The Alaska socialist., 1913-11-15
THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF
 THE WORLD

Who are the Industrial Workers of the World How many people can answer the question ? If the question was put to greet number of people not familiar with the history of the labor movement, there would probably be a great many different answers to the question, acc ording to the knowledge or lack of knowledge of the person who undertook to answer the question. Some would probably say they were bunch of anar- cfists. others that they were socialists, while others would probably call them syndicalists. The l. w. w. has been organized i'll recent years and many res idents of Alaska have only limited knowledge of them gleaned from the press.
 7 We propose to find out at first hand who they are and what they stand for. To do this We will take the original documents, ---the proceedings of the first Convention of the l. ". w., held at Chicago from June 27th, to July Sth, 1905. stenographically reported by w. E. McDsznut, !.tszlrl, and revised and approved by W. E, Trautnlann, Secretary of the Convention.
 The proceedings show that the Man ifesto which was adopted at Chicago was signed by twenty-seven labor leaders to call a convention for the purpose 0 launching all industrial organization of the working class, craft unionism hay ing become obsolete The labor leaders who signed the Manifesto are A. M. Simous, A. G. Swing, Chas H. Mover, W. F. Trautmann, w. D. Haywood, E. Untermann, Mother Jones, John M. O. Neil, F. V. Debs, and eighteen others.
 Most of those who assisted in launch ing the I. w. W. now requdiate it. We quote from the Social Democratic Her aid, Berger's paper ''The so called Industrial Workers organization has become q rabble and an unmitigated dis grace to the cause of labor. It can not have the support of any man with his eyes open who hopes for the coming of the cooperative commonwealth Nay, more. it should have his opposition, since its antics are charged d up o the Socialist movement and it's anarchistic leaders miss no opportunity to seek to undermine the Socis list cause" !" Earnest Untern1ann, one ofthe signers of the Manifesto, and the translator of Marx Capital writing ill the National, Socialist says: 1.-The !. w. ". has be- come a bunch of anarchists. At the time of the signing of the Manifesto I warned them to keep out the anarchist element or 1t would disrupt the la bor movement. The Socialist Party mu S t shut down on the Bunmery and refuse to give them any more money out of the Party treasury. Let them starve to death. No compromise with the I. W. w." Debs who is an industrial unionist repudiates them. The Western Feder- ation of Miners repudiates them. The Miners Magazine, t he official organ of the W. F. of M., refers to them as fol- lows: "The Editor of The Miners Mag azine has frequently, during he pa t several years, commented on the meth ods and tactics of the I. w. w. more commonly known as the 'Bummery. T Il e comments of [ h e editor on the freaks, fanatics, hoodlums, dead-beats, hilks and parasites who had fastened themselves on an organization that is called labor union, to mask the per- fidy and infamy of men who are more debased and fiIthier than the most de-