John Reed, writing in the socialist publication Liberator, commented in September 1918, that:

whenever ... there is an IWW local, you will find an intellectual center--a place where men read philosopy, economics, the latest plays, novels; where art and poetry are discussed, and international politics. In my native place, Portland, Oregon, the IWW hall was the livest intellectual center in town [As quoted in Franklin Rosemount, Joe Hill, The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, Charles H. Kerr, 2003, p. 34].