WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Okay, I want you to picture a man. A giant of 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:05.919 a man. We're talking, what, over six feet tall, 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:09.740 broad -shouldered, and just built like he was 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:12.480 carved out of granite. He walks into a room and 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:15.119 the whole energy shifts. But the first thing 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:18.379 you notice isn't his size. It's his face. Specifically, 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:22.359 his right eye. Or, um... What's left of it. Exactly. 00:00:22.379 --> 00:00:24.760 It's all clouded over, totally blind. And when 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:26.940 he takes a photo, he always turns his head. You 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:28.820 always get the left profile. He refused to wear 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:30.800 a glass eye, you know. Right. It wasn't about 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:33.060 hiding the scar. I was about controlling the 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.600 image. He looks like a pirate king who just happened 00:00:35.600 --> 00:00:38.100 to wander into a union hall. That is such a good 00:00:38.100 --> 00:00:41.000 way to put it. And for a huge part of the early 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:44.159 20th century, that face, the face of Big Bill 00:00:44.159 --> 00:00:46.880 Haywood was, I mean, it was the face of the American 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:48.640 nightmare for the establishment. Absolutely. 00:00:48.659 --> 00:00:50.920 He was either the Lincoln of labor or the most 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.179 dangerous man in America, depending on who you're 00:00:53.179 --> 00:00:56.719 talking to. And today we are diving deep into 00:00:56.719 --> 00:00:59.539 exactly why. We're going to unpack the life of 00:00:59.539 --> 00:01:02.000 the man who founded the industrial workers of 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.060 the world, the Wobblies. Yeah. And our stack 00:01:05.060 --> 00:01:07.920 of sources for this is pretty incredible. We 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:11.340 have his own autobiography. We have court transcripts 00:01:11.340 --> 00:01:14.099 from these high profile murder trials, espionage 00:01:14.099 --> 00:01:16.700 records from the government. It's a wild, wild 00:01:16.700 --> 00:01:19.060 ride. I mean, we're going from the bottom of 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:21.980 a mine shaft in Nevada to a jail cell in Idaho. 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.799 And somehow we end up with his ashes in the Kremlin 00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:27.200 wall in Moscow. It's an unbelievable trajectory. 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:30.060 So let's start at the beginning. How does a kid 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:31.959 from Salt Lake City even become a revolutionary? 00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:34.500 Well, you know, usually when we talk about these 00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:36.159 historical figures, we talk about their formal 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:38.459 education. But for Bill Haywood, his education 00:01:38.459 --> 00:01:42.200 was, it was pain. The whole school of hard knocks 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:45.040 thing is such a cliche. But for him, it was completely 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:48.079 literal. He was born in 1869. His dad dies when 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:50.459 he's just three years old. And then comes the 00:01:50.459 --> 00:01:52.980 accident with his eye. Right. He was nine. Just 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:55.099 a kid whittling with a knife and it slipped. 00:01:55.340 --> 00:01:57.900 It punctured his right eye. And that was it. 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.040 Blinded for the rest of his life. But what happens 00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:03.140 next is what really just blew my mind in the 00:02:03.140 --> 00:02:06.540 research. He's a kid, he has this severe injury, 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:09.620 and his family sends him off to work. And we're 00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:12.099 not talking about a paper route. No. His uncle 00:02:12.099 --> 00:02:15.460 arranges for him to work on a farm. But the sources 00:02:15.460 --> 00:02:17.699 are really clear on this. It was not a job. He 00:02:17.699 --> 00:02:20.319 was bound out. It was... for all intents and 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.400 purposes, indentured servitude. Indentured servitude 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:27.020 in America in the 1870s. It was archaic even 00:02:27.020 --> 00:02:30.680 then. He was trapped. He hated it. And that experience, 00:02:30.900 --> 00:02:33.120 you know, of being physically owned by an employer 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:35.879 that never, ever left him. So he eventually gets 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:38.819 out of that situation. But by 15, he's down in 00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:40.639 the mines. And if you think a farm is bad, a 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:43.650 19th century mine is. it's a horror movie yeah 00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:46.289 it was brutal i mean zero safety regulations 00:02:46.289 --> 00:02:48.990 ventilation was a joke men were being crushed 00:02:48.990 --> 00:02:51.250 blown up or they'd die slowly from lung disease 00:02:51.250 --> 00:02:53.629 haywood himself had his hands crushed he had 00:02:53.629 --> 00:02:55.909 scars all over his body which brings me to my 00:02:55.909 --> 00:02:59.050 absolute favorite quote of his later in life 00:02:59.050 --> 00:03:01.669 people would try to debate him on like political 00:03:01.669 --> 00:03:03.750 theory. They'd ask if he was a Marxist, if he'd 00:03:03.750 --> 00:03:05.930 read all the academic texts. And Heywood would 00:03:05.930 --> 00:03:08.150 just hold up his scarred hands and point to his 00:03:08.150 --> 00:03:11.210 blind eye and say, I've never read Marx's Capital, 00:03:11.409 --> 00:03:14.229 but I have the Marx of Capital all over me. It's 00:03:14.229 --> 00:03:16.310 just such a mic drop moment, isn't it? It is. 00:03:16.370 --> 00:03:18.909 But it's also the key to understanding him. He 00:03:18.909 --> 00:03:21.770 wasn't a philosopher. He was a witness. His radicalization 00:03:21.770 --> 00:03:25.270 came from the gut, not from some book. And he's 00:03:25.270 --> 00:03:27.150 looking at the labor movement at the time, and 00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:29.789 he's thinking, we are doing this all wrong. Okay, 00:03:29.849 --> 00:03:32.250 let's get into that. moment yeah because this 00:03:32.250 --> 00:03:33.930 is really the intellectual core of the whole 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:38.689 story at the time the big player is the AFL the 00:03:38.689 --> 00:03:41.449 American Federation of Labor right and the AFL 00:03:41.449 --> 00:03:43.550 was built on something called craft unionism 00:03:43.550 --> 00:03:46.169 craft unionism okay bring that down for us it 00:03:46.169 --> 00:03:49.349 means you organize by skill so On a railroad, 00:03:49.550 --> 00:03:51.270 you'd have one union just for the engineers, 00:03:51.449 --> 00:03:54.250 a totally separate union for the firemen, another 00:03:54.250 --> 00:03:56.150 one for the brakemen. So they're all chopped 00:03:56.150 --> 00:03:58.409 up into these little silos. Exactly. And they 00:03:58.409 --> 00:04:00.370 all have different contracts, different leaders, 00:04:00.509 --> 00:04:03.050 different goals. And Haywood saw this as a fatal 00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:06.469 flaw. He called it being scabby at both ends. 00:04:06.689 --> 00:04:08.830 Which is a pretty disgusting phrase, by the way. 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:12.680 It's so visceral. But here's what he meant. He 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:14.599 saw this happen during the Cripple Creek strike. 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:16.759 You had miners on strike, right? Fighting for 00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:19.959 their lives. But then a train comes in to haul 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:22.899 away the ore. The ore that was dug by strike 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:26.079 breakers. Yes. Scab ore. And who's driving the 00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:28.620 train? Union men. Members of the Brotherhood 00:04:28.620 --> 00:04:31.420 of Locomotive Firemen. Wait. So union members 00:04:31.420 --> 00:04:33.620 were actively helping to break another union 00:04:33.620 --> 00:04:36.980 strike. Because their specific union had a contract 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:39.439 to haul the freight, they basically said, look, 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:42.420 sorry, we support you in spirit, but our contract 00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:45.139 says we have to drive this train. Wow. Haywood 00:04:45.139 --> 00:04:47.279 looked at that and just said, the owners are 00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:50.120 playing chess and we are playing checkers. Because 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:52.579 the owners are united and the workers are divided 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:55.399 against themselves by their own job titles. Precisely. 00:04:55.689 --> 00:04:58.550 So Haywood proposes this radical shift, industrial 00:04:58.550 --> 00:05:01.990 unionism. One big union. One big union. It doesn't 00:05:01.990 --> 00:05:04.149 matter if you're a skilled engineer or the guy 00:05:04.149 --> 00:05:06.370 who sweeps the floor. If you work in the railroad 00:05:06.370 --> 00:05:09.290 industry, you are in the same union. If the miners 00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:12.370 strike, the train stops, period. He wanted to 00:05:12.370 --> 00:05:14.790 turn the entire supply chain into a single weapon. 00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:17.529 He wasn't trying to get a five cent raise. He 00:05:17.529 --> 00:05:20.389 was trying to jam the gears of the entire capitalist 00:05:20.389 --> 00:05:22.569 economy. And that is why the government was so 00:05:22.569 --> 00:05:25.899 terrified of him. So. He takes this idea to Chicago 00:05:25.899 --> 00:05:30.300 in 1905. Brands Hall. And this scene feels like 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:32.259 the start of a movie. The room is packed with 00:05:32.259 --> 00:05:36.079 anarchists, socialists, every kind of rebel imaginable. 00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:38.319 He called it the Continental Congress of the 00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:41.399 Working Class. He gets up to the podium, grabs 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:43.319 a loose piece of board off the stage, and just... 00:05:43.529 --> 00:05:46.170 bangs it on the table like a gavel to get everyone's 00:05:46.170 --> 00:05:48.949 attention. And he says, fellow workers. That 00:05:48.949 --> 00:05:50.689 was the greeting, not ladies and gentlemen. It 00:05:50.689 --> 00:05:54.370 was fellow workers, and the IWW is born. But 00:05:54.370 --> 00:05:56.230 there's something else about the IWW we have 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:58.829 to talk about. Because for 1905, their membership 00:05:58.829 --> 00:06:01.910 policy was shocking. Oh, right, their inclusivity. 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:04.800 Most unions at the time, the AFL included, were 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:07.000 very exclusive. They didn't want unskilled workers. 00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:09.699 They often excluded immigrants. And many of them, 00:06:09.740 --> 00:06:12.540 I mean, explicitly excluded black workers. But 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:15.540 Haywood said, open the doors to everyone. He 00:06:15.540 --> 00:06:18.500 didn't just say it. He risked his life for it. 00:06:19.079 --> 00:06:21.420 There's this incredible story in the notes about 00:06:21.420 --> 00:06:23.560 the Brotherhood of Timber Workers down in Louisiana 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.959 around 1912. Louisiana in 1912. I mean, that 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:30.660 is the deep, deep south. Jim Crow is the absolute 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:33.740 law of the land. Strictly. It was illegal for 00:06:33.740 --> 00:06:35.220 black and white people to meet together in the 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:37.819 same hall. But the timber industry was mixed. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:39.560 You had black and white loggers working side 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:41.899 by side. So Haywood goes down there for their 00:06:41.899 --> 00:06:45.000 convention. And the organizers ask him, Bill, 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.759 what do we do? The law says we can't meet together. 00:06:48.019 --> 00:06:50.139 And what does Bill say? He says, you work in 00:06:50.139 --> 00:06:52.180 the same mills together. You chop down the same 00:06:52.180 --> 00:06:55.180 trees. Why not be sensible about this and call 00:06:55.180 --> 00:06:57.459 the Negroes into the convention? Be sensible. 00:06:57.620 --> 00:07:00.139 He makes it sound so logical. But he is telling 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:02.759 them to break the law. A very dangerous law to 00:07:02.759 --> 00:07:05.319 break. He is. He says if it is against the law, 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:07.779 this is one time when the law should be broken. 00:07:07.899 --> 00:07:10.600 And they did it. They held an interracial union 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:14.199 convention in 1912, Louisiana. That is one big 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:16.899 union in action. That's an incredible moment. 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:19.459 But of course, when you go around breaking segregation 00:07:19.459 --> 00:07:22.180 laws and threatening to shut down the entire 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:25.079 U .S. economy, you make some powerful enemies. 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:28.939 Which brings us to the trial of the century. 00:07:29.569 --> 00:07:32.310 The Steinenberg murder. Yeah, this is a true 00:07:32.310 --> 00:07:35.329 crime saga wrapped inside a political drama. 00:07:35.649 --> 00:07:38.449 Okay, set the scene for us. It's 1905, Idaho. 00:07:38.750 --> 00:07:41.089 Frank Steinenberg is the former governor of Idaho, 00:07:41.290 --> 00:07:43.629 a man who had viciously crushed the miners' unions 00:07:43.629 --> 00:07:46.470 during his time in office. One evening, he's 00:07:46.470 --> 00:07:48.730 walking into his home, he opens his garden gate. 00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:51.850 And the gate is rigged. dynamite a huge bomb 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.850 explodes steinenberg is killed instantly it's 00:07:54.850 --> 00:07:57.009 a political assassination and the authorities 00:07:57.009 --> 00:07:59.529 immediately look at the union of course they 00:07:59.529 --> 00:08:02.269 bring in the pinkertons specifically a famous 00:08:02.269 --> 00:08:05.410 detective named james mcparland and mcparland 00:08:05.410 --> 00:08:08.550 finds this guy a drifter named harry orchard 00:08:08.550 --> 00:08:10.449 harry orchard he seems like a real piece of work 00:08:10.449 --> 00:08:12.810 oh he's a career criminal so mcparland arrests 00:08:12.810 --> 00:08:14.949 him throws him in solitary threatens him with 00:08:14.949 --> 00:08:18.519 hanging and then he takes him to lunch A sumptuous 00:08:18.519 --> 00:08:21.519 lunch, according to the records. It's the classic 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:24.579 good cop routine. He gives Orchard a fancy meal 00:08:24.579 --> 00:08:26.939 and cigars and says, look, Harry, you're going 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:31.079 to hang. Unless. Unless you were just a pawn. 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:33.519 Unless you were just following orders. And Orchard 00:08:33.519 --> 00:08:36.679 starts singing. Like a canary. He confesses to 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:38.580 the bombing, but then he just keeps going. He 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:41.179 confesses to 17 other murders. And he claims 00:08:41.179 --> 00:08:43.000 the whole thing was ordered by the Inner Circle 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:45.259 of the Western Federation of Miners, Charles 00:08:45.259 --> 00:08:48.299 Moyer, George Pettibone, and... Bill Haywood. 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:51.059 But there's a problem, right? Haywood isn't even 00:08:51.059 --> 00:08:53.379 in Idaho. He's in Denver, Colorado. Correct. 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:56.360 And this is where things get legally, let's call 00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:00.539 it creative. You mean illegal. Well, effectively, 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:03.360 yeah. You can only extradite a fugitive, someone 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:05.480 who commits a crime in a state and then flees. 00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:08.039 Haywood wasn't in Idaho, so technically he couldn't 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.179 have fled. So they can't legally arrest him and 00:09:10.179 --> 00:09:12.190 bring him back? Not through any normal channels. 00:09:12.309 --> 00:09:14.990 So the Idaho authorities and the Pinkertons cook 00:09:14.990 --> 00:09:17.450 up a plan. They get a secret warrant. They go 00:09:17.450 --> 00:09:21.090 to Denver, arrest Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone 00:09:21.090 --> 00:09:23.970 in the middle of the night. They hold them incommunicado 00:09:23.970 --> 00:09:27.090 at the Oxford Hotel jail, deny them a phone call, 00:09:27.269 --> 00:09:30.429 and then shove them onto a special train bound 00:09:30.429 --> 00:09:33.049 for Idaho. A rendition train, basically. That's 00:09:33.049 --> 00:09:35.870 what it was. And the train had specific instructions. 00:09:36.450 --> 00:09:39.570 Do not stop at any major stations. They were 00:09:39.570 --> 00:09:41.710 terrified that if they stopped in a union town, 00:09:41.950 --> 00:09:45.110 a mob would storm the train and free them. So 00:09:45.110 --> 00:09:47.809 they basically wake up in an Idaho jail facing 00:09:47.809 --> 00:09:50.610 the death penalty. It's a kidnapping. It was. 00:09:50.690 --> 00:09:52.730 The Supreme Court actually had to rule on this 00:09:52.730 --> 00:09:54.850 later. And the prosecution's argument was just 00:09:54.850 --> 00:09:57.509 wild. They argued that because the conspiracy 00:09:57.509 --> 00:10:01.610 allegedly touched Idaho, the men were constructively 00:10:01.610 --> 00:10:04.370 present at the crime scene. Constructively present. 00:10:04.549 --> 00:10:07.009 That is some top tier legal gymnastics. It's 00:10:07.009 --> 00:10:10.500 absurd. But it worked. Haywood is on trial for 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:13.340 his life. But he has an ace up his sleeve. Clarence 00:10:13.340 --> 00:10:15.519 Darrell. The greatest defense attorney in American 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:18.039 history. And Darrell looks at the prosecution's 00:10:18.039 --> 00:10:21.279 case and he sees the one single weak link. Harry 00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:23.700 Orchard. The man who confessed to 18 murders. 00:10:24.340 --> 00:10:27.360 Exactly. The entire case rested on the jury believing 00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:30.399 this one guy. So Darrow doesn't just cross -examine 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:34.059 him. He dissects him piece by piece on the stand 00:10:34.059 --> 00:10:36.879 for days. What does he do? He gets Orchard to 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:39.259 admit he was paid by the Pinkertons. He gets 00:10:39.259 --> 00:10:41.480 him to admit he hated Haywood personally. He 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:44.320 exposes every lie, every single contradiction 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:46.740 in his story. He turns their star witness into 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:49.460 a monster. That's exactly it. By the end, Darrow 00:10:49.460 --> 00:10:51.240 just looks at the jury and basically says, to 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:54.139 kill Bill Haywood, you have to trust Harry Orchard, 00:10:54.299 --> 00:10:57.019 a man who admits he is a mass murderer, a liar, 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.240 and a paid snitch. And the jury didn't buy it. 00:10:59.399 --> 00:11:02.019 Acquitted, not guilty. Haywood walks out of that 00:11:02.019 --> 00:11:04.360 courtroom a free man and a national celebrity. 00:11:04.679 --> 00:11:07.840 He is now officially the Lincoln of labor. But 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:09.919 he doesn't retire. He doesn't go on a speaking 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:12.320 tour and settle down. He goes right back into 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:15.779 the fight. Which brings us to 1912, Lawrence, 00:11:15.899 --> 00:11:18.519 Massachusetts. The Bread and Roses strike. This 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:22.039 is arguably the IWW's greatest victory. You have 00:11:22.039 --> 00:11:24.759 20 ,000 textile workers, mostly immigrant women 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:27.220 and children, striking against wage cuts. The 00:11:27.220 --> 00:11:29.620 city is under martial law. The police are beating 00:11:29.620 --> 00:11:32.580 people in the streets. And Haywood shows up to 00:11:32.580 --> 00:11:36.320 take command. But he realizes they're losing 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:39.000 the PR war. They're being painted as violent 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:42.019 anarchists. He needs to flip the script. So he 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:43.980 borrows a tactic from Europe, the children's 00:11:43.980 --> 00:11:47.580 exodus. This part of the story just... It really 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:49.740 gets me. It's incredibly moving. The strikers 00:11:49.740 --> 00:11:51.960 were starving. They couldn't feed their own kids. 00:11:52.279 --> 00:11:54.679 So Haywood arranges for the children to be sent 00:11:54.679 --> 00:11:56.980 away to sympathetic families in New York City 00:11:56.980 --> 00:11:59.340 and Vermont. Can you just picture that scene? 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.580 February 10th, 1912. Hundreds of kids at the 00:12:03.580 --> 00:12:05.620 train station saying goodbye to their parents. 00:12:05.820 --> 00:12:07.960 No idea when they'll see them again. But when 00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:11.279 they got to New York, it was a parade. Thousands 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:13.220 of supporters greeted them. They were given new 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:15.820 clothes, hot food, medical checkups, and the 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:18.200 press took pictures. Pictures of these skinny, 00:12:18.299 --> 00:12:20.200 malnourished children who'd been working in the 00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:22.820 mills. Exactly. It shamed the mill owners. It 00:12:22.820 --> 00:12:25.019 showed the entire country what kind of poverty 00:12:25.019 --> 00:12:27.179 these people were fighting. And the authorities 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:30.320 back in Lawrence, they panicked. They knew they 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:32.159 were losing the narrative. So they made a fatal 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:35.960 mistake. A horrific one. On February 24, another 00:12:35.960 --> 00:12:38.639 group of children is at the station, ready to 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:41.710 leave. And the police surround them. And they 00:12:41.710 --> 00:12:44.250 attack. They attack the children. They clubbed 00:12:44.250 --> 00:12:46.470 the mothers. They dragged children by their hair 00:12:46.470 --> 00:12:48.690 and threw them into military trucks to stop them 00:12:48.690 --> 00:12:51.470 from getting on the train. That is just evil. 00:12:51.809 --> 00:12:55.090 It was PR suicide. The next day, headlines across 00:12:55.090 --> 00:12:57.370 the country are screaming about police brutality 00:12:57.370 --> 00:13:00.149 against women and children. The New York World 00:13:00.149 --> 00:13:03.129 called the mill owners mad. President Taft himself 00:13:03.129 --> 00:13:05.730 ordered an investigation. The public pressure 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:08.799 was so intense the owners just folded. They met 00:13:08.799 --> 00:13:11.259 every single demand. The total victory. Yeah. 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:13.000 So Heywood is on top of the world. He's winning 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:17.120 in court. He's winning on the streets. But history 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:19.279 always has a way of turning, doesn't it? And 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:21.779 the turn here is World War I. The war changed 00:13:21.779 --> 00:13:23.940 everything. The U .S. government needed unity. 00:13:24.039 --> 00:13:26.460 It needed production. It had zero patience for 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:28.559 a union that wanted to overthrow capitalism and 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:31.879 was actively opposing the war. And the IWW was 00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:35.179 staunchly anti -war. They saw it as a rich man's 00:13:35.179 --> 00:13:38.149 war being fought by poor men. So the government 00:13:38.149 --> 00:13:41.429 passes the Espionage Act of 1917, and they use 00:13:41.429 --> 00:13:44.129 it to just drop the hammer on the Wobblies. We're 00:13:44.129 --> 00:13:47.070 talking raids. Massive coordinated raids. September 00:13:47.070 --> 00:13:51.610 1917, federal agents hit 48 IWW halls on the 00:13:51.610 --> 00:13:54.690 same day. They seize tons of documents, and they 00:13:54.690 --> 00:13:57.519 arrest the entire leadership. Heywood and 100 00:13:57.519 --> 00:14:00.000 others are put on trial together. 100 defendants 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.279 in one courtroom. That's not a trial. That's 00:14:02.279 --> 00:14:04.659 a circus. It was a show trial from start to finish. 00:14:04.899 --> 00:14:07.879 The judge was Kennesaw Mountain Landers, famous 00:14:07.879 --> 00:14:10.019 for being tough. The jury was out for less than 00:14:10.019 --> 00:14:13.679 an hour for over 100 defendants. Guilty across 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:16.220 the board. And Heywood gets 20 years. 20 years. 00:14:16.299 --> 00:14:18.500 He's almost 50. He's diabetic. It's a death sentence. 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:21.600 So he appeals. He gets out on bail. And this 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:23.240 is where the story takes a really dark turn. 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:27.320 The captain of the ship. The man who told everyone 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:31.460 to stand firm. He runs. He runs. In 1921, while 00:14:31.460 --> 00:14:33.840 the appeal is still pending, Haywood gets a fake 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.360 passport, boards a ship, and flees to Soviet 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:38.419 Russia. And this wasn't just a personal choice. 00:14:38.500 --> 00:14:41.059 This really hurt people, didn't it? It devastated 00:14:41.059 --> 00:14:43.580 the movement. You have to understand, the bail 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:47.419 money, $15 ,000, which is a fortune back then, 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:50.649 was put up by his supporters. Poor workers who 00:14:50.649 --> 00:14:53.309 scraped that money together. When he fled, the 00:14:53.309 --> 00:14:55.049 government kept it all. His own lawyer called 00:14:55.049 --> 00:14:57.649 it harakiri. It was. It was reputation suicide. 00:14:57.970 --> 00:15:00.190 He validated everything the government had ever 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:02.169 said about him being un -American and a traitor. 00:15:02.429 --> 00:15:05.590 He saved his own skin, but he left his fellow 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:08.230 workers holding the bag. So he gets to Moscow. 00:15:08.870 --> 00:15:12.279 Soviet Union. This is the worker's paradise he'd 00:15:12.279 --> 00:15:14.600 been dreaming about his whole life. And, you 00:15:14.600 --> 00:15:16.960 know, initially he's treated like a hero. He 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:19.399 advises Lenin. He's in the inner circle. But 00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:22.659 the reality sets in very, very fast. Ugly. He's 00:15:22.659 --> 00:15:25.399 totally isolated. He doesn't speak Russian. He's 00:15:25.399 --> 00:15:27.659 watching the Soviet experiment turn into a brutal 00:15:27.659 --> 00:15:29.960 dictatorship, which is the opposite of his belief 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:33.179 in industrial freedom. He starts drinking heavily. 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:35.679 There's a detail in the notes about his marriage 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:38.080 there that is just, it's heartbreaking. Yeah. 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:40.200 He married a Russian woman. But she didn't speak 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.059 any English, and he never learned Russian. So 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.480 they just communicated in sign language. Gestures. 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:47.940 Imagine that. The great orator. The man whose 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:50.600 voice could command a rally of 20 ,000 people. 00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:53.700 And he ends his life in a cold Moscow apartment, 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:56.779 unable to speak a full sentence to his own wife. 00:15:57.279 --> 00:16:00.600 That is just a cruel, cruel irony. It is. He 00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:03.379 died in 1928 from a stroke brought on by the 00:16:03.379 --> 00:16:06.080 alcoholism and diabetes. He was only 59. But 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:08.139 even in death, he couldn't just choose one side. 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:11.100 No. His ashes were divided. Half were buried 00:16:11.100 --> 00:16:13.139 in the Kremlin Wall, which is the highest honor 00:16:13.139 --> 00:16:14.820 in the Soviet Union. He's right there next to 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:17.519 John Reed. But the other half... The other half 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:19.840 was shipped all the way back to Chicago. To be 00:16:19.840 --> 00:16:22.440 buried near the Haymarket Martyrs Monument? Right 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.860 back to where his own radicalization began, a 00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:27.580 foot in both worlds right to the very end. So 00:16:27.580 --> 00:16:29.899 how do we sum up a life like Bill Haywood's? 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:32.139 He was a hero to the downtrodden, a brilliant 00:16:32.139 --> 00:16:34.960 tactician, but he ended his life as a fugitive 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:38.159 who... some would say, betrayed his own followers. 00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:40.620 He was a man of absolutes. He didn't believe 00:16:40.620 --> 00:16:43.220 in compromise. And that made him an incredible 00:16:43.220 --> 00:16:45.460 organizer because he could inspire people to 00:16:45.460 --> 00:16:48.159 do the impossible. But it also made him a tragic 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:50.480 figure because he couldn't navigate the gray 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:53.299 areas of politics or, you know, just survival. 00:16:53.899 --> 00:16:55.799 I just keep coming back to that core idea of 00:16:55.799 --> 00:16:58.799 one big union. The idea that because we're all 00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:01.299 connected in the economy, we should be connected 00:17:01.299 --> 00:17:04.220 in our resistance. An injury to one is an injury 00:17:04.220 --> 00:17:06.799 to all. Exactly. And here's the thought I want 00:17:06.799 --> 00:17:09.420 to leave everyone with. Today we live in the 00:17:09.420 --> 00:17:12.079 era of the gig economy. You have Uber drivers, 00:17:12.299 --> 00:17:15.500 freelance coders, Amazon warehouse workers, all 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:18.640 isolated, all on different contracts, often working 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:20.980 completely alone. It's the ultimate fractured 00:17:20.980 --> 00:17:24.880 workforce. Right. In a world that is more scabby 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:27.940 at both ends than ever before, is Haywood's dream 00:17:27.940 --> 00:17:31.799 of one big union just a relic of the past? Or 00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:33.759 is it actually the only idea that could possibly 00:17:33.759 --> 00:17:35.980 work in today's globalized economy? That is the 00:17:35.980 --> 00:17:38.079 question, isn't it? Could you even organize a 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:40.359 one big union for the Internet age? Something 00:17:40.359 --> 00:17:42.279 to think about. Thanks for diving deep with us. 00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:43.079 We'll see you next time.