| I. | II. |
|---|---|
| The DeLeon-Trautmann group. | The St. John-Haywood group. |
| (The Workers' International Industrial Union.) | (Surely the I. W. W.!) |
which is the present setting, primed for further hyphen-smashing!
One of the two factions is thus seen to consist, for the most part, of members of the Socialist Labor party—supporters of the revolutionary Marxian tradition and believers in political action—the doctrinaire group. Their prophet was Daniel DeLeon. The other group was composed more largely of Westerners—intellectually more nearly philosophical Anarchists than orthodox Socialists—inclined to scoff at political action and emphatically opposed to allowing the I. W. W. to have any connection with any political body—or to hold any political policy—disbelievers in the state and in both the Socialist parties because they accept the state—"industrialists with their working clothes on"—the essence of the "proletarian rabble." The first group was ultimately to constitute a socialistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Detroit—the doctrinaire wing; the second group an anarchistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Chicago—the direct-action wing, referred to by the Detroiters as "the Bummery."[417]
Rudolph Katz, a member of the Socialist Labor party, writes that after the third convention
all the efforts of DeLeon to preserve harmony in the I. W. W. were unavailing. St. John, Trautmann, Edwards, and the majority of the five members of the General Executive Board turned over night ... against the fundamental principles of industrialism as laid down in the I. W. W. preamble. They no longer recognized political action as necessary.[418]
When the convention was called to order by Mr. St. John on September 21, 1908, there were twenty-six delegates in attendance, controlling an aggregate of seventy votes. Two delegates were debarred from seats in the convention—Max Ledermann of Chicago and Daniel DeLeon of New York—and St. John was made permanent chairman.[419]
The West—especially the Pacific Coast—was well represented for the first time. There were delegates in attendance from Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and Spokane. The West was spoken of as furnishing the "genuine rebels—the red-blooded working stiffs," and this was said to be the first revolutionary convention ever held in Chicago composed of "purely wage-workers."[420] The largest and most important delegation from the West was popularly known as the "Overalls Brigade," brought together in Portland and Spokane by one J. H. Walsh, a national organizer of the I. W. W. The "Brigade" numbered about twenty men who "beat their way" from Portland to Chicago, holding propaganda meetings en route. A member of the delegation reported this propaganda trip:
We were five weeks on the road [he said]. We traveled over two thousand five hundred miles. The railroad fare saved would have been about $800. We held thirty-one meetings. The receipts of the first week from literature sales and collections were $39.02. The second week, $53.66. The third week, $45.78. The fourth week, $28.10. The fifth week, $8.57. Total, $175.13. These figures do not include the song sales. The song sales were approximately $200.[421]
In the Industrial Union Bulletin for September 19 was published a long letter from Organizer Walsh giving a detailed record of the trip. It was given such heads as these "I. W. W. Red-Special! Overall Brigade,"—"On its way through the continent—Thousands listen to the speakers—Gompers and his satellites furious with rage!" "The Overall Brigade," according to Rudolph Katz, "consisted of that element that traveled on freight trains from one western town to another, holding street meetings that were opened with the song, 'Hallelujah, I'm a Bum,' and closing with passing the hat in regular Salvation Army fashion."[422]
The Socialist Labor party group take the position that DeLeon was denied a seat in the convention in order to further the designs of the St. John-Trautmann faction. In their "nefarious plot" they had the full coöperation of the "Overall Brigade" which "sat in judgment upon Daniel DeLeon." Katz goes on to say that "St. John was the prosecuting attorney."[423] The pretext for unseating DeLeon (and others) was membership in the wrong local union. DeLeon was present as a delegate of the Office Workers' Local Union. His opponents insisted that he should, as an editor, be enrolled in the Printing Workers' Local. On such technicalities enough delegates were refused seats to give the Overall Brigade all the powers of a steam-roller.[424] "It was a 'machine' of the capitalist political design," said the Weekly People, "organized ... among the boys from the West."[425] "In the case of Fellow Worker DeLeon representing 'Store & Office Workers' Union' No. 58, the committee recommended that the protest be sustained and the delegate not seated because he is not a member of the local of the industry in which [he is] working, such a local being in existence."[426]