O. June 27, 1905, just a week before
the annual celebration of the Fourth of
July, William D. Haywood called to
order the Industrial Union convention in
-Brand’s Hall, Chicago:

This is the Continental Congress of the
working class. We are here to confederate
the workers of this country into a working
class movement that shall have for its
purpose the emancipation of the working
class from the slave bondage of capitalism.

The observance of the United States’
Declaration of Independence from Eng-
land must have been in Haywood’s mind
when he spoke these words. Just as the
Continental Congress had been the orga-
.nizational force which, from 1775 to 1789,
guided the revolutionaries in their ef-
forts to establish the new republic, so
the Industrial Workers of the World was

rotest Meeting

proclaimed in Chicago to be the organiz-
ed mechanism to liberate the working
people and to raise the earth ‘‘on new
foundations.”’

The three outstanding figures at the
founding convention were William D.
(Big Bill) Haywood, a founder of the
Western Federation of Miners; Daniel De
Leon, the dogmatic leader of the Social-
ist Labor Party; and Eugene Victor
Debs, eloquent spokesman of the Socialist
Party of America who had polled 420,000
votes as presidential-candidate in 1904.

Also attending was Mary Jones, better ©

known as “Mother” Jones, the beloved
organizer of the coal miners. Lucy Par-
sons, the widow of one of the Haymarket
martyrs of 1886, was also among those
present. She took the floor to urge that
the convention ‘take example’”’ from the
men and women who were at that mo-
ment fighting the Czar in the Russian
Revolution of 1905.

The Industrial Workers of the World—
better known by the initials IWW than by
its full name—did not fulfill the grandiose
role it set for itself. Indeed, its active
history did not comprise more than a
dozen or fifteen years out of the 200-year
span of US. history. (This is said despite
the fact that vestigial remains of the
TWW exist to this very day.) Certainly
by 1920 the organization had ceased to
be an effective entity. Its own inherent
weaknesses compounded the effects of
vicious persecution by the government—
the penalty for having resolutely opposed

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 2, 1976—Page 6 _

U.S. participation in the imperialist First
World War. Almost from its inception
the IWW was subjected to unscrupulous
persecution by state and federal govern-
ments. During its relatively brief life
the organization was a constant irritant
to United States capitalism.

As the IWW was being banished from
the active labor scene, the Communist
Party was coming into being (September
1919) to begin its enduring struggle. for
the ultimate objectives the IWW had se
for itself. ;

The founders of the IWW were prompt-
ed by their quest for a labor movement
which would be distinguished from the
established American Federation of Labor
by its industrial union form and from the
Socialist parties by its syndicalist goal.
While the IWW accepted members from
workingclass parties—and was founded
with the participation of leaders from

1

both the Socialist Party of America and
the Socialist Labor Party—it had no be-
lief in party politics, parliamentary
action or legislative programs.

Its only political objective was the
seizure of power, and this was to be
accomplished by workers organized in
one big industrial union: they would de-
clare a general strike, lock -out the
capitalists until they capitulated, take
over the means of production and pro-
ceed to guide society without the need
for the repressive features of the state.
This philosophy, and its variants, is
generally known .as anarcho-syndicalism.

If this long range program had been
all there was to IWW practice, it is
doubtful that it would have lasted even
the few years it did—and it certainly
would not have made the important and
lasting contribution to the U.S. labor

"by fire-hoses in mid-winter; ay

which ensued. The strike reversey
attempted wage cut into a wage ines
A working force consisting principa)
immigrants, speaking almost four
different dialects, was converted jj

frameup; their picketlines were d

dynamite plot was exposed as the |
of a boss’ agent; one of their ny
was killed by gunfire,—and it tog
months to free two of their leaders
were charged with being - accessor)
her murder. Hundreds of hungry chi
of the Lawrence strikers were ©
foster care in New York, Philade
Barre, Vt., in a humanitarian 4
which captured international attention

By Arthur Simson

movement with which it can justly be
credited. But the IWW contributed to our
heritage in a number of ways: it advocat-
ed industrial unionism when the AFL
was clinging to craft unionism; it. was
open to Black workers, to the foreign-
born, to women, to the unskilled—cate-
gories which most AFL unions ignored or
rejected; it was repelled by the capitula-
tory opportunism of the AFL leadership;
it conducted many hard-fought strike
struggles and struggles for freedom of
speech. The IWW, whose members were
called Wobblies, developed innovative
methods of struggle, including sit-in
strikes, and its picketlines and meetings
were enlivened by song. (Many of its
songs were written by its doomed poet,
Joe Hill.)

Perhaps the finest example of the IWW
in action was its masterly conduct of the
strike of textile workers in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, which lasted for more
than nine weeks, from January into March,
during the bitter New England winter of
1912.

State law had reduced the legal hours
of work for women and children from
56 per week to 54, effective January 1.
The mill owners reduced the hours of
the male workers as well. At the-first
January payday, the workers discovered
that their measly pay, ranging basically
from 8 cents to 12 cents an _ hour,
had been cut to reflect the shorter work
week.

The IWW gave guidance to the strike

Top: A leaflet to announce a meeting protesting the
impending execution of Joe Hill.

Center: Mother Jones leading a march of mill children, 1903.
Bottom: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Big Bill Haywood.

by its principled anti-capitalism and mj

The strike was won; wage incre,
of from 5-20% were granted. And 1
new members were in Local 20, IVW. _

The leftist philosophy of the IWW
not congenial to the basically conses
tive religious inclination of the Lawred
workers. With the great struggle
the IWW’s flaunting of the slogan 4
God, No Master’ made it vulnerg
By the summer of 1913, Local 20
down to 700 members.

In addition to its underestimation
political action, the IWW had the ng
tive effect of drawing off militants f
the mainstream—principally the AR}
and rendering them relatively ineffect,
Lenin’s later admonition against s)
sectarianism drew to the Commu}
Party men ‘like William Z. Foster, yp
had been a Wobbly for a brief peri
and even Big Bill Haywood, who. rem
ed the leader of the IWW from its foul
ing to its essential end.

Many of the outstanding figures of §
twentieth century labor movement—n
like Foster, women like Elizabeth Gur}
Flynn—were associated, some only brij
ly, with the IWW. They were attra

tant labor policies but were put off by}
sectarianism. Eventually the Commun}
Party inherited the best in the tradi}
of the Industrial Workers of the Woe
and the best of the men and women j
contributed to the IWW’s brief but signi
cant history.