These divergent creeds were given color and life by a few men who really dominated the convention. There is no organization in existence having less room for hero-worship than the Industrial Workers of the World. The manifesto provided that all "powers should rest in the collective membership." Its members seemed firmly convinced that all labor leaders (except I. W. W. organizers!) are really "misleaders" of labor, and throughout their propaganda literature there is evident this repudiation of leaders and apotheosis of the "collective membership." Nevertheless the I. W. W. has been led and misled by leaders ever since its inception. The first convention rang with the dominant notes of a handful of men: Daniel DeLeon, William D. Haywood, "Father" T. J. Hagerty, Eugene V. Debs, William E. Trautmann, A. M. Simons, Clarence Smith, D. C. Coates, and C. O. Sherman. Debs, Haywood and Simons were then, and are today, members of the Socialist party. Simons and DeLeon were leaders in the two opposing Socialist political parties, Simons in the Socialist party and editor of the _Coming Nation_, and DeLeon, editor of the _Daily People_ and the one dominant and national figure in the Socialist Labor party. T. J. Hagerty was a Catholic priest. With the coöperation of James P. Thompson, and others probably, he framed the original I. W. W. Preamble. He was the designer of the chart which Samuel Gompers referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel of Fortune,"[113] and the author of a pamphlet entitled _Economic Discontent_. Eugene V. Debs, the best known to them all, came into the movement with all his contagious enthusiasm and eloquence, full of optimism for the future of this new organization. I believe it is possible [he said] for such an organization as the Western Federation of Miners to be brought into harmonious relation with the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance ... and I believe it is possible for these elements ... to combine here ... and begin the work of forming a great economic or revolutionary organization of the working class so sorely needed in the struggle for their emancipation.[114] From the West came William D. Haywood with many years' experience with the Western Federation of Miners in Colorado. He was an experienced organizer and was full of the militant spirit of the Western Federation of Miners. He scorned agreements and contracts. Speaking of the Western Federation of Miners at the first convention he said: "We have not got an agreement existing with any mine manager, superintendent, or operator at the present time. We have got a minimum scale of wages" and "... the eight-hour day, and we did not have a legislative lobby to accomplish it."[115] And now he came to Chicago to help build up the same sort of an organization for not alone the mining industry but for all industries.