the real situation. It is an indisputable fact that the trade unions
always act upon the policy of taking all they can get from their
exploiters. They even overreach themselves sometimes, as a thousand lost
strikes eloquently testify. Their program is directly anti-capitalistic.
But let me quote from a booklet, written by myself several years ago,
entitled, "Trade Unionism; The Road To Freedom," page 18:
It is idle to say that the trade unions will rest content
with anything short of actual emancipation. For they are as
insatiable as the veriest so-called revolutionary unions. In
the measure that their strength increases, so do their
demands. They have sent wages up: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
dollars per day, and hours down: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, per
day with all kinds of other concessions sandwiched in
between. And now they are more radical in their demands than
ever before in their history. Permanently satisfied trade
unions under capitalism would be the eighth wonder of the
world, outrivalling in interest the famous hanging gardens
of Babylon. They would be impossible. With its growing
power, Organized Labor will go on winning greater and
greater concessions, regardless of how profound they may be.
It is purest assumption to state that the trade unions would
balk at ending the wages system.
So far as the tendency of their demands is concerned, there can be no
question about that to anyone who will look at them squarely; the trade
unions may be depended upon always to check exploitation through the
wages system as far as their power enables them. The big question is
whether or not they will be able to develop enough power to stop this
exploitation altogether. As for me, I am confident that they will. In
every country they are constantly adding to and solidifying their ranks;
building ever more gigantic and militant combinations and throwing them
athwart the exploiter's path. It is safe to say that if they cannot
finally stop him it will be because it does not lie within the realms of
possibility for the working class to produce a sufficiently powerful
organization.
Why, then, have these strongly anti-capitalistic qualities been so long
and generally ignored and the trade unions considered merely as
palliative bodies? In my opinion it is because they, like various other
aggressive social movements, have more or less instinctively surrounded
themselves with a sort of camouflage or protective coloring, designed to
disguise the movement and thus to pacify and disarm the opposition. This
is the function of such expressions as, "A fair day's pay for a fair
day's work," "The interests of Capital and Labor are identical," etc. In
actual practice little or no attention is paid to them. They are for
foreign consumption. The fact that those who utter them may actually
believe what they say does not change the situation a particle. Most
movements are blind to their own goals anyway. The important thing is
the real trend of the movement, which is indisputably as I have stated
above, on the one hand constantly expanding organization, and on the
other constantly increasing demands. The trade unions will not _become_
anti-capitalistic through the conversion of their members to a certain
point of view or by the adoption of certain preambles; they _are_ that
by their very makeup and methods. The most that can be done is to
clarify their aims and intensify their efforts towards freedom.
If the trade unions instinctively throw dust in the eyes of their
enemies, they do it for an altogether worthy purpose, the elevation of
the standard of well-being for the mass of the people. In the case of
the capitalist class we see the same principle applied to an utterly
vicious end. The whole trend of the great employing interests is to set
up an oligarchy of wealthy parasites, neither toiling nor spinning, yet
for whom the whole body of workers would be compelled to labor in
degradation and poverty. And if unopposed, they would not only bring
about this condition, but in so doing would rob the people of every
right they have--free speech, free press, free assemblage, legislative
representation, trial by jury, and all the rest. But do they openly avow
their purpose? Most assuredly not, for they know that powerful though
they are they would be swept away by a wave of popular opposition.
Therefore, through their newspapers and innumerable other propaganda
agencies, they proceed to cover up their nefarious schemes of
exploitation and oppression with hypocritical cloaks of patriotism,
religion, benevolence, and the like. Their practice is one thing, their
preaching something entirely different. Thus we have Garys and
Rockefellers actually enslaving their workers by the most brutal
methods and at the same time seeking to convince the public that what
they are trying to do is to protect these workers from union domination,
to preserve to them their sacred right to work for whomever they please,
etc. Men such as these are knifing America and doing it in the name of
100 per cent. Americanism. They are social camouflagers par excellence.
The question may be pertinently asked, why, if camouflage is such a
potent weapon in social as well as military warfare, should the true
nature and tendency of the trade unions be pointed out, thus stripping
the movement of its philosophic protection and leaving it bare before
its enemies? The answer is that the camouflage works both ways; it
deceives friends as well as enemies. It has thus to a great extent cost
the unions the support of the whole left wing of the labor movement. Its
advantages are outweighed by its disadvantages.
In what I have called the left wing of the movement there are large and
ever-increasing numbers of workers and sympathizers who refuse to face
the prospect of a society forever based upon the wage system. They
demand an organization that is making for its abolition and the
substitution therefor of a system of industrial justice. If they were to
look sharply, they would see that the trade-union movement is traveling
faster than any other body toward the end they wish to reach. But
unfortunately, looking sharply is not their method. They habitually
attach too much importance to surface indications and not enough to real
results. They go almost entirely by preambles and manifestoes.
Consequently, taking the trade-union slogans at their face value and
finding them altogether unsatisfactory, they turn their backs upon the
trade-union movement and give support to the organizations which have
the sort they want, the I. W. W., the W. I. I. U., etc.
This belief, that the trade unions are inherently conservative bodies,
is the basis of the strong conviction that they are hopeless and that
they must be supplanted by a new organization, aiming to abolish the
wage system. The conception is found in some degree or other among
virtually all radicals. And it has done incalculable harm to the unions.
It has cost them the support of thousands of militants, of the best and
most intelligent that the working class produces. These might have done
a wonderful work; but their time and energies have been worse than
wasted in trying to build up organizations such as the I. W. W. When one
considers that the life of nearly every labor union depends upon the
activities of a very small fraction of its membership, it is clear that
this constant drain upon its best blood must have seriously hindered the
advance of the trade-union movement. Many have complained at the slow
progress it has made; but the marvel is rather that it has been able to
progress at all.
This devitalizing drain must be stopped, and the great body of
progressives and radicals won over to a whole-hearted support of the
trade unions. I consider this one of the most important tasks
confronting the labor movement. But it can be accomplished only by
driving home to these elements the patent facts that the trade unions
are making straight for the abolition of capitalism and that they are
going incomparably faster towards this goal than any of the much
advertised, so-called revolutionary unions, in spite of the latter's
glittering preambles. They must be taught that the weaknesses of the
trade unions are but the weaknesses of the working class, and that as
the latter gradually improves in education and experience, the unions
will correspondingly take on higher forms and clearer aims. You cannot
have perfect organizations with imperfect workers to build upon. In a
word, the progressives must be won over from the idealistic and utopian
to the evolutionary point of view.
Indeed, it must be granted that insistence upon the real goal and
tendency of trade unionism will provoke the capitalist class into
greater opposition against the movement. But this will be trebly offset
by the added support which the unions will get from the large numbers of
militants who now stand apart from them because of lack of
understanding. The power of even a few such men, proceeding
intelligently along practical lines, is one of the marvels of the labor
movement. It may be confidently expected, therefore, that when the many
thousands of these, now indifferent or hostile, begin to work together,
setting up their own press and systematically furthering amalgamation
and federation projects to bring the unions into closer cooperation,
initiating and prosecuting organizing campaigns, retiring to private
life such officials as now find themselves at the head of the
Amalgamated Association, etc., vast changes for the better are bound to
occur in the labor movement.
The trade unions have cost the workers untold efforts to build, and in
the main they seem loath to give them up, despite the blandishments of
utopian dual unions. Apparently, it is through the old unions that the
workers will eventually achieve their industrial freedom, save, perhaps,
in such cases as the United Garment Workers, where conditions in the
organization were so utterly hopeless that there was nothing to do but
form a new body, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. But this was an
exceptional case. Most of the unions are moving steadily onward and
upward, and they have an unshakable grip upon the workers in their
respective spheres. This being so, the logical thing to do is
systematically to set about improving and strengthening them. If this is
done, then, instead of the wild, desperate, dualistic outbreaks and
strikes, which have characterized the American labor movement for years,
and done it incalculable harm, the discontented rank and file will find
relief through an orderly and rapid progress within the folds of the
organizations they already have. The sooner these facts are recognized
the better for American Labor.
During the past few years much has been said about the wonderful
progress being made by the English trade-union movement. This, I venture
to assert, is due largely, if not altogether, to the absence among the
radicals of England of the idealistic, dualistic attitude towards the
unions which exists so widely here, and which has produced the I. W. W.
and its great body of sympathizers. The English radicals have a better
conception than ours of the trade unions; for, flesh and blood of the
labor movement, they pit their policies and energies against the
conservatives, and win. They are the ones who are writing the
highly-praised programs, and driving onward the great wage movements.
They are practical and constructive. Unlike so many of our radicals they
do not waste their time and strength in empty, pessimistic criticism of
the trade unions, and in vain, foolhardy attempts to tear the whole
labor structure to pieces and to reconstruct it according to the dream
of Daniel De Leon.
In England the turning point came ten years ago when she felt the great
wave of sentiment for revolutionary unionism then sweeping the world.
The question was whether this movement should realize its aims through
the old unions or by starting new ones. The existing unions were
notoriously conservative. Several of our leading radicals had said they
were even more hopeless than our own organizations and strongly urged
the formation of an English I. W. W. But fortunately, Tom Mann and his
colleagues, with a deeper knowledge of trade unionism, were able to
forestall this movement and to direct the strong stream of progressive
thought and energy into the old unions. The result was magical. Within
two years the great and successful strikes of the transport workers,
railroaders and miners had occurred, and the renaissance of the English
labor movement was assured. British workingmen will never realize the
invaluable service which Tom Mann rendered them in saving England from
an I. W. W. dual movement, with its tremendous waste of power and its
weakening effect upon the trade unions.
How long are American progressives going to continue deceiving
themselves with the words of high-sounding preambles? When are they
going to quit chasing rainbows and settle down to real work? These are
important considerations indeed. The hour when our militants generally
adopt English methods, and turn their whole-hearted attention to
building up and developing the trade-union movement,--that hour will be
the dawn of a new day for American Labor.
THE END
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| Transcriber's Note: |
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| Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the |
| original document have been preserved. |
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| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
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| Page 86 convine changed to convince |
| Page 92 acordingly changed to accordingly |
| Page 101 Joilet changed to Joliet |
| Page 103 Brackenbridge changed to Brackenridge |
| Page 107 struck changed to stuck |
| Page 125 depondent changed to deponent |
| Page 137 Brennon changed to Brennan |
| Page 146 Leechburgh changed to Leechburg |
| Page 153 childen changed to children |
| Page 205 resistent changed to resistant |
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| Page 233 affiiliated changed to affiliated |
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