Email received from the
Email received from the person who wrote the letter in the March Socialist Standard:
In Laurens Otter’s text he states:
“The IWW removed the political action clause because it believed that De Leon was forcing all members to join his particular party. Incidentally the resistance came from people who were in the Left of the SPA. the anarchists – like Vincent St John – played no part in the split.”
I don’t know where Laurens Otter picked up this commentary but in the minutes
to the IWW Convention of 1905 and 1906 both of which I have copies of and in
De Leon’s collected series of letters on the issue of political and economic
actions of the working class at the time entitled As To Politics he
insistently maintained the requirement that the economic organization of the
working class must be unaffiliated with any political party; that it will
reflect its own political party. Hence, he stated in the first letter in
the pamphlet to John Sandgren, last paragraph: “As to the Socialist Labor
Party, it will never need to be appealed to ‘to break up camp’ after the
bucket of the I.W.W., having gathered sufficient solidity, will itself have
reflected its own political party. That day the S.L.P. will ‘break up camp’
with a shout of joy – if a body merging into its own ideal can be said to
‘break up camp'”. Mr. Otter will find this theme and similar replies repeated
again and again throughout that writing.
For Socialism,
Bernard Bortnick