The involvement of the men and religion forward movement in the cause of labor justice,Atlanta, Georgia, 1912–1916∗

The radical ideologies and socialist overtones of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) made them an easy target for industrialists as nationalistic and patriotic propaganda flooded the pages of American newspapers during World War I. The war in Europe marked the beginning of the end for the rapid growth and labor organizing power of the IWW, especially in the northwestern United States where WWI was used as a means for state governments and regional industrialists to devise methods meant to damage the union beyond repair. After America’s declaration of war, the Washington State Council of Defense was formed in response to the nation’s demand for mobilization of its citizens for increased production of war materiel and to operate the state’s wartime propaganda machine. With an abundance of natural resources, Washington had a profound impact on national war production output. Although it possessed several important extractive industries, it was Washington’s quality grain, especially in the southeast portion of the state known as the Palouse, which made it a boon for agricultural industrialists. With wheat prices fixed at the highest in the nation’s history, Palouse farmers became wealthy as a result of WWI, while the area’s thousands of migrant laborers suffered from low wages and pitiful job conditions. A general strike issued during the 1917 harvest by the IWW’s most influential branch – the Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (AWIU) frightened area farmers, prompting the Defense Council to begin a systematic replacement of AWIU harvest hands via the organization of thousands of women, children, and retirees. Through appeals to patriotism and anti-labor rhetoric, the Defense Council and local reactionaries effectively circumvented union labor with its labor replacement campaign throughout the remainder of WWI, and without the use of violence so common to labor conflicts in Washington State. The IWW/AWIU in the Palouse never fully recovered from the onslaught, thus adding to the union’s near collapse in the aftermath of WWI.