FOOTNOTES:
[342] Cf. supra, p. 123.
[343] Article I, Section 1, W. F. M. Constitution (1910). In 1916 the Federation changed its name to "The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers."
[344] Industrial Union Bulletin, March 30, 1907, p. 2, col. 1.
[345] Ibid.
[346] Report of Acting President Charles Mahoney to the Fifteenth Convention W. F. M., Proceedings, p. 33.
[347] Ibid., pp. 33-35. This was in the autumn of 1906.
[348] Report of Acting President Mahoney to Fifteenth W. F. M. Convention, Proceedings, p. 33.
[349] "Review of the facts in the situation at Goldfield," Industrial Union Bulletin, April 6, 1907, p. 1, col. 3.
[350] Report of Acting President Mahoney to Fifteenth Convention W. F. M., Proceedings, p. 34.
[351] Ibid.
[352] Ibid., p. 35.
[353] See Tridon, The New Unionism, pp. 105-6. Tridon states (p. 105) that in April a compromise was reached owing to the weakness of the W. F. M. officials. However, it settled nothing, for the struggle continued intermittently through the summer and fall.
[354] St. John, I. W. W., History (1917 ed.), p. 18.
[355] "What happened at Goldfield," The Industrial Worker, Aug. 27, 1910, p. 3, col. 1.
[356] Ibid. Italics in the original.
[357] Industrial Union Bulletin, April 20, 1907, Special Correspondence.
[358] Labor troubles at Goldfield, Nevada, 60th Congress, 1st Session, House Document No. 607, pp. 3-5.
[359] Ibid., p. 4.
[360] Consisting of Lawrence O. Murray, Herbert Knox Smith and Charles P. Neill. Their report as well as other data bearing on the matter are printed in House Document No. 607, 60th Congress, 1st Session. "Papers relative to labor troubles at Goldfield, Nevada." Their report is reprinted in the Congressional Record, Feb. 3, 1908. pp. 1484-1487, vol. xlii, no. 35.
[361] The reference is to the killing of Tony Silva by M. R. Preston (a member of the Socialist Labor party and its candidate for President of the United States) who was on picket duty for the I. W. W. and the W. F. M. The I. W. W. has always insisted that Preston shot in self-defense and the weight of evidence seems to justify that contention. See "Preston's Crime," The Weekly People, July 18, 1908, p. 3, col. 1. (Author's note.)
[362] 60th Congress, 1st Session, House Document No. 607, Labor troubles at Goldfield, Nevada, pp. 20-21.
[363] Ibid., p. 21.
[364] Editorial, Miners' Magazine, Aug. 1, 1912, p. 7, col. 1.
[365] Special correspondence, Journal of Finance, Chicago, reprinted in the Weekly People, June 1, 1907, p. 2, col. 5.
[366] Special correspondence, Journal of Finance, reprinted in the Industrial Union Bulletin, May 18, 1907.
[367] Letter to the author, dated October 21, 1912.
[368] "The Goldfield Situation," Weekly People, April 6, 1907, p. 1. He tells here the complete story of the Goldfield labor troubles of 1906-07. It was also claimed that the I. W. W. forced the wages of railroad laborers in this region from $1.75 for ten hours to $4.50 for eight hours. Industrial Worker, Jan. 29, 1910. p. 1, col. 5.
[369] Letter to the author dated April 22, 1916. For the Goldfield situation in general, vide, "Papers relative to labor troubles at Goldfield, Nev." 60th Congress, 1st Session, Document No. 607, and St. John, "Review of the facts in the situation at Goldfield," Industrial Union Bulletin, April 6, 1907, p. 1.
[370] St. John, op. cit., p. 18. So capitalized in the original.
[371] See infra, p. 203.
[372] Miners' Magazine, vol. viii, no. 161, July 26, 1906, p. 13.
[373] Fifteenth Convention W. F. M., Proceedings, pp. 832-3.
[374] Delegate E. J. Foote, Proceedings, 3rd Convention, Official Report, no. 3. p. 2, col. 1.
[375] St. John, The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods, p. 18.
[376] Letter dated April 19, 1916.
[377] Industrial Union Bulletin, September 14, 1907, p. 7, col. 4.
[378] The Weekly People, Dec. 22, 1906, p. 1. This paper is to be considered as virtually an I. W. W. organ between July, 1905 and September, 1908. After the latter date, of course, it backed the Detroit I. W. W.
[379] Weekly People, Dec. 22, 1906, p. 2, col. 5. In the same column is a dispatch containing this statement: "... the general foreman of the turbine department was called upon to fill the places of the strikers; he said he would sooner resign than fill the places with other than I. W. W. men. We may witness in the near future that foremen will join the I. W. W., and then—good-bye, capitalism!"
[380] St. John, The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods, p. 18.
[381] Industrial Union Bulletin, April 27, 1907, p. 2, col. 4-5.
[382] St. John, The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods, pp. 17-18. A similar estimate is given in the Industrial Union Bulletin of April 27, 1907, p. 2.
[383] Industrial Union Bulletin, loc cit.
[384] Industrial Union Leaflet No. 16, p. 1.
[385] "Story of a new labor union," reprinted from the Oregon Sunday Journal as Industrial Union Leaflet No. 16, p. 1. This article was also reprinted in the Industrial Union Bulletin of April 27, 1907.
[386] This number was reported to the Third Convention by Secretary Trautmann, Official Report No. 1, p. 2, but in the "Report of the I. W. W. to the Stuttgart Congress" (1907) we read: "... the organization has now 362 industrial unions and branches organized in thirty-seven states and three provinces of Canada." Industrial Union Bulletin, Aug. 10, 1907, p. 3, col. 3.
[387] Industrial Union Bulletin, Sept. 14, 1907, p. 7, col. 1.
[388] Secretary-Treasurer St. John put it at 5,931, (Letter dated Feb. 1, 1915); Prof. Barnett makes it 6,700, (Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xxx, p. 846.) Apparently the administration included the Western Federation of Miners when they reported to the Stuttgart Congress, 28,000 members. (Industrial Union Bulletin, Aug. 10, 1907, p. 4.)
[389] Third Convention Proceedings, Official Report No. 8, p. 2, col. 4.
[390] Industrial Union Bulletin, Sept. 14, 1907, p. 8, col. 3, 4.
[391] Proceedings, Third I. W. W. Convention, Official Report No. 1, p. 4.
[392] Proceedings of the Third Convention, Official Report No. 7, p. 1, col. 2.
[393] Ibid.
[394] Reprinted in English in the Weekly People, June 2, 1906, p. 1.
[395] Proceedings of Third Convention, Official Report No. 7, p. 2. col. 3.
[396] Ibid. Official Report No. 4, p. 5, col. 1.
[397] Proceedings, Third Convention, Official Report No. 5, pp. 4-5.
[398] Industrial Union Bulletin, Sept. 28, 1907, p. 2, col. 5.
[399] A few weeks later the editor of the Industrial Union News wrote (in the issue of Nov. 9, 1907, p. 2, col. 1) that the I. W. W. "accomplished the organization of a body of metalliferous miners, nearly 3,000 strong, in the far-off territory of Alaska since the third annual convention which adjourned September 24."
[400] "Reflections on the Third Annual Convention," Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 5, 1907, p. 2.
[401] "The I. W. W., its Strength and Opportunity," by "The Commentator," Solidarity, Feb. 25, 1911.
[402] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24. 1908.
[403] Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon Since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 4, 1915, p. 2, col. 4.
[CHAPTER IX]
Doctrinaire versus Direct-Actionist
(1908)
For a period of nearly two years following the financial panic of 1907, the I. W. W. had a precarious and for the most part uneventful existence. The organization made practically no headway with its recruiting and propaganda work. Indeed, it probably lost ground. There was a falling off in the number of locals in the organization and, at least for 1909, in the number of local union charters issued. Vincent St. John, at that time General Organizer, said in his report to the fourth convention:
The big majority of the locals that have disbanded can be traced to the inability of the general organization to finance the number of organizers needed to see that the membership of these locals have a thorough understanding of the aims and objects of the I. W. W. before leaving them to their own devices. There are several cases where the disbanding of locals is the result of the combined opposition of the employers' associations and their zealous allies, the officials of "harmony of interests" organizations which call themselves labor organizations for no other purpose than to better accomplish their task of deluding the workers.[404]
It is probable also that there was during the same period a decline in membership, as indicated by the figures furnished by the Secretary-Treasurer.[405] But even during these lean years there was some activity in the textile industry. From first to last, so far as the eastern part of the United States is concerned, it has been among the textile operatives that the I. W. W. has been most active and most successful. In this industry the I. W. W. has a much larger proportion of the total number of organized workers than it has in any other. In the West, of course, the I. W. W. is most strongly entrenched in the unorganized extractive industries—lumber, agriculture, and construction work.[406] In April, 1908, the General Executive Board issued an official call (printed in English, French, German and Italian) for that "First Convention of Textile Workers" to be held May 1, 1908, in Paterson, N. J. In his document the claim is made that "over 5,000 textile workers have already been organized into the Industrial Workers of the World...."[407] During the eighteen months' period following the financial crisis of 1907 the I. W. W. almost entirely gave up its strike activities.[408] Furthermore, the organization seemed to have secured no permanent foothold in those communities where it had been particularly militant and aggressive during the preceding year. Secretary Trautmann admitted this in his report to the Fourth Convention. "There is nothing left in Bridgeport," he said, "nothing in Skowhegan, but in the Portland [Oregon] district the name of the I. W. W. is cheered and gloried...."[409]
One of the leaders of the Detroit I. W. W. (now the Workers' International Industrial Union) says that at this time "the whole organization was in a state of unrest."[410] In reference to such a distractingly unrestful organization as the I. W. W. has always been, this comment is significant. He attributes this unrest to two causes, internal dissension and the financial panic.
The membership, upon discovering that the officials were acting in a manner that foreshadowed ... conflict within the organization, withdrew in large numbers. The financial and industrial panic which was then on had also a very bad effect upon the newly founded local unions of the I. W. W., and many of these lost members.[411]
The outlook was certainly not encouraging for those who had pinned their faith to the idea of industrial unionism. The prospect for the new unionism was not bright. In 1908 the United Brewery Workmen, another large and important industrial union, patched up their differences with the American Federation of Labor and went back into the craft-union fold. The Western Federation of Miners—the most militant and one of the two or three really powerful unions organized on the industrial plan—had withdrawn, and finally, in May, 1911, joined the American Federation. At the sixteenth convention of the Western Federation, held in the summer of 1908, President Moyer said:
I believe it is a well-established fact that industrial unionism is by no means popular, and I feel safe in saying that it is not wanted by the working class of the United States. The Knights of Labor, the American Railway Union, the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance, the Western Labor Union, the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, the American Labor Union, and last, the Industrial Workers of the World ... [went down] because they failed to receive the support of the working class....[412]
The breach between the Industrial Workers of the World and the Western Federation of Miners continued to grow wider. Until April, 1908, William D. Haywood was a member of both organizations. Even after the complete and formal separation had been accomplished, Haywood had been, since his acquittal at Boise, serving in the capacity of lecturer and organizer for the Federation. His views must have been profoundly intensified in a more radical direction than ever during his incarceration and trial for murder. That his speeches became too rabid even for such a decidedly militant organization as the Western Federation of Miners seems unlikely, although the Federation was gradually growing more conservative. The determining and, in the eyes of the W. F. M., incriminating fact about Haywood now was that he remained an I. W. W. after the administration and presumably the majority of the W. F. M. had renounced and "cast off" the "larger" organization of which it had been a part. So it is not surprising that the following should have appeared on the first page of the Miners' Magazine for April 23, 1908:
NOTICE.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
This is to inform you that the Executive Board of the Western Federation of Miners has decided to terminate the services of William D. Haywood as a representative of the Western Federation of Miners in the field, the same to take effect on the 8th day of April, 1908.
E. Mahoney, Vice-Pres., W. F. M.
A writer in the Evening Post (New York) thinks that but for this official ousting of Haywood by the W. F. M., the I. W. W. might never have survived the trouble, dissension and "hard times" of 1908. "It is doubtful," he says, "if either faction of the Industrial Workers of the World [Detroit or Chicago] would have survived but for a change in the attitude of the Western Miners' Federation ... which left Haywood free to devote all his energies to the Industrial Workers of the World."[413] If we can credit the evidence presented at the 1912 convention of the W. F. M., the I. W. W. had at least sufficient vitality to be plotting, through its officials, to regain control of the Western Federation. In the published proceedings of its twentieth convention is printed a letter, dated August 4, 1908, from Vincent St. John to Albert Ryan, a member of the Western Federation. This letter reads in part:
I believe we could turn in now and lay the wires to defeat the machine at the next W. F. M. convention, and it can be done in this way: by picking out good reliable men with ability, and getting them to place themselves in local unions of the Federation for the purpose of getting to be delegates to the next convention. To do this they should cultivate the sentiment of the membership in the local to which they go. If the local is a Moyer local, let them be Moyer men. Let them outdo the best of them in worship at his shrine. If the local is indifferent, let them be likewise, but let them be elected as delegates.... Once we can control the officers of the W. F. M. for the I. W. W. the big bulk of the membership will go with them, and the prestige of the W. F. M.... is worth something to the revolutionary movement, and we should make an attempt to get it with us, ... take up the matter with Bechtel and Oppman and have them work with you to control Arizona for the next convention. Pick out a man or two for every local in the state, let them get into them and do the work.... I will try to handle Michigan and Minnesota from here. If you are shy [of] men, or have any to spare, we can trade with the different districts....[414]
President Moyer said that this letter was found among Ryan's effects "after he had received a sentence of life imprisonment in San Quentin penitentiary for having applied direct action in Los Angeles, which resulted in the death of two men."[415] These or similar charges had evidently been made at about the time this letter was supposed to have been written. St. John, in his report to the fourth I. W. W. Convention as General Organizer, denied certain "insinuations of a serious nature" which had been made against him.[416]
The question of "political action" and the bitter and disruptive controversy which waged on that subject at the fourth convention had now become the overshadowing issue. The "Wobblies" use the expression "political action" in referring to almost every conceivable form of political activity, voting, elections, legislation, etc., and also, more vaguely, in regard to the relationship which does or should obtain between labor organizations and political parties, particularly between radical labor bodies and radical political parties. For some time before this gathering it was evident that the administration was becoming fatally divided against itself. The DeLeon-St. John-Trautmann faction had survived in 1906, to be the administration—the I. W. W.—but in less than two years the sentiment in the organization had developed two sub-factions, so to speak. The I. W. W. appears to develop by fission. The organization originally was a compound of adherents of
| Sherman | DeLeon | St. John or Haywood. | Trautmann. |
| Socialist Party. | Socialist Labor Party. | Anarchist, or Industrial Socialist. | Nihilist. |
The Socialists were "abandoned" in 1906, leaving the field to the "proletarian rabble":
DeLeon ... St. John ... Trautmann.
The "Socialist Laborites" were sloughed off (or they "ditched the Anarchists," as they themselves would put it) in 1908, and we had
| I. | II. |
|---|---|
| The DeLeonites. | The St. John-Trautmann group. |
| (S. L. P. or Detroit I. W. W.) | (Chicago I. W. W., "Bummery.") |
Later Trautmann abandoned the "Bummery" and joined the DeLeonites. We now have in 1917:
| I. | II. |
|---|---|
| The DeLeon-Trautmann group. | The St. John-Haywood group. |
| (The Workers' International Industrial Union.) | (Surely the I. W. W.!) |
which is the present setting, primed for further hyphen-smashing!
One of the two factions is thus seen to consist, for the most part, of members of the Socialist Labor party—supporters of the revolutionary Marxian tradition and believers in political action—the doctrinaire group. Their prophet was Daniel DeLeon. The other group was composed more largely of Westerners—intellectually more nearly philosophical Anarchists than orthodox Socialists—inclined to scoff at political action and emphatically opposed to allowing the I. W. W. to have any connection with any political body—or to hold any political policy—disbelievers in the state and in both the Socialist parties because they accept the state—"industrialists with their working clothes on"—the essence of the "proletarian rabble." The first group was ultimately to constitute a socialistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Detroit—the doctrinaire wing; the second group an anarchistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Chicago—the direct-action wing, referred to by the Detroiters as "the Bummery."[417]
Rudolph Katz, a member of the Socialist Labor party, writes that after the third convention
all the efforts of DeLeon to preserve harmony in the I. W. W. were unavailing. St. John, Trautmann, Edwards, and the majority of the five members of the General Executive Board turned over night ... against the fundamental principles of industrialism as laid down in the I. W. W. preamble. They no longer recognized political action as necessary.[418]
When the convention was called to order by Mr. St. John on September 21, 1908, there were twenty-six delegates in attendance, controlling an aggregate of seventy votes. Two delegates were debarred from seats in the convention—Max Ledermann of Chicago and Daniel DeLeon of New York—and St. John was made permanent chairman.[419]
The West—especially the Pacific Coast—was well represented for the first time. There were delegates in attendance from Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and Spokane. The West was spoken of as furnishing the "genuine rebels—the red-blooded working stiffs," and this was said to be the first revolutionary convention ever held in Chicago composed of "purely wage-workers."[420] The largest and most important delegation from the West was popularly known as the "Overalls Brigade," brought together in Portland and Spokane by one J. H. Walsh, a national organizer of the I. W. W. The "Brigade" numbered about twenty men who "beat their way" from Portland to Chicago, holding propaganda meetings en route. A member of the delegation reported this propaganda trip:
We were five weeks on the road [he said]. We traveled over two thousand five hundred miles. The railroad fare saved would have been about $800. We held thirty-one meetings. The receipts of the first week from literature sales and collections were $39.02. The second week, $53.66. The third week, $45.78. The fourth week, $28.10. The fifth week, $8.57. Total, $175.13. These figures do not include the song sales. The song sales were approximately $200.[421]
In the Industrial Union Bulletin for September 19 was published a long letter from Organizer Walsh giving a detailed record of the trip. It was given such heads as these "I. W. W. Red-Special! Overall Brigade,"—"On its way through the continent—Thousands listen to the speakers—Gompers and his satellites furious with rage!" "The Overall Brigade," according to Rudolph Katz, "consisted of that element that traveled on freight trains from one western town to another, holding street meetings that were opened with the song, 'Hallelujah, I'm a Bum,' and closing with passing the hat in regular Salvation Army fashion."[422]
The Socialist Labor party group take the position that DeLeon was denied a seat in the convention in order to further the designs of the St. John-Trautmann faction. In their "nefarious plot" they had the full coöperation of the "Overall Brigade" which "sat in judgment upon Daniel DeLeon." Katz goes on to say that "St. John was the prosecuting attorney."[423] The pretext for unseating DeLeon (and others) was membership in the wrong local union. DeLeon was present as a delegate of the Office Workers' Local Union. His opponents insisted that he should, as an editor, be enrolled in the Printing Workers' Local. On such technicalities enough delegates were refused seats to give the Overall Brigade all the powers of a steam-roller.[424] "It was a 'machine' of the capitalist political design," said the Weekly People, "organized ... among the boys from the West."[425] "In the case of Fellow Worker DeLeon representing 'Store & Office Workers' Union' No. 58, the committee recommended that the protest be sustained and the delegate not seated because he is not a member of the local of the industry in which [he is] working, such a local being in existence."[426]
"The very same fellows," writes Katz, "who dared DeLeon to come to the Fourth Convention, closed the doors to him when he arrived ... and his credentials were rejected on flimsy pretenses."
DeLeon was given the floor to state his case, and he did state it in his characteristic fashion. The "Overall Brigade" were seated all in a row on one side of the hall, a tough-looking lot. Vincent St. John was in the chair with sinister mien, wielding the gavel and everything that could be wielded to keep DeLeon out of the convention. Alongside of St. John sat Trautmann, ... [and] he, too, looked as though he had traveled all the way from Seattle by freight train.[427]
"Such remarks as 'I would like to get a punch at the pope' (meaning DeLeon) were overheard in the hall among the 'Overall Brigaders'." "DeLeon told them whither they were drifting—to Shermanism, to Anarchy, to the movement's destruction."[428] DeLeon's speech in defense of his right to a seat in the convention was published in the Industrial Union Bulletin (October 10, 1908) under the title, "The Intellectual against the Worker." Extracts from St. John's reply and his arguments for refusing DeLeon a seat are published in the same issue of the Bulletin under the title, "The Worker against the Intellectual." Katz says that this published version of DeLeon's speech was full of "the basest kind of misrepresentation." He further declares that the reports of the convention published in the Bulletin were "doctored."[429]
DeLeon expressed his opinion of the "Overall Brigade" very soon after the convention:
Out of this [hobo] element [he declared] Walsh picked ... the "Overall Brigade"; and to the tune "I'm a bum, I'm a bum," very much like the tune of "God wills it! God wills it!" with which Cuckoo Peter led the first mob of Crusaders against the Turks, Walsh brought this "Brigade" to the convention. Some of them ... were among the "delegates." Most of them, I am credibly informed, slept on the benches on the Lake Front, and received from Walsh a daily stipend of 30 cents. This element lined the walls of the convention.[430]
For four days the convention did practically nothing but protest credentials and debate the question whether or not the Socialist Labor party, through Daniel DeLeon, was trying to control the I. W. W. All this was a prelude to the contest over the retention of the political clause of the preamble which was fought out on a personal issue—the admission of DeLeon as a delegate. The DeLeonites accused the St. John-Trautmann group of trying to make the I. W. W. what they called a "purely physical force body."[431] The DeLeonites in turn were charged with attempting to subordinate the interests of the I. W. W. to those of the Socialist Labor party.
Justus Ebert, himself a member of the Socialist Labor party, believed that this charge was well founded. For this reason, in 1908, and some time before the fourth convention met, he resigned from the Socialist Labor party. Since that time he has been a member of the ("Anarcho-Syndicalist") I. W. W. His letter of resignation, addressed to the members of Section Kings County, S. L. P., runs in part as follows:
The Socialist Labor party believes that the political is the reflection of the economic. With this belief in mind it aided in launching the I. W. W., and protected it from the onslaughts of reaction.... The Socialist Labor party has not, however, had the courage of its convictions, ... [because] having aided in founding and protecting the economic organization that is to reflect the true political party of labor, [it] refuses to vacate the field to its untrammeled and logical development. Instead, it persists in being the political guide and mentor of the I. W. W.... The I. W. W., hampered in its growth by the illogical posture of the S. L. P., is compelled to serve notice in big black type that it has no political affiliations of any kind.... The fate of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance will be the fate of the I. W. W., if it permits an external political body to dominate its politics.[432]
Now DeLeon was at once the leader of the S. L. P. and of the political element in the I. W. W., and the anti-parliamentarians perhaps felt that the only way to get rid of what they called the "political incubus of the S. L. P." was to eliminate DeLeon and enough of his supporters to make it possible for the Wobblies from the West to carry the resolution to eliminate that fearsome political clause. They were somehow vaguely apprehensive that that phrase in the preamble which declared that the toilers must "come together on the political field" would make possible the subjugation of the I. W. W. by the Socialist Labor party. This despite the fact that the paragraph in question closes with the words: "without affiliation with any political party."
The report of the General Secretary-Treasurer expresses the position of the simon-pure industrialists of the St. John-Trautmann faction.
Shall the economic organization [the Secretary asks] be permitted to outline and pursue its course in the efforts [sic] to bring the workers together on the industrial field, the only essential, and, if necessary, on the political [field] without the interference and self-assumed guardianship of any political party,... or shall the economic organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, be turned into a tail of a political party and its functionaries and its officers be obedient to the commands and the whims emanating from the emissaries of such political party?[433]
One member of the anti-parliamentarian group—F. W. Heslewood—expressed his opposition to any change in the preamble, saying that he did not want to be called a dynamiter. He insisted that "the changing of the preamble by taking out the word 'political' will inevitably give somebody a chance to denounce the I. W. W. as an anarchist organization."[434] The I. W. W. was precisely so denounced soon after the convention: "The political clause has been stricken out and with that all semblance of the I. W. W. has been wiped out. The clause was considered 'confusing.' Fact is the clause was so clear that it was a thorn in the side of veiled dynamiters."[435]
The proposition to strike out the seductive and dangerous words about the "political field" was adopted and the second paragraph of the new preamble now reads: "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."[436]
The "straight industrialists" had now accomplished their coup. By "killing" the political clause they had, presumably, saved the organization from the insidious peril of Socialist Labor party domination; briefly, they had exorcised the demon of DeLeonism. This was the sentiment of the Trautmann-St. John faction. The sentiments of the DeLeonites are officially expressed in a leaflet issued later on by the new but "only genuine and original I. W. W." organization which they proceeded to establish at Detroit:
At the fourth annual convention in September, 1908, [it runs] "certain prominent members of the organization, some of them being officials, endeavored to capture the organization and make of it a purely physical force body. Through their machinations they seated delegates not entitled to a seat, and unseated delegates entitled to a seat, threatening violence to, and committing [it] upon, bona fide delegates assembled there. The general officers acquiesced in, and endorsed, the actions of the irresponsible element that packed the convention against the organization. The delegates who were illegally debarred from a seat in the convention returned to their respective union constituencies and reported the actions of the anarchistic crew who were conducting the so-called convention."[437]
The fourth convention did very little of importance except to split the organization very decisively, if discursively, on the rock of "politics." A few unimportant constitutional changes were made[438] and the following officers elected: General Secretary-Treasurer, Vincent St. John; General Organizer, Wm. E. Trautmann; General Executive Board, Fellow Workers Cole, Miller, Ettor, Whitehead and Gains.[439] The records and property of the organization remained with the St. John-Trautmann faction,[440] which will be referred to in the following pages as the Industrial Workers of the World, or simply by the three letters, "I. W. W."
Whether or not the St. John contingent was now legitimately entitled to be recognized as the Industrial Workers of the World is a question which will be discussed in another place. Whether they were usurpers or not, they held and retained control of the offices and property of the organization. The Socialist Labor or DeLeon contingent faced the situation as best they could. These "bona fide industrial unionists rallied," says one of their number, "and held a convention in Paterson, N. J., and elected a new set of general officers and a new General Executive Board."[441]
On November 5, 1908, [reads an official announcement] a conference assembled in Paterson, N. J., of delegates sent by the locals that remained true to the principles of the Industrial Workers of the World. They attended to the interrupted work of the general organization, electing a General Executive Board and other officials, and attended to such other work as the organization required for its growth and progress.[442]
At this rump convention, "credentials were read for twenty-one delegates from locals of Philadelphia, Boston, Bridgeport, Brooklyn, and Paterson, of which [number] eighteen were present...."[443] This Paterson conference was virtually a meeting of the two District Councils of New York City and Paterson and a handful of Eastern locals. The delegates declared the proceedings of the Chicago convention illegal and naïvely read the "anarchist usurpers" out of the organization. "The pirates in Chicago," says Rudolph Katz in his later reminiscences, "were repudiated by the I. W. W. organizations generally." He adds that only three issues of the Industrial Union Bulletin (official organ of the St. John faction) appeared "after that packed 'convention' had done its deadly work."[444]
The most important action of the convention was to reduce the monthly per-capita to five cents for locals and three cents to National Industrial Departments and National Industrial Unions, the idea being that the money should be controlled locally for organization purposes.[445] Steps were taken toward the publication of an official journal, temporary officials were elected to form a kind of ad interim administration, and New York City was decided upon for the location of General Headquarters.[446] Within a few months, however, the location of national headquarters was changed to Detroit, Michigan. The Daily and Weekly People served as official journal for the Detroit organization until January, 1912, when the first number of the (monthly) Industrial Union News made its appearance. C. H. Chase (New York) was General Secretary-Treasurer. The Executive Board consisted of C. H. Chase, A. J. Francis (New York), Wm. Glanz (Paterson), R. McClure (Philadelphia), C. E. Trainor (Denver), and H. Richter (Detroit). Richter is at present General Secretary-Treasurer. He was a delegate to the 1905 convention from one of the local unions of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
It is exceedingly doubtful whether the "pirates in Chicago" were really "repudiated by the I. W. W. organizations generally." The figures presented in Appendix IV, (Table A) indicated that a large proportion of the 200 locals (to take the lowest estimate) in the I. W. W. in 1907 had in some way vanished. The Chicago faction admitted that 17 locals went over to Detroit,[447] and Secretary Richter writes that when the Detroit faction was reorganized at Paterson twenty-two locals reported to headquarters.[448] During the months of November and December, 1908, the Weekly People published in its correspondence columns about a dozen letters from locals—chiefly Eastern locals—which expressly repudiated the "Chicago pirates." Both organizations sent out official referendum sheets for the votes of the rank and file of the membership on the resolutions, etc., adopted by the Chicago and Paterson conventions.[449] The writer has not learned of any definite reports concerning the returns from these referendums. It is quite certain that the Chicago group lost many locals which did not go over to Detroit, inasmuch as only 100 locals are reported for 1909.[450] Secretary Richter reports that in 1909 the Detroit I. W. W. had twenty-three locals.[451]
Now, as to the merits of the controversy. The I. W. W. set out in 1905, somewhat on the order of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, proposing to wage war on the capitalist, primarily on the "economic field," viz., in the shop, "on the job"; by strikes and boycotts, etc., but expecting to go forward, as DeLeon put it, "under the protecting guns of a labor political party." No particular party was endorsed, however, and any desire for the endorsement of any political party was specifically disclaimed. The words, "without endorsing or desiring the endorsement of any political party," were inserted at the close of the preamble in 1906, but stricken out in 1908 (or possibly 1907). The Detroit I. W. W. at first carried in its preamble the words, "without endorsing any political party," but later struck them out.[452] The western membership was especially bitter in its hostility to the Socialist party as well as the Socialist Labor party, and felt convinced that the I. W. W. was mortgaging its future in allowing itself to get into any entangling political alliances, formal or informal. The western I. W. W.s had not borrowed any theoretical criticism of the state from the French syndicalists, but the actual concrete experiences of the lower grades of workers in the western states had developed in their minds a conception of the political party (reactionary or socialistic) very similar to that of the revolutionary syndicalists of France.
Félicien Challaye, one of the intellectuals among the French syndicalists, expresses this common idea very concisely. He says that, "... le parti politique est un agrégat d'éléments hétérogènes, réunis par le lieu artificiel d'une opinion analogue: des hommes venus de toutes les couches sociales s'y condoient, échangent leurs obscurs et stériles bavardages, cherchent à associer par de louches compromis leurs intérêts antagonistes."[453]
Indeed, the Western American Wobblies looked upon the whole modern system of congressional or parliamentary government in much the same way. Parliaments, they say, are little more than clearing-houses for the exchange of "vague and sterile platitudes." In so far as they do more than this, they merely further the designs of the big business groups whom they serve as retainers. In this regard the I. W. W.s are sufficiently Marxian and they would accent with italics Marx's strictures on the "disease of parliamentarism." The Industrial Workers' feeling toward parliamentary government cannot be better described that in the words of the great Socialist. In a letter written to the New York Tribune in 1852 Karl Marx describes
that incurable malady, parliamentary crétinism, [as] a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history, and future, are governed and determined by a majority of votes in that particular representative body which has the honor to count them among its members and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their house—wars, revolutions, railway constructing, colonizing of whole new continents, California gold discoveries, Central American canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim to influence upon the destinies of mankind—is nothing compared with the incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable house.[454]
The I. W. W. makes the bald accusation that the political groups which make up national congresses are simply (though perhaps indirectly and adroitly) managing public affairs in behalf of the dominant economic and commercial interests of the country. To whatever degree this is true the I. W. W. is sure of its ground in declaring that parliaments are corrupt. But this no more demonstrates the inherent folly of parliamentary government than the admitted corruption—perhaps even industrial crétinism—of the industrial union proves the inherent folly of industrial unionism. There is a lamentable amount of inherited idiocy in both labor and legislative organizations. Anything in the constitution, and more particularly anything in the preamble (which I. W. W.s looked upon as a Magna Carta of the proletariat), that seemed to commit the organization to any particular political policy was a source of great uneasiness. This uneasiness was much intensified by the constantly increasing sentiment of opposition to the (political) state as it exists today, and to all forms of authority, especially centralized authority.[455] The "Overall Brigade" was the group which was most conspicuously saturated with this anarchistic feeling. These men from the West were suspicious of all parties; thought voting and legislating pleasant forms of ritual for deluding the workers; actively antagonized the craft unions, which also they considered industrial anomalies of use only as "coffin societies"; and were very doubtful about the necessity for leaders of any kind—even leaders of the Wobblies!
The eastern membership, on the other hand, more nearly approximated the State Socialist type of radicalism. They were inspired by a group of Socialist Labor party men at whose head was Daniel DeLeon. They abjured anarchy, believed in authority (and in its instruments: leaders), were disillusioned about State Socialism and spared no bitterness and pettiness in criticizing the Socialist party and its program of State Socialism and reform in general. Reform in general was to them anathema. They were revolutionary Marxists—doctrinaire to the bone—saturated with the dialectic.
This doctrinaire faction claimed to be the custodian of the original I. W. W. idea. It felt itself to be the keeper of the original tradition of the founders. This original tradition was expressed in the first preamble if it was expressed anywhere. The DeLeonites held to that original preamble, and the fact that they did so lends weight to their claim that they, and they alone, are the true exponents of the spirit and purpose which animated the first convention. They probably do represent the spirit of the fathers—the men of 1905—more exactly than does the "Bummery outfit" at Chicago. The Direct-Actionists might just as well concede this much to the "Impossibilists." The latter represent revolutionary unionism in the original bottle; the former represent the changed form of militant unionism toward which most of the I. W. W.s had drifted between 1905 and 1908—new red wine under the old label. The Direct-Actionists kept the old label to designate the Western American brand of "industrial unionism," invented (or blundered upon) by the proletarian from the provincial side of the Mississippi, simply because they had the power to keep it. And the whole philosophy of the so-called "Bummery outfit" is the philosophy of power—economic power.
A further reason for conceding to the Direct-Actionists the original name and label (as indeed the Detroiters wisely did when in 1915 they rechristened themselves "The Workers' International Industrial Union") is that the Direct-Actionists are the ones who, since 1908, have done by far the most extensive organizing and propaganda work. It was the "Bummery" which aroused hope and apprehension at Little Falls, at Lawrence, at Wheatland, and on the Minnesota iron range, and baffled the authorities in its dramatic "free speech fights" at Spokane, Fresno, Paterson, San Diego, Seattle, and Everett. Their membership, though small, is three times that of the Detroit organization.
Some more definite points of difference between the two organizations should be noted. They may be set down here as representing the contrasting viewpoints of Daniel DeLeon and Vincent St. John. The attitude of these two men can be tentatively accepted as representing the opinions of most of those in their respective followings. There is good reason, then, for saying that the lifting of the hyphen between DeLeon and St. John was largely due to their conflicting opinions about (1) industrial union structure—the arrangement of industrial groups; (2) sabotage and direct action; and (3) political action.
(1) DeLeon believed that the workers should be grouped in the local industrial union according to the product turned out but that within the local union the lines of demarcation for segregating trade or shop branches must be drawn with reference to the particular tool used.[456] St. John believed that production should be the criterion throughout, with all workers whose activities contribute toward the output of a given product enrolled in the same union. The driver of a brewery wagon contributes his labor power to the production of beer (as also does the stenographer in the office of the brewery!) and he should be in the Brewery Workers' Union, as indeed he actually is in this particular case.
(2) Direct action and sabotage were condemned by DeLeon and approved by St. John. DeLeon's opposition was not based upon moral grounds. He simply had no confidence in the efficacy of these methods. He was firmly convinced that the habitual indulgence in sabotage and in destructive tactics in general was a poor preparation for a working class which expected some day to manage and control the industries of the world. It was a poor educational policy.
(3) St. John was unconditionally opposed to political action. DeLeon advocated it as a temporary aid in the struggle for emancipation. He appears to have looked forward to the ultimate abolition of political or representative government and the establishment of a literal industrial democracy.[457]
The constitution of the I. W. W. is not anti-political. It is merely non-political. Any wage-earner is admitted regardless of creed, race or political opinion. But it is also true that in actual practice, as Levine remarks, "the Industrial Workers have played and are playing the game of antipolitics."
"Their spokesmen," he says, "ridicule the 'politicians'; severely criticized the Socialist party and insult its most prominent leaders. The non-political portion of the I. W. W. is therefore practically anti-political."[458]
The bitterness of feeling engendered in this controversy over politics can well be imagined. The two factions of the I. W. W. hate one another with a hearty fervor that is only equaled by their united opposition to the American Federation of Labor. Both claim to be the simon-pure revolutionary article. If any "malefactor of great wealth" thinks that he is being scandalously abused by the I. W. W.s, he should read some of the things the "red I. W. W.s" have to say about the "yellow I. W. W.s" and, a fortiori, the "yellows" about the "reds," or attend a debate between any kind of an I. W. W. and what he (the I. W. W.) calls a "coffin society" man of the American Federation of Labor.
The Secretary of the Detroit I. W. W. (now W. I. I. U.) says that
to speak of factions of the I. W. W. is doing violence to the facts in the case. The I. W. W. organized in Chicago, 1905, established certain principles, methods, and aims, which can be readily ascertained from the stenographic reports of the first, second, and third conventions. Among them one of the most essential and characteristic of the I. W. W. is the distinct and specific declaration: The workers must organize as a class, on the political and industrial field, to achieve the emancipation from wage slavery. The so-called Chicago "I. W. W." has repudiated this position, and carries since 1908, falsely, the name. Its claim is bogus, as amply demonstrated by its doings since that time....[459]
"We hold," says this official, "that our organization is The I. W. W. Chicago headquarters, and those who follow that organization, became a different body since 1908."[460]
At the International Socialist Congress at Vienna in 1914 the Socialist Labor party made a report in which it was declared that
... the Anarcho-Syndicalist element [which] caused the split in the I. W. W. in 1908, went forth throughout the land under the name, Industrial Workers of the World, and by its advocacy of Anarchy, sensationalism, sabotage, "direct action," and "free speech," riots, and similar disorderly tactics, has cast an odium upon the name of the I. W. W.[461]
Such a characterization of the Chicago faction is hardly to be wondered at in view of some of the statements made by organs representing the direct-actionists. Thus we are told that what "the now famous 'Hobo Convention' ... actually did was to restore the preamble to its pristine syndicalist purity...."[462]
The break was not, however, entirely caused by disagreement over political and economic principles. It was partly a matter of personal temperament—and primarily the personal temperament of Daniel DeLeon. We have seen that, rightly or wrongly, DeLeon has been, time after time charged with being the instigator of trouble and dissension. It's difficult to say just why his presence so often seemed to bring friction and revolt. It was partly due, no doubt, to the really heroic and rigidly uncompromising way in which he adhered to his beliefs. It must be attributed in part, the writer believes, to defects of temper. "The strain of love and hate aroused by DeLeon's peculiar personality," writes one who knew him, "colors all judgments of his career."[463] The same writer says that DeLeon was temperamentally a Jesuit, and that his personal attacks were Jesuitical.[464] This fact surely should be kept in mind when considering the controversies in the socialist movement which have been laid at his door. The present Socialist party broke away from DeLeon's leadership nearly twenty years ago,[465] and has since thrived, while the Socialist Labor party has been reduced to a negligible quantity. In the same way, in 1908, the followers of DeLeon seceded and their fate has been about the same.
Eugene Debs thought that DeLeon's critics made too little allowance for his peculiar temper. He insists that whatever "opposition to the Industrial Workers [is] inspired by hatred for Daniel DeLeon and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, is puerile, to say the least.... DeLeon is sound on the question of trade unionism," Debs continues, "and to that extent, whether I like him or not personally, I am with him."[466] In another place Debs writes:
The fact is that most of the violent opposition of Socialist party members to the I. W. W. is centered upon the head of DeLeon and has a purely personal animus.... DeLeon is not the I. W. W., although I must give him credit for being, since its inception, one of its most vigorous and active supporters.
It may be [he continues] that DeLeon has designs upon the Socialist party and expects to use the I. W. W. as a means of disrupting it in the interest of the Socialist Labor party, and if he succeeds it will be because his enemies in the Socialist party, in their bitter personal hostility to him, are led to oppose ... the revolutionary I. W. W. and support the reactionary A. F. of L....[467]
DeLeon's name was synonymous with revolutionary socialism—that socialism which rejects compromise, recognizes the social value of reform but refuses to deal in reform, and considers revolutionary industrial unionism as the indispensable basis of socialist political action and the revolutionary movement as a whole. DeLeon saw clearly the impending menace of State Socialism, particularly within the Socialist movement: and his whole program was an answer to that menace.... Nearly every American expression of revolutionary theory and action bears the impress of his personality and activity; and revolutionary unionism hails him as its philosopher and foremost American pioneer.[468] ... DeLeon's espousal of Industrial Unionism and the I. W. W. and his development of an industrial philosophy of action, constitute his crowning contribution to American socialism.[469]
DeLeon's personal character and intellectual leanings were curiously reflected in the party to which he so unselfishly gave the best years of his life. The Socialist Labor party is doctrinaire, unyielding, Jesuitical as was its leader. It has always seemed to be suspended after a fashion in an atmosphere charged with a kind of a pedantic essence of the Marxian dialectic. It is so impressed with the importance of its own "mutterings in the Marxian law," that when, for example, one of Fellow Worker Walsh's "blanket stiffs" asks what the western lumberjack is to do when he is "fleeced" for a three-day job, the party, metaphorically speaking, simply loses its temper and rails at him and all the rest of the "Overalls Brigade." The Socialist Labor party has been pretty accurately summed up by Fraina:
The S. L. P. ignored the psychology of struggling workers [he says]. Its propaganda was couched in abstract formulas; just as its sectarian spirit developed a sort of subconscious idea that revolutionary activity consisted in enunciating formulas. This sectarian spirit produced dogmas, intemperate assertions, and a general tendency toward caricature ideas and caricature action; and discouraged men of ability from joining the S. L. P.[470]
Since the first edition of this book was published some references to DeLeon have appeared in the dispatches from Russia. Robert Minor, in an interview with Nikolai Lenin, quotes him as declaring that "the American Daniel DeLeon, first formulated the idea of a soviet government, which grew up in Russia on his, DeLeon's idea." In the same interview Lenin is further quoted as saying: "Future society will be organized along soviet lines. There will be soviet [occupational] rather than geographical boundaries for nations. Industrial unionism is the basic state...."[471]
Additional light on the relation between Bolshevism and I.W.W-ism as conceived by Lenin appears from the following account given by Arthur Ransome:
Lenin said he had read in an English socialist paper a comparison of his own theories with those of ... DeLeon. He
had then borrowed some of DeLeon's pamphlets from Reinstein (who belongs to the [Socialist Labor] party which DeLeon founded in America), read them for the first time, and was amazed to see how far and how early DeLeon had pursued the same train of thought as the Russians. His theory that representation should be by industries, not by areas, was already the germ of the soviet system.... Some days afterwards I noticed that Lenin had introduced a few phrases of DeLeon's ... into the draft for the new program of the Communist [Bolshevik] party.[472]
Finally, mention should be made of the fact that the National Labor Committee of the Socialist Labor party has just published a memorial volume on DeLeon. It is written by a group of his friends and co-workers in the Socialist Labor party.[473]