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Far different was it with the pioneer who left home without “scrip in
his purse,” whose chief stock consisted in his ability to “screw his
courage to the sticking point” and whom privation and hardship only
consecrated more completely to his self-appointed martyrdom.
Starting out, more than likely, after having been discharged for
organizing a local union of his craft, or for serving on a committee, or
interceding for a fellow, or “talking back” to the boss, or any other of
the numerous acts which mark the conduct of the manly worker,
distinguishing him from his weak and fawning brother, and bringing upon
him the reprobation of his master—starting out to organize his
fellow-workers, that they might fare better than fell to his lot, he
faced the world without a friend to bid him welcome, or cheer him
onward. Having no money for railroad fare he must beat his way, but such
a slight inconvenience does not deter him an instant. Reaching his
destination he brushes up as well as his scanty toilet will allow and
then proceeds with due caution to look up “the boys,” careful to elude
the vigilance of the boss, who has no earthly use for a worthless labor
agitator.
We shall not attempt to follow our pioneer through all his tortuous
windings, nor have we space to more than hint at the story of his cruel
persecution and pathetic end.
Our pioneer, leaving home, in many an instance, never saw wife and child
again. Repulsed by the very men he was hungering to serve, penniless,
deserted, neglected and alone, he became “the poor wanderer of a stormy
day,” and ended his career a nameless outcast. Whatever his frailties
and faults, they were virtues all, for they marked the generous heart,
the sympathetic soul who loves his brother and accepts for himself the
bitter portion of suffering and shame that he may serve his fellowman.
The labor agitator of the early day held no office, had no title, drew
no salary, saw no footlights, heard no applause, never saw his name in
print, and fills an unknown grave.
The labor movement is his monument, and though his name is not inscribed
upon it, his soul is in it, and with it marches on forever.
From the small beginnings of a century ago the trades-union movement,
keeping pace with the industrial development, has become a tremendous
power in the land.
The close of the Civil War was followed by a new era of industrial and
commercial activity, and trades-unions sprang up on every hand. Local
organizations of the same craft multiplied and were united in national
bodies, and these were in time bound together in national and
international federation.
The swift and vast concentration of capital and the unprecedented
industrial activity which marked the close of the nineteenth century
were followed by the most extraordinary growth in the number and variety
of trades-unions in the history of the movement; yet this expansion,
remarkable as it was, has not only been equalled, but excelled, in the
first years of the new century, the tide of unionism sweeping over the
whole country, and rising steadily higher, notwithstanding the efforts
put forth from a hundred sources controlled by the ruling class to
restrain its march, impair its utility or stamp it out of existence.
The history of the last thirty years of trades-unionism is filled with
stirring incident and supplies abundant material for a good-sized
volume. Organizations have risen and fallen, battles have been fought
with varying results, every device known to the ingenuity of the ruling
class has been employed to check the movement, but through it all the
trend has been steadily toward a more perfect organization and a more
comprehensive grasp of its mighty mission. The strikes and boycotts and
lockouts which occurred with startling frequency during this period,
some of them accompanied by riots and other forms of violence, tell
their own tragic story of the class struggle which is shaking the
foundations of society, and will end only with the complete overthrow of
the wage-system and the freedom of the working class from every form of
slavery.
No strike has even been lost, and there can be no defeat for the labor
movement.
However disastrous the day of battle has been, it has been worth its
price, and only the scars remain to bear testimony that the movement is
invincible and that no mortal wound can be inflicted upon it.
What has the union done for the worker? Far more than these brief pages
will allow us to place on record.
The union has from its inception taught, however imperfectly, the
fundamental need of solidarity; it has inspired hope in the breast of
the defeated and despairing worker, joining his hand with the hand of
his fellow-worker and bidding them lift their bowed bodies from the
earth and look above and beyond the tribulations of the hour to the
shining heights of future achievement.
The union has fought the battles of the worker upon a thousand fields,
and though defeated often, rallied and charged again and again to wrest
from the enemy the laurels of victory.
The union was first to trace in outline the lesson above all others the
workingman needs to learn, and that is the collective interest and
welfare of his class, in which his own is indissolubly bound, and that
no vital or permanent change of conditions is possible that does not
embrace his class as a whole.
The union has been a moral stimulus as well as a material aid to the
worker; it has appealed to him to develop his faculties and to think for
himself; to cultivate self-reliance and learn to depend upon himself; to
have pride of character and make some effort to improve himself; to
sympathize with and support his fellow-workers and make their cause his
own.
Although these things have as yet been only vaguely and imperfectly
accomplished, yet they started in and have grown with the union, and to
this extent the union has promoted the class-conscious solidarity of the
working-class.
It is true that the trades-union movement has in some essential respects
proved a disappointment, but it may not on this account be repudiated as
a failure. The worst that can in truth be said of it is that it has not
kept up with the procession of events, that it lacks the progressive
spirit so necessary to its higher development and larger usefulness, but
there are reasons for this and they suggest themselves to the most
casual student of the movement.
When workingmen first began to organize unions every effort was made by
the employing class to stamp out the incipient “rebellion.” This was
kept up for years, but in spite of all that could be done to extinguish
the fires of revolt, the smouldering embers broke forth again and again,
each time with increased intensity and vigor; and when at last it became
apparent to the shrewder and more far-seeing members of the capitalist
family that the union movement had come to stay, they forthwith changed
their tactics, discarding their frowns and masking their features with
the most artful smiles as they extended their greeting and pronounced
their blessing upon this latest and greatest benefaction to the human
race.
In fewer words, seeing that they could not head it off, they decided to
take it by the hand and guide it into harmless channels.
This is precisely the policy pursued, first and last, by the late Marcus
A. Hanna, and it will not be denied that he had the entire confidence of
the capitalist class and that they clearly recognized his keen
perception, astute diplomacy and sagacious leadership in dealing with
the union movement.
Mr. Hanna denominated the national leaders of the trades-unions as his
“lieutenants;” had the “Civic Federation” organized and himself elected
president, that he and his lieutenants might meet upon equal ground and
as often as necessary; he slapped them familiarly on the back, had his
picture taken with them and cracked jokes with them; and all the time he
was doing this he was the beau ideal of Wall street, the ruling voice in
the capitalist councils, and all the trusts, syndicates and combines,
all the magnates, barons, lords and plutocrats in one voice proclaimed
him the ruler of rulers, the political prophet of their class, the
corner stone and central pillar in the capitalist temple.
Mr. Hanna did not live to see his plan of “benevolent feudalism”
consummated, nor to be elected President of the United States, as his
Wall street admirers and trades-union friends intended, but he did live
long enough to see the gathering clouds of the social revolution on the
political horizon; and to prevent the trades-union movement from
becoming a factor in it, he taxed the resources of his fertile brain and
bended all the energies of his indomitable will. Clearer sighted than
all others of his class, he was promptly crowned their leader. He saw
what was coming and prepared to meet and defeat it, or at least put off
the crisis to a later day.
The trades-union movement must remain a “pure and simple” organization.
It must not be subject to the laws of evolution; it must be securely
anchored to its conservative, time-honored policy, hold fast to its good
name and preserve inviolate all the traditions of the past. Finally, it
must eschew politics as utterly destructive of trades-union ends, and
above all, beware of and guard against the contamination of socialism,
whose breath is disruption and whose touch is death.
That was the position of Senator Hanna; it is that of the smaller lights
who are serving as his successors. It is this position that is taken by
the press, the pulpit and the politician; it is this position that is
reflected in the trades-union movement itself, and voiced by its
officials, who are at once the leaders of labor and the lieutenants of
capital, and who, in their dual role, find it more and more difficult to
harmonize the conflicting interests of the class of whom they are the
leaders and the class of whom they are the lieutenants.
It is not claimed for a moment that these leaders are corrupt in the
sense that they would betray their trust for a consideration. Such
charges and intimations are frequently made, but so far as we know they
are baseless and unjust in almost every instance; and it is our opinion
that an accusation of such gravity is never justified, whatever the
circumstances, unless the proof can be furnished to support the charge
and convict the offender.
But the criticism to which these leaders are properly subject is that
they fear to offend the capitalist class, well knowing that the
influence of this class is potential in the labor union, and that if the
labor lieutenant fails of obedience and respect to his superior
capitalist officers, he can soon be made to feel their displeasure, and
unless he relents, his popularity wanes and he finds himself a leader
without an office.
The late Peter M. Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,
was a conspicuous example of this kind of leadership. There was
frequently the most violent opposition to him, but his standing with the
railway corporations secured him in his position, and it was simply
impossible to dislodge him. Had he been radical instead of conservative,
had he stood wholly on the side of the engineers instead of cultivating
the good offices of the managers and placating the corporations, he
would have been deposed years ago and pronounced a miserable failure as
a labor leader.
The capitalist press has much to do with shaping the course of a labor
leader; he shrinks from its cruel attacks and he yields, sometimes
unconsciously, to its blandishments and honeyed phrases, and in spite of
himself becomes a servile trimmer and cowardly time-server.
The trades-union movement of the present day has enemies within and
without, and upon all sides, some attacking it openly and others
insidiously, but all bent either upon destroying it or reducing it to
unresisting impotency.
The enemies of unionism, while differing in method, are united solidly
upon one point, and that is in the effort to misrepresent and discredit
the men who, scorning and defying the capitalist exploiters and their
minions, point steadily the straight and uncompromising course the
movement must take if it is to accomplish its allotted task and safely
reach its destined port.
These men, though frequently regarded as the enemies, are the true
friends of trades-unionism and in good time are certain to be
vindicated.
The more or less open enemies have inaugurated some interesting
innovations during the past few years. The private armies the
corporations used some years ago, such as Pinkerton mercenaries, coal
and iron police, deputy marshals, etc., have been relegated to second
place as out of date, or they are wholly out of commission. It has been
found after repeated experiments that the courts are far more deadly to
trades-unions, and that they operate noiselessly and with unerring
precision.
The rapid fire injunction is a great improvement on the gatling gun.
Nothing can get beyond its range and it never misses fire.
The capitalists are in entire control of the injunction artillery, and
all the judicial gunner has to do is to touch it off at their command.
Step by step the writ of injunction has invaded the domain of
trades-unionism, limiting its jurisdiction, curtailing its powers,
sapping its strength and undermining its foundations, and this has been
done by the courts in the name of the institutions they were designed to
safeguard, but have shamelessly betrayed at the behest of the barons of
capitalism.
Injunctions have been issued restraining the trades-unions and their
members from striking, from boycotting, from voting funds to strikes,
from levying assessments to support their members, from walking on the
public highway, from asking non-union men not to take their places, from
meeting to oppose wage reductions, from expelling a spy from membership,
from holding conversation with those who had taken or were about to take
their jobs, from congregating in public places, from holding meetings,
from doing anything and everything, directly, indirectly or any other
way, to interfere with the employing class in their unalienable right to
operate their plants as their own interests may dictate, and to run
things generally to suit themselves.
The courts have found it in line with judicial procedure to strike every
weapon from labor’s economic hand and leave it defenseless at the mercy
of its exploiter; and now that the courts have gone to the last
extremity in this nefarious plot of subjugation, labor, at last, is
waking up to the fact that it has not been using its political arm in
the struggle at all; that the ballot which it can wield is strong enough
not only to disarm the enemy, but to drive that enemy entirely from the
field.
The courts, so notoriously in control of capital, and so shamelessly
perverted to its base and sordid purposes is, therefore, exercising a
wholesome effect upon trades-unionism by compelling the members to note
the class character of our capitalist government and driving them to the
inevitable conclusion that the labor question is also a political
question and that the working class must organize their political power
that they may wrest the government from capitalist control and put an
end to class rule forever.
Trades-unionists for the most part learn slowly, but they learn surely,
and fresh object lessons are prepared for them every day.
They have seen a Democratic President of the United States send the
federal troops into a sovereign state of the Union in violation of the
constitution, and in defiance of the protest of the governor and the
people, to crush a body of peaceable workingmen at the behest of a
combination of railroads bent on destroying their union and reducing
them to vassalage.
They have seen a Republican President refuse to interpose his executive
authority when militarism, in the name of the capitalist class, seized
another sovereign state by the throat and strangled its civil
administration to death while it committed the most dastardly crimes
upon defenseless workingmen in the annals of capitalist brutality and
military despotism.
They have seen a composite Republican-Democratic congress, the
legislative tool of the exploiting class, pass a military bill which
makes every citizen a soldier and the President a military dictator.
They have seen this same congress, session after session, making false
promises to deluded labor committees; pretending to be the friends of
workingmen and anxious to be of service to them, while at the same time
in league with the capitalist lobby and pledged to defeat every measure
that would afford even the slightest promise of relief to the working
class. The anti-injunction bill and the eight hour measure, pigeon-holed
and rejected again and again in the face of repeated promises that they
should pass, tell their own story of duplicity and treachery to labor of
the highest legislative body in the land.
They have seen Republican governors and Democratic governors order out
the militia repeatedly to shoot down workingmen at the command of their
capitalist masters.
They have seen these same governors construct military prisons and “bull
pens,” seize unoffending workingmen without warrant of law and thrust
them into these vile quarters for no other reason than to break up their
unions and leave them helpless at the feet of corporate rapacity.
They have seen the supreme court of the nation turn labor out without a
hearing, while the corporation lawyers, who compose this august body,
and who hold their commissions in virtue of the “well done” of their
capitalist retainers, solemnly descant upon the immaculate purity of our
judicial institutions.
They have seen state legislatures, both Republican and Democratic, with
never an exception, controlled bodily by the capitalist class and turn
the committees of labor unions empty-handed from their doors.
They have seen state supreme courts declare as unconstitutional the last
vestige of law upon the statute books that could by any possibility be
construed as affording any shelter or relief to the labor union or its
members.
They have seen these and many other things and will doubtless see many
more before their eyes are opened as a class; but we are thankful for
them all, painful though they be to us in having to bear witness to the
suffering of our benighted brethren.
In this way only can they be made to see, to think, to act, and every
wrong they suffer brings them nearer to their liberation.
The “pure and simple” trade-union of the past does not answer the
requirements of today, and they who insist that it does are blind to the
changes going on about them, and out of harmony with the progressive
forces of the age.
The attempt to preserve the “autonomy” of each trade and segregate it
within its own independent jurisdiction, while the lines which once
separated them are being obliterated, and the trades are being
interwoven and interlocked in the process of industrial evolution, is as
futile as to declare and attempt to enforce the independence of the
waves of the sea.
A modern industrial plant has a hundred trades and parts of trades
represented in its working force. To have these workers parcelled out to
a hundred unions is to divide and not to organize them, to give them
over to factions and petty leadership and leave them an easy prey to the
machinations of the enemy. The dominant craft should control the plant
or, rather, the union, and it should embrace the entire working force.
This is the industrial plan, the modern method applied to modern
conditions, and it will in time prevail.
The trade autonomy can be expressed within the general union, so far as
that is necessary or desirable, and there need be no conflict on account
of it.
The attempt of each trade to maintain its own independence separately
and apart from others results in increasing jurisdictional
entanglements, fruitful of dissension, strife and ultimate disruption.
The work of organizing has little, if any, permanent value unless the
work of education, the right kind of education, goes hand in hand with
it.
There is no cohesiveness in ignorance.
The members of a trade-union should be taught the true import, the whole
object of the labor movement and understand its entire program.
They should know that the labor movement means more, infinitely more,
than a paltry increase in wages and the strike necessary to secure it;
that while it engages to do all that possibly can be done to better the
working conditions of its members, its higher object is to overthrow the
capitalist system of private ownership of the tools of labor, abolish
wage-slavery and achieve the freedom of the whole working class and, in
fact, of all mankind.
Karl Marx recognized the necessity of the trade union when he said, * *
* “the general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to
sink the average standard of wages or to push the value of labor more or
less to its minimum limit. Such being the tendency of things in this
system, is this saying that the working class ought to renounce their
resistance against the encroachments of capital, and abandon their
attempts at making the best of the occasional chances for their
temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded to one level
mass of broken wretches past salvation. * * * By cowardly giving way in
their every-day conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify
themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.”
Marx also set forth the limitations of the trade-union and indicated the
true course it should pursue as follows:
“At the same time, and quite apart from the general servitude involved
in the wage system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to
themselves the ultimate working of these every-day struggles. They ought
not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the
causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement,
but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not
curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed
in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the
never-ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They
ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them,
the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and
the social forms necessary for an economic reconstruction of society.
Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s
work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary
watchword, ‘Abolition of the wage system.’ * * * * * *
“Trades unions work well as centers of resistance against the
encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of
their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla
war against the effects of the existing system, instead of
simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized
forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that
is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wage system.”
In an address to the Knights of St. Crispin, in April, 1872, Wendell
Phillips, the eloquent orator and passionate hater of slavery in every
form, said:
“I hail the Labor movement for the reason that it is my only hope for
democracy.”
Wendell Phillips was right; he spoke with prophetic insight. He knew
that the labor movement alone could democratize society and give freedom
to the race.
In the same address he uttered these words, which every trade-unionist
should know by heart:
“Unless there is a power in your movement, industrially and politically,
the last knell of democratic liberty in this Union is struck.”
The orator then proceeded to emphasize the urgent need of developing the
political power of the movement; and it is just this that the
trade-unionist should be made to clearly understand.
The cry, “no politics in the union,” “dragging the union into politics,”
or “making the union the tail of some political kite,” is born of
ignorance or dishonesty, or a combination of both. It is echoed by every
ward-heeling politician in the country. The plain purpose is to deceive
and mislead the workers.
It is not the welfare of the union that these capitalist henchmen are so
much concerned about, but the fear that the working class, as a class,
organized into a party of their own, will go into politics, for well
they know that when that day dawns their occupation will be gone.
And this is why they employ their time in setting the union against the
political party of the working class, the only union labor party there
ever was or ever will be, and warning the members against the evil
designs of the socialists.
The important thing to impress upon the mind of the trade-unionist is
that it is his duty to cultivate the habit of doing his own thinking.
The moment he realizes this he is beyond the power of the scheming
politician, the emissary of the exploiter, in or out of the labor
movement.
The trades-union is not and can not become a political machine, nor can
it be used for political purposes. They who insist upon working class
political action not only have no intention to convert the trades-union
into a political party, but they would oppose any such attempt on the
part of others.
The trades-union is an economic organization with distinct economic
functions and as such is a part, a necessary part, but a part only of
the Labor Movement; it has its own sphere of activity, its own program
and is its own master within its economic limitations.
But the labor movement has also its political side and the
trades-unionist must be educated to realize its importance and to
understand that the political side of the movement must be _unionized_
as well as the economic side; and that he is not in fact a union man at
all who, although a member of the union on the economic side, is a
non-unionist on the political side; and while striking for, votes
against the working class.
The trades-union expresses the economic power and the Socialist party
expresses the political power of the Labor movement.
The fully developed labor-unionist uses both his economic and political
power in the interest of his class. He understands that the struggle
between labor and capital is a _class_ struggle; that the working class
are in a great majority, but divided, some in trades-unions and some out
of them, some in one political party and some in another; that because
they are divided they are helpless and must submit to being robbed of
what their labor produces, and treated with contempt; that they must
unite their class in the trades-union on the one hand and in the
Socialist party on the other hand; that industrially and politically
they must act together as a class against the capitalist class and that
this struggle is a class struggle, and that any workingman who deserts
his union in a strike and goes to the other side is a scab, and any
workingman who deserts his party on election day and goes over to the
enemy is a betrayer of his class and an enemy of his fellowman.
Both sides are organized in this class struggle, the capitalists,
however, far more thoroughly than the workers. In the first place the
capitalists are, comparatively, few in number, while the workers number
many millions. Next, the capitalists are men of financial means and
resources, and can buy the best brains and command the highest order of
ability the market affords. Then again, they own the earth, and the
mills and mines and locomotives and ships and stores and the jobs that
are attached to them, and this not only gives them tremendous advantage
in the struggle, but makes them for the time the absolute masters of the
situation.
The workers, on the other hand, are poor as a rule, and ignorant as a
class, _but they are in an overwhelming majority_. In a word, they have
the power, but are not conscious of it. This then is the supreme demand;
to make them conscious of the power of their class, or class-conscious
workingmen.
The working class alone does the world’s work, has created its capital,
produced its wealth, constructed its mills and factories, dug its
canals, made its roadbeds, laid its rails and operates its trains,
spanned the rivers with bridges and tunnelled the mountains, delved for
the precious stones that glitter upon the bosom of vulgar idleness and
reared the majestic palaces that shelter insolent parasites.
The working class alone—and by the working class I mean all useful
workers, all who by the labor of their hands or the effort of their
brains, or both in alliance, as they ought universally to be, increase
the knowledge and add to the wealth of society—the working class alone
is essential to society and therefore the only class that can survive in
the world-wide struggle for freedom.
We have said that both classes, the capitalist class and the working
class are organized for the class struggle, but the organization,
especially that of the workers, is far from complete; indeed, it would
be nearer exact to say that it has but just fairly begun.
On the economic field of the class struggle the capitalists have their
Manufacturers’ Association, Citizens’ Alliance, Corporations’ Auxiliary,
and—we must add—Civic Federation, while on the political field they have
the Republican party and the Democratic party, the former for large
capitalists and the latter for small capitalists, but both of them for
capitalists and both against the workers.
Standing face to face with the above named economic and political forces
of the capitalists the workingmen have on the economic field their
trades-unions, and on the political field their working class Socialist
party.
In the class struggle the workers must unite and fight together as one
on both economic and political fields.
The Socialist party is to the workingman politically what the
trades-union is to him industrially; the former is the party of his
class, while the latter is the union of his trade.
The difference between them is that while the trades-union is confined
to the trade, the Socialist party embraces the entire working class, and
while the union is limited to bettering conditions under the wage
system, the party is organized to conquer the political power of the
nation, wipe out the wage system and make the workers themselves the
masters of the earth.
In this program, the trades-union and the Socialist party, the economic
and political wings of the labor movement, should not only not be in
conflict, but act together in perfect harmony in every struggle whether
it be on the one field or the other, in the strike or at the ballot box.
The main thing is that in every such struggle the workers shall be
united, shall in fact be unionists and no more be guilty of scabbing on
their party than on their union, no more think of voting a capitalist
ticket on election day and turning the working class over to capitalist
robbery and misrule than they would think of voting in the union to turn
it over to the capitalists and have it run in the interest of the
capitalist class.
To do its part in the class struggle the trades-union need no more go
into politics than the Socialist party need go into the trades. Each has
its place and its functions.
The union deals with trade problems and the party deals with politics.
The union is educating the workers in the management of industrial
activities and fitting them for co-operative control and democratic
regulation of their trades,—the party is recruiting and training and
drilling the political army that is to conquer the capitalist forces on
the political battlefield; and having control of the machinery of
government, use it to transfer the industries from the capitalists to
the workers, from the parasites to the people.
In his excellent paper on “The Social Opportunity,” published in a
recent issue of the International Socialist Review, Dr. George D.
Herron, discussing trades-unions and their relation to the Socialist
party, and the labor movement in general, clearly sees the trend of the
development and arrives at conclusions that are sound and commend
themselves to the thoughtful consideration of all trades-unionists and
Socialists. Says Dr. Herron:
“On the one side, it is the trade-unionist who is on the firing line of
the class struggle. He it is who blocked the wheels of the capitalist
machine; he it is who has prevented the unchecked development of
capitalist increase; he it is who has prevented the whole labor body of
the world from being kept forever at the point of mere hunger wages; he
it is who has taught the workers of the world the lesson of solidarity,
and delivered them from that wretched and unthinking competition with
each other which kept them at the mercy of capitalism; he it is who has
prepared the way for the co-operative commonwealth. On the other hand,
trade unionism is by no means the solution of the workers’ problem, nor
is it the goal of the labor struggle. It is merely a capitalist line of
defense within the capitalist system. Its existence and its struggles
are necessitated only by the existence and predatory nature of
capitalism. * * *
* * * “Organized labor has an instinct that far outreaches its
intelligence, and that far outreaches the intelligence of the preaching
and teaching class,—the instinct that the workers of the world are bound
up together in one common destiny; that their battle for the future is
one; and that there is no possible safety or extrication for any worker
unless all the workers of the world are extricated and saved from
capitalism together. * * *
* * * “Until the workers shall become a clearly defined socialist
movement, standing for and moving toward the unqualified co-operative
commonwealth, while at the same time understanding and proclaiming their
immediate interests, they will only play into the hands of their
exploiters, and be led by their betrayers.
“It is the Socialist who must point this out in the right way. He is not
to do this by seeking to commit trade-union bodies to the principles of
Socialism. Resolution or commitments of this sort accomplish little
good. Nor is he to do it by taking a servile attitude toward organized
labor, nor by meddling with the details or the machinery of the
trade-unions. Not by trying to commit Socialism to trade-unionism, nor
trade-unionism to Socialism, will the Socialist end be accomplished. It
is better to leave the trade-unions do their distinctive work, as the
workers’ defense against the encroachments of capitalism, as the
economic development of the worker against the economic development of
the capitalist, giving unqualified support and sympathy to the struggles
of the organized worker to sustain himself in his economic sphere. But
let the Socialist also build up the character and harmony and strength
of the socialist movement as a political force, that it shall command
the respect and confidence of the worker, irrespective of his trade or
his union obligations. It is urgent that we so keep in mind the
difference between the two developments that neither shall cripple the
other. The Socialist movement, as a political development of the workers
for their economic emancipation, is one thing; the trade-union
development, as an economic defense of the workers within the capitalist
system, is another thing. Let us not interfere with the internal affairs
of the trade-unions, or seek to have them become distinctively political
bodies in themselves, any more than we would seek to make a distinctive
political body in itself of a church, or a public school, or a lawyer’s
office. But let us attend to the harmonious and commanding development
of the Socialist political movement as the channel and power by which
labor is to come to its emancipation and its commonwealth.”
We have quoted thus at length to make clear the position of the writer
who has given close study to the question and in the paper above quoted
has done much to light the way to sound tactics and sane procedure.
It is of vital importance to the trades-union that its members be
class-conscious, that they understand the class struggle and their duty
as union men on the political field, so that in every move that is made
they will have the goal in view, and while taking advantage of every
opportunity to secure concessions and enlarge their economic advantage,
they will at the same time unite at the ballot box, not only to back up
the economic struggle of the trades-union, but to finally wrest the
government from capitalist control and establish the working class
republic.