Vern Smith was an editor of The Industrial Pioneer, a publication of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.).
Established in Chicago in 1905 by sponsors of socialism and the remnants of 19th century labor unions, including the Knights of Labor, the radical Western Federation of Miners and the American Labor Union, the Industrial Worers of the World (IWW), or "Wobblies", evolved into a radical industrial union which waged campaigns for improved working conditions, wages and hours of work, as well as workers' control in mines, mills, lumber camps and factories.
Fragment of the files of an editor of THE INDUSTRIAL PIONEER. Includes reports, manuscripts and clippings concerning the IWW and labor unrest, particularly in the 1920s.
Includes report (originals and carbons) of Vern Smith to the general convention of the IWW (1924) on the status of newspapers,,, questions on the revolutionary nature of the IWW, the question of pacifism, an appeal for workers to go to California, the question of boycotts, and injuring the California capitalists by withdrawing buying power in limited localities; report on change of editors of INDUSTRIAL SOLIDARITY (the weekly official organ of the IWW); list of Council members appointed by people's commissars, and officials of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (1935); charges brought against Vern Smith for deliberately violating the policy of the IWW by printing "undesirable articles" in THE INDUSTRIAL PIONEER; copy of the organization program for the IWW; report (1924) to the general convention of the IWW by the business manager of INDUSTRIAL SOLIDARITY and THE INDUSTRIAL PIONEER; report of the Ballot Committee (1925); and Gordon Cascaden's communication to the IWW General Convention (1925).
Also includes a statement of IWW principles; affidavit of two miners (members of the United Mine Workers and the National Miners Union) (1931) before the State of New York; typed mss. By Smith, "The Worker's Prospects in the USSR" (1934), and "Beginnings of Revolutionary Political Action in USA"; typed ms. "The I.W.W. Since the World War" (n.d.); LA VIE OUVRIERE (23 July 1926); and "The Situation of the I.W.W." (extracted from a report of Earl Browder to the executives of R.I.L.U.; copy of facts and statistics extracted from various sources regarding farm products prices to farmers and on the market (1929); and a copy of the introduction to the minutes of the 1899 International Workingmen's Congress, by Wilhelm Liebknecht.
Also, loose sheets (copies) from typed mss. of outline on years 1928-1931, the "third period", with reference to unification of the Communist Party and its growing influence, the Agricultural Workers Industrial League, criminal syndicalism prosecution in California, the Illinois general strike (1929), the National Textile Workers' Union, the New Bedford strike (1928), the Gastonia strike (1929), imperialism, war danger, terrorism and suppression of the militant press. Also scrapbook regarding the IWW and clippings from THE DAILY WORKER (1924-1925).
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Vern Smith Papers #5172. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
News clippings on the IWW