Justus Ebert, himself a member of the Socialist Labor party, believed that this charge was well founded. For this reason, in 1908, and some time before the fourth convention met, he resigned from the Socialist Labor party. Since that time he has been a member of the ("Anarcho-Syndicalist") I. W. W. His letter of resignation, addressed to the members of Section Kings County, S. L. P., runs in part as follows:
The Socialist Labor party believes that the political is the reflection of the economic. With this belief in mind it aided in launching the I. W. W., and protected it from the onslaughts of reaction.... The Socialist Labor party has not, however, had the courage of its convictions, ... [because] having aided in founding and protecting the economic organization that is to reflect the true political party of labor, [it] refuses to vacate the field to its untrammeled and logical development. Instead, it persists in being the political guide and mentor of the I. W. W.... The I. W. W., hampered in its growth by the illogical posture of the S. L. P., is compelled to serve notice in big black type that it has no political affiliations of any kind.... The fate of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance will be the fate of the I. W. W., if it permits an external political body to dominate its politics.[432]
Now DeLeon was at once the leader of the S. L. P. and of the political element in the I. W. W., and the anti-parliamentarians perhaps felt that the only way to get rid of what they called the "political incubus of the S. L. P." was to eliminate DeLeon and enough of his supporters to make it possible for the Wobblies from the West to carry the resolution to eliminate that fearsome political clause. They were somehow vaguely apprehensive that that phrase in the preamble which declared that the toilers must "come together on the political field" would make possible the subjugation of the I. W. W. by the Socialist Labor party. This despite the fact that the paragraph in question closes with the words: "without affiliation with any political party."
The report of the General Secretary-Treasurer expresses the position of the simon-pure industrialists of the St. John-Trautmann faction.