FOOTNOTES:

[3] Cf. Brooks, American Syndicalism (New York, 1913), ch. vi and Tridon, The New Unionism, 4th printing (New York, 1917), p. 67.

[4] Cf. C. Osborne Ward, A history of the ancient working people, from the earliest known period to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine (The Ancient Lowly), Washington, D. C., Press of the Craftsman, 1889, p. 140.

[5] "Stellen wir also vor allem fest, das die syndikalistische Bewegung ... in ihren Tendenzen and ihrer Taktik als eine Volksbewegung, eine Bewegung in den Arbeiterkreisen selbst, entstanden ist, deren geschichtlichen Ursprung man ... bis in den Anfang der neunziger Jahre, ja selbst in die Zeit der alten Internationale zurück verlegen muss." (Ch. Cornélissen, "Ueber den internationalen Syndikalismus"—Archiv für Sozial Wissenschaft und Sozial-Politik, vol. xxx (1910), p. 151.)

[6] Webb, History of Trade Unionism (London, 1902), new ed., pp. 144-5.

[7] Ibid., p. 404. In ch. iii, the Webbs give an interesting description of this "revolutionary period" in English unionism.

[8] Commons (Ed.), Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Cleveland, O., A. H. Clark Co., 1910-11), vol. vi, pp. 211-16. Reprinted from The Man (New York), September 6, 1834.

[9] Ely, Labor Movement in America (New York, 1890), p. 69. Tridon (The New Unionism, p. 92), claims that by 1868 it had a membership of 640,000. It was apparently represented at the Basle convention of the International in 1869. Cf. also Hillquit, Morris, History of Socialism in the United States (5th ed., New York, 1910), p. 193.

[10] One of the Knights stated to the U. S. Industrial Commission (Report, vol. vii [1900], p. 420), that in 1888 the Knights of Labor had 1,200,000 members. In 1886 the organization contained nearly 9,000 local unions.

[11] Testimony before U. S. Industrial Commission, Washington, D. C., Dec. 15, 1898. Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. vii, p. 94.

[12] Constitution, Knights of Labor, pp. 3-6.

[13] T. V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor (Columbus, O., 1889), p. 151.

[14] Vol. xix (1902), p. 798.

[15] New York Sun, March 29, 1886, p. 1, col. 5. (Interview.)

[16] J. G. Schonfarber, testimony before U. S. Industrial Commission, Washington, D. C., Dec. 5, 1899. Report, vol. vii (1901), p. 423.

[17] Quoted by McNeill (Ed.), The Labor Movement: The Problem of To-day (New York, 1887), p. 410.

[18] Perlman, S., "Plan of an Investigation of the I. W. W." (MS. report to U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations), p. 1.

[19] "Labor Knights Dispute," The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1902, p. 24. For an excellent short historical sketch of the Knights of Labor, see Report of the Industrial Commission (1901), vol. xvii, pp. 3-24.

[20] Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ix, p. 358.

[21] Tridon, op. cit., pp. 93-94.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Cf. Ebert, Justus, American Industrial Evolution (New York: New York Labor News Co., 1907), p. 64.

[24] Tridon, op. cit., p. 93.

[25] Cf. Compte-rendu officiel du sixième congrès générale de l'association internationale des travailleurs.... Geneva, 1873 (Locle, 1874).

[26] June 18, 1910, p. 2.

[27] L'Internationale: documents et souvenirs 1864-78 (Paris, Cornély, 1905-10), vol. iv, p. vii.

[28] James Guillaume, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 132-133.

[29] Loc. cit., pp. 132-133.

[30] F. T. Carlton, "Ephemeral labor movements," Popular Science Monthly, vol. lxxxv, p. 494 (November, 1914).

[31] Vide reprint of its General Rules, published in 1874, Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ix, pp. 376-8.

[32] Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xvii, p. 3, and Powderly, T. V., Thirty Years of Labor (Columbus, Ohio, 1889), p. 126.

[33] Now the International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal and Soft Drink Workers of America.

[34] "The decay of trade unions," Justice, June, 1887, quoted by Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 396.

[35] Webb, op. cit., pp. 396-397.

[36] "The General Strike"; iii, In America and France, Oakland (Calif.) World, Dec. 28, 1912.

[37] Justus Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 63.

[38] Op. cit., Oakland World, Dec. 28, 1912.

[39] Now the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.

[40] Vide, Federal Report on "Labor disturbances in Colorado: 1880-1904," (58th Cong., 3d Sess., no. 122, 1905), pp. 107, 149.

[41] Ibid., pp. 152-155.

[42] Federal Report on "Labor Disturbances in Colorado," p. 42.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Proceedings Tenth W. F. M. Convention, Denver, 1902, p. 161.

[45] Proceedings Tenth W. F. M. Convention, pp. 163-165. Vincent St. John was also interested as a proponent of this plan.

[46] Proceedings Eleventh W. F. M. Convention (1903), pp. 33-34.

[47] Constitution and By-Laws of the Western Federation of Miners (1910), p. 3.

[48] Proceedings Sixteenth Convention W. F. M., p. 17 (Report of President C. H. Moyer).

[49] Cf. Haywood, "The timber worker and the timber wolves," International Socialist Review, vol. xiii, p. 110 (August, 1912).

[50] Proceedings Sixteenth Convention W. F. M., p. 17.

[51] Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, September 4, 1915, p. 4.

[52] "Industrial Union Epigrams," Voice of Labor, March, 1905.

[53] Preamble, Constitution and Laws of the A. L. U., p. 20.

[54] Ibid., art. ix, sec. 11 and sec. 12.

[55] Preamble, Constitution and Laws, pp. 4-5.

[56] American Labor Union Journal, Dec., 1904. Quoted by Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 82.

[57] Ebert, American Industrial Evolution, p. 61.

[58] Katz, "With DeLeon since '89," Weekly People, April 24, 1915, p. 3.

[59] Stone, N. I., Attitude of the Socialists to the Trade Unions (pamphlet, New York, 1900, Volkszeitung Library, vol. ii, Apr., 1900), p. 6.

[60] Quoted by Robt. Hunter, "The trade unions and the Socialist Party," Miners' Magazine, March 7, 1912, p. 11.

[61] Hunter, loc. cit.

[62] Voice of Labor, May, 1905.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Delegate Hickey, Proceedings Tenth S. L. P. Convention, p. 220.

[65] Constitution of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance of the United States and Canada (1902), pp. 3-4. (Italics mine.)

[66] Ibid., p. 5.

[67] Proceedings, Ninth S. L. P. Convention, 1896, p. 30.

[68] Louis Fraina, "DeLeon," The New Review, July, 1914, vol. ii. p. 393.

[69] Stone, op. cit., p. 13. "At the most liberal estimate, the total strength of the Alliance did not exceed 15,000 at that time (1898)." Ibid., p. 14.

[70] Ibid., p. 15.

[71] Letter of Wm. E. Trautmann, Voice of Labor, May, 1905.

[72] Robt. Hunter, "The Trade Unions and the Socialist party," Miners' Magazine, March 7, 1912, p. 11.

[73] Vide, Cornélissen, "Ueber den internationalen Syndikalismus," Archiv für Sozial Wissenschaft und Sozial-Politik, xxx (1910), p. 150. Cf. also Industrial Worker, June 18, 1910, p. 2.

[74] "Industrialism or revolutionary unionism," The New Review, Jan. 11, 1913, vol. i, p. 47.

[75] Proceedings, Sixteenth W. F. M. Convention (Report of President Moyer), pp. 17-18.

[76] Cf. Louis Levine, "The Development of Syndicalism in America," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxviii, pp. 460-462 (Sept., 1913). Cf. also Selig Perlman, "From Socialism to Anarchism and Syndicalism" (1876-1884), pp. 269-300 (vol. ii, chap. 6), in Commons and others, History of Labor in the United States.

[77] There is an excellent description of the older industrial unions, particularly the Western Federation of Miners and the United Brewery Workmen, in William Kirk's monograph, National Labor Federations in the United States, pt. iii, "Industrial Unions," pp. 117-150, Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science, ser. xxiv, nos. 9 and 10.

[CHAPTER II]
The Birth of the Organization[78]
(1905)

The Industrial Workers of the World, now more generally known as the I. W. W.[79] was organized at an "Industrial Union Congress" held in Chicago in June, 1905. This first or constitutional convention had its inception in an informal conference held in that city, in the fall of 1904, by six men of prominence in the socialist and labor movement. These conferees were: William E. Trautmann, editor of the Brauer Zeitung, official organ of the United Brewery Workmen; George Estes, President of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees; W. L. Hall, General Secretary-Treasurer of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees; Isaac Cowen, American representative of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers of Great Britain; Clarence Smith, General Secretary-Treasurer of the American Labor Union; and Thomas J. Hagerty, editor of the Voice of Labor, official organ of the American Labor Union.[80] Several others not present at this conference were at that time actively interested in the matter and coöperated in carrying out these prenatal plans. Two of them, Eugene V. Debs and Charles O. Sherman, General Secretary of United Metal Workers International Union, were destined to play important rôles in the organization.

These men were impelled by a common conviction that the labor unions of America were becoming powerless to achieve real benefits for working men and women. This feeling was confirmed and intensified by many recent events in the trade-union movement. It was not the more conservative, "aristocratic" unions alone which were found wanting. Even those labor organizations of the industrial and radical type, such as the American Labor Union, the Western Federation of Miners, and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, were believed to be, for one reason or another, quite unprepared to negotiate—much less to fight—with the ever more highly integrated organizations of employers. At the constitutional convention in June, 1905, Clarence Smith of the American Labor Union explained the reasons for initiating the movement.

This conviction of ineffectiveness in the face of opportunities for effective work was strengthened [he said] at the general convention of the International Union of United Brewery Workmen last September. It seemed clear that a united, harmonious and consistent request from all unions and organizations of the American Labor Union, backed by an administration in whom the rank and file of the brewery workers had confidence, would have brought the Brewery Workmen into the American Labor Union at that time. And what would have been true of the Brewery Workmen would have been true also of other organizations of an industrial character. It therefore seemed the first duty of conscientious union men, regardless of affiliation, prejudice or personal interest, to lay the foundation upon which all the working people, many of whom are now organized, might unite upon a common ground to build a labor organization that would correspond to modern industrial conditions, and through which they might finally secure complete emancipation from wage-slavery for all wage-workers.[81]

In order to go over the matter and discuss plans more thoroughly, it was decided to arrange for a larger meeting. On November 29 a letter of invitation was sent to about thirty persons then prominent in the radical labor and Socialist movements. This letter contained the following significant paragraph:

Asserting our confidence in the ability of the working class, if correctly organized on both political and industrial lines, to take possession of and operate successfully ... the industries of the country;

Believing that working-class political expression, through the Socialist ballot, in order to be sound, must have its economic counterpart in a labor organization builded as the structure of socialist society, embracing within itself the working-class in approximately the same groups and departments and industries that the workers would assume in the working-class administration of the Co-operative Commonwealth ...;

We invite you to meet us at Chicago, Monday, January 2, 1905, in secret conference to discuss ways and means of uniting the working people of America on correct revolutionary principles, regardless of any general labor organization of past or present, and only restricted by such basic principles as will insure its integrity as a real protector of the interests of the workers.[82]

It is noteworthy fact that, although the proposition was concurred in and the invitation accepted with enthusiasm by the great majority of those invited, agreement was not unanimous. There were two dissenters—Victor Berger and Max Hayes. It is not recorded that Mr. Berger even sent his "regrets," but Mr. Hayes explained his position at length. In a letter to W. L. Hall, December 30, 1904, he said:

This sounds to me as though we were to have another Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance experiment again; that we, who are in the trade-unions as at present constituted, are to cut loose and flock by ourselves. If I am correct in my surmises it means another running fight between Socialists on the one side and all other partisans on the other.... If there is any fighting to be done I intend ... to agitate on the inside of the organizations now in existence....[83]

The Western Federation of Miners did not lack enthusiasm for this wider venture in industrial unionism. President Moyer's report to the thirteenth convention, which met just one month before the constitutional convention of June, 1905, contained the following:

The Twelfth Annual Convention instructed your Executive Board to take such action as might be necessary in order that the representatives of organized labor might be brought together and plans outlined for the amalgamation of the entire wage-working class into one general organization. Following out these instructions at a meeting held in the month of December it was decided to send a committee to meet with the officers of the American Labor Union. This conference took place January 4.... The result ... was the Manifesto.... The question for you to decide is not one of changing the principles, policy or plan of your organization, but as to whether or not the Western Federation of Miners shall become a working part of such a movement as set forth in the Manifesto, which shall consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries.[84]

At about the same time J. M. O'Neill, the editor of the Miners' Magazine, wrote William D. Haywood, the treasurer of the Federation, that

if this convention goes on record giving its unanimous sanction to the movement that is contemplated in Chicago, such action will be heralded from the Atlantic to the Pacific, ... and will create a sentiment that will keep on crystallizing until capitalism will feel that it is threatened in the citadel of its entrenched power.[85]

The secret conference—thereafter to be known as the January Conference—was called to order in the city of Chicago on the second of January by William E. Trautmann. There were twenty-three persons present, representing nine different organizations; that is, of course, exclusive of members of the Socialist and Socialist Labor parties, who were not present formally as such. There were present five officials of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees and one member of the Brewery Workmen. Among those present were: Charles H. Moyer, President, Western Federation of Miners; W. D. Haywood, Secretary of the Western Federation of Miners; J. M. O'Neill, editor of the Miners' Magazine; A. M. Simons, editor of The International Socialist Review; Frank Bohn, organizer, Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance; T. J. Hagerty, editor of The Voice of Labor; C. O. Sherman, of the United Metal Workers; and "Mother" Mary Jones. During a three days' session plans for a proposed new labor organization were seriously discussed and carefully worked out. The report of their committee on methods and procedure was worked up by the members of the conference into a "Manifesto"[86] which contained (1) an indictment of "things as they are" in the trade-union world; (2) leading propositions and tentative plans for a new departure in labor organization; and (3) a call for a convention to organize this new union.

The first part of this document is devoted to a discussion of certain modern tendencies in the labor movement. Trade divisions among laborers and competition among capitalists are both disappearing. The machine process is more and more tending to minimize skill and swell the ranks of the unskilled and unemployed. The incidence of the machine process is fatal to labor groups divided according to the tool used. "These divisions," in the words of the Manifesto, "far from representing differences in skill or interests among the laborers, are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial distinctions." The employees, however, are united on the industrial plan and reënforce their consequent impregnable position by making use of the military power and their affiliation with the National Civic Federation.

The craft form of organization is severely criticized. It makes solidarity impossible, for it generates a system of organized scabbery, where union men scab on each other. It results in trade monopolies, prohibitive initiation fees and political ignorance. It dwarfs class consciousness and tends to "foster the idea of harmony of interests between employing exploiter and employed slave."

Passing on to the remedy proposed, the Manifesto declares that

a movement to fulfil these conditions must consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries, providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working-class unity generally. It must be founded on the class struggle ... and established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party.[87]

The phrase, "craft autonomy," is odd—for industrialists. A. M. Simons gives an explanation. He says that any union entering the I. W. W. "will retain trade autonomy in matters that concern each trade as completely as at the present time, but when it enters the field of other trades, instead of being met by trade competition ... will be met by the coöperation of affiliated unions."[88] This phrase referring to political parties was the germ of the ill-fated "political clause" of the preamble, which formulated in an indefinite way the issue on which three years later the organization split into two factions.[89] Other clauses provide that (1) all power shall rest with the collective membership; (2) all labels, cards, fees, etc., shall be uniform throughout; (3) the general administration shall issue a publication at regular intervals; and (4) that a central defense fund be established and maintained. The document concluded with a call to all workers who agreed with these principles to "meet in convention in Chicago, the 27th day of June, 1905,—for the purpose of forming an economic organization of the working class along the lines marked out in this Manifesto."

The Manifesto was signed by all those present at the January conference and sent broadcast to all unions throughout America and to the industrial unions of Europe. At this January conference there was dominant a very radical idea as to what a labor organization ought to be. The conferees decided that such an organization should not only provide a means of unifying all crafts and industries for the better protection and advancement of the immediate interests of the working class, but that it must also offer, and consciously push on towards, a final solution of the labor problem, a solution very frankly assumed to be a socialistic one.

To say that these conferees were, broadly speaking, socialists and that they outlined a socialistic program of a certain sort does not mean, as the daily press report insinuated, that the Socialist party was in any way represented in the conference or that it was a political movement. Max S. Hayes, anxious to disclaim on behalf of party Socialists any responsibility for the new undertaking, explained that

As a matter of record and fairness it should be stated that, first, not a single signer to the above call is officially identified with the Socialist Party; secondly, that not one of the signers has been seen or heard or known on the floor of the American Federation of Labor conventions as an advocate of socialism in recent years; and thirdly, it is doubtful whether any American Federation of Labor delegate, with possibly an exception or two, had the slightest knowledge that the Chicago [January] conference was to be held.[90]

The American Federation of Labor, as the embodiment of the craft idea, was the subject of bitter attack at this prenatal conference. The general opinion seemed to be that the A. F. of L. had outlived its usefulness, and that its extinction—but not necessarily the extinction of its constituent local unions—was a consummation very much to be desired.

The A. F. of L. very naturally resented its proposed annihilation.

The Socialists have called another convention to smash the American trade-union movement [said President Gompers]. Scanning the list of twenty-six signers of this call, one will look in vain to find the name of one man who has not for years been engaged in the delectable work of trying to divert, pervert, and disrupt the labor movement of the country.... We feel sure that the endorsement of the latest accession to this new movement of Mr. Daniel Loeb, alias DeLeon, will bring unction to the souls of these promoters of the latest trade-union smashing scheme. So the trade-union smashers and rammers from without and the "borers from within" are again joining hands; a pleasant sight of the "pirates" and the "kangaroos" hugging each other in glee over their prospective prey.[91]

But the members of the January conference did not propose any wholesale or indiscriminate "smashing from without." It is true they believed the Federation, as a federation, to be harmful to the interests of labor—and would have been nothing loath to "smash" it—but the federated units they proposed to take over and unite in a very different way.

Mr. A. M. Simons, who claims to have given the final draft to the Manifesto, says that "the idea expressed at the conference was to form a new central body, into which existing unions and unions to be formed could be admitted, but not to form rival unions."[92] Discussing the January conference in the International Socialist Review,[93] Mr. Simons traces this idea back to two vital tendencies of the day, viz., (1) the merging of trade lines in the class struggle, and (2) the accelerated growth of class-consciousness on the part of the capitalists. He concludes that "the only question about the desirability of forming such an organization is the question of timeliness."

The organized laborers were only a part of the concern of the conference. Over ninety per cent of those gainfully occupied are unorganized. It was, of course, realized that outside of all unions stood the overwhelming majority of all workingmen, and, as Daniel DeLeon put it, these men did not "propose to go into these organizations run by the Organized Scabbery, because they had burned their fingers thus enough. The organization of the future has to be built of the men who are now unorganized—that is, the overwhelming majority of the working men in the nation."[94]

Thus it was really hoped that much could and would be done by workingmen in the existent unions, without breaking away from these local unions. These latter must be pried away from the A. F. of L., but not themselves destroyed. By all means let us "bore from within" as far as that can be done; also when we can bore no longer, let us hammer from without and pound together new bodies from out the great unorganized mass. This, in brief, was the position of most of the industrialists. However, not all would yet go this far. Even among the Socialist leaders a note of dissent was heard expressing the belief that to "bore from within" was the only revolutionary method not absolutely suicidal.[95] Just what fate awaited these January ideas was to some extent revealed in the proceedings of the June convention.

The convention called in accordance with the Manifesto of the January conference met two hundred strong in Chicago on Tuesday, June 27, 1905. This gathering was first referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention," but since before adjournment it had organized itself as the Industrial Workers of the World, it is referred to as the First Annual Convention of the I. W. W. It was a gathering remarkable and epoch-making in more ways than one, and therefore the story of its activities is essential, not only to an understanding of the subsequent career of the organization, but as a fundamental chapter in the whole history of industrial unionism. The discussions and resolutions of the assembly and the final type of organization which grew out of them can be understood only in the light thrown on them by a study of the composition of this revolutionary group of men. Its occupational, structural, and doctrinal character should each be taken into account.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of this group of two hundred radicals was the bewildering range of occupations represented. The variety of different trades represented and the varying "quality" levels exhibited in the organization here gathered to sink all differences and become as one, were astonishingly great. The following list of the different organizations represented at the convention reveals at least forty distinct trades or occupations:

The foreign organizations were each represented by at least one delegate with full powers and instructions. The following named bodies sent uninstructed delegates:

Aside from the occupations represented above, the following were each represented by one or more individuals: machinists, tanners, electrical workers, bookbinders, editors, teachers, authors, printers, and shoe workers. An attorney-at-law from New York City presented himself at the convention. The committee on credentials recommended that he be seated as a fraternal delegate, on account of the mitigating circumstances that he wrote for several newspapers and was a "friend and sympathizer" of labor. After considerable debate the report of the committee was adopted "with the exception of that portion which refers to the attorney."[98]

This array of occupational or trade types was scarcely more extensive than that of the structural types here grouped together. Of these there were the following types. (1) the simple industrial union, wherein all workers engaged, in whatsoever capacity, in any particular industry are members of the same union. This type was represented by the Western Federation of Miners[99]—really the strongest taproot of the I. W. W. (2) The multi-industrial type, a federation of industrial unions, such as the American Labor Union, which included railway employees, engineers, and musicians. (3) The so-called "international" union, rarely more than national in scope, and merely a national association of local unions of a given trade. This type was represented by the United Metal Workers International Union of America. (4) The non-federative industrial union, like the United Mine Workers of America with industrial rather than trade units, an industrial organization which excludes federation with similar organizations in other industries, or with employers. (5) The ordinary non-federative trade unions, here seen in two types: (a) the trade amalgamation, a federation of unions wherein the constituent bodies are so united as to preserve their individuality, although trade autonomy is thereby destroyed. This type is illustrated here by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers; (b) national unions of any particular trade like the iron molders, wherein the constituent unions are more subordinated to the national body than in the amalgamation. (6) The state federation—as typified by the Utah State Federation of Labor. And finally (7) the rather unconventional type of "union," represented by the Industrial Workers' clubs and the United Labor League.

It should be understood that but a small part of the "international" or national bodies was represented as a whole. The greater number were represented by one or two locals. A number of them were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor at the time, but had become dissatisfied with the policies of that body.[100] However, some of the unions most prominent in the activities of the convention were represented as central or national bodies with all their constituent local unions. Such were the American Labor Union and the United Metal Workers.

Those of the unions present which were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, though forming a fairly large group numerically, represented no material defection from the ranks of the Federation and, generally speaking, played but a passive rôle in the work of the convention. Of the forty-three organizations seated by the credentials committee sixteen were affiliated with the Federation, but at least eleven of these were represented by but one local union. Of all these organizations which had merely local rather than national representation, the United Mine Workers of America was most widely represented, delegates from nine of its local unions being present.[101] A little study of the list of the organizations seated and the localities from which their delegates came, makes it quite evident that on the whole the strong delegations from powerful local bodies, located at strategic points, were those having no connection with the American Federation of Labor, and, conversely, that the fourteen American Federation of Labor unions just referred to were represented as a rule by small and solitary locals of doubtful strength.[102] The insignificant position of the American Federation of Labor bodies in the convention will become still more manifest by an inspection of the lists given above.[103] It will be seen that only five of the sixteen local unions of the American Federation of Labor which were present had empowered their delegates to install their respective local unions in the new organization: two locals of the United Mine Workers and one local each in the Bakers and Confectioners, the Brewery Workers and the Journeymen Tailors unions. All the locals of the United Metal Workers were so empowered. The American Federation of Labor was represented in no direct way among the five great powers of this industrialist convention.[104]

It was confidently expected by many members of the January conference that there would be an immediate secession of a number of national unions from the American Federation of Labor. But whatever may have been the hopes of the originators of the movement, the constitutional convention proved by its very make-up that this new insurgent labor body could not, at the outset at least, build a new organization out of disaffected parts of an old organization.

It has been seen that not all organizations were present on equal footing. In the first place, no union could have any influence or any active part in the proceedings of the convention unless it sent its delegates with full power to install. The January conference had drawn up certain rules governing representation in the forthcoming convention:

Representation in the convention shall be based upon the number of workers whom the delegate represents. No delegate, however, shall be given representation in the convention on the numerical basis of an organization, unless he has credentials ... authorizing him to install his union as a working part of the proposed economic organization in the industrial department to which it logically belongs.... Lacking this authority, the delegate shall represent himself as an individual.[105]

The delegates to the convention were in this way grouped into two classes: representative delegates, with voting power proportional to the number of members represented, and individual delegates with merely their own vote, and in some cases not representing any union even as uninstructed delegates. This separation of the two hundred and three delegates, according to the character of their credentials, may be shown as follows:

DelegatesOrganizations
Represented		Members
Represented		Voting
Strength
With power to install702351,43051,430
Without power to install722091,50072
Other "individual" delegates61—6161
Total20343142,99151,563[106]

Including the industrial workers' clubs there were forty-three organizations represented, of which number twenty-three were represented by delegates having full power to install. The above analysis shows that of the 142,991 members presumably represented, nearly two-thirds sent delegates merely to take notes of the proceedings and report back. About one-third, some 51,000, were then prepared to cast their lot with the new undertaking. Also it appears that about one-third of the delegates wielded practically the whole voting power of the assembly.

Moreover, the balance of power within this empowered one-third was most unevenly distributed. Of the 51,000 votes aggregated by those organizations prepared to install, 48,000 votes were distributed among five organizations (these being the only ones with a voting strength of more than 1,000) as follows:

OrganizationMembershipNo. of
Delegates
Western Federation of Miners27,0005
American Labor Union16,75029
United Metal Workers3,0002
United Brotherhood of Railway Employees2,08719
Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance1,45014
Total50,287[107]69

These were the organizations which were most prominent in the activities of the convention. Among their delegates were a goodly number of the most active promotors of the movement. From them—especially from the Western Federation of Miners—finally came the great bulk of the funds for establishing the new union. It is evident that, numerically speaking, one single organization, the Western Federation of Miners, held the balance of power, and of the remaining votes, three-fourths were in the control of the American Labor Union, these two bodies together outnumbering the others ten to one. The sequel was to show that the numerically weaker organizations exerted an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers, because of the great influence exerted by some of their individual delegates. Their representatives were radicals, representing more or less radical unions.

It might seem that the rôle played in the convention by an organization as comparatively weak in numbers as the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance could be accounted for, in some measure at least, by its proportionately large delegation. A glance at the table given above shows that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance with a self-estimated strength of 1450[108] had fourteen delegates, while the Western Federation of Miners, 27,000 strong, had but five delegates. This was true to but a limited extent, for in the first place the voting power of each delegate was in direct proportion to the number of members he represented. Thus Haywood and his colleagues of the Western Federation of Miners had each 5400 votes, while DeLeon and each member of his delegation had 103.6 votes. In the second place, it was a contest of personalities. The fourteen Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance delegates comprised Daniel DeLeon and thirteen others. This same prominence of the individual was more or less evident among the other delegations. Some further concentration of power is evidenced in the fact that William D. Haywood and C. H. Moyer were both empowered delegates from two organisations, since they represented the A. L. U. as well as the W. F. M.

Indeed it is rather significant that several of the organizations which finally merged into the Industrial Workers of the World had little behind them but leaders. In some cases it appears that the membership first credited was greatly exaggerated. Of the organizations installed as a part of the new body, St. John reports that three "existed almost wholly on paper."[109] Several of these labor bodies were really more shadow that substance. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the United Metal Workers, and the American Labor Union, St. John's three "paper" unions, had come upon evil days and were in an advanced stage of disintegration. Hence perhaps their presence here. They did not want to expire. They preferred to be transformed into something yet more militant.

The most significant and interesting phase of this unique body of industrialists was its many-sided intellectual character. Some of the high lights of divergent doctrine preached and defended here show more clearly than anything else how stupendous the undertaking was. Perhaps the least indefinite term which would give them all standing-room would be "revolutionary socialism," though many delegates repudiated the name socialist as being synonymous with reactionist and conservative. If socialists at all, they were socialists with a radical adjective. In reference to some the word "anarchistic" should be substituted for "revolutionary." They all believed in the "irrepressible conflict" between capital and labor. They were a unit in wishing for and aiming at the overthrow of the wages system—the downfall of capitalism. There was no place here for the "Gomperite" and his program of mutual interests of employer and employee; but the absence from the scene of the "identity of interest" and "coffin society" man did not guarantee harmony.[110]

As usual there was disagreement as to the methods to be used to reach the common end desired. Hence certain divergent types of doctrine were expounded and certain warring factions resulted therefrom. St. John enumerates four main varieties as being predominant: (1) Parliamentary Socialists—two types, impossibilist (Marxian) and opportunist (reformist); (2) Anarchists; (3) Industrial Unionists; and (4) the "labor union fakir."[111] This classification is ambiguous. No doubt the "labor union fakir," who gets into any new move of this sort for what he can get out of it, has no real economic creed except that of the profiteer, but he enters a movement of this kind as an exponent of a certain legitimate doctrine and is at least presumed to belong to that doctrinal faction. It has been seen that during the proceedings of the convention it developed that there were delegates present who were not sincere in their attitude. It is a fact, as St. John points out, "that many of those who were present as delegates on the floor of the first convention and the organizations that they represented have bitterly fought the I. W. W. from the close of the first convention up to the present day."[112] By no means all of these are necessarily fakirs, since the outcome of the deliberations of the first convention was somewhat different from that anticipated even by the signers of the manifesto.

There was present a very definite group of anarchists which, though in a rather small minority, was a constituent element in the doctrinal types represented. The term "industrial unionist" was one which really included practically all the participants. The industrial unionist may certainly be a socialist, and even of more than one variety; and it is also conceivable that the industrial unionist may be an anarchist. Consequently the term can hardly be used to mark off any particular faction in a convention of industrial unionists. The parliamentary socialists constituted one of the most powerful elements at the convention. In fact, the two main hostile groups were the impossibilists and the opportunists, the first group comprising parliamentary socialists of the Socialist Labor party and anti-parliamentary socialists, naturally having no political affiliations; and the latter comprising members of the Socialist party.

The line of cleavage then was between the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, that is, between reformist and doctrinaire elements, both parliamentary and both leaning toward industrial unionism. In a less prominent position at first was the direct-actionist group, anti-political and anarchistic. This antagonism of ideas was of course the root cause of the defection of the Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance elements three years later, and was responsible for the existence between 1908 and 1916 of two national organizations called the I. W. W. The Socialist party, or doctrinaire wing, is very logically the descendant of the doctrinaire wing at the first convention, but the direct-actionist or anti-political wing has, strange to say, grown out of and drawn its leaders from the reformist Socialist party.

These divergent creeds were given color and life by a few men who really dominated the convention. There is no organization in existence having less room for hero-worship than the Industrial Workers of the World. The manifesto provided that all "powers should rest in the collective membership." Its members seemed firmly convinced that all labor leaders (except I. W. W. organizers!) are really "misleaders" of labor, and throughout their propaganda literature there is evident this repudiation of leaders and apotheosis of the "collective membership." Nevertheless the I. W. W. has been led and misled by leaders ever since its inception. The first convention rang with the dominant notes of a handful of men: Daniel DeLeon, William D. Haywood, "Father" T. J. Hagerty, Eugene V. Debs, William E. Trautmann, A. M. Simons, Clarence Smith, D. C. Coates, and C. O. Sherman. Debs, Haywood and Simons were then, and are today, members of the Socialist party. Simons and DeLeon were leaders in the two opposing Socialist political parties, Simons in the Socialist party and editor of the Coming Nation, and DeLeon, editor of the Daily People and the one dominant and national figure in the Socialist Labor party. T. J. Hagerty was a Catholic priest. With the coöperation of James P. Thompson, and others probably, he framed the original I. W. W. Preamble. He was the designer of the chart which Samuel Gompers referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel of Fortune,"[113] and the author of a pamphlet entitled Economic Discontent.

Eugene V. Debs, the best known to them all, came into the movement with all his contagious enthusiasm and eloquence, full of optimism for the future of this new organization.

I believe it is possible [he said] for such an organization as the Western Federation of Miners to be brought into harmonious relation with the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance ... and I believe it is possible for these elements ... to combine here ... and begin the work of forming a great economic or revolutionary organization of the working class so sorely needed in the struggle for their emancipation.[114]

From the West came William D. Haywood with many years' experience with the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado. He was an experienced organizer and was full of the militant spirit of the Western Federation of Miners. He scorned agreements and contracts. Speaking of the Western Federation of Miners at the first convention he said: "We have not got an agreement existing with any mine manager, superintendent, or operator at the present time. We have got a minimum scale of wages" and "... the eight-hour day, and we did not have a legislative lobby to accomplish it."[115] And now he came to Chicago to help build up the same sort of an organization for not alone the mining industry but for all industries.

Probably the most striking figure of all was Daniel DeLeon, editor of the Daily People, a man with a university education, and a graduate of the Columbia University Law School. He was active in the organization of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance in 1895 and was an officer in the Alliance until it was merged in the I. W. W. He came to the first convention as a delegate from the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. He, too, believed that harmony was possible.

During this process of pounding one another we have both learned [he said], both sides have learned, and I hope and believe that this convention will bring together those who will plant themselves squarely upon the class struggle and will recognize the fact that the political expression of labor is but the shadow of the economic organization.[116]

He had been instrumental in creating the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, of which the Socialist Labor party was thenceforward to be the shadow. It transpired, however, that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance actually became the "shadow" or understudy of the Socialist Labor party, and this fact was looked upon by A. M. Simons and others of the Socialist Labor party as having an ominous significance for any new organization to which DeLeon might wish to hitch the Socialist Labor party as a "shadow." There seemed, in short, to be some suspicion afloat at the first convention that the Socialist Labor party proposed, through DeLeon, to tuck the I. W. W. under its wing. Hillquit asserts that "the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance had a record of having caused more disputes and schisms within the Socialist labor movement in America in recent years than any other factor, and its affiliation with the new movement was fateful for the latter."[117] And Simons declared that if DeLeon "could in some way hitch himself on to this new organization, he would be able to infuse the semblance of life into the political and economic corpses of the S. L. P. and the S. T. & L. A."[118]

DeLeon emphatically opposed the policy of "boring from within" advocated by the Socialist party opportunists. He believed it had been tried as a constructive policy and found wanting. So he proposed to build up on the outside the necessary economic organization, which finally should move "under the protecting guns of a labor political party."[119]

On the other hand, the Socialist party men believed in making use of the "boring from within" policy among the local unions, and considered it quite unnecessary for the economic organization to have any political connections whatsoever. They considered the political unity of the workers less vitally important than did the DeLeon group of doctrinaires.

These, then, were the elements of the heterogeneous labor mass, which were to be worked up together into "One Big Union." The thing that made union possible in any degree was the binding influence of common antipathies. It has been suggested that all were at one in being opposed to a capitalistic society. They had no difficulty in making common cause of their mutual hatred of the capitalistic scheme of things. They were perhaps even more able to unite because of common opposition to certain things which they believed were helping to perpetuate the capitalist system. Most prominent and powerful of these was the craft form of labor-union organization.