Rebel Voices

by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel

  2

  Vincent St. John (1873–1929) was one of the founders of the Western Federation of Miners and a member of its general executive board until 1907, a founder of the I.W.W. and its general secretary from 1908 to 1914. Son of a Wells Fargo pony express rider, St. John had been president of the Telluride Miners Union (W.F.M.) during the epic Colorado miners strike of 1903–4; president of the Burke Miners Union during the struggles of the Coeur d’Alenes; and leader of the I.W.W. in the Goldfield, Nevada, miners’ strike of 1907. Detectives of the Colorado Mine Owners’ Association once said of him: “St. John has given more trouble in the past year than any twenty men…. If left undisturbed, he would have the whole district organized in another year.”

  St. John left the I.W.W. in 1914 to become a prospector in New Mexico, and as self-employed, automatically ceased to be a member of the I.W.W. A chronic bronchial condition which contributed to his death was said to be the result of a mine disaster at Telluride, Colorado, when St. John led a rescue party into a smoke-filled mine to bring out the wounded and the bodies of twenty-five miners who had choked or smothered to death. St. John was one of the best loved of the I.W.W. leaders. In a tribute to him published in Industrial Solidarity (July 17, 1929) after his death, I.W.W. organizer Joseph Ettor wrote: “When the true story of labor’s efforts across the past thirty years … is written, the Saint must be the heart of it.”

  Political Parties and the I.W.W. was a widely circulated pamphlet published by the organization’s Publicity Bureau about 1910.

  POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE I.W.W.

  By VINCENT ST. JOHN

  I am in receipt of many inquiries relative to the position of the I.W.W. and political action. One fellow worker wants to know, “How is this revolutionary body going to express itself politically?” and “is it going to hop through the industrial world on one leg?”

  A little investigation will prove to any worker that while the workers are divided on the industrial field it is not possible to unite them on any other field to advance a working class program.

  Further investigation will prove that with the working class divided on the industrial field, unity anywhere else—if it could be brought about—would be without results. The workers would be without power to enforce any demands. The proposition, then, is to lay all stress in our agitation upon the essential point, that is upon the places of production, where the working class must unite in sufficient numbers before it will have the power to make itself felt anywhere else.

  Will it not follow that, united in sufficient numbers at the workshops and guided by the knowledge of their class interests, such unity will be manifested in every field wherein they can assist in advancing the interest of the working class? Why then should not all stress be laid upon the organization of the workers on the industrial field?

  The illustration used by our fellow worker in which he likens the economic organization to a one-legged concern because it does not mention political action, is not a comparison that in any way fits the case. As well might the prohibitionist, the anti-clerical, or any other advocate of the many schools that claim the worker can better his condition by their particular policy, say that because the declaration of principles of the economic organization makes no mention of these subjects, the I.W.W. is short a leg on each count.

  The Preamble of the I.W.W. deals with the essential point upon which we know the workers will have to agree before they can accomplish anything for themselves. Regardless of what a wage worker may think on any question, if he agrees upon the essential thing we want him in the I.W.W. helping to build up the organized army of production.

  The two legs of the economic organization are Knowledge and Organization.

  It is impossible for anyone to be a part of the capitalist state and to use the machinery of the state in the interest of the workers. All they can do is to make the attempt, and to be impeached—as they will be—and furnish object lessons to the workers, of the class character of the state.

  Knowing this, the I.W.W. proposes to devote all of its energy to building up the organization of the workers in the industries of the country and the world: to drilling and educating the members so that they will have the necessary power and the knowledge to use that power to overthrow capitalism.

  I know that here you will say: what about the injunction judges, the militia and the bull pens? In answer, ask yourself what will stop the use of these same weapons against you on the political field if by the political activity of the workers you were able to menace the profits of the capitalist?

  If you think it cannot be done, turn to Colorado where in 1904 two judges of the supreme court of that state, Campbell and Gabbert, by the injunction process assumed original jurisdiction over the state election and decided the majority of the state legislature, the governorship and the election of the United States senator.

  Turn to the Coeur d’Alenes where the military forces of the United States put out of office all officials who would not do the bidding of the mining companies of that region.

  Turn to Colorado, where a mob did the same thing in the interest of the capitalist class.

  The only power that the working class has is the power to produce wealth. The I.W.W. proposes to organize the workers to control the use of their labor so that they will be able to stop the production of wealth except upon terms dictated by the workers themselves.

  The capitalists’ political power is exactly the measure of their industrial power—control of industry; that control can only be disputed and finally destroyed by an organization of the workers inside the industries—organized for the every day struggle with the capitalists and to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.

  With such an organization, knowing that an injury to one member of the working class is an injury to every member of that class, it will be possible to make the use of injunctions and the militia so costly that the capitalist will not use them. None of his industries would run except for such length of time as the workers needed to work in order to get in shape to renew the struggle.

  A stubborn slave will bring the most overbearing master to time. The capitalists cannot exterminate a real labor organization by fighting it—they are only dangerous when they commence to fraternize with it.

  Neither can the capitalists and their tools exterminate the working class or any considerable portion of it—they would have to go to work themselves if they did.

  It is true that while the movement is weak they may victimize a few of its members, but if that is not allowed to intimidate the organization the employers will not be able to do that very long.

  Persecution of any organization always results in the growth of the principle represented by that organization—if its members are men and women of courage. If they are not, there is no substitute that will insure victory.

  The I.W.W. will express itself politically in its general convention and the referendum of its members in the industries throughout the land, in proportion to its power.

  The work before us is to build up an organization of our class in the field wherein our power lies. That task must be accomplished by the workers themselves. Whatever obstacles are in the way must be overcome, however great they seem to be. Remember that the working class is a great class and its power is unbounded when properly organized.

  The sooner all the members of the working class who agree with this program lend their efforts to bring it about—by joining the I.W.W.—the sooner will the struggle be ended in spite of all the machinations of the capitalist and his judges and armies.

  We are forced, however, to point out the limitations of political action for the working class in order that the workers be not led into a cul de sac by the politician, and because of that lose all idea of ever being anything but slaves for generations to come.

  This we can only do by devoting our entire effort in the work of organization and education to the industrial field.

  To those who think the workers will ha
ve to be united in a political party, we say dig in and do so, but do not try to use the economic organization to further the aims of the political party.

  3

  Born in Salt Lake City, Bill Haywood (1869–1928) went to work in the mines at the age of nine. He joined the Western Federation of Miners in 1896 and was active as an executive board member and as secretary-treasurer of that organization until 1907. One of the founders and the best known of the I.W.W. leaders, he became its secretary-treasurer for 1916–18. In September 1917 he was arrested and convicted under the Federal Espionage Act. In 1920, while out of Leavenworth Penitentiary on bail, he fled to the Soviet Union where, for a time, he was a leader of the American Kuzbas Colony in Siberia. He died in Moscow in 1928 after writing his memoirs, which he titled Against the Current. They were published as Bill Haywood’s Book by International Publishers (New York, 1929).

  Haywood wrote several pamphlets and numerous articles. He was one of the I.W.W.’s most famous lecturers. In World of Labour (London, 1913), G. D. H. Cole said: “Haywood could make himself understood by a crowd that did not know a word he said, merely by waving his arms and shouting.” On Haywood’s death, an obituary in the Nation (May 30, 1928) called him “as American as Bret Harte or Mark Twain.”

  Haywood’s pamphlet The General Strike (Chicago, n.d.), published by the I.W.W., was a summary of a speech he gave in New York City on March 16, 1911.

  THE GENERAL STRIKE

  By WILLIAM HAYWOOD

  I came to-night to speak to you on the general strike. And this night, of all the nights in the year, is a fitting time. Forty years ago to-day there began the greatest general strike known in modern history, the French Commune; a strike that required the political powers of two nations to subdue, namely, that of France and the iron hand of a Bismarck government of Germany. That the workers would have won that strike had it not been for the copartnership of the two nations, there is to my mind no question. They would have overcome the divisions of opinion among themselves. They would have re-established the great national workshops that existed in Paris and throughout France in 1848. The world would have been on the highway toward an industrial democracy, had it not been for the murderous compact between Bismarck and the government of Versailles.

  We are met to-night to consider the general strike as a weapon of the working class. I must admit to you that I am not well posted on the theories advanced by Jaures, Vandervelde, Kaut-sky, and others who write and speak about the general strike. But I am not here to theorize, not here to talk in the abstract, but to get down to the concrete subject whether or not the general strike is an effective weapon for the working class. There are vote-getters and politicians who waste their time coming into a community where 90 per cent of the men have no vote, where the women are disfranchised 100 per cent and where the boys and girls under age, of course, are not enfranchised. Still they will speak to these people about the power of the ballot, and they never mention a thing about the power of the general strike. They seem to lack the foresight, the penetration to interpret political power. They seem to lack the understanding that the broadest interpretation of political power comes through the industrial organization; that the industrial organization is capable not only of the general strike, but prevents the capitalists from disfranchising the worker; it gives the vote to women, it re-enfranchises the black man and places the ballot in the hands of every boy and girl employed in a shop, makes them eligible to take part in the general strike, makes them eligible to legislate for themselves where they are most interested in changing conditions, namely, in the place where they work.

  I am sorry sometimes that I am not a better theorist, but as all theory comes from practice you will have observed, before I proceed very long, that I know something about the general strikes in operation.

  Going back not so far as the Commune of Paris, which occurred in 1871, we find the great strike in Spain in 1874, when the workers of that country won in spite of combined opposition against them and took control of the civil affairs. We find the great strike in Bilboa, in Brussels. And coming down through the halls of time, the greatest strike is the general strike of Russia, when the workers of that country compelled the government to establish a constitution, to give them a form of government—which, by the way, has since been taken from them, and it would cause one to look on the political force, of Russia at least, as a bauble not worth fighting for. They gave up the general strike for a political constitution. The general strike could and did win for them many concessions they could gain in no other way.

  While across the water I visited Sweden, the scene of a great general strike, and I discovered that there they won many concessions, political as well as economic; and I happened to be in France, the home of all revolutions, during the strike on the railroads, on the state as well as the privately owned roads. There had been standing in the parliament of France many laws looking toward the improvement of the men employed on the railroads. They became dissatisfied and disgruntled with the continued dilatory practices of the politicians and they declared a general strike.

  Industrial Worker, March 27, 1913.

  The demands of the workers were for an increase of wages from three to five francs a day, for a reduction of hours and for the retroaction of the pension law. They were on strike three days. It was a general strike as far as the railroads were concerned. It tied up transportation and communication from Paris to all the seaport towns. The strike had not been on three days when the government granted every demand of the workers. Previous to this, however, Briand had issued his infamous order making the railroaders soldiers—reservists. The men went back as conscripts; and many scabs, as we call them over here (I don’t know what the French call them; in England they call them “blacklegs”), were put on the roads to take the places of 3,500 discharged men.

  The strike apparently was broken, officially declared off by the workers. It’s true their demands had all been granted, but remember there were 3,500 of their fellow-workers discharged. The strikers immediately started a campaign to have the victimized workers reinstated. And their campaign was a part of the general strike. It was what they called the “greve perlee,” or the “drop strike”—if you can conceive of a strike while everybody is at work; everybody belonging to the union receiving full time, and many of them getting overtime, and the strike in full force and very effective. This is the way it worked—and I tell it to you in hopes that you will spread the good news to your fellow-workers and apply it yourselves whenever occasion demands—namely, that of making the capitalist suffer. Now there is only one way to do that; that is, to strike him in the place where he carries his heart and soul, his center of feeling—the pocketbook. And that is what those strikers did. They began at once to make the railroads lose money, to make the government lose money, to make transportation a farce so far as France was concerned. Before I left that country, on my first visit—and it was during the time that the strike was on—there were 50,000 tons of freight piled up at Havre, and a proportionately large amount at every other seaport town. This freight the railroaders would not move. They did not move it at first, and when they did it was in this way: they would load a trainload of freight for Paris and by some mistake it would be billed through Lyons, and when the freight was found at Lyons, instead of being sent to the consignee at Paris it was carried straight through the town on to Bayonne or Marseilles or some other place—to any place but where it properly belonged. Perishable freight was taken out by the trainload and sidetracked. The condition became such that the merchants themselves were compelled to send their agents down into the depots to look up their consignments of freight—and with very little assurance of finding it at all. That this was the systematic work of the railroaders there is no question, because a package addressed to Merle, one of the editors- of “La Guerre Sociale” now occupying a cell in the Prison of the Saint, was marked with an inscription on the corner, “Sabotagers please note address.” This package went through posthaste. I
t worked so well that some of the merchants began using the name of “La Guerre Sociale” to have their packages immediately delivered. It was necessary for the managers of the paper to threaten to sue them unless they refrained from using the name of the paper for railroad purposes.

  Nearly all the workers have been reinstated at the present time on the railroads of France.

  That is certainly one splendid example of what the general strike can accomplish for the working class.

  Another is the strike of the railroaders in Italy. The railroaders there are organized in one great industrial union, one card, taking into membership the stenographers, train dispatchers, freight handlers, train crews and section crews. Everyone who works on the railroad is a member of the organization; not like it is in this country, split up into as many divisions as they can possibly get them into. There they are all one. There was a great general strike. It resulted in the country taking over the railroads. But the government made the mistake of placing politicians in control, giving politicians the management of the railroads. This operated but little better than under private capitalism. The service was inefficient. They could make no money. The rolling stock was rapidly going to wreck. Then the railroad organizations issued this ultimatum to the government, and it now stands: “Turn the railroads over to us. We will operate them and give you the most efficient service to be found on railroads in any country.” Would that be a success for the general strike? I rather think so.

  And in Wales it was my good fortune to be there, not to theorize but to take part in the general strike among the coal miners. Previous to my coming, or in previous strikes, the Welsh miners had been in the habit of quitting work, carrying out their tools, permitting the mine managers to run the pumps, allowing the engine winders to remain at work, carrying food down to the horses, keeping the mines in good shape, while the miners themselves were marching from place to place singing their old-time songs, gathering on the meeting grounds of the ancient Druids and listening to the speeches of the labor leaders; starving for weeks contentedly, and on all occasions acting most peaceably; going back to work when they were compelled to by starvation. But this last strike was an entirely different one. It was like the shoemakers’ strike in Brooklyn. Some new methods had been injected into the strike. I had spoken there on a number of occasions previous to the strike being inaugurated, and I told them of the methods that we adopted in the West, where every man employed in and around the mine belongs to the same organization; where, when we went on strike, the mine closed down. They thought that that was a very excellent system. So the strike was declared. They at once notified the engine winders, who had a separate contract with the mine owners, that they would not be allowed to work. The engine winders passed a resolution saying that they would not work. The haulers took the same position. No one was allowed to approach the mines to run the machinery. Well, the mine manager, like the mine managers everywhere, taking unto himself the idea that the mines belonged to him, said, “Certainly the men won’t interfere with us. We will go up and run the machinery.” And they took along the office force. But the miners had a different notion and they said, “You can work in the office, but you can’t run this machinery. That isn’t your work. If you run that you will be scabbing; and we don’t permit you to scab—not in this section of the country, now.” They were compelled to go back to the office. There were 325 horses underground, which the manager, Llewellyn, complained about being in a starving condition. The officials of the union said, “We will hoist the horses out of the mine.”