10
The I. W.W.Convention
By Mary E. Marcy
SOME of us awaited the I. W. W. Convention which opened in Chicago May 5th with more than a little anxiety. A week before the arrival of the first delegate, terror thrillers began to appear in the daily newspapers. The lawless I. W. W. had issued a call, they informed us, and from Seattle to Charleston the clan of the Red Terror was making its way toward our city. What were the constituted authorities thinking of to permit this visitation upon the people of Chicago?
Commercial bodies appealed to Mayor Thompson to arrest the delegates. Was he going to sit passively and permit Bolshevism and outlawry to flourish in our midst without lifting a finger? A hasty meeting" of aldermen was called to register a protest. Chief of Police Garrity assured us that steps would be taken to protect life and property and to preserve law and order. It looked as though the police were expected to start something. We would not have been surprised to learn that some ambitious reporter, or some zealous member of the force, had "discovered" opportunely a dangerous looking bomb or two.
In spite of the wails of the newspaper editors, however, and the protests of prominent business men, the Convention was called to order on schedule time. It is true that between one and three o'clock Tuesday morning, several squads of Pinkertons descended upon the lodgings of the delegates, roused them out of bed and searched their bags for explosives and firearms. But all they found were a few clean shirts and extra pairs of socks. And Chief Garrity declared that unless the I. W. W. delegates violated some law, the convention would be permitted to proceed according to plans. The Convention was thrown open to the public. Court stenographers, by order of the Police Department, recorded the proceedings. Scores of detectives swaggered in and out, on duty, and dozed through inspiring reports on the growth and work of the various unions. Glib reporters stopped in "to view the remains," and finding nothing from which they might weave the sort of stories required by their papers, dropped i.nto near-by saloons, there to imbibe inspiration. For they found that the I. W. W., lusty youngster of the 1916 Convention, had thrived under the blows of official persecution. The precocious youth had come back again; he had landed on his feet, more confident, more determined, his smile than ever. Of the fifty-four delegates less than six had ever attended a general Convention before. We missed the faces of our old friends–Bill Haywood, John Pancner, Preshner, Ralph Chaplin, John Martin, Forrest Edwards, Harrison George, and scores of others, for they, among several hundred of the best known members of the organization, are now making the World Safe for Democracy in various penitentiaries. These were, according to the prosecuting attorneys, "the head and brains" of the I. W. W. Without their direction the organization would suffer sure and speedy dissolution.
We all know the critic-al period through which the I. W. W. has passed during recent months, when the taking of a job as editor of one of the organization papers, or serving as an official in the O. B. U., was tantamount to accepting a term in prison. We know that again and again as a post was made vacant by the Courts, new, inexperienced men stepped forward and filled it. The Old Guard are behind prison walls, but here, eager and hopeful, was a new group–tip-toe for the Great Struggle, strangers, most of them, to Roberts' Rules of Order, and unacquainted with the methods of parliamentary procedure, but keenly alive to what they wanted. And what they wanted was what they got before they went home.
In the old days the various unions were usually represented by the glorious old-timers, many of them organizers, editors, officers, etc., etc. This year there were over fifty delegates straight from the job, fresh from the heart of the basic industries, all gathered together, precisely as men and women are today gathering everywhere in Russia, to plan and formulate new methods, new tactics to meet new requirements and to supply the needs of the men on the job.
We believe this is the finest praise anyone can bestow upon the I. W. W. After all, the machine is the great history-maker. It causes changes and progress in industry and hence in all social institutions. And the organization that springs from working class needs in industry can never go wrong because here the workers are forced to function in the class struggle. They learn by doing.
So the delegates to the Eleventh I. W. W. Convention reflected the needs of the men on the job. Our old friend Tom Whitehead was there, and Embree, from Butte, representing the miners; Murphy, an old-time logging foreman, representing the lumber workers; Red Cunningham, from the Marine Transport Workers on the coast; Trainor, representing the Ship Builders of Coast Union No. 325; Kelly, from the Agriculture Workers; Woodruff, of the Construction Engineers; Carter, of the Marine Transport Workers
