American Industrial Union

[1] Trumbull would decline the offer, leaving its chief originator, former Vice President of the American Railway Union (ARU) George W. Howard to serve as the public face of the new organization.

[2] Heated debate followed, with one newspaper account indicating that dissidents "argued that it was preposterous to rush through a constitution in a few minutes which was supposed to contain the underlying principles of the industrial structure of America.

Debs declined to participate in the AIU, asserting his continued allegiance to the American Railway Union and casting its future prospects in highly optimistic terms.

[2] The AIU patterned itself after the American Railway Union but with a goal of establishing national labor bureaus throughout the United States and seeing to the implementation of the 8-hour day by September 1, 1897.

[3] The preamble to the organization's constitution called for expansion of the principle of cooperation, the establishment of postal savings banks, and universal suffrage for women.

[7] These gatherings were soon marked by factionalism, however, with one May 1895 session garnering front page headlines when General Secretary Howard was challenged by local Knights of Labor activist August E. Gans for having solely authored the organization's constitution and forcing its passage in unaltered form.

Attendance at local meetings soon flagged and while hope was held out that popular orator Eugene Debs of the ARU would fully embrace the AIU, no firm endorsement would follow.

[11] The actual platform only gave a minor tip of the cap to the last of these three proposals, declaring the Democrats to be "in favor of the arbitration of differences between employers engaged in interstate commerce and their employees.

"[12] Unable to join forces with the ARU and its popular leader Eugene Debs or to generate publicity through the launch of cooperative colonies, the AIU seems to have died a quiet death sometime in the second half of 1896.

By the end of 1898 the American Federation of Labor could ridicule its former potential rival in unabashedly harsh terms, proclaiming it "the greatest fake union ever perpetrated upon the workingmen of this or any other country," which had been populated only by a group of temporary officers-elect, none of whom, the AF of L contended, "had ever been known to work for a living" except for Secretary Howard, who was "a cripple.