CHAPTER V

THE RESULTS OF PROPERTY

Not only did Proudhon make a great mistake in condemning all property,

but some Socialists still make the same mistake; for property even in

its worst form has rendered humanity an indispensable service. It is

the cocoon which the human chrysalis has instinctively wound around

itself for protection while it is changing from a lower to a higher

stage of development.

For example, property even in its worst form--that is, property that

puts one man in a position to exploit the labor of another man--has

encouraged the intelligent and industrious to accumulate wealth; and

the accumulation of wealth makes economic development possible; for if

a man produced no more than was necessary for the support of himself

and his family, there would be no surplus out of which to support

those engaged in the development of national resources--for example,

the building of roads, the building of railroads, the building of

factories, the exploitation of mines. Every progressing nation has got

to have two totally different resources--the resources necessary to

support that part of the population which is engaged in production and

distribution--that is, in keeping the community alive; and the

resources accumulated for supporting those who are developing the

country; for example, the building of roads, etc. Obviously,

therefore, it is indispensable that more be produced every year than

is necessary for the support of those engaged in production and

distribution; enough must be produced to support also those engaged in

building roads, factories, etc.

Indeed little can be done in developing a country until a certain

amount of commodities has been accumulated for this purpose. Now the

accumulated resources applicable to development form what is called

capital--which, in the hands of a few persons, permits of those few

exploiting the rest; but in the hands of the producers themselves,

will permit of a better development without the evil results of

exploitation. It is alleged by opponents of Socialists that Socialism

proposes to abolish wealth or capital. It is inconceivable that men

supposed to be educated--such as Roosevelt, Taft, Bryan--should be so

ignorant in a matter concerning which it is their peculiar duty to be

informed. No cabinet minister in England, Germany, or France would be

capable of such a mistake.[78] In Europe statesmen take the trouble to

study Socialism and thus avoid making themselves ridiculous by such a

blunder as believing that Socialism proposes to destroy or abolish

wealth. Far from wishing to abolish wealth, Socialism seeks to enhance

it--to consecrate it--to put it beyond the reach of private avarice or

public discontent. How they expect to do this will be explained later.

Meanwhile, it is important to keep clearly in mind the fact that it is

not wealth that Socialists denounce, but the present distribution of

wealth. This explains why well-informed Socialists are the first to

recognize the beneficent role which the institution of private

property even in its worst form has played in stimulating

accumulation.

Here again, whether property was instituted for the deliberate purpose

of stimulating accumulation or not, we see once more evolution

favoring the survival of those nations who did accumulate at the

expense of those who did not. In a conflict between two tribes, it was

the tribe provided with the larger store of good weapons and food that

must eventually prevail over the tribe less well provided with these.

And so evolution has pushed men in the direction of accumulating

wealth because it destroyed those tribes which did not accumulate it

and allowed the survival only of those who did.

This accumulation of wealth involved two qualities of predominating

importance in human development, the exercise of forethought and

self-restraint. If we compare man with the lower animals we find that

there are no qualities in which he differs more from them than in

these two. Man is capable of deliberate self-restraint. And the

nations most capable of forethought and self-restraint have prevailed

over nations which have been less capable of these. Here again, it may

be incidentally pointed out that in no respect was the institution of

property more important to human development than in the recognition

of the kind of property which a man originally had in his wife and

children; and the more the domestic relations created by this property

required exercise of self-restraint, the more the nations having these

institutions prevailed over those which did not have them.

The systematic survival first of patriarchal tribes over metronymic

tribes,[79] and secondly, of monogamous tribes over polygamous

tribes, is an unanswerable argument in favor of marriage, of which no

well-informed Socialist fails to take account--Mr. Roosevelt to the

contrary notwithstanding. The Socialist party is to be judged by its

platform and not by extracts of isolated writers who have no more

right to bind the whole Socialist party on the subject of marriage,

than an isolated Republican or Democrat would have to bind the

Republican or Democratic parties respectively. Of course, property of

a man in his wife long ago ceased to exist in civilized countries; it

has played its part in its time, but disappeared before a more humane,

intelligent, and just understanding of the relations of man to his

wife. In the same way, the right of property of one man in the labor

of another will also yield to a more intelligent and wise

understanding of the right of property.

The institution of property performs one other function in society of

inestimable importance. Early civilizations such as those of Greece

and Rome, dominated by families who claimed descent from the gods,

created an aristocracy of birth which, because it was exclusive,

tended inevitably to become tyrannical. As, however, rights of

property became more and more recognized, the aristocracy found itself

confronted by a population that had accumulated wealth indispensable

to the maintenance of the state. Men too who had accumulated this

wealth had done so by the use of their brains, industry, forethought,

and self-restraint. They constituted a group with which the

aristocracy of birth had first to parley and to which it had

eventually to succumb. It is true that this group of the aristocracy

of wealth, which succeeded the aristocracy of birth, in one sense only

replaced one set of rulers by another. But the transfer of power to

the aristocracy of wealth was almost always effected through the

support of the people, and was almost always attended by some

concession of political control to the people. So that on the whole,

the tendency has been for every transfer of political power from the

aristocracy of birth to the aristocracy of wealth to include some

element of popular representation until slowly through the gradual

substitution of the bourgeoisie for the king, noble, and priest, the

people has secured the priceless boon of the franchise which it has

not yet learned to use.[80]

Sec. 1. THE GUILD

Now that we have given full credit to the role which property has

played in the world, let us consider some of its results. In the first

place, let us eliminate a prevailing error. We frequently read in

Socialist books that the competitive system is the necessary result of

the institution of private property. This is not altogether true:

Obviously, the institution of property has connected with it the

notion that as long as men are protected in the product of their

labor, every man is bound to labor enough to support himself; and if

he does not so labor, he must suffer the natural consequences. Under

this system, every man is at liberty to labor in whatever occupation

he chooses, to produce as much as he can, and to get the best price he

can for what he produces. No attempt will be made here to describe the

abominable consequences of this system prior to the Middle Ages. The

history of the industrial struggle prior to the Middle Ages is still

obscure and complicated. But the Crusades in the eleventh century

withdrew from Europe the most turbulent of its oppressing nobility

and the most servile of its religious subjects. The result was to give

to the less servile craftsmen an opportunity to organize themselves

against the noble and the priest in defence of their common craft. So

we find all over Europe an immense development of guilds or

corporations organized by the respective crafts or industries,

primarily for self-defence, and secondarily, for the organization and

regulation of labor therein. The story of these guilds has been too

often written to make it necessary to repeat it here.[81] I shall

content myself therefore with pointing out that these guilds did for a

season exercise an extraordinarily beneficial effect, not only on

industry, but on government. The guilds were composed not only of

employers, but also employees, and thus stand out in marked contrast

to trade unions. In many respects, however, they were similar to trade

unions. Thus they had benefit funds in case of sickness and death; and

they were animated by a sense of solidarity similar to that which

animates the trade unions. But the fact that the guild included

employer as well as employee gave it also different and important

functions. Every guild at the outset was inspired by a sense of

self-respect as well as of solidarity. It was a matter of pride with

them that the guild should furnish no goods not up to standard. The

guild therefore early established elaborate rules fixing standards and

prices so that no man could charge a high price for a low standard of

goods, nor could he compete with others in the same guild by offering

a high standard of goods for a lower price than that determined by the

guild. The guild protected the public from poor workmanship and the

worker from competition. Moreover, competition was still further

eliminated by the fact that no man could engage in any craft or trade

unless he belonged to the guild organized to defend and protect the

trade; and as the guild became a part of the municipal government and

indeed at certain periods controlled the municipal government

altogether, the guild was in a position to enforce this rule.

There are many features in the guild system which would be usefully

borrowed in a cooperative commonwealth. But the guild system broke

down because every guild was concerned with its own interests

irrespective of the interests of the whole community. Every guild

therefore became a class corporation which sought to use the guild for

purely selfish purposes. Entrance to the guild was confined to members

of the families of those controlling the guild; and no provision was

made for the thousands and hundreds of thousands who, because they

could not get admission to a guild and could find no work to do upon

the land, were left to wander as vagrants through the streets and

highways with no alternative save to steal or starve. In other words,

the vagrant of the Middle Ages included the unemployed of to-day.

Again, those who controlled the guild sought by limiting the number of

its members to create a privileged society from which they could

derive wealth without labor. Thus the whole business of killing and

selling meat was at one time in Paris confined to twenty persons.

These persons did not themselves engage in the business, but they

sublet their respective monopolies to others, and thus constituted an

idle aristocracy.

The abuses which attended the guild system became so intolerable that

in 1776, the very year when we in America were setting forth our

political rights in the Declaration of Independence, King Louis XVI

proclaimed the economic rights of the workingmen in France in one of

the most extraordinary documents to be found in history.[82] If we

could get this Republic of America to promulgate and to put into

operation the principles set forth in this decree of an absolute king

in 1776, we should secure all that the Socialist party of to-day

demands; that is to say, the right secured by law to men, not only to

work, but to enjoy the full product of their work. But civilization

had not yet advanced far enough to understand the full import of this

decree, and the guilds were too powerful at that time to permit of its

execution. The Parlement de Paris flatly refused to register the

edict. The king tried to execute the edict notwithstanding the refusal

by the Paris Parlement; but the attempt created such disorder that in

the same year the edict was abrogated. No attempt was made to execute

this decree in the provinces whatever. Meanwhile, however, two forces

were at work that were destined to break up the tyranny of the guilds.

One was the discovery of steam, which put an end to home industry and

subjected workmen to the conditions imposed by the owner of the

factory. The other was the growing upheaval of the Tiers Etat, or

popular branch of the government, which resulted in the French

Revolution.

The French Revolution has been a good deal too much confined by

historians to the political upheaval of the people against the noble,

the priest, and the king. Attention has not been sufficiently

attracted to the fact that it was at the same time a revolt against

the economic tyranny of the corporation or the guild. The cry of

liberty which ushered in the French Revolution was not confined to

political liberty. It was extended to liberty of industry--liberty of

trade--liberty of contract. In other words, what Rousseau did for

political emancipation with his theory of social contract, de Quesnay

did for economic emancipation with his doctrine of _laissez faire_, a

doctrine which prepared the way for the political economy of Adam

Smith and that of the Manchester School.

The essential principle preached by de Quesnay and later by Adam Smith

and Herbert Spencer, is that every man must in his efforts to support

himself and accumulate wealth be "let alone!"

It is of the utmost interest that this policy of _laissez faire_ was

inaugurated under the cry of liberty and is still supported on the

ground of liberty. When we see the evil consequences of this kind of

liberty we shall feel like crying with Madame Roland when she saw the

guillotine doing its grim work on the Place de la Greve:

"O liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

And here we shall appreciate the importance of having clear ideas as

to what liberty is and of therefore being able to distinguish false

notions of liberty from true.

If leaving to every man absolute liberty as to what he is to produce,

how he is to produce, and what he shall charge for it, would result in

the most orderly and therefore economical system of production and

distribution; if it were to secure to every man work in the first

place, and the product of his work in the second place, then it would

be justified. But if it produces none of these things, but on the

contrary, produces the greatest conceivable disorder and therefore

greatest possible waste; if it not only fails to assure to men the

product of their work, but even fails to give as many as one-third of

those engaged in industry any chance of working at all, as at present,

so that hundreds of thousands and even millions are at this time of

writing not only without work, but actually on the verge of

starvation--and if this system not only causes injustice and misery

to all these millions, but does not even make the few who profit by it

happy--if the tendency is also to make them immoral--if instead of

promoting liberty, it--on the contrary--makes slaves of all, not only

of employees but also of employers, so that neither is free to be

generous or just to the other and both are skirting ruin--the employer

in the shape of bankruptcy, and the employee in the shape of

unemployment; and last but not least, if this system is stupid--of all

the stupid systems conceivable the most stupid--and I have been able

to call as witnesses to this assertion the admittedly ablest business

men now living in America, what shall we shrewd, practical Americans

have to say in defence of it?

But we have still two important results of the competitive system to

consider--the trade union and the trust; not only for the evils that

attend them, but for the inevitable conflict to which they give rise.

The issue of this conflict is the real political issue of the day. All

the political parties save only one are seeking to ignore it; but they

cannot. It will end by either reforming or destroying them. To this

question too much attention cannot be given, for upon it depends the

survival of civilization itself.

Sec. 2. TRADE UNIONS

The attempt has already been made to show that the organization of

trade unions and trusts was not due to accident, but was the necessary

and inevitable consequence of the freedom of contract, freedom of

industry, and freedom of trade inaugurated by the French Revolution.

These three so-called freedoms are a sentimental way of describing the

competitive system, and as a matter of fact, not only make real

freedom impossible, but pave the way for despotism--the despotism of

the market in the first place and the despotism of the trade union and

trust, to which the despotism of the market inevitably leads.

The illusion contained in the words "freedom of contract" is well

demonstrated in the history of the trade union, for if the employee is

to be free to make such contracts as he chooses, he is not only free

as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his employer, but

also as regards the contracts he chooses to make with his fellow

employee. And amongst the contracts that he is free to make with his

fellow employee is the contract not to work for his employer except

under certain agreed conditions. In other words, the trade union is

simply an expression of freedom of contract between employee and

employee. But to what does this freedom of contract between employee

and employee lead? It leads to a suppression of the freedom of

contract, for it is an agreement not to work with the employee except

under conditions imposed by the trade union. Freedom of contract,

therefore, so far as the employee is concerned, under the competitive

system compels employees to abandon freedom of contract.

This may seem paradoxical until we understand the real significance of

it. Man stands between two alternatives--the unlimited freedom and

insecurity of savagery and the limited freedom and security of

civilization. This has been developed in the chapter on Property and

Liberty and receives interesting confirmation in the history of trade

unions, which has been too often and too well told to make it

necessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to point out that all

historians of the trade union movement record the fact that at the

very time when employers were shouting for freedom of contract they

passed laws denying freedom of contract to workingmen.[83] But the

very effort of the employers to prevent employees from combining with

one another reduced wages to so low a level and brought about so

wicked an exploitation of women and children and such unsanitary

conditions of the whole working population, that a parliament of

employers was as a matter of national defence compelled to restore to

workingmen the right to agree to abandon freedom of contract.

It may appear to the unsophisticated that for a workingman to endeavor

to escape from the tyranny of the employer by subjecting himself to

the tyranny of the trade union is but a jump from the frying-pan into

the fire. But such a conclusion would display woeful ignorance as to

the whole trend of human development; that is to say, from involuntary

subjection to a power over which we have no control, to voluntary

subjection to a power over which we have control. This is the history

of the development of all popular government. Reactionaries are

disposed to dwell on what they call the tyranny of the majority and

compare it unfavorably with the beneficent despotism of a Henri IV.

They, however, ignore the very material fact that an absolute monarchy

represents an involuntary servitude over which the subject has no

control; whereas the tyranny of a majority represents a voluntary

subjection to authority over which we have control. It may be and

undoubtedly is true that control over government even under popular

forms of government is small and ineffectual; but I hope to make it

clear in the chapter on the Political Aspect of Socialism[84] that the

ineffectualness of our control over government is due to the

competitive system and that under a cooperative system our control

over government would be effectual; and that it is only under a

cooperative commonwealth that the ideal democracy can be realized.

The development of trade unionism throws also a great light on the

fact of human solidarity. Socialists are often accused of being

theoretical and the bourgeois is disposed to regard human solidarity

as a theory. But in the growth of trade unionism it will be observed

that solidarity presents itself as a rock upon which the competitive

system must ultimately be wrecked. The capitalist class expressed its

wish in the law of 1799, which was a law of oppression; but the

inconvenient fact that women cannot be worked like beasts of burden

under ground without arousing the sympathies even of the capitalist

class; that little children cannot be made to suffer and to starve

without reaching the hearts of the whole nation, and that cholera bred

in unsanitary dwellings will find its way to the doors of the rich,

forced this same capitalist class to abrogate the law of 1799; to

abandon the policy of oppression in consideration of its own best

interests.

So combinations amongst employees have grown in strength in spite of

all the power of capital--political and industrial. This progress was

inevitable. Given freedom of contract, or in other words, the

competitive system; given some intelligence on the part of some of the

proletariat; and some compassion in the hearts of some employers, and

trade unions had to develop and grow in strength.

But now that they have developed and grown in strength--now that they

can be said to have reached what seems to be maturity, let us consider

how much good they have done. Let us discuss the unsolved and what I

believe to be the insoluble problems that result from trade unionism.

Before entering into this subject, let me say that if I do not discuss

here the merits of trade unionism it is not because I am not aware of

them; but rather because in this work on Socialism, which I desire to

make as concise as possible, it is not the merits of trade unionism

which it is important to emphasize, but their demerits. Although the

intelligence, order, and self-restraint displayed in the trade union

movement must be to the eternal credit of the workingman, nevertheless

all his efforts, however intelligent, however orderly, however

sacrificing, have failed to solve the problem of the conflict between

labor and capital. It is obviously wiser for the workingman to seek

salvation where it is to be found than by clinging exclusively to

trade unionism to abandon salvation altogether. Trade unionism, I

cannot emphasize it too much--was and is still a necessary step in the

development and education of the workingman; but it is only a step,

and nothing demonstrates the inadequacy of trade unionism better than

the conditions of unemployment that have existed during the last two

years not only in the United States of America, but almost throughout

the entire civilized world. It must not be supposed, however, that

because trade unions are believed to have created new evils almost as

intolerable as those they were organized to suppress, that trade

unions are to be looked upon with disfavor. On the contrary, the whole

argument of this book proceeds upon the self-evident fact that trade

unions have performed a necessary function and are bound to perform a

necessary function in the community until the trade union realizes its

ideal, but that a realization of this ideal is impossible under the

competitive system. In other words, the attempt will be made not only

to demonstrate that trade unions have, under the competitive system,

failed and must continue to fail to accomplish the work they set out

to do, but that under the cooperative system they can and will attain

their ideal--they can and will perform exactly what they started out

to do. However much, therefore, our argument may demonstrate the

failure of trade unions under existing conditions, it only leads to

the triumph of trade unions under cooperative conditions. What the

trade union has failed to do under competition, it can and will

accomplish under a cooperative commonwealth.

The argument of this book, therefore, is not to abandon trade unions,

but, on the contrary, to appeal to the unorganized employee to join

the trade union in order to strengthen it industrially; and on the

other hand to appeal to all employees, organized or unorganized, to

combine politically for the purpose of securing by franchise what they

never can accomplish by the strike.

The moral then to be drawn from the following pages is not that trade

unions have come to an end of their usefulness, but that whereas their

task in the past has been to check exploitation, their role in the

future will be to put an end to it altogether.

Sec. 3. THE UNSOLVED AND INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS OF TRADE UNIONISM

John Mitchell in his book "Organized Labor" has very properly stated

that "the ideal of Trade Unionism is to combine in one organization

_all_ the men employed, or capable of being employed, at a given

trade, and to demand and secure for each and _all_ of them a definite

minimum standard of wages, hours and conditions of work;"[85] and the

principle of Trade Unionism is also well described as "the _absolute

and complete prohibition_ of contracts between employers and

individual men."[86] In other words, the object of the Trade Union is

to put an end to competition between employees in order to substitute

what is called "collective bargaining," which, if complete, would put

the employer at the mercy of the employee, for individual bargaining,

which on the contrary puts the employee at the mercy of the employer.

The above is stated in other words in the Report of the Industrial

Commission:[87]

"The union is conceived as a means of bettering the condition of its

members by united action. If this action is to be thoroughly

effective, it must be taken by or on behalf of _all the members of the

craft_. It is by the establishment of an _absolute monopoly of labor

power_ and to ameliorate the conditions under which it is sold and

used."

Now the inherent and necessary defect of trade unionism under the

competitive system is to be found in the words I have italicized in

the above extract. If the trade union could be a "real monopoly of

labor," it could dictate terms to the employer; but it must not be

forgotten that, with the employer, it would remain subject to the

conditions created by the market. The very fact, however, that all

relations between labor and capital are determined by the conditions

of the market makes it impossible and will always make it impossible

for the trade union to attain its ideal; that is to say, to constitute

an absolute monopoly of labor power, to bind in one organization _all_

the men employed, to secure the absolute and complete prohibition of

contracts between employers and individual men, to demand and secure

for each and _all_ of them a definite minimum standard of labor,

wages, and conditions of work. This is the crux of the whole question.

It has taken over a century of organization on the part of the

employer and employee, of conflict between the two, of bankruptcy for

the employer and of misery for the employee, to demonstrate that the

ideal of trade unionism has not been and can never, so long as the

competitive system persists, be attained. The trade unionist will

answer that even though it be impossible to attain the ideal, trade

unions have accomplished much and can accomplish more for the

wage-earning class. To this it may be fairly answered that whatever

trade unions have in fact accomplished has been accomplished only at a

ruinous price--that the price they must continue to pay for this

accomplishment will continue to be ruinous and insufferable until

either by the revolt of the discontented as predicted by Karl Marx, or

by the awakening conscience of the whole community, as has already to

a limited degree taken place, the betterment aimed at by the trade

unionist will be attained and maintained without the payment of the

awful toll now exacted by the competitive system.

It is probable that both employers and employees, during a century's

struggle, have failed to take proper account of the extent to which

both were hampered by the exigencies of the market. The blindness of

both to this fact was perhaps due to the expansion of trade both in

England and America during most of the century; this expansion being

due to the development of the country in the United States and, in

England, to the conquests of new markets and colonies. So long as

expansion continued, trade unionists could insist upon increasing

wages out of increasing prices, and the success which attended trade

unions in raising wages during a large part of the century, brought

about a false idea that there was no limit to the extent to which

trade unions could by organization increase their share in the profits

of industry. Unfortunately, the era of expansion could not last

forever, and it was not until the lockout of the engineers in

1898-1899 that the British trade unionists began to discover how

narrow were the limits within which they could improve conditions.

Until 1897 the employees had on an average the best of it. In 1893 no

less than 63 per cent of strikes were decided in favor of the

employees. In 1896 again the proportion of working people involved in

disputes settled in their favor was greater than in any of the

previous years since 1892 with the exception of 1893; and it may be

interesting to note that during this year there was a lower percentage

of unemployed than during any year since 1890.[88] It is not

surprising, therefore, that trade unionists were convinced that there

was no limit to the extent to which they might increase their share in

the profits of industry. In 1897, however, the condition of the steel

industry in England became such that the employers could no longer

comply with the exactions of the trade unionists. In 1895 American

manufacturers for the first time attempted to export their steel to

other lands,[89] and their exports grew to $121,913,548 in 1900 and to

$183,982,182 in 1908.[90]

In the presence of American as well as German competition, the

pressure of the market was such that the employers felt they must

either break the power of the union or go out of business. They

therefore locked out the engineers in July, 1897, and the lockout

lasted until January, 1898, when the union was obliged to abandon all

its contentions. This lockout is the turning point in the history of

trade unionism in England. Up to that time, the idea that workingmen

could be induced to abandon the parties to which they belong in order

to organize a party of their own was never seriously taken into

consideration at their conventions, and resolutions in favor of

Socialism were overwhelmingly voted down. But as soon as the power of

the engineers--the strongest union in England--was broken in 1897 we

find trade union conventions entertaining the idea of political

organization and resolutions in favor of Socialism receiving careful

consideration.

The history of trade unionism in America has not as yet resulted in

any such definite climax as this; but what foreign competition has

compelled English employers to do a combination of employers in the

Steel Trust has done for the steel workers in America. In other words,

the trade union has to face one of two alternatives: either foreign

competition is bound ultimately to compel the employer to destroy the

union; or in the absence of foreign competition owing to a high

protective tariff, a combination of employers will do for their own

benefit what competition compelled British employers to do as a

condition of survival.

If we turn from the history to the nature of trade unions it will be

seen that what has happened must have happened. As has been stated,

all agree that the ideal of trade unionism is to unite all the workers

in one trade so as to substitute collective bargaining for individual

bargaining. Unfortunately by the very nature of things such a

combination is impossible. It is impossible to read any work on trade

unions, whether it emanates from the government, or from employers, or

from employees, without being struck by the fact that trade unions

seek to be comprehensive, to include all the members in the trade on

the one hand, while on the other hand there is a perpetual pressure

upon them to be exclusive. For example, we find locals charging heavy

initiation fees of a character to keep out members, for instance the

longshoremen, the garment workers, glass workers; and it may be

"stated as a general rule that when a union does succeed in

establishing a monopoly against employers it is exceedingly likely to

go on, if it feels strong enough, to establish a monopoly against the

employees."[91]

It is perfectly true that this tendency is frowned upon by the trade

unionists at large; but the reason for this is that every union which

tries to be exclusive cultivates a crop of non-unionists who

constitute a menace to the union.

A better illustration of the quandary in which unionists find

themselves between the importance of being comprehensive in the one

hand and the importance of being exclusive on the other, is found in

their attitude towards boy labor.

Modern conditions have made apprenticeship practically obsolete, and

yet many national organizations endeavor to maintain the practice with

a view to preventing too great a supply of skilled workers in the

trade. The limit generally fixed by national organizations is 1 to 10,

though some, such as pressmen, trunk and bag workers, flint glass

workers, allow 1 to 4. Lithographers allow 1 to 5.[92] "It is

obvious," says the Report of the Industrial Commission, "that the

chief motive which influences the unions in the shaping of their

apprenticeship rules is the desire to maintain their wages, by

diminishing competition within the trades."[93]

It is true that many unions in controlling apprenticeship are animated

by a much higher purpose; that is to say, to provide that when a boy

undertakes to learn a trade he shall have a chance to learn it.

John Mitchell in his book[94] claims that the restriction of admission

of apprentices in the United States is negligibly small, and yet

deplores the fact that "the great mass of youths to-day receive little

or no training in their particular trade as a result of the breakdown

of the apprenticeship system." In his opinion the solution to the

problem is not to be found in apprenticeship, but in industrial

schools; yet he deplores the hostility of graduates of trade schools

to trade unions, without apparently recognizing that this hostility is

due to the hostility first evinced by unions to trade schools. But let

us turn from conflicting opinions and look the facts in the face.

When a unionist approaches the age of forty years, he is confronted by

the fact that he cannot rival in speed and efficiency the work of a

young graduate of an industrial school. He looks forward to the time

when his place will be taken by the graduate of the industrial school.

He is very naturally therefore hostile to the industrial school and

the graduate of the industrial school is for the same reason hostile

to him. And here we come to the real difficulty: When a trade union

fails to include _all_ the members in the trade, it does _not_

succeed in eliminating competition between workingmen. On the

contrary, it begins by creating two hostile classes of workingmen:

Those within the union and those without--classes which bitterly hate

one another because they are both fighting for the same job. But they

do more than this: They create competition within the trade union

because by insisting upon high wages and short hours they are making

it impossible for the employer to utilize the service of any but the

most efficient. John Mitchell himself points this out. In resisting

the charge that trade unions tend to level down, he says: "If there is

a levelling at all in the trade union world, it is a levelling up and

not a levelling down. The only levelling which the trade union does is

_the elimination of men who are below a certain fixed standard of

efficiency_."[95] He further expresses it in another passage:[96]

"Trade unionism tends to improve workmen not only directly, through an

increase in wages and a reduction in hours, but it attains the same

end in an indirect manner. The general policy of trade unionism, as

has been explained before, is the establishment of a minimum wage,

safeguarding, as a rule, the right of the employer to discharge for

proved inefficiency. The result of this is the gradual creation of a

dead line of a standard of efficiency, to which all who work must

attain. Where there is a minimum wage of four dollars a day, the

workman can no longer choose to do only three dollars' worth of work

and be paid accordingly, but he must earn four dollars, _or else cease

from work_, at least in that particular trade, locality, or

establishment. The consciousness that he may be employed for a varying

wage permits many a man to give way to his natural idleness and

carelessness, whereas the maintenance of a rigid standard causes a

rapid and steady improvement. The minimum wage acts upon the workman,

as the school examination upon the child. If a child falls, by however

small a margin, below the standard set by the school, he fails of

promotion, and the stimulus which is strong in the case of a school

child is infinitely more intense in that of a worker with a family

dependent upon him. The principle of the survival of the fittest

through union regulations works out slowly and unevenly; nevertheless

its general effect is towards a steady and continuous progress of

workingmen to a permanently higher standard of efficiency."[97]

There is one point upon which the author is silent--yet it is the

point which enormously interests the workingman at large: this is that

while trade unionism guarantees high wages and short hours to the

efficient, it throws out of the trade altogether those workingman who

do not attain a high standard of efficiency or who, having attained

it, fall back from it owing to overwork, sickness, or old age.

There is, therefore, a perpetual struggle going on in the trade

unions, not only between members and non-members, but even amongst the

members of the union itself, in view of the fact that diminished

efficiency must eventually lead to the weeding out of the inefficient.

In periods of industrial depression such as we have just passed

through it is obvious that the most inefficient are the first to be

dismissed, and being the most inefficient, they are the ones least

able to find employment in other industries.

Under the title of Unemployment, the extent of this evil has been

pointed out; it must not be lost sight of; it reaches a population of

a million at the best of times and of five millions at such times as

these.

But the problem raised by the importance of comprehensiveness to

prevent "scabbing" on the one hand and of exclusiveness to maintain

wages on the other, is not confined to such details as initiation fees

and apprenticeship. It covers the whole question of the employment of

boys, women, old men, and half-supported persons, and includes the

"sweating" system.

The higher the wages exacted by trade unions the more employers are

compelled to have recourse to cheap labor of women and children, and

this labor is all the cheaper because the unionist himself contributes

to the supply; for the unionist supports his wife and children, and

the very fact of the support he gives them permits them to accept a

lower rate of wages than if they were not supported. To understand the

operation of this principle it must be borne in mind that rates of

wages are determined, not by the wishes of the employee or even by the

greed of the employer; they are determined by the market price.

Unionists are not the only persons who object to the labor of women

and boys. There is indeed no divergency of opinion as to the unwisdom

of working boys before their education is complete or their bodies

matured; or the unwisdom of employing women, destined by Nature to

perform other more important functions. No better witness to the

control exercised by the market on this important subject can be found

than a member of the English Ministry, the Right Honorable H.O.

Arnold-Forster, who says:

"The great cotton industry of Lancashire, the wool and worsted

industry of Yorkshire, and many other industries in a less degree are

at the present time dependent upon child labor. It is interesting to

observe that as lately as the autumn of 1907 a deputation waited upon

the responsible minister to urge upon him the desirability of raising

the age of half-timers from twelve to thirteen. The desirability of

the change was not denied, _but it was not considered possible to give

effect to it_.

"Those who have any acquaintance with the cotton trade are well aware

that that great industry, employing as it does no less than half a

million persons, is conducted upon the _most minute margins of profit

and loss_. The rate book of the cotton trade, in which wages of every

kind of work are calculated out to the tenth of a penny, is a miracle

of painstaking and intelligent computation. These fine calculations

are absolutely necessary. Both employers and employed know perfectly

well that the trade is, so to speak, _balanced on a knife edge_, and

that any sudden increase of cost, whatever may be its cause, is likely

to upset the balance, and turn the hardly won profit out of which

operators as well as employers obtain their living, into a loss. The

_fierce competition of the world_, especially of those countries in

which child labor and long hours are prevalent, has to be met, and the

persons principally concerned are only too well aware of the

fact."[98]

Nothing then is better established than that every employer is forced

by the pressure of competition to keep wages down, and that any

employer who either under the compulsion of a trade union or out of

generosity of heart attempts to raise wages one cent above the price

permitted by the market, must expiate his mistake in the bankruptcy

court.

There is only one way in which this competition can be met--the way

imagined by Karl Marx: a comprehensive organization of trade unions, not

only within one nation, but amongst all nations; in other words, the

famous--and at one time loudly proclaimed as the infamous--International.

The fact that the international plan of organization imagined by Karl

Marx failed, is little argument against it. But the fact that trade

unions do not succeed in securing all the members of a trade in any

nation--that indeed in the United States organized labor includes at

most 2,000,000 members, whereas the working population is over

20,000,000, ought to be a convincing argument that a comprehensive

organization of workers all over the world is still less possible.

One word must be said in this connection about the sweating system and

its relation to trade unions. It is a current statement that sweating

is confined in America to a few industries, such as tobacco and

garment making. This, however, is a great mistake. Sweating may be

defined as the reduction of wages to starvation or even below

starvation level. It is true that sweating in this country is in large

part due to an ignorant, unorganized, and poverty-stricken class of

immigrants. But sweating is also to be found in a much higher order of

employees. I refer to the sweating of certain factories and department

stores where the rate of wages is determined, not by the cost of

living, but by the price which half-supported women are willing to

take for their week's work.

In many factories and in practically all the department stores the

wages are below the sum necessary for a working woman to live; and

they are made so at least in part by the fact that the daughters of

well-to-do workingmen, being supported at home, are able and willing

to give their time for a sum less than sufficient to support life. In

some cases this work is rendered in a laudable desire to contribute to

the common expense of the home. In many cases it must be attributed to

vanity and the attractiveness of this kind of work.

We find, therefore, the workingman put in this singular position:

Through his trade union he secures a high rate of wages; with this

high rate of wages he seeks to establish a decent home; the desire of

a decent home permeates the entire family; the daughters want to

contribute thereto and, because they are partially supported

themselves by the high wages received by the father, they accept a

rate of wages so low that their less fortunate sisters are doomed to

starve.

So on every side the trade unionist is hoist by his own petard. The

high wage he is in a position to exact is perpetually menaced by the

competition of the women and children of his own family whom his own

high wages put in a position to compete with him. These high wages

throw out of employment all save those of the highest efficiency, and

by permitting the half-supported members of his family to work for low

wages, reduce others who are not half supported below the level of

starvation.

I shall not insist on other problems which still divide the members of

trade unions, such as what is called "right of trade," or "the

conflict between industrial and craft organization," both of which

occasion loss of employment and division in the ranks of labor,

because these are not insoluble. It is true that they have not yet

been solved, but there is nothing in their very nature that makes a

solution impossible. I do, however, insist upon the problems above

referred to, because they are not only unsolved, but by their very

nature can never be solved. No trade union can ever include _all_ the

men of the trade, because _all_ cannot earn the high standard of wages

set by the union; because the trade never can give employment to all

the men in the trade--at the best of times there are over 3 per cent

unemployed; because by insisting on a high rate for unionists, they

compel the employer to have recourse to the cheaper labor of women and

boys; because the very sense of family responsibility which makes a

unionist support his wife and children is exploited by the employer to

secure the services of these last at half wages; because the existence

of a half-supported population creates and maintains sweated trades;

because the employers, were they Angels of Mercy, cannot, thanks to

the pressure of the market, raise wages or dispense with the cheap

labor of women and boys without either incurring bankruptcy or

shutting down; because either contingency would deprive the unionist

of work and therefore of wages; because both employer and employee are

perpetually being chased round a vicious circle by the devil of

competition which, by keeping down prices and wages, keeps both in

danger of ruin and unemployment.

The conclusion to which we are driven seems to be that the competitive

system has the same effect upon trade unions as upon the rest of the

industrial field--it sacrifices the many to the few. During these last

two years wages have not been appreciably reduced. The most efficient

have continued to receive the same wages as before. But the price paid

for this advantage has been the reduction of between five and twenty

millions of people to the verge of starvation, a large part of whom

must by the very necessity of things be driven to vagrancy and through

vagrancy to crime.[99]

What Socialism proposes is to maintain the principle of competition to

the extent necessary to assure most comfort to the most efficient

without exposing the rest to so awful an alternative as unemployment.

And I think it will be seen that the education of the workingman

through the organization, the order, the democracy of trade unions

will play no small part in making Socialism possible, and that it is

probably through the organization of trade unions that a true

democracy will eventually be attained.

Sec. 4. TRUSTS

Two pictures of trusts have already been borrowed in this book,[100]

one by Mr. Rockefeller, showing the economies they make, and the other

by Mr. Havemeyer, showing the dangers that attend them. Trade unions

start out to include all the men in the industry; this is their ideal;

and it has been shown how far short of it they fall. It is generally

supposed that trusts likewise seek to include all employers in the

industry, but this is a great mistake. Not only does the law forbid

this, but it would be a mistaken policy. A trust that included all the

industry would invite newcomers for blackmailing purposes if for no

other. The last and best policy of the promoter is to include only the

most prosperous and to leave around the trust a fringe of independents

too weak to affect prices but just strong enough to live as a warning

to others. A good collection of independent factories on the verge of

bankruptcy is the finest bulwark a trust can have, for they discourage

the starting of any more.

How the trusts make prices and keep independents in their wake is well

illustrated by the following extract:[101] "The custom has regularly

been for some years for the Standard Oil Company to announce from day

to day the price which it would pay for crude petroleum and the price

at which it would sell refined petroleum. This price is generally

accepted as the market price, and competitors follow."

"Likewise, the American Sugar Refining Company first posts the prices

for the day, and is then followed by its competitors, who post theirs.

Generally they take the prices fixed by the American Sugar Refining

Company; but at times, if they have a little surplus stock on hand, or

if it is difficult for them to secure a customer, they will cut the

price perhaps one-sixteenth of a cent per pound. One or two of the

chief competitors seem to be forced to put their prices quite

frequently at one-sixteenth of a cent below that of the American Sugar

Refining Company. In spite of its control over the output it is said

by Mr. Post that the American Sugar Refining Company has not, in his

judgment, unduly restricted the output. It is probable, he thinks,

that had that company not been formed the competitive system would

have ruined many established refineries, so that as many would have

been closed as is now the case, and the output would have been fully

as small, probably even less. Practically all of the witnesses, both

members of the combination and their opponents, concede that while

there is a certain arbitrariness in fixing the prices it has been

exercised in most cases only within comparatively narrow limits, and

then, mainly to meet competition or stifle it."

Trusts, therefore, do in one sense succeed where trade unions fail;

that is to say, they do succeed in getting all to join them that they

want; whereas the trade unions do not, the essential difference

between the two being that the trust is essentially monopolistic

whereas the trade union is essentially democratic. The one wants to

benefit a few at the expense of the many; the other wants to benefit

all at the expense of none. As the competitive system favors the

policy of the trust and disfavors that of the union, the trust

succeeds where the union fails.

No one would accuse the organizers of a union of seeking to benefit a

few at the expense of the many, and yet this under the competitive

system is not only what happens but what must happen. On the other

hand, no one imagines that the organizers of a trust have any other

intention: they deliberately set out to eliminate competitors for

their own benefit and they have succeeded in their task to an

altogether unexpected degree.

It has been claimed, however, for the trusts that whatever may be the

private benefit of their stockholders, they do perform a great public

service.

Among the public services they were supposed to render it was claimed

that they would pay good wages and furnish steady employment.[102]

Even the labor unions themselves were of this opinion. Their leaders

testified that they did not fear industrial combination and that if

combinations were able by virtue of their savings to increase the

profits of industry, workingmen would be able by pressure to "maintain

or increase their wages quite as readily as before the combinations

were made."[103] Another contention made for trusts was that they

would lower prices. With the view of maintaining this contention, the

trust magnates themselves testified to the enormous economies effected

by combination, for the purpose of persuading us that the consumers

would profit by these economies. Mr. Havemeyer was honest enough,

however, to admit that he would be guided in fixing the price only by

business considerations. But it was believed at that time that

business considerations would be sufficient to keep prices down and

the experience of the Whisky Trust was cited to prove that it was

impossible to maintain prices above a reasonable margin of profit.

The Whisky Trust was organized in 1887 and after having lowered prices

for the purpose of eliminating competitors, it brought the prices up

to as high a level as had ever been reached before. The result of this

was that at the end of 1888 prices fell, owing to a reorganization of

the trust and to a subsequent raising of prices by the trust in 1891,

only to be followed by a corresponding fall in 1892. And so prices

went on reaching a very high level at the close of 1892, only to fall

back to a low level in 1893; and again to a high level in 1894, only

to go down so low in 1895 as to put the trust into the hands of a

receiver. By this time the Whisky Trust had learned its lesson; it

learned that if it endeavored to put the price of whisky up to an

undue height, new distilleries were started to profit by these high

prices, and the only way of avoiding bankruptcy was to maintain the

price just high enough to return profits to the trust, but not high

enough to encourage outside competition.

Undoubtedly the opinion generally prevailed at the end of the last

century that increase in price by the trust was not to be feared. But

at that time trusts had not yet acquired the art of handling

independent competitors. To-day the art has been acquired. Owing to

the enormous capital they control and the enormous extent of territory

they cover, they are in a position so to reduce prices in any one spot

where competition becomes dangerous as to crush out the competitor in

that place. They adopted this method recklessly at first, crushing out

all competitors and then raising the price unduly. Now they have

learned to maintain a group of competitors about them and to keep

these competitors alive, keeping prices high so long as competition is

not dangerous and depressing them just enough to crush out competition

when it becomes dangerous.

The movement of prices since the end of last century is sufficient to

demonstrate that trusts, far from reducing prices, are advancing them.

It must in all fairness to trusts be admitted that the enormous

increase in the annual output of gold tends to increase prices, and it

is extremely difficult to state just how much of the advance in price

since the end of last century is due to the increased output of gold,

and how much is due to deliberate advance on the part of the trusts.

We have, however, a guide in the relation between increase of wages

and increase of prices. If the advance in prices were due entirely to

increased output of gold, wages ought to increase in the same

proportion. But they do not.

Of the opinion expressed at the end of the last century that trusts

would improve the condition of workingmen, there is very little left

to-day.

From almost every point of view, trusts have since 1900 disappointed

expectations. It was claimed and with every show of reason that trusts

would, by their control of the market, be able to adjust supply to

demand and thus avoid the gluts that produce unemployment,[104] and

that although the economies they practised might result in the

shutting down of some factories and the discharge of employees, in the

end the workingmen would gain because their employment would be steady

and because trade unions would have only one employer to bargain with

instead of many.[105]

How far has experience justified these anticipations?

Far from diminishing unemployment, the reign of the trusts has

resulted in the most intense and widespread depression that we have

any record of.[106] Far from benefiting the unions, trusts have

crushed unions out of existence. Far from raising wages and shortening

hours, the employees of the Steel Trust in Pittsburg are to-day

working twelve hours at $1.80 a day, and once a fortnight twenty-four

hours in a single shift; whereas miners in the same district because

their union has not yet been crushed by the Coal Trust, are working

only eight hours at $2.36 a day.[107] And the Miners' Union has been

saved from the trust only by what is still regarded by many as the

improper personal intervention of President Roosevelt Oct. 31, 1902.

The conditions of labor under trust rule cannot be better described

than in the Survey, an investigation published not by Socialists, nor

even by persons inclined towards Socialism, but by believers in and

upholders of the competitive system:[108]

"With this number, Charities and The Commons completes its

presentation of the findings of the Pittsburg Survey, as to conditions

of life and labor of the wage-earners of the American Steel district.

The gist of the situation, as we find it, is as follows:

"I. An altogether incredible amount of overwork by everybody, reaching

its extreme in the twelve-hour shift for seven days in the week in

the steel mills and the railway switchyards.

"II. Low wages for the great majority of the laborers employed by the

mills, not lower than other large cities, but low compared with the

prices--so low as to be inadequate to the maintenance of a normal

American standard of living; wages adjusted to the single man in the

lodging-house, not to the responsible head of a family.

"III. Still lower wages for women, who receive for example in one of

the metal trades in which the proportion of women is great enough to

be menacing, one-half as much as unorganized men in the same shops and

one-third as much as the men in the union.

"IV. An absentee capitalism, with bad effects strikingly analogous to

those of absentee landlordism, of which Pittsburg furnishes noteworthy

examples.

"V. A continuous inflow of immigrants with low standards, attracted by

a wage which is high by the standards of Southeastern Europe, and

which yields a net pecuniary advantage because of abnormally low

expenditures for food and shelter; and inadequate provision for the

contingencies of sickness, accident, and death.

"VI. The destruction of family life, not in any imaginary or mystical

sense, but by the demands of the day's work and by the very

demonstrable and material method of typhoid fever and industrial

accidents; both preventable, but costing in single years in Pittsburg

considerably more than a thousand lives, and irretrievably shattering

nearly as many homes.

"VII. Archaic social institutions such as the aldermanic court, the

ward school district, the family garbage disposal, and the

unregenerate charitable institution, still surviving after the

conditions to which they were adapted have disappeared.

"VIII. The contrast--which does not become blurred by familiarity with

detail, but on the contrary becomes more vivid as the outlines are

filled in--the contrast between the prosperity on the one hand of the

most prosperous of all the communities of our western civilization,

with its vast natural resources, the generous fostering of government,

the human energy, the technical development, the gigantic tonnage of

the mines and mills, the enormous capital of which the bank balances

afford an indication; and, on the other hand, the neglect of life, of

health, of physical vigor, even of the industrial efficiency of the

individual. Certainly no community before in America or Europe has

ever had such a surplus, and never before has a great community

applied what it had so meagerly to the rational purposes of human

life. Not by gifts of libraries, galleries, technical schools, and

parks, but by the cessation of toil one day in seven, and sixteen

hours in the twenty-four, by the increase of wages, by the sparing of

lives, by the prevention of accidents, and by raising the standards of

domestic life, should the surplus come back to the people of the

community in which it is created."

It would be unfair, however, to the trusts not to recognize that in

spite of the shameful conditions they create for the majority they do

benefit a minority to no small degree. The highly skilled are highly

paid; they are fairly safe from unemployment; they are also furnished

an opportunity of purchasing stock, of which this minority avails

itself. The effect of the trust system on the workingman is very much

like that of the trade union; both benefit the highly skilled and

highly efficient, but at the expense of all the rest.

Now those who believe in the competitive system regard this as proper;

and that the highly skilled and highly efficient should fare better

than the lazy and vicious is equally a part of the Socialist creed.

All that the Socialist asks is that the punishment for falling short

of the highest skill and the highest efficiency be _not so severe_ as

that described by the Pittsburg Survey; and this not only in the

interest of the victim, but in that of the community of which he forms

an essential part. It is because Socialism proposes a plan for giving

to the efficient what their efficiency earns without committing the

inefficient to a life of degradation, that it is entitled to the

consideration of practical business men.

The degradation of the majority is not the only evil that results from

the trusts. The rich are accustomed to look upon this evil as

necessary and, therefore, one that they cannot hope to do more than

mitigate by philanthropy. They seem unconscious of the goal to which

this evil is inevitably driving them; and it is to this goal that I

want above all to direct their attention.

(_a_) _The Conflict Between the Trust and the Trade Union_

It might seem as though the title for this section ought to be the

conflict between capital and labor rather than the conflict between

trusts and trade unions. This, however, is a mistake. So long as labor

and capital were disorganized, there was not much danger in the

conflict between the two. The employer was too strong and he had on

his side in case of disturbance, the police, the militia, and the law.

The moment, however, that labor became organized, it became too

powerful for the police; it became dangerous even to the militia; and

it has in England been strong enough to change the law; and this in

spite of the fact that the organization of the workingman in unions

has compelled the employers to combine in associations and trusts.

Again, although all violence is injurious to individuals, the violence

to which unorganized workingmen resort in local disputes with their

employers, however injurious to local interests, tends to be

essentially temporary and does not tend to overthrow economic or

social institutions. The effect of organization, however, expresses

itself in the magnitude of the conflicts to which it gives rise; as

for example, the Homestead strike in 1892, the Pullman strike in 1894,

and what was practically equivalent to a civil war in Colorado during

1903.

It is generally believed that violence is the peculiar weapon of the

workingman. This again is a mistake. Employers have often been the

first to have recourse to violence and under conditions which hardly

seem pardonable. That a striking employee should be enraged at seeing

his place taken by strikebreakers and should be driven by his rage to

violence, is easily understood; but that employers, merely for the

sake of keeping down wages and making more profit, should have

recourse to it seems altogether unjustifiable. It is a matter of

official record that the Carnegie Steel Company opened negotiations

with Robert A. Pinkerton for armed men nineteen days before any strike

occurred.[109] The report also says that there was "no evidence to

show that the slightest damage was done or was attempted to be done to

property on the part of the strikers,"[110] and so far as acts of

violence are concerned, a personal investigation of the Colorado

strike satisfied me that the Employers' Association was just as guilty

as the miners. An impartial account of this struggle is to be found

in the _Political Science Quarterly_[111] published by a board of

which J. Pierpont Morgan is a member, and which cannot be accused

therefore of tenderness to miners or leanings towards Socialism. It is

difficult to justify the action of the mine owners in removing Moyer,

Haywood, and Pettibone under the circumstances described by Judge

McKenna in his dissenting opinion.[112]

If the trust managers have deliberate recourse to violence and

questionable methods in their conflict with labor which involve merely

a question of more or less profit, is there not excuse for the

workingman who has at stake his very livelihood and that of his wife

and children?

There are elements, however, in the coming conflict which to my mind

make it clear that notwithstanding the enormous advantages which

capital has over labor, it is labor and not capital that in the end

will triumph. To understand these elements it is indispensable to

consider the character of the advantages which the trusts have over

the trade unions, and the character of the advantages which the unions

have over the trusts.

(_b_) _Advantages of Trusts over Unions_

So far in America the conflict between trusts and unions has been

confined to the economic field, and in the economic field it must be

admitted that trusts have the advantage. In the first place, as has

already been intimated, the trusts have at stake merely a matter of

more or less profit. The trust can for the purpose of crushing the

union, sacrifice part of its profit without material damage. The

trust in this respect is in an infinitely better condition than the

isolated employer, for whom a strike very often means bankruptcy. This

is not the case with the trust. Its capital is too large and its

operations are conducted over too great an area for any strike to

threaten insolvency.[113]

Moreover, an isolated employer is far more at the mercy of the

employees than a trust, because a strike very often deprives him of

custom. The orders he cannot fill are filled elsewhere and he may

never recover the custom he has in this manner lost. The trust,

however, can allow a strike to take place in one factory without for

that reason failing to fill all its orders; for it can transfer them

to another of its numerous factories in another place. That this is

regularly done by the trust is a matter of common knowledge. The case

cited by the Industrial Commission[114] is that of the American

Smelting and Refining Company which "continued its business in the

districts where there was no strike, transferring the work as far as

possible."

In America, at any rate, the trusts have also on their side not only

the police and the militia, but the law. The courts have decided that

in the case of strikes and boycotts the courts can by injunction

commit for contempt and punish by imprisonment those who violate their

orders. These questions have been carried to the highest court and all

further attempts on the part of labor to fight these questions in the

courts are practically certain to be unavailing. The remedy of the

Federation of Labor is not to dispute these decisions in the courts,

but to secure new legislation reversing existing decisions on this

subject.

The English unions have discovered this and, by the organization of

their Labor party, have wrested from the British Government the trades

dispute law which has settled these questions in their favor.

So long as unions persist in fighting trusts exclusively on the

economic field and in the law courts, the unions seem bound to suffer

defeat.

There is one weakness in the armor of the trusts to which attention

has not yet been sufficiently directed. Trusts suffer more from their

victories than from their defeats; for a defeat as to the length of

hours or rate of wages, while it strengthens labor a little, does not

weaken the trust much. But every victory of the trust is the greatest

calamity to which it seems at present exposed; for every victory tends

to shift the arena from the economic field, where the trust is

invincible, to the political field, where labor has every advantage.

This will become clear when we examine the advantages of unions over

trusts.

(_c_) _Advantages of Unions over Trusts_

The larger the number of workers in every industry, the weaker are

they on the economic field. It has been pointed out that unions tend

to divide labor. They not only separate the labor world into two

bitterly hostile classes--organized and unorganized--but by the high

rate of wages that they demand they tend also to create jealousy

within the trade union between the efficient who can earn these high

wages and the less efficient who cannot. If the working population

were so small that the demand for labor was greater than the supply,

then indeed the unions might control the situation. But experience has

shown that, without accepting the exaggerations of Malthus, there is

always a greater supply of labor than demand. Even in the most

prosperous times between 3 and 4 per cent of the trade unions are

unemployed and, outside the unions, there is a mass of unorganized

labor, a great part of which is either working for wages insufficient

to support life or is not working at all. These things inevitably

produce hostility between the prosperous and highly paid members of

the union and all the rest; and this hostility is a source of weakness

in the economic struggle of capital against labor. The unions, too,

instead of being able to apply their funds to maintain strikes, have

to apply a large part of these funds to the support of unemployed,

whether through sickness or through industrial depression.

Upon the economic field, therefore, numbers tend to cripple the worker

in his fight against capital. On the political field, on the contrary,

the larger the number of workers, the stronger they are; for every

wage-earning man has his vote, and the vote of every wage-earner

counts as much as that of every capitalist. On the political field

there need be no division in the ranks of labor--organized and

unorganized labor can unite on a platform looking to the political

subjection of their common master. Indeed, if the trusts and employers

were to succeed in the task which they seem to have set

themselves--the destruction of every trade union--they would by so

doing put an end to the principal obstacle which now prevents

workingmen from uniting upon a common platform, for the suppression of

unions would mean two things: it would persuade the defeated unionists

that their only chance of successfully fighting capital was on the

political field; and it would put an end to the hostility between

organized and unorganized labor that is the principal obstacle at this

moment to united action of any kind. Moreover, the workingman could so

frame his political program as to secure the alliance of the whole

exploited class; the small farmer, the domestic, the clerk, and all

those who, out of interest or sympathy, find themselves arrayed

against the exploiting class.

The discovery that the workingman is no match for his employer on the

economic field having already been made in England, the Labor party

there has no less than 40 members in Parliament, and this small

contingent has been strong enough to obtain the legislation above

referred to. It is the sense of inferiority on the economic field that

has organized the millions who are every year swelling the ranks of

the Socialist party in Europe.

The shortsightedness of employers in failing to take account of this

fact has its humorous side. The employee was not very long ago

ignorant and incapable of organization--economic or political--and

without any vote on public affairs. It was only upon condition that he

should remain ignorant and incapable of political organization and

without any voice in public affairs that he could continue to suffer

the domination of his employer--such as is described in the Pittsburg

Survey. Yet the employer has given to every employee an equal vote

with himself in public affairs, so that to-day the employees outvote

the employers. Not content with this, and fearful lest the employee

should not be able adequately to use his vote, the employer has

covered the country with school-houses for the purpose of teaching the

employee how to use it. Yet employers proceed upon the assumption that

the intelligent, educated workingman of to-day, armed with a vote and

capable of the organization displayed in his unions, will continue to

endure such conditions as are described in the Pittsburg Survey as

patiently in the future as he has done in the past!

So trusts continue complacently to crush out unions, oblivious of the

fact that every union crushed drives its members to Populism,

Socialism, Anarchism, pauperism, and crime.

Of all the folds ready to receive the unfortunates driven out of their

unions by the trusts, which is the one least likely to prove dangerous

to the state? This question does not seem to concern the trusts at

all. They consider all these "isms" as equally vile, impractical, and

obnoxious. Yet, if they would only give to this matter one-half the

attention that they give to their business affairs, they could not

fail to see that every union they crush raises for them a crop of

political enemies who, if they show as much ability in political

organization as they have shown in economic organization--and there is

no reason why they should not--cannot but eventually secure a large

majority in our legislatures. When they have done this; when they have

the writing of a new constitution; when the police, the militia, the

army, and the law courts are on their side, is it not better that this

majority be intelligent and educated, as it might if Socialism were

rightly understood, and not uneducated and violent, as it will

certainly be if Socialism is not rightly understood? The conclusion to

which we seem to be driven is that, so long as labor struggles with

capital on the economic field through strikes, boycotts, and

litigation, it is bound to be beaten; but that every victory of

capital on the economic field shortens its reign; for it drives labor

to abandon the economic field, where it is weak, for the political

field, where it is strong; and that the evidence of constructive

ability and self-restraint exhibited by labor in the organization and

administration of the unions, indicates that that same ability

exercised in the political field will make it invincible there:

"We are many; they are few."

If this be so, then capital can no longer afford to disregard or

misrepresent the political aspirations of the army of labor. It may

indeed turn out in the words of the Cumaean Sybil:

"Via prima salutis

Qua minime reris Graia pandetur ab urbe."

Our way of safety may be--not in the defeat of labor--but in its

enlightenment.

We have before us two alternatives: We can continue to fight labor; to

crush it; to create unemployment one day and wring our hands over it

the next; to arm labor, educate it, and force it to organize an army

of discontent that will eventually outvote capital and, with little or

no preparation for its task, seize the reins of government. Or we can

leave the fighting of labor to the trusts from which the whole public

suffers as well as the workingman, and ourselves join in a

reorganization of political forces that will make the legitimate

demands of the disinherited our own, and at last lay the foundations

of the Democracy that Lincoln through the smoke of the Civil War dimly

foresaw.

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Since writing this I see that Jaures makes exactly the same

observation in _Van Norden's Magazine_, August, 1909.

[79] The metronymic tribes were tribes in which there was practically

no paternal relation. The mother was the head of the family and the

offspring took her name. This condition of things prevailed for some

time in ancient Egypt.

[80] This is elaborated in "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II,

p. 96.

[81] "Government or Human Evolution," Vol. II, p. 102.

[82] Translation, see Appendix p. 422.

[83] Article 414 of the French Penal Code and Law of 1799 of the

British Parliament.

[84] Book III, Chapter III.

[85] "Organized Labor." By John Mitchell, p. 4.

[86] Ibid., p. 3.

[87] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, page 1.

[88] Bulletin of the Dept. of Labor, 1898, pp. 714-717.

[89] Andrew Carnegie's article on the Steel Industry in the

Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. XIV.

[90] Statistical Abstract, 1908, p. 445.

[91] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, p. 1.

[92] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XVII, p. lii.

[93] Ibid., p. liii, 1901.

[94] "Organized Labor," Chapter XXX.

[95] "Organized Labor," p. 240.

[96] Ibid., p. 163.

[97] "Organized Labor," p. 163.

[98] "English Socialism of To-day," pp. 99-100.

[99] Letter of Police Commissioner Bingham, New York city, N.Y.

_Times_, Jan. 5, 1908. See Appendix, p. 423.

[100] Book II, Chapter III.

[101] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. I, p. 18.

[102] Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. I, p. 29.

[103] Ibid., p. 31.

[104] "Most members of combinations feel that the tendency is to make

work more permanent under the combination form of doing business,

inasmuch as the combination is better able to adjust the supply of

goods to the demand, and thus to secure regularity in their productive

conditions." Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, p. xxxi.

[105] "Some of the witnesses are of the opinion that the industrial

combinations give to the labor unions a decided advantage, inasmuch as

it enable them to deal with the trade as a whole instead of with

separate manufacturers." Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol.

XIII, p. xxxii.

[106] Book II, Chapter I, Unemployment.

[107] Pittsburg Survey, Charities, XXI, p. 1063.

[108] Charities, XXI, p. 1035.

[109] Senate Reports, 52d Congress, 2d session, Vol. I, Rept. No.

1280, p. xiv.

[110] Ibid., p. xiii.

[111] _Political Science Quarterly_, March, 1908.

[112] See Appendix, p. 424.

[113] Many workingmen still believe in the possibility of strikes and

even of a general strike. I do not take account of such strikes,

because they have not yet occurred and labor does not seem organized

upon a sufficiently comprehensive scale to make such strikes possible.

[114] Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, p. xxxi.