CHAPTER XI

FREE SPEECH AND SABOTAGE

The existence between 1908 and 1915 of two national labor organizations bearing the name, Industrial Workers of the World (or "I. W. W."), with labels of identical design--bodies closely paralleling each other in scope and structure despite their disparity in doctrine and tactics--makes it very difficult to discuss either group, or I. W. W.-ism in general, without ambiguity. The I. W. W. which has been most advertised in the United States is the Chicago, or "Direct-Actionist," or "Anarcho-Syndicalist," or "Anti-Political," or "Bummery" or "red" I. W. W. This is the I. W. W. which was actively interested in the strikes at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Wheatland, California, and many other places, and in "free speech" fights at Spokane, Fresno, and San Diego. They are the "Wobblies" of the West. In this present work they are considered, entirely without prejudice to the admittedly more "correct" and consistent position of the doctrinaires of the Detroit wing, to be _the_ I. W. W. The doctrinaires are the socialistic, pro-political, "yellow" I. W. W.

It is proposed in these chapters to sketch the main lines of development of the Chicago organization from 1908 to the present time, as well as to indicate the general character of its activities from year to year. The important and bitterly fought struggle at the seventh and eighth conventions in 1912 and 1913 over the question of decentralization is described as faithfully as possible. The relations between the I. W. W. and the Socialist party are set forth, especially in connection with the adoption of the famous _sabotage_ clause by the Socialist party at its Indianapolis convention in 1912. The newer phases of the organizing and propaganda work of the I. W. W., the free-speech fights, and its increased activity among the unskilled and floating laborers are described. No attempt is made here to go into the various strikes and free-speech controversies in more than a very cursory manner. This is not because their importance is underestimated. The writer feels that the field work of the "Wobblies" is really the most significant part of their history, if for no other reason than that the I. W. W. expends perhaps more energy in proportion to its strength and resources in propaganda, organizing and advertising work afield than does almost any other labor organization in the country. The more striking episodes in the career of the I. W. W., like the Lawrence strike and the Wheatland hop riots, have, however, been extensively written up in the magazines and recorded as well in scientific journals and government reports. On the contrary, the vicissitudes of the career of the I. W. W. as an organized body of workers have never even been recited.

The split of 1908 left the direct-actionists in almost as weak a condition as the doctrinaires. The weakness of the latter has been chronic. The former were able to develop great strength because they had modified their theories to the extent necessary to make some appreciable application of them to the actual conditions of economic life. They were confronted by conditions and met them at the cost of doctrinal consistency. They were unconscious pragmatists and the result is that they have made themselves felt to a much greater extent than the doctrinaires. They have been strikingly successful as gadflies--stinging and shocking the _bourgeoisie_ into the initiation of reforms. If the "anarcho-syndicalist" I. W. W. may not properly be called a successful organization, there is at least this much to be said for it: it has been a far less _unsuccessful_ organization than has the doctrinaire faction.

For some time after the split in 1908 the Industrial Workers of the World scarcely more than kept alive. The membership dwindled and locals expired by the score. Between September, 1908, and May 1, 1910, only sixty-six new local unions were chartered.[509] Only in 1911 did their number begin to increase, and even then it was a halting and fitful progress. Levine writes that the I. W. W. had "shrunk to a mere handful of leaders, revolutionary in spirit and ideals, and persevering in action, with a small, scattered and shifting following and an unsatisfactory administrative machinery."[510]

During the year 1909 the organization was actively interested in a number of strikes. The most important of these was the McKees Rocks (Pennsylvania) strike in which 6,000 employees of the Pressed Steel Car Company were out for two months. Other strikes of the year involved the lumbermen at Somers and Kalispell, Montana; Eureka, California, and Prince Rupert, B. C.; the sheet and tin plate workers at New Castle and Shenango, Pennsylvania; and the farm laborers at Waterville, Washington. Secretary Trautmann believed that these "constant irritative strikes" were more than all else responsible for the fact that less than one-third the gross membership was active (dues-paying) membership. These strikes, he said, involved half the membership in the course of one year.[511]

It was in this same year that the I. W. W. made its bow to the American public as the militant jail and soap-box belligerent in the free-speech fight. As early as April, 1906, there was a minor clash between the police and the "Wobblies," but it was not until nearly three years later that the I. W. W. free-speech epidemic assumed national proportions. Since 1909 the I. W. W.s have attracted quite as much attention by their dramatic free-speech controversies with municipal authorities here and there as they have by the time-honored resort to the strike. During the next few years after the schism of 1908 these free-speech struggles became rather frequent. The Pacific slope is the most fruitful soil for these conflicts. Labor is more mobile there, and when the organizers in any particular town are arrested for preaching revolution a more effective call to "foot-loose Wobblies" for an "invasion" is possible. On the Pacific slope the "Wobblies" almost literally broke into the jails by hundreds. They came to speak, but with the nearly certain foreknowledge that they would be collared by the police before they said many words. They simply crowded the jails, and in this way, as they intended, clogged the machinery of municipal administration by making themselves the guests of the city in such numbers as to be no inconsiderable burden to their real hosts, the taxpayers. Vincent St. John, then Secretary-Treasurer of the I. W. W., recently told the United States Commission on Industrial Relations that "wherever any local union becomes involved in a free-speech fight they notify the general office and that information is sent to all the local unions, ... with the request that if they have any members that are foot-loose to send them along." Mr. St. John stated, however, that the general (_i. e._, the national) organization does not in any way finance or manage these free-speech fights except to contribute, so far as possible, at the call of the locals. The management of the struggle is in the hands, of the local union or unions most interested.[512] The same tactics are pursued in nearly every instance--a policy of sullen non-resistance on the part of the I. W. W. and of wholesale jailing by the authorities. The trouble always seems to begin because local authorities are revolted by--or at least nervously apprehensive about--either the substance of the I. W. W. speeches or the language in which their ideas are conveyed, or both. The remarks are alleged to be seditious, incendiary, unpatriotic, immoral, _etc._, or, whether they are any or all these or none of them, they are alleged to be profane or vulgar beyond the limits of forbearance. In the judgment of the writer the latter charge can be laid at the door of the I. W. W. with far greater justification than can the former. Refinement is not the Wobblies' long suit. How could it be? Our town fathers ought to be somewhat more tolerant of a want of refinement which is more or less inevitable under the conditions--for which conditions, moreover, they are in part responsible.

As to the first charge, it can only be remarked that suppression of what authorities think is subversive and seditious almost invariable has the same effect as would an effort to smother an active volcano. The ideas get expressed anyhow--and more bitterly, with the added circumstance that those who try to do the smothering are burnt. Of course, it is not easy to determine at just what point language becomes directly provocative to violence. This limit of possible official tolerance is far less often reached than would be indicated by the actual conduct of local officials in these circumstances. "It cannot be considered as provocative of immediate disorder," says Police Commissioner Arthur Woods, of New York, "if speakers criticize, no matter how vehemently, the existing order of things, or if they recommend, no matter how enthusiastically, a change which they believe would improve things."[513] When George Creel was police commissioner in Denver he took a similar position and worked on the theory that all ideas could be safely given a hearing. He is reported to have given the following answer to an I. W. W. committee which applied to him for a "soap-box permit": "Go ahead, boys; speak as much as you like; only there's just one favor I'm going to ask. I wish you wouldn't spout directly under the army headquarters. They're not important, but they're childish, and they'll make me lots of bother if you do."[514] The result: nothing more happened than happens when the mine operators say that the leaders of the United Mine Workers ought to be taken out and shot. There was free speech but no fight.

After the experience of Spokane, Fresno, and San Diego some members of the organization at least recognized that no matter how absolute their right to pitch into established institutions from every angle, the sober necessities of a successful propaganda for revolutionary industrial unionism demanded more concentration upon that subject. In September, 1913, Ewald Koetgen, a member of the General Executive Board, made this suggestion to the delegates at the eighth convention:

If you confine yourself strictly to the propaganda of industrial unionism, and then they prohibit you from using the street corner, you have a much stronger case. Many ... attack everybody, the police, the city officials, religion, politics, and everything else. They speak about everything under the sun and these pretexts are used in order to keep them off the street, whereas, in a good many cities, the organizer could go and speak on industrial unionism, and be left there a whole lot longer....[515]

In the fall of 1909 there were no less than three important free-speech campaigns conducted by the I. W. W. These were staged at Missoula, Montana; Spokane, Washington; and New Castle, Pennsylvania. In 1910 small "fights" were conducted in the spring and summer in Wenatchee and Walla Walla, Washington, and during the fall a much more important one at Fresno, California. This latter struggle continued until March, 1911. From this time until the end of the year 1913 hardly a mouth elapsed that did not witness a more or less important free-speech controversy between the Wobblies and the municipal authorities in some part of the United States. In the five-year period, 1909-1913, there were at least twenty free-speech campaigns of importance, continuing under definite I. W. W. direction for periods ranging from a few days to more than six months. The most important of these disturbances was that at San Diego, which broke out about February 1, 1912, and continued until late the following summer. Since 1913 free speech has been a less important issue with the I. W. W., and there have been comparatively few such disturbances.

Paterson, New Jersey, Aberdeen, South Dakota, Old Forge, Pennsylvania, and Everett, Washington, are almost the only cases of any great importance. The most serious of these was the Everett free-speech controversy which culminated in the fatal tragedy of November 6, 1916.

The attitude of the residents of the cities where free-speech fights have been staged was naturally bitterly hostile. This was most strikingly noticeable in business and commercial circles and was of course reflected in the daily press. In San Diego during the free-speech fight the local papers, almost without exception, kept up a running fire of editorial abuse of the I. W. W.s. "Hanging is none too good for them," said the _Tribune_; "they would be much better dead, for they are absolutely useless in the human economy; they are the waste material of creation and should be drained off into the sewer of oblivion there to rot in cold obstruction like any other excrement."[516] In the face of such a tirade it is interesting to read the report of the Special Commissioner sent by Governor Hiram Johnson to investigate the disturbances in San Diego. Commissioner Weinstock took pains to follow up the stories of the brutality and cruelty of the self-constituted citizens' committee of Vigilantes not only to the I. W. W.s but also to any who were outspoken enough to defend them or who were alleged to have aided and abetted them. Mr. Weinstock says that he "is frank to confess that when he became satisfied of the truth of the stories ... it was hard for him to believe that he was not sojourning in Russia, conducting his investigation there instead of in this alleged 'land of the free and home of the brave.'"[517]

The organization made no attempt to hold a convention in 1909, but in May, 1910, the fifth convention met in Chicago. On the first day there were twenty-two delegates present, representing forty-two local unions in the following states: California, Colorado, Montana, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Indiana, and in British Columbia. Judging from the very fragmentary records available there was little business of any importance transacted at this meeting. The delegates adopted a resolution to "reaffirm the original [Industrial Union] Manifesto of 1905,..."[518] and dispersed.

In September, 1911, fifteen months later, a somewhat more successful convention was held. This sixth annual meeting of the I. W. W. was in point of size almost as insignificant as the preceding one, thirty-one delegates from eleven states being present. In addition to the regular delegates there were present three "fraternal delegates" from the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Twenty-one locals were represented in addition to the locals included in the Textile Workers National Industrial Union of the I. W. W.--the only "national industrial union at that time included in the organization."[519] The convention was harmonious, and there is, therefore, the less to chronicle. "Most of the delegates were young men full of the fire and enthusiasm of youth. 'Intellectuals' were conspicuous by their absence."[520] We are told that very few changes were made in the organic law of the organization. Proposals were made, however, by the score. In the appendix to the _Minutes_ is a list containing seventy resolutions which were presented on the floor of the convention.[521] The question of politics was scarcely touched upon. An anti-parliamentary resolution was voted down without discussion. The bulk of the delegates were undoubtedly _non_-parliamentarians, that is to say, indifferent about politics and legislative action. An official report of the convention in the _Industrial Worker_ says that the report of General Organizer Trautmann, which it declared would be published later in _Solidarity_,

was a scathing indictment of the criminal alliance between the A. F. of L. fakirs and the self-styled revolutionary socialist politicians, who, as the report shows, time and again have acted in full concert in defeating strikes rather than to allow the workers to win with I. W. W. methods--methods whose success spells ruination for the political and craft union movements which are sucking the life blood of the working class.[522]

Mr. Trautmann later transfered his allegiance to the Socialist Labor party faction. The _Weekly People_ (the official S. L. P. organ) of July 26, 1913, published (on page 2) a letter from Trautmann to Eugene V. Debs in which he says:

In the convention of 1911 of the Industrial Workers of the World my report contained a scathing attack on the anti-political politicians and the never-will-I-work scavengers who pose as organizers and spokesmen of the organization. The convention ordered that report to be printed ... [but] Vincent St. John and his clique put away the report and it never appeared.

Official reports of the convention claimed that there had been "a gradual increase in the moral, financial and numerical strength of the I. W. W." This claim is not entirely justified by available figures. The number of locals in the organization was but slightly, if any, greater. Fewer charters were issued and more locals disbanded in 1911 than in 1910. The membership figures are conflicting, those furnished by the Secretary-Treasurer making a less favorable showing than those of Professor Barnett.[523] Mr. St. John says that the membership of the organization in good standing in October, 1911, was about 10,000.

We do not claim anything [he said] except membership in good standing; as a matter of fact, however, the General Office has issued 60,000 due books in the past eighteen months and of this number only about one in ten keeps in good standing, due to the kind of work the membership of the most part follow. They are engaged in construction, harvesting and working in the woods, _etc._ This means that they are out of touch with the organization the greater part of the year either on the job or moving about the country looking for work, and of course they cannot and do not keep in good standing, but as they drift into town they pay up. In passing, it may be stated that the above number is the largest membership the I. W. W. has had since its inception, except when the W. F. of M. was supposed to be a part of the organization. I know that the second annual convention reports claim 60,000 members, but the books of the organization did not justify any such claim; in fact, the average paid-up membership with the W. F. of M. for the first year of the organization was 14,000 members in round numbers.[524]

There was at this time a very considerable gain in particular industries, such as metal working and railroad and building construction. This development is indicated in Table 1, which shows the average membership of the I. W. W. in the specified industries during the period 1910-1913:

TABLE 1[525]

AVERAGE MEMBERSHIP (CHICAGO) I. W. W.--1910-1913, BY INDUSTRIES

----------------------------------+---------------------------- | Average Membership. |------+------+------+------- Industry. | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 ----------------------------------+------+------+------+------- Textile | 4300 | 4397 | 9637 | 1550 Lumber | 1200 | 800 | 1227 | 650 Marine transport | .. | .. | .. | 2100 Metal | 200 | 2000 | 144 | 300 Automobile | 300 | 500 | 83 | 150 Hotel and Restaurant | 150 | 100 | 151 | 50 Building Construction | 150 | 600 | 204 | 1200 Railroad Construction | 1000 | 1800 | 2366 | 1755 Tobacco | 100 | 400 | 200 | 450 Packing House | 100 | 75 | 69 | 50 Public Service | .. | .. | .. | 1700 Coal Mining | 200 | 200 | 207 | 250 Railroad Transportation | .. | .. | .. | 100 Street Railways | .. | .. | .. | 50 Farm Workers | .. | .. | .. | 100 Oil | .. | 50 | 61 | 50 Rubber | .. | .. | .. | 150 Furniture | .. | .. | .. | 100 Electric Power | .. | .. | .. | 150 Reed and Rattan | .. | .. | .. | 100 Amusement | .. | 25 | 130 | 50 Musical Instruments (Piano, etc.) | 100 | 200 | 226 | 450 Leather | .. | .. | 150 | .. Mixed Locals | 1300 | 1537 | 3532 | 2800 |------+------+------+------- | 9100 |12834 |18387 |14305 ----------------------------------+------+------+------+-------

If figures are ever misleading, they are so in reference to the "Wobblies." They are presented, however, in the belief that they have some significance. The organization was now unquestionably picking up. In 1910 there had been a number of I. W. W. strikes--nine at any rate in which the organization was actively interested. In April, the farm hands of North Yamhill, Oregon, who "had been handing out the principles of revolutionary unionism in huge, raw chunks,"[526] walked out on account of the discharge of some of their number. In August, the Gas Works' laborers in southern California, chiefly Mexicans, were out for about two weeks for higher wages. The settlement as reported fixed wages at $2.25 and provided that only I. W. W.s were to be employed in the future. A strike of the window cleaners in Providence for a wage increase and the closed shop was reported won. These instances will give an idea of the character of the strikes and the workers involved. In 1910 there appear to have been very few strikes in which the I. W. W. was interested. Such meager data as are available about I. W. W. strikes have been gathered together in Appendix VIII.

Although 1911 was an inactive year as regards strikes, the condition of the organization was not nearly so hopeless as it had been.

Despite the prevailing "hard times," [writes "The Commentator"] the I. W. W. is (in February, 1911) upheld by six weekly papers of its own.... Far from being weak and emaciated, as in 1907, the I. W. W. is putting up a robust fight for free speech and assemblage at Fresno, Cal.; and is giving the Shoe Manufacturers' Association of Greater New York the struggle of their lives--a struggle in which for the first time the employers combat an organization which means to make the shop the collective property of the workers....[527]

Another indication of growth was the expansion of the I. W. W. press. At the close of the fourth convention the I. W. W. had only one paper, the _Industrial Union Bulletin_, which suspended publication early in 1909 and whose place was filled by the _Industrial Worker_ (II.) (Spokane), which in turn passed out in September, 1913. The _Industrial Worker_ (I.) was published from January, 1906, until the summer of 1907. The _Industrial Worker_ (III.) (Seattle) began publication in April, 1916, and continues to appear.[528] It is stated in _Solidarity_, July 2, 1910, that in that year the I. W. W. had seven papers in as many different languages.

During the twelve months preceding the sixth convention (September, 1911) seventy locals were organized and forty-eight disbanded. They were distributed among specified industries, as shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2[529]

_Industry_ _Organized_ _Disbanded_

Metal and machinery 11 10 Food stuffs (Bakers) 2 2 Recruiting locals 13 8 Tobacco 1 Building 4 4 Shoe 1 1 Public Service 8 4 Clothing 3 3 Furniture 1 Mining (coal) 4 Transportation 7 2 Smelting 1 Lumber 9 4 Farming 2 2 Car building 2 4 Steel 1 4 ------------- 70 48

Secretary-Treasurer St. John presented an interesting classification of the reasons given for the disbanding of these forty-eight local unions. He distributes them as follows:

Disrupted by lack of interest 22 Disrupted by strike 6 Disrupted by other organizations 6 Work closing down 5 Disrupted by members leaving locality 2 Incompetent secretary 2 Disrupted by internal dissension 1 Members left for Mexico 1 No record 3 --- 48[530]

It was at this meeting that the question of the authority of the general administration over the rank and file was first seriously considered in the I. W. W. A number of constitutional changes were proposed and most of them were brought forward with the more or less definite idea of minimizing, or at least modifying in some way, the authority of the national officers and the other members or the General Executive Board. These amendments originated chiefly from local unions in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States. The debates lasted several days and involved a rather thorough discussion of the relations between the different parts of the organization. All of these proposed amendments were lost, the delegates being of the opinion probably that few constitutional changes were necessary.[531]

At this (1911) convention, W. Z. Foster presented his report as representative of the I. W. W. at the seventh conference of the International Labor Secretariat which met at Budapest in August. He was unable to make a very favorable report. The international conference, after giving an entire day to a discussion of the question of the admission of the I. W. W., refused it unanimously despite the fact that his claims were backed by the representatives of the _Confédération Générale du Travail_ of France.[532] At about this time the French syndicalists were facing a serious crisis, which threatened them as well with complete division. They escaped then, but there have since developed two groups in the C. G. T.: the "red" (revolutionary) syndicalists, and the "yellow" (conservative) syndicalists.[533]

Karl Kautsky quotes M. Lagardelle as having admitted in 1911 that "the present crisis compels a general revision of the facts and the ideas of syndicalism. After a glorious beginning we find ourselves faced with that which is generally the result of forced marches in complete exhaustion."[534]

The I. W. W. had had no direct contact with French syndicalism previous to 1908. Moreover, its relations with the French movement have not at any time been as close or as definite as is generally imagined. The I. W. W. _organization_ is an indigenous American product, if there ever was such a thing. The tactics used have come in part through the reading by I. W. W.s of the writings of Pouget, Sorel, Lagardelle, and others of the French syndicalist school. This contagion of ideas has also spread through personal contacts. In 1908 William D. Haywood went to Europe and there met some of the leaders of the C. G. T. Again in 1910 he was present at the International Labor and Socialist Congress at Copenhagen. He nominally represented the Socialist party of America, but he also, in an unofficial way, championed the cause of American syndicalism as it had been developed by the Industrial Workers of the World.[535]

The biennial conference of the International (Labor) Secretariat met at Budapest, Hungary, August 10-12, 1911. The entire first day's session was taken up with a lengthy argument over the admission of W. Z. Foster, the I. W. W. delegate. His credentials were finally rejected since he had only the support of the French _Confédération Générale du Travail_.[536] President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, in his report to its convention held later on in the same year, refers to "the repudiation of the so-called Industrial Workers of the World" at the Budapest conference. "Inasmuch," he said, "as the would-be delegate for the corporal's guard that composes the Industrial Workers of the World professed to support the policies and program of the _Confédération Générale du Travail_ of France, his pretensions were supported by the latter organization."[537] James Duncan, the A. F. of L. delegate at Budapest, reported that "a misguided man, named Foster, from Chicago, claiming to represent an alleged organization of labor in America, called the International [_sic_] Workers of the World, had been for some time in Paris ..." and had apparently convinced the C. G. T. that he should be recognized at the Budapest conference instead of the A. F of L. representatives. "During the discussion Foster lost control of his temper," said Duncan; "he even threatened assault ...--ocular demonstration of what an I. W. W. really is(!) ... [But] the Frenchmen were not dismayed at their tricolor being smudged with I. W. W. mire."[538]

French syndicalism, then, has entered the I. W. W. to give it certain characteristic strike tactics and a set of foggy philosophical concepts about the General Strike, the "militant minority," _etc._ To this extent the I. W. W. is a syndicalist union. In structure it is a decentralized body (to the extent that it has any body to be decentralized), whereas the C. G. T. is decidedly centralized. In its organization and in its attitude toward compatriot labor bodies it is at variance with the French Confédération. The French idea has taken more definite form in the United States in the shape of the Syndicalist League of North America.

The Syndicalist League is a propaganda body rather than a labor organization. It is directed largely against the I. W. W.--opposing syndicalism to the industrialism of the American organization. It believes in the possibility of reforming the American Federation of Labor from within and condemns the dual-unionism of the I. W. W. It is optimistic regarding the craft union. "It is aware," says William English Walling, "that it will be impossible to secure a revolutionary majority in these organizations, whether of a socialistic or of an anarchistic character, and it has imported for this contingency the French syndicalistic theory of the power of the 'militant minority.'"[539] A number of the anarchists were inclined to favor the Syndicalist League because they feared the "centralized government" of the I. W. W.[540]

In this connection it may be well to note here the organization in New York City in October, 1912, of the Syndicalist Educational League with Hippolyte Havel, secretary, and Harry Kelly, treasurer. This, we are informed, "is an organization of active propagandists formed for the purpose of spreading the idea of syndicalism, direct-action and the general-strike among the organized and unorganized workers of America."[541]

In 1911 the trial of the MacNamara brothers for the dynamiting of the _Los Angeles Times_ building was stirring the country. The I. W. W. so vigorously championed the cause of the indicted men that the _San Francisco Chronicle_ was moved to say:

... Now comes every socialist agitator and every rascal who calls himself a socialist, and declares that even the arrest of the indicted men is an "outrage." That hobo gang which calls itself the "Industrial Workers of the World" calls for a "general strike" as a protest against the alleged "kidnapping" of the men who have been indicted.[542]

A few days later the _Industrial Worker_ carried in capitals on the front page the following

OFFICIAL I. W. W. PROCLAMATION!

"AROUSE! PREPARE TO DEFEND YOUR CLASS!"

"A general strike in all industries must be the answer of the workers to the challenge of the masters! Tie up all industries! Tie up all production! Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Issued Apr. 25, 1911, by the Industrial Workers of the World.[543]

When the seventh convention met in 1912 the General Executive Board declared that the MacNamara case "demonstrated beyond doubt that no legal safeguard can be invoked to protect any member of the working class who incurs the enmity of the employers by standing between them and unlimited exploitation of the workers." Furthermore, it charged that the A. F. of L. "did not come to their assistance as it should have done ... [because] the moral support guaranteed these members of the working class was practically _nil_ so far as the American Federation of Labor was concerned."[544]

These militant utterances of the I. W. W. served to increase a growing hostility to that organization in the Socialist party. This increasing opposition was directed against the methods and tactics of I. W. W.-ism rather than against its criticism of capitalist society, its form or organization or its idea of the character of the society of the future. The Socialists objected in general to the whole philosophy of direct action, and more particularly to certain phases of direct action--_viz._, the use of _sabotage_ and violence in general.

One I. W. W. official defines direct action as the "withdrawal of labor power or efficiency from the place or object of production."[545] Emma Goldman, a prominent anarchist, describes it as the "conscious individual or collective effort to protest against or remedy social conditions through the systematic assertion of the economic power of the workers."[546] Professor Hubert Lagardelle, one of the _intellectuels_ of the French syndicalist movement, explains that "Direct Action is opposed to the indirect and legalized action of democracy, of Parliament and of parties. It means that instead of delegating to others the function of action (following the habit of democracy), the working class is determined to work for itself."[547] _Sabotage_ has been defined by the leading English Syndicalist, Tom Mann, as "the taking of advantage for personal or class gain."[548] Pouget says that "le sabotage est la mise en pratique da la maxime: à mauvaise paye, mauvais travail."[549] In its mildest form sabotage is simply the time-honored trade-union practice--restriction of output. Gustav Hervé, the editor of _La Guerre Sociale_, advocates its use as a kind of _gymnastique révolutionnaire_ or training for the revolution which many socialists believe may be precipitated by the violence of the capitalists, in the guise, perhaps, of martial law. It may be convenient to think of direct action as the _inclusive_ term. Thus it may take the form of concerted abstention from work and be simply a strike, or it may take the form of working "in a way detrimental to the boss" and be one kind of _sabotage_.

An interesting example of the I. W. W.'s press campaign for the methods of _sabotage_ and direct action was furnished when in the summer of 1913 the I. W. W. locals of Los Angeles began the publication of a semi-official weekly paper called _The Wooden Shoe_. This name was selected on the strength of the legend that the word _sabotage_ was coined in France when a workman with a grievance threw his _sabot_ or wooden shoe into the machinery and so clogged it and stopped production. This kind of direct action is picturesquely advocated on the front page of each issue of this paper. Grouped around the title heading--_The Wooden Shoe_--are the following boxed mottoes and slogans:

"A kick in time saves nine." "Kick your way out of wage slavery." "Our coat-of-arms: The shoe rampant." "A kick on the job is worth ten at the ballot-box." "Immediate demands: Wooden shoes on all jobs." "The foot in the wooden shoe will rock the world." "An injury to one is the concern of all."

These tactics had been more and more _talked about_ if not practised by the I. W. W. for several years past. Indeed, it is safe to say that the practical application of those forms of direct action which the "Wobblies" consider expedient was becoming constantly more general. When the Socialists met in convention at Indianapolis in May, 1912, the problem of the proper attitude for the Socialist party to take toward the I. W. W., and more especially toward the "direct action" propaganda, was made the occasion of a violent controversy. The discussion centered on a motion to insert a new clause in the constitution of the Socialist party providing (in Article II, Sec. 6) that "any member of the party who opposes political action or advocates crime, _sabotage_, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class to aid in its emancipation shall be expelled from membership in the party...."[550] After a long debate the amendment was adopted by a vote of 191 to 90, and the now famous Article II., Sec. 6, became a party law.[551] During the discussion there were some quite violent criticisms made of direct action and violence. Delegate W. R. Gaylord said: "We do not want any of it. None of it! We don't want the touch of it on us. We do not want the hint of it connected with us. We repudiate it in every fibre of us."[552] Victor Berger expressed himself very emphatically on the "sabotage clause."

I desire to say [he declared] that articles in the _Industrial Worker_, of Spokane, the official organ of the I. W. W., breathe the same spirit, are as anarchistic as anything that John Most has ever written. I want to say to you, comrades, that I for one do not believe in murder as a means of propaganda; I do not believe in theft as a means of expropriation; nor in a continuous riot as a free-speech agitation. Every true Socialist will agree with me when I say that those who believe that we should substitute "Hallelujah, I'm a bum" for the _Marseillaise_, and for the _Internationale_, should start a "bum organization" of their own. (Loud laughter and great cheering.)[553]

It was not alone the advocacy of "direct action" which incurred for the I. W. W. the enmity of the Socialists. The latter felt that when the I. W. W. in 1908 "repudiated political action," it really declared war on the Socialist party. That party obviously could not consistently approve of the Detroit I. W. W. because that faction was really the ward of a rival political organization, the Socialist Labor party. Ernest Untermann, who was one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World, said at a previous convention of the Socialist party: "When we organized the I. W. W., we hoped that it would be both a political and an economic organization.... Instead of that, from the very outside there crept in an element that made for disintegration, and today the I. W. W. has drifted back toward syndicalism."[554] He declared, moreover, that the I. W. W. deeply in debt to the Socialist party, as he intimated, had ungratefully obstructed the work of the party:

We helped the I. W. W. in its fight for free speech in Spokane and for working-class power on the coast, [he said] and yet while our speakers were collecting money [in San Francisco] ... to help the I. W. W., the fighters from the I. W. W. were on the outside of our meetings and knocking.... They sent their fighters over to Local Oakland, right across the bay, with the avowed purpose of breaking up that local and destroying the activity of the Socialist party.... I shall be true to the principle of industrial unionism, but the I. W. W. can go to hell. (Applause.)[555]

Finally the last tie that connected the I. W. W. with the Socialist party was broken when, in February, 1913, William D. Haywood was recalled from the National Executive Committee of the party.[556]

FOOTNOTES:

[509] _Cf._ Appendix iv, Table A. The industrial distribution of fifty-nine of these is given in _Solidarity_ (May 14, 1910) as follows:

Quarry workers 1 Bakery workers 1 Metal and machine workers 3 Building workers 8 Lumber workers 2 Public service workers 2 Hotel workers 2 Packing house workers 2 Garment workers 1 Glass workers 1 Coal miners 7 Harbor workers 1 Steel workers 5 Car builders 5 Transportation workers 1 Wood workers 1 Textile workers 1 Mixed locals 15 __ 59

[510] "The development of syndicalism in America," _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. xviii, p. 470 (Sept., 1913).

[511] Report of the General Secretary-Treasurer to the Fourth Convention, _Industrial Union Bulletin_, Oct. 24, 1908. For list of strikes, _vide_ Appendix viii.

[512] _Industrial Relations_ (Testimony at hearings). vol. ii, pp. 1460, 1461.

[513] Ninth annual meeting of the American Sociological Society, Dec., 1914. _Publications_, vol. ix, "Restrictions upon freedom of assemblage," p. 32.

[514] "Free, Speech Fights of the I. W. W." Report to the U. S. Commission on Industrial Relations. Typewritten MS., p. 20.

[515] _Proceedings_, p. 102, col. 1-2.

[516] San Diego _Tribune_, March 4, 1912 (editorial).

[517] Harris Weinstock, _Report to the governor of California on the disturbances in the city and county of San Diego in 1912_, p. 16.

[518] Proceedings, _Industrial Worker_ (II), June 25, 1910, p. 3.

[519] _Minutes of the Sixth Convention_ (Typewritten MS.), pp. 1-3.

[520] B. H. Williams, "The Sixth I. W. W. Convention," _International Socialist Review_, vol. xii. p. 302, November, 1911.

[521] Appendix to the _Minutes_, pp. 1-9.

[522] _Industrial Worker_ (II), Sept. 28, 1911, p. 4. col. 1.

[523] See Appendix iv, Table A.

[524] Letter to the author, Oct. 13, 1911.

[525] Compiled from figures furnished by General Secretary St. John (Letter of Feb. 1, 1915).

[526] _Industrial Worker_, April 23, 1910.

[527] "The I. W. W., its Strength and Opportunity," _Solidarity_, Feb. 25, 1911, p. 3, col. 1.

[528] Since this was written its publication has been suspended by the government.

[529] From report of General Secretary-Treasurer St. John to Sixth Convention; in Appendix to _Minutes_.

[530] Report to the Sixth Convention. Appendix to _Minutes_. In appendix vi, the causes for suspension of locals are shown by individual unions.

[531] B. H. Williams, "Sixth I. W. W. Convention," _International Socialist Review_, vol. xii, pp. 300-302, Nov., 1911.

[532] _International Socialist Review_, vol. xii, p. 245, October, 1911.

[533] Cf. F. Challaye, _Le syndicalisme révolutionnaire et le syndicalisme réformiste, passim._

[534] _Chicago Evening World_ (July 13, 1912).

[535] _Compte Rendu_ (Ghent, 1911), p. 42.

[536] _Proceedings, Thirty-first Annual Convention, A. F. of L._ (Atlanta, Ga., Nov., 1911), p. 29.

[537] _Ibid._

[538] _Ibid._, p. 149. Report of James Duncan, delegate to the Budapest Conference. This report is also published in pamphlet form.

[539] _Internationalist Socialist Review_, Mar., 1913, vol. xiii, p. 667, col. 1.

[540] This view is presented by Harry Kelly, "A Syndicalist League" (a plea for the launching of a Syndicalist League in the United States), _Mother Earth_, Sept., 1912. Cf. also Foster, Wm. Z., and Ford, E. D., _Syndicalism_, which ably draws the distinction between the semi-anarchistic and semi-conservative syndicalism of the C. G. T. which some writers have tried to import, out of hand, into the United States, and the Industrial Socialism of the I. W. W.

[541] _Mother Earth_, Nov., 1912, vol. vii, p. 307.

[542] May 2, 1911 (Editorial). Reprinted in _Solidarity_, May 20, 1911. p. 4, col. 1.

[543] May 11, 1911.

[544] _On the Firing Line_, pp. 7-9.

[545] William E. Trautmann, _One Great Union_, p. 24. note.

[546] _Syndicalism_ (New York, Mother Earth Publishing Assn.), p. 9.

[547] _Le Mouvement Socialiste_, December, 1908, vol. xxiv, p. 453.

[548] Interview in the New York _World_, Aug. 3, 1913, Sec. N, p. 1, col. 8.

[549] _La Confédération Générale du Travail_ (2nd ed., Paris, n. d.), p. 46.

[550] _Vide, National Constitution of the Socialist Party_ (Chicago, Socialist Party, 1914), p. 2.

[551] _Proceedings, National Convention of the Socialist Party, 1912_, pp. 136-7. In an analysis of the vote, W. J. Ghent has shown (_National Socialist_, June 1, 1912) that between 67 and 75 per cent of the delegates who voted against the clause "were not proletarians."

[552] _Proceedings_, p. 123. col. 1.

[553] _Ibid._, p. 130.

[554] _Proceedings, National Socialist Congress_, Chicago, May, 1910, p. 281. See also Untermann, _No compromise with the I. W. W._, typewritten MS. (published in 1913 in the New York _Call_ and the _National Socialist_).

[555] National Convention of the Socialist Party, _op. cit._, p. 163, col. 1.

[556] Since this chapter was written several laws have been enacted which have been more or less directly aimed at the Industrial Workers of the World. Australia led off with the "Unlawful Associations Act" passed by the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth in December, 1916. (Reported in the _New York Times_, December 20, 1916, p. 5. col. 2. Cf. _infra_, p. 341.) Within three months of the passage of the Australian Act, the American States of Minnesota and Idaho passed laws "defining criminal syndicalism and prohibiting the advocacy thereof." In February, 1918, the Montana legislature met in extraordinary session and enacted a similar statute. (These three state laws are printed in appendix x.) _Vide_ also _infra_, pp. 344-6.

At Sacramento, on January 16, 1919, according to daily press reports, all of the 46 defendants in the California I. W. W. conspiracy case tried there in the Federal District Court were found guilty of conspiring to violate the Constitution of the United States and the Espionage Act and with attempting to obstruct the war activities of the Government. All of the defendants were members--or alleged members--of the I. W. W. and the case is similar to the one tried in Chicago in 1918. On January 17 Judge Rudkin is reported to have sentenced 43 of the defendants to prison terms of from one to ten years (_New York Times_, January 17 and 18, 1919.) The trial is reported in _The Nation_ of January 25, 1919. _Cf. supra_, p. 8.