It is the historic mission of the working class
to do away with capitalism.
-The IWW Preamble
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday November 11, 1906
From The Labor World – I. W. W. Doomed, According to Max Hayes
From the Duluth Labor World of November 10, 1906:
MAX HAYES CLAIMS I. W. W. IS DOOMED
—–
Leading Trade Union-Socialist Says That
Industrial Workers Have Split.
—–
Convention Breaks up in a Row-
Riot Calls From the Police-
Much Havoc.
—–
Max Hayes, editor of the Cleveland Citizens says that the I. W. W. is doomed. [He?] sizes up the situation like this:
The Industrial Workers of the World appears to be doomed, and once more Dan DeLeon plays the role of chief smasher. After weeks of battle the Chicago convention finally wound up in a split, and while the few tired delegates who remained to the end were homeward bound the Sherman and Trautman factions had a beautiful scrap to see who would [hold?] the fort. There was slugging, police calls and injunction suits started, and at this writing Secretary Trautman, who is DeLeon’s man, seems to be trying to pick himself together in the ditch of defeat while President Sherman, who was deposed by his opponents, is grinning at the luckless secretary from a national office window.
It is a difficult matter to sift the facts from the sea of words that are printed in DeLeon’s Daily People, the circulars that have been issued by the Shermanites and the communications that have been rushed into print by the interested parties. It looks as though there was a lot of faking right from the beginning; that some of the so-called departments were on paper; that legally elected delegates were kicked out of the convention and contestants who represented nothing or organizations not in good standing were seated; that the constitution was flagrantly violated in a number of instances; that the delegates usurped the rights of the rank and file conferred through the referendum; that there were financial transactions that looked suspicious; that organizers manipulated to obtain funds for forming paper unions and loafing, etc., etc.
Very few of the prominent men who assisted in forming the I. W. W. last year were present at the second convention, and the Western Federation of Miners was the only important organization represented. It is quite likely that the miners will secede and thus leave DeLeon master of all he surveys. The latter is never happier than when he has smashed something and is permitted to “clarify” things according to his own notions until only the great and only Dan is left with a few retainers who crawl about on their bellies and shout “Allah be praised:” Dandelion DeLeon is a daisy.
