SYNDICALISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

Evening Star, Issue 14963, 24 August 1912, Page 8

SYNDICALISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

i! THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD." A short while ago William D. Haywood, the orator of the American " Industrial Workers of the W'orld," went down to Pittsburg to addreee, a. monster protest meeting on behalf of Joseph EH or and Arturo Giovarmitti. Ettor and Giovannitti are to be tried in .Massachusetts for inciting to violence and murder during the recent textile workers' strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts. The trial is to take place in September. Before it comes on—probably at about the end of August—a weekly paper, with a specific object, will hare been started by the " Industrial Workers of the World." It will borrow the name of a French Syndicalist organ, and be called ' Direct Action.' I h.ive had long talks with the editor-elect of this journal (Mr S. A. Stodel) and other officials of the L.W/W. The starting of this paper is significant, because if is designed to forward a particular strike campaign in one of the biggest industries in America. It is claimed that this strike will involve workers in all branches of this industrv, and in allied industries, and that, it will be the greatest and most far-reaching labor contest that has yet taken place in America. Nothing Less Than devolution.— 1 am not in a position to confirm this prophecy, but I can vouch for the great influence of the American Syndicalists, both through their own separate organisation and within the ranks of the Socialist party and the trade unionists. For the I.W.W. are the Syndicalists of America. They aim at nothing less than revolution. They explicitly declare war upon soci.Hy as it is now organised. Their avowed enemies are all wage-payers, but primarily the great trusts. " They differ from the Socialist party in believing that little can be effected through politics and legislation, and they fundamentally differ from the American Federation of Labor in that they object to all agreements with employers, and distrust ameliorative measures such as increased wages or reduced hours. They object to the political method because the working classes, they believe, can never be. effectively represented in Congress or through the Presidency. They distrust the trade union method because it divides workers into grades, and enables the capitalist to play off one grade against another, and skilled workers against the unskilled, and because it endorses the wage system, which they wish to abolish altogether. In a preamble similar to that of the English Industrialist League they set forth that "the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with the employer." They take their stand upon the theory that "the working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few who make up the. employing class tiave al! the good things of life." Their ultimate objects are to take possession of the land and the machinery of production, to abolish the wage system, and give the worker the full product of his work: their immediate object is to gain any and every temporary advantage. Their weapon is the strike, applied as strategy may dictate. Their constructive mission is to organise labor so that production may be carried on when capitalism is overthrown. —The I.W.W. Propaganda.— The I.W.W. propaganda, has been singularly ]xrient in America, because it has appealed not so much to the unionist aristocracy of Labor as to the unorganised rank and rile ..f t!v working class. Their officials have sat themselves to organise workers, skilled and unskilled: they includ" men, -.voni'-i'. and children ; they enrol Italians and Poles, and even the negroes have been admitted to membership. In the mass meetings at Pittsburg members were sent, to speak in Polish and Italian. Giovanuitti, now in prison, is a fluent, speaker in four languages. They seize, even- opportunity which present* itself, a.nd by skilfully directing their forces are able to exercise a power far in excess of their numerical strength. Their greatest, triumph was among the textile workers of Lawrence, in Massachusetts, whore they owed nothing to trade unionism. The State Legislature had passed a Bill reducing the working | hours ir, factories from 56 to 54 hours a week. On the 13th of January the workers found that their wages had been cut down proportionately. A wave of indignation passed through them, and, acting "on the impulse of anger, the majority of them, unorganised and comparatively unskilled, quitted work and noted '< through the town. Ettor. Giovannitti, , : and oth»rs of the I.W.W. arrived on the j I scene, harangued the crowd, and enrolled j them by thousands in their organisation. The authorities accuse them of inciting | the people to violence, whilst they de- ! i Lire that, on the contrary, they coun-selled-the crowd to keep away from the; police and the militia, and to avoid dis- ! order. No doubt the mere statement of 1 their principles, uttered at a time when | popular feeling was inflamed, had the ! effect of incen'liarism. Their triumph lay j in the. fact that, by means of outside fund*, they kept the rtrike going for 13 weeks, when the mill-owners gave way. They point, to the fact that the skilled ■ workers benefited least, the poorest, and ! 'least skilled benefited most, the latter! gaining an ineivase of pay to the extent of 25 per tent., the fotmer only by 5 per | cent. ' | —War Without Violence. — " They assert emphatically that violence is j no part of their programme; that they strenuously oppose it because violence | affords a. weapon to the enemy, and i« not I the source of their own strength. Their strength lies in the fact that labor lies al thy iuise of all production, all distribution, all action of any sort. Their motto is " Organise! Ofgaiviso !" When the steel j workeis engaged in building the Plaza I Hotel some, years ago protested against the term* imposed by the United States Steel Corporation, and struck work, they were defeated. The I.W.W. maintain "that if the men of the 32 other trades who were engaged directly or indirectly in the hotel had struck in sympathy, tho srec) irorkcrs • must have won. In the waiters' strike in I New York the I.W.W. tried lo induce j the. teamsters to refuse to deliver provi- : sions to the hot-els. or to deliver them to the wrong addresses. In the event of a builders' strike they would seek to per- I suade the railwayman to hold up building j materials. If troops were ordered to in- > timidate strikers they would appeal to the : railwnymen to keep back the trains by which the troops might be transported. They believe that they can effect their ends by what they call an "intelligent, minority" of the workers. Through these they 'wpecl to inflame nopnlar feeling and manipulate the trade unions. In the pursuance of their ends they are prepared to | persuade, cajole, and coerce the workers' themselves no less than to bring down the j i'leat trusts. They are to adopt guerrilia j tactics, and vex arid harass the enemy at j every assailable point. I have read pamph- I lets and poems by Giovannitti which ' breathe something of that so< ;al enihu- j siasin which Gorky represents in his Rus- ; sian revolutionaries. Their sheer extivm- ' ism attracts. Their attitude of open war enlists the discontented. Their conspiratorial manner flatters the initiated. The constant pin-pricks of their guerrilla methods keep their campaign before the country. Cettainiy they are a force to he, reckoned with, a very dangerous enemy to the existing system, and one not easily to he appeased. So far they have, -not displayed such far-reaching power as the miners or the transport workers in England, but tiie heavy hand of the trusts has created among them a more bitter ' feeling,, which wifl make their action, j when they do act. equally drastic and very j much more vengeful.—K. A. Scott James | (New York). ' Dailv Chronicle.' I