By JUSTUS EBERT
The One Big Union Monthly, March 1919
THE
question "What is industrial unionism?" may be said to be, in its
essence, the most important of social questions. For industrial
unionism is, in its final analysis, a method of social reconstruction.
It is a means by which the basic activities of society may be continued
when capitalism shall have been overthrown by its own failures and
class conflicts. Industrial unionism seeks to inaugurate a system of
industrial democracy in place of capitalist autocracy and control when
capitalism shall have demonstrated its own impossibility. Industrial unionism is constructive unionism, taking the place of self-destructive capitalism.
Industrial
unionism is the highest d... (From: Marxists.org.)
Transcriber's Note: This is the 1919 version of the "One Big Union" pamphlet, originally written by >William E. Trautmann and published by Charles H. Kerr & Co. in 1912. A later version is also on this web site, and a comparison of the two is instructive. This edition was published without the Industrial Union Chart, usually referred to as "Father Hagerty's Wheel". I do not presently have a contemporaneous example of the Chart. It was this edition which the 1919 General Convention resolved should be revised, resulting in the reorganization of 1920.
THE I. W. W. PREAMBLE.
The working
class
and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace
so long as hunger and want are found among millions of w... (From: Marxists.org.)
