The Secretary of the Detroit I. W. W. (now W. I. I. U.) says that
to speak of factions of the I. W. W. is doing violence to the facts in the case. The I. W. W. organized in Chicago, 1905, established certain principles, methods, and aims, which can be readily ascertained from the stenographic reports of the first, second, and third conventions. Among them one of the most essential and characteristic of the I. W. W. is the distinct and specific declaration: The workers must organize as a class, on the political and industrial field, to achieve the emancipation from wage slavery. The so-called Chicago "I. W. W." has repudiated this position, and carries since 1908, falsely, the name. Its claim is bogus, as amply demonstrated by its doings since that time....[459]
"We hold," says this official, "that our organization is The I. W. W. Chicago headquarters, and those who follow that organization, became a different body since 1908."[460]
At the International Socialist Congress at Vienna in 1914 the Socialist Labor party made a report in which it was declared that
... the Anarcho-Syndicalist element [which] caused the split in the I. W. W. in 1908, went forth throughout the land under the name, Industrial Workers of the World, and by its advocacy of Anarchy, sensationalism, sabotage, "direct action," and "free speech," riots, and similar disorderly tactics, has cast an odium upon the name of the I. W. W.[461]
Such a characterization of the Chicago faction is hardly to be wondered at in view of some of the statements made by organs representing the direct-actionists. Thus we are told that what "the now famous 'Hobo Convention' ... actually did was to restore the preamble to its pristine syndicalist purity...."[462]
The break was not, however, entirely caused by disagreement over political and economic principles. It was partly a matter of personal temperament—and primarily the personal temperament of Daniel DeLeon. We have seen that, rightly or wrongly, DeLeon has been, time after time charged with being the instigator of trouble and dissension. It's difficult to say just why his presence so often seemed to bring friction and revolt. It was partly due, no doubt, to the really heroic and rigidly uncompromising way in which he adhered to his beliefs. It must be attributed in part, the writer believes, to defects of temper. "The strain of love and hate aroused by DeLeon's peculiar personality," writes one who knew him, "colors all judgments of his career."[463] The same writer says that DeLeon was temperamentally a Jesuit, and that his personal attacks were Jesuitical.[464] This fact surely should be kept in mind when considering the controversies in the socialist movement which have been laid at his door. The present Socialist party broke away from DeLeon's leadership nearly twenty years ago,[465] and has since thrived, while the Socialist Labor party has been reduced to a negligible quantity. In the same way, in 1908, the followers of DeLeon seceded and their fate has been about the same.
Eugene Debs thought that DeLeon's critics made too little allowance for his peculiar temper. He insists that whatever "opposition to the Industrial Workers [is] inspired by hatred for Daniel DeLeon and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, is puerile, to say the least.... DeLeon is sound on the question of trade unionism," Debs continues, "and to that extent, whether I like him or not personally, I am with him."[466] In another place Debs writes:
The fact is that most of the violent opposition of Socialist party members to the I. W. W. is centered upon the head of DeLeon and has a purely personal animus.... DeLeon is not the I. W. W., although I must give him credit for being, since its inception, one of its most vigorous and active supporters.