FOOTNOTES:

[1] Since this went to press the trial has come to an end. On August 17 the case went to the jury which, after being out fifty-five minutes, returned a verdict of "guilty, as charged in the indictment." On August 30 Judge K. M. Landis imposed sentence. W. D. Haywood and fourteen others were sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment and $20,000 fine each. Thirty-three others were given six years and fined $5,000 each on the first count; ten years and $5,000 each on the second count; two years and $10,000 each on the third count; and ten years and $10,000 each on the fourth count. Thirty-three others were given five years and fines of $5,000 apiece on each of counts 1 and 2 and $10,000 each on counts 3 and 4. Twelve more were sentenced to one year and one day, with fines of $5,000 each on the first and second counts and $10,000 each on the third and fourth counts. Two of the defendants were given ten-day sentences. All sentences run concurrently. The fines imposed aggregate $2,570,000 and costs. It is announced that the case will be appealed. (U. S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Div., Criminal Clerk's Minute Book 12, pp. 61-62.)

[2] Report of the Commission, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, p. 20.

[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[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[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]
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"[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]

[PART I]
BEGINNINGS

[CHAPTER I]
Forerunners of the I. W. W.

The revolutionary doctrines of the I. W. W. are spoken of today as constituting the "new unionism" or the "new socialism". It cannot be too strongly emphasized, however, that neither I. W. W.-ism nor the closely related but materially different French syndicalism are brand-new codes which the irreconcilables, here and in France, have invented out of hand within the last quarter of a century. Industrial unionism, as a structural type simply, and even revolutionary industrial unionism—wherein the industrial organization is animated and guided by the revolutionary (socialist or anarchist) spirit—hark back in their essential principles to the dramatic revolutionary period in English unionism of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In America the labor history of the seventies, and especially the eighties, teems with evidences of the industrial form and the radical temper in labor organizations. The elements of I. W. W.-ism were there; but they were not often co-existent in the same organization. Contemporary writers have not failed to call attention to the striking similarity between the doctrines of the English Chartists and those of our modern I. W. W. The bitter attacks of the Industrial Workers upon politics and politicians and their appeal to all kinds and conditions of labor were also fundamental articles in the creed of the Chartists—who stressed the economic factor almost as forcibly as do the I. W. W.'s today.[3]

In both America and England, especially during the periods referred to, there was abundant evidence of those tactics which we characterize today as syndicalistic. I. W. W. strikes were not invented in 1905. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the Knights of Labor, the International Working People's Association, the "New Unionists" in the days of Robert Owen—all these and many another group have sought to push their cause by methods now once again made notorious by the French syndicalists and the American Wobblies. The general strike—mass action—the sympathetic strike—the solidarity of all labor—these concepts seem to have their prototypes and very possibly were put into action in still more ancient periods. Osborne Ward reports some revolutionary labor activities in years preceding the Christian era. He describes a strike of the silver miners in Greece—at Laurium, some thirty miles south of Athens. "The inference is unequivocal," says Ward, "that in 413 B. C. twenty thousand miners, mechanics, teamsters, and laborers suddenly struck work; and at a moment of Athens' greatest peril, fought themselves loose from their masters and their chains." He concludes that the strike "must have been well concerted, violent and swift," and "must have been plotted by the men themselves."[4] This strike, apparently, was widely heralded, but seems to have brought no more permanent results than has the average I. W. W. strike of today. The evidence for this very ancient prototype of syndicalism is not entirely conclusive. It was dug out of the old red sandstone—and there are missing links! It will be safer not to try to trace the lineage of syndicalist organizations—much less syndicalist activities and ideas—back more than one century.

There is no doubt that the idea of economic emancipation through economic as opposed to political channels, and to be achieved by all classes of workers as workers, i. e., as human cogs in the industrial, rather than the political, state had been very definitely formulated before the end of the last century.[5] Indeed, the conception runs back well toward the beginning of the nineteenth century. The "one big union" of which we now hear so much was surely in existence in England in the early thirties. Robert Owen at that time outlined his great plan for a "General Union of the Productive Classes." Sidney and Beatrice Webb report the establishment, in 1834, of a "Grand National Consolidated Trades Union":

Under the system proposed by Owen [they say] the instruments of production were to become the property, not of the whole community, but of the particular set of workers who used them. The trade unions were to be transformed into "national companies" to carry on all the manufactures. The agricultural union was to take possession of the land, the miners' union of the mines, the textile unions of the factories. Each trade was to be carried on by its particular trade union, centralized in one "Grand Lodge."[6]

The leaders of the New Unionists "aimed not at superseding existing social structures but at capturing them in the interests of the wage earners."[7]

American prototypes of I. W. W.-ism appear much later than in England. As early as 1834, however, workingmen in the United States were discussing the attitude of the union toward politics. There was some discussion at that time by members of the National Trades Union of a proposal to have resolutions drawn up to express the views of the convention on the social, civil, and political condition of the laboring classes, and after considerable argument the word "political" was omitted.[8]

In 1864 an unsuccessful attempt was made to organize in this country a national federation of trade unions. Two years later, in Baltimore, a National Labor Congress launched a conservative political organization, called the National Labor Union—a short-lived predecessor of the Knights of Labor. Ely says that it lived only about three years and died of the "disease known as politics."[9] It is probable that a general apathy and financial weakness were contributing causes.

The most important of these forerunners of the "Wobblies" was the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor which was organized in 1869 and for the following decades carried on a remarkably successful propaganda. It had a membership of more than a million in the late eighties.[10] Soon after that the Knights suffered a decline that was even more rapid than their meteoric expansion in the early eighties and ultimately broke down and degenerated into the shadow of an organization that it has been for more than twenty years past. Carroll D. Wright thought that the Knights of Labor reached its highest membership point in 1887 when it had probably about a million enrolled. In 1898 there were about 100,000 in the organization. Colonel Wright believed that this great falling-off in membership was due to the socialistic tendencies of the organization, especially to the attempt to place all wage workers on the same level.[11]

The characteristic motto of the Knights of Labor was: "An injury to one is the concern of all"—the same slogan which is today prominent among the watchwords of the I. W. W. The Knights proposed, first to bring within the folds of organization every department of productive industry, making knowledge a standpoint for action and "industrial, moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness"; second, "to secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create ..."; third, the substitution of arbitration for strikes; and, fourth, the reduction of hours of labor to eight per day.[12] The Knights advocated government ownership of telephones, telegraphs, and railroads; emphasized the principle of coöperation; admitted women and negroes, and believed in having working-class politics in the union and the union in working-class politics. "The fundamental principle on which the organization was based was coöperation," said Grand Master Workman Powderly, "... the barriers of trade were to be cast aside; the man who toiled, no matter at what, was to receive and enjoy the just fruits of his labor...."[13]

It was originally a secret organization, but that feature was later abandoned. The following restriction on membership appears in the constitution of the Local Assemblies: "... no lawyer, banker, professional gambler, or stock broker can be admitted." Prior to 1881 physicians were also excluded. It is composed of Local Assemblies (local unions) controlled by District Assemblies, a General Assembly and a Grand Master Workman. These parts were closely related to each other in a centralized system. Centralization of administrative authority was considered highly important—indeed, it was thought indispensable in order successfully to unite every branch of skilled and unskilled labor—a task the Knights considered of prime importance. They differed, however, from our more radical I. W. W.'s of today in placing no little confidence in political methods, maintaining as they did for many years a legislative lobbying committee at Washington. In addition they believed, with the I. W. W., in the sympathetic strike, the boycott—and the necessity of solidarity among all the ranks of labor. The following excerpt from the Final Report of the United States Industrial Commission (1900) explains the administrative policy of the organization:

The fundamental idea of the Knights of Labor is the unity of all workers.... It regards this unity of interest as necessitating unity of policy and control; it conceives that unity of control can be effected only by concentrating all responsibility ... in the hands of the men who may be chosen to stand at the head of affairs. The control of the organization rests wholly in the general assembly, and ... the orders of the executive officers, elected by the general assembly, are required to be obeyed by all members. The several trades are separately organized within the order.... The Knights desired to include all productive workers, whether or not they received their compensation in the form of wages.[14]

The emphasis placed by the Knights upon the union of skilled and unskilled is significant in relation to the later efforts of the I. W. W. to effect such a union. "I saw," said Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly, "that labor-saving machinery was bringing the machinist down to the level of a day laborer, and soon they would be on a level. My aim was to dignify the laborer."[15] Mr. Powderly is reported in the same interview as saying that his greatest difficulty in getting machinists and blacksmiths to join the Knights of Labor lay in the contempt with which they looked upon other workers.

There was a much closer connection in the Knights of Labor between the central organization and the local bodies than is today the case with the American Federation of Labor, which, as its name implies, is a comparatively loose federation of autonomous "international unions." This high degree of centralization of power in the hands of the General Assembly and the national officers was a factor in the disintegration of the order. More important still was the fact of internal dissension, especially the bitter animosity arising out of the Knights' participation in politics. "... There came the question whether the organization should go into politics as a body or not. That question was probably discussed in every Local Assembly in America ... [and] those political questions coming up drove men out of the organization...."[16]

The Knights were a curious mixture of conservative and radical elements. The organization was socialistic, but rather state socialistic than anything else. Despite their arbitration clause they did not believe in the identity of interest of employer and employee. As trade unionists they were innovators and steered far from the narrow trade type of union imported from England. They said—in words—that they wanted to destroy the wage system. "To point out a way to utterly destroy this system would be a pleasure to me," said Grand Master Workman Powderly.[17] As to the Knights of Labor policy in regard to violence, Perlman says that "... although the leaders of the Knights preached against violence and what we now call sabotage both were nevertheless extensively practiced, as, for instance, in the Southwest Railway strike of 1886." He goes on to draw a parallel between the Knights and the "Wobblies," declaring that the latter preach violence without practicing it, while the Knights practiced it without preaching. He adds that the Knights of Labor adopted coöperation as their official philosophy and the I. W. W. adopted syndicalism and declares that neither practiced their doctrines very much.[18] The disrupted condition of the Knights of Labor in 1902, three years before the organization of the I. W. W., may be understood from the following press dispatch:

The rival factions of the Knights of Labor will each hold a congress at Albany this week beginning Tuesday. Each congress claims to represent the Knights of Labor in this State.... The Hayes faction has at present the books, property and paraphernalia of the Knights of Labor which were awarded to it by the courts some time ago.[19]

Simultaneously with the rise of the Knights of Labor in America came the International Workingmen's Association, the famous "International" which, springing up in Europe in the late sixties, soon spread to both sides of the Atlantic. It was first established in the United States in 1871. This first American section of the International made a slogan of the declaration that the emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves.[20] The organization appears to have been short-lived; for ten years later, in 1881, another body calling itself the International Workingmen's Association was organized at Pittsburgh. This organization, says Tridon, was "made up mostly of laborers and farmers who rejected all parliamentary action and advocated education and propaganda as the best means to bring about a social revolution."[21] In 1887, when they had about 6,000 members, they attempted to amalgamate with the Socialist Labor party, but the negotiations failed and they disbanded.[22]

Meantime the anarchists had been busy in this country. In 1881, the year which marks the birth of the American Federation of Labor (then called the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada), the difference between them and those who advocated political action finally assumed definite form in the organization by the anarchist advocates of physical force of the Revolutionary Socialist party. In 1883 there was held a joint convention of the "revolutionary socialists" and the anarchists which resulted in the birth of the International Working People's Association.[23] At this convention were gathered representatives of anarchist and revolutionary socialist groups from twenty-six cities. These delegates drafted the famous Pittsburgh proclamation which demanded "the destruction of the existing government by all means, i. e., by energetic, implacable, revolutionary and international action" and the establishment of an industrial system based upon "the free exchange of equivalent products between the producing organizations themselves and without the intervention of middlemen and profit-making."[24] In the course of two years the membership of the International grew to about 7,000. Then in 1888 came the Haymarket tragedy and the International soon passed out of existence. The anarchists were in control of this organization and great stress was laid upon revolutionary tactics and direct action, with a corresponding depreciation of political action. John Most, the anarchist, had come to this country in 1882 and the organization of the International Working People's Association was largely due to his agitation here.

There is no doubt that all the main ideas of modern revolutionary unionism as exhibited by the I. W. W. may be found in the old International Workingmen's Association.[25] The I. W. W. organ, The Industrial Worker, asserts that "we must trace the origin of the ideas of modern, revolutionary unionism to the International."[26] Comparing the French cousin of our modern I. W. W. with the older Association, James Guillaume asks, "et qu'est-ce que la confédération générale du Travail si non la continuation de l'internationale?"[27] Many items in the program originally drafted by the famous anarchist, Michael Bakunin, for the International in 1868 are very similar to the twentieth century slogans of the I. W. W.

It began by declaring itself atheist, "L'alliance se déclare athée," and went on to assert that its chief work was to be the abolition of religion and the substitution of science for faith. It advocated the political, social and economic equality of the classes, to achieve which end all governments were to be abolished. It opposed not only all centralized organization, but also all forms of political action, and believed that groups of producers, instead of the community, should have control of the processes of industry.[28]

"Ennemie de tout despotisme, ne reconnaisant d'autre forme politique que la forme républicaine, et rejetant absolument toute alliance réactionnaire, elle repousse aussi toute action politique qui n'aurait pas pour but immédiat et direct le triomphe de la cause des travailleurs contre le capital."[29]

A secret organization, known as the Sovereigns of Industry, was launched at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1874. It admitted both men and women. Its Preamble stated that it was "an association of the industrial working classes without regard to race, color, nationality or occupation; not founded for the purpose of waging any war of aggression upon any other class or fostering any antagonism of labor against capital ... but for mutual assistance in self-improvement and self-protection."[30] Its ultimate purpose, however, appeared to be the elimination of the wage system.

In the same year was formed a socialist organization called "The Association of United Workers of America."[31] This body, together with several other organizations of socialists, merged to form the Workingman's Party in 1876. The following year the name was changed to the Socialist Labor Party. The year 1874 also marks the birth of the Industrial Brotherhood, an organization somewhat similar to the Knights of Labor but which did not survive the seventies.[32]

A decade later (1884) the National Union of the United Brewery Workmen of the United States[33] was organized. Next to the United Mine Workers this is today the strongest industrially organized union in America. This union has almost from the beginning admitted to its membership not only brewers but also drivers (of brewery wagons), maltsters, engineers and firemen employed in breweries, etc.—all workmen, in fact, who are employed in and around the breweries. Until 1896 the Brewers were a part of the Knights of Labor. Since then they have been almost continuously affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. They have, however, always insisted upon industrial unionism so far as structure is concerned and have more than once been at loggerheads with the Federation on this score. The Brewery Workmen's Union, although conservative in every other way, is cited by I. W. W.'s, no less than the Mine Workers, as a model of the correct thing in labor-union structure. In 1890 the United Mine Workers' Union of America was formed. The organization is today the largest union in this country, if not in the world. It is unquestionably the strongest industrial union in the world. Since 1905 the revolutionary industrial I. W. W.'s have looked with admiration upon the structural form of the Mine Workers' Union—and with impatient scorn upon their conservative tactics.

In England also there came at this time a high tide of sentiment for the "new unionism."

The day has gone by for the efforts of isolated trades [wrote H. M. Hyndman]. Nothing is to be gained for the workers as a class without the complete organization of labourers of all grades, skilled and unskilled.... We appeal ... to the skilled artisans of all trades ... to make common cause with their unskilled brethren and with us Social Democrats so that the workers may themselves take hold of the means of production and organize a coöperative commonwealth....[34]

What is even more significant in view of the present day I. W. W. demand for industrial control is the fact that there was constantly cropping up in the eighties the Owenite demand that the workers must be allowed to "own their own factories and decide by vote who their managers and foremen shall be."[35]

In 1888 came the famous Haymarket riots in Chicago. The effect of this tragedy was unquestionably to give the labor and socialist movements a serious setback.

The labor movement [says Robert Hunter] lay stunned after its brief flirtation with anarchy. The union men drew away from the anarchist agitators, and, taking their information from the capitalist press only, concluded that socialism and anarchism were the same thing, and would, if tolerated, lead the movement to ruin and disaster. Without a doubt, the bomb in Chicago put back the labor movement for years. It ... did more to induce the rank and file of trade unionists to reject all association with revolutionary ideas than perhaps all other things put together.[36]

Justus Ebert, who is now a member of the I. W. W., declares that the Haymarket affair "involved the new Socialist Labor party in a fierce discussion of the right course to pursue in the emancipation of labor."[37] Robert Hunter thinks that these riots really gave the French unionists the idea of the General Strike and thus helped to give form, first, to modern French syndicalism, and second, both by relay back to this side of the Atlantic and directly by its influence in this country, to American syndicalism in the form of the Industrial Workers of the World.[38]

Five years after Haymarket—in June, 1893—an industrial union of railway employees was organized in Chicago by Eugene V. Debs. A year later, at the time of the Pullman strike, it had a membership of 150,000. The failure of that strike, which by the way was an early example of I. W. W. tactics, broke down the union, and it passed out of existence in 1897.

The year 1893 also marks the beginning of the Western Federation of Miners,[39] which may well be ranked as the chief predecessor of the I. W. W. The coal miners had formed their national organization three years earlier. Both the coal and metalliferous miners' unions were built from the start upon the industrial type, that is, including in their membership in both cases "all persons employed in and around the mines." The Western Federation of Miners was organized in Butte, Montana, in 1893, and almost immediately affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. It separated from the Federation, however, in 1897 and, after a period of independent existence broken by alliances with the Western Labor Union in 1898 and with the I. W. W. in 1905, rejoined the A. F. of L. in 1911.

During the twelve years of the Western Federation's existence before the birth of the I. W. W., it figured in the most strenuous and dramatic series of strike disturbances in the history of the American labor movement. Swift on each others' heels came the terrors of Coeur d'Alene in 1893, Cripple Creek in 1894, Leadville in 1896-7, Salt Lake and the Coeur d'Alene again in 1899, Telluride in 1901, Idaho Springs in 1903, and Cripple Creek again in 1903-4. The Federation was—in its first decade particularly—as militantly radical as the coal miners' union was conservative. The strikes in which it has engaged have been usually marked by much disorder and violence.[40] During the Idaho Springs strike in 1903 an indignation meeting of the citizens was called for July 29th by the Citizens' Protective League—an association of mine owners and business men. At this meeting one of the local merchants said: "Moyer and Haywood are the arch anarchists of this country, along with Herr Most. I see that Moyer is coming to Idaho Springs tomorrow. I want to say that if the people allow him to land his feet in Clear Creek County they are dirty arrant cowards." Very shortly the meeting passed a resolution to deport the strikers, adjourned to the jail, demanded the prisoners, ordered out 14 of the 23 there incarcerated and deported them.[41]

There is no doubt that the terrible strike troubles during the nineties and the early years of this century had their effect in working union men up to the radically pioneering pitch. These struggles were surely the birth signs of the coming militant industrialism of the Industrial Workers of the World. Wm. D. Haywood, now General Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W. W., and Vincent St. John, for several years in the same position, were both active and leading members of the W. F. M. during its earlier years. The Federation was less scornful of politics than the I. W. W. The Western Miners were forced by the obvious connivance between the state and city governments and the mine operators, by the use of the militia for the suppression of strikes and by the abuse of the injunction, to consider the possibilities of political action along socialistic lines. At their convention in 1902 they resolved "to adopt the principle of socialism without equivocation."[42] This resolution was reaffirmed in 1903 and 1904. "We recommend the Socialist party," reads their statement in 1904, "to the toiling masses of humanity as the only source through which they can secure ... complete emancipation from the present system of wage slavery...."[43] "Let all strike industrially here and now, if necessary," runs another resolution (signed, by the way, by William D. Haywood), "and then strike in unity at the ballot-box for the true solution of the labor problem by putting men of our class into public office...."[44]

The Federation was not actually content, however, with political activity. It has been made quite evident that the economic weapon of the strike was not neglected. In addition to this the fundamental and at that time rarely discussed problem of employees' control in industry was seriously discussed. At the tenth convention, Wm. D. Haywood proposed that the Federation invest some of its money in mines, to be operated by its members for the benefit of the unions.[45] At the following meeting President Moyer proposed that the Federation secure control of and operate mines and levy assessments for the purpose.[46] The plan had to be given up at that time because the Federation just then faced unusual difficulties because of the strike confronting it. Nevertheless, this idea of industrial workers' control had its effect in impressing the miners with the notion that in their union "they had an agency that could carry on and control production for their own benefit."

Some conception of the unusually radical temper of the Western Federation may be had from the Preamble to its constitution. It declares that

there is a class struggle in society and that this struggle is caused by economic conditions; ... the producer ... is exploited of the wealth which he produces, being allowed to retain barely sufficient for his elementary necessities; ... that the class struggle will continue until the producer is recognized as the sole master of his product; ... that the working class, and it alone, can and must achieve its own emancipation; ... [and] finally, that an industrial union and the concerted political action of all wage workers is the only method of attaining this end.

For these reasons, the Preamble concludes, "the wage slaves employed in and around the mines, mills and smelters have associated in the Western Federation of Miners."[47]

The Western Federation of Miners was the effective agency in the formation at Salt Lake City in 1898 of the Western Labor Union. It was in this same year that the Social Democratic party (which became the Socialist party three years later) was organized in Chicago. The Western Labor Union in 1902 moved its headquarters from Butte, Montana, to Chicago, and changed its name to the American Labor Union, which in turn, and inclusive of the W. F. M., merged in 1905 with certain other radical unions to form the Industrial Workers of the World. The American Labor Union was in 1905 apparently on the verge of disruption—practically dead.[48] The Federation of Miners was always the Western (or American) Labor Union's largest and strongest component. It repudiated the American Federation of Labor. The bulk of its membership was unskilled labor and it soon had enrolled, in addition to the mine laborers, large numbers of the cooks, waiters, teamsters, and lumbermen of the western states. It was apparently the first labor organization seriously to attempt the organization of the lumber workers.[49] The Western Labor Union proposed to bring into an industrial organization western wage-workers of all crafts and no crafts; it aimed to include all kinds and degrees of labor, but until 1901 its activities were mostly confined to the mining camps of the West.[50] Indeed, Katz says that "the American Labor Union was practically only another name for the Western Federation of Miners: [being] called into existence to give the miners' union a national character."[51]

The American Labor Union was very decidedly an industrial union—more, however, by anticipation than realization.

It resembled our modern I. W. W. in some important particulars. "It believes," says one of the members, "that all employees working for one company, engaged in any one industry, should be managed through ... one authoritative head; that all men employed by one employer, in any one industry [should] be answerable to the employer through one and the same organization...."[52] The approval of its general Executive Board is required before any member local can call a strike.[53] An interchangeable or universal transfer system is provided, as it was later by the I. W. W.[54] The American Labor Union was an industrial organization of more decided political character and sympathies than is the I. W. W. It was, however, decidedly socialistic in its ultimate aim. It seemed to mark the climax of development of industrial unionism of that (political-socialist) type. It will be evident in the following pages that in 1905 began a sharp swing under the I. W. W. banner from socialist industrial unionism to anarcho-syndicalist industrial unionism.

A good many of the leaders of the American Labor Union were members of the Socialist party. "Believing that the time has come," runs the A. L. U. Preamble, "for undivided, independent, working-class political action, we hereby declare in favor of international Socialism and adopt the platform of the Socialist Party of America as the political platform and program of the American Labor Union."[55] Although it endorsed socialism, the A. L. U., unlike the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, admitted workingmen of any political views whatsoever, but resembled the latter organization in its opposition to the American Federation of Labor and its desire to build up a revolutionary labor movement.

The economic organization of the proletariat [declares the official organ of the A. L. U.] is the heart and soul of the socialist movement, of which the political party is simply the public expression at the ballot box. The purpose of industrial unionism is to organize the working class in approximately the same departments of production as those which will obtain in the coöperative commonwealth, so that, if the workers should lose their franchise, they would still possess an economic organization intelligently trained to take over and collectively administer the tools of industry and the sources of wealth for themselves.[56]

The roots of I. W. W.-ism reached out most vigorously and numerously in the western part of the United States, and the greater part of its strength today is derived from its western membership. The way was prepared for it most largely by western organizations—the Western Federation of Miners being the forerunner par excellence of modern I. W. W.-ism. Two organizations in the East, that is, having their chief strength in the East, played a highly important rôle during the decade preceding the launching of the I. W. W. These organizations were the Socialist Labor party and its trade-union "brain child," the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. Adequately to fill in this sketch of origins, it is necessary to refer briefly to these two organizations, especially to the S. T. & L. A., the Socialist Labor party's bright ideal of all that a labor union ought to be.

The Socialist Labor party was organized in 1877. It was a merger of the National Labor Union, the North American Federation of the International Workingmen's Association and the Social Democratic Workmen's Party. It was first known as the Workmen's Party of the United States. The German socialist trade-union element predominated in it.[57] The Socialist Labor party has always been emphatically Marxian and its leaders have been so decidedly doctrinaire in their interpretation of Marxian socialism and in their application of it to the practical work of socialist campaigning and propaganda that they have been not unjustly called impossibilists. Since the organization of the Socialist party in 1901 these two political parties of the socialist faith have been in open and bitter opposition to each other. The Socialist party adopted an opportunist policy, endorsed and often leagued itself with the conservative trade unions, refrained from any attempt to form or coöperate in the formation of socialist unions, and contented itself with the endeavor to make the existing unions socialistic by converting their individual members to socialism—a policy which came to be known as "boring from within." The Socialist Labor party, on the other hand, embraced a doctrinaire "impossibilist" policy, violently attacked the trade unions, made its slogan "no compromise and no political trading," and insisted that new unions, industrial in structure and socialist in purpose and principle should be created in opposition to the craft unions, whose structure and spirit it despaired of changing by "boring from within." The Socialist party has waxed strong and powerful. Its rival has languished and is today too small a group to be called a party.

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was organized in 1895, the same year which witnessed the birth of the organized syndicalist movement in France in the form of the Confédération Générale du Travail. On December 6th of that year a delegation from District Assembly 49 of the Knights of Labor met in conjunction with the Central Labor Federation of New York City and launched the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. The idea of this organization seems to have originated with Daniel DeLeon, whom his enemies called "the Pope of the S. L. P." and who was undoubtedly the leading student of Marxian socialism in this country. He was convinced that, as one of his followers expressed it, "without the organization of the workers into a class-conscious revolutionary body on the industrial field, socialism would remain but an aspiration."[58] "The S. T. & L. A." declares N. I. Stone, "was the most unique example of a socialist trade-union, anti-pure-and-simple organization in the annals of labor history...." "It came down upon us," he said, "full fledged from top to bottom as the masterpiece of our 'Master Workman' [DeLeon] and took us by surprise; but take it did...."[59]

In 1896 at the first convention of the Socialist Labor party after the organization of the S. T. & L. A. the party formally endorsed the latter organization. Mr. Hugo Vogt addressed the convention in behalf of the S. T. & L. A. "The whole of this labor movement," he said, "must become saturated with socialism, must be placed under socialist control, if we mean to bring together the whole working class into that army of emancipation which we need to accomplish our purpose."[60] He went on to explain that "in order to make it impossible for any masked swindlers to obtain influence in the Alliance, and to swing it back to the conservative side, we have provided that every officer ... shall take a pledge that he will not be affiliated with any capitalist party and will not support any political action except that of the Socialist Labor party."[61]

The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance was patterned very closely after the Knights of Labor. Wm. E. Trautmann called it "a duodecimo edition of the K. of L."[62] "It had the same district alliances with the same intellectuals as leaders: the same local craft organizations and the same mixed locals [as well as] the same centralized autocracy at headquarters...." He concludes that "the most fatal weakness of all was the political union of the S. T. & L. A. with the S. L. P."[63] The Alliance was, after all, a revolutionary socialist trade union rather than an industrial union. It differed from the American Labor Union and other forerunners mentioned above in this lack of industrial structure as well as in the emphasis it laid on the need of rallying to the support of the Socialist Labor party, with which organization it stood in the most intimate relations and to which most of its members belonged. It was actually sceptical about the efficacy of purely economic action. In common with I. W. W. later on, and in spite of the fact that its own locals were virtually trade or craft locals, it nourished an almost bitter hatred of the craft unions. "We simply have to go at them," said one of its members, "and smash them from top to bottom...."[64] Its animus was directed, however, at their conservatism and not so much at their craft structure.

In its "Declaration of Principles" the Alliance asserted that

the methods and spirit of labor organization are absolutely impotent to resist the aggressions of concentrated capital ...; that the economic power of the capitalist class ... rests upon institutions, essentially political, which ... cannot be radically changed ... except through the direct action of the working people themselves, economically and politically united as a class.

This Declaration concludes with the following statement of the chief object of the Alliance:

The summary ending of that barbarous [class] struggle at the earliest possible time by the abolition of classes, the restoration of the land and of all the means of production, transportation and distribution to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the coöperative commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder; a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization.[65]

In the body of its constitution the objects of the Alliance are set forth more explicitly. They are declared to be to bring about the adoption of its principles

by bodies of organized labor which are still governed ... by the tenets or traditions of the "Old Unionism Pure and Simple"; to organize into local and district alliances all the wage workers, skilled or unskilled; ... to further the political movement of the working class and its development on the lines of international socialism as represented on this continent by the Socialist Labor party.[66]

The Socialist Labor party naturally greeted the Alliance with enthusiasm. After officially endorsing the Alliance, the 1896 convention passed a resolution of welcome.

We hail with unqualified joy [it declared] the formation of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a great stride toward throwing off the yoke of wage slavery.... We call upon the socialists of the land to carry the revolutionary spirit of the S. T. and L. A. into all the organizations of the workers and thus consolidate ... the proletariat of America in an irresistible class conscious army, equipped both with the shield of the economic organization and the sword of the Socialist Labor party ballot.[67]

During this S. T. and L. A. period Daniel DeLeon looked upon revolutionary unionism as being necessarily pro-political rather than pro-industrial and non-political. He then felt that the political movement must dominate the unions as they are in Germany dominated by the Social Democracy. He later became convinced that revolutionary unionism must dominate the political movement, and that the revolutionary union had a decisive mission in the Socialist movement.

The S. T. and L. A. [says Fraina] was largely a weapon to fight conservative A. F. of L. politics. The friends of the A. F. of L. roared in protest and ... split the Socialist movement to save the A. F. of L.... DeLeon's revolutionary unionism was largely a means to prevent the socialist political movement [from] being controlled by the Aristocracy of Labor and the Middle Class—two social groups which ... have certain interests in common and against the revolutionary proletariat.[68]

The composition and membership of the S. T. and L. A. in July, 1898, were as follows:

German Waiters260
Ale and Porter Union200
United Engineers60
Marquette Workers70
Carl Sahm Club80
Piano Makers520
Bohemian Butchers150
Bartenders90
Furriers250
Silver Workers40
Empire City Lodge35
New York Cooks55
German Coppersmiths80
Macaroni Workers65
Progressive Cigarette Makers970
Bohemian Typographia32
Swedish Machinists98
Progressive Typographia15
Pressmen and Feeders18
Independent Bakers No. 3360
Independent Bakers No. 2545
Liberty Waiters65
3,258[69]

Far from being superior to the old [craft] organization(s), [says Stone] it is very much inferior.... With an insignificant membership, without controlling as much as a large factory, not to speak of a trade, at war not only with the bosses, ... but with every trade union which does not come under its mighty wing—it was unable to undertake any step of importance, in order to improve the condition of its members. The only strike of significance which it had, that at Slatersville [Rhode Island] was a failure after it had cost the Party about $1,500....[70]

The Alliance was scarcely more than a phantom organization on the eve of the launching of the I. W. W. in 1905. The same may be said of all the western unions which in that year merged in the I. W. W., except the Western Federation of Miners. The S. L. P. and the S. T. and L. A. "talk of capturing the convention to be held on June 27 [the 1st I. W. W. convention].... That convention should be not a revival, but the funeral, of the S. T. and L. A."[71] This expressed fairly well the attitude of the Socialist party men. "Born in hatred, suckled in dissension," as one socialist writer sees it, "the sole partisan trade union that ever arose to deny the principles and policies of international socialism came to destruction by its own venom, not however, until it had implanted the poison of its spirit into the Industrial Workers of the World."[72]

The main ideas of I. W. W.-ism—certainly of the I. W. W.-ism of the first few years after 1905—were of American origin, not French, as is commonly supposed. These sentiments were brewing in France, it is true, in the early nineties,[73] but they were brewing also in this country and the American brew was essentially different from the French. It was only after 1908 that the syndicalisme révolutionnaire of France had any direct influence on the revolutionary industrial unionist movement here. Even then it was largely a matter of borrowing such phrases as sabotage, la grève perlée, etc. The tactics back of the words sabotage and "direct action" had been practiced by American working men years before those words ever came into use among our radical unionists. "The Western Labor Union," says Walling, "was applying these principles in the Rocky Mountains, under the leadership of Haywood and others, several years before the French Confederation of Labor was formed...."[74] Some premonition of the power of a labor union including all—or even a large proportion of—the unskilled was given by the Western Federation of Miners, the American Labor Union, the American Railway Union, and other American organizations already referred to.

During the first five years of this century the idea of militant industrial unionism underwent rapid development. Unionists were coming to have a much broader view of the social rôle of the labor union. The actual trend of events opened the way for reorganization on new lines. The organizations which were to make up the I. W. W. were almost without exception in unprosperous straits, some of them being on the verge of disruption. All of them were bitter in their opposition to the American Federation of Labor—with which organization, indeed, few of them were affiliated. The United Metal Workers had been affiliated but withdrew in December, 1904. There was probably little left but a remnant when they joined the I. W. W. the following year. The same is true of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees. Even the American Labor Union—except its "mining division," the W. F. M.—was skirting the edge of dissolution.[75] The Socialist Labor party and its "puny child," the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, were in a bad way. Among the United Mine Workers there was dissension in many localities. There was dissatisfaction with the leaders and especially with the upshot of the strike settlement of 1902. Moreover, the miners as well as the United Brewery Workmen were embittered by constant criticism of their industrial form of organization. The latter were threatened with the prospect of a revocation of their charter by the Federation. There were thus a number of "national" organizations and many locals in other bodies which were anxious to create some central labor organization to strengthen the forces of industrial unionism. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, though on the decline, still included a considerable body of workers who were impatient of the conservatism of the A. F. of L. and desired somehow to build up a strong revolutionary (this meaning for them a Marxian socialist) organization. The Western Federation of Miners—stronger than all the others put together—was not excelled by any of them in its revolutionary zeal. It had the power as well as the enthusiasm. Moreover, it represented revolutionary industrial unionism more completely than did the smaller unions in the West and the Alliance in the East. The Alliance, in fact, was a revolutionary union without the industrial character and without much real appreciation of the meaning and importance of the idea of industrial as opposed to craft organization. The miners, however, had a big, powerful union of an emphatically industrial character and their experience had made them very militant.[76]

Much of this hard experience consisted in a gradual process of disillusionment about the virtue and goodness of the state so far as its relations with labor were concerned. The long series of violent and protracted strikes between the Western Federation and the mine operators and the rôle played therein by the state government convinced the miners that they would be more successful in gaining their political ends if they had more economic power to back up their requests. The miners were convinced, therefore, that the imperative need of the hour was for the extension to other industries of their type of industrial organization inspired by socialist aims. This would make solidarity possible, not only between skilled and unskilled in the metalliferous mines but also in all mines, all shops, all industries. They felt that then indeed would an injury to one be the concern of all.[77]