Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers

361 Pages·2022·4.684 MB·English

by  Ahmed White

Under the Iron Heel
The publisher and the University of California Press
Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of
the Peter Booth Wiley Endowment Fund in History.
Under the Iron Heel
The Wobblies and the Capitalist War
on Radical Workers
Ahmed White
university of california press
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Ahmed White
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: White, Ahmed, 1970– author.
Title: Under the iron heel : the Wobblies and the
capitalist war on radical workers / Ahmed White.
Description: Oakland, California : University of
California Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2021062859 (print) | lccn
2021062860 (ebook) | isbn 9780520382404
(hardback) | isbn 9780520382411 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Industrial Workers of the World—
History. | Labor unions—United States—History—
20th century.
Classification: lcc hd8055.i5 w48 2022 (print) |
lcc hd8055.i5 (ebook) | ddc 331.880973—dc23/
eng/20220325
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062859
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov
/2021062860
Manufactured in the United States of America
31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of Troy Allen,
and to the Wobblies

We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and
we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its
lords, and ours it shall remain.
—Jack London, The Iron Heel

Contents
Introduction
Face to Face with Tragedy 1
1. Socialism with Its Working Clothes On 12
Industrial Capitalism, Radical Unionism, and the Roots
of Repression
2. Protecting the Business People 49
Class, Law, and the Criminalization of Radical
Industrial Unionism
3. In the War of Capital against Labor Someone Must Suffer 83
The War and the IWW
4. I’ll Take neither Mercy nor Pity 126
Repression and the IWW during the Red Scare
5. Dealing the Death Blow 162
Repression and the IWW after the Red Scare
6. Between the Drowning and the Broken 190
Punishment, Law, and the Legacies of Repression
Conclusion
A Vision We Don’t Possess 223