Mr. A. M. Simons, who claims to have given the final draft to the Manifesto, says that "the idea expressed at the conference was to form a new central body, into which existing unions and unions to be formed could be admitted, but not to form rival unions."[92] Discussing the January conference in the _International Socialist Review_,[93] Mr. Simons traces this idea back to two vital tendencies of the day, _viz._, (1) the merging of trade lines in the class struggle, and (2) the accelerated growth of class-consciousness on the part of the capitalists. He concludes that "the only question about the desirability of forming such an organization is the question of timeliness."
The organized laborers were only a part of the concern of the conference. Over ninety per cent of those gainfully occupied are unorganized. It was, of course, realized that outside of all unions stood the overwhelming majority of all workingmen, and, as Daniel DeLeon put it, these men did not "propose to go into these organizations run by the Organized Scabbery, because they had burned their fingers thus enough. The organization of the future has to be built of the men who are now unorganized--that is, the overwhelming majority of the working men in the nation."[94]
Thus it was really hoped that much could and would be done by workingmen in the existent unions, without breaking away from these local unions. These latter must be pried away from the A. F. of L., but not themselves destroyed. By all means let us "bore from within" as far as that can be done; also when we can bore no longer, let us hammer from without and pound together new bodies from out the great unorganized mass. This, in brief, was the position of most of the industrialists. However, not all would yet go this far. Even among the Socialist leaders a note of dissent was heard expressing the belief that to "bore from within" was the only revolutionary method not absolutely suicidal.[95] Just what fate awaited these January ideas was to some extent revealed in the proceedings of the June convention.
The convention called in accordance with the Manifesto of the January conference met two hundred strong in Chicago on Tuesday, June 27, 1905. This gathering was first referred to as the "Industrial Congress" or the "Industrial Union Convention," but since before adjournment it had organized itself as the Industrial Workers of the World, it is referred to as the First Annual Convention of the I. W. W. It was a gathering remarkable and epoch-making in more ways than one, and therefore the story of its activities is essential, not only to an understanding of the subsequent career of the organization, but as a fundamental chapter in the whole history of industrial unionism. The discussions and resolutions of the assembly and the final type of organization which grew out of them can be understood only in the light thrown on them by a study of the composition of this revolutionary group of men. Its occupational, structural, and doctrinal character should each be taken into account.