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

by Paul F. Brissenden

It is quite apparent that matters which were of purely internal concern were much more narrowly interpreted than in the orthodox union. Most things affecting one craft are frankly declared to effect all crafts—even all industries—and only a few matters like by-laws and other routine affairs were considered to be of merely local concern. The constitution was built up around the socialistic motto, "An injury to one is the concern of all." The document was merely provisional, and in a crude way served as an initial guide for drawing up a more comprehensive and permanent constitution later on.

That the constitution was at least acceptable to most of the delegates was evidenced by the fact that it was adopted by a six to one vote,[161] and more definitely proven on roll-call for installation of organizations under the new constitution. Besides the five leading organizations—the Western Federation of Miners, the American Labor Union, United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, United Metal Workers, and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, six local unions and thirty-nine individuals (representing no organization) unanimously voted for installation.[162] Having elected its officers and chosen Chicago as its headquarters, the Convention adjourned, sine die, July 8, 1905.

Delegate Kiehn (representing the Longshoremen of Hoboken, N. J.), among others, refused to install his union. He explained his vote, stating that in his opinion the constitution was "not according to the spirit of the manifesto." He believed that dividing the industrial activities of society into thirteen divisions meant the creation—not the destruction—of craft lines, and also that "it [the constitution] gives the President or the Executive Board of this organization czarish powers that are not given to the executive officers of any pure and simple organization in this country."[163]

Unquestionably the outcome of the convention was very different from what those most interested had anticipated. In its final form, the preamble and constitution were not exactly shaped to the provisions of the January manifesto—at any rate they did not seem to satisfy the authors of the latter document. This is partly to be explained by the significant fact that Daniel DeLeon was not present at the January conference, although the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance and the Socialist Labor party were represented by one of their organizers—Frank Bohn. We have seen that the fear of Socialist Labor party domination or Socialist Labor party wire-pulling and the fear of the influence of DeLeon were one and the same. A. M. Simons declared several months before the Convention that "nothing could more thoroughly damn the work of the conference which meets in Chicago next June than the prevalence of the idea that it was an attempt to revive the S. T. & L. A...."[164] These fears were to a certain limited extent realized. The same writer says that "At the first conference [the June convention] Daniel DeLeon with a crowd of followers obtained such power in the organization as to destroy its original point of view. Later he was thrown out, or resigned, or threw the others out [according to who is telling the story]."[165] In precisely what way the original point of view was destroyed is not easily determined. Even Simons admitted that "the only line of cleavage between bodies representing any strength was over the method of organization." And "even here," he believed that "the difficulty was much less fundamental than the heat of the debate would indicate."[166]

Beyond any doubt the influence of the Socialist Labor party (through the delegates of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance), DeLeonism, as it was called, was wider than this statement would indicate. A "paper" organization, outnumbered by all of the organizations in what we have called the "Big Five," it unquestionably was influential to a degree quite out of proportion to its numbers, and in that way, at least, it dominated the convention. The political clause, which later proved such a rock of dissension and which was not passed in the first convention without considerable opposition, was one mark left in the constitution by DeLeonism. The virtual overthrowing of the "boring-from-within" policy was another mark left out of the constitution by DeLeonism. Both of these departures were of great importance but not the most vital by any means.

The primary importance of the Western Federation of Miners in these beginnings cannot be too much emphasized. In a quite real sense the I. W. W. was born out of the Western Federation. It was from this militant miners union that most of the financial bone and sinew came for setting in motion the machinery of the new union. The Federation constituted probably one-third of the membership of the organization which had in its mining department (while it did have it!) by all odds the most vigorously militant of all American unions. The Federation's bitter fights with the mine operators, especially in Colorado, Montana, and Idaho, prepared the ground and spread the sentiment for the extension of revolutionary industrialism beyond the relatively narrow limits of the metalliferous mining industry. It was not a coincidence that the I. W. W. sprang into being so hard on the heels of the strike terrors of Telluride and Cripple Creek. A delegate at the second (1906) convention declared that the Butte Miners Union was the father of the I. W. W.[167]

Despite the fact that the I. W. W. did continue to exist, and, periodically, to thrive after the Western Federation broke away, it is safe to say that had it not been for the Federation, with its practical strength and the stimulating example of its history, there would have been no I. W. W. It was Western-Federationism quite as much as DeLeonism that moulded the I. W. W. at its inception.

It certainly is not quite true that the first convention was "captured" by the DeLeon element, as so many insinuate. DeLeon was elected to no office and neither of the General Executive Board members elected at large were members of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. Debs insists that "DeLeon did not 'capture' the organization and Debs is not 'disgusted' with it."[168] The dominance of DeLeonism was, then, a supremacy of ideas. These ideas may have been "insane delusions" and finally disastrous to the harmony of the movement; but they were presumably defended by their chief sponsor and his followers, in firm conviction that they were essential to the growth of the movement. DeLeon said on the floor of the convention, "When I came to Chicago to this convention, I came absolutely without any private ax to grind or any private grudge to gratify. In fact ... I have had but one foe ... and that foe is the capitalist class."[169]

Hermann Richter, now general secretary of the Socialist Labor party wing of the I. W. W., writes in a recent number of their official organ: "During the proceedings of the [first] convention it became apparent that not all delegates understood, or were in free accord with the spirit and intent of the organization."[170] This was very natural considering the composition of the gathering. The sequel proved that this was the least of the troubles in embryo at that first convention.