You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Saturday July 1, 1905
Chicago, Illinois - Convention Adjourns Early and Committees Begin Their Work
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Yesterday was the fourth day of the Convention of Industrial Unionist being held at Brand's Hall in Chicago. The real work of the Convention will be done by the standing committees which have been established, and therefore, the Convention adjourned after the morning session so that the committees could get down to work.
Below our readers can find the Hellraisers report on the fourth day. But first we offer this report from our friends at Chicago Daily Tribune. The Tribune seems most troubled by the fact that Eugene Debs is a delegate at the convention.
While there are, of course, differences of opinion among Socialists on questions of working within the American Federation of Labor or forming a new Industrial Union based on class struggle, we will point out that many of the delegates at the convention are Socialists or members of unions which have endorsed Socialism.
The American Labor Union at its 1902 Convention declared itself for Socialism as expressed by the platform of the Socialist Party of America. The Western Federation of Miners and the United Brotherhood of Railway Employes are both member unions of the A. L. U. The W. F. M. comes into the Convention with 27,000 votes, the U. B. R. E. with more than 2087 votes, and the A. L. U. with 16,750 votes (left over to that organization after subtracting the votes of the miners and the railway men.) These three voting blocks hold the vast majority of the votes at the Convention.
The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance could be said to represent the views of De Leon's Socialist Labor Party. That organization holds 1450 votes at the Convention.
Altogether there are represented at the convention at least 47,287 working men and women who are members of unions which have declared themselves for Socialism.
Also present are many individual delegates who are members of the Socialist Party of America, such as Mother Jones and Eugene Debs, that party's candidate for President in the last campaign.
The Chicago Daily Tribune does not bother to interview any of these well-known Socialist Trade Unionists to ask them why they are supporting the Convention of Industrial Unionist, but instead interviews some unknown (to us, at least) Socialist Attorney. Our readers will note that this Attorney makes no intelligent argument to support the policy of "boring from within" the American Federation of Labor, but instead merely throws out insults.
From the Chicago Daily Tribune of July 1, 1905:
LOCAL SOCIALISTS
DECRY INDUSTRIAL UNION PLANS.
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Characterize Proceedings as a Farce
and Predict Early Failure-
Regret Affiliation of Debs with
the Movement
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Members of the local socialists party do not look favorably on the new movement to be inaugurated by Debs' and the industrial unionist convention in session at Brand's hall. They characterize the proceedings as a "farce" and predict its speedy failure.
Attorney Peter Sissman, a member of the socialist party, said it was "unfortunate" that Debs, who has twice been honored by his party with the presidential nomination, should ally himself with a movement with which his party has no sympathy.
[Said Sissman:]
I consider the whole proceedings of that convention a farce, and whatever may come from it will be sure to fail...The convention is made up of shipwrecked De Leonites from New York, every anarchist in Chicago, and a lot of impossibilist socialists.
Charles Breckon, county secretary of the socialist party, voiced similar sentiments.
Beyond reading and referring resolutions to the various committees little was done by the industrialist convention during the day. The meeting adjourned at noon to give the committees an opportunity to formulate their reports, which will be heard this morning. Among the eighteen resolutions read was one which called for the establishment of an international labor day on May 1 to be celebrated all over the world.
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