STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW
EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Volume LXXXIII] [Whole Number 193
THE I. W. W.
A Study of American Syndicalism
BY
PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN, Ph.D.
Sometime Assistant in Economics at the University of California and University Fellow at Columbia
Special Agent of the United States Department of Labor
SECOND EDITION
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS
London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd.
1920
Copyright, 1920
BY
PAUL FREDERICK BRISSENDEN
TO
R. O. L. B.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
No very extensive changes are made in the new edition.The chart of early radical labor organizations, which appearedin the first edition as Appendix I, has been omittedin this edition. There is reproduced in its place a copyof the original industrial organization chart prepared by"Father" T. J. Hagerty at the time of the launching ofthe I. W. W. in 1905 and sometimes referred to as "FatherHagerty's Wheel of Fortune". This chart is believedto be of some importance as illustrating the earlier ideasof the revolutionary industrial unionists on industrial organizationin relation to union structure. It has been considerablyamplified by W. E. Trautmann and published inhis pamphlet One Great Union, and still further developedby James Robertson who has very recently built extensionsupon it in furtherance of the shop-steward propaganda inthe Pacific Northwest. His version is published in a pamphletentitled Labor unionism and the American shop stewardsystem (Portland, Oreg., 1919).
The organization held its eleventh national conventionin Chicago in May, 1919. This was the first conventionheld since December, 1916. It was attended by fifty-fourdelegates and it has been reported that forty-eight of themhad never before attended a general convention of theorganization. The General Executive Board reported thatthe organization in 1919 comprised fourteen IndustrialUnions, each with its locals in various parts of the country,and a General Recruiting Union, with a total membershipof 35,000. Since the convention it is reported that three[Pg 6]new Industrial Unions have been formed: an Oil Workers'Industrial Union, a Coal Miners' Union and a FisheryWorkers' Union. Nearly fifty amendments to the constitutionwere adopted by the delegates at the May convention.Most if not all of these have been since approvedin a referendum to the membership. The proceedings ofthe convention have not yet been published. Since thefirst edition of this book appeared the I. W. W. has launcheda mont