“The Toast of the Proletariat”

The IWW’s views of patriotism were often demonstrated in cartoons like this one. Here, a group of bourgeois gentlemen stand around their elegant dining table and propose a toast to their country. Meanwhile, the servant standing to their right acknowledges that he has no country to drink to. The IWW was an organization made up of workers who had been beaten, starved, and humiliated by virtually every representative of so- called ‘law and order’ and saw no reason to be patriotic.

Illustration by “K” from the IWW publication the Industrial Worker on October 10, 1912.

View the IWW exhibit for more information.