The current picture is of a motley horde of hoboes and unskilled laborers who will not work and whose philosophy is a philosophy simply of _sabotage_ and the violent overthrow of "capitalism," and whose actions conform to that philosophy. This appears to be about what the more reactionary business interests would like to have the people believe about the Industrial Workers of the World. If, and to the extent that these reactionary employing interests can induce the public not only to believe this about the I. W. W. but also to believe that the picture applies as well to all labor organizations, they will to that extent ally the public with them and against labor.
The negative or destructive items in the I. W. W. program are deliberately misconstrued and then stretched out and made to constitute the whole of I. W. W.-ism. In reality they are only a minor part of the creed. There are immense possibilities of a constructive sort in the theoretic basis of the I. W. W., but the Press has done its best to prevent the public from knowing it. And it must be said that the I. W. W. agitators have themselves helped to misrepresent their own organization by their uncouth and violent language and their personal predilection for the lurid and the dramatic. Even what the Wobblies say about themselves must be taken with a certain amount of salt. This matter of the currently-received opinion of the I. W. W. has been dwelt on because the writer believes that it is not alone important to know what an organization is like; it is also very important to know what people _think_ it is like.
The popular attitude toward the Wobblies among employers, public officials and the public generally corresponds to the popular notion that they are arch-fiends and the dregs of society. It is the hang-them-all-at-sunrise attitude. A high official of the Federal Department of Justice in one of our western states gave the writer an instance. On a recent visit to a small town in a distant part of the state he happened upon the sheriff. That officer, in reply to a question, explained that they were "having no trouble at all with the Wobs." "When a Wobbly comes to town," he explained, "I just knock him over the head with a night stick and throw him in the river. When he comes up he beats it out of town." Incidentally it may be said that in such a situation almost any poor man, if he be without a job or visible means of support, is assumed to be, _ipso facto_, an I. W. W. Being a Wobbly, the proper thing for him is pick-handle treatment or--if he is known to be a strike agitator--a "little neck-tie party."