The remnant of the I.W.W. split in 1908 into two rival Industrial Workers of the World, with headquarters in Detroit and Chicago, respectively, on the issue of revolutionary political versus non-political or “direct” action.  As a rival to the Federation of Labor the I.W.W. never materialized, but on the one hand, as an instrument of resistance by the migratory laborers of the West and, on the other hand, as a prod to the Federation to do its duty to the unorganized and unskilled foreign-speaking workers of the East, the I.W.W. will for long have a part to play.

In fact, about 1912, it seemed as though the I.W.W. were about to repeat the performance of the Knights of Labor in the Great Upheaval of 1885-1887.  Its clamorous appearance in the industrial East, showing in the strikes by the non-English-speaking workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and Little Falls, New York, on the one hand, and on the other, the less tangible but no less desperate strikes of casual laborers which occurred from time to time in the West, bore for the observer a marked resemblance to the Great Upheaval.  Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.  Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.  But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913, the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed.  At no time did it roll up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.

The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is mainly two-fold:  on aim and on method.  “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,’” reads the Preamble, “We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, ’Abolition of the wage system.’  It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.  The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.”  Then on method:  “We find that the centering of management in industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade union unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class.  The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of the workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars....  These conditions must be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization founded in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or a lockout is in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.”  Lastly, “By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”