FOOTNOTES:
[180] "The World of Labor," International Socialist Review, vol. vi, pp. 434-5 (Jan., 1906).
[181] The Red Lodge, Mont., and Pittsburg, Kans., locals.
[182] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 324.
[183] Voice of Labor, June, 1905.
[184] Voice of Labor, June, 1905.
[185] International Socialist Review, vol. vi, pp. 434-5 (Jan., 1906).
[186] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, pp. 71-2.
[187] Cf. Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 338.
[188] Report of General Secretary-Treasurer Trautmann, ibid., p. 63.
[189] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 356.
[190] Ibid., p. 294.
[191] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, pp. 61-2.
[192] For the letter in full vide Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 146.
[193] From the report of General Secretary-Treasurer Trautmann, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), pp. 51-52.
[194] Ibid., p. 53.
[195] Cf. infra, ch. v.
[196] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 106.
[197] Ibid., p. 169.
[198] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 169.
[199] Ibid., p. 43.
[200] Ibid., p. 377.
[201] Report of General Secretary-Treasurer Trautmann, ibid., p. 59.
[202] Report of President Sherman, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 46. For partial list of I. W. W. strikes vide Appendix viii.
[203] Proceedings of New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, p. iv. The Manifesto is reprinted on pp. iv-ix of these Proceedings.
[204] Ibid.
[205] In a letter to W. B. Killingbeck of the Socialist party, ibid., pp. xv-xvi.
[206] Delegate Gallo, S. L. P., Proceedings of New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, pp. 7-8.
[207] Delegate Killingbeck, ibid., p. 17.
[208] Proceedings of New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, pp. x and xii.
[209] Proceedings of New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, pp. v-vi.
[210] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 60. These figures are based on per capita taxes paid and do not include the mining department which at the time referred to was paying taxes on 22,000 members. Ibid.
[211] Including S. T. & L. A. accession, 1200 members.
[212] Private Correspondence, Oct. 5, 1911. (The italics are mine.)
[213] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 60.
[214] Vide President's report, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 43.
[215] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), pp. 55-56.
[216] Ibid., p. 9.
[217] Cf. supra, p. 122.
[218] Report of General-Secretary Trautmann, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 63.
[219] Trautmann, loc. cit., p. 57.
[220] I. W. W. Constitution (1914), p. 4.
[221] The writer is unable to find any complete list of the "individual" locals belonging to the I. W. W. in 1906 or 1907. It is not probable that any such record has been preserved. The following very incomplete list has been put together from scattered references in the Proceedings of the Second Convention:
| Local | Union No. | |
|---|---|---|
| 144 | Power Workers | Denver, Colo. |
| Industrial Workers Union | Jersey City (Mixed local). | |
| Retail Clerks Union | Flat River, Mo. | |
| Industrial Workers Union | Paterson, N. J. | |
| Textile Workers | Pawtucket, R. I. | |
| Bakery Workers | Butte, Mont. | |
| 177 | Capmakers | New York City. |
| 183 | Cement Workers | Spokane, Wash. |
| 313 | Paper Makers | New Haven, Conn. |
| 176 | Silk Workers | New Haven, Conn. |
| 190 | Silk Workers | New Haven, Conn. |
| Marble Workers | Cincinnati, Ohio. | |
| 90 | Shoemakers | St. Louis, Mo. |
| 299 | Window Washers | Chicago, Ill. |
| Miners | Pittsburg, Kans. | |
| Miners | Chicopee, Kans. | |
| 139 | Hod-carriers | |
| Tobacco Workers | Cleveland, Ohio. | |
| 365 | Mixed Industries | Jamestown, N. Y. |
| 185 | Mixed Industries | San Antonio, Tex. |
| 307 | Mixed Industries | St. Paul, Minn. |
| 83 | Bartenders and Waiters | Chicago, Ill. |
| 263 | Hotel and Restaurant Employees | Chicago, Ill. |
| Arizona State Union No. 3 of the Department of Mining. | ||
[CHAPTER V]
The Coup of the "Proletarian Rabble"
(1906)
The second convention was the occasion of the first split in the ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World. At this time the friction seemed to be chiefly personal, whereas the second schism in 1908 was primarily due to differences in regard to principles and policies. It is true that principles and policies were involved in the feud of 1906, but they lurked obscurely in the background, while personal antagonisms—charges and counter-charges of graft, corruption and malfeasance in office—held the center of the stage. From the inception of the movement the year before a smouldering dissension developed between the poorer and less skilled groups of workers—largely migratory and casual laborers, the "revolutionists" or the "wage-slave delegates" as they were called in the second convention—these on the one side, and the more highly skilled and strongly organized groups called (by the other side) the "reactionaries" or the "political fakirs." It might be remarked in passing that, in this ultra-revolutionary I. W. W., the "conservatism" of the "reactionaries" ought to be heavily discounted and the radicalism of the "revolutionists" raised to the nth degree to get the true perspective! Involved with this group hostility was the trouble stirred up by various members of the two Socialist political parties.
The first years [writes Mr. St. John] was one of internal struggle for control by these different elements. The two camps of socialist politicians looked upon the I. W. W. only as a battle-ground on which to settle their respective merits and demerits. The labor fakirs strove to fasten themselves upon the organization that they might continue to exist if the new union was a success.[222]
But all this internal antagonism was very obscure. It evidenced itself chiefly in the personal fight between the Sherman-Hanneman-Kirkpatrick faction and the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction at the second convention, which finally resulted in the deposition of C. O. Sherman as General President. Mr. St. John has described the situation as it appeared from his side of the controversy. At the second convention it soon developed, he says,
that the administration of the I. W. W. was in the hands of men who were not in accord with the revolutionary program of the organization. Of the general officers only two were sincere—the General Secretary, W. E. Trautmann, and one member of the Executive Board, John Riordan. The struggle for control of the organization formed the second convention into two camps. The majority vote of the convention was in the revolutionary camp. The reactionary camp, having the chairman, used obstructive tactics in their effort to gain control of the convention. They hoped thereby to delay the convention until enough delegates would be forced to return home and thus change the control of the convention. The revolutionists cut this knot by abolishing the office of president and electing a chairman from among the revolutionists.[223]
The revolutionists, who were referred to later by their opponents as the "proletarian rabble" of the "beggars," held a pre-convention conference in Chicago on August 14, 1906. This little "curtain-raiser" was called by Local Union No. 23 of the Department of Metal and Machinery which on July 20 sent out a letter to the various I. W. W. locals in Chicago, which declared that "developments during the past year have proven to us that the constitution does not come up to the requirements of the rank and file ...," and urged a preliminary conference to consider the following propositions:
First. Is a president necessary in our form of organization?
Second. Shall this organization be the expression of the membership?
Third. Who shall direct the organization work?
Fourth. Shall the local unions receive a copy of the minutes of the General Executive Board sessions?
Fifth. Shall the local unions be represented at the National Convention, as set forth in Article VI., General Constitution?
Sixth. Any other question that the Conference may deem necessary to discuss.[224]
The conference met with delegates present from about sixteen local unions and unanimously decided that a president was unnecessary, that all organizers, lecturers, etc., should be nominated by the local unions and elected by the "rank and file," that each local should receive reports of all Executive Board sessions, which, moreover, should be open to the rank and file, and that every local union be represented at the approaching convention by at least two delegates.
Whereas, the day is at hand [runs their resolution] when we must abolish anything that pertains to aristocratic power or reactionary policy, the office of president of a class-conscious organization is not necessary. The rank and file must conduct the affairs of the organization directly through an executive board or central committee ... and, whereas a president can only be in one place at one time and can only personally organize the working class in the district in which he is; he, therefore, can only act in the capacity of an organizer.... [Moreover], the expense of a president [$150 per month] would support at least four class-conscious organizers....[225]
Commenting on the conference, J. M. O'Neill remarks that "there is a vast difference between being class-conscious and being class-crazy."[226]
An inkling of the beautifully chaotic condition of affairs no later than December, 1905, is given by the comments of Max Hayes in the International Socialist Review for January, 1906.
I am told by a prominent member of the I. W. W. [he says] that not all is lovely in that organization, that the original industrialists and the departmentalists are lining up to give battle, and that in some places where the DeLeonites and the Anarchists had combined and held control the Socialists obtained possession of the machinery.... "If a convention were held next month," an industrialist writes, "the element in control in Chicago last July wouldn't be one, two, three, and I predict that at the next convention the academic vagaries forced upon us by the DeLeon-Anarchist combine will be dropped for a plain fighting program that everybody can understand and conjure with." Rumors are in the air that the Western Miners and President Sherman and his friends are souring on DeLeon and Secretary Trautmann and his followers.[227]
The principal charge against President Sherman was that of misdirected and generally extravagant expenditure of the funds of the organization. The auditing committee at the 1906 convention reported that "the expenditures of the ex-General President show gross extravagance and strong evidence of corruption. During a period of thirty-three days he flung away on a junketing trip, not a single local being organized by him at any time, the sum of $731.55...."[228] William. E. Trautmann, the General Secretary-Treasurer, reported that he was "compelled to pay bills under protest for services never rendered, or for such things as should be considered an insult and outrage against the entire membership."[229]
The opponents of Sherman did not believe that these alleged offenses were either the most important or the most dangerous of his pernicious activities. When the case finally came before the Master in Chancery, there was among the affidavits filed in the case of St. John versus Sherman one by a certain Lillian Farberg,
who swears that Sherman ... told her that a conference had been held at Denver, which was attended by himself (Sherman), James Kirwan, J. M. O'Neill, and Victor Berger (of Milwaukee). At this conference Sherman said an understanding had been reached that the Western Federation of Miners should endorse the Industrial Workers of the World, that later at the convention of the I. W. W. such action would be taken as would result in the radical element [the "tramps" and "beggars">[ being thrown out of the organization, and that Victor Berger at the conference had promised that if this was done the Socialist party would endorse the I. W. W.[230]
The foregoing charges were flatly denied by J. M. O'Neill, the editor of the Miners' Magazine; at the fifteenth convention of the W. F. M., he repudiated these and other accusations made by the "DeLeon coterie" and offered $500 reward for the establishment of the truth of any of them.[231] Delegate Parks, one of the "wage slave" delegates, declared that
... it is the general opinion of the members of the revolutionary element of this convention that there was among some of the departments of the Industrial Workers of the World corruption, graft, and fakiration which would put to shame the worst of the American Federation of Labor.[232]
Immediately on the adjournment of the 1907 convention, ex-President Sherman issued a statement "to officers and members of all local unions and all departments of the Industrial Workers of the World" in which he declared, "that the recent convention ... violated the constitution in various ways"; "that the convention was controlled by the members of the Socialist Labor Party under the leadership of Daniel DeLeon," and that this "most disgraceful gathering" was "illegal and unconstitutional."[233] A month later Sherman issued on his own behalf a letter to the I. W. W. membership, in which he denied the various charges of extravagance and connivance at illegal tactics on his part. In this letter Sherman says that "not a vote was cast on any important matter in this so-called convention until DeLeon had been consulted, or he had given them the 'wise business wink.'"[234]
As far as parliamentary convention tactics are concerned there is no doubt that both factions displayed a lofty contempt for parlor etiquette. Several months later William D. Haywood wrote to St. John in regard to this matter. He emphatically condemned "Shermanism," but goes on: "You were entirely too harsh, unnecessarily so; the Gordian, presidential and other knots that you cut with a broad axe were only slip knots that could have been easily untied." "In this way," he concludes, "much dissension could have been avoided."[235] An anarchist sympathizer with the "proletarian rabble" frankly writes: "Some might claim that the action of the convention of 1906 was illegal ... [but] in a crisis there is no question of legality. It is the time for deeds...."[236]
Seven days had elapsed since the opening of the convention before the reports of officers were given. During this time—nearly half the time the convention was in session—almost nothing was accomplished. This delay made very plausible indeed the accusation made by the "wage slave" delegates that the reactionaries had deliberately planned to force them out of the convention by resort to these dilatory tactics. Whether or not the Sherman faction had decided on such tactics, there is no question but that the freezing out of the "wage slaves" would be a very natural result. Article VI. of the Constitution provided that "the expenses of delegates attending the convention shall be borne by their respective organizations." Now many of the local unions could afford to provide their delegates with adequate expense money; others could afford but very inadequate provision for expenses. Thus, most of the delegates from unions in the Mining Department—and those in general from the relatively better established unions—were quite well provided for, the Miners' delegates, e. g., receiving mileage plus five dollars per day expense money for every day they were away from home. The great majority, however, were paid nothing but mileage and were obliged to pay their own expenses and had come with funds absolutely insufficient for a prolonged meeting. Delegate Lingenfelter, in a speech in support of an unsuccessful motion to allow proxies to delegates who were compelled to leave on account of lack of funds, said:
These dilatory tactics that have been pursued by the opposition have prolonged the convention, due to their express determination, in my opinion, to freeze out these wage slave delegates.... Only last night the boys came to me and said: ... "We can't stand it any longer; we are going broke; we can't sleep in boxcars and eat handouts and remain here."[237]
The "beggars" gained the upper hand. Mr. DeLeon succeeded in putting through a motion to suspend the above mentioned article of the Constitution concerning delegates' expenses, and a resolution was finally passed which authorized the payment of $1.50 per day from the general treasury to all without the necessary expense money.[238]
In this way the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction secured control of the convention and brought about the deposition of President Sherman—the first and last President of the Industrial Workers of the World. The convention now proceeded to consider some of the problems of industrial unionism which had cropped out in the course of twelve months' experience. Meanwhile ex-President Sherman and his followers had decided to stand pat—but not on the floor of the convention. They took possession of the General Headquarters and with the assistance of the police successfully held them against all comers.
Upon entering the premises of the General Headquarters the members of the General Executive Board [newly elected] were prevented from entering by thugs engaged by members of the old General Executive Board and two members [of the new board], Vincent St. John and Fred Heslewood, were attacked by these sluggers.[239]
This picturesque situation is explained to the membership in an official announcement issued by the new Executive Board in behalf of the "proletarian rabble":
Sherman and his hired sluggers are now in forcible possession of the general office and all the books, records, papers, roster of local unions, mailing list and other property of the organization, necessitating legal procedure on our part to oust them and regain control of the office and property.... The majority of the General Executive Board was his perfect tool. They winked at his irregularities, endorsed his extravagance and lent their efforts to perpetuate him in this organization as they are now lending their assistance to help him disrupt it.[240]
The success of the "beggars, tramps, and proletarian rabble," that is to say, of the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction, was hardly complete. They were officials without an office in which to do business, without equipment of any sort, and without money. Secretary St. John writes that they "were obliged to begin work after the second Convention without the equipment of so much as a postage stamp." The financial routine in the general office had required the signature of the president on all checks and prohibited the withdrawal of funds from the bank without that signature. Now the President was deposed, the office abolished, and the deposed President refused to sign the necessary requisitions so that the four thousand dollars belonging to the I. W. W. in the Prairie State Bank of Chicago was safely out of reach of both factions.[241]
The matter was at last taken to the Court of Chancery and a restraining order issued prohibiting Sherman and his friends from appropriating the property of the Industrial Workers of the World. The findings of the Master in Chancery were in substance as follows:
1. That the Industrial Workers of the World is a voluntary association consisting of about 62,000 members residing in various cities and villages throughout the United States and Canada.
2. That its 1906 convention was legal and valid.
3. That the acts of Mr. C. O. Sherman after that convention were illegal, and,
4. That the "attempted abolition" of the office of General President was illegal and void.[242]
The findings were on the whole favorable to the "wage slaves" faction, but even so the latter were in a rather forlorn position now, having been abandoned to their fate by the Western Federation of Miners (whose delegates supported Sherman, some of them bolting the convention before its adjournment), and by the Socialist party. Before long the Western Federation finally withdrew its support from the Sherman faction and early in the year 1907 the "would-be usurpers" gave up the struggle,[243] but the Western Federation of Miners did not come back into the fold. They decided to withhold payment of dues to either faction pending their anticipated and formally realized secession at their convention in May, 1907.
Mr. Sherman had made a desperate fight. He and his followers conducted what was virtually a duplicate even if spurious general office and organization of the I. W. W. The Shermanites, who had retained control of the "Industrial Worker,"[244] the journal of the organization, continued its publication for several months at Joliet, Illinois. Herein were published refutations of the charges set forth by the "DeLeon-Anarchist Combine" in their special series of Bulletins of the Industrial Workers of the World. With the surrender of the Shermanites the "Industrial Worker" was discontinued, and the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction—now the I. W. W.—established the Industrial Union Bulletin as a weekly organ.
The now triumphant revolutionists considered that the whole trouble was due to an attempt to sell out to the capitalists, to make the organization a conservative—and therefore a perfectly harmless—association. Mr. Trautmann insisted that their "sole object when forcibly taking possession of headquarters and all their documents" was to destroy all evidence of their plots for
surrendering the Industrial Workers of the World to the employing class and their agents. The stenographic report of the second convention will prove the falsity of every charge made against the "tramps" and "beggars" who saved the I. W. W. to continue its work as the revolutionary economic organization of the working class of America.[245]
"The danger was great," declared Daniel DeLeon in his speech at the adjournment of the 1906 convention. "The conspiracy was deep laid. We see it appearing in the papers from Denver all the way across to New York. It was a conspiracy to squelch the revolution in this convention, and to start over again another American Federation of Labor."[246]
DeLeon's sentiments regarding the schism of 1906 are particularly worthy of note, because of the fact that he was destined two years later to figure with seceders in a split of that same "DeLeon-Anarchist Combine" which was now victorious and of one mind in overthrowing "usurpers" and apparently in harmony in every way. But in two years the "DeLeon-Anarchist Combine" was to change to the DeLeonites versus the Anarchists, each of whom was to constitute a separate organization called the Industrial Workers of the World.
Socialist party leaders were as firmly convinced as was DeLeon that there was a "deep-laid conspiracy," but they believed that DeLeon was the arch conspirator. When the Seventh International Socialist Congress met in Stuttgart in 1907, Morris Hillquit and J. Mahlon Barnes presented the Socialist version of the affair.[247] The fatal trouble from the very beginning, they thought, was the inclusion in the I. W. W. of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the "enfant chétif" (as they expressed it) of the Socialist Labor party.[248] They go on to tell how this alleged conspirator prepared the ground for the "capture" of the convention in the interest of this "enfant chétif":
Several months before the 2nd Convention, the Alliance, under the direction of the adroit chief of the Socialist Labor party, Daniel DeLeon, planned to take possession of the administration of the I. W. W., and by means of a skillful manipulation of the delegates, succeeded in obtaining a majority for itself in the convention. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, indeed, dominated the convention. It completely modified the constitution of the organization, abolished the office of General President, and chose a new Executive Board from among its friends and adherents. But the triumph of the Alliance did not last. In conformity with the constitution of the I. W. W., the acts of the convention are not valid unless ratified by a referendum of the members.... The leaders of the Alliance refused to submit the acts of the convention to a vote of the members, and the old officials immediately declared them null and void. The division was therefore complete in the ranks of the I. W. W. The two factions maintained rival bodies of officials and the dispute was carried to the courts, which pronounced in favor of the old administration [Sherman, et al.]. The great majority of the members supported the original organization directed by Mr. Sherman in the capacity of President, while the number of adherents to the DeLeon faction did not exceed 2000 members.[249]
Vincent St. John offers some interesting testimony against the allegation that DeLeonism dominated the second convention:
It is my opinion [he says] that they [the Shermanites] are, because of lack of argument with which to sustain a wrong position, hoping to cause the prejudice which exists against DeLeon and the Socialist Labor party to blind many to the true state of affairs, a prejudice to which I plead guilty to having had, but which I was unable to justify upon investigation, a prejudice which exists against this organization and man because it and he stood upon the ground that we now occupy fourteen years ago, struggling against grafters and traitors, and for which they have paid the penalty in being slandered and vilified. This is no eulogy of DeLeon or the S. L. P.... It is my conclusion.[250]
These conflicting opinions are presented for what they are worth. On both sides they should be taken with salt. The writer makes no attempt to pass judgment except to point out that the Socialist party report to the Stuttgart Congress is obviously in error in claiming that the Master in Chancery pronounced in favor of the old (i. e., the Sherman) administration.[251]
The "proletarian rabble" recognized that the power of the opposition would be fatally undermined if it lost the active support of the Western Federation of Miners. It has been seen that they did finally lose that support when the W. F. M. finally cut loose entirely from anything and everything calling itself I. W. W. This—the most staggering defection of all that the young I. W. W. had to face—had been rather plainly foreshadowed as early as the fall of 1905. Within three months of the adjournment of the first convention the report was circulated among various unions in the West that the Western Federation had refused to join the Industrial Workers of the World.[252] This rumor was without foundation. The Western Federation did join the I. W. W.
Immediately after the close of the first convention [according to Secretary Trautmann's report] the officers of the Western Federation of Miners reported to the members of that organization the actions of the first convention, and a referendum was issued for the purpose of having the work of the delegates ratified by the rank and file. At the end of August, notice was received that the members of the Western Federation of Miners had approved, by a big majority, the actions of the delegates in installing that organization as an integral part of the Industrial Workers of the World, and on September 1, 1905, the Western Federation of Miners became the Mining Department of the Industrial Workers of the World.[253]
But this was not to be for long. Although the break did not come for some months after the second I. W. W. convention, some premonitory evidences of disaffection came to the surface at that meeting. As will be seen, there were several things which aggravated the trouble in the Mining Department. The deposition of President Sherman by the delegates to the second convention, and the consequent confusion, especially in regard to finances, resulted in the bolting of the convention by the delegates of the Mining Department (the Western Federation of Miners).[254] From the close of the second convention until the summer of 1907 the Western Federation was nominally a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, but was all this time becoming more and more alienated in spirit. For all practical purposes, January 1, 1907, may be regarded as marking the termination of the Federation's connection with the I. W. W. This whole controversy between the I. W. W. and its Mining Department, i. e., between the "proletarian rabble" (the Trautmann-DeLeon-St. John faction) on the one hand, and on the other the "reactionaries" (the Sherman-Hanneman faction), supported for the most part by the Western Federation of Miners—all this frenzy of squabbling is given a great deal of space in the Miners' Magazine (the official journal of the Western Federation) during the last three months of 1906.[255]
The men most prominent in the activities of the second convention were Daniel DeLeon, Vincent St. John, C. O. Sherman, and Wm. E. Trautmann. Members of the Socialist party were less prominent and numerous than they had been a year before. Neither Mr. Simons nor Mr. Debs was present at the 1906 meeting. The Socialist Labor party contingent was, however, quite as strong as ever—one of its new delegates being Mr. Paul Augustine, later the National Secretary of the Socialist Labor party.[256] DeLeon's influence was as strong as ever. He was declared to have controlled the convention—this was reiterated by individuals both inside and outside. Ex-President Sherman, in a speech in his own defense on the convention floor, said:
Delegate DeLeon has controlled this convention.... But, ... while I endorse the underlying principles that are advocated by the Socialist Labor party ... I am opposed to their tactics and I do not hesitate to say that time will demonstrate to the working class that their tactics are suicide [sic] to the movement.[257]
The members of the Socialist party, naturally biased against the Socialist Labor party, were quite ready to accuse its representatives of steam-roller methods at the 1906 convention. As before, these insinuations were quite correct in that the Socialist Labor party, through its unofficial representatives, most of all through DeLeon, did thus indirectly have a great deal of influence in the convention. But it is yet open to question whether this influence was a pernicious one. Moreover, the dominant policy of the convention was not an unmixed DeLeon policy and the dominant group contained another element, viz., the more thoroughgoing non-, or rather, anti-political faction, attaching to no political party whatever. The chief spokesmen of this element were William E. Trautmann, the Secretary-Treasurer, and Vincent St. John,[258] who was to succeed the former in that office several years later. He was a member and official of the Western Federation of Miners, and a radical and enthusiastic devotee of the principle of industrial unionism. He emphatically opposed the action of the Western Federation officials at the 1906 convention and instead of following the majority bolt from the I. W. W., he bolted the Western Federation and was elected a member of the General Executive Board of the I. W. W.[259]
These two men represented the alleged Anarchist end of the so-called "DeLeon-Anarchist combine" and were the real spokesmen of the more revolutionary element. They would have preferred to have had the political clause of the Preamble stricken out, but were not powerful enough to swing the majority of the delegates to that position and finally agreed as a compromise to stand with DeLeon and his followers for the retention of the political clause. The fight over the political clause was thus postponed to a later convention.
The financial problem was from the first made more difficult by a kind of dual unionism which was contrary to the spirit, at least, of the I. W. W. law, but which was tolerated because quite unavoidable. The involuntary connection of many local unions with more than one general organization resulted in the subjection of such unions to the payment of dues to each central organization. To relieve this excessive burden of taxation it was decided by the General Executive Board to make a discount from the regular dues in favor of all locals thus situated. This discounting policy, felt to be necessary in order to hold many unions in the organization, meant a loss of revenue which could ill be borne.
Moreover, in consideration of some material equipment in the way of office furniture and supplies, seals and charters were furnished free of charge to all unions formerly with the American Labor Union or the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. To top all, the mismanagement and extravagance resulting from discord in the general office, and incompetence among the officials, almost strangled the organization before its first anniversary. Debts were contracted with manufacturers and
the inability to pay ... nearly endangered the very existence of the organization, when threats were made to disclose the real state of affairs to parties who were straining every nerve to see the smashing of the I. W. W.... Personal loans had to be contracted to deposit money at the bank when the account was overdrawn and for three months in succession the constant fear that these conditions would become known kept the real workers on the administration from engaging enough assistance to carry on the necessary work....[260]
Despite these difficulties there was turned into and expended from the General Defense Fund (in addition to the voluntary subscriptions) the sum of $8,910.00 in behalf of twelve different strikes. The report of the auditing committee showed that there was on hand August 22, 1906, a net balance of $3,555.92.[261]