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PREFACE
This volume is the result of some studies that I felt
^ impelled to make when, about three years ago, certain
*7 sections of the labor movement in the United States were
~ discussing vehemently political action versus direct ac-
^ tion. A number of causes combined to produce a seriv
ons and critical controversy. The Industrial Workers of
^ the World were carrying on a lively agitation that later
^" culminated in a series of spectacular strikes. With ideas
^. and methods that were not only in opposition to those of
s
the trade unions, but also to those of the socialist party,
£ the new organization sought to displace the older organi-.
£ nations by what it called the "one Big Union." There
3 were many in the older organizations who firmly believed
•
in industrial unionism, and the dissensions which arose
were not so much over that question as over the antagonistic
character of the new movement and its advocacy
here of the violent methods employed by the revolutionary
section of the French unions. The most forceful
and active spokesman of these methods was Mr.
William D. Haywood, and, largely as a result of his agitation,
la grcve generate and le sabotage became the subjects
of the hour in labor and socialist circles. In 191 r
Mr. Haywood and Mr. Frank Bohn published a booklet,
entitled Industrial Socialism, in which they urged that
the worker should "use any weapon which will win his
fight." * They declared that, as "the present laws of
*P. 57-
vii