The leaders of the Western Federation of Miners followed the proceedings with no friendly eye. J. M. O'Neil declared that "the Trautmann faction does not dare disclose its membership...."[316] He stated further that "a delegate upon the floor of the September convention asked to know the membership of the organization, but he was curtly told by the chairman of the convention to 'never mind counting noses but [to] go home and organize.'"[317]
Official reports to the fifteenth convention of the Western Federation of Miners held the preceding June, credited the I. W. W. with a membership of 32,000, of which number 8,000 were delinquent.[318] This estimate is presumably exclusive of the Western Federation. Delegate F. W. Heslewood (W. F. M. and I. W. W., later a member of the General Executive Board of the [Chicago] I. W. W.) who was one of the so-called "wage-slave delegates" at the second I. W. W. convention, tells the miners' convention that "in one local in the state of Oregon there are over 3,000 members that travel the streets with red flags and red neckties demanding the full product of their toil...."[319] Professor Barnett puts the membership for 1907 at 6,700.[320] General Secretary St. John places it at 5,931.[321] He estimated the membership for 1905-6 as 23,219. Barnett's figures are: 1905, 14,300; 1906, 10,400.[322] These estimates vary widely, but this at least is evident: there was a marked and progressive decline in membership during the organization's first two years of existence.
During the twelve-month period ending September, 1907, one hundred and eighteen locals were organized.[323] Reports published from time to time in the _Miner's Magazine_[324] indicate that from the birth of the organization to September 17, 1906, three hundred and ninety-four locals had been organized. A total of 512 locals had, therefore, been organized up to the convening of the third convention in September, 1907. As already noted, there were in the organization at that time about 200 local unions. The necessary inference is that three out of every four locals organized so far in the history of the I. W. W. had either broken away from the organization or simply expired. This condition has been characteristic of the I. W. W. in greater or less degree throughout its brief career. The "turnover" of local unions as well as of individual members has been immense and very irregular. No continuous reports of the new locals chartered have appeared in the I. W. W. press. Weekly reports appeared quite regularly in _The Industrial Union Bulletin_ through the spring of 1907 and showed that four or five new locals were being chartered each week during the three-months period. There is no record of locals disbanded.