Ettor would leave the I.W.W. later this year in a dispute with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and others over work in the Mesabi Iron Range strike.

‘Report of Joseph J. Ettor, General Organizer’ from the Proceedings of the Tenth National Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1916.

Report of General Organizer J. J. Ettor. To the Delegates of I.W.W. Convention of 1916, Chicago, Ill.,

Fellow Workers: Being busy with the defense work of the Iron Ore Strike prisoners I am unable to attend the Convention, and on your request I submit to you a brief report of my activities since taking office on the first of the year of 1915.

Immediately upon being notified of the election I arranged for a tour from New York to Chicago in January. On reaching Bellaire, Ohio, I was arrested on a charge of treason and lodged in the Belmont County jail. I was released on bond that I never put up and returned to Brooklyn to take part in a strike of the United Shoe Workers of America to keep a promise made to a committee that had waited upon me prior to leaving for the west.

In the early part of February, when the strike was declared off, I started for Chicago, stopping off at Toledo for a meeting. I remained in Chicago a few weeks intending and preparing to remain in the office and carry on my work of directing the organization work, but I found out that neither the conditions of the organization financially or otherwise were such as to warrant carrying out my plans. So I arranged for a tour to start from New York through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. While the tour was being organized I put in some time in the mining regions of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, also made various trips to Boston to effect the organization of the laborers in that city and attend to work in connection with the textile workers in that district.

My tour through the route stated was very successful. Naturally, in many places, particularly Connecticut, in the regions where munition factories were the predominant factor, I met with bitter opposition on the part of the police and the other agents of the employers. After my tour was over I took up the work of trying to effect organization work in such places as during the tour J had established proper connections and I thought the chances were favorable for immediate success, a local union was organized in Waterbury, Conn., but it was disrupted by a premature strike. However, the Italian propaganda league-an old section of the Italian Socialist Federation-was reorganized, and it is still active and doing excellent work just now for the fight here. I also managed to arouse new life into various Italian propaganda groups in such places as Wallingford, Conn.; Danbury, Conn.; Stamford, Conn.; New Haven, Meriden, Hartford, Torrington and many other places in that state. I put in the same sort of work in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and in New York State.

In the summer of 1915. final and complete arrangements were made whereby the Italian Socialist Federation as an organization, with its official organ, El Proletario, came into the I.W.W. as the “Italian Propaganda League,” and that organization is now part and parcel of our organization. The official organ having gone through some hard travels at the hand of the editor, who had caused disgust and discouragement among the Italian radical workers of this country with the propaganda pro the Allies’ fortunes in the European war. When the paper was moved to Boston and its direction undertaken by the I.W.W. league there I put in considerable of my time in securing subscriptions and support for the paper so that it would be able to live through its bitter experience.

I put in considerable time on various occasions in Philadelphia in connection with various matters of Local 8, M.T.W. In the fall of 1915 I went into the Anthracite region and remained there doing organization work pretty nearly steady till spring, with the exception of such time as I took special trips in January or February into Maine in connection with a strike of quarry workers and into Nashua, N.H., in connection with a strike of textile workers. From time to time I left for various points east, west, south and north from the Anthracite region doing special work, such as organizing and perfecting the union of pastry workers in Brooklyn, the Bakery Workers’ Amalgamation in New York City, the Shoe Repairers in Philadelphia, etc.

In July I came here and have been here ever since. There is no necessity to go into details of my work here, that is a matter you are all pretty familiar from reports in our press. I would like to have made a more comprehensive report, but I have neither the time nor the information, such as papers, etc., at my disposal to do so. For details of various matters that I have handled, the delegates can obtain, the desired information from my letters filed in the General Office.

I would like to make some recommendations and observations that I believe are warranted by my experience as General Organizer these last twenty-two months, but neither the time at my disposal nor a consideration of other fellow workers’ interests warrant that I take the matter up now. Then there is the additional consideration that I shall not be in the convention to put them to the test of discussion.

But there is one matter that I believe of utmost importance, which I believe should be taken up and a definite decision reached. I make the following suggestion and I hope that none of the delegates will consider that I have any personal reasons for it, for I want it understood that I am not a candidate for General Organizer or any other office in the organization. Since the office of General Organizer and Assistant General Secretary-Treasurer was established it has not functioned except probably as Assistant to the General Secretary-Treasurer.

The reasons for this are two-one, that there has never been enough funds at the disposal of the organization, that is to warrant the General Organizer staying in the office and carry on the organization work as prescribed in the constitution; two, that the theory of our organization is based on the importance of the General Secretary- Treasurer.

These conditions prevailing have been of so much importance that not one who has held the office ever wanted another term. So far this creation in fact of dualism and inferiority in the General Administration has only generated misunderstanding and friction, where there should be accord and fellowship in the effort of shoving the work of organization forward. This convention, to my mind, will only crown the work of the past years and lay the foundation for future good work by doing either of the two things; give the General Organizer full power to carry out the work of his office and furnish him with the means in authority and funds to do so, or abolish the office altogether and give the work of organization to the General Secretary-Treasurer. To my mind, there is no middle course.

In conclusion let me say that the present work on hand here bids well to end satisfactory. All preparations are being made for the coming trials. While I feel convinced that we shall come out with flying colors, we must not be too confident. We are not leaving any stone unturned to obtain the freedom of our fellow workers. We are dealing with capitalist courts and they are treacherous just when we least expect it. So every one on his guard and to his duty. Auguring your deliberations will mean much for our common organization.

Sincerely yours, JOS. J. ETTOR.

Proceedings of the Tenth National Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1916.

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