‘The Detroit Unemployed League Shows Quite a Record of Achievements During the Past Winter’ by A.C.C. from Solidarity. Vol. 6 No. 272. March 27, 1915.

Detroit, Mich., March 19. The doings of unemployed leagues and, movements of various characters and descriptions have been reported throughout the country this winter. None of them, I dare say, has accomplished the same results that the movement in Detroit has accomplished in its three months of existence. A brief history of its activities will perhaps not be amiss at this time.

On Christmas eve, Fellow Worker Jack Leheney and a couple local boys got together in our hall to discuss the means and methods of carrying on an unemployed agitation for the winter. (Up to this time the Detroit locals had done nothing of importance.) As a result of this meeting a couple fellow workers were despatched to an anarchist ball, which took place the same night, to make an appeal for funds to start an unemployed movement. A collection was taken up, and with the proceeds we bought a stove for our “kitchen.” Literature, announcing that an Unemployed League had been started, was distributed at the employment offices and factory gates. That was the starting of what developed into the movement which has had the A.F. of L., the police department, the city fathers, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labor Party, and the churches in hot water ever since.

The movement was first launched as an I.W.W. league, but we almost immediately decided upon another course and withdrew from that organization, making an independent movement of it. We recognized the fact that men value more that which they strive for, than that which is given them. We planned and worked accordingly.

The first thing we found necessary to do was to put the Detroit Federation of Labor on record as being the tribe of reactionary, aristocratic labor skates they are. This was easily accomplished by accepting the offer of their executive board to affiliate with them. They could not make good their promise to charter the League as an “Unskilled Laborers’ Union,” and so were forced to fall into their own trap.

Next in order came the police department. It was shown up to be the brutal, and uncompromising tool of the capitalist class when we attempted to hold a parade and m meeting on Feb. 12. The membership of the force, both mounted and 100 ordered out, armed with riot clubs, and tools to club and beat the paraders “until blood flowed in torrents” if necessary to break up the demonstration.

The city fathers were next on the list. They were forced to the carpet of exposure in, denying us the permit to hold a tag day. They said it would not be necessary, as a soup-house (the first in the history of Detroit since ’96) would soon be opened. This was done jointly by the city, the police department and a “Club,” which donated $1000 per week. This, of course, was done to stop our solicitation for funds, and the open advertising and sympathy we were getting through the “cap. press.” We forced them to it.

The action of the S.P. and S.L.P. at the time of the projected parade, in threatening to withdraw from the conference if the mandates of the “authorities” were not adhered to, put the kibosh on them. Their particular “ballot box” philosophy was shown up for what it is worth, and those organizations were openly repudiated.

All the churches, except the Unitarian, were also brought to the light of working class censorship by their refusal to aid the movement. The utter lack of “Christianity” displayed by the “Christian churches” was marvelous. A few Unitarian church members who controlled the leasing of an old, dilapidated church, turned it over to the league for sleeping quarters, with the instructions that “no meetings are to be held in it.” (A few (?) have been held, however.)

Along with these machinations, business and propaganda meetings were held by the league in another hall. Many men, who have never before attended union meetings of any sort, have been drilled in the methods of parliamentary procedure. They have carried on their business admirably; have made their organization entirely self-supporting by first fixing a membership dues of 5c per week, then later raising it to 10c per week; have organized a commissary which fed many hungry stomachs during the winter; and have sheltered about 600 homeless men per night for three months. Business meetings are being held three times a week, the rest of it being devoted to propaganda meetings. Here we have had a serious handicap as we’ve never had more than three competent I.W.W. speakers in town. We made up for this by inviting outsiders–preachers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc., to address the meetings, and then embarrass them with questions and discussion.

The education has been so thorough that, at first, several workers joined the I.W.W. as soon as they could get work and money enough to pay dues; and last week the League voluntarily, unanimously voted to request the I.W.W. to allow them to affiliate with it.

“After a winter of serious thought and study we have decided that the only organization. worthy of working class recognition and affiliation is the I.W.W.,” were words in their request.

What other Unemployed League can show a similar record of achievement? A.C.C.

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/1915/v06-w272-mar-27-1915-solidarity.pdf