Labor History Archives

Memories of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Part 5 by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/elizabeth_flynn_memories.html Elizabeth Gurley Flynn addressed students and faculty members of Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, on November 8, 1962, less than two years prior to her death. Her talk was sponsored by the History Club of the University and its chapter of the Student Peace Union. The occasion was chaired by Kenneth Owens, an assistant professor of history at the University. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's remarks were offered without notes; they were tape recorded and it is a transcript of that tape which is herewith published for the first time. We were told by Flynn that the IWW stood for Socialism which was different than the AFL. Now, the IWW also differed from the AFL in that it stood for Socialism. Although it differed from the Socialist Party in that it rejected political parties and political action, and this might have been a reflection of is composition. In the West, the migratory workers did not vote and in the East, the foreign born workers did not vote. Now, you go to Lawrence, not only their children and their grandchildren are voters, they are running for office and in some instances getting elected. So that there is quite a difference as a result of the change in the political status of the generation, but they had this very peculiar attitude that the real struggle was in the industries, in the shops, what they call at the point of production. Have you ever wondered why it is that we Americans are so willing to elect multi-millionaires to public office? Why do working people assume the very wealthy will do what is right for them? Now in 1912 we had a rather peculiar development that might have changed the history of the American labor movement if we had not been what we would call today, sectarians. At that time, William Z. Foster left the IWW, after touring in Europe, and meeting with the Syndicalists of Europe and there they pointed out to him that it seems to them very bad tactics to try to organize dual unions against existing unions, such as the miners, the machinists and other unions of the AFL but that other members of these categories we had in the IWW, we should send back into the AFL and, as he called it bore from within, and we should concentrate on the outside in organizing the unorganized workers with the aid of these people that we had sent back into the craft unions. Actually, from the point of view of today, actually he was right although I couldn't see it at the age of 22. Graphic from http://struggle.ws/revolt.html It is clear workers have more power if they are together as one. With different unions in the same area of work or craft, workers get split-up. They have less power. And Employers can pit one group of workers against one another over jobs. Fifty years later it looks different to me and it is very likely that if we had anticipated the organization of such a movement as the CIO many years before it came into existence. Well, Foster was so convinced that he was right, that he went into the AFL and I can't tell you what an act of treason that was, and he organized two bodies of basic workers in this country who had never been organized before, the steel workers and the packing-house workers. The packing-house workers of Chicago and the steel workers all over the and he led the strike, the great steel strike of 1919. Later the CIO, Congress of Industrial Organizations, would concentrate on industrial workers which did include different crafts working for the same corporation. Today some very large unions, like SEIU and the Teamsters, are considering sector organizing. It is kind a blend of the AFL approach in that other unions would stay out of a sector being organized by another union. The CIO part is, for example, the building trades being organized under one big Build Trades Union. Of course, you understand that there were many new fields, new industries that came into existence before the organization of the CI0 which did not exist when the IWW was organized. In fact, it almost seems to me that we lived in a kind of wilderness when I tell you what didn't exist. There were no radios, no TV, no movies, very little of advertising as we know it today, there were no plastics, no artificial fabrics, no airplanes. Maybe some fliers, you know, and there was no electronics or any of the big industries that we know today connected with it but the IWW did sow the seed in steel, mining, in lumber, in textiles, in agriculture, in oil and in maritime and you can see that those seeds bore fruit when it came to organizing later in the 1930's in the CIO. Well, we weren't through in the 20's with just the war-time cases or with the amnesty campaign because as soon as the war was over and the workers had performed great patriotic services, kept no strike pledges, etc., the employer's opened up with an open shop drive and that's one reason why Foster was able to pull this great strike of steel and there were company unions that came into existence and there were criminal syndicalist laws that put  temporary war-time sedition laws on the statute books as permanent legislation and there were deportation laws and all of this came in the wake of what was called the "Palmer Raids." We workers are relatively honest and try to do what is right Mr. Palmer was the Quaker Attorney General of that day. I don't hold it against the Quakers because he certainly belied anything that they stood for. Palmer was the one who organized, under his direction, these raids from one end of the country to the other. Graphic from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet. co.uk/USAsedition.htm Hundreds of people were scooped up one night from one end of the land to the other and the foreign born was put on one side for deportation, the native born were put on the other side for prosecution under the Criminal Syndicalist Laws. There is a very good pamphlet which I hope you research people have found, called the "Illegal Practices of the Department Justice" which was published at that time and signed by Professor Chafee, Professor Frankfurter and many other distinguished legal authorities of that day and it was at that time, I am not talking about modern times, I am talking about 1919, 1920, that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover first put in his appearance. A lot was going on back then, but the thrust of all the bad press about socialists, communists and the like was really a trick to take people’s attention off the real problem. Workers were getting the shaft and those who led them were discredited any way possible. A good question to ask yourself is whether America was free in 1919? Did we have a free Country? Do we really have one now? He was put in charge of these raids and all reports of all over the country were to be made to him, and they were called "G" men. The FBI came into existence a little later - in 1924. So he has had this kingdom for 38 years now, regardless of administrations and it is not actually under Civil Service or under the control of the Department of Justice. J. Edgar Hoover Pictured http://www.spartacus.schoolnet. co.uk/USAhooverE.htm The IWW was very hard hit by all of these prosecutions, persecutions, terrible acts of violence. Frank Little, one of its organizers, was lynched in Butte, Montana. There were many acts of violence from one end of the country to the other. In fact, the hatred against the IWW was so great -that editorials in papers would say, "They should be arrested at dawn and shot before breakfast, without a trial. However, the IWW fought gallantly in its own defense and there was one of its last strikes in Denver in 1926 but by that time it was pretty well exhausted. Once again, we see corporate interests getting help from “our” government against us working people. You can also see how the press went along. So all the ideas relating to social services and rights were tainted and made into something to be ashamed of. They still are today. In addition to this persecution, which was tremendous, there were certain immediate failings or immediate faults of the IWW which made it hard for it to continue a permanent existence although it tried to change its former organization and one very great effort was made in the agricultural field where they set up the AWO [Agricultural Workers Organization] by hundreds and that was with the idea of immediately getting 500 members, which they did, and more than that. They had a mobile team of field organizers who went to work in the harvests in the very far South in the spring and traveled with the harvest right up to the Canadian line and right into Canada right into the fall. They carried a little, something like an attach case of today, a little black case in which they had membership books and buttons and literature and dues stamps and all the paraphernalia of organization and the most remarkable thing was that there was practically no defections. Maybe one or two. One man actually stole money and then afterwards hung himself, I understand. You see there was a great devotion and loyalty to this mobile organization of migratory workers. When people fight for something in common, they trust each other and stick together. We don’t have that kind of trust and solidarity because we have not really had to fight all the much. Our unions are slowly slipping away and the general public doesn’t think much about it because they have no experience to tell them to be alarmed. What is a union anyway? A business? A social movement? However, one difficulty, except for this one great event, was to hold an organization after a strike. It was very difficult because there were so any divergent elements involved in a strike that it was hard to hold together. At least, if they spoke a common language, it might have been easier. It was very difficult to combine all of them into one organization especially when you try to build a, union and a Socialist organization in one body. Now, a union has the economic interests at stake, better wages, better working conditions, better hours, the immediate interests of the workers and you can involve thousands on that basis, whereas a Socialist organization naturally is what we would call today, on an ideological basis. Graphic from http://www.iww.org/ But making that separation is not that easy. The ability to have a union and bargain within rules and legal mandates depends upon a lot of things. The union must be strong with loyal active members. Society must support the concept of collective bargaining. Laws regarding safety on the job, clean water, well kept up highways to get to and from work, and on and on. Is it possible to remove the union from the social organization spoken of above? Is it possible to have a socially responsible country without unions? Perhaps the two are so intertwined that they go hand in hand. What do you think? HOMEWORK So much talk about Socialism! Is it yucky to talk about such things? If you go on a job and say, “I am a Democratic Socialist, how about you guys?”, what do you think the response would be? Why? There is a good article on Socialism by Albert Einstein at http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm Also, check out this site, http://www.oldamericancentury.org/ . The posters are the absolute best. By the way, the name contrasts with the ultra right’s Project for A New American Century found at http://www.newamericancentury.org/ . The first paragraph on the site states: “The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.” Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm Picture from http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PictDisplay/Einstein.html This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). A few excerpts follow: “It is ‘society’ which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word ‘society’. It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished . . .” “I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence.” Who gains from an ideology that separates people from each other? Who is made weak and loses? “The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. . . .” This is a surprising article written by Albert Einstein. It is clearly written by an intellectual but gets to the points which are easy to understand.

“Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.” John Adams http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/ ja2/about/bio/adamsxx.htm We are stronger together. We have to fight to get our fair share. We can win, just like we have in the past.