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    IWW: A Documentary History
    IWW: A Documentary History
    IWW: A Documentary History
    Ebook414 pages7 hours

    IWW: A Documentary History

    By Lenny Flank

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    A history of the Industrial Workers of the World, the "Wobblies", in their own words, from the opening speech at the IWW's founding convention in 1905, to the tactics of strike and sabotage which made it the most feared labor union in the US, to its role in the 1919 General Strike that shut down the city of Seattle.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLenny Flank
    Release dateSep 29, 2009
    ISBN9781452328706
    IWW: A Documentary History
    Author

    Lenny Flank

    Longtime social activist, labor organizer, environmental organizer, antiwar.

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      IWW - Lenny Flank

      I.W.W.

      A Documentary History

      Edited and with Introductions by Lenny Flank

      © Copyright 2008 by Lenny Flank

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords ebook edition. An illustrated print edition of this book is available from Red and Black Publishers, ISBN 978-0-9791813-5-1.

      Red and Black Publishers, PO Box 7542, St Petersburg, Florida, 33734

      http://www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Part One: Foundation

      IWW Preamble (1905)

      Speech at the Founding Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, by Eugene V Debs (1905)

      The Coming Union, by Eugene V Debs (1905)

      Part Two: Organization

      One Big Union, by William Trautmann (1911)

      The Mission of the Working Class, by Thomas Haggerty and W.E.T. (1913)

      Industrial Unionism: The Road to Freedom, by Joseph Ettor (1913)

      What is the IWW and What Does it Want?, by Justus Ebert (1919)

      Organization, by James Kennedy (1921)

      Part Three: Politics

      The IWW: It’s History, Structure and Methods, by Vincent St John (1917)

      The Communist International to the IWW (1920)

      The IWW In Theory and Practice (excerpt), by Justus Ebert (1938)

      Part Four: Tactics

      The General Strike, by William Haywood (1911)

      Sabotage: Its History, Philosophy and Function, by Walker C Smith (1913)

      Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Worker’s Industrial Efficiency, by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1916)

      The General Strike, by Ralph Chaplin (1933)

      Part Five: Class War

      War in Paterson, by John Reed (1913)

      Resolution Against World War One (1916)

      The Seattle General Strike (1919)

      Introduction

      Revolutionaries who win, are immortalized in history. Revolutionaries who lose, are relegated to the dustbin of history.

      The Industrial Workers of the World, known around the globe as the Wobblies, were revolutionaries who lost. And yet, 100 years after they were crushed by the most brutal campaign of repression in American political history, the Wobblies are still remembered, romanticized, and immortalized.

      This book presents a history of the IWW in its own words, by its best writers and most eloquent speakers. At the pinnacle of its strength in the first decades of the 20th century, the IWW set itself apart from the moderate labor unions of its time by its uncompromising radical stance against capitalism and the wage system, and distinguished itself from the Leninists and Communists by its unflinching condemnation of dictatorship and centralized political power.

      I have had the immense privilege of being an IWW member for many years, of organizing IWW strikes and picket lines, and of serving as a Co-Chair of its General Executive Board. And during that time, I have seen that the principles that the IWW preached a century ago still have their place. Today, in the first decades of the 21st century, when the AFL-CIO labor movement is moribund and impotent, and when Leninist dictatorships in the Soviet Union and elsewhere have collapsed, the message of the IWW still gives hope to those who fight for a world without bosses.

      One Big Union, One General Strike!

      Lenny Flank, x341341

      Part One: Foundation

      Editor’s note: The IWW was founded on the basic principle of opposition to capitalism and rejection of the wage system. This set the IWW apart from the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the dominant labor union in the country at the time, which fought only for higher wages and better working conditions within capitalism (what AFL founder Samuel Gompers termed pure and simple unionism).

      The basic revolutionary goals of the Wobblies were set out succinctly and passionately in the Preamble to the IWW Constitution, which contains what may be the most famous phrase in American labor history: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.

      The IWW’s commitment to revolutionary socialism is also set out in two speeches by Eugene V. Debs, one of the most towering figures of the American Left. A perennial candidate for President of the US under the banner of the Socialist Party, Debs argued that pure and simple unionism was a dead end, and that only concerted action by the entire working class to abolish capitalism completely, would ever bring about real changes in the social and economic condition of working people.

      Today, at a time when AFL-CIO labor unions seek only to gather more crumbs from the capitalist table, while the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to get poorer, the radical message of the IWW is just as relevant as it was in 1905.

      Preamble to the IWW Constitution

      (1905)

      The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

      Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.

      We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

      These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lookout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

      Instead of the conservative motto, A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system.

      It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

      Speech at the Founding Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World

      By Eugene V Debs

      June 29, 1905

      Fellow Delegates and Comrades:

      As the preliminaries in organizing the convention have been disposed of, we will get down to the real work before this body. We are here to perform a task so great that it appeals to our best thought, our united energies, and will enlist our most loyal support; a task in the presence of which weak men might falter and despair, but from which it is impossible to shrink without betraying the working class.

      I am much impressed by this proletarian gathering. I realize that I stand in the presence of those who in the past have fought, are fighting, and will continue to fight the battles of the working class economically and politically, until the capitalist class is overthrown and the working class are emancipated from all of the degrading thralldom of the ages. In this great struggle the working class are often defeated, but never vanquished. Even the defeats, if we are wise enough to profit by them, but hasten the day of the final victory.

      In taking a survey of the industrial field of today, we are at once impressed with the total inadequacy of working-class organization, with the lack of solidarity, with the widespread demoralization we see, and we are bound to conclude that the old form of pure and simple unionism has long since outgrown its usefulness; that it is now not only in the way of progress, but that it has become positively reactionary, a thing that is but an auxiliary of the capitalist class.

      They charge us with being assembled here for the purpose of disrupting the union movement. It is already disrupted, and if it were not disrupted we would not behold the spectacle here in the very city of a white policeman guarding a black scab, and a black policeman guarding a white scab, while the trade unions stand by with their hands in their pockets wondering what is the matter with union labor in America. We are here today for the purpose of uniting the working class, for the purpose of eliminating that form of unionism which is responsible for the conditions as they exist today.

      The trades-union movement is today under the control of the capitalist class. It is preaching capitalist economics. It is serving capitalist purposes. Proof of it, positive and overwhelming, appears on every hand. All of the important strikes during the textile workers at Fall River, that proved so disastrous to those who engaged in it; the strike of the subway employees in the city of New York, where under the present form of organization the local leaders repudiated the local leaders and were in alliance with the capitalist class to crush their own followers; the strike of the stockyard’s employees here in Chicago; the strike of the teamsters now in progress—all, all of them bear testimony to the fact that the pure and simple form of unionism has fulfilled its mission, whatever that may have been, and that the time has come for it to go.

      The American Federation of Labor has numbers, but the capitalist class do not fear the American Federation of Labor; quite the contrary. The capitalist papers here in this very city at this very time are championing the cause of pure and simple unionism. Since this convention met there has been nothing in these papers but a series of misrepresentations. If we had met instead in the interest of the American Federation of Labor these papers, these capitalist papers, would have had their columns filled with articles commending the work that is being done here. There is certainly something wrong with that form of unionism which has its chief support in the press that represents capitalism; something wrong in that form of unionism whose leaders are the lieutenants of capitalism; something wrong with that form of unionism that forms an alliance with such a capitalist combination as the Civic Federation, whose sole purpose it is to chloroform the working class while the capitalist class go through their pockets. There are those who believe that this form of unionism can be changed from within. They are very greatly mistaken. We might as well have remained in the Republican and Democratic parties and have expected to effect certain changes from within, instead of withdrawing from those parties and organizing a party that represented the exploiting working class. There is but one way to effect this great change, and that is for the workingman to sever his relations with the American Federation and join the union that proposes upon the economic field to represent his class, and we are here today for the purpose of organizing that union. I believe that we are capable of profiting by the experiences of the past. I believe it is possible for the delegates here assembled to form a great, sound, economic organization of the working class based upon the class struggle, that shall be broad enough to embrace every honest worker, yet narrow enough to exclude every fakir.

      Now, let me say to those delegates who are here representing the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance, that I have not in the past agreed with their tactics. I concede that their theory is right, that their principles are sound; I admit and cheerfully admit the honesty of their membership. But there must certainly be something wrong with their tactics or their methods of propaganda if in these years they have not developed a larger membership than they have to their credit.

      Let me say in this connection, I am not of those who scorn you because of your small numbers. I have been taught by experience that numbers do not represent strength. I will concede that the capitalist class do not fear the American Federation of Labor because of their numbers. Let me add that the capitalist class do not fear your Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance. The one are too numerous and the other are not sufficiently numerous. The American Federation of Labor is not sound in its economics. The Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance is sound in its economics, but in my judgment it does not appeal to the American working class in the right spirit. Upon my lips there has never been a sneer for the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance on account of the smallness of its numbers. I have been quite capable of applauding the pluck, of admiring the courage of the members of the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance, for though few in numbers, they stay by their colors.

      I wish, if I can, to point out what I conceive to be the error in their method of propaganda. Speaking of the members as I have met them, it seems to me that they are too prone to look upon a man as a fakir who happens to disagree with them. Now, I think there is no delegate in this convention who is more set against the real fakir than I am. But I believe it is possible for a workingman who has been the victim of fakirism to become so alert, to so strain his vision looking for the fakir that he sees the fakir where the fakir is not. I would have you understand that I am opposed to the fakir, and I am also opposed to the fanatic. And fanaticism is as fatal to the development of the working-class movement as is fakirism. Admitting that the principles is sound, that the theory of your organization is right—and I concede both—what good avails it, what real purpose is accomplished if you cannot develop strength sufficient to carry out the declared purpose of your organization?

      Now, I believe that there is a middle ground that can be occupied without the slightest concession of principle. I believe it is possible for such an organization as the Western Federation of Miners to be brought into harmonious relation with the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance. I believe it is possible that that element of the organizations represented here have the conviction, born of experience, observation and study, that the time has come to organize a new union, and I believe it is possible for these elements to mingle, to combine here, and to at least begin the work of forming a great economic or revolutionary organization of the working class so sorely needed in the struggle for their emancipation. The supreme need of the hour, as the speaker who preceded me so clearly expressed it in his carefully and clearly thought address—the supreme need of the hour is a sound, revolutionary working-class organization. And while I am not foolish enough to imagine that we can complete this great work in a single convention of a few days’ duration, I do believe it is possible for us to initiate this work, to begin it in a way for the greatest promise, with the assurance that its work will be completed in a way that will appeal with increasing force to the working class of the country.

      I am satisfied that the great body of the working class in this country are prepared for just such an organization. I know, their leaders know, that if this convention is successful their doom is sealed. They can already see the hand-writing upon the wall, and so they are seeking by all of the power at their command to discredit this convention, and in alliance with the cohorts of capitalism they are doing what they can to defeat this convention. It may fail in its mission, for they may continue to misrepresent, deceive and betray the working class and keep them in the clutches of their capitalist masters and exploiters.

      They are hoping that we will fail to get together. They are hoping, as they have already expressed it, that this convention will consist of a prolonged wrangle; that such is our feeling and relations toward each other that it will be impossible for us to agree upon any vital proposition; that we will fight each other upon every point, and that when we have concluded our labors we will leave things in a worse condition than they were before.

      If we are true to ourselves we will undeceive those gentlemen. We will give them to understand that we are animated by motives too lofty for them in their baseness and sordidness to comprehend. We will give them to understand that the motive here is not to use unionism as a means of serving the capitalist class, but that the motive of the men and women assembled here is to serve the working class by so organizing that class as to make their organization the promise of the coming triumph upon the economic field and the political field and the ultimate emancipation of the working class.

      Let me say that I agree with Comrade DeLeon upon one very vital point at least. We have not been the best of friends in the past, but the whirligig of time brings about some wonderful changes. I find myself breaking away from some men I have been in very close touch with, and getting in close touch with some men from whom I have been very widely separated. But no matter. I have long since made up my mind to pursue the straight line as I see it. A man is not worthy, in my judgment, to enlist in the services of the working class unless he has the moral stamina, if need be, to break asunder all personal relations to serve that class as he understands his duty to that class.

      I have not the slightest feeling against those who in the past have seen fit to call me a fakir. I can afford to wait. I have waited, and I now stand ready to take by the hand every man, every woman that comes here, totally regardless of past affiliations, whose purpose it is to organize the working class upon the economic field, to launch that economic organization that shall be the expression of the economic conditions as they exist today; that organization for which the working class are prepared; that organization which we shall at least begin before we have ended our labors, unless we shall prove false to the object for which we have assembled here.

      Now, I am not going to take the time to undertake to outline the form of this organization. Nor should I undertake to task your patience by attempting to elaborate the plan of organization. But let me suggest, in a few words, that to accomplish its purpose this organization must not only be based upon the class struggle, but must express the economic condition of this time. We must have one organization that embraces the workers in every department of industrial activity. It must express the class struggle. It must recognize the class lines. It must of course be class-conscious. It must be totally uncompromising. It must be an organization of the rank and file. It must be so organized and so guided as to appeal to the intelligence of the workers of the country everywhere. And if we succeed, as I believe we will, in forming such an organization, its success is a foregone conclusion.

      I have already said the working class are ready for it. There are multiplied thousands in readiness to join it, waiting only to see if the organization is rightly grounded and properly formed; and this done there will be no trouble about its development, and its development will take proper form and expand to its true proportions. If this work is properly begun, it will mean in time, and not a long time at that, a single union upon the economic field. It will mean more than that; it will mean a single party upon the political field; the one the economic expression, the other the political expression of the working class; the two halves that represent the organic whole of the labor movement.

      Now, let me say in closing, comrades—and I have tried to condense, not wishing to tax your patience or to take the time of others, for I believe that in such conventions as this it is more important that we shall perform than that we shall make speeches—let me say in closing that you and I and all of us who are here to enlist in the service of the working class need to have faith in each other, not the faith born of ignorance and stupidity, but the enlightened faith of self-interest. We are in precisely the same position; we depend absolutely upon each other. We must get close together and stand shoulder to shoulder. We know that without solidarity nothing is possible, that with it nothing is impossible.

      And so we must dispel the petty prejudices that are born of the differences of the past, and I am of those who believe that, if we get together in the true working-class spirit, most of these differences will disappear, and if those of us who have differed in the past are willing to accord to each other that degree of conciliation that we ourselves feel that we are entitled to, that we will forget these differences, we will approach all of the problems that confront us with our intelligence combined, acting together in concert, all animated by the same high resolve to form that great union, so necessary to the working class, without which their condition remains as it is, and with which, when made practical and vitalized and renewed, the working class is permeated with the conquering spirit of the class struggle, and as if by magic the entire movement is vitalized, and side by side and shoulder to shoulder in a class-conscious phalanx we move forward to certain and complete victory.

      The Coming Union

      By Eugene V Debs

      October 1905

      The opponents of the Industrial Workers, numerous, varied and powerful though they be, will find themselves baffled in every attempt they make to stem the tide of new industrial organization.

      These opponents, strange as it may seem, embrace, besides the capitalist class and their labor lieutenants, Socialists who profess to favor industrial unionism and trades unionists who profess to be class conscious workingmen!

      An anomalous situation, indeed!

      The only national labor union that recognizes the class struggle, the Industrial Workers of the World, is opposed, and the American Federation of labor, whose leaders deny the class struggle, is supported by men who call themselves Socialists and class conscious workingmen.

      But in spite of all this the Industrial Workers is the coming labor union in the United States and all the powers of capitalism and all the resources of its emissaries cannot prevent it.

      The conditions are mature for it and the working class will embrace it and stand by it as they learn to comprehend its meaning and grasp its mission.

      Three years ago, when the Western Federation of Miners and the American Labor Union, in national convention assembled, in Denver, struck the new trail of class-consciousness and declared in favor of independent political action along working class lines, the very thing Socialists have been clamoring for, the press of the Socialist party, almost solidly, instead of cheering the new departure and encouraging and supporting the movement, treated the matter coldly, or damned it with faint praise.

      These papers felt themselves committed to the American Federation of Labor and feared to offend the anti-Socialist organization. Upon no other ground is such opposition to Socialist action by Socialist papers conceivable.

      When the Industrial Workers of the World was recently organized at Chicago the same Socialist papers fought the movement openly, or, what revealed the same antagonistic attitude, remained silent.

      These Socialist papers, smiling patronizingly upon the American Federation of Labor which repudiates and despises them, and frowning scornfully upon the Industrial Workers of the World, a truly class-conscious organization, have committed a grave mistake and appearances indicate they are beginning to realize it. The open opposition has died out and silence has taken its place. They have evidently heard from the rank and file. In any event it may be well for them to know that De Leon’s Weekly People is getting a harvest of new subscribers, including many members of our party, because of his espousal of the Industrial Workers.

      That Socialists can still find it consistent to remain in the American Federation of Labor in the light of its fixed pro-capitalist policy is, I confess, incomprehensible to me.

      Why do they not apply their peculiar logic to the political situation? The Republican and Democratic parties both consist mainly of workingmen. Why not turn them into working class parties? The workingmen have a majority in both—why organize a Socialist party?

      The workingman who reasons in that way and attends Republican and Democratic conventions as a delegate is by Socialists set down as ignoramus or fakir, and yet that is precisely the attitude of certain Socialists with reference to the old anti-labor federation and the new working class union.

      The American Federation of Labor, which is simply an attempt to harmonize pure and simple trade unions, that were built up on tools long since discarded and on principles long out of date, is the enemy of working class solidarity. It is in control of the capitalist class. The Civic Federation and its personnel is sufficient proof of this fact.

      It leers at the class struggle.

      Professing to oppose independent political action by the working class and even forbidding the discussion of political questions, it connives with the political hucksters of capitalist parties in consideration of beggarly hand-outs for its henchmen.

      This aggregation of one time labor organizations have veered about and are now thoroughly reactionary, and every inch of genuine working class progress from this time forward will have to be made in spite of them.

      Would but Socialists remain away from the national convention of this alleged federation the jurisdictional lightnings would then have full play and soon strike and sever the flimsy bonds that hold the old antiquated unions together. The few Socialists serve the federation leaders in the valuable role of lightning rods to attract and divert the bolts of disintegration. These Socialist comrades are on a cold trail. Their misguided zeal is worthy of a better cause. There was a time when their efforts bore fruit, but that day is passed. They might as well spend their time, as Thomas Paine put it, administering medicine to a corpse. The role they are now in at the federation convention is almost pathetic. Even the applause in the gallery is dying out. They are sadly out of place. They are in truth laughing stock—the footballs of two by four fakirs that serve the capitalist class for their stereotyped dispatch reporting the annual kicking out of Socialism by the American Federation of Labor.

      When the moon turns into green cheese will these Socialists succeed in converting the American Federation of Labor, honey-combed with capitalistic influences, into a revolutionary working class organization.

      But in the meantime they are extremely valuable to the federation leaders, who would undoubtedly seriously regret to be deprived of their services.

      The opposition to the Industrial Workers inspired by personal hatred for Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance is puerile, to say the least. With all that has been said about the latter it has never been charged with being a capitalist annex and as for De Leon personally he is not an issue to be considered when choosing between a bona-fide labor union organization for the benefit of the working class and a bogus labor organization defended by every capitalist paper and supported by every capitalist politician in the land.

      De Leon is sound on the question of trade unionism and to that extent, whether I like him or not personally, I am with him.

      My personal likes and dislikes are secondary to my allegiance to the working class.

      The choice is between the A. F. of L. and capitalism on one side and the Industrial Workers of the World and Socialism on the other.

      The A. F. of L. is for the wages system; the Industrial Workers of the World for its abolition.

      How can a Socialist hesitate in his choice an instant?

      The A. F. of L. keeps the working class divided into trades which have ceased to exist; the Industrial Workers unites them into one compact militant body.

      Which of these truly expresses the present industrial situation and which actually stands for working class solidarity?

      As a member of both the Industrial Workers and the Socialist party I want to see one class-conscious labor union on the industrial field and one class-conscious labor party on the political field, each the counterpart of the other, and both working together in harmonious co-operation to overthrow the capitalist system and emancipate the workers from wage slavery.

      The Industrial Workers has made a sound beginning and at its convention the work will be rounded out and the organization fairly started on its mission of proletarian emancipation.

      The time has come to strike out boldly and cut loose from all associations that are not with and for the revolutionary program of the working class. Any professed labor organization that does not recognize the class struggle and stand squarely on the right side of it forfeits all claim to the respect of intelligent workingmen; and to remain with it is not to help the union get right, but to risk personal contamination.

      The way to serve the working class through the A. F. of L. is to get out of it and leave the capitalist class and their henchmen in undisputed control.

      The paramount question is the labor movement and working class victory. All other things—parties and unions included—are secondary.

      Therefore, organization, economic and political, along class lines. Any organization that attempts to obscure these lines damns itself.

      The Industrial Workers is right. It has come at the right time and it will fight its way to the front! It is asking no favors of capitalism and granting none; it is pandering to no organization and no man or set of men to curry favors; it stands squarely on the class struggle, defiantly challenging the capitalist class, relying only upon the awakening working class to rally to its standard and carry it to victory.

      Part Two: Organization

      Editor’s note: The American Federation of Labor was organized along craft lines, with each particular job skill belonging to a different craft union. On a railroad line, for instance, the conductors would be in one union, the engineers in another, the track workers in yet another. Each craft union, moreover, had its own contracts (with its own expiration date) and its own grievances. For the craft unions, therefore, workplace solidarity was

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