Copyright, 1920
BY
PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN

TO
R. O. L. B.

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

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

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

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

P. F. Brissenden

Washington, D. C., September, 1919.

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

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

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

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

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

The negative or destructive items in the I. W. W. program are deliberately misconstrued and then stretched out and made to constitute the whole of I. W. W.-ism. In reality they are only a minor part of the creed. There are immense possibilities of a constructive sort in the theoretic basis of the I. W. W., but the Press has done its best to prevent the public from knowing it. And it must be said that the I. W. W. agitators have themselves helped to misrepresent their own organization by their uncouth and violent language and their personal predilection for the lurid and the dramatic. Even what the Wobblies say about themselves must be taken with a certain amount of salt. This

matter of the currently-received opinion of the I. W. W. has been dwelt on because the writer believes that it is not alone important to know what an organization is like; it is also very important to know what people think it is like.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps the very best way to run an industrial enterprise is on the currently accepted model of the Prussian State. It is simply a moot point and the I. W. W. has challenged the Prussian method. Whatever intrinsic merit there may be in the affirmative program of the Industrial Workers of the World, it must be admitted by even its most enthusiastic members that were they today given the power they ask, they would be no less relentless Prussians than are the corporations we have with us. Even though capitalism may be ripe for replacement, the I. W. W. are a long way from being fit to replace it. The Wobblies are grotesquely unprepared for responsibility. So far their own members do not

understand how relatively unimportant is their much-talked-of sabotage method. They have challenged the autocratic method, but they have done it very crudely and with a weird misplacement of emphasis. They whisper it in a footnote, as it were, to their strident blackface statements about method. "If labor is not allowed a voice in the management of the mines—apply sabotage!"

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

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

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

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

P. F. B.

San Francisco, June 9, 1918.

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CONTENTS

PAGE Preface to the Second Edition 5 Preface to the First Edition 7 Part I BEGINNINGS CHAPTER I Forerunners of the "Wobblies" Early revolutionary bodies 27 English prototypes 29 Early radical unions in the United States 29 The National Labor Union 30 The Knights of Labor 30 The

Internationals 35 The Sovereigns of Industry 37 The United Brewery Workmen 38 The United Mine Workers of America 38 Haymarket 39 The American Railway Union 40 The Western Federation of Miners 40 W. F. M. strikes 40 The Western Labor Union 43 The American Labor Union 44 The Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance 46 The French Confédération Générale du Travail 53 CHAPTER II The Birth of the I. W. W. Pre-convention conferences 57 The rôle of the Western Federation of Miners 60 The January Conference 61 The Industrialist Manifesto 62 Attitude of the A. F. of L. 65 The Industrial Union Convention and the launching of the I. W. W. 67 Character of industries and unions represented 68 Numerical predominance of the Western Federation and the American Labor Union 71 Daniel DeLeon and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance 75 Doctrinal elements represented in the convention: reformist, direct-actionist and doctrinaire 76 The dominant personalities 79 CHAPTER III The I. W. W. versus the A. F. of L. Attitude of the revolutionary industrialists toward the Federation. 83 Critique of craft unionism 84 "Union scabbery" and the aristocracy of labor 85 Emphasis on the unskilled and unorganized 87 The "pure and simple" union and the "labor lieutenant" 88 Repudiation of the policy of "boring from within" 89 Convention resolutions 91 The preamble and the clause on political action 92 The attitude of DeLeon and the S. L. P

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">93 The I. W. W. Constitution 96 Classification of industries 96 The structure of the organization 98 The local unions and other subordinate bodies 98 The General Executive Board and its powers 100 Other provisions 101 Influence of "DeLeonism" in the convention 103 The primary importance of the Western Federation of Miners 104 Samuel Gompers on the convention 106 Other comments 107 What the constitutional convention accomplished 108 Part II THE FIRST PHASE [The "original" I. W. W.] CHAPTER IV Maiden Efforts on the Economic Field The situation at the close of the first convention 113 Progress during the first year 114 Activities among A. F. of L. locals 115 Friction with Federation unions 116 Practical compromises with the craft-union idea 118 Internal dissension 120 Breakdown of the Metals and Machinery Department 122 Defection of the Western Federation of Miners 122 Early strikes and strike activities 123 Strike policies 124 The New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference 125 The discussion on socialism and the trade unions 127 The Unity Conference resolutions 128 The second I. W. W. convention 129 Growth in membership 130 The Industrial Departments 131 CHAPTER V The coup of the "Proletarian Rabble" The "reactionaries" vs. the "wage slave delegates" at the second convention 136 The DeLeon-St. John attack on President Sherman 137 Pre-convention conference of the "DeLeonite rabble" 137 The indictment of Sherman

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">139 Playing freeze-out with the "wage slave delegates" 142 The per diem resolution and the defeat of the Shermanites 143 Abolition of the office of General President 143 The findings of the Master in Chancery 145 Contemporary comment on the quarrel 147 DeLeonism and the Socialist Labor Party at the second convention 147 The Western Federation of Miners 149 I. W. W. finances 153 CHAPTER VI The Structure of a Militant Union An organization for farm laborers and city proletarians 155 The I. W. W. and the lumber workers 156 Provision for foreigners 158 Foreign language branches 160 The local union 160 Relation of locals to the General Administration 161 Centralization 161 District Industrial Councils 163 Industrial Departments 164 Further discussion of political action 168 The Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone case 170 Defense activities of the I. W. W. 171 Proposal for a general strike 174 Effect of the Moyer-Haywood case on the I. W. W. 175 CHAPTER VII The Fight for Existence The third convention 178 The condition of the organization 181 Membership strength 182 The I. W. W. at the Stuttgart Congress 183 Political parties and the trade unions 185 The political clause of the Preamble again under discussion.... 188 CHAPTER VIII "Job Control" at Goldfield The A. F. of L. and the I. W. W. in Goldfield, Nevada 191 Character of the Goldfield local of the I. W. W 192 The town unionists and the mine unionists 192

colspan="2">Proposed consolidation of the two groups 193 Attitude of the Mine Owners' Association 193 Federal military intervention and investigation 195 Report of the Commission 196 What the I. W. W. accomplished at Goldfield 200 The I. W. W. and the Western Federation in Nevada politics 201 I. W. W. strike activities in other parts of the country 203 General organizing activities 207 CHAPTER IX Doctrinaire versus Direct-actionist Condition of the organization on the eve of the schism of 1908 213 Effect of the financial panic of 1907 214 The widening breach between the I. W. W. and the Western Federation of Miners 216 The line-up in the I. W. W. on political action 218 The personnel of the convention 220 Walsh's "Overalls Brigade". 221 The Socialist Labor Party Delegation and the unseating of Daniel DeLeon 222 The issue between the DeLeonites and the Direct-actionists 223 "Straight industrialism" versus parliamentarianism 225 The preamble purged of politics 226 Rump convention of the DeLeonites at Paterson, New Jersey 228 A bifurcated I. W. W 229 The issue between the Detroit I. W. W. and the Chicago I. W. W. 231 The Wobblies' criticism of parliamentary government 232 The doctrinaire state socialism of the Detroiters 234 The issue illustrated in the contrast between Daniel DeLeon and Vincent St. John 235 I. W. W. constitution non-political rather than anti-political 236 Influence of DeLeon on the I. W. W. 238 DeLeonism and Bolshevism 241 CHAPTER X The I. W. W. on the "Civilized Plane" The development of the Detroit I. W. W 243 Strike activities and friction with the "Bummery" or Direct-actionist faction 246 The Anarcho-syndicalists versus the parliamentarians 252 The Detroit I. W. W. on sabotage

253 Eugene Debs' plea for a union of the two I. W. W.s. 253 The Detroit I. W. W. becomes The Workers International Industrial Union 255 Part III THE ANARCHO-SYNDICALISTS [The Direct Actionists] CHAPTER XI Free Speech and Sabotage Condition of the Direct-actionist faction after the split with the Doctrinaires 260 The Wobblies establish the "free-speech fight" as an institution 262 The procedure in free-speech fights 262 I. W. W. tactics 263 Community reactions 266 The conventions of 1910 and 1911 267 Growth in membership 268 The I. W. W. press 271 Local unions organized and disbanded 272 The I. W. W. and the French syndicalists 273 International labor politics 275 The Syndicalist League of North America 276 The I. W. W. and the MacNamara case 277 Franco-American sabotage 278 Demonstration against sabotage at the 1912 convention of the Socialist party 280 Article II, section 6 280 CHAPTER XII Lawrence and the Crest of Power Strike activities in 1912 283 The Lawrence strike 284 The use of violence at Lawrence and the responsibility for it 286 Dynamite planting 288 The I. W. W. and the A. F. of L. at Lawrence 289 Results of the strike 290 I. W. W. patriotism and I. W. W. morals 293 The 1912 convention 295 The beginning of the conflict over decentralization 297 CHAPTER XIII Dual Unionism and Decentralization The policy of "boring from within" 299 Dual unionism 299 An I. W. W. defense of "boring from within"

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@45758@[email protected]#Page_300" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">300 Tom Mann joins in the attack on dual unionism 303 Rejoinders from Ettor and Haywood 303 The 1913 convention 305 Centralization versus decentralization 305 The proposals of the "decentralizers" 306 The relation of the locals to the general organization 307 The Pacific Coast District Organization 311 The East against the West in the decentralization debate 313 The western Wobbly and the eastern 314 Geographical differences in I. W. W. local unions 315 An anarchist's impressions of the 1913 convention 318 CHAPTER XIV Recent Tendencies Continued hostility between the I. W. W. and the Western Federation of Miners 320 The labor war in Butte, Montana 321 The United Mine Workers and the I. W. W 325 The 1914 convention 327 The I. W. W. and the unemployed 329 The resolution against war 331 Constitutional changes 331 Time agreements 332 Growth in membership 333 The slump in 1914-1915 335 Revival of activity 337 The Agricultural Workers Organization 337 The Everett free-speech fight 339 The 1916 (tenth) convention 340 Present strength of the I. W. W. 341 Character of the membership 341 The I. W. W. abroad 342 Anti-militarist campaign of the I. W. W. in Australasia 342 Australian "Unlawful Associations" Act 343 The Workers' Industrial Union of Australia 345 "Criminal Syndicalism" laws in the United States 346

The turnover of I. W. W. members and locals 349 Conclusion 350 APPENDICES I. Father Hagerty's "Wheel of Fortune" 351 II. The I. W. W. Preamble: Chicago and Detroit versions 351 III. The structure of the organization in 1917. (Chart) 353 IV. Membership statistics: Table A. Membership of Chicago and Detroit branches. (1905-1916). 354 Table B. Membership of the I. W. W. compared with the aggregate number of organized workers in the U. S., by industries 356 Table C. Membership of the I. W. W. and of certain other selected organizations and industrial groups. (1897-1914) 358 Table D. Membership of (1) the I. W. W. and (2) all American trade unions 359 V. Geographical distribution of I. W. W. locals in 1914. (Chicago and Detroit) 360 VI. Reasons assigned for locals disbanding. (1910-1911) 366 VII. Free-speech fights of the I. W. W. (1906-1916) 367 VIII. I. W. W. strikes. (1906-1917) 368 IX. Selections from the I. W. W. Song Book. 370 X. Copies of State "Criminal Syndicalism" statutes. 381 Bibliography 387 Index 429