‘Workers Should Declare Their Own Independence’ by Ernest Riebe, Industrial Worker, July 3, 1913.

On the eve of Independence Day 1913, an editorial in Solidarity suggested that workers “celebrate, not the battle of Bunker Hill, but the battle of Homestead.” For the Wobblies, patriotism was a tool used by the ruling class to delude workers into believing that the decisions made by those in power were made in their best interests. According to the IWW, workers and capitalists had nothing in common; indeed their interests were completely antagonistic. Here famed Wobbly cartoonist Ernest Riebe reveals the limitations of national independence. Riebe puts forward the notion that the working class will gain true independence only when the efforts of industrial unionism shall burst capitalism and free the workers from exploitation.

See this image in the Solidarity Forever: A Look at Wobbly Culture exhibit.