Is not this striking success of "boring from within" after continued failure of "building from without" tactics, which is but typical of the respective results being achieved everywhere by these tactics, worthy of the most serious consideration on the part of the I. W. W.? Is it not time that we get up off our knees before this time-honored dual organization dogma and give it a thorough examination? And I'll promise--or threaten--that if I am elected editor the matter will get as thorough an investigation as lays in my power.... At Berlin a few months ago Jouhaux, secretary of the C. G. T. [_Confédération Générale du Travail_], in a large public meeting advised them to give up their attempt to create a new movement and to get into the conservative unions where they could make their influence felt. At Budapest he extended the same advice to the I. W. W. _via_ myself, and I am frank to state that I am convinced that it would be strictly good tactics for both movements to adopt it. I am satisfied from my observations that the only way for the I. W. W. to have the workers adopt and practice the principles of revolutionary unionism ... is to give up its attempt to create a new labor movement, turn itself into a propaganda league, get into the organized labor movement and by building up better fighting machines within the old unions than those possessed by our reactionary enemies, revolutionize those unions even as our French syndicalist fellow-workers have so successfully done with theirs.[597]
Upon the arrival of Mr. Mann, Mr. Foster again took up the cudgels for the opponents of dual unionism.
Among many of the syndicalists [he said] the sentiment is strong, and growing ceaselessly, that the tactics followed by the I. W. W. are bad, and that endeavors should be made inside the A. F. of L.; that it is in the existing unions that the syndicalists must struggle without ceasing....[598]
Mr. Mann agreed with him. In a speech published in the _International Socialist Review_[599] he expressed his belief that "if the fine energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the A. F. or L. or into the existing trade-union movement ... the results would be fifty-fold greater than they now are." He went on to "urge the advisability, not of dropping the I. W. W., but certainly of dropping all dual organizations and serving as a feeder and purifier of the big movement." William D. Haywood replied that "it might as well be said that if the fine energy exhibited by the I. W. W. were put into the Catholic church, that the results would be the establishment of the control of industry."[600] He went on to show that it is well-nigh impossible for the unskilled man to get into the A. F. of L., even when he does desire to do so, because of what Haywood characterizes as "a vicious system of apprenticeship, exorbitant fees," _etc._[601] Mr. Haywood's fellow-worker, Joseph J. Ettor, joined him in his attack on Tom Mann's position: