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right time to focus on a socialist labor union called the

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Industrial Workers of the world aka the IWW aka the Wobblies and we know the

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Wobblies isn't exactly an intimidating nickname it's hard to be afraid of an

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organization that sounds like the lovable clumsy cousins of the [Teletubbies appear in a field]

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Teletubbies well despite the name the Wobblies were led by a dead serious

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socialist named Eugene V Debs gets had a major crush on Karl Marx who's usually

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credited as the father of modern socialism and communism and hey with a

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beard like Marx's what's not to love it was kind of like the Communist Santa [Marx dressed as Santa]

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Claus yeah well Debs even loved socialism so much that he ran as a

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socialist candidate for president in 1904 1908 1912 and 1920 let's say yeah

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that didn't work out proving once again that trying really really hard and doing [Newspaper front page of Eugene imprisoned]

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your best doesn't mean you won't fail okay all right we're just kidding this

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not a lesson we endorse do try super hard there schmooper stay in school

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yadda yadda yadda well like many socialist Deb's was sick of a huge gap

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between the rich and poor created by unchecked capitalism he thought that it

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would be much nicer if factories and farms were all collectively owned by the

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workers and now sharing is caring after all or at least that's how socialists [Collective ownership definition appears on paper]

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saw it some of the Deb's earliest hits included the Pullman Strike but when the

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Pullman car company asked its workers to take a pay cut and they refused 5,000 [Pullman speaking to worker]

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were fired well here's where Eugene stepped in as head of the American

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railway Union he told the members to refuse to operate any trains using

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Pullman cars the action was deemed illegal by President Grover Cleveland [Go directly to jail card with Grover holding handcuffs]

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and even though it was hard to take threat seriously from a guy named Grover

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the strike was broken by federal troops and debts was imprisoned the Debs wasn't

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going to let it get him down it guess he was a glass-half-full kind of guy well [Debs with glass half full]

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along with William big bill Haywood and others Debs founded the IWW in 1905

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urging employees to take action against their employers the Wobblies protested [People protesting]

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unfair treatment by boycotting and striking differently from their

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predecessors they said what as to any efforts from management to negotiate a

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labor contract and said to sha-2 collective bargaining

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agreements instead they decided to strike until they got what they wanted [Teletubbies striking]

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when the United States entered World War one in 1917 the IWW had a hundred

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thousand members and because of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russia's

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subsequent withdrawal from the war Americans were super worried about the

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socialist message of the wobbly they also made people mad by refusing to stop

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striking during wartime which was said to hurt wartime production in the war [Man begging at teletubbies]

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effort in general well of course the Wobblies didn't care not only did they

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evader draft they also publicly denounced the war well none of this was

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cool to the most American around this time the Espionage Act and various Act [Espionage Act appears]

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outlawing membership and socialist organizations were passed

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well this spelled doom for the Wobblies weirdly the Teletubbies kept on truckin [Boy watching teletubbies]

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though that creepy baby son thing probably had the American government

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it's back pocket many soon found themselves in jail cells simply because [Man being picked up by officers]

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they were part of a socialist organization well after World War one

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the IWW faded from the spotlight but they're passionate actions showed

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Americans that labor issues had to be dealt with one way or another until [Puppet giving a speech]

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robots came along in the cell with and permits the IWW is still around today

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but World War one marked the end of its significance in American history this

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day some still argue that it was all because of the dumb nickname well maybe [Debs and man discussing the wobblies]

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we could just argue that yeah whatever

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