Paul F. Brissenden

“ The scope of organization implied that the proletariat of the future would include more, by far, than the unskilled; that all those gainfully employed in whatever kind or grade of work would some day become proletarians, in spirit at least, and get together in this "one big union."
The first constitution, crude and provisional as it was, made room for all the world's workers and so at the beginning is a vast and nearly empty structure, with groups of the lower grades of workers in some of the basic industries in their proper places in the scheme, but with all the rest a hollow shell. ”

“ Are we to see another serious, perhaps successful, attempt to organize labor by whole industrial groups instead of by trades? Are we to expect that instead of playing the game respectably, or else frankly breaking out into lawless riot which we know well enough how to deal with, the laborers are to listen to a subtle anarchistic philosophy which challenges the fundamental idea of law and order, inculcating such strange doctrines as those of "direct action," "sabotage," "syndicalism," "the general strike," and "violence"?... ”

“ Industrial unionism will not come through soup houses, spectacular free-speech fights, sabotage or insults to the flags of nations.... Men will not be organized or educated by means of violence, for violence is but the weapon of ignorance, blind to the cause that subjugates humanity and sightless to the remedy that will break the fetters of wage slavery. ”

“ The rapid gathering of wealth and the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the trade unions foster a state of things 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. 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. ”

“ Such measures are suicidal and condemned by civilization. For these reasons the bona fide I. W. W. sets its face like flint against any organization that teaches such tragedy-producing tactics. The working class cannot "sabotage," cannot dynamite itself into possession of the plants of production. Its only requisite and available might is its sound, class-conscious, properly-constructed Industrial Union. With such it is irresistible. By such agency, and by it alone, can it take permanent possession of the tools of production, and only in that way can civilization be saved from a catastrophe. ”

“ Lawrence, together with San Diego, and one or two other "free-speech" cities, really introduced the Industrial Workers of the World to the American public. The organization and its activities were known to students of the labor problem and to others who happened to be on the spot when a fight was on, but they were not known to the great body of citizens. Lawrence and the free-speech fights made the name of this little group of intransigents a household word, hardly less talked about and no whit better understood than the words "socialist" and "anarchist." ”

“ The convention was convinced that the craft union was not only comparatively helpless in the matter of advancing immediate interests, but was absolutely useless as a fulcrum for removing the capitalist system. "The battles of the past," declared the manifesto, "emphasize this lesson. The textile workers of Lowell, Philadelphia, and Fall River; the butchers of Chicago; ... the long-struggling miners of Colorado, hampered by lack of unity and solidarity upon the industrial battlefield, all bear witness to the helplessness and impotency of labor as at present organized." ”

“ We hail with unqualified joy [it declared] the formation of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance as a great stride toward throwing off the yoke of wage slavery.... We call upon the socialists of the land to carry the revolutionary spirit of the S. T. and L. A. into all the organizations of the workers and thus consolidate ... the proletariat of America in an irresistible class conscious army, equipped both with the shield of the economic organization and the sword of the Socialist Labor party ballot. ”

“ Prepare to Defend Your Class!"
"A general strike in all industries must be the answer of the workers to the challenge of the masters! Tie up all industries! Tie up all production! Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." ”

“ To enfranchise the proletariat completely from the bonds of intellectual, political and economic serfdom, the political and the economic struggle are alike necessary. If the activity of the Socialist party is exercised more particularly in the domain of the political struggle of the proletariat, that of the unions displays itself in the domain of the economic struggle of the workers. The unions and the party have therefore an equally important task to perform in the struggle for proletarian emancipation. ”

“ I am satisfied from my observations that the only way for the I. W. W. to have the workers adopt and practice the principles of revolutionary unionism ... is to give up its attempt to create a new labor movement, turn itself into a propaganda league, get into the organized labor movement and by building up better fighting machines within the old unions than those possessed by our reactionary enemies, revolutionize those unions even as our French syndicalist fellow-workers have so successfully done with theirs. ”

“ An industrial union cannot increase the average wage. In some cases it may be less likely than the craft unions to prevent the decrease in wages.... Socialist to the core must the new economic organization be—and when the June convention has painted the skull and cross-bones on the door of "pure and simpledom," that last working-class compromise with capitalism, there will probably issue a political organization strong in numbers, but stronger in principle, because raised by the revolutionary spirit high above "mere vote-getting subterfuge." ”

“ The Socialist Labor party, on the other hand, embraced a doctrinaire "impossibilist" policy, violently attacked the trade unions, made its slogan "no compromise and no political trading," and insisted that new unions, industrial in structure and socialist in purpose and principle should be created in opposition to the craft unions, whose structure and spirit it despaired of changing by "boring from within." The Socialist party has waxed strong and powerful. Its rival has languished and is today too small a group to be called a party. ”

“ The American Federation of Labor, which presumes to be the labor movement of this country, is not a working-class movement.... You are going to be confronted with the so-called labor leader—the man who will tell you ... that the interests of the capitalist and the workingman are identical.... There is no man who has an ounce of honesty in his make-up but recognizes the fact that there is a continuous struggle between the two classes, and this organization will be formed, based and founded on the class struggle, having in view no compromise and no surrender.... ”

“ In fact, it is the most decentralized movement in the world today. It does not interfere with the action of the locals as long as they abide by the fundamental principles of the organization.... We find a situation in the West that if carried on means a complete disruption of the only industrial organization in the world. In time of strike they sit around the hall talking of what ought to be done or devising ways and means to do away with General Headquarters.... They will talk of sabotage and direct action but leave it to the boss to use it on the few who take up the fight. ”

“ It was quite evident that these men who laid so much at the door of the "union" scab, realized that the latter did not scab on his fellow union-men because he enjoyed it. He was forced to be a union scab because his craft had a contract—an agreement with the employer. Craftism is what it is, because it involves a separate binding agreement for each trade. These, being contracted independently by each craft, naturally expired at different dates, so that the several crafts in any given industry can never be free to act in unison. ”

“ The characteristic motto of the Knights of Labor was: "An injury to one is the concern of all"—the same slogan which is today prominent among the watchwords of the I. W. W. The Knights proposed, first to bring within the folds of organization every department of productive industry, making knowledge a standpoint for action and "industrial, moral worth, not wealth, the true standard of individual and national greatness"; second, "to secure to the toilers a proper share of the wealth that they create ..." ”

“ At this January conference there was dominant a very radical idea as to what a labor organization ought to be. The conferees decided that such an organization should not only provide a means of unifying all crafts and industries for the better protection and advancement of the immediate interests of the working class, but that it must also offer, and consciously push on towards, a final solution of the labor problem, a solution very frankly assumed to be a socialistic one. ”

“ It must be an obvious fact to all serious observers of the times, that the day of the political success of such a party in America would be the day of its defeat, immediately followed by an industrial and financial crisis, from which none would suffer more than the working class itself.... By its own declarations and acts the American Federation of Labor shows that it accepts wage-slavery as a finality ... ”

“ The average member of the Industrial Workers of the World was exceedingly sceptical of the value of undiluted representative democracy for either a labor union or a political state. He suspected that any official might, and probably would, be disloyal. He realized how difficult it is for any organization which depends on representatives to maintain a body of such representatives who really represent. ”

“ The miners were convinced, therefore, that the imperative need of the hour was for the extension to other industries of their type of industrial organization inspired by socialist aims. This would make solidarity possible, not only between skilled and unskilled in the metalliferous mines but also in all mines, all shops, all industries. They felt that then indeed would an injury to one be the concern of all. ”

“ The machine process is more and more tending to minimize skill and swell the ranks of the unskilled and unemployed. The incidence of the machine process is fatal to labor groups divided according to the tool used. "These divisions," in the words of the Manifesto, "far from representing differences in skill or interests among the laborers, are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial distinctions." ”

“ It was, of course, realized that outside of all unions stood the overwhelming majority of all workingmen, and, as Daniel DeLeon put it, these men did not "propose to go into these organizations run by the Organized Scabbery, because they had burned their fingers thus enough. The organization of the future has to be built of the men who are now unorganized—that is, the overwhelming majority of the working men in the nation." ”

“ The purpose of industrial unionism is to organize the working class in approximately the same departments of production as those which will obtain in the coöperative commonwealth, so that, if the workers should lose their franchise, they would still possess an economic organization intelligently trained to take over and collectively administer the tools of industry and the sources of wealth for themselves. ”

“ Daniel DeLeon and the other Socialist Labor party men at the convention had absolutely no hope for the "pure and simple" union. DeLeon believed "that the pure and simple leaders give jobs to Socialists for the purpose of corrupting them, on the principle that the capitalist politicians give jobs to workingmen for the purpose of corrupting the working class...." "The labor movement," he said "has been prostituted in this country by the jobs ... that the capitalist politicians give to some individual workingmen...." ”

“ The western environment drives the petit bourgeoisie to demand political home rule or local autonomy in legislative government. The result is the recent remarkable spread of the initiative, referendum and recall in the three Pacific Coast states. In these same three states we find the chief strongholds of industrial autonomy. The life of the western proletarian imbues him with the more individualistic kind of rebellion which expresses itself in the more or less coherent demand for an industrial state made up of self-governing local groups of workers. ”

“ It has been suggested that all were at one in being opposed to a capitalistic society. They had no difficulty in making common cause of their mutual hatred of the capitalistic scheme of things. They were perhaps even more able to unite because of common opposition to certain things which they believed were helping to perpetuate the capitalist system. Most prominent and powerful of these was the craft form of labor-union organization. ”