The labor question, as it is called, has come to be recognized as the
foremost of our time. In some form it thrusts itself into every human
relation, and directly or indirectly has a part in every controversy.
A thousand “solutions” of the labor question find their way into print,
but the question not only remains unsolved, but steadily assumes greater
and graver proportions. The nostrums have no effect other than to prove
their own inefficacy.
There has always been a labor question since man first exploited man in
the struggle for existence, but not until its true meaning was revealed
in the development of modern industry did it command serious thought or
intelligent consideration, and only then came any adequate conception of
its importance to the race.
Man has always sought the mastery of his fellow-man. To enslave his
fellow in some form and to live out of his labor has been the mainspring
of human action.
To escape submission, not in freedom, but in mastery over others, has
been the controlling desire, and this has filled the world with slavery
and crime.
In all the ages of the past, human society has been organized and
maintained upon the basis of the exploitation and degradation of those
who toil. And so it is today.
The chief end of government has been and is to keep the victims of
oppression and injustice in subjection.
The men and women who toil and produce have been and are at the mercy of
those who wax fat and scornful upon the fruit of their labor.
The labor question was born of the first pang of protest that died
unvoiced in the breast of unrequited toil.
The labor movement of modern times is the product of past ages. It has
come down to us for the impetus of our day, in pursuit of its world-wide
mission of emancipation.
Unionism, as applied to labor in the modern sense, is the fruit and
flower of the last century.
In the United States, as in other countries, the trade union dates from
the beginning of industrial society.
During the colonial period of our history, when agriculture was the
principal pursuit, when the shop was small and work was done by hand
with simple tools, and the worker could virtually employ himself, there
was no unionism among the workers.
When machinery was applied to industry, and mill and factory took the
place of the country blacksmith shop; when the workers were divorced
from their tools and recruited in the mills; when they were obliged to
compete against each other for employment; when they found themselves in
the labor market with but a low bid or none at all upon their labor
power; when they began to realize that as toolless workingmen they were
at the mercy of the tool-owning masters, the necessity for union among
them took root, and as industry developed, the trade union movement
followed in its wake and became a factor in the struggle of the workers
against the aggressions of their employers.
In his search for the beginnings of trade unionism in our country, Prof.
Richard T. Ely, in his “Labor Movement in America,” says: “I find no
traces of anything like a modern trades union in the colonial period of
American history, and it is evident, on reflection, that there was
little need, if any, of organization on the part of labor at that time.”
* * *
“Such manufacturing as was found consisted largely in the production of
values-in-use. Clothing, for example, was spun and woven, and then
converted into garments in the household for its various members. The
artisans comprised chiefly the carpenter, the blacksmith and the
shoemaker; many of whom worked in their own little shops with no
employes, while the number of subordinates in any one shop was almost
invariably small, and it would probably have been difficult to find a
journeyman who did not expect, in a few years, to become an independent
producer.”
This was the general condition from the labor standpoint at the close of
the eighteenth century. But with the dawn of the new century and the
application of machinery and the spread of industry that followed came
the beginning of the change. The workers gradually organized into unions
and began to take active measures to increase their wages and otherwise
improve their condition. Referring to this early period in the rise of
unionism, the same author records the incident of one of the first
strikes as follows: “Something very like a modern strike occurred in the
year 1802. The sailors in New York received $10 a month, but wished an
increase of $4 a month, and endeavored to enforce their demands by
quitting work. It is said that they marched about the city, accompanied
by a band, and compelled seamen, employed at the old wages, to leave
their ships and join them. But the iniquitous combination and conspiracy
laws, which viewed concerted action of laborers as a crime, were then in
force in all modern lands, and ‘the constables were soon in pursuit,
arrested the leader, lodged him in jail, and so ended the earliest of
labor strikes.’”
This sounds as if it had been the occurrence of yesterday, instead of
more than a hundred years ago. The combination and conspiracy laws have
been repealed, but the labor leader fares no better now than when these
laws were still on the statute books. The writ of injunction is now made
to serve the purpose of the master class, and there is no possible
situation in which it cannot be made to apply and as swiftly and surely
strike the vital point and paralyze the opposition to the master’s rule.
We need not at this time trace the growth of the trade union from its
small and local beginnings to its present national and international
proportions; from the little group of hand-workers in the service of an
individual employer to the armies of organized and federated workers in
allied industries controlled by vast corporations, syndicates and
trusts. The fact stands forth in bold relief that the union was born of
necessity and that it has grown strong with the development of industry
and the increasing economic dependence of the workers.
A century ago a boy served his apprenticeship and became the master of
his trade. The few simple tools with which work was then done were
generally owned by the man who used them; he could provide himself with
the small quantity of raw material he required, and freely follow his
chosen pursuit and enjoy the fruit of his labor. But as everything had
to be produced by the work of his hands, production was a slow process,
meagre of results, and the worker found it necessary to devote from
twelve to fifteen hours to his daily task to earn a sufficient amount to
support himself and family.
It required most of the time and energy of the average worker to produce
enough to satisfy the physical wants of himself and those dependent upon
his labor.
There was little leisure for mental improvement, for recreation or
social intercourse. The best that can be said for the workingman of this
period is that he enjoyed political freedom, controlled in large measure
his own employment, by virtue of his owning the tools of his trade,
appropriated to his own use the product of his labor and lived his
quiet, uneventful round to the end of his days.
This was a new country, with boundless stretches of virgin soil. There
was ample room and opportunity, air and sunlight, for all.
There was no millionaire in the United States; nor was there a tramp.
These types are the products of the same system. The former is produced
at the expense of the latter, and both at the expense of the working
class. They appeared at the same time in the industrial development and
they will disappear together with the abolition of the system that
brought them into existence.
The application of machinery to productive industry was followed by
tremendous and far-reaching changes in the whole structure of society.
First among these was the change in the status of the worker, who, from
an independent mechanic or small producer, was reduced to the level of a
dependent wageworker. The machine had leaped, as it were, into the arena
of industrial activity, and had left little or no room for the
application of the worker’s skill or the use of his individual tools.
The economic dependence of the working class became more and more
rigidly fixed—and at the same time a new era dawned for the human race.
The more or less isolated individual artisans were converted into groups
of associated workers and marshalled for the impending social
revolution.
It was at this time that the trades-union movement began to take
definite form. Unorganized, the workers were not only in open
competition with each other for the sale of their labor power in the
labor market, but their wages could be reduced, and their hours of labor
lengthened at will, and they were left practically at the mercy of their
employers.
It is interesting to note the spirit evinced by the pioneers of
unionism, the causes that impelled them and the reasons they assigned
for banding themselves together in defense of their common interests. In
this connection we again quote from Professor Ely’s “Labor Movement in
America,” as follows:
“The next event to attract our attention in New York is an address
delivered before ‘The General Trades Unions of the City of New York,’ at
Chatham street chapel, on December 2, 1833, by Eli Moore, president of
the union. This General Trades Union, as its name indicates, was a
combination of subordinate unions ‘of the various trades and arts in New
York City and its vicinity,’ and is the earliest example in the United
States, so far as I know, of those Central Labor Unions which attempt to
unite all the workingmen in one locality in one body, and which have now
become so common among us. The address of Mr. Moore is characterized by
a more modern tone than is found in most productions of the labor
leaders of that period. The object of these unions is stated to be ‘to
guard against the encroachments of aristocracy, to preserve our natural
and political rights, to elevate our moral and intellectual condition,
to promote our pecuniary interests, to narrow the line of distinction
between the journeyman and employer, to establish the honor and safety
of our respective vocations upon a more secure and permanent basis, and
to alleviate the distress of those suffering from want of employment.’”
This is a remarkably clear statement of the objects of unionism in that
early period, and indicates to what extent workingmen had even then been
compelled to recognize their craft interests and unite and act together
in defense thereof.
So far, and for many years later, the efforts of trades-unions were
confined to defensive tactics, and to the amelioration of objectionable
conditions. The wage-system had yet to develop its most offensive
features and awaken the workers to the necessity of putting an end to it
as the only means of achieving their freedom; and it was this that
finally forced the extension of organized activity from the economic to
the political field of labor unionism.
As the use of machinery became more general and competition became more
intense; as capital was centralized and industry organized to obtain
better results, the workers realized their dependence more and more, and
unionism grew apace. One trade after another fell into line and raised
the banner of economic solidarity. Then followed strikes and lockouts
and other devices incident to that form of warfare. Sometimes the
unionists gained an advantage, but more often they suffered defeat, lost
courage and abandoned the union, only to return to the scene of disaster
with renewed determination to fight the battle over again and again
until victory should at last perch upon the union banner.
Oh, how many there were, whose names are forgotten, who suffered untold
agonies to lay the foundation of the labor movement, of whose real
mission they had but the vaguest conception!
These pioneers of progress paved the way for us, and deserve far more at
our hands than we have in our power to do for them. We may at best
rescue their nameless memory from the darkness of oblivion, and this we
undertake to do with the liveliest sense of obligation for the service
they rendered, and the sacrifices they made in the early and trying
stages of the struggle to improve the condition and advance the welfare
of their fellow-toilers.
The writer has met and known some of these untitled agitators of the
earlier day, whose hearts were set on organizing their class, or at
least, their branch of it, and who had the courage to undertake the task
and accept all the bitter consequences it imposed.
The union men of today have little or no conception of what the pioneer
unionists had to contend with when they first started forth on their
mission of organization. The organizer of the present time has to face
difficulties enough, it is true, but as a rule the road has at least
been broken for his approaching footsteps; the union has already been
organized and a committee meets him at the station and escorts him to
the hotel.
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