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

by Paul F. Brissenden

Upon the arrival of Mr. Mann, Mr. Foster again took up the cudgels for the opponents of dual unionism.

Among many of the syndicalists [he said] the sentiment is strong, and growing ceaselessly, that the tactics followed by the I. W. W. are bad, and that endeavors should be made inside the A. F. of L.; that it is in the existing unions that the syndicalists must struggle without ceasing....[598]

Mr. Mann agreed with him. In a speech published in the International Socialist Review[599] he expressed his belief that "if the fine energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the A. F. or L. or into the existing trade-union movement ... the results would be fifty-fold greater than they now are." He went on to "urge the advisability, not of dropping the I. W. W., but certainly of dropping all dual organizations and serving as a feeder and purifier of the big movement." William D. Haywood replied that "it might as well be said that if the fine energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the Catholic church, that the results would be the establishment of the control of industry."[600] He went on to show that it is well-nigh impossible for the unskilled man to get into the A. F. of L., even when he does desire to do so, because of what Haywood characterizes as "a vicious system of apprenticeship, exorbitant fees," etc.[601] Mr. Haywood's fellow-worker, Joseph J. Ettor, joined him in his attack on Tom Mann's position:

The theory that what is needed to save the Federation is the energetic and vigorous men who are now in the I. W. W. is on a par with the "socialist" advice of [sic] how to save the nation; but we don't want to save the Federation any more than to save the nation. We aim at destroying it. The Socialists advised us to roll up our sleeves and become active politically within capitalism—"We must capture the government for the workers," etc. We tried, but the more we fooled with the beast the more it captured us. Our best men went to "bore from within" capitalist parliaments, and city councils, only to be disgusted, thrown out, or fall victims of the game and environment in which they found themselves.... We learned at an awful cost particularly this: That the most unscrupulous labor fakers now betraying the workers were once our "industrialist," "anarchist" and "socialist" comrades, who grew weary of the slow progress we were making on the outside, went over, and were not only lost, but ... became the greatest supporters of the old and [the] most serious enemies of the new.[602]

Mr Mann's attitude was not appreciably changed during his trip through the United States. His reaction to the situation so far as the principle of "dual unionism" is concerned is explained in an article contributed to a French journal. He wrote:

As the situation appears to me after many deep conversations and discussions with working men of all conditions, I say very emphatically that the I. W. W. should work in harmony with the American Federation of Labor. There is not the least necessity for having two organizations. The field of action is wide enough for all to be able to coöperate in the economic struggle....

The greatest danger to which it [the A. F. of L.] is subject at present is the firm hold the politicians have on it. Their influence grows in the unions as well as in the Federation, and that because the energetic, militant, enthusiastic men (les hommes énergiques et ardents) who comprise the I. W. W. refuse to work on the inside of the unions, so that they leave a free field to the politicians, to whom the task becomes relatively easy.... We know what comes to pass when politicians get control of the unions and direct them.[603]

In reporting the eighth convention of the "Bummery" I. W. W., the Weekly People[604] declared that the St. John crowd was in control and that a wooden shoe was made use of in calling the convention in order and attempting to maintain it in order. This meeting continued in session from the 15th to the 29th of September, 1913. There were present thirty-nine delegates and the seven members of the Executive Board. Three national industrial unions were represented: the Textile Workers by two delegates having thirty-one votes; the Forest and Lumber Workers (formerly the Brotherhood of Timber Workers) by one delegate with thirteen votes; and the Marine Transport Workers by one delegate with forty-two votes. The other thirty-five delegates represented eighty-five local unions with one hundred and ninety-two votes.[605]

Attention has been called to the rather tepid discussion of the problem of centralization at the 1912 convention.[606] During the intervening year this question had called forth such bitter factional animosity in the organization that we find it in 1913 divided into two hostile camps and threatened again with disruption. The issue is significantly comparable to the "states' rights" controversy in our political history. The I. W. W. administration and its supporters were, very naturally, "centralists." They favored a strong federal government for the I. W. W. and attacked the "decentralizers'" program for the emasculation of the general administration and the establishment of a loose confederation of sovereign local unions—the states' rights program in industry. The states' rights doctrine failed of acceptance in the I. W. W. as it has failed in American politics. Nevertheless, the decentralization crisis in the I. W. W. deserves more than passing notice. In the first place, the doctrine was not annihilated in 1913; it was merely smothered. The I. W. W. may yet be "unscrambled." In the second place, this issue is perhaps the most fundamental one ever given wide discussion by the I. W. W. membership. It involves directly the whole question of the structure of the organization, the proper distribution of functions and authority among the several parts of the organization and, indirectly, questions of efficiency in carrying on propaganda and organizing work and of the relative merits of authoritarian (state) socialism and so-called "voluntary socialism." As the two groups lined up at Chicago in 1913, we may say that the controversy between the administration's supporters and the defenders of the local unions was, on the whole, a struggle between the western membership, individualistic and tainted with anarchism, and the eastern membership, more schooled to subordination—infected with state socialism.

The attack of the decentralizers took the form of specific resolutions for the abolition of various features of the general administration and the restriction of the powers of the Executive Board and general officers. The abolition of the office of president in 1906 was in part an expression of this revolt against centralized authority. But now, with the presidency eliminated, with very little organization at the best, with a degree of central power and authority which the United Mine Workers of America would consider mild indeed, and with a constantly shifting membership of less than 15,000, we find that there is actually a little group of western locals which assumes that there is already a dangerous centralization of power and authority at "Headquarters." Some five hundred resolutions were introduced at the convention and a large number of these were assorted decentralist proposals for giving the local union relatively greater power—demands, in other words, for readjustments which were expected to result in increased "local autonomy." This local autonomy was to be secured for the benefit of the "rank and file," i. e., the individual members, and particularly for the "rank and file" membership of the "mixed" locals so predominant in the western part of the country. From the standpoint of the mixed local, "the disease within the I. W. W. is ... the gigantic machine formation attempted to be [sic] foisted upon it by the authoritarian socialists who presided at its birth...." "Decentralization deals essentially," we are told, "with the right of the locals to control themselves and through their combined wills to run the general organization."[607] Following up the attack, the knights of the rank and file proposed to abolish, inter alia, the General Executive Board, the office of the General Organizer, and the national convention![608] One wonders that the Constitution itself was not put bodily on the index! Indeed, a year later, a leader in the movement in California did write an article to show that the I. W. W. Preamble is syndicalistic, and the Constitution state-socialistic, therefore that the latter should be abolished.[609] For two weeks the delegates wrangled over propositions of this kind and the general subject of decentralization. Two and a half days were devoted to the proposal to abolish the General Executive Board. This action was desired by locals in southern California and other parts of the West, as well, as by a few of the eastern locals.[610] Concerning their demands, a supporter of the administration said: