... strike-breakers were engaged by the American Federation of Labor officers to take the places of members of the I. W. W. In Youngstown, Ohio, in San Pedro [Cal.], in Yonkers and in many other places committees were sent to employers demanding the discharge of I. W. W. supporters; special boycotts have been declared against the goods made in factories where members of the Industrial Workers of the World are employed, as, for instance, in St. Louis, Mo., and Butte, Mont.... In Schenectady, where the I. W. W. efforts gained advantages for others, too; in Cleveland, Ohio, where the I. W. W. bricklayers walked out on strike in sympathy with striking hod-carriers, members of the A. F. of L., and refused an offer of ten per cent increase in wages and a closed shop contract, if they would desert the building laborers, which they refused to do; in Newark, N. J., where the I. W. W. shoemakers refused to work with the strike-breakers engaged to defeat strikers of another organization not in the I. W. W., and similar cases can be recorded to show that the I. W. W. members are not organized for the purpose of retaliation against members of their class....[186]
The American Federation of Labor was undoubtedly often guilty of attempts of the kind just mentioned—activities which were looked upon by the "Wobblies" as crafty methods of undermining and antagonizing the work of their organization. It happened more than once during that first year of the younger organization's existence, and has happened on the occasion of many an industrial conflict since that time. However, the blame lies not entirely at the door of the Federation, nor has it alone been guilty of such practices. It is, in fact, quite likely that the first provocation to interference arose from the persistence of the I. W. W. in the policy of organizing—or rather of annexing to itself—unions already organized, and usually so organized in the American Federation of Labor itself. This policy of double affiliation was warmly discussed at the first convention, but no definite official decision of the convention appears in the stenographic report of proceedings. The I. W. W. has been accused of deliberately agitating among unions already organized, and that in the face of open declarations that the I. W. W. does not believe in dual organization. It is true that such declarations of policy may have been made by I. W. W. speakers, but it has not been officially declared to be the policy of the organization. A sharp distinction should be drawn here between reorganizing, or attempting to reorganize, already organized bodies—dual organizing activities—which are not expressly approved or condemned, and the condition of dual organism—or dual membership—which last is expressly forbidden. No local union of the I. W. W. may belong to the American Federation of Labor or to any other national organization.[187]
The I. W. W. has constantly been guilty of agitating in and building from the old craft unions, and in the earlier days of its history most of its work consisted in thus "boring from within" the established unions. It is only in later years that it has even approximately lived up to its avowed policy of organizing the unorganized—the unskilled—the floating laborer. Consequently the provocation of the American Federation of Labor, and craft unions generally, to retaliate for the alleged meddlesomeness of the I. W. W. was even greater then than it is now.
The vigor of this retaliation on the part of the craft unions was evidenced by the action taken by such organizations as the International Association of Machinists, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the United Cloth Cap and Hat Makers, the United Brotherhood of Leather Workers, and others, which "decreed that the mere joining of the Industrial Workers of the World would deprive any man or woman of the right to work in industries controlled by these combinations."[188]
This strenuous opposition was largely the cause of more or less compromising on the part of the Industrial Workers of the World with the craft-union idea, though, of course, the very weakness of the new movement and the hard-fixed habit of years of life and work under the old craft form was a potent factor here. This much is plain from the record of those early days of I. W. W. history. Many of its constituent unions retained to a considerable degree the characteristics of craft unions, and more than that—some of the I. W. W. locals (boasted types and rallying centers for industrial unionism) were nothing more or less than craft locals. Even this extremity was no doubt forced upon many locals on account of the lack of knowledge of industrial unionism among workingmen, and this made necessary that rather ambiguous phenomenon of a revolutionary industrial union largely composed of craft or pseudo-craft units. The delegates to the second convention had to face this very impossible situation. A typical one was that of the Bartenders and Waiters Local Union No. 83 of Chicago, concerning which Delegate Shenkan of San Francisco said:
[This] local is a craft organization whose members do not even follow the vocation their charter would designate. Most of their members work in other lines of industry, such as cigar-making, shoemaking, painting, and quite a number of diversified kinds of work during week days, while on Sundays they work as bartenders and waiters at picnics, balls, etc. ...[189]
The convention was very desirous that this condition be remedied as soon as possible, and a resolution was finally passed stipulating that the General Executive Board must always organize so far as possible on industrial lines: "The incoming General Executive Board is hereby directed to organize the new recruits in and by industries, and to promote the education in industrialism among those men to whom charters may have been issued upon a craft system before they could be enrolled in the I. W. W."[190] In his report to the convention General Secretary Trautmann recommended that
as a safeguard against the possible drifting of such [craft] unions into permanent craft organizations, it should be understood and made mandatory that as soon as a union of employees in any given industry is formed, all those in such craft unions must transfer to the respective industrial body.... But all recruiting craft unions should be chartered directly from the general administration, so that constant control can be kept over the affairs of such organizations, and the proper alignment be directed as soon as such [action] appears to be opportune and necessary.[191]
However, this antagonism from outside craft unions, and these involuntary internal compromises with the craft-union idea were not the most serious difficulties which now beset the Industrial Workers of the World. The organization was threatened with wholesale defection and very soon actually suffered it in some quarters. During the spring of 1906 it became evident that a movement was afoot in the lumber camps of the northwest to organize the lumber workers in a general union outside of the I. W. W. Moreover, it appeared that the moving spirit in the agitation was one Daniel MacDonald—charter member of the Industrial Workers of the World from the old American Labor Union—a man who had not long since been an organizer for the I. W. W., and who must at the time have been a member of that organization, since he was sent as a delegate to the second convention. Mr. MacDonald explained the nature of the proposed organization in a letter to Mr. James Brookfield of Crescent City, California, dated at Butte, Montana, March 27, 1906. He does not mention the I. W. W. He writes that