by Kornbluh, Joyce L. , Rosemont, Franklin, Thompson, Fred, Gross, Daniel
26 Quoted by Philip Taft, “The Federal Trials of the I.W.W.,” Labor History, 3 (Winter 1962), p. 79.
27 Winthrop D. Lane, “Uncle Sam, Jailor,” Survey, 42 (September 6, 1919), p. 808.
28 Ibid.
29 Justus Ebert, The I.W.W. in Theory and Practice (Chicago, 1921), p. 61.
30 Interview with Fred Thompson, June 23, 1963.
31 E. F. Dowell, A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation in the United States (Baltimore, 1939), p. 18.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid., p. 20.
34 Inaugural address of California Governor William D. Stephens, quoted in Weintraub, pp. 162–63.
35 Quoted by Gambs, p. 59.
36 Bill Haywood’s Book, p. 360.
37 Fred Thompson, The I.W.W.: Its First Fifty Years (Chicago, 1955), p. 137.
38 Taft, “The Federal Trials of the I.W.W.,” p. 86.
39 Ibid.
40 An Open Letter to President Harding from 52 Members of the I.W.W. in Leavenworth Penitentiary (Chicago, 1922), pp. 2, 3, 11.
41 Quoted by Gambs, p. 64.
42 American Civil Liberties Union, The Record of the Fight for Free Speech in 1923 (New York, 1924), cover page.
43 Thompson, p. 147.
44 William D. Haywood, “Break the Conspiracy,” One Big Union Monthly, 1 (December 1919), p. 7.
Chapter 12
1 John S. Gambs, The Decline of the I.W.W. (New York, 1932), pp. 117–18.
2 Robert L. Tyler, “The I.W.W. in the Pacific N.W.: Rebels of the Woods,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 55 (March 1954), p. 40.
3 Paul F. Brissenden, “Industrial Workers of the World,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 8, p. 16.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Trinidad Chronicle-News, October 19, 1927, quoted by Donald J. McClurg, “The Colorado Coal Strike of 1927—Tactical Leadership of the I.W.W.,” Labor History, 4 (Winter 1963), p. 77.
7 Gambs, p. 150.
8 Rand School of Social Science, The American Labor Year Book 1931 (New York, 1931), p. 129.
9 McClurg, p. 89.
10 Gambs, p. 154.
11 Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker 1920–1933 (Boston, 1960), p. 378.
12 Selig Perlman and Philip Taft, History of Labor in the United States 1896–1932, 4, Labor Movements (New York, 1935), p. 611.
13 Bernstein, p. 366.
14 Ibid., p. 377.
15 Fred Thompson, The I.W.W.: Its First Fifty Years (Chicago 1955), pp. 167–68.
16 Business Week, January 6, 1945, quoted in the Industrial Worker, February 27, 1945.
17 Time, 57 (April 1, 1946), p. 24.
18 Quoted by Zapeta Modesto (Barry Nichols), “Joe Hill, Some Notes on an American Culture Hero,” Wobbly (Berkeley, 1963), p. 5.
19 Tyler, p. 43.
Leslie Fish (Industrial Worker, August 1975)
Ern Hanson (Industrial Pioneer, July 1925)
Language of the Migratory Worker
Including hobo, lumberjack, and mining terms
Alky — grain alcohol
Anchor — pick
Angel food — mission preaching
Balloon — bed roll
Banjo — short-handled shovel
Benny — overcoat
Bill — short for “scissorbill”
Bindle — roll of bedding in which a bindle stiff wraps his personal possessions
Bindle stiff — worker who carries his bedding
Biscuit-shooter — short-order cook
‘Bo — abbreviated form of hobo
Boiler — cook who avoids baking and frying; a “wet” cook
Boomer — temporary worker, a wanderer, one who follows “booms” (good times)
Boom man — worker who rafts logs in the water
Bull — police
Bull bucker — strawboss of the timber-cutting crew; used in long log country only
Bull cook — chore man in any work camp
Bull of the woods — top boss in a logging camp
Bull pen — tank of a jail; sometimes a “men only” flophouse
Bumpers — riding space between freight cars
Bunyan camps — logging camps in which bedding is not provided
Buy a master — to pay a fee to an employment shark for a job
Buzzies — extension drilling machines used in mining
California blankets — newspapers used for bedding
Camp inspector — vagrant logger, a logger making one-night stops at lumber camps looking for work
Can — police station
Carrying a balloon — carrying a bed roll
Carrying the banner — avoiding the expense of a bed at night by walking the streets, sleeping on a subway, pretending to wait for a train at the depot, nursing a cup of coffee in an all-night diner, sitting in an all-night movie, etc.
Cat — worker well fitted in with some occupational subculture, such as “hep cat”; a worker who follows a specific occupation, such as “straw cat” for harvest hand; sometimes short for “sab cat,” the symbol of sabotage, such as “turn the cat loose”
Catting in — using another’s fire to cook on
Chinwhisker — pertaining to a farmer, such as “chinwhisker outfit”
Chokers — loop of wire rope used for yarding logs in a lumber camp
Chow — food
Chow-bell — dinner bell
Chuck — food ready to be eaten; (verb) to throw
Clam-gun — shovel designed for digging clams
Class-war prisoner — anyone jailed for his class-conscious views or acts
Coin — money
Coll — hobo deluxe dish of mashed baked potatoes, onions, and liverwurst
Con — train conductor
Cooperative Commonwealth — the ideal of a new social order which recognizes no national, occupational, or racial distinctions and represents the united economic force and social will of all workers in the world
Corks — correct spelling, “calks,” projections on shoes to prevent slipping; used as a name for shoes having calks
Crotch line — device for loading logs onto railroad cars
Crum — louse
Crum boss — janitor in a camp bunkhouse
Crummy — lousy; as a noun it means caboose
Crum up — to contaminate lodgings; since lice can be eliminated only by boiling, the delousing operation was termed “boil up”
Damper — cash register
Deck — roof or floor of a passenger train; as a verb, to pile logs on a skidway in a lumber camp
Dehorn — denatured alcohol or bootleg whiskey of inferior quality; anything that makes a worker depart from proper class-conscious behavior
Dehorn squad — Wobbly committee that would close up bars, speakeasies, and brothels during an I.W.W. strike
Dick — detective
Dingbat — the sort of tramp that could be described as “homeless, helpless, and harmless”
Dirt-hider — road grader
Ditch — to throw off a train; to dispose of something
Donkey — stationary engine; also, as a term for a silly person
Donkey-puncher — engineer on a donkey
Drag — street
Drifts — main tunnel in a mine
Dry house — miners’ lockerroom or change room
Ducket — ticket
Dump — recognized place or hangout
Enlightened — informed, intelligent, educated
Fallers — loggers who fall lumber
Fanned — hit on the soles by a police club
Farmer — any stupid, incompetent person
Fellow-worker — term used by Wobblies to address each other
Fink — strike breaker; an informer; may be derived from Pinkertons, private agency detectives frequently used by employers to break strikes
Fish — county jail term for new prisoners
Fix the job — direct action on the job; quickie stri
kes, passive resistance, deliberate bungling aimed to win better working conditions
Flag — to halt a train
Flats — hot cakes
Flip — to board a train in motion
Flipping — train riding
Floater — hobo; wanderer
Flop — shelter; place to sleep
Flunkey — cookhouse helper
Frisk — to search
Fritz, on the — in bad shape
Fruit tramp — migratory worker in fruit-picking operations
Gaffer — foreman
Gandy dancer — section man in an extra gang on the railroad
Gay cat — new hobo
Get my time — collect pay and leave camp
Glim — match or a light
Glom — to catch onto; to grab, as to “glom a gump,” to get a chicken without paying for it
Gob — worked out chambers in a mine into which waste rock is dumped
Groundhog — tunnel workers
Gump — chicken
Gump light — miner’s carbide light
Gunnels — steel struts beneath a box car
Guts — bracing rods beneath a box car
Gut robber — stingy cook
Gyppo — any piece-work system; a job where the worker is paid by the volume he produces rather than by his time
Hand out — lunch handed out in a paper bag
Hangin’ — overhead part of a mine tunnel
Hard tails — mules
Harness bull — uniformed policeman
Harp — nickname for the Irish
Harvest stiff — migratory agricultural worker
Hayburners — horses
Haywire — the wires used to tie bales of hay, available for temporary patching on jobs where horses were fed; thus, where equipment was held together with haywire, and therefore, anything below standard, such as in the term, “hay-wire outfit”
Highball — fast
Highball camp — camp where work is speeded up by foreman
Hijack — hold up, or hold-up man
Hit the ball — working at above normal pace
Hitting the grit — to jump off a moving train; to hike or walk
Hobo — migratory worker
Hog, on the — broke
Homeguard — town worker who does not move around from job to job
Hooker — hook tender, boss of the yarding crew in high lead country
Hoosier — anyone who is incompetent; farmers or villagers
Hoosier-up — to act incompetent; to withdraw efficiency consciously
Hot box — overheated journal box on railroad car; sometimes used to refer to a mine where oxidation of minerals created excessive heat
Hurry boggy — patrol wagon
Idiot stick — shovel
Jake — satisfactory
Java — coffee
Jerries — section hands
John — farmer
Jungle — meeting place, usually near a railroad division point, regularly occupied by hoboes for preparing food, “boiling up,” and sleeping
Jungle buzzard — hobo who hangs around a jungle waiting to be fed
Kangaroo court — court established among prisoners to raise revenue or tobacco as a mutual-aid project; the court “tries” new arrivals on the charge of breaking into jail without the consent of the inmates; it may also resolve grievances among prisoners and maintain discipline
Kicks — shoes
Kitten — the sab-cat’s offspring; verb, “to kitten,” to “fix the job”
Knowledge box — schoolhouse
Layout — an outfit, a logging concern
Live one — logger with money
Lousy — bad
Lump — parcel of food acquired by begging
Lush — drunkard
Make a riffle — acquire the price of a meal or a night’s lodging by begging
Makin out — getting paid and leaving a logging camp
Mancatcher — employment agent
Mark — easy mark; person or a place easy for food or money
Miner’s con — silicosis
Mission stiffs — men who made a profession of “getting saved”
Mongee — food; may have been derived from the French word “manger”
Moniker — name or nickname
Moocher — common beggar
Muck — any material to be shoveled; rock broken in mine blasting
Mucker — miner who loads cars with ore or rock; anyone who operates a manual shovel
Muck stick — long-handled shovel
Mule — corn alcohol
Mulligan — stew
Mulligan mixer — cook
Nose bag — lunch pail; lunch served in a paper bag or pail
O.B.U. — initials of One Big Union; Wobblies signed their letters, “Yours for the O.B.U.”
On the hog — broke
One Big Union — I.W.W. ideal of a single worldwide organization of labor
Outfit — company; logging or mining operation
Packing the banner — same as “carrying the banner”; walking the streets
Packing the rigging — carrying Wobbly literature and organization supplies
Packing mustard — carrying hod
Panhandling — begging on the streets
Parasite — labor’s class enemy
Pay-pole — log
Pearl diver — dishwasher
Peddle out — selling clothes to a used-clothes dealer
Peddler — slow freight or local train
Pie in the sky — reference to the bourgeois heaven; from Joe Hill’s song, “The Preacher and the Slave”
Pinkerton — Pinkerton Agency detective
Play the woods — work in a logging camp
Plush — seats on a passenger train; also called “cushions”
Piute — short for plutocrat
Pokeout — handout
Pond monkey — man who pushes logs around in a sawmill pond
Pot latch — grand reunion; a social
Pulled out — left the job; left town
Punch — to drive horses or cattle
Push — foreman
Pusher — boss; contractor
Raises — stope which is raised above the level of a drift in a mine
Rattler — fast freight train
Rebel — in Wobbly usage, a class-conscious worker who wishes to end the capitalist system
Reuben — farmer or villager
Rods — drawrods beneath a freight train
Rolls — blanket rolls
Round — in mining, the cycle of blasting, mucking out, timbering, and drilling to the next blast
Rube — short for “Reuben”
Rummy — drunk, or one who behaves as though alcohol had reduced his capacity for reason or action
Rustling — getting busy finding food or a job
Sap — policeman’s stick
Scab — person who works after a strike has been called and who takes the job of a striking union member
Scissorbill — worker who is not class conscious; a homeguard who is filled with bourgeois ethics and ideas
Set-down — invitation to come inside for a meal
Setup — company; same as “layout” or “outfit”
Sewer hogs — ditch diggers
Shacks — brakemen on train
Sharks — employment agents
Sheets — newspapers
Shorthorn — young lad
Short stake — any worker apt to quit when he has earned a small sum
Shotgun — speedy
Single jack — manual drill used with a hammer by the same worker
Skid road — district migrants frequent in towns; formerly the road over which logs were pulled
Slave — wage earner
Slave market — employment agency
Slinging the rigging — attaching wire rope to the main yarding line in a lumber camp
Sloughed — arrested
/> Slum — short for “slumgullion,” a stew
Smilo joint — “smilo” may have been the trade name for a proprietary near beer within prohibition limits; smilo joints were speakeasies or taverns serving bootleg liquor
Snipe — section hand; cigarette butt; as a verb, to retrieve a cigarette butt
Stake — sum of money intended to last until the next job
Stakebound — having accumulated a sum of money on a temporary job and feeling free to leave it
Stamps — Wobbly dues stamps
Stem — any principal thoroughfare; the main stem is the main street in the business district; as a verb, to beg on a business street
Stew bum — brokendown hobo
Sticks — any nonurban area, including the suburbs
Stiff — any kind of hobo worker, such as “harvest stiff”; also used to mean a corpse
Stope — a working off the main tunnel in a mine
Straw boss — foreman
Stump rancher — someone who settles on logged off land and who usually continues to work, at least part time, for wages
Sugan — a quilt
Taking five — knock off work for five minutes
Ten-day miner — tramp miner
Throw — spend freely
Throw the guts — talk too freely
Tie ’em up — “fix the job”; stop production until workers’ demands are met
Timber beasts — lumberjacks
Timber wolves — lumberjacks Tin horn — petty gambler
Tin pants — logger’s pants
Town clown — village constable
Traipse — travel around
Tramp — vagrant who lives by begging
Trap — mouth
Turkey — canvas bag
Ukulele — short-handled shovel
Vag — “without visible means of support”; police court charge of vagrancy
Walking delegate — union organizer who moves from job to job
Wob, Wobbly — an I.W.W. member; origin of the word is unknown
Working by the inch, working by the mile — piece work
Yap — farmer
Yarded — assembled
Yeggs — safecrackers
Yellow legs — mounted government authority, such as cavalryman, who wore yellow puttees
Selected Bibliography
Chapter 1. One Big Union
Books
Brissenden, Paul F., The I.W.W.; A Study of American Syndicalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1920.
Brooks, J. G., American Syndicalism, The I.W.W. New York: Macmillan, 1913.