Editing Industrial Workers of the World (section)

===1905–1950===
====Foundation====
[[File:IWW-headquarters-1917.jpg|thumb|[[Big Bill Haywood]] and office workers in the IWW General Office, Chicago, summer 1917]]

The first meeting to plan the IWW was held in Chicago in 1904. The seven attendees were Clarence Smith and [[Thomas J. Hagerty]] of the [[American Labor Union]], [[George Estes]] and [[W. L. Hall]] of the [[United Brotherhood of Railway Employees]], [[Isaac Cowan]] of the U.S. branch of the [[Amalgamated Society of Engineers (UK)|Amalgamated Society of Engineers]], [[William E. Trautmann]] of the [[International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers|United Brewery Workmen]] and Julian E. Bagley WW1 veteran and author. [[Eugene Debs]], formerly of the [[American Railway Union]], and [[Charles O. Sherman]] of the [[United Metal Workers]] were involved but did not attend the meeting.<ref name="Thompson1955">{{cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Fred |title=The I. W. W., its first fifty years, 1905-1955;the history of an effort to organize the working class. |date=1955 |publisher=Industrial Workers of the World |location=Chicago |page=6 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073497490&view=1up&seq=10 |access-date=June 12, 2020 |archive-date=October 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030155554/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015073497490&view=1up&seq=10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Continental Congress of the working class|IWW was officially founded]] in Chicago, Illinois in June 1905. A convention was held of 200 [[socialism|socialists]], [[anarchism|anarchists]], [[Marxism|Marxists]] (primarily members of the [[Socialist Party of America]] and [[Socialist Labor Party of America]]), and radical trade unionists from all over the United States (mainly the [[Western Federation of Miners]]) who strongly opposed the policies of the [[American Federation of Labor]] (AFL). The IWW opposed the AFL's acceptance of [[capitalism]] and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Industrial-Workers-of-the-World |title=Industrial Workers of the World - Labour Organization |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014224/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Industrial-Workers-of-the-World |url-status=live }}</ref>

The convention had taken place on June 27, 1905, and was referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention". It was later known as the First Annual Convention of the IWW.<ref name="Brissenden" />{{rp|67}}

The IWW's founders included [[Bill Haywood|William D. ("Big Bill") Haywood]], [[James Connolly]], [[Daniel De Leon]], [[Eugene V. Debs]], [[Thomas Hagerty]], [[Lucy Parsons]], [[Mary Harris "Mother" Jones]], [[Frank Bohn (socialist)|Frank Bohn]], [[William Trautmann]], [[Vincent Saint John]], [[Ralph Chaplin]], and many others.

The IWW aimed to promote worker solidarity in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the employing class; its [[Labor slogans|motto]] was "[[an injury to one is an injury to all]]".  They saw this as an improvement upon the [[Knights of Labor]]'s creed, "an injury to one is the concern of all" which the Knights had spoken out in the 1880s.  In particular, the IWW was organized because of the belief among many unionists, socialists, anarchists, Marxists, and radicals that the AFL not only had failed to effectively organize the U.S. [[working class]],  but it was causing separation rather than unity within groups of workers by organizing according to narrow craft principles. The Wobblies believed that all workers should organize as a class, a philosophy that is still reflected in the Preamble to the current IWW Constitution:

<blockquote>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 the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a [[class struggle|struggle]] must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the [[Centralisation#Centralisation in economy|centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands]] makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the [[working class]] upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the [[new society within the shell of the old]].<ref name="preamble" /></blockquote>

One of the IWW's most important contributions to the labor movement and broader push of social justice was that, when founded, it was the only American union to welcome all workers, including women, immigrants, African Americans and Asians, into the same organization. Many of its early members were immigrants, and some, such as [[Carlo Tresca]], [[Joe Haaglund Hill|Joe Hill]] and [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]], rose to prominence in the leadership. [[Finnish people|Finns]] formed a sizable portion of the immigrant IWW membership. "Conceivably, the number of Finns belonging to the I.W.W. was somewhere between five and ten thousand."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article257e.htm |title=Finnish-American Workmen's Associations |first=Auvo |last=Kostiainen |publisher=Genealogia.fi |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=February 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223143526/http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article257e.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Finnish language|Finnish-language]] newspaper of the IWW, ''[[Industrialisti]]'', published in [[Duluth, Minnesota]], a center of the mining industry, was the union's only daily paper. At its peak, it ran 10,000 copies per issue. Another Finnish-language Wobbly publication was the monthly ''[[Tie Vapauteen]]'' ("Road to Freedom"). Also of note was the Finnish IWW educational institute, the [[Work People's College]] in Duluth, and the [[Finnish Labour Temple]] in [[Port Arthur, Ontario]], Canada, which served as the IWW Canadian administration for several years. Further, many Swedish immigrants, particularly those blacklisted after the 1909 Swedish [[General strike|General Strike]], joined the IWW and set up similar cultural institutions around the Scandinavian Socialist Clubs. This in turn exerted a political influence on the Swedish labor movement's left, that in 1910 formed the Syndicalist union SAC which soon contained a minority seeking to mimick the tactics and strategies of the IWW.<ref name=plutopress>{{cite book| editor1-last=Cole| editor1-first=Peter| editor2-last=Struthers| editor2-first=David| editor3-last=Zimmer| editor3-first=Kenyon| url=https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399591/wobblies-of-the-world/| title=Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW| year=2017| publisher=[[Pluto Press]]| chapter=P. J. Welinder and "American Syndicalism| page=262| isbn=978-0745399591| access-date=February 22, 2018| archive-date=February 23, 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223052931/https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399591/wobblies-of-the-world/| url-status=live}}</ref>

====Organization====
[[File:Industrial Workers of the World membership card.jpg|left|thumb|alt=A small red cardstock booklet bearing the text, "Membership Card", and an IWW globe insignia.|A Wobbly membership card, or "red card"]]

{{Quote box
| quote  = The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all&nbsp;... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands – the ownership and control of their livelihoods – are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.
| source = — [[Helen Keller]], IWW member, 1911<ref>{{cite book |title=Helen Keller: Rebel Lives |first1=Helen |last1=Keller |author-link=Helen Keller |first2=John |last2=Davis |publisher=Ocean Press |year=2003 |isbn=9781876175603 |page=57}}</ref>
| width = 25%
| align = right
}}

The IWW first attracted attention in [[Goldfield, Nevada|Goldfield]], [[Nevada]], in 1906 and during the [[Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.neiu.edu/~reseller/ehpg9repst.htm |title=Short history of Pressed Steel Car Company |publisher=NEIU.edu |access-date=October 14, 2018 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090828072626/http://www.neiu.edu/~reseller/ehpg9repst.htm |archive-date=August 28, 2009}}</ref>

[[File:IWW demonstration NY 1914.jpg|thumb|alt=Black and white photograph of a large crowd of people, a few holding signs above the crowd, displaying IWW acronyms and slogans.|1914 IWW demonstration in New York City]]

By 1912, the organization had around 25,000 members.<ref>{{cite book |first=Philip S. |last=Foner |title=History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. 4: The Industrial Workers of the World 1905–1917 |publisher=International Publishers |year=1997 |isbn=978-0717803965 |page=147}}</ref>

====Geography====
In its first decades, the IWW created more than 900 unions located in more than 350 cities and towns in 38 states and territories of the United States and five Canadian provinces.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/iww/map_locals.shtml |title=IWW Local Unions 1906-1917 (maps) |website=IWW History Project |publisher=UW Departments |first1=Arianne |last1=Hermida |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=June 12, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210612120452/http://depts.washington.edu/iww/map_locals.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> Throughout the country, there were 90 newspapers and periodicals affiliated with the IWW, published in 19 different languages.  Cartoons were a major part of IWW publications. Produced by unpaid rank and file members they satirised the union's opponents and helped spread its messages in various forms, including 'stickerettes'. The most well-known IWW cartoon character, Mr Block, was created by Ernest Riebe and was made the subject of a Joe Hill song.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Ettlling |first1=Alex |last2=McIntyre |first2=Iain |last3=Milliss |first3=Ian |last4=Milner |first4=Lisa |last5=Towart |first5=Neale |date=2022-02-14 |title=Lines of Resistance: What can the Old Left offer today's creatives? |url=https://commonslibrary.org/lines-of-resistance-what-can-the-old-left-offer-todays-creatives/ |access-date=2023-03-01 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU |archive-date=March 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301100135/https://commonslibrary.org/lines-of-resistance-what-can-the-old-left-offer-todays-creatives/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Members of the IWW were active throughout the country and were involved in the [[Seattle General Strike]] of 1919,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/anderson.shtml |title=The Industrial Workers of the World in the Seattle General Strike |website=depts.washington.edu |year=1999 |first=Colin M. |last=Anderson |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015080310/https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/anderson.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> were arrested or killed in the [[Everett Massacre]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/iww/faces_of_iww.shtml |title=Faces of the IWW: The Men Arrested after the Everett Massacre |website=depts.washington.edu |first=James |last=Gregory |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015080323/https://depts.washington.edu/iww/faces_of_iww.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> organized among Mexican workers in the Southwest,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/iww/mexicaniwws.shtml |title=Mexican Workers in the IWW and the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) |website=depts.washington.edu |first=Devra Ann |last=Weber |year=2016 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015080257/https://depts.washington.edu/iww/mexicaniwws.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> and became a large and powerful longshoremen's union in Philadelphia.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://depts.washington.edu/iww/local8iww.shtml |title=Local 8: Philadelphia's Interracial Longshore Union |first=Peter |last=Cole |year=2015 |website=depts.washington.edu |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014220/https://depts.washington.edu/iww/local8iww.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>

====IWW versus AFL Carpenters, Goldfield, Nevada, 1906-1907====
{{main|Goldfield, Nevada, labor troubles of 1906–1907}}

Resisting IWW domination in the gold mining boom town of [[Goldfield, Nevada]] was the AFL-affiliated Carpenters Union. In March 1907, the IWW demanded that the mines deny employment to AFL Carpenters, which led mine owners to challenge the IWW. The mine owners banded together and pledged not to employ any IWW members. The mine and business owners of Goldfield staged a lockout, vowing to remain shut until they had broken the power of the IWW. The lockout prompted a split within the Goldfield workforce, between conservative and radical union members.<ref>{{cite book |first=Russell R. |last=Elliott |url=https://archive.org/details/nevadastwentieth0000russ/page/105/mode/1up?q=afl+iww+goldfield |title=Nevada's Twentieth-Century Mining Boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely |publisher=University of Nevada Press |year=1966 |isbn=9780874171334 }}</ref>

====Haywood trial and Western Federation of Miners exit====
Leaders of the Western Federation of Miners such as [[Bill Haywood]] and Vincent St. John were instrumental in forming the IWW, and the WFM affiliated with the new union organization shortly after the IWW was formed. The WFM became the IWW's "mining section". Many in the rank and file of the WFM were uncomfortable with the open radicalism of the IWW and wanted the WFM to maintain its independence. Schisms between the WFM and IWW had emerged at the annual IWW convention in 1906, when a majority of WFM delegates walked out.<ref name="Brissenden" />

When WFM executives Bill Haywood, [[George Pettibone]], and [[Charles Moyer]] were accused of complicity in the murder of former Idaho governor [[Frank Steunenberg]], the IWW used the case to raise funds and support and paid for the legal defense. Even the not guilty verdicts worked against the IWW, because the IWW was deprived of martyrs, and at the same time, a large portion of the public remained convinced of the guilt of the accused.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=American Bar Association Journal |volume=54 |number=5 |date=May 1968 |jstor=25724408 |title=This fabric under which we have lived (editorial) |page=474 }}</ref>

Bill Haywood for a time remained a member of both organizations. His murder trial had made Haywood a celebrity, and he was in demand as a speaker for the WFM. His increasingly radical speeches became more at odds with the WFM, and in April 1908, the WFM announced that the union had ended Haywood's role as a union representative. Haywood left the WFM and devoted all his time to organizing for the IWW.<ref name="Brissenden" />{{rp|216–217}}

Historian Vernon H. Jensen has asserted that the IWW had a "rule or ruin" policy, under which it attempted to wreck local unions which it could not control.  From 1908 to 1921, Jensen and others have written, the IWW attempted to win power in WFM locals which had once formed the federation's backbone. When it could not do so, IWW agitators undermined WFM locals, which caused the national union to shed nearly half its membership.<ref name="Fink">{{cite book |title=Biographical Dictionary of American Labor |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=9780313228650 |year=1984 |first=Gary M. |last=Fink}}</ref><ref name="Dubofsky">{{cite book |title=We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World |first=Melvin |last=Dubofsky |editor-first=Joseph A. |editor-last=McCartin |year=2000 |isbn=9780252069055 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DmAer6Nz75kC |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=August 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803075620/https://books.google.com/books?id=DmAer6Nz75kC |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Disrupted by I.W.W. |work=Los Angeles Times |date=June 22, 1914 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/search/#lnd=1&query=disrupted+by+i.w.w&ymd=1914-06-22&t=4312 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003153501/https://www.newspapers.com/search/#lnd=1&query=disrupted+by+i.w.w&ymd=1914-06-22&t=4312 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Mine Federation in West Doomed by Faction's War |work=Chicago Daily Tribune |date=June 27, 1914 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/search/#lnd=1&query=Mine+Federation+Doomed&ymd=1914-06-27&t=4351&p_place=IL |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181003153501/https://www.newspapers.com/search/#lnd=1&query=Mine+Federation+Doomed&ymd=1914-06-27&t=4351&p_place=IL |url-status=live }}</ref>

====IWW versus the Western Federation of Miners====
The Western Federation of Miners left the IWW in 1907, but the IWW wanted the WFM back. The WFM had made up about a third of the IWW membership, and the western miners were tough union men, and good allies in a labor dispute. In 1908, Vincent St. John tried to organize a stealth takeover of the WFM. He wrote to WFM organizer Albert Ryan, encouraging him to find reliable IWW sympathizers at each WFM local, and have them appointed delegates to the annual convention by pretending to share whatever opinions of that local needed to become a delegate. Once at the convention, they could vote in a pro-IWW slate. St. Vincent promised: "once we can control the officers of the WFM for the IWW, the big bulk of the membership will go with them." But the takeover did not succeed.<ref>{{cite report|title=Official Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Convention|publisher=Western Federation of Miners|date=July 1912|pages=283–284}}</ref>

According to several historians, the [[1913 El Paso smelters' strike]] marked one of the first instances of direct competition between the IWW and the WFM, as the two unions competed to organize workers on strike against the [[American Smelting and Refining Company]]'s local [[smelter]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Acuña |first=Rodolfo F. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OMcfEAAAQBAJ |title=Corridors of Migration: The Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600–1933 |publisher=[[University of Arizona Press]] |year=2007 |page=176 |isbn=978-0-8165-4329-8 |location=Tucson, Arizona |author-link=Rodolfo Acuña |access-date=March 1, 2023 |archive-date=October 1, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241001125503/https://books.google.com/books?id=OMcfEAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Benton-Cohen |first=Katherine |url=https://archive.org/details/borderlineameric0000bent/ |title=Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2009 |page=203 |isbn=978-0-674-05355-7 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mellinger |first=Philip J. |url=https://archive.org/details/racelaborinweste0000mell/ |title=Race and Labor in Western Copper: The Fight for Equality, 1896–1918 |publisher=[[University of Arizona Press]] |year=1995 |page=137 |isbn=978-0-8165-4772-2 |location=Tucson, Arizona}}</ref> In 1914, Butte, Montana, erupted into [[Butte, Montana labor riots of 1914|a series of riots]] as miners dissatisfied with the [[Western Federation of Miners]] local at Butte formed a new union, and demanded that all miners join the new union, or be subject to beatings or worse. Although the new rival union had no affiliation with the IWW, it was widely seen as IWW-inspired. The leadership of the new union contained many who were members of the IWW or agreed with the IWW's methods and objectives. The new union failed to supplant the WFM, and the ongoing fight between the two resulted in the copper mines of Butte, longtime union strongholds for the WFM, becoming open shops, and the mine owners recognized no union from 1914 until 1934.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c7FXL6R5MM0C |first=Nancy |last=Capace |title=Encyclopedia of Montana |isbn=9780403096046 |page=156 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |date=January 1, 2000 |publisher=Somerset Publishers |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014220/https://books.google.com/books?id=c7FXL6R5MM0C |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Versus United Mine Workers, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1916====
The IWW clashed with the [[United Mine Workers]] union in April 1916, when the IWW picketed the anthracite mines around Scranton, Pennsylvania, intending, by persuasion or force, to keep UMWA members from going to work. The IWW considered the UMWA too reactionary, because the United Mine Workers negotiated contracts with the mine owners for fixed time periods; the IWW considered that contracts hindered their revolutionary goals. In what a contemporary writer pointed out was a complete reversal of their usual policy, UMWA officials called for police to protect United Mine Workers members who wished to cross the picket lines. The Pennsylvania State Police arrived in force, prevented picket line violence, and allowed the UMWA members to peacefully pass through the IWW picket lines.<ref name="Brissenden" /><ref>{{cite book|title=Justice to All: the Story of the Pennsylvania State Police |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |first=Katherine |last=Mayo |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924095790568 |year=1917 |access-date=October 14, 2018}}</ref>

====Bisbee Deportation====
[[File:Bisbee deportation lowell.jpg|thumb|Workers being forcibly marched away from Bisbee into the desert]]
{{main|Bisbee Deportation}}
In November 1916, the 10th convention of the IWW authorized an organizing drive in the Arizona copper mines. Copper was a vital war commodity, so mines were working day and night. During the first months of 1917, thousands joined the Metal Mine Workers' Union #800. The focus of the organizing drive was [[Bisbee, Arizona]], a small town near the Mexican border. Nearly 5000 miners worked in Bisbee's mines. On June 27, 1917, Bisbee's miners went on strike. The strike was effective and non-violent. Demands included the doubling of pay for surface workers, most of them recent immigrants from Mexico, as well as changes in working conditions to make the mines safer. The six-hour day was raised agitationally but held in abeyance. In the early hours of July 12, hundreds of armed vigilantes rounded up nearly two thousand strikers, of whom 1186 were deported in cattle cars and dumped in the desert of New Mexico. In the following days, hundreds more were ordered to leave. The strike was broken at gunpoint.<ref>{{cite book | last=Chester | first=Eric Thomas | author-link=Eric Chester | title=The Wobblies in Their Heyday: The Rise and Destruction of the Industrial Workers of the World during the World War I Era | year=2014 | publisher=[[Praeger Publishers]] | isbn=978-1440833014 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KBKJBAAAQBAJ | pages=29–53 | access-date=December 18, 2014 | archive-date=October 1, 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241001130022/https://books.google.com/books?id=KBKJBAAAQBAJ | url-status=live }}</ref>

====Other organizing drives====

[[File:Large group of IWW members at picnic, Seattle, Washington, July 20, 1919.jpg|thumb|IWW members at a picnic in Seattle, 1919]]

Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW's [[Agricultural Workers Organization]] (AWO) organized more than a hundred thousand migratory farm workers throughout the Midwest and western United States.<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry E. |last=McGuckin |title=Memoirs of a Wobbly |publisher=Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company |year=1987 |page=70}}</ref>

Building on the success of the AWO, the IWW's [[Lumber Workers Industrial Union]] (LWIU) used similar tactics to organize [[lumberjack]]s and other timber workers, both in the deep South and the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada, between 1917 and 1924. The IWW lumber strike of 1917 led to the [[eight-hour day]] and vastly improved working conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Though mid-century historians credited the US Government and "forward thinking lumber magnates" for agreeing to such reforms, an IWW strike forced these concessions.<ref>{{cite book | title=One Big Union | year=1986}}</ref>

Where the IWW did win strikes, such as in Lawrence, they often found it hard to hold onto their gains. The IWW of 1912 disdained [[collective bargaining agreement]]s and preached instead the need for constant struggle against the boss on the shop floor. It proved difficult to maintain that sort of revolutionary enthusiasm against employers. In Lawrence, the IWW lost nearly all of its membership in the years after the strike, as the employers wore down their employees' resistance and eliminated many of the strongest union supporters. In 1938, the IWW voted to allow contracts with employers.<ref>{{cite book |title=The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905–1975 |first1=Fred W. |last1=Thompson |first2=Patrick |last2=Murfin |year=1976 |page=100}}</ref>

====Government suppression====

[[File:Ettor IWW barbers strike.jpg|thumb|alt=Black and white photograph of a speaker rallying a large crowd. In front of the stage, facing the audience, are several signs, in various languages, displaying demands.|[[Joseph Ettor|Joseph J. Ettor]], who had been arrested in 1912, giving a speech to barbers on strike]]
[[File:Big Piney WY Examiner 10-25-1917 p4c3.png|thumb|A newspaper editorial cartoon from 1917, critical of the IWW's antiwar stance during World War I]]
[[File:Anti-socialist propaganda WWI (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|Anti-socialist cartoon in a railroad-sponsored magazine, 1919]]

The IWW's efforts were met with "unparalleled" resistance from Federal, state and local governments in America;<ref name="Saros2009"/>  from company management and [[labor spies]], and from groups of citizens functioning as vigilantes. In 1914, Wobbly [[Joe Hill (activist)|Joe Hill]] (born Joel Hägglund) was accused of murder in Utah and, on what many regarded as limited and insufficient evidence, was executed in 1915.<ref>{{cite news |title=Examining a Labor Hero's Death |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/us/27hill.html?_r=0 |newspaper=New York Times |date=August 26, 2011 |first=Steven |last=Greenhouse |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015120042/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/us/27hill.html?_r=0 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon |first=William M. |last=Adler |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |year=2011 |chapter=11: Majesty of the Law}}</ref> On November 5, 1916, at [[Everett, Washington]], a group of deputized businessmen led by Sheriff Donald McRae [[Everett massacre|attacked Wobblies]] on the steamer ''[[Verona (steamship)|Verona]]'', killing at least five union members<ref>{{cite news |title=The Tacoma times., November 06, 1916, Image 1 |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1916-11-06/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Everett&date1=11%2F05%2F1916&date2=11%2F10%2F1916&searchType=advanced&language=&proxdistance=5&state=&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Everett&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&index=10 |publisher=The Tacoma Times |date=November 6, 1916 |page=1 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |last1=Humanities |first1=National Endowment for the |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015080303/https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1916-11-06/ed-1/seq-1/#words=Everett&date1=11%2F05%2F1916&date2=11%2F10%2F1916&searchType=advanced&language=&proxdistance=5&state=&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Everett&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&index=10 |url-status=live }} -- also reported 20 IWW and 20 Everett citizens were wounded</ref> (six more were never accounted for and probably were lost in [[Puget Sound]]). Two members of the police force—one a regular officer and another a deputized citizen from the National Guard Reserve—were killed, probably by "friendly fire".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.odmp.org/officer/1627-deputy-sheriff-jefferson-f-beard |quote=Although the exact circumstances are unknown, it is thought that both deputies were struck by friendly fire. |title=Deputy Sheriff Jefferson F. Beard |work=Officer Down Memorial Page |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014221/https://www.odmp.org/officer/1627-deputy-sheriff-jefferson-f-beard |url-status=live }}</ref> At least five Everett civilians were wounded.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/pnwlabor/id/126/rec/51 |title=080. Members of Everett Citizens' Committee Killed and Injured in Battle with I.W.W. |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=October 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015080306/http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/pnwlabor/id/126/rec/51 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Many IWW members opposed United States participation in [[World War I]]. The organization passed a resolution against the war at its convention in November 1916.<ref name=Carlson>{{cite book |last=Carlson |first=Peter |title=Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood |year=1984 |isbn=978-0393302080 |publisher=[[W. W. Norton and Company]] |url=https://archive.org/details/roughnecklifetim0000carl |url-access=registration |access-date=October 14, 2018}}</ref>{{rp|241}} This echoed the view, expressed at the IWW's founding convention, that war represents struggles among capitalists in which the rich become richer, and the working poor all too often die at the hands of other workers.

An IWW newspaper, the ''[[Industrial Worker]]'', wrote just before the U.S. declaration of war: "Capitalists of America, we will fight against you, not for you! There is not a power in the world that can make the working class fight if they refuse." Yet when a declaration of war was passed by the U.S. Congress in April 1917, the IWW's general secretary-treasurer Bill Haywood became determined that the organization should adopt a low profile in order to avoid perceived threats to its existence. The printing of anti-war stickers was discontinued, stockpiles of existing anti-war documents were put into storage, and anti-war propagandizing ceased as official union policy. After much debate on the General Executive Board, with Haywood advocating a low profile and GEB member [[Frank Little (U.S. Trade Unionist)|Frank Little]] championing continued agitation, Ralph Chaplin brokered a compromise agreement. A statement was issued that denounced the war, but IWW members were advised to channel their opposition through the legal mechanisms of conscription. They were advised to register for the draft, marking their claims for exemption "IWW, opposed to war."<ref name=Carlson />{{rp|242{{ndash}}244}}

[[File:The Evolution of Industrial Democracy (Woodruff) cover.jpg|thumb|left|Cover of ''[[:s:The Evolution of Industrial Democracy|The Evolution of Industrial Democracy]]'' by [[Abner E. Woodruff]], initialed by illustrator [[Ralph Hosea Chaplin]], published by the IWW. Notably stamped as evidence used in a [[trial]].]]

During World War I, the U.S. government moved strongly against the IWW. On September 5, 1917, U.S. [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] agents made simultaneous raids on dozens of IWW meeting halls across the country.<ref name="Dubofsky" />{{rp|406}} Minutes books, correspondence, mailing lists, and publications were seized, with the [[U.S. Department of Justice]] removing five tons of material from the IWW's General Office in Chicago alone.<ref name="Dubofsky" />{{rp|406}}

Based in large measure on the documents seized September 5, one hundred and sixty-six IWW leaders were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Chicago for conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes, under the new Espionage Act.<ref name="Dubofsky" />{{rp|407}} One hundred and one went on trial en masse before Judge [[Kenesaw Mountain Landis]] in 1918. Their lawyer was [[George Vanderveer]] of Seattle.<ref name=Schlossberg>{{cite journal| first = Stephen I.| last = Schlossberg| title = The Role of the Union Lawyer| journal = North Carolina Law Review| url = http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2349&context=nclr| pages = 650| date = August 2, 2017| access-date = August 14, 2017| archive-date = January 15, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210115154336/https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2349&context=nclr| url-status = live}}</ref>

In 1917, during an incident known as the [[Tulsa Outrage]], a group of black-robed [[Knights of Liberty (vigilante group)|Knights of Liberty]] tarred and feathered seventeen members of the IWW in Oklahoma. The attack was cited as revenge for the [[Green Corn Rebellion]], a preemptive attack caused by fear of an impending attack on the oil fields and as punishment for not supporting the war effort. The IWW members had been turned over to the Knights of Liberty by local authorities after they were beaten, arrested at their headquarters and convicted of the crime of vagrancy. Five other men who testified in defense of the Wobblies were also fined by the court and subjected to the same torture and humiliations at the hands of the Knights of Liberty.<ref>{{cite web|title=I.W.W. Members Are Held Guilty|url=https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc134561/m1/2/zoom/?resolution=3&lat=4988.5&lon=411.0000000000001|date=November 10, 1917|publisher=Tulsa Daily World|page=2|access-date=December 22, 2018|archive-date=December 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221134712/https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc134561/m1/2/zoom/?resolution=3&lat=4988.5&lon=411.0000000000001|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc134561/m1/1/zoom/?resolution=3.979670900807041&lat=4421.542647423845&lon=4382.855120671836| title=Modern Ku Klux Klan Comes into Being| date=November 10, 1917| publisher=Tulsa Daily World| page=1| access-date=December 22, 2018| archive-date=December 21, 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221041409/https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc134561/m1/1/zoom/?resolution=3.979670900807041&lat=4421.542647423845&lon=4382.855120671836| url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://dc.library.okstate.edu/digital/collection/EOS/id/9781|title=Harlow's Weekly - A Journal of Comment & Current Events for Oklahoma|page=4|date=November 14, 1917|publisher=Harlow Publishing Company|access-date=December 22, 2018|archive-date=December 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221230441/https://dc.library.okstate.edu/digital/collection/EOS/id/9781|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Rebels of the New South : the Socialist Party in Dixie, 1892-1920|first=Brad A.|last=Paul|publisher=University of Massachusetts Amherst|date=January 1, 1999|pages=171, 176, 189|url=https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2270&context=dissertations_1|access-date=December 22, 2018|archive-date=December 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221182952/https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2270&context=dissertations_1|url-status=live}}</ref>

{{Wikisource|Why the IWW Is Not Patriotic to the United States}}

In 1919, an [[Armistice Day]] parade by the [[American Legion]] in [[Centralia, Washington]], turned into a fight between legionnaires and IWW members in which four legionnaires were shot. Which side initiated the violence of the [[Centralia massacre (Washington)|Centralia massacre]] is disputed, though there had been previous attacks on the IWW hall and businessmen's association had made threats against union members. A number of IWWs were arrested, one of whom, [[Wesley Everest]], was lynched by a mob that night.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Wesley Everest, IWW Martyr|journal=Pacific Northwest Quarterly|date=October 1986}}</ref>

A bronze plaque honoring the IWW members imprisoned and lynched following the Centralia Tragedy was dedicated in the city's [[Centralia, Washington#Parks and recreation|George Washington Park]] on November 11, 2023. A request was delivered to Washington Governor Inslee requesting posthumous pardons for the eight IWW members who were convicted.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sexton |first1=Owen |title=Centralia Tragedy: After decades-long fight, IWW gets plaque for union victims |url=https://www.chronline.com/stories/centralia-tragedy-after-decades-long-fight-iww-gets-plaque-for-union-victims,329250 |access-date=November 16, 2023 |work=The Chronicle |date=November 13, 2023 |archive-date=October 1, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241001130034/https://www.chronline.com/stories/centralia-tragedy-after-decades-long-fight-iww-gets-plaque-for-union-victims,329250 |url-status=live }}</ref> A rededication was held in June 2024 after the plaque was installed on a {{convert|7,500|lb|kg|abbr=on}} granite block base. The color and carved style was an intentional match of the base of the American Legion memorial, [[The Sentinel (Centralia, Washington statue)|The Sentinel]]. The $20,000 funding for the overall project, and the labor involved, was done mostly by union organizations or workers.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sexton |first1=Owen |title=IWW union members commemorate monument honoring Centralia Tragedy victims at George Washington Park |url=https://www.chronline.com/stories/iww-union-members-commemorate-monument-honoring-centralia-tragedy-victims-at-george-washington-park,342693? |access-date=January 22, 2025 |work=The Chronicle |date=June 26, 2024}}</ref>

====Organizational schism and aftermath====
IWW quickly recovered from the setbacks of 1919 and 1920, with membership peaking in 1923 (58,300 estimated by dues paid per capita, though membership was likely somewhat higher as the union tolerated delinquent members).<ref>{{cite web|last1=Thompson|first1=Fred|title=They didn't suppress the Wobblies|url=https://libcom.org/history/they-didnt-suppress-wobblies-fred-thompson|website=libcom.org|publisher=Radical America (September–October 1967)|access-date=February 21, 2018|archive-date=August 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014225/https://libcom.org/article/they-didnt-suppress-wobblies-fred-thompson|url-status=live}}</ref> But recurring internal debates, especially between those who sought either to centralize or decentralize the organization, ultimately brought about the IWW's 1924 schism.<ref name="Higbie2003">{{cite book|last=Higbie|first=Frank Tobias|title=Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FY5A1RG6OVgC&pg=PA166|year=2003|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-07098-3|pages=166, 280|access-date=January 21, 2019|archive-date=August 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803114254/https://books.google.com/books?id=FY5A1RG6OVgC&pg=PA166|url-status=live}}</ref>

The twenties witnessed the defection of hundreds of Wobbly leaders (including [[Harrison George]], [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]], [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]], [[George Hardy (labor leader)|George Hardy]], [[Charles Ashleigh]], [[Earl Browder]] and, in his Soviet exile, [[Bill Haywood]]) and, following a path recounted by [[Fred Beal]],<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Beal|first=Fred Erwin|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b332369&view=1up&seq=11&skin=2021|title=Proletarian journey: New England, Gastonia, Moscow.|date=1937|publisher=Hillman-Curl|location=New York|pages=283–284, 289–291|access-date=January 12, 2022|archive-date=August 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014224/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b332369&view=1up&seq=11&skin=2021|url-status=live}}</ref> thousands of Wobbly rank-and-filers to the Communists and Communist organizations.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2006|title=The IWW and the failure of revolutionary syndicalism in the USA, part ii {{!}} International Review|url=https://en.internationalism.org/ir/125-iww|access-date=2022-01-12|website=en.internationalism.org|archive-date=January 22, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220122060857/https://en.internationalism.org/ir/125-iww|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tar|first=Duncan|date=2015|title=The Reds and the Wobs: Radical Organization and Identity in the United States 1910-1930|url=https://history.msu.edu/files/2014/08/Michigan_State_JOH_Volume7.pdf|journal=Michigan Journal of History|volume=7|pages=22–45|access-date=January 12, 2022|archive-date=January 5, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220105074843/https://history.msu.edu/files/2014/08/Michigan_State_JOH_Volume7.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

At the beginning of the 1949 [[Smith Act trials]], FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] was disappointed when prosecutors indicted fewer CPUSA members than he had hoped, and—recalling the arrests and convictions of over one hundred IWW leaders in 1917—complained to the Justice Department, stating, "the IWW as a subversive menace was crushed and has never revived. Similar action at this time would have been as effective against the Communist Party and its subsidiary organizations."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rhiDOrwz248C&dq=the+IWW+was+crushed+and+never+revived%2C+similar+action+at+this+time+would+have+been+as+effective+against+the+Communist+Party&pg=PA85|title=It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America|last=Green|first=Gil|date=1990|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-91068-3|editor-last=Schultz|editor-first=Bud|editor-last2=Schultz|editor-first2=Ruth|pages=85|language=en|access-date=February 5, 2022|archive-date=August 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810014221/https://books.google.com/books?id=rhiDOrwz248C&dq=the+IWW+was+crushed+and+never+revived%2C+similar+action+at+this+time+would+have+been+as+effective+against+the+Communist+Party&pg=PA85|url-status=live}}</ref>