One of the two factions is thus seen to consist, for the most part, of members of the Socialist Labor party--supporters of the revolutionary Marxian tradition and believers in political action--the doctrinaire group. Their prophet was Daniel DeLeon. The other group was composed more largely of Westerners--intellectually more nearly philosophical Anarchists than orthodox Socialists--inclined to scoff at political action and emphatically opposed to allowing the I. W. W. to have any connection with any political body--or to hold any political policy--disbelievers in the state and in both the Socialist parties because they accept the state--"industrialists with their working clothes on"--the essence of the "proletarian rabble." The first group was ultimately to constitute a socialistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Detroit--the doctrinaire wing; the second group an anarchistic I. W. W. with headquarters at Chicago--the direct-action wing, referred to by the Detroiters as "the Bummery."[417]
Rudolph Katz, a member of the Socialist Labor party, writes that after the third convention
all the efforts of DeLeon to preserve harmony in the I. W. W. were unavailing. St. John, Trautmann, Edwards, and the majority of the five members of the General Executive Board turned over night ... against the fundamental principles of industrialism as laid down in the I. W. W. preamble. They no longer recognized political action as necessary.[418]
When the convention was called to order by Mr. St. John on September 21, 1908, there were twenty-six delegates in attendance, controlling an aggregate of seventy votes. Two delegates were debarred from seats in the convention--Max Ledermann of Chicago and Daniel DeLeon of New York--and St. John was made permanent chairman.[419]
The West--especially the Pacific Coast--was well represented for the first time. There were delegates in attendance from Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and Spokane. The West was spoken of as furnishing the "genuine rebels--the red-blooded working stiffs," and this was said to be the first revolutionary convention ever held in Chicago composed of "purely wage-workers."[420] The largest and most important delegation from the West was popularly known as the "Overalls Brigade," brought together in Portland and Spokane by one J. H. Walsh, a national organizer of the I. W. W. The "Brigade" numbered about twenty men who "beat their way" from Portland to Chicago, holding propaganda meetings en route. A member of the delegation reported this propaganda trip: