This meant “industrialism” versus the craft autonomy of the Federation.  “Industrialism” was a product of the intense labor struggles of the nineties, of the Pullman railway strike in 1894, of the general strike of the bituminous miners of 1898, and of a decade long struggle and boycott in the beer-brewing industry.  Industrialism meant a united front against the employers in an industry regardless of craft; it meant doing away with the paralyzing disputes over jurisdiction amongst the several craft unions; it meant also stretching out the hand of fellowship to the unskilled worker who knowing no craft fitted into no craft union.  But over and above these changes in structure there hovered a new spirit, a spirit of class struggle and of revolutionary solidarity in contrast with the spirit of “business unionism” of the typical craft union.  Industrialism signified a challenge to the old leadership, to the leadership of Gompers and his associates, by a younger generation of leaders who were more in tune with the social ideas of the radical intellectuals and the labor movements of Europe than with the traditional policies of the Federation.

But there is industrialism and industrialism, each answering the demands of a particular stratum of the wage-earning class.  The class lowest in the scale, the unskilled and “floaters,” for which the I.W.W. speaks, conceives industrialism as “one big union,” where not only trade but even industrial distinctions are virtually ignored with reference to action against employers, if not also with reference to the principle of organization.  The native floater in the West and the unskilled foreigner in the East are equally responsive to the appeal to storm capitalism in a successive series of revolts under the banner of the “one big union.”  Uniting in its ranks the workers with the least experience in organization and with none in political action, the “one big union” pins its faith upon assault rather than “armed peace,” upon the strike without the trade agreement, and has no faith whatsoever in political or legislative action.

Another form of industrialism is that of the middle stratum of the wage-earning group, embracing trades which are moderately skilled and have had considerable experience in organization, such as brewing, clothing, and mining.  They realize that, in order to attain an equal footing with the employers, they must present a front coextensive with the employers’ association, which means that all trades in an industry must act under one direction.  Hence they strive to assimilate the engineers and machinists, whose labor is essential to the continuance of the operation of the plant.  They thus reproduce on a minor scale the attempt of the Knights of Labor during the eighties to engulf the more skilled trade unions.