The capitalist who wishes to acquire a mine is willing to grant
certain rights and conditions to him who has the MINE for sale.
He treats with that person as with an equal.
WHY WILL HE NOT GRANT RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE
LABOR FOR SALE?
If a hundred men own the mine, and elect a certain agent to
represent them in the sale, the capitalist will willingly treat
with that agent EVEN THOUGH HE BE NOT ONE OF THE ACTUAL MINE
OWNERS. It becomes simply a question of the agent's AUTHORITY.
Why does the capitalist haughtily refuse to treat with the
accredited agent of the men who have the LABOR for sale,
Is it not because he resents the workman's attempt at
emancipation and equality? Is it not because the capitalist in
his heart demands SUBMISSION from the man who works for a
daily wage?
Is it not because the powerful among us fail to admit that
workers have passed from slavery to equality?
A man owns vast mining properties. He lives in New York and in
Newport. Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his
mines. He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted. He means well.
He does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He
does not notice the hollow chests of young children with the
pores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of coal
dust.
This owner--who rules and draws his profits from Newport--has one
bitter complaint against his striking men. He cannot forgive
them BECAUSE THEY CALL IN A LABOR LEADER FROM CHICAGO TO SETTLE
A LABOR DISPUTE IN PENNSYLVANIA.
Imagining himself most condescending, he expresses willingness to
treat personally and individually with his men. But he will not
tolerate interference "with my business" on the part of the
workmen's agent, whom he calls "an agitator from Chicago."
WHY should he feel so badly about it?
If the Pennsylvania workman is willing to let a NEWPORT man
manage the capitalistic end, should not that Newport man allow a
CHICAGO labor leader to manage the labor end?
Is not one explanation the fact that the owner considers his
workmen, in every possible respect, financially, morally,
legally, ethically and eternally, his inferiors?
If one mine owner disagrees with another, each will treat with
the other's chosen agent, whether he be Tom Reed, corporation
lawyer from Maine; Joe Choate, corporation lawyer from New York,
or Levy, corporation lawyer from Chicago.
Why not accord to the workman the right to choose his accredited
representative?
So much for the much-talked-of "interference in MY business by
labor agitators."
What about the interests of the country? There are in
Pennsylvania, let us say, one hundred square miles of coal lands
OWNED BY ONE MAN, and WORKED BY TEN THOUSAND MEN.
The working of this mining region develops an annual net profit,
perhaps, of five million dollars, AFTER the workmen have been
paid as little as they will work for.
The owner lives in a house of a hundred rooms.
The miner's family lives in two rooms. The owner has a yacht, a
private car, a fast automobile, fine carriages, many servants.
The miner WALKS. He has a wife who cooks, sews, scrubs,
washes, mends while he and his boys work in the mines.
We wish to arouse no "maudlin sympathy" for the miner, no
"anarchist loathing" of the owner.
We ask an answer to this question:
Which would be better for America: to let one man have five
millions a year, and keep ten thousand men on the edge of want;
or to let the one (and, if you choose, SUPERIOR) man have one
million a year, and divide the four millions among ten thousand
families, adding four hundred dollars to the income of each
family? That is a plain, simple question.
Remember, we suggest and advocate no COMPULSION. We state a
situation. The STRIKER is trying to get a little more for
himself and family. The OWNER is trying to keep the vast sum
for himself and his family. Each is convinced of the
righteousness of his cause. The striker does not try to TAKE
AWAY money or property from the owner. He simply strikes,
saying:
"I will not work for less than such a sum, unless you starve
me into working."
He calls upon YOU, the public, to give him moral support. He
entreats other workmen not to take his place while he strikes.
It is for YOU, the public, and for YOU, the idle, hard-pressed
workmen, to answer conscientiously the question:
Is it better for one man to have four extra MILLIONS a year, or
for each of ten thousand families to have four extra HUNDREDS a
year, that they need sadly and sorely?
If this question were answered as Christ would answer it, there
would be no smug respectabilities scoffing at the striker. There
would be no heartless scabs taking the places of men struggling
to support wives and children.
Leave out sentimentality, if you will, and Christianity, and our
hollow pretence of following Him who called every poor man "my
brother."
What about the cold utility? Four millions more for an owner
mean what?
Some bogus antiquities, and perhaps a bogus title brought to
America.
Another palace, with a dissatisfied owner.
A dissipated son; money spent by this son to promote vice, and by
the father to corrupt legislation. Four hundred dollars more for
a workman's family mean wholesome food for children. And the
children go to school and have a chance.
This sum means a self-respecting life for a father, and for the
mother it means everything. She can hire some woman to help her
when her babies come. She can give her husband and her children
good food, rejoice in their comfort, add good, healthy citizens
to the nation. ----
The owner in his struggle makes various statements of which only
a few must be answered, and very briefly, for the sake of the
impatient reader.
"If capital goes on granting the demands of union labor there
will be no more capital, no more big manufactures, our prosperity
will die as England's prosperity is dying--killed by union
labor!"
Thus speaks the indignant, would-be patriotic and unselfish
capitalist. Let us see:
What becomes of the established FACT that a nation is
prosperous in proportion as the average individual citizen
(NOT its few millionaires) is prosperous? There are nowhere
on earth stronger labor unions than in the United States. There
are no such unions in Mexico, none such in South America, none
as powerful in Canada. Why are we not eclipsed industrially by
those countries?
You say that labor unions have killed English industry? No.
They have kept England alive in the face of fierce competition.
Millions upon millions of Englishmen live on a little foggy
northern island incapable of supporting them. By their courage,
their mental power, their genius, their UNION, they have kept
the nation great. It is as though in one corner of New York
State we had the greatest industrial power on earth. What the
Gulf Stream has been to England's agriculture, labor unionism has
been to England's industry.
It is not the English WORKINGMAN who has been beaten. The
English workmen did not sell the English mercantile navy to J.P.
Morgan. English capitalists did that.
Get this in your heads, you who talk against unions. Morgan and
his fellow American capitalists have formed themselves into
financial UNIONS, which we call trusts. And they have beaten
the English capitalist, who did not know enough to take lessons
from his workman and form unions of his own.
The American FINANCIAL union, not the English LABOR union, has
beaten England in the race for industrial supremacy.
Union is strength everywhere and forever. The remaining strength
of England is in her labor unions, which give men time to think,
food to grow on, and give real men to the nation. You say that
powerful unions kill nations.
Why is not China a great industrial power?
She has vast fortunes and no unions. Li Hung Chang was richer
than Morgan, and could cut off the head of any striker. His
coolies got five cents a day and worked fourteen hours--is THAT
your ideal system? ----
Last of all (and we apologize for this unforgivably long
editorial), let us discuss the question of foreign labor. The
capitalist complains that the Hungarian, "the brutal, ignorant
foreigner," makes much of the trouble, and "wants as much as an
American."
Loud is this cry against the foreign laborer. And the ignorant,
know-nothing American workman joins in the cry only too
willingly.
Who brings in those foreign laborers by the shipload, Mr.
Mineowner?
Who rounds up cargoes of Slavs on the other side and brings them
here to cut the wages and the living of the native-born?
Who shrieks dolefully, Mr. Miner, when the Slav shows that he is
a MAN brave and willing to prove worthy of freedom by joining
the army of union labor?
The Slav and the Hungarian ARE HERE, and their children will
be here when we are dead.
Which is better, to underpay them, treat them like cattle, fill
them with just hatred of unjust discrimination, or give them a
chance to be men?
Shall their children grow up ignorant mine slaves? Or shall they
go to that factory of honest citizenship--the public school--to
be improved as we have all been improved, whether we came
originally from Hungary, Ireland, England, France, Russia, or
elsewhere?
The struggle of the strikers, like all great struggles, is
sometimes unjust. It has not always the wisest or the most
unselfish leaders.
But it is an effort to improve the AVERAGE CONDITION OF
HUMANITY. Help that effort.
"LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF A DAY'S WORK"
THERE'S A GOOD DEAL OF NONSENSE TALKED ON THIS SUBJECT
An honest, well-meaning clergyman talked the other day on labor
unions, and wandered out of his depth. As a rule, clergymen,
having studied the teachings of Christ, are aware that they ought
to be on the side of the workingman. Hence the strongest
supporters of the union are found among the clergy.
The mistake of the clergyman whom we mention is discussed here,
because it is often made by well-meaning, but narrow-minded,
citizens.
He spoke of "the custom union labor has of limiting a day's work
AND OTHER DISHONEST PRACTICES."
By limiting a day's work, the reverend gentleman referred to the
rule existing in certain unions regulating the maximum day's
labor.
That rule does exist, and sometimes undoubtedly--labor union men
not being angels or cherubim--the rule may be pushed to extremes.
But on the whole the rule is necessary, and it works for good.
We shall tell this clergyman and other citizens one special
reason for limiting the day's work.
The contractors want to make all the money they can. When the
unions forced them into recognition of certain hours of labor as
constituting a day's work, THAT was looked upon as a dishonest
practice. It was felt in the old days that a workman should be
only too glad to get out of bed at daybreak and work until dark.
Now even the stupidest and most selfish have come to recognize
limited hours as a feature of American industry. And the
enlightened gladly admit that the well-paid, well-rested,
independent worker usually does more in his eight or nine hours
than he used to do in his twelve or fourteen.
After the inauguration of the limited-hour day the contractors
invented what is known as a "rusher."
The "rusher" is a young workman, in his prime, marvellously quick
in his work as compared with the ordinary, good, capable workman.
On a job of bricklaying, carpentering, or other work, it was
customary for the shrewd contractor to hire one or more
"rushers." Nominally the "rusher" was paid regular union wages.
But secretly the contractor paid him double wages, or more than
double wages. The "rusher" worked at high pressure hour after
hour, day after day. The others could not possibly have kept up
with him had he worked his fastest. But his instructions
were to keep just a little ahead, that the others might struggle
and do their best to keep even in their task, in order not to
lose their work for apparent idleness. Thus the "rusher," a man
of unusual skill, getting double wages, went along well within
his forces, while the others were working themselves to death in
order to keep up and not lose their jobs.
The limitation of the day's output is based originally on the
desire to squelch this "rusher" idea, or to put the quietus on
the very young and able workman anxious to curry favor with his
"boss" by making the pace too hot for the men working beside him.
----
Our friend, the clergyman, and many others say that it is
dishonest to limit the day's output. But is it dishonest? What
is the difference between limiting the DAY'S output and
limiting a YEAR'S output?
In the middle of the Summer the clergyman says, "I have worked
enough; I ought to go to Europe," and he goes.
The bricklayer does not criticise the clergyman for limiting his
YEAR'S output to forty sermons. He does not say to him, "You
are ABLE to preach fifty-two sermons a year. If you preach
only forty, you are dishonest and rob your parishioners."
What business is it of the clergyman's if the bricklayers, among
themselves, decide that it is better for them in the long run to
set only a given number of brick per day?
The trouble with some clergymen and many others is that they
forget one important thing--namely, THAT THE WORKINGMEN NOW
HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.
When it comes to a question of laying brick, it is no longer the
squire or the local clergyman who decides what shall be done.
The BRICKLAYER DECIDES WHAT SHALL BE DONE.
And when it comes to carpenter work, the CARPENTER decides what
shall constitute a day's work.
In olden times the clergymen, the lawyers, the rich, the lucky
class in general, decided for THEMSELVES what THEY should do, and
then they decided for their so-called inferiors what those
INFERIORS should do.
Our prosperous class are having a very painful time indeed
getting into their minds the fact that such a thing as the right
of the majority REALLY EXISTS. And they find it very hard indeed
to believe that the doctrine of human equality is to be taken
seriously in matters of business.
Labor unions are performing an important educational function
when they drive into the heads of these would-be superiors the
fact that this nation is becoming actually a republic in which
the workingmen shall decide for themselves questions affecting
themselves, and in which they shall no longer be guided by the
whims or financial interests of would-be "superiors."