Ben Williams was born in 1877 in Monson, Maine and named after president Rutherford B.

[1]: 83  In 1888, he moved with his mother to Bertrand, Nebraska and started working as a printing apprentice.

[2] While at Tabor, he played on the football team, edited a campus magazine, and was president of the Phi Delta Literary Society.

[3] He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 and from 1909 to 1917 edited the IWW's publication, Solidarity.

[1]: 47 Williams published newspaper articles and authored several works on labor movement.