THE I. W. W.
The I. W. W., or the so-called "Industrial Workers of the World," whose
policy may be summed up in the words, "I Want to Wreck," and who in
derision are termed the "I Won't Works," the "Imported Weary Willies"
and the "Wobblies," enjoy the unenviable reputation of being classed
among the most insurrectionary, impious and infamous workers of the
world to-day. This industrial union, also known as the One Big Union, is
the bitter rival of the American Federation of Labor. Joseph J. Ettor,
in his I. W. W. pamphlet, "Industrial Unionism," page 5, speaking of the
fear that people have of the I. W. W. says:
"Yes, gentle reader, our ideas, our principles and object are
certainly dangerous and menacing, applied by a united working class
would shake society and certainly those who are now on top
sumptuously feeding upon the good things they have not produced
would feel the shock."
The I. W. W. was organized at a secret conference in Chicago, January 2,
1905, attended by 26 of the most radical Socialists in the country,
including Eugene V. Debs, William D. Haywood, William E. Trautman,
Thomas J. Haggerty, Daniel MacDonald, Charles H. Moyer, Charles O.
Sherman, Frank Bohn and A. M. Simons. Daniel De Leon was prominent at
the first convention, June 27, 1905, and for three years afterward, the
organization being founded on his theory that the Socialistic revolution
would not come by voting but by a violent seizure of the industries of
the country by Socialistic workmen industrially organized.
"The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 4, referring to the
hungry and desperate masses tells us:
"In some countries these revolting, desperate masses may come out
victorious, and establish a rule of their own, like the Russian
Bolsheviki, only to find that they will have to keep on running
society on private ownership basis, until industrial organization
of the workers is so far advanced that it can take over the
responsibility. There is no way in which the masses can escape
industrial unionism. What they do not want to do now at our
prompting, they will have to do later of their own initiative,
driven by economic necessity. Our new society is bound to come. It
will be firmly established in ten years if we are energetic. It
will take longer if we are indifferent. We cannot stand still
socially, because there is no footing before we reach the bottom.
We cannot go back, any more than the butterfly can again become a
larva. We must go forward to Industrial Democracy."
On page 23 of the same issue of "The One Big Union Monthly" we are
informed that Industrial Unionism is International:
"Industrial unionism arises out of and is modeled after modern
capitalism. Unlike trade unionism, it is not born of the capitalism
of fifty years ago. Industrial unionism recognizes that capitalism
is not only interindustrial, so to speak, but also international.
That just as it binds industries together by means of machine
processes and financial investments, so also does capitalism tend
to bind nations together. Industrial unionism follows the same
trend. It, too, is not only interindustrial but also international.
Industrial unionism seeks to organize the industrial workers of the
world just as capitalism seeks to exploit them. Industrial unionism
is spreading wherever international capitalism exists. Like
international capitalism, industrial unionism knows no boundaries,
color, race, creed or sex. As international capitalism knows only
profit, industrial unionism knows only the industrial exploitation
by which profit is possible. Industrial unionism organizes to make
industrial exploitation an impossibility. And capitalism is its
most valued assistant."
Ettor, in "Industrial Unionism," page 21, tells us, that the I. W. W.
does not organize by trades, but by industries: "All the workers in any
plant, factory, mine, mill or any given industry in a given locality
organize in one Local Industrial Union. All the Local Industrial Unions
of a given general industry are banded together in the National
Industrial Union. The National Industrial Unions are banded again
stronger in the Industrial Department and then all Departments, six in
all, are brought under one head, the General Administration of the I. W.
W. One Big Union of all workers, welded together in such a manner that,
imbued with the war cry: 'an injury to one is an injury to all,' all its
members can act together in fighting the common enemy."
Explaining organization by industries rather than by trades, "The One
Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 25, takes for instance the
stockyards:
"We do not know how many crafts there are in the stockyards, but
there are many. According to the old style, these crafts would be
organized each by itself, the carpenters belonging to the national
union of carpenters, the engineers to the national union of
engineers, the butchers to the national union of butchers, etc. It
also belongs to old style unionism to leave the unskilled workers
unorganized. Our method would be to organize all the workers in a
plant, as a branch of the Stockyard Workers' Industrial Union. This
would imply the cancelling of trade distinctions and craft lines.
As against the employer we would face him not as butchers,
laborers, carpenters or engineers, but as stockyard workers, no
matter whether we are office clerks or laborers, or carpenters, or
engineers. This is what we mean with industrial unionism. The
various branches would combine into district organizations if
necessary, and all of them together would form the Stockyard
Workers' Industrial Union as part of the Industrial Workers of the
World. By being thus organized we hope to be able to carry on the
fight locally, or by districts, or on a national scale with better
chance of success, than if we were split up in a great number of
unions in each plant, with little or no contact with one another.
The advantages of the one big union idea are so apparent that no
honest worker will, in earnest, contradict us."
The famous Preamble to the platform of the I. W. W. throws a startling
light upon this revolutionary industrial union, which has, within recent
years, been getting a very strong hold on immigrants from Europe:
"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
millions of the working people, and the few who make up the
employing class have all the good things of life.
"Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers
of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and
the machinery of production and abolish the wage system.
"We find that the centering of the management of industries into
fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the
ever-growing power of the employing class.
"These conditions can be changed and the interests of the working
class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all
its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary,
cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department
thereof, thus making an injury to one, an injury to all.
"Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wages for a fair
day's work,' we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary
watchword, 'Abolition of the wage system.'
"It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for
the every-day struggle with the capitalists, but also to carry on
production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By
organizing industrially we are forming a structure of the new
society within the shell of the old."
Giovannitti, editor of the New York City Italian Socialist publication,
"Il Proletario," one of the official Socialist organs enumerated in the
"Proceedings[9] of the 1910 National Congress of the Socialist Party,"
writing in the April 5, 1913, edition of his paper, says:
"The aim of the Socialists and of the Syndicalists is precisely
that of dispossessing the middle class by transferring property to
the working class.
"We shall take possession of the industries for three very simple
reasons: because we need them, because we desire them, and because
we have the power to take them.
"Whether it is just or unjust, moral or immoral, it is no concern
to us. We shall waste no time whatever in providing the validity of
our legal titles, yet, if it will be necessary, after the
dispossession will have been accomplished, we shall engage a couple
of lawyers and judges to adjust the contracts and to render the act
perfectly legal and respectable. So, too, if it will be necessary,
we shall find a couple of most learned bishops to sanctify it.
These matters can always be arranged--all that is strong and
powerful becomes in time just and moral--and for this reason, we
Syndicalists maintain that the social revolution is not a question
of necessity and justice, but of necessity and strength."
"The New Unionism," by Tridon, on page 112, informs us that Arturo
Giovannitti was, in turn, a minter, a bookkeeper, a theological student,
a mission preacher and a tramp. Ettor, in "Industrial Unionism," page
15, speaking of the I. W. W. principles of morality, says:
"New conceptions of Right and Wrong must generate and permeate the
workers. We must look on conduct and actions that advance the
social and economic position of the working class as Right,
ethically, legally, religiously, socially and by every other
measurement. That conduct and those actions which aid, help to
maintain and give comfort to the capitalist class, we must consider
as Wrong by every standard."
"The New Unionism," page 104, gives us Vincent St. John's statement of
the methods and tactics employed by the I. W. W., of which he has been a
prominent leader:
"As a revolutionary organization the Industrial Workers of the
World aims to use any and all tactics that will get the results
sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics
used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make
good in their use. The question of 'right' and 'wrong' does not
concern us. No terms made with an employer are final. All peace so
long as the wage system lasts is but an armed truce. At any
favorable opportunity the struggle for more control of industry is
renewed....
"The organization does not allow any part to enter into time
contracts with the employers. It aims where strikes are used, to
paralyze all branches of the industry involved, when the employers
can least afford a cessation of work--during the busy season and
when there are rush orders to be filled."
In the Socialist Labor Party paper, "Weekly People," New York, February
10, 1912, the following article by Arthur Giovannitti shows the part
that the I. W. W. is expected to take in bringing about the Marxian
rebellion through the instrumentality of a general strike:
"The future of Socialism lies only in the general strike, not
merely a quiet political strike, but one that once started should
go fatally to its end, i.e., armed insurrection, and the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions.... The task of
revolution is not to construct the new society, but to demolish the
old one, and, therefore, its first aim should be at the complete
destruction of the existing state, so as to render it absolutely
powerless to react and re-establish itself.... The I. W. W. must
develop itself as the new legislature and the new executive body of
the land, undermine the existing one, and gradually absorb the
functions of the state until it can entirely substantiate it
through the only means it has, the revolution."
On May 1, 1919, plans for a nation-wide strike on July 4th were
disclosed by I. W. W. orators at a mass meeting in the workingmen's
hall, 119 South Throop Street, Chicago. It was Simms, a colored man, who
gave the details of the strike plan:
"The workmen will lay down their tools on July 4th, and on the
morning of July 5th not one will take them up again....
"It will be the opening of the social revolution. Moreover, not one
workman will take up his tools again until every prisoner of the
workers now incarcerated in the capitalistic prisons is released."
"The One Big Union Monthly," March 1, 1919, page 22, declares:
"Socialism rears new institutions. It weaves a new fabric for our
social life. In Russia it is the Soviets; in America it is the One
Big Union. This fabric is proletarian only. Within its limits the
Socialist Revolutionist halts. This new organism--this One Big
Union--may, or may not seek Democracy. Democracy is merely a method
of governing. If that method leads to Socialist goals it will be
followed. Otherwise, we will seek further for our avenue. But the
great end is proletarianism. It is the social ownership of the
means of production. It is the creation of a society where all
classes will be melted into one, and where the class war will
soften into an all-race proletarianism."
Another I. W. W. publication, "The Evolution of Industrial Democracy,"
page 40, speaking of government after the "Wobblies" get into power,
goes still further:
"Government, as now understood will disappear--there being no
servile class to be held in subjection--but in its place will be an
administration of affairs."
Relative to property rights in the future, "The Evolution of Industrial
Democracy," page 39, informs us:
"Rights of inheritance would disappear with the right to hold
private property in the lands, tools and machinery of production.
Any accumulation by the individual that might be used for
exploitation would pass to the collectivity at the death of the
holder. Society would be the heir of the individual and, vice
versa, the individuals would be the heirs of society. The right to
freely function at the machines and enjoy the social value of his
toil would guarantee the worker a full competence."
As regards compensation for work in accordance with the I. W. W. plan,
we are told on page 39:
"Compensation in the industries would necessarily be upon the basis
of the 'man-day'--the average production of an average man in an
average day when working under average conditions--and in those
industries not of an actual productive nature, such as 'public
service,' etc., the man-day must prevail there also (being based
upon the average production of all the industries served) for the
reason that no man could be induced to serve for less than that
average--to do so being to confess himself an inferior being--and
to compel him to serve for less would be to set up a new slavery,
which the moral sense of the new community could not endure."
Giovannitti, in "Il Proletario," New York, April 5, 1913, gives a lesson
in sabotage to the Italian Socialists and members of the I. W. W.:
"We are not yet sufficiently strong to restore them [i.e., the
instruments of production] to ourselves, it is true, but it is also
true that we cannot allow any opportunity to escape of reaping any
advantage from them.
"Thus, if to-morrow we shall be justified in wrenching from
capitalism all the industries, why, when it is a question of life
or death for us to win or to lose a strike, is it not just to
remove a screw, derange a wheel, break a thread, or commit, in any
way whatever, an act of sabotage on a machine which otherwise would
become the very beginning of our defeat in the hands of the scabs?
"We cannot understand how it is still possible while we have a
right to all the produce of our work, we have not an entire right
to a part of it."
Other illustrations of sabotage may be of interest to the reader. The
following one is taken from the Chicago "Syndicalist," February 15,
1913:
"A few drops of sulphuric acid placed on top of a pile of woolen or
cotton goods never stops going down.
"Two decks of cards in a grain separator cover the screen and cause
the grain to vanish out of the blower.
"A piece of iron dropped in a crucible full of glass will eat
through it. Crucibles are made of graphite and cost $40.
"A handful of salt in paint will allow a good-looking job for a day
or two, but when dry will fall off in sheets.
"Maclay Hoyne, Chicago's district attorney, is analyzing a
spontaneous fire powder that allows the user to be miles away when
it breaks forth.
"Castor oil capsules dissolved in varnish destroy the ability of
the latter to dry. The job must be washed down and started all over
again.
"The suffragettes of England have significantly notified their
opponents that a fire in every shire was the way the word was
flashed in days gone by."
Pages 40 to 48 of "The New Unionism," by Tridon, furnish us with some
more barbarous examples of sabotage:
"We may distinguish three forms of sabotage:
"1. Active sabotage which consists in the damaging of goods or
machinery.
"2. Open-mouthed sabotage, beneficial to the ultimate consumer, and
which consists in exposing or defeating fraudulent commercial
practices.
"3. Obstructionism or passive sabotage, which consists in carrying
out orders literally, regardless of consequences.
"If you are an engineer you can, with two cents' worth of powdered
stone or a pinch of sand, stall your machine, cause a loss of time
or make expensive repairs necessary. If you are a joiner or
woodworker, what is simpler than to ruin furniture without your
boss noticing it, and thereby drive his customers away? A garment
worker can easily spoil a suit or a bolt of cloth; if you are
working in a department store, a few spots on a fabric cause it to
be sold for next to nothing; a grocery clerk, by packing up goods
carelessly, brings about a smashup; in the woolen or the
haberdashery trade a few drops of acid on the goods you are
wrapping will make a customer furious ... an agricultural laborer
may sow bad seed in wheat fields," etc.
"With two cents' worth of a certain stuff, used by one who knows, a
locomotive can be made absolutely useless."
"The first thing to do before going out on strike is to cripple all
the machinery. Then the contest is even between employer and
worker, for the cessation of work really stops all life in the
capitalists' camp. Are bakery workers planning to go on strike? Let
them pour in the ovens a few pints of petroleum or of any other
greasy or pungent matter. After that, soldiers or scabs may come
and bake bread. The smell will not come out of the tiles for three
months. Is a strike in sight in steel mills? Pour sand or emery
into the oil cups."
"The electrical industry is one of the most important industries,
as an interruption in the current means a lack of light and power
in factories; it also means a reduction in the means of
transportation and a stoppage of the telegraph and telephone
systems. How can the power be cut off? By the curtailing in the
mine the output of the coal necessary for feeding the machinery or
stopping the coal cars on their way to the electrical plants. If
the fuel reaches its destination what is simpler than to set the
pockets on fire and have the coal burn in the yards instead of the
furnaces? It is child's play to put out of work the elevators and
other automatic devices which carry coal to the fire room. To put
boilers out of order use explosives or silicates or a plain glass
bottle which thrown on the glowing coals hinders the combustion and
clogs up the smoke exhausts. You can also use acids to corrode
boiler tubes; acid fumes will ruin cylinders and piston rods. A
small quantity of some corrosive substance, a handful of emery will
be the end of oil cups. When it comes to dynamos or transformers,
short circuits and inversion of poles can be easily managed.
Underground cables can be destroyed by fire, water or explosives,"
etc.
"The New Unionism," the book from which the above quotations were taken
and which was purchased by the author of "The Red Conspiracy" at the I.
W. W. headquarters, 1001 West Madison Street, Chicago, in the latter
part of the spring of 1919, also informs us on page 123:
"As far as sabotage is concerned, all the I. W. W. speakers and the
I. W. W. press countenance it although they steadily warn the
workers against the indiscriminate and unsocial use of that weapon
of warfare."