The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-04
I.W.W. DEAD TO LABOR
BUT ALIVE ENOUGH
TO SCAB ON MIN ERS
Leaders Who Had Their One Local in Illinois
Walk Through Picket Lines Try to Dodge
Claim Scabbing Isn't Bad If It's Organized
Scabbjng; Steady Degeneration

istrike. The headlines say; Militia
4 Called Without Need" Eagerness
of State to Act As Strikebreakers
in Illinois Is Protested by I.W.W.
Conference" "No Occasion for Pre-
sence of Militia AS No Considerable
Strike Action Was Taken by Miners
in Response to Call of the NM.U.
and No Disorder Occurred That Re
CURED Presence of Troops. Miners
Show Resentment by Walking Out
at Taylorsville Until Troops Are
Withdrawn" Also, down in the
story. Calling out the National
Guard to protect the four Peabody
Coal Company mines in this county
yesterday served as an indirect aid
to the strikers"
This is bad, from the new I.W.W.
point of view. The I.W.W. rushes
to give advice to the Illinois Coal
Operators Association and the coal
mine owners state of Illinois. Never
call out the troops to kill the miners,
unless the Communists have a real
big strike. OF course, it may have
to be done when that happens.
The Portland Case.
How did this idea come to pene-
trate the Revolutionary IW.W. p"
The last time we heard of such
theory and such action as this was
back in the Portland longshore
strike, when a Marine Transport
Workers Industrial Union No. $40
of the I.W.W. secretary named Ford
advanced, and some Wobbfes there
acted on the theory that "You can
scab the ALL. out of existence"
Under protection of the police, Nv,
w, members rode in patrol wagons
through the picket lines at the docks
to scab against the international
Longshoremen's Union strike. There
were extenuating circumstances
urged by some I.WW.'s in the Port
land strike. The LILA. had not
played fair. But the mass member
ship in the IW.W. revolted against
tscahbing. Ford was repudiated and
forced out.
Now things seem to be different.
There is no mass membership in the
I.W.W. which has dwindled to a
Ismall and narrow sect. You can
look in vain through recent issues
of the I.W.W. organs for one single
case of job action, of strike or any
other sort of struggle for better
wages, he's or conditions, to say
nothing of any industrial action for
the revolution. The I.W.W. is a lit
tie dues-gathering agency, with a
scattered membership. Where it has
organized a few workers together
in one locality, the best use it can
find for them--is to scab lin an
organized fashion, we are assured
by Edwards) on other workers. Is
this the only present function of the
ILW.W.? Try and find what else it
has done in the last year. A few
dances and other affairs. A few
meetings. But where there is not
complete inactivity on the industrial
field, the only activity is-scabbing.
1t Failed the Workers.
This of course is nothing new in
the history of Labor. Movements
have their historical mission. The
II.W.W. was at one time the left
wing of the American Labor Move
ment. 1t was a healthy, though
twisted and ineffective, reaction to
the socialist party parliamentarism,
and social passivism. The I.W.W.
led some great strikes. The I.W.W.
more than any other agency, popu-
larized the idea of industrial union
ism.
But the I.W.W. failed the labor
movement when it refused to ac-
comodate it's theories to the fact of
the Bolshevik revolution, refused to
learn the lesson of political action,
refused to even understand the par
liamentarism of the socialists, which
Haywood and others of it's founders
fought so hard against, was another
thing from the revolutionary poll
teal action of the Communists.
Corruption.
When the I.W.W. in 1922 finally
took it's stand against the Bolshe-
Ivik revolution and proceeded to
crush out of the organization all
w defended it, it entered on the
path to its present state of degra-
dation and degeneration.
1t proceeded, not with a single
leap, but step by step. AS late as
1923 it could throw off the poison
of "scab on the A.F.L." in the
waterfront strike, but it had for
feited the confidence of the marine
workers. AS late as 1926 it could
organize, temporarily, some thous-
ands of harvest workers; since then
it has never done that, for it could
not organize on any other basis than
a hold up-control of the freight
trains. AS late as 1927 it led fine
strike in the Colorado coal fields,
and betrayed it. The leaders were
not bought out, but simply yielded
to an old doctrinaire religion of the
I.W.W. carrying the strike to the
job" They took the strike back to
the job, and the bosses said, "Thank
you" No more strike, and no more
Wobbly organization in Colorado