Greenway suggests that the Wobblies stumbled upon this modus operandi as a means of combating the street bands of the Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America, who frequently would drown out Wobbly speakers in a “cacophony of cornets and tamborines.” One enterprising IWW organizer, wishing to combat the forces of obscurantist “pie in the sky” theology, "retired long enough to organize a brass band of his own.

Denisoff, R. S. (1970). The Religious Roots of the American Song of Persuasion. Western Folklore, 29(3), 175. doi:10.2307/1498356