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William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood (February 4, 1869 – May 18, 1928), was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America. He was involved in several important labor battles throughout the United States at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Haywood was an advocate of industrial unionism, a labor philosophy that favors organizing all workers in an industry under one union, regardless of the specific trade or skill level. He was also advocated multi-ethnic unions.
Haywood was tried in 1907 for the murder of a former Idaho governor who had once set soldiers to attack Haywood's labor union, but was acquitted. He was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, and fled to the Soviet Union. He lived out the rest of his life there, dying in 1928.
Bill Haywood in Southern Victory
Big Bill Haywood was a prominent Socialist Party thinker and activist in the USA before and during the Great War. His writings, along with those of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Abraham Lincoln were read by Socialists throughout North America, even influencing the 1915 Red Rebellion in the Confederate States.[1]
Haywood attended the 1916 May Day celebration in New York City, along with other Socialist politicians, such as Eugene V. Debs. Flora Hamburger was not impressed with him, as he smelled like whiskey, had only one eye that tracked, and blatantly leered at her after she gave a passionate speech.[2]
References
- ↑ American Front, pg. 426.
- ↑ Walk in Hell, pgs. 230-231.
