INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD WELFARE ASSOCIATION
Next in importance to the I.W.W. is the hobo organization known as the International Brotherhood Welfare Association, or the I.B.W.A. Like the I.W.W. it started in 1905, but its membership at no time has exceeded 5,000. The I.B.W.A., like the I.W.W., looks forward to a new social order, a society in which there will be no classes. But where the I.W.W. proposes to use force and direct action or industrial organization to accomplish its purposes, the I.B.W.A. would use education. The I.B.W.A. stresses welfare work, brotherhood, and co-operation among the hobos. It aims to organize and educate the unorganized and uneducated homeless and migratory workers.
The I.B.W.A. is largely the creation of James Eads How, a member of a wealthy St. Louis family. How, dissatisfied with the ease and comfort of a rich man’s life, left home and drifted into the group of hobos and tramps. Becoming interested in their problems, he set to work to better their condition. He conceived the idea of a great international hobo organization and converted several hobo “soap-boxers” to his cause. The program of the I.B.W.A. is set forth in Article III of the constitution:
A. To bring together the unorganized workers.
B. To co-operate with persons and organizations who desire to better social conditions.
C. To utilize unused land and machinery in order to provide work for the unemployed.
D. To furnish medical, legal and other aid to its members.
E. To organize the unorganized and assist them in obtaining work at remunerative wages and transportation when required.
F. To educate the public mind to the right of collective ownership in production and distribution.
G. To bring about the scientific, industrial, intellectual, moral and spiritual development of the masses.
Another section of the constitution states that the organization aims to “unite the migratory workers, the Disemployed and the unorganized workers of both sexes for mutual betterment and development, with the final object of abolishing poverty and introducing a classless society.”
JAMES EADS HOW