"Their spokesmen," he says, "ridicule the 'politicians'; severely criticized the Socialist party and insult its most prominent leaders. The non-political portion of the I. W. W. is therefore practically anti-political."[458]
The bitterness of feeling engendered in this controversy over politics can well be imagined. The two factions of the I. W. W. hate one another with a hearty fervor that is only equaled by their united opposition to the American Federation of Labor. Both claim to be the simon-pure revolutionary article. If any "malefactor of great wealth" thinks that he is being scandalously abused by the I. W. W.s, he should read some of the things the "red I. W. W.s" have to say about the "yellow I. W. W.s" and, _a fortiori_, the "yellows" about the "reds," or attend a debate between any kind of an I. W. W. and what he (the I. W. W.) calls a "coffin society" man of the American Federation of Labor.
The Secretary of the Detroit I. W. W. (now W. I. I. U.) says that
to speak of factions of the I. W. W. is doing violence to the facts in the case. The I. W. W. organized in Chicago, 1905, established certain principles, methods, and aims, which can be readily ascertained from the stenographic reports of the first, second, and third conventions. Among them one of the most essential and characteristic of the I. W. W. is the distinct and specific declaration: The workers must organize as a class, on the political and industrial field, to achieve the emancipation from wage slavery. The so-called Chicago "I. W. W." has repudiated this position, and carries since 1908, falsely, the name. Its claim is bogus, as amply demonstrated by its doings since that time....[459]
"We hold," says this official, "that our organization is _The_ I. W. W. Chicago headquarters, and those who follow that organization, became a different body since 1908."[460]
At the International Socialist Congress at Vienna in 1914 the Socialist Labor party made a report in which it was declared that
... the Anarcho-Syndicalist element [which] caused the split in the I. W. W. in 1908, went forth throughout the land under the name, Industrial Workers of the World, and by its advocacy of Anarchy, sensationalism, sabotage, "direct action," and "free speech," riots, and similar disorderly tactics, has cast an odium upon the name of the I. W. W.[461]
