Including the industrial workers' clubs there were fortythree organizations represented, of which number twentythree were represented by delegates having full power to install. The above analysis shows that of the 142,991 members presumably represented, nearly two-thirds sent delegates merely to take notes of the proceedings and report back. About one-third, some 51,000, were then prepared to cast their lot with the new undertaking. Also it appears that about one-third of the delegates wielded practically the whole voting power of the assembly.

Moreover, the balance of power within this empowered one-third was most unevenly distributed. Of the 51,000 votes aggregated by those organizations prepared to install, 48,000 votes were distributed among five organizations (these being the only ones with a voting strength of more than 1,000) as follows:

These were the organizations which were most prominent in the activities of the convention. Among their delegates were a goodly number of the most active pro

1 The United Brotherhood of Railway Employees was at that time an integral part of the A. L. U., so that its membership must be deducted from the total. This represents nominal membership only. Hillquit (History of Socialism in the United States, rev. ed., p. 336), reports the A. L. U. as having only seven delegates, whereas there were ten besides the nineteen of the U. B. R. E., which are of course not included in his estimate. Cf. Proceedings, First I. W. W. Convention, pp. 610-611.

moters of the movement. From them-especially from the Western Federation of Miners-finally came the great bulk of the funds for establishing the new union. It is evident that, numerically speaking, one single organization, the Western Federation of Miners, held the balance of power, and of the remaining votes, three-fourths were in the control of the American Labor Union, these two bodies together outnumbering the others ten to one. The sequel was to show that the numerically weaker organization exerted an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers, because of the great influence exerted by some of their individual delegates. Their representatives were radicals, representing more or less radical unions.

It might seem that the rôle played in the convention by an organization as comparatively weak in numbers as the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance could be accounted for, in some measure at least, by its proportionately large delegation. A glance at the table given above shows that the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance with a self-estimated strength of 14501 had fourteen delegates, while the Western Federation of Miners, 27,000 strong, had but five delegates. This was true to but a limited extent, for in the first place the voting power of each delegate was in direct proportion to the number of members he represented. Thus Haywood and his colleagues of the Western Federation of Miners had each 5400 votes, while DeLeon and each member of his delegation had 103.6 votes. In the second place, it was a contest of personalities. The fourteen Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance delegates comprised Daniel DeLeon and thirteen others. This same prominence of the individual was more or less evident among the other delegations. Some further concentration of power is evidenced

1 According to its opponents, 600. Cf. Hillquit, History of Socialism in the United States, rev. ed., p. 337.

in the fact that William D. Haywood and C. H. Moyer were both empowered delegates from two organizations, since they represented the A. L. U. as well as the W. F. M.

1

Indeed it is rather significant that several of the organizations which finally merged into the Industrial Workers of the World had little behind them but leaders. In some cases it appeared that the membership first credited was greatly exaggerated. Of the organizations that installed as a part of the new body, St. John declares that three "existed almost wholly on paper." Several of these labor bodies were really more shadow than substance. The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, the United Metal Workers, and the American Labor Union, St. John's three paper" unions, had come upon evil days and were in an advanced stage of disintegration. Hence perhaps their presence here. They did not want to expire. They preferred to be transformed into something yet more militant.

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The most significant and interesting phase of this unique body of industrialists was its many-sided intellectual character. Some of the high lights of divergent doctrine preached and defended here show more clearly than anything else how stupendous the undertaking was. Perhaps the least indefinite term which would give them all standing-room would be " revolutionary socialism," though many delegates repudiated the name socialist as being synonymous with reactionist and conservative. If socialists at all, they were socialists with a radical adjective. In reference to some the word "anarchistic" should be substituted for

1 Cf. supra, p. 71, note 3. The installment vote at the first convention records twelve organizations as voting in the affirmative (for list see Proceedings, First Convention, p. 614, and Brissenden, Launching of the I. W. W., p. 43). St. John (I. W. W. History, etc., p. 4) mentions but seven. H. Richter says that eleven organizations were installed by their delegates: "The I. W. W.: Retrospect and Prospects," Industrial Union News, January, 1912, p. 1, col. 3.

"revolutionary." They all believed in the "irrepressible conflict" between capital and labor. They were a unit in wishing for and aiming at the overthrow of the wages system-the downfall of capitalism. There was no place here for the "Gomperite" and his program of mutual interests of employer and employee; but the absence from the scene of the "identity of interest" and "coffin society" man did not guarantee harmony.1

As usual, there was disagreement as to the methods to be used to reach the common end desired. Hence certain divergent types of doctrine were expounded and certain warring factions resulted therefrom. St. John enumerates four main varieties as being predominant: (1) Parliamentary Socialists-two types, impossibilist (Marxian) and opportunist (reformist); (2) Anarchists; (3) Industrial Unionists; and (4) the "labor union fakir." This classification is ambiguous. No doubt the “labor union fakir,” who gets into any new move of this sort for what he can get out of it, has no real economic creed except that of the profiteer, but he enters a movement of this kind as an exponent of a certain legitimate doctrine and is at least presumed to belong to that doctrinal faction. It has been seen that during the proceedings of the convention it developed that there were delegates present who were not sincere in their attitude. It is a fact, as St. John points out, "that many of those who were present as delegates on the floor of the first convention and the organizations that they represented have bitterly fought the I. W. W. from the close

1 "Coffin society," a term used in derision of a common tendency of trades-union to place the emphasis on sick and death benefits, etc.

21. W. W. History, etc., p. 5. St. John says (letter of January 5, 1914) that "there were so few anarchists in the first convention that there was very little need to classify them."

of the first convention up to the present day." By no means all of these are necessarily fakirs, since the outcome of the deliberations of the first convention was somewhat different from that anticipated even by the signers of the manifesto.

There was present a very definite group of anarchists which, though in a rather small minority, was a constituent element in the doctrinal types represented. The term "industrial unionist" was one which really included practically all the participants. The industrial unionist may certainly be a socialist, and even of more than one variety; and it is also conceivable that the industrial unionist may be an anarchist. Consequently the term can hardly be used to mark off any particular faction in a convention of industrial unionists. The parliamentary socialists constituted one of the most powerful elements at the convention. In fact, the two main hostile groups were the impossibilists and the opportunists, the first group comprising parliamentary socialists of the Socialist Labor party and anti-parliamentary socialists, naturally having no political affiliations; and the latter comprising members of the Socialist party.

The line of cleavage then was between the Socialist party and the Socialist Labor party, that is, between reformist and doctrinaire elements, both parliamentary and both leaning toward industrial unionism. In a less prominent position at first was the direct-actionist group, antipolitical and anarchistic. This antagonism of ideas was of course the root cause of the defection of the Socialist Labor party and the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance elements three years later, and was responsible for the existence between 1908 and 1916 of two national organizations called the I. W. W. The Socialist party, or doctrinaire wing, is very logically the descendant of the doctrinaire wing at the

1 I. W. W., History, etc., p. 3.