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, have
all the good things of life
Saturday August 4, 1906
From The Worker: Debs on the I. W. W. and the A. F. of L.
Over the next for days we offer the response made by Eugene V. Debs to the questions posed by the New York Worker regarding the debate on the relation of the Socialist Party of America to the trades unions.
The Worker introduces what it calls a symposium:
The question of the relation of the Socialist Party to the trade unions having again attracted attention within our ranks, The Worker has inaugurated a symposium to which representative comrades are being invited to contribute, setting forth various points view.
Questions are set forth for the comrades to address which cover the subject of industrial unionism versus craft unionism, working from within the existing trade unions versus forming new organizations, and the last question:
What do you think ought to be the attitude of the Socialist Party, as such, toward the organizations of labor on the economic field?
From The Worker of July 28, 1906:
The Socialist Party and the Trade Unions.-XI.
by Eugene V. Debs
[Part II]
The Industrial Workers is on the bedrock and occupies the correct industrial attitude of the labor movement, while the American Federation of Labor and its allied bodies are on the shifting sands and will be compelled to seek quarter in industrial unionism or go the way of the Knights of Labor and its defunct predecessors.
Compare these two organizations for but a moment. The I. W. W. is revolutionary; the A. F. of L. reactionary. The I. W. W. is committed to the overthrow of the wage-system; the A. F. of L. is its main support. The I. W. W. recognizes the class struggle; the A. F. of L. denies it and has its Civic Federation to gloss it over and reconcile the wage-slave to his exploiting master.
How is it possible for a Socialist to choose the A. F. of L., which violently opposes everything he stands for, and attack the I. W. W., which loyally supports his principles and program?
Such a Socialist embraces the enemy who has repeatedly treated him with contempt and, figuratively, spat in his face, while hurling his anathema at the friend who would dissolve such an unclean relation
that a true union of industrial and political force might be consummated.
It has been claimed that the I. W. W. does not favor political action. To controversy upon this point all that is required is the reading of its preamble. What a few individual members may think of the ballot is beside the point, the fact being, not only that the organization declares in favor of political action, but that a vast majority of its members are Socialists, if not party members.
For obvious reasons the organization had to declare against affiliation with any particular party. To have done otherwise would have entirely defeated the movement in its inception. When once there is but one working class party the I. W. W. will, without a doubt, assume the proper attitude toward it, but in the meantime it is not only vain and silly, but untrue that the Socialist Labor Party is “dead,” and the writer who makes that assertion does himself no credit by it. Quite sufficient proof that it is not dead is the attention given it by those who call it so, but if they really believe what they say it is hard to understand what satisfaction they find in kicking a corpse.
And now in the matter of recognizing and declaring in favor of the I. W. W., let me say that from the Socialist Party, as a party, the I. W. W. neither asks nor expects anything of the kind, and personally I am opposed to any such party action. It can result in no good to either and may, and probably will, cause harm to both.
This does not mean that I approve our party attitude toward the union movement. There is a mischievous interpolation in our declaration aimed at the A. L. U. [American Labor Union, now absorbed by the I. W. w.] and negatively endorsing the A. F. of L., and sooner or latter, the
sooner the better, that clause, which never should have been inserted, will have to be stricken out.
What right has the party to meddle with the union and decide for the union whether or not its members may revolt against the capitalist misrule of its affairs? The same right that the union would have to dictate to the party in a similar manner.
Suppose the I. W. W. were to resolve that the members of the Socialist Party have no right to break away from their party under any circumstances—would not our party members, the very ones who now support the same measure with reference to trade unions, resent it as mischievous, intermeddling, and uncalled for impertinence?
The members of the I. W. W. are, as a rule, seasoned old unionists; they did not drop from the skies, nor come up out of the seas; they are not interlopers nor new beginners, but they are of the very heart and marrow of the labor movement, and I think their records as fighters and builders in point of time and character of service will compare favorably with those of their reactionary critics; and when credit is claimed for what has been done in the past let it be remembered that the members of the I. W. W. figured in it all and are entitled to their full share of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The Worker
(New York, New York)
-July 28, 1906, page 6
http://www.genealogybank.com
IMAGE
Eugene Debs, Wilshire’s Magazine, Nov 1905
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1905/1100-debs-winningaworld.pdf
See also:
The article at Debs Internet Archive
pdf! https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1906/0728-debs-spandunions.pdf
IWW Constitution and By-Laws, 1905
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015079028836;page=root;view=image;size=75;seq=1;orient=0
Which Side Are You On – May Day Chorus of Asheville