page_title: Industrial Workers of the World
section_title: Government suppression
hierarchical_section_title: Industrial Workers of the World / History 1905–1950 / Government suppression
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: baltimoreohioemp07balt (find matches) Title: Baltimore and Ohio employees magazine Year: 1912 (1910s) Authors: Baltimore and Ohio employees magazine Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Subjects: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company Publisher: (Baltimore, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad) Contributing Library: University of Maryland, College Park Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: (Copyright, 1919. New York Tribune, Inc.) by the Cartoonists Text Appearing After Image: —From LAsino, Italy —Reid, in The Camden (N. J.) Post-Telegraph 29 Federal Managers Galloway and Begien are Making SpecialEffort to Reduce Automobile Accidents at Grade Crossings Our Federal Managers are much concerned over the distressing number ofpeople who are annually killed or injured while driving automobiles over rail-road crossings. They have been able to be of material assistance in spreadingthe doctrine of safety and caution among our own employes through theeducational work of the Safety Department and the untiring efforts of ourofficers in the Transportation Department. It is difficult, however, to reach many people in a way direct enough tobring them to a realization of the loss of life which is caused by their failureto take proper precaution to insure their safety before crossing railroad tracks.The tests and observations covering a number of years have been given closeanalysis, resulting in conclusion being reached that if the drivers of automo-biles will only abid Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The Industrial Workers of the World, members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. The union combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to both socialist and anarchist labor movements.
  In the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW achieved many of their short-term goals, particularly in the American West, and cut across traditional guild and union lines to organize workers in a variety of trades and industries. At their peak in August 1917, IWW membership was more than 150,000, with active wings in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The extremely high rate of IWW membership turnover during this era makes it difficult for historians to state membership totals with any certainty, as workers tended to join the IWW in large numbers for relatively short periods.
  Due to several factors, membership declined dramatically in the late 1910s and 1920s.
context_section_description: The IWW's efforts were met with "unparalleled" resistance from Federal, state and local governments in America;  from company management and labor spies, and from groups of citizens functioning as vigilantes. In 1914, Wobbly Joe Hill (born Joel Hägglund) was accused of murder in Utah and, on what many regarded as flimsy evidence, was executed in 1915. On November 5, 1916, at Everett, Washington, a group of deputized businessmen led by Sheriff Donald McRae attacked Wobblies on the steamer Verona, killing at least five union members (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". At least five Everett civilians were wounded.
  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. 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 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."
  In spite of the IWW moderating its vocal opposition, the IWW's antiwar stance made it highly unpopular. Frank Little, the IWW's most outspoken war opponent, was lynched in Butte, Montana, in August 1917, just four months after war had been declared.
  During World War I the U.S. government moved strongly against the IWW. On September 5, 1917, U.S. Department of Justice agents made simultaneous raids on dozens of IWW meeting halls across the country. 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. This seized material was scoured for possible violations of the Espionage Act of 1917 and other laws, with a view to future prosecution of the organization's leaders, organizers, and key activists.
  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. One hundred and one went on trial en masse before Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1918. Their lawyer was George Vanderveer of Seattle.  They were all convicted — including those who had not been members of the union for years — and given prison terms of up to twenty years. Sentenced to prison by Judge Landis and released on bail, Haywood fled to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic where he remained until his death.
  In 1917, during an incident known as the Tulsa Outrage, a group of black-robed Knights of Liberty tarred and feathered seventeen members of the IWW in Oklahoma. The attack was cited as revenge for the Green Corn Rebel
caption: Anti-socialist cartoon in a railroad-sponsored magazine, 1912
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