What does normal ‘political action’ of the working class even mean if a majority of us cannot vote or participate in elections? A concise statement defending the I.W.W.’s revolutionary outlook from two of its central leaders.

‘What the I.W.W. Intends to do to the U.S.A’ by William D. Haywood and Joseph Ettor from Solidarity. Vol. 5 No. 233. June 27, 1914.

The Industrial Workers of the World proclaim: It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

In this struggle for industrial freedom the I.W.W. has challenged the attention of all classes in society. It is now a living force, a movement aiming at certain immediate changes in society that will eliminate the privileged class as a ruling power and repossess the people with the means of life, the earth and its resources.

We believe that the time has passed when this can be done by political action.

A transformation has already the industrial taken place and monarchs are in control of the nation. The political Government at Washington and the State Legislatures are but secondary factors. The working class as a whole have no political expression; they are coerced, handicapped and limited in activity. Millions of persons who are engaged in production are deprived of a political voice. Though all are important factors in the life of society, industrial units contributing to the social needs of all people, they are disfranchised. The millions of women employed in factories are denied the vote. The children employed will be deprived until they reach their majority. The millions of black men of the South have never been permitted freely to use their franchise. Though a great part of the country’s work is done by foreigners, many are the limitations put upon them politically. They must be residents of the country for a period of five years. The lack of education is to be made a ban, the belief in certain ideas is a restriction and the sovereign born citizen is deprived of the right to vote by being compelled to move from place to place during periods of industrial depression or are forced to violate their political conscience at the dictates of their employer who controls their jobs.

The Industrial Workers of the World are organizing the economic power of these disfranchised and dispossessed millions. Through their organization they become citizens of industry with a voice that will give them control over the affairs of their me, the conditions under which they labor, the hours of work, the returns of toil, access to all the means of life, opportunity to enjoy the beauties of art, culture and education.

The working class makes up 65 per cent of this country, and 75 per cent. of the peoples of the world. Consequently we have the majority, but, as we have shown, this does not give us. political control; but we have the power if organized along class lines, industrially. Only by this power can freedom be gained. Through class organization, class education, self-discipline and class unity of action economic liberty can be realized. The Industrial Workers of the World is the only organization in this count v which actually represents the economic interests of the working class. It proposes to organize the workers in the industries, that being the only place where they are exploited. By this organization the workers will be enabled to better their conditions by raising wages, shortening hours and compelling the installation of safety appliances and devices for the protection of life and health. It will also make it possible for them to enjoy more of the social product of labor, provide employment for unemployed and give more time tor recreation. Finally the workers will acquire the necessary economic power to take possession of machinery of production.

In the process of reconstructing society the workers will be organized as they are now, in assemblies in the industry, organized in a local industrial union with shop branches covering the entire industry of a given locality, all local unions of the same industry united with kindred industries amalgamated in departments, all departments connected in the general movement, a great merger of labor’s forces. All members of the I.W.W. will act in accord. In the event of a strike all members are involved in shop or industry and all industries if necessary. The methods of the I.W.W. may take the form of strikes of which there are different kinds. The “passive strike,” the “intermittent strike,” the “exchange strike.”

These methods enable the workers to control the use of their labor power so that they will be able to stop the production of wealth except on terms dictated by the workers themselves. Thus the control of stockholders can be disputed and finally destroyed by an organization of the workers inside of the industry. With such an organization, recognizing an injury to one member of the working class as an injury to all, it will be possible to make the use of Injunction, State militia and private armies so costly that the capitalist will not use them.

The capitalists cannot exterminate a real labor organization by fighting it; they are only dangerous when they fraternize with it.

As the workers organize in industry, they control their labor pow- er; increased solidarity gives industrial control. The Congress of the Workers will be their Representative Assembly and there they will legislate the affairs of industry.

We emphatically deny the existence of a state of “social order” or the possibility of it under the present system of society. Certainly a casual glance at conditions through the country shows that there is chaos and conflict rampant everywhere; there is an ever increasing army of unemployed; those who are at work are subject to preventable accidents and death–seven hundred and fifty thousand injured, forty thousand killed in industrial pursuits every year. The struggle of the miners in Colorado against the Rockefeller-Guggenheim-Gould and other interests does not suggest “social order” nor does the expose of the New Haven, the “dissolution” of trusts, the secondary boycott of the Catholic Church against the Panama Exposition, the presence of battleships in Mexican waters and soldiers on the southern republic’s border line. Jails, penitentiaries, insane asylums, poor houses and barracks are not symbols of “social order.”

Even the Progressive party is demanding social and industrial justice. The Democratic party has created the Industrial Relations Commission and other committees to investigate the causes of discontent and to offer such remedial measures for legislation as will establish “social order.” We know that a city is no cleaner, no sweeter than its filthiest slum, that society is no better than its criminal element. If there were no bankers there would be no burglars.

The Industrial Workers of the World accept the allegiance of every man, woman and child employed in industry, excluding neither race, creed, color nor sex, endeavoring through organization and education to crystallize the discontent into a class movement. We believe that ignorance and stagnation mean slavery and death. Therefore we accept and urge the support and sympathy of all discontented people who are acting with the avowed purpose of changing the “existing social order.” Time and development alone will determine whether certain measures are absurd. We are not concerned with. the question of approving or disapproving “absurd measures,” knowing full well that it is a question of success, if successful absurdity becomes wisdom.

The Industrial Workers of the World have been accused of violence; this is untrue. The I.W.W. has neither advocated nor participated in violence against social order. What capitalists condemn as violence is but justice to society.

The Industrial Workers of the World are organized against the existing “social order” which is a continuous reign of legalized and organized violence against the human family.

The Industrial Workers of the World realize that great changes cannot take place without force; even the tiniest seed cannot fructify without force. The force advocated by the I.W.W. is natural. It proposes that the giant Labor shall stop the arteries that convey the golden stream of toil to the coffers of the exploiting class. In a word, the general strike is the measure by which the capitalist system will be overthrown.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1914/v05-w233-jun-27-1914-solidarity.pdf