American Syndicalism/Chapter 07
VII
THE I. W. W.
Like the sound of a bell in the night, the "Industrial Workers of the World" strike an alarm note that seems as new and strange to us as if some unknown enemy were at the gate. Both the purpose and the weapons used are alien and uncanny to our thought. We are just becoming half wonted to Socialism, but the defiant, riotous ways of this American Syndicalism are past understanding. For its field of action it selects most unexpected points; hotels and restaurants with petrifying hints that concern the stomach of the public; then the camp of lumberjacks, north and south; small self-confident cities on the Pacific Coast, West Virginia mines, Pittsburg industries and New England textile cities, hitherto proud of their orderly records. More disconcerting still is its attack on Socialism, as we have known it. This is beset by the new comers with as much acrimony as capitalism itself. A prolific I. W. W. literature has more acrid abuse of the many prominent socialist leaders than anything appearing in capitalistic sheets.
Tit for tat, against the I. W. W. and its prevailing tactics, socialist authorities the world over are writing by far the most scathing and contemptuous criticism. This is true even in Germany where Syndicalism has secured the least hold upon the movement. A Marxian dignitary as prominent as Karl Kautsky has just taken it in hand. The entire practice of these new agitators, he tells us, is "a mere child's disease of the labor union." The most withering censure which Socialists can bestow is to call anything "bourgeois," yet Kautsky finds this word aptly descriptive. Both the theory and practice of Syndicalism "are the expression of the bourgeois spirit which has not been able to adapt itself to modern industrial conditions." He connects the activities in France, where Syndicalism was born, with the undeveloped conditions of labor unions. He thinks Austrian socialists have already got the best of the plague and other European countries will soon be free of it.
That Europe will free herself so easily from this "child's disease" is open to question, but we in this country shall not escape its discipline. The very spirit with which we fight it will, for a long time, help it. We have already added immeasurably to its strength by the use of tactics as little defensible as the practice of the I. W. W. itself. For the gravity of the movement in this country, I shall not offer general or theoretic proofs. The theory, or "philosophy," of the movement will be given, but main stress will be placed upon the practical experience of Syndicalism as it has expressed itself in the last few years.
For some weeks in Europe, I watched one of the first general strikes consciously animated by the syndicalist spirit. It was very dumfounding at that time to hear well-known socialists and trade union veterans both classed as "parasites" and "fakers." It was a violent "sympathetic strike quite in the ordinary style but one to which the name "general" was added. This is the great weapon of the new propaganda. After interminable discussion it was adopted by that powerful body in Paris, the "General Confederation of Labor." A few years after its formation in 1895, I again saw a sharp contest directed by that body under syndicalist leadership. This led me to gather the literature available at that time, of which some account will be given in other chapters. In 1903, I was asked by the late Commissioner of Labor, Carroll D. Wright, to report to him confidentially upon the strike in Colorado of the Western Federation of Miners.
In the murky terrors of that miners' strike, the vehement and practical thing called I. W. W. had its birth. Grimy and hot, it rose there as from a sulphurous pit. It is insufficient testimony, but one of the more daring leaders in that strike assured me that not one of them ever heard of "Syndicalism" as for ten years it had been known in Europe. He said, "One or two of us knew that trade unions were called Syndicates in France, and that sabotage meant some sort of a row with the boss, in which labor got back at him with new tricks. It enabled the men to hold on to their jobs while the strike was still carried on 'at the point of production.'" Here they could quietly bring worse damage to the employer. The same informant has since assured me "The I. W. W. was hammered out in the fires of that conflict." So far as origins have value, the source of the Western Federation of Miners and its stormy history must have brief notice. The most rugged personality it has produced is that of William D. Haywood, who was amused that any one should think the mild disturbance at Lawrence, Mass., really serious. It was at most like a scrimmage among ladies. But Colorado, he said, "was the real thing, that was a man's fight." Amidst the ranklings at Lawrence, a citizen cried out, "What have we done that a pack of ignorant foreigners should hold us by the throat?"
The first fact in the "man's fight" from Cœur d'Alene in 1894, to Cripple Creek in 1903–4 is that "foreigners" neither led it nor were very conspicuous in it. It was as "American" as the Republican Party. This "Western Federation" began in Butte, Montana, in the spring of 1893. In section 2 of its Constitution are these lines:
"The objects of this organization shall be to unite the various persons working in and around the mines, mills, and smelters into one central body, to practice those virtues that adorn society, and remind man of his duty to his fellow man, the elevation of his position, and the maintenance of the rights of the workers."
In a statement signed by the President, Charles Moyer, and by the Secretary-Treasurer, William D. Haywood, we read:
"Previous to an applicant being initiated to membership in the Western Federation of Miners or taking the obligation, the following assurance is made:
"This body exacts no pledge or obligation which in any way conflicts with the duty you owe to your God, your country, or your fellow-man."
These verbal pieties staged for the public ear, are not really worse than some of the appeals to the "dignity of the law," to "true Americanism," to "the honor of the flag," made by the employers at a time when they were practicing the most wily form of lawlessness. They are even less repulsive than letters from judges, governors, attorney-generals, published in Senate Document Numbers 86, and 163, of the Fifty-eighth Congress (second session) showing with what plump material favors the loyalty of these gentlemen was secured by the railroads. Some are from the Supreme Court Chambers—as, for example, this:
I thank you most sincerely for your favor. I asked Mr. to speak to you, because he knew better than anyone else what I had done for the railroad attorneys, and stand ready to do whenever I can. I hope to be able to prove my appreciation of this favor.
As this wretched business is long past, I withhold all names, but they stand there in the Senate record with others to jog the memories of those who assured us for many years that railroad passes had no perverting influence on the action of those who received them.
On the dingy background of a lawlessness that included employers and miners alike, these official solemnities recall the piety of the great pirate Hawkins, naming his flagship The Jesus.[1]
These unpleasant notes are not recorded here to excuse the succession of inhuman savageries of which some members of the Western Federation of Miners were plainly guilty. On both sides there were years of frontier warfare with every characteristic of war except its public and official sanction. It is a story that reads like the vandalisms connected with our early "Whiskey Rebellion" as recorded in McMaster's second volume of his History.
The men owning large mining properties and transportation systems in those regions did not propose to have groups of socialistic trade unions endanger these values. Millions were listed on the stock market liable to tumble if investors were frightened and credit impaired. Nothing is more cruel or more lawless than great properties if thoroughly intimidated. In the midst of this struggle a lawyer, fighting for these interests, said openly, "Law or no law, we will not have a lot of thugs interfere with our business."
There is no such study of social guilt as that revealed very generally in this country during serious strikes. Police duties which belong strictly to public authorities are turned over to owners of private property. Thus instantly appear upon the scene detectives, spies, and imported strike-breakers, among whom (as in this instance) are lawless and desperate characters. Deliberately, we permit and sanction this procedure, certain to create upon the spot every condition out of which insane hatreds and violence are bred. Both origin and cause are thus to large extent social rather than individual. This burden of guilt and responsibility society must bear, with every unhappy consequence, until these private agencies are replaced by adequate and impartial authority.
Here, then, is the high temperature of lawlessness out of which our American Syndicalism directly springs. The anarchy was increased by the fact that these labor unions, united in the Federation of Miners, were openly and aggressively socialistic. Many times I heard from members their contempt for Mr. Gompers and his Federation of Labor, because he worked with the employer instead of against him. In Teller County, I found union cards on which were printed these words: "Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof."
There is an ominous significance in these two short sentences. If the word "labor" were largely interpreted to include all the energy, thought, direction, ability, and invention that go into the work of mining and its development, the sentence would be innocent enough. But if "labor" is held to mean the manual service of the wage-earning miner, and that alone, its meaning may spell disaster. If, as miner, I am made to believe that I am exclusively the producer of wealth, I shall feel myself defrauded if any part of it is withheld from me. What I produce and all that I produce is legitimately my own.
As the I. W. W. comes upon the scene, we are left in no doubt about their interpretation of these words. Very active in those mining troubles was one who is now National Secretary of the I. W. W. It is fair to let him state his case in his own way. In his pamphlet explaining the history, structure, and methods[2] he says, "There is but one bargain the I. W. W. will make with the employing class—Complete surrender of all control of industry to the organized workers." These words, which I put in italics, appear in large capital letters in his pamphlet. The other labor master on that occasion is more explicit.
In his Industrial Socialism, Mr. Haywood writes:
Long before the coming of the modern Socialist Movement it was understood by the economists that all wealth is produced by labor. How then, it was questioned, can profits be accounted for? If labor produces all wealth why do not the laborers receive their full product? The answer to this question was not known until it came from Karl Marx. Wages, said Marx, are not the full product of labor. Nor are wages any definite part of the product. Wages are simply the selling price of the worker in the market. This selling price, on the average, is just enough to keep the worker in good condition to do his work and produce some one to take his place. For instance, if the worker toils ten hours and produces $10.00 worth of wealth, he does not receive $10.00, nor $5.00. If $2.00 will support him he receives $2.00, and no more. These $2.00 are his wages and the remaining $8.00 are the profits of the capitalist. If the hours of the worker be increased, and better machines introduced, the workers' product is increased, let us say, to $15.00. Do the workers' wages go up? No. They are now but $1.50. The profits, or surplus-value, are now $13.50.
The theory of surplus value is the beginning of all Socialist knowledge. It shows the capitalist in his true light, that of an idler and parasite. It proves to the workers that capitalists should no longer be permitted to take any of their product.
The current publications of this body are full of statements of this same nature, more immature and drastic still. Not alone the capitalist proper, as receiver of interest, is stigmatized as parasite, but employer and "boss" are lumped with the robber class. A mine owner in Cripple Creek, pointing to the words on the union card, said to me: "You see now why they are stealing hundreds of thousands from us every year. They read 'that Labor produces all wealth,' and they take that rogue's gospel straight into the gold mine, stowing away in their clothing the choicest bits of ore, and there is an organized market to buy it. We can't examine them as they come out, as they do in South Africa, or they would leave us in a bunch the first night."
I suggested that the Kaffir thieves in South Africa inclined to pilfering, without any socialistic instruction and that it was charged as confidently where no one had ever heard these phrases.
He held to his point, that the propensity was directly stimulated and justified by this teaching, as indeed the plain logic of it implies. "If they believe what their leaders tell them," he continued, "they are fools not to steal it. I would take it in their place, if I thought it belonged to me."
This form of "direct action" in no way characterizes the more instructed Socialism of our time, but it depicts faithfully the opinion of this syndicalist body as it begins to play its part in this country. Even the former editor of the Brauer-Zeitung, W. E. Trautmann, now so conspicuous in the fray, writes down calmly:
To all the making and development of these social institutions the workers, and they alone,[3] contribute their intellect and their manual labor. They have created the instruments to produce wealth with, and improved them as time rolled by.
These institutions are organized in their operative functions to yield profits for a few who never did, nor do, contribute to their making and maintenance, except in a manner to protect them in the possession of things that they did not make.In their statement of fundamental principles are the opening words: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common." Here is not even an attempt to distinguish "between employer and capitalist." Even if the distinction is implied, the rank and file will not make it. It is the proclaimed excellence of the movement that its following is from the ranks of those far down in the social scale; those excluded from trade unions. Even "the man in the gutter," is to be taken in as Mr. Haywood insists. There is much generous-mindedness in this large brotherhood, but all the more have those who lead it responsibilities of instruction and explanation. Haywood's ideal organization includes also the working children and the blacks.[4] How would this general mass—all the polyglot intermixture of our textile, mining and iron industries—interpret passages like those just quoted by their chief instructors? To teach such as these anything so exhaustively silly as that manual labor—labor like their own—"produces all wealth," is so childish as to excite suspicion of its motive.
If inflammatory appeals like this are really believed by the leaders, the explanation must lie in the fact that the birth-pangs of this Colorado strike left emotional hatreds so intense as to make clear thinking or constructive work impossible. In private conversations, I have found that "labor," as used by leaders, included far more than the wage earner, but that it was "better not to say much about it." "If we begin hair-splitting," said one, "we should muddle them up." "We are out to make them conscious of their class interests; conscious that those interests are not the interests of the employers. To make them believe that and act on it is our work." Another said to me, "We do just what the preachers and professors do—we give our people as much light as we think safe,"—a statement which has its own disconcerting truth about many others besides preachers and professors.
The shock of this conflict in Colorado had scarcely ceased before plans were on foot to create a powerful, all-inclusive labor organization, independent of special craft unions. Before the year (1904) closed, a gathering was held, resulting in a Secret Conference in Chicago on the January following. Thirty of the two and thirty invited delegates were promptly on the spot. From this came in June the first convention with its 186 delegates claiming to represent 90,000 members. Only a small part of these proved faithful to the first declared purpose of the gathering. To protect themselves from "traitorous intruders," those first to call the meeting so managed credentials by shrewd rulings as to prevent the capture of the convention. From that moment the warfare has not ceased. The National Secretary writes: "It is a fact 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 to the present day." For twelve days the principles of the new order were discussed. The failure and futility of trade union policies got passionate emphasis. In the first form of the Preamble, the most rank offense is that "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." To avoid this partnership with the enemy, labor in an entire industry must be massed into one common group, no part of which can be pitted by employers against another. This is to be done in such way that all the "members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever there is a strike or lockout in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all."
It is to be carefully noted what this means. This all-inclusive union rests upon the assumption that their mass-interests are one and the same, as against the interests of the employing class. As we have seen, this illusion brought troubles thick and fast upon their forerunners, the Knights of Labor. It forced instant differences in this first assembly of the I. W. W. One of the more prominent members, still faithful, as a leading official writes of the Convention:
"All kinds and shades of theories and programs were represented among the delegates and individuals present at the first convention. The principal ones in evidence, however, were four: Parliamentary socialists—two types—impossibilist and opportunist; Marxian and reformist anarchists; industrial unionist; and the labor union fakir. The task of combining these conflicting elements was attempted by the convention."
Their resources were then and there sorely strained to control a membership so diverse in fundamental ideas of social reconstruction.
Of the year that followed before the convention of 1906, Mr. St. John writes as General Secretary:
"The first year of the organization was one of internal struggle for control by these different elements. The two camps of Socialist politicians looked upon the I. W. W. only as a battle ground on which to settle their respective merits and demerits. The Labor fakirs strove to fasten themselves upon the organization that they might continue to exist if the new Union was a success. The anarchist element did not interfere to any great extent in the internal affairs."
Even in the socialist "Western Federation of Miners" irreconcilable differences soon appeared. The Secretary says: "The radical element in the W. F. M. were finally able to force their officials to withdraw their support. The old officials of the I. W. W. then gave up all pretence of having an organization."
A fighting plan was next developed and several "successful" battles fought with the employing class. Their organ, The Industrial Worker, was started and the first steps taken toward the defense-fund to save Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone, the jailed officials of the Western Federation. Under the title, "Shall our Brothers be Murdered?" and identifying the issue with the Moyer and Haywood cause with their "basic principle,"—the class struggle, the open propaganda was now fairly under way.
The second convention (1906) brought eighty-three delegates, "representing 6o,000 members." A tussle at once began between the "revolutionary camp" and the "reactionaries," whereupon the revolutionists abolished the office of President, putting a revolutionist in the chair. A new executive board was elected and, on adjournment, "the old officials seized the general headquarters, and with the aid of detectives and police held the same, compelling the revolutionists to open up new offices."[5]
The third convention presented no new issue, but the fourth brought a split of more radical character in which we see the "political" pitted squarely against the "industrial socialist." It was this convention which produced the final and amended preamble, sharpening the issues between its own revolutionary method and all the halting processes that wait upon political action. Here the "general strike" of all the members in any industry or "in all industries if necessary" appears as the final resource in its assault on the wage system.
PREAMBLE
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 the 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 evergrowing 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 lockout 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.It is not easy to exaggerate the importance which members attach to this use of "contracts" and "trade agreements" in defeating strikes.
Scores of warning examples are given in their literature to show how competing unions having contracts of different date are used by employer and unions alike to defeat "the strike that stands for the solidarity of labor." W. E. Trautmann thus illustrates the grounds of hostility to trade union policies in concrete cases which best tell the story.
"The meat wagon drivers of Chicago were organized in 1902. They made demands for better pay and shorter hours. Unchecked by any outside influence they walked out on strike. They had the support of all other workers in the packing houses. They won. But before they resumed work the big packing firms insisted that they enter into a contract. They did. In that contract the teamsters agreed not to engage in any sympathetic strike with other employes in the plants or stockyards. Not only this, but the drivers also decided to split their union into three. They then had the 'Bone and Shaving Teamsters,' the 'Packing House Teamsters,' and the 'Meat Delivery Drivers.'
"Encouraged by the victory of the teamsters, the other workers in the packing houses then started to organize. But they were carefully advised not to organize into one body, or at the best into one National Trades Union. They had to be divided up, so that the employers could exterminate them all whenever opportunity presented itself.
"Now observe how the dividing-up process worked. The teamsters were members of the 'International Union of Teamsters.' The engineers were connected with the 'International Union of Steam Engineers.' The firemen, oilers, ashwheelers were organized in the 'Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen.' Carpenters employed in the stockyards permanently had to join the 'Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.' The pipe and steam fitters were members of another 'National Union.' The sausage makers, the packers, the canning department workers, the beef butchers, the cattle butchers, the hog butchers, the bone shavers, etc., each craft group had a separate union. Each union had different rules, all of them not permitting any infringements on them by others. Many of the unions had contracts with the employers. These contracts expired at different dates. Most of the contracts contained the clause of "no support to others when engaged in a controversy with the stockyard companies.'"[6]
The directory of unions of Chicago shows in 1903, a total of fifty-six different unions in the packing houses, divided up still more in fourteen different national trades unions of the American Federation of Labor.
To relieve this source of trouble, the I. W. W. ask that this collective labor in the meat industry band together into one common union that may act as a unit against employers and "labor fakirs" alike.
In this history of disrupting antagonisms, we watch again the fall of the Knights of Labor. Even the Western Federation of Miners soon refused to pay dues and dropped out to set up again their own local autonomy, thus telling their young offspring that the miners' interests are at least for the present by no means identical with the new and loosely affiliated mass called I. W. W.
Of no less significance is the appearance of another schism, already wider and deeper in Europe, "The True I. W. W." This is the "reformist," " anti-violence," and "more moderate" group with headquarters in Detroit. It now sends out its own literature, most of which bears the impress and emphasis of the "Socialist Labor Party," a small but fighting antagonist of the "Socialist Party."[7]
The older body of the I. W. W. assures us that this offshoot is "an insignificant faction" which has "made nothing but mistakes and will continue the same occupation." The last Convention (the seventh, 1912), in Chicago, has been reported at length by a derisive member of the smaller but "True I. W. W."[8] He entitles his report the "Bummery Congress" of the "So-called I. W. W." In the Congress itself pride was expressed that, in spite of great growth in the organization, the two enemies, "opportunism" and "respectability," were effectually excluded. Every man of them was "red" to the heart, "to a man they rejected the moral and ethical teaching of the existing order." They rejoice that negro representatives have been taken into the brotherhood and that soon "the whistle will blow for the day when the boss will have to go to work." At the same time we read in their report that, "The McNamara brothers, deserted and repudiated by those for whom they fought and by the cowardly politicians who sought to make political capital from their arrest, were not forgotten. When the Secretary Mr. St. John read a stirring message of greeting to them, recognizing them as fighters in the cause of labor and hoping for their early release, it was met with "a shout of approval from the delegates." There is but one thing to be made out of this message. It is not its distinction that it expresses human sympathy with men in distress. Knowing perfectly well what work the McNamaras had done, they are here greeted for what they have done for "the cause of labor." Is all that black destruction of life and property really in the "cause of labor"? Yet this, according to the report, "was met with a shout of approval from the delegates."
It is much milder, but still not pleasant reading, that we are to substitute the "General Strike" and the squally passions of public assemblies for court procedure. We read:
The appearance of Bill Haywood Friday morning was the signal for an ovation. In a short address he gave hearty approval to the General Strike proclamation issued by the convention for September 30, and assured the delegates that it would be responded to by a sufficient number of workers in the east to accomplish the release of Ettor and Giovanitti.
In the same tone a French syndicalist reporter now in this country compares the Ettor trial with that of the Haymarket anarchists adding, "Then Haywood gave the authorities a strong warning. A date was set at once for their trial. When it became evident that the world would witness a repetition of the Haymarket incident, another warning reached the court, Ettor and Giovanitti were freed."[9]
- ↑ See Channing's History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 116, for this and other gems of the same character.
- ↑ Published by the I. W. W. Publishing Bureau, New Castle, Pa. P. O. Drawer 622.
- ↑ The italics are mine.
- ↑ The General Strike, p. 13.
- ↑ In these beginnings, the man of widest popular influence—the "perpetual Socialist candidate" for President, Mr. Debs, was moved to say before a great audience in New York City:
"The revolutionary movement of the working class will date from the year 1905, from the organization of the Industrial Workers of the World. . . . The old form of unionism has long since fulfilled its mission and outlived its usefulness, and the hour has struck for a change."
Mr. Debs has since had his discipline with this body, but he strikes the note of antagonism to the ordinary trade union, of which we have not heard the last. - ↑ As this goes to press the I. W. W. in New York City attack in the same spirit the "agreements" in the garment makers strike.
- ↑ The differences between the larger and smaller organizations are clearly stated in a pamphlet by A. Rosenthal entitled, "The Differences between the Socialist Party and the Socialist Labor Party; also between Socialism, Anarchism, and Anti Political Industrialism." Printed at 134 Watkins St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
- ↑ This literature, together with their organ, The Industrial Union, may be had from the General Secretary, H. Richter, P. O. Box 651, Detroit, Michigan.
- ↑ The Independent, Jan. 9, 1913, p. 79.