History of The Socialist Movement in The United States - Two Steps Back, One Forward

Two Steps Back, One Forward

Meanwhile, corporations pressured the government to deal with strikes and other disruptions from disgruntled workers. The government felt especially pressured to keep war-related industries running. "As worker discontent and strikes… intensified in the summer of 1917, demands grew for prompt federal action… The anti-labor forces concentrated their venom on the IWW." Soon, “the halls of Congress rang with denunciations of the IWW" and the government sided with industry; "federal attorneys viewed strikes not as the behavior of discontented workers but as the outcome of subversive and even German influences".

On September 5, 1917, at the request of President Wilson, the Justice Department conducted a raid on the Industrial Workers of the World. They stormed every one of the 48 IWW headquarters in the country. "By month’s end, a federal grand jury had indicted nearly two hundred IWW leaders on charges of sedition and espionage" under the Espionage Act. Their sentences ranged from a few months to ten years in prison. An ally of the Socialist party had been practically destroyed.

However, Wilson did recognize a problem with the state of labor in America. In 1918, he created the National War Labor Board in an attempt to reform labor practices. The Board included an equal number of members from labor and business, and members of the AFL. The Board was able to “institute the eight-hour day in many industries… to raise wages for transit workers… to demand equal pay for women…" It also required employers to bargain collectively, effectively making unions legal.