In connection with the proposal of his name for the office of editor of the _Industrial Worker_ he sent a letter on the subject to that paper. He makes such a cogent exposition of the case against dual unionism that the greater part of it is here given:
The question, "Why don't the I. W. W. grow?" is being asked on every hand, as well within our ranks as without. And justly, too, as only the blindest enthusiast is satisfied at the progress, or rather lack of progress, of the organization to date. In spite of truly heroic efforts on the part of our organizers and members in general ... the I. W. W. remains small in membership and weak in influence. It is indeed time to examine the situation and discover what is wrong.
The founders of the I. W. W. at its inception gave the organization the working theory that in order to create a revolutionary labor movement, it was necessary to build a new organization separate and apart from the existing craft unions which were considered incapable of development. This theory and its consequent tactics has persisted in the organization, and we later comers have inherited them and, without any serious investigation, accepted the theory as an infallible dogma. Parrot-like and unthinking, we glibly re-echo the sentiment that "craft unions cannot become revolutionary unions," and usually consider the question undebatable. Convincing arguments in favor of the theory I have never seen nor heard--I used to accept it without question like the vast majority of the I. W. W. membership does now, and in practice it has achieved the negative results shown by the I. W. W. today with its membership of but a few thousands. The theory's strength is due to its being the one originally adopted by the founders of the I. W. W., and to me this is but a poor recommendation, as these same founders, in addition to giving us a constitution manifestly inadequate to our needs and the changing and ignoring of which occupies a large share of our time, made the monumental mistake of trying to harmonize all the various conflicting elements among them into one "Happy Family" revolutionary organization--a blunder which cost the I. W. W. three years of internal strife to rectify and one that gives these founders--who have mostly quit the organization, anything but an infallible reputation. And if we look about us a little, at the labor movements of other countries in addition to considering our own experiences, we will be more inclined to question this theory that we have so long accepted as the natural one for the revolutionary labor movement. It has been applied in other countries and with similar results as here.