You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday December 23, 1904
Denver, Colorado - Charles Moyer Appointed to Executive Council of the A. L. U.
The Western Federation of Miners has strengthened its ties with the
American Labor Union. Charles Moyer, President of the miners' federation, is now a member of the executive council of the ALU.
From The Salt Lake Tribune of December 22, 1904:
Member of Executive Council.
DENVER, Colo., Dec. 21-Charles H. Moyer, president of the Western Federation of Miners, has been appointed a member of the executive council of the American Labor union, to serve until the next annual convention.
According to
The Salt Lake Tribune of December 10, 1904, the Western Federation of Miners never seriously considered joining the American Federation of Labor despite the repeated invitations from A. F. of L. to the metals miners:
Labor Leaders Confer.
DENVER, Dec 9.-George Estes, president of the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees and a member of the executive board of the American Railway union, and Clarence Smith, general secretary-treasurer of the American Labor union, met the executive board of the Western Federation of Miners today for the purpose of discussing plans for the advancement of the American Labor union and its subordinate unions. It is announced that no thought was ever given to the possibility of the Miners' Federation joining with the American Federation of Labor.
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A statement in the December issue of the
American Labor Union Journal reaffirms the strong commitment of the A. L. U. to the principle of Industrial Unionism, with a vision of the eventual establishment of the cooperative commonwealth. This is the same principle, Union Solidarity as a revolutionary ideal, which also guides the Western Federation of Miners:
The economic organization of the proletariat is the heart and soul of the socialist movement, of which the political party is simply the public expression at the ballot box. The purpose of industrial unionism is to organize the working class in approximately the same departments of production as those which will obtain in the cooperative commonwealth, so that, if the workers should lose their franchise, they would still possess an economic organization intelligently trained to take over and collectively administer the tools of industry and the sources of wealth for themselves.
Eugene Debs Defends the American Labor Union
The American Labor Union has been attacked as a dual union federation since its founding. The American Federation of Labor has vowed to destroy it. And even the Socialist Party of America has not supported this western organization of workers. This despite the fact that the A. L. U. has declared itself for Socialism and many of its members are strong supporters of the Socialist Party.
Eugene Debs defied the leadership of his party, and, in the November 1902 edition of the International Socialist Review, offered a strong defense of the American Labor Union. We reprint below a portion of that article by Debs:
The Western Labor Movement
There seems to be considerable misapprehension, especially among Socialists, in regard to the trade union movement of the Western states, whose delegates, recently assembled in national convention, adopted the platform of the Socialist Party and pledged the support of their organizations to the International Socialist movement. This radical departure from the effete and reactionary non-political policy of the American Federation of Labor, so long and so earnestly striven for by the Western leaders, and so entirely compatible with the Socialist conception of class-conscious and progressive trade unionism, should have been met with the prompt and hearty approbation of every unionist and every Socialist in the land. That such was not the case, the lukewarm comment and half-approving, half-condemning tone of the Socialist Party press, with but one or two exceptions, bear convincing testimony, while the uncalled for, unwise, and wholly unaccountable official pronunciamento [*] of the St. Louis “Quorum,” purporting to speak for the National Committee, capped the climax of unfairness and injustice to the Western movement.
Stripped of unnecessary verbiage and free from subterfuge, the Socialist Party has been placed in the attitude of turning its back upon the young, virile, class-conscious union movement of the West, and fawning at the feet of the “pure and simple” movement of the East, and this anomalous thing has been done by men who are supposed to stand sponsor to the party and whose utterance is credited with being ex cathedra upon party affairs.
They may congratulate themselves that upon this point at least they are in perfect accord with the capitalist press, and also with the “labor lieutenants,” the henchmen, and the heelers, whose duty it is to warn the union against Socialism and guard its members against working class political action.
The writer takes issue with these comrades upon this vital proposition; and first of all insists that they (including the members of the Quorum) speak for themselves alone, as they undoubtedly have the right to do, and that their declaration in reference to the American Labor Union is in no sense a party expression, nor is it in any matter binding upon the party, nor is the party to be held responsible for the same.
As a matter of fact the rank and file of the Socialist Party, at least so far as I have been able to observe, rejoice in the action of the Denver convention, hail it as a happy augury for the future, and welcome with open arms the Western comrades to fellowship in the party.
“Why didn’t they stay in the Federation of Labor and carry on their agitation there? Why split the labor movement?” This is made the burden of the opposition to the Western unionists, who refused to be assimilated by Mark Hanna’s “Civic Federation ”—the pretext for the scant, halfhearted recognition of their stalwart working class organization and their ringing declaration in favor of Socialism and in support of the Socialist Party.
And this objection may be dismissed with a single sentence. Why did not those who urge it remain in the Socialist Labor Party and carry on their agitation there? Why split the Socialist movement?...
...The conventions of the Western Labor Unions, the Western Federation of Miners and the Hotel and Restaurant Employee’s Union, held simultaneously at Denver in May last [1902], attracted wide attention chiefly because of their declaration in favor of Socialism and their adoption of an independent political program. Prior to this these organizations were rarely mentioned, in fact unknown in the Eastern and Middle states and no reference to them was ever made by the capitalist press outside their own immediate jurisdiction. But the very moment they declared in favor of Socialism, the capitalist press, the “pure and simple” union element, and, strange to say, some Socialists, “Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.” As for the Socialists who joined in the outcry, or “damned with faint praise,” they were perhaps persuaded, after a survey of the East and then the West, that it was wiser policy to curry favor with numbers than to stand by principles.
The impression prevails in some quarters that the American Labor Union was first instituted at the convention in Denver last May. This is erroneous, as the organization has been in existence several years, and at the late convention simply changed its name from the Western Labor Union to the American Labor Union to more properly describe its expanding jurisdiction.
Fault has been found because of the rival disposition shown by the convention of the American Federation and the purpose to invade other sections and organize rival unions, thereby dividing the movement and precipitating a factional labor war.
The delegates to the Denver convention considered this phase of question in all its bearings; they did not propose to antagonize the American Federation, nor to invade its jurisdiction, nor set up rival unions, they simply proposed to protect their own movement in the Western states and they did not propose to allow attacks to be made upon it without resenting them; and when they finally took action, even in the matter of changing their name, it was in self-defense, for from every quarter, even some of their own disgruntled element who sought to defeat the proposed adoption of Socialism, came the threat that if the Western Union did not return to the American Federation, the latter would send a corps of organizers into the Western states to institute rival unions and “wipe the Western movement off the earth.”.....Eugene Debs
*The "wholly unaccountable official pronunciamento" made by the St. Louis Quorum of the National Committee of the Socialist Party in its
semi-annual report of Sept. 12, 1902:
The independent tendencies of the state organizations find expression in different tactics by different states on questions of national policy, so that while the National Committee may be attempting to rally the comrades of the country on a certain line of action, conflicting policies may be urged by one or more State Committees. This confusion in organization and in tactics is well illustrated at this time by many of our comrades who seem to think that Socialist principles are justification for applauding a division on Socialist lines between the economic organizations of the working class.
While the Socialist Party in national convention has solemnly pledged itself to the unification of the trade unions, yet a contrary policy has been set up in the West by comrades acting in a dual capacity as organizers of the American Labor Union and the Socialist Party, thus misrepresenting the attitude of our party and compromising it in their attempts to build up a rival organization to the American Federation of Labor.
Hearst Refuses to Advertise the American Labor Union
From the Appeal to Reason of December 17, 1904:
Hearst's Chicago American refused to print an advertisement of the American Labor Union containing three lines, as follows: "American Labor Union, General Headquarters, room 3, Haymarket Theater Building, Chicago. Telephone, Monroe 2294." How Willie Hearst does love the laboring class!
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SOURCES
The Salt Lake Tribune
(Salt Lake City,Utah)
-Dec 22, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
-Dec 10, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The I.W.W. a study of American syndicalism.
by Paul Frederick Brissenden
Published 1919 in New York
https://archive.org/...
The Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Dec 17, 1904
http://www.newspapers.com/...
The International Socialist Review, Volume 3
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1903
(search: november 1902; choose p.257)
https://books.google.com/...
See also:
Debs on the WLU/ALU
“The Western Labor Movement” by Eugene Debs
pdf!https://www.marxists.org/...
Reply to Debs
pdf!https://www.marxists.org/...
The American Socialist Movement 1897-1912
-by Ira Kipnis
Haymarket Books, 2005
https://books.google.com/...
IMAGES
Charles Moyer
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
WFM Button
http://www.nps.gov/...
Eugene Debs
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
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There Is Power In The Union - Utah Phillips
There is power, there is power,
In a band of working folks
When they stand hand in hand.
That's a power, that's a power
That must rule in every land,
One Industrial Union Grand!
-Joe Hill
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