The Twelfth Annual Convention instructed your Executive Board to take such action as might be necessary in order that the representatives of organized labor might be brought together and plans outlined for the amalgamation of the entire wage-working class into one general organization. Following out these instructions at a meeting held in the month of December it was decided to send a committee to meet with the officers of the American Labor Union. This conference took place January 4.... The result ... was the Manifesto.... The question for you to decide is not one of changing the principles, policy or plan of your organization, but as to whether or not the Western Federation of Miners shall become a working part of such a movement as set forth in the Manifesto, which shall consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries.[84]
At about the same time J. M. O'Neill, the editor of the Miners' Magazine, wrote William D. Haywood, the treasurer of the Federation, that
if this convention goes on record giving its unanimous sanction to the movement that is contemplated in Chicago, such action will be heralded from the Atlantic to the Pacific, ... and will create a sentiment that will keep on crystallizing until capitalism will feel that it is threatened in the citadel of its entrenched power.[85]
The secret conference—thereafter to be known as the January Conference—was called to order in the city of Chicago on the second of January by William E. Trautmann. There were twenty-three persons present, representing nine different organizations; that is, of course, exclusive of members of the Socialist and Socialist Labor parties, who were not present formally as such. There were present five officials of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees and one member of the Brewery Workmen. Among those present were: Charles H. Moyer, President, Western Federation of Miners; W. D. Haywood, Secretary of the Western Federation of Miners; J. M. O'Neill, editor of the Miners' Magazine; A. M. Simons, editor of The International Socialist Review; Frank Bohn, organizer, Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance; T. J. Hagerty, editor of The Voice of Labor; C. O. Sherman, of the United Metal Workers; and "Mother" Mary Jones. During a three days' session plans for a proposed new labor organization were seriously discussed and carefully worked out. The report of their committee on methods and procedure was worked up by the members of the conference into a "Manifesto"[86] which contained (1) an indictment of "things as they are" in the trade-union world; (2) leading propositions and tentative plans for a new departure in labor organization; and (3) a call for a convention to organize this new union.
The first part of this document is devoted to a discussion of certain modern tendencies in the labor movement. Trade divisions among laborers and competition among capitalists are both disappearing. The machine process is more and more tending to minimize skill and swell the ranks of the unskilled and unemployed. The incidence of the machine process is fatal to labor groups divided according to the tool used. "These divisions," in the words of the Manifesto, "far from representing differences in skill or interests among the laborers, are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial distinctions." The employees, however, are united on the industrial plan and reënforce their consequent impregnable position by making use of the military power and their affiliation with the National Civic Federation.
The craft form of organization is severely criticized. It makes solidarity impossible, for it generates a system of organized scabbery, where union men scab on each other. It results in trade monopolies, prohibitive initiation fees and political ignorance. It dwarfs class consciousness and tends to "foster the idea of harmony of interests between employing exploiter and employed slave."
Passing on to the remedy proposed, the Manifesto declares that
a movement to fulfil these conditions must consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries, providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working-class unity generally. It must be founded on the class struggle ... and established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party.[87]
The phrase, "craft autonomy," is odd—for industrialists. A. M. Simons gives an explanation. He says that any union entering the I. W. W. "will retain trade autonomy in matters that concern each trade as completely as at the present time, but when it enters the field of other trades, instead of being met by trade competition ... will be met by the coöperation of affiliated unions."[88] This phrase referring to political parties was the germ of the ill-fated "political clause" of the preamble, which formulated in an indefinite way the issue on which three years later the organization split into two factions.[89] Other clauses provide that (1) all power shall rest with the collective membership; (2) all labels, cards, fees, etc., shall be uniform throughout; (3) the general administration shall issue a publication at regular intervals; and (4) that a central defense fund be established and maintained. The document concluded with a call to all workers who agreed with these principles to "meet in convention in Chicago, the 27th day of June, 1905,—for the purpose of forming an economic organization of the working class along the lines marked out in this Manifesto."
The Manifesto was signed by all those present at the January conference and sent broadcast to all unions throughout America and to the industrial unions of Europe. At this January conference there was dominant a very radical idea as to what a labor organization ought to be. The conferees decided that such an organization should not only provide a means of unifying all crafts and industries for the better protection and advancement of the immediate interests of the working class, but that it must also offer, and consciously push on towards, a final solution of the labor problem, a solution very frankly assumed to be a socialistic one.