Long has it been so.

‘Labor Day in Los Angeles-Police Lead Slaves’ by Harry Weinstein from Industrial Worker. Vol. 3 No. 26. September 21, 1911.

Big demonstration of ignorance —crafts with separate banners prove weakness.

Headed by the mounted police, and a band playing the strains of “My country Tis of Thee,” about 10,000 craft union men paraded the streets of Los Angeles on Labor Day, showing the M. and M. of this city what easy suckers they are to whip if they dare go out on strike to better their conditions. For the parade itself showed the workers how they are divided on the industrial field. Every craft union had its banner out and crafts like the cigarmakers had banners out advertising the Bosses’ products (Labor and capital are brothers?). The Longshoremen and Lumber Handlers’ union of San Pedro and Los Angeles, who somehow neglected to bring their banner with them, refused to march in line on that account. As there is an election to take place this fall, and as usual the politicians are catering to the craft unions for support, nearly two thirds of the marchers were wearing Job Harriman’s buttons. Heading one of the divisions of the parade was the fine spectacle of seeing a socialist carrying the United States flag, which floats over every jail, bull pen and capitalist hell hole in this country. Another sad spectacle was to see the poor Mexican laborers marching behind the same flag which floated over Mexico when Diaz tried to crush the Mexican revolution. And the same flag which is being used by Madero and his hirelings to arouse so-called patriotism into the working class, so that they may be good, obedient slaves.

As an Industrial Unionist viewing the parade and summing up the whole celebration of Labor day, which the capitalists were so good as to give us (this day of rest), I can come to only one conclusion: That if the workers who paraded the streets in one vast army of men would only act for their interests as a class, Mayor Alexander could not say to them, as he did, that we can’t march past the jails where the McNamara Brothers are incarcerated. That if they were organized into ONE BIG UNION of their class, having for their motto That there cannot be anything in common between those that work and those that work those that work. Everywhere we can hear the discontent among the rank and file of the craft unions. With the I.W.W. organizing the unorganized and the so-called organized, it will not be far in the future when we will have One Big Union of the only useful class in society, the working class, fighting not only for better conditions today, but organized strong enough so we can throw off the parasite class from our backs and establish for the first time in the history of the human race. Industrial Freedom.

HARRY WEINSTEIN, Los Angeles.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v3n26-w130-sep-21-1911-IW.pdf