All this friction and internal discord was naturally made to loom large in the editorials of the American Federationist; Gompers, in fact, squinted hard enough at the Chicago conference to see absolutely nothing in it. The August (1905) number contained the following, under the caption "Those 'World Redeemers' at Chicago":
After an effort of more than six months ... the distribution of tons upon tons of circulars and "literature" throughout America and every other country throughout the globe ... what was the result? The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse, and a very silly little mouse at that.... And out of this material [the S. T. and L. A. and the A. L. U.] they proclaim themselves the "Industrial Workers of the World." Their nerve is so colossal that it is positively ludicrous. Of course the two and a half million ... workmen in the trade-union movement are entirely oblivious that they are included.... The wheel of fortune, otherwise known as ex-Father Hagerty's chart, was adopted as a "plan" of organization. This plan is so unique and so fantastic that we accord it space in our columns and thus give it historic importance.... [And finally he prophesies that] as time goes on the active participants in the labor movement of the future, students, thinkers, historians, will record the Chicago meeting as the most vapid and ridiculous in the annals of those who presume to speak in the name of labor, and the participants in the gathering as the most stupendous impossibles the world has yet seen.[171]
But in spite of dissension on the inside and bitter abuse and misrepresentation on the outside, the industrialists were, on the whole, very optimistic about the prospects of the new-born I. W. W. and held high hopes for its future. In spite of the emphatic declaration of the manifesto that the I. W. W. "should be established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party," the newspapers and even the labor press persisted in representing the movement as a political one. Thus the Milwaukee Journal said:
The Socialists are still earnestly advocating the formation of a new national organization in the hope of downing the American Federation of Labor, as the Federation is opposed to making the labor union a political organization.[172]
The Advance Advocate, a labor organ, had this to say:
And now a new industrial union is to be launched in Chicago. It is going to revolutionize the whole labor movement according to the manifesto of its promoters. It is going into politics. We predict that it will fail.[173]
The Iowa State Federation of Labor issued the following statement:
A few disgruntled office-seekers and would-be politicians have seen fit to criticize the present methods of our trade organizations, and these same people have issued a call for a convention to be held in the city of Chicago, June 27, 1905, to form an organization, ... the avowed purpose of which is the complete annihilation of the present trade-union movement by political methods.[174]
The expectation that there would be a general secession from the American Federation of Labor to the new organization was not realized and there was practically no American Federation of Labor material in the new body. In numbers it seemed, in view of later shrinkage, to be at high tide. The reports of the convention estimated the membership at 60,000, and A. M. Simons estimated that at the very least the organization would in six months have 100,000 members.[175] The twelve organizations finally installed represented a membership of 49,010. This excluded the thirty-nine "individual" members. In regard to this Vincent St. John writes: "I know that the Annual Convention reports claim 60,000 members, but the books of the organization did not justify any such claim, and in fact the average paid-up membership, without the W. F. of M. (27,000), for the first year of the organization was 14,000 in round numbers."[176]