 "p.179 WFM leaders openly called for the abolition of the wage system.By the spring of 1903 the WFM was the most militant labor organization in the country.p.15 This was a considerable change from the WFM's founding Preamble, which envisioned a future of arbitration and conciliation with employers, and an eventual end to the need for strikes.p.23

Bill Haywood, the WFM's powerful secretary treasurer and second in command, had adopted the industrial unionism philosophy of his mentor, former WFM leader Ed Boyce.Boyce disagreed with Samuel Gompers, head of the AFL, over union organization.p.23 Haywood thought that unions should cover whole industries, and that the WFM should extend to workers at ore processing mills as well, and that all workers in an industrial union should stand up for the rights of other workers.