The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or “Wobblies” was a labor union that strove to unite workers as members of a social class and promoted the eradication of capitalism and wage labor. The Government saw the IWW and other unions as a threat, and the methods it used to eradicate them were harsh.

During World War I, hundreds of leaders and other members of the IWW were the subject of violent raids, arrests, and deportation under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. Their publications were seized from the mails, and their meetings and activities were monitored. The IWW never fully recovered, and by 1920 it was all but defunct.