by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
It should be established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party.
All power should rest in a collective membership.
Local, national and general administration, including union labels, buttons, badges, transfer cards, initiation fees, and per capita tax should be uniform throughout.
All members must hold membership in the local, national or international union covering the industry in which they are employed, but transfers of membership between unions, local, national or international, should be universal.
Workingmen bringing union cards from industrial unions in foreign countries should be freely admitted into the organization.
The general administration should issue a publication representing the entire union and its principles which should reach all members in every industry at regular intervals.
A central defense fund, to which all members contribute equally, should be established and maintained.
All workers, therefore, who agree with the principles herein set forth, will meet in convention at Chicago the 27th day of June, 1905, for the purpose of forming an economic organization of the working class along the lines marked out in this Manifesto.
Representation in the convention shall be based upon the number of workers whom the delegate represents. No delegate, however, shall be given representation in the convention on the numerical basis of an organization unless he has credentials—bearing the seal of his union, local, national or international, and the signatures of the officers thereof—authorizing him to install his union as a working part of the proposed economic organization in the industrial department in which it logically belongs in the general plan of organization. Lacking this authority, the delegate shall represent himself as an individual.
Adopted at Chicago, January 2, 3 and 4, 1905.
A. G. SWING
A. M. SIMONS
W. SHURTLEFF
FRANK M. MC CABE
JOHN M. O’NEIL
GEO. ESTES
WM. D. HAYWOOD
MOTHER JONES
ERNEST UNTERMANN
W. L. HALL
CHAS. H. MOYER
CLARENCE SMITH
WILLIAM ERNEST TRAUTMANN
JOS. SCHMIDT
JOHN GUILD
DANIEL MCDONALD
EUGENE V. DEBS
THOS. J. DE YOUNG
THOS. J. HAGERTY
FRED D. HENION
W. J. BRADLEY
CHAS. O. SHERMAN
M. E. WHITE
WM. J. PINKERTON
FRANK KRAFFS
J. E. FITZGERALD
FRANK BOHN
2
In the Voice of Labor (May 1905) Father Thomas J. Hagerty graphically illustrated the structure of the new organization that would eventually become the basis of a new industrial society. The chart which was shaped in the form of a wheel, included every wage earning occupation then in existence. Hagerty divided them into eight departments: Manufacture, Public Service, Distribution, Food Stuffs, Agriculture, Mining, Transportation, and Building. The major departments formed the periphery of the wheel and their subdivisions constituted the spokes which led to a hub titled General Administration. School teachers, librarians, nurses, chambermaids, salesmen, and landscape gardeners were included in the chart. In his article on “Thomas J. Hagerty, the Church, and Socialism” in Labor History (Winter 1962), Professor Robert E. Doherty called the chart the most comprehensive scheme of labor organization ever envisaged. A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers dubbed it “Father Hagerty’s Wheel of Fortune.”
FATHER HAGERTY’S “WHEEL OF FORTUNE”
The Structure of the Industrial System
A labor organization to correctly represent the working class must have two things in view.
First—It must combine the wage-workers in such a way that it can most successfully fight the battles and protect the interests of the working people of today in their struggle for fewer hours, more wages and better conditions.
Secondly—It must offer a final solution of the labor problem—an emancipation from strikes, injunctions, bull-pens and scabbing of one against the other.
Study the Chart and observe how this organization will give recognition to control of shop affairs, provide perfect Industrial Unionism, and converge the strength of all organized workers to a common center, from which any weak point can be strengthened and protected.
Observe, also, how the growth and development of this organization will build up within itself the structure of an Industrial Democracy—a Workers’ Co-Operative Republic—which must finally burst the shell of capitalist government, and be the agency by which the workers will operate the industries, and appropriate the products to themselves.
One obligation for all.
A union man once and in one industry, a union man always and in all industries.
Universal transfers.
Universal emblem.
All workers of one industry in one union; all unions of workers in one big labor alliance the world over.
3
As secretary to the constitution committee of the first I.W.W. convention in June 1905, Father Hagerty was influential in framing the original Preamble to the I.W.W. constitution. Dissension arose at the meetings over the sentence, “Between these two classes a struggle must go on until all the toilers come together on the political, as well as on the industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce by their labor through an economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party.” Hagerty was among the group which opposed political socialism. In a convention speech he said, “The Ballot Box is simply a capitalist concession. Dropping pieces of paper into a hole in a box never did achieve emancipation of the working class, and in my opinion it never will.”
Although the Preamble, with its controversial political clause was adopted at the 1905 convention and published in the Proceedings of the First Convention of the I.W.W. (New York, 1905), subsequent additions and changes were made in it at the 1906 and 1908 conventions. In 1906, the clause, “we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old,” was inserted, and in 1908, following the split with Daniel De Leon’s group which favored political action, the controversial sentence was dropped from the Preamble. In its place was substituted, “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.”
Hundreds of thousands of copies of the 1908 Preamble were printed over the years by the I.W.W. and distributed throughout the world. The Preamble is printed in every I.W.W. publication and songbook. With its provocative first sentence, “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” it has been one of the organization’s most influential propaganda pieces. In his autobiography, Wobbly: The Rough and Tumble Story of an American Radical (Chicago, 1948), Ralph Chaplin wrote, “The Preamble came first in our affections. It was at once our Declaration of Freedom and the Tablets of the Law. Exploited, homeless, voteless, frequently jobless, and always kicked about from pillar to post, the American migratory worker nailed the I.W.W. Preamble to the masthead and took his stand against the great and powerful of the earth to work out his economic and social destiny without benefit of respectability or law…. That was what the unrestrained exploitation and injustice of the early decades of the Twentieth Century did to us.”
PREAMBLE
as adopted by the 1905 I.W.W. Convention
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 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 all the toilers come together on the political, as well as on the industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce by their labor, through an economic
organization of the working class without affiliation with any political party.
The rapid gathering of wealth and the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the trades unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the trades 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 trades unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These sad conditions can be changed and the interests 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.
4
The Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World as amended appeared in the Proceedings of the 1908 I.W.W. Convention in the I.W.W. Industrial Union Bulletin (November 7, 1908).
PREAMBLE
of the Industrial Workers of the World
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 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 management of the industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing 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 wage 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.
5
“Workingmen, Unite” and the following song, “The Banner of Labor,” were first published in the I.W.W. press in the Industrial Union Bulletin (October 24, IQOS ) under the headline, “Songs Sung by the Industrial Union Singing Club on Their Trip Across Country to Convention” The Industrial Union Singing Club, no doubt, was made up of the men, led by J. H. Walsh, who traveled by freight trains from Portland to the igo8 I.W.W. convention in Chicago.
E. S. Nelson, who wrote “Workingmen, Unite,” was a Swede who was active in the Northwest in the eight-hour day campaign. He wrote two popular I.W.W. pamphlets, The Eight Hour Day, and An Appeal to Wage Earners: A Statement of I.W.W. Principles and Methods. The author of “The Banner of Labor” is unknown. Both songs were included in the first edition of the I.W.W. songbook.
WORKINGMEN, UNITE!*
By E. S. NELSON
(Tune: “Red Wing”)
Conditions they are bad,
And some of you are sad;
You cannot see your enemy,
The class that lives in luxury.
You workingmen are poor,—
Will be forevermore,—
As long as you permit the few
To guide your destiny.
Chorus:
Shall we still be slaves and work for wages?
It is outrageous—has been for ages;
This earth by right belongs to toilers,
And not to spoilers of liberty.
The master class is small,
But they have lots of “gall.”
When we unite to gain our right,
If they resist we’ll use our might;
There is no middle ground,
This fight must be one round,
To victory, for liberty,
Our class is marching on!
Workingmen, unite!
We must put up a fight,
To make us free from slavery
And capitalistic tyranny;
This fight is not in vain,
We’ve got a world to gain.
Will you be a fool, a capitalist tool?
And serve your enemy?
6
THE BANNER OF LABOR
(Tune: “Star Spangled Banner”)
Oh, say, can you hear, coming near and more near
The call now resounding: “Come all ye who labor?”
The Industrial Band, throughout all the land
Bids toilers remember, each toiler’s his neighbor.
Come, workers, unite! ‘tis Humanity’s fight.
We call, you come forth in your manhood and might.
Chorus:
And the Banner of Labor will surely soon wave
O’er the land that is free, from the master and slave.
The blood and the lives of children and wives
Are ground into dollars for parasites’ pleasure;
The children now slave, till they sink in their grave–
That robbers may fatten and add to their treasure.
Will you idly sit by, unheeding their cry?
Arise! Be ye men! See, the battle draws nigh!
Long, long has the spoil of labor and toil
Been wrung from the workers by parasite classes;
While Poverty, gaunt, Desolation and Want
Have dwelt in the hovels of earth’s toiling masses.
Through bloodshed and tears, our day star appears,
Industrial Union, the wage slave now cheers.
7
“Union Scabs” appeared as an article in the I.W.W. Industrial Union Bulletin (March 14, 1908) and was made into a pamphlet by the organization around 1910. It was advertised in the January 22, 1910, issue of Solidarity as a “red-hot satire on the Craft Union methods.”
Oscar Ameringer (1870–1943) was a socialist writer and editor who had come to the United States from Germany at age fifteen. A member of the American Federation of Musicians, he organized for the Knights of Labor before editing a series of publications which included The Labor World, the Voice of the People, the Oklahoma Pioneer, the Illinois Miner, and the American Guardian. He was active in Socialist Party politics, and in 1912 was the Socialist Party candidate for governor of Wisconsin. He was the author of many colorful and earthy pamphlets and articles, including Socialism: What It Is and How to Get It (Chicago, 1908) and The Life and Deeds of Uncle Sam (1909).
Amerinzer included “Union Scabs” in his autobiography, If You Don’t Weaken (New York, 1940).
UNION SCABS
By OSCAR AMERINGER
There are three kinds of scabs: the professional, the amateur and the union scab.
The professional scab is usually a high-paid, high-skilled worker in the employ of strikebreaking and detective agencies. His position is that of a petty officer’s in the regular scab army.
The amateur scab brigade is composed of bums, riff-raff, slum dwellers, rubes, tramps, imbeciles, college students and other undesirable citizens.
The last, and by far the most important class is the union scab.
Professional scabs are few and efficient. Amateur scabs are plentiful and
deficient, and union scabs both numerous and capable.
The professional scab knows what he is doing, does it well and for the sake of the long green only.
The amateur scab, posing as a free-born American citizen, who scorns to be fettered by union rules and regulations, gets much glory (?), little pay and when the strike is over he is given an honorable discharge in the region where Darwin searched for the missing link.
The union scab receives less pay than the professional scab, works better than the amateur scab and don’t know that he is a scab.
He will take a pattern from a scab patternmaker, cast it in a union mold, hand the casting to as lousy a scab as ever walked in shoe leather, and then proudly produce a paid-up union card in testimony of his unionism. Way down in his heart he seems to have a lurking suspicion that there is something not altogether right in his action, and it is characteristic of the union man who co-operates with scabs that he is ever ready to flash a union card in the face of innocent bystanders.
He don’t know that the rose under any other name is just as fragrant; he don’t know that calling a cat a canary won’t make the feline warble, and he don’t know that helping to run the shop while other workers bend all their energies in the opposite direction is scabbing. He relies on the name and seeks refuge behind a little pasteboard card.
When a strike is declared it becomes the chief duty of the organization to effect a complete shutdown of the plant. For that purpose warnings are mailed, or wired, to other places, to prevent working men from moving to the afflicted city.
Pickets are stationed around the plant or factory, or harbor, to stop workers from taking the places of the strikers. Amateur scabs are coaxed, persuaded, or bullied away from the seat of the strike. Persuasion having no effect on the professional strikebreaker, he is sometimes treated with a brickbat shower. Shut down that plant, shut it down completely, is the watchword of the striker.
Now while all these things are going on and men are stopped in ones and twos, a steady stream of dinner pail parades pours through the factory gate. Why are they not molested? Oh! they’re union men, belonging to a different craft than the one on strike. Instead of brickbats and insults it’s “Hello, John; hello, Jim; howdy, Jack,” and other expressions of goodfellowship.