THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ILL-PAID CLASSES
THE NEED OF CLASS ORGANIZATION—USES AND DANGERS OF UNIONS—GENERAL
DISPOSITION OF THE HAND-WORKING CLASSES.
It is not the purpose of this book to add anything to the merely
controversial literature of the time; and in treating the present
topic I intend no more than to state a few simple and perhaps obvious
principles designed to connect it with our general line of thought.
It is quite apparent that an organized and intelligent
class-consciousness in the hand-working people is one of the primary
needs of a democratic society. In so far as this part of the people is
lacking in a knowledge of its situation and in the practice of orderly
self-assertion, a real freedom will also be lacking, and we shall have
some kind of subjection in its place; freedom being impossible without
group organization. That industrial classes exist—in the sense already
explained[126]—cannot well be denied, and existing they ought to be
conscious and self-directing.
The most obvious need of class-consciousness is for self-assertion
against the pressure of other classes, and this is both most necessary
and most difficult with those who lack wealth and the command over
organized forces which it implies. In a free society, especially, the
Lord helps those who help themselves; and those who are weak in money
must be strong in union, and must also exert themselves to make good
any deficiency in leadership that comes from ability deserting to more
favored classes.
That the dominant power of wealth has an oppressive action, for the
most part involuntary, upon the people below, will hardly be denied
by any competent student. The industrial progress of our time is
accompanied by sufferings that are involved with the progress. These
sufferings—at least in their more tangible forms—fall almost wholly
upon the poorer classes, while the richer get a larger share of the
increased product which the progress brings. By sufferings I mean not
only the physical hardship and liability to disease, early decay, and
mutilation or death by accident, which fall to the hand-worker; but
also the debasement of children by premature and stunting labor, the
comparative lack of intellectual and social opportunities, the ugly and
discouraging surroundings, and the insecurity of employment, to which
he and his are subject. There is no purpose to inflict these things;
but they are inflicted, and the only remedy is a public consciousness,
especially in the classes who suffer from them, of their causes and the
means by which they can be done away with.
The principal expressions of class-consciousness in the hand-working
classes in our day are labor unions and that wider, vaguer, more
philosophical or religious movement, too various for definition, which
is known as socialism. Regarding the latter I will only say at present
that it includes much of what is most vital in the contemporary working
of the democratic spirit; the large problems with which its doctrines
deal I prefer to discuss in my own way.
Labor unions are a simpler matter. They have arisen out of the urgent
need of self-defence, not so much against deliberate aggression as
against brutal confusion and neglect. The industrial population has
been tossed about on the swirl of economic change like so much sawdust
on a river, sometimes prosperous, sometimes miserable, never secure,
and living largely under degrading, inhuman conditions. Against this
state of things the higher class of artisans—as measured by skill,
wages and general intelligence—have made a partly successful struggle
through coöperation in associations, which, however, include much
less than half of those who might be expected to take advantage of
them.[127] That they are an effective means of class self-assertion is
evident from the antagonism they have aroused.
Besides their primary function of group-bargaining, which has come to
be generally recognized as essential, unions are performing a variety
of services hardly less important to their members, and serviceable
to society at large. In the way of influencing legislation they
have probably done more than all other agencies together to combat
child-labor, excessive hours, and other inhuman and degrading kinds
of work; also to provide for safeguards against accident, for proper
sanitation of factories, and the like. In this field their work is as
much defensive as aggressive, since employing interests, on the other
side, are constantly influencing legislation and administration to
their own advantage.
Their function as spheres of fellowship and self-development is equally
vital and less understood. To have a we-feeling, to live shoulder to
shoulder with one’s fellows, is the only human life; we all need it to
keep us from selfishness, sensuality and despair, and the hand-worker
needs it even more than the rest of us. Usually without pecuniary
resource and insecure of his job and his home, he is, in isolation,
miserably weak and in a way to be cowed and unmanned by misfortune or
mere apprehension. Drifting about in a confused society, unimportant,
apparently, to the rest of the world, it is no wonder if he feels
“I am no link of Thy great chain,”[128]
and loses faith in himself, in life and in God. The union makes him
feel that he is part of a whole, one of a fellowship, that there are
those who will stand by him in trouble, that he counts for something
in the great life. He gets from it that thrill of broader sentiment,
the same in kind that men get in fighting for their country; his
self is enlarged and enriched and his imagination fed with objects,
comparatively, “immense and eternal.”
Moreover, the life of labor unions and other class associations,
through the training which it gives in democratic organization and
discipline, is perhaps the chief guaranty of the healthy political
development of the hand-working class—especially those imported
from non-democratic civilizations—and the surest barrier against
recklessness and disorder. That their members get this training will
be evident to anyone who studies their working, and it is not apparent
that they would get it in any other way. Men learn most in acting for
purposes which they understand and are interested in, and this is more
certain to be the case with economic aims than with any other.
Thus, if unions should never raise wages or shorten hours, they
would yet be invaluable to the manhood of their members. At worst,
they ensure the joy of an open fight and of companionship in defeat.
Self-assertion through voluntary organization is of the essence of
democracy, and if any part of the people proves incapable of it it
is a bad sign for the country. On this ground alone it would seem
that patriots should desire to see organization of this sort extend
throughout the industrial population.
The danger of these associations is that which besets human nature
everywhere—the selfish use of power. It is feared with reason that if
they have too much their own way they will monopolize opportunity by
restricting apprenticeship and limiting the number of their members;
that they will seek their ends through intimidation and violence;
that they will be made the instruments of corrupt leaders. These and
similar wrongs have from time to time been brought home to them, and,
unless their members are superior to the common run of men, they are
such as must be expected. But it would be a mistake to regard these
or any other kinds of injustice as a part of the essential policy of
unions. They are feeling their way in a human, fallible manner, and
their eventual policy will be determined by what, in the way of class
advancement, they find by experience to be practicable. In so far
as they attempt things that are unjust we may expect them, in the
long run, to fail, through the resistance of others and through the
awakening of their own consciences. It is the part of other people to
check their excesses and cherish their benefits.
In general no sort of persons mean better than hand-laboring men. They
are simple, honest people, as a rule, with that bent toward integrity
which is fostered by working in wood and iron and often lost in the
subtleties of business. Moreover, their experience is such as to
develop a sense of the brotherhood of man and a desire to realize it in
institutions. Not having enjoyed the artificial support of accumulated
property, they have the more reason to know the dependence of each on
his fellows. Nor have they any great hopes of personal aggrandizement
to isolate them and pamper their self-consciousness.
To these we may add that offences from this quarter are likely to be
more shocking and less dangerous than those of a more sophisticated
sort of people. Occasional outbreaks of violence alarm us and call for
prompt enforcement of law, but are not a serious menace to society,
because general sentiment and all established interests are against
them; while the subtle, respectable, systematic corruption by the rich
and powerful threatens the very being of democracy.
The most deplorable fact about labor unions is that they embrace so
small a proportion of those that need their benefits. How far into the
shifting masses of unskilled labor effective organization can extend
only time will show.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] See chapter 21.
[127] Professor John R. Commons (Publications of the American
Sociological Society, vol. ii, p. 141) estimates 2,000,000 members of
unions out of 6,000,000 wage-earners “available for class conflict.”
[128] George Herbert.