FOOTNOTES:

[404] Industrial Union Bulletin. Nov. 7, 1908, p. 1. Cf. appendix vi.

[405] See Appendix iv, Table A. Professor Barnett's returns, however, indicate a net gain in membership from 1907 to 1909. (Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1916.) His figures, too, were secured from the I. W. W. general headquarters. The writer is not able to reconcile the two sets of figures.

[406] Cf. appendix iv, Table B.

[407] Industrial Union Bulletin, April 11, 1908, col. 1.

[408] In April, 1908, there was a strike of [presumably] I. W. W. quarry workers at Marble, Colo. The I. W. W. papers reported that it was successful. There is also reported in August, a strike against reductions in wages by the French branch of the textile workers' local at Lawrence, Mass.

[409] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1908.

[410] Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 3, col. 1.

[411] Ibid.

[412] Proceedings, Sixteenth Convention, W. F. M., p. 18. This report of the death of the I. W. W. was, to say the least, premature.

[413] "The Industrial Workers of the World," Evening Post (N. Y.) Saturday Supplement, Nov. 9, 1912, p. 3, col. 5. This article is one of a series of three published under the above title in the Evening Post's Saturday Supplements beginning November 2, 1912. The reader is referred to them for an excellent short historical sketch and general estimate of the I. W. W.

[414] Proceedings, Twentieth Convention, W. F. M., pp. 283-4.

[415] Ibid., p. 283.

[416] Industrial Union Bulletin, Nov. 7, 1908, p. 1, col. 6.

[417] From one of the favorite songs of the floating "Wobbly" of the West. The refrain begins: "Hallelujah, I'm a bum." I. W. W. Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent (5th ed.), p. 34. Vide appendix ix.

[418] "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 11, 1915, p. 2, col. 1.

[419] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 10, 1908, p. 2. The proceedings were published in the Bulletin and in the Daily People (New York City). Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was the only woman delegate present.

[420] Ibid., col. 3.

[421] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1908.

[422] "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 3, col. 1.

[423] Ibid., Dec. 25, 1915, p. 5, col. 4.

[424] Ibid.

[425] Oct. 10, 1908, p. 1, col. 6.

[426] "Report of the Committee on Credentials," Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 10, 1908, p. 4, col. 3.

[427] Weekly People, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 3.

[428] Ibid.

[429] Katz, op. cit., Dec. 25, 1916, p. 5, col. 5.

[430] "The I. W. W. Convention," Weekly People, Oct. 3, 1908, p. 1, col. 7.

[431] Detroit I. W. W. leaflet. The Two I. W. W's.

[432] Industrial Union Bulletin, April 18, 1908, p. 2, col. 4.

[433] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1908.

[434] "Proceedings of the Fourth Convention," Industrial Union Bulletin, Nov. 7, 1908, p. 3, col. 4.

[435] Editorial, Weekly People, Oct. 10, 1908, p. 1, col. 6.

[436] The new preamble, which has survived five subsequent conventions unscathed, is reproduced in Appendix ii. For the original preamble of 1905, vide, Brissenden, Launching of the Industrial Workers of the World (University of California Press), p. 46.

[437] Detroit I. W. W. leaflet, The Two I. W. W.'s.

[438] Cf. report of the eighth day's session, Industrial Union Bulletin, Dec. 12, 1908, p. 3.

[439] Ibid., March 6, 1909, p. 4, col. 2.

[440] H. Richter, General Secretary-Treasurer of the Detroit (S. L. P.) I. W. W., now officially known as the Workers' International Industrial Union, in a letter to the author, dated February 17, 1915.

[441] H. S. Carroll, "The Industrial Workers of the World. A brief sketch of some history of the organization." Weekly People, Dec. 21, 1912.

[442] Detroit I. W. W. leaflet. A message to the membership of the Industrial Workers of the World and the working class in general.

[443] Weekly People, Nov. 7, 1908, p. 1, col. 6.

[444] "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 25, 1915, p. 5. The Bulletin was published more or less regularly until the Spring of 1909. The issue of March 6 appears to have been the last. On March 18, No. 1 of Vol. 1 of the Industrial Worker [II] was issued at Spokane, Wash.

[445] Weekly People, Nov. 7, 1908, p. 1, col. 6.

[446] Ibid.

[447] Industrial Union Bulletin, No. 7, 1908, p. 2, col. 2.

[448] Letter to the author, Feb. 17, 1915.

[449] The referendum on the Chicago convention, sent out by the Trautmann-St. John administration, was published in the Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1908. The DeLeonites issued a special referendum circular signed by the ad interim officers.

[450] Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Annual Reports on Labor Organisations, 1909-1914. Cf. also Appendix iv (Table A).

[451] Letter to the author, Feb. 17, 1915.

[452] Vide Preamble and Constitution of the W. I. I. U. (1915), pp. 3-4.

[453] Syndicalisme révolutionnaire et syndicalisme réformiste, pp. 13-14.

[454] Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed., 1904), pp. 109-10.

[455] Cf. infra, ch. xiii, where the controversy at the seventh and eighth conventions between the "Centralizers" and the "Decentralizers" is described.

[456] DeLeon, Industrial Unionism (New York: N. Y. Labor News Co., 1918), pp. 8-9.

[457] The author wishes to take this opportunity to express his indebtedness to Emil J. Kern, of the Socialist Labor party, for many suggestive ideas, especially in connection with the DeLeon-St. John controversy. Whatever merit there may be in the above comparison is due to him. On the second point, however, Mr. Kern simply states that the difference was merely a difference of views in regard to stealing. St. John, he says, approved of it. (Not per se, of course, but because, as he assumed—[on Kern's hypothesis], it helped the interests of the workers.) DeLeon disapproved of it, not on moral grounds, but for the reasons given above in paragraph 2. The author does not know whether St. John approves of stealing or not. Some color may be given to Mr. Kern's contention by the charges which were circulated in Goldfield, Nev., that the W. F. M. sanctioned the wholesale stealing of ore by its members. Cf. supra, p. 198. and E. J. Kern, "Socialism and Direct Action" (San Francisco Labor Clarion, May 31, 1912).

[458] Louis Levine, "The Development of Syndicalism in America," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxviii, p. 474 (Sept., 1913). This is perhaps the best short record and general description of the career of the I. W. W. as a whole.

[459] Herman Richter, private correspondence, March 30, 1912.

[460] Private correspondence, Oct. 23, 1911.

[461] Weekly People, Aug. 22, 1914, p. 2, col. 2.

[462] "Some Preamble History," Voice of the People (Los Angeles), Oct. 30, 1913, p. 3, col. 3.

[463] Louis Fraina, "DeLeon," The New Review, July 1914, p. 391. This excellent portrayal of DeLeon's personality and achievements as well as the rôle he played in the I. W. W. and the socialist movement in general makes it unnecessary to attempt more than the briefest comment here.

[464] Fraina, op. cit., p. 397.

[465] Cf. Hillquit, M., History of Socialism in the United States (5th ed.), pp. 294-301. "The disintegration of the Socialist Labor party."

[466] "The Coming Labor Union," Miners' Magazine, vol. vii, no. 122, Oct. 26, 1905, p. 13.

[467] "The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions," The Worker (New York), July 28, 1906. Reprinted in the Miners' Magazine, Aug. 30, 1906, p. 9.

[468] Fraina, "DeLeon," New Review, July, 1914, vol. ii, p. 390.

[469] Ibid., p. 394.

[470] "DeLeon," New Review, vol. ii, p. 398 (July, 1914).

[471] The World (New York), February 4, 1919, p. 2, col. 1. Reprinted in the Liberator, March, 1919. p. 6.

[472] Ransome, Arthur. Russia in 1919 (New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1919), pp. 120-121. The section of the book containing this paragraph is reprinted in the Liberator, August, 1919, p. 31.

[473] Daniel DeLeon, the Man and his Work: a Symposium (New York, 1919), 336 pp. The volume includes a reprint of the series of articles by Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon since '89", first published serially in the columns of the Weekly People.

[CHAPTER X]
The I. W. W. on the "Civilized Plane"
(1908-1915)

The Detroit faction of the I. W. W. which in 1915 changed its name to the Workers' International Industrial Union, never attained a strength at all comparable to that of the direct-actionist group. In Appendix IV are given what membership figures are available for both locals and individual members. For the total membership, the figures in columns 3 and 4 (Table A) are probably the most accurate. They show that the Detroiters had in 1910, two years after the schism of 1908, about 3,500 members. The following year their membership was about the same, but in 1912 it very nearly reached 11,000. That was the year of maximum membership, as it was also, except possibly for the year 1916, for the Chicago faction. In every year the figures show a very much smaller membership for the Detroit than for the Chicago faction. The difference in favor of the direct-actionists is still more marked in regard to the number of local unions. The Secretary-Treasurer of the Detroit faction says that only one new local was organized in 1909—the year following the split.[474] The following table shows the growth of local union membership:[475]

Detroit I. W. W.—Membership Figures

Year.New locals formed.Defunct locals.Total No. of locals.
Mixed.Industrial.Total.
1908-9......1...23
19102571614
191161218626
1912725322434
1913616221739
19145914449
1915112...51[476]

The reports of membership from the Detroit office are probably generous, to say the least. The Secretary wrote on October 23, 1911: "Our membership at present is about 10,000. Locals ... in nearly all states as well as Canada. Organizations identical with ours ... in principle and method are active in England, Australia and Africa."[477] On March 30, 1912, he wrote that the membership had "passed the 20,000 mark." When the Detroiters held their national convention in 1913—it was called by them the Sixth I. W. W. Convention—there were 17 locals represented by delegates and the Secretary reported a membership of 11,584. Twenty-two new locals had been organized, he said, during the year ending September, 1913.[478] "The principal reverse," says the correspondent of the Weekly People, "was the lapsing of 14 locals, an unfortunate occurrence caused solely by the financial inability of headquarters to send out organizers...." The local unions represented at the convention included the silk workers of Paterson, N. J.; car and foundry, carpenters', and a "mixed" union in Detroit; a metal and machinery, and a "mixed" local in Chicago; metal workers of Erie, Pa.; hotel and restaurant, "public service" and lumber workers in Seattle; mattress makers in Columbus, Ohio; and "mixed" locals in Lynn, Mass., San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, and New York City. The convention voted down a resolution to change the name of the organization and alter the "political clause" of the Preamble—the vital part of it which kept the I. W. W. high and dry on the civilized plane.[479] The Secretary reports that while the membership of the Detroit faction includes workers from nearly all industries the chief industries represented are the following: textile, garment making, metal and machinery, tobacco, food stuffs, furniture, transportation, automobile, building, lumber, printing, shoe making, and public service.[480]

The DeLeonites probably held a convention in 1914, but the writer has not come across any report of it. In September, 1915, they held an "Eighth I. W. W. Convention" in Detroit. A brief report of the proceedings in their official organ indicates that, in addition to three officers, there were present seven accredited delegates from the following cities: Hartford, Conn., St. Louis, Columbus, Detroit and Cristobal, Panama.[481]

Not only were DeLeonite locals fewer in number than the direct-actionist locals, but their average length of life was undoubtedly shorter. The General Secretary-Treasurer says that the more important reasons for the disbanding of locals were opposition by employers after strikes, the removal of members to other cities in search of work, and the lack of men and women for the work of organizing.[482] In reply to a letter addressed to the secretary of a certain local in New York, the writer was informed that "there is now no such local union."

We had an organization [the former secretary says] under the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, which was begun in 1897 and which, though greatly reduced, was continued until the I. W. W. was organized in 1905. [Then] ... it grew to about 250 members, but after the split in 1908 it began to decline, and though we tried several times to reorganize, we failed and it has gone out of existence.[483]

Another typical case is that of a cigarmakers' local in Baltimore, which, according to its former secretary, started in November, 1913, with 22 members and "increased the wages of all the cigarmakers in the city from 50 cents to $1.00 per thousand." In January, 1914, the local had 350 members. Then came evil days. "The strike forced on us by the Royal Havana ... demoralized the membership [and] the S[ocialist] P[arty] members added to the confusion by creating dissensions. In the year 1915 the organization was non-existent," and remains so, probably.[484]

The Detroit faction being much less exclusively reliant on the more strictly economic methods of carrying on the labor struggle, was naturally much less addicted to strikes. Nevertheless they did conduct a number of them. In May, 1910, the laborers of the Michigan Malleable Iron Company of Detroit, after being on strike two weeks, were given an increase in wages. In April, 1911, the DeLeonites conducted a strike of structural-iron painters in New York, in which 200 men were involved. The following month they called out 40 machinists in Canton, Ohio. Their most important strike efforts were made in 1911 and 1912 in the silk mills of Paterson and Passaic, N. J., and Easton, Pa. In these strikes the two I. W. W.s very often clashed. Rudolph Katz, of the Detroiters, reports that during the silk strike of 1911-12 "the silk workers of Paterson ... joined the Detroit I. W. W. en masse" but that "in the midst of the strike Wm. D. Haywood was brought to Paterson and Passaic ... and the apple of discord was thrown among the strikers."[485] The Socialist Labor party reported the Paterson-Passaic situation to the Socialist Congress at Vienna in 1914: "In the big textile strike in Passaic, N. J.," their report says, "this organization [i. e., the S. L. P. or Detroit I. W. W.] was fought by both the Socialist party and the Chicago I. W. W.-ites, with Haywood leading this opposition and the capitalist press ably supporting their flank.... That strike of 4,000 men, women and children was lost through such treachery." The report adds that a few months earlier in 1912 "the Detroit I. W. W. won a great strike of 6,000 silk weavers."[486] On December 20, 1913, one of the Paterson members of the DeLeonite faction sent the following dispatch to the Weekly People: "Local 152, Bummery Bunch, did their best to pack last night's meeting [of the Paterson silk workers] but only partly succeeded. Many legitimate delegates raised their voices against anarchy expressed through sabotage and direct action...."[487] Contrary to the foregoing evidence, the testimony of Adolph Lessig before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations seems to indicate that there were no serious differences between the two I. W. W.s during the Paterson strike. Lessig says that there was no attempt to either quarrel or get together.[488]

In 1913 the Detroiters were also concerned in several smaller strikes. They report a successful strike of textile workers at Mystic, Conn., in January; a successful strike involving 50 Philadelphia mechanics in August, and one involving 16 cigarmakers in Baltimore, who won the wage increase demanded. In 1914 and 1915 a few San Francisco ladies' tailors were on strike against the piecework system and alleged bad treatment. They were both reported as successful.

The two I. W. W.s continued to hate each other quite as much as they hated the capitalists, reformers, progressives, and Socialists. St. John has a paragraph in his historical sketch of the (Chicago) I. W. W. which may very well stand as the official expression of the direct-actionists' opinion of the doctrinaires. He says:

The politicians [i. e., the Socialist Laborites] attempted to set up another organization claiming to be the real industrial movement. It is nothing but a duplicate of their political party and does not function at all. It is committed to a program of the "civilized plane," i. e., parliamentarism. Its publications are the official organs of a political sect that never misses an opportunity to assail the revolutionary workers while they are engaged in combat with some division of the ruling class. Their favorite method is to charge the revolutionists with all the crimes that a cowardly imagination can conjure into being. "Dynamiters, assassins, thugs, murderers, thieves," etc., are stock phrases. Their only virtue is that they put their assertions into print, while the other wing of the politicians [the Socialist party men] spread their venom in secret.[489]

In May, 1914, St. John testified as the official representative of the I. W. W. before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations. The Detroit I. W. W.s, he said, "have no information—do not give out any information; have no organization except on paper, and are committed to the program of capturing plates at the political pie-counter ... and trading ... on the name of the I. W. W. That is the way they keep alive."[490] At the Seattle hearings of the Commission in August, 1914, James P. Thompson, at one time the General Organizer of the Chicago I. W. W., expressed himself on the subject of the other I. W. W. He said that the Detroiters were "quite different from the I. W. W."

They stole our name [he went on]. They have a political idea instead of the union idea.... After the 1908 convention, when the politicians of the Socialist Labor Party found themselves outside of the I. W. W., they held a conference in Paterson, N. J., and they decided they would [have] an organization of their own, with a political clause; and when they came to decide on a name there was much debate. [The name "Socialist Labor Union" was proposed.] ... But another motion prevailed, and they stole the name of the I. W. W., and called themselves the Industrial Workers of the World, although they don't amount to much.[491]

What the doctrinaires thought of the direct-actionists—or at least what their leaders wanted workingmen in general to think of them—is of equal importance. In a leaflet published by the Detroit faction we are told that "the anarchist element that still calls itself the I. W. W. proceeded from the close of the 1908 convention to reveal its true nature by its actions. The western official organ of this element 'The Industrial Worker,' of Spokane, Wash., began to advocate theft, petty larceny, chicken-stealing, breaking up small employment agencies, and also advised the workers to 'strike at the ballot-box with an ax.'"[492]

When the doctrinaires held their 1915 convention (the "Eighth I. W. W. Convention") General Secretary Richter, in his report, took pains to pay his compliments to the direct-actionists.

The anarcho-syndicalist aggregation [he said], the so-called "Chicago I. W. W." which in 1908 with great blare of trumpets was going to show the workers how to get out of capitalism, via "sabotage" and "direct action" in double-quick time—what is left of them has a precarious existence, trimmed to a frazzle by the relentless forces of social progress, their panaceas shrivelled, they make indeed a sorry-looking crowd.[493]

A few months before this, Richter remarked: "Many of the followers of the Saint [St. John] and 'Big Bill' [Haywood] are a sadder but wiser lot. Hundreds have already joined the Socialist [meaning the Detroit] I. W. W., and more are on the way."[494]

The Chicago I. W. W. was bracketed with the American Federation of Labor as being equally with it a snare and a delusion to the working class.

We find the Bummery [the Chicago I. W. W.] denying the ballot-box; we find the American Federation of Labor denying the class struggle and proclaiming the identity of interest between master and slave; we find the Socialist party of America ... seeking the support of the craft union; ... we find the Socialist Labor party which says the workers must own collectively the land and the tools; ... we find the I. W. W. of Detroit which says the workers must come together on the political and industrial fields....[495]

A sober explanation of the DeLeonites' position as compared with the American Federation of Labor and the "Bummery" was made by Rudolph Katz to the Commission on Industrial Relation. He said that the Chicago I. W.W.s look upon the ballot as a gift from the capitalist class. The Detroit I. W. W.s consider the ballot "a conquest of civilization, and," continued Katz,

we are going to use it. Now a body that repudiates the ballot naturally has to take something else, such as sabotage and direct action. Now the American Federation of Labor does not preach sabotage, but it practices it; and the Chicago I. W. W. preaches sabotage but does not practice it.... The position that we take [he concluded] is that if we have the majority, and the capitalists [and] officials who count the ballots ... refuse to count us in, well,—then there will be a scrap. But we are going to test the peaceful method first.[496]

The DeLeonites cite the recent strike of the clothing workers in Baltimore in support of their strictures on the Federation and the Chicago I. W. W. They call it "a desperate attempt" by the "Bummery" I. W. W. and the American Federation of Labor to crush out the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. The strike was directed, they say, by leaders of the United Garment Workers, the American Federation of Labor, and the Chicago I. W. W.[497]

The struggle that is raging in Baltimore between the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, on the one side, and the American Federation of Labor and the Bummery I. W. W. on the other side, is a struggle of clean versus corrupt unionism.... In this Baltimore affair we have revealed the kinship between the Bummery I. W. W. and the American Federation of Labor. These are both nothing more than parasites upon workingmen....[498]

The Detroiters and the Socialist Labor party fight the anarcho-syndicalist faction of the I. W. W., according to the report of the party to the International Socialist Congress at Brussels in 1911, because the direct-actionists "advocate physical force exclusively; at the same time it [the Socialist Labor party] gives all possible support to the workers who, even under the otherwise baneful leadership of anarchy, are trying to throw off the yoke of the capitalist masters and the reactionary trade-union lieutenants of those masters."[499]

The doctrinaires consider the Chicago I. W. W.s anarchists and themselves socialists—but socialists of a simon-pure Marxian stripe as opposed to the opportunist socialism of the Socialist party. In one of their propaganda leaflets they declare that "the only labor organization in the United States today which is wholly dominated by anarchists is the so-called Industrial Workers of the World, with headquarters, in Chicago, Ill."[500] A propaganda leaflet already quoted sums up in very characteristic fashion the theoretical position of the DeLeonites:

This, then, is the inspiring task of the I. W. W., and its purpose and reason of being: To decry the ballot, which is a civilized method of settling social issues; to advocate physical force only; to preach petty larceny, rioting, smashing machines, and all these things that come under the term "direct action," is unnecessary, and also invites disaster to the workers and helps the forces of reaction. Such measures are suicidal and condemned by civilization. For these reasons the bona fide I. W. W. sets its face like flint against any organization that teaches such tragedy-producing tactics. The working class cannot "sabotage," cannot dynamite itself into possession of the plants of production. Its only requisite and available might is its sound, class-conscious, properly-constructed Industrial Union. With such it is irresistible. By such agency, and by it alone, can it take permanent possession of the tools of production, and only in that way can civilization be saved from a catastrophe. As has been well said, "Right without Might is a fool's pastime; Might without Right is the sport of the savage."[501]

Eugene Debs, who was one of the leading spirits in the organization of the I. W. W. in 1905, and who thought that the elimination of the political clause by the Chicago faction in 1908 was a monstrous blunder, endorsed the position of the DeLeonites on political action. "This faction," said Debs, "is corner-stoned in the true principles of unionism in reference to political action."[502] He thought that there was "no essential difference between the Chicago and Detroit factions of the I. W. W." "If I am right in believing that a majority of the rank and file of the Chicago faction favor political action," he said, "then there is no reason why this majority should not consolidate with the Detroit faction, and thus put an end to the division of these forces."[503] Debs was of the opinion that, if the I. W. W. had continued as it began, "a revolutionary industrial union, recognizing the need of political as well as industrial action, instead of being hamstrung by its own leaders and converted ... into an anti-political machine, it would today be the most formidable labor organization in America, if not the world."

The end of the bifurcated era of I. W. W. history came in September, 1915, when the DeLeonites at their national convention (called the "Eighth I. W. W. Convention") changed their name to the Workers' International Industrial Union, and the Weekly People[504] announced: "The Industrial Workers of the World as founded at Chicago in 1905 is no more." The reason given by the Detroiters for the change was virtually that the "Bummery" had disgraced the letters "I. W. W." "The name I. W. W.," declared Fellow Worker Crawford, "has come to be associated with petty larceny and other slum tactics. It is up to us to choose a new name so as to escape the odium attached to the one we now bear."[505] Their attitude was more fully explained in an announcement by the General Secretary-Treasurer in their official journal.

While the principles, methods and form of organization adopted in 1905 have stood the test of time [the announcement runs] a new element has asserted itself under the name of I. W. W. whose practices and beliefs are different and opposed to socialist Industrial Unionism. The capitalists and their hirelings, quick to exploit any condition that serves their interests, boosted along the shouters of "sabotage" and "direct action" with such success since 1906 that today "I. W. W." stands for lunatics on a rampage, in the public mind and a large portion of the workers.[506]

The name Socialist Labor Union, originally proposed in 1908, was again discussed and considered very seriously because their desire was appropriately to label an organization which claimed to stand for "socialist class unionism." Finally, however, the name, Workers' International Industrial Union, was decided upon "as most appropriate for the designation of the economic wing of the Socialist movement."[507]

The W. I. I. U. soon issued a "Manifesto of Socialist Industrial Unionism" which explained the principles of the newly-christened organization. The W. I. I. U., declares the Manifesto,

refuses to conduct the class struggle on the lines of a dog fight. It does not sanction lawlessness on the part of employers, the capitalists and their hirelings by doing likewise. It condemns "sabotage" and all such childish practices by any one as useless for the working class and harmful to real progress.[508]