Again, the Wobblies

The windows, partly covered by ripped shades, were grimy with soot. The plaster on the walls and ceiling was cracked. The room was cold; the 39 men and one stout, grandmotherly woman kept on their coats as they sat down in rickety, straight-back chairs. A mild man with thick glasses tacked a small piece of paper on the outside of the door. On it was printed in pale red pencil: "I.W.W. Convention Hall."

Thus, last week in Chicago, the Industrial Workers of the World announced that they were still marching on. Amid the cheap nightclubs of the near North Side, in a small, bare room on the third floor of a third-rate office building, the Wobblies--40 strong--held their first convention in seven years.

It was a far cry from their first convention in 1905, when howling Wobblies jammed a Loop auditorium, sang Dump the Bosses Off Your Back, retired at intervals for schooners of beer at Hinky Dink Kenna's saloon. Last week there was no singing, no beer, little rejoicing.

Back in the days when a picket line bordered upon open revolution, the turbulent Wobblies and their hulking, emotional prophet, Big Bill Haywood, scattered dreams of industrial uprising through dark East Coast mills and the rough timberlands of the West. Police cracked their heads and vigilantes attacked their halls as citadels of anarchy.

When the I.W.W. opposed World War I, the Wobblies were hunted as spies and lynched as saboteurs. Big Bill Haywood, jailed for sedition, jumped bail and fled to die in Russia. The Wobblies' onetime membership of 100,000 gradually dwindled away.

The forlorn delegates in Chicago last week barred the press, showed little of the old fierce fervor. Solemnly, almost like a conclave of bosses, they passed resolutions denouncing: 1) the U.S. Government, 2) Communism, 3) Fascism, 4) the A.F. of L., 5) the C.I.O., 6) World War II, 7) World War III, 8) the world.

With that off their chests, the Industrial Workers of the World went home.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.