You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Sunday November 5, 1905 From the Montana News: "The I. W. W. Asks For Strike Funds"
The Montana News, published in Helena, will now become the official organ of the Socialist Party in that great state. So it was reported in the October 11th edition. That same edition carried a plea from the Industrial Workers of World for the newly organized Stogie Makers of Cleveland, Ohio.The I. W. W. was founded only last summer and is already active on the ground organizing workers who the American Federation of Labor has previously left unorganized. The Stogie Makers were one such group left out on their own by the "aristocratic" International Union of Cigar Makers.
The I. W. W. officers describe how the strike in Cleveland began:
Immediately upon learning of the organization of the employees being perfected, the manufacturers organized. Their first move was to engage, what they termed apprentices, The members of the union counteracted this move by taking in the apprentices, most of whom were over twenty and thirty years of age. The manufacturers continued engaging and breaking in more apprentices, until they thought they had enough to begin war against their older employees, by establishing a blacklist. Employees quitting their jobs, or discharged, could not get employment in another establishment.Finally the union was forced to take action....The members were forced to either strike when the employers were the least prepared or allow their organization to be destroyed piece-meal; they chose the former.
This same issue of the News also published the entire constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World which we will republish in full in tomorrow's issue of Hellraisers.