All this friction and internal discord was naturally made to loom large in the editorials of the _American Federationist_; Gompers, in fact, squinted hard enough at the Chicago conference to see absolutely nothing in it. The August (1905) number contained the following, under the caption "Those 'World Redeemers' at Chicago": After an effort of more than six months ... the distribution of tons upon tons of circulars and "literature" throughout America and every other country throughout the globe ... what was the result? The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse, and a very silly little mouse at that.... And out of this material [the S. T. and L. A. and the A. L. U.] they proclaim themselves the "Industrial Workers of the World." Their nerve is so colossal that it is positively ludicrous. Of course the two and a half million ... workmen in the trade-union movement are entirely oblivious that they are included.... The wheel of fortune, otherwise known as ex-Father Hagerty's chart, was adopted as a "plan" of organization. This plan is so unique and so fantastic that we accord it space in our columns and thus give it historic importance.... [And finally he prophesies that] as time goes on the active participants in the labor movement of the future, students, thinkers, historians, will record the Chicago meeting as the most vapid and ridiculous in the annals of those who presume to speak in the name of labor, and the participants in the gathering as the most stupendous impossibles the world has yet seen.[171] But in spite of dissension on the inside and bitter abuse and misrepresentation on the outside, the industrialists were, on the whole, very optimistic about the prospects of the new-born I. W. W. and held high hopes for its future. In spite of the emphatic declaration of the manifesto that the I. W. W. "should be established as the economic organization of the working class, without affiliation with any political party," the newspapers and even the labor press persisted in representing the movement as a political one. Thus the Milwaukee _Journal_ said: The Socialists are still earnestly advocating the formation of a new national organization in the hope of downing the American Federation of Labor, as the Federation is opposed to making the labor union a political organization.[172] The _Advance Advocate_, a labor organ, had this to say: And now a new industrial union is to be launched in Chicago. It is going to revolutionize the whole labor movement according to the manifesto of its promoters. It is going into politics. We predict that it will fail.[173] The Iowa State Federation of Labor issued the following statement: