III. The structure of the organization in 1917. (Chart) 353 IV. Membership statistics: Table A. Membership of Chicago and Detroit branches. (1905-1916). 354 Table B. Membership of the I. W. W. compared with the aggregate number of organized workers in the U. S., by industries 356 Table C. Membership of the I. W. W. and of certain other selected organizations and industrial groups. (1897-1914) 358 Table D. Membership of (1) the I. W. W. and (2) all American trade unions 359 V. Geographical distribution of I. W. W. locals in 1914. (Chicago and Detroit) 360 VI. Reasons assigned for locals disbanding. (1910-1911) 366 VII. Free-speech fights of the I. W. W. (1906-1916) 367 VIII. I. W. W. strikes. (1906-1917) 368 IX. Selections from the I. W. W. Song Book. 370 X. Copies of State "Criminal Syndicalism" statutes. 381 BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 INDEX 429 PART I BEGINNINGS CHAPTER I FORERUNNERS OF THE I. W. W. The revolutionary doctrines of the I. W. W. are spoken of today as constituting the "new unionism" or the "new socialism". It cannot be too strongly emphasized, however, that neither I. W. W.-ism nor the closely related but materially different French syndicalism are brand-new codes which the irreconcilables, here and in France, have invented out of hand within the last quarter of a century. Industrial unionism, as a structural type simply, and even _revolutionary_ industrial unionism--wherein the industrial organization is animated and guided by the revolutionary (socialist or anarchist) spirit--hark back in their essential principles to the dramatic revolutionary period in English unionism of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In America the labor history of the seventies, and especially the eighties, teems with evidences of the industrial form and the radical temper in labor organizations. The elements of I. W. W.-ism were there; but they were not often co-existent in the same organization. Contemporary writers have not failed to call attention to the striking similarity between the doctrines of the English Chartists and those of our modern I. W. W. The bitter attacks of the Industrial Workers upon politics and politicians and their appeal to all kinds and conditions of labor were also fundamental articles in the creed of the Chartists--who stressed the economic factor almost as forcibly as do the I. W. W.'s today.[3]