The May 24, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 21, Whole No. 701) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
1930
May
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Industrial Worker (May 24, 1930)
Contents include:
-Eastern miners welcome I.W.W.
-Sikh warriors join revolt Mahatma Gandhi
-Mother Jones and John D. Jr bury hatchet
-Lumber work continues slack
-Ohio shows the way!
-Miners turn to the I.W.W. for real unionism
-Tom Mooney exposes Sutherland
-Communist speakers are convicted
-Craft strike loses against united bosses
-One Big Union of Capital
-The immigrant woman and her job in America
-Bootlegging jobs
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Industrial Worker (May 31, 1930)
The May 31, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 22, Whole No. 702) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Politicians broadcast lies
-Organ of the Communist fakers repeats its stock of slanders
-M.T.W. delegates wanted in New York
-Young scion of capitalism to help in Russia
-Editorial: Emotionalism vs. power
-Unemployment census figures may be phoney
-Interviewing T-Bone Slim
-Chicago will celebrate 25th anniversary
-Cities of India flame in revolt
-Supreme Court rules against company unions
-The I.W.W. in Colorado
-Centralia case again before parole board
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June
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Industrial Worker (June 7, 1930)
The June 7, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 23, Whole No. 703) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Discontent seethes on harbor
-Wage cuts may force shingle weavers strike by C.E. Payne
-Big Snake cuts wages again to $4.75 per day
-Court reverses C.S. conviction in Ohio cases
-Why men are out of work
-Germany puts up tariff wall on Russian grain
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Editorial: Discontent
-Young awaits court report in Mooney case
-"Safety last"
-Spokane shark to repay cost for fake "jobs"
-Regimenting the youthful mind
-'Charity' graft in free meals in Vancouver
-General slump on Grays Harbor
-Marx in a nutshell by Covami
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Industrial Worker (June 14, 1930)
The June 14, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 24, Whole No. 704) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Mine factions fight for power
-Press junket in the interest of coal barons
-Ariel job is "slaughter house"
-Aged and infirm displace Mex. on Calif, beet farm
-Rail men demand 30-hour week
-Editorial: The one way out
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Detroit bazaar wins approval
-New gods for old
-Capitalism and the Anzac
-Campaign to be waged against injunctions
-The scissorbill and the Wobbly
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Industrial Worker (June 21, 1930)
The June 21, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 25, Whole No. 705) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Harvest workers organizing drive
-Georgia cases go to trial in Atlanta June 19
-Governor Young promises prompt action in Mooney case
-Tee-Bone Slim hits the straw belt in Kansas
-Prosperity hits the charmed land
-Bosses block laws to relieve unemployment
-Editorial: The mechanism of unemployment
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Forever by Covami (a.k.a. Covington Hall)
-July 4th picnic in Chicago at Beyers Grove
-110 conference at Ellsworth, Kan.
-A journalistic jackass by Radix
-Open forum in San Francisco
-Cops and American Legion suspend constitution
-Aliens do work on California bonanza farms
-Chairy: a commercialized graft
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Industrial Worker (June 28, 1930)
Articles from the June 28, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 26, Whole No. 706) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Coal barons prepare to cut wage
-Lewis machine and operators co-erce miners
-Sale of arms to Soviet Russia stopped by U.S.
-No family men wanted at Ariel
-Annual drive of harvesters sweeps north
-Detroit auto industries close for two weeks
-Atheists can't testify in New Jersey
-Editorial: The power behind the law
-Baxter's Buckshots
-International affiliations versus organization
-New copper mine opens Sept. 1st at Leavenworth
-Boulder Dam is health menace
-Filipinos are moot problem in California
-Reactionary influence of craft unions
-Man starves on Calif. highway
-An appeal from the Swedish I.W.W.
-California the "Beautiful and damned"
-Law perverted to terrorize Calif. strikers
-Indian police lash Gandhists with leather
-Things seen and heard on the skidroad
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International affiliations versus organization
A response by Del. T-O 46 to an article by Paul Mattick that appeared in the IWW newspaper, Solidarity.
ASPUDDEN, Sweden, June 4.—(To the Industrial Worker.)—In Solidarity numbers 20 and 21 appeared an article under the heading: "On International Affiliations" by Paul Mattick with which I am going to take issue. In the latter part of the article he says that the future of the I.W.W. is assured, but further down he modifies that statement by stating, that it does not mean that the class organization will be a part of the present I.W.W. with headquarters in Chicago.
Further down still he says that the tactics of the European proletariat depend in its experiences. And from that he deducts that the I.W.W. in Europe will only remain an effort—nothing but an effort.
By using just a little logic we can tear those statements to shreds. If the future of the I.W.W. is assured, why not join it and be consistent? If the experiences determine social and economic actions and not present needs and realities why start an organization like the A.A.U.? Would not the craft unions as they are suffice? They embody experiences of the workers as well. He says that we must reckon with the traditions and prejudices of the European proletariat, but as an I.W.W. with the necessary educational qualifications, he must know, if he is honest, that traditions can and must be transferred to more modern movements and the prejudices directed in other directions that against a new and growing movement like the I.W.W.
It is precisely what all those well wishers are doing, they are subtly living on the old traditions and prejudices, because it entails too many sacrifices to handle them in a scientific manner.
To an I.W.W., any national organization, however, revolutionary in abstract principles (and they of necessity must be abstract in a nationally restricted organization of the workers) is an upholder of old traditions and prejudices of the workers which are bound to be in opposition to the I.W.W.
In the last analysis all those traditions and prejudices are rooted, not so much in the minds of the workers as in the economic status of all the many different kinds of paid officials, from the Christian socialist down to the officials in the A.A.U. and the Syndicalists' organizations. Every worker, group of workers, craft union group of workers, nationally organized group of workers has a fund of traditions, regardless of whether they live and work in Europe or in the U.S. The only worker who has I.W.W. traditions is the worker who is or has been a member of the I.W.W., and his store of traditions is dependent on the length of time he has been a member of the I.W.W. The I.W.W. being the most modern form of the working class organization, it follows that these traditions are the best for the working class and hence must replace all the others.
Prejudices which, I take it, are a biological necessity, existing and functioning for the purpose of protecting the individual, the craft group and the larger nationally organized proletarian , can not be abolished, but they can be given another and more useful direction by I.W.W. education and organization. Instead, also, of being merely a passive well wisher of the I.W.W. and by so being, in daily practice directing the workers prejudices against the I.W.W. , he ought to be brave enough to take a stand against them. To sum up: if the working class today stands in need of such an organization as the Industrial Workers of the World, which it does, then it is up to an I.W.W. who is convinced of that need to be consistent and fight it out.
My advice to all members of the I.W.W. is this: don't sell part of your intellectual store to any group, give it to the working class; it needs it, and badly, too.
Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker, June 28, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 26, Whole No. 706)
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July
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Industrial Worker (July 5, 1930)
The July 5, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 27, Whole No. 707) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Wage scales in Harvest "fixed"
-Medical graft in state relief
-Unemployment data of census are worthless
-Another labor bank venture goes haywire
-Editorial: The tragedy of industry
-"The marshal will cut your hair" by T-Bone Slim
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Bosses' share of production is not reduced
-The killings at Peshawar
-Picnic July 6th favored by gods
-Doughnuts and devil doctors in Kansas City
-An analysis of graft
-Western Pac. and Big G to start work in Calif.
-Job news
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Industrial Worker (July 12, 1930)
The July 12, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 28, Whole No. 708) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Billings pardon turned down
-Lewis and Howat fight it out in Illinois mines
-Wallace mines are closed down
-Injunction vs. John L. Lewis is contained
-Natives replacing Filipinos
-The "law" and the proven facts
-6 hour day favored by Montana A.F. of L
-Editorial: The Billings decision
-The warrior wind by Ralph Chaplin
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Industry more deadly than a battle field
-Lumber output drops in N.W.
-Landlord takes land and labor of Colorado farmer
-The Georgia trials by A North Carolina Worker
-Stalin gains in power as threat of war impends
-Fisher body workers strike brings out troops
-Stalin overcomes Right Opposition
-An analysis of graft
-I.U. 110 sends out call to workers
-Job News
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Industrial Worker (July 19, 1930)
The July 19, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 29, Whole No. 709) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Lewis loses out in Illinois
-John McDonald, Mooney witness shows up in Baltimore, Maryland
-Moclips strike still on
-Move to bar Russian lumber from U.S. as convict made
-Editorial: The six hour day
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Evolution
-"Red" issue in injected into Russian church row
-Stalin will not be Russian Premier
-Service for nothing
-110 raises wage from $.,50 to $4 in Sutton, Nebraska
-A pamphlet with a potent punch
-An analysis of graft
-Salt Lake still stealing labor under vag law
-Thompson gets comrades' goat in Vancouver
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Industrial Worker (July 26, 1930)
The July 26, 1930 (Vol. XII, No. 30, Whole No. 710) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Contents include:
-Organization struggle on in harvest
-Plain words of Britt Smith on the Communists
-Prison made twine to bind wheat
-John MacDonald comes back to tell his story
-Auto mechanics and teamsters strike in Butte
-Editorial: The intellectual squid
-Baxter's Buckshots
-State police club and beat Flint strikers by Claude Erwin
-Women and girls do farm labor while men do housework
-Railroad bull takes property of card member
-An analysis of graft
-Wages 'jippoed' down to 'normal' in copper belt
-Job news
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August
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Industrial Worker (August 2, 1930)
Articles from the August 2, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 31, Whole No. 711) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
CONTENTS
-War vets parade in Portland is not acclaimed
-Sadism in Seward
-Editorial: Government and gangsters
-Backster's Buckshots
-False reports of work in Utah are given out
-"Millionaire hobo" passes
-Portland cops harass workers
-"Communism" not a name only
-Twelve hours to hunt jobs in Hastings, Neb.
-New railroad to begin work in mid-August
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"Communism" not a name only - Recidivus
A scathing article by Recidivus about the Workers Party of America, the legal, above-ground party of the Communist Party USA during the early to late 1920s.
"Communism" not a name only: Workers Party is not a communist party, but a reactionary group of politicians and opposing it is not "fighting communism"
by Recidivus
There is an impression among certain groups that the I.W.W. is opposed to communism and is fighting it. As proof of the fact, these persons cite our antagonism to the Workers' Party. We refuse to give it the unmerited credit of being a communist party or even communistically inclined. We fully agree with James P. Thompson that the "Workers' Party is unscientific, reactionary, opportunistic and hypocritical"
We do not have to take Thompson's word alone. The Communist leader, Losovsky, an influential member of the Third International, when the American Workers Party was crying the slogan, "Save the Union", sent forth a stinging bawl-out from Moscow to the American leadership of the party, characterizing their "left-wing movement" in the A.F. of L. as a "metophysical concept without foundation in fact". That was in 1928. Was this true, or didn't the great one know what he was talking about?
Every intelligent member of the Industrial Workers of the World—the majority of our members—believe in communism. They hope for it and are forever fighting for it. But if communism means what the party of frauds, fakers, shysters, careerists and opportunists tell us it is—a movement to "save the poor farmer" and petty bourgeoisie; if it means standing in the way of the industrialization of backward countries by crying "down with imperialism", and here in America shouting "Smash the Trusts", and "Down with the chain stores", we do not want any of that brand of communism. But that is not communism.
We of the I.W.W. are opposed to the party's slimy tactics of injecting themselves into strikes to disrupt and split the workers' forces as they did in the coal strike of 1927-1928. This was characteristic of their tactics in all strikes. We are also opposed to their agent-provocateur activities in urging defenseless workers to violence and in staging demonstrations in places they know full well result only in broken heads, workers' lives ruthlessly taken and more victims for the gallows tree—while their self-appointed leaders reap the only gains to be got while safely ensconced in safety zones.
Again we sat we are not fighting communism in our opposition to the Workers Party. We are trying, rather, to build communism thru the intelligent teaching and tactics of the I.W.W. We want no union that is subordinate to the tricksters of a political party. Karl Marx never said or wrote, "Bourgeoisie of the World, Unite!" We have no places in our ranks for snus peddlers, "poor farmers", or any of the class that Marx said were logically the bulwarks of the old society.
The Workers Party should be more truthfully known as the Wrecking Party. It has come like a blight among the workers of America and whatever it has touched, it has wrought more harm to them than all the other powers that be. If the leadership is not being paid for their blighting influence and activities, it is scabbing on the finks that are. Other similar organizations have made as much noise as the Workers Party; but, if they are remembered at all, it is not with credit to them.
The idea of the One Big Union is now too well grounded to be uprooted. The toilers will yet march from mill, mine and factory and back to them victoriously under the banner of the I.W.W. which is equivalent to saying their own collective selves intelligently, militantly, revolutionarily and scientifically organized.
Originally appeared in the Industrial Worker, August 2, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 31, Whole No. 711)
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But if communism means [...] standing in the way of the industrialization of backward countries by crying "down with imperialism" [...] we do not want any of that brand of communism.
jeepers
Yeah I found that part a bit odd, and wondered exactly what the writer was talking about.
Juan Conatz
petey
"snus peddlers" ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus
but surely this is slang?
We have no places in our ranks for snus peddlers, "poor farmers", or any of the class that Marx said were logically the bulwarks of the old society.
Yeah this sounds rather shortminded.
How about poor farmers who are otherwise good enemies of the old society but need to peddle the occasional bag of snus to make up for declining crop yield?
The only real critique of the CP offered here is that support working with poor farmers and were anti-imperialist. By the time this was written the CP was far from perfect (third period ultra-leftism and bureacratic centralism were defintiely a problem) but it was definitely involved in genuine class struggle.
Industrial Worker (August 9, 1930)
Articles from the August 9, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 32, Whole No. 712) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
CONTENTS
-Butte strike ends in betrayal
-Estelle Smith's story confirms original alibi of Warren Billings
-Editorial: The state, and a harlot
-Baxter's Buckshots
-60 cent wheat makes hoosiers see red horror
-Fruit pickers wages fixed by bosses' union
-Amsterdam corpse moves to Berlin
-Youth in tears is given work fire fighting
-Trains swarm with jobless seeking work
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Interesting stuff! Really interesting to see how they write about the Butte strike being called off by business agents, and the "Corpse of Amsterdam" as they referred to the Amsterdam international.
Also very interesting to see that referendum items used to be published in the paper and could just be cut out and returned, instead of requiring separate GOBs, envelopes, etc. That would certainly make it easier to put things to referendum more than once per year.
Industrial Worker (August 16, 1930)
Articles from the August 16, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 33, Whole No. 713) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
CONTENTS
-Billings to be heard Tuesday
-Passing of the rubber tramp by William Patton
-Death of Fellow Worker James McInferney is expected hourly
-Loren Roberts to be freed is latest report
-Farmers fight organization
-Salt Lake drag under "vag" law releases six
-Editorial: State capitalism vs private capitalism
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Ford hires back 80 percent but speeds 'em up
-The menace of unemployment
-Comical party stages another farce tragedy
-Starving men get in battle over religion
-Conditions of Ry. extension will be hi-ball
-Job news
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Industrial Worker (August 23, 1930)
Articles from the August 23, 1930 (Vol. 12, No. 34, Whole No. 714) issue of the Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the revolutionary union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
CONTENTS
-"Honor" codes revealed in quiz
-James McInerney is dead
-Memories of James McInerney
-Billings undergoes grilling at Folsom but few new points are brought out by the quiz
-Police brutality at Minot, N.D.
-Editorials: Class codes of "honor"
-Baxter's Buckshots
-Promise not to cut wages is not kept by bosses
-Sawmill workers speaks up
-International relations of the I.W.W. by Joseph Wagner
-Moral censors ban scientific medical work
-Job news
-The crisis in labor history
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