don't believe in a class war and in overthrowing the capitalist government, I would be lying. I know if I come before your capitalistic court I must be convicted. I cannot help myself. Q. Are these the same ideas that actuate and are followed by the men who publish this Revolutionary Age? "A. Well, you must make allowance for human equation, but barring that, that is the principle that actuates every member of the Left Wing and every convert that comes into the Left Wing. Ever since the inception of the Socialist movement if it were not for its hesitancy-they have preached the overthrow of the capitalist system. "Q. That is rather an indefinite term. "A. We will say the capitalist class. I mean the system that bases its mode of production on profits, rent, interest and capital. "Q. Do you mean by that our present form of government as now constituted? "Q. And you understand that the United States government is a capitalistic government? "A. Yes. "Q. And when you say that you want to abolish the capitalist government, you mean the United States government? "A. I mean the United States government in so far as the term applies to this country. If we are carrying on revolutionary propaganda in this country, we mean the overthrow of the United States government; and in France, it would mean the overthrow of the French government, that is it exactly. "Q. And when the words 'Capitalist system' appear in any of your Communist publications, you mean the United States government? "A. In so far as it functions for the capitalist class, and it does today funcion for the capitalist class. "Q. Doesn't it function for 'he laboring class? "A. No. "Q. Are not they giving the protection of our government in housing, in their lives, or their property? If some one attempts to rob them, does not the government do everything in its power to apprehend the malefactor?" We have here from the lips of one of the leading advocates of industrial mass action a clear exhibition of how that mass action is to be used, and what its purposes are. It is this sort of propaganda, and the advocacy of principles such as those enunciated by Doctor Cohen that constitute a far more grave menace to the institutions of their country than that presented by bomb-throwing anarchists. The latter can be much more easily apprehended, and his work, at best, is sporadic. But, the activities of the intellectual of the type of Doctor Cohen are so widely diffused and so broadly prevalent that they constitute a very perplexing problem. The rise and development of this movement in Europe is touched upon in section one of this report. Attention here will be confined to the development of those labor organizations in this country which in the main represent the principles of syndicalism or revolutionary industrial unionism. The principal organizations of this character in the United States are the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Workers International Industrial Union. In the succeeding chapters typical examples will be given of independent industrial unions organized on the same principles. The questions here presented deserve the earnest consideration of all persons who hold in esteem the institutions of the United States. CHAPTER I The Industrial Workers of the World* Prior to the organization of the Industrial Workers of the World there was evidence of a growing radical tendency in certain labor unions. The Knights of Labor had fallen under Socialist control which resulted in their dissolution. The Western Federation of Miners, under the leadership of Wm. D. Haywood and Vincent St. John, manifested a violent disregard for law and order which forecast, in a measure, the tactics which were later made the basis for the organization of the Industrial Workers of the World. It was not, however, until the fall of 1904 that the I. W. W. movement really began. Its originators were Isaac Cowan, American representative of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers of Great Britain, Clarence Smith, general secretary-treasurer of the American Labor Union, Thomas J. Hagerty, editor of the "Voice of Labor," the then official organ of the American Labor Union, George Estes, president of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees, an organization with which Eugene V. Debs was associated, W. L. Hall, general secretary-treasurer of the same organization, and William E. Trautmann, editor of the "Brauer Zeitung," the official organ of the United Brewery Workers of America. It was at a meeting of these men in the fall of 1904 that the plans for a secret conference in January were laid. As a result of this meeting a conference was held in Chicago, Ill., on January 2, 1905, at which an industrial manifesto was adopted. The work of circulating this instrument was handled by an executive committee chosen at this conference by the American Labor Union and Western Federation of Miners. This document is of great historical interest and is therefore reprinted in full at the close of this chapter. It constitutes an attack upon the trade union system, and designates the wage system as slavery. It outlines a plan for the organization of a great industrial union embracing all industries having an international aspect. "It must be founded on the class struggle and its general administration must be conducted in harmony with the recognition of the irrepressible conflict between the capitalist class and the working class." See Addendum, Part J The signers of this manifesto were: A. G. Swing, A. M. Simons, W. Shurtleff, Frank M. McCabe, John M. O'Neil, John Guild, Daniel McDonald, Eugene V. Debs, Thomas J. De Young, Thos. J. Hagerty, Geo. Estes, Wm. D. Haywood, Mother Jones, Ernest Untermann, W. L. Hall, Chas. H. Moyer, Clarence Smith, William Ernest Trautmann, Fred D. Henion, W. J. Bradley, Charles O. Sherman, M. E. White, William J. Pinkerton, Frank Kraffs, J. E. Fitzgerald, Frank Bohn, Jos. Schmidt. The presence of these persons at this conference and their co-operation in the forming of this industrial organization is of extreme interest because they represent various quasi-political organizations which were apparently antagonistic to one another, namely, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party and the anarchists. It should be pointed out that the American Federation of Labor had no part in or in any way countenanced the new movement. In fact, the whole spirit of the conference as crystallized in this manifesto constitutes an attack upon the trade union organizations as they existed in the American Federation of Labor, and pointed the way for a reorganization of labor unions along revolutionary industrial lines, so that they could be used to stimulate so-called class consciousness among the workers, and as effective instruments of attack in the class struggle. The manifesto called upon all workers who agreed with the principles therein set forth to meet at a convention in Chicago on the 27th day of June, 1905, for the purpose of forming an economic organization of the working class along the lines indicated. The constitutional convention met, as planned, in Chicago on the 27th day of June, 1905, with 203 delegates representing forty-three different labor organizations of extraordinarily varied character. The difficulties of this first convention was greatly enhanced by the fact that the delegates represented various extreme types of radical thought, and according to Vincent St. John, one of the historians of the I. W. W., included parliamentary Socialists, Impossibilists, Opportunists, Marxists, Reformists, Anarchists, Industrial Unionists and Labor Union Fakers. The divergence of opinion in these various groups of radical thinkers was, however, finally compromised, and the purposes and objects |