[401] "The I. W. W., its Strength and Opportunity," by "The Commentator," Solidarity, Feb. 25, 1911.
[402] Industrial Union Bulletin, Oct. 24. 1908.
[403] Rudolph Katz, "With DeLeon Since '89," Weekly People, Dec. 4, 1915, p. 2, col. 4.
[CHAPTER IX]
Doctrinaire versus Direct-Actionist
(1908)
For a period of nearly two years following the financial panic of 1907, the I. W. W. had a precarious and for the most part uneventful existence. The organization made practically no headway with its recruiting and propaganda work. Indeed, it probably lost ground. There was a falling off in the number of locals in the organization and, at least for 1909, in the number of local union charters issued. Vincent St. John, at that time General Organizer, said in his report to the fourth convention:
The big majority of the locals that have disbanded can be traced to the inability of the general organization to finance the number of organizers needed to see that the membership of these locals have a thorough understanding of the aims and objects of the I. W. W. before leaving them to their own devices. There are several cases where the disbanding of locals is the result of the combined opposition of the employers' associations and their zealous allies, the officials of "harmony of interests" organizations which call themselves labor organizations for no other purpose than to better accomplish their task of deluding the workers.[404]
It is probable also that there was during the same period a decline in membership, as indicated by the figures furnished by the Secretary-Treasurer.[405] But even during these lean years there was some activity in the textile industry. From first to last, so far as the eastern part of the United States is concerned, it has been among the textile operatives that the I. W. W. has been most active and most successful. In this industry the I. W. W. has a much larger proportion of the total number of organized workers than it has in any other. In the West, of course, the I. W. W. is most strongly entrenched in the unorganized extractive industries—lumber, agriculture, and construction work.[406] In April, 1908, the General Executive Board issued an official call (printed in English, French, German and Italian) for that "First Convention of Textile Workers" to be held May 1, 1908, in Paterson, N. J. In his document the claim is made that "over 5,000 textile workers have already been organized into the Industrial Workers of the World...."[407] During the eighteen months' period following the financial crisis of 1907 the I. W. W. almost entirely gave up its strike activities.[408] Furthermore, the organization seemed to have secured no permanent foothold in those communities where it had been particularly militant and aggressive during the preceding year. Secretary Trautmann admitted this in his report to the Fourth Convention. "There is nothing left in Bridgeport," he said, "nothing in Skowhegan, but in the Portland [Oregon] district the name of the I. W. W. is cheered and gloried...."[409]
One of the leaders of the Detroit I. W. W. (now the Workers' International Industrial Union) says that at this time "the whole organization was in a state of unrest."[410] In reference to such a distractingly unrestful organization as the I. W. W. has always been, this comment is significant. He attributes this unrest to two causes, internal dissension and the financial panic.
The membership, upon discovering that the officials were acting in a manner that foreshadowed ... conflict within the organization, withdrew in large numbers. The financial and industrial panic which was then on had also a very bad effect upon the newly founded local unions of the I. W. W., and many of these lost members.[411]