You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday March 27, 1905
Denver, Colorado - Plans Progressing for Chicago Convention of Industrial Unionist
From a recent article in the Chicago Daily Tribune:
TALKS OF UNIVERSAL UNION.
W. D. Haywood of Western Federation
Says Plans Are Progressing for
World Labor Organization.
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Denver, Colo. March 20-[Special.]-Plans for a giant labor union that shall offer membership privileges to every advocate of organized labor on the face of the globe are progressing favorably, according to W. D. Haywood, secretary of the Western Federation of Miners. He asserts he has received thousands of letters from persons who promise to attend the first convention in Chicago June 26. Haywood and W. L. Hall of Chicago are the prime movers in the scheme. The former claims the support of many socialist labor leaders.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE
Chicago Daily Tribune
(Chicago, Tribune)
-Mar 21, 1905
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGE
WFM Button
http://www.nps.gov/...
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How the January Conference of Industrial Unionist Was Orgainized
A letter was sent out to a those known to support industrial unionism:
Chicago, Ill., Nov. 29, 1904.
Dear Brother:
William E Trautmann
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Developments of the past year have convinced us that craft division and political ignorance are doomed to speedily end.
Asserting our confidence in the ability of the working class, if correctly organized, on both industrial and political lines, to take possession of and operate successfully for their own interests the industries of the country;
Believing that working class political expression, through the Socialist ballot, in order to be sound, must have its economic counterpart in a labor organization builded as the structure of Socialist society, embracing within itself the working class in approximately the same groups and departments and industries that the workers would assume in the working class administration of the Co-Operative Commonwealth;
Realizing that to wisely inaugurate such a movement will require the putting aside of every selfish consideration by those who undertake the tremendous task;
We invite you to meet with us at Chicago, Monday, January 2, 1905, in secret conference, to discuss ways and means of uniting the working people of America on correct revolutionary principles, regardless of any general labor organization of past or present, and only restricted by such basic principles as will insure its integrity as a real protector of the interests of the workers.
You are to notify the Committee, through the Secretary, W. L. Hall, No. 3 Haymarket Building, Chicago, of your compliance with this invitation.
Names on enclosed list are of those invited to participate in the conference.
Fraternally yours,
WILLIAM E. TRAUTMANN
(Editor Brewers’ Journal.)
GEORGE ESTES,
W. L. HALL,
EUGENE V. DEBS
CLARENCE SMITH
CHARLES O. SHERMAN.
LIST REFERRED TO OF PERSONS INVITED.
Chas. Moyer, A. M. Simons, David C. Coates, William E. Trautmann, Isaac Cowen, Victor Berger, Eugene V. Debs, J. W. Vincent, W. J. Pinkerton, J. E. Fitzgerald, W. J. Bradley, John L. Murphy, William D. Haywood, Thomas J. Hagerty, Clarence Smith, Joseph Proebstel, M. E. White, Max Hayes, Chas. O. Sherman, Michael Berry, Daniel McDonald, A. V. Raley, W. C. Walsh, W. F. Fox, John M. O’Neil, J. A. Wayland, Geo. Estes, Julius Zorn, W. L. Hall, J. W. Slayton, Edward Boyce, Mother Jones, Wade Shurtleff, Thomas De Young, O. Lorenzo, Dr. A. J. Swing, Frank Bohn, Frank McCabe, F. D. Henion, John Guild, Frank Krafft, C. G. Kirkpatrick.
[Photograph added.]
(The same letter was sent again from Chicago on December 22, 1904.)
Below are a few of the responses from those supporting the Conference of Industrial Unionists but unable to attend. These were entered into the record of the founding convention in June of 1905:
APPEAL TO REASON.
Girard, Kansas, Dec. 12, 1904.
Comrade W. L. Hall:
If conditions will permit I may be in at the appointment. But I wouldn’t be worth anything in council.
Fraternally,
J. A. WAYLAND.
Wallace, Idaho, Dec. 27, 1904.
Mr. W. L. Hall,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir and Brother:
Reply to your favor concerning the conference to be held in Chicago January 2, 1905, will say that I reached home Christmas Day after journeying from Boston, and owing to how I feel at this time I would not like to undertake another long trip. Therefore, I will be unable to be at your conference however much I would like to. In your deliberations I will be with you in spirit, and wish you the greatest measure of success in your deliberations.
Fraternally yours,
EDWARD BOYCE.
Terre Haute, Ind., Dec. 23, 1904.
Mr. Clarence Smith,
Chicago, Ill.
My Dear Comrade:
Your several favors have been received and noted. I have been unable to answer sooner, on account of illness which has kept me confined to my room during the last several weeks and from which I am but slowly recovering. The doctor has just informed me that I shall probably have to go South before there will be any appreciable recuperation of my strength. I shall not be able to attend the meeting on the second. I keenly regret this for I had counted on being with you and in giving such assistance as I could to the work of organizing that is to be undertaken along new and progressive lines. In spite of my best will this is now impossible. For a good many years I have been working without regard to myself and in all my life I have never known what it is to have a rest. The last year’s work was in many respects the hardest of my life. I spent myself too freely and have now reached the point when I must give up for a time as the doctor warned me that my nerves are worn down and that I am threatened with collapse. There is nothing the matter with me except that I am compelled to let go for a time and so I have had to cancel all my engagements for the immediate future. How soon I may be able to resume I do not know, but I think I shall have to quit the public platform entirely, or almost so, for a year or such matter. There are too many demands constantly upon me and I shall have to turn them aside until I can get myself in physical condition to resume my activities. Under any other circumstances I should have considered it a privilege as well as a pleasure to attend your meeting.
Please find draft enclosed covering the amount you were kind enough to advance to me. Please accept my warm thanks for the favor.
Profoundly regretting my inability to be with you and hoping the meeting may be fruitful of all the good results anticipated, I remain, yours faithfully,
E. V. DEBS.
[Photograph added.]
The letter from Max Hayes, who was not in favor of the Conference of Industrial Unionists and, therefore, declined the invitation, was read at the founding convention and was "received with manifestations of displeasure."
CLEVELAND TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 53.
Cleveland, O., Dec. 30, 1904.
W. L. Hall:
Dear Sir and Brother:
For two important reasons I will be unable to be present at the conference to which you have so kindly invited me, viz: “financial embarrassment, and, secondly, I am not altogether clear, as to what can be done or what it is proposed to do. You say, in the third paragraph, in substance, that the Socialist party must have its “economic counterpart,” etc., and in the fifth paragraph that it is your purpose to unite the workers on correct, revolutionary principles “regardless of any general labor organization of past or present.” This sounds to me as though we are to have another S. T. & L. A. experiment over again; that we, who are in the trade unions as at present constituted, are to cut loose and flock by ourselves. If I am correct in my surmises it means another running fight between Socialists on the one side and all other partisans on the other. Let me say frankly that under no circumstances will I permit myself to be dragged into any more secession movements or fratricidal wars between factors of workers because they are not of one mind at this juncture. If there is any fighting to be done I intend to use my energies and whatever ability I may possess to bombard the common enemy—capitalism. Moreover, I intend to put in whatever time and means that I have to agitate on the inside of the organizations now in existence to dump conservatism overboard and prepare to take their places “in the working class administration of the Co-operative Commonwealth.” Unless I am very much mistaken the rank and file of the trade unions are awakening as never before, and as soon as even a good-sized minority become thoroughly class conscious, the fossilized leaders will “go up in the air.”
From a strategic standpoint I would rather be inside the fort and take chances to secure the adoption of my plans than to be outside and regarded as an enemy. If the leaders of the S. L. P., so-called, had not made a number of glaring mistakes (as time has proven they did) the workers would have been won open to conviction long ago, and those of us who are active would not have been compelled to fight on the defensive. While not denying the right of men to secede, I question the tactics and especially when circumstances do not warrant such a move. At the present time the so-called pure and simple unions are throwing open their doors to a full and free discussion of all economic questions. I do not see that a purely Socialist union could do any more. And even if the present organizations changed their names next week and adopted high-sounding resolutions it would not mean any more Socialist votes unless the members understood our principles and changed their opinions.
Personally, I have absolutely no fear for the future as far as the present trade unions are concerned. While a few of the leaders are now “jagged” with power and a sense of their own importance, their peculiar performances makes their position insecure. If I am mistaken in my surmises and those who gather at your conference adopt ways and means to increase the activity and agitation in the trade unions in favor of progressive measures, and formulate plans to join and assist in the battle, nothing would please me more. In fact, I am sure that the conservative leaders would be more pleased to learn that they are to have opposition from the outside than that such opposition was becoming more formidable on the inside. I happen to know, for instance, that at every Federation convention there is more speculation and worrying about what the twenty or thirty odd Socialists intend doing than any equal number of men. Suppose the number of Socialist delegates were doubled or trebled?
Sincerely hoping that your conference will be able to grasp the full significance of the opportunities that confront our movement, and thanking you for the invitation extended, I am,
Yours fraternally,
MAX S. HAYES.
[Photograph added.]
Note: we will cover the January Conference of Industrial Unionist over the next day or two, (or three.)
SOURCE
Proceedings of the First Convention of the
Industrial Workers of the World
New York Labor News Company, 1905
(Can also be read here, scroll down about half for record of January Conference.)
https://www.marxists.org/...
IMAGES
William E Trautmann
https://libcom.org/...
Unionism and Socialism by Eugene V Debs, Cover, 1904
http://books.google.com/...
Max Hayes
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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Modern Day Wobblies Sing Solidarity Forever
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