Furthermore, the trained eyes of the leaders of the Federation
espied in the Industrial Workers of the World a new rival which would
best be met on its own ground by organizing within the Federation the
very same elements to which the I.W.W. especially addressed itself.
Accordingly, at the convention of 1912, held in Rochester, the problem
of organizing the unskilled occupied a place near the head of the list.
But after the unsuccessful Paterson textile strikes in 1912 and 1913,
the star of the Industrial Workers of the World set as rapidly as it had
risen and the organization rapidly retrogressed. At no time did it roll
up a membership of more than 60,000 as compared with the maximum
membership of 750,000 of the Knights of Labor.
The charge made by the I.W.W. against the Federation of Labor (and it is
in relation to the latter that the I.W.W. has any importance at all) is
mainly two-fold: on aim and on method. "Instead of the conservative
motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work,'" reads the Preamble,
"We must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition
of the wage system.
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