The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism

by Paul F. Brissenden

The outlook was certainly not encouraging for those who had pinned their faith to the idea of industrial unionism. The prospect for the new unionism was not bright. In 1908 the United Brewery Workmen, another large and important industrial union, patched up their differences with the American Federation of Labor and went back into the craft-union fold. The Western Federation of Miners—the most militant and one of the two or three really powerful unions organized on the industrial plan—had withdrawn, and finally, in May, 1911, joined the American Federation. At the sixteenth convention of the Western Federation, held in the summer of 1908, President Moyer said:

I believe it is a well-established fact that industrial unionism is by no means popular, and I feel safe in saying that it is not wanted by the working class of the United States. The Knights of Labor, the American Railway Union, the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance, the Western Labor Union, the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, the American Labor Union, and last, the Industrial Workers of the World ... [went down] because they failed to receive the support of the working class....[412]

The breach between the Industrial Workers of the World and the Western Federation of Miners continued to grow wider. Until April, 1908, William D. Haywood was a member of both organizations. Even after the complete and formal separation had been accomplished, Haywood had been, since his acquittal at Boise, serving in the capacity of lecturer and organizer for the Federation. His views must have been profoundly intensified in a more radical direction than ever during his incarceration and trial for murder. That his speeches became too rabid even for such a decidedly militant organization as the Western Federation of Miners seems unlikely, although the Federation was gradually growing more conservative. The determining and, in the eyes of the W. F. M., incriminating fact about Haywood now was that he remained an I. W. W. after the administration and presumably the majority of the W. F. M. had renounced and "cast off" the "larger" organization of which it had been a part. So it is not surprising that the following should have appeared on the first page of the Miners' Magazine for April 23, 1908:

NOTICE.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This is to inform you that the Executive Board of the Western Federation of Miners has decided to terminate the services of William D. Haywood as a representative of the Western Federation of Miners in the field, the same to take effect on the 8th day of April, 1908.

E. Mahoney, Vice-Pres., W. F. M.

A writer in the Evening Post (New York) thinks that but for this official ousting of Haywood by the W. F. M., the I. W. W. might never have survived the trouble, dissension and "hard times" of 1908. "It is doubtful," he says, "if either faction of the Industrial Workers of the World [Detroit or Chicago] would have survived but for a change in the attitude of the Western Miners' Federation ... which left Haywood free to devote all his energies to the Industrial Workers of the World."[413] If we can credit the evidence presented at the 1912 convention of the W. F. M., the I. W. W. had at least sufficient vitality to be plotting, through its officials, to regain control of the Western Federation. In the published proceedings of its twentieth convention is printed a letter, dated August 4, 1908, from Vincent St. John to Albert Ryan, a member of the Western Federation. This letter reads in part:

I believe we could turn in now and lay the wires to defeat the machine at the next W. F. M. convention, and it can be done in this way: by picking out good reliable men with ability, and getting them to place themselves in local unions of the Federation for the purpose of getting to be delegates to the next convention. To do this they should cultivate the sentiment of the membership in the local to which they go. If the local is a Moyer local, let them be Moyer men. Let them outdo the best of them in worship at his shrine. If the local is indifferent, let them be likewise, but let them be elected as delegates.... Once we can control the officers of the W. F. M. for the I. W. W. the big bulk of the membership will go with them, and the prestige of the W. F. M.... is worth something to the revolutionary movement, and we should make an attempt to get it with us, ... take up the matter with Bechtel and Oppman and have them work with you to control Arizona for the next convention. Pick out a man or two for every local in the state, let them get into them and do the work.... I will try to handle Michigan and Minnesota from here. If you are shy [of] men, or have any to spare, we can trade with the different districts....[414]