The I. W. W.: A Study of American SyndicalismBrissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
History
The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism
Brissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
Industrial Workers of the World; Syndicalism
At the same time the delegates decided to take definite steps toward
organizing the unemployed. According to the Chicago papers, Haywood had
said: "Millions have been appropriated for the militia; nothing for the
wealth producers who will be without work. Where warehouses are full of
food, go in and take it; where machinery is lying idle, use it for your
purposes; where houses are unoccupied, enter them and sleep."[668] At
a later session (on September 24) there was adopted unanimously and
without discussion a resolution which, in effect, stipulated that all
speakers be instructed to recommend to the workers the necessity of
curtailing production by "slowing down" and the use of sabotage. The
resolution also suggested the publication of an explanatory leaflet
on this subject.[669] The _Daily News_ dispatch, just quoted, reports
F. H. Little, an executive board member from California, as saying,
"Wherever I go, I inaugurate sabotage among the workers. Eventually the
bosses will learn why it is that their machinery is spoiled and their
workers slowing down."
At the same session it was proposed that a conference on harvest
organization be held, and from this time on the harvest and the other
agricultural workers attracted more and more of the organization's
attention.
There was some discussion of the methods used in conducting the
business of the local unions, especially in regard to the bookkeeping
system--or lack of system. No definite decision was reached, but the
remarks of the delegates show that they were beginning to realize that
financial and membership records cannot be kept by the futurist or
impressionistic methods which are so effective on the soap-box. It was
realized also that responsible persons must be selected for the work
of the local secretary-treasurer, and it was urged that some uniform
system of bookkeeping be adopted for the use of local secretaries.
Some I. W. W. officials, like some bank officials, no doubt abuse the
confidence placed in them, although the daily press probably heralds
to the world the I. W. W. defalcation with greater promptness and
enthusiasm than it does that of the banker. A dispatch in the _Omaha
Bee_ (Nov. 24, 1916) says that the local "secretary-treasurer of the
Industrial Workers of the World has been missing for the last four
days and so is $250 which was to be used for the relief of strikers
and their families in Duluth, Minn." In another instance, according to
Vincent St. John, "the National Secretary [of the 'National Industrial
Union of Forest and Lumber Workers' of the I. W. W.] left with all the
funds in his charge six or eight months ago and the organization had to
start all over again...."[670]
The European war had broken out less than two months before this
convention met and the delegates did not fail to adopt a resolution
against war. It was worded in part as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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