," says one

prominent anarchist who attended the convention, "were progressive,

favored decentralization, and were fathered, mothered, and nursed by

half a dozen militants. But every radical resolution," he thought, "was

either lost, laid on the table, or amended so that it was useless.

The motion for decentralization was lost by three to one, as was

the motion to do away with the G. E. B."[621] Another opponent of

centralized authority explained how "for two long and tedious weeks

they [the decentralizers] presented their ideas ... and the centralists

slaughtered them by the _brute force of voting power_...." "The

decentralizers held," lie said, "that a revolutionary movement does

not depend [so much] upon votes as it does upon the recognition ... of

the fact that all minorities are to have an equal voice ... with the

majorities ... [because] the minority is always more militant than the

majority."[622] In the same issue which carried this statement, the

_Voice of the People_ said editorially:

[The decentralization struggle in the I. W. W. is] a war

between the advocates of "I am going to save myself" and those

of "let me save you."... Centralization in labor unions is

nothing less than government by representation, or political

action. The advocates of centralization in the I. W. W. are

socialists, in fact, if not in profession.... Only when they

repudiate labor-union governmentalism will they become real

direct-actionists.[623]

The "decentralist agitation" first assumed definite form at a

conference of the Pacific Coast locals of the I. W. W. held at

Portland, Oregon, in February, 1911. At this conference the eight-hours

movement, plans for the establishment of agitation circuits for

organizers, and--this most of all--the evils of centralized authority

were discussed.[624] At this conference was established the Pacific

Coast District Organization, known among the I. W. W.s as the "P. C.

D. O." This organization was an interesting compromise between the

idea of absolutely self-governing locals on the one side and servile

locals completely controlled by a bureaucratic national machine on the

other. It undertook to exercise some of the sovereign functions of

"Headquarters." According to a member of the General Executive Board,

this P. C. D. O. was to have its own due stamp books,

headquarters, General Secretary, General Executive Board, and

paper--this paper was the [_Industrial_] _Worker_. But the P.

C. D. O. made no success ... because of not having a strong

enough ground to build upon in order to interest the western

membership.[625]

It was believed in some quarters--especially at "Headquarters"--that

the real purpose of the Western Slope constituency which organized the

P. C. D. O. was to disrupt the I. W. W., or to effect a secession from

the national body. Some months after the Conference above referred to

an editorial appeared in _Solidarity_--the administration, organ. It

declared that their purpose

was to disrupt the I. W. W. and form an independent

organization in the West. The Conference itself proposed

that the G. E. B. reduce the _per capita_ [tax] to the P. C.

D. O. to five cents and allow the locals in that district

organization to buy their stamps directly from the district

headquarters.... The final conclusion of the sixth convention

was that such an organization as the P. C. D. O., for purposes

of closer unity, localized activity and propaganda, was fully

justified and should be supported, but efforts to divide or

disrupt the organization as a whole would be fought to the

bitter end.[626]

The administration saw in the P. C. D. O. a very subversive _imperium

in imperio_, and when the eighth convention met, the G. E. B. issued

the following statement concerning the western promoters of the P. C.

D. O. idea:

Decentralization is what they want. To gain this point of

control in the movement, they begin with the officials by

saying they have too much power, and to break up the machine

we must divide up in various parts, do away with the General

Executive Board and the General Office. The first move ... was

... when the scheme of a Pacific Coast District Organization

was launched under the mask of perfecting more organization

[_sic_] in the I. W. W. At the [P. C. D. O.] convention held in

Portland, Ore., they were to establish a western headquarters,

... get control of the western organ, _The Industrial Worker_,

elect their own General Executive Board, and get out their own

due-books and stamps, _etc._ This idea ... is now prevailing in

various sections throughout the organization. The P. C. D. O.

scheme ... failed because of [lack of] support [and] died with

its first convention because of the fact that it smacked of

disruption and decentralization....[627]

In the I. W. W., as in all voluntary organizations covering areas of

continental magnitude, doctrines are allocated territorially. There

are many points of contrast between the eastern and the western

constituencies of the Industrial Workers of the World. At present we

are only concerned with the eastern and western attitudes toward the

idea of decentralization. The western environment drives the _petit

bourgeoisie_ to demand _political_ home rule or local autonomy in

legislative government. The result is the recent remarkable spread

of the initiative, referendum and recall in the three Pacific Coast

states. In these same three states we find the chief strongholds of

_industrial_ autonomy. The life of the western proletarian imbues

him with the more individualistic kind of rebellion which expresses

itself in the more or less coherent demand for an industrial state

made up of self-governing local groups of workers. The results have

been the partially successful drive from the West for the referendum

idea in union government, the chronic decentralist mutterings which

have constantly emanated from the West, the open but unsuccessful

decentralist attack at the eighth convention and--the P. C. D. O. In

the long run the decentralist pressure has had its effect and the

organization, as already intimated, is now less centralized than it

was a decade ago. The writer realizes that the analogy between western

political pioneering and labor-union or industrialist pioneering in

that section must not be pushed too far. For example, the ultimate

result of I. W. W. decentralization is anarchist communism, which is

quite different from the kind of political society resulting from the

home-rule and referendum statutes enacted by a middle-class electorate.

The I. W. W. leaders were not unaware of the effect of the geographical

environment. B. H. Williams, the editor of _Solidarity_ puts it in this

way:

We see in the West, individualism in practice, combined with

a theory of collective action that scoffs at individual or

group initiative by general officers and executive boards and

conceives the possibility of "direct action" in all things

through the "rank and file." Hence the proposal ... for

minimizing the power of the general administration.

He explains that the eastern delegates come from a different

environment. Industry in the East is highly developed and centralized.

They don't think of Pennsylvania in a geographical sense.

Without the individualistic spirit himself, the eastern worker

nevertheless recognizes the value of individual initiative in

promoting mass action and in executing the mandates ... of the

organization. The problem before the sixth convention was to

preserve the balance between these two sets of ideas. In that

the convention succeeded admirably.[628]

Another industrialist thinks that "the western part of the country,

being very little developed industrially, has a tendency to develop

individualism in the minds of the workers.... On the other hand, the

workers in the large industrial centers develop a strong collectivism

which expresses itself in mass action," and which requires a "close[ly]

centralized organization."[629]

The western local union is usually a "mixed" union, and it is therefore

not directly connected with any "shop" or industry. It is more nearly

a propaganda club. It usually has a hall of some kind for meetings,

and in many cases this hall is open all the time. Sometimes there is a

"jungle kitchen" attached and meals can be served to itinerant Fellow

Workers who are passing through. This means that there is naturally

more hall-room conversation and less solid "shop talk" in the western

local than there is in the strictly industrial shop organization of

the East. Many members felt that too much time was wasted in talking

politics and religion. At the eighth convention there was some

criticism of the loquaciousness of the western "wobbly" and of his

personal appearance as well.

To-day you have got to have a man go up and address the public

that looks like a human being [said Delegate Olson]. [See what]

you have got in the western country by their ragged agitators;

you have got nothing but disappointment, and then you holler at

the General Secretary.... If the rank and file were educated

well enough to make use of the organization instead of arousing

animosity they would do away with this spittoon philosophy.[630]

Frank Bohn, in describing the methods by which this group of so-called

"spittoon philosophers" in the mixed locals is said to have attempted

to disrupt the I. W. W., asks, "Is this chair-warming sect now the

leading element in the I. W. W.? Is it in a majority? If it is, the I.

W. W. is not dying. It is dead."[631]

Whatever may be the merits or demerits of philosophic anarchism, it

is unquestionable that the anarchist--the _naïve_ anarchist, at any

rate--is an unmitigated nuisance. Perhaps the General Executive Board

had something of this sort in mind when they said that "word pictures

of the ideal will not serve to satisfy the cry for bread for any great

length of time regardless of how beautifully they may be

portrayed ...," and reminded the delegates that "responsibilities,

financial, moral and physical, must be met and not shirked."[632] The

Board was more specific farther on in its report:

There is an element in the I. W. W. [it declares] whose sole

purpose seems to be to disrupt the organization. We refer to

the syndicalists or decentralizers, as they are all the same,

in their attempt to disrupt the I. W. W.... While we do not

believe in a highly centralized organization, neither is the I.

W. W. such. In fact, it is the most decentralized movement in

the world today. It does not interfere with the action of the

locals as long as they abide by the fundamental principles of

the organization.... We find a situation in the West that if

carried on means a complete disruption of the only industrial

organization in the world. In time of strike they sit around

the hall talking of what ought to be done or devising ways

and means to do away with General Headquarters.... They will

talk of sabotage and direct action but leave it to the boss to

use it on the few who take up the fight. If these conditions

continue, the I. W. W. will die of dry rot.[633]

Delegate Foss, in a despondent moment, remarked that there was "a

general tendency to prevent organization of any kind in this [I.

W. W.] movement."[634] At another time he remarked: "The western

portion of this organization does not need any decentralization.

Decentralization has got hold of it now and that is the very reason why

this organization has no job control in the West...."[635]

In 1912 the G. E. B. had assured the membership that they were "not

unmindful of the danger that will ever live in centralized power,"

but they asserted that "it does not follow that to centralize the

administrative machinery of your organization necessarily means a

centralized power," and that "the only means by which centralization

of power can be avoided is by correct education and a thoroughly

intelligent membership...."[636]

A writer who favored the decentralists says that their defeat was

due very largely to their "crudity and inexperience." "Possessed

of a red-hot issue, they failed," he said, "to make good with it"

partly "because of their unfamiliarity with the principles of

decentralization."[637] Alexander Berkman, one of the most prominent

anarchists in the United States, regretted the victory of what he might

have called the "entrenched oligarchy" at Chicago.

The question of local autonomy [he says], in itself such an

axiomatic necessity of a truly revolutionary movement, has been

so obscured in the debates of the convention that apparently

sight was lost of the fact that no organization of independent

and self-reliant workers is thinkable without complete local

autonomy. It does not speak well either for the intelligence

or spirit of the convention delegates that the efforts of the

decentralists were defeated. The convention has given a very

serious blow to the ... spirit of the social revolution by

[passing] the resolution that the publications of the I. W.

W. should come under the supervision of the General Executive

Board. That is centralization with a vengeance.... We consider

the convention ... a sad failure [and] ... we sincerely hope

that the real militants and revolutionists of the I. W. W. will

take the lesson to heart and exert all their energies to stem

the tide of conservatism and faint-heartedness in the I. W. W.

organization.[638]

In a very interesting article Ben Reitman, another anarchist, has set

down his more personal impressions of this eighth I. W. W. convention.

After assuring us that 98 per cent of the "extremely interesting crowd"

of delegates had in all probability been in prison, but that none of

them were criminals, he continues:

As I sat in the hot, stuffy, smoky room of the convention

hall day after day and heard the discussions, and saw how

little regard the delegates had for grammar and the truth, and

realized that most of the delegates knew as much about the

real labor movement as they did about psychology, and that

they cared little about the broad principles of freedom, ...

I marvelled at the big things the I. W. W. have done during

their short career; ... and I said to myself,--"God! Is it

possible that this bunch of pork-chop philosophers, agitators

who have no real, great organizing ability or creative brain

power, are able to frighten the capitalistic class more than

any other labor movement organized in America? Is it true that

this body of politicians were able to send 5,000 men to jail in

the various free-speech fights?... Are these the men who put

a song in the mouth and a sense of solidarity in the heart of

the hobo? Are the activities of these men forcing the A. F. of

L. and the sociologists to recognize the power and necessity

of Industrial Unionism?" And as I looked at the delegates and

recounted their various activities, I felt that each one could

say, "Yes, I'm the guy." And then I wondered how they did

it.[639]

The I. W. W. was by this time developing some slight capacity for

introspection. A few of the leaders at any rate clearly understood

some of the weaknesses of the organization. The editor of the official

organ makes the frank admission that "at present we are to the labor

movement what the high diver is to the circus--a sensation marvelous

and nerve-thrilling. We attract the crowds ... [but] as far as making

industrial unionism fit the every-day life of the worker, we have

failed miserably."[640]

FOOTNOTES:

[596] E. Pouget, _La confédération générale du travail_ (2nd ed.), p.

47.

[597] "As to my candidacy," _Industrial Worker_ (II), Nov. 2, 1911.

[598] _The Syndicalist_ (London), March, 1913.

[599] Vol. xiv, p. 394 (Jan., 1914).

[600] "An appeal for industrial solidarity." _International Socialist

Review_, March, 1914, vol. xiv, p. 546.

[601] _Ibid._

[602] "I. W. W. _versus_ A. F. of L." _The New Review_, May, 1914. p.

283.

[603] "Impressions d'Amérique," _La Vie Ouvrière_ (Paris), vol. v, pp.

722-723. "Je dis que c'est grand dommage et que cela peut préparer

un désastre, que l'admirable ardeur combattive des _industrialists_

actuellement groupés dans le I. W. W. ne s'exerce pas à l'intérieur

de la Fédération Américaine du Travail." _Ibid._, p. 723. _Cf._ his

pamphlet, _Prepare for Action_, p. 14. For an excellent discussion of

dual unionism, see William English Walling, _Labor Union Socialism and

Socialist Labor Unionism_ (Chicago, C. H. Kerr Co., 1912), chap. xviii,

"The Question of the Moment--Dual Organization" (pp. 90-96).

[604] October 4, 1913. Editorial.

[605] _Proceedings of the Eighth Convention of the I. W. W._,

September, 1913, p. 2. The distribution of voting power among the

delegates depends, as explained in chapter ii, upon the membership of

the locals represented. _Cf._ article iv, section 7, of the I. W. W.

Constitution (1914 ed., pp. 14-16).

[606] _Supra_, p. 297.

[607] Covington Hall in _The Voice of the People_, Oct. 9, 1913, p. 2,

col. 3.

[608] _Proceedings_, p. 43. All of these resolutions were proposed by a

delegate from Phoenix, Arizona. In connection with the resolutions it

was "moved and seconded that a committee on style be called for, whose

duties shall be to strike from the constitution all references to the

powers of the General Executive Board, General Organizer, and General

Secretary." _Ibid._

[609] Caroline Nelson, "Economic socialism or State capitalist

socialism, Which?" _The Voice of the People_, July 30, 1914, p. 4, col.

[610] _Proceedings_, 8th I. W. W. convention, p. 81.

[611] Delegate Schrager, _ibid._, p. 71, col. 1.

[612] _Ibid._, p. 84, col. 1.

[613] Delegate Van Fleet, _op. cit._, p. 69.

[614] _Ibid._, p. 69 (Fellow-worker McEvoy).

[615] _Ibid._, p. 71.

[616] _Ibid._, p. 112.

[617] _Ibid._, p. 33. An unsuccessful effort had been made at the third

convention in 1907 to abolish the initiation fee.

[618] Preamble and Constitution (1914), article vii.

[619] _Proceedings_, p. 117, col. 1.

[620] _Ibid._, p. 118, col. 1.

[621] Ben Reitman, "Impressions of the Chicago Convention." _Mother

Earth_, October, 1913, vol. viii, p. 240.

[622] G. G. Soltes, "Convention Notes," _Voice of the People_, Oct. 23,

1913, p. 2, col. 3. The italics are not in the original.

[623] "The question of decentralization," p. 2.

[624] Report of Committee. _Solidarity_, Feb. 18, 1911, p. 2, col. 4.

[625] J. M. Foss in his report to the eighth convention, _Proceedings_,

p. 37.

[626] _Solidarity_, Oct. 21, 1911, p. 2, col. 3.

[627] Report to the eighth convention, _Proceedings_, p. 36. Some of

the delegates at this convention appeared to think that the P. C. D.

O. "scheme" was instigated indirectly by the capitalists. Delegate

Foss said: "... it is much cheaper for the masters to work within our

organization rather than to fight us openly." _Ibid._, p. 38, col. 1.

[628] "The sixth I. W. W. convention," _International Socialist

Review_, vol. xii, pp. 301-2, Nov., 1911.

[629] Ewald Koeltgen, "I. W. W. Convention" (8th, 1913), _International

Socialist Review_, vol. xiv, p. 275, Nov., 1913. Professor Hoxie

took the same general view that decentralization was the slogan of

the western membership. "The Truth about the I. W. W.," _Journal of

Political Economy_, Nov., 1913. vol. xxi, p. 788.

[630] _Proceedings, Eighth Convention_, p. 52.

[631] _International Socialist Review_, vol. xii, p. 44, July, 1911.

[632] Report of the Eighth Convention, _Proceedings_, p. 37, col. 1, 2.

[633] Report of the Eighth Convention, _Proceedings_, pp. 103-4.