Ernest Untermann

[2] In the course of his nautical adventures, Untermann was shipwrecked three times, thus exposing him to life in the Philippine Islands and China firsthand.

[3] Following these events, Untermann was briefly in the German military, an interlude which he later recalled to be decisive in his political radicalization: "I had learned the truth of economic determinism and of the class struggle without knowing these terms.

"[4] Untermann briefly returned to the University of Berlin for post graduate courses, but later said this only "showed me the rottenness of the intellectual elite of Germany.

"[5] Still, it was at this time that Untermann first came into contact with the Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts ("Forward") and various other Marxist books and leaflets, which gave concrete political form to his emerging radicalism.

[6] Untermann emigrated to America and joined the merchant marine, spending the next 10 years on board ships plying the South Seas trade routes.

Untermann was a regular contributor to Algie Simons' dissident SLP newspaper The Workers Call, published in Chicago.

[7] He also translated other socialist works for an American audience, including the memoirs of Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel as well as The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, by Frederick Engels.

But we shall on our part reject everything which tends to strengthen the ruling class, endanger the progress of the proletarian revolution, or interfere with the advance of human knowledge and control of natural forces in general.

He believed strongly in support of the affiliated unions of the AF of L and opposed to the more radical approach of the Industrial Workers of the World.

His anti-syndicalist perspective became more pronounced over time, with Untermann declaring in a polemic 1913 article that a crisis approached during which "it will be impossible to avoid the expulsion of individuals who through word and deed confess that they are not in harmony with the fundamental principles of the [socialist] organization.

[11] He was a chief author, along with Joshua Wanhope (1863–1945), of a resolution on immigration which was pro-exclusionary — called "racist" by i.ts critics — backing the AF of L in its desire to stop manufacturers from importing cheap, non-union labor from the Far East.