The General Defense Committee - Patrick Murfin

From its inception the IWW recognized the necessity of an active and vigorous system for raising defense funds and for distributing those funds fairly to victims of class-war repression. The manifesto call to the first IWW Convention in 1905 included the provision that: “A central defense fund, to which all members contribute equally, should be established and maintained” as one of the duties of the new organization. So it was that the General Defense Committee was eventually set-up as a semi-autonomous organization with its own membership cards, dues, and officers to raise money for the many Wobblies persecuted and others who felt the lash of capitalist repression.

In one of its most significant actions, the 30th General Convention of the IWW reactivated the General Defense Committee by ordering that GDC credentials be issued to all IWW delegates. The act recognized that IWW members are once again on the front lines of labor and radical-activity, and as such will be subjected to the wave of repression that is sweeping the country under the direction of Attorney General Mitchell and FBI Chief Hoover. Arrests of Wobblies in San Diego, the Stover-Lamb case and the upcoming trials of Patrick Murfin and Alfredo Matias in Chicago pointed to the need to rescue the GDC from its activity during the lean years of the ’50s and early ’60s.

The GDC is not empowered to award bail funds because in most instances these can be raised locally and because it takes some time for the IWW General Executive Board, which is acting as the executive board of the GDC, to act. But it does support defense expenses, as it did just recently by paying Chicago’s People’s Law Office $200 for the defense of Murfin and Matias. The GDC is also empowered to buy tobacco and other small items for class-war prisoners.

Membership in the GDC, unlike IWW membership, is not restricted to wage workers, but extends to all interested in contributing to this important cause. This allows people who are interested in the work of the IWW but ineligible or unwilling to take out membership a way to become involved.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz