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

STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW

              EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
                        OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

                   Volume LXXXIII] [Whole Number 193




                             THE I. W. W.

                    A Study of American Syndicalism


                                  BY

                   PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN, Ph.D.
 _Sometime Assistant in Economics at the University of California and
                     University Fellow at Columbia
        Special Agent of the United States Department of Labor_

                            SECOND EDITION

                            [Illustration]

                               New York
                          COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

                    LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS
                    LONDON: P. S. KING & SON, LTD.
                                 1920

                           COPYRIGHT, 1920
                                  BY
                       PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN

                                  TO
                             #R. O. L. B.#




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION


No very extensive changes are made in the new edition. The chart of
early radical labor organizations, which appeared in the first edition
as Appendix I, has been omitted in this edition. There is reproduced
in its place a copy of the original industrial organization chart
prepared by "Father" T. J. Hagerty at the time of the launching of
the I. W. W. in 1905 and sometimes referred to as "Father Hagerty's
Wheel of Fortune". This chart is believed to be of some importance
as illustrating the earlier ideas of the revolutionary industrial
unionists on industrial organization in relation to union structure.
It has been considerably amplified by W. E. Trautmann and published in
his pamphlet _One Great Union_, and still further developed by James
Robertson who has very recently built extensions upon it in furtherance
of the shop-steward propaganda in the Pacific Northwest. His version is
published in a pamphlet entitled _Labor unionism and the American shop
steward system_ (Portland, Oreg., 1919).

The organization held its eleventh national convention in Chicago in
May, 1919. This was the first convention held since December, 1916.
It was attended by fifty-four delegates and it has been reported that
forty-eight of them had never before attended a general convention
of the organization. The General Executive Board reported that the
organization in 1919 comprised fourteen Industrial Unions, each with
its locals in various parts of the country, and a General Recruiting
Union, with a total membership of 35,000. Since the convention it is
reported that three new Industrial Unions have been formed: an Oil
Workers' Industrial Union, a Coal Miners' Union and a Fishery Workers'
Union. Nearly fifty amendments to the constitution were adopted by the
delegates at the May convention. Most if not all of these have been
since approved in a referendum to the membership. The proceedings of
the convention have not yet been published. Since the first edition of
this book appeared the I. W. W. has launched a monthly magazine called
_The One Big Union Monthly_ and several new weekly newspapers.

The writer's attention has been called to the erroneous statement (on
page 235) in regard to Daniel DeLeon's theory of industrial unionism.
This has been revised to accord with the facts. There is added on page
241 some interesting comment from Lenin, the Bolshevik premier of
Russia, on DeLeon and on the relation between revolutionary industrial
unionism, and the soviet system in Russia.

                                              P. F. BRISSENDEN

  WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPTEMBER, 1919.




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION


This is a descriptive and historical sketch of the present drift from
parliamentary to industrial socialism--as epitomized in the career of
the Industrial Workers of the World in the United States. The I. W.
W. is now thirteen years old. During the first half of its existence
the general public hardly knew that there was such an organization.
A few local communities, however, were startled into an awareness of
it quite early in its history. The city of Spokane had an I. W. W.
"free-speech fight" on its hands in 1909. Fresno, California, McKees
Rocks, Pennsylvania, and Missoula, Montana, all had their little bouts
with the "Wobblies" long before the Lawrence strike of 1912 made the I.
W. W. nationally prominent.

Just now the Industrial Workers of the World, as represented by more
than one hundred of its members and officials, is on trial for its
life in Chicago. The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring
to hinder and discourage enlistment and in general to obstruct the
progress of the war with Germany. The specific number of crimes alleged
to have been intended runs up to more than seventeen thousand.