[Former President United Mine Workers of America.]
If the interests of labor and capital were identical--as some
contend--there would be no chasm between them to bridge; and if the
interests of labor and capital were irreconcilable--as others
contend--any effort to unite them would be futile. From an experience
extending over a considerable period, I am quite convinced that
neither of the foregoing propositions will stand the test of close
analysis. My judgment is that the interests of labor and capital,
though divergent in some respects, are nevertheless reciprocal and
inter-dependent.
To elucidate in a practical way the subject of the proper relationship
between employer and employe, it is necessary to review the activities
of these two factors in the field in which their interests are common
and to mark the point at which they diverge. The employer and the
employe are mutually interested in the successful conduct of industry;
the profits of the one and the wages of the other obviously are
contingent upon it, as both profits and wages must be paid from the
earnings of the enterprise in which the capital of the one and the
labor of the other are jointly invested. This being true, the workman
and the employer are equally concerned in the character of the product
which is manufactured and sold by them, just as they are interested
equally in good markets and regularity of employment. Having worked in
co-operation up to the point of turning out an article that commands a
wide and profitable sale, the question of dividing the earnings of
their joint efforts presents itself. It is the failure of the attempt
to adjust satisfactorily this controversy that gives rise to the 381
differences between employers and workmen and is the basis of the
labor problem as we have it today. True, there are many questions of
discord apart from those of wages and profits, which result in serious
industrial conflicts, but followed back to their source, it will be
found that these issues are inseparably related to those of wages and
profits. In other words, the demand for a shorter workday, for
healthful, sanitary surroundings, has its origin in the irrepressible
desire of the working people for a progressive improvement in their
conditions of life and labor.
In ancient and mediaeval times when the structure of society was
simple and each family consumed all the things it produced; or even at
a later period when the master and the journeyman worked together side
by side, and when the master had been a journeyman and the journeyman
expected to become a master, there was little cause for controversy,
and the problem of labor was not difficult of solution. It was not
until the invention of machinery, the advent of the factory system,
the use of steam, and the application of new processes that the
question of the relationship of employer and employed grew so complex
and impersonal that new methods became necessary in the proper
adjustment of industrial affairs. As step by step industry developed
from the stage of the privately owned factory to the firm and
corporation, to the combination and the trust, the real employer was
removed further and ever further from personal contact with his
employes. As a consequence of this transition, the salaried manager
took the place once held by the actual employer, and the simple and
friendly relations of early days gave way to the intricate and complex
industrial life of this generation.
Coincident with the development of industry which has revolutionized
the whole life and history of our people and our civilization, have
come the local, the district, the national, and finally the
international organizations of labor. These gigantic associations 382
and federations of workmen are the logical and the inevitable
consequence of an industrial development which threatened the
subjugation of the individual workman and forced him, in self-defense,
to merge his interests and his identity with those of his fellow
workmen. The momentous change in the status of the workman which
accompanied the revolution of industrial processes, transformed the
whole problem of labor from the question of production to that of
distribution, and it is the effort to find an equitable adjustment of
the problem of distribution that is taxing to the utmost the ingenuity
of economists, philosophers, and statesmen.
In the search for a panacea to heal the industrial ills against which
society so justly complains, many suggestions are made and innumerable
remedies proposed. On the one hand are found forces that would deny to
labor the right of organization and combination, although exercising
and enjoying the benefit of these rights themselves; on the other hand
are forces at work advocating and demanding the abolition of the whole
competitive system; between these extremes stands a great army of
workmen and employers earnestly striving to find grounds of mutual
agreement upon which the rights and obligations of each may be defined
and brought into harmony. With all due respect to the opinions of
others, I submit that the path of safety, progress, and justice lies
in the middle course--in the recognition of the right of organization
on the part of both labor and capital, by which and through which
these factors in our industrial progress may work out their inevitable
destiny, contracting freely each with the other upon all questions of
mutual concern.
The trade agreement is the bridge between labor and capital. It
restores, so far as it is possible to do so, the personal
relationship, the mutual interest which existed prior to the advent of
the factory system. It is an acknowledgment of the inter-dependence of
labor and capital, a recognition of the reciprocal interest of 383
employer and employe. When the right of organization among workmen and
employers is fully recognized and freely conceded, and when these
forces adopt and practice the policy of collective bargaining, the day
of the strike and the lockout, of the boycott and the blacklist, with
their attendant evils, losses, and hardships, will have largely passed
away.