“A good soldier never looks behind him,” is an old saying. However it might not be amiss to throw a glance backwards over the life of the I. W. W. in the year of 1919.

The year of 1919 has for the I. W. W. been a year of open class warfare from the beginning to the end. The life of the I. W. W. has been a continuous battle from its very inception for that matter. We have never been allowed to sit down and rest for the last 14 years, but in the year of 1919 are crowded more of startling and important events than during any previous year of its existence.

As the ability to give battle to an enemy is a sign of strong life, we are justified in concluding that the I. W. W. never was stronger than in this year.

“The I. W. W. is dead,” “the I. W. W. is crushed,” is the howl that our enemies have raised time and again. They are raising the same howl now, but with the knowledge we have of the foundations upon which the I. W. W. is built, we can assure our enemies, that at the end of next year we shall have a story of much fiercer struggle and of much stronger life to tell.

The concrete signs of the activities of the I. W. W. during the past year may be divided in internal organization work, educational work, the economic struggles, the judicial defense work, all of it carried on under the most severe persecution, official and unofficial.

The Internal Organization Work

One sure sign of vigorous life is the necessity of holding conventions and the ability to hold them. The I. W. W. has held many conventions this year. There was the general convention that met on May 5 in Chicago, lasting for 11 days, and resulting in an immense lot of work being done. In addition there was a convention of Lumber Workers in Tacoma March 2 and in St. Regis, Mont., in the fall; a convention of Agricultural Workers in Sioux City, April 21; a convention of Metal and Machinery Workers in Cleveland, April 15-16; a convention of Construction Workers in Chicago April 24; a convention of Marine Transport Workers in Philadelphia May 24-29; a convention of Agricultural Workers in Sioux City, Nov. 3, and several other conferences.

The I. W. W. emerges out of the battle of 1919 with 21 Industrial Unions, three new ones having been added during the year, namely No. 1200, 1300 and 1500.

Its present structure is as follows:

Marine Transport Workers’ Industrial Union No. 8.
Bakery Workers’ Industrial Union No. 46.
Metal and Machinery Workers’ Industrial Union No. 300.
Shipbuilders’ Industrial Union No. 325.
Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union No. 400.
Fishermens’ Industrial Union No. 448.
Oil Workers’ Industrial Union No. 450.
Rubber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 470.
Furniture Workers’ Industrial Union No. 480.
Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500.
Construction Workers’ Industrial Union No. 5738.
Railroad Workers’ Industrial Union No. 600.
Shoe Workers’ Industrial Union No. 620.
Metal Mine Workers’ Industrial Union No. 800.
Coal Miners’ Industrial Union No. 900.
The Textile Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1000.
Hotel, Restaurant and Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1100.
Printing and Publishing Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1200.
General Distribution Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1300.
Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1500.

In round numbers 50,000 new membership cards have been issued, but, due to the severe persecution, the growth in membership has not been startlingly large. In this connection may be added that our organization spontaneously is spreading to other countries, making it necessary to maintain offices in foreign ports or leading to direct co-operation with workers in foreign countries.

Our international connections during the year have assumed very promising proportions. Our ideas and our program are being to a greater or less extent endorsed and adopted by the workers of Russia, England, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Mexico, South America, etc., not to speak of Canada and Australia, where the One Big Union movement has got considerable headway. The I. W. W. is at present better buttressed up internationally than ever before.

One of the most important tasks of the coming year will be to further develop international co-operation and organization.

The General Executive Board of the I. W. W. has adopted a recommendation for the joining of the “Third International.” This has, however, never been acted upon by the convention, and as the third international is largely a political one, more or less sincerely endorsing industrial unionism, the probabilities are that a purely industrial international will develop out of these international connections in the near future.

The I. W. W. is neither asleep nor dead. It is right now about to engulf the whole world. In fact, the world is just beginning to discover that its only salvation from economic destruction lies in the I. W. W. program, which calls for the turning over of production and distribution to the people, organized industrially. These are facts. Do not be deceived by false reports or obituary notices in the kept press.

The Educational Work.

The educational work of the I. W. W. during 1919 is to a large extent depicted on the last two pages of the One Big Union Monthly, in the advertisements of its publications. From these it appears that the I. W. W. publications now number 22 as against 7 at the beginning of the year. Not the least important of these additions is The One Big Union Monthly.

Considering the rough treatment usually accorded to I. W. W. editors, which treatment tends to keep all but “rough-necks” away from us, it is undeniable that the I. W. W. has done very well in this line during 1919.

The list of books and pamphlets is long enough, but it is not what we wish it to be. For lack of financial resources we are at present holding back the publication of “The I. W. W. Handbook,” by Justus Ebert, a very important book, designed as an introduction to a series of handbooks for all industries under the comprehensive name of an “Industrial Encyclopedia.” The Agricultural Workers donated $500 for the latter work at their last convention, and as time goes on the General Office will be able to take it up.

The educational work of the I. W. W. is bearing fruit, as witness the endorsement of our principles by workers all over the world.

As for the results of this work inside the borders of the U. S. we have every reason to be gratified, considering the obstacles we meet. During the year the political socialist movement has gone to pieces, resulting in 3 factions, all of which embrace industrial unionism more or less devoutly, or rather adding it to their arsenal of weapons for capturing political power. As a result of our activities the One Big Union idea has been adopted by the advanced elements among the Negro workers of the country in the course of this year, and as for the A. F. of L., it is cracking all over as a result of the educational work carried on through our press and our books and through the spoken word of our orators, delegates and individual members.

Has there been progress during the year? We should smile! For corroboration of this statement we refer to the “patriotic” leagues and the “American Legion.”

In this connection let us call attention to another feature of our educational propaganda. We have to acknowledge the great assistance given us by the kept press. Through the most lurid misstatements about us they have called the attention of millions to our existence. It is from these deceived, and later undeceived, readers of the kept press that our ranks are recruited, and it is among them that the number of our friends and sympathizers is increasing by the millions.

The Battles of 1919.

During the past year the I. W. W. has conducted several strikes and taken part in several others.

The great general strike in Seattle, which began Jan. 21, was in the capitalist press called an I. W. W. affair, and 31 of our members were later arrested for “criminal anarchy” in connection therewith. But the strike was essentially an A. F. of L. affair with I. W. W. co-operation.

Then there was the great strike in Butte and other Montana cities. This strike was conducted by the I. W. W.

Both of these strikes were of sufficient size and importance to deserve a permanent place in the records of labor’s struggles together with the almost contemporaneous general strikes in Belfast and Winnipeg. All of them were “lost,” if it may be said that a strike is ever lost. Strikes are really the Chautauqua courses of the workers.

Next the Textile Workers were engaged in a big strike for the 44-hour week. The strike was a long one and a bitter one. Through A. F. of L. treason the workers lost, but what they gained in knowledge was worth much more than any concessions would have been.

The Furniture Workers next went on strike, on April 1. They wanted the 8-hour day and increased pay, and staid out for over two months, but did not get it. Still they gained some concessions. The importance of this strike is, that it has aroused a group of workers that seemed almost lost to the cause of the workers.

The I. W. W. Lumber Workers won a strike in the Fortine District in the Northwest in short order. It was a strike for 8 hours and $5 a day. In the fall they have practiced the intermittent strike in the Northwest against an increase in charges, etc., with varying success.

To us the strike is an educational asset, which acts as an auxiliary to our propaganda by word of mouth and writing, much as an excursion to the meadows is an auxiliary to the teacher of botany.

What with the other tremendous strikes of the year, the stockyards’ strike, the railwaymen’s strike, the steel strike and the coal strike and the printers’ strike, this has been a prosperous year for those who rejoice in the awakening of the masses. All these workers have learnt much themselves that they did not understand before, and all other workers have learnt an immense lot by merely observing the strikes.

All hail those strikers, whether I. W. W. or not! They are breaking ground for a complete industrial organization.

The Business Affairs of the I. W. W.

The financial condition of the I. W. W. at the end of 1919 is far from good. The general office has about half a million dollars to its credit with the industrial unions, but not a cent in the treasury. On the contrary, the general office has a deficit of nearly $10,000. This deficit is partly due to the purchase of a new printing press for $5,000 and of a new linotype machine for about $4,000, as well as a large stock of printing paper; also to the printing of a large stock of literature. But this unfortunate state of affairs is mostly due to the slowness of the industrial unions in paying for supplies and stamps, the money having been used for the purposes of organization expenses instead of for payment of bills. Unless this matter is quickly attended to by the unions through immediate payment of all bills and a forced sale of the organization stamp of $1.00, there is apt to be a real obituary notice in the kept press one of these days, stating: “I. W. W. is dead. General office is bankrupt. Doors closed. Rats are leaving the sinking ship.”

As a matter of fact we know that it is enough to call the membership’s attention to this matter in order to have it remedied. For the future great care should be taken that the experience is not repeated. By crippling the general office members stop the educational work of the organization and bring organization to a standstill.

We are confident that the coming year will see these shortcomings corrected. They are partly due to the numerous raids and arrests which have a tendency to upset the work as well as the inexperience of the members. In the future we are better prepared for such experiences.

So much for the positive and constructive work carried on by the I. W. W. during the year of 1919.

We now come to another chapter of our activity, which does not properly belong to the domain of an organization which proposes to organize the workers into industrial unions, but which has been forced upon us, and at the present moment is assuming tremendous proportions, namely the persecution and all that is connected with it. The Persecution Against the I. W. W. and the Legal Defense Work

The persecution against the I. W. W. has reached enormous’ proportions during 1919, and is at an unprecedented height at the closing of the year.

This persecution can all be traced to a common source, i.e., the machinations of the capitalist class for a plutocratic dictatorship, but in its exterior manifestation it has a two-fold character: the “‘legal”’ persecution and the extra-legal persecution. We will take up the extra legal persecution first, the one that is not camouflaged with the insignia of law and order.

The Extra Legal Prosecution

The extra legal persecution has been in the making for years past, but it is only during the last year that it has sprung into full bloom and dared to claim for itself a semblance of moral justification.

It is manifold in its nature, but the forces participating in it are Wall street, general director and provocateur and secret government of U. S.

The kept press.
The “high tone” clubs.
The “patriotic” societies.
The American Legion.
“Citizens” leagues.
Chambers of commerce and other profiteers.
Priests and ministers.
Politicians.
“Detective agencies,” gunmen.
“The under world.”
Labor fakirs.
Knights of Columbus.
Stools, finks, and ignorant and deluded people generally.

It is a tremendous apparatus of iniquity, always operating under the cover of the stars and stripes. Its chief weapon is lies and misinformation about the I. W. W. This side of the campaign of persecution is attended to by the kept press, partly through warped news items, partly through venomous and “inspired” editorials, partly by flaring advertisements, which of late are to be found in all big capitalistic sheets. This feature alone must cost the promoters millions of dollars, but it is necessary in order to turn the masses of the people against us, and besides, there is more money where these millions come from, for more wealth is constantly created by the workers. Contemporaneously the promoters carry on an “educational” campaign through the patriotic societies, who approach the people with tens of millions of letters and pamphlets and support same with the hell-slush of blood thirsty orators or hired liars, sometimes with the additional aid of framed up films.

The miners in Park City, in Coeur d’Alene, in Tonopah and a dozen other places have also been striking, sometimes with winning, sometimes “losing.’’ But no matter what the outcome, the I. W. W. always is the winner, for the workers think and learn while they strike and rest. And when the worker begins to think he becomes an I. W. W.

The last strike of the year in which I. W. W. has taken part with any considerable numbers is the strike of the Marine Transport Workers of New York. The strike was “‘lost,’”’ but, as usually, the I. W. W. won, coming out with its membership trebled.

The moving picture theatres offer these campaigners a great possibility, that is taken advantage of to its full extent.

Ministers and politicians and thousands of other mental prostitutes repeat the slander and the lies and the provocatory rantings, each one to his little crowd, out of cowardice, greed or general cussedness.

Thus the people of the country are being incited against us by these “‘respectables,” and the fruit of it is now ripening and is being harvested. By patient work along this line they have brought it to the point where the public is about ready to condone any outrage against us, even if it is the most dastardly infraction of the law and the constitution of the country. Taking advantage of this artificial public opinion, created by the secret government, these spurious patriots don the U. S. uniform and raid our halls, wreck our pianos and_ typewriting machines, destroy our records and burn our literature, and finally club or murder our members and turn them over to the waiting police to be arrested for “trying to overthrow the U.S. government”. Thus is being gradually built up a dictatorship of the plutocracy and a reign of terror by its servants, designed to crush forever whatever democracy has hitherto existed in this country.

We have before us a list of the I. W. W. halls raided during the year of 1919 with particulars, but it would take up too much space to enumerate them. Be it enough to state that this extra-legal persecution is country-wide, and in some parts, as in the Northwest, it embraces every important city and town, and some that are not so important.

The Centralia affair, where 4 “American Legion” men were killed while in the process of raiding the I. W. W. hall, is a typical example. Here these “‘patriotic’ raiders, inspired by Wall street and more particularly by the lumber trust, lynched one I. W. W. member, an ex-soldier from overseas, Wesley Everest, and completely destroyed the hall, and afterwards established a complete reign of terror which still continues in full force.

Through the expenditure of millions of dollars for sinister purposes there has been created an artificial and hysteric public opinion which gives absolution in advance to brutal and rowdy elements who are being manipulated by the hired tools of the secret government for the purpose of extinguishing liberty and making all the people willing and submissive servants to the secret government. It has gone so far that people no longer dare speak their mind on any question for fear of being blackmailed, bullied, clubbed and persecuted by the crazy or malevolent ruffians, who, like the black hundreds of Russia, drape themselves in the flag of the country, in order to disguise their foul deeds against the workers.

It will take years for the American people to free themselves spiritually and socially from this extra-legal reign of terror and regain their balance of mind and freedom of thought, speech and action.

The Legal Persecution

The legal persecution may be traced to all the three branches of the government, the legislative, the judiciary and the executive, which all three are under the iron heel of the secret government. As far as the legislative branch is concerned, it has busied itself in a great number of states with the framing of “Anti-syndicalist” laws which on the surface are directed against certain acts of violence or conspiracy against the U. S. government. These laws are framed with the secret understanding that they are to serve against the I. W. W., the courts and the police being depended upon to conspire to bring us within that law. At the present time the congress has under consideration, it is said, 52 federal bills, all aiming at our extermination. It is in order to get a semblance of justification for such laws that all the rioting is being staged, all the perjury suborned, and all the lies in the press manufactured against us. The secret government is thus preparing to turn a dastardly trick on the American people, designed to throw them in the chains of brutal tyranny for generations.

The part of the judiciary in this legal persecution is to do the bidding of the secret government. The trials given our members are outrageous, scandalous and farcical, the judges in nearly every case being unreservedly partial to the prosecution, and, finally, imposing sentences which are plainly acts of oppression and not acts of justice,

The executive part of the persecution is openly in defiance of the law. Arrests, raids and seizures, are in most cases being done without a warrant, the raids generally being more like acts of warfare than peaceful acts of law and order. We call attention to the photo herewith of the raid of the I. W. W. hall in New York by a department of the police.

Another feature of this activity is the brutal treatment invariably accorded our members when they happen to come in the road of these executives of both the secret and the legal governments. Clubs and other weapons are used without provocation or cause, and thousands of our fellow workers have been seriously injured by these clubbings and large numbers have been taken to hospitals and have been seriously injured for life.

The latest instance is that of Fellow Workers Kohler, manager of our printing plant, and Cascaden, a newspaper man, who both were present at the recent trial in Kansas City, Kohler as a witness and Cascaden as our press correspondent. Both were foully dealt with. Kohler was taken by court officials to one side, right in the court house, and terribly beaten up. As for Cascaden, a city detective came up to his room and beat him up, breaking his leg, in the brutal assault. The latter assault is admitted by the police, but they falsely state in the papers that the detective ‘acted in self-defense.” Lies are used to bolster up a deed over which they and the other tools of tyranny are openly gloating.

These two instances could be multiplied by the thousands.

As a result of the co-operation between the legal and extra-legal persecution there are now about 2,000 I. W. W. men in jail, of whom several hundreds already are sentenced to terms of up to 20 years. The rest are being held as long as possible without trial, and all our prisoners are in most cases being tormented in a fiendish manner.

One feature of this persecution is the deportation of hundreds of our members. But as deportation alone has little terror, the members are wantonly and illegally being held in jails for months and years before deportation, in order to inflict punishment outside the pale of the law. In fact, the secret government is not anxious to deport the workers in mass. They want to keep them here, if possible, and crush them into willing slaves.

The Defense Work of the I. W. W.

Under these circumstances it is easy to understand that the defense work for the organization has assumed large proportions. The General Defense Committee was about to collapse under the burden of its tremendous task, when William D. Haywood was finally released on bail and put to work as secretary and later as treasurer of the General Defense Committee in Chicago. Special defense committees have been active in the Northwest and California. It has been the task of these committees to secure legal aid wherever possible, but we must admit that many fellow workers have been victimized by our fiendish enemies for lack of proper legal defense. However, many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for bail, and a number of the imprisoned fellow workers have thus regained liberty, pending the appeal of their case. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for defense purposes, partly through subscription lists, partly through collections at meetings and partly through the sale of stamps to members. We have been put to the utmost to secure funds, and at the present time the means on hand are entirely inadequate, while many of our resources are being exhausted. Help is beginning to come from the workers in foreign countries, systematic agitation and collection being now carried on in Sweden and Norway and perhaps in some other countries, showing that international solidarity is something more than an empty phrase.

Protests from labor organizations are also pouring in from England and Holland and other countries.

However, in order to keep the defense work from breaking down entirely, the buying of defense stamps by members will have to be made our special order of business for a long time to come, not forgetting the organization stamp for the upkeep of the organization in these trying times.

Unless the defense funds are kept up our fellow workers will have to resort to the dismal tactics of “silent defense” used by our 50 fellow workers in Sacramento with disastrous results.

Such is the terrible, almost incredible story of the I. W. W. in 1919. Never in the history of the labor movement have the efforts of the workers to organize been met with such sufferings.

Freedom is dead in the United States at present and raw-boned tyrants rule.

But it is easy to understand that a society that can maintain itself only through such moral degradation cannot have many days to live. Some day the sufferings of the people will have reached a limit over which they cannot go. Then comes the dissolution like a cataclysm. We foresee this day and in order to save ourselves, our class, mankind generally and whatever is worth saving of our “‘civilization,’” we are against tremendous odds going ahead with the work of organizing the workers industrially, so that we may be able to continue production and distribution and keep society going.

That responsibility now rests on the shoulders of the working class.

Watch the I. W. W. in 1920! Our principles are immortal, and no human agency can destroy them, whatever they may try to do to our organization and our members.

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand