After his work with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and the American Railway Union, Debs’ next major work in organizing a labor union came during the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). On June 27, 1905, in Chicago, Illinois, Debs and other influential union leaders including Big Bill Haywood, leader of the Western Federation Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De León, leader of the Socialist Labor Party, held what Haywood called the “Continental Congress of the working class”. Haywood stated: “We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working class…”, and for Debs: “We are here to perform a task so great that it appeals to our best thought, our united energies, and will enlist our most loyal support; a task in the presence of which weak men might falter and despair, but from which it is impossible to shrink without betraying the working class.
Available in store and online.
