Bill Haywood | |
|---|---|
 Haywoodc. 1913 | |
| 3rd and 5thGeneral Secretary-Treasurer of theIndustrial Workers of the World | |
| In office February 1918 – December 1918 | |
| Preceded by | Fred Hardy (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Peter Stone |
| In office January 1915 – September 1917 | |
| Preceded by | Vincent St. John |
| Succeeded by | Fred Hardy (acting) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William Richard Haywood (1869-02-04)February 4, 1869 Salt Lake City,Utah Territory, U.S. |
| Died | May 18, 1928(1928-05-18) (aged 59) Moscow,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
| Political party | Socialist (until 1913) Communist (from 1920) |
| Spouse | |
| Children |
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| Parents |
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| Occupation | Labor leader and activist |
| Signature |  |
William Dudley Haywood (February 4, 1869 – May 18, 1928), nicknamed"Big Bill", was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of theSocialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including theColorado Labor Wars, theLawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes inMassachusetts andNew Jersey.
Haywood was an advocate ofindustrial unionism,[1] andsyndicalism, a labor philosophy that favors organizing all workers in an industry under one union, regardless of the specific trade or skill level; this was in contrast to thecraft unions that were prevalent at the time, such as theAFL.[2] He believed that workers of all ethnicities should be united,[3] and favoreddirect action over political action.
Haywood was often targeted by prosecutors due to his support for violence.[4] An attempt to prosecute him in 1907 for his alleged involvement in the murder ofFrank Steunenberg failed,[5] but in 1918 he was one of 101 IWW members jailed for anti-war activity during theFirst Red Scare. He was sentenced to twenty years. In 1921, while out of prison during an appeal of his conviction, Haywood fled to theSoviet Union, where he spent the remaining years of his life and where he died in 1928.[6]Paul Freeman,John Reed,Charles Ruthenberg,William Z. Foster and Haywood are the only five Americans to be buried at theKremlin Wall Necropolis.
Born in 1869 inSalt Lake City,Utah Territory, his father, a formerPony Express rider, died of pneumonia when Haywood was three years old.[7] His mother Elizabeth was an Episcopalian.[8]
At age nine, Haywood injured his right eye whilewhittling a slingshot with a knife, permanently blinding that eye. He never had his damaged eye replaced with aglass eye; when photographed, he would turn his head to show his left profile. After his uncle Richard arranged for Haywood to work as an indentured laborer on a farm, a job Haywood disliked, he changed his name from William Richard to William Dudley after his father.[9] At age 15,[10] with very little formal education, Haywood began working in themines. After brief stints as acowboy and ahomesteader, he returned to mining in 1896.[1] High-profile events such as theHaymarket Massacre in 1886 and thePullman Strike in 1894 fostered Haywood's interest in thelabor movement.[11]
In 1896,Ed Boyce, president of theWestern Federation of Miners (WFM), spoke at theIdaho silver mine where Haywood was working.[7] Inspired by his speech, Haywood signed up as a WFM member, thus formally beginning his involvement in America's labor movement. He immediately became active in the WFM, and by 1900 he had become a member of the union's General Executive Board. In 1902, he became secretary-treasurer of the WFM, the number two position after PresidentCharles Moyer.
The following year, the WFM became involved in theColorado Labor Wars, a struggle centered in the Cripple Creek mining district in 1903 and 1904, and took the lives of 33 union and non-union workers.[7] The WFM initiated a series ofstrikes designed to extend the benefits of the union to other workers. The defeat of these strikes led to Haywood's belief in "One Big Union" organized alongindustrial lines to bring broaderworking class support for labor struggles.[1]
Late in 1904, several prominent labor radicals met inChicago to lay down plans for a new revolutionary union.[12] Amanifesto was written and sent around the country. Unionists who agreed with the manifesto were invited to attend a convention to found the new union which was to become theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW).
At 10 a.m. on June 27, 1905, Haywood addressed the crowd assembled at Brand's Hall in Chicago.[13] In the audience were two hundred delegates from organizations all over the country representingsocialists,anarchists, miners, industrial unionists and rebel workers. Haywood opened theIWW's first convention with the following speech:[13]
Fellow Workers, this is theContinental Congress of the working-class. We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working-class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working-class from the slave bondage of capitalism. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working-class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.
Other speakers at the convention includedEugene Debs, leader of theSocialist Party of America;Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, an organizer for theUnited Mine Workers of America;[13] andLucy Parsons, a major labor organizer whose husband was hanged in relation to the Haymarket affair. After its foundation, the IWW would become aggressively involved in the labor movement.
On December 30, 1905,Frank Steunenberg was killed by an explosion in front of his house inCaldwell, Idaho. A formergovernor of Idaho, Steunenberg had clashed with the WFM in previous strikes.Harry Orchard, a former WFM member who had once acted as WFM President Charles Moyer's bodyguard[14] was arrested for the crime, and evidence was found in his hotel room.[15]: 87 FamedPinkerton detectiveJames McParland, who hadinfiltrated and helped to destroy theMolly Maguires, was placed in charge of the investigation.[15]: 88
Before the trial, McParland ordered that Orchard be placed on death row in theBoise penitentiary, with restricted food rations and under constant surveillance. After McParland had prepared his investigation, he met with Orchard over a "sumptuous lunch" followed by cigars.[15]: 89 The detective reportedly told Orchard that he could escapehanging only if he implicated the leaders of the WFM. In addition to using the threat of hanging, McParland promised food, cigars, better treatment, possible freedom, and even a possible financial reward if Orchard cooperated.[15]: 89–91 The detective obtained a 64-page confession from Orchard in which the suspect took responsibility for a string of crimes and at least seventeen murders.[15]: 91
Of the four men named by Orchard as having a part in Steunenberg's murder, Jack Simpkins had fled, and the other three were known to be inDenver,Colorado. Theprosecution feared that if they knew that Orchard was cooperating with the prosecution, the other three would also flee. At McParland's urging, the three were arrested in Denver on February 17, 1906.[16]
Although none of the three had set foot in Idaho while Orchard wasstalking Steunenberg and planning his murder, under Idaho law,conspirators were considered to be legally present at the scene of the crime.[17] Using this provision, the local county prosecutor in Idaho drew upextradition papers for Haywood, Moyer, andGeorge Pettibone, which falsely alleged that they had been physically present in Idaho at the time of the murder.[15]: 93 [7]
McParland arrived in Denver on Thursday, February 15, and presented the extradition papers toColorado GovernorJesse Fuller McDonald, who, by prior arrangement with Idaho GovernorFrank R. Gooding, accepted them immediately. McParland had planned the arrests for early Sunday morning, when a special train would be ready to take the prisoners to Idaho. The prosecution plans were upset when Moyer went to the Denver train station on Saturday evening carrying a satchel, evidently to leave town. The police arrested him before he could board a train. Moyer's arrest caused the police to move up the arrests of Haywood and Pettibone. The train would not be ready until Sunday morning and so the prisoners were taken to the Denver city jail, but were forbidden from communicating to lawyers or families. Since reporters began nosing around the jail anyway, the prisoners were secretly taken to theOxford Hotel, near the train station, where they were again heldincommunicado. On Sunday morning, the three men were put on the special train, guarded by Colorado militia, which sped out of Denver throughWyoming, and by nightfall they were in Idaho. To thwart any attempts to free the prisoners, the train sped through the principal towns, and stopped for water and to change engines and crew only at out-of-the-way stations.[18]
Trade union members regarded the incident as akidnapping[15]: 93 that occurred to extradite them to Idaho before the courts in Denver could intervene.[15]: 93–94 The extradition was so extraordinary that the president of the AFL,Samuel Gompers, directed his union to raise funds for thedefense.[15]: 97 However, theUnited States Supreme Court denied ahabeas corpus appeal,[19] ruling that the arrest and extradition were legal, with only JusticeJoseph McKenna dissenting.[20][21][15]: 101
While in jail in Idaho, Haywood was put forth by theSocialist Party of Colorado as their candidate in the1906 Colorado gubernatorial election. He finished with over 16,000 votes, just under eight percent.[22]
Haywood's trial inBoise began on May 9, 1907, with famed Chicago defense attorneyClarence Darrow defending him. The government had only the testimony of Orchard,[15]: 107 the confessed bomber, to implicate Haywood and the other defendants, and Orchard's checkered past and admitted violent history were skillfully exploited by Darrow during the trial, though he did not lead Orchard'scross-examination.[7] During the trial, Orchard admitted that he had acted as a paid informant of theMine Owners' Association,[15]: 119 in effect working for both sides. He also admitted to accepting money from Pinkerton detectives, and had caused explosions during mining disputes before he had met Moyer or Haywood.[15]: 138
After Darrow's final summation,[7] the jury retired on July 28, 1907. After deliberating nine hours, the jury returned on July 29 andacquitted Haywood.[5] During the subsequent trial of Pettibone, Darrow conducted a powerful cross-examination against Orchard before falling ill and withdrawing from the trial, leavingOrrin N. Hilton of Denver to head the defense.[23] After a second jury acquitted Pettibone, the charges against Moyer were dropped.
Despite his radical views, Haywood emerged from the trial with a national reputation.Eugene Debs called him "the Lincoln of Labor."[24] Along with his colorful background and appearance, Haywood was known for his blunt statements aboutcapitalism. "The capitalist has no heart," he often said, "but harpoon him in the pocketbook and you will draw blood."[25] Another time, he began a speech by noting, "Tonight I am going to speak on the class struggle and I am going to make it so plain that even a lawyer can understand it."[26] Yet Haywood also had a flair for dangerous hyperbole that, when quoted in newspapers, was used to justify wholesale arrests of IWW strikers. "Confiscate! That's good!" he often said. "I like that word. It suggests stripping the capitalist, taking something away from him. But there has got to be a good deal of force to this thing of taking."[27]
When the WFM withdrew from the IWW in 1907, Haywood remained a member of both organizations. His murder trial had made Haywood a celebrity, and he was in demand as a speaker for the WFM. But his increasingly radical speeches became more at odds with the WFM, and in April 1908, the union announced that they had ended Haywood's role as a WFM representative. Haywood left the WFM and devoted all his time to organizing for the IWW.[28]
Haywood had left the WFM by the time theLawrence Textile Strike inLawrence,Massachusetts, garnered national attention. On January 11, 1912, textile mill workers in Lawrence left their jobs in protest of lowered wages. Within a week, twenty thousand workers were on strike. Authorities responded by calling out police, and the strike quickly escalated into violence. Local IWW leadersJoseph Ettor andArturo Giovannitti were jailed on charges of murderingAnna LoPizzo,[29] a striker whom nineteen witnesses[30] later said was killed by police gunfire,[15]: 166 andmartial law was declared. In response, Haywood and other organizers arrived to take charge of the strike.
Over the next several weeks, Haywood personally masterminded or approved many of the strike's tactical innovations. Chief among these was his decision to send strikers' hungry children to sympathetic families inNew York,New Hampshire, andVermont.[31] After hearing from immigrants how European strikers had used this tactic during prolonged strikes, Haywood decided to take the gamble in Lawrence, a first in American labor history. He and the IWW used announcements in socialist newspapers to solicit host families, then screened strikers to see who might be willing to send their children into the care of strangers. On February 10, 1912, the first group of "Lawrence Strike Children" bid tearful goodbyes to their parents and, with chaperones to guide them, boarded a train for New York. The children arrived safely inManhattan that evening where they were taken to ameeting hall. They were soon lavished with food and clothes and would stay in New York another seven weeks. Despite their excellent treatment, officials in Lawrence and elsewhere were shocked by the move. "I could scarcely believe that the strike leaders would do such a thing as this," Lawrence mayor Michael Scanlon said. "Lawrence could have very easily cared for these children."[32]
On February 24, when strikers attempted to send still more children away, police were ready. During a melée, women and children were forcibly separated, police lashed out with clubs, and dozens of strikers and their children were jailed. A national outrage resulted. TheNew York World wrote, "The Lawrence authorities must be blind and the mill owners mad."[33] TheNew York Tribune called the police response "as chuckle-headed an exhibition of incompetence to deal with a strike situation as it is possible to recall".[33] The incident led to acongressional hearing and the attention ofPresidentWilliam Howard Taft. Nationwide publicity pressured the mill owners into cooperating with the strikers; on March 12, the owners agreed to all the demands of the strikers, officially ending the strike.[citation needed]
However, Haywood and the IWW were not yet finished in Lawrence; despite the success of the strike, Ettor and Giovannitti remained in prison. Haywood threatened the authorities with another strike, saying, "Open the jail gates or we will close the mill gates." Legal efforts and a one-day strike on September 30 did not prompt the authorities to drop the charges. Haywood wasindicted in Lawrence for misuse of strike funds, a move that kept him from returning to the city and eventually led to his arrest on theBoston Common. However, on November 26, Ettor and Giovannitti were acquitted, and upon their release were treated to a massive demonstration of public support.[34]
For many years, Haywood was an active member of theSocialist Party of America. Haywood had always been largelyMarxist in his political views, and campaigned for Debs during the1908 presidential election, traveling by train with Debs around the country.[35] Haywood also represented the Socialist Party as a delegate to the1910 congress of theSecond International, an organization working towards international socialism.[35] In 1912, he was elected to the Socialist Party National Executive Committee.
However, the aggressive tactics of Haywood and the IWW, along with their call for abolition of the wage system and the overthrow of capitalism, created tension with moderate, electorally-oriented leaders of the Socialist Party. Haywood and the IWW focused ondirect action and strikes, which often led to violence, and were less concerned with political tactics.[4] When Haywood was quoted speaking at public meetings in New York City to the effect that he had never advocated the use of the ballot by the workers but had instead favored the tactics of direct action, an initiative recalling Haywood from the NEC was launched by the State Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of New York.[36] In February 1913 the recall of Haywood was approved by a margin of more than 2-to-1.[36] Following his defeat, Haywood left the ranks of the Socialist Party, joined by thousands of other IWW members and their sympathizers.[4]
In 1913, Haywood was involved in thePaterson silk strike. He and approximately 1,850 strikers were arrested during the course of the strike. Despite the long holdout and fundraising efforts, the strike ended in failure on July 28, 1913.
While in Paris in 1913 he heard about theDublin lockout in Ireland. He collected 1000 francs in aid of the workers and travelled to Dublin.[37]
In January 1915, Haywood replacedVincent St. John asGeneral Secretary-Treasurer of the IWW, which he held until October 1917. He returned to the position of GST from February 1918 until December of the same year when he was replaced byPeter Stone.
Haywood and the IWW frequently clashed with the government during their labor actions. The onset ofWorld War I gave the federal government the opportunity to take action against Haywood and the IWW.[38] Using the newly passedEspionage Act of 1917 as justification, theDepartment of Justice raided forty-eight IWW meeting halls on September 5, 1917.[4] The Department of Justice, with the approval of PresidentWoodrow Wilson, then proceeded to arrest 165 IWW members for "conspiring to hinder thedraft, encourage desertion, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes."[38]
In April 1918, Haywood and 100 of the arrested IWW members began their trial, presided over by JudgeKenesaw Mountain Landis. The trial lasted five months, the longest criminal trial up to that time; Haywood himself testified for three days.[38] All 101 defendants were found guilty, and Haywood (along with fourteen others) was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Despite the efforts of his supporters, Haywood was unable to overturn the conviction. On March 31, 1921, he skippedbail while out on appeal and fled to theRussian SFSR.[39] IWW officials were taken by surprise that Haywood had jumped bail, with his own attorney declaring that, "Haywood has committedhara-kiri so far as the labor movement is concerned if he has really run away. He will be disowned by the IWW and all sympathizers."[39] A bond in the amount of $15,000 posted by millionaire supporterWilliam Bross Lloyd was forfeited as a result of Haywood's flight.[39]
In Soviet Russia, Haywood became a labor advisor toLenin'sBolshevik government,[7] and served in that position until 1923. Haywood also participated in the founding of theKuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony.[40] Various visitors to Haywood's smallMoscow apartment in later years recalled that he felt lonely anddepressed, and expressed a desire to return to the U.S.[41][42][43] In 1926 he took a Russian wife, though the two had to communicate insign language, as neither spoke the other's language.[6]
On May 18, 1928, Haywood died in a Moscow hospital from astroke brought on by alcoholism and diabetes.[44][45] Half of his ashes were buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis; an urn containing the other half of his ashes was sent to Chicago and buried near theHaymarket Martyrs' Monument.[7]
Even before Haywood first became an official with the WFM, he was convinced that the system under which working people toiled was unjust. He described the execution of the Haymarket leaders in 1887 as a turning point in his life, predisposing him toward membership in the largest organization of the day, theKnights of Labor.[15]: 36 Haywood had watched men die in unsafe mine tunnels, and had marched withCoxey's Army. Haywood had suffered a serious hand injury in the mines, and found that his only support came from other miners. When Haywood listened toEd Boyce of the WFM addressing a group of miners in 1896, he discovered radical unionism and welcomed it.[15]: 50–52
Haywood also shared Boyce's skepticism of the role played by the AFL. He criticized labor officials who were, in his view, insufficiently supportive of labor militants. For example, Haywood recalled with disdain the opening remarks of Samuel Gompers when the AFL leader appeared beforeIllinois GovernorRichard Oglesby on behalf of the Haymarket prisoners:
I have differed all my life with the principles and methods of the condemned.[46]
Gompers was an advocate ofcraft unionism,[2] the idea that workers should be separated into unions according to their skills. The AFL disdained to organize workers who were not skilled.[15]: 80 Furthermore, in 1900, Gompers became the first vice-president of theNational Civic Federation, which was "dedicated to the fostering of harmony and collaboration between capital and organized labor".[47] But Haywood had become convinced by the experiences of striking railroad workers that a different union philosophy, some form of industrial unionism, was necessary for workers to obtain justice. This had become apparent in 1888 when the craft-organized locomotive firemen kept their engines running, helping their employers to break a strike called by the railroad engineers.[15]: 44
Debs had been head of the locomotive firemen's union, but he resigned to create theAmerican Railway Union (ARU), organized industrially to include all railroad workers.[15]: 45 In June 1894, the ARU voted to join in solidarity with the ongoingPullman Strike. Railroad traffic throughout the nation was "largely paralyzed. The effectiveness of the industrial form of unionism was evident from the start."[48] The strike was eventually crushed by massive government intervention that included 2600 DeputyU.S. Marshals, and 14,000 state and federal troops in Chicago alone.[49] Debs attempted to seek help from the AFL, asking that AFL railroad brotherhood affiliates present the following proposition to the Railway Managers' Association:
...that the strikers return to work at once as a body, upon the condition that they be restored to their former positions, or, in the event of failure, to call a general strike.[50]
Observing that the ARU was defenseless, AFL officials viewed the plight of the rival organization as an opportunity to bolster the railway brotherhoods, which the AFL was courting, andinstructed all AFL affiliates to withhold help. In spite of what Haywood perceived as "treachery" and "double-cross"[50] by the AFL leadership — the ARU members had put their own organization at risk for others, but the AFL refused to even help them try to end the strike in a draw — the power of workers crossing their trade lines and jurisdictional boundaries to join together in a fight against capital greatly impressed him. He described the revelation of such power as "a great rift of light".[15]: 44
For Haywood, industrial union principles were later confirmed by the defeat of the WFM in the 1903–05 Cripple Creek strike due — he believed — to insufficient labor solidarity. The WFM miners had sought to extend the benefits of union to the mill workers who processed their ore. Since the government had crushed the ARU, the railroad workers were again organized along craft lines, similar to the AFL. Those same railroad unions continued to haul the orefrom mines that were run by strike breakers,to mills that were run by strike breakers. "The railroaders form the connecting link in the proposition that is scabby at both ends," Haywood complained. "This fight, which is entering its third year, could have been won in three weeks if it were not for the fact that the trade unions are lending assistance to the mine operators."[15]: 80 The obvious solution, it seemed to Haywood, was for all of the workers to join the same union, and to take collective action in concert against the employers. The militants of the WFM referred to the AFL as the "AmericanSeparation of Labor,"[15]: 81 a criticism that was later echoed by the IWW.[51]
"[The mine owners] did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!"
Haywood's industrial unionism was much broader than formulating a more effective method of conducting strikes. Haywood grew up a part of theworking class,[15]: 26–30 and his respect for working people was genuine.[15]: 49 He was quickly angered by the arrogance of employers "who had never ... spoken to a workingman except to give orders."[15]: 60 Having met Debs during his WFM days, Haywood had also become interested in the former railway leader's new passion, socialism.[15]: 58 Haywood subscribed to the belief, and with Boyce, formulated as a new motto for the WFM, that:
Labor produces all wealth; all wealth belongs to the producer thereof.[15]: 59
Haywood observed how the government frequently took the side of business to defeat the tactics and the aspirations of the miners.[15]: 65 During an1899 organizing drive inCoeur d'Alene, Idaho, with pay cuts as a motivating issue, the company hired spies and then fired organizers and pro-union miners. Some frustrated miners responded with violence and when two men were killed, martial law was declared.[15]: 54 As they had done in a strike in Coeur d'Alene seven years earlier, soldiers acted as strike breakers. They rounded up hundreds of union members without formal charges and put them in a filthy, vermin-infested warehouse without sanitation services for a year. They were so crowded that the soldiers locked the overflow of prisoners inboxcars.[15]: 55 One local union leader was imprisoned for 17 years.[15]: 54
Haywood considered the brutal conditions in Coeur d'Alene a manifestation ofclass warfare. In 1901 the miners agreed at the WFM convention that a "complete revolution of social and economic conditions" was "the only salvation of the working classes".[52]
In the WFM's 1903–1904 struggle in Colorado, with martial law once again in force, two declarations uttered by the National Guard and recorded for posterity further clarified the relationship of the mine operator's enforcement army—provided courtesy of the Colorado governor—to the workers. When union attorneys asked the courts to free illegally imprisoned strikers, Adjutant GeneralSherman Bell declared, "Habeas corpus be damned, we'll give 'empost mortems."[15]: 62 Reminded of theConstitution, one of Bell's junior officers declared coolly, "To hell with the Constitution. We're not going by the Constitution."[15]: 63
General Bell had been the manager of one of the coal mines in Cripple Creek where the strike was taking place.[53] It wasn't any surprise to Haywood that soldiers seemed to be working in the interests of the employers; he had seen that situation before.[15]: 65 But when the Colorado legislature acknowledged the complaints of organized labor and passed aneight hour law, the Colorado supreme court declared it unconstitutional.[15] So the WFM took the issue to the voters, and 72 percent of the state's voters approved the referendum. But the Colorado government ignored the results of the referendum.[15]: 65
To members of the WFM, it became clear that government favored the companies, and only direct action by organized workers could secure the eight-hour day for themselves. When miners inIdaho Springs andTelluride decided to strike for the eight-hour day, they were rounded up at gunpoint byvigilante groups and expelled from their communities. Warrants were issued for the arrest of the law-breaking vigilantes, but they were not acted upon.[15]: 64–65
Haywood complained thatJohn D. Rockefeller was "wielding more power with his golf sticks than could the people of Colorado with their ballots."[54] It appeared to Haywood that the deck was stacked, and no enduring gains could be won for the workers short of changing the rules of the game. Increasingly, his industrial unionism took on a revolutionary flavor.[55] In 1905 Haywood joined the more left-leaning socialists, labor anarchists in the Haymarket tradition, and other militant unionists to formulate the concept of revolutionary industrial unionism that animated the IWW. Haywood called this philosophy "socialism with its working clothes on".[14]
Haywood favored direct action. The socialist philosophy — which WFM supporter the Rev. Fr.Thomas J. Hagerty called"slowcialism" — did not seem hard-nosed enough for Haywood's labor instincts. After the Boise murder trial, he had come to believe,
It is to the ignominy of the Socialist Party and theSocialist Labor Party that they have so seldom joined forces with the I.W.W. in these desperate political struggles.[56]
While Haywood continued to champion direct action, he advocated the political action favored by the socialists as just one more mechanism for change, and only when it seemed relevant. At an October 1913 meeting of the Socialist Party, Haywood stated:
I advocate the industrial ballot alone when I address the workers in the textile industries of the East where a great majority are foreigners without political representation. But when I speak to American workingmen in the West I advocate both the industrial and the political ballot.[57]
The "industrial ballot" referred to the direct action methods (strikes, slowdowns, etc.) of the IWW.
Haywood seemed most comfortable with a philosophy arrived at through the hard-scrabble experiences of the workers. He had the ability to translate complex economic theories into simple ideas that resonated with working people. He distilled the voluminous work ofKarl Marx into a simple observation, "If one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get."[15]: 146 While Haywood respected the work of Marx, he referred to it with irreverent humor. Acknowledging his scars from dangerous mining work, and from numerous fistfights with police and militia, he liked to say, "I've never read Marx'sCapital, but I have the marks of capital all over me."[58]
Haywood demonstrated his Marxist roots when, confronted by theCommission on Industrial Relations with an argument about the sanctity of private property, he responded that a capitalist's property merely represented "unpaid labor,surplus value."[59] But the forum also gave Haywood an opportunity to compare the philosophy of the IWW with that of Marx and the socialist parties. Reminded by the Commission that socialists advocated ownership of the industries by the state, Haywood remembered in his autobiography that he had drawn a clear distinction. All of industry should be owned "by the workers", he observed.[60]
Much of Haywood's philosophy relating to socialism, preferring industrial unionism, his perception of the evils of the wage system, and his attitude about corporations, militias, and politicians seems to have been held in common with his WFM mentor Ed Boyce. Boyce also called for legislation to forbid employment of aliens.[61] Unlike Boyce and many other labor leaders and organizations of the time, Haywood believed that workers of all ethnicities should organize into the same union. According to Haywood, the IWW was "big enough to take in the black man, the white man; big enough to take in all nationalities – an organization that will be strong enough to obliterate state boundaries; to obliterate national boundaries."[62]
Haywood criticized the U.S. government's attempts to turn whites against blacks during the 1899 Coeur d'Alene labor confrontation. Haywood wrote: "it was a deliberate attempt to add race prejudice ... race prejudice had been unknown among the miners."[63] In 1912, Haywood spoke at a convention forThe Brotherhood of Timber Workers inLouisiana; at the time, interracial meetings in the state were illegal.[3] Haywood insisted that the white workers invite theAfrican American workers to their convention, declaring:
You work in the same mills together. Sometimes a black man and a white man chop down the same tree together. You are meeting in a convention now to discuss the conditions under which you labor. Why not be sensible about this and call the Negroes into the Convention? If it is against the law, this is one time when the law should be broken.[3]
Ignoring the law against interracial meetings, the convention invited the African American workers. The convention would eventually vote to affiliate with the IWW.[3]
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