The Knights were a curious mixture of conservative and radical elements. The organization was socialistic, but rather state socialistic than anything else. Despite their arbitration clause they did not believe in the identity of interest of employer and employee. As trade unionists they were innovators and steered far from the narrow trade type of union imported from England. They said--_in words_--that they wanted to destroy the wage system. "To point out a way to utterly destroy this system would be a pleasure to me," said Grand Master Workman Powderly.[17] As to the Knights of Labor policy in regard to violence, Perlman says that "... although the leaders of the Knights preached against violence and what we now call _sabotage_ both were nevertheless extensively practiced, as, for instance, in the Southwest Railway strike of 1886." He goes on to draw a parallel between the Knights and the "Wobblies," declaring that the latter preach violence without practicing it, while the Knights practiced it without preaching. He adds that the Knights of Labor adopted coöperation as their official philosophy and the I. W. W. adopted syndicalism and declares that neither practiced their doctrines very much.[18] The disrupted condition of the Knights of Labor in 1902, three years before the organization of the I. W. W., may be understood from the following press dispatch: The rival factions of the Knights of Labor will each hold a congress at Albany this week beginning Tuesday. Each congress claims to represent the Knights of Labor in this State.... The Hayes faction has at present the books, property and paraphernalia of the Knights of Labor which were awarded to it by the courts some time ago.[19] Simultaneously with the rise of the Knights of Labor in America came the International Workingmen's Association, the famous "International" which, springing up in Europe in the late sixties, soon spread to both sides of the Atlantic. It was first established in the United States in 1871. This first American section of the International made a slogan of the declaration that the emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves.[20] The organization appears to have been short-lived; for ten years later, in 1881, another body calling itself the International Workingmen's Association was organized at Pittsburgh. This organization, says Tridon, was "made up mostly of laborers and farmers who rejected all parliamentary action and advocated education and propaganda as the best means to bring about a social revolution."[21] In 1887, when they had about 6,000 members, they attempted to amalgamate with the Socialist Labor party, but the negotiations failed and they disbanded.[22]