William Z. Foster, national leader of the steel strikers in the fall of 1919, affords us an example of an I. W. W. agent "boring from within" the A. F. of L.
Mr. Carl W. Ackerman informs us in the "Boston Evening Transcript," September 24, 1919, that the first appearance of Foster as a radical was in 1910, when, as a reporter for the "Seattle Call," a Socialist paper at that time, he was sent along the Pacific Coast to report a number of so-called free speech fights. "From this," continues Mr. Ackerman, "he appears to have developed into a general agitator. As a result of his tour of the west he joined the I. W. W. and in this capacity he began to advocate sabotage....
"In 1911, while a member of the I. W. W., Foster went to Europe and visited France, Germany and Hungary as a correspondent of 'Solidarity,' the official organ of the I. W. W. in America, at that time published at New Castle, Pa. He wrote many articles for this publication, some of them signed, 'Yours for the I. W. W., W. Z. Foster,' and others, 'Yours for the revolution, W. Z. Foster.'"
In a letter written by Foster in 1911 and on file in the office of the United States District Attorney in Chicago, Foster said:
"I am satisfied from my observation that the only way for an I. W. W. to have the workers adopt and practice the principles of revolutionary unionism, which I take it is its mission, is to give up the attempt to create a new labor movement, turn itself into a propaganda league, get into the organized labor movement, and by building up better fighting machinery within the old unions than these possessed by our reactionary enemies, revolutionize these unions, even as our French syndicalist fellow-workers have so successfully done."
This letter, showing Foster's plan of "boring from within" the A. F. of L., was signed, "Yours for the revolution."
As late as 1915 Foster brought out a book entitled, "Trade Unionism, the Road to Freedom." Several excerpts taken from the sixth chapter show the true frame of mind of this leader, who has recently gained such a following in the A. F. of L.:
"Under the new order as pictured above, government, such as we know it, would gradually disappear. In an era of science and justice this makeshift institution, having lost its usefulness, would shrivel and die....
"Criminal courts, police, jails and the like would go also. Crime is due almost wholly to poverty. In a reign of plenty for all, it would practically disappear.... People would no longer have to wrangle over property rights. The industries now in the hands of national, state and municipal governments would be given over completely into the care of the workers engaged in them.... With war, crime, class antagonisms and property squabbles obliterated, and the management of industry taken from its care, little or no excuse would exist for government."
The November 8, 1919, report of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, in its investigation of the nation-wide steel strike, commented as follows on Foster:
"Such men are dangerous to the country and they are dangerous to the cause of union labor. It is unfair to men who may be struggling for their rights to be represented by such leaders. It prevents them from securing proper hearing for their cause. If Mr. Foster has the real interest of the laboring man at heart he should remove himself from any leadership. His leadership injures instead of helping. If he will not remove himself from leadership the American Federation of Labor should purge itself of such leadership in order to sustain the confidence which the country has had in it under the leadership of Mr. Gompers."