this Industrial Workers of the World is not a government of departments, it is a government of the rank and file. Moreover, if you turn over to the manifesto, along the lines of which we hewed so close, and allowed neither extremists nor reactionists to cause us to swerve, that manifesto clearly speaks about the autonomy that should prevail, namely, in internal matters that do not concern others, and it refers to working class unity. A working class unity cannot be maintained in the I. W. W. if the head of any department has it in his power to exclude from the rank and file the actions of the General Executive Board of the whole body. If the governor of a state or the legislature of a state had power to keep information away from the rank and file of the state as to what occurs, you can imagine what would be the result. And that was just what was wanted by

. . the element that wanted that no law passed by the Congress should reach the rank and file, unless it went through the state authorities. . . . We had the nullification turmoil, we had Aaron Burr, who attempted rebellion, and we finally had the conflict that put an end to it. Now I maintain that this bourgeois history is the pedestal on which we stand. Revolution does not mean to break off with the past; we are children of the past, and what we are laboring for here upon the industrial field, the bourgeois capitalists have established before us upon the political field, the political field dividing us into states, the industrial field proposing to remove state distinctions and establishing the industries on a newer basis. . . . The actions of the General Executive Board shall be brought before the rank and file of each organization, and while the industrial unions must have autonomy in their private affairs, in affairs such as are properly private they are to have autonomy, the autonomy is destroyed absolutely upon matters of general concern.

5

The General Executive Board has wielded, in the last few years, greater power than was originally intended. This is probably due to outside causes. The Industrial Workers, instead of mapping out organization and following well-laid-out plans, has been plunged into convulsive and sudden strikes in industries and districts where no organization existed.

The membership, based on cards issued, is 120,000. The paid-up membership in 1913 was 30,347. The Secretary reports that

the membership to-day consists almost wholly of unskilled workers. The bulk of the present membership is in the following industries: Textile, steel, lumber, mining, farming, and railroad construction. The majority of the workers in these industries, except the textile, travel from place to place following the different seasons of work. They are therefore out of touch with the organization for months at a period. "

6

To-day the Industrial Workers of the World holds the uncontested place of friend of the industrial outcast, the unemployed, and the unemployable. The Socialist Party at one time claimed that place, and held that a tramp was not a person to be despised because he was a tramp; that a man who refused to slave under capitalist exploitation deserves respect. It is now common to hear the Socialist Party members, with malice of thought, interpret the initials I. W. W. as "I won't work."

It is not surprising that the Industrial Workers of

the World, at the end of its eighth year, does not report a highly developed organization. It chose as its field the hitherto least organizable element in industry. It made its appeal and its plans to meet those workers who were the least able to give it permanent support, or even substantial temporary support. Its revolutionary program was met by capital and the courts with unrelenting opposition. Its attacks on the trade union movement developed factional disputes among the workers. Its agitation aroused workers to sudden and unexpected revolt in various parts of the country. Its free speech fights brought it into conflicts which had to do with the question of individual freedom rather than with labor organization, although they were the preliminaries of labor organization. It is impossible to predict whether it will be able to develop its organization, or realize the outline of organization it has before it. Its record of the past three years, 1912 to 1914, is a record of a national force rather than one of an organization.

CHAPTER V

ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN

No evidence of policy of union discrimination-Lack of confidence in her executive ability-Problem is not discrimination but the position of woman and attitude toward herRelation between unskilled and women workers-Her domestic and industrial position related-Women not interested in permanent organization-Women good strikers-Women's Trade Union League.

FOR several reasons the organization of women wageearners is a subject apart from the organization of workers as a whole.

There are no figures separating the membership of unions according to sex; all alike are wage-earners in statistical reports. Although there are unquestionably more men organized than women, there are also more men than women in the more organizable trades. The question of proportional membership of men and women is an open one. It is hypothetical to state that there is a policy of discrimination against the unionizing of women. The American Federation of Labor in its pledge of membership requires that no discrimination shall be made on account of sex, creed, or color in the local or federal unions directly dependent on the National Executive Council. Moreover, wherever there is a demand on the Council for

the organization of these unions there is no lack of interest or effort on account of sex. It will be remembered that the home rule policy of the Federation leaves its international unions free to organize as they elect within their jurisdiction. At the 1913 convention of the Federation a per capita tax of one per cent. was levied as a special assessment to defray a campaign for the organization of women.

The national unions of the American Federation differ in their attitude toward women, but it is practically impossible to fasten on any what could be considered sex discrimination in admittance to membership. In exceptional instances are men and women engaged in doing the same kind of work. As the national unions of the American Federation organize by crafts and by division of crafts, and as these crafts and divisions represent a branch of an industry in which either men or women are at work, proof of discrimination could be deduced in the exceptional cases only where men and women are doing the same kind of work in one locality, and the men are organized and the women are not. There are probably several exceptional instances, like the organization of cigar packers. Both men and women pack cigars. The men cigar packers who are organized in New York opposed attempts to include the women in their local union. They claimed that the women did inferior work and that their scale could not be raised to meet union requirements, but they did not