FOOTNOTES:
[222] In a letter quoted by Brooks, American Syndicalism: the I. W. W., p. 85.
[223] The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods (1917 ed.), p. 6.
[224] "I. W. W. Conference Proceedings," Miners' Magazine, Sept. 6, 1906, p. 12.
[225] "I. W. W. Conference Proceedings," loc. cit., pp. 12, 13.
[226] "That Conference at Chicago," Miners' Magazine, Sept. 6, 1906, p. 7.
[227] International Socialist Review, vol. vi, p. 435.
[228] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1901), p. 587.
[229] Ibid., p. 58.
[230] Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin No. 4, Dec, 1, 1906.
[231] Proceedings, 15th W. F. M. Convention pp. 177-8.
[232] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 226.
[233] Statement dated Oct. 4, 1906, Miners' Magazine, Oct, 11, 1906, col. 2, p. 7.
[234] Letter dated Nov. 6, 1906, Miners' Magazine, Nov. 22, 1906, p. 11. Sherman published another letter in his own defence in the Miners' Magazine of Nov. 1, 1906, pp. 10-11.
[235] Letter dated Ada County Jail, Boise, Idaho, March 17, 1907. Published in Proceedings 15th Convention, W. F. M. (1907), p. 584.
[236] Jean Spielman, Mother Earth, Dec. 1907, p. 458.
[237] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 20.
[238] By a vote of 378 to 237, ibid., pp. 80, 94.
[239] William E. Trautmann, "A statement of facts," Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906. cf. St. John, I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods (3rd ed., 1913), p. 7.
[240] Machinists' Monthly Journal, vol. xviii, pp. 1109-10 (Dec, 1906). This announcement is dated Oct. 5, 1906 and carries the following postscript: "Until we can get charge of the office again we will be unable to furnish local secretaries with due stamps...." p. 1110.
[241] Mr. Sherman could not draw the money because the signature of the Secretary-Treasurer was also necessary.
[242] These statements are condensed from the report given in the Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906.
[243] "The W. F. M. officials supported the old officials of the I. W. W. for a time financially and with the influence of their official organ. The same is true of the Socialist party press and administration. The radical element in the W. F. M. was finally able to force the officials to withdraw that support. The old officials of the I. W. W. then gave up all pretense of having an organization." (St. John, The I. W. W., History, Structure and Methods, 1917 ed., p. 7.)
[244] There is no connection between this paper and the Industrial Worker later published as a weekly at Spokane, Washington. Nor is this latter the same Journal as the Industrial Worker recently published in Seattle. All are I. W. W. organs.
[245] "A Statement of Facts," Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906.
[246] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 610.
[247] In the Report of the Socialist party of America to the Seventh International Socialist Congress, L'Internationale ouvrière et socialiste. Édition française, vol. i, pp. 23-32, "Les mécontents de la Fédération."
[248] Loc. cit., p. 30. "La Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance a obtenu le record d'avoir provoqué plus de disputes et de schismes au sein des mouvements socialistes et ouvrièrs en Amérique, pendant ces dernières années, que n'importe quel autre organisime, et son adhésion au mouvement a été fatal à celui-ci." Ibid.
[249] Translated from the French. Loc. cit., pp. 30-31.
[250] "Vincent St. John on the I. W. W. Convention," Letter to the Editor, Miners' Magazine, Nov. 8, 1906, pp. 5-6.
[251] Cf. supra, p. 145. The report of the Master in Chancery, Industrial Workers of the World Bulletin, No. 4, Dec. 1, 1906.
[252] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 107.
[253] Ibid., pp. 50-51.
[254] The bolting delegates were: Mahoney, McMullen, Hendricks and R. R. McDonald.
[255] Especially important are the various reports on the Second I. W. W. Convention, appearing in the issue of October 18th.
[256] In general the members of the two Socialistic parties were arrayed in opposing camps—the Socialist party men siding with the Shermanites and the Socialist Labor men with DeLeon, of course.
[257] Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 271.
[258] Vincent St. John had been a member of the Western Federation of Miners since 1894 and was in 1906 a member of the executive board of that organization, but refused to leave the convention and join the seceding Miners in 1907, choosing rather to bolt the W. F. of M. and remain with the I. W. W.
[259] "St. John has given the mine owners of the [Colorado mining] district more trouble in the past year than any twenty men up there. If left undisturbed he would have the entire district organized in another year." (Statement attributed to mine-owners' detectives and printed in the Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 28, 1906, and quoted by Geo. Speed in a letter to the Weekly People, April 7, 1906, p. 5, col. 1.)
[260] Report of General Secretary-Treasurer, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, pp. 57-8.
[261] For complete itemized statement cf. the report of the auditing committee, vide Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), pp. 579-94. The cash balance was for some time after the close of the convention inaccessible to the general officers. Cf. supra, p. 145.
[CHAPTER VI]
The Structure of a Militant Union
With its "house-cleaning" job off its hands, the convention now turned its attention to some of the specific problems of policy and constructive work. The activities of the past fourteen months had brought new and challenging questions to the fore. One of the most important was the problem of the agricultural laborer. Attention centered upon the farm laborers and the lumber workers. Most of the industrialists agreed that the coöperation of the country workers—farm laborers and lumbermen—and the city proletariat was absolutely necessary for the success of revolutionary industrialism.
The agricultural elements of the working class [said one of the delegates at the second convention] are going to be the last and hardest to be organized into this economic organization, and ... while we may have the wage slaves of the industrial centers organized, when the crisis comes we will find [them] ... in an economic organization and bucking against a combination of capitalists and agriculturists, and when that time comes we will of necessity have to exercise our political rights and overthrow that opposition.[262]
The I. W. W. had already made some headway among the lumber workers, and it was in connection with this element that many believed it most feasible to organize the farm laborers. Secretary Trautmann devoted two solid pages of his report to the discussion of the relation of the farm and forest workers with the city proletariat. He believed that the failure of revolutionary movements was often due to the lack of coöperation between these sections of the working class. He urged the organization to follow among the farm laborers those methods which had already been applied with some success in the lumber camps.
For this work of organizing the farm laborers [he said] we must look for actual support to the thousands and hundreds of thousands of wage-earners in the lumber camps of the United States and Canada. No element is so faithful to the principle, when once understood, as the hard-working pioneer proletarians in the woods, nor a group of toilers who will fight more vigorously ... than those who ... call themselves "lumberjacks." Their relation with the farm laborers and the ... [seasonal] character of their employment should serve as the key to open the field for the organizing of the farm wage slaves. In the summer months most of the lumbermen work as farm hands or in the saw-mills, and many a blacklisted mechanic from industrial centers seeks as a last refuge from the master's persecution employment as constantly shifting farm laborer and lumberman. The Industrial Workers of the World have organized and are organizing with astonishing success the lumbermen in different parts of the country.... But ... their condition will be jeopardized if the I. W. W. fails to organize the workers in the fields in which they seek and secure employment during the remainder of the year, that is mostly in agricultural occupations, ... [and] ... to assure a successful protection of farm laborers and lumbermen, it is absolutely necessary to get the organizations so organized into direct touch through the general administration of the I. W. W. with the organizations of the Industrial Workers in the cities.[263]
An important change in the geographical distribution of propaganda and organizing activities was that suggested to the convention by President Sherman. He thought that these activities of the Industrial Workers of the World should not be immediately spread indiscriminately over all parts of the country, believing it to be most expedient to allow the eastern section of the United States to lie fallow for a time, so to speak. He recommended that
the greater part of the money expended for paid organizers be devoted to the western States for the next six months, for the following reasons: West of the Missouri River the industrial conditions are in a far better state ... than they are in the eastern States and organizing can be done there without endangering turmoil in the way of lockouts and strikes.... We must get a substantial organization in the West ... before we will be prepared to make a general campaign in the East, as in the eastern States the workers in many of the industries are so poorly paid that a strike or lockout means starvation if finance is not forthcoming.... Hence I feel the necessity of first fortifying ourselves with a good Western membership before exposing the organization to a general assault by the employers of the East.[264]
This proposal was, however, not very favorably received by the convention. The committee on reports of officers made, among others, this recommendation, which received the endorsement of the convention:
We disagree with our President regarding organizing in the West in preference to the East.... The committee believes that [the fact] that conditions in the East are deplorable is the very reason why organizing work is necessary in the East, that the standard of living may be improved, thus accomplishing a more uniform standard of working-class solidarity.[265]
The average member of the Industrial Workers of the World was exceedingly sceptical of the value of undiluted representative democracy for either a labor union or a political state. He suspected that any official might, and probably would, be disloyal. He realized how difficult it is for any organization which depends on representatives to maintain a body of such representatives who really represent. He knew how easy it is for a delegate to be "reached"—to be influenced by one of a score of insidious forms of corruption. This accounts for the stress laid by the Industrial Workers of the World upon the referendum idea, from the very beginning of its existence. Let the acts of delegates in convention be ratified by referendum vote. The convention is the law-making body, but it is always subject to the will of rank and file. All factions, even that one which plotted disruption, united in lip service, at least, to the idea of the referendum. Labor-union democracy must be made democratic by referendum control. How much of all this referendum clamor was "sounding brass" is indicated by some remarks made by Mr. DeLeon (who, of course, believed in the referendum) at the second convention:
I think it is positively comical [he said] to see men who stand convicted before this convention of having trampled on the principles of this constitution ... who have refused the referendum, men who suspended locals because they did not submit to the men who lined up with those elements; I think it is positively comical to have such elements come before this convention and bow down to the referendum and salaam and kowtow to the rank and file, or start off screeching like howling dervishes—"referendum"![266]
The convention had to face the important fact that a very large proportion of the human raw-material for I. W. W. propaganda were foreigners, new to America and speaking alien tongues. From the very first a very liberal policy in regard to the foreign element had been adopted by the Industrial Workers of the World. Certainly they could not consistently adopt a narrow policy here and draw the color line it they intended really to become an all-inclusive democratic organization. It will be remembered that protest against discrimination against the negro by craft unions was voiced by William D. Haywood at the very opening of the first convention.[267] At the second convention this liberal attitude was maintained in regard to all foreign elements. Moreover, in the work of organizing the immigrants it was proposed to go still further and take the aggressive.
This convention [said Secretary Trautmann] should instruct the incoming Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World to immediately find the necessary agencies in Europe, so that immigrants to this country, before leaving, will be already furnished with all the information necessary, and be enlightened as to the real conditions in the United States, and an appeal should be made to them to immediately join the existing organizations of the Industrial Workers of the World immediately after they accept employment in any industry. The literature of the Industrial Workers of the World should be distributed in different languages in the various emigration ports in Europe, and central bureaus be established by the Industrial Workers of the World in American harbors, and be opened to the immigrants, and information should be furnished them [as to] how they could ... participate in the struggles of organized labor....[268]
Requests were made at the convention for literature in many foreign languages—Macedonian, Jewish, Italian, Slavonian, Spanish, etc.—on behalf of these and others. Foreign-language publications and pamphlets were issued and foreign-language branches of the local unions had been established and continued to be extended in scope after the second convention. The Italian Socialist Federation asked for the services of an Italian organizer, and one was provided. An Italian paper, Il Proletario, had been appearing for a short time as an official organ of the Industrial Workers of the World, and its publication was continued under the supervision of the General Executive Board.[269]
Furthermore, the structure and scheme of organization in the local unions was modified to suit the requirements of a polyglot membership. A motion was proposed and carried
to allow wage-earners of a given nationality to form unions of their own in the respective industries in which they are employed and where there are not enough to form unions of that kind, the parent unions shall allow the [non-English-speaking] members ... to have branch meetings for educational purposes.[270]
It is worthy of note that sex lines were ignored quite as completely as race lines. Perhaps the organization leaned backwards a little in the policy of special inducements to women and "juniors"—indicated in the resolution carried "to remit for female members, ten cents per member per month to the union, the same to apply to juniors."[271]
The character of the unit group—the local union—as being preëminently industrial in nature, was emphatically reaffirmed and more fully defined than ever before.
... the smallest unit of an industrial union [says Secretary Trautmann] comprises the employees in one industrial plant, whether large or small. Likewise should all the employees of industrial corporations, no matter where ... employed, be members in that respective department of wage-earners, if already organized. Taking for illustration the Mining Department, it should embrace within its folds not only the metalliferous, the coal and the salt miners, all the employees in the oil and gas fields, and the various plants connected with that industry, but also the employees in oil and gas refineries, the teamsters and distributors of oil, and any other mining products in the large or small industrial centers. They should belong to the same department in which the workers in the mines, or in the oil fields, are organized.[272]
There was some agitation in New York City in the summer of 1906 to organize that section on a basis of one local union to each industry, with each local divided into sub-branches as the needs and extent of its constituency might require. These latter sub-branches were, moreover, to have no direct connection with the General Organization. This plan was opposed at the convention. It was in conflict with the policy of centralization which characterized the earlier stages of I. W. W. development. It was emphatically condemned by President Sherman as a violation of the constitution. He asserted that it centered the "power of the whole industry in the hands of the members of one local union."[273]
Centralization was wanted—but it was national (or international) centralization, not district centralization. A provision had been made the year before for what were called "mixed locals" which were to include workers in various industries, but only so to include them temporarily; it being understood that so soon as a sufficient number of the workers in any particular industry came into the locality to warrant their organization into a union that all members of the mixed local who belonged to that industry should immediately withdraw from the "mixed" and join the "pure" industrial union. It was, of course, assumed that no one should join a mixed local or remain in a mixed local when a union of his industry existed in that locality. The privilege of membership in the mixed locals had already been very much abused. In numerous instances it was found that members continued as members of the mixed local, even after their particular industrial union had been organized, or even maintained membership in both the mixed and the industrial body at the same time. This double membership was not only of no value—it was usually positively disastrous. It made confusion and brought on factional fights between "mixed" and industrial bodies,[274] and resulted in a double, and consequently inflated, membership representation at the annual conventions. After an extended discussion of the seemingly unmixed evils of mixed "locals," the convention passed a resolution defining their functions. "The mixed local," runs the resolution, "is not to be a permanent institution in the I. W. W. It is merely the propaganda [body] that will build up an industrial union for the future. It is a recruiting station [only]."[275]
Important subdivisions of the organization were the Industrial Councils. These had been constitutionally defined as "central bodies composed of seven or more local unions in two or more industries."[276] Such central bodies had been organized during the first year in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Paterson, N. J., and Flat River, Mo., and were, according to Secretary Trautmann, "in process of formation in Cleveland, Seattle, and Toronto, Canada."[277] Steps had also been taken toward the formation of the Arizona (state) District Industrial Council. These bodies had a definite future rôle as well as an immediate function mapped out for them. Here is given some little conception of the anticipated modus operandi of one part of the coöperative machinery of a future industrial society—of which the Industrial Workers of the World is proposing to be the framework. The work of the industrial councils, present and future, is explained by Wm. E. Trautmann as follows:
If it is the final object of the Industrial Workers of the World to prepare the government for the coöperative commonwealth, then likewise should provisions be made to organize the agency, through which the administration of cities and rural districts [can] be conducted. The Industrial Council should, therefore, be organized for that purpose, and the territory to be covered by such organization should be determined by the central administration.... While the future functions of such councils will consist in the administration of the industries by the chosen representatives of the various industrial unions, their present-day duties should be to direct the propaganda, the organizing work, the education through central agencies, the direction of strikes, and other means of warfare between the workers and the shirkers, and the supervision of organizers; in fact, all such functions as will yield better results, if carried out by a collective direction, should come within the jurisdiction sphere of such councils.[278]
The original constitution had provided for thirteen international industrial departments, which could be organized in any industry so soon as it contained ten locals with a membership of not less than 3,000 members.[279] The reaction against the departmental idea at the second convention was sufficiently strong to carry an amendment to the constitution making the prerequisite to departmental organization in any industry "ten locals with a membership of not less than 10,000 members." This change was partly the result of a general feeling that the departmental system was not as practicable as had been at first believed. Moreover, it was believed that, so long as departments could be organized on the basis of a membership of only 3,000, departmental autonomy would be an absolute farce, and simply resolve itself into local union or locality domination. The defenders of the departmental idea rightly insisted that that idea be given a fair chance to work itself out. Another group—industrial unionists who laid great stress on the local industrial union as the division which should first of all be possessed of complete autonomy—felt that this change was a change in their favor in so far as it made the attainment of the departmental status more difficult and the existing number of departments actually less. The departments, thought DeLeon,
must be in the nature of the states of the United States and ... there should be no less and no more autonomy, and for the same reason that this government of the United States is not a government of the states but a government of the people, for the same reason the government of this I. W. W. is not a government of departments, it is a government of the rank and file.[280]
The Universal Label, provided for in Article IV., Section 10, of the original constitution, had not given entire satisfaction. In fact, a number of the delegates wished to abolish the label altogether. This demand grew out of the misuse of the label itself. Many locals suffered it to get into the hands of employers, others coöperated with their employers in its use. Now coöperation with employers in any way whatever is in absolute violation of the spirit and letter of the I. W. W. law. Hence the label was looked upon by many as something of a very compromising nature. It came near being entirely abolished, but finally it was decided that the label be retained, but used only in strict accord with the provisions of "Resolution A," which reveals the rôle of the red (revolutionary) label as opposed to that of the orthodox ("pure and simple") trade-union label. The resolution reads:
Whereas, the universal label of our union has been productive of both good results, such as the general advertising of our name and the graphic presentation of the unity and comprehensive character of the I. W. W. to the minds of the proletariat; and of evil results, such as the advertising of merchandise, the fostering of a tendency towards the coöperation of the classes, the general confusion of the minds of working men in regard to the nature of the class struggle, and in its failure to explain its own significance as to just what or how much of the work on a product was done by I. W. W. men; and,
Whereas, It should be our endeavor to retain every weapon that is efficient for the proletariat and against the capitalists; be it, therefore,
Resolved, That, in an endeavor to eliminate the evils and continue the good effects of our first year's experiment, we retain the universal label; and be it
Resolved, That the use of the universal label shall never be delegated to employers, but shall be vested entirely in our organization; and be it further
Resolved, That except on stickers, circulars and literature presenting the merits of the I. W. W., and emanating from the general offices of the I. W. W., the universal label shall be retained only as evidence of work done by I. W. W. men; and be it further
Resolved, That when the label is so printed, it shall be done by the authority of our union without the intervention of any employer; and be it further
Resolved, That when our universal label is placed upon a commodity as evidence of work done by our men, it shall be accompanied by an inscription underneath the label stating what the work is that our men have done, giving the name of the industrial department to which they belong and the number or numbers of their local unions, and that the universal label shall never be printed as evidence of work performed without this inscription; and be it further
Resolved, That the universal label shall be of a uniform crimson color and always the same in design.[281]
It has been stated that experience with, and the deposition of, President Sherman resulted in the abolition of the office of General President. No doubt the Sherman controversy was the principal predisposing cause, but it is very probable that there would have been some agitation for the abolition of that office even if there had not been a single charge against Sherman as President. A good many were a little shy of the name "President"—it savored of the present political state! Others thought it involved too great concentration of power in the hands of one individual. These latter were the sponsors of the "rank and file" and the forerunners of those who later figured as "decentralizers" in the controversy concerning centralization in the Industrial Workers of the World.[282] "The people who direct the Industrial Workers of the World," said Delegate Reid, "are the rank and file.... In a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, and wisdom is not in the brain of one man to direct this institution."[283] Furthermore, as DeLeon pointed out, "the President is mainly, essentially and exclusively an organizer, a general organizer with a high-sounding title and wages and expenses to match...."[284] The committee appointed to report on the advisability of retaining the office of President reported that it came to its negative conclusion "on the assumption that there was not a man in this convention strong enough or capable enough to assume the office of President."[285]
The efforts of the industrial abolitionists did not end with the attempt to abolish the departments and the universal label, and the successful abolition of the office of General President. Many less important matters were put under the ban. It was decreed that "all rituals, signs, grips and passwords, borrowed from pure and simpledom, be abolished," and that the use of all terms of salutation of the more orthodox sort, such as "brother" and "comrade" be abolished and the term "fellow-worker" be used on all occasions.[286] Of more material consequence to those concerned was the reduction made in the salaries of the national officers. The salaries of the General Secretary-Treasurer (now the national head of the organization), and Assistant General Secretary-Treasurer were reduced from one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, to one hundred dollars.[287] The committee making the recommendation felt that former salary was a sum of absurdly bourgeois magnitude!
The question of political action[288] was thoroughly ventilated once more. The more revolutionary group of industrialists renewed their fight to have the clause "until all the toilers come together on the political as well as the industrial field" cleansed from the taint of politics by the striking out of the words "political as well as." The motion involving this change was emphatically opposed by the spokesman of the Socialist Labor party faction. Daniel DeLeon and Hermann Richter both spoke against the motion. Mr. Richter, later the General Secretary-Treasurer of the Detroit (S. L. P.) faction of the Industrial Workers of the World, believed that "if a man takes the obligation as a member of this organization there is a duty upon that member to be active at all times, and especially on election day, in behalf of his class and of himself as a member thereof."[289]
Neither side was wholly successful. By way of compromise it was finally agreed that the clause containing the rather distasteful word "political" should stand unaltered, but that an additional clause should be appended at the end of the Preamble. This new clause reads: "Therefore, without endorsing or desiring the endorsement of any political party, we unite under the following constitution."[290] Political action was still recognized and no less emphatically endorsed than before,[291] but all political activities would now be subject to very definite constitutional restrictions as to the relations between the Industrial Workers of the World and the political parties.
It would seem that, if politics was to be discounted in the preamble, the discussion of that subject in the local union should surely be subject to restriction if not absolute taboo. This was President Sherman's attitude. He thought
that literature bearing on any complexion of a political nature should be barred from any economic industrial meeting, and that all organizers [of] ... the Industrial Workers of the World shall enforce such principles.... Your president does not hesitate to say that, in his belief, if the Industrial Workers of the World is not kept clear from all political agitation for the next few years to come ... it will be impossible to build up an industrial organization....[292]
The convention did not agree with him. No doubt this was partly due to the fact that the majority of the delegates could not persuade themselves to tolerate any suggestion (be it ever so wise a one) made by President Sherman. Moreover, it must have been realized that such a prohibition of political literature or political discussion could really never be enforced; that on the contrary it would even stimulate such discussion. However this may be, the committee on good and welfare submitted under this head the recommendation that "in local unions at least ten minutes be given to the discussion of economic and political questions at each meeting." This resolution was endorsed by the convention.[293]
The famous Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone case occupied much of the attention of the second convention. At the time of the convention these three men (of whom the two former were members and officers of the Western Federation of Miners—then the Mining Department of the I. W. W.) were imprisoned in the Ada County jail at Boise, Idaho, charged with the murder of ex-Governor Steunenberg of that state. This great labor case, culminating in 1907 in the trial and acquittal of the three men, makes up one of the most interesting and dramatic chapters in the annals of the labor movement. It was an event which deeply concerned the Industrial Workers of the World, and was a really potent factor in shaping the subsequent history of that organization. The story of the judicial deportation of these three men had of course become known to the world long before the 1906 convention of the I. W. W., but none the less a brief recital of the event and the part taken by the I. W. W. therein was incorporated in President Sherman's report to the convention. Some excerpts from this report are here quoted. It should be remembered that, at the time of the deportation and trial of these officials of the Western Federation of Miners, that organization was a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, and that (with the exception of Pettibone) these men were, at least formally, I. W. W. men, though they were referred to almost constantly as officials of the Western Federation of Miners.
It pains me to report [said President Sherman] that on Saturday evening, February 17th,[294] Brother Charles H. Moyer, President of the Department of Mining; Brother William D. Haywood, Secretary of the Department of Mining; and Geo. A. Pettibone, ex-member of the Western Federation of Miners, were kidnapped by officers of the state of Idaho and, on the same date, at 11:30 o'clock P. M., were forcibly placed on a special train and taken from the state of Colorado and placed in jail in the state of Idaho, charged with murder. This was done without giving the accused brothers an opportunity for a defense or hearing. They were arrested at night and were given no opportunity to notify their families, friends or legal advisers of their condition.[295]
The Industrial Workers of the World was among the first to come to the defense of the indicted men. The General Office in Chicago immediately sent out thousands of circular letters throughout the country asking for contributions; large amounts were turned over to the Special Defense Fund from the General Defense Fund of the I. W.
W., and finally a total of $10,982.51 was raised. This, labor's common extremity, did actually, though but temporarily, achieve that miracle (to appear later in San Diego and Lawrence) of I. W. W.'s, Socialists, Socialist Laborites, Anarchists, and "Pure and Simplers,"[296] even, coöperating in a common activity. The I. W. W. was the first to organize protest meetings, and secured the services of Clarence S. Darrow for the legal defense. The slogan "Shall our brothers be murdered?" was reiterated on every hand and made the watchword of the defense.
The situation was still a desperate one at the time of the 1906 convention. The men were still held in jail awaiting trial. It seems to have been the general belief that they were to be "railroaded" to the penitentiary or the gallows, and the conduct of the prosecution as well as the postponement of the trial, all tended to strengthen that belief. The delegates at the convention decided to turn fifty per cent of the per-capita tax of the Mining Department into the Moyer-Haywood Defense Fund. Some of the delegates undoubtedly exaggerated the influence of the I. W. W. in the Moyer-Haywood affair. Thus William E. Trautmann asserted on the floor of the convention that
Money and the best legal talent would not have been able to save the lives of Charles H. Moyer, William D. Haywood, Geo. A. Pettibone and Vincent St. John;[297] their dead bodies would ... bear testimony to the outrages perpetrated by the class controlling the resources of this land, and all institutions of oppression, were it not for the vigilance of the few.... men of the I. W. W., who, facing all the calumnies of the public press ... threw their lives into the scale in order to raise the issue. We must prevent the judicial murder.[298]
The jailing of Haywood, especially, one of the most aggressive and influential organizers of the I. W. W., deeply affected the members of that body and really subtracted much from their strength. It was generally felt among laboring men and women that Moyer and Haywood were jailed because they were members of the Industrial Workers of the World, or because they were Socialists. A letter written by Haywood in the Ada County jail on the day that the second convention opened in Chicago indicates the active interest he continued to take in the organization even during his imprisonment. It is here given in part:
Ada County Jail,
Boise, Idaho, Sept. 17, 1906.
To the Officers and Delegates of the Second Annual Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Comrades and Fellow Workers:
While you have been in convention today, I have devoted the hours to a careful review of the proceedings of the initial convention of the I. W. W. and of the conference that issued the Manifesto leading up to the formation of the organization which has ... rekindled the smouldering fire of ambition and hope in the breasts of the working class of this continent.... [Quoting here from his own letter to the fourteenth convention of the Western Federation of Miners] organized industrially, united politically, labor will assume grace and dignity, horny hand and busy brain will be the badge of distinction and honor, all humanity will be free from bondage, a fraternal brotherhood imbued with the spirit of independence and freedom, tempered with the sentiment of justice and love of order; such will be ... the goal [and] aspiration of the Industrial Workers of the World.[299]
The message was received with boundless enthusiasm. It stimulated all to more determined efforts in behalf of the accused. It doubtless had some share in influencing the minds of that group amongst the delegates, who were inclined to favor the general-strike idea. At any rate, they now urged that that idea be applied in the Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone case. They succeeded in having this resolution presented to the convention:
Resolved, That it is the sense of this convention that in the event of a new delay in the trial of our brothers, Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, or in the event of an unjust sentence in their case, the national headquarters of the I. W. W. shall immediately proceed to call a general strike and use every possible means and all the funds at its command in order to warrant the working class to resist and overcome the violence of the masters.[300]
A resolution of this sort would, if it had been presented under similar circumstances, to, say, the 1914 convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, very probably be quite unanimously endorsed, but the I. W. W. of 1906 rejected the proposal. This does not mean that the general-strike principle had not taken root in the I. W. W. at all. It had. Witness the following excerpt from the recommendation of the Committee on the Reports of Officers:
We disagree with our President regarding the general strike and contend that a general lockout of the capitalist class is the method by which ... to emancipate our class. We believe that the general strike be employed temporarily, as a means to wring concessions from the capitalist class from time to time. The committee believes that a protracted general strike would be no less than an insane act on the part of the working class.[301]
Although the Moyer-Haywood trial and the final acquittal[302] of the accused men made the I. W. W. somewhat more commonly known and understood among the working class throughout the country, it was on the whole nothing less than a calamity for that organization. The I. W. W. did not even get publicity out of the Moyer-Haywood case. The Western Federation got all the advertising. It was a well-established labor organization with an eventful—almost a lurid—history. Its early activities were more or less related to the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone affair and the general public very naturally thought of the Western Federation when they thought of the Haywood deportation. The I. W. W. was not popularly associated with the Boise trial at all. The organization was obliged almost completely to suspend its vital work of organizing to raise funds for the defense. But this was not the most serious result. The Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone deportation was unquestionably one of the causes operating to split off the Western Federation of Miners. The imprisonment of Haywood certainty weakened that element in the Western Federation which backed the I. W. W. and strengthened the hands of those who were opposed to continued incorporation with it. This, combined with the deposition of President Sherman, which yet further weakened the forces of the Miners who supported the I. W. W., finally gave the I. W. W. knockers in the Western Federation the upper hand. The result was, first a decision by referendum vote of the Western Federation of Miners not to pay dues to either the Shermanite or the anti-Shermanite factions in the I. W. W., and second, the formal withdrawal of the Mining Department and the reëstablishment of an independent Western Federation of Miners in the summer of 1907.[303]
Several other matters of relatively lesser import were given some attention. Even the difficulty of jurisdictional conflict, the bugbear of the craft union, was known and struggled with in a labor body supposed to be jurisdiction-controversy proof. It was so ideally, but the compromises it was obliged to make with the craft form of union naturally made trouble. Slight changes were made in the system of dues; the preamble and constitution were both somewhat improved in diction and altered in a few other minor details, but they both remained fundamentally as worked out in the first convention, except for the abolition of the presidential office. The following officers were elected for the succeeding year: William E. Trautmann (to succeed himself as) General Secretary-Treasurer, and Messrs. Vincent St. John, A. Maichele, T. J. Cole, C. E. Mahoney and E. Fischer, members of the General Executive Board, and Mr. A. S. Edwards, Editor of the Industrial Union Bulletin. It was decided that the conventions be held the third Monday in September instead of the first Monday in May, and in Chicago unless otherwise specified. The convention adjourned on Oct. 3, 1906.
The prevalent opinion at the time, and since, among the craft-unionists of the American Federation and among the party Socialists—in fact, among all those whose radicalism is comparatively conservative—was that this second convention marked the beginning of the end of the I. W. W., or at least that the loss of the Mining Department (probably the organization's most conservative element) was an almost irreparable loss. "That the I. W. W. received its death blow at Chicago and will gradually disintegrate" is a fact, according to Max Hayes, "that no careful observer of labor affairs will attempt to dispute."[304] But the I. W. W. continued to exist, and finally to do more than exist, in spite of the upheaval of 1906. It is indeed doubtful if the losses of that year were unmixed calamities. Though they did deprive the organization of its most reputable, best financed, and most respectable elements, their loss tended to give sharp definition and emphatic impulse toward a more revolutionary policy. This policy was now to be applied and tested among those forming the lower stratum of the proletarian mass—the unskilled and migratory workers. This clear-cut definition of policy and its point of application might never have been possible if the complete working-class hierarchy—from lumberjack to locomotive engineer—had been preserved. The I. W. W. became after 1906, and still more after 1908, an organization of the unskilled and very conspicuously of the migratory and frequently jobless unskilled.