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

The American Federation of Labor, as the embodiment of the craft idea, was the subject of bitter attack at this prenatal conference. The general opinion seemed to be that the A. F. of L. had outlived its usefulness, and that its extinction—but not necessarily the extinction of its constituent local unions—was a consummation very much to be desired.

The A. F. of L. very naturally resented its proposed annihilation.

But the members of the January conference did not propose any wholesale or indiscriminate "smashing from without." It is true they believed the Federation, as a federation, to be harmful to the interests of labor—and would have been nothing loath to "smash" it—but the federated units they proposed to take over and unite in a very different way.

Mr. A. M. Simons, who claims to have given the final draft to the Manifesto, says that "the idea expressed at the conference was to form a new central body, into which existing unions and unions to be formed could be admitted, but not to form rival unions."[92] Discussing the January conference in the International Socialist Review,[93] Mr. Simons traces this idea back to two vital tendencies of the day, viz., (1) the merging of trade lines in the class struggle, and (2) the accelerated growth of class-consciousness on the part of the capitalists. He concludes that "the only question about the desirability of forming such an organization is the question of timeliness."

The organized laborers were only a part of the concern of the conference. Over ninety per cent of those gainfully occupied are unorganized. It was, of course, realized that outside of all unions stood the overwhelming majority of all workingmen, and, as Daniel DeLeon put it, these men did not "propose to go into these organizations run by the Organized Scabbery, because they had burned their fingers thus enough. The organization of the future has to be built of the men who are now unorganized—that is, the overwhelming majority of the working men in the nation."[94]

Thus it was really hoped that much could and would be done by workingmen in the existent unions, without breaking away from these local unions. These latter must be pried away from the A. F. of L., but not themselves destroyed. By all means let us "bore from within" as far as that can be done; also when we can bore no longer, let us hammer from without and pound together new bodies from out the great unorganized mass. This, in brief, was the position of most of the industrialists. However, not all would yet go this far. Even among the Socialist leaders a note of dissent was heard expressing the belief that to "bore from within" was the only revolutionary method not absolutely suicidal.[95] Just what fate awaited these January ideas was to some extent revealed in the proceedings of the June convention.

The convention called in accordance with the Manifesto of the January conference met two hundred strong in Chicago on Tuesday, June 27, 1905. This gathering was first referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention," but since before adjournment it had organized itself as the Industrial Workers of the World, it is referred to as the First Annual Convention of the I. W. W. It was a gathering remarkable and epoch-making in more ways than one, and therefore the story of its activities is essential, not only to an understanding of the subsequent career of the organization, but as a fundamental chapter in the whole history of industrial unionism. The discussions and resolutions of the assembly and the final type of organization which grew out of them can be understood only in the light thrown on them by a study of the composition of this revolutionary group of men. Its occupational, structural, and doctrinal character should each be taken into account.

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of this group of two hundred radicals was the bewildering range of occupations represented. The variety of different trades represented and the varying "quality" levels exhibited in the organization here gathered to sink all differences and become as one, were astonishingly great. The following list of the different organizations represented at the convention reveals at least forty distinct trades or occupations:

• Bakers and Confectioners Union No. 48, Montreal.[96]
• United Mine Workers No. 171.[96]
• United Mine Workers, Pittsburg, Kans.[96]
• Western Federation of Miners.
• United Brotherhood of Railway Employees.
• Journeymen Tailors Union of America No. 102, Pueblo.[96]
• United Metal Workers International Union of America.
• American Labor Union. (The A. L. U. included primarily the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers and the International Musical and Theatrical Union.)
• Punch Press Operators Union No. 224, Schenectady.
• Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
• Flat Janitors Local Union No. 102, Chicago.
• Mill and Smeltermen's Union of the W. F. of M., Butte.
• Paper Hangers and Decorators, Chicago.
• Federal Union (A. L. U.) No. 252, Denver.
• United Brewery Workers No. 9, Milwaukee.[96]
• United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
• Metal Polishers and Buffers Union.
• Journeymen Tailors Protective and Benevolent Union of San Francisco.
• Journeymen Tailors of Montreal.
• Wage Earners Union of Montreal.
• International Musicians Union.
• The Industrial Workers Club, Cincinnati.
• The Industrial Workers Club, Chicago.
• Workers Industrial and Educational Union, Pueblo.

The foreign organizations were each represented by at least one delegate with full powers and instructions. The following named bodies sent uninstructed delegates:

• Metal Polishers, Buffers and Platers No. 6, Chicago.[97]
• Carpenters and Joiners No. 181, Chicago.[97]
• Scandinavian Painters, Decorators and Paper Hangers, Chicago.
• International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths and Helpers, No. 110, Chicago.
• German Central Labor Union.
• Switchmen's Union No. 29.[97]
• Bohemian Musicians Union.
• Hotel and Restaurant Workers.[97]
• Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Employees, Division No. 288, Chicago.[97]
• Barbers Union No. 225, Sharon, Pa.[97]
• United Labor League, Sharon, Pa.
• Utah State Federation of Labor, Salt Lake City.
• Cloak Makers and Tailors, Montreal.
• American Flint Glass Workers Union, Toledo.
• Commercial Men's Association, Court No. 1093, Milwaukee.
• Street Laborers Union, Chicago.
• Machinists, District Lodge No. 8.[97]
• International Protective Laborers Union, Dayton, Ohio.
• Typographical Union No. 49, Denver.[97]
• Central Labor Union, North Adams, Mass.
• International Longshoremen's Union No. 271, Hoboken, N. J.[97]
• Iron and Brass Molders, Schenectady.

Aside from the occupations represented above, the following were each represented by one or more individuals: machinists, tanners, electrical workers, bookbinders, editors, teachers, authors, printers, and shoe workers. An attorney-at-law from New York City presented himself at the convention. The committee on credentials recommended that he be seated as a fraternal delegate, on account of the mitigating circumstances that he wrote for several newspapers and was a "friend and sympathizer" of labor. After considerable debate the report of the committee was adopted "with the exception of that portion which refers to the attorney."[98]

This array of occupational or trade types was scarcely more extensive than that of the structural types here grouped together. Of these there were the following types. (1) the simple industrial union, wherein all workers engaged, in whatsoever capacity, in any particular industry are members of the same union. This type was represented by the Western Federation of Miners[99]—really the strongest taproot of the I. W. W. (2) The multi-industrial type, a federation of industrial unions, such as the American Labor Union, which included railway employees, engineers, and musicians. (3) The so-called "international" union, rarely more than national in scope, and merely a national association of local unions of a given trade. This type was represented by the United Metal Workers International Union of America. (4) The non-federative industrial union, like the United Mine Workers of America with industrial rather than trade units, an industrial organization which excludes federation with similar organizations in other industries, or with employers. (5) The ordinary non-federative trade unions, here seen in two types: (a) the trade amalgamation, a federation of unions wherein the constituent bodies are so united as to preserve their individuality, although trade autonomy is thereby destroyed. This type is illustrated here by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers; (b) national unions of any particular trade like the iron molders, wherein the constituent unions are more subordinated to the national body than in the amalgamation. (6) The state federation—as typified by the Utah State Federation of Labor. And finally (7) the rather unconventional type of "union," represented by the Industrial Workers' clubs and the United Labor League.

It should be understood that but a small part of the "international" or national bodies was represented as a whole. The greater number were represented by one or two locals. A number of them were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor at the time, but had become dissatisfied with the policies of that body.[100] However, some of the unions most prominent in the activities of the convention were represented as central or national bodies with all their constituent local unions. Such were the American Labor Union and the United Metal Workers.

Those of the unions present which were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, though forming a fairly large group numerically, represented no material defection from the ranks of the Federation and, generally speaking, played but a passive rôle in the work of the convention. Of the forty-three organizations seated by the credentials committee sixteen were affiliated with the Federation, but at least eleven of these were represented by but one local union. Of all these organizations which had merely local rather than national representation, the United Mine Workers of America was most widely represented, delegates from nine of its local unions being present.[101] A little study of the list of the organizations seated and the localities from which their delegates came, makes it quite evident that on the whole the strong delegations from powerful local bodies, located at strategic points, were those having no connection with the American Federation of Labor, and, conversely, that the fourteen American Federation of Labor unions just referred to were represented as a rule by small and solitary locals of doubtful strength.[102] The insignificant position of the American Federation of Labor bodies in the convention will become still more manifest by an inspection of the lists given above.[103] It will be seen that only five of the sixteen local unions of the American Federation of Labor which were present had empowered their delegates to install their respective local unions in the new organization: two locals of the United Mine Workers and one local each in the Bakers and Confectioners, the Brewery Workers and the Journeymen Tailors unions. All the locals of the United Metal Workers were so empowered. The American Federation of Labor was represented in no direct way among the five great powers of this industrialist convention.[104]

It was confidently expected by many members of the January conference that there would be an immediate secession of a number of national unions from the American Federation of Labor. But whatever may have been the hopes of the originators of the movement, the constitutional convention proved by its very make-up that this new insurgent labor body could not, at the outset at least, build a new organization out of disaffected parts of an old organization.

It has been seen that not all organizations were present on equal footing. In the first place, no union could have any influence or any active part in the proceedings of the convention unless it sent its delegates with full power to install. The January conference had drawn up certain rules governing representation in the forthcoming convention:

The delegates to the convention were in this way grouped into two classes: representative delegates, with voting power proportional to the number of members represented, and individual delegates with merely their own vote, and in some cases not representing any union even as uninstructed delegates. This separation of the two hundred and three delegates, according to the character of their credentials, may be shown as follows:

Including the industrial workers' clubs there were forty-three organizations represented, of which number twenty-three were represented by delegates having full power to install. The above analysis shows that of the 142,991 members presumably represented, nearly two-thirds sent delegates merely to take notes of the proceedings and report back. About one-third, some 51,000, were then prepared to cast their lot with the new undertaking. Also it appears that about one-third of the delegates wielded practically the whole voting power of the assembly.

Moreover, the balance of power within this empowered one-third was most unevenly distributed. Of the 51,000 votes aggregated by those organizations prepared to install, 48,000 votes were distributed among five organizations (these being the only ones with a voting strength of more than 1,000) as follows:

These were the organizations which were most prominent in the activities of the convention. Among their delegates were a goodly number of the most active promotors of the movement. From them—especially from the Western Federation of Miners—finally came the great bulk of the funds for establishing the new union. It is evident that, numerically speaking, one single organization, the Western Federation of Miners, held the balance of power, and of the remaining votes, three-fourths were in the control of the American Labor Union, these two bodies together outnumbering the others ten to one. The sequel was to show that the numerically weaker organizations exerted an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers, because of the great influence exerted by some of their individual delegates. Their representatives were radicals, representing more or less radical unions.

It might seem that the rôle played in the convention by an organization as comparatively weak in numbers as the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance could be accounted for, in some measure at least, by its proportionately large delegation. A glance at the table given above shows that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance with a self-estimated strength of 1450[108] had fourteen delegates, while the Western Federation of Miners, 27,000 strong, had but five delegates. This was true to but a limited extent, for in the first place the voting power of each delegate was in direct proportion to the number of members he represented. Thus Haywood and his colleagues of the Western Federation of Miners had each 5400 votes, while DeLeon and each member of his delegation had 103.6 votes. In the second place, it was a contest of personalities. The fourteen Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance delegates comprised Daniel DeLeon and thirteen others. This same prominence of the individual was more or less evident among the other delegations. Some further concentration of power is evidenced in the fact that William D. Haywood and C. H. Moyer were both empowered delegates from two organisations, since they represented the A. L. U. as well as the W. F. M.

Indeed it is rather significant that several of the organizations which finally merged into the Industrial Workers of the World had little behind them but leaders. In some cases it appears that the membership first credited was greatly exaggerated. Of the organizations installed as a part of the new body, St. John reports that three "existed almost wholly on paper."[109] Several of these labor bodies were really more shadow that substance. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the United Metal Workers, and the American Labor Union, St. John's three "paper" unions, had come upon evil days and were in an advanced stage of disintegration. Hence perhaps their presence here. They did not want to expire. They preferred to be transformed into something yet more militant.

The most significant and interesting phase of this unique body of industrialists was its many-sided intellectual character. Some of the high lights of divergent doctrine preached and defended here show more clearly than anything else how stupendous the undertaking was. Perhaps the least indefinite term which would give them all standing-room would be "revolutionary socialism," though many delegates repudiated the name socialist as being synonymous with reactionist and conservative. If socialists at all, they were socialists with a radical adjective. In reference to some the word "anarchistic" should be substituted for "revolutionary." They all believed in the "irrepressible conflict" between capital and labor. They were a unit in wishing for and aiming at the overthrow of the wages system—the downfall of capitalism. There was no place here for the "Gomperite" and his program of mutual interests of employer and employee; but the absence from the scene of the "identity of interest" and "coffin society" man did not guarantee harmony.[110]

As usual there was disagreement as to the methods to be used to reach the common end desired. Hence certain divergent types of doctrine were expounded and certain warring factions resulted therefrom. St. John enumerates four main varieties as being predominant: (1) Parliamentary Socialists—two types, impossibilist (Marxian) and opportunist (reformist); (2) Anarchists; (3) Industrial Unionists; and (4) the "labor union fakir."[111] This classification is ambiguous. No doubt the "labor union fakir," who gets into any new move of this sort for what he can get out of it, has no real economic creed except that of the profiteer, but he enters a movement of this kind as an exponent of a certain legitimate doctrine and is at least presumed to belong to that doctrinal faction. It has been seen that during the proceedings of the convention it developed that there were delegates present who were not sincere in their attitude. It is a fact, as St. John points out, "that many of those who were present as delegates on the floor of the first convention and the organizations that they represented have bitterly fought the I. W. W. from the close of the first convention up to the present day."[112] By no means all of these are necessarily fakirs, since the outcome of the deliberations of the first convention was somewhat different from that anticipated even by the signers of the manifesto.

There was present a very definite group of anarchists which, though in a rather small minority, was a constituent element in the doctrinal types represented. The term "industrial unionist" was one which really included practically all the participants. The industrial unionist may certainly be a socialist, and even of more than one variety; and it is also conceivable that the industrial unionist may be an anarchist. Consequently the term can hardly be used to mark off any particular faction in a convention of industrial unionists. The parliamentary socialists constituted one of the most powerful elements at the convention. In fact, the two main hostile groups were the impossibilists and the opportunists, the first group comprising parliamentary socialists of the Socialist Labor party and anti-parliamentary socialists, naturally having no political affiliations; and the latter comprising members of the Socialist party.

The line of cleavage then was between the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, that is, between reformist and doctrinaire elements, both parliamentary and both leaning toward industrial unionism. In a less prominent position at first was the direct-actionist group, anti-political and anarchistic. This antagonism of ideas was of course the root cause of the defection of the Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance elements three years later, and was responsible for the existence between 1908 and 1916 of two national organizations called the I. W. W. The Socialist party, or doctrinaire wing, is very logically the descendant of the doctrinaire wing at the first convention, but the direct-actionist or anti-political wing has, strange to say, grown out of and drawn its leaders from the reformist Socialist party.

These divergent creeds were given color and life by a few men who really dominated the convention. There is no organization in existence having less room for hero-worship than the Industrial Workers of the World. The manifesto provided that all "powers should rest in the collective membership." Its members seemed firmly convinced that all labor leaders (except I. W. W. organizers!) are really "misleaders" of labor, and throughout their propaganda literature there is evident this repudiation of leaders and apotheosis of the "collective membership." Nevertheless the I. W. W. has been led and misled by leaders ever since its inception. The first convention rang with the dominant notes of a handful of men: Daniel DeLeon, William D. Haywood, "Father" T. J. Hagerty, Eugene V. Debs, William E. Trautmann, A. M. Simons, Clarence Smith, D. C. Coates, and C. O. Sherman. Debs, Haywood and Simons were then, and are today, members of the Socialist party. Simons and DeLeon were leaders in the two opposing Socialist political parties, Simons in the Socialist party and editor of the Coming Nation, and DeLeon, editor of the Daily People and the one dominant and national figure in the Socialist Labor party. T. J. Hagerty was a Catholic priest. With the coöperation of James P. Thompson, and others probably, he framed the original I. W. W. Preamble. He was the designer of the chart which Samuel Gompers referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel of Fortune,"[113] and the author of a pamphlet entitled Economic Discontent.

Eugene V. Debs, the best known to them all, came into the movement with all his contagious enthusiasm and eloquence, full of optimism for the future of this new organization.

From the West came William D. Haywood with many years' experience with the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado. He was an experienced organizer and was full of the militant spirit of the Western Federation of Miners. He scorned agreements and contracts. Speaking of the Western Federation of Miners at the first convention he said: "We have not got an agreement existing with any mine manager, superintendent, or operator at the present time. We have got a minimum scale of wages" and "... the eight-hour day, and we did not have a legislative lobby to accomplish it."[115] And now he came to Chicago to help build up the same sort of an organization for not alone the mining industry but for all industries.

Probably the most striking figure of all was Daniel DeLeon, editor of the Daily People, a man with a university education, and a graduate of the Columbia University Law School. He was active in the organization of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance in 1895 and was an officer in the Alliance until it was merged in the I. W. W. He came to the first convention as a delegate from the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance. He, too, believed that harmony was possible.

He had been instrumental in creating the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, of which the Socialist Labor party was thenceforward to be the shadow. It transpired, however, that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance actually became the "shadow" or understudy of the Socialist Labor party, and this fact was looked upon by A. M. Simons and others of the Socialist Labor party as having an ominous significance for any new organization to which DeLeon might wish to hitch the Socialist Labor party as a "shadow." There seemed, in short, to be some suspicion afloat at the first convention that the Socialist Labor party proposed, through DeLeon, to tuck the I. W. W. under its wing. Hillquit asserts that "the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance had a record of having caused more disputes and schisms within the Socialist labor movement in America in recent years than any other factor, and its affiliation with the new movement was fateful for the latter."[117] And Simons declared that if DeLeon "could in some way hitch himself on to this new organization, he would be able to infuse the semblance of life into the political and economic corpses of the S. L. P. and the S. T. & L. A."[118]

DeLeon emphatically opposed the policy of "boring from within" advocated by the Socialist party opportunists. He believed it had been tried as a constructive policy and found wanting. So he proposed to build up on the outside the necessary economic organization, which finally should move "under the protecting guns of a labor political party."[119]

On the other hand, the Socialist party men believed in making use of the "boring from within" policy among the local unions, and considered it quite unnecessary for the economic organization to have any political connections whatsoever. They considered the political unity of the workers less vitally important than did the DeLeon group of doctrinaires.

These, then, were the elements of the heterogeneous labor mass, which were to be worked up together into "One Big Union." The thing that made union possible in any degree was the binding influence of common antipathies. It has been suggested that all were at one in being opposed to a capitalistic society. They had no difficulty in making common cause of their mutual hatred of the capitalistic scheme of things. They were perhaps even more able to unite because of common opposition to certain things which they believed were helping to perpetuate the capitalist system. Most prominent and powerful of these was the craft form of labor-union organization.

CHAPTER III
The I. W. W. versus the A. F. of L.

The American Federation of Labor, as the alleged embodiment of everything "crafty," has always been the arch-enemy of the I. W. W. The convention opened with this thought to the fore, and throughout the eleven days of its session it was referred to again and again. William D. Haywood's speech calling the convention to order begins with this paragraph: