cess.

ical party of Socialism which marches to the polls unarmed by such [an] organization, but invites a catastrophe over the land in the measure that it strains for [and achieves] political sucIt must be an obvious fact to all serious observers of the times, that the day of the political success of such a party in America would be the day of its defeat, immediately followed by an industrial and financial crisis, from which none would suffer more than the working class itself. . . . By its own declarations and acts the American Federation of Labor

shows that it accepts wage-slavery as a finality . . holding that there is identity of interest between employer and employee. . . . . . Consequently [the Conference] . . . rejects as impracticable, vicious, and productive only of corruption the theory of neutrality on the economic field . . ., condemns the American Federation of Labor as an obstacle to the emancipation of the working class . . . [and] commends as useful to the emancipation of the working class the Industrial Workers of the World, which instead of running away from the class struggle bases itself squarely upon it, and boldly and correctly sets out the socialist principle " that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common...

"1

The second I. W. W. convention met on September 17, 1907, with ninety-three delegates. The sessions continued for sixteen days. It had been predicted at the first convention that the Industrial Workers of the World would within a year be one hundred thousand strong. This forecast was, according to Secretary Trautmann's report to the second convention, very much too sanguine. This report indicated that there were some sixty thousand members (including 27,000 in the Western Federation of Miners) at the opening of the second convention. The following tabulation of the growth of the membership during the first year is arranged from the data given in Mr. Trautmann's report:

'Proceedings of New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, pp. v-vi.

* Including S. T. & L. A. accession, 1200 members.

The data, it will be noticed, is very fragmentary in regard to the growth of the various departments, and even the figures representing total membership can be considered by no means conservative. Mr. St. John, until recently SecretaryTreasurer of the organization, wrote "that the Second Annual Convention reports claim 60,000 members, but the books of the organization did not justify any such claims; in fact, the average paid-up membership with the W. F. of M. for the first year of the organization was 14,000 members in round numbers." 2

As has already been intimated, the Mining Department was from the first not very securely held in the bonds of the

1 Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention, p. 60. These figures are based on per capita taxes paid and do not include the mining department which at the time referred to was paying taxes on 22,000 members. Ibid. 2 Private Correspondence, Oct. 5, 1911. (The italics are mine.)

general organization, and it is very doubtful whether the 27,000 miners should be included in I. W. W. membership estimates even during the period while the Western Federation was nominally a department of the Industrial Workers of the World. According to Secretary Trautmann, it was evident" on August 1, 1905, that those brave men of the American Labor Union, numbered then 1,100, and approximately 700 in the Metal Department, [and] could not be swayed by the denunciation of the opposition in the West, those under cover as friends, often more dangerous than those openly fighting the I. W. W." "These 1900 [1800]," continued Mr. Trautmann, " constituted the only force with which the constructive work was begun.

President Sherman reported that on September 10, 1906, the locals holding charters in the Industrial Workers of the World numbered 394, of which number 120 were not at that time in good standing, so that there were at the time of the second convention 274 active locals enrolled." The greater part of this number consisted of local unions directly attached to the general organization without any intervening subordinate division or subdivision. A considerable minority of the total, however, comprised local unions which were only indirectly attached to the general organization, such locals being enrolled in District Councils or National Industrial Unions, or even Industrial Departments and being directly responsible to that council, national union, or department.

There were but three departments actually organized as such during the first twelve months. These were the Transportation Department, the Metals and Machinery Department, and the Mining Department. The Mining Department

1 Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 60.

' Vide President's report, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 43.

was the only one of the three having the membership necessary to justify existence as a separate autonomous department, and it was finally the only department recognized as such at the second convention. The Western Federation of Miners was thus the I.W.W.'s only genuine departmentand a department, moreover, which was agitating sub rosa all the while against the general organization of which it was even a nominal department for but a few months.

Concerning the Transportation Department, Secretary Trautmann reported to the convention that, "the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees . . . installed itself as the Transportation Department of the I. W. W., it being accepted as a fact that said Brotherhood was an integral part of the American Labor Union and had at the time of installment 2,087 members. .

. . . this so-called department [he said] proved to be a constant drain on the general treasury. . . While the Transportation Department has paid in taxes to the Industrial Workers of the World the sum of $130.75, the main organization was constantly paying more into that department in the vain hope that eventually the workers in that industry would rally around the banner of industrial unionism. .. .1

Although the convention decided not to recognize the Transportation Department, it did endorse a resolution providing "that the credentials of all local unions be transportation workers who are sending delegates, be recognized and the delegates seated." 2 The break-up of the Metal and Machinery Department and the bolting of that (chief) subdivision of it which was formerly and now again became the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has been referred to above. The convention took the same action in regard to

1 Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), pp. 55-56. 2 Ibid., p. 9.

3 Cf. infra, p. 122.

this as in the case of the Transportation Department, denying recognition to the Department but granting it to those local unions (the United Metal Workers Union in this case) which had sent delegates to the convention.

1

It was claimed that seven international unions voluntarily joined the Industrial Workers of the World, "even though they were forced by the power of the capitalist combinations to remain ... attached to the American Federation of Labor." The seven "international" industrial unions are nowhere specifically mentioned but must presumably have included unions belonging to the three departments mentioned above and which were organized during the first year. The International Musical Union was one of these so-called international unions. This organization was not even satisfied to be an international industrial union-it insisted on being a Department as well-and claimed the title of

the International Musical and Theatrical Union, Subdivision of the Public Service Department of the Industrial Workers of the World . . . [all this] on the grounds . . . that organizations comprising 1000 and even less members were allowed autonomous department administration and department executive boards; and so that organization has since been using the prestige of the I. W. W. to justify its existence as a part of a department not at all organized." 2

There is not now and never has been a genuine, that is to say a constitutional, Public Service Department in the I. W. W., and of course the convention could not recognize a mere fragment of what might some day become a Public Service Department.

1

1 Report of General Secretary Trautmann, Proceedings, Second I. W. W. Convention (1906), p. 63.

2 Trautmann, loc. cit., p. 57.