Hoja Riciiard Sfcyn-a Parker 
 
 To C. N. FAY, Dr. 
 
 Cambridge 38, Mass. 
 
 For book "Labor in Politics" 
 
 Copies i Bindg<jlotl?t $2.00 JCo.apliii.3ii.. 
 
 Sent by BM PP Date Jan 2/21 
 
 Order, suggestion, or attention of (Kindly refer to 
 
 letter of Mr. Fay and Asaooiatos.) 
 
 ACO 
 
 583
 
 "LABOR IN POLITICS" 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 1, 1920. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Believing that the time at last has come for searching, temperate 
 and patriotic discussion of American Organized Labor, the undersigned 
 (a retired public service and manufacturing corporation executive of 
 large experience in one of our greatest cities) has written, and with a 
 small group of friends is financing, as a matter of public interest, the 
 printing and distribution of a book of carefully verified fact and official 
 utterance on this very important subject, called "Labor in Politics"; 
 a summary of the gist of which will accompany this note. 
 
 We are taking the unusual and rather expensive method of direct 
 distribution by mail order instead.of through the book trade, partly be- 
 cause the book could not includ* the action of the June Conventions 
 of the two great political parties and that of the Federation of Labor, 
 and yet be finished in time for publishers' 1920 production and distri- 
 bution schedules; but still more because some of the larger publishers 
 frankly admit that they do not care to risk the hostility of the trades . 
 unions in whose hands they largely find themselves by bringing out 
 under their imprint a book critical of union aims and methods. In 
 this they parallel what Mr. McCone of the Buffalo Commercial alleged 
 as to the daily papers, before the U. S. Senate, not many months ago. 
 
 Both to save time, therefore, and because we do not propose that 
 a hundred thousand union printers shall privately determine what a 
 hundred million Americans shall or shall not read, we address ourselves
 
 directly in this way to what we hope will be a widening list of men who 
 believe in a free press. 
 
 We courteously urge you to subscribe for the book, and to order sent 
 to yourself and friends as many copies as you incline to help us distribute; 
 which last we will mail post-paid to such addresses as you may give, 
 sending with each book a like request to order other copies to be sent to 
 friends, with request to order in turn for others, on the endless chain plan. 
 In this way a large distribution may perhaps be accomplished in time to 
 be of use in forming opinion during the two or three crucial years for 
 industry, that lie immediately before us. 200 copies of the book will 
 be sent free to the press writers of the leading papers throughout the 
 country, in hope of provoking wide discussion, if not blocked by the 
 unions. (Please return copy sent you at our expense, if not wanted.) 
 
 We invite your order at estimated cost of printing and distri- 
 bution in this way, post-paid; namely $2.00 per copy. 
 
 Please reply to the undersigned, No. 2 Willard Court, Cambridge 38, 
 Mass. 
 
 For the Publishing Syndicate, 
 
 CHARLES NORMAN FAY.
 
 Gist of the Book 
 
 It consists in carefully verified analyses of the official reports of the 
 Federation of Labor, and the Dept. of Commerce and Labor; also 
 citations of known facts, showing in detail that: 
 
 Organized Labor is a great, money-making business, for its leaders; 
 with income this year of over 50 million dollars, at least four fifths of 
 which goes to run the machine, in salaries and expenses of somewhere 
 near 150,000 professionals. 
 
 Its main activity is getting members and collecting their dues; and 
 its success depends on stirring up hostility between employers and 
 employes, and making the latter believe that paying union dues fattens 
 their pay-envelopes. It has succeeded in unionizing about four and a 
 half million out of forty-eight million men listed by the Selective Draft 
 Boards in 1917, who pay probably more than twelve dollars each 
 annually. 
 
 While all wages have risen with the increased productivity of labor 
 in modern industry faster than the cost of living has risen, the wages of 
 non-union labor, ten times as numerous as union-labor, and befriended 
 by nothing except the law of supply and demand, have risen to three and 
 one half or four times the rates of 1880, for the most part without strikes, 
 and entirely without payment of dues; while union-labor, after sacrific- 
 ing since 1880 over 400 million dollars in dues and over 800 million dollars 
 in lost wages during some 70,000 strikes and lockouts recorded by the 
 Dept. of Labor, has had to be discontent with average wages of less 
 than two and one half times rates of 1880. 
 
 The reason for this failure of union-labor to share as fully as non- 
 union labor in the increased dividend of labor under modern conditions 
 is found in the fact that union labor, obedient to union rules, has in- 
 tentionally held back from increasing its own production. As the latter
 
 is all that pays union wages, they have logically and necessarily suffered 
 in comparison with the gain registered by free labor. 
 
 The country can hope for no let-up in "Social Unrest," and labor- 
 trouble, so long as 150,000 professional agitators draw $50,000,000 a 
 year for creating it. Nothing will stop it till the workers grow wise to 
 the game played by the leaders with their good money at their expense; 
 and perhaps realize that if the latter would change antagonism to 
 cooperation with employers for maximum production, they themselves 
 would overtake and surpass free labor in daily reward. 
 
 The immediate object of this book is however to meet the "Don't 
 work just vote for your wages" policy of Organized Labor by inform- 
 ing the country of its nature and purpose, as well as of the foregoing 
 facts; that we may not make the mistake of backing Gompers at the 
 polls, but on the other hand may consider regulation of the Labor 
 Trust like the other Trusts, with maintenance of the Open Shop and 
 individual constitutional right. 
 
 Its main theme is decentralization of labor-control, free operation 
 of economic law, and non-interference of government, in the public 
 interest as in the interest of labor.
 
 L LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 OR 
 
 CLASS versus COUNTRY 
 
 Considerations for American 
 Voters 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES NORMAN FAY
 
 Copyright, 1920 
 By CHARLES NORMAN FAT 
 
 Third Edition 
 
 MWVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Dedication to Press Writers of America . vii 
 
 I Gist of this Book I 
 
 II Issues and Point of View 7 
 
 III A. F. L. Growth and Income .... 17 
 
 IV A. F. L. Constitution and Appeal ... 22 
 V Right to Organize, etc. The Gary Case . 27 
 
 VI " Labor not a Commodity of Commerce " . 41 
 
 VII Centralized Control 47 
 
 VIII Failure to Benefit Workers 58 
 
 IX Inefficiency. Gospel of Sloth .... 65 
 
 X Irresponsibility 75 
 
 XI Political Evolution and Intention ... 79 
 XII Social Justice. Moral Basis of Capitalism. 
 
 Law of Supply and Demand .... 90 
 
 XIII Mischief of Centralization 104 
 
 XIV Centralized Arbitration Fails 112 
 
 XV Labor Leadership. Mr. Gompers . . . 126 
 
 XVI The Railway Brotherhoods 133 
 
 XVII Autocracy of Capital 136 
 
 XVIII " Democratization of Industry." " Recog- 
 nition of the Union." The Closed Shop 144 
 XIX Profit Sharing. Ford and Others . . . 155 
 XX Gompers vs. Lenine and Debs . . . . 164 
 XXI Demagogy and Bureaucracy. League of 
 
 Nations Labor Bureau 167 
 
 [v]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXII Carroll Wright Statistics of Strikes and 
 
 Lockouts 178 
 
 XXIII Collective Bargaining. Pros and Cons . 181 
 
 XXIV Coercion. Violence. Picketing . . . . 189 
 XXV Union Propaganda. Schools, Colleges, 
 
 Government Departments 192 
 
 XXVI Profiteering 197 
 
 XXVII Eight-Hour and Shorter Day 202 
 
 XXVIII Successful Cooperation 207 
 
 XXIX Summary of Facts and Conclusions . . . 213 
 
 XXX Remedies. Popular Action. "S. O. S." 218 
 
 XXXI Remedies, Legislative 227 
 
 XXXII Remedies, Administrative 233 
 
 XXXIII Remedies, Employers'. Time Contracts. 
 
 Strike Insurance 238 
 
 XXXIV Remedies Within the Unions .... 245 
 XXXV Valedictory. Least Government. Least 
 
 Taxation 251 
 
 Postscript. Republican, Democratic, 
 
 A. F. L. Conventions 261 
 
 Appendix. Open Letter to Samuel 
 
 Gompers 269 
 
 [vi]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PRESS WRITERS OF AMERICA 
 
 WILL you permit me, gentlemen of the press, to 
 take the liberty of dedicating to you these considera- 
 tions of a retired looker-on upon certainly one of the 
 most interesting, perhaps one of the most vital, 
 factors in American industry and politics, in the hope 
 that your attention may be attracted at least to the 
 dedication itself, and thence to the substance of the 
 book. 
 
 In order that you may know that I do not write 
 too ignorantly, may I say that for many years prior 
 to 1893 I was a public service corporation executive 
 in Chicago, successively the working head of the 
 telephone, gas, and one of the electric companies; 
 and afterwards as head of a private manufacturing 
 company was vice president for Illinois of the Na- 
 tional Association of Manufacturers, and chairman 
 of its Strike Insurance Committee. I was also one 
 of the committee on western litigations conducted by 
 the Anti-Boycott Association, from 1900 to 1904, 
 I think. In these various capacities I was for some 
 time much in contact with Organized Labor and be- 
 came a student of its activities, and an occasional 
 writer on them since my retirement from active 
 business. I have now no personal interest to bias my 
 judgment, though of course it has been deeply in- 
 fluenced by personal experiences. 
 
 I would courteously urge you, as keen and public- 
 spirited observers of events, to study the facts and 
 
 Cvii]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 conclusions I present, and to give them such dis- 
 cussion and publicity as their importance seems to 
 you to deserve. During the past three years I have 
 offered their substance in various forms to journals 
 and magazines which had occasionally printed my 
 offerings, but always in vain, until I realized that 
 editors, though otherwise receptive, do not like to 
 print what one might call unfashionable stuff. In 
 other words, the press, like the politicians, tends to 
 reflect rather than to form public opinion. 
 
 For instance, the editor of a well-known weekly, 
 in refusing an "Open Letter to Samuel Gompers" 
 comparing Gompers' militarism and autocracy to 
 German Kaiserism, wrote me in December, 1918, 
 as follows: 
 
 " I have read it with interest, but I feel sure that this is 
 not the time to print it; certainly not in the ... So far as 
 the ... is concerned, it is a believer in the principles un- 
 derlying the trades-union movement. The trades-unions 
 have been guilty of grave errors, and sometimes of grave 
 crimes; but so have the capitalists. One reason why the 
 . . . movement is of value just now, is because it is unitedly, 
 solidly, and uncompromisingly against Bolshevism, Socialism. 
 ... At this juncture we ought to cooperate with Mr. 
 Gompers as far as possible in his work." 
 
 And the editor of an equally prominent monthly 
 wrote during the same month as follows : 
 
 " I have been much interested in your piece ; but I doubt 
 whether it would serve a useful purpose to sound at this 
 time the note of conservative individualism. The center of 
 gravity in these matters has been shifting a good deal during 
 the last few years, and trades-union methods seem less ex- 
 treme than they once did." 
 
 Neither editor denied the truth of the open letter, 
 but both simply preferred to swallow Mr. Gompers 
 
 [ viii ]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 whole. He had them quite hypnotized for the 
 moment. 
 
 Seeing that the minds of such thoughtful and 
 patriotic men as these editors, and of such eminent 
 citizens as, for instance, the prominent committee 
 members of the National Civic Federation, and 
 moreover of a very large number of less conspicuous 
 men and women quite as important and sincere as 
 myself, run so directly counter to truth and right as 
 I see them in this matter, ought I not in ordinary 
 modesty and common sense to " go 'way back and 
 sit down," without lifting puny pen to assert them? 
 Perhaps, as a matter of modesty and good sense, 
 yes; but as one of conviction and plain duty, it seems 
 to me I ought, if I can, to bring truth and right as 
 I see them to trial by jury of wide public opinion, 
 engaging the best counsel, yourselves, gentlemen of 
 the press, to present the case. Nobody but myself 
 can suffer from an adverse verdict on my whimsies. 
 Hence this book. 
 
 Meantime I would not appear to you superficial 
 in presenting Organized Labor as a prime cause 
 rather than a by-product of existing Social Unrest. 
 There may, indeed, be a more fundamental and 
 burning sense of wrong done by capital to labor than 
 I am aware of, which must sometime, as agitators 
 say, burst out like a lava flood to devastate the coun- 
 try; but I do not believe it. I was never able to find 
 a general temper of revolt among my own employees, 
 with hundreds of whom I was for long years fairly 
 well acquainted, nor was such temper noted by some 
 two thousand employers with whom I corresponded 
 on this very subject some years ago. We found 
 neither elemental social injustice nor consciousness 
 thereof among the majority of our working people; 
 that is, on large scale or in many instances. Most of 
 
 [ix]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 them recognized that they were fairly well treated, 
 and though some of us, myself included, had had labor 
 trouble, we could in every case put our finger on the 
 particular agitator, usually a paid organizer from 
 some labor union that had carefully stirred up or 
 created the specific grievance that developed " un- 
 
 rest." 
 
 I would not deny the world-wide and age-old fact 
 that brains fare better than muscle in this world, and 
 I will grant for the sake of the argument the fre- 
 quent drastic claim that two per cent of the popula- 
 tion of the United States own sixty per cent of the 
 wealth; but if so, I submit that the two per cent own 
 the sixty per cent because they largely organized its 
 creation, and alone are capable of its accumulation 
 and use. I further submit that the majority of 
 Americans, the large majority, are perfectly well 
 aware of that fact, and accept its social justice, at 
 least as applied to men whom they personally know. 
 Though it is perhaps human nature to envy an abler 
 and thriftier man, and even grudge him a little his 
 larger share of this world's goods, it is also human 
 nature, larger and nobler and common to most of 
 us, honestly and fairly to admit that he deserves his 
 success and respect his right to it. I am glad to be- 
 lieve that generosity rather than envy lies at the 
 bottom of the American conception of Social Justice 
 today as in the time of our fathers, who embodied 
 the rights of private property and individual lib- 
 erty in the constitutional guarantees handed down 
 to us. 
 
 This book is therefore frankly a defense of capital 
 against the organized attack of labor; first, because 
 of my convictions as to social justice, but last, and all 
 the time, because labor does not in practice accu- 
 mulate or use capital. Yet accumulation and use of 
 
 [x]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 capital is the vital thing, far more important to 
 society, especially to labor, than its distribution. 
 
 Please do not, therefore, gentlemen, class me as 
 a reactionary, or as more " reactionary than the 
 multiplication table," to borrow Governor Coolidge's 
 felicitous phrase; but rather call me a pragmatist, 
 if I understand the use of William James' famous 
 expression, a believer in men and methods that stand 
 the test of time, and actually help the world. I wish 
 at least to be absolutely honest and fair in what I 
 say and try to support by proof. I am well aware 
 that extreme severity in judgment and expression al- 
 ways weakens the force of conclusions reached and 
 motives imputed, as to men and acts. But a lie is a 
 lie; selfish appeal is just that and nothing else; utter 
 uselessness and broad failure cannot be praised as 
 idealities; repudiation of contract, breach of law, and 
 defense of crime cannot be disguised as virtues; 
 minimizing production is the most mischievous stu- 
 pidity, class politics is betrayal of democracy. 
 
 I cannot, therefore, conscientiously regard labor 
 leadership that openly stands for all of these things 
 as other than thoroughly dishonest and discredited. 
 While I can understand that the average unthinking 
 man or woman may easily be led by sympathy for 
 the poor to mistake the utter selfishness of trades- 
 unionism for humanitarianism, I confess it is hard 
 to admit that informed and patriotic editors should 
 helplessly look to Gompers to save us from Hay- 
 wood or Lenine, to the Federation or the Brother- 
 hoods to supplant the I. W. W. or the Soviet. What 
 difference does it make to the American who has 
 worked hard and saved something whether the 
 Soviet takes all his capital or Organized Labor 
 takes all his income ? He starves just the same either 
 way. And what does the supposedly great, free 
 
 [xi]
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 American people gain, except contempt, by feebly 
 balancing one scare against another, by meekly ac- 
 cepting lesser instead of greater tyranny? 
 
 The letters quoted above date back more than a 
 year. Today, after a thousand intervening strikes 
 of all sorts and sizes, notably, from the editorial 
 point of view, the printer's strike that stopped the 
 weekly above mentioned and other New York maga- 
 zines last fall, what with the Adamson Law, the 
 Plumb Plan, the insistence of Labor on the right to 
 strike, even " against the public safety," as Gov- 
 ernor Coolidge would say, and finally with the open 
 entry of Messrs. Gompers et al. into the Congres- 
 sional Campaign of 1920 the wind of public 
 opinion seems to be shifting at last, to blow against 
 Organized Labor, here and there. With it the 
 politicians and the editors seem to be shifting too. 
 
 If so, Messrs, the Press Writers, and if the facts 
 and conclusions here set down seem to you accurate 
 and just, I would courteously beg you to accept this 
 dedication, and make such use as you can of this 
 material. I hope too that it will appeal to the public 
 direct, although addressed thus particularly to your- 
 selves as their intermediary, because few men care 
 to wade through solemn screeds like this. 
 
 I am, by the way, not unmindful of the fact that 
 some of you are members of a union of your craft 
 affiliated with the American Federation of Labor; 
 and that the unions in the printing trade are accused 
 of more or less solidly muzzling the press of your 
 country. But I appeal to you nevertheless with con- 
 fidence, as good Americans first and good union men 
 afterwards, to vindicate the honor of your great 
 profession, the freedom of the press, and the patriot- 
 ism of your union, by making known the truth in 
 this serious matter. 
 
 [xii]
 
 FOREWORD TO THIRD EDITION 
 To THE WOMEN AND THE LEGION 
 
 BEFORE passing on to my subject, let me first appeal 
 to the new voters of 1920, especially the women 
 and the young men of the American Legion, men 
 and women keenly alive to their new powers and 
 responsibilities, to study and value, severally and for 
 themselves, the facts presented here. 
 
 I put the women first, because ( i ) it is the family 
 at home that suffers first and most from loss of 
 wages and privation entailed by strikes oftentimes 
 called by Labor autocrats who themselves suffer not 
 a cent's worth meantime; also because (2) it is the 
 wife and children of the nonunion man against whom 
 is turned the meanest and deadliest weapon of trades- 
 unionism, socially ostracism) among neighbors, the 
 odious word " scab^-shotrtea at women and children 
 in the streets and at schools; and finally, because 
 (3) in all history the women, once roused, have 
 shown themselves more heroically and sometimes 
 more bitterly partisan than their husbands. 
 
 It is therefore fit and inevitable that the women 
 should have their say in matters so nearly concern- 
 ing the family; and it is particularly desirable that 
 their conscience and intelligence should be wide 
 awake now, at the beginning of their political power. 
 It is vital to the family that women as voters should 
 
 [ xiii ]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 stand for sound economics and unselfish trades- 
 unionism. It is the family that most needs the pro- 
 tection of the courts, and gains most by freedom of 
 the law of supply and demand. No duty rests more 
 squarely upon the new women-voters than the de- 
 fence of the family; first by their own right thinking, 
 and afterwards by its enactment into law. 
 
 I address myself also in the same spirit to the new 
 voters of the American Legion, because they are just 
 now particularly exposed to the temptation, dangled 
 before them by politicians who are fishing for their 
 votes, to put class before country in the matter of 
 bonus-legislation; to their own sure demoralization 
 and the injury of free government. Inasmuch as 
 this book more particularly concerns Organized 
 Labor, however, the affairs of the Legion are 
 touched upon thus briefly here, only because its mem- 
 bers cannot consistently condemn class politics, as I 
 urge them to do, on the part of the Federation of 
 Labor or the Farmers' Non-Partisan League, while 
 themselves pushing their own class interest. The 
 splendid principles for which the Legion stands will 
 doubtless in themselves suffice to govern the votes 
 of its members, as occasion to cast them arises; so 
 it is in confident reliance on those principles that I 
 urge the Legion's new voters to vote as they shot, 
 for liberty and the common good not for the class 
 advantage of any group, least of all their own. 
 
 Let the men of the Legion beware always of the 
 pension agents; of the politicians, who are always 
 willing to plunder the public treasury in order to 
 curry favor with a few men, and buy a few votes for 
 themselves. Let not these grafters repeat the pen- 
 sion grabs that have continuously, since the close of 
 the Civil War, as the long lines of veterans in the 
 Annual Parade of the Grand Army grew short and 
 
 [xiv]
 
 FOREWORD TO THIRD EDITION 
 
 shorter still, called ever for more and more millions ; 
 until today, alas, but a few old men remain alive 
 to account for a colossal pension roll, that always 
 grows and never dies. Let the country found no 
 more huge fortunes of pension agents at Washington.
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 OR 
 
 CLASS versus COUNTRY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 GIST OF THIS BOOK 
 
 As I am addressing myself in the first instance to 
 you, gentlemen of the press, I will follow your 
 fashion of giving at the outset the gist of my story, 
 hoping that it may interest you enough to carry you 
 on through the mass of detail that must follow, to 
 support my contentions. Here it is, in brief: 
 
 There can be no hope of reasonable relief from 
 "Labor Unrest" so long as four or five million 
 laborers can be fooled into paying fifty million dol- 
 lars a year to a hundred thousand professional agi- 
 tators that call themselves by the sounding title of 
 " Organized Labor," only to bedevil their own em- 
 ployers, cripple their own jobs, cut down their own 
 output, and minimize their own earning power. 
 Now these mischief-makers are openly going into 
 our politics. 
 
 Mr. Gompers last February served notice on the 
 country, which the June Convention of the American 
 Federation of Labor at Montreal has just confirmed, 
 of " nonpartisan " entry of Organized Labor into 
 the coming political campaign, with but a single pur- 
 pose in view, namely, the class advantage of Organ- 
 
 [i]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ized Labor itself. This action is taken because the 
 national and state administrations have for the past 
 two years, in marked contrast with past subserviency 
 to labor, taken notice of growing popular revolt 
 against the principles, aims, and methods of the 
 trades-unions. In so doing, Mr. Gompers has put 
 both the great political parties between the devil of 
 the labor vote and the deep sea of uncertainty as 
 to public opinion; which last certainly ran for years 
 with the general current of the stream of hostility 
 to Wall Street and the Trusts against Capital, and 
 in favor of Organized Labor as humanitarian in pur- 
 pose and effect but of late seems to grow wisely 
 jealous of Labor too, as merely another trust. 
 
 The result so far is, that the Republican Party 
 platform adopted at Chicago largely sidesteps the 
 labor issue, though Governor Coolidge was named 
 for the Vice Presidency because he stood up against 
 the Boston police strike; while the Democrats, at 
 San Francisco, though not quite so definitely, rather 
 sidestep too. The general question of class entry 
 into politics for class advantage is meantime a very 
 broad and vital one in our democracy, that will last 
 in all probability over several campaigns. The pol- 
 iticians will not dare take a stand upon it, for 
 obvious if not very magnificent reasons. The peo- 
 ple will have to make up their own minds, as so 
 often before on serious public questions, and show 
 the politicians unmistakably the way the wind of 
 opinion blows, before the party weather vanes will 
 swing the legislative mill sails into the breeze and 
 the latter will begin to turn. This little book is 
 intended to help in the formation of public opinion 
 by condensation of the facts into convenient form, 
 and by their presentation in not too ponderous 
 diction. Here they are as I see them: 
 
 [2]
 
 GIST OF THIS BOOK 
 
 There has grown up among us, ostensibly for 
 self-protection against capitalism and exploitation, 
 huge organization of labor; with enormous income, 
 nearly fifty million dollars per annum, contrib- 
 uted by a membership of over four millions, perhaps 
 half of them voters. Four fifths of this great in- 
 come goes for salaries and expenses of a labor 
 bureaucracy numbering perhaps one hundred to one 
 hundred and fifty thousand men and women; whose 
 main business is enlarging the organization, getting 
 and keeping members and collecting their dues, and 
 whose secondary business is distributing union bene- 
 fits and managing occasional strikes. The excel- 
 lent livelihood and the personal careers of this 
 bureaucracy depend upon its success in creating 
 "industrial unrest"; and on the strength of it re- 
 cruiting ever vaster armies of working men and 
 women, centralized and massed as a fighting force 
 against Capital carrying the impression and in- 
 deed the reality of formidable power, industrial 
 and political. 
 
 From the standpoint of the able and ambitious 
 men who have for forty years built up this great 
 machine, it is a vast success. It has attained the 
 great size and income aforesaid, has stirred up 
 discontent everywhere, has caused some seventy 
 thousand recorded strikes, has cut down the pro- 
 ductivity of our labor fully one third, has largely 
 contributed to double our cost of living, and has 
 perhaps permanently injected a class issue into our 
 politics. 
 
 By virtue of colossal losses already inflicted on 
 industry and the community, and by threat of worse 
 yet to come, the great labor leaders, such as Messrs. 
 Gompers, the late John Mitchell, W. B. Wilson, 
 Stone, and others, have made themselves well off, 
 
 [3]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 powerful, and world-famous personages. Natu- 
 rally, they are pretty sure to go right on running 
 their huge mill, grinding out its daily grist of strikes 
 and dollars. It may be, too, that they sincerely be- 
 lieve in their own mission. 
 
 Then there is a smaller group among us, of 
 savers and investors, collectively known as Capital 
 but unorganized; ^organized, on the contrary, by 
 war-aftermath, strained by present and doubtful of 
 future conditions, political and economical, it has 
 as yet formed no solid front in its own defense 
 against labor, government, or public opinion. As 
 the English statesman, Winston Churchill, said last 
 December: " Capitalism does nothing to establish its 
 own moral basis, though abundantly capable of de- 
 fense. The press is afraid of it; the politicians are 
 afraid of it; and its case goes by default." So in 
 this country, too, Capitalism, half dazed, says little 
 in its own justification. 
 
 Finally, there are the other nongrouped one hun- 
 dred millions of us, the people generally. Most 
 of them have been in favor of the so-called Labor 
 Movement until just now, as humanitarian. 
 
 In fact, however, that movement, which is my 
 subject here, is far from humanitarian. It is based 
 on the lying premise of capitalistic oppression and 
 class struggle; it appeals to the worthless motives 
 of selfishness and sloth; it formulates the dishonest 
 purposes of monopoly and coercion; it uses the law- 
 less means of combination in restraint of trade, and 
 violation of constitutional liberty and right More- 
 over it utterly fails to benefit its votaries its rank 
 and file. It is an increasing injury and menace to all 
 of us, in cost of living, industry, and finance. It 
 saps pur national virility, poisons our politics, and 
 prostitutes democracy to class service. We now at 
 
 [4]
 
 GIST OF THIS BOOK 
 
 last suddenly recognize its great centralized mili- 
 tant organization as a menace to free institutions, 
 whether considered as striking or voting machinery. 
 Thus far, apparently, it has benefited no one in any 
 large way except its leaders, especially Mr. Gom- 
 pers and his confreres; though they have benefited 
 enormously, and dream of greater benefit still 
 while their principle of entire irresponsibility to 
 their country remains unchanged. 
 
 We Americans have always been jealous of cen- 
 tralized power, the logical remedy for which is 
 decentralization. There is, too, a natural law of 
 centrifugal force that tends to limit the value of 
 centralized control; a tendency to disintegration and 
 decay that makes overgrowth break down under its 
 own weight and weakness. As the German proverb 
 puts it, " Things are so ordained that the trees do not 
 grow into the heavens." The increasing failure of 
 colossal centralization to help labor is therefore per- 
 fectly natural and to be expected. It is along the 
 line of decentralization that the American voter is 
 likely to urge the labor movement now and here- 
 after. The " right to organize, to strike, and to 
 bargain collectively" all three of them forms of 
 centralized power, what these rights are or ought 
 to be, and what Mr. Gompers would make of them, 
 I shall try to show; but I think that most Americans 
 already agree with Governor Coolidge, that u there 
 is no right to strike against the public safety, by any- 
 body, anywhere, any time." 
 
 I hope to show such Americans that it is time to 
 meet not only the criminal menace of Labor with 
 the law, but to face its political menace with the 
 ballot, in coming and future campaigns, until the 
 bogy of class politics is laid, for the time anyway: 
 
 Also that we should divorce labor and politics, and 
 
 [5]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 set free the impartial laws of supply and demand to 
 determine social justice: 
 
 Also, as practical men of sense and for the com- 
 mon good, that we should cut loose the labor troubles 
 of every employer from those of all the others, and 
 should not assist Organized Labor's largely success- 
 ful program of tying all industry and labor in one 
 inextricable tangle, of centralized quarreling, bar- 
 gaining, mediation, and arbitration, compulsory or 
 otherwise; but should on the contrary set each em- 
 ployer free, and each laborer, according to the guar- 
 antees of the Constitution, to prosecute his lawful 
 business, under maintenance of law and the public 
 peace; that we should shun collectivism; should bar 
 the general and sympathetic strike and the boycott; 
 and finally that we should deny the right to strike 
 against the public welfare, as Governor Coolidge 
 says, by anybody, anywhere, any time. 
 
 Nevertheless, I hold that we should accomplish 
 these things by law only in so far as it proves to be 
 impossible to accomplish them by voluntary change 
 of heart and purpose of Organized Labor; for every 
 good American recognizes the great and benevolent 
 possibilities underlying the trades-union principle of 
 brotherhood and cooperation. 
 
 The education of Labor itself is a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished and seriously undertaken by 
 every lover of his country. Better ethics, better 
 economics, and better industry would pay working- 
 men far better than the present cult of war against 
 the capitalist oppressor; there can be no doubt of 
 that. 
 
 Decentralization, Least Government, Education, 
 these are the preachments of this book. 
 
 [6]
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ISSUES AND THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 I HAVE chosen "Class versus Country" as the sub- 
 title for this book partly because it is short, allitera- 
 tive, and "carries a punch," but more because it 
 exactly states an important question that confronts 
 this country now and in future. 
 
 President Gompers, who seems to constitute Labor 
 as President Wilson constituted the Democratic 
 Party is openly out to control Congress and the 
 presidential election, and incidentally to plunder the 
 nation for the benefit of labor. 
 
 It is not the first time. In 1916, just before the 
 last presidential campaign, he took, control of the 
 President and Congress, passed the Adamson Law, 
 and actually did plunder the people for the benefit 
 of the railway workers. We all stood for it, too; 
 partly because we were too busy with the Kaiser just 
 then to bother with Gompers, and partly because 
 the latter caught us off guard with his coup d'etat. 
 
 Nevertheless a shock of surprise and a wave of 
 wrath swept over the country, to be followed by 
 others, till the Seattle strike, the Steel, Boston Police, 
 Longshore, Coal, and a hundred other strikes, with 
 the Plumb (or plunder) Plan, backed up by talk of a 
 general railway strike, one after the other brought 
 conviction to many million free Americans that, 
 having done with the Kaiser, the next autocrat in line 
 for the clippers is Mr. Gompers. Ole Hanson and 
 Governor Coolidge started the revolt; Senator Cum-
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 mins, Congressman Blanton, and others, are follow- 
 ing it up ; the President, as usual playing both ends 
 against the middle, slips behind the camouflage of his 
 Industrial Conferences; while Gompers, driven to 
 bay, foams at the mouth, and threatens this poor 
 little nation and its Congressmen with the wrath of 
 Organized Labor. 
 
 Well, it is an excellent thing to wash our family 
 linen clean and hang it out to dry. Clean washing 
 is mainly a matter of plenty of hot water, strong 
 soap, vigorous handling, good eyesight, and thorough 
 exposure to the light. The American people is ready 
 to turn Organized Labor inside out, look hard at it, 
 and do the needful scrubbing uncompromisingly. 
 Something not so very different from the Bolshevist 
 pitch has been sticking to our shirt. 
 
 When I was a boy in Vermont the old farmers used 
 to say, " Work hard and save your money, and by 
 and by a hired man will do the work for you." But 
 times have changed. I am living again in a New 
 England university town Cambridge and find 
 to my surprise an almost Bolshevist cult among my 
 perfectly honest and Christian neighbors. None of 
 them ever created an industry, risked a dollar in 
 active production, or found a job of work for even a 
 few laboring men; yet they have very decided though 
 not very clear views as to how Rockefeller and other 
 greedy capitalists who do all these things ought to 
 democratize industry; ought to save and risk all the 
 capital, pay all or nearly all the profit to their em- 
 ployees, and moreover ought to take their orders 
 whenever they choose to give them. 
 
 These same neighbors, many of them, do not seem 
 to democratize their own domestic industry. They 
 keep servants and incline to say to them, each to 
 his man or her maid, " If you take my wages, you 
 
 [8]
 
 ISSUES AND POINT OF VIEW 
 
 must also take my orders" and they are quite 
 right. But they rather remind me of certain Phari- 
 sees denounced in the Gospel of St. Matthew, who 
 " say, and do not. For they bind great burdens, 
 and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
 shoulders; but they themselves will not move them 
 with one of their fingers." Perhaps in the aureoled 
 enthusiasm of " the new order" (whatever that may 
 mean) they will label me as reactionary, undemo- 
 cratic. But let me deprecate your doing the same, 
 gentlemen of the press; for I am seriously asking 
 you to look at facts and human nature as they are, 
 not putting too great a strain on either. 
 
 To begin and end with, I believe in good hard 
 honest work, in manly pride in doing one's level best 
 up to the point of healthy fatigue; not only for the 
 pay envelope which will always be the fullest 
 but for the health and happiness of the worker, and 
 the stimulus that his energy gives to the whole com- 
 munity. Wise men of all ages from Solomon down, 
 and the common sense of the common people every- 
 where and always, will agree to this creed, though 
 most men do not live entirely up to it. It is a truism, 
 hardly needing iteration. 
 
 Of course, I despise and denounce the lazy, use- 
 less, contemptible song sung by Mr. Gompers (see 
 A. F. L. Report 1920, inside cover), 
 
 " Whether you work by the piece or work by the day, 
 Decreasing the hours increases the pay," 
 
 and his dishonest gospel always to demand " more, 
 more, more" for less, less, less labor. I despise the 
 mule's trick of balking of doing the least possible 
 work, under threat to do nothing at all if asked to 
 do more. No more demoralizing poison could be 
 instilled into the mind of man than the above, which 
 
 [9]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 in the short space of forty years has transformed our 
 virile, cheerful American craftsmen by hundreds of 
 thousands into flabby, grouchy shirkers, always quar- 
 reling with their own bread and butter, and getting 
 less of it. 
 
 To me the finer, more human, more American 
 gospel is that of the biggest day's work for the 
 biggest day's pay within my powers. If some other 
 fellow can do a bigger day's work than I can, then 
 let him also get so much bigger pay. If he can out- 
 strip me, I would not be so small as to hold him back. 
 If, moreover, he can pay for and coordinate the 
 work of a thousand men like or better than himself, 
 and get far more than a thousandfold the result, let 
 him go ahead, and God bless him. Great be his re- 
 ward for doing with them all what they cannot do 
 by themselves. He cannot lead the crowd without 
 drawing them after him, at least part way. 
 
 Let me reassert my point of view, that of a prag- 
 matist, as I said before ; a man who believes in things 
 that work and endure, who accepts broad and uni- 
 versal social and economic phenomena that persist 
 through all human history as ipso facto based upon 
 natural law and human need, satisfying both. For 
 when they do not do so, they do not last! I would 
 apply the same test to the phenomena of economics 
 and politics as to hydraulics or mechanics. If things 
 spring up and endure, they must accord with the law 
 of life. If they 'fail, it is because that law is too 
 strong for them; they are against nature. One of 
 these things that must conform to law in order to 
 endure is Capital. 
 
 There is nothing in history more certain than this, 
 that where life and property are most secure, where 
 those who sow can also reap and keep, there general 
 prosperity is greatest, poverty is least, and standards 
 
 [10]
 
 ISSUES AND POINT OF VIEW 
 
 of living are highest. There those who work harder, 
 save faster, risk more, rightly gain and keep more; 
 while those who not only work and save hardest, 
 but who also create work for others besides them- 
 selves, rightly gain most of all. Service rendered, in 
 the way of work done, directly or indirectly, is the 
 natural measure of reward, and has been throughout 
 all history, in accord with natural law. 
 
 So long, then, as we Americans conform to natural 
 law as established by history, just so long those who 
 do most in this world will fare the best. If our coun- 
 try is prosperous and the average man is well off, 
 the exceptional man will be better off. There never 
 has been great general prosperity without large 
 private fortunes, from the dawn of history down to 
 date. They appear and disappear with the excep- 
 tional men who create them, for this world's 
 goods in themselves are perishable, but while they 
 last the great modern industrial fortunes, unlike the 
 hoarded gold and gems of oriental despots, are far 
 more useful to the laborers than to their owners, 
 paying to the former far more year by year in wages 
 than to the latter in dividends. The pestilence-and- 
 famine-free security of our humblest toilers in Amer- 
 ica compared, say, with the precariousness of savage 
 life in Darkest Africa, or even in Bolshevist Russia, 
 is built upon the firm foundation of our railways, 
 factories, and banks. 
 
 Another human phenomenon, even more constant 
 under peaceful conditions than creation and accumu- 
 lation of capital, is propagation of the race and 
 abundance of labor. The poor ye have always with 
 you, saith Holy Writ. Statesmen and economists 
 need seldom worry about race suicide: there will 
 always be plenty or labor, in times of peace at least. 
 What they ought to worry about, as patriots, work- 
 
 [n]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ing for the common good, is abundance of capital. 
 They should stand for that economical and political 
 system which has actually best created and conserved 
 capital, and endured the test of time and place. 
 Granted abundance of capital, there is always abun- 
 dance of, and for, labor. Without abundance of 
 capital, there is seldom abundance of anything 
 human, except want. 
 
 A great change seems to me long overdue in 
 American public opinion, and is perhaps under way 
 already. Of late years millions of us have refused 
 to accept the phenomenon universal in all times 
 and countries of wealth for the few, livelihood for 
 the many, and extreme poverty for again a few, as 
 what we call " Social Justice." It is true that before 
 the day of the modern commercial or industrial 
 fortune the just reward of service rendered 
 great private wealth was often the odious result of 
 political or military spoliation, taken from the many 
 by taxation or force and pocketed by the few; and 
 that even in America we bear against the earned 
 fortune of the Rockefellers a traditional grudge that 
 relates back to the stolen fortunes of the Caesars. 
 Although nowhere should the enormous usefulness 
 of capitalism be so well understood as in this for- 
 tunate land, many thousands of good Americans have 
 not outgrown the hatred and envy of wealth as 
 " privilege," inherited from centuries of its associa- 
 tion with autocracy and robbery. The " moral basis 
 of capitalism," its beneficence, its democracy, its 
 social justice, has not yet been established in our 
 public opinion. Yet it is time we realized that capi- 
 talism is an invaluable by-product of political and 
 economic liberty that should be at home and wel- 
 come in America. Common sense will admit that 
 democracy should not insist on uniform poverty, and 
 
 [12]
 
 ISSUES AND POINT OF VIEW 
 
 sense of justice will confirm Theodore Roosevelt's 
 expression of the square deal for every man, namely: 
 "Equality of opportunity? Yes! Equality of re- 
 ward? No; an iridescent dream! " 
 
 We have had enough of demagogy. In Abraham 
 Lincoln's caustic words: You can fool all of the 
 people some of the time, and some of the people all 
 of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of 
 the time. Most of us now ask to hear plain truth. 
 
 If you gentlemen can see and will say that there 
 is nothing necessarily fundamental or spontaneous 
 in "Labor Unrest"; that it has been deliberately 
 worked up for years by demagogues for the sake of 
 the power and cash in it; that "organization" has 
 cost " Labor " say four hundred million dollars in 
 dues, plus the cost of seventy thousand strikes, say 
 eight hundred millions of lost wages in forty years; 
 that nevertheless union wages lag behind both non- 
 union wages and cost of living in respective increase, 
 and are bound to lag more and more behind as union 
 labor gives less and less production under union 
 rules you will be doing us all, laborers included, 
 a service. 
 
 Laborers are not fools, and probably would laugh 
 at you if you ask them to point out just how they 
 are " oppressed," or made " wage slaves." They 
 know well enough that the more employers (op- 
 pressors) the merrier; that " Capital" no matter 
 how greedy, has never managed to grind American 
 labor down below the level of the best paid and best 
 fed wage workers on the face of this earth, and ap- 
 parently has never tried to do so. It would make 
 them and the rest of us, and perhaps some of your- 
 selves, gentlemen, more content and optimistic of the 
 future of our country to accept unreservedly our 
 wonderfully fruitful modern American capitalism as 
 
 [13]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 (with rare exception) the legitimate offspring of 
 liberty and law; morally right, socially just, econom- 
 ically and politically invaluable especially to that 
 vast multitude of good honest citizens who are 
 absolutely dependent for work upon the captains 
 who have the brains to create and the following to 
 finance it. 
 
 Fortunately for America the Reds in Russia, and 
 in Europe generally, are trying out before our eyes 
 the experiment of robbing and killing off those who 
 work and save, those who employ men who can't 
 employ themselves. They are repeating on a scale 
 more colossal than ever before attempted the tyranny 
 and waste of the state as sole employer. The foreign 
 cables a few days ago reported that the Soviet Gov- 
 ernment in Russia has just announced a loss in oper- 
 ating the industries taken over by the state of so 
 many billion roubles for the past year as to make 
 the staggering losses of the Wilson Administration 
 in operating the railways and wires, and commencing 
 the airplane, shipping, nitrate, and other produc- 
 tion, look like "thirty cents," as the phrase goes. 
 Long before we are likely to be called to the polls to 
 substitute state ownership for the individual enter- 
 prise reserved to us by the Constitution, we shall be 
 pretty sure of a magnificent object lesson in noting 
 just how far Lenine and Trotzky succeed in correct- 
 ing the mistakes of the Almighty, who chose to make 
 men differ in achievement and in reward. 
 
 When that moment arrives, if ever, I am optimist 
 enough to back the common sense of the average 
 voter to heed the proverb, " Let well enough alone." 
 
 [14]
 
 ISSUES AND POINT OF VIEW 
 
 MEMBERSHIP 
 
 AMERICAN FEDERAT10NOFLABOR 
 
 1881 TO 1919 
 
 I 
 
 i i i i i 
 i i i 1 1 
 
 i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i 
 
 llimmillilMI
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 American Federation 
 of Labor 
 
 For Year 1919 
 3,260,068 
 
 National and 
 
 International 
 
 Unions 
 
 572 
 
 local 
 
 Department 
 Councils 
 
 46 
 
 State Federations^ 
 
 816 
 
 City Central 
 Bodies 
 
 33,852 
 
 Local Unions 
 
 [16]
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. GROWTH 
 AND INCOME 
 
 THE most obvious characteristics of Organized 
 Labor just now are size, wealth, and aggressive- 
 ness; all of these emphasized by the partnership 
 perhaps a bit shaky between the two presidents, 
 Messrs. Wilson and Gompers. For a while it 
 seemed as if the firm style should read the other 
 way, Presidents Gompers and Wilson. 
 
 The foregoing diagrams, borrowed from the 
 A. F. L. Annual Report for 1919, tell the story 
 at once of the great size, rapid growth, and com- 
 pletely centralized control of Mr. Gompers' life 
 work, the American Federation of Labor. No 
 financial statement is given to show the total income 
 and expenditures of the 33,852 unions existing last 
 year now said to number over thirty- four thou- 
 sand; but an estimate may be hazarded as follows: 
 
 Inquiry from various union men of different trades 
 around Boston, typical of building construction, fac- 
 tory work, railroad and public service, operation 
 and construction, indicates that union dues average 
 at least a dollar a month per capita. If so, the 
 3,260,068 paying members of the A. F. L. must 
 have paid in for the year 1919 around thirty-nine 
 million dollars. The Report says they got back in 
 union benefits (sickness and death mainly) $6,705,- 
 ooo (strike benefits appear to be paid by special 
 assessment, and not to come out of dues). This 
 
 [17]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 would indicate a net outlay for "organization" for 
 that year of over thirty-two million dollars, paid by 
 the A. F. L. alone. A colossal outlay indeed! 
 
 Besides this, the four Railway Brotherhoods, 
 which number some four hundred and fifty thousand 
 members, probably pay in somewhere between five 
 and ten million dollars more. It would not be ex- 
 cessive to guess that during the last fifty years at 
 least four hundred and fifty million dollars have 
 been paid in by these two groups of working men 
 (not to mention the Knights of Labor, I. W. W., 
 etc.) for dues alone. 
 
 From 1880 to 1905 the Commissioner of Labor, 
 the late Carroll D. Wright, kept and tabulated in 
 a most valuable way the statistics of strikes and 
 lockouts in the United States, aggregating over 
 thirty-eight thousand strikes and lockouts, affecting 
 two hundred thousand establishments. Since 1905 
 the Department of Labor has kept on with these 
 statistics, after a fashion, but not in uniform shape 
 for totalizing (perhaps the Secretary of Labor, a 
 trades-unionist, thinks it not wise to publish too 
 much information about such things). As well as 
 the writer can put together such figures as there are 
 since 1905, there have been some seventy-five thou- 
 sand strikes and lockouts since 1880, of which more 
 than ninety per cent (say seventy thousand) were 
 directly due to Organized Labor and were handled by 
 it. Now the United States census estimates, as given 
 by the New York World Almanac, fixed the industrial 
 male population of the United States in 1917 at about 
 forty-eight million men registered for the first selec- 
 tive draft. Let us concede Mr. Gompers' claim 
 (Report, p. 474) that there are four million labor- 
 ers organized, or one twelfth of our man power, 
 yet that twelfth, according to the records of the 
 
 [18]
 
 A. F. L. GROWTH AND INCOME 
 
 Department of Commerce and Labor, caused nine 
 tenths of over seventy-five thousand strikes recorded, 
 the unorganized eleven twelfths of the workers caus- 
 ing but one tenth of the same. Reduced to ratios, 
 Organized Labor is just ninety-nine times as quar- 
 relsome as unorganized labor. In other words, 
 " organization " keeps union labor in a peck of care- 
 fully created trouble, at enormous expense both for 
 annual dues and for wages lost in strikes; while, as 
 I shall hereafter show, for some reason probably 
 inefficiency its net earning power is steadily drop- 
 ping back, in comparison with that of free unorgan- 
 ized labor. 
 
 This unfortunate yet entirely deserved result to 
 union labor is directly due to militarism, to con- 
 tinuous and intentional warfare growing out of 
 the gospel of class antagonism preached by Mr. 
 Gompers and his associates; for the purely selfish 
 purpose, established by their own records, of main- 
 taining centralized control of labor in order to hold 
 up the community. 
 
 Before leaving the Carroll Wright Report let us 
 look at it from one more angle, that of union 
 activity in securing better conditions as to child 
 labor, female labor, sanitation, safeguarding of 
 hazardous occupations, workmen's compensation for 
 injury, etc., all of which are loudly advertised by 
 Mr. Gompers. 
 
 All that I can fairly admit is, that Mr. Gompers 
 and his associates have been mildly sympathetic 
 with the efforts of philanthropists and social work- 
 ers as to these things, which hardly at all affect 
 the growth and power of their great strike ma- 
 chinery. The latter has never been militantly ag- 
 gressive, nor has conspicuously taken the initiative, 
 on behalf of either children or women. Perhaps of 
 
 [19]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 late years (since the death of Mr. Carroll Wright 
 the Department of Labor records have been badly 
 kept, as noted above, and do not show) the unions 
 may have done some real fighting for these things; 
 but out of nearly thirty-seven thousand strikes tabu- 
 lated by the Wright Report prior to 1905, not a 
 single one was called on behalf of women, children, 
 sanitation, safeguards, or welfare questions, all 
 of which were left to the reformers to busy them- 
 selves with. 
 
 Of late (see the labor provisions of the Peace 
 Treaty) Mr. Gompers stands for stopping child 
 labor under sixteen years of age, for equal wages 
 for men and women, and for stopping piece or con- 
 tract work done at home in the family. All of these 
 are excellent things; but in assessing Mr. Gompers' 
 motive in sponsoring them I cannot forget that few 
 if any children under sixteen go to work unless 
 obliged to do so by their parents, who as well as 
 the employers are actuated by greed in working 
 children, and that most parents in the unionized 
 trades must be union members. Nor can I forget 
 that cheap child labor tends also to cheapen union 
 wage-scales, and that the same thing is true of 
 women's labor and of work done at home. All 
 three thus tend to compete with and lower union 
 wages, though all three are quite within the power 
 of workers themselves to prevent without legisla- 
 tion to curb the so-called greed of employers. It 
 would not be consistent with Mr. Gompers' record 
 to neglect any opportunity either to block wage 
 competition, or to saddle employers with entire 
 blame for greed and inhumanity to children, even 
 if largely perpetrated by their own parents. Hence, 
 perhaps, his recent sponsorship. 
 
 Before dismissing the matter of growth we may 
 
 [20]
 
 A. F. L. GROWTH AND INCOME 
 
 note that the aforesaid A. F. L. diagram shows two 
 periods of conspicuous activity and increase, the 
 first from 1900 to 1904, and the second from 1917 
 to date. Both these periods were of intensive in- 
 dustrial activity, with demand for labor far out- 
 running supply. The reactions in business of 1904 
 and 1908 made it impossible for Mr. Gompers to 
 call successful strikes just then, and the worker for 
 a year or two afterwards felt it was wiser to keep 
 away from strike machines. "Nothing succeeds 
 like success." When men are scarce and employers 
 are bidding up wages, and hasten to " come across " 
 with a raise every time a business agent crooks his 
 finger, it is easy for the unions to say " You see, we 
 can do it" and the workman is apt to believe 
 them. It is different when there are four men for 
 every three jobs, as happens occasionally. 
 
 Particularly have the unions grown by leaps and 
 bounds since the passage of the Adamson Law in 
 1916, since Labor felt able to say: "Now, boys, 
 we own the United States ; just watch Congress and 
 President Wilson ! Sam Gompers is the real Presi- 
 dent of this country." 
 
 Well, as the old German adage had it, "Things 
 are so ordained that the trees do not grow into the 
 heavens" sometimes they die at the top, some- 
 times at the root; sometimes lightning, sometimes 
 the axe, relegates them to the brush pile. It is 
 much the same with Presidents. 
 
 [21]
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR 
 CONSTITUTION AND APPEAL 
 
 THERE can be no more reliable evidence of the 
 predatory theories, principles, purposes, and meth- 
 ods of American Organized Labor as guided by 
 Mr. Gompers than the Annual Reports of the 
 Conventions of his great creation, the American 
 Federation of Labor. No accusation of capitalistic 
 prejudice or unfairness can obscure conclusions 
 based upon the votes and utterances officially re- 
 corded and put into public circulation by himself 
 and those he trusts. 
 
 The Preamble to the Constitution of the Ameri- 
 can Federation of Labor sets forth its reason for 
 existence in the following words: 
 
 " Whereas, a struggle is going on in all the nations of the 
 civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of 
 all the countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the 
 laborer, which grows in intensity from year to year, and will 
 work disastrous results to the toiling millions if they are 
 not combined for mutual protection and benefit. 
 
 " It therefore behooves the representatives of the Trade 
 and Labor Unions of America, in convention assembled, to 
 adopt such measures and disseminate such principles among 
 the mechanics and laborers of our country as will perma- 
 nently unite them to secure the recognition of rights to 
 which they are justly entitled. 
 
 " We, therefore, declare ourselves in favor of the forma- 
 tion of a thorough Federation, embracing every Trade and 
 
 [22]
 
 A. F. L. CONSTITUTION AND APPEAL 
 
 Labor Organization in America, organized under the Trade 
 Union system." 
 
 The "Objects" of the Federation are set forth 
 in Article II of the Constitution, the formation of 
 local unions, their integration into central, state or 
 territorial, national and international organizations 
 based upon autonomy of each trade, departments 
 covering industries, and American federation of 
 them all; also the securing of legislation in the in- 
 terest of the working people, influencing public 
 opinion by peaceful and legal methods in favor of 
 organized labor, and aiding the labor press. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Gompers and his associates who 
 framed the foregoing Preamble and have maintained 
 it for forty years as the foundation of their great 
 structure believe its gospel of class antagonism and 
 are sincere, or perhaps they are merely rank dema- 
 gogues. The reader can judge for himself from 
 their long record in action. But the gospel itself is 
 a lie; suspiciously like the original lie invented by 
 Karl Marx, the German apostle of Socialism 
 though Mr. Gompers repudiates that cult. Whether 
 Mr. Gompers believes the lie or not, there can be 
 no possible doubt as to why he put it where it 
 stands. His purpose was and is to arouse class 
 hatred, and stir Labor to unite in fighting Capital. 
 In reality, there is practically no "oppression" of 
 Labor by Capital, and little "struggle" except that 
 which professional agitators stir up in the course of 
 their business. 
 
 /, for instance, am a capitalist, small or great. 
 You are a laborer. You are looking for a job 
 some one to hire you to do his work, because you 
 have not the brains, energy, and thrift to provide 
 work for yourself. There are a great many more 
 like you, and a very few more like me. The many 
 
 [23]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 are always coming to the few for jobs; shopping 
 around among them for the best they can find. / 
 come along, having earned and saved a little money, 
 and with others who have also saved something put 
 up the cash to start a new factory. I then offer 
 my new jobs to you and your friends who are look- 
 ing for them, competing with prior employers for 
 your services. If my offer is better than theirs, you 
 take mine; if not, you take the best, whoever of- 
 fers it. 
 
 In this perfectly peaceful transaction where is 
 the "oppressor" or the "oppressed" of the Gom- 
 pers Preamble ? Am / your " oppressor " in offering 
 you the choice of one more job than before? Are 
 you "oppressed" by having a larger choice and 
 keener competition for your services? Is it not 
 " the more the merrier" with you when looking for 
 a job? Are not a hundred such "oppressors" at 
 least a thousand times better for you than none at 
 all? Are you particularly conscious of "industrial 
 slavery" when you say to me contemptuously, "No, 
 I would not look at your job; I can do far better 
 just around the corner." 
 
 To use plain language and tell the exact truth, 
 what perfectly rotten demagogy it is to describe an 
 entirely voluntary bargain presumably beneficial 
 to both sides or it would not be closed as a 
 "struggle between the capitalist and the laborer" 
 which "will work disastrous results to the toiling 
 millions"! Perhaps Mr. Gompers regards it as 
 " disastrous " to the toiling millions to have any oc- 
 casion at all to work for what used to be called an 
 honest living, and feels that Capital owes Labor the 
 earth, " free gratis, and for nothing." 
 
 Whatever Mr. Gompers' real opinion may be on 
 this question of disaster, we can but conclude that 
 
 [24]
 
 A. F. L. CONSTITUTION AND APPEAL 
 
 such inflammatory talk, such stirrings up of class 
 consciousness and hatred as the above, has in prac- 
 tice been valuable to Mr. Gompers in his business; 
 at least it is found all the way through the Report 
 so often quoted herein. Note the following lan- 
 guage: On page 71: "the arbitrary or autocratic 
 whim of the employer ... It is inconceivable 
 that the workers as free citizens should remain 
 under autocratically made law, within industry and 
 commerce." Page 72 : " There are no means 
 whereby the workers can maintain fair wages ex- 
 cept through trade-union effort." Page 83: "the 
 labor movement . . . undertakes to protect the 
 wealth producers against the exorbitant greed of 
 special interests; against profiteering, against ex- 
 ploitation, against the detestable methods of irre- 
 sponsible greed, against the inhumanity and crime 
 of heartless corporations and employers." Again: 
 " Unionism is the only hope of the workers." Page 
 407 : " the things that the American Chamber of 
 Commerce, every labor hating corporation in our 
 country, and every institution that refuses to recog- 
 nize the right of working men or women to organize 
 have been fighting day and night." 
 
 But enough of such quotations; the Report is full 
 of them and will speak for itself. The A. F. L. 
 is forty years old, but it learns no charity or wis- 
 dom. Its appeal today is as it has always been, 
 to the meanest of human motives envy, hatred, 
 and malice, of class against class, here in free Amer- 
 ica, where our fathers thought to do away with 
 class; or rather to throw every class open to every 
 man according to his ability to attain. 
 
 I have been an employer most of my life, and 
 never hated my labor; and my men never hated me, 
 but followed me from one concern to another. I 
 
 [25]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 never knew an employer that did hate his labor; 
 and two thousand employers, in answering a ques- 
 tionnaire I once put out as chairman of a committee 
 of the National Association of Manufacturers, tes- 
 tified to cordial relations with the large majority of 
 their men. Long association breeds friendship; few 
 men grow to hate each other as you yourselves 
 are aware, gentlemen of the press. Judge for your- 
 selves whether the Chamber of Commerce, for in- 
 stance, deserves the line of denunciation put out 
 above; or is it mere poison injected by labor dema- 
 gogues to make bad blood between workman and 
 employer as man and man? 
 
 The game is as simple as A, B, C. Every worker 
 who can be convinced that " Unionism is the only 
 hope of the workers" will join the union and pay 
 union dues. 
 
 [26]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, TO STRIKE, ETC. 
 THE GARY CASE 
 
 WHERE there are no unions and each workman 
 makes his own bargain with his employer (as once 
 was universally the case), work and wages are de- 
 termined by the law of supply and demand acting 
 on the labor market; by the competition or absence 
 of competition of workmen for the same job or of 
 employer for the same workmen. When business 
 is poor and trade dull and jobs are scarce, the men 
 compete for them with each other, ask less and less 
 pay, and wages fall. When trade is good and shops 
 run full, men are scarce and employers compete for 
 them, offering more and more, and wages rise. 
 
 Trade-unionism is an attempt to destroy this 
 free competition among wage workers, with its re- 
 sulting rise and fall of work and wages, and sub- 
 stitute collective action to monopolize work and 
 arbitrarily determine conditions by coercion of the 
 strike, or the fear of it, rather than by market con- 
 ditions affecting labor or trade. Combination for 
 effecting monopoly and coercion is the essential pur- 
 pose of Organized Labor, in spite of the fact that 
 every form of conspiracy to destroy competition, 
 restrict production, and fix prices has been held a 
 crime at common law for centuries. 
 
 Before considering the law, however, let us con- 
 sider the moralities. Let us take a recent conspicu- 
 
 [27]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ous, concrete case say the late Steel Corporation 
 strike at Gary, Indiana. The "right to organize," 
 the " right to strike," and the " right to collective 
 bargaining" were asserted there in the largest way, 
 under conditions absolutely free from collateral 
 complications. Here is the story of that famous 
 town : 
 
 Twenty years ago the eastbound trains from Chi- 
 cago used to traverse the site of that present busy 
 manufacturing community, just over the Indiana 
 state line. It was for fifteen or twenty miles in 
 every direction a waste of slightly rolling ridges of 
 sand, left probably by the gradual recession of 
 the south end of Lake Michigan and parallel to its 
 shore line, divided from each other ofttimes by 
 lagoons of stagnant water, and covered with sparse 
 growth of rushes, coarse grasses, scrub oaks and 
 pines. The tract was perfectly useless for farming 
 or suburban improvement and had no river or har- 
 bor waters to permit development as a port. There 
 was hardly a house or an inhabitant throughout the 
 who! 3 region. Early in this century the great Steel 
 Corporation recognized the vicinity of Chicago as 
 a strategic center for the manufacture and distribu- 
 tion of steel; convenient for the assembling of iron 
 ore by lake, coal and coke by lake or rail; close to 
 a great city for supply of labor; and a great rail- 
 road and lake transportation center for quick and 
 economical distribution of finished product the year 
 round. The corporation bought largely of these 
 waste lands, amf in two years like magic arose the 
 great installation and dependent community that 
 exists today. 
 
 There was not a human being on the spot 
 until construction commenced. Every workingman 
 in Gary came there 'voluntarily from somewhere, 
 
 [28]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 bringing his family, in order to accept work and 
 wages offered by the Steel Corporation; which were 
 so entirely satisfactory to him that he pulled up 
 stakes elsewhere and paid railroad fare in order to 
 get there. There was no union at Gary no men 
 to unionize and it has never been "organized." 
 Throughout the entire life of the Gary project the 
 Steel Corporation has been a non-union, open shop 
 concern, the most conspicuous antagonist of the 
 closed shop in America. The plant and the town 
 were named for Judge Gary, head of the Steel 
 Corporation, of late denounced more perhaps than 
 any man in America by Organized Labor as an auto- 
 crat. Every man who voluntarily went to Gary 
 ought to have known, and probably did know, that 
 he was going to work in a non-union plant under his 
 own individual bargain, and not under a collective 
 bargain made for him by any union leader. 
 
 In order to provide the millions required to build 
 the great plant, the stockholders of the Steel Corpo- 
 ration went without dividends for many years. The 
 company held back its earnings, instead of giving 
 them to its owners to spend, and put them into this 
 and other enlargements of its producing properties, 
 enabling it to employ many thousands more work- 
 ingmen than before. As far as published records 
 show, not a single workingman of all who came to 
 Gary put one dollar of his own savings into the 
 plant that was to give him his job. Plant and job 
 were created, paid for, and thrown open to such 
 workingmen as might choose to avail themselves of 
 them, with the money and at the risk of perfect 
 strangers, who were in no way legally or morally 
 responsible for the workmen's existence or welfare; 
 who were in no way obligated to offer them work 
 and wages to say nothing of democratic condi- 
 
 [29]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 tions either on autocratic conditions or on any 
 conditions at all. 
 
 Nevertheless, because there was promise of profit 
 in making steel at Gary relying, as investors al- 
 ways do, upon current trade conditions, cost of raw 
 material, transportation and going wages in the Chi- 
 cago market, and upon current selling prices for 
 product, subject to such probable changes as could 
 be forecasted by expert advisers the Steel Corpo- 
 ration went ahead, built the Gary plant, and has run 
 it successfully ever since. 
 
 Everybody then applauded the venture as per- 
 fectly legitimate, useful, bringing population and 
 prosperity to an empty wilderness. The press and 
 the politicians joined in welcoming its promoters. 
 Many thousand workmen and their families came 
 to Gary and remained. The town, largely built by 
 the Corporation, was well planned and constructed; 
 in many respects remarkable. The school system 
 developed there, for instance, has in these few years 
 been copied all over the land. The plant made a 
 lot of steel; the men and the Corporation made a lot 
 of money. Everything and everybody except a 
 politician now and then went humming along, 
 peaceful, prosperous, and contented. 
 
 There was one big fly in the ointment and that 
 in Mr. Gompers' pot. '"Gary," like "Homestead" 
 and other great plants of the Steel Corporation, was 
 not " organized." Judge Gary was so " damned 
 autocratic" that his workmen by the tens of thou- 
 sands were actually free to make their own indi- 
 vidual bargains for work and wages without paying 
 dues to " representatives of their own choosing " to 
 bargain collectively for them. 
 
 In fact, they were not choosing any representa- 
 tives at all; were dealing direct with their employer, 
 
 [30]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 and, worst of all, were making more steel and more 
 money than union law allowed. More damnable 
 yet, the Steel Corporation was doing all kinds of 
 welfare work for its employees and was helping 
 them to save their money, and invest it in the stock 
 of the Company, or to build and own their own 
 houses all of which are accursed contrivances of 
 the devil to make the workingman content with his 
 job, independent of union benefits, and interested 
 in the prosperity of the business that supports him. 
 The great size of the bodies of workmen employed 
 by the corporation; its conspicuous avoidance of 
 Mr. Gompers; the big wages earned by its men (see 
 Annual Report United States Steel Corporation, 
 1919, showing average wage paid per man for 1914, 
 $677; 1915, $925; 1916, $1042; 1917, $1296; 
 1918, $1605; 1919, $1902), all without collective 
 bargaining; the rate at which they were buying the 
 company's stock namely one hundred and sixty- 
 seven thousand shares this year (1920), which in 
 ten years will well make the employees own half 
 of the whole enormous concern I all of this public 
 and successful defiance of trades-unionism was the 
 worst possible advertisement for its ruling spirit. 
 
 Last, but emphatically not least, there was the 
 exasperating thought that to " organize " the Steel 
 Corporations two hundred and sixty-eight thousand 
 men including Gary and all the other plants 
 would pay the organizers (assuming the Chicago 
 figure of 1903 of two dollars per man unionized) 
 over half a million dollars, and bring in to the union 
 treasuries monthly dues of say one dollar apiece, or 
 over three million dollars per annum! A lot of 
 well-salaried officials might draw pay for running 
 the twenty-six big unions involved! 
 
 Under these compelling considerations, whether
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 as human being or labor leader, who can condemn 
 Mr. Gompers for feeling that he must unionize the 
 Steel Corporation or "bust"; or for choosing as 
 the psychological moment for the adventure the year 
 1919, when he might reasonably have thought 
 he had the Administration at Washington in his 
 breeches pocket, with general elections coming in 
 1920. 
 
 Also, he had kept organizers at work in the Steel 
 Corporation plants for some time, and had suc- 
 ceeded in unionizing perhaps a quarter of the em- 
 ployees, mostly non-English speaking aliens, so 
 the newspapers said at the time. Perhaps he had 
 some doubt about cutting loose from President Wil- 
 son, and about his entire preparedness to strike; 
 but he was driven to it by fear that the unions, 
 under younger leaders, might strike and get away 
 from him his personal control. Anyway, he sanc- 
 tioned calling a general strike in the steel industry, 
 aimed particularly at the Steel Corporation. 
 
 Perhaps, though a wonderfully astute agitator, 
 his head was rather turned, as was President Wil- 
 son's, by the dizzy success of his foreign reception 
 in 1918 after four years of unprecedented power 
 here. At any rate, when he got back, late in 1918, 
 he notified the Pan-American Labor Conference at 
 Laredo, Texas, that Labor never would give up 
 the high wages and short hours that prevailed dur- 
 ing the war, no matter what happened to business. 
 The Federation and the Railway Brotherhoods ac- 
 cepted and followed this lead during 1919 in an 
 incipient railway strike, the longshore strike, the 
 " Plumb Plan," the steel strike, Boston police strike, 
 coal strike, etc. ; while the I. W. W. worked up the 
 Seattle strike in February of that year, on its own 
 hook. 
 
 [32]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 Coming back to Gary, we know what happened. 
 The President, a better politician than Gompers, 
 had had time to take notice of symptoms of popu- 
 lar drift away from "Labor"; to sense growing 
 wrath at the Adamson Law and rebellion against 
 heavier burdens on the taxpayers, also against strikes 
 aimed at public service; to estimate as a political 
 factor the instant, widely voiced approval of Calvin 
 Coolidge and Ole Hanson reflected in Congress 
 and the press. He refused to go along with the 
 Brotherhoods and the Federation. He no longer 
 wrote, as he once did, of Mr. Gompers "I like 
 to match my mind with a mind that can work in 
 harness." When the steel strike came to a show- 
 down (perhaps to kill two birds with one stone, an 
 unpopular strike and a popular Presidential possi- 
 bility), he directed the United States Army, under 
 command of General Leonard Wood, to maintain 
 law and order in the steel and coal regions. This 
 simple constitutional order the prevention of vio- 
 lence and sabotage and the protection of all men, 
 union and non-union, in the peaceful enjoyment of 
 their freedom to work or not as they chose Gen- 
 eral Wood performed so quietly, so justly, and so 
 well, as to command the admiration of the country, 
 union labor included. Whereupon as always hap- 
 pens with simple maintenance of law and order, 
 mere prevention of violence and sabotage, mere 
 freedom of the individual working man to do his 
 own bargaining and voluntarily accept the best job 
 in sight the great steel, coal, and railway strikes, 
 one after the other, collapsed. There will perhaps 
 be an aftermath to the settlement of the coal and 
 railway strikes, since government commissions have 
 intervened to settle wages ; probably an unavoidable 
 aftermath, as to which I offer no criticism. There 
 
 [33]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 should be none, however, to the steel strike settle- 
 ment, in which government and Gompers took no 
 hand; in which case hats must come off to Judge 
 Gary. 
 
 Such is the history of the Gary strike; now, then, 
 for the rights of it. Mr. Gompers is strenuous as 
 to rights. 
 
 There can be no doubt that /, for instance, have 
 perfect moral and legal "right" to save money and 
 put it into a steel plant or any other plant for any 
 useful, lawful purpose at Gary or anywhere else; 
 and that having done so I have an equally unques- 
 tioned "right" to offer work and wages under any 
 lawful conditions to you individually, to ten thou- 
 1 sand of you collectively, or to no one at all. On 
 your part, individually or collectively, you have un- 
 questioned "right" to accept or refuse work and 
 wages as offered. 
 
 You have likewise unquestioned " right to or- 
 ganize," to join a trades-union, or not to join, as you 
 choose. You are a free American, and you have un- 
 questioned "right to strike," to quit work, individu- 
 ally or collectively, at any time, providing you break 
 no agreement in so doing. Mr. Gompers' loud de- 
 mands for the "right to organize" and the "right 
 to strike " are the merest camouflage, intended to 
 fool the public, and entirely uncalled for; because 
 no one, even judge Gary, has ever denied them. 
 The most smashing proof of that fact lies in the 
 diagram printed in the 1919 Report of the A. F. L., 
 showing 33,852 unions actually organized and cross- 
 organized to an amazing centralization; and in the 
 record of over seventy thousand strikes called by 
 Organized Labor since 1880, contained in the Bulle- 
 tins of the Department of Labor at Washington. 
 One might as well deny the force and operation of 
 
 [34]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 gravity as to deny the existence and wholesale ex- 
 ercise of these "rights." 
 
 Conversely, but consistently with them, I have no 
 " right," and there exists under our free institutions 
 no legal or constitutional power, to compel you to 
 work for me, or to take my wages, individually or 
 collectively, just as you have no " right," individual 
 or collective, and there exists no legal or constitu- 
 tional power, to compel me to offer work and wages 
 to you or to any one, on any conditions whatever. 
 
 In fact there cannot be such a thing as a right to 
 bargain, individually or collectively! A bargain is 
 a voluntary agreement between two or more parties, 
 the essence of which is that the parties freely reach 
 a common understanding. Neither party can pos- 
 sibly have any "right" of any kind compelling or 
 growing out of a bargain unless and until that bar- 
 gain has actually been made; until voluntary agree- 
 ment has actually been reached. Neither party has 
 a "right" to demand, though common sense and 
 courtesy usually concede, even a preliminary con- 
 ference for the purpose of proposing a bargain. 
 Either party may decline even to negotiate. 
 
 That is precisely what happened to Mr. Gom- 
 pers when he said to Judge Gary: "You have been 
 dealing direct with your men for many years; now 
 we have unionized them and you must deal with 
 them only through us, their chosen representatives 
 or we will strike the entire steel industry." Judge 
 Gary answered: "Whether you have unionized our 
 men we doubt; but we have dealt direct with them 
 for many years to our own and apparently their 
 satisfaction; so we do not care to deal with them 
 through union organizations at all; we have had 
 trouble enough with unions long ago. We shall 
 continue, as of late years, to offer work and wages 
 
 [35]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 to workmen individually. They are entirely free 
 to refuse or accept, just as they see fit. We hope 
 and believe many will accept; but in any case we 
 courteously decline to negotiate with workmen 
 through trade-unions. Our experience warns us 
 against so doing." 
 
 Mr. Gompers then appealed to politics against 
 Judge Gary as "autocratic." But what is there 
 of autocracy in offering jobs direct to men who are 
 entirely free to refuse? 
 
 It is only in recent years that Labor leaders have 
 invented such catch phrases as " right to organize," 
 " right to strike," " right of collective bargaining," 
 "autocracy of capital," "aspirations of Labor," 
 "democratization of industry," etc. all brand 
 new, whose effectiveness as slogans of demagogy, 
 whose appeal to the average unthinking, liberty- 
 loving American, must indeed be conceded, and can 
 hardly be overestimated. These slogans have been 
 sounded only since the action of the State and 
 United States supreme courts in successive decisions 
 has gradually built up growing barriers to the 
 plain old-fashioned coercion practiced by organized 
 labor, barriers which more and more tend to shut 
 out coercion altogether. Without coercion, as Mr. 
 Gompers well knows, his kind of trade-unionism 
 would soon die a natural death. Hence he and his 
 associates have logically been driven by force of 
 events as well as by personal ambition to reach 
 out from the domain of labor to that of politics; 
 for sanction of law, as well as official power, to 
 carry out Labor's coercion of Capital. Originally, 
 the unions did not bother with public opinion or 
 slogans, but frankly relied on what Wall Street calls 
 "nuisance value" to bring employers to terms. 
 
 At Gary, for instance, there is an investment of 
 [36]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 fifty million dollars or more, I do not know, 
 with many thousand men peacefully at work who 
 had been glad to take and keep for many years the 
 jobs offered by the Corporation. The organizers 
 of the A. F. L. came along and said to the men: 
 " You are fools to work for Judge Gary on his terms. 
 Here you are all right together, where it has taken 
 the company years to locate and train you. It 
 would take it as many more years to break in a new 
 force if you should quit. Meantime these great 
 plants in which it has put millions would be idle, 
 and it would lose enormously. It can't get along 
 without you; and it can't afford to fight you. All 
 you have to do is to join the union, and leave it to 
 us experienced leaders, backed by all the iron and 
 steel workingmen in America, to bring these auto- 
 crats to their knees. You can strike and take a nice 
 vacation for a few weeks; and we will see to it that 
 you get pay for your full time just the same, beside 
 shorter hours and longer pay checks when you go 
 back to work. The Steel Corporation is rich and 
 can stand it. Also, you can choose your own fore- 
 men in future and make your own working rules, 
 if you don't like those you have. Be men, and have 
 something to say about your own jobs. Labor is 
 king. Teach Judge Gary a lesson." 
 
 Now, to organize and strike is entirely within the 
 right of the workmen at Gary, and Homestead too, 
 provided that they keep all contracts, individual or 
 collective, under which they accepted work and 
 wages. At both plants, most likely, they work 
 largely by the day or hour, and are perfectly justi- 
 fied in quitting without notice, one by one or all 
 together, if they think it to their interest to do so. 
 That is one of the chances a corporation takes in 
 putting millions into a plant, that it may fail to get 
 
 [37]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 labor; also, in employing by the day, that labor may 
 quit any day. The laborer, too, takes a like chance, 
 that the corporation may shut down work, or lay 
 him individually off any day. Both parties are 
 gambling on the necessities, each of the other; and 
 if both keep their agreements up to the time they 
 end them, there is no moral or legal right or wrong 
 involved. 
 
 But coercion is different. Wrong is done, courts 
 enjoin, soldiers entrain for Gary, and Mr. Gompers 
 rages against "autocracy" and injunctions, and de- 
 mands democratization of industry, when as in- 
 variably is the case union leaders serve notice on 
 all concerned as follows: 
 
 "You are out on strike. The union will see to 
 it that no man takes the jobs you men have struck 
 on; the jobs belong to you, and no one else, espe- 
 cially no non-union man, shall take them. Our picket 
 line will see to that; and also that no non-union 
 material goes in or out of this place. This business 
 must come to an absolute standstill, no matter what 
 loss to it or to non-union labor is involved, until 
 such time as its boss walks up to the Captain's of- 
 fice, settles, and reemploys you men; this time not 
 on his conditions but on yours" 
 
 Right there on the picket line is where law and 
 order come to a show-down. Clearly, the pickets 
 can stop the passage of men and material only in 
 three ways: by persuasion, by abuse (the odious 
 epithet "scab"), or by violence. Only the first is 
 lawful; but all three are almost invariably used. 
 Breach of peace and often loss of life result, and 
 the courts, the police, and the military are neces- 
 sarily called in. It is well understood from years 
 of experience that unions seldom successfully co- 
 erce when no picket lines are established, or when 
 
 [38]
 
 RIGHT TO ORGANIZE, ETC. 
 
 police or military keep the peace and protect all who 
 come and go along the picket line. Therefore, local 
 courts are often appealed to in advance to enjoin 
 the pickets from violence and abuse; and judges 
 frequently grant the injunctions asked for. Occa- 
 sionally a judge has enjoined picketing altogether, 
 as sure to provoke violence; but usually courts en- 
 join only against violence and abuse, recognizing 
 "picketing with peaceful persuasion" as lawful use 
 of the streets and constitutional freedom of speech. 
 Now, no one, even the trades-unionist, has the 
 gall to assert that the courts, the police, or the mili- 
 tary do any wrong, or anything more than their 
 sworn duty, in keeping the peace, maintaining law 
 and order, and the free use of the public streets to 
 all comers; or that the "right" to organize and to 
 strike includes the "right" to beat up a non-union 
 man; or drop a monkey wrench into an "unfair" 
 employer's fast-running and costly machinery. The 
 union leaders always vehemently deny and disown 
 all encouragement of and responsibility for violence 
 and sabotage. But the bitter and constant attacks 
 upon the courts by Organized Labor because of 
 so-called "government by injunction"; its attempts 
 at the polls to defeat or to elect legislators and 
 judges, so as to warp the law or its interpretations 
 (see A. F. L. Reports 1918 and 1919) ; its habit of 
 hiring counsel to defend union men arrested for 
 criminal violence (for instance, Mr. Gompers raised 
 fifty thousand dollars to pay Clarence Darrows' re- 
 tainer in defending the McNamaras, the notorious 
 dynamiters of the Los Angeles Times} ; these ac- 
 tions speak louder than words to attest the paying 
 value, if not the absolute necessity of terrorism, in 
 strikes. As Allan Pinkerton testified in a Pennsyl- 
 vania court during the famous " Mollie McGuire" 
 
 [39]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 murder trials, a generation ago, " Organized Labor 
 is organized violence." 
 
 There is no need to go back a generation or a 
 day, as it happens, for confirmation of Pinkerton's 
 words. As I write, May 20, comes the newspaper 
 account of the killing it looks like the murder 
 in a West Virginia coal mining town of several mem- 
 bers of a private detective force employed to evict 
 striking union miners from the company's houses. 
 The district has been non-union, and there has been 
 trouble before from attempts to unionize it. But 
 why did that mining company feel obliged at great 
 expense to bring in armed men to guard its prop- 
 erty and remove from its premises men who refused 
 to work in its mines? Why was the Attorney Gen- 
 eral called on to put the coal and steel regions last 
 fall under the restraining presence of the United 
 States Army and General Wood? Why was the 
 Governor of Kansas and of Massachusetts obliged 
 to call out state troops, and the Governor of Penn- 
 sylvania to summon constabulary this year and last, 
 during coal and railway strikes to name but the 
 more conspicuous disturbances of recent months? 
 
 The answer is always the same: for fear of riot 
 resulting from strikes. The strikes themselves re- 
 sult from the organization of labor, which results 
 from Messrs. Gompers et al. Q. E. D. There can 
 be nothing accidental about so constant a phenome- 
 non. You know as well as I do, and as the public is 
 finding out at last, Mr. Gompers to the contrary not- 
 withstanding, that Pinkerton was right, when he said, 
 " Organized Labor is organized violence." 
 
 [40]
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "HUMAN LABOR NOT A COMMODITY OF 
 COMMERCE " 
 
 THIS brings us to consideration of another recent 
 discovery of Mr. Gompers, evolved and enunciated 
 in the course of his fight against our judges for en- 
 forcing the laws against combination in restraint of 
 trade ; namely, the principle " that in law and in prac- 
 tice it should be held that the labor of a human being 
 is not a commodity or article of commerce." 
 
 This rather cryptic principle sets forth what labor 
 is not, but does not define what it is. Mr. Gom- 
 pers succeeded in having a declaration of this prin- 
 ciple embodied in the Clayton Act of Congress in 
 1917 or 1918, and in "Labor's Bill of Rights" in 
 the League of Nations Treaty. Its intent and ap- 
 plication are somewhat elucidated in a further pro- 
 vision of the Clayton Act, also sponsored by Mr. 
 Gompers, excepting laborers and farmers from the 
 guilt of and penalties established for combination in 
 restraint of trade, imposed on all other classes by 
 the common law and the Sherman Act. 
 
 Let me at this point once more sharply draw the 
 distinction between what might be called lawful or 
 negative coercion the free action of the law of 
 supply and demand; and unlawful or positive coer- 
 cion combination to prevent such free action. 
 
 If you are the only workmen to be had, and you 
 choose to strike, I simply must employ you on your 
 own conditions or my plant must be idle. I am 
 
 [41]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 coerced all right, but lawfully, by the law of supply 
 and demand, if I wish to operate. 
 
 If, however, there are plenty of men to be had 
 and you strike, but scare others away from my plant 
 by drawing a picket line around it and threatening to 
 "knock their block off" if they try to pass, again 
 I am coerced, but this time unlawfully. The " right 
 to strike," peacefully to quit work, does not in- 
 clude the right to force or scare others from work- 
 ing. This is a free country. 
 
 A free people, moreover, has the right to protect 
 itself. Under the common law, the noble evolu- 
 tion of ages of self-government and respect for jus- 
 tice, it has been recognized for centuries as criminal 
 and against public policy that groups of men should 
 " combine " against the people in restraint of trade, 
 to restrict the production or enhance the price of 
 food, clothing, or other commodities of commerce. 
 It was apparent that, in the nature of things, com- 
 paratively few of us are engaged in supplying any 
 given commodity to the crowd generally; and that 
 by conspiring together a group could, and in fact 
 did, exact unduly high prices for their specialty to 
 their own unfair advantage over the community. 
 The common law therefore rightly prohibited such 
 conspiracy, and many statutes have been passed in 
 the United States notoriously the Sherman Law 
 to stop it. 
 
 At the very beginning of trades-unionism it be- 
 came evident that organizing strikes was in fact con- 
 spiracy to limit the supply and fix the price of labor 
 in restraint of trade; always to the injury of the 
 buyers of the particular commodity produced by the 
 labor, and frequently, as in railway, public service, 
 coal, or food supply strikes, to very grave injury of 
 the public. Employers very soon began invoking the 
 
 [42]
 
 LABOR NOT A COMMODITY 
 
 protection of the courts by virtue of the aforesaid 
 laws; and a series of decisions of both British and 
 American judiciary have established that laborers, 
 like merchants, cannot lawfully conspire together to 
 restrain the free action of others, even by acts which 
 might be perfectly lawful if done individually in the 
 exercise of personal liberty. Such acts are, for in- 
 stance, the declaration "we don't patronize," the 
 establishment of a picket line, etc., or other concerted 
 action or conspiracy in restraint of free labor com- 
 petition, or free operation of the laws of supply and 
 demand. 
 
 Mr. Gompers and the Federation of Labor hav- 
 ing been beaten in the courts have sought relief 
 from the penalty of the law in politics. (See Re- 
 ports of the A. F. L. for 1918-1919.) They have 
 threatened judges with defeat at the polls for de- 
 cisions against labor; so far apparently in vain, it is 
 pleasant to note. With Congress they have done 
 better, as it has obeyed orders in passing the Adam- 
 son Law and the Clayton Act, above mentioned, 
 which last excepts labor and farmer combinations, 
 while holding all the rest of us guilty of crime if we 
 combine to restrain trade. 
 
 The immediate intent of the declaration that the 
 labor of a human being is not in law or in practice a 
 commodity or article of commerce, is that judges 
 may no longer enjoin or punish picketing, the boy- 
 cott, or other combinations intended to cut off ma- 
 terial or labor supply, as in restraint of commerce or 
 trade. 
 
 Of course they are so meant all the same. For 
 instance, my coal dealer may not lawfully combine 
 with other coal dealers to restrain trade and fix 
 prices of coal, and I can enjoin him or punish him in 
 the courts for so doing. 
 
 [43]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 But under the Clayton Law the coal teamster's 
 union may combine to stop or raise the price of coal 
 delivery. I cannot enjoin or punish them for so 
 doing, because human labor is " not an article of 
 commerce," and therefore stopping teamsters' work 
 is not a restraint of trade. The teamsters are not 
 guilty. Meantime, what becomes of me? What 
 use is it to buy a ton of coal if I cannot get a man to 
 put it in my cellar? 
 
 What is to prevent the coal miners or the railway 
 brotherhoods from conspiring at any time to stop 
 coal and food supply, or the pumping station en- 
 gineers from stopping water supply, for thousands 
 or millions of fellow citizens, until we perish with 
 cold, hunger, or thirst; or else give up to the con- 
 spirators such cash or privilege, or both, as they 
 choose to extort all, mind you, without an atom of 
 responsibility or risk of one cent's penalty for the 
 colossal cost and misery entailed, imposed upon 
 either leaders or laborers? 
 
 We may remark in passing that no law ever passed 
 by servile politicians shows more contemptible cow- 
 ardice on the part of the wfyrepresentatives of the 
 people, in Congress assembled or elsewhere, than the 
 provisions of the Clayton Act passed at the request 
 of Mr. Gompers; yet they were hardly noticed at 
 the time by you gentlemen of the press, to whom I 
 am now displaying their purport. They have not 
 as yet been brought to test by the United States 
 Supreme Court. When that test comes, though I 
 am not a lawyer, I have every confidence that they 
 will be invalidated as unconstitutional. They have 
 already been ignored by the United States Circuit 
 Court, Eighth Circuit, in the Coronada Coal Case. 
 I call your attention to the A. F. L. Report for 1919, 
 which truly says of it: " This decision is far reaching 
 
 [44]
 
 LABOR NOT A COMMODITY 
 
 and of vital importance to the organized labor move- 
 ment of America. If the decision of the Circuit 
 Court is affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States and stands as a principle of law, the existence 
 of every national and international union is endan- 
 gered." (See Report, page 100.) 
 
 The decision referred to awarded a verdict of 
 six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars against 
 the United Mine Workers, for conspiracy with cer- 
 tain unionized mine owners to interfere with the pro- 
 duction and commerce of other owners who followed 
 a non-union policy, by means of strikes and attendant 
 violence. 
 
 It is absolutely true, as the Report says, that " the 
 existence of every national union is endangered" by 
 this decision. Every one of them is, and always 
 has been, guilty of conspiracy to interfere with pro- 
 duction, attended with varying degrees of breach of 
 law. But for the purposes of this chapter I think 
 the reader will require no further proof of the de- 
 liberate crookedness and irresponsibility of Mr. 
 Gompers' great machine than reference to his own 
 1918 Report, his action of 1918 in procuring by the 
 Clayton Act attempted immunity from the conse- 
 quences of crime ; and finally the following quotation 
 from his 1919 Report reciting the defenses set up 
 in the Coronada Case by Organized Labor, as 
 follows : 
 
 " The United Mine Workers contended : 
 
 " ist. That our unincorporated labor-union is irresponsible 
 in the eyes of the law, and cannot be held in damages for the 
 acts of its members. 
 
 " 2nd. That the Bache-Denman Strike and alleged riot 
 was a purely local affair, with which the international organ- 
 ization of the mine workers had nothing to do. 
 
 " 3rd. That the union rules forbade violence by the mem- 
 
 [45]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 bers, and that if members of the union had disobeyed these 
 rules the union was not responsible." 
 
 A perfect example of " pleading the baby act," is 
 it not? 
 
 NOTE. Since the foregoing was written, a very interesting case of re- 
 straint of strike by injunction has developed at the works of the United 
 Shoe Machinery Company at Beverly, Mass. The unions are obeying 
 the injunction, outwardly at least, but are considering, as I write this 
 note, calling a general strike of other unions in other industries, as a pro- 
 test against the court action in this case. 
 
 It is cited at some length in a subsequent chapter on Collective Bar- 
 gaining. 
 
 On June 20, 1920, a very important case was decided in the Amalga- 
 mated-Clothing-Workers Michaels-Stern & Co. litigation at Roches 
 growing out of the attempt of the Amalgamated to shut the United 
 Garment Workers (the union affiliated with the A. F. L.) out of the 
 Michaels-Stern shop by force and violence. The court upheld the right 
 of the Amalgamated to organize the shop against the other union, 
 but not the right to force things by combination and violence. Heavy 
 damages were awarded the employers (who apparently had made a col- 
 lective bargain with the United Garment Workers) against the Amalga- 
 mated, notwithstanding the Clayton Act. The individual members of 
 the union were not held liable, however. 
 
 The decision will not be welcome to Organized Labor, nevertheless; 
 it cuts too many ways. Union funds were held responsible, and the acts 
 of a labor-combination were not shielded from criminality by the Clayton 
 Act. 
 
 [46]
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CENTRALIZED LABOR CONTROL. CENSOR- 
 SHIP OF THE PRESS 
 
 ABSOLUTELY centralized, militant control of all 
 labor, and eventually of government, in the hands of 
 a small compact group, so far dominated by himself, 
 has been Mr. Gompers' most conspicuous and con- 
 sistent policy since the foundation of the A. F. L. 
 forty years ago. For proof of this see the oft- 
 quoted Report of the A. F. L. for any year (say 
 1919, at pages xxviii to xxxii) showing how every 
 detail of vital action of the local unions, though 
 based upon referendum vote in most cases, is subject 
 to ultimate control of the Executive Council of the 
 Federation (see also page 447). The diagram on 
 page 63 of the Report is a forcible visual presen- 
 tation of this centralization of power, and shows 
 presumably its evolution through years of consistent 
 application of the principle " all for one, one for 
 all" (diagram reproduced supra, Chapter III). 
 
 We Americans are so jealous of centralized power 
 in our politics that a mere reading of this Report 
 ought to make us react vigorously against the same 
 evil in our industry. That it is an evil of the first 
 magnitude appears more disastrously from day to 
 day as the newspapers record current illustrations 
 of it. Gompers and Company have but one ob- 
 ject and always the same, to force settlement of all 
 labor matters into collective central control, ofttimes 
 through governmental mediation or arbitration; be- 
 
 [47]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 cause political pressure comes cheaper and gives 
 better results than long-drawn strikes. Certainly 
 they have got the country to the point where the 
 President, Congress, the Governor, the Legislature, 
 the Mayor, the City Council, one or all of them, 
 expect to be called in to mediate or force settlement 
 of a constantly more stubborn succession of strikes, 
 contrived by ever growing and more rapacious 
 unions, always at the cost of the public. It would be 
 ridiculous, were it not so outrageous, that our over- 
 worked national, state, and local executives are thus 
 forced to waste time, meddling between buyer and 
 seller of labor. It is perfectly plain that it is enor- 
 mously profitable to Gompers and Company to keep 
 buyer and seller of labor in continual hot water, and 
 consequently that political meddling will always be 
 called for, yet never yield permanent results in the 
 way of peace. 
 
 I imagine that in organizing the Federation Mr. 
 Gompers took the unions as he found them, carpen- 
 ters, blacksmiths, plumbers, etc., each trade by itself 
 organized into local unions; first integrating say the 
 local carpenters into a national organization, then 
 the blacksmiths, etc., recognizing the autonomy of 
 each trade. Probably he had to do so, and to respect 
 the power of each leader over his own craft. Then 
 he federated these national unions into a national 
 federation, with local federations and departments 
 to cover various local and jurisdictional relations, I 
 fancy, that are immaterial here. This mode of 
 unionizing by trades extends each national union 
 horizontally, like a great spider web, across all the 
 industries, however diverse, which employ members 
 of the same handicrafts. 
 
 For instance, a typewriter factory I once con- 
 trolled was suddenly " organized," and I found I had 
 
 [48]
 
 CENTRALIZED CONTROL 
 
 to deal with six unions blacksmiths, machinists, 
 screw machine men, metal workers, polishers, japan- 
 ners. The same unions, and others, had members at 
 work in a neighboring ice machine factory, a saw 
 factory, a reaper works, an electric switchboard 
 works, etc. So, when strikes were called, my settle- 
 ment was tied into settlements with all these in a 
 way that created an impossible situation for me. It 
 will readily be seen, however, that this arrangement 
 is positively ideal for throwing all the settlements 
 with all the factories into the control of the Chicago 
 Federation of Labor thoroughly centralizing it. 
 Not one of the factories could quietly settle with its 
 own men without interference from the Federation, 
 because, the latter said, of settlements pending with 
 others. Of course this magnified the influence and 
 importance of the officials of the Chicago Federa- 
 tion. Extend the same autonomous trade organiza- 
 tion over great national industries like steel, coal, 
 and railways, and you hugely magnify the power and 
 importance of the American Federation officials. 
 They will never voluntarily throw away one atom of 
 that power and importance. 
 
 The unions are practically forced, in order to 
 magnify the value of unionization, get in more mem- 
 bers, increase their strength, and collect more dues, 
 to deny every right to the non-union workman of the 
 same trade. Union men must combine against him, 
 refuse to work with him, keep him out of a job, call 
 him and his family " scabs," slug him when the time 
 comes, if a little slugging seems advisable. 
 
 Rival unions in the same trade are not permissible. 
 Every union must be " chartered " by the national 
 body of the same trade, or be "outlawed" by the 
 latter, which refuses to work with " outlaws." The 
 Federation, for instance, outlaws the I. W. W. and 
 
 [49]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 will have no work or dealings with it. It can be 
 readily seen that Mr. Gompers and his lieutenants 
 would rapidly lose control and prestige if there were 
 large and powerful independent unions to compete 
 for work, wages, and political favors with the Feder- 
 ation unions. Precisely the same motive evidently 
 influences their attitude to State Socialism and 
 Bolshevism. Each would abolish Capitalism, each 
 would set up a form of government that would swal- 
 low up " Labor." The occupation of labor leader, 
 the handling of millions of labor union funds, the 
 near-control of vast industries, and the marshaling 
 of thousands of votes would vanish at once. Mr. 
 Gompers' great creation, the Federation of Labor, 
 would disappear unless he could expand it quickly 
 enough to control a majority instead of less than a 
 tenth of the electorate and capture the State. Even 
 so, it would disappear in the State, and other in- 
 terests than those of labor would develop and create 
 a situation harder to control. 
 
 For it may be remarked in passing, that in union- 
 ization, laborers are actuated by one main and con- 
 stant motive instilled by their leaders namely, 
 more pay for less work whose simplicity makes 
 labor politics almost child's play compared to the 
 man's job of party politics, with its countless cross 
 currents, shifting issues, racial and regional causes. 
 
 But to come back to Mr. Gompers : In order to 
 hold the union men firmly, to keep absolute control, 
 he has always fought the " open shop," and opposes 
 every form of individualism, of wages based upon 
 output, such as piecework, bonus or premium 
 plans, "scientific management," "speeding up," 
 that is, every means by which a strong and skill- 
 ful workman can individually earn much more, can 
 pile up a better output and pay check, than a slow 
 
 [50]
 
 CENTRALIZED CONTROL 
 
 man beside him, because such extra earning tends 
 to make the fast man independent, unwilling to 
 strike, to tie him to his employer and his job. 
 Gompers fights for the same reason every form of 
 profit-sharing, of assisting laborers to save and buy 
 stock in the business, as the Steel Corporation does. 
 He is said, though this I cannot vouch for, even to 
 oppose laborers' ownership of homes near factories 
 in country towns, because that too ties them to their 
 job, makes them slow to strike, too peaceful and 
 industrious. 
 
 Again, he fights employers who take signed con- 
 tracts from their men for a term of employment, 
 because that ties them. He opposes direct confer- 
 ence between employers and their own men before 
 or in case of difficulty between them, demanding 
 always that union officials alone shall represent the 
 men in conference. He fights compulsory arbitra- 
 tion, as under the new Labor Court in Kansas, which 
 can overrule the Federation's call for a strike. He 
 fights the recent movement among employers to en- 
 courage workmen in each establishment to elect, 
 as an independent unit, not tangled into unions, a 
 " shop committee," that can meet and confer reg- 
 ularly with the management on all questions of 
 hours, wages, conditions, and practice; thus afford- 
 ing the so-called personal contact, which tends to 
 promote friendly relations and confidence and head 
 off strife between employers and employees. 
 
 Most of all, Mr. Gompers fights uncompromis- 
 ingly all legislation that in any way limits his cen- 
 tralized power. For instance, he quit the first 
 Industrial Conference called by President Wilson 
 because the employers' group would not recognize 
 his Federation as sole bargainer for labor, but stood 
 firm for the " open shop," and the right to bargain
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 direct with any laborer who might choose to deal 
 that way. 
 
 He is now fighting the recommendations of the 
 second Industrial Conference because they would 
 unionize each establishment by itself as an industry 
 (not tied by numerous federated trade-unions to 
 other establishments), and at the same time would 
 create shop committees for frequent conference and 
 friendly relations with management, touching all 
 questions of wages, hours, conditions, etc. All cul- 
 tivation of friendly relations Gompers considers a 
 menace to the labor unions as indeed it is to his 
 kind of centrally controlled unionism, which is in- 
 tended to keep the laborers hostile and on strike. 
 Mr. Gompers objects also to the conference's plan 
 for prevention of strikes by requiring submission of 
 differences to regional labor courts of adjustment, 
 because he says such machinery is superfluous. He 
 says that his Federation of Labor is all the machinery 
 that is needed for the preservation of industrial 
 peace, and that it " functions perfectly," whenever 
 the pig-headed employers do not refuse its kind 
 offices. The lion lies down with the lamb inside! 
 
 Of course, if the employers simply obeyed when- 
 ever the Federation spoke, there would be industrial 
 peace, deep peace, no wage controversies, and prob- 
 ably not much wage to controvert. Mr. Gompers 
 runs true to form for centralized and militant con- 
 trol of labor. He does not really want peace, but 
 war and conquest ; organized labor always conqueror, 
 himself and his group always dictators. 
 
 I hope I have shown above that, in their very 
 nature, these great national and international strike 
 machines, the local Federations and the American 
 Federation, tying many thousands of unions together 
 in colossal centralization, are in practice absolutely 
 
 [52]
 
 CENTRALIZED CONTROL 
 
 incompatible with quick settlement or permanent 
 peace. If further proof of this be needed, the ac- 
 counts of any important strikes in the daily papers 
 whether purely local, such as the Boston police strike, 
 or the current (March 31, 1920) New York Ferry 
 strike; or widespread, such as the 1919 steel and 
 coal strikes will furnish it. They sooner or later 
 disclose Mr. Gompers' interference, intriguing al- 
 ways with the political powers, local or national, to 
 force employers to some mode of settlement involv- 
 ing recognition and participation of union machinery, 
 always repudiating direct settlement with the men, 
 as individuals. 
 
 The great steel strike, for instance, was called to 
 force Judge Gary to confer, not with his own men 
 as he was ready to do, but with Messrs. Fitzpatrick 
 and Foster, for twenty-six international, federated 
 unions, claiming to act for all labor in every steel 
 works in America. Verily a magnificent claim, only 
 disproved by the dead failure of the whole huge 
 bluff as soon as maintenance of law and order by 
 General Wood permitted a " show-down " ! 
 
 As I am writing these words (April 4, 1920), 
 New York press dispatches tell of the Jersey Ferry- 
 boat strike, called because the Erie Railroad pro- 
 poses to sell some unemployed boats to a private 
 owner who may possibly refuse to be bound by the 
 Adamson eight-hour law, as the railways are; a 
 " grievance " connected in the endless chain fashion 
 beloved of labor leaders with some dispute between 
 the United Fruit Company and the longshoremen; 
 a snarl likely, so say Mr. Maher and Mr. Healey, 
 to develop into a national strike of six million trades- 
 unionists, plans for which, says the union spokesman, 
 will be submitted to Mr. Gompers and the Executive 
 Council " for guarantees that the eight-hour day 
 
 [53]
 
 will not be done away with." This explains New 
 York dispatches of March 31, which tell us that 
 " an effort will be made in Washington tomorrow to 
 end the coastwise strike, when representatives of 
 both factions will meet in the office of Secretary 
 of Labor Wilson." 
 
 Compare with the above Chicago dispatches of 
 same date, viz. : " Nelson and Spangler, department 
 o labor mediators, arrived today from Washington 
 to attempt settlement of the strike of nine hundred 
 members of the Live Stock Handlers Union, which 
 has thrown nearly ten thousand men out of work. 
 Meantime, stock normally destined for Chicago is 
 routed to other packing points. Chicago packers 
 usually pay out $3,000,000 a day at this time of the 
 year for live stock, and this business has stopped. 
 A shortage of fresh meat has brought about a sharp 
 advance in prices. No pork was offered in today's 
 market." 
 
 Always Washington, Washington, Washington! 
 And in the background or foreground, as the case 
 may be, always Gompers, Gompers, Gompers ! 
 
 A few days later Chicago dispatches of April 5 
 report several thousand " insurgent " switchmen on 
 strike, likely to cause a shutdown next day of pack- 
 ing houses employing fifty thousand men, but add 
 that the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen will 
 shortly discipline the insurgents and permit the rail- 
 roads to run again. 
 
 (By the way, what fun it must be to try to run a 
 packing house in Chicago, with cattle-feed strikers 
 on one hand, switchmen strikers on the other, the 
 Attorney General trust-busting in front and profiteer- 
 punching behind, the people damning you because 
 you don't keep the price of beef down, and the 
 farmers because you don't keep it up !) 
 
 [54]
 
 CENTRALIZED CONTROL 
 
 So, not long ago the A. F. L. was disciplining the 
 "insurgent" or "outlaw" printers in New York. 
 As far as these efforts of the great international 
 unions go to carry out their " collective bargains," 
 they constitute the one commendable deed of Organ- 
 ized Labor I have been able to cite. But, unfor- 
 tunately, even the Federation does not seem able to 
 enforce discipline if its orders are momentarily un- 
 popular with the men concerned. That was the case 
 also in the recent soft coal and steel strikes. 
 
 But why pile proof on proof of centralization and 
 its evils? The great net fact that stands out from 
 the whole huge welter of confusing evidence is, that 
 the greater the centralization and federation of the 
 unions, the bigger and costlier the strike, the more 
 confused and conflicting the interests involved, and 
 the slower and less lasting the peace that eventually 
 is bound to come whenever the workingmen have 
 spent their money and are forced to earn again or 
 starve; when, in other words, the moment arrives 
 for the law of supply and demand, which Mr. Gom- 
 pers says no longer applies to labor, quietly to re- 
 sume control. 
 
 That law is the only final arbiter, the only just 
 and impartial judge, the only real friend of the 
 workingmen, the only foundation of industrial peace 
 and commercial prosperity, if the evidence we have 
 before us can be depended on. 
 
 An amusing conflict between Mr. Gompers' theory 
 and practice in centralized control of all labor 
 cropped out during the joint debate on the Kansas 
 Industrial Court between Governor Allen of Kansas 
 and Mr. Gompers, staged at Carnegie Hall, New 
 York, May 28. 
 
 Mr. Gompers, as always, vigorously asserted the 
 unlimited right of the laborer to strike, " the right of 
 
 [55]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 a freeman to dispose of himself, of his labor and his 
 labor power." Governor Allen quietly asked him 
 "who then had the divine right to forbid the switch- 
 men to strike in the recent " outlaw strike," who 
 then "controlled this divine right to strike"? Mr. 
 Gompers replied he would like to answer if he had 
 time." 
 
 Voices from the audience shouted "You can't." 
 Governor Allen's questions are abundantly answered, 
 however, in the Laws of the Federation of Labor. 
 (See the oft-cited Report for 1919, pages xxviii to 
 xxxii.) 
 
 Another illustration of autocratic centralized con- 
 trol of Mr. Gompers' Federation, and this a most 
 important one, occurs in the testimony of Mr. E. J. 
 McCone of the Buffalo Commercial a paper that 
 runs non-union before the Senate News Print In- 
 vestigating Committee, at Washington, May 3. He 
 charged that the International Typographical Union 
 " through censorship by the shop-chapel kept articles 
 unfavorable to Organized Labor out of most news- 
 papers." He said that his own paper and the New 
 York Times were the only two Eastern papers to 
 print certain parts of Judge Gary's testimony before 
 the Steel Strike Investigation Senate Committee, and 
 that the Buffalo News had, after putting the story in 
 type, been forced to change it under pressure from 
 the shop-chapel. He further cited the oath, binding 
 members of this union, swearing "fidelity to my 
 union and its members, above any other obligation, 
 social, political, religious, fraternal or otherwise." 
 
 You, gentlemen of the press, will know whether 
 this serious charge is true, and it will be a matter of 
 honor with you to vindicate the freedom of the press. 
 I call your serious attention to Mr. McCone's ad- 
 dress before the 1920 Convention of the National 
 
 [56]
 
 CENTRALIZED CONTROL 
 
 Metal Trades Association, in which he repeats, with 
 great detail of supporting evidence, the charge that 
 the press is almost solidly muzzled by the Typo- 
 graphical Union on the important subject of the 
 "closed shop"; that since 1917 no article criticizing 
 the closed shop or advocating the " open shop" has 
 appeared in any American newspaper except the 
 Buffalo Commercial, the Los Angeles Times, the 
 Arizona Gazette, and the Hamilton (Can.) Daily 
 News. 
 
 In view of Mr. McCone's very definite assertions, 
 it will be exceedingly interesting to note whether 
 the press will find anything of interest at this time, 
 or worthy of public discussion, in this book, which I 
 am so directly presenting to your notice. 
 
 [57]
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FAILURE OF ORGANIZATION TO BENEFIT 
 WORKERS 
 
 UNTIL of late the American people have been and 
 probably still are friendly to organized labor, ac- 
 cepting as well founded Mr. Gompers' perpetual 
 assertion that "there are no means whereby the 
 workers can obtain and maintain fair wages except 
 through trade-union effort" (see Report, page 72). 
 Supposed humanitarian purpose has justified him 
 in the eyes of many thousands of excellent people 
 (especially clergymen) who neither create industries 
 nor employ labor, and who perhaps take at par his 
 declaration (same report and page) that "there is 
 in fact no such condition as an iron law of wages, 
 based upon a natural law of supply and demand. 
 Conditions in commerce and industry . . . influ- 
 enced by combinations and trusts, have effectively de- 
 stroyed the theory of a natural law of supply and 
 demand, as formulated by doctrinaire economists." 
 
 As a matter of fact there could be no more colos- 
 sal demonstration of the general falsity of the above 
 assertions than the actual course of wages and prices 
 of commodities during the forty years of Mr. Gom- 
 pers' presidency of the A. F. L. To put the facts 
 bluntly, the old law of supply and demand, sup- 
 posed by him to have been destroyed by the Trusts 
 and Combinations (and which indeed was vainly 
 assailed by all of them, especially by the Labor 
 Trust), has been on the job every minute, and has 
 proved itself to be a royal paymaster of the non- 
 
 [58]
 
 FAILURE TO BENEFIT WORKERS 
 
 union man. Meantime " trades union effort," sup- 
 posed to be the only salvation of the union man, 
 has proved itself his rank enemy. 
 
 I will not attempt here, for lack of space, to in- 
 sert a comparative tabulation of wages and prices 
 sufficiently exhaustive to cover all crafts and locali- 
 ties throughout the United States during the last 
 forty years, but will refer the reader, for pre-war 
 averages, to the valuable United States Senate Com- 
 mission Report on Course of Prices and Wages 
 from 1900 to 1907, to the nearest United States 
 Employment Bureau office for current wages, and 
 to any grocer for current prices. The Department 
 of Commerce and Labor has published also many 
 bulletins on the course of wages and prices which 
 it does not seem to me necessary to wade through. 
 Simpler and quite as conclusive proof is at hand, as 
 follows : 
 
 The Senate Report referred to above clearly es- 
 tablishes the fact that between 1900 and 1907, while 
 leading commodities advanced in price 17 per cent, 
 unorganized farm labor advanced 63 per cent; half 
 organized hosiery labor advanced 40 per cent; 
 highly organized railway labor advanced 33 per 
 cent; best organized locomotive engineers, 20 per 
 cent. The same report showed union carpenters 
 earning different wages in different cities, from $18 
 in Louisville to $27.50 in Chicago; and union type- 
 setters from 43 cents per hour in Philadelphia to 
 80 cents in San Francisco. In other words, non- 
 union labor fared best; while union labor fared 
 worse and worse in proportion to degree of union- 
 ization the strongest union faring worst; while 
 members of the same unions, at the same time, but 
 in different cities, drew widely different pay for 
 same work, determined by local demand and supply. 
 
 [59]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Now I venture to say that the reader will find 
 precisely the same situation today, if he will check 
 up for himself wages in a few typical trades, as I 
 have done. For instance, Mr. Stone, Grand Chief 
 of the Locomotive Engineers Brotherhood, sent me 
 recently a detailed comparison of engineers' wages 
 with those of 1880, with the following comments 
 in answer to my remark that wages had doubled in 
 the forty intervening years: "Not only have the 
 rates not been doubled, but the percentage of in- 
 crease given to locomotive engineers is very small 
 when compared with the wages now paid to other 
 classes demanding any degree of skill. . . . The 
 locomotive engineer today is the lowest paid worker, 
 when the skill and responsibility required of him is 
 taken into consideration." Mr. Stone was quite 
 right. 
 
 Plumbers just now receive 90 to 100 cents an 
 hour as against 35 to 40 cents in 1880. Carpenters 
 about the same, say $36 per week. Farm laborers 
 get, according to the Boston Herald of May 19, 
 in Maine and Rhode Island $65 to $75 a month 
 and board, against $12 to $15 in 1880; common 
 laborers, 46 to 50 cents an hour, against 11^/2. to 
 15 cents an hour in 1880, current figures from 
 United States Employment Office in Boston three 
 months ago. Cooks and housemaids are offered in 
 Boston papers now $14 to $16, and in the country 
 $10 to $12 a week, as against $3 and $4 a week in 
 1880. The plumbers and carpenters are well union- 
 ized; farm, common, and domestic labor not at all. 
 
 In short, wages have risen universally. But in the 
 A. F. L. Report for 1919, pages 47 to 61, two hun- 
 dred and twenty-five union leaders claim the credit 
 for the rise as " the result of organization" giving 
 figures; and their constituents doubtless believe their 
 
 [60]
 
 FAILURE TO BENEFIT WORKERS 
 
 claim. The figures are, however, so variously made 
 up as to be incapable of tabulation for averages. I 
 have roughly averaged the increases, for which 
 thirty-one out of the one hundred and ten big inter- 
 national unions claim credit; apparently, and in some 
 cases stated to be, the totals since 1881. 
 
 WAGE INCREASES CLAIMED 
 
 Bill Posters 
 
 Broom and Whisk Mkrs 
 
 Railway Carmen 
 
 Carvers 
 
 Diamond Cutters 
 
 Chemical Workers 
 
 Elevator Men 
 
 Marine Engineers 
 
 Stationary Engineers 
 
 Granite Workers 
 
 Hatters 
 
 Hodcarriers 
 
 Laundry Workers 
 
 Marble Workers 
 
 Metal Workers 
 
 Painters and Decorators 
 
 Pattern Makers 
 
 Paving Cutters 
 
 Plumbers 
 
 Print Cutters 
 
 Sulphite Paper Workers 
 
 Quarrymen 
 
 Roofers 
 
 Seamen 
 
 Tobacco Workers 
 
 Tunnel Workers 
 
 Upholsterers 
 
 Wire Weavers 
 
 Cabinet Makers 
 
 Cement Workers 
 
 City Employees 
 
 3 1 trades, total present wage 
 7618 
 
 Present wage equivalent to 
 
 Per cent. 
 200 
 200 
 225 
 233 
 235 
 350 
 320 
 300 
 300 
 
 220 
 240 
 480 
 2OO 
 2OO 
 242 
 22O 
 457 
 157 
 22$ 
 
 150 
 350 
 235 
 250 
 400 
 I6 5 
 2OO 
 225 
 I3O 
 I6 3 
 171 
 175 
 
 76l8 
 
 Present wages, average * = nearly 246% of old wages 
 
 say of 1880 
 
 NOTE. These figures are necessarily approximate, because the claims 
 of the reports are approximate and variously made up. The foregoing 
 are arrived at by comparing present with old wage rates, where given, 
 and figuring the percentage of increase. Calling the old rates 100 per- 
 cent, the present average rates show a gain of 246 100 = 146 % gain. 
 
 [61]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Gains run from 30 per cent for the wire weavers 
 (probably a very recent union) to 380 per cent for 
 hodcarriers, and 359 per cent for pattern makers 
 (which last two look doubtful on their face, but I 
 accept them). Altogether they average an increase 
 of 146 per cent; and if they fairly represent union 
 labor it is drawing today about two and one half 
 times the gross wages it drew, let us say, in 1881, 
 when the Federation was formed. Recent inquiry 
 at the United States Employment Office in Boston 
 confirms this average; and the union claims may be 
 accepted as correct as to the ratio of increase se- 
 cured. Hours of labor have shortened everywhere, 
 but to about the same extent, whether on union or 
 non-union jobs. 
 
 Now note that farm labor, strictly unorganized 
 and five times as numerous as all union labor, has 
 risen to four and five times the wage of 1880; and 
 that common labor, far more numerous than union 
 labor and entirely non-union, floating around at all 
 sorts of work, has risen to three and a half and four 
 times old pay. Domestic and commercial labor, un- 
 organized, twice as numerous as union labor, has 
 likewise risen three or four to one. No unions exist 
 to boast of these gains, which far exceed those of 
 union labor; but they are matters of common knowl- 
 edge. Any man can verify for himself, by ask- 
 ing any elderly day laborer, housemaid, cook, farm 
 hand, carpenter, plumber, or locomotive engineer, 
 what wages are now and what they were when he 
 or she was young, and will realize then that wages 
 in those steam-and-water-tight unions lag far behind 
 non-union wages in relative increase. 
 
 Meantime post of living has substantially doubled 
 (see Department of Labor Reports), so that all 
 labor, union or not, is now better off than ever be- 
 
 [62]
 
 FAILURE TO BENEFIT WORKERS 
 
 fore, as appears from huge savings bank deposit 
 increases and popular extravagance. Clerical and 
 professional workers, teachers, and the fixed-small- 
 salary classes, alone are worse off than of old; not 
 because they are not unionized, but because the de- 
 mand for their services does not double up with in- 
 tensive business activity. May I emphasize, gentlemen 
 of the press, the fact that totally unorganized, non- 
 union domestic, farm, and common labor is now 
 drawing three to three and a half times the wages 
 of 1880, while the most highly unionized laborer, 
 the locomotive engineer, draws but two or two and 
 a half times as much; and such well-unionized labor 
 as that of plumbers and carpenters draws only two 
 and a quarter to two and a half the old figures. 
 May I point out that those three classes of labor 
 (common, farm, and domestic) are the great classes, 
 aggregating twenty-seven million unorganized work- 
 ers, against around four millions organized; and 
 that their only friend is the law of supply and de- 
 mand, which Gompers says is dead and buried. 
 That no union has helped them, and they have had 
 to do without the " only means whereby the workers 
 can obtain and maintain fair wages"; but that 
 nevertheless for forty years they have done rela- 
 tively better and better than union labor has done 
 doing best of all during the extraordinary upheaval 
 of industrial conditions caused by the great war. 
 
 Verily, Mr. Gompers may rail at the law of 
 supply and demand, but it will continue in busi- 
 ness at the old stand; and just as sure as wind, 
 weather, and dry rot level the trees of the for- 
 ests, so will its ceaseless operation defeat and de- 
 stroy his huge but useless Federation of Labor. Let 
 us hope it may fertilize the soil for growth of better 
 things when it falls and decays. 
 
 [63]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Meantime, why should free, unorganized labor 
 do so much better than union labor, as shown 
 above? The question is interesting and the answer 
 even more so. The only economic explanation that 
 fits the circumstances is in the inefficiency of union 
 labor; the result of the Gompers' Gospel of Sloth, 
 of Idleness, of least work for most pay an im- 
 possible Gospel. 
 
 [64]
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. IN- 
 EFFICIENCY. THE GOSPEL OF SLOTH 
 
 WE now reach, and I call particular attention to, 
 the worst mischief so far done by Labor to industry 
 and the community; though its effort to demoralize 
 our politics may yet inflict deeper injury upon our be- 
 loved country. I refer to its deliberate minimizing 
 of production. It constitutes one of the heaviest 
 handicaps against which the employer has to con- 
 tend, and is far more responsible for his hatred of 
 trades-unionism than any matter of mere wages. 
 
 It has from the very beginning, long before Gom- 
 pers' time, been the theory of the unions that it is 
 a mistake for a man to " speed up," to do all he 
 can in return for his wages, all the time; because his 
 employer will not then need to hire so many men to 
 do the same work, and some man is sure to be left 
 out of a job. That man is also sure to be the poor- 
 est, least efficient workman; the man that likes to 
 take a day off now and then, and is not only by 
 nature a little slow but a little lazy; the man that likes 
 agitation better than steady work. 
 
 The unions figure that there is only so much work 
 to go around, and it must be split up into smaller 
 stents, so as to keep the largest number of men on 
 the pay roll. They would force the employer to 
 retain the slow men by holding back the fast men 
 and cutting down the hours of work. They entirely 
 
 [65]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 overlook the great factor of growth, which the em- 
 ployer has always at hearty and ignore the fact that 
 the way to increase demand for labor and its pay 
 is to increase output and cheapen cost of production 
 and selling price. Low price creates sales and 
 growth, and demand for greater works and longer 
 pay rolls. Growth always tends, too, to diversifi- 
 cation of product, and in that way also to lengthen 
 the pay roll. 
 
 It is strange that labor leaders, after more than 
 a half century of opportunity to learn, never seem 
 to comprehend this simple law of trade. The very 
 latest official action of the A. F. L. Convention at 
 Montreal (June, 1920) shows Mr. Gompers and 
 his lieutenants, still in the role of "stand-patters," 
 enemies of "speeding-up," fighters of efficient pro- 
 duction. Though talented agitators, they are es- 
 sentially laboring men, not captains of industry. 
 They run true to mental form. 
 
 It is the consensus of opinion of employers, often 
 enough publicly expressed to be a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge, that union labor is not more than 
 two thirds as efficient as non-union labor that is, 
 does not do more than two thirds as much work in 
 the same time. The union gospels of sloth, the dis- 
 honest and contemptible union purpose to give less 
 and less work for more and more pay, are spread 
 all over the much-quoted Report, which, as before, 
 will be the foundation of my judgment of Mr. Gom- 
 pers strengthened, of course, by citation of con- 
 crete cases in point, and other extraneous evidence. 
 
 The " Reconstruction Program " adapted by the 
 A. F. L. at its 1919 meeting says (Report, page 
 72): "There must be no reduction in wages; in 
 many instances wages must be increased." "The 
 workers demand a living wage for all wage-earners, 
 
 [66]
 
 GOSPEL OF SLOTH 
 
 skilled or unskilled a wage which will enable the 
 worker and his family to live in health and comfort, 
 provide a competence for idleness and old age, and 
 afford to all the opportunity of cultivating all that 
 is best within mankind." "The shorter work day 
 and work week make for a constantly growing, 
 higher and better standard of productivity, health, 
 longevity, morals and citizenship." :< The right of 
 labor to fix its hours of work must not be abrogated 
 or interfered with." 
 
 " The day's working time should be limited to not 
 more than eight hours the week's working time 
 to not more than five and one half days." 
 
 Resolution No. 160 (see Report, pages 452 
 et seq.) reads in part as follows: "Whereas tre- 
 mendous changes have taken place in the industries 
 of this country and the world; due to introduction 
 of new machinery, tools, processes and methods of 
 efficiency, and production of commodities, which has 
 increased to a great degree; therefore be it Re- 
 solved, that the A. F. L. and its affiliated organiza- 
 tions conduct in the future a campaign of education 
 to establish the universal 6-Hour day, etc." The 
 Committee on Shorter Workday recommended that 
 the A. F. L. lend assistance to any union seeking to 
 establish a shorter workday, that will provide for 
 the employment of all its members; and this recom- 
 mendation was adopted. 
 
 The foregoing official record of the action of the 
 A. F. L. shows that it presents seven points (not 
 fourteen this time) : 
 
 1. That wages shall be maintained or increased. 
 
 2. That wages shall be big enough to make every worker 
 
 well off, even in old age. 
 
 3. That the hours of work shall be reduced. 
 
 4. That labor shall fix those hours. 
 
 [6 7 ]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 5. That, as machinery and methods improve, so as to in- 
 
 crease production, working hours must be shortened, 
 presumably enough to keep production down to old 
 levels. 
 
 6. Resolution No. 160 evidently aims at getting rid of 
 
 non-employment by shortening work hours so as to 
 take more men to do same work. 
 
 7. Resolutions No. in and No. 152 (see page 381), 
 
 against profiteering, show that Labor proposes to 
 stop rise in prices of commodities. Shortage in sup- 
 ply is implied, as the stopper. 
 
 Perhaps you, Messrs. Press Writers, reading 
 these Gompers' seven points, are asking yourselves, 
 as men of ordinary intelligence, just how Organized 
 Labor is going to " democratize industry " so as to 
 increase wages to a point far beyond the world's 
 experience, while likewise decreasing hours of work, 
 without enormously increasing cost of production; 
 also just how shortening hours and putting on more 
 men to do the same work to end unemployment, 
 or shortening hours to nullify the increased product 
 gained by better methods and machinery, can pos- 
 sibly relieve short supply or reduce high cost of 
 commodities, as recited in the Resolutions? 
 
 Maybe you ask yourselves also whether Mr. 
 Gompers is so stupid as to believe his own econom- 
 ics; whether he honestly thinks the trusts and the 
 A. F. L. really can defy the law of supply and de- 
 mand ; or that his Reconstruction Program will actu- 
 ally enable Labor to get more out of the world by 
 putting less into it. 
 
 He may be so stupid and yet may be sincere, but 
 I doubt both hypotheses. His record discloses a 
 demagogue of very unusual personal force, who 
 sizes up his followers perfectly and feeds them 
 seven points, or seventy, such as they like, and such 
 
 [68]
 
 GOSPEL OF SLOTH 
 
 as will " get by." One of these points is simple 
 sloth. It appeals to us all, as to the tired Vermont 
 farmer's wife, who soliloquized as follows : 
 
 " I wisht I was a little stun, 
 
 A settin' on a hill, 
 I would n't do a gol-darned thing 
 
 But stay there, settin' still. 
 I would n't eat, I would n't drink ; 
 
 I would n't dress, nor wash, 
 But set and set a thousand years, 
 
 And rest myself, by gosh ! " 
 
 Ants and bees, one or two animals, and some men, 
 work hard and save for others to enjoy after they 
 are gone; but all the other living creatures work just 
 hard enough to live from season to season, and 
 from the cradle to the grave. Nature, like Shake- 
 speare, is content merely to 
 
 " Give Richard leave to live till Richard die." 
 
 Taking the world as a whole, or each country by 
 itself, its inhabitants consume each year all the 
 perishable commodities, food, clothing, etc., which 
 they produce; or, to turn the equation around 
 the other way, they will not produce more than is 
 wanted for consumption. No manufacturer will go 
 on making cotton cloth if it piles up on his shelves 
 unsold; no farmer will seed his acres for corn if his 
 last year's crop unsold remains in his bins over seed- 
 time. Rather than produce what he cannot sell, he 
 will rest himself, by gosh ! 
 
 A very little thought will show the sure result of 
 the Gompers' gospel of sloth. The bulk of human 
 labor is spent on the production and distribution of 
 perishable goods, food and clothing, light, fuel, etc. 
 All of these are consumed every year, or spoil. They 
 cannot be accumulated as lasting wealth because 
 
 [69]
 
 they are perishable. For that reason the world pro- 
 duces only just enough of them to go around, and 
 carry over from one season to the next. 
 
 The remainder of human labor not a very large 
 part of it, say one tenth is spent in producing im- 
 perishables, so called, like gold and jewels; or slowly 
 perishables, like buildings and bridges; or short- 
 lived wealth, like railways, manufacturing plants, etc. 
 Of the imperishables, only those which are rare, 
 like gold, are valuable, and can be accumulated as 
 stored-up wealth; while buildings, railways, manu- 
 facturing plants, etc., which in their very nature re- 
 quire much labor to produce, are therefore rare. 
 There is not and never can be enough of any of 
 these imperishables, or slowly perishables, to go all 
 around; nor can the latter often be split up for 
 physical distribution, even when considerable in 
 quantity and value. 
 
 Everywhere, from year to year, there is just 
 about enough of perishable goods to go around 
 among us all, and no more even for Rockefeller, 
 who eats no more than you or I, while what he does 
 not eat must spoil on his hands; and there is never 
 anywhere near enough of imperishables, or slowly 
 perishables, to go around. In other words, very 
 few men ever can be rich! 
 
 It stands to reason, then, that workers who de- 
 liberately cut down production either by working 
 shorter hours or by slowing down their pace while 
 at work of perishable goods, whose normal sup- 
 ply is just enough to go around, must not only stint 
 us all, but especially themselves. For they have 
 nothing but their own contribution to the general 
 stock, against which to draw from it such goods as 
 they need. In cutting down their own output they 
 cut down their own purchasing power also. 
 ' [70]
 
 GOSPEL OF SLOTH 
 
 The same is true, and much more true, of the 
 imperishables, whose supply is never nearly large 
 enough to go around. If the workers cut down 
 their own production thereof, they cut down still 
 more their own purchasing power. 
 
 That is the logical, and it seems to me unescap- 
 able, explanation why free unorganized labor, which 
 can and does produce more and more efficiently 
 as machinery and methods improve, forges ahead 
 faster and faster in comparison with organized 
 labor, hobbled with the shackles of intentional 
 sloth. 
 
 To justify my use of the word " intentional," let 
 me turn once more to the record in the oft-quoted 
 1919 Report of the A. F. L. or to its predeces- 
 sors. I have already cited this Report (pages 451- 
 454) to prove Labor's purpose to shorten working 
 hours; the following will show its purpose to cut 
 down production while at work, in plain lan- 
 guage, to loaf on the job. On page 121 Mr. Gompers 
 reports success in retaining in the naval appropria- 
 tion bill a provision against "so-called efficiency" 
 forbidding the study under the stop watch of 
 work done by any employee. He had reported the 
 same success in former Reports. 
 
 The use of a stop watch at the General Electric 
 Company's works at Lynn has just been the occa- 
 sion (May 10, 1920) of a walkout of a number of 
 workers, accompanied by threat of a general strike, 
 to prevent the timekeepers from determining by the 
 watch what should be a fair day's production in 
 winding coils. This is a typical case. 
 
 Returning to the Report, page 451, Resolution 
 105 says, "a piece work basis is most objectionable 
 . . . there can be no question that the proper 
 method in Governmental departments is upon a
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 fixed price for certain hours of work." The same 
 Resolution would forbid an idle man to put in his 
 time on any work other than that of his own craft. 
 He must rather do nothing at all. On page 468, 
 Resolution No. 218 puts the Ingersoll Watch con- 
 cern on the " unfair list " because of the " speed-up " 
 system introduced by the firm for greater efficiency 
 in production. This Resolution was introduced by 
 the " Boycott Committee." 
 
 These citations (a few only out of many) suffice 
 to show the fixed policy of Organized Labor. You, 
 gentlemen of the press, can judge of it by very super- 
 ficial inquiry. For instance, just ask any middle- 
 aged master plumber as to present and old-time 
 efficiency of journeyman plumbers, most of whom 
 are union men. He will tell you that they used to 
 average fifteen to twenty wiped joints per day. Now 
 they are restricted by union rules to one joint per 
 hour or say forty- four per week, as against ninety 
 to one hundred and twenty per week in 1880. Is 
 there anything to wonder at when the plumber com- 
 plains, as he justly does, that his wages will not buy 
 as much of this world's goods today as they used 
 to do, while the unskilled, non-union laborers' wages 
 will buy more than of old? Can a man who con- 
 tributes less than half what he used to toward the 
 common stock justly expect to take out of it even 
 as much as before, to say nothing of taking out 
 more? 
 
 Can the reader wonder that every manufacturer 
 is constantly putting in improved machinery to en- 
 able free, unskilled common labor to take the place 
 of skilled union labor, so long as the latter deliber- 
 ately plans to baffle the best effort of the manufac- 
 turer to increase output and lower cost? 
 
 Of course that helps common labor! The Bible 
 [72]
 
 GOSPEL OF SLOTH 
 
 says " the wages of sin is death." The law of 
 supply and demand, not quite so extreme but just 
 as implacable as Holy Writ, decrees that the re- 
 ward of sloth is poverty. The average man can- 
 not accumulate fortune in perishable goods, because 
 they perish, and because there is but just enough 
 to go around; and but a few supermen can accumu- 
 late wealth in imperishable goods, because what 
 little there is by nature can accumulate only here 
 and there. Who, then, shall the lucky ones be? 
 Those who work or those who shirk? Justice and 
 common sense and universal experience agree with 
 the Constitution of the United States in awarding 
 the fortune to the man that has the energy to work, 
 and the thrift to save, and the brain to plan, and 
 the courage to risk. That man is seldom a union 
 laborer, though he not seldom has been one for a 
 while. 
 
 At this point the Bolshevist, the Socialist, the 
 Collectivist, etc., come in to tell us that the United 
 States, like the Creator, has constituted things all 
 wrong; "but that is another story," as Kipling says. 
 Just now we are considering Labor. Moreover, 
 the Creator, in his infinite wisdom, has ordained 
 that he who accumulates a fortune cannot benefit 
 by it unless he puts it at work for the service of 
 humanity in productive industry; in the course of 
 which employment it must buy and pay for, year in 
 and year out, large and larger quantities of that 
 " human labor" which, fortunately for its owners and 
 in spite of Mr. Gompers, is a mere and extremely 
 salable "commodity of commerce" 
 
 This is, it seems to me, in the divine scheme of 
 this world's affairs, the reason for existence of the 
 capitalist^ the exceptional man of business; namely, 
 to employ much labor and give' many men the means 
 
 [73]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 of useful and comfortable self-support. He may 
 be, and from a business standpoint should be, selfish 
 but just, demanding and giving value for value ; and 
 he cannot succeed without carrying upward with him 
 many, many others. 
 
 Can you not see, gentlemen of the press, that 
 Capitalism, however selfish it may be, is intelligent, 
 constructive? That its consistent purpose of expan- 
 sion, of enlarged and cheapened production and 
 distribution because therein lies the greater re- 
 ward is for the benefit of the community also? 
 Can you not, per contra, see that trades-unionism 
 of the Gompers type, while just as selfish, is stupid, 
 destructive? That its consistent purpose of block- 
 ing expansion, of giving less and less to the com- 
 munity while demanding from it more and more, is 
 necessarily an injury to all, as well as a fatal blunder 
 for itself? 
 
 Is it not clear that Capitalism, doing with all its 
 might greater service to the world, deserves and 
 will always receive its greater dividend from the 
 world? While Gompersism, holding back with all 
 its might against service to the world, deserves 
 and will inevitably receive only the beatings and 
 the scanty fare, that always fall to the lot of " balky 
 critters" that will not pull their load? 
 
 [74]
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IRRESPONSIBILITY OF LABOR 
 
 ONE of the many difficulties, perhaps the greatest 
 obstacle from the point of view of Capital, in deal- 
 ing collectively with Organized Labor, is the finan- 
 cial irresponsibility of the latter. 
 
 The first question raised, when capitalist deals 
 with capitalist, is that of responsibility. Each asks 
 whether the other is good for his contract, whether 
 it can be enforced at law. If not, there is " nothing 
 doing" between the parties. 
 
 When it comes to dealing with Labor, on the con- 
 trary, the latter insists on carefully guarded irre- 
 sponsibility; at least so far as refusal to incorporate 
 legally goes to protect union funds from suit brought 
 to enforce performance of union contracts. 
 
 Of course it is none the less true, under the com- 
 mon law, that the members of an unincorporated 
 association, such as a labor union, are always per- 
 sonally liable for all its obligations; as indeed Labor 
 found out to its sorrow in the case of Loewe vs. 
 United Hatters of North America. But as in prac- 
 tice it is a costly process, as well as doubtful of 
 results, to sue a large number of laboring men indi- 
 vidually, the union leaders, who employ clever law- 
 yers, are well aware that such suits are seldom 
 brought, and that meantime union funds can be made 
 elusive and hard to reach under present conditions. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the unions were incorporated, 
 and complied with the laws intended to protect the 
 
 [75]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 creditors of corporations, it would be comparatively 
 easy to reach and impound union money. 
 
 Now, the one thing which union leaders reli- 
 giously guard from the profanation of handling 
 other than their own is union income and accumu- 
 lated cash. It is in their eyes quite enough to return 
 to their members a fifth or sixth part of their an- 
 nual contributions in the shape of so-called benefits; 
 and it is absolutely unthinkable to risk the remaining 
 four fifths by putting it, or any accumulated rem- 
 nant of it, up to guarantee performance of union 
 contracts. 
 
 For instance, in 1901 the United Hatters of North 
 America demanded that Loewe & Co. of Danbury, 
 Conn., should unionize their factory and establish 
 the " closed shop." The latter refused. Then the 
 Hatters called out Loewe's union men on strike, and 
 declared a nation-wide boycott of hats made by the 
 firm; causing to it heavy loss. The firm sued the 
 Hatters for damages, and as they were not incorpo- 
 rated, caused attachments to be levied upon 186 
 homes and on sundry bank accounts owned by mem- 
 bers of the union resident in Danbury. The United 
 Hatters defended the suits, and entered into written 
 agreement with the owners, assuming entire respon- 
 sibility for the conduct of the suit, and the payment 
 of any judgments obtained. 
 
 After eleven years of litigation, in which the case 
 was carried by the Hatters to the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, judgment for over $250,000 
 damages against them was finally affirmed in No- 
 vember, 1912. The American Federation of Labor 
 had intervened in the suit, alleging a financial in- 
 terest therein; and at its 1908 Convention pledged 
 to the suffering owners of homes and bank accounts 
 its financial aid: therefore the firm waited three 
 
 [76]
 
 IRRESPONSIBILITY OF LABOR 
 
 years for some proposition of payment from the 
 unions, but finally collected from the banks, and 
 started to sell the homes for the debt. Though it 
 then would have taken an assessment of but ten cents 
 per member of the A. F. L. to pay the judgment, 
 principal and interest, the A. F. L. petitioned Con- 
 gress that the Nation should pay it, on the ex- 
 traordinary ground that the Sherman Law against 
 combination and conspiracy was not meant to hit 
 Organized Labor! Congress refused, for a wonder; 
 but subsequently passed the Clayton Act, excepting 
 Labor from the perils of the Sherman Law. The 
 Federation then considered that it had discharged 
 its obligation to the Danbury sufferers by procuring 
 passage of an act that "precluded the possibility 
 of any similar suit"; and for some time left the 
 poor fellows to console themselves with Mr. Gom- 
 pers' sympathy, quoted by the New York Times 
 April 24, 1915, as follows: "I feel awfully with 
 regard to how the men will take this when they lose 
 their homes." 
 
 Meantime, however, he and the Federation had 
 come to the aid of the Los Angeles Times dyna- 
 miters, and had easily raised a quarter of a million 
 dollars to defend the McNamara gang in the crimi- 
 nal courts. The difference in the two cases lay in 
 the fact that the dynamiters were high officials in 
 their unions; the Danbury victims mere rank and 
 file who, as Mr. Gompers put it, "suffer for the 
 movement." Eventually the United Hatters and 
 the A. F. L. could no longer evade this obligation 
 to the Danbury men, and they reluctantly paid the 
 greater part of the judgment and costs. 
 
 The question that naturally arises to the inquiring 
 mind is, When will the rank and file open their eyes 
 to see where their good money goes? When will 
 
 [77]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 they contrast their own dividend from trades-union- 
 ism with that of the 100,000 leaders who do not 
 lose their homes or jobs, and are promptly cared 
 for by their great machine ? When will they notice 
 that strike benefits do not make good lost wages? 
 (That is, if the Reports of the A. F. L. and the 
 Department of Labor are to be trusted. In 1918, 
 for instance, the A. F. L. paid out " to sustain mem- 
 bers on strike" the large sum of $1,474,380.79: 
 but that came to only 13 cents per day per striker 
 against lost wages of perhaps $4 per day. For the 
 Department of Labor reported 1,102,418 men out 
 for an average of 18 days; in 3181 strikes, of which 
 1811 were called by the unions, or, say, 57 per cent. 
 The union men must have lost, say, 1 1,312,000 days 
 or over $45,000,000 in wages, against $1,500,000 
 or less, made up by the unions.) 
 
 When will they see that sick and death benefits 
 received are far less than their union dues invested 
 in ordinary industrial insurance would yield? Most 
 vital of all, when will they realize that union wages, 
 under the union cult of sloth, lag, and always will 
 lag, behind those of free labor, in comparison with 
 cost of living? 
 
 All these are the results of irresponsible unionism; 
 irresponsible to law, to economics, to public opinion, 
 and meanest of all, to its own faithful following. 
 
 [78]
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ORGANIZED LABOR. POLITICAL EVOLUTION 
 AND INTENTIONS 
 
 WITHOUT attempting an exact history, Mr. Gom- 
 pers' political program and ambitions are, I fancy, 
 in evolution, broadening and heightening with the 
 growth of the A. F. L. and his own continued suc- 
 cess in trading with politicians in power. 
 
 My first contact with Organized Labor as a semi- 
 political affair was in Chicago, around 1900, when 
 Labor seemed to have a "pull" with the city au- 
 thorities that held back the hand of the police during 
 labor disputes. The non-union man was pretty well 
 terrorized in those days, as my own men informed 
 me in 1903, when I put my factory under the pro- 
 tection of an injunction of a local court, forbidding 
 violence and abuse from pickets, in order that it 
 might start work after a protracted strike. There 
 had been many strikes and much slugging (with one 
 or two fatalities) in Chicago, during three years 
 previous, which finally came to such a point of vio- 
 lence upon the public streets (in the teamsters' strike) 
 that public opinion turned against the unions, and the 
 police had to do their duty. Meantime two judges, 
 Holdom and Chytraus, had been appealed to by em- 
 ployers and had granted nearly an hundred injunc- 
 tions against violence and sabotage. Their terms of 
 office expired, and they came up for reelection in 
 1904. Then the Federation of Labor, which claimed 
 one hundred thousand members in Chicago, sent out 
 
 [79]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 public notice' to all union men to defeat Holdom and 
 Chytraus, upon which the business interests of the 
 city, though not very energetically, rallied to their 
 support. Both were reflected, running, as my mem- 
 ory goes, from nine thousand to fifteen thousand 
 votes behind the leaders on the same ticket. It ap- 
 peared at the time as though but nine to fifteen per 
 cent of the alleged Labor vote was actually " de- 
 livered" when called for by the Federation. Not 
 long after, a conspicuous test of voting power was 
 made when the Federation attempted to defeat the 
 reelection of Congressman Littlefield, down in 
 Maine. He too was reflected, the alleged Labor 
 vote failing delivery. Gompers and the A. F. L. 
 opposed Governor Coolidge last year on account of 
 his action in the Boston police strike, which added 
 fifty thousand votes to his unprecedented majority 
 and overwhelming victory. He carried all the great 
 labor centers of the State, unquestionably supported 
 by the laboring men on the issue of law and order 
 against trades-unionism. 
 
 I doubt whether there are many other cases as 
 clean-cut as the foregoing from which the weight of 
 the Labor vote can be calculated ; but whether in fact 
 light or heavy, it counts for many tons with many 
 Congressmen and local politicians. Local labor 
 leaders naturally trade on the desire for or fear of 
 the Labor vote, to get city jobs for union men, jack 
 up city wage-scales, pull off the police from inter- 
 ference with picket lines, etc., and usually find local 
 politicians pliant. 
 
 To return to my tale : as the American Federation 
 grew larger and larger and larger, as the railway 
 Brotherhoods expanded, as the United States courts 
 and army were drawn into restraint of union actions 
 (for instance, in the Debs railway strike of 1894), 
 
 [80]
 
 A. F. L. POLITICAL INTENTION 
 
 Mr. Gompers felt the need of national political 
 " pull " as well as local. The Federation moved to 
 Washington, where there are few employers but 
 many politicians, built the " A. F. L. building " right 
 alongside the war and navy departments, and is 
 firmly and conspicuously planted there, able to shake 
 the Labor vote at the President and Congress every 
 day in the year. 
 
 Of course there are always the thousands of local 
 unions, city and state federations, etc., to shake their 
 local vote at Governors, Mayors, and members of 
 the Legislatures in every state and city. Nor is 
 their threat a light one to the average politician, who 
 in ordinary years has no compelling issue in his plat- 
 form upon which to stand; who has nothing to de- 
 termine popular favor except a party label, or that 
 he is a good fellow. It makes a lot of difference to 
 such a politician if he can rely on the solid vote of 
 the members of a good big local union. 
 
 And in national elections consider the possible 
 vote of Organized Labor. Roosevelt's record plur- 
 ality was around 2,585,000. Taft's was only 1,270,- 
 ooo. Wilson's second election was but 582,000. 
 If we grant Mr. Gompers' claim that there are today 
 over four million organized workers, and assume 
 that forty-five per cent of them are voters (as is 
 the case with labor generally), there is a possible 
 " Labor vote " of 1,800,000, which is far more than 
 necessary to carry a presidential election if delivered 
 solidly to either one of the two great parties, and 
 not counterbalanced otherwise. 
 
 Per contra, "Labor" is nowhere near big enough 
 to constitute a victorious, independent Party. 
 
 Hence Mr. Gompers' perfectly consistent and 
 well-advised strategy not to organize a Labor party, 
 not to put up Labor candidates, as such, but to bid 
 
 [81]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Labor play the part of a political prostitute, giving 
 its favor to whatever candidate of whatever party 
 promises most. Mr. Gompers' public manifesto of 
 February 8, 1920, reads as follows: 
 
 " The American labor movement finds it neces- 
 sary vigorously to apply its long and well-established 
 non-partisan political policy . . . Confronted by a 
 succession of hostile Congresses, the A. F. L. in 
 1906 announced its historic 'bill of grievances.' 
 This was followed by a vigorous and successful non- 
 partisan political campaign. In 1908, 1910 and 
 1912 the same program was energetically applied. 
 As a result, many of Labor's enemies in Congress 
 were defeated and all of the essential legislation in 
 'Labor's Bill of Grievances' of 1906 was enacted. 
 . . . Organized Labor owes allegiance to no po- 
 litical party . . . Wherever candidates for reelec- 
 tion have been unfriendly to labor's interests they 
 should be defeated and election of tried and true 
 trades-unionists, or of assured friends, should be 
 secured . . . whether for President, for Congress, 
 for state legislatures or any other office . . . The 
 time for vigorous and determined action is here." 
 
 No fault can be found with Mr. Gompers and the 
 A. F. L. for using the ballot to protect their con- 
 stitutional rights, or to modify the Constitution in a 
 constitutional way. That is what the ballot is for 
 in a free country. It is the privilege and the duty 
 of the rest of us, if we do not like what organized 
 labor ballots for, to ballot ourselves against it, and 
 defeat it if we can. We are bound, therefore, to 
 inquire carefully just what labor wants of the Presi- 
 dent, of Congress, and the Legislatures. Is it some 
 constitutional right that it seeks to save, or some un- 
 constitutional class advantage it is determined to 
 force by threatening frightened Congressmen? 
 
 [82]
 
 A. F. L. POLITICAL INTENTION 
 
 To begin with, what Labor has already got by 
 political activity, local and national, may be sum- 
 marized as follows: 
 
 1. For many years local police and military au- 
 thorities have winked at violence and terrorism in 
 labor disputes, and have only interfered to maintain 
 law and order and protect life and property when 
 popular indignation compelled so doing. Of late 
 years the public by intensive experience has grown 
 rather impatient of organized labor, and the poli- 
 ticians in power are becoming quickly responsive in 
 maintaining law and order. (In consequence Organ- 
 ized Labor has lately sought to change the law and 
 limit judicial power.) 
 
 2. A number of years ago Labor obtained from 
 Congress a law making eight hours a day's work in 
 all government employment, and on all government 
 contract work. This was the entering wedge, re- 
 cently followed up by the Adamson Law of 1916 
 establishing the eight-hour day for railroad workers. 
 A good many subsidiary eight-hour laws have been 
 passed by different State and City Legislatures, I 
 believe. 
 
 3. Acts excluding oriental immigration, etc., have 
 been passed, largely at the instance of Organized 
 Labor. 
 
 4. A Seaman's Act, allowing seamen to quit any 
 time provided their ship is safe in port, instead of 
 being bound to complete the voyage for which they 
 shipped, has been passed. 
 
 5. A Department of Labor was segregated from 
 the old Department of Commerce and Labor, and 
 a union man made Secretary of it under the present 
 Administration. The Department is now pretty 
 well "packed" with officials friendly to Mr. Gom- 
 pers and his associates. 
 
 [83]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 6. A number of child and female labor laws, 
 workmen's compensation laws, inspection, sanitation, 
 and safety appliance laws have been passed with 
 Organized Labor's approval, or perhaps its initia- 
 tive. I say perhaps, because none of these things 
 were taken seriously enough by Organized Labor to 
 cause the calling of one single strike in the twenty- 
 five years from 1881 to 1905 (see Report on Strikers 
 and Lockouts of Committee of Labor), out of 
 nearly thirty-seven thousand recorded by Carroll D. 
 Wright. Since 1905 the Committee of Labor has 
 not tabulated the statistics of about as many more 
 strikes, nor brought this particular record down to 
 date, but such as it is, the record indicates that phi- 
 lanthropists and reformers passed those laws with- 
 out especial pressure from Labor. Nobody opposed 
 them seriously. 
 
 7. Congress passed the Clayton Anti-Trust Law, 
 including a declaration that human labor is not a 
 commodity of commerce, and excepting labor and 
 farmer combination from being held to be conspiracy 
 in restraint of trade. 
 
 This law is the crowning triumph of the political 
 activities of Organized Labor in the United States 
 (see Report, pages 197410), the most far-reaching 
 in its practical effect and intention, as triumphantly 
 announced by Mr. Gompers, viz. : to deny to the em- 
 ployer the protection of the courts, in advance, 
 against the violence and abuse that usually breaks 
 out along the picket lines established by Organized 
 Labor in every strike. 
 
 To explain the Act to the uninitiated, let me say 
 that Organized Labor openly admits that a strike 
 has poor chance of success unless a picket line is 
 drawn to keep other workmen from taking the jobs 
 vacated by the strikers. The jobs are good enough 
 
 [84]
 
 A. F. L. POLITICAL INTENTION 
 
 and attractive enough to fetch plenty of men glad 
 to fill them in a few days or weeks, if free play is 
 allowed to that law of supply and demand which 
 Mr. Gompers says does not exist. Indeed the 
 strikers themselves are determined to hold on to 
 the jobs, and have not the remotest idea of giving 
 them up. They mean to save their cake and eat 
 it too; to keep their jobs, but make the boss pay 
 better than the wages that they were, and others are, 
 glad enough to take. The only way to do this is to 
 keep those others away, by persuasion or, if it 
 comes to that, by force. So the picket line is drawn 
 around the job. 
 
 Naturally the employer is indignant, and the non- 
 union workers who want work are indignant. Both 
 protest that this is a free country, and the public 
 streets are free to every man; that the employer has 
 a right to offer and the non-union man a right to 
 accept such work and wages as they choose, under 
 lawful conditions. When the non-union man finds 
 his way barred by the pickets, talk gets hot, and 
 blows follow. Likewise the picket line often turns 
 back coal, material, etc., on its way to the employer. 
 There can be no question whatever that the con- 
 stitutional right of both employer and non-union 
 seeker of employment to " life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness," i.e. of any lawful business 
 is deliberately trampled on by a combination of union 
 men in restraint of trade. 
 
 The union leaders say: "Very well, what of it? 
 If we break the law, let us be tried by a jury of our 
 peers, and punished for it. Of course we do not 
 admit any intent to break the law. It may be that 
 foolish men sometimes get angry; that is an incident 
 of industrial warfare, nothing more." 
 
 The employer answers : " Doubtless you are will- 
 [85]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ing to take the chances of a jury trial two or three 
 months hence for slugging our workmen today; you 
 feel pretty sure that your experienced lawyers will 
 get your men off cheap enough. But how about the 
 non-union men who are hurt meantime, while pass- 
 ing along the public streets; will a verdict against 
 sluggers cure their injuries? How about my busi- 
 ness irreparably damaged, sales and output lost for- 
 ever? I must appeal to the courts for protection 
 in advance maintenance of law and order; I 
 cannot wait till the mischief has been done beyond 
 repair, and then appeal to the courts for punishment, 
 useless when inflicted." 
 
 So the employer goes to the court and the judge 
 grants an injunction against breach of law. Then, 
 when a union picket proceeds to " knock the block 
 of" a non-union man, or to throw a monkey wrench 
 into a fast running machine, he is haled before the 
 judge instantly, and sentenced by the judge no 
 packed jury to appeal to for contempt of the in- 
 junction order of the court. The proceeding is 
 summary and effective, and generally stops violence. 
 The streets are opened once more, the natural flow 
 of labor and material under law and order is re- 
 sumed, business goes on, and the strike fails! 
 
 The reader will observe that mere maintenance of 
 law and order as enforced last fall by General 
 Wood at Gary during the steel strike causes the 
 strike to fail. Therefore Mr. Gompers accuses the 
 judges, whose sworn duty it is to maintain law and 
 order, of acting as " strike breakers," of being owned 
 by and subservient to the capitalistic class. That is 
 why he procured the passage of the Clayton Act, in- 
 tended to permit labor to coerce capital without fear 
 of injunctions. 
 
 8. President Wilson embodied in the Peace 
 [86]
 
 A. F. L. POLITICAL INTENTION 
 
 Treaty formulated in Paris in 1919 the following 
 principles : 
 
 That labor is not a commodity of commerce. 
 
 The right to organize. 
 
 A reasonable living wage. 
 
 An eight-hour day and six-day week. 
 
 No child labor. 
 
 Equal pay for women and men, same work. 
 
 Equitable economic standards everywhere. 
 
 Provisions were made for an International Labor 
 Bureau of the League of Nations. The defeat of 
 the Treaty in the Senate has brought this effort to 
 naught as far as we are concerned. 
 
 The foregoing list comprises the major accom- 
 plishments of Organized Labor's political activity 
 up to date. It continues in intensified degree, though 
 against increasing public opposition, with the follow- 
 ing more or less distinctly defined purposes in view, 
 namely 
 
 For: 
 
 .1. Unlimited right to organize, even in government 
 service. 
 
 2. Unlimited right to strike, even against public welfare. 
 
 3. Unlimited right to collective bargaining; that is, em- 
 
 ployers must recognize and deal with unions, not 
 with individuals. No " open shop." 
 
 4. Government ownership of railroad and other utilities. 
 
 (Report, page 126.) 
 
 5. Government housing. 
 
 6. Government contribution to education. (Report, 
 
 page 129.) 
 
 7. Government works to prevent unemployment. 
 
 8. Government monopoly of Employment Bureau 
 
 service. (Report, page 123.) 
 
 9. Abolishing power of state and national supreme courts 
 
 [87]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 to declare laws unconstitutional. (Report, pages 
 
 74, 97, 99-) 
 
 10. Limiting power of judges to grant injunctions, so 
 
 that Labor may break the law first and take the 
 consequences of punishment by jury trial after- 
 wards. 
 
 11. Initiative and referendum. (Report, pages 99, I99-) 
 
 12. Minimum wage and shorter work day. (Report, 
 
 pages 113, II5-) 
 
 Against: 
 
 Every form of legal control or responsibility of Organ- 
 ized Labor, such as: 
 
 13. Compulsory arbitration or industrial courts. 
 
 14. Prohibition of police or other strikes. 
 
 15. Collective liability of unions for collective 
 
 bargains or acts of union members. 
 
 1 6. Compulsory military training. 
 
 17. Large regular army. Voluntary militia preferred. 
 
 1 8. Use of soldiers for police duty during strikes. 
 
 19. Public sale of products of convict labor. 
 
 20. Efficiency systems in government work. 
 
 21. Fixing wages or rules for government employees by 
 
 law. 
 
 22. Every law intended to bring employers and employees 
 
 into direct friendly contact, without intervention 
 of Organized Labor. 
 
 Examination of these openly announced political 
 purposes or policies of Organized Labor shows that 
 they fall under the following general classification: 
 
 Numbers I, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 21, and 22 are intended to per- 
 petuate under the sanction of law the present cen- 
 tralized control of labor in the Federation and the 
 Brotherhoods, with the monopoly of work and coercion of 
 employers once considered conspiracy and breach of law. 
 
 Numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 19, and 20 contemplate raids on 
 the public purse for the benefit of Labor. 
 [88]
 
 A. F. L. POLITICAL INTENTION 
 
 Numbers u and 17, and especially number 9, are attacks 
 on the guarantees of the Constitution, on representative 
 government, and the power of government to enforce law, 
 in the interest of demagogy, pure and simple, and the 
 removal of all restraint from the great machine controlled 
 by Mr. Gompers. 
 
 Number 15 perpetuates the irresponsibility of Labor. 
 
 Number 16 seems intended to avoid performance of public 
 duty. 
 
 Number 10 and number 18 are intended to prevent the 
 maintenance of law and order during strikes. 
 
 I urge your most careful consideration of the fore- 
 going analysis of the political program of Organized 
 Labor, gentlemen of the press, and ask you seriously 
 whether it ought not to be repudiated in toto by 
 every American who loves his country. Every line 
 of it seems to me dictated by the most intense selfish- 
 ness, by determination to concentrate and perpetuate 
 personal control of industry and the state in the 
 hands of labor demagogues, under the pretense of 
 democracy. 
 
 Well, so far 1919 and 1920 have been Mr. Gom- 
 pers' bad years. His big strikes have failed, the 
 people are getting tired of the mischief he makes, 
 the Administration has gone back on him ; neverthe- 
 less, driven to bay with his back to the wall, he does 
 not yield an inch, but makes the fight of his life. It 
 is the psychological moment to beat him at the polls. 
 
 That is what the people have already done in 
 England and France, backing up the Administrations 
 there that have at last had the good sense and the 
 courage to call a halt on the holding-up of national 
 life by Organized Labor. Let me repeat the old 
 German proverb : 
 
 " Things are so ordained that the trees do not 
 grow into the heavens." 
 
 [89]
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CLARIFYING STUDIES. SOCIAL JUSTICE. 
 MORAL BASIS OF CAPITALISM 
 
 BEFORE going to the polls, and while Gompers and 
 the politicians are making up the form in which the 
 labor issue shall present itself, it is as well to study 
 for ourselves a little in advance, and to distill what 
 Lowell called the "clarified residuum of thought," 
 as to essentials which are certain to underlie that 
 issue, when presented. 
 
 Unquestionably the most powerful appeal to the 
 conscience of the average American man or woman 
 made by Labor is that for " Social Justice." We all 
 want it. Ten thousand preachers, reformers, charity 
 workers; twenty thousand press and other writers; 
 a hundred thousand demagogues, none of whom 
 ever offer a job to a workingman; some statesmen 
 even men so totally different, as Roosevelt, Taft, 
 and Woodrow Wilson have thundered for years 
 at Rockefeller, Gary, and Armour as malefactors 
 of great wealth, commanding them to do " Social 
 Justice"; yet never does any single one of these 
 orators so far as I have been able to learn (even 
 Roosevelt) attempt to find out or to define just 
 what " Social Justice " actually is, or to make sure 
 that as a matter of fact it is not already ordi- 
 narily done, everywhere and always, under the 
 operation of forces far stronger than human kind- 
 ness or human greed. Perhaps the blindest guide 
 of all those who bind great burdens and lay them 
 
 [90]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 on other men's shoulders is President Wilson. His 
 Labor message to Congress last fall says, " To an- 
 alyze the particulars in the demands or labor is to 
 admit the justice of their complaint " ; and then goes 
 on for some two thousand words carefully to avoid 
 analysis, and shun particulars, in a peculiarly Wil- 
 sonian and rainbowy fog of generalities which in- 
 clude justice to Labor and protection of Capital, 
 also defense of the whole people against the chal- 
 lenge of any class. Not one concrete fact from him 
 or any of the orators. Clearly it is up to us to in- 
 quire for ourselves just what Labor does not get 
 out of this world that it is justly entitled to, and 
 what Capital does get that it does not earn; in short, 
 just what Social Justice is. 
 
 Fortunately, this practical, unimaginative country 
 of ours recently compiled for income taxation fairly 
 exact information as to what "Capital" gets out of 
 us all; which, with statistics from the Census Office, 
 enables us to make a pretty shrewd guess at the 
 actual " divide " between Labor and Capital, real- 
 ized under existing constitutional rights of private 
 property and the operation of natural economic law. 
 After digesting this information we can then go 
 on to ask whether any better basis for Social Jus- 
 tice can be devised by Congress than now exists in 
 our old familiar equality before the law; in every 
 man's inalienable right to "life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness." We can ask whether even 
 a Wilsonian administration can guarantee to every 
 man more than the pursuit say nothing of the 
 attainment of rainbows. 
 
 The year 1917 was one of the most extraordi- 
 narily active and prosperous years for American 
 industry ever known, though not so good as 1916. 
 War stimulus was speeding up every shaft in the
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 land, and war taxation had not yet laid its heaviest 
 hand upon the corporations. The Commissioner of 
 Internal Revenue has lately published the " Statistics 
 of Income" of 351,426 corporations from income 
 tax returns for 1917, 232,079 of which netted a 
 profit, and 119,347 netted a loss, for the year. All 
 of them together paid out of each $100 of gross 
 income the following: 
 
 Gross Income $100.00 
 
 Cost of goods, mat'l and mfg. labor . . $51.59 
 
 Labor other than mfg $7-72 \ 
 
 Salaries 1.42} 
 
 Miscellaneous overhead cost (not labor) 21.41 
 
 Interest 2.54 
 
 Depreciation 1.97 
 
 Local taxes 1.24 
 
 United States taxes 2.52 90.61 
 
 Balance remaining, profit $9-39 
 
 These " Statistics of Income " do not analyze the 
 cost of goods to show how much of the $51.59 re- 
 ported is for labor and how much for material ; but 
 it would probably be not far from right to assume 
 the usual ratio of fifty-fifty, or $25.79 eac ^ (f 
 course, a large part of the cost of material also was 
 originally for labor) . If we add the $9.34 reported 
 for other labor and salaries, we reach a total of 
 $35- T 3 cost of labor out of $90.61 total paid out 
 for every $100 taken in by all great American em- 
 ployers, by Capital. 
 
 The reader will note how small a part of the total 
 cost of production was contributed by human beings 
 in the form of work, less than forty per cent. 
 That is, Labor contributed a shade less than four 
 tenths of the cost of production, while Capital contrib- 
 uted the remaining six tenths. For its contribution 
 
 [92]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 Labor drew $35.13. Meantime for advancing 
 the whole $90.61 paid out for labor and every- 
 thing else, and for finding the money invested in 
 plant, equipment, and inventories, taking all the risk 
 and doing all the work of creating and managing the 
 project, Capital received as net return the sum of 
 $9.39, or a little over one fourth the amount Labor 
 got. In other words, Capital found the money, took 
 the risk, created the business, contributed six tenths 
 of the total cost of production and distribution, and 
 received as its reward one quarter the amount re- 
 ceived by Labor for finding no money, taking no 
 risk, creating no business, and contributing but four 
 tenths of the cost. Furthermore, Capital got the 
 last $9.39 left of the $100 taken in at the end, while 
 Labor always got the first $35.13 paid out at the 
 beginning. In fact in most states Labor is a pre- 
 ferred creditor; has the position of advantage over 
 everybody a first lien on all Capital for its com- 
 pensation. 
 
 Nay, more ; as five per cent has for long genera- 
 tions been regarded as a reasonable return for the 
 mere use of money so amply secured as to involve 
 no risk, only the difference between that figure and 
 $9-39 actually realized by Capital as above or, if 
 we assume an annual turnover equal to capital in- 
 vested, a reasonable assumption, $4.39 out of every 
 $100 gross income can justly be considered as the 
 reward of those who find the capital and create the 
 enterprise, for their risk, energy, and ability call 
 it, if you please, their work as against $35.13 paid 
 Labor for its work; and this in a most extraordi- 
 narily prosperous year for American industry, in 
 which, nevertheless, one corporation out of every 
 three reported a deficit instead of a profit. 
 
 Granting that Capital and Labor are partners 
 
 [93]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 equally indispensable, that neither can get along 
 without the other, why in the name of Social Justice 
 should that partner who contributes the virtues of 
 thrift, courage, management, and work be asked to 
 divide with the other partner, who contributes noth- 
 ing but work, on any basis more favorable to the 
 latter than the present ration of $4.39 to $35.13? 
 If that is the ratio in a year of extraordinary profit, 
 how can Capital risk the attempt hereafter to take 
 less and give Labor more; or what probability is 
 there that Capital will do so, in view of the cer- 
 tainty of bad years to come? Ever since the date 
 of Pharaoh's dream of nearly three thousand years 
 ago, of the seven fat kine and the seven lean kine, 
 the seven years of plenty followed by seven years of 
 famine, it has been in order, and probably was 
 long before, for Capital to look ahead to periods 
 of bad business, and take precautions to keep itself, 
 and incidentally Labor, alive through hard times as 
 well as good. That is its duty; and it can do Labor 
 no greater kindness or larger Social Justice. 
 
 Is not the above statement fair? Do not you, 
 gentlemen of the press, realize how narrow the 
 margin always is? Do you not perceive that under 
 operation of the law of supply and demand the work- 
 ingman always gets out of the world substantially 
 all that he puts into it collectively considered, that 
 is, with the individual variations common to all 
 human affairs? Can you not grasp the significance 
 of the extraordinary revelation of modern industry 
 as a whole afforded us by this snapshot taken by the 
 Income Tax Collector of business in full stride? 
 Does it not photograph itself on your minds that 
 that little $4.39 out of every $100 income is the 
 entire target at which Bolshevist, Socialist, Labor 
 demagogue, and politicians, so fiercely are shoot- 
 
 [94]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 ing! How small it is! Heaven knows what fat liv- 
 ing they all expect to get out of it! They do not 
 know themselves, and are mighty careful not to try 
 to find out only to roar promises to stop "profit- 
 eering," and give it all to labor, or the proletariat, 
 to the " People." 
 
 What will there be to give to the " People " if we 
 do stop "profiteering," gentlemen? What do the 
 people get in Darkest Africa, where there never was 
 any profiteering; or in Russia today, where they 
 have just stopped it? Will you not look at the 
 world as it always has been and actually is, read 
 history, and recognize that a nation's profiteers are 
 among its greatest assets: vital to its prosperity? 
 Will you not remember that where there is no profit- 
 eering there is no capital; and where there is no 
 capital there are none but beggars ; and where there 
 are none but beggars, there is also nothing to beg? 
 
 Let us check up these Income Tax analyses by 
 studying some New York World Almanac figures for 
 1919 compiled from various governmental sources: 
 
 Total population, 1919 $106,736,461 
 
 Workers in industries named below say . 32,000,000 
 Workers in transportation and distribu- 
 tion say 18,500,000 
 
 Value of manufactured products of U. S. $24,246,000,000 
 
 Value of farm products 21,386,000,000 
 
 Value of mineral and quarry products . . 5,739,000,000 
 
 Value of forest products 792,000,000 
 
 $52,163,000,000 
 
 Cost transportation and distribution esti- 
 mated at 37.5 per cent 19,560,000,000 
 
 Total value of products distributed . $71,723,000,000 
 [95]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 The above total value, say seventy-two billion 
 dollars, divided by the total working population, 
 something over fifty million workers, averages about 
 $1440 per worker as his entire product for 1919. 
 If we allow three hundred working days in the year, 
 each man produced value of about $4.80 per diem, 
 or for an eight-hour day 60 cents an hour. 
 
 Now it is common knowledge that common, un- 
 skilled labor has been and is now being paid 45 to 
 50 cents an hour, and all sorts of skilled labor any- 
 where from 75 cents to $i an hour. Is it not evi- 
 dent that, taking labor as a whole, here in America 
 at least, it is already receiving and consuming by 
 far the larger part of the value it helps to create? 
 Where was the sound basis for Mr. Roosevelt's 
 slogans of the " Square Deal " and " Social Justice," 
 upon which was largely founded his to me never 
 very convincing appeal to men of heart and con- 
 science that resulted in the formation of the late 
 Progressive Party? As a matter of fact it never 
 existed, broadly speaking. And where does Mr. 
 Gompers expect to get the " more, more, more " 
 that he demands for Labor? As the old farmer 
 adage has it: "You cannot get milk from a dry 
 cow." If Labor in this country, assisted by Capital 
 and brains, is producing total value of 60 cents per 
 hour, and drawing from 45 cents to $i per hour 
 wages, two things are positively certain first, that 
 labor generally is not being robbed, or even " ex- 
 ploited," by capital; and second, that its only way 
 to get "more, more, more" is to produce more, more, 
 more. When Mr. Gompers instigates his followers 
 to produce less, less, less, he is simply their worst 
 enemy. 
 
 Let us verify this from yet other statistics. The 
 Census Bureau made an unofficial estimate of the 
 
 [96]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 wealth of the United States, Dec. 31, 1917, as 220,- 
 ooo million dollars; the Department of Commerce 
 the same year estimated 228,000 millions. The 
 population was estimated at 103 millions. Our 
 wealth, therefore, averaged say $2213 for every 
 man, woman, and child; and if we accept the roll 
 made by the Selective Draft Bureau in 1917 of 
 48,282,911 workers, and call it now, including natu- 
 ral increase, 50 millions in 1919, our wealth aver- 
 ages $4560 per worker. That sum would be each 
 wageworker's fortune, man or woman, if President 
 Gompers were to take everything land, buildings, 
 plants, railroads, food, clothing, automobiles, and 
 hard cash and divide all equally among Rocke- 
 feller, Morgan, himself, and the rest of us. 
 
 Now let us suppose, though by no means certain, 
 that when thus divided each man's fortune would 
 earn him the fair dividend of six per cent on his 
 $4560, or $273.60 per annum. That would come 
 to 90 cents a day for each worker in addition to the 
 wage he gets now, reserving nothing whatever for 
 capital; that is, if we assume, which we have every 
 reason to doubt, that our national capital, if divided 
 up as above, and no longer managed by captains of 
 industry for their own benefit, would yield the 90 
 cents per day, the six per cent in question as to 
 which more hereafter. 
 
 How far, gentlemen of the press, and may I add 
 also, gentlemen of the pulpit, the forum, and the 
 soap box how far would 90 cents a day go to 
 satisfy Mr. Gompers' " more, more, more for 
 Labor"? Why, as I write (April 12, 1920), the 
 railway switchmen, freight handlers, clerks, etc., 
 are breaking loose from his organizations on an 
 "outlaw" strike, demanding from $1.60 to $2.40 
 a day increase of pay. I have heard talk even of 
 
 [97] 

 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 the following Labor slogan: "Five hours and five 
 dollars a day, five days a week." 
 
 While clarifying our thought, however, let us not 
 make the mistake of assuming that Mr. Gompers 
 wants merely an " even divide." The only way his 
 Organized Labor can earn "more, more, more," 
 while producing less, less, less, is to remain as it 
 is now: a compact, predatory minority; holding up 
 the majority by strikes in strategic industries, such 
 as coal, railroad, etc., for more than its fair share! 
 The 228,000 millions of our wealth, which I as- 
 sumed above for the sake of argument to divide 
 equally, does not to any great extent belong to Wall 
 Street. Over 100,000 millions of it was in land, 
 farms, and homes owned by good plain American 
 citizens everywhere; another 50,000 millions was in 
 goods, live stock, food, clothing, furniture, and was 
 also scattered broadcast, bearing no coupons, yield- 
 ing no income. If we leave out of consideration the 
 land, which was not made by us, the remaining 128,- 
 ooo millions of our wealth, which we did produce, 
 totals all we have accumulated since Columbus dis- 
 covered our country all that is left to us out of an 
 output now 62,602 millions of dollars a year. That 
 is to say, our entire savings from the foundation of 
 the American Republic to date are just about two 
 years' present receipts. Since 1900 we have gained 
 in wealth about 99,222 millions, or an average of 
 5222 millions a year from an average population 
 of ninety-one and a half millions. We put by but 
 $57 apiece annually. 
 
 Once more, gentlemen of the press and the pulpit: 
 do you grasp the significance of the figures as throw- 
 ing light on the question whether " Social Justice " 
 has been done? If we assume the same proportion 
 (47 per cent of workers to total population) as in 
 
 [98]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 1919 for the nineteen years just preceding, then of 
 the ninety-one and a half millions average popula- 
 tion for that period some forty-four millions were 
 workers; and the above saving of 5222 millions 
 averaged $119 apiece. Allowing three hundred 
 working days in the year, our accumulated wealth 
 for that period comes to less than 40 cents per 
 worker per day. 
 
 You will probably admit, gentlemen, that during 
 the last nineteen years our workers (who produced 
 $4.80 per day in 1919) must have produced an aver- 
 age value of at least $3 per day per worker, taking 
 men and women together. If so, since the 40 cents 
 per day was all that accumulated in the shape of 
 capital, we must necessarily have spent the rest, or 
 an average of $2.60 per day. That is, we spent 
 87 per cent, and somebody, including the wicked 
 Wall Streeters, saved as capital 13 per cent of our 
 gross income. But we must bear in mind that a 
 very considerable part of that 13 per cent saved still 
 belongs to Labor. There were in 1919 no fewer 
 than 11,400,000 savings banks depositors, and away 
 back in 1910 even there were 17,805,000 dwellings 
 and 6,717,000 farms most of them small, owned 
 by workers. 
 
 While it is difficult in making up so rough and 
 sketchy an outline of so very large a subject to 
 draw exact conclusions, it is my own conviction 
 from this and former studies along parallel lines 
 that laborers the ivageworkers in general, those 
 for whom "Social Justice" is demanded actually 
 receive, and nine tenths of them actually spend, 
 somewhere from 90 to 95 per cent of all we pro- 
 duce. About one tenth of them save something, and 
 help to accumulate the nation's capital. I do not 
 believe our nation as a whole saves more than five 
 
 [99]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 per cent of its annual turnover; but whatever we do 
 save in the shape of bank deposits, whoever owns 
 them, is invested by modern finance in modern in- 
 dustry and distribution, to the conspicuous benefit 
 of our own laboring classes as wageworkers. 
 
 The recent years of war activity have caused an 
 intensive development of industry and an apparent 
 augmentation of capital, the real worth and solidity 
 of which cannot certainly be told before commerce 
 comes back to normal once more. Leaving these 
 feverish years out, for the purpose of this discus- 
 sion, I doubt whether normal accumulation of wealth 
 exceeds five per cent, as guessed above. The other 
 ninety-five per cent, as I see it, is distributed by the 
 cold and impartial law of supply and demand from 
 day to day and week to week with evenhanded 
 " Social Justice," that is to say, to each worker, large 
 or small, strong or feeble, fast or slow, in propor- 
 tion to the service he individually renders to the com- 
 munity in return for his own daily contribution to 
 the common welfare. 
 
 If he is but one of many thousands of working- 
 men doing each some obscure part of the vast work 
 of a great employer, his personal contribution is 
 comparatively slight, and often quite useless with- 
 out the contributions of hundreds of his fellows. 
 His individual reward, though labor in the aggre- 
 gate must first and last receive as above 95 per cent 
 of the total value it helps to create, is necessarily 
 small compared with that of the great organizer, 
 who coordinates hundreds or thousands of like con- 
 tributions into one great river of service to mankind. 
 Consider Rockefeller, for instance, whose tank 
 wagons bring kerosene oil to every farmer's door 
 on the remotest back-country road. Rockefeller him- 
 self, the creator and maintainer of that service to 
 
 [ioo]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 the farmer, is justly entitled to this last five per cent 
 (if indeed he gets that much) of the cash paid by 
 the farmer for his gallon of kerosene, after having 
 paid out in advance ninety-five per cent thereof for 
 cost of production and distribution, all the way from 
 the bowels of the earth in Oklahoma to the farm- 
 house in Maine or Australia. Without Rocke- 
 feller all the thousands of workmen of the Standard 
 Oil would never have done that service to the 
 farmer; without Swift and Armour all the packing- 
 house butchers in Chicago would never have laid 
 down a pound of bacon at the battle front in France. 
 
 Is not this the truth? In all history, in every in- 
 dustry, brains has always been, always will be, and 
 ought to be, the great profiteer. Without brains, 
 without management, neither Capital nor Labor re- 
 ceives its fair reward. Neither of them deserves, 
 and neither of them ever receives, the measure of 
 reward earned by brains. Hence Rockefeller, and 
 Armour, and Ford; and also Abraham and Solomon 
 in their day all of them, rightly, profiteers. 
 
 Or consider the case of another who might be 
 called one of the great modern profiteers Mary 
 Pickford. By means of the great machinery built 
 up by the " movie " men, Mary's pretty smile is said 
 to please some eight hundred thousand people every 
 day in the United States alone. She is said to realize 
 a million dollars a year income, or three thousand 
 dollars a day out of the situation. That would be 
 about three eighths of a cent from each person to 
 whom she gives pleasure, out of the perhaps fifteen 
 cents on the average paid by all at the box office. 
 In the aggregate she takes a colossal sum out of the 
 pockets of the " People " ; but does she not deserve 
 it? Does not each one of them get the pleasure, the 
 human service, expected from Mary, well "worth 
 
 [101] 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 the price of admission," all of it? Would there be 
 any social justice in depriving her, by law or other- 
 wise, of her minute reward from each and every 
 one? I have never heard any one suggest such a 
 thing; and I doubt if any one ever thought of it, 
 except myself, in this search for an illustration of 
 the just reward for social service. Yet it is precisely 
 as socially unjust to deprive Rockefeller of his frac- 
 tion of a cent per gallon, or Armour of his fraction 
 of a cent per pound of beef, merely because one or 
 other of them has created the machinery to serve 
 many million people. When Mary was a little un- 
 known actress on a single stage of an old-style theater 
 her smile was just as pretty, I suppose; yet it could 
 reach but a few hundred people, and cost them, say, 
 $i apiece. Now eight hundred thousand enjoy it at 
 15 cents apiece. Does she not deserve her reward 
 from each one just the same, or even more? Though 
 much of her work is mere trashy sentimentality, and 
 though many regard the " movie shows " as on the 
 whole demoralizing and wasteful of great opportun- 
 ity, do not the " movie " magnates deserve their re- 
 ward also when they bring harmless pleasure into the 
 lives of hard-working men and women? 
 
 Not only are the great employers, financiers, and 
 captains of industry entitled in all social justice to 
 the minute reward they get from each of these they 
 serve, but they equally deserve their reward from 
 those they employ, to whom they offer, in competi- 
 tion with others, an opportunity to earn an honest 
 livelihood. Whether we pretend with Karl Marx 
 that employers steal from their laborers the surplus 
 value created by them, or tell the truth, viz., that 
 they collect from their customers the cost of service 
 plus their own reward for rendering it, either way 
 they cause each to serve the other, and are entitled 
 
 [102]
 
 SOCIAL JUSTICE 
 
 to reward from every one of both elements in So- 
 ciety. It is the unchanging law of trade that as the 
 groups served grow larger the reward from each 
 member for service rendered grows smaller. Never- 
 theless in the aggregate it is huge, and it is justly 
 deserved. Social Justice is done! 
 
 I do not mean to say that in the endless flux of 
 individual circumstance and trade conditions fre- 
 quent cases of personal misfortune, bad faith, wrong 
 and injustice, do not occur. They are bound to occur 
 in the nature of human frailty. But no political in- 
 stitution in all history has actually gone so far to 
 even up chances between man and man, and to open 
 a vista of prosperity to us all, as the individual lib- 
 erty and property right guaranteed by the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. 
 
 In fine, I believe that entirely free and untram- 
 meled operation of the law of supply and demand is 
 the nearest human approximation to " Social Jus- 
 tice," as the colossal failure, here and abroad, one 
 after the other, of recent bureaucratic attempts to 
 fix fair wages, prices, distribution, and production 
 of commodities has most abundantly shown. My 
 profound conviction is that the less political med- 
 dling there is the greater social justice! We have 
 become the most prosperous people on earth, from 
 top to bottom of the social scale, by letting able men 
 make large fortunes. We ought to keep our system 
 going as it has been, until at least something that 
 gives better results has been shown us. 
 
 [103]
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FURTHER CLARIFICATION. MENACE OF CEN- 
 TRALIZED LABOR CONTROL 
 
 THERE can be no doubt that the country perceives 
 clearly enough that these giant strike machines are a 
 menace to a free people; that in the very nature of 
 modern life a few laborers who man the switches, 
 valves, and tracks of our great utilities, the terminals 
 of our railroads, our coal mines, police forces, hos- 
 pitals, etc., can inflict unbearable disaster on us all 
 by quitting work all at once. Day by day the talk 
 grows louder and louder that the community has 
 the right, nay more, the duty, certainly the power, 
 to protect itself. Nevertheless, in our jealousy of 
 the individual liberty of the free American citizen, 
 in our sympathy with the poor workingman as 
 against the rich corporation, in our anxiety to do 
 " Social Justice," we hesita-te to do our duty and 
 exert our power. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Gompers thunders out the defiant 
 assertion of the right to organize, the right to strike, 
 and the right to bargain collectively; denounces as 
 compelling " involuntary servitude " any law for- 
 bidding railway strikes; declares un-American and 
 undemocratic laws forbidding the formation of 
 unions affiliated with the A. F. L. among government 
 or municipal employees. 
 
 Governor Coolidge quietly rejoins to Gompers' 
 fulminations, that "there is no right to strike 
 
 [104]
 
 MISCHIEF OF CENTRALIZATION 
 
 against the public safety, by anybody, any place, any 
 time," a shot that hits the bull's-eye. 
 
 The issue is joined, and in meeting it we clearly 
 need further clarification of ideas. Washington dis- 
 patches of April ii say that the Republican Na- 
 tional Committee has submitted a "questionnaire" 
 to Mr. Gompers to ask his orders, or perhaps his 
 objects, in entering the campaign of 1920. Here 
 they are as he gives them: 
 
 A forty- four-hour week (perhaps forty-eight). 
 
 The right to organize, even government employees and 
 teachers. 
 
 Exemption of labor from anti Trust laws. 
 
 Right of employees to bargain through outsiders, not co- 
 employees. 
 
 The right to strike, even against public welfare. 
 
 Abolition of injunctions in labor disputes. 
 
 Free United States Government Employment Agencies, 
 presumably monopolies, in whose management Labor 
 shall have a voice. 
 
 Wages raised to point obviating need of pensions, etc. 
 
 Equal pay for equal work of man or woman. 
 
 No child labor below sixteen years of age. 
 
 Elimination of employers' welfare and uplift work, mo- 
 nopoly of such work by labor organizations. 
 
 Opposition to Kansas Industrial Court as " antidemo- 
 cratic." 
 
 Legalization of the sympathetic strike. 
 
 Legalization of the boycott, as last resort. 
 
 Of these objects, the forty-four-hour week, wages 
 obviating pensions, etc., and no child labor need no 
 particular discussion here; but the others are vitally 
 interesting. If attained they will continue that huge, 
 rich, irresponsible, centralized labor autocracy which 
 Mr. Gompers now dominates, and is determined to 
 perpetuate through the ballot by election of subser- 
 
 [105]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 vient Congressmen. It is time to wake up, open our 
 eyes, understand him, and beat him at the polls. 
 
 To begin with, most of us have carelessly and 
 sympathetically interpreted his demand, " the right 
 to organize," as meaning merely, that a lot of poor 
 fellows hired by the day by a rich employer, subject 
 to discharge without notice, with or without reason, 
 ought to be allowed to get together for their own 
 benefit and say to their employer: " It is one out, all 
 out, with us. We have talked our jobs over with 
 each other, and if you cannot change them to suit 
 us we will all quit at once. If you can stand it we 
 can. We are not satisfied as we are." 
 
 Thus interpreted, we have said: "That is perfectly 
 fair. The employer can drop men without notice; 
 singly they would have little chance against him; 
 acting together the balance is more even." 
 
 But Gompers' " right to organize " means much 
 more than a mere union of employees of one em- 
 ployer spontaneously associating themselves for 
 " collective bargaining " with that employer. 
 
 Here is, let us say, a factory force of men who 
 have never been " organized," who have come vol- 
 untarily one by one to accept jobs from the same 
 employer because they were individually satisfied 
 with work and wages offered. Seeing them thus hap- 
 pily and busily employed, Mr. Gompers, or one of 
 his lieutenants, says to himself: "Here are five hun- 
 dred men who are not paying union dues. Let us 
 organize them." So he sends well-paid organizers, 
 
 his unions have plenty of money, one for each 
 craft employed; let us say one for the carpenters, 
 one for the blacksmiths, one for the machinists, 
 
 to invite each workman to join a local union of 
 his own craft whose existing members work for the 
 most part in other shops. There may easily be five 
 
 [106]
 
 MISCHIEF OF CENTRALIZATION 
 
 or ten unions that take part in unionizing this shop, 
 each of which is affiliated with a national organiza- 
 tion of like unions, which in turn is tied into the 
 American Federation of Labor. The local unions 
 are also sub-federated into state and city Federations. 
 
 In consequence, the unlucky shop thus organized 
 finds its labor troubles tied and cross-tied, tangled 
 and cross-tangled, into those of a perfectly indefinite 
 number of other shops, trades, and localities, with 
 ramifications which no man can possibly forecast; 
 yet always, " Bunty pulls the strings," all of which 
 lead back into one central, powerful, and irrespon- 
 sible grip, that of the master of the A. F. L. 
 
 Next comes the "demand" for "collective bar- 
 gaining"; that the employer shall modify his existing 
 offer of work, wages, and conditions, whether or not 
 it suits his will or pocket to do so, in order to remove 
 " grievances " oftentimes formulated quite outside 
 his own shop or force; that he shall deal with men 
 foreign to his employ and be controlled by conditions 
 over which he has no control ; that he shall " recog- 
 nize" the union, and ignore or discharge old em- 
 ployees who do not choose to join it, or be punished 
 by a strike; that whether he will or no, he shall deal 
 not with individuals as before, but with a collectivity, 
 whose orders (and not his) the man who takes his 
 money shall obey. 
 
 I submit to you, gentlemen of the press, that 
 not in good conscience, in law, or in constitutional 
 guarantees, can there be found any warrant for 
 stretching the so far unquestioned right of the in- 
 dividual, free, American workman to unite with his 
 co-employees in peaceful refusal to continue work, 
 or accept wages offered by his own employer, into the 
 right of outsiders say Mr. Gompers with his huge 
 and immensely wealthy strike machine to spend 
 
 [107]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 millions in organizing all labor, in all employments, 
 into one great Prussian army, strategically disposed 
 to coerce single employers, one by one, or at will to 
 paralyze whole industries, even the life of the nation; 
 by the local, or regional, or general strike, original 
 or sympathetic, or by the boycott, involving countless 
 innocent sufferers in no way parties to the dispute. 
 
 Yet just this absolute, centralized, irresponsible 
 power, to starve, freeze, rob us all and singular; 
 "the right to strike against the public safety," as 
 Governor Coolidge puts it, is precisely what Mr. 
 Gompers openly demands of the Republican Na- 
 tional Committee in reply to inquiry. "The right 
 to organize" means to Gompers nothing less than 
 the centralized autocracy of the Federation of 
 Labor, with which, according to Gompers' closing 
 words (on page 474 of the Report), the railway 
 Brotherhoods now affiliate. " Exemption from anti- 
 trust laws" means that "Labor" may commit cer- 
 tain crimes without criminal penalty. " The right of 
 employees; to bargain through representatives not of 
 their own number" means that employers shall be 
 compelled by law to bargain with their employees 
 only through the A. F. L. Collective bargaining 
 means compulsory bargaining, forced on the em- 
 ployer by Organized Labor. 
 
 "The right to strike" demanded for government 
 employees and railway men means that the A. F. L. 
 may at any time hold up the life of the community. 
 "Abolition of injunctions in labor disputes" means 
 that the courts shall not in advance restrain strikers 
 from doing violence and crime, but shall permit them 
 to do both, running only the slight risks of trial by 
 jury, with punishment if any, long after irreparable 
 mischief has been done all of which quite suits 
 Labor. 
 
 [108]
 
 MISCHIEF OF CENTRALIZATION 
 
 For fear that workingmen may still steer clear of 
 organization, Mr. Gompcrs would create a govern- 
 ment monopoly of the employment agency business, 
 in whose management the Federation shall have a 
 voice ; that is to say, there would be but one office to 
 which a laborer can turn for a job, managed by 
 friends of the Federation, though paid for out of 
 the public purse. He would also forbid by law that 
 any welfare or uplift work be done by employers, 
 and give to Organized Labor a monopoly of that 
 work too, apparently urging such monopoly for fear 
 that welfare work is a little game of employers to 
 promote friendship and good will with their em- 
 ployees. 
 
 Finally, Mr. Gompers demands of his Republican 
 friends opposition to the Kansas industrial courts, 
 just as he has always voiced opposition to every 
 proposal whether coming from Congress, the ad- 
 ministration, the employers, or the press looking 
 toward any kind of impartial justice, compulsory 
 arbitration, prohibition of strikes, direct dealing be- 
 tween employers and individual employees, or limita- 
 tion of negotiations to the single establishment with 
 its own men, disentangled from all others. 
 
 In short, Mr. Gompers has the simple but gigantic 
 conception and purpose of coaxing, sweeping, or 
 driving all of the whales or minnows of Labor and 
 Capital into one vast dragnet of which he holds the 
 draw-string, letting not a single one escape to the 
 ocean of lawful liberty; now and then hauling the 
 whole struggling, gasping mass out onto the sand, 
 taking part for food, and throwing back the rest 
 until he wants more. 
 
 Or perhaps, looking further ahead, Mr. Gompers 
 realizes, as you gentlemen must realize, that though 
 government is the greatest of all human activities, 
 
 [109]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 yet collectively the industries are greater than gov- 
 ernment, and he who dominates them will dominate 
 government also. 
 
 The coal and railway strikes, the current general 
 strikes in Germany and Ireland to which their re- 
 spective governments seem to be yielding as I write, 
 this 1 4th of April, prove the assertion. The able 
 master of the Federation of Labor knows that if 
 but that small fraction of our labor which mans our 
 coal mines, our transportation and public utilities, 
 can be held together in one compact machine, obedi- 
 ent to his hand; if, as he dreams, the voting power of 
 that same fraction can be thrown solidly by him to 
 this or that subservient politician, obedient to his 
 order; if, as he demands of the Congressmen and 
 other "statesmen" whom he owns, the gates of 
 crime are thrown open to his machine and the de- 
 fenses of law thrown down before it; if the nation, 
 the state, the city, the railway, the private employer, 
 the vast non-union majority of labor, are bound hand 
 and foot by statute and thrown under his car of 
 Juggernaut; if, I say, his modest dream comes true, 
 why should Mr. Gompers start a labor " Party," 
 or waste his time upon the Presidency of the United 
 States? He sounds sincere when he proudly says: 
 " I have been the President of the A. F. L. for many, 
 many years. I regard that position as the most ex- 
 alted I could occupy." Verily, as things are today, 
 the Capitol Hill at Washington, held by Democrats, 
 or Republicans, "Arcades ambo" offers but a 
 broad and easy gradient for Labor's motor car, its 
 armored " tank," as it were, to roll up and onto the 
 top of the world. How much more magnificent 
 would its master be if his " guiding hope . . . for a 
 still greater organization of the yet unorganized, the 
 skilled and unskilled man and woman of whatever 
 
 [no]
 
 MISCHIEF OF CENTRALIZATION 
 
 color, creed, or religion " should come to pass ! 
 Think of adding, in this country alone, say forty mil- 
 lion more workers, with at least four hundred mil- 
 lion dollars more annual dues, to the strength and 
 resources of this colossal private machine! Why 
 need he bother with representative government as 
 guaranteed by the Constitution after Labor takes 
 charge? One organization, as he says, would " func- 
 tion perfectly." 
 
 Gentlemen of the press, there can be but one gov- 
 ernment in these United States ! Ole Hanson hit 
 and rang the bell of American public opinion when 
 he said to the I. W. W. leaders at Seattle, " The seat 
 of City Government is at the City Hall." Calvin 
 Coolidge hit it when he said, " There is no right to 
 strike against the public safety, by anybody, any 
 place, any time." 
 
 [ni]
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 To begin with, centralized arbitration is weak, be- 
 cause Mr. Gompers fights the creation of compulsory 
 peace machinery, such as industrial courts or tri- 
 bunals of arbitration, by whose decrees labor must 
 be bound, and indeed opposes every move whatever 
 for making and keeping industrial peace, unless made 
 by and through the Federation of Labor. Washing- 
 ton dispatches of March 20 quote him upon the 
 recommendations of President Wilson's second In- 
 dustrial Conference as follows: 
 
 "The Conference has devised a mass of ma- 
 chinery to be made effective by law, composed of a 
 national industrial board, and local and regional 
 conferences or boards of inquiry. The whole situa- 
 tion in this respect may be summed up as follows : 
 
 " Tried and tested machinery for conciliation and 
 arbitration between employers and employees exists 
 wherever employees are organized. This machinery 
 functions perfectly wherever employers forsake the 
 spirit of dominance and the attitude of autocracy. 
 No machinery devised or supervised by the govern- 
 ment . . . could achieve results superior ... In 
 industries where the employees are not organized, 
 no machinery of any kind, whether supervised by 
 governmental agencies or otherwise, can produce in- 
 dustrial justice . . . With organization of workers 
 no structure of machinery need be thrust upon it 
 
 [H2]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 from the outside ... It is to be feared that the 
 [President's] Commission views industry from the 
 viewpoint of the single shop, and builds its machin- 
 ery on the theory that disputes are to be settled shop 
 by shop. If such a viewpoint is actually to be carried 
 into operation it will be most disastrous. Unavoid- 
 ably, organization with independent shop units of 
 the employees is a menace to the workers, for the 
 reason that it organizes them away from each other 
 and puts them in a position where shop may be played 
 against shop. Not only the welfare of the workers 
 but the best economy for the nation demands that 
 industry, in so far as possible, be viewed in a national 
 light and that the workers be united into organiza- 
 tions covering whole industries, as is now the case 
 with the one hundred and twenty national and inter- 
 national trade-unions." 
 
 Certainly no words of mine could etch President 
 Gompers' portrait more clearly. "UEtat? C'est 
 moil " said the French king. What is the use of 
 government? says Gompers. My Federation of 
 
 Labor is all that is needed, provided those d d 
 
 employers will just take off their hats, walk up to 
 the captain's office, and settle. We can do it all, 
 organize the men ourselves, dig up a grievance our- 
 selves, call a strike ourselves, decide work and wages 
 ourselves, fix both sides of a " collective bargain " 
 ourselves, call off or keep up the strike ourselves, 
 and remain entirely irresponsible all through, our- 
 selves. " The fact of the whole matter is that the 
 President's Commission, even though prompted by 
 the best of motives, has neither the experience nor 
 the understanding of the history of the methods and 
 purposes of the Organized Labor Movement," etc., 
 says the master of the A. F. L. 
 
 It is kind of Gompers, though a bit patronizing, to 
 [113]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 let Messrs. Hoover, Rosenwald, and their associates 
 of the second Industrial Conference, down so easily 
 as merely stupid, not evil intentioned; but they 
 are not such fools after all. Gompers says : " Where 
 the employees are not organized, no machinery, of 
 any kind, whether supervised by governmental agen- 
 cies or otherwise, can produce industrial justice." 
 How then does he explain the huge fact set forth 
 and established in Chapters VIII and IX supra, that 
 for the last forty years unorganized labor has gained 
 in wages and conditions of employment more and 
 faster than Organized Labor? Does he consider 
 it industrial injustice that non-union labor has so 
 gained? Again he says: "This machinery [the 
 A. F. L.] functions perfectly wherever employers 
 forsake the spirit of dominance and the attitude 
 of autocracy." Let me, as commentary on this 
 last, tell a short story of my own experience with 
 the A. F. L. in a typewriter factory of which I was 
 head. 
 
 In 1903, after two attempts in 1901 and 1902, 
 the Chicago Federation of Labor unionized my men 
 and called them out, after having worked seven years 
 in peace before the organizers came. (The latter, 
 by the way, got a commission of two dollars a man 
 for organizing two hundred and seventy men.) Six 
 unions participated, engineers, machinists, metal- 
 workers, screw machine men, polishers, and japan- 
 ners. The Chicago Federation delegates handled 
 the strike. I could not, though I tried hard to do 
 so, " bargain collectively " with the six " business 
 agents " who kept on visiting me for nearly eleven 
 weeks, because they were running strikes at the same 
 time in a harvester works, an ice machine factory, 
 a saw factory, a switchboard works, all of which em- 
 ployed members of the same unions as we did, but 
 
 [114]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 whose size, product, seasonal activity, sales territory 
 and methods, likewise their costs and overhead ex- 
 penses, were so entirely apart from ours as to make 
 it quite impossible for me to accept hours, wages, 
 and shop conditions which were practical for them. 
 I simply had to fight a long strike alone and to a 
 finish, and we came out a non-union shop, with a 
 sadder and wiser lot of workmen; for their unions 
 could get them out of one job, but could not get them 
 back or into another. The machine did not " func- 
 tion perfectly." 
 
 Take another illustration, the New York harbor 
 strike now on (April 10) . It grows in some obscure 
 way out of trouble between the United Fruit Com- 
 pany and the coastwise longshoremen : first taken up 
 by the Master Mates and Pilots Union, then by the 
 Marine Engineers, and the Harbor Boatsmen. The 
 Erie Railway sold some tugs it no longer needed to 
 an independent towing company that worked over 
 eight hours a day, and the unions " struck" the Erie 
 Railroad Ferry Service, and then the other great 
 roads serving New York, on the ground that the 
 Erie sold the tugs in order that they might move 
 the United Fruit boats after hours. The thing is 
 too confused to prove much of anything, except the 
 infernal mischief of tying all those unions together, 
 so that the great harbor of New York, half a dozen 
 trunk railroads, and several hundred thousand peo- 
 ple are the victims of a controversy with which they 
 had absolutely nothing to do. New York dispatches 
 of April 4 quote Vice President Maher of the 
 Marine Workers, the leader of this harbor strike, 
 as announcing plans for a national strike of six mil- 
 lion men, to head off this move of the Erie Road 
 against the eight-hour day! Can this be called 
 "perfect functioning" for peace? 
 
 [H5]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 A multitude of similar instances must come to the 
 memory of you, gentlemen, who keep abreast of the 
 news. It stands to reason that every difference of 
 every concern with its employees, if organized by 
 Mr. Gompers, is tied into those of countless other 
 concerns and localities, involving ramifications which 
 no man can be clever enough to foresee or innocent 
 enough to escape; yet always all the strings lead 
 away back into one focal grip that of the tortuous 
 master of the A. F. L. 
 
 An amusing little sidelight is thrown upon the 
 perfection of the functioning of Mr. Gompers' 
 " tried and tested machinery for arbitration and con- 
 ciliation," and the energy with which it grinds out 
 industrial peace (?), by the following Resolution, 
 No. 6 1 (see Report for 1919, page 461): "Re- 
 solved, that this Convention of the A. F. L. go on 
 record to do all in its power to adjust this strike 
 of seven (7) years' duration, for the benefit of the 
 International Union of Steam and Operating En- 
 gineers." Think of it only seven years on strike 
 in the Chicago brickyards! However, "the smoke 
 flew up the chimney just the same," and the bricks 
 came out of the brickyards just the same, all during 
 those years ! 
 
 Of course Mr. Gompers does not want the In- 
 dustrial Conference to get Capital and Labor into 
 the horrid habit of settling their difficulties them- 
 selves, shop by shop. Of course that would be disas- 
 trous to Organized Labor. Of course he wants our 
 laws to establish forever this childlike and blind 
 proposition : that his huge centralized strike machine 
 is the one and only mill to grind out first war, then 
 peace, in industry. Does he not, gentlemen of the 
 press, remind you of that innocent Kaiser who a 
 few years ago made some delicious jokes to the effect 
 
 [116]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 that he mitt Gott, an iron will, shining armor, a 
 mailed fist, the greatest army and next to the great- 
 est navy on earth dreamed of nothing but world 
 peace and a quiet "place in the sun"? 
 
 To do Mr. Gompers justice, however, judging 
 from world-wide experience, we may well agree with 
 him in expecting little or nothing from the Industrial 
 Board recommended by the second Industrial Con- 
 ference, or from the Railroad Labor Board set up 
 by recent act of Congress, in the absence of lawful 
 power to enforce a decision. The weakness of these 
 great centralized, semipolitical, semijudicial tribu- 
 nals for meddling with highly local and entirely com- 
 mercial questions is threefold and fundamental, viz. : 
 
 The first difficulty is that there are very few com- 
 mon underlying conditions upon which general rules 
 governing particular cases can be based. Nothing 
 is more absolutely local, more entirely bounded by 
 special conditions, than the workman's relation to his 
 job. Each case in practice must be a law unto itself. 
 Furthermore, even where justice is evident, if the 
 men are not there, where the job is, or do not like 
 it for any or no reason under the sun, the places will 
 not be filled, nor the work go on; and unless the men 
 break their contracts in quitting work, or break 
 some law yet to be enacted under which they accept 
 work originally, it is safe to say that no American 
 authority will ever force them back to work. That 
 would indeed be what Gompers calls " involuntary 
 servitude." In a free country the law may say " thou 
 shalt wo/"; but it can seldom say "thou shalt." If 
 you, gentlemen, will look back over past history of 
 the labor troubles, great or small, of your time, you 
 will note -that in the last resort, whether with or 
 against the volition of the great labor organizations, 
 settlements are eventually arrived at locally; by each
 
 local management with its own men, conformably 
 to local conditions and factors compelling both sides. 
 Take, for instance, the great steel strike of last fall ; 
 which, I think, has never been " called off " by the 
 twenty-six unions involved. It has died a natural 
 death long ago, "petering out" locally, first at one 
 plant and then at another, as man by man the strikers 
 returned to work or were replaced. Or consider the 
 recent soft coal strike, called off under order of the 
 courts, but here and there kept up by local malcon- 
 tents, in Kansas, for instance, local conditions 
 prolonging or ending it. 
 
 Or, for an unimportant but most significant in- 
 stance, consider the strike of 1903 in my own type- 
 writer factory in Chicago, already cited. Strikes 
 were called simultaneously in a lot of shops besides 
 our own, in other lines of manufacture, but all for 
 an eight-hour day and twenty-five per cent increase 
 in wages. 
 
 We were working ten hours a day in competition 
 with much larger factories in country towns in New 
 York, Connecticut, and the West that also worked 
 ten hours a day. Only by producing the maximum 
 output of which our machinery was capable in a ten- 
 hour day could we meet that competition. No re- 
 gional industrial court, if called on to consider that 
 strike, could have ignored the fact that a large num- 
 ber of Chicago shops though in other lines that 
 year had accepted a nine-hour day. Yet we were 
 forced to stand out for ten; no nine-hour award 
 would have been practical for our acceptance unless 
 it compelled our distant competitors also to run nine 
 hours instead of ten. Our men finally realized that 
 they had been talked into striking a perfectly fair 
 job; they came back, most of them, and we went 
 on, strictly non-union, thereafter, governed by purely 
 
 [118]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 local conditions. The Gompers machine did not 
 function. 
 
 In short, nothing really settles a strike at any 
 given point whether part of a larger strike or not 
 except agreement finally reached between local 
 management and local labor supply; and it must in- 
 evitably be based upon wages and conditions, neces- 
 sarily governed by locality, which the management 
 can see its way temporarily or permanently to offer, 
 and labor can equally see its way to accept. 
 
 What, then, is the sense or logic of endeavoring 
 to pry apart these two real parties to the bargain 
 which must eventually be made, and insert between 
 them a tertium quid ponderous, distant, and igno- 
 rant of or disposed to resist the local forces, which 
 must ultimately prevail? The only reason whatever 
 for so unnecessary and senseless a procedure is that 
 exactly this thing has become familiar; has so often 
 been done by the Federation of Labor and the 
 Brotherhoods and the I. W. W., under leaders 
 whose conspicuous and gainful jobs depend on keep- 
 ing Capital and Labor apart. Our politicians reason 
 that wherever Gompers chooses to drive his great 
 Federation wedge in to split the oak of industry 
 wide open, Congress must patch up by quickly ap- 
 plying turn-buckles, or steel bands, in the form of 
 governmental pressure, to stop the cleavage and hold 
 the sides together. 
 
 But why not simply knock out the wedge and for- 
 bid driving in any more; forego the constriction 
 of restraining bands, and let the cleft trunk close and 
 heal naturally? As for the sound, unhurt trees of 
 the forest, why not let them grow strong and great 
 in peace? 
 
 The second difficulty with centralized arbitration 
 is the element of time. Business of all kinds, espe- 
 cially public service, is necessarily constructive, not 
 
 [119]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 deliberative. Every head of a large organization 
 knows by repeated experience that he must decide 
 keep the wheels turning do things. It is inevit- 
 able, in prompt decision, that he will sometimes 
 blunder and do the wrong thing. If so, he finds it 
 out, and takes the back track as fast as possible. 
 Such errors are expected, excusable, part of the 
 game; but to delay, doing nothing, is inexcusable, 
 fatal to constructive work. 
 
 The necessary delay in settlement of labor dis- 
 putes, especially actual strikes, involved in submitting 
 them to central judicial tribunals, would probably 
 cause avoiding appeal to them in most cases. A 
 court can't force local conditions to square them- 
 selves with theoretic general desideranda. Every 
 day that a plant stops output is nil, overhead cost 
 is wasted, and trade is lost; every day the laborer 
 idles, just so much pay is gone forever. Speed in 
 coming to an agreement is vital. 
 
 No better proof of this weakness of centralized 
 arbitration and conciliation could be asked than the 
 present "outlaw" railroad strike, caused, as the 
 strikers say, by delay of the President in appointing 
 the Labor Board, which was to make good his last 
 year's pledge to reduce cost of living or raise wages. 
 The statistics of 36,757 strikes and 1546 lockouts 
 between 1881 and 1905, compiled by Commissioner 
 of Labor Carroll D. Wright, show, from their aver- 
 age duration of strikes, twenty-five days, and lock- 
 outs, eighty-five days, that workingmen get down to 
 the settling point far sooner than employers the 
 majority of workmen are not financed for idleness 
 beyond thirty to sixty days. Unless the central in- 
 dustrial tribunal shall function faster than any other 
 judicial tribunal yet devised by man, both employers 
 and employees will starve out, and be forced to settle 
 
 [120]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 directly with each other before the court gets around 
 to try an average case; after that it has no power 
 to enforce its decree, and none is needed. 
 
 These objections apply with peculiar force to the 
 Super-Labor Board of the League of Nations, for 
 it is impossible to conceive of its acting in particular, 
 even in important, cases, so as directly to help the 
 labor involved. Imagine, for instance, trying the 
 Lawrence textile strike of 1912, or the present " out- 
 law " railroad strike, or the Boston police strike, be- 
 fore the League tribunal at Geneva, Switzerland, or 
 even before a regional tribunal here. How long 
 would the workers wait for its decisions, and what 
 international military power would compel the Law- 
 rence mills, or the City of Boston, to obey its tardy 
 decrees when rendered? I am probably of a most 
 " pygmy mind," but I cannot for the life of me see 
 anything real in that Labor Board of the League of 
 Nations but a lot of solemn, pretentious, highly paid, 
 exceedingly soft, and absolutely useless jobs for ex- 
 labor leaders, whose pronouncements will have about 
 as much effect on the daily ebb and flow of American 
 work and wages as our radio experts' high-tension 
 waves out in Nebraska recently seemed to have on 
 the currents of the canals of Mars. 
 
 The third difficulty and perhaps the most de- 
 cisive in many minds is that Mr. Gompers him- 
 self objects to any governmental method of settling 
 labor troubles; unless so contrived that the A. F. L. 
 controls the settling, which brings us back to the 
 precise point whence we started. 
 
 Let me here once more sound the note of decen- 
 tralization, of simplicity; of American common 
 sense, if there is any longer virtue in an appeal to 
 that former characteristic. When I hear our Cam- 
 bridge sociologists talk about the rights and aspira- 
 
 [121]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 tions of LABOR, the greed and autocracy of CAPI- 
 TAL, and the duty and culpability of SOCIETY in the 
 premises, they remind me of runaway balloons filled 
 with buoyant gas, with no anchor rope to tie them 
 to the solid ground of fact; mounting higher and 
 higher into the glittering clouds of collectivity and 
 generality, until the rarefied atmosphere no longer 
 can hold in their swelling mentality, and they burst. 
 Some president, Wilson or Gompers, or both, sup- 
 plies the gas and cuts the anchor ropes; for those 
 gentlemen, quite unlike our sociologists, know ex- 
 actly what they want, and how to use what the 
 French call ballons d'essai. 
 
 Never mind them; it is the average voter from 
 whose mind we should clear the pernicious habit of 
 thinking in imaginary collectivities. " Capital " and 
 "Labor," for instance, are mere words, like "So- 
 ciety," denoting collectivities that do not exist or 
 act as such. What really does exist and is called 
 Capital is a great diversity of industries, several 
 hundred of them; in a lot of different places, several 
 thousand; subdivided into some 8000 concerns em- 
 ploying more, and over 400,000 employing less, than 
 250 hands, hardly any two of which are exactly alike 
 in anything but their employment of Labor. There 
 are miners, manufacturers, bankers, merchants, etc. 
 limited groups that sometimes act collectively for 
 limited objects in a limited way, but never act col- 
 lectively as Capital. Messrs. Parry, Van Cleave, 
 and Kirby, for instance, fifteen years ago, tried in 
 vain to solidify against the Federation of Labor 
 even so small a number as the then 3500 members 
 of the National Association of Manufacturers, out 
 of over 300,000 employers. Wall Street never 
 holds together on anything. There really is no such 
 thing as a Capitalist Class, no class consciousness 
 
 [122]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 or concerted action. Selfishness, individualism, is 
 the foundation of Capitalism. 
 
 There is no such collectivity as Society. There 
 are Democrats, Presbyterians, Prohibitionists, brick- 
 layers, doctors, etc., who respectively act collectively 
 once in a while as such ; but when do they act collec- 
 tively as Society? 
 
 As for Labor, here we have 45 million laborers, 
 of, say, 200 crafts or trades, of whom 4 or 5 mil- 
 lions are members of some 35,000 unions, and full 
 40 millions are free and unorganized. Wherein do 
 these millions act collectively as Labor? 
 
 When, therefore, the President solemnly " passes 
 the buck" to Congress last fall as follows: "Surely 
 there must be some method of bringing together in 
 a council of peace and amity these two great in- 
 terests . . . some acceptable tribunal for adjusting 
 the differences between Capital and Labor," one 
 wonders how he proposes to fetch the two parties 
 into court. Mr. Gompers will not let his big unions 
 come in for fear justice would be done, apparently. 
 He wants no peace but one dictated by the Federa- 
 tion of Labor. As to all the rest, my little type- 
 writer factory strike shows what actually happens. 
 
 The Federation got into the factory, unionized it, 
 and struck for an eight-hour day and twenty-five 
 per cent advance in wages. The questions put to 
 me as president were simple, and in no way con- 
 cerned with the " sanction of society " for an eight- 
 hour day, as announced by the President twelve years 
 after; nor with the " aspirations of labor," a phrase 
 not then invented. They did have a little to do with 
 the " democratization of industry," though not then 
 so called; for shop discipline was to be taken away 
 from the management and turned over to a com- 
 mittee of the hands. They also touched the " rights 
 
 [123]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 of labor" a little, as we were to discharge all men 
 who did not join the unions, and take out of the 
 pay of all union members their union dues, fines, 
 etc., and pay them over to the union treasury on the 
 " check-off " plan. They boiled down to two : Could 
 the company pay the wages and work the hours 
 asked, and successfully meet the competition of other 
 manufacturers? Also, could the company satisfac- 
 torily work men who took its wages but not its or- 
 ders, obeying first their unions? My answer to both, 
 dictated by circumstances quite beyond union con- 
 trol or our own, was No. The question then came 
 up to each man individually: Could he get a better 
 job, or any job at all, without going to another city 
 for it; and if not, was our job good enough to throw 
 up his union for and come back to? Two hundred 
 men answered to this last question, Yes. 
 
 Now I submit to you, gentlemen, that all the Pres- 
 idents of the United States, all the Arbitration 
 Boards, if created, all the sociologists and collectiv- 
 ists that ever plastered themselves over society, 
 could not aid either myself or the men concerned 
 to answer those simple questions. Local conditions, 
 which no one knew so well as those directly involved, 
 answered them beyond dispute, automatically. 
 
 If, then, Gompers and the big unions don't want 
 an Arbitration Board, and the 400,000 small em- 
 ployers and the 40 million non-union workers can't 
 use one, why create it at all? It might now and 
 then settle a strike ; but there is no need of a Krupp 
 gun to shoot sparrows. Are there not enough use- 
 less bureaus and salaries at Washington without 
 asking for more? 
 
 Collective or standardized harmonization of the 
 infinite variety of differences that arise between so 
 many thousand employees and million workers in so 
 
 [124]
 
 CENTRALIZED ARBITRATION FAILS 
 
 many hundreds of trades and places is a rank impos- 
 sibility, beyond human wisdom to accomplish. It 
 was never thought of until recently, and would not be 
 thought of now but for the great centralized trades- 
 unions, whose votes the politicians fear and whose 
 strikes the people have learned to dread. If there 
 was reasonable likelihood that centralized arbitra- 
 tion would either suit Gompers or preserve indus- 
 trial peace, there might be some sense in creating a 
 second huge machinery to counterbalance the first. 
 But as the second is no good, and the first is a 
 menace to the nation, why not simply cut them both 
 out, and go back to first principles of keeping the 
 peace and enforcing the law along the picket line, 
 the one certain cure for strike fever? 
 
 Collectivitis is a mental disease, a bad habit of 
 thought, that makes not only our clergy and soci- 
 ologists in Cambridge, New York, Wisconsin, and 
 elsewhere, but also many of our statesmen, quite in- 
 capable of thinking except emotionally; and in terms 
 of "aspirations," "democratization," "problems," 
 "interests," "councils," "tribunals," of "Labor," 
 " Capital," and " Society." I note here in Cam- 
 bridge one good sign, however, that the "new 
 order" does not as yet revolutionize private life. 
 The "sanction of society" has not yet established 
 the eight-hour day for housemaids; nor has the 
 democratization of industry gone so far that the 
 cook may invite the mistress to discuss whether cook- 
 ing or playing the piano is the duty of the hour. 
 Nor may the cook even refuse to cook, refuse to 
 leave, and refuse to let any other cook take her 
 place, on the score of her aspirations, at least 
 with the consent of her " autocratic " employer. The 
 lady still feels that if the cook takes her wages, she 
 ought also to take her orders. Laus Deo. 
 
 [125]
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LABOR LEADERSHIP. MR. GOMPERS 
 
 LET us give that interesting and important personal- 
 ity, Mr. Gompers, the "once-over" anyway. He is 
 entitled to it, for the free use made of his name so 
 far; and he comes pretty near being the whole labor- 
 show. Except for a single term he has been re- 
 elected president of the American Federation of 
 Labor for thirty-nine years, I believe; and before 
 the Federation he was a power in his own union, the 
 cigar makers'. Under him the Federation has grown 
 to its present great size. One ambitious worker 
 after another must have arisen to dispute his leader- 
 ship; yet with one exception he has beaten all rivals 
 and scored thirty-nine annual reelections. An ex- 
 traordinary record unparalleled, as far as I know, 
 in the history of democratic institutions of any mag- 
 nitude! He must be exceedingly loyal to his asso- 
 ciates, and to the great organization he has created. 
 He is said to be by birth an English Jew; but he 
 ought to have been a Prussian, for he is as ruthless 
 as Bismarck. Here is what he says of himself 
 (Report, page 106) : "I want more, more, more for 
 Labor. I think I have tried, and am trying to do 
 my share ... I have been the President of the 
 A. F. L. for many, many years. I regard that posi- 
 tion as the most exalted that I could occupy ... I 
 ask that the trades-union movement be given its 
 fullest opportunity for growth and development, so 
 that it may be the instrumentality to secure better, 
 
 [126]
 
 LABOR LEADERS 
 
 and better, and better, and constantly better condi- 
 tions, for the workers of our country ... I am 68 
 years of age, I have been tried and seared as few 
 men have . . . somehow or other I believe that 
 there are yet considerable years of fight left in me 
 for Labor. . . . The only thing I can leave to my 
 fellow men is that I have helped to bring about a 
 labor movement in our country that is better, more 
 comprehensive and more united than in any other 
 country on the face of the globe." Elsewhere he 
 says (Report, page 474) : "when we have in mind 
 the respect we have instilled . . . the tremendous 
 achievements of our movement in bringing light into 
 the lives of the toiling masses of our country, when 
 we know of the influence we have exerted even with 
 the comparatively small number yet organized, it is 
 the harbinger of hope that as time goes on, if we are 
 to be true to ... the fundamental principles and 
 high ideals of our movement, it is enough to inspire 
 one and all to greater activity and service. It is a 
 privilege to live, contributing so much of service 
 . . . for the years to come let it be our guiding 
 hope to work for a still greater organization, . . . 
 of the yet unorganized, the skilled and unskilled of 
 whatever color, creed, religion . . ." 
 
 These words sound sincere. I heard ex-Secretary 
 Redfield the other day publicly refer to Mr. Gom- 
 pers as an "unselfish and useful man"; and so say 
 many of the important men who know him person- 
 ally, as I do not. Furthermore, he is said to be 
 merely comfortably off; not rich, as he might easily 
 be, either from the enormous revenues of the feder- 
 ated unions, or from use of his great organizing 
 ability in private business for his own benefit. (The 
 late John Mitchell, for instance, died recently worth 
 a quarter million dollars; which shows what an able 
 
 [127]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 labor leader can earn. I do not wish, by the way, 
 to assume that there was "tainted money" in Mr. 
 Mitchell's fortune; concerning which I know noth- 
 ing, except that the newspapers mentioned it when 
 he died.) Mr. Gompers may perhaps wear dia- 
 monds and ride in an automobile these things ap- 
 pear to be merely the recognized insignia that go 
 with labor leadership, just as pearls and motor cars 
 go with captaincy of industry; yet his salary, $10,000 
 a year, recently raised from $7500, is modest, 
 considering his work. He seems not avaricious of 
 money; perhaps does not care even for personal 
 power and fame, though that would be natural and 
 legitimate if he did. 
 
 The activities of his organization are colossal. 
 The Report of its conventions are almost state docu- 
 ments. The work of its committees, especially those 
 on reconstruction, legislation, and education, show 
 a far-reaching intelligence and efficiency that decid- 
 edly surpasses that shown by many legislators and 
 educators on whom they keep watch ; for their own 
 interest, that is. 
 
 Were their aims not so selfish, their work so sinis- 
 ter in its bearing on morals, economics, and politics, 
 that work would be as admirable as it is extraordi- 
 nary. Evidently there is ruling mentality of high 
 order at work, which must belong to, or be found 
 and controlled by, Mr. Gompers himself. 
 
 I would classify him as an enthusiast, a fanatic 
 if you will, devoted to "Labor," which has prob- 
 ably become to him, like " Kultur " to the Prussian, 
 or the Empire to the Japanese, an impersonal and 
 dominating idea, to which the individual working- 
 man belongs, to which he owes blind loyalty; which 
 can do no wrong; whose welfare outweighs all moral 
 considerations. 
 
 [128]
 
 LABOR LEADERS 
 
 Otherwise I cannot understand how he can fight 
 so ruthlessly for monopoly of labor, for denial of 
 the non-union man's right to work, the employer's 
 right to hire; for combination to coerce, the right to 
 strike and starve or freeze us all to deny the baby 
 its bottle of milk and the washerwoman her hod of 
 coal. 
 
 Even harder is it to understand how a man of his 
 mental grasp, if he is unselfish and sincere, as his 
 friends declare, can fail to see and recognize the 
 criminal blunder (which I hope you, gentlemen of 
 the press, will verify) established by indisputable 
 records, namely: that union practice of monopoly, 
 coercion, and sloth actually and necessarily hurts 
 rather than helps his own constituents, the union 
 laborers, reacting on them and their country mor- 
 ally and materially, benefiting no one but himself 
 and his associates. Nor can I understand how a 
 patriot of his ability and experience, if sincere, can 
 shut his eyes to the fact that his entire political 
 propaganda urging the use of the "labor vote" 
 solely for the laborers' class advantage; attacking 
 police and military power, if used to keep the peace 
 in " industrial warfare " ; attacking the authority of 
 the supreme courts to keep oifr legislatures within 
 their constitutional powers that all this strikes at 
 the very roots of our constitutional, American, re- 
 publican form of government. 
 
 Congressman Blanton is not so uncertain about 
 Mr. Gompers' sincerity as I am when I read what 
 such men as Secretary Redfield, and the distinguished 
 members of the National Civic Federation, in which 
 Mr. Gompers sits as Vice-President, who know him 
 personally, as I do not, have to say of him. Here is 
 part of Mr. Blanton's summary of Mr. Gompers' 
 recent unpatriotic acts, as spread upon the Congres- 
 
 [129]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 sional Record, February 4, 1920. Blanton charges 
 that Gompers : 
 
 Opposed by letter, August 14, 1918, the Thomas 
 "Work or Fight" amendment to the draft law, re- 
 storing laborers to draft classification should they 
 " strike " war work, for doing which they were 
 exempted. 
 
 Permitted the calling of approximately six thou- 
 sand strikes during our eighteen months in the war, 
 as tallied by Department of Labor. 
 
 Opposed successfully making Government De- 
 partment clerks work eight hours instead of seven 
 when increasing pay $120; threatening a "walkout" 
 of all employees in the middle of wartime. 
 
 Aided Railroad Brotherhoods to force repeated 
 wage raises during war by threats of strikes, and 
 in 1916 to pass the Adamson Law. 
 
 Threatened a revolution if Congress should pass 
 an antistrike provision in the Railroad Bill. 
 
 Denounced the President and the courts for grant- 
 ing an injunction against the soft coal strikers and 
 threatened revolution. 
 
 Denounced and tried to defeat Governor Coolidge 
 for his action in the Boston police strike. 
 
 Denounced prohibition and threatened revolution 
 unless laborers get their beer and wine. 
 
 Killed the antisedition bill asked for by the At- 
 torney General last January, aimed at anarchists, 
 " because it interfered with the aspirations of Or- 
 ganized Labor." 
 
 The Congressional Record contains the detailed 
 proof sustaining these charges, January 29 and 
 February 4, 1920, which is too long to quote here. 
 Mr. Gompers denounces the Congressman who put 
 these things in the Record as " blatant, bleating, 
 Blanton " ; but the record stands there just the same. 
 
 [130]
 
 LABOR LEADERS 
 
 Congressman Blanton's charge, that Organized 
 Labor called 6000 strikes during our participation 
 in the great war, calls attention to Mr. Gompers' 
 repeated references, at Laredo and elsewhere, to the 
 patriotic " sacrifices " made by Organized Labor to 
 win the war. It is worth while to glance at the 
 record, and ask what it shows to support Mr. Gom- 
 pers' vociferous claims. 
 
 While I would not for a moment question the 
 genuine patriotism of the American laborer, union 
 or non-union, it is hard to perceive wherein Organ- 
 ized Labor made any sacrifice that should entitle 
 it to any change of status hereafter, as a cash re- 
 ward of virtue. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Organized Labor is largely 
 skilled labor, and was deliberately kept at home, 
 far from the perils of the fighting line, by the Selec- 
 tive Draft, for the one purpose of maintaining 
 output of munitions and supplies. Not having the 
 statistics at hand I cannot say what percentage of 
 union labor, as compared with non-union, was called 
 to the colors; but it must have been small. Skilled 
 labor largely remained at home, working for the 
 shortest hours and the longest pay checks in history. 
 The whole effort to make Congress award a bonus 
 to veterans of actual service is in order to put them 
 on an equal footing financially with those who stayed 
 safe at home, coining money. 
 
 When, therefore, Mr. Gompers talks of Labor's 
 sacrifices, does he mean to claim credit for calling 
 only 6000 strikes instead of perhaps 20,000 ; or for 
 not holding up the taxpayers of his country for still 
 higher wages than the highest ever known? Just 
 where does the measure of patriotism come in that 
 differentiates the 4 million organized laborers from 
 the 44 million unorganized, listed by the Selective 
 
 [131]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Draft Boards? Can you answer this conundrum, 
 I wonder? 
 
 I put another query up to you: Is Mr. Gompers 
 a demagogue; or an honest fanatic; or a good deal 
 of both? What is your opinion, gentlemen? 
 
 [132]
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 
 
 I HAVE called attention to the fact that the wages 
 of the locomotive engineers have risen proportion- 
 ately far less than non-union wages in the last forty 
 years, despite the admitted strength of their union. 
 The same is true of the firemen and trainmen. It 
 is true that there has been the powerful influence 
 against raise of wages of the action of the Interstate 
 Commerce Commission in forbidding natural and 
 legitimate advance of railway service rates during 
 the past twenty years; which has held railway in- 
 come to starvation figures and nearly wrecked that 
 enormous and vital industry. It has been impossible 
 for the railway managements to pay higher wages 
 without higher income (in fact it is in general true 
 that a losing business cannot pay good wages) ; and 
 meanwhile, as the railways are the only employers 
 of railway labor, the unlucky railway employees have 
 had to go without their proportionate increase of 
 pay, or else get out of railway employ which most 
 of them are too old or too timid to do. 
 
 This case is a complete and very broad demon- 
 stration of the fact that unions cannot control wages; 
 but that on the contrary they are absolutely governed 
 ' first, by ability of the trade in question to pay; 
 and second, by local supply and demand for the labor 
 in question. 
 
 It is one more proof of the uselessness of great 
 national strike machinery. 
 
 [133]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 It should be said, in justice to the Big Four 
 Brotherhoods, that their purpose and temper are 
 very different from that of Mr. Gompers' Federa- 
 tion; as appears both from their past record and 
 their present attitude in standing by the railways 
 against the so-called "Outlaw" strike now pending; 
 and also from their Constitution. The Locomotive 
 Engineers' Preamble says: 
 
 " The aim of the employer and the employee being co- 
 ordinate, the aim of the Organization will be cooperation, 
 and the cultivation of amicable relations . . . and to 
 guarantee the fulfillment of every contract made in its name." 
 
 The Constitution of the Brotherhood of Railroad 
 Trainmen in its Preamble says: 
 
 " Persuaded that it is for the interest of both members and 
 their employers that good understanding should prevail, the 
 constant endeavor of the organization shall be to sustain 
 mutual confidence and harmonious relations." 
 
 When we contrast the spirit of the foregoing with 
 that of the Gompers' Preamble, asserting struggle 
 between oppressor and oppressed, it seems most un- 
 desirable that the Brotherhoods should now regu- 
 larly affiliate with the Federation of Labor, as Mr. 
 Gompers announced at its last convention they were 
 about to do. Perhaps their recent departure in ad- 
 vocacy of the Plumb Plan, and their threat of a 
 general strike in support of it, show the influence 
 of the rapid growth of the Federation of late years, 
 and conversion to the Gompers propaganda. In the 
 writer's guess both the Brotherhoods and the Federa- 
 tion have, for the moment anyway, touched high- 
 water mark. Just as the disturbing pull of the moon 
 can never lift the tides past the sand bars of the 
 beach, so demagogy can never hoist Labor over the 
 
 [134]
 
 THE RAILWAY BROTHERHOODS 
 
 settled barrier of human necessity. When Labor 
 comes up against the public welfare, the latter is sure 
 to prevail. 
 
 I do not doubt that the foregoing formal recogni- 
 tion of the mutuality of interest of the railways and 
 their employees, together with the naturally high- 
 grade character and large mental caliber of railway 
 men, due to the largeness of their daily work, has 
 held them back, perhaps against their own interest, 
 in serving the community in recent years. I should 
 like to give them credit for unselfishness. 
 
 I am here reminded of another factor that always 
 slows down the raise of union wages, as against 
 non-union wages. If a non-union shop is short a 
 few men it can go out and quietly bid up for them 
 until it gets them, without necessarily raising wages 
 of all men on the pay roll. The union shop, on the 
 contrary, must risk a general raise of the union scale 
 if it has to bid up for a few men. Many employers 
 prefer to pay more than union scale to non-union 
 men, to keep them out of the unions, and for the 
 sake of other advantages realized. I have done so 
 myself. The same is done quite often in the soft 
 coal regions. But I wander. It is generally true 
 for obvious reasons that it is easier for the good 
 individual workman to get a raise than to raise a 
 whole union scale. 
 
 [i35l
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AUTOCRACY OF CAPITAL. TYPEWRITER AND 
 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA STRIKES 
 
 IT is worth while in passing to put a value on certain 
 sounding phrases which adorn Mr. Gompers' ora- 
 tory, and are often echoed by widely different men 
 and women among us ; for instance, the " Autocracy 
 of Employers." 
 
 Judge Gary is the pet "autocrat" denounced by 
 all denouncers. I have already cited the Gary case 
 at some length ; let me " ut parva magnis " also 
 cite for further illustration my own typewriter fac- 
 tory strike already referred to. My factory was 
 small, myself far below the rank of an autocrat, the 
 case like countless thousands in the minor industries, 
 and no prejudice against multimillions should cloud 
 any man's consideration of it. 
 
 The concern in question, the Remington-Sholes 
 Company, was making a typewriter in competition 
 with the so-called "Typewriter Trust," which had 
 merged the five or six leading machines in one 
 monopoly when formed. It was fighting that trust, 
 had gone into a large and open labor market, Chi- 
 cago, had opened a well-equipped and most com- 
 fortable shop, paid highest wages, and run along for 
 seven years building up a perfectly harmonious and 
 contented body of two hundred and seventy work- 
 men. Its superintendent and foreman were popular, 
 and not one dispute had ever clouded its sky. Its 
 owners believed in the theory that a well-paid and 
 
 [136]
 
 AUTOCRACY OF CAPITAL 
 
 contented force of men is more than worth all it 
 costs, and they acted thereon. 
 
 But those two hundred and seventy men were 
 worth in dues to the local trades-unions, if organ- 
 ized, say, $i a month each, or $3240 per annum; 
 and the organizers who should round them up would 
 get for doing so $2 each as commission, or $540 for 
 a few days' work. So in 1903, a year of special 
 labor unrest in Chicago, about two hundred of them 
 were induced to unionize joining one or other of 
 six local unions, according to their respective crafts. 
 They were promised by the organizers the eight- 
 hour day the factory then running ten hours; a 
 twenty-five per cent raise in wages; a closed "union 
 shop"; shop discipline to be controlled by a union 
 committee ; full pay for time lost on strike ; the right 
 to go on " sympathetic strike," etc., and were told 
 that in future no non-union man would be permitted 
 to hold a job in any shop in Chicago. As soon as 
 organized, the men were called out on strike. 
 
 As heretofore explained, the little shop was com- 
 peting with great ones of ten times its capacity, 
 located in Eastern country towns, running ten hours 
 a day and favored with lower wage rates. Its plant 
 and force were balanced to full ten-hour a day run 
 and output, at highest speed of automatic machine 
 tools; it was barely making a profit, and to run less 
 than ten hours meant certain loss, and ruin in a year 
 or so. Before the strike was called I invited the 
 unions to put expert accountants on the books and 
 verify that fact, given as ground for refusing the 
 union demands. The Business Agents of the six 
 unions declined, saying that our books would be 
 "doctored" to prove my words; and that anyway 
 the unions were not interested in our profit or loss 
 and did not care to do business with weak concerns. 
 
 [137]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 They were going to put all Chicago factories on 
 an eight-hour basis and twenty-five per cent increase 
 of wages and if our factory could not live on that 
 basis in Chicago, it could get out of Chicago or out 
 of business. I asked them then, What of our men 
 whom they had just unionized: were they to lose 
 their jobs? The answer was: They must sacrifice 
 themselves, if need be, for the " cause of Labor." 
 And the poor fellows did. 
 
 At the end of eleven weeks three quarters of them 
 quit their unions for good and all and came back 
 wiser and poorer men. The other quarter disap- 
 peared, and I suppose found other jobs. The men 
 lost $45,000 in wages and we lost over $20,000 in 
 carrying charges. The eight-hour day was not then 
 generally established, though many Chicago shops 
 went on to a nine-hour schedule that year. I do not 
 know its length now. 
 
 There was almost no violence or bad blood at our 
 shop, though there was elsewhere, and across the 
 river the Kellogg Switchboard Company had a fierce 
 and bloody battle with the same six unions, in which 
 even girls were slugged, machinery was wrecked, har- 
 ness cut, and vitriol thrown on girls and horses. We, 
 however, closely imitated the Studebakers of Fort 
 Wayne. They had met recent organization of their 
 large force by quickly shutting down, and saying to 
 their men that, having worked with them harmoni- 
 ously for many years, they felt they could not get 
 along any better with others. They would there- 
 fore not attempt to run or fill the strikers' places. 
 If the latter changed their minds and wanted their 
 old jobs back, they could have them on the old terms 
 whenever enough men reported for duty to start the 
 works to advantage. In the Studebaker case the 
 men came back non-union after nine weeks. We 
 
 [138]
 
 AUTOCRACY OF CAPITAL 
 
 told our men and did exactly the same and they 
 found out that the unions could take their jobs away, 
 but not give them back, in eleven weeks. 
 
 By the way, when we finally started up we had to 
 fill some seventy vacant places and so advertised for 
 men. Under the advice of a detective agency that 
 made a specialty of strikes, we ran three different 
 "ads" over different reply initials for each trade; 
 for instance, "union polishers, closed shop" "non- 
 union polishers, non-union shop" and "polishers, 
 open shop." This was to head off union spies, an- 
 swering all three ways as some twenty-five actu- 
 ally did answer and were of course ignored. We 
 received over 1000 replies, of which and this is 
 the interesting circumstances nearly 900 were for 
 the non-union shop ! Many of the men wrote 
 strongly, saying they wished jobs free from strikes, 
 where they could work as hard and make as much 
 on piece work or overtime as they pleased. Of 
 course we filled up the shop very quickly with good 
 men. 
 
 I have given this little story at some length be- 
 cause it is a very pretty and typical illustration of 
 three things: the worked-up, purely artificial variety 
 of "Labor Unrest" displayed; the utter failure of 
 "autocracy," if attempted, on our part; and the 
 still more ghastly failure of " democratization of 
 industry," in a bullheaded attempt to force the im- 
 possible without investigation. 
 
 Our men had had no cause of complaint, and 
 when they came back after throwing overboard their 
 union, they said so; cursing themselves fdr having 
 been fooled with promises of an eight-hour day and 
 a twenty-five per cent advance, and for having been 
 frightened or being driven out of Chicago unless 
 they joined the union. 
 
 [139]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 My own autocracy consisted in opening an attrac- 
 tive shop in Chicago and offering best going wages 
 for labor in a lawful and useful line of manufacture, 
 under best sanitary conditions, in competition with 
 many hundred other employers. I could compel no 
 man to accept or stay in my employ; as was manifest 
 when my men quit incontinently as the walking dele- 
 gate blew his whistle. Prior to organization every 
 man had voluntarily picked our job from many, was 
 glad to take it originally, and glad to return to it 
 eventually. Meantime, autocrat as I was, I had to 
 drop all thought of enforcing " wage slavery," or of 
 continuing our peaceful and useful trade of making 
 typewriters. I simply had to sit down and wait till 
 our " wage-slaves " chose to return, after shopping 
 around Chicago in vain, be it understood, for other 
 or better jobs which perhaps a quarter of their 
 number actually found, and never came back at all; 
 poor fettered creatures. 
 
 A little spot-light may here be thrown on trades- 
 union 1 ' -^m. The detective agency referred to 
 " owned" as its manager said, a labor leader in 
 each union sufficiently high in office to furnish to the 
 agency the unions' regular financial reports twice a 
 month, also detailed reports of executive meetings, 
 so as to inform me accurately just what each union 
 was doing and paying out in the various pending 
 strikes, our own included. The detective said the 
 leaders were a bunch of grafters; and the financial 
 reports looked that way. For instance, pickets were 
 paid for doing strike duty at our factory for weeks 
 after they had entirely disappeared from the streets, 
 and were said by our men to have left town. // so, 
 who got their pay? Again, a leading labor lawyer, 
 known all over the United States as a champion of 
 the downtrodden workingman, charged them (our 
 
 [140]
 
 AUTOCRACY OF CAPITAL 
 
 unions) many thousand dollars for services, defend- 
 ing sluggers, etc., during the few weeks I took these 
 reports; just to the few unions concerned with our 
 factory. Verily, he was a champion of the poor 
 for a consideration! He charged them in our 
 case we enjoined violence, and brought to trial a 
 couple of sluggers far more than our attorney 
 charged us in the same case; which we won. 
 
 This experience made me very skeptical of the 
 judicious and honest expenditure of the many mil- 
 lions paid in by poor men to the union treasuries; 
 men who are weak in the knowledge of accounting, 
 and helpless in the hands of their officers whether 
 honest or grafters. 
 
 One more story of the kind and we will pass to 
 more agreeable reading: of the strike in the Boston 
 Symphony Orchestra in February, 1920. 
 
 Boston's first citizen, the late Major Henry Lee 
 Higginson, had nearly forty years before founded 
 and supported the premier orchestra in the United 
 States; not for profit, but for the sake of very per- 
 fect musical art. There was, as he well knew there 
 would be, no money in it, but a sure annual excess 
 of operating cost over possible box-office receipts; 
 just as to run a university costs far more than pos- 
 sible receipts for tuition. The resulting loss Major 
 Higginson paid for thirty-seven years, until an as- 
 sociation was formed to take the load off his shoul- 
 ders. If it was as costly as other orchestras whose 
 finances I have known, that loss must have averaged 
 at least twenty-five thousand dollars annually for all 
 those years. 
 
 Nevertheless, Major Higginson persisted in em- 
 ploying the best musicians only, paying the highest 
 salaries and giving the longest engagement known 
 throughout the entire world of orchestra domestic 
 
 [141]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 and foreign. His men were the aristocrats and plu- 
 tocrats of their profession; they played none but the 
 best music, under the most dignified and agreeable 
 conditions, and enjoyed the professional prestige of 
 the first institution of the kind in the world; all of 
 this at the expense and heavy personal loss of Major 
 Higginson and some other lovers of good art. 
 
 But these musicians were not faying union dues. 
 The local branch of the Musicians' Union affiliated 
 with the A. F. L. said to them: "These men who 
 pay that deficit are rich, and the audience that pay 
 for tickets are rich; they are lying about a deficit 
 anyway, and are making money. Don't believe the 
 bosh they are talking about working for Art. What 
 you want is cash. Join our union and strike ! We 
 will hold that crowd up for $1000 a year apiece 
 additional salary for you boys all around. Also we 
 will take the discipline and rules of the orchestra 
 away from an autocratic conductor, and let you pass 
 on them yourselves." 
 
 Two thirds of the members of this noble orches- 
 tra, this unselfish creation of a generous man, are 
 said to have succumbed to the bait of a thousand- 
 dollar holdup dangled before their eyes. They 
 joined the union and promptly struck out! 
 
 Very properly, the trustees decided that they were 
 conducting an art, and not a commercial institution, 
 under unique conditions of comfort, consideration, 
 and compensation of the musicians, and at heavy 
 cost to its supporters ; and therefore that recognition 
 of the union and dictation by it, in a purely selfish 
 commercial spirit, was incompatible with art pur- 
 pose. As every musician who had struck was bound 
 by written contract, which he had violated, he was 
 consequently discharged, pay to cease forthwith. 
 
 The men so discharged, who cannot find another 
 
 [142]
 
 AUTOCRACY OF CAPITAL 
 
 such engagement in the whole world, are now sadly 
 wondering whether "democratization of industry" 
 is all it was cracked up to be. Their places have been 
 acceptably filled; and though it may be some time 
 before it recovers its fine edge of perfect ensemble 
 and blending, the great orchestra, after a very few 
 weeks of anxiety, goes on its triumphant way. 
 
 I cite this instance to show how from purely mer- 
 cenary motive union organizers come in, stir up 
 causeless discontent, and lightly gamble with and 
 wreck the profitable and friendly relations of men 
 whom they pretend to serve. The case was aggra- 
 vated by the attempt either to wreck a great institu- 
 tion, or to hold up those who already handsomely 
 support it at heavy loss, for still heavier loss. The 
 utter stupidity of an attempt to better the best exist- 
 ing job of its kind by quitting it, the contemptible 
 selfishness of trying to rob a group of generous men, 
 are so super-characteristic of Organized Labor that 
 it is worth while to impale them here as the en- 
 tomologist pins ugly spiders, let us say, to his 
 specimen board, and puts them under glass for the 
 students' convenient examination. 
 
 Of course Major Higginson and the Trustees 
 who succeeded him were denounced as autocrats by 
 some of our conscientious sociologists because they 
 stood for good art, paid for it, and wanted what 
 they paid for, quite oblivious of the charms of 
 " democratization of industry." 
 
 [i43l
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 "DEMOCRATIZATION OF INDUSTRY." "RECOGNI- 
 TION OF THE UNION." " THE CLOSED SHOP " 
 
 PRESIDENT WILSON'S Labor message to Congress 
 last October or November calls upon it to "bring 
 about a genuine democratization of industry, based 
 upon the full recognition of the right of those who 
 work, in whatever rank, to participate in some or- 
 ganic way in every decision which directly affects 
 their welfare." 
 
 I suppose no language of President Wilson ever 
 reveals or is intended to reveal an exact meaning, 
 but he clearly implies that the "right" referred to, 
 whatever it may be, is not now fully recognized, pre- 
 sumably by employers. Elsewhere in the same mes- 
 sage he says, " An employee whose industrial life is 
 hedged about by hard and unjust conditions, which 
 he did not create and over which he has no control, 
 lacks that fine spirit of enthusiasm and voluntary 
 effort which are the necessary ingredients of a great 
 producing entity." Here again he implies that the 
 American employee is "hedged about by hard and 
 unjust conditions," etc. There are some two thou- 
 sand words of like camouflage in that message, con- 
 taining not one line that Congress could act on, 
 probably meant for perusal elsewhere. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the little tales of the preced- 
 ing chapter, of the typewriter strike, the Gary strike, 
 of every one of the seventy thousand strikes, and 
 the thirty-four thousand unions organized by Messrs. 
 
 [144]
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION. RECOGNITION 
 
 Gompers & Company, during the last forty years, 
 give the direct lie to the President's implications. 
 Every worker concerned in all that colossal record 
 not only asserted "the right to participate," but 
 actually participated in some organic way in every 
 decision that directly affected his welfare. That 
 right was established, and recognized, in the very fact 
 that the man joined the union and struck. He and 
 his union actually made every decision which directly 
 affected their welfare, by accepting or rejecting the 
 proposals offered by whomsoever it might concern. 
 If rejected, there was an end of them; if accepted, 
 there was an end of discussion; if modified, there 
 was mutual agreement. In every case there was 
 entire recognition. 
 
 If the President's nebulous verbiage means, as he 
 probably meant his labor friends to infer, that Con- 
 gress shall ordain that " Organized Labor " shall 
 have the right not only to accept or reject proposals 
 of employment, but also to dictate their terms, and 
 compel employers to offer them as dictated, for 
 acceptance or rejection, or even to discuss them, he 
 is proposing to Congress not a " democratization of 
 industry," but a tyranny of Labor, to which no human 
 power can force employers to submit. " You can 
 lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." 
 
 To sum up the situation: if "democratization of 
 industry" means merely that laborers are to have 
 a say as to employment contracts, whether unionized 
 or not, they assuredly have an absolutely decisive 
 say now. If it means that employers are to have no 
 say as to such contracts, and that Labor unions shall 
 determine them for both sides, then Labor must 
 wade into politics up to the neck, for only Govern- 
 ment makes such contracts. There will be no other 
 employer. 
 
 [145]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 If the President merely means that employers 
 should invite the frequent and friendly conference of 
 employees, by their representatives or direct, with 
 shop managers, as is becoming more and more the 
 fashion in large works, or should stimulate them to 
 active interest in better conditions and growing pro- 
 duction by such inducements as stock purchases, 
 bonuses, profit sharing, and the like, then his " new 
 relation between labor and capital " is but a very old 
 familiar story, demanding no Congressional action 
 whatsoever. In that case, however, as Mr. Gompers 
 and his associates are dead set against every such 
 device for effecting close and friendly team work 
 between employer and employee, you, gentlemen of 
 the press, may size up "democratization of industry" 
 as just " sounding brass and tinkling cymbals " for 
 the 1920 band wagon, and spell it Democratization! 
 
 The slogan " democratize industry," with its ob- 
 verse " down with autocracy," is symptomatic of 
 " collectivitis," started by Mr. Gompers and his 
 friends to attract political support to Organized 
 Labor; caught at by President Wilson as a useful, 
 sounding phrase; and of wondrous appeal to sociolo- 
 gists who love to consider humanity in the mass, and 
 hate to bother with the individual human being. If 
 it means anything, to come down to a concrete case, 
 as I really must do in order to think concretely, 
 though with apologies to all collectivists for approach- 
 ing the actual "democratization" signifies that 
 the United States Steel Corporation, for instance, 
 should let the manufacturing end, at least, of its 
 business be run by a sort of town meeting of its 
 23 8,000 employees; or, let me say, to make the propo- 
 sition as nearly practical as possible, that operation 
 of each of the corporation's numerous plants should 
 be regulated by town meeting of its own employees 
 
 [146]
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION. RECOGNITION 
 
 (of course with due regard to the feelings of em- 
 ployees of other plants), or by "representatives of 
 their own choosing," alias the A. F. L. How does 
 the proposition strike you, gentlemen of the press? 
 
 Do you not recognize that, as centuries of ex- 
 perience have shown, there can be but one head, 
 one controlling brain, to a living organism, that co- 
 ordinates the movements of its hands, feet, mouth, 
 wings, beak, claws, so that they work with and not 
 against each other? Just so a single controlling in- 
 telligence is necessary to coordinate the movements 
 of many men when organized for a common pur- 
 pose. Especially is this true of laboring men, who 
 have to take work from others because they have 
 not brains to lay it out for themselves. The whole 
 science of modern industry, against which under the 
 pseudonym of Capital Mr. Gompers, the President, 
 and our collectivists are for various reasons arrayed, 
 consists in getting good work out of merely average 
 or even stupid men. More explicitly, efficient organ- 
 ization of industry means gathering together enough 
 average workers to form an adequate unit, and co- 
 ordinating their labor under a single mind; which 
 must be far enough above average to be capable of 
 devising a routine which the average man can keep 
 up to with good total results. 
 
 The essence of successful routine is unity of intel- 
 ligent control. Even if workers were all brainy 
 enough to take part in control (when they are, they 
 generally do so as foremen, superintendents, and not 
 seldom eventual owners), the old couplet would hold 
 good: 
 
 " Many men of many minds ; many birds of many kinds ; 
 Many fishes in the sea; many men that don't agree." 
 
 On the other hand, if they are not brainy, merely 
 average, we do not need to speculate on what might 
 
 [147]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 be voted by many men of no minds. No capitalist 
 would put a penny into their employment in " democ- 
 ratized industry," and the contingency would never 
 arise. 
 
 I have studied the records of some five hundred 
 profit-sharing plans, most of them failures, so far. 
 The most notable instance of real democratization of 
 industry that has come to my notice is the establish- 
 ment of Godin, of Guise in France, long before the 
 great war. In his lifetime Godin had arranged a 
 system of division of profits remaining after paying 
 all manufacturing costs, including the wages of labor 
 at going rates, and what he called the wages (namely, 
 interest at five per cent) of capital. The residue of 
 net receipts remaining, after deducting certain per- 
 centages for depreciation, invention, management, 
 and education, were divided between labor and capi- 
 tal in proportion to the "wage" of both, already 
 paid as above. The share accruing to labor was not 
 paid in cash, but in shares in the concern bought at 
 par from himself, or from any one who left the em- 
 ployment of the concern. In this way the whole of 
 the shares of the concern gradually passed from 
 Godin and family into the ownership of the actual 
 employees, and it became a true democracy. I have 
 not heard what became of it during the war. It was 
 in the fought-over district, and probably was looted 
 by the Germans. You will note that Godin provided 
 for invention, management, and education at the 
 company's expense. 
 
 An interesting move in industrial democracy has 
 been made by one of the great rubber companies at 
 Akron, I think the Goodyear, which has over eleven 
 thousand laborer shareholders and maintains a 
 "university" of over five thousand students from 
 the company's working force. I have not the details, 
 
 [148]
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION. RECOGNITION 
 
 but mention it here as the real kind of foundation 
 upon which democratization of industry can safely 
 be built; of course by concerns that are big enough 
 and prosperous enough to undertake so large an 
 outside activity. There will not be many of them, 
 and they cannot be created by law. 
 
 When I hear my Cambridge sociologist friends, 
 who never employed a laboring man in their lives, 
 talk so glibly about the "new order" and "democ- 
 ratization" in industry, I sigh for a breath of that 
 old-fashioned virtue, obnoxious to President Wilson, 
 called common sense; which might be defined " as a 
 decent regard to the experience of mankind," if I 
 may paraphrase the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 There is nothing of a u new order" in the art of 
 managing men by treating them as human beings; 
 it is at least as old as Socrates' precepts to Xenophon 
 on the qualifications of a commander. " Knowing 
 how to get good work out of men " has been a fa- 
 miliar phrase, and a prime recommendation for an 
 industrial manager for several generations in Amer- 
 ican industry. It is true that until the trades-unions 
 developed their vast machinery for creating indus- 
 trial "unrest" there was no occasion for developing 
 counter machinery, formally and specifically to make 
 head against labor trouble and inefficiency. There 
 certainly is such occasion now, but that is no reason 
 why " society " should lose all sense of proportion in 
 considering it, or indeed should worry over it at all. 
 It can with perfect safety and propriety be left to 
 the parties concerned to work out, in conformity with 
 the organic law that governs us all, and with common 
 sense. 
 
 A laborer is usually a man who undertakes to do 
 a certain thing for a certain other man, and for cer- 
 tain pay, because he lacks the mind, the will, the 
 
 [149]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 thrift, the courage, the poise, or some other essen- 
 tial gift, physical or mental, to create work for him- 
 self. He should be absolutely free under the law to 
 accept or refuse the work and pay; but if he accepts 
 one and takes the other, he should be absolutely 
 bound under the law to do his task, for the period 
 of his agreement. There can be no impairment of 
 the obligation of contract, under our Constitution. 
 Whether there be one or one thousand of him, there 
 is no reason in law or morals why he should have a 
 vote as to what the work which he has contracted 
 to do should be ; or why, when, or where it should be 
 done, or who should do it, other than himself. He 
 has had his vote, and cast it when he took his job. If 
 he is unhappy in it, he can always quit, after filling 
 his contract. So much for the law and the morals of 
 the case. 
 
 As for the reason and common sense of it, the fact 
 that there are many, many millions of laboring men, 
 and that they always were, and most of them will 
 always remain, laboring men, despite the brilliant re- 
 wards that wait upon the ability to manage, ought to 
 convince our sociologists, inexperienced as they are 
 in practical organization, that the great mass of 
 laborers are simply incompetent to manage, not fit 
 to vote on the complex questions which daily present 
 themselves for immediate reply, in modern industry. 
 All the rosy ideals of intelligent cooperation of an 
 educated and interested working force smash head-on 
 when tested, as in the Youngstown case elsewhere 
 cited, into the average mentality of the average 
 wageworker; just as, and ten times more than, the 
 "initiative, referendum and recall" smash head-on 
 when tried out, into the dullness and indifference of 
 the average voter. The same amiable type of mind 
 that dreams of "democratization" probably viewed 
 
 [150]
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION. RECOGNITION 
 
 with complacency the referendum here in Massa- 
 chusetts at the last election, on the " initiative and 
 referendum" itself; perhaps the most important 
 referendum ever staged anywhere, as it established 
 all future referenda for all time in this great state. 
 It was adopted, but by a minute majority of the vote 
 of perhaps a quarter of the voters who voted for 
 the candidates for Governor; that is, by so insignifi- 
 cant a fraction of the entire Massachusetts electorate 
 as to make the whole theory of the measure utterly 
 ridiculous. The voters evidently did not care " a 
 tinker" about it, but I think the Hearst papers did. 
 I have not yet heard that our theorists propose to 
 democratize Harvard University and the public 
 schools, by ordaining that the students and school 
 children shall elect " representatives of their own 
 choosing" to confer with the overseers and faculty, 
 or the school boards, as to who shall teach them, 
 what they shall be taught, what their hours and terms 
 shall be, who shall finance, build, and organize the 
 great educational institutions to which Dr. Eliot and 
 Dr. Lowell, Horace Mann and so many able and un- 
 selfish men have given their lives. But the time is 
 ripe for such a proposition. Our idealist friends 
 might as well make it, and would never have a better 
 chance to put it through. It is always easier to throw 
 away the taxpayer's money than that of the stock- 
 holders of a soulless corporation; for the reason that 
 when stockholders see that the law, for instance, is 
 going to make ducks and drakes of their ill-gotten 
 gains, they hold them back, and will no longer put 
 them at the mercy of the law. Witness the present 
 unhappy situation of the railroads, for example. If 
 our sociologists really wish to put the brakes on 
 production, and stop the making and investing of 
 wealth in America, they can hardly find a quicker 
 
 [151]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 way to do so than compulsory " democratization of 
 industry." 
 
 For the hundredth time let me repeat, that entirely 
 decentralized, independent, and voluntary action by 
 the responsible owners and managers of each under- 
 taking is the only safe and wise foundation for its 
 success; and that its success is the paramount factor 
 in the welfare of its employees, whether it leads 
 toward or away from " democratization." 
 
 While discussing Organized Labor's catch phrases, 
 it would be well to clarify our ideas a little on the 
 meaning of two of them, which are generally mis- 
 understood by thousands of men and women of heart 
 and conscience, especially by the clergy, to wit: " Rec- 
 ognition of the Union," and the " Closed Shop." 
 The union leaders sometimes call the latter the 
 "Free Shop," free of non-union labor, that is. 
 
 An association of clergymen, the Inter-Church In- 
 dustrial Conference (the name may be incorrect), 
 whose secretary is a Dr. Poling, has just formulated 
 a report on industrial relations and remedies that 
 suggests at first the utterance of an official of an 
 imaginary clergyman's union affiliated with the Fed- 
 eration of Labor. Its perfectly innocent acceptance 
 of the slogans and economics of trades-unionism, of 
 the villainy and greed of capital, and the righteous- 
 ness of Organized Labor, saddens a man who, like 
 myself, is a descendant of a long line of clergymen, 
 and a sincere believer in them, their lives and their 
 work The Parable of the Unjust Steward says 
 truly enough that " the children of this world are 
 in their generation wiser than the children of light." 
 Fortunately for the latter and for all of us, they can 
 and do depend upon the conscience and the constant 
 material support of the very men whom they so 
 fluently condemn, for the safe existence of their 
 
 [152]
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION. RECOGNITION 
 
 churches and their noble charities. But they cer- 
 tainly do not comprehend the practical game played 
 by "Labor.; 1 
 
 " Recognition of the Union," means to many good 
 Christians something like good manners, or human 
 courtesy, to workingmen ; and refusal to "recognize" 
 is stigmatized as autocratic hauteur, as contemptuous 
 disregard of the " aspirations of labor." It is 
 nothing of the kind. "Recognition" of organized 
 labor and the " closed shop " are identical, and 
 mean that the employer enters regularly into con- 
 tract with the unions through their officials, usually 
 in writing, which binds the former to employ labor 
 only through the latter, and to close the shop to the 
 non-union man. No matter how badly a non-union 
 man needs work, or how good a workman he is, or 
 how much the employer wants to hire him, he can 
 get employment in that shop only by first joining the 
 local union of his craft, signing its constitution, sub- 
 mitting to the authority of its officers, and most im- 
 portant of all, paying the initiation fee and dues 
 involved. Then only a union card is issued to him, 
 and he can get a job in a closed shop. 
 
 Many thousands of laboring men prefer their in- 
 dependence, and refuse to be held up for union dues. 
 Many hundreds of employers, though the majority 
 are indifferent, refuse to contract for the closed shop ; 
 some as a mere matter of business policy, but many 
 more, in my observation, because they refuse to be- 
 tray the constitutional right of every man, employer 
 or laborer, to hire or work without the dictation of 
 any other man or group of men. One of the largest 
 employers in Boston lately said to me, that he would 
 lose every dollar he had invested, and if necessary 
 would die for the " open shop," as a true American. 
 He employs thousands of men without regard to 
 
 [153]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 union or non-union membership. My own feeling 
 was just the same when I was an employer, that I 
 would never be party to taking advantage of the 
 necessity of a workingman, to compel him to pay 
 tribute to a union, in order to qualify for employ- 
 ment in my shop. I have shown elsewhere how in 
 the course of a strike in my own factory we dis- 
 covered a strong preference among workers in Chi- 
 cago for the strictly non-union shop. The sentiment 
 for liberty prevailed. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is after all a matter of business; 
 if an employer thinks it to his business interest to 
 close his shop to non-union labor, or to union labor, 
 or to maintain an open shop to both, he has an 
 absolute right to do so, and to put sentiment aside. 
 I cannot believe, however, that any intelligent and 
 conscientious clergyman, who ought by virtue of his 
 profession to put sentiment ahead of business con- 
 siderations, would, if he understood the matter, 
 favor forcing the free workman against his will to 
 wear the collar or pay the tribute decreed for him 
 by the local union. Our courts of highest resort have 
 uniformly restrained the attempt to monopolize 
 labor by virtue of "collective bargaining" and the 
 " closed shop," as an invasion of constitutional right. 
 I am glad to accept Judge Gary's maintenance of the 
 open shop in the great steel industry, as dictated by 
 love of American freedom as well as sound business 
 judgment. I would urge the pulpit not ignorantly 
 to condemn the law and the bench, but to study with 
 open mind as well as open heart the intent and the 
 result of bringing all industry within the grasp of a 
 labor autocracy, the dream of Organized Labor. 
 
 [154]
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PROFIT SHARING 
 
 IN passing it may be worth while to say a word 
 about profit sharing, which Gompers and Labor care 
 nothing about, in fact oppose, but which seems 
 to have great fascination for my conscientious Cam- 
 bridge friends who are plagued by the profits of the 
 Rockefellers. 
 
 There are three fundamental difficulties in carry- 
 ing profits into compensation of Labor, viz. : 
 
 1. Profits are properly the reward of skilled manage- 
 ment; or of capital saved and risked, i.e., of past thrift and 
 courage; they are very remotely dependent on the future 
 exertions of this or that laborer, who saves and risks noth- 
 ing, and whose best efforts may be nullified by fault of 
 other workmen or other departments in production; or by 
 general trade conditions entirely outside of his vision or 
 control. 
 
 2. An ordinary profit of five to ten per cent which is 
 considered reasonable for capital is entirely too small to in- 
 terest labor; especially coming as it does, but once or twice 
 a year. Labor does not understand profit and loss accounts, 
 or want to wait till the end of the year. What it can under- 
 stand, and usually goes for, is a definite increase of wages, 
 ten to twenty per cent, payable every Saturday night, in no 
 way dependent upon what the stockholder gets. 
 
 3. There are frequently no profits to share, nothing but 
 losses. Under the common law, if you share my profits you 
 are ipso facto bound also to share my losses; to take good 
 money out of your pocket to pay your share of my debts, 
 if I cannot pay them. Like every provision of the common 
 
 [155]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 law, the growth of many ages of administration of justice, 
 this particular provision is logically and morally right; but 
 my Cambridge friends seem to feel that labor should share 
 only profits, not losses ; while to labor leaders, the bare idea 
 of standing a loss would be what is called a " scream." One 
 of Mr. Gompers' fiercest fights is against holding labor 
 liable for anything whatever in the way of money, except 
 union dues. 
 
 Many attempts at general profit sharing have been 
 made in the United States and in Europe. About 
 four fifths of them have failed, and but few have 
 been even fairly successful. Labor is pleased when 
 profits and shares coming to itself are large ; but sus- 
 picious and discontented if small or lacking. Shar- 
 ing of losses by labor is unknown. 
 
 Add to the foregoing objections Mr. Gompers' 
 vigorous opposition, and there remains little to say 
 in favor of sharing profits with labor as extra com- 
 pensation for stimulating good work. The more 
 direct stimulus of piecework pay, premium, or bonus 
 on increased production, payable weekly also op- 
 posed by Mr. Gompers is far better and more 
 logical. Each man then benefits by his own good 
 work, even though some other man's default affects 
 results and cuts down the general profit. 
 
 Nothing but the highest praise can be given to the 
 United States Steel Corporation's plan of helping its 
 employees to buy shares of the company's stock, 
 guaranteeing them against loss, and stimulating them 
 to save thus making themselves capitalists, and 
 real investors, genuine partners, in their own busi- 
 ness. That is a constructive mode of securing loyal 
 and enthusiastic work for the company; and the pro- 
 motion of industrial peace, which is the deadliest 
 possible "barrage" against the rush of Mr. Gom- 
 pers' forces. It goes without saying that he de- 
 
 [156]
 
 PROFIT SHARING 
 
 nounces it in the most unmeasured way as capitalistic 
 corruption of Labor. 
 
 There are many other concerns with profit-sharing 
 plans in operation, of which one can say nothing but 
 good. One general observation is, however, unde- 
 niably true, viz. : that no panacea, no general cure 
 for " Labor Unrest," can be prescribed in the form 
 of profit sharing. Labor itself has not ordinarily 
 no matter what happens in sporadic cases shown 
 the ability or the will to advise or cooperate in such 
 long-drawn and deferred undertakings, while as 
 for Capital, each enterprise with its peculiar condi- 
 tions must be a law unto its owners, how to stimulate 
 and compensate its people. 
 
 That remarkable man, Henry Ford, has devised 
 a powerful appeal to his 45,000 men, which he calls 
 bonus, investment, and profit sharing. The last two 
 words seem to me a misnomer, as the payment to 
 employees called profit sharing is apparently not in 
 any way connected with or dependent on amount of 
 profit realized by the Ford Motor Company; but is 
 a flat, additional rate per hour above the regular pay 
 rate, given to men with the latter every week, pro- 
 vided they show themselves good workmen, good 
 family men, and good citizens. If they do not show 
 themselves such after six months, they are dropped 
 altogether from the company pay roll. Besides this 
 so-called " profit share " Mr. Ford pays his men- a 
 " bonus " that seems to run from three to ten per cent 
 of annual wage, payable at end of year; and he helps 
 them to buy homes, invest, etc. Taken all together, 
 the high pay and the strong inducement offered by 
 the profit and bonus plan for industry, thrift, and 
 decency since 1912 have transformed Mr. Ford's 
 force within a very few years from a most extraor- 
 dinarily unstable and floating crowd to a compara- 
 
 [157]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 tively fixed, loyal, happy, and exceedingly efficient 
 body of high-grade workers. 
 
 The Ford booklets state that in 1913, in order 
 to maintain an average force of 13,624 men, they 
 hired 5 2, 445 men and 50,448 quit showing a labor 
 "turnover" of 370 per cent; a ratio quite unheard 
 of elsewhere among my acquaintance. By 1915, in 
 order to maintain an average force of 18,028 men, 
 they hired 14,074 and 2921 quit; reducing labor 
 turnover to 1 6 per cent. By 1918, however, to main- 
 tain 31,911 they hired 26,470 and 16,198 quit 
 the turnover rising again to 44 per cent; which, by 
 the way, still seemed huge to me, until 1 was told 
 recently that it averages 100 per cent in large in- 
 dustries nowadays. 
 
 Returning to 1912 (when Mr. Ford's experiment 
 in the "business of making men" as a primary 
 and automobiles as a by-product first took shape), 
 two things are to be noted : first, that he was already 
 as he has been ever since, the most extraordinary 
 "profiteer" in the history of business. He made 
 and sold that year, only ten years after commencing 
 business, over 168,000 cars, at a profit said to be 
 $100 each, say $17,000,000. He was already rich 
 beyond the dreams of avarice when and as natu- 
 rally happened, not till then his attention was di- 
 rected, as he frankly says, to the very bad business 
 management indicated by the enormous " labor turn- 
 over " noted above. As one of the ablest business 
 men in history, he put his mind to the best method 
 of handling his human factor in production as skill- 
 fully as he was already handling his raw-material fac- 
 tors. He makes no claim for other motive than that 
 of good business : and that motive is certainly justi- 
 fied by results. For in 1913 his 13,000 men made 
 168,000 cars, or nearly 13 cars per man; while in 
 
 [158]
 
 PROFIT SHARING 
 
 1917, 35,606 men made over 700,000 cars, or 20 
 cars per man. What the more recent record is I do 
 not know; but I imagine that the Ford factories have 
 by this time recovered from the dislocation of tak- 
 ing on war production of " Eagles," etc., and are 
 swinging along to yet more astonishing results. The 
 last published report of profits that I recall showed 
 over sixty million dollars, after paying the extraor- 
 dinary wages noted above. In furnishing me the 
 data utilized above (for which let me acknowledge 
 gratefully the courtesy of Mr. Squier of the Ford 
 " Department of Education."), they remarked, in an- 
 swer to my question as to current trouble, if any, with 
 union labor u Unionism has not been an issue with 
 us at any time. We have always paid at least the 
 equal of the union rates, and in most cases consider- 
 ably better." 
 
 Here you have the whole psychology as our 
 orators love to call it of labor relations in a nut- 
 shell. Mr. Ford makes his job so profitable and 
 attractive that no oratory of labor demagogues can 
 induce his men to imitate the dog in Esop's fable, 
 that dropped the bone out of his mouth while snap- 
 ping at its double, reflected in the water beneath 
 him. 
 
 The Steel Corporation is doing much the same, 
 perhaps not quite as lavishly, as its profits are not 
 so lavish : and so are other great employers all over 
 the country. Perhaps the best job that Organized 
 Labor has done though not at all in the way it 
 intended, that now it bitterly opposes is forcing 
 the captains of industry to put their minds to 
 "making men" out of human beings, as well as 
 " mere commodities of commerce " out of their 
 labor. It is evident that Mr. Henry Ford has be- 
 come perhaps more interested in the former than in 
 
 [159]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 the latter; and it must indeed be a genuine delight 
 to him to make his own success the solid and 
 enduring foundation on which thousands of live 
 Americans can build their own happy lives, and the 
 inspiration of their self-development. May he have 
 better luck in converting them than he did with 
 the Kaiser; and may he get more generous verdict 
 from the press generally than from the Chicago 
 Tribune. There is certainly nothing small about his 
 conceptions, whether wise or otherwise. 
 
 In spite of his enormous wealth and success there 
 seem to be few who grudge Mr. Ford his prosperity. 
 Let us hope there are no Bolshevists among his fifty 
 thousand men to take his wages, but meantime 
 plan to apply to his great creations, soon or late, 
 their creed of "Rob the robbers; steal from those 
 who stole." 
 
 Before leaving this matter, however, let me once 
 more call your attention, gentlemen of the press, to 
 the fact that for such pay and such help as the Ford 
 Company, the Steel Corporation, and other great 
 employers here and abroad, are successfully giving 
 their employees, the one essential prerequisite is that 
 the concerns themselves must be great, and must 
 make much money. "Profiteering" so called 
 is the foundation of "Social Justice" ; if by the latter 
 phrase we mean, as we ought to mean, the largest 
 fair reward of all men, even the humblest, weak- 
 est, and stupidest, proportionate to their contribu- 
 tion to the common prosperity. If and when the 
 Ford Motor Co. and United States Steel Corp'n 
 become unprofitable if that time ever comes 
 their employees will surely suffer with their owners ! 
 How, for instance, would the 119,347 corporations 
 out of 35 1 ,426 that reported to the income tax officers 
 a deficit for 1917, share profits with their men? And 
 
 [160]
 
 PROFIT SHARING 
 
 what would our sociologists consider Social Justice to 
 the latter to require in the way of wages? I pause 
 for their reply 1 
 
 Let me also warn you, meantime, against at- 
 tempting by Wilsonian democratization, or Gom- 
 persian centralization of control, or by any other 
 interference with industrial freedom, to compel all 
 employers to follow Henry Ford or Lord Lever- 
 hulme, or any other able man who is applying good 
 engineering to the labor problem. There are very 
 few great employers very few "profiteers," in 
 American industry. Out of some 450,000 indus- 
 trial concerns only two per cent, or thereabouts, some 
 10,000 to 12,000, employ over 250 men. The large 
 employers, especially if they "profiteer," can and 
 will more and more take care of their men and 
 themselves, as Ford is doing. But I urge you to 
 deprecate handing over the little fellows, bound hand 
 and foot by legislation, to the tender mercies of Or- 
 ganized Labor. Collectively, they employ the great 
 mass of our laboring population; yet individually 
 they could never cope with such a labor autocracy 
 as Mr. Gompers has built up and proposes by legal- 
 ized monopoly and coercion indefinitely to enlarge. 
 Give them their chance, free operation of the law of 
 supply and demand, a fair field and no favor; if you 
 wish them to prosper and pay their labor, the bulk 
 of all our labor, regularly and well. I am speaking 
 not for them so much as for the whole community; 
 for America. 
 
 Decentralization, and limitation of trades-union- 
 ism to the shop where the men are employed, would 
 free the small employer from the labor troubles of 
 all other concerns; and yet would leave his own men 
 free to protect their own local interests as against 
 him by organizing, striking, etc., as at present. At 
 
 [161]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 the same time, the removal of the constant tempta- 
 tion to show power which is inseparable from all 
 irresponsible autocracies as is abundantly proved 
 by the Carroll Wright Report would probably re- 
 duce the 90 per cent rates of strikes called by Or- 
 ganized Labor to, say, 10 per cent; which, with the 
 10 per cent called by unorganized labor, would cut 
 down the grand total of all strikes to, say, 20 per 
 cent, or one fifth of the ratio recorded by Mr. 
 Wright. 
 
 Decentralization would practically eliminate labor 
 trouble as a serious factor against production. Judg- 
 ing from my personal experience as a small em- 
 ployer, however, the general introduction of strike 
 insurance, and adoption of time contracts guaran- 
 teed by forfeitable accumulations, would serve every 
 purpose; even without legislation to decentralize 
 labor control. 
 
 In connection with or in commentary on Henry 
 Ford's profit-sharing and bonus plan, let me cite also 
 the experience of another motor company, also of 
 Detroit, a near neighbor of the Ford Company, and 
 maker of a low-priced car perhaps the nearest com- 
 petitor in price and grade to the Ford car. The 
 concern has never had the huge financial success of 
 the Ford, though making and selling many cars. The 
 management write me as follows: "We do not no- 
 tice any appreciable effect on our labor in Detroit 
 on account of the Ford Company's high wage and 
 profit-sharing policy. When we get down to actual 
 figures we are paying equivalent wages, and there 
 appears to be no influence from the Ford policy. It 
 actually yields their men no more than the amount 
 realized by our men of like classification. . . . We 
 should say that the wages we are paying are the re- 
 sult of competition with industrial Detroit gener- 
 
 [162]
 
 PROFIT SHARING 
 
 ally rather than with Ford. To some extent Ford 
 has first pick of labor, but this is rather on account 
 of a little greater continuity of employment. We do 
 not believe Ford's wages give any actual advantage 
 in output to be attributed more to standard- 
 ized repetitive operations in great number, continu- 
 ing indefinitely. Fords are no more free from 
 strikes than we are, and so far as we can find out 
 there is no discontent among our men on account of 
 Ford policies, which are upheld by the press as ideal 
 conditions." 
 
 Well, as all through this investigation, doctors 
 disagree. There is evidently no hard and fast rule 
 for all concerns. This company's owners have never 
 had a dividend; there would be no earthly "Social 
 Justice" in asking them to parallel Henry Ford's 
 treatment of his men; yet they have to do just as well 
 by them, apparently. Great is the law of supply and 
 demand for the workingman in Detroit; and every- 
 where else. 
 
 NOTE. As this book goes to press, an important profit-shar- 
 ing plan, with distribution of stock among employees, is an- 
 nounced by the great International Harvester Company 
 the " Harvester Trust." Its details are lacking, but it 
 seems to promise division of profits in excess of 7 per cent on 
 Capital between the latter and labor, in the ratio of 40 per 
 cent to capital and 60 per cent to labor. The plan appar- 
 ently " democratizes " the industry only to the extent that 
 labor-shares are clothed with voting power and representation 
 in the directorate. I imagine that the control of the business 
 and policy of the company will remain and as it ought to 
 remain for the interest of all concerned with the investor- 
 shares. 
 
 [163]
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 GOMPERS VS. LENINE AND DEBS 
 
 AN officer of the National Civic Federation (of 
 which the vice presidency has been a masterpiece of 
 camouflage by Mr. Gompers) sent me not long since 
 a clipping from the New York Times of Novem- 
 ber 4, quoting Lieutenant Kliefoth, Assistant United 
 States Military Attache in Russia, as saying that the 
 Bolsheviki are bitter foes of legitimate trade-unions, 
 and that if the Soviet form of government were in- 
 troduced in the United States the first labor leader 
 to be killed would be Samuel Gompers. 
 
 Lieutenant Kliefoth may well be quite right. Mr. 
 Gompers certainly has thrown his great influence 
 among workingmen directly against Bolshevism, 
 Anarchy, and State Socialism, everywhere and al- 
 ways. He may well be most obnoxious to all three 
 elements. I cannot see, however, that his hostility 
 arises from the fact that they all propose to " steal 
 from those who stole," or plunder the rich; but exists 
 because they would establish autocracy not of Labor, 
 but of the proletariat. His own program differs 
 from theirs only in degree, not in kind or principle. 
 The Anarchist would individually murder and plun- 
 der brains that is, the rich and take his chances 
 on what might come after; the Bolshevist or Prole- 
 tariat, alias the leaders in power, would collec- 
 tively rob and murder brains, and take the chances 
 after; the State Socialist would expropriate (he 
 would not say rob) riches, and commandeer brains, 
 
 [164]
 
 GOMPERS vs. LENINE 
 
 merely abolishing profits, and take future chances. 
 Mr. Gompers would leave riches to the ownership 
 and care of brains and let Labor " swipe " all the 
 profits. Either way, poor brains, that creates all the 
 riches and directs all the useful employment thereof, 
 is " the goat." It makes no difference to the owner 
 whether Lenine and Trotsky, Haywood or Debs, 
 takes all their capital; or Gompers takes all their 
 profits; either way it is a case of Love's Labor Lost. 
 
 On the other hand it makes a lot of difference to 
 Mr. Gompers whether those other fellows take all 
 the capital and abolish all the profits; or instead 
 the burden of capital is left where it lies, while his 
 own Federation and Brotherhoods absorb and squan- 
 der all profits themselves. The question with him 
 is not so much whether capital or profits shall be 
 stolen, as it is how best to do the stealing and who 
 shall get the stolen goods. 
 
 It is perfectly clear that Anarchy and Organization 
 of Labor or of anything else cannot coexist. 
 One or other must disappear. For it is evident 
 that Messrs. Lenine and Gompers cannot both dic- 
 tate the lives and industry of the same workers; in 
 one case as Soviet constituents and the other as 
 organized laborers. One or other must go. Like- 
 wise, in a Socialistic state, where the state is sole 
 owner and employer, the Gompers' Federation could 
 not fight the state, being a small minority, but must 
 inevitably be swallowed up in the state. 
 
 As Mr. Gompers is, and has reason to be, per- 
 fectly satisfied with his present job as President of 
 the A. F. L., what could or ought he to do but fight 
 every suggestion of Anarchism or Bolshevism or 
 Socialism? Do not, however, gentlemen of the 
 press, attribute his opposition to these attacks on our 
 form of government to any especial reverence for 
 
 [165]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 American Constitutional guarantees of liberty or 
 property right. He has never evidenced any such 
 feeling. That perfectly honest, thrifty, and pros- 
 perous citizens should be so naive as to rely on him 
 for protection against spoliation of what they have 
 gathered, reminds one of the story of Little Red 
 Riding Hood and her excellent grandmother the 
 wolf. 
 
 Mr. Gompers is widely proclaimed in the press, 
 and indeed proclaims himself, as the great conserva- 
 tive force in labor politics ; as against the red radicals 
 who would control it. Well, he is certainly conserva- 
 tive as against them; but of his own power and the 
 personal control of his great organization, merely; 
 neither of which he has the least intention to hand 
 over to anybody. When it comes to conservation 
 of anything else for instance, of the rights either 
 of the non-union man, the capitalist, or the public 
 he ignores or denies them as contemptuously as 
 Lenine or Trotzky, Haywood or Debs. His latest 
 utterance is a "gem of purest ray serene" "The 
 workers will not sacrifice human progress for an 
 abstraction which is called the public welfare" 
 Even Karl Marx never rose to such a pinnacle of 
 " abstraction I " (The italics above are mine.) 
 
 [166]
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY. LEAGUE 
 OF NATIONS 
 
 MY Cambridge idealist friends have seized with 
 avidity upon President Wilson's carefully vague 
 catch phrases, "The new order," "A new relation- 
 ship between Capital and Labor," etc.; also on 
 the proposition that business should be done for 
 "service" and not for "profit" voiced I think by 
 the President, but perhaps by some other idealist. 
 In his labor message to Congress he further says, 
 " Return to the old standards of wage and industry 
 in employment is unthinkable"; and "To analyze 
 the particulars in the demands of labor, is to admit 
 the justice of their complaint, in many matters that 
 lie at their base. The workman demands an ade- 
 quate wage, sufficient to permit him to live in com- 
 fort, unhampered by the fear of poverty and want 
 in his old age." He omits, however, to note that the 
 workman usually gets his demand. 
 
 Pygmy minds like my own search in vain through 
 the presidential utterances to find out just what " The 
 new order" and the "new relationship between 
 Capital and Labor" are to be; and we ask too just 
 why return to the old standards of wage and industry 
 in employment is "unthinkable." Under the old 
 standards our beloved country has enjoyed a century 
 of i rosperity unparalleled in human history, with 
 health and comfort of the industrial classes (our rich 
 being no better off than rich men everywhere) that 
 so far surpassed those of other countries as to bring 
 
 [167]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 a flood of immigrants therefrom to our happy shores. 
 Neither the lo-hour work day, nor the "hard and 
 unjust conditions " which President Wilson conjures 
 up from his inner consciousness as " hedging labor 
 about," have killed off our working people, or 
 stopped the growth of our population, especially in 
 the industrial centers. The efficiency and produc- 
 tivity of our labor was 100 per cent in the '8o's com- 
 pared with 66 per cent today; and abundance of the 
 necessaries of life, with consequent low cost of living, 
 made their old 1880 standard of wages go farther 
 than the present standard, two and a half times 
 higher; at least so declare the labor leaders! To 
 be sure, that declaration is not quite true they are 
 not sticklers for exactness for prices of commodi- 
 ties are only about two times as high as in 1880. As 
 a matter of fact wages everywhere in this world 
 have increased faster than prices of commodities. 
 Thanks to enormous improvements in machinery 
 and transportation, to new invention and discov- 
 ery, and in spite of organized labor's systematic 
 and powerful obstruction, human productivity has 
 hugely increased per capita in capitalistic countries; 
 and an increasing surplus earning power has accrued 
 to workingmen. In this country I do not attempt 
 to speak for foreign countries this surplus is re- 
 flected in huge savings banks and life insurance re- 
 serves belonging to laborers, in ownership of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of homes ; but most of all, alas ! in 
 wasteful squandering of good money. This extrava- 
 gance is a matter of common knowledge, known to 
 every shopkeeper and manufacturer, denounced by 
 every editor and preacher. 
 
 Now it is quite true, that the extravagant spender 
 never has enough; never receives " an adequate wage 
 sufficient to permit him to live in comfort, unham- 
 
 [168]
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY 
 
 pered by the fear of poverty and want in his old 
 age." But does the President point out that fact, 
 or note the past and present extraordinary prosperity 
 of our labor; does he urge hard work and efficiency 
 and thrift, and denounce loafing, indolence and ex- 
 travagance? No, not by a single word! He speaks 
 only " to admit the justice " of labor's complaint. 
 
 Again, my pygmy mind asks, " Of whom precisely 
 does the President, does Organized Labor, demand 
 a life of comfort and ample provision for old age? 
 Of labor itself, by its own hard work and thrift? 
 Not on your life! Of the President himself he is 
 well off and his fellow idealists in Cambridge and 
 elsewhere? Nay, nay. They bind great burdens, 
 and lay them on other men's shoulders, but do not 
 lift them themselves with so much as a finger. Well, 
 then of Rockefeller, Armour, and Gary? Yes, 
 verily I But how far would even their great fortunes 
 go, and how long would they last, if only for their 
 own hundreds of thousands of employees? Perhaps, 
 then, of " Society " in general ? Yes, at last we have 
 it: of everybody except the workers themselves so 
 our idealist President would probably say, with en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 But who is "Society"? In a democracy, "So- 
 ciety" must mean "Government": and one can see 
 where the President will necessarily land, and evi- 
 dently would like to land in bureaucracy, and un- 
 limited income taxation. Where the rest of us land 
 is secondary. 
 
 Take the past year as an illustration. Did the 
 President, or for that matter did Congress, recognize 
 the perfectly patent, world-wide causes of high 
 prices; namely, shortage of labor, shortage of pro- 
 duction and transportation, colossal destruction, 
 coupled in this country with an orgy of spending 
 
 [169]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 unheard-of wages? Did they admit the evident and 
 inevitable effect of the old familiar law of supply 
 and demand in raising prices? Did they make the 
 first move to stimulate labor to overcome shortage 
 by hard work, or urge the community to reduce ex- 
 cessive demand by reducing excessive extravagance ? 
 Again the answer must be, " Not on your life." In- 
 stead of denouncing indolence and extravagance, 
 Congress ordains perfectly useless and enormously 
 expensive investigations of the packers and the coal 
 operators whose results will be obsolete long be- 
 fore obtained; while the President denounces " profit- 
 eering" and asks Congress for $4,500,000 to pay 
 lawyers and detectives to chase the law of supply and 
 demand off the soil of the United States, and in that 
 way reduce the " high cost of living." 
 
 Well, the Attorney General has been busy ever 
 since, spending those and other appropriations. His 
 bureaucracy has grown like Jack's beanstalk, and our 
 money has gone like water; but has the cost of sugar 
 or coal, or milk or eggs, or anything else under the 
 sun been reduced a cent's worth by the tomfoolery? 
 A third time the slang reply, " Not on your life." 
 
 In the future, as in the past, low prices will come 
 only from production in excess of demand; and pro- 
 duction will come only from abundant human labor, 
 aided by brains and capital, put out for wages and 
 profits. But why should labor exert itself to pro- 
 duce, while the Clayton Act says "don't work com- 
 bine; and hold up your employers for a good living " 
 or while the President says, " You toilers are doing 
 altogether too much for your money. The rest of us 
 are robbing you! Sit tight, and I will build up a 
 great centralized bureaucratic machinery, that will 
 stand in with your great centralized strike machinery, 
 to see that you boys have plenty to spend now, and 
 
 [170]
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY 
 
 are taken care of in your old age by your greedy 
 employers; without bothering to work hard your- 
 selves or save anything meantime." 
 
 Or why should those who have saved in the past 
 risk their savings, in hope of profit, in building or 
 producing in the United States, when the President 
 says to the crowd : " Damn these profiteers. They 
 are going to take advantage of existing demand, are 
 they? They are going to exploit the needs of the 
 community and the world, by building homes to rent, 
 or by making and selling necessities of life at enor- 
 mous profit, are they? Well, just you watch me! 
 /'ll see to it that they make nothing, and serve the 
 world for the sake of service, not for profit. Con- 
 found those packers 1 Not content with selling meat 
 so cheap that local producers cannot compete with 
 them, they have the gall to do the same thing with 
 fruits and groceries ! Watch my administration put 
 them back where they belong. The American peo- 
 ple is not going to trade with any big fellows, not 
 under my administration, even if folks think they 
 save money by doing so: it is not fair to the little 
 fellows, and does not help the 1920 Campaign. 
 Same thing with the Steel Corporation! The Su- 
 preme Court can give that concern a clean bill of 
 health as often as it likes; but while I control the 
 Attorney General, he shall keep right on after them. 
 The Department of Justice must spend its appropri- 
 ations and more; or it would not be a government 
 department, or serve my turn. I can point with 
 pride to consistent hostility to useful industry on a 
 great scale. Profiteers, take notice ! " 
 
 And they will take notice too ! It is absolutely 
 certain that productive industry will " mark time " 
 until the presidential election is decided, and long 
 afterwards, unless Washington abandons its past
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 and present game of clubbing every industry that 
 dares show its head above the surface. High cost of 
 living will not come down; industrial peace and pros- 
 perity will not ensue; America will not seize the un- 
 paralleled opportunity, existing as an aftermath of 
 war, to serve the world out of its unequalled re- 
 sources, at unheard-of profit; nothing will grow 
 and overshadow us, except government, graft, and 
 taxation. 
 
 If the foregoing sounds extreme, just compare the 
 following United States appropriations (in round 
 millions) for 1911 and 1919: 
 
 1911 
 
 Deficiencies Various Branches of 
 Govt 
 
 Legisl. Exec, and Judicial Expenses 
 
 Sundry Civil Expenses 
 
 Army, Navy, Indians, Rivers, Har- 
 bors, Forts 
 
 Pensions old wars, etc 
 
 Consular and Diplomatic .... 
 
 Dept. of Agriculture 
 
 Dist. of Columbia 
 
 Federal Cont. of Transportation 
 
 $23,000,000 
 
 34,000,000 
 
 106,000,000 
 
 293,000,000 
 
 156,000,000 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 13,000,000 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 1919 
 
 $2,000,000 
 
 70,000,000 
 
 2,012,000,000 
 
 Reclamation 
 
 War Finance Corporation .... 
 
 War and Other Expenses .... 
 
 Food and Fuel Control 
 
 Bonds of Foreign Goods Purchased 
 Operation under Mineral Act . . . 
 Farm Loan Bonds . 
 
 14,658,000,000 
 
 220,000,000 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 28,000,000 
 
 15,000,000 
 
 500,000,000 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 500,000,000 
 4,315,000,000 
 11,000,000 
 3,000,000,000 
 50,000,000 
 200,000,000 
 9,000,000 
 
 Relief and Miscellaneous .... $664,000,000 $25,598,000,000 
 (Tabulation from New York World Almanac, 1920.) 
 
 Gentlemen of the press, however unwilling our 
 Cambridge and other idealists may be to trace the 
 evolution of abstract democracy into concrete bureau- 
 cracy, cannot you, as men accustomed to deal with the 
 real in daily life, see plainly enough that nothing but 
 useless and wasteful addition to the already colossal 
 
 [172]
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY 
 
 burdens of taxation can result from the proposition 
 to create at Washington great centralized arbitra- 
 tion and conciliation machinery, only to sit powerless 
 and helpless in solemn conclave with Mr. Gompers' 
 great centralized and powerful strike machinery? 
 Have there not been strikes enough, and settlements 
 enough, among the seventy-five thousand recorded by 
 the Department of Commerce and Labor, to estab- 
 lish the fact that all great strikes usually end piece- 
 meal, locally; by final direct agreement between 
 employer and employed? That intervention of cen- 
 tralized union and arbitration conference committees 
 merely tends to delay these ultimate settlements, even 
 where regional arrangements are in force (as with 
 the garment workers and coal miners), and hold 
 back composition of local difficulties ? Recall to your 
 memories any of the wide-spread labor wars, and 
 see for yourselves how invariably great strikes break 
 first here, then there ; and always end first where law 
 and order are maintained and violence prevented. 
 Can you not see that nothing but local conditions will 
 in the long run prevail with both employer and em- 
 ployee? that neither will long endure a general 
 award of arbitrators that is locally and individually 
 impracticable? Is it not clear that increasing inter- 
 ference of government between Capital and Labor 
 is due to the unwillingness of politicians to refer so 
 many voters to the impartial arbitration of the law 
 of supply and demand, just because that arbitration 
 is impartial, and final; based on actual market con- 
 ditions? Must it not be for unfair advantage that 
 Labor turns to a political tribunal? Even so, why 
 should the rest of us follow suit? If the new tribunal 
 is to be impartial, its decrees must coincide with those 
 of natural economic law. Why, then, constitute it 
 at all? 
 
 [i73]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 You will answer, perhaps : because its decrees will 
 tend to create sound public opinion, and that public 
 opinion finally prevails in labor wars; and the argu- 
 ment has weight. But why not, while tackling the 
 question, educate public opinion to the more direct 
 and final conclusion that the law of supply and de- 
 mand is the one cool, calm, eternal, omniscient, ever- 
 present, and impartial arbiter; whose decisions, based 
 on actual conditions, are bound to be obeyed and to 
 do lasting justice. Moreover, it is automatic; needs 
 no costly Bureau at Washington. 
 
 The foregoing considerations apply an hundred- 
 fold more strongly to the " General Conference and 
 International Labor Office," called for by the League 
 of Nations. There is provision for councils, at- 
 tended by 2 government, I laborer, and I employer 
 delegate 4 in all from each nation, each per- 
 mitted to take with him 2 advisers, a delegation of 
 12 in all, expenses paid by the state that sends them; 
 and for a permanent Labor Office, and Labor News- 
 paper, at the seat of the League of Nations, with 
 a Director and Staff, all paid for by the League. 
 (By the way, the cable dispatches a short time ago 
 remarked that money provision for the League's 
 current expenses had not yet been made, so the poor 
 Labor Director could not draw his handsome salary 
 as yet.) Well, labor leaders would indeed find it an 
 agreeable function to voyage to Switzerland, as hon- 
 orable delegates or advisers, at the expense of the 
 United States government; there to consider the 
 labor problems of the world. Still more agreeable 
 would it be to become the most conspicuous person- 
 ality in all the earth, in the eyes of Labor, the Chair- 
 man of the Conference; or even second in line, the 
 International Director (Mr. Gompers was slated 
 for the first-named job, until our Senate broke away 
 
 [i74]
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY 
 
 from the League of Nations). The blindest of us 
 cannot fail to visualize luxurious journeys, dignified 
 surroundings, interesting general discussions, easy, 
 conspicuous, and well-paid jobs, presumably for 
 elderly labor leaders and politicians, in and about 
 the International Labor Office at Geneva; especially 
 choice plums of bureaucracy, shaken from the po- 
 litical tree by each administration. 
 
 But what once more staggers my pygmy mind is 
 the query: " How is the American individual laborer, 
 in practice, going to benefit by this colossal inter- 
 national fake, any more than he now benefits by the 
 A. F. L. ? That is to say, how can he benefit at all ? " 
 
 The Lawrence mills, for instance, which suffered 
 a bad strike two years ago, are just now (May 3, 
 1920) threatened with a walkout of one hundred 
 and twenty-five stationary engineers, which may 
 throw out many thousands of mill hands and cause 
 a general shutdown. If the United States were a 
 party to the League of Nations, would its Labor 
 Bureau attempt to handle such a case? If it did so, 
 how long would the mill owners or the mill hands of 
 Massachusetts abide by a decision of the Interna- 
 national Labor Office at Geneva, say in this present 
 emergency, that offended either ooe or the other? 
 If the interest of the mill owners at Bradford, Eng- 
 land, or Lisle, France, were to prolong the Lawrence 
 strike, how would the American owners regard a 
 decision so influenced by them? Is there the re- 
 motest danger that either England or France would 
 bring to bear, through Washington or the State 
 House on Beacon Hill, an international boycott, or 
 send cruisers to enforce compliance of mill owners 
 or strikers at Lawrence; or if either should attempt 
 to do so, that Governor Coolidge, or Senator Lodge, 
 or the American people behind them, would stand it 
 
 [175]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 for an hour? Would the Yankee Division ever cross 
 the seas again to protect France against a general 
 French railway strike, such as has been threatened 
 for the last few days ? Or would France either ask 
 or consent to such an invasion? Merely to ask these 
 questions is to answer them a thousand times No ! 
 
 I suppose that Messrs. Lloyd George and Cle- 
 menceau and Wilson promised to Messrs. Barnes, 
 Henderson, Thomas, and Gompers, this League-of- 
 Nations show, as part payment for the labor vote 
 in their respective campaigns of 19161918 in- 
 clusive; but why should any country thus pay party 
 political debts? You, gentlemen of the press, should 
 read Mr. Andrew Furuseth's remarks opposing the 
 Labor provisions of the League (Report A. F. L. 
 1919 Convention, page 401), where he says: "Who 
 is to determine what is to be lawful in this case? 
 Why the International Super-Legislature, not you 
 in the United States. . . . Since when has the 
 A. F. L. gone on record . . . and set a minimum 
 wage . . . by some one else, instead of having it 
 set by themselves? . . . It makes me shudder !" 
 
 So says one Labor leader! He agrees apparently 
 with Senator Lodge. Do not you too, gentlemen, 
 agree with both experts? Are we not better off al- 
 together without perfectly useless governmental 
 labor meddling, domestic or foreign without costly 
 bureaucracy; the wasteful handmaid of demagogy, 
 masking as humanitarianism? 
 
 Mr. Furuseth need not have shuddered, by the way. 
 Mr. Gompers promptly got up after him in the Con- 
 vention, and explained just as Mr. Wilson explained, 
 that the League had no teeth in it. " My friend 
 Mr. Furuseth," he says, "puts great stress on the 
 words ' lawful organizations/ and tries to leave the 
 impression that this super-convention will determine 
 
 [176]
 
 DEMAGOGY AND BUREAUCRACY 
 
 what is lawful and what is not. Nothing is farther 
 from the truth. Every country will determine for 
 itself what is lawful and what is not." Precisely so! 
 But in that case, why set up an international show at 
 all? 
 
 In a previous sentence Mr. Gompers gives one 
 reason why. " For the first time in the history of the 
 world," he says, " the nations of the world have 
 written into a document that they agree that workers 
 have a right to organize." We have seen before 
 that Mr. Gompers enlarges the interpretation of 
 that right to mean centralized national control; and 
 now he would have world control. I suspect it is 
 because he is conscious of the inherent weakness of 
 the " right to organize," when it conflicts with the 
 welfare of the community, that he so consistently 
 seeks its political assertion and sanction at home and 
 abroad. 
 
 [i77]
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 CARROLL D. WRIGHT'S REPORT OF STRIKES 
 AND LOCKOUTS 
 
 THE late Carroll D. Wright, while Commissioner 
 of Labor, carefully tabulated the strikes and lock- 
 outs from 1 88 1 to 1905. Since then his successors 
 have not continued the same accurate analysis and ' 
 classifications of causes and results; and totals for 
 the last fifteen years must be guessed at more or less. 
 From 1 88 1 to 1905 he recorded 36,557 strikes (of 
 at least one day), throwing out of work 8,485,000 
 hands for an average of 25.4 days, involving 181,- 
 407 concerns; and 1546 lockouts, involving 18,547 
 concerns and averaging 85 days' duration. Ninety 
 per cent of the strikes, and substantially all of the 
 lockouts, were caused by Organized Labor, which 
 won, or partly won, 65 per cent of strikes declared, 
 as against but 44 per cent won by unorganized labor. 
 Employers won, or partly won, 68 per cent of the 
 lockouts declared. Strikes succeeded as follows : For 
 raised wages, 69 per cent; for shorter hours, 61 per 
 cent; for recognition of unions, 57 per cent; against 
 reduction of wages, 48 per cent; sympathetic strikes, 
 23 per cent. 
 
 Since 1905, the last fifteen years have seen about 
 as many more strikes, some 38,000, (details 
 not accurately tabulated by the union laborer who 
 has meantime been at the head of the Department 
 of Labor) as in the twenty-five years previous. 
 Their causes and results are poorly analyzed; but 
 
 [178]
 
 seem not to differ materially from the Wright Statis- 
 tical averages. 
 
 The forty-year mass of information yielded is, 
 however, enormous; and affords sound basis for in- 
 dependent judgment as to the actual value and real 
 accomplishment of Mr. Gompers' great work in Or- 
 ganization of Labor. 
 
 To begin with, if we figure on an average normal 
 working year of 250 days, in doors and out, for the 
 average number of industrial workers (5,200,000 
 between 1 88 1 and 1905, as per the United States Cen- 
 sus), the time actually lost by strikes during twenty- 
 five years was less than two thirds of one per cent 
 of the whole an almost negligible fraction! 
 
 As Organized Labor for that twenty-five years 
 averaged not over one seventh of all industrial labor, 
 and yet called nine tenths of all the strikes it was 
 roughly (man for man) fifty times as pugnacious 
 made fifty times the trouble. Nevertheless, organ- 
 ized labor won but 65 per cent of its strikes, while 
 unorganized labor won 44 per cent. 
 
 That is, the net advantage shown over non-union 
 labor in winning strikes (which is the object of or- 
 ganization of Labor) is but one win in three; though 
 it calls them fifty times as often! The extreme 
 minuteness of this net advantage, one win in three 
 during two thirds of one per cent only of normal 
 working time, which is practically no advantage at 
 all, confirms from another angle the revelation of 
 Chapter IX of this book, and shows why union labor 
 has not gained faster than non-union labor during 
 the last forty years! The great machinery simply 
 cannot make good ! 
 
 Let me urge upon your apprehension, gentlemen 
 of the press, that strike machinery has gained no 
 substantial advantage for union labor since 1880; 
 
 [i79]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 but on the contrary has steadily cost its votaries loss, 
 both of wages and of their purchasing power. 
 
 Let me now ask you as good citizens to say, of 
 what use is this great fighting machine to the com- 
 munity? Is any town or region better off by reason 
 of one or a hundred strikes or lockouts? Is govern- 
 ment better off by reason of being forced because of 
 machine-made riot or machine-cast ballot to meddle 
 with such purely private affairs as the wages which 
 an hundred or ten thousand men are, or are not, 
 content to take, for doing lawful work offered by 
 employers? Is the nation better off by reason of a 
 machine for driving a class-wedge into our social 
 solidarity? Is constitutional right better established 
 because 4 million men stand together to deny the 
 liberties of 40 million? 
 
 From every point the huge record of trades- 
 unionism is one of purely negative result. As labor 
 cannot wait and capital can, it stands to reason, when 
 it comes to test of endurance, that Labor has no 
 chance against Capital. For instance, employers 
 won, as shown above, 68 per cent of the lockouts, 
 though Organized Labor won 65 per cent of the 
 strikes. In other words, when it is sufficiently im- 
 portant for the employer to fight, he keeps it up, and 
 wins. These lockouts averaged 85 days long, against 
 25 days for strikes! As was the case in my Chicago 
 strike experience, in due time the- unions always 
 throw the strikers overboard, and let them shift for 
 themselves. Then the poor fellows go back to work, 
 wiser and worse off. 
 
 Once more : what do the laborers themselves gain 
 by "Organization"? As Horace says, " Parturiunt 
 monies; nascetur ridiculus mus" 
 
 [180]
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. PROS AND CONS 
 
 IN order to guard against my own inherent skepti- 
 cism as to the actual value of trades-unionism and 
 collective bargaining, I have asked the judgment of 
 friends upon it in two industries, in which it at first 
 seemed to me great results had been attained by the 
 unions for their members; with perhaps stability in 
 work and production and benefit also to the trade 
 involved and the community. I refer to the Gar- 
 ment Workers and the United Mine Workers in- 
 dustries. 
 
 Like every one else, I was and am in keen sym- 
 pathy with the victims of what is called " sweating" 
 in the clothing trades; and with the men who pass 
 their days underground in the grime and darkness of 
 coal mining, with risk of life from deadly gases and 
 damp. There seemed no way out of their hard con- 
 ditions, and in the garment industry out of their 
 old-time starvation wages; because both industries 
 were so largely carried on by small operators, under 
 fierce competition in the sale of their respective 
 products. This was especially true in the " sweat- 
 shops " ; run in the great seaboard cities, for the most 
 part by Russian and Polish Jews, immigrants them- 
 selves, who had by incessant labor and thrift saved 
 enough to hire a few of their compatriots to make, 
 for instance, shirt waists at home on piecework; and 
 whose imported habits and standards of life led 
 them to take a pittance as their wage. Their em- 
 
 [181]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ployers in turn sold to the great department stores 
 or the smaller shops, kept again by men who had 
 fought their way up by hard work and thrift; and 
 who under the fierce competition had no mercy on 
 themselves or their work people. Few of them 
 made money, or grew great enough to put in good 
 plants and mechanical equipment; for the shops that 
 bought their stuff resold it again to the poorer classes 
 at fantastically low prices. As is always the case, the 
 mass of the people got the benefit of the situation; 
 and it seemed hopeless, without entire reconstruc- 
 tion of the whole machinery of distribution, to do 
 better by the workers. Now, however, the thing 
 has been done; and wages and conditions in the gar- 
 ment trades are certainly most favorable to the 
 workers. I had been of the impression that the 
 change was entirely due to Organization of Labor; 
 and am still unwilling to say that it is not largely 
 the work of the garment workers' unions; yet here 
 again I find our old acquaintances, the law of supply 
 and demand, and profiteering, at the bottom of the 
 improvement. Apparently the special success and 
 great growth of firms like Hart, Schaffner & Marx 
 of Chicago, of Kuppenheimer and the Rochester 
 manufacturers, the Troy shirt and collar makers, 
 and of other great advertisers and merchants, as 
 well as manufacturers, has enabled them to build 
 great, efficient, sanitary plants to which the workers 
 come; to stop "sweated" home work, and largely 
 increase production; to pay high and higher wages, 
 enormously increased during the war shortage. In 
 these big shops, with their hundreds or thousands 
 of employees, the union organizers found their game 
 all laid out for them; and a long succession of strikes 
 led to the collective bargaining that now so largely 
 characterizes the garment industries. Yet even here 
 
 [182]
 
 there is not complete agreement of the doctors. I 
 recently wrote a very large Western Company, ask- 
 ing the following question : 
 
 "Has the organization of labor in the clothing 
 manufacturing industry had the effect of stabilizing 
 and standardizing wages and conditions of labor, to 
 the benefit (i) of the industry; (2) of the working 
 people; (3) of the individual manufacturer?" 
 
 They answer that for nine years they have had 
 in force "a form of collective bargaining" with the 
 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and 
 have had no serious strikes ; on account of " the very 
 elaborate labor department and arbitration machin- 
 ery maintained. We are practically the only large 
 manufacturers in the country that have been able 
 to conduct business without labor difficulties over a 
 course of years. On the whole, our company re- 
 gards its experience with collective bargaining as a 
 success." They further said that sweating has dis- 
 appeared from the industry, and wages have almost 
 quadrupled in eight years. Great shortage of labor, 
 especially during the last year, has pushed wages up 
 to an average of $40 per week. From $50 to $90 
 per week are very common. The small concerns 
 have had to follow the big ones. 
 
 On the other hand, they say another large Roches- 
 ter firm, Michaels, Stern & Co., are prosecuting an 
 injunction suit against the Amalgamated; which last, 
 under advice of Professor Felix Frankfurter of 
 Harvard, is using this case to clarify the rights of 
 Organized Labor in New York State. 
 
 All of which is exceeding interesting; and comes 
 back to the same old governing law of local condi- 
 tions with no hard and fast horizontal rules, that 
 can apply universally the very antithesis of col- 
 lectivism. You will note how reservedly my Western 
 
 [183]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 correspondents say " on the whole" they regard 
 their experience with collective bargaining as a suc- 
 cess. What it would have been without their large 
 financial means, to back it up with other substantial 
 attractions to their laboring people, is another story 
 that they do not tell. 
 
 I wrote, too, to a large coal and iron firm in 
 Cleveland; friends familiar with the soft coal indus- 
 try. They answered as follows : 
 
 "We do not believe the soft coal industry has 
 been benefited by collective bargaining with the 
 United Mine Workers. 
 
 " There is a difference of opinion among opera- 
 tors on this question, some favoring collective bar- 
 gaining, others opposed. 
 
 "As a rule unorganized labor in the soft coal 
 industry has consistently gained in wages and con- 
 ditions faster than has organized. This to my mind 
 is due to desire of operators to head off the unioniz- 
 ing of their properties." 
 
 Once more the doctors disagree; meantime the 
 non-union man works the law of supply and demand 
 as his best friend. I omitted to say above, when 
 quoting the Western clothing firm, that they also 
 remarked that wages in the New York garment 
 trades, which " are feebly organized" are $5 to $10 
 higher than in Chicago, strongly organized. It is 
 local supply, not organization, of labor that fixes 
 wages. 
 
 I also omitted to say that my coal-mine friend 
 added the instructive remark: "We are outside the 
 district in which the United Mine Workers operate. 
 Our manager, however, has had experience in the 
 4 closed shop ' districts. He says there is a differ- 
 ence of opinion among the operators as to collective 
 bargaining with the U. M. W. He is opposed to 
 
 [184]
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 
 
 it, but I do not believe we would oppose collective 
 bargaining with our own men. Personally, I favor 
 the latter." 
 
 The manager gave his reasons for opposing a 
 deal with the U. M. W. ; among them especially the 
 " check-off " system, by which the employers agree 
 with the union to take out of the men's pay their 
 union dues, fines, etc., and turn them over to the 
 union treasurer thus "cutting a stick to welt their 
 own backs with. Which," adds the manager, " would 
 be a joke, were not the consequences so serious." 
 
 This convenient way of making their members 
 pay up, even against their will, is always proposed 
 as part of " recognition of the union " in collective 
 bargains; though not always accepted by the em- 
 ployer. It is one of the most powerful reasons for 
 the insistence of the labor leaders on collective bar- 
 gaining; and shows excellent business acumen on 
 their part. 
 
 Their main reason, however, is evidently central- 
 ization of labor control. No better illustration of 
 this purpose can be cited than the existing situation 
 (May 29) at the United Shoe Machinery Com- 
 pany's works at Beverly, Mass. A strike has been 
 in progress there for some weeks, called to force 
 the company to abandon the practice of making 
 written contracts of employment with its men indi- 
 vidually. Of course, there can be no question of the 
 entire constitutional and legal right of both com- 
 pany and men to sign such contracts; and of course 
 such contracts seriously interfere with union plans 
 for calling strikes from time to time; because the 
 courts will interpose by injunction, and indeed have 
 done so already in this case, to forbid the men from 
 breaking them. Today's papers report a meeting 
 of representatives of thirty-five labor unions, most 
 
 [185]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 of which must be in no way connected with the 
 U. S. M. works, who voted to request the various 
 unions of the district to consider the question of a 
 general strike " as the only solution for this un- 
 American attack on organized labor the applica- 
 tion of the individual contract." Resolutions were 
 adopted recommending that the Executive Board of 
 the A. F. L. consult counsel, to the end that the Con- 
 stitution of the United States be amended to prevent 
 the application of the individual contract in indus- 
 tries where the employees work for hourly wages; 
 that counsel be engaged to draft an amendment to 
 the State constitution, providing for the election of 
 all judges by the people; and that the Montreal Con- 
 vention of the A. F. L. (coming soon) shall place 
 the United Shoe Machinery Company on the "un- 
 fair list." (This last means to boycott it.) 
 
 Of course there can be no possible objection to 
 any movement by union leaders to change the con- 
 stitution in a constitutional way, whether of the state 
 or the nation. Such use of the labor vote is lawful 
 and aboveboard. We can all of us consider it, and 
 meet it at the polls as we see fit. But, gentlemen of 
 the press, here you have the destruction of individual 
 right by trades-unionism squarely put up to you as 
 a proposed alteration of our fundamental organic 
 law. What do you think of it? 
 
 The United Shoe Machinery Company was vio- 
 lating no moral or statute law in offering steady 
 work and good wages in useful industry, upon con- 
 dition that the terms and duration of employment 
 should be defined by written agreement executed by 
 both parties; the men who signed such agreements 
 did so voluntarily, for the sake of the jobs; no man 
 did or could compel them to sign; there was no 
 trouble with work, wages, or conditions between 
 
 [186]
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 
 
 company and men; nothing was wrong, except that 
 a court might (and did when it came to the point 
 of a threatened strike) interfere to say to the men 
 that union orders could not set aside the " obligation 
 of contracts," an obligation held so sacred by the 
 Constitution of the United States that even Sover- 
 eign States were forbidden to pass laws impairing 
 it. But never mind ! union control of an " auto- 
 cratic" corporation and its laborers is at stake. All 
 the industries of an entire district must be para- 
 lyzed; the constitutions of state and nation must be 
 amended; judges must hold office in terror of 
 "Labor" at the next election; the whole political 
 and economic system of the United States must be 
 so changed as to secure our domination by Mr. 
 Samuel Gompers, or by whomsoever may be presi- 
 dent of our " Super-State," the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor! 
 
 The reporter does not say that this labor meeting 
 at Beverly was " authorized " from the Washington 
 headquarters of the Federation. If not, I may be 
 doing Mr. Gompers a partial injustice as to this 
 particular instance. We shall shortly see. But it 
 conforms to the general political program laid down 
 by the Federation, as you are aware. At least there 
 is this sign of progress in the education of Labor, 
 that not so long ago its attitude was "to hell with 
 the Constitution!" Today it merely says "amend 
 the Constitution." 
 
 But to come back, in concluding this chapter on 
 "Collective Bargaining," to its subject matter; take 
 it all in all, I will back the non-union laborer, who 
 is free to work as hard as he likes, and make all the 
 wages he can, both to make more money and to 
 live a freer and happier life, than the man who goes 
 by the union gospel of sloth, and gives least return 
 
 [187]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 for what he gets. His employer can play that same 
 game, holding most of the trumps, too; even in 
 trades so peculiarly adapted to unionization and col- 
 lective bargaining as the garment and coal-mining 
 industries Mr. Gompers to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 [188]
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 COERCION. VIOLENCE. PICKETING 
 
 IN Mr. Gompers' debate with Governor Allen, al- 
 ready referred to, he expressly asserts the law-abid- 
 ing character of Organized Labor, and its officially 
 taken attitude against violence. He has always said 
 that such was the attitude of Labor, and I think that 
 its public votes and resolutions, such as there may 
 have been, are probably in accordance with his words. 
 Certainly it would be foolish to vote or resolve other- 
 wise. Nevertheless, there is seldom a prolonged or 
 moderately large strike without violence, greater or 
 less. The whole proceeding is frankly one of coer- 
 cion; and is usually carried out by the picket line, 
 which in itself contains the powder and match for 
 an explosion, and needs but the careless hand to put 
 one to the other. When it comes, Labor usually 
 glosses it over as what golfers would call " a rub 
 of the green," a regrettable but unintentional and 
 legitimate incident of industrial " war." 
 
 There are two fallacies under this gloss; first, 
 that in civil life war is not the lawful remedy for 
 difference of opinion between buyer and seller of 
 labor or anything else, the courts are there if the 
 case is justiciable the unions have no right to 
 declare war; second, the explosion, though perhaps 
 unintentional, can hardly be called unpremeditated. 
 The unions are morally responsible for violence that 
 occurs along the picket line; and they usually show 
 that to be the fact by employing counsel to defend 
 
 [189]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 sluggers. They did, for instance, in my little type- 
 writer strike already cited; and in the notorious 
 McNamara dynamiting case at Los Angeles, and in 
 numerous other cases. Allan Pinkerton's dictum, 
 " Organized Labor is organized violence," stands 
 proven as against Mr. Gompers' denial of lawlessness 
 by three things: first, that plugging, sabotage, etc., 
 so often occur, and that the victims are so seldom 
 union men; second, that the unions pay lawyers to 
 defend the guilty, if caught; third, and most con- 
 vincing, that the unions have never made the smallest 
 effort to prevent or end violence. 
 
 If they really wish to be law-abiding, why do the 
 unions not join with the state in forbidding and 
 penalizing lawlessness among their own members ; or 
 in arresting or punishing those guilty? Did you ever 
 hear, gentlemen of the press, of the unions giving up 
 a slugger, or machine wrecker; or of their offering 
 a reward for detection of those who cast that slur on 
 union fame ; or of their fining or expelling any man 
 who chased a " scab " away from a job, or casually 
 broke his head with a brick? Would it be possible 
 for violence to occur on the picket line, always in 
 broad daylight, and in presence of fellow pickets, 
 without their knowledge and connivance; or indeed 
 without the knowledge and backing of their unions ? 
 Could not the latter suspend, fine, or expel the culprit 
 every time, if they really wished to uphold the law, 
 and respect the rights of the non-union man or the 
 employer? 
 
 If the unions rely solely, as they pretend, on the 
 unquestioned right of the laborer to quit work, col- 
 lectively, is there any need of the picket line at all? 
 Why can the strikers not go fishing, or otherwise 
 enjoy a holiday, far away from the works and the 
 inevitable risks of the picket line ? Why do not the 
 
 [190]
 
 COERCION, VIOLENCE, PICKETING 
 
 union leaders command them to stay away entirely, 
 and abolish the picket line altogether? 
 
 You know the answer, gentlemen, as well as I do. 
 They do not rely entirely, or even largely, on peace- 
 fully refusing to work; though in the long run that 
 is their best bower. What they do figure upon is 
 perfectly unlawful prevention of the free flow of 
 labor, and perhaps of material; so as to deprive the 
 employer of the benefit of free competition in the 
 labor market, to which he has moral and lawful 
 right. 
 
 At the risk of boring you with iteration, gentle- 
 men, let me once more urge you, as patriotic men, to 
 condemn this whole philosophy of union coercion as 
 morally, economically, and politically criminal, and 
 practically vicious; not only debauching the laborer 
 as craftsman and citizen, but robbing him as wage- 
 worker, for the benefit of a few labor leaders. 
 
 [191]
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 UNION PROPAGANDA. " PEACEFUL 
 PENETRATION" 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, the Report of the A. F. L. 
 is a remarkable document, worth careful study. 
 It discloses the perfectly legitimate program of 
 " peaceful penetration," as the Germans used to call 
 it, by trades-unionism, directed not only at our po- 
 litical but also at our educational institutions. 
 
 The current campaign for election of friends of 
 labor to Congress and other offices is, of course, 
 familiar. The departments at Washington, notably 
 those of Commerce and Labor, are filled with union 
 friends; the Secretary of Labor, Mr. W. B. Wilson, 
 being a union man in good standing. Mr. Louis 
 Post, whose activities in the matter of relieving aliens 
 from deportations are under fire, is next thing to 
 a laborite ; using the term without offense. Such so- 
 called economists as Mr. Jett Lauck give govern- 
 mental official weight to what might be called labor 
 economics, fed out to the public in wage disputes. 
 For instance, Mr. Lauck a short time ago testified 
 in the Boston Elevated Railway wage adjustment, 
 for the purpose of showing that the law of supply 
 and demand in the fixing of wages is inapplicable to 
 meet the present situation. He declared that the 
 workman is entitled to a living wage regardless of 
 the condition of the labor market; that five different 
 commissions of the national government had com- 
 piled estimates of the minimum income required to 
 
 [192]
 
 UNION PROPAGANDA 
 
 support an average family of five, the highest being 
 $2533.97 per annum; and that the Fall River budget 
 of the National Industrial Conference board had 
 estimated $1715.55 per annum as the lowest for the 
 same family, which last Mr. Lauck condemned as 
 entirely inadequate. Mr. Lauck attacked " profit- 
 eers " and the packers; and said the latter's em- 
 ployees might be given an increase of 1000 per 
 cent in wages without equalling the increased profits 
 taken by the packers during and since the war, etc., 
 etc. Now, the figures given in my Chapter on So- 
 cial Justice, which are from the latest government 
 reports, according to the World Almanac, showed 
 an average actual gross production for 1919 of 
 $1440 per worker. 
 
 It thus appears that Mr. Lauck testifies that the 
 minimum on which an average family can live is 
 nearly $1100 per annum more than the actual gross 
 output on which the 50 million workers of the 
 United States not only actually did live very abund- 
 antly in 1919, but moreover laid up unheard-of 
 savings deposits out of! Such is a fair sample of 
 the kind of Labor propaganda fed to the American 
 people by the skilled hand of the labor demagogue ! 
 It well illustrates the "peaceful penetration" of our 
 bureaucracy, our tax-eating fraternity, by the " friends 
 of Labor." Mr. Lauck wound up by saying " Yes " 
 to counsel, who inferred from his figures that Bos- 
 tonians, who are receiving less than 75 cents per 
 hour, are not getting a subsistence wage ! Of course 
 the object of the testimony was to hold up the street- 
 car riders or the city for whatever fares might be 
 necessary to support the fantastic wage-scales he 
 swore to. 
 
 Is it any wonder, gentlemen, that wherever the 
 pick of investigation is struck into the cost of ad- 
 
 [i93l
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ministration at Washington, there is turned up a 
 rank and rotten mass of corruption and waste? Sec- 
 retary Wilson of the Department of Labor said the 
 other day regarding deportation: "Class struggle, 
 mass action, conquest of political power, dictator- 
 ship of the proletariat, socialism, communism, one 
 big union, shop committees, shop stewards, etc., in 
 the Communist Labor party platform, however rep- 
 rehensible to the minds of many of our people, do 
 not bring the organization within the purview of the 
 Act, as long as no force or violence are used." Of 
 course ! These things are mere methods of looting 
 the thrifty; let us say the taxpayers. Probably the 
 Honorable Secretary is right regarding the technical 
 purview of the Act; but I wonder if he could forget 
 Labor long enough to bring such grotesque " eco- 
 nomics " as Mr. Lauck's within the purview, techni- 
 cal or moral, of official integrity? The use of force 
 or violence would be almost better than such sworn 
 testimony; such Impossible governmental represen- 
 tations; sowing such useless, unsatisfiable discontent. 
 In our school system also, peaceful penetration 
 by Organized Labor goes on. Reports of commit- 
 tees show that organization of a teachers' union affili- 
 ated with the A. F. L. is under way; and night 
 schools, some of them, as in Boston, are carried on 
 in Public School Buildings. I have not been able to 
 study the courses of teaching offered at these schools, 
 which seem to be intended largely for the foreigners, 
 far enough to judge of their purpose. Of course, 
 no man would grudge any progress in education to 
 the working classes; yet if such economics as Lauck's 
 are taught, such hostility to constitutional rights and 
 the judiciary as Gompers voices, such class politics 
 as the labor campaign program of 1920 outlines, 
 it behooves us, gentlemen of the press, to look to our
 
 UNION PROPAGANDA 
 
 schools! Certainly, any educational activities of 
 Labor will not run counter to its own carefully chosen 
 course. 
 
 There has been considerable Labor penetration 
 of our public services, state and municipal; as was 
 much discussed at the time of the Boston and Atlanta 
 police strikes. All through our public employment 
 the same eternal vigilance, which is the price of 
 liberty, must be exercised in the interest of the tax- 
 payer, and of political morality. An universal Tam- 
 many Hall is not an ideal of democracy; even if it 
 masquerades under the honest overalls of labor. 
 
 Our universities also seem to me full of the 
 propaganda of Organized Labor, mingled with col- 
 lectivism; here at Harvard, for instance. I am my- 
 self a Harvard man; and believe in the intellectual 
 independence of the professor, up to the point of 
 constitutional right or wrong when he should back 
 his country, or get out of it. A very sincere and 
 honest group of professors at Harvard and Colum- 
 bia seem to love the wide collectivism of Organized 
 Labor; without the least conception of the impos- 
 sibilities involved, and as far as my reading shows, 
 without at all studying or realizing the minus results 
 achieved. I doubt whether any one of them ever 
 created or financed an industry, or employed even 
 so few as an hundred men; or ever tried to coax the 
 necessary but unwilling dollars from the bank ac- 
 count of the hungry capitalist, so eager to grab every- 
 thing in sight, and exploit the workingman; or ever 
 stood between the devil and the deep sea of trades- 
 unionism and sales competition; or ever gambled 
 on the crops or politics or change of fashion, or other 
 blind factors in supply and demand. Fortunately 
 for themselves, their universities rest upon the sure 
 foundation of the endowments given by men who 
 
 [195]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 have successfully done all these things; and their 
 salaries, though none too large, are secure. They 
 do not have to worry about markets or how to meet 
 the next pay roll ; or whether perhaps they can secure 
 workmen for wages at all. They can let such details 
 be taken care of by the poor devils who are "landed" 
 with them; and can themselves loftily think in col- 
 lectivities. But their moral and intellectual support 
 of the impracticable and the unjust is pretty hard on 
 the men to whom their great educational institutions, 
 all of them, appeal for cash. It is to me a strange 
 and curious thing that they should so little appreciate 
 the enormous usefulness to the community of even 
 the most selfish bourgeoisie. My own rather irrev- 
 erent conviction is that the Lord created the bour- 
 geoisie, because in His infinite wisdom he found 
 that the best way to ensure the creation and storing 
 of capital for the world } just as he created the bees 
 to make and store honey. Of course, Mr. Gompers 
 does not see it that way. 
 
 [196]
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 PROFITEERING 
 
 ON the principle of lucus a non lucendo I go out of 
 my way to say a few words about "Profiteering"; 
 because it has nothing whatever to do with the Labor 
 question, except in so far as Labor profiteers ; which 
 to be sure is something not to be despised. I refer 
 rather to that part of the alleged crime of profiteer- 
 ing chargeable to Capital, and go into it because it 
 forms an essential item of the stock in trade of every 
 labor (and other) demagogue that orates nowadays. 
 It is trotted out particularly to hide Labor's share in 
 causing high cost of living, as a smoke screen is 
 thrown out in modern sea fighting by warships to 
 conceal their own place and movement. 
 
 " Profiteering," while unpleasant to those who pay 
 high prices, is a perfectly normal manifestation of 
 the free play of the law of supply and demand; and 
 is its own quickest cure. For it must never be for- 
 gotten that nothing does away with high price except 
 abundant supply; and that nothing stimulates pro- 
 duction of abundant supply like high price and large 
 profit. The very first essential to production is 
 capital; and capital turns first to that field where the 
 largest return offers, and away from the lower return. 
 
 For instance, the present crusade and legislation 
 against rent profiteering seems to me the stupidest, 
 most short-sighted piece of selfishness imaginable, 
 though I am myself a renter. Rents have nowhere 
 near doubled, though everything else has. The land-
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 lord's income from rents buys only half what it used 
 to buy, and naturally he wishes to do as others have 
 done : increase the price of what he has to sell enough 
 to put him on the same plane of living relative to 
 others that he formerly occupied. The law says 
 No; you shall take twenty-five per cent more than of 
 old, and no more at least around Boston. 
 
 What is the result? There is great shortage of 
 housing and storage. No building has been done 
 for several years on account of the high cost of labor 
 and building materials. That is why tenants who 
 must have space bid up on each other and rents go 
 up. If the landlord could advance rents enough to 
 get a good return on the necessarily high cost of new 
 buildings he would find the capital and build them. 
 But will he try to do so knowing that he cannot 
 get a decent return now, for the current years when 
 shortage is sure to fill every room he can provide; 
 and with the certainty that a few years hence, when 
 the cost of building falls and permits the competition 
 of newer and cheaper buildings, he cannot get a 
 decent return on his high-cost structures then? 
 
 Once more, the only sufficient answer is the slang, 
 u Not on your life." There will be no relief from 
 the present congestion of housing conditions so long 
 as the law penalizes the man who would build ! 
 
 Or, consider a prosecution commenced in Boston, 
 May 25, against one of the pet targets of Attorney 
 General Palmer (candidate for the Democratic 
 nomination for the Presidency), to wit, the packer 
 firm of Armour and Company; haled before the 
 United States Commissioner, for importing a cargo 
 of lamb carcasses from New Zealand, and selling 
 them at a profit. Lambs (domestic) were selling in 
 Boston at 30 to 34 cents a pound; so Armour took 
 the risk of buying a shipload in New Zealand, and 
 
 [198]
 
 PROFITEERING 
 
 bringing it refrigerated to New York and Boston, 
 and offering it there for sale at 24 to 25 cents. It 
 was of finer quality than the domestic lamb and sold 
 readily at the cut in price. The evidence showed 
 that the Chicago packer firm of Cudahy was obliged 
 to meet the cut and sell domestic lamb at 25 cents. 
 The Attorney General now prosecutes Armour and 
 Company, because the lamb cost them in New 
 Zealand about 13^ cents; and Armour therefore 
 "profiteered." 
 
 Under the Lever law that firm may indeed be 
 found guilty; but it is a safe bet that it will never 
 try again to help the consumers in New York and 
 Boston to get good lamb, one fourth cheaper than 
 they can buy it at home, by importation from abroad. 
 That kind of crime is profitable to the public and to 
 the packer, too profitable to both to be permitted 
 to last; it is time for the politician to divert some of 
 the profit in his own direction. Hence the Attorney 
 General and the prosecution. 
 
 Consider also the prosecution just begun of the 
 American Woolen Company and its President, Wil- 
 liam M. Wood. The company has undoubtedly 
 made extraordinary profits, as have all our producers 
 of standard food, clothing material, or other neces- 
 saries of life; because the world supply was short 
 and there were foreign as well as domestic buyers 
 for everything the American factories could produce, 
 at prices beyond all forecast. The stimulus to pro- 
 duction was huge, and the response instantaneous; 
 the result shows today already in signs of over- 
 production and falling off of demand all along the 
 line of American industry. Meantime, for a year or 
 two the manufacturers have been extraordinarily 
 prosperous. Now comes the Attorney General, and 
 says that under the Lever law it was a crime to recog-
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 nize world prices; that if a manufacturer asks of an 
 American as much as a foreigner will pay him for his 
 goods, he is a profiteer. If he has to buy his wools 
 abroad he must pay foreign prices, true enough ; but 
 he must not sell his cloth at them, taking rather what 
 the American is willing to pay. 
 
 The case is not parallel to the building industry, 
 in that the construction of new mills was stimulated 
 early enough to take place before the Lever law, 
 for the most part; and the mills were built, and are 
 in existence, at work turning out goods, though not 
 quite so fast as before. The prosecution of Mr. 
 Wood will not stop them; as the rent prosecutions 
 will stop building operations. But it is none the less 
 stupid demagogy, it seems to me. It is, of course, 
 sympathetic to Organized Labor; whose action here 
 turns the spot-light on its political methods. Mr. 
 Wood is popular with his employees at Lawrence, be- 
 cause among other things he has started a coopera- 
 tive store for their benefit; so they got up last week 
 a public demonstration of confidence in him, when 
 his prosecution was announced, in which several 
 thousand of them took part. The Amalgamated 
 Textile Workers' Lawrence Local Union promptly 
 came back at him with a telegram to Attorney Gen- 
 eral Palmer as follows : " Millionaire Wood con- 
 temptuous of law. Preparing public opinion to 
 whitewash profiteers. Ten thousand organized 
 operatives demand that government shall carry 
 through the prosecution of Wood and all other 
 profiteers, and that he be compelled to give the 
 working people the government standard of $45 
 wages per week as a minimum, and also be com- 
 pelled to reduce the hours of labor so as to prevent 
 unemployment." 
 
 There is a very perfect bit of labor economics; 
 [200]
 
 PROFITEERING 
 
 that burns the merry candle of capital at both ends 
 and in the middle ! Doubtless it will score a bull's- 
 eye with Mr. Palmer; who has simply got to reduce 
 the high cost of living before election day, whether as 
 a candidate, or merely as a Democrat. But it is safe 
 to predict that prosecuting Mr. Wood will not bring 
 more woolen goods into the world markets: nor re- 
 duce the cost of- clothing, nor increase the wages of 
 the Textile Workers' Union, by one penny; nor tend 
 to stabilize the business situation that hangs over 
 us all. 
 
 To return to our sheep perhaps I should say our 
 lambs let me beg you, gentlemen of the press, not 
 to let Labor camouflage its own war on the Amer- 
 ican public by charging the American capitalist with 
 high levels of prices and cost of living, that are sub- 
 stantially the same, where lack of transportation 
 does not disturb them, throughout the civilized 
 world. President Wilson says we cannot isolate 
 ourselves politically, which is true; still more true is 
 it that we cannot isolate ourselves commercially. 
 
 [201]
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE EIGHT-HOUR AND SHORTER WORK DAY 
 
 THERE is no more instructive reading on the phi- 
 losophy of Labor than the oft-quoted Report of the 
 A. F.L. for 1919, pages 72, 145, 241,449,452-454 
 inclusive, on the subject of the Shorter Work Day. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Gompers' greatest achievement, next 
 to the size of the A. F. L. and its control, is the 
 progress made toward establishing the eight-hour 
 day; which is becoming common, though not uni- 
 versal by any means. The report discloses formal 
 indorsement by the Federation of any movement 
 inaugurated by any affiliated body toward a still 
 shorter day, for instance six hours ; or for a shorter 
 week, with a half holiday on Saturdays, making a 
 forty-four hour week at eight hours a day; of course, 
 without reduction of pay, i.e., "wages so adjusted 
 that the earnings of labor will buy the same amount 
 of the necessities of life." The committee recom- 
 mended and the Convention adopted the following: 
 " That the Executive Committee lend its assistance 
 to any organization seeking to establish a shorter 
 work day that will provide for the employment of 
 all its members," the organization to be the judge ; 
 and when it has determined the " shorter hours, no 
 matter what they may be, the A. F. L. shall lend its 
 fullest assistance." During the debate the prob- 
 ability of slack trade and unemployment was fore- 
 casted by several speakers; and Mr. Green, of the 
 
 [202 ]
 
 THE SHORTER DAY 
 
 United Mine Workers, said it was " the very serious 
 purpose of the United Mine Workers to press for a 
 further shortening of the hours of labor which we 
 now have, in order to furnish employment to the 
 thousands of mine workers in the industry." Mr. 
 Green had previously called attention to the war 
 results of the industry; after losing 100,000 workers 
 demanded by the war, yet it increased output be- 
 yond any figure hitherto thought of. Mr. Tracy 
 favored a campaign of education for the shorter 
 work day, among members ; referring to " overtime 
 hogs " who had no concern in the organization other 
 than the amount of money in their pay envelopes. 
 
 The instructive feature of the debate and the 
 resolutions is the prevalence in the minds of the labor 
 leaders of the old false, laborer's notion, that there 
 is only so much work to go around; and if there are 
 more men than needed to do it, it must still be split 
 up among them all, each man doing less, in order to 
 keep them all employed; of course at full wages. 
 The fallacy of thinking that when there are already 
 too many men for the work, it will help things to 
 put on more ; that either the world or the men them- 
 selves can possibly benefit by loading the product 
 with useless labor, or rather with the cost of 
 wasted time, has always stuck in the heads of the 
 labor leaders, especially Mr. Gompers who has 
 several times laid down the law on this point. This 
 debate took place on Resolution No. 160, which 
 read in part as follows : 
 
 " Whereas tremendous changes have taken place in the 
 industries of this country and the world, due to the introduc- 
 tion of new machinery and methods of efficiency ; and produc- 
 tion of commodities has increased to a great degree ; therefore 
 
 " Resolved, that the A. F. L. . . . conduct a campaign 
 ... to establish the Universal Six-Hour Day," etc. 
 
 [203]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Now, the whole history of trade and industry 
 demonstrates nothing more broadly, than the fact 
 that, whenever production overtakes and exceeds de- 
 mand in any industry, capital seeks new employment 
 in diversification and creation of new products and 
 markets therefor; absorbing in the process the idle 
 labor released as surplus from the older industries 
 which can no longer expand. Of course such diversi- 
 fication is an affair quite beyond the vision or concern 
 of labor; which is content to reap the benefits in due 
 season. The most discouraging thing to the student 
 of Organized Labor, who like myself has believed 
 in its educational possibilities, is the denseness 
 real or feigned of leaders like Mr. Gompers, in 
 grasping such elementary facts of history and eco- 
 nomics, although vital to labor. I cannot see that it 
 would in the least cripple him, whether as honest 
 steersman of his followers, or as demagogue, to 
 avoid smashing his Federation against the stone wall 
 of economic law. 
 
 However that may be, there is no reason why 
 you should not see straight, gentlemen of the press. 
 
 It is evident that our Daylight Saving Laws, which 
 are further attempts of legislation to interfere with 
 nature, and standardize local conditions, are not en- 
 tirely successful. The farmers are in arms against 
 the cities by reason of them; and the worst of it is, 
 that there is likely to be an exceedingly dangerous 
 reaction, and a most unexpected one, upon the vol- 
 ume of our crops. The papers are filled with dire 
 forebodings, probably exaggerated, yet not hastily 
 to be dismissed from mind. 
 
 In this connection the eight-hour day is playing a 
 wretched part; and it is evident that when the Presi- 
 dent announced the "sanction of society" for the 
 eight-hour day, he had in mind only our Cambridge 
 
 [204]
 
 THE SHORTER DAY 
 
 sociologists and their like, shutting out the farmers 
 at least from that polite collectivity. Nor are the 
 farmers alone in thinking that an eight-hour day is 
 too short; I incline to judge, from the A. F. L. Re- 
 port as well as general knowledge, that the great 
 bulk of daily work in two or three hundred thousand 
 large and small shops, in retail stores, and domestic 
 service, is still done on a nine-hour or longer schedule. 
 Of course, the " eight hours for work, eight for play 
 and eight for sleep," sounds symmetrical and entic- 
 ing; and nobody wants anybody to work a minute 
 longer than necessary. The serious question is, "/J 
 eight hours enough to do the world's work, and keep 
 us all alive and prosperous as we have been on longer 
 hours? " I think you will agree with me, gentlemen, 
 that there is no way to find out, but to try; in each 
 industry for itself and by itself, not tied by Federa- 
 tions of Labor and Houses of Politics into hard 
 knots with other totally unrelated industries. You 
 can't work a jackass and a motor car very well in 
 double harness, for instance. 
 
 The blast furnace must work twenty-four hours a 
 day, the morning paper must be printed at night, the 
 housemaid must get up before breakfast and stay up 
 after supper, the street car must run often or not 
 according to volume of traffic from hour to hour. 
 The city firemen can work, or rather wait for fire 
 alarms, twelve hours a day, easily; the stoker in 
 front of a hot furnace can stand it perhaps for four 
 hours twice a day; and so on through an infinite 
 variety of demand on mind and muscle. Human life 
 must go on; and its requirements in human service 
 must be met and paid for on such conditions and at 
 such rate as will fetch the needed labor. That is the 
 only criterion of work and wages; subject of course 
 to reasonable veto by the state of conditions prejudi- 
 
 [205]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 cial to the health and future of the race. There is 
 but one way out; and that is not to attempt the 
 standardization of unstandardizable employments, 
 but to leave employer and employee absolutely free, 
 in the old and natural way, that has worked out the 
 immense progress of the race, to hire and be hired, 
 if and when they can agree together. 
 
 Meantime, per capita productive power tends al- 
 ways to increase in future as in the past, and hours 
 of labor tend always to decrease in future as in the 
 past, that is to say, in any given industry, as out- 
 put overruns demand by virtue of greater efficiency 
 in production. But the eight-hour day is new, while 
 the world is thousands of years old; and constantly 
 has the race progressed in numbers and in welfare, 
 with a far longer working day. A shorter day is 
 evidently not necessary for human welfare; and it 
 remains to be proved whether even an eight-hour 
 day will sustain the world in present ease and com- 
 fort, especially after a few centuries, when coal and 
 oil give out. However, they will last our time. 
 After us the Deluge ! 
 
 Meantime I submit that greater diversification of 
 industry, more necessaries and luxuries of life, 
 higher standards of living, are worth more to all 
 of us than an hour or two more to loaf every day. 
 Certainly, nine men out of ten are better off and 
 happier at work than when idle, up to the point of 
 healthful fatigue. I never happened to know a man 
 who had done anything extraordinary, in so little 
 time as eight hours a day, average work. Mr. 
 Gompers himself says he works sixteen hours, and 
 I believe him ! The Federation should expel him as 
 a "scab"; or rather as an "overtime hog." 
 
 [206]
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION 
 
 MOST fortunately and auspiciously for American 
 industry and politics, the honesty and sound sense 
 of American Labor has already begun to show itself 
 in practical cooperation with Capital, foreshadow- 
 ing the radical change in temper and purpose of 
 trades-unionism, which I have hoped to expedite by 
 the teachings of this book. Two most interesting, 
 significant, and successful examples of cooperation 
 have recently been made public: those of the gar- 
 ment workers and their employer in Cleveland; 
 and of the street railwaymen and the Philadelphia 
 Rapid Transit Company. The latter is the older, 
 formally inaugurated in 1911. It is the remarkable 
 achievement of President Thomas E. Mitten, the 
 most successful street railway manager in all the 
 world, apparently. I quote from the Boston Herald 
 of August 22, 1920, as follows: 
 
 " There was a man in Chicago, at the head of the City 
 Railways Company, who had achieved a high reputation there 
 and in other large cities. So Thomas E. Mitten was called 
 to Philadelphia. He took hold as chairman of the company's 
 executive committee under E. T. Stotesbury as president; in 
 1914 Mr. Mitten was made president. Mr. Stotesbury is the 
 Philadelphia representative of the house of Morgan & Co.; 
 the present regime has been known from the start as the 
 Stotesbury-Mitten management. 
 
 " Mr. Mitten began by meeting his men on a get-together 
 basis so friendly, so frank, so democratic, as immediately to 
 
 [207]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 win them over at once forming a relationship so intimate 
 that the attitude of mutual trust was soon so strongly ce- 
 mented as tQ grow steadily firmer to this day. One of the 
 first things done, with the help of Mr. Stotesbury, was to take 
 the company out of politics. At that time Philadelphia poli- 
 tics had lost little of its old-time savor as a particularly rotten 
 mess. The P. R. T. was thus relieved of one of its worst 
 loads and its men were set free to vote as they pleased. 
 
 " The new management took hold in 1910 ; the cooperative 
 plan has been steadily developing from then to now, even 
 augmented by desirable new features. The original coopera- 
 tive plan was presented to the unions in 1911, resulting in a 
 signed agreement to abide by the action taken. A recogni- 
 tion of collective bargaining was a basic principle. At that 
 time trainmen received a maximum of 23 cents an hour ; the 
 rate is now 61 cents; in the near future, as agreed, it will be 
 72^2 cents. With higher wages has come a steadily improved 
 morale. In return, the company has received what an official 
 well terms a ' super-service ' so loyal that, while the company 
 in 1910 was carrying 445 millions of passengers at an average 
 fare of 4.13 cents, in 1919 it carried 850 million at an aver- 
 age fare of less than four cents. And yet in 1919 these were 
 carried by fewer trainmen than in 1910. Almost doubling 
 the number of passengers and reducing the average fare! 
 This measures the development of the riding-habit. In 1910 
 the city's population averaged 288 rides per capita; in 1919, 
 over 400. 
 
 " Up to 1913 wages were paid out of a fund of 22 per cent. 
 Then, with changed conditions this proved inadequate. For 
 two years, more was paid than the fund produced. The new 
 scale is based on the average of the maximum rates in the four 
 cities: Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Buffalo. The 
 latest rate, T2 l / 2 cents, is as of May 16, June I, 1920, and is 
 retroactive ; pending a discussion with the city authorities and 
 the public service commission, it was agreed that the increase 
 should not take effect until a decision had been reached. Of 
 this unanimous vote by delegated representatives to await the 
 increase of revenue looked for President Mitten said that a 
 cooperative effort of men and management to work to a 
 mutual purpose had here been given a new meaning in sustain- 
 
 [208]
 
 SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION 
 
 ing the policy to give the best possible service at the lowest 
 rates of fare ; to pay the highest wages equal to the average 
 in other cities of like conditions, and to protect properly the 
 equities of stockholders. From the men at large came this 
 sentiment: 
 
 " ' We will stand back of President Mitten to a man in 
 anything he does in connection with the management of the 
 P. R. T., knowing full well from past experience that our 
 cause is in good hands; and we approve this action of our 
 representatives with three hearty cheers and best wishes for 
 his success in all his undertakings.' 
 
 " The organization established jointly by management and 
 men to carry out this policy is The Cooperative Welfare As- 
 sociation, with a membership of nearly 100 per cent. Mem- 
 bership costs the men $i a month ; the company contributes a 
 like amount by agreement and has lately doubled its payment, 
 making the total receipts about $300,000 a year. One feature 
 is a savings fund of over $800,000 a year. This shows that 
 about 10,000 employees are earning more than a living wage. 
 
 " A principle of the management is to see that ambition is 
 duly rewarded by assuring promotion to those who fit them- 
 selves for it. A policy is to maintain the ' open shop.' The 
 aim of increased production to meet higher wage-cost has been 
 accomplished in a most remarkable way : an increased produc- 
 tion of 1 20 per cent as compared with a higher wage-rate of 
 151 per cent since 1910 is robbing the high cost of living of 
 its terror. 
 
 " Representatives of the wage-earners are elected by secret 
 ballot to form an assembly containing also direct representa- 
 tives of the company for discussing and determining every 
 matter of interest to the employee in their relations with their 
 employer. This form of cooperation has had a test of about 
 nine years. The controlling thought of the management is 
 that with and through the men themselves the condition of 
 employment and well-being should be improved. It is held 
 that the degree of participation in the management to which 
 the men themselves may aspire is yet unknown ; it must de- 
 pend upon the success which follows a more intelligent han- 
 dling of present duties and the efficient handling of their 
 domestic affairs on a business basis." 
 
 [209]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 The Boston Herald also quotes President Mitten 
 
 of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company as 
 
 f 11 * j 
 
 follows : 
 
 " The keystone of all success as between men and manage- 
 ment is confidence. . . . The confidence of the men in the 
 management, and likewise the confidence of the management 
 in the men, is what makes Philadelphia stand out in ac- 
 complishment." 
 
 The Cleveland example is not so far advanced 
 in showing financial results it is not yet old 
 enough. But two men, Messrs. Morris A. Black, 
 a Harvard graduate, president of the Employ- 
 ers' Association, and Meyer Perlstein, a Russian 
 Jew, general manager of the International Ladies' 
 Garment Workers' Union in Cleveland, after fight- 
 ing for several years, got together during the war 
 in 1917 or 1918, I suppose for cooperation 
 and maximum production, with of course maximum 
 wages and best conditions. The two sides jointly 
 employ efficiency engineers to determine maximum 
 scales of output, consistent with health and reason- 
 able recreation, standard conditions, and wages 
 proportionate to results. Provision is made for ad- 
 justment of controversies within the shop if pos- 
 sible; if not, then within the joint board of the 
 associated shops; if not even there, then by outside 
 arbitration. But the point is, not to strike or in- 
 terrupt output; "the parties talk of work first and 
 disputes second," says Mr. Samuel Crowther, who 
 writes of this experiment in The World's Work. 
 He quotes Mr. Perlstein as follows: 
 
 "When I first came to Cleveland and for a couple of 
 years afterward my inclination was to be radical, to advocate 
 the absolute ownership of industry by the workers, and to 
 strike just to weaken the employers. Ownership by the work- 
 
 [210]
 
 SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION 
 
 ers is a part of the preamble to the constitution of the Inter- 
 national Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. I had a leaning 
 toward industrial warfare for itself that is, to break down 
 capitalistic control. 
 
 " Now I have changed my mind. I recognize that there 
 are three parties to industry, and I am of the opinion that if 
 a labor union can cooperate with intelligent employers in 
 such a way as to increase production and the two can get 
 together to stop seasonal work and at the same time give a 
 proper service to the public, then the wages of the workers 
 will be higher and the public will get better goods at lower 
 prices than if the workers alone own the establishment. I 
 think that when we get properly together we can all get what 
 we want, not out of each other's pockets but out of the big- 
 gest profiteer of all that is, waste. 
 
 " In the garment trade, and I think it is the same in every 
 other trade, there is enough waste of time, motion, and mate- 
 rial through bad manufacturing methods and through an over- 
 emphasis on seasonal work to allow, if cut out, the employers 
 a reasonable profit, the workers a reasonable wage, and the 
 public goods at a low price. 
 
 " I used to think, with many other union men, that there 
 was only so much work to be done and that the way to give 
 employment was to spread out this work so that every one 
 might have a job. I no longer think this. If an employer 
 tries to get high production, paying low wages, and then shut- 
 ting down his plant and holding goods for a high price, then 
 the proper reply of the worker is to limit production; but if 
 the employer comprehends good business methods, and gives 
 both the public and the worker the benefit of the increased 
 production brought about by higher wages and lower prices, 
 which is always possible, then, and only then is it the 
 duty of the worker to cooperate. That is the basis we have 
 reached here in Cleveland, and I think we reached it before 
 any one else did." 
 
 You can value the significance of these new depart- 
 ures in relations between Labor and Capital for your- 
 selves, gentlemen of the press, without further com- 
 ment from me. Between them, Mr. Mitten and Mr. 
 
 [211]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Perlstein pretty completely cover the field of reme- 
 dies for labor unrest. 
 
 Before closing this chapter it is worth while to 
 quote Mr. Perlstein once more, as a sidelight upon 
 old-style labor methods, and by way of contrast to 
 the foregoing. 
 
 " When I got here in 1914 there was no local organization 
 and not more than twenty-five or thirty people in the city 
 with union cards, and they were afraid to show them. Just 
 as soon as the bosses learned who I was, any workmen seen 
 talking to me were fired. They threw me out of every shop 
 I went into. I called a strike wherever I could but the men 
 seldom came out. These strikes were not about anything in 
 particular, but organization strikes that is, if you can get 
 a certain number of people in a shop to walk out and then 
 have them picket the shop, a number of others will be afraid 
 to go to work and you can get them for union members. The 
 strike is a part of organization work. It is the most expen- 
 sive but also the most effective way to get results." 
 
 [212]
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 SUMMARY OF FACTS AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 I NOW come to the hardest part of my task; so to 
 state my conclusions as to carry your convictions, 
 gentlemen, along with my own. The latter are so 
 decided that I fear the reaction of their emphasis 
 against my own arguments. Let me take off my hat 
 for the thousandth time to Governor Coolidge, 
 whose masterly address to the visiting members of 
 the National Editorial Association at Boston last 
 night (the evening of Decoration Day) will I hope 
 be read by every newspaper man in America. Its 
 few columns are worth a dozen books like this, as 
 true inspiration to you men of the press to do your 
 duty by the country always, and especially in the 
 matters of which I write. Would that I had a little 
 of his positive genius for hitting the nail on the head 
 in two words. Bear with me, please, if too prolix. 
 
 In treating of Organized Labor, more particu- 
 larly of Mr. Gompers, I would not join what a 
 certain lurid, hyphen-haunted scribe might call the 
 Tarbell-and-feather-Rockefeller-school of history. I 
 feel myself an amateur in this behalf compared to 
 that first of all professionals, Samuel the prophet 
 (to some extent the profiteer) of Labor; and I have 
 not the cocksure confidence in the amateur as against 
 the professional, that was voiced on a now historic 
 occasion, not so long ago, by the first of living 
 amateurs, in perhaps his profoundest bit of self- 
 revelation. Let me therefore deprecate my drastic 
 
 [213]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 convictions, even if I cannot shake them. Here 
 they are, briefly summarized: 
 
 Though I may save my money, build a factory, 
 and offer work and wages to attract labor to my 
 project, I do not admit any intention, and in fact do 
 not "struggle," to "oppress" or "exploit" any 
 laboring man; but on the contrary my offer, whether 
 he accepts or refuses it, is a distinctly friendly and 
 beneficial act toward him, although I am doing it 
 for my own sake and not for his. 
 
 Mr. Gompers' appeal to my laborers to organize 
 for a class struggle with me is therefore based on a 
 German lie; the motives of class hatred, selfishness, 
 and sloth, which he stimulates, are thoroughly evil; 
 the purposes he formulates of monopoly, extortion, 
 and denial of the rights of others, are entirely bad; 
 the methods he uses, of combination to coerce the 
 employer, or the public, or both, by means other 
 than peacefully quitting work (the legitimacy of 
 which is generally conceded to the employees of any 
 given employer) are morally wrong and legally 
 criminal; his constant pressure for more pay on the 
 one hand in return for less work on the other; his 
 forcible interference with free action of the natural 
 law of trade, are commercially dishonest, economi- 
 cally impracticable, and financially disastrous. They 
 have resulted, and must more and more result, in 
 high cost of living and injury to industry and the 
 community; and in inevitably low earnings for labor 
 itself. For it is impossible for labor to get more out 
 of the world by putting less into it. 
 
 Furthermore, Mr. Gompers' political policy, ask- 
 ing class advantage as the price of nonpartisan polit- 
 ical harlotry, offering the vote of labor to the highest 
 bidder, without distinction of person or principle, 
 tends to complete, with the above, the demoraliza- 
 
 [214]
 
 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 
 
 tion of the union laborer, whether as honest work- 
 man or good citizen. 
 
 The huge and centralized organization which Mr. 
 Gompers controls, its enormous income of over 50 
 million dollars per annum (far beyond that of any 
 political party) contributed by millions of poor 
 men, either voluntarily, in the belief that paying 
 tribute thus fattens the pay envelope; or perforce, 
 by reason of terrorism or in the grip of the ruthless 
 "check-off" system this organization and income, 
 especially the latter, give to the labor autocracy 
 power so great, so irresponsible, and so dangerous, 
 as well to deserve the jealous scrutiny and control of 
 a free people. Even Tammany Hall does not hold 
 as it were a first lien on the wages of the thousands 
 of employees of the city of New York; nor does the 
 Democratic Administration take out of the pay en- 
 velopes of letter carriers all over the country, before 
 handing them to their hard-worked owners, an as- 
 sessment to support the " Organization " ! Ponder 
 this thing well, gentlemen of the press. 
 
 Turning to industrial considerations, the huge and 
 complex system of labor organization and federation 
 by crafts instead of by employments tying to- 
 gether as it does the labor troubles of all concerns 
 employing members of the same craft is a neces- 
 sary hindrance to industrial peace, and makes for the 
 spread of strikes. To me, as a lover of economy in 
 operation, it seems over-organized and top heavy; 
 and it certainly has been colossally costly to labor 
 with no corresponding return. It is designed, as its 
 organic laws reveal, to carry out the sympathetic 
 strike, the general strike, and the strike against pub- 
 lic welfare; all of which are unquestionably against 
 public policy and should be abated. 
 
 In other words: the centralized control of, say, 
 
 [215]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 four million workers in great national strike machin- 
 ery is of no value to the individual worker, but rather 
 a positive detriment, in adjusting his wage and work 
 with his actual employer. Its sole value and purpose 
 seems to be the holding up of whole industries or 
 vital public service; that is, of the people for more 
 pay than is due for work done, under the free and 
 fair award of the laws of trade. Else it must be, 
 and indeed it openly is, intended as consolidated 
 voting machinery to control elections by class vote. 
 
 Either purpose is a menace to free government; 
 and should be put an end to by law enacted by free 
 people. No one benefits by either, except a vast 
 labor bureaucracy, useless to labor itself and perni- 
 cious to the state. Decentralization, free operation 
 of natural economic law, divorce of business from 
 politics, least government, least political bureau- 
 cracy; also, least taxation these seem to me the 
 best tonic for our industries. 
 
 But they are nothing new; nothing but a return 
 to normal conditions under the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 Of course it would be altogether desirable, as I 
 shall try to show in a later chapter, that these radical 
 changes in the organization and purpose of Labor 
 should come about voluntarily with its hearty co- 
 operation and good will. That would be the ideal 
 course of action for all of us free Americans. The 
 legislative remedies later suggested are proposed 
 only because so far there is no sign of change of 
 heart on the part of the labor leaders. Unless the 
 Montreal Convention of the A. F. L., which as I 
 write is but a few days off, shall abandon Mr. 
 Gompers and his fight for centralized control of 
 labor and minimization of production (as is most 
 unlikely), the American people must inevitably, in 
 
 [216]
 
 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 
 
 1920 or later, meet at the polls the fundamental 
 question of the freedom of government and of busi- 
 ness from the domination of Organized Labor. 
 
 Meantime, as the Steel Corporation has shown on 
 its great scale, and my own experience cited above con- 
 firms for ordinary concerns, every employer great or 
 small can at any time free himself and his working 
 people from the Labor Octopus by frankly declaring 
 his job non-union, once and for all. All that is nec- 
 essary is to so order his affairs as to be able to shut 
 down tight for ten or twelve weeks when unavoid- 
 able, once in five or six years perhaps, to give his 
 laborers, who by and by forget, a little leisure to 
 learn and ponder again the utter uselessness of great 
 centralized Labor-organization. 
 
 Employers have been very slow to do this simple 
 thing, however, and the current evolution is and will 
 be, in my judgment, along the lines of useful trades- 
 unionism (that is of strictly localized collective 
 bargaining, wherever it actually works to mutual 
 advantage, as in the Cleveland and Philadelphia 
 cases cited above), with growing realization of the 
 democratic and educational value of sound union 
 principles. 
 
 Of course, such evolution will hardly suit Mr. 
 Gompers, who will shout " Unfair, unfair to labor." 
 But the public will come to understand that this 
 catchword, so appealing to our clergy, means in the 
 vocabulary of Organized Labor merely an employer 
 who refuses to become party to its great game of 
 humbugging four million toilers out of fifty million 
 dollars a year, for no earthly use. 
 
 [217]
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 REMEDIES. POPULAR ACTION. " S. O. S." 
 
 UNTIL Mr. Gompers announced his political creed 
 not long ago no American demagogue had dared 
 openly to propose a class vote for class advantage. 
 Many had been as selfish as he, but all, I think, had 
 been hypocritical; pretending to seek power for the 
 good of the people, or of the world, as a whole. It 
 remained for him alone to abandon all show of 
 patriotism, and announce that Organized Labor 
 knows no welfare but its own; that it has no gen- 
 eral political principles or platform, no issues on 
 which to fight the coming campaign; and but one 
 question to ask every candidate, whether Republi- 
 can, Democrat, Socialist, or Anarchist, no matter 
 which, namely, "What will you do for Labor, 
 if elected?" 
 
 It is hardly necessary to cite instances of the politi- 
 cal demoralization already worked by this prostitu- 
 tion of the labor vote. The whole mischievous twist 
 of every natural fluctuation of wage-scales, in re- 
 sponse to changing trade conditions, away from a 
 purely economic to a political issue of local or na- 
 tional extent; the Adamson Law, with its reaction on 
 railway rates and taxation; its sequels of the Plumb 
 Plan and the "outlaw" railway strike; the Clayton 
 Act, with its attempt to legalize labor and farmer 
 holdups; the Act returning the railways to their 
 owners loaded with operating deficit, yet with notice 
 to those unlucky investors that railway labor may any 
 
 [218]
 
 POPULAR ACTION. "S. O. S." 
 
 time, with full sympathy of Congress, paralyze rail- 
 way operation by strikes, even against the public 
 welfare all this unholy alliance of the labor lead- 
 ers with the politicians in power, to set up govern- 
 ment of the people by and for Organized Labor, is 
 as dangerous to labor itself and the different dema- 
 gogues concerned as it is to the state and to com- 
 merce. No man can tell when or where a crash may 
 come, or who will go down in it. 
 
 We know from the preceding chapters just what 
 Labor wants of politics. It wants free slugging on 
 the picket line, free sabotage, no police or mili- 
 tary protection for non-union men or material on the 
 way to the job; it wants no injunctions protecting 
 the employer or non-union man against combination 
 to prevent his quietly pursuing his lawful business; 
 it would take from our supreme courts that power 
 to invalidate unconstitutional laws, which has been 
 their chief glory and most valued function; it asks 
 government to take over and mishandle great prop- 
 erties in order to raise wages, shorten hours, forbid 
 efficiency, and plunder the public and the taxpayers 
 for Labor's benefit; it wants the law to force em- 
 ployers to submit and pay tribute to a huge, rich, and 
 rapacious labor monopoly, which in its turn shall 
 obey and pay tribute to a small centralized labor 
 autocracy; it carefully meantime contrives utmost 
 irresponsibility. 
 
 From the beginning to the end of this political 
 and industrial program there appears but one domi- 
 nant motive, pure selfishness; but three constant 
 objects, the most pay, the least work, the great- 
 est irresponsibility, for Organized Labor. There is 
 but one consistent appeal to the miserable human 
 instincts of envy, hatred, discontent, and sloth; but 
 one uniform method monopoly and coercion; but 
 
 [219]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 one regular line of action, if it can be called action 
 to balk, rather than to pull with all the rest of 
 us. From beginning to end there has never been 
 evident the least intention to help the community by 
 doing more when asking more; but always on the 
 contrary the plan is to rob the crowd by extorting 
 more for doing less, under threat if resisted to work 
 ruin by doing nothing at all. Representative gov- 
 ernment is now asked to sanction this program 
 throughout. 
 
 Let me urge upon your apprehension, gentlemen 
 of the press, the menace to free constitutional gov- 
 ernment of this so-called non-partisan political as- 
 pect of the " labor movement." Industrial troubles 
 will wear themselves out; indeed they are rapidly 
 doing so, as the country's growing impatience with 
 the balky mule of Organized Labor gets to the point 
 of starting a fire under it. Comparative peace will 
 settle down and losses will be forgotten by and by. 
 But unless you gentlemen put the country on guard 
 at the polls against a sort of national Tammany 
 Hall of four million members, say two million pos- 
 sible votes, and fifty million dollars certain income, 
 frankly and definitely " out for the stuff " for them- 
 selves and families, at the cost of the rest of us and 
 our families, unless you stand for enforcement of 
 law; for representative government against class con- 
 trol ; for the Supreme Court against the Federation of 
 Labor; in short, for the Constitution as handed down 
 to us by our fathers, we who want to govern 
 ourselves, and have something to save, may have to 
 gather it together and start a new pilgrimage from 
 Plymouth Rock (this three hundredth anniversary 
 year of 1920 would be an appropriate date), say, 
 to the Sahara or the North Pole, where it would 
 hardly pay Mr. Gompers to follow. 
 
 [220]
 
 POPULAR ACTION. "S. O. S." 
 
 However, I have not the least idea that such a 
 pilgrimage is really before us. During the Spanish 
 War an Englishman of high degree once asked me 
 in a London drawing-room what we were going to 
 do with the Philippines. I answered that I could 
 not imagine; that under our theory of government 
 by consent of the governed there was no place for 
 a subject race in our political system; while on the 
 other hand we would never put a presidential elec- 
 tion at the risk of perhaps the Philippine vote. He 
 answered dryly : " You Americans are a practical 
 people. Why not quit talking of the Declaration of 
 Independence and the Rights of Man; and govern 
 those savages ? " 
 
 That was an English aristocrat's point of view, 
 surely enough; but there was a grain of suggestion 
 in it. We Americans are a practical people, and 
 make up our minds with amazing suddenness to 
 govern the lawless, when it becomes necessary. The 
 coming campaign may illustrate the habit; and if it 
 does, will be quite in line with recent demonstrations 
 of popular practical wisdom in the other two great 
 democracies, England and France. But a short 
 time ago the mass of the English people, though with 
 them trades-unionism is far stronger than with us, 
 rose against it in the matter of railway, coal, and 
 docker strikes; supporting the government in main- 
 taining public service so powerfully that the strikes 
 collapsed. The French people have similarly solidly 
 supported the government against the French Fed- 
 eration of Labor; and today the cables say that the 
 peasantry are presenting great petitions to the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, asking legislation against strikes to 
 hold up public service. Those peasants want work 
 and earnings! 
 
 Over here, yesterday, the Anthracite Mine Work- 
 [221]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ers in session at Wilkesbarre, declaring that "class 
 legislation has made it almost humanly impossible 
 to wage a successful strike," accepted President Wil- 
 son's plan to remain at work subject to an arbitra- 
 tion agreement retroactive to April i ; and they were 
 wise to bow to public opinion. For this year of war 
 aftermath, of reconstruction of unbelievable loss of 
 life and wealth, is the psychological moment when 
 public opinion must as a matter of life and death 
 begin to assert itself along lines of common hon- 
 esty and sound economics. It is far easier to drop 
 in and do so at the polls meantime, than to start for 
 the Sahara or the Arctic next Plymouth Rock Day. 
 
 Here is the situation. Our constitutional and 
 statute law, until the recent passage of the Clayton 
 Act with its class favors to farmer and laborer, em- 
 bodied all the protection necessary for the peaceful 
 prosecution of every man's lawful business; if en- 
 forced. For forty years the threat of the labor vote, 
 held over the heads of politicians in power, has more 
 or less prevented enforcement; and now it is to be 
 used to change the Constitution and statute law so 
 as to do away with all protection altogether. For 
 the presidential election it is supposed to total a pos- 
 sible two million out of eighteen million votes to be 
 cast by all parties (women's votes additional) ; which 
 would be quite enough to turn the election if voted 
 solid as it never has been. It is advertised as 
 non-partisan, for sale to the highest bidder, both in 
 national and local elections. 
 
 Bear in mind, however, that to counterbalance the 
 threat of the labor vote, and restore the nerve of 
 party politicians, it is only necessary to mobilize a 
 similar free-lance vote of opposite intention, and the 
 same possible size; committed to the preservation of 
 constitutional liberties and rights. The visibility of 
 
 [222]
 
 POPULAR ACTION. "S. O. S." 
 
 such a possible counterbalancing vote would promptly 
 free the average Congressman from labor terrorism ; 
 and when free from pressure the average American 
 legislator tries to do about right. 
 
 Of course, to recruit two million votes is a man- 
 sized task; but at this juncture it does not seem to 
 me impossible. I would suggest the following out- 
 line of a Plan of Campaign as a starter, to set popu- 
 lar thought in motion along lines of popular action : 
 
 PLAN 
 
 That employers, large and small, in each im- 
 portant city, start a non-partisan movement in de- 
 fense of constitutional individual right to do lawful 
 business, and against all combination to prevent the 
 same and that they finance it, as performance of 
 their plain duty to themselves and the community, 
 particularly to their own employees, using per- 
 haps, as the most open, rapid, and economical way 
 of enlisting popular support, advertisements in the 
 daily papers, somewhat as follows (form of adver- 
 tisement) : 
 
 " S. O. S." 
 
 The undersigned, and such other employers as may see fit 
 to join them, hereby send out this S. O. S. call to all who 
 believe in, and are willing to stand for, the subjoined Dec- 
 laration of Principles; urging them to sign and send in the 
 subjoined application for membership in the 
 
 " SICK OF STRIKES " OR " SAVE OUR SAVINGS " UNION 
 
 of the city of , State of , and thereafter to 
 
 support the said principles, and carry them into effect, as 
 occasion may arise, by their votes at city, state, and national 
 elections, whenever consistent with such paramount political 
 obligations as may from time to time appear. 
 
 [223]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Acceptance of this call, and membership in the S. O. S. 
 Union of , will involve no money obligation for dues 
 
 or debts of the Union; which has been incorporated as an 
 association not for profit, and will be financed by the under- 
 signed, and any others who may wish to contribute toward 
 its expenses; but it is understood that no member shall vote 
 at elections of officers of the Union, or for members of its 
 committees, unless he shall contribute to its support. Each 
 contributor shall have one vote, regardless of the amount of 
 his contribution, and one only. 
 
 A first meeting of contributors for the election of Officers 
 and Committees will be held on , at o'clock 
 
 at Number Street, in the city of 
 
 The Union will be non-partisan; and will not nominate, 
 or as a Union support or oppose, candidates for office. Its 
 activities will be limited to keeping a card index of members ; 
 and communicating to them, preferably by advertisements 
 such as this (as serving to inform the public generally, also) 
 such specific information upon issues and candidates, as will 
 enable members to guide their own votes according to the 
 principles professed by the Union. 
 
 Additions or amendments to those principles may be pro- 
 posed to the Officers or Committees by any ten (10) mem- 
 bers (for which purpose the roster of membership shall be 
 open to any member) ; and shall be received and passed along 
 by mail by the Secretary, at the expense of the proposers, to 
 the contributing membership. If accepted by a majority of 
 the latter, they shall then be submitted in like manner to the 
 whole membership for adoption by majority vote; in which 
 each member, contributor or not, shall have one vote. 
 
 This advertisement, if cut out, signed and returned by 
 mail to the Secretary of the Union, will constitute the signer 
 a member in good standing; subject to resignation at any time. 
 
 DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 The undersigned have learned, by long experience, to 
 believe in the following general principles : 
 
 I. Highly centralized strike machines of vast membership 
 and means, carefully guarded irresponsibility, and ruthless 
 
 [224]
 
 POPULAR ACTION. "S. O. S." 
 
 selfishness of purpose, have amply proved themselves, by 
 frequent strikes against whole industries and the public, to 
 be a menace to modern life. Furthermore, by class threat 
 of political activity, they now menace free government. 
 Therefore the Labor Trust, like the other Trusts, should be 
 controlled by law. 
 
 2. Decentralization, in labor and industry as in politics, is 
 of the essence of greatest liberty and efficiency. 
 
 3. Absolutely free play of the law of supply and demand 
 in the labor market as in other markets is the best friend 
 of the laboring man; and permits the nearest approach to 
 Social Justice, in actual practice. 
 
 4. Combination either of employers or laborers to coerce 
 each other, by other means than lawfully and peacefully 
 suspending business relations, is contrary to public policy and 
 private right; and should be prevented by law. 
 
 5. Strikes against public service, or supply of necessities 
 of life, or to hold up whole industries or groups of employers ; 
 likewise sympathetic or general strikes, for the purpose of 
 coercion of private individuals or the state, are criminal, 
 against public policy, and should be forbidden by law. 
 
 6. The assertion of the foregoing principles, and the 
 liberation of business and the community from the shackles 
 imposed on both by centralized class organization, constitute 
 a public and private duty to themselves, their employees and 
 the state, such as to justify patriotic merchants and producers 
 in publicly financing this organization therefor, as part of 
 their costs of service, and passing its cost along in prices to 
 the public; in anticipation of benefits sure to accrue to all 
 concerned by reason of greater efficiency, higher wages to 
 labor, lower cost to the consumer, and greater profit to the 
 producer himself. 
 
 7. Subscription to this Declaration of Principles is to be 
 taken merely as an expression of conviction, and not as 
 obligating the signer to do or refrain from doing any par- 
 ticular thing in any particular case, but rather as voicing his 
 general intention to cooperate in carrying said principles into 
 effect in specific instances, as from time to time his judgment 
 and ability may determine. 
 
 In accordance with the foregoing Declaration, it is under- 
 [225]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 stood that membership carries with it no binding obligation 
 whatever on the individual member; except for such con- 
 tribution toward the expenses of the Union as he may vol- 
 unteer. 
 
 (Signatures of signers of " S. O. S." call to follow here.) 
 The undersigned accepts membership in the S. O. S. Union 
 
 of 
 
 Signature 
 
 Date Address 
 
 If one may judge from the talk he hears on the 
 street and among his acquaintances, S. O. S. unions 
 initiated as above, by the active employers and good 
 citizens in each city and its subsidiary region, would 
 soon become powerful centers of concentration of 
 effort along the lines chosen; especially if the lead- 
 ing spirits in them showed breadth and sincere 
 patriotic purpose. Their advertisements would soon 
 tell the story. 
 
 They would also serve another extremely valu- 
 able purpose, namely, they would take the social 
 curse off the hateful epithet "Scab" so powerful 
 in the moral terrorism it exercises among working 
 people. The non-union man would find himself free 
 to join an " S. O. S." union, where " Scabs " were re- 
 spected rather than despised. His wife could hold up 
 her head and say, "We belong to the S. O. S. Union." 
 
 Another socially just mode of popular action 
 has several times been mooted, and was hinted at 
 in one of Governor Coolidge's pithy utterances; 
 namely, the enactment and popular support of laws 
 forbidding the sale of food to men on strike for the 
 purpose of cutting off public service, fuel, or food 
 supply of any kind. " If any would not work, 
 neither should he eat," said the Apostle Paul; whose 
 economics appear to have been as sound as his 
 Christianity. 
 
 [226]
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 SUPPOSE we beat Labor at the polls, what remedies 
 should be sought for at the hands of representa- 
 tives and executives elected; and on what principles 
 should we base them? The answer to both questions 
 is easy. First, we must ask for restoration of con- 
 stitutional individual rights that is to say, for 
 complete liberty of employer and laborer, and unhin- 
 dered operation of the law of supply and demand; 
 and, second, we must assert the right of the com- 
 munity to protect its own life and welfare against 
 deprivation of food, fuel, or essential public service 
 of any kind, by conspiracy among workingmen or 
 others. The principles underlying both are those 
 embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution, to 
 " establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, . . . 
 promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
 ings of Liberty." 
 
 Considering first the liberty of the employer and 
 the non-union laborer, and the unhindered operation 
 of commercial laws, the statute and common law as 
 they already stand are quite sufficient, if enforced, 
 to ensure both desiderata; except for the recent 
 adoption by Congress as part of the Clayton Act 
 of a clause providing that labor combination shall 
 not be held to constitute criminal conspiracy at com- 
 mon law in restraint of trade. That Act, which 
 Mr. Gompers proudly says contains " the most far- 
 reaching declaration ever made by any government 
 
 [227]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 in the history of the world," should be repealed in 
 so far as it excepts the laborer and the farmer from 
 crimes, which the common law establishes as such 
 against all the rest of us. It has never yet been 
 passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, and will, I fancy, be declared unconstitutional, 
 as class legislation, when it has its day in court; but 
 meantime it should, as .occasion arises, be made an 
 issue at the polls, and its repeal should be set on 
 foot. 
 
 In Wall Street, first preferred, second preferred, 
 and common stock may be all right; but we do not 
 want first preferred, second preferred, and common 
 criminals in our jails or out of them. The criminal 
 law should make no class distinctions in democratic 
 America. 
 
 Together with the repeal of the no-conspiracy 
 clause of the Clayton Act should be enacted a law 
 forbidding strikes against the public welfare; also 
 forbidding coercion of the individual employer by 
 other means than peaceful refusal of his own em- 
 ployees to continue at work. 
 
 No man is obliged or can be compelled to work 
 for any particular employer or at any particular task; 
 that would be industrial slavery. But there is no 
 reason why the state should not provide by law that 
 any man who chooses to take employment in supply- 
 ing any public or quasi public service, necessary to 
 the daily life of the community, shall enlist in that 
 employment for a stated term; during which it shall 
 be unlawful for him to quit work, alone or with 
 others, except by consent of his employer previously 
 obtained. Penalties should be provided for breach 
 of duty and against conspiracy and instigation to 
 commit such breach. 
 
 Finally, in order to "insure domestic tranquillity," 
 [228]
 
 LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 and "promote the general welfare," the general prin- 
 ciple of Decentralization of Power should be applied 
 to Organized Labor. To that end an Act to define 
 and limit Freedom of Employment, that is, the right 
 to hire, the right to organize, the right to strike, 
 and the law of collective bargains, should be passed. 
 Such an Act would contain very little that is new, 
 and is needed rather to clarify popular understand- 
 ing of existing law than to create it. Let us con- 
 sider these rights seriatim. 
 
 Every one of us now supposedly enjoys freedom 
 of employment as part of his individual liberty. We 
 are always free to offer, withhold, accept, or refuse 
 work and wages in any lawful industry, under any 
 lawful conditions. Whether the work is heavy or 
 light, the wages large or small, the hours, etc., hard 
 or easy, concerns only the man who offers and the 
 men who accept or refuse. Neither can compel the 
 other to offer, withhold, change, accept, or refuse. 
 The transaction is purely voluntary on both sides, 
 becomes binding on either party only for the agreed 
 term. If employment is by the day or hour, both 
 parties are bound only for the day or hour; and not 
 even that long if either party fails to live up to 
 agreement. 
 
 In other words, neither party has any "right" 
 against the other in advance of an offer made and 
 accepted. The laborer's undoubted freedom to ac- 
 cept or refuse an offer, if made, does not put the 
 employer under any obligation whatever to make an 
 offer. Single laborers, or a thousand laborers col- 
 lectively, are certainly free to empower " a represen- 
 tative of their own choosing" to accept or refuse an 
 offer of employment, if made; but neither the one 
 nor the thousand, nor their chosen representative, 
 can compel the making of an offer. 
 
 [229]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 The word "bargain" means voluntary agreement, 
 whether individual or collective. No right can ac- 
 crue to or in a " bargain " until one has first been 
 made. Neither party has any right even to an in- 
 terview for the purpose of bargaining; though usu- 
 ally granted as a matter of courtesy, when there is 
 no reason to the contrary. 
 
 Nor can the one, nor the thousand, nor their col- 
 lective representative change an offer made and ac- 
 cepted without consent of the maker. They can quit 
 work, of course, and end employment at the end of 
 its term; and signify their wish to receive a new offer, 
 individually or collectively; but they cannot compel 
 one as a matter of " right" In fine, there is no such 
 thing in law or in morals, in the use of plain English 
 language, as a right to collective or any other kind 
 of bargaining, binding on Judge Gary or anybody 
 else. Nor is there anything " autocratic" in the re- 
 fusal of any employer to entertain collective pro- 
 posals for* employment, if in his judgment they 
 will not result in stable and mutually satisfactory 
 relations. 
 
 Merely as a matter of clarifying public opinion, 
 the law should so declare, that absolute liberty to 
 offer, withhold, terminate, acept, refuse, or quit 
 work, lawful conditions, and wages, belongs to every 
 man ; together with liberty to employer and employee 
 to maintain "union," "non-union," "open shop," or 
 no relations; either individual, or collective, or both, 
 as mutually agreed, without compulsion exercised or 
 attempted on either side. This declaration would 
 clearly establish the Freedom of Employment that 
 actually now exists, and ought to exist, under the 
 Constitution. 
 
 For the evidently beneficial purpose of Decen- 
 tralization of divorcing, for reasons of public 
 
 [230]
 
 LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 good as well as constitutional private right, the labor 
 disputes of innocent and guilty for disentangling 
 utterly the mischievous snarl of factory with factory, 
 railroad with railroad, trade with trade, city with city 
 for brushing away the great spider's web which 
 Organized Labor has spread over all industry, at 
 whose center Mr. Gompers awaits the tremor that 
 tells of some luckless insect of trade whose wings 
 have carelessly touched his snare for this reason- 
 able purpose the law should now ordain: 
 
 That Organization of Labor, for the purpose of col- 
 lective negotiation, performance, and termination of contracts 
 of employment, shall be voluntary, as to the parties to each 
 contract ; and limited to the employees of one and the same 
 employer. 
 
 That no organization, or " union " of the employees of any 
 one employer, shall combine with any other similar union 
 or unions for the purpose of compelling collective bargain- 
 ing, or for collectively quitting work under or ending con- 
 tracts of employment; or for the purpose of limiting in any 
 way the constitutional liberty of any employer or employee; 
 or for the purpose of " striking " an entire industry, public 
 service or utility, for any cause whatever; also, that no em- 
 ployer shall combine with any other employer or employers 
 for the purpose of collectively bargaining for, offering, con- 
 trolling, and terminating contracts of employment, or for 
 preventing free competition in the labor market, or for limit- 
 ing in any way the constitutional liberty of any employer or 
 employee, especially by means of " locking out " or " black 
 listing " employees, collectively or otherwise : 
 
 Provided, that regional groups of employers in the same 
 line of industry may by mutual agreement, collectively bar- 
 gain and act with groups of unions, separately organized as 
 above among the employees of each of said employers, as to 
 all matters of employment: but no such collective bargain- 
 ing or action shall be used to coerce or to limit the consti- 
 tutional liberty of any employer or employee not party 
 thereto : and also
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Provided, that collective bargaining shall carry with it col- 
 lective or joint responsibility for the performance of bargains, 
 not only of each collectivity party to the bargain, but of each 
 and every individual or corporation lawfully bound by the 
 act of any representative of his own choosing. 
 
 That employees in government or public utility service 
 shall enlist therein for stated periods; and shall not quit 
 work individually or collectively before the expiration of 
 their respective enlistment periods, without consent of their 
 employers previously and freely obtained : 
 
 Provided, that means shall be set up for fair adjustment 
 from time to time of wages and conditions. 
 
 I make no suggestion whatever to limit legislation 
 for preserving health, preventing accident, compen- 
 sation of women, vocational training, etc. Every 
 right-minded employer is in accord with true humani- 
 tarianism. The main intent of my suggestions is 
 Decentralization. 
 
 But I am just now made aware of the growing 
 need for one more assertion of law. This book must, 
 I find, be sold by circularization and mail order, in- 
 stead of through the usual book-trade channels, be- 
 cause none of several large publishers consulted will 
 take it, though all admit its interest and timeliness. 
 Two of them frankly say they do not court trouble 
 with the printers' unions by putting their imprint on 
 such a work. The others may feel the same way, or 
 may merely doubt its selling value. But, gentlemen 
 of the press, there should be no element of terrorism 
 in their considerations. A hundred thousand, or so, 
 of union printers cannot dictate what a hundred mil- 
 lion free Americans may or may not read. The law 
 should forbid strikes against the freedom of the 
 press; especially in the interest of the printers them- 
 selves, who get their daily bread by virtue of that 
 freedom. 
 
 [232]
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 THE clumsy and partial hand of government should, 
 as far as humanly possible, be kept away from the 
 shrinking and sensitive throat of industry; especially 
 from its human element, labor, which in a democracy 
 so largely constitutes also the body politic. It is 
 perfectly clear that in our American form of repre- 
 sentative government, under our Constitution, we 
 originally contemplated neither a Socialist nor a 
 Soviet state, nor wished to determine for each man 
 his exact place in the life of the community, his 
 definite work, and his fixed share in the common 
 product. We had not then, and have not now, the 
 remotest idea of making ourselves, every one of us, 
 the serfs of bureaucratic administration; whether it 
 be of Woodrow Wilson or Samuel Gompers, or any 
 other man or set of men. 
 
 On the contrary our fathers proclaimed the widest 
 constitutional liberty of the individual and told gov- 
 ernment to keep hands off, except in so far as neces- 
 sary to protect our liberties against aggression from 
 the outside or from each other. 
 
 It follows, then, so long as our theory of govern- 
 ment remains unchanged, that no interference of gov- 
 ernment with industry should be asked or tolerated, 
 except to enforce the law, to keep the peace, and 
 to protect our personal and property rights. 
 
 This involves a clarifying of public opinion on the 
 tender subject of picketing; or prevention of free 
 
 [233]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 operation of the law of supply and demand in em- 
 ployment of labor. 
 
 To present the subject concretely I quote from 
 today's paper (Boston Herald, April 20) the fol- 
 lowing: "Pistol Ball hits Striking Docker. One 
 man was shot, two were arrested charged with as- 
 sault, and a third arrested for assault and battery 
 yesterday, following an altercation on Long Wharf, 
 when a brick alleged to have been thrown by a strik- 
 ing longshoreman into a truck-load of strike break- 
 ers drew fire from one or more revolvers. All three 
 arrested are strikers. The person who fired the 
 shots managed to escape detection by intermingling 
 with the 75 or more of their fellow men on the 
 truck." 
 
 On this particular occasion the pickets seem to 
 have got the worst of it. Since the recent Boston 
 police strike has changed substantially the entire 
 police force the new men seem to be disposed to 
 end rioting. The Long Wharf dockers had struck 
 and quit work many days before the shooting just 
 described. They did not quit the premises, how- 
 ever, but hung around the wharf to prevent the 
 movement of goods by men hired to take their places 
 so-called "strike breakers." At once appeared 
 the usual characteristic of most strikes, viz., that the 
 strikers have not the least intention of throwing up 
 their jobs and are not really dissatisfied with them. 
 If they were, they would simply look out for places 
 they like better, and quit as fast as found, one by 
 one. (In fact this is constantly done; so much so, 
 that voluntary shifting of men from job to job 
 known as "labor-turnover" has averaged, I am 
 credibly informed, in large industries one hundred 
 per cent of the total force employed during recent 
 years, and has become a very serious burden to em- 
 
 [234]
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 ployers.) What the strikers really intend is not 
 only to stop work themselves; but to see to it that 
 nobody else works in their places, until their em- 
 ployer is compelled to ask them back upon their own 
 terms. In short, coercion! 
 
 Of course the employer is lawfully free to offer 
 to others the work and wages the strikers have quit; 
 and those others are lawfully free to accept. Ex- 
 perience has shown that in the majority of cases 
 there are men enough ready to accept the work and 
 wages refused by those who quit to carry on the 
 various jobs and "break the strike," unless prevented 
 peaceably or otherwise. 
 
 That is where the "picket line" comes in: to pre- 
 vent newcomers, who are willing and even glad to 
 take the vacant jobs, from doing so by " peaceful 
 persuasion," or otherwise. The American constitu- 
 tional right of assembly is held by Labor to mean 
 that strikers may block the public streets; the con- 
 stitutional " right of free speech " means inflamma- 
 tory talk against the employer, and the use of the 
 odious epithet " scab " against the non-union worker, 
 even against his wife and children. What, then, 
 should a clarified public opinion require of govern- 
 mental administration, as reasonable enforcement of 
 law, beside keeping of the peace and protection of 
 personal and property rights? 
 
 The answer seems to me plain and clear. Strikers 
 have undisputed right to quit their work; but if they 
 do, they have no right upon the premises, and the 
 employer has undisputed right to eject them. They 
 then, in common with all the public, have undisputed 
 right of thoroughfare, of peaceful passage, along 
 the public streets. They have, however, no right to 
 block them, or to interfere in any way with their 
 free use for lawful movement of men or materials; 
 
 [235]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 especially have they no right to commit or incite 
 breach of the peace. Mr. Gompers can juggle 
 phrases, such as the " right of picketing with peace- 
 ful persuasion," etc.; but as a matter of fact, plain 
 speaking, and common sense, every one knows that 
 the purpose of picketing, whether "peaceful" or 
 not, is nothing else than prevention of the free flow 
 of labor and material essential to the lawful busi- 
 ness of the employer, and to the self-support of the 
 non-union laborer, thus violating the constitutional 
 rights and liberties of both. When, in addition to 
 such unmistakable intent to violate private right, the 
 strikers deliberately risk if not invite breach of 
 the public peace, in spite of countless monitory 
 experiences, it becomes to me an unavoidable con- 
 clusion that public welfare and private justice alike 
 demand that the authorities shall stop "picketing" 
 altogether. 
 
 This conclusion is confirmed, and the wrongful in- 
 tent of Organized Labor is verified, by its bitter op- 
 position to the granting by the courts of writs of 
 injunction, whether as very rarely they restrain 
 the unions from picketing, or, as they usually do, 
 merely from violence and intimidation on the picket 
 line. If the unions Intend no breach of law, or of 
 the peace, why should they object to the injunction 
 of the court to obey the law and keep the peace? If 
 they rely merely on their own peaceful refusal to 
 work, why do they not simply stay from the job 
 altogether, until the employer begs them to come 
 back? 
 
 You, gentlemen of the press, who are accustomed 
 to sizing up men and motives, well know that while 
 it is morally and legally right for a man to refuse 
 work and quit, if dissatisfied; it is also morally and 
 legally wrong for him to stand in the way of another 
 
 [236]
 
 ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES 
 
 man, who is willing to take what he refuses ; wrong 
 both to that other man and to the employer. 
 
 It is probably true, and long experience has shown 
 that picketing is practically essential; and without it 
 strikers seldom win. And it is also true that picket- 
 ing generally results in violence. The famous detec- 
 tive, old Allan Pinkerton, testified in the " Mollie 
 McGuire " riot trials forty years ago in Pennsyl- 
 vania, that " Organized Labor is organized vio- 
 lence," and the New York papers a few years back 
 quoted Mr. Gompers as saying, "A strike without 
 violence is a joke." Whether he ever said this I 
 do not know; but it is certainly true of all big strikes. 
 Yet the fact that strikers cannot win without violent 
 or wrongful means of coercion does not justify those 
 means. On the contrary, a fortiori, as the law de- 
 nounces and forbids them, so administration should 
 enforce the law. 
 
 [237]
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 EMPLOYERS' REMEDIES 
 
 MUCH has been said of late to the effect that the em- 
 ployer is to blame for labor troubles ; that the scale 
 of modern industry is too great for the human, per- 
 sonal touch, between master and man, that creates 
 affection, and confidence between them. A soulless 
 organization is said to have intervened; a machine, 
 in which the workman is a mere unheeded cog, with- 
 out recognition as a human being. This accusation 
 is true to the extent that the employer, as the abler, 
 broader man, with strength to bear his fellow men's 
 burdens, may reasonably be asked to look farther 
 ahead for his workers, as an essential factor in his 
 industry, than they can be expected to look for them- 
 selves. And it is a fact that large employers almost 
 without exception are today keenly alive to the hu- 
 man, personal element in labor relations, and are 
 endeavoring as never before to appeal to the mind 
 and heart of the individual worker, as well as to his 
 pocket. 
 
 I am glad to believe that this new interest in hu- 
 man relations is largely a matter of kind heart and 
 good conscience with most captains of industry; but 
 better and sounder still, that it is at the same time 
 one of constructive, good business management. 
 Every man who like myself has been a considerable 
 employer, and knows workingmen, will agree with 
 me, I think, that there can be no sound permanent 
 and cordial relations between the two that are not 
 based on mutual interest. Pretense of unselfishness 
 
 [238]
 
 EMPLOYERS' REMEDIES 
 
 is distrusted, patronage is odious; yet it is emphati- 
 cally true that if a manager sincerely sees to it that 
 his men get the most and best that their jobs can 
 fairly yield them in comparison with other jobs, the 
 men reciprocate by making those jobs yield more 
 and better yet to him and to themselves. 
 
 As I have said before, men usually work for other 
 men because they cannot, no matter why, work for 
 themselves. Here are then the plainly evident in- 
 terests of all wageworkers, absolute necessities, as 
 I see them: 
 
 First, Employment. The man must have a job, 
 furnished by some one else. It must be steady, for 
 his time is all he has to sell, and every day he idles 
 is so much pay lost forever. He should be the last 
 man to interrupt his own job, nor should it be sub- 
 ject to interruption by quarrels of other men with 
 other jobs in which he is not concerned. 
 
 Second, Freedom to Change. If his job fails, 
 does not pay, or does not suit, it is vital to him to 
 be free to take any other job ; not shut in or out by 
 union walls. It is best for him, and for the com- 
 munity, that labor should be like capital, liquid; free 
 to flow where most needed, in ample supply every- 
 where, stagnant nowhere. 
 
 Third, Going Wages, Regularly Paid. Everybody 
 wants " top wages," but only that employer can pay 
 them who gets from his men top production; for 
 product is all that pays wages. A man's wages are 
 not so much the amount of his pay check, as the food, 
 clothing, etc., that check will buy. It is no use for 
 any body of men to try to get much more than " going 
 wages," because they represent the natural economic 
 division of what there is to go around; which last is 
 substantially used up, every year. Men cannot and 
 do not by striking get more out of their jobs than 
 
 [239]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 they themselves put into them. The surplus is not 
 there! Up to the point of healthy fatigue, the 
 worker should regularly do his best to increase out- 
 put, and decrease unit cost to his employer, because 
 that alone can increase his own pay check without 
 robbing some one else. 
 
 Fourth, a Prosperous Employer. The man wants 
 regular work, week in and out, and sure pay. That 
 means always a strong and prosperous employer, 
 independent of the labor and financial troubles of 
 other concerns. 
 
 Are not these four things that labor wants exactly 
 what the employer wants, regular and steady op- 
 eration; free labor supply; top output with resulting 
 low cost; high wages, and a prosperous business? Is 
 there not here true identity of interest of Capital, 
 Labor, and the Community? 
 
 The employer can help toward this identity and is 
 now very frequently helping by systematic propa- 
 ganda, educating his employees in the law of wages 
 and away from the gospel of hatred and antagonism 
 taught by Mr. Gompers and his organization. A 
 long step in such education is the " shop committee " 
 movement, which Labor now so vigorously opposes; 
 it consists in the election by the work people in each 
 establishment of representative committee men from 
 their own number, who are taken into frequent and 
 friendly consultation by the shop management, upon 
 purely shop questions, touching work, wages, and con- 
 ditions of employment; and who are given oppor- 
 tunity to judge for themselves of the reasonableness 
 of the treatment accorded those they represent. The 
 essential value of the scheme is that it tends to create 
 intimate relations and confidence between men and 
 management in each establishment, and to cut each 
 loose from the troubles of neighboring concerns. 
 
 [240]
 
 EMPLOYERS' REMEDIES 
 
 Both results are of course dead against the plans 
 of the Labor Octopus; whose tentacles have so far 
 been wrapped around all industry to let none 
 escape. Mr. Gompers will spare no effort, as I have 
 already shown from his own utterances, to keep em- 
 ployers and their own employees from direct deal- 
 ings with each other; but you, gentlemen of the 
 press, will not mistake his motive; nor will you, I 
 think, say with him, that "not only the welfare of 
 the workers but the best economy for the nation de- 
 mands . . . that the workers be united into organ- 
 izations covering whole industries, as is now the case 
 with the one hundred and twenty national and inter- 
 national trade-unions." If the experience of the last 
 forty years and of the last forty weeks, superlatively 
 that of the last forty days, proves anything regard- 
 ing the welfare of the workers and the best economy 
 of the nation, it is that national and international 
 strike machines benefit nobody in this wide world 
 except the demagogues who organize and run them. 
 
 Beside favoring the " human touch," the Shop 
 Committee, etc., many large employers have started 
 profit sharing, or bonus declarations out of profits. 
 Others give to foremen and men entrusted with 
 heavy work and responsibility, a percentage upon 
 results. The Steel Corporation enables its men to 
 buy shares in the company, guaranteeing them against 
 loss; which in my opinion is the best way to insure 
 cordial relations between capital and labor. Merge 
 them; then both see both sides ! 
 
 But as most laborers do not save, nor buy shares, 
 nor care much for profits or bonuses not payable until 
 the end of the year maybe not then if not earned 
 and yet for the good of all concerned should be 
 tied solidly and loyally to their jobs; I suggest that 
 small employers, who cannot do as the great corpora- 
 
 [241]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 tions are doing, should make term contracts with 
 employees individually, signed and secured by for- 
 feit, to put their minds at rest, once and for all; 
 contracts to provide as follows : 
 
 Employee not to quit or be discharged (except for breach 
 of contract) or be laid off on less than three months' 
 notice. 
 
 Employee to join with fellow employees, who sign like 
 contracts, in forming their own union (in no way tied 
 to any other union), which shall choose from its own 
 membership a Representative Committee. 
 
 Employer from time to time to prepare and announce 
 reasonable maximum scales and conditions of output 
 and wages ; on the principle of hearty cooperation of all 
 parties for maximum efficiency, consistent with healthy 
 fatigue. Employees falling short of reasonable maxi- 
 mum output as per scale adopted, to draw pay reduced 
 in proportion to actual output. 
 
 Representative Committee to have fullest facilities for in- 
 vestigation of scales proposed by employer; and there- 
 upon to accept, or arrange to modify or reject the same 
 on behalf of their principals ; the members of the union 
 to be bound accordingly. 
 
 Employer and employee on each pay day to contribute each 
 say 2^2 per cent in all 5 per cent of the amount 
 due the employee that day, and deposit this 5 per cent 
 in a responsible bank, to accumulate at interest as a 
 forfeit to secure performance of the employment con- 
 tract. The accumulation to be divided between em- 
 ployer and employee, if he quits or is discharged on 
 three months' notice, or by mutual consent; or to be 
 forfeited entirely by or to him, if he quits or is dis- 
 charged without three months' notice, at any time dur- 
 ing the first fifteen years of his employment. After 
 fifteen years he may retire and withdraw the whole ac- 
 cumulation, or take a pension representing it, on giving 
 three months' notice. 
 
 No employee to be forced to join union or sign contract; 
 any who so elect may remain without contract as ordi- 
 [242]
 
 EMPLOYERS' REMEDIES 
 
 nary laborers by the day. Any contract laborer may 
 quit without notice by losing his forfeit. 
 In case of deadlock between employer and Representative 
 Committee, because of non-acceptance of proposed 
 scales the men must give three months' notice be- 
 fore quitting, or lose their forfeits and the employer 
 must do the same before shutting down, or employing 
 new men, or lose his forfeit. 
 
 Some years ago a Western actuary figured for me 
 that after fifteen years the laborer could draw down 
 an accumulation that would buy him a little home 
 and after twenty-five years could retire on half pay 
 pension, should he work on this plan; and meantime 
 his committee would see to it that he is not over- 
 worked and gets full wages for what he produces. 
 This would be far better than he could hope to get 
 by joining any trades-union. 
 
 As for the employer, he would get the benefit of 
 stability of labor, maximum efficiency and resulting 
 minimum cost of production. He could of course al- 
 ways add the desirable feature of assisting thrifty 
 employees to save and invest in the business. 
 
 Extraordinarily strong and rich employers can and 
 do, more and more, tie their employees to them with 
 golden bands, that Mr. Gompers cannot break. The 
 plans of Henry Ford and the Steel Corporation, for 
 instance (see Chapter on Profit Sharing) are be- 
 yond all praise, based on good sound business prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 The great mass of employers, however, are not 
 big enough or rich enough to follow suit. Each must 
 work out for himself, according to his local condi- 
 tions, his own labor problems. Decentralization; 
 protection of individual right; freedom of the law 
 of supply and demand; and growing education, must 
 bring cooperation of his workmen and himself. 
 
 [243]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Strike Insurance may help him against the Federa- 
 tion, if it becomes necessary to meet the latter that 
 way; and stronger appeal to human nature and self- 
 interest maybe made, such as referred to in an earlier 
 chapter, by Profit Sharing, or by Time Contracts, 
 more attractive than anything the trades-unions can 
 offer. Certainly, having the job to give, as the 
 unions have not, the employer is in position to make 
 things much more interesting for the laborer than 
 Mr. Gompers can. Nothing but lack of percep- 
 tion and business sense can prevent the prosperous 
 employer from doing so, if he chooses. But first, 
 as I have said before, he must be prosperous, a 
 Profiteer, as we call him nowadays. 
 
 [244]
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 REMEDIES WITHIN THE TRADES-UNIONS 
 
 As I have shown already, Organized Labor is a 
 great big business ; a very live and powerful " going 
 concern," with an enormous income, netting forty 
 to fifty million dollars a year, most of which goes in 
 salaries and expense allowances to the professionals 
 who run its vast and complex machinery. It pre- 
 cisely resembles the great political parties, in that 
 its organization and management afford an interest- 
 ing, conspicuous, and profitable means of getting an 
 excellent living without hard manual labor. 
 
 It is, therefore, a plain and simple matter of busi- 
 ness with the leaders of Organized Labor to create 
 and maintain " Social Unrest," " Industrial War- 
 fare," " Struggle of the Oppressed against the Op- 
 pressor," etc., by whatever sounding modern title 
 one prefers to call old-fashioned cupidity the wish 
 of those who have not to despoil those who have. 
 It pays those leaders richly, though it costs their fol- 
 lowing collectively many times as dear, to fan into 
 flame the natural rancor that smoulders in the human 
 breast, against abler, shrewder, perhaps more selfish, 
 and certainly more successful, men, than ourselves, 
 who accumulate while we waste. Until this great 
 business, this great machinery for financing mischief- 
 making, shall cease to pay its creators, "Social Un- 
 rest" is sure to persist, and to increase. 
 
 Of course these creators of the Bolsheviki, the 
 I. W. W., the Socialists, the Federation and the 
 
 [245]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Brotherhoods, and their friends the politicians, can 
 and will be fought by the rest of us from without 
 their organizations; but as to Labor, it would be a 
 happier and nobler thing to bring about a change 
 of heart also within the rank and file of the Organ- 
 ized Laborers themselves, the great majority of 
 whom are well known by all of us to be fundamen- 
 tally honest and patriotic Americans. For more than 
 half a century they, and millions of unorganized 
 men and women, have been taught by demagogues 
 that capitalism is robbery ; and they are half inclined 
 to join in the Bolshevist cry, " Steal from those who 
 stole." Their " class consciousness " has been art- 
 fully stimulated; the hateful name " scab " has skill- 
 fully been stuck by union orators on every man who 
 refuses to pay union dues and take union orders. 
 They have been " fed up " with the union poison of 
 discontent and sloth, with the utterly dishonest and 
 disloyal union doctrine which may be stated thus : 
 "Take your employer's pay; but take your union's 
 orders." 
 
 It should be possible by cooperation of employers, 
 of the public, and most important of all, of you 
 gentlemen of the press, to prove to all labor espe- 
 cially the union men, whose very association together 
 favors dissemination and discussion of the facts 
 the following truths: 
 
 1st. That existing trades-unionism does not pay; but on 
 the contrary is enormously costly to all except its 
 leaders. 
 
 2nd. That combination to violate the rights of the em- 
 ployer and the non-union man freely to pursue their 
 lawful business is morally wrong, legally criminal, 
 and economically wasteful and stupid. 
 
 3rd. That there is no conflict between Social Justice and 
 Capitalism; but on the contrary the nearest ap- 
 [246]
 
 REMEDIES WITHIN THE UNIONS 
 
 proach to Social Justice consists in free operation of 
 the law of supply and demand which produces 
 Capital, the only demonstrated foundation for pros- 
 perity of Labor. 
 
 4th. That the only true and impartial measure of the 
 wages of labor is and always has been found in the 
 competition of employers the "going wages," and 
 conditions which they can see their way to offer in the 
 open market, consistent with profit in their various 
 lines of trade. Employers alone can judge (each for 
 himself, according to his peculiar circumstances) 
 what they can offer; and employees alone (each for 
 himself, according to his individual case) can decide 
 what to accept or refuse. 
 
 5th. That the greatest industry and largest output, con- 
 sistent with health and reasonable recreation, is best 
 for the prosperity not only of the employer, but of 
 the individual workman, the whole industry, and 
 the state: and should be a matter of individual and 
 union pride and duty. 
 
 6th. That union leadership can be made greatly useful 
 instead of useless to Labor itself; profitable instead 
 of hurtful to industry and the state; and yet far 
 more honorable and remunerative as a personal 
 life career for ambitious men than it now is by 
 swinging the great mass and power of Organized 
 Labor into cooperation with Capital for highest effi- 
 ciency, and highest wages ; instead of fighting always 
 for sloth and inevitable poverty. 
 
 7th. That a great field of usefulness and power lies open 
 to Organized Labor in Mutual Life and Unemploy- 
 ment Insurance, Cooperative Buying, and Employ- 
 ment Service : and also in the function of collecting 
 accurate information as to wages and trade condi- 
 tions, in all industries; to be put at the service of 
 shop committees in cooperation with employers; 
 for determining standards and methods of efficiency, 
 healthful working hours and conditions, and in 
 general putting the shop committees in a position of 
 informed authority in all negotiations of employment, 
 
 [247]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 8th. That in Amercia no such thing as permanent 
 " class " can or ought to exist. That class con- 
 sciousness and class hatred and antagonism are 
 odious doctrines of Karl Marx, " made in Germany," 
 which have no rightful root in free American soil. 
 That our gospel is Roosevelt's " Equality of Oppor- 
 tunity"; with reward proportionate to and limited 
 only by service rendered. That every man is free 
 to move upward to the highest level in life and 
 achievement to which his powers and services can 
 attain ; and there will be his " class" if he prefers 
 that word, so long as he can stay there, and no 
 longer. 
 
 It is an interesting and hopeful sign of evolution 
 upwards among the unions to note their progress 
 along the lines of cooperative activity. The gar- 
 ment workers are in annual convention in Boston 
 this week (May 1015) an d are discussing a con- 
 solidation of all textile and garment workers in order 
 to centralize control of the whole industry from start 
 to finish; a project decidedly against the interest of 
 the workers and the community also, from my point 
 of view. Mr. Sidney Hillmann, the president of 
 the garment workers, seems to be, like Gompers, a 
 strong autocratic Hebrew, quite willing to run his 
 corner of the universe. In one respect, however, his 
 ambitions seem legitimate and of value, namely, in 
 his suggestions that his followers save their money, 
 organize their own cooperative banks, and later go 
 on, with the means thus mobilized, to finance their 
 own cooperative factories in their own trade. Thus 
 the laborers will become the capitalists as well; if 
 they are lucky in securing good managers. 
 
 The project is perfectly honest and useful, though 
 difficult. In England and elsewhere cooperation has 
 now and then developed among the cooperators 
 first-class organizing financial and commercial abil- 
 
 [248]
 
 REMEDIES WITHIN THE UNIONS 
 
 ity, which has evolved great results : and the leaders 
 in this work have proved themselves unselfish. The 
 Rochdale Cooperative Stores, for instance, do huge 
 and profitable business; yet the able men who man- 
 age them are content with honor, and influence, and 
 small salaries. It may be some time that State So- 
 cialism can likewise find men of first ability and un- 
 selfishness, who will run everything wisely and well, 
 and yet never help themselves to profit as well as 
 power and honor. Before jumping at conclusions, 
 however, we can well await wider experience. At 
 present most trade is non-cooperative, done for 
 profit of the man who does it not for that of his 
 customers. So long as cooperation thus meets only 
 competition of profit-loaded goods, it has a natural 
 advantage that requires only ordinary good manage- 
 ment to prosper. On the other hand, whenever 
 most of the trade is done on the cooperative plan, 
 if that time ever arrives, then a real competition be- 
 tween the cooperatives themselves will set in, de- 
 manding decisive superiority in management, and 
 resulting in survival of the fittest. They will also 
 compete among themselves for the good managers 
 at rising salaries : and the era of altruism in man- 
 agerial positions will pass away. 
 
 The chances are, however, that the present non- 
 cooperative, competitive system will endure gener- 
 ally, hereafter as heretofore. It puts less strain on 
 human nature! Meantime, I see by the morning 
 paper that the Boston building trades-unions are 
 talking of cooperative building of workingmen's 
 homes to relieve rent profiteering. Building trade is 
 dull, and work scarce; and the chance for an in- 
 teresting experiment is fine. Let us hope the men 
 will go to it vigorously, and succeed. 
 
 To originate and create some such change of 
 
 [249]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 union heart and union purpose as the above 
 founded on the virile proposition that every man 
 ought to pull his own weight in this world's boat; 
 ought to get full pay and give full value in return 
 might easily make Mr. Gompers, for instance, if not 
 too old a dog to learn new tricks, a moral figure of 
 commanding stature; and an industrial and political 
 power though not so supreme as he may have 
 dreamed a year or two ago far greater than he is 
 likely to become today. For this nation is unmistak- 
 ably tired of strikes and strike machines; and is 
 asking itself whether Judge Gary is really the 
 autocrat or another masterful man, whose name 
 begins with G. 
 
 If I were now an active employer instead of a 
 mere " has been," I should at once start propaganda 
 among my men, openly and aboveboard; calling 
 them perhaps to shop-meetings, during paid working- 
 hours, often enough to set forth myself, and through 
 the mouth of abler speakers, the foregoing truths; 
 and should follow up such talks by distribution of 
 short and simple printed studies of the different 
 elements of the labor situation, one at a time, with 
 such proofs as lie within the daily observation of the 
 men themselves. Then I would trust to their hon- 
 esty and common sense to act in due time upon their 
 resulting convictions. I have abiding confidence in 
 the American working man, even though he " comes 
 from Missouri, and wants to be shown." 
 
 Judging from my own experience, the working 
 men would gladly meet in this way the heads of their 
 own industries in order to size them and their good 
 faith up for themselves a thing which, in the 
 larger concerns at least, is otherwise for the most 
 part impracticable. 
 
 [250]
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 VALEDICTORY. LEAST GOVERNMENT. LEAST 
 BUREAUCRACY. LEAST TAXATION 
 
 ONE final word and I am done, gentlemen of the 
 press, relating to the fundamental basis of efficient 
 democracy and political honesty; I mean the Jef- 
 fersonian doctrine of minimum activity of the state. 
 It was substantially as follows : ' That govern- 
 ment governs best, which governs least," and it 
 seems to me one of the most profoundly states- 
 manlike of all his utterances. Of course it is abso- 
 lutely foreign to the modern disease or mode of 
 thought which I have, not too contemptuously I hope, 
 referred to as " collectives " ; the feeling that so- 
 ciety is so far morally and politically responsible for 
 the development of the individual that the latter is 
 entirely relieved from the old-fashioned duty of 
 carrying his own weight and taking care of himself. 
 It is a curious mixture of guilty conscience toward 
 the sweat-shop worker, and envy or jealousy of 
 Rockefeller, that drives our collectivists blindly into 
 government ownership and operation, regulation 
 and confiscation of all sorts; right in the face of the 
 world-wide, age-long knowledge that bureaucracy 
 and graft are inseparable from government, and al- 
 ways have been in all history that the only way to 
 minimize them is to minimize government. Equally 
 well does the world know from history, not only of 
 government but of trade, of all large organization, 
 that overgrowth means disintegration, inefficiency; 
 that government in business is overgrowth, every- 
 
 [251]
 
 where and always wasteful, unserviceable nowhere 
 more conspicuously than here at home in America. 
 The colossal failure of the present administration 
 within the last two years, in a dozen different stabs 
 at going into business, for which the taxpayers must 
 sweat in years to come, would suffice, one would 
 think, to convince the guiltiest of our consciences that 
 we should get government out of business and bu- 
 reaucracy, and keep it out; to make the hastiest of 
 us reflect that state regulation even, without owner- 
 ship and operation, means countless bureaucracies 
 like the Interstate Commerce, the Federal Trade, 
 and the Shipping Commissions. The first of these 
 has bankrupted and crippled the most efficient rail- 
 roads in the world; the second is doing its best to 
 wreck the packers and the coal miners, who have 
 dared to sell at prices fixed by world demand, in 
 the same way; and the third is doing its best to stop 
 the enormous loss it has already inflicted on the 
 country where it is, which is to its credit. All 
 three of them have supplied, and will long continue 
 to supply, first-class jobs for a host of bureaucrats, 
 large and small. Useless bureaucracy, useless taxa- 
 tion, are the deadliest poisons, not so slow as sure, 
 that demagogy can administer to democracy. You 
 and I, gentlemen, may never have the luck to draw 
 our share of the useless salaries; but we are dead 
 sure, each of us, in his small way, to pay our share 
 of the useless taxes. 
 
 What we have to pay now, however, is nothing 
 to what we would have to pay, which heaven forbid, 
 if in the elections this year or later we substitute 
 Gompers for government, as he asks us all to do. 
 For the first hundred years of our history we got 
 along without Gompers, and with the minimum gov- 
 ernment planned by our fathers. We can look back 
 
 [252]
 
 VALEDICTORY 
 
 with pride on the most unexampled growth in uni- 
 versal prosperity known to history. From all the 
 nations of the earth poor men came in to share our 
 freedom and happiness. Taxation and bureaucracy 
 were almost nominal; social unrest was almost un- 
 known. There was then no great labor leader of 
 millions of followers, and spender of millions of 
 dollars income; to manufacture discontent, and tell 
 his once industrious and useful workers that the 
 secret of success in a democracy is to quit working 
 and go to voting; to vote away the fruit of others' 
 toil and thrift. For the last forty years we have 
 had such leadership; and ten per cent of our work- 
 ers have followed him down into the slough of sloth 
 and inefficiency, producing less and growing poorer 
 and sulkier every day. The remaining ninety per 
 cent of American workers are still free and prosper- 
 ous, better off than ever before anywhere. Are we 
 going to let Mr. Gompers ruin them too, gentlemen 
 of the press? 
 
 They are the men who are most endangered, and 
 with them our whole enormous efficiency and power 
 to help ourselves and the world. Will you not study, 
 gentlemen, and make up your own minds as to the 
 truth of my contentions; and if you sustain them, 
 print their substance broadcast, as need arises, so 
 that he who runs may read? It does not matter 
 what our collectivists and theorists think or say, pro- 
 vided the men who work and the men who hire get 
 directly at each other; the one with hearty good will 
 to do a good full day's work of the best quality that 
 is in him, without fear of being called down by his 
 union for so doing and the other sure of getting 
 a good workman and a good output in return for 
 good pay, without the threat of a strike hanging 
 over every engagement he is called upon to make. 
 
 [253]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 I can assure you, from personal experience and 
 correspondence with more than two thousand em- 
 ployers, that the foregoing last sentence contains, 
 with the keeping of the peace on the public streets 
 by local authority, the whole sedative that is needed 
 to put social unrest into normal slumber. I am well 
 aware, however, that, as Cleveland put it, "we are 
 confronted by a condition" which must be changed 
 before the simple and healthful relation described 
 above can be generally restored. There must be a 
 change of heart; labor must break away from Gom- 
 pers. His great high-proof labor intoxicant for 
 making money out of making mischief must be de- 
 natured. We need a Volstead Act applicable to 1 Or- 
 ganized Labor to limit the percentage of poison in 
 its brew. Labor leadership must no longer attack 
 the public welfare! The Law must step in; not, 
 however, to perform, but to forbid; to decentralize 
 to say thus far, no farther, mayst thou go ! 
 
 It is time to bring this long screed to an end. I 
 hope it has not bored you too much, gentlemen; and 
 I am too sure of your intelligence and patriotism not 
 to feel pretty sure of your verdict should your pa- 
 tience review the following, among many official 
 utterances of Labor consistently supporting my state- 
 ments in these pages, viz. : 
 
 Mr. Gompers' demand of Congress in the Ameri- 
 can Federationist of May 23, 1920, namely: 
 
 Immediate " adjustment " of wages to living cost. 
 Immediate effective action to prevent increased cost of 
 
 living. 
 An end to, and repeal of, all restricting or controlling 
 
 legislation relating to Labor ; past or future. 
 To take control of credit capital from private financiers. 
 For publicity of income tax returns. 
 
 [2541
 
 VALEDICTORY 
 
 Mr. Gompers' replies to questionnaire of the Re- 
 publican National Committee, demanding: 
 
 Acceptance of the eight-hour day and six-day week, 
 Saturday half holiday included. 
 
 Recognition of right to organize. 
 
 Exemption of labor from antitrust laws. 
 
 Recognition of right to choose " outside " representatives. 
 
 Recognition of right to strike even against public wel- 
 fare. 
 
 Abandonment of injunction in Labor disputes. 
 
 Free Federal employment agencies controlled by labor. 
 
 Wages big enough to render old-age pensions unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 Repeal of Kansas Industrial Court Law. 
 
 Recognition of the secondary strike; and of the boycott 
 when there is " left to labor no other course." 
 
 Resolutions of the A. F. L. in session at Montreal ; 
 said to include: 
 
 Government ownership of railroads. 
 
 Repeal of Cummins-Esch transportation law. 
 
 No antistrike legislation. 
 
 Election of Federal judges. 
 
 Referendum to override decision of Supreme Courts that 
 
 laws passed are unconstitutional. 
 No injunction in strikes. 
 Right of teachers in public schools to organize. 
 Progressive income and inheritance taxes. 
 Federal licensing of all corporations. 
 
 Demands of Organized Labor, presented by 
 Mr. Gompers in person to the Platform Committee 
 of the Republican National Convention at Chicago, 
 June 9, 1920. The substance of most of them ap- 
 pears above, but they include also the following: 
 
 At no time shall immigration be permitted when there 
 
 exists an appreciable degree of unemployment. 
 Immediate relief from high cost of living burdens. 
 
 [255]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Monthly statements by the Department of Labor of 
 costs of manufacture or production of leading staples. 
 
 Prompt Federal investigation of profits and prices; and 
 publicity of income and tax returns. 
 
 Enforcement and extension of eight-hour law in all civil 
 departments of government. 
 
 Exclusion of convict labor products from interstate com- 
 merce. 
 
 Repeal of labor provisions of the Cummins-Esch Trans- 
 portation Act of Congress. 
 
 Action to prevent Federal legislation from being held 
 unconstitutional, by the courts. 
 
 Mr. Gompers' own carefully prepared, ten-day 
 considered, written reply to Governor Allen's Ques- 
 tion during the Carnegie Hall joint debate (which 
 he said at the moment he would like to answer " if 
 he had time"). The question was, "When a dis- 
 pute between labor and capital brings on a strike, 
 threatening public peace or impairing public health, 
 has the public any rights in such a controversy, or 
 is it a private war between labor and capital and 
 how would you protect the rights of the public?" 
 Mr. Gompers answers as follows: 
 
 " So far as Labor is concerned, the right to strike will be 
 maintained not only as a measure of self-defense and 
 self-advancement, but as a measure necessary to public 
 progress." 
 
 Later he says : 
 
 " The workers will not sacrifice human progress for an 
 abstraction which is called public welfare." 
 
 Consider well the foregoing, gentlemen; and in 
 contrast therewith consider " Twelve principles for 
 the government of American Industrial Relations" 
 just submitted (June 9) by a Committee on the sub- 
 
 [256]
 
 VALEDICTORY 
 
 ject, to a referendum of the 1300 associations com- 
 posing the Chamber of Commerce of the United 
 States. They may be briefed as follows: 
 
 1. Any man may engage in any lawful occupation, and 
 
 individually or collectively enter into any lawful 
 contract, limited only by valid public authority. 
 
 2. The " open shop " is an essential of the right of in- 
 
 dividual contract. 
 
 3. Any man may voluntarily associate with others for 
 
 any lawful purpose by lawful means ; but associa- 
 tion confers no authority over, and denies no 
 right of, those who do not voluntarily choose to 
 act or deal with the association. 
 
 4. Public welfare and private protection require that 
 
 combination or association of employers or em- 
 ployees must be subject to control of the state; 
 and be legally responsible. 
 
 5. Adequate and economical output is a common social 
 
 obligation of all engaged in any undertaking. 
 Restriction thereof for the creation of scarcity is 
 an injury to society. 
 
 6. Wages come out of product, and should be justly 
 
 proportionate thereto. But management is there- 
 fore bound to cooperate with the laborer to en- 
 able him, and furnish inducement to him, to pro- 
 duce ; with continuous employment, incentive for 
 improvement, and regard to health and safety. 
 
 7. The work day and work week should be carefully 
 
 determined in each industrial case, for maximum 
 efficiency consistent with welfare of the worker; 
 but reduction of working hours for the sake of 
 leisure, merely, should be made only with due 
 consideration of the larger interests of the com- 
 munity and the nation. 
 
 8. Adequate means and satisfactory to both sides 
 
 should be voluntarily agreed to and established 
 for the adjustment of controversies, between em- 
 ployer and employees. 
 
 9. In collective bargaining, etc., either party may ob- 
 
 [257]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ject to representation of the other by outside or 
 third parties, not directly interested as employer 
 or employee. 
 
 10. The success of the particular establishment, or 
 
 work, with which employer and employee are 
 connected is the basis of reward for and the 
 common interest of both. Cooperation for that 
 success is the true basis of relations between them. 
 
 11. The state is sovereign. No divided allegiance of 
 
 its servants can be admitted; nor any combina- 
 tion to prevent normal functioning of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 12. In public service the public welfare is paramount. 
 
 State control of public utilities may well extend 
 to control of their employees also, to insure con- 
 tinuity of service. 
 
 There is nothing more to add to this terse sum- 
 mary of the " struggle," as Gompers would call it, 
 not between Labor and Capital but between Labor 
 and an " abstraction which is called public wel- 
 fare." Here you have a snapshot, or a "movie" 
 if you like, of the labor game, gentlemen of the 
 press ! As the last few feet of the film appear upon 
 the screen, that is, as I write out and analyze 
 Mr. Gompers' ultimata, and contrast them with the 
 12 points of the United States Chamber of Com- 
 merce, I see clearly enough; and you will see, I 
 think, that my dream of a great and useful change 
 of heart in trades-unionism, as set forth a chapter 
 or two back, is hopeless without the elimination of 
 Mr. Gompers. His carefully written, deliberate 
 reply to Governor Allen, that Labor stands for the 
 unlimited right to strike, as a measure of 5//-defense 
 and .^//-advancement (the italics are mine), and his 
 public pledge that labor intends to vote that way 
 also; his cynical ultimatum that "the workers will 
 
 [258]
 
 VALEDICTORY 
 
 not sacrifice human progress for an abstraction that 
 is called public welfare " ; these things and his whole 
 record reveal him as a mere bandit pure and 
 simple; whose predatory following thinks only of 
 self; who styles their success in holding up nine 
 tenths of the community as " human progress "; who 
 contemptuously brushes aside moral responsibility 
 as abstract; but who, like all bandits, is a fool 
 as well as a robber. 
 
 "Whom the gods would destroy they first drive 
 mad." When Mr. Gompers insolently uses " man- 
 datory terms " to a nation of an hundred million 
 people, on the strength of a supposed following of 
 perhaps two million voters, he reveals a much over- 
 rated schemer, who has had his head turned, and is 
 riding for a fall. He ought to be repudiated by 
 Labor in its own interest He will not be, however, 
 apparently; and the Convention of the A. F. L. now 
 in session at Montreal will probably authorize his 
 battle of the unions against the United States, which 
 I forecasted in 1912, and which I repeat can have 
 but one ultimate issue. Mr. Gompers has so far suc- 
 cessfully fought the "One Big Union" idea; but 
 there remains another too big for him to tackle, 
 namely, the "Union, now and forever, one and 
 inseparable." 
 
 Meantime, oh, patient readers, when you seriously 
 sum up all these things; whether from the inspiring 
 viewpoint of virile and useful citizenship, of honest 
 industry and thrift for self-support and the common 
 good, of the skilled workman's love for and pride 
 in his craft, of unselfish respect for other men's right 
 to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; from the 
 average man's viewpoint of common sense and de- 
 cent respect for the experience of mankind; from the 
 statesman's and economist's viewpoint of good gov- 
 
 [259]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 ernment and efficient industry; or, finally, from the 
 comparatively sordid viewpoint of the taxpayer: 
 
 When you realize the petty selfishness of Mr. 
 Gompers' ethics, the stupidity of his economics, the 
 criminality of his methods, the failure of his pro- 
 gram to benefit a human being other than himself 
 and his kind; and finally, the menace of his politics 
 to free government, and the colossal bureaucracy 
 that his proposals would entail both on labor and 
 the state ; you will, I am sure, stand with me solidly 
 against labor autocracy, and for constitutional gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 And, too, I believe that you will stand with me 
 sooner or later for just as little government of any 
 kind as is consistent with the orderly civilized life of 
 a free people. 
 
 [260]
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC AND AMERICAN 
 FEDERATION OF LABOR CONVENTIONS OF 1920 
 
 SINCE the last chapter was written the Republican 
 Party Convention at Chicago, the Democratic Party 
 Convention at San Francisco, and the A. F. L. Con- 
 vention of 1920 at Montreal have all been held; 
 and it is worth while to note in a postscript their 
 reactions on each other. 
 
 The Republican Platform discussed Labor (in 
 brief) as follows: 
 
 Recognized the justice of Collective Bargaining as a 
 means of promoting harmony, etc., between labor 
 and capital. 
 
 Denied the right to strike against the government. 
 
 Thinks " government initiative " to reduce frequency of 
 strikes and lockouts, and limit their consequences, 
 desirable. 
 
 Favors investigatory machinery in public utility labor 
 troubles, to " inform public sentiment " to the end 
 that there may be "no organized interruption of 
 public service " ; same not to function so long as 
 service is interrupted. 
 
 Discountenances compulsory arbitration in private labor 
 troubles ; but favors " better facilities for voluntary 
 arbitration " established by government initiative. 
 
 Opposes government ownership. 
 
 Excludes convict labor products from interstate com- 
 merce. 
 
 Evidently the Republican Party would cater to the 
 public rebellion against Labor that swept Coolidge 
 
 [261]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 into nomination for the Vice Presidency; and yet 
 not too successfully seem sympathetic to the "as- 
 pirations of labor." Of course Mr. Gompers is not 
 at all fooled or content; and comes back at Mon- 
 treal with various declarations of war on the Repub- 
 lican Party; entirely confirming my prognostications 
 in previous pages. His Convention came pretty near 
 offering its heart and hand to the Democrats; but 
 he managed to hold it in line for non-partisan action, 
 and against a Labor Party. It took action, which 
 will be briefed a page or two further on. 
 
 When the Democrats met at San Francisco two 
 weeks after the Montreal Convention of the A. F. L. 
 they passed on the labor planks submitted by Mr. 
 Gompers, who was there, just about as evasively as 
 the Republicans had done. This is what they said 
 (following the order of the Republican discussion, 
 as above briefed) : 
 
 Labor "has the indefeasible right of organization, of 
 collective bargaining, and of speaking through rep- 
 resentatives of their own selection." 
 
 Labor " should not at any time . . . put in jeopardy 
 the public welfare." 
 
 "With respect to government service the rights of 
 the people are paramount to the right to strike " ; 
 but there is no objection to a raid on the public 
 treasury " to bring salaries to a just and proper level." 
 
 " The Democratic Party pledges itself to contrive, if pos- 
 sible, and put into effective operation a fair and com- 
 prehensive method of composing " labor differences. 
 
 " In private industrial disputes we are opposed to com- 
 pulsory arbitration, . . . as plausible in theory but 
 a failure in fact." 
 
 " There should be ... a thoroughly effective system of 
 transportation under private ownership without gov- 
 ernment subsidy at the expense of the taxpayers." 
 
 " Labor is not a commodity ; it is human. Laws regu- 
 [262]
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 lating hours of labor and conditions, . . . when 
 passed in recognition of the conditions under which 
 life must be lived, ... are just assertions of national 
 interest in the welfare of the people. . . . Justice shall 
 be done to those who work, and in turn those whose 
 labor creates the necessities " of life must " recognize 
 the reciprocal obligation between the workers and the 
 state." 
 
 There is a lot more carefully foggy language of 
 the same kind intended to "hit if a deer, and miss 
 if a calf"; but on the whole Mr. Gompers has got 
 nothing very definite out of either of the great Party 
 Platforms, except an expression from both political 
 groups of willingness to raid the public treasury for 
 labor's benefit; and to create a government central- 
 ized arbitration and conciliation machinery which 
 will "recognize" Organized Labor as the main party 
 to all labor disputes; without, however, backing the 
 new machinery with any power to enforce its awards 
 on anybody. One more addition to bureaucracy at 
 Washington would, of course, be repugnant to no 
 party politician on either side; there would be some 
 good-sized jobs in it for good party men. 
 
 The A. F. L. Convention adjourned before the 
 San Francisco Convention began. Its record was in 
 brief as follows : 
 
 JUNE 15. 
 
 Backed Boston police strikers and promised to work for 
 their reinstatement. 
 
 Backed New York longshore strikers for " closed shop " 
 in the harbor and seacoast transportation employ- 
 ments. 
 
 Demanded repeal of the Esch-Cummins Act, restoring 
 railroads, etc. 
 
 Voted against recognition of Soviet Russia by the United 
 States. 
 
 [263]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 JUNE 16. 
 
 Demanded absolute and immediate curb on profiteering. 
 
 Backed Gompers' non-partisan plan. No Labor Party. 
 
 Approved Irish Republic. 
 
 Would exclude Asiatic labor; though not for race, 
 religion, or color. 
 
 Authorized campaign to unionize steel and telephone 
 industries. 
 
 Condemned "outlaw" railroad strikers as "secessionists." 
 
 Declared war on Kansas Industrial Court. 
 JUNE 17. 
 
 Demanded government ownership and " democratic op- 
 eration " of railroads, in this deserting Gompers ; 
 who opposed turning over to government the power 
 to keep railroad men at work. Frey, supporting 
 Gompers, said that there is growing in this country 
 an idea that the "welfare of the state is superior to 
 the right of individuals " an idea " believed in 
 Germany." 
 
 Raised salaries from Gompers down (against his pro- 
 test) of Labor bureaucracy. 
 
 Demanded Government Employment Bureau as part of 
 Department of Labor. 
 
 Authorized Executive Council to fight all " speed up " 
 and " efficiency " systems, especially in postal service. 
 
 Pledged support to civil service employees in resisting 
 demotion. 
 
 Declared right of free speech and assembly to be in- 
 alienable, not to be limited by any judge or adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Condemned military training as un-American. 
 
 Voted moral support to striking fur workers. 
 
 Defeated motion to elect Federation officers by popular 
 vote of whole Federation. 
 
 Defeated Initiative and Referendum (proposed for 
 future questions) to whole membership of Federation 
 on demand of five per cent of unions. 
 JUNE 18. 
 
 Triumphantly reflected Mr. Gompers President for the 
 39th time. 
 
 [264]
 
 PARTY AND LABOR CONVENTIONS 
 
 Here is the contrast between Labor and Polit- 
 ical Leaders sharply outlined. Labor true to form, 
 definite, defiant, out for centralized industrial and 
 political power; the politicians, also true to form, 
 timid, straddling, waiting for the people to show 
 them the way even more decisively than they have 
 already shown it, afflicted with that bureaucratic, 
 collectivist tendency to meddle with business, that 
 has clouded our politics for a generation. 
 
 There exists today a Labor Trust bigger and richer 
 than most of the Wall Street Trusts, with concen- 
 trated wealth and power such as the American 
 people has always jealously guarded against; and a 
 record of destructive achievement entirely foreign to 
 Wall Street, which last we called down years ago. 
 Why do we not call down the Labor Trust now? 
 
 Not one word to that effect appears, however, in 
 the Republican Platform, though Governor Coolidge 
 was nominated for Vice President with a spontane- 
 ous rush because he did call labor down. Dodging 
 the subject will not placate Gompers, nor strengthen 
 the platform. 
 
 Let me reiterate once more, to the point of bore- 
 dom, I fear, that it is not collective bargaining with 
 their own employees that employers object to; on 
 the contrary, many favor it. It is the cross-union- 
 izing of all workers, not by employments, but by 
 trades and regions, and the development of the gos- 
 pel of sloth, that employers hate; the integration of 
 many local trades-unions into national and interna- 
 tional bodies; and the final federation of the latter 
 into one great labor trust, which, like a huge cancer, 
 roots into every utility and factory in the land, that 
 employers dread; that centralization which Gom- 
 pers so persistently fights for; that concentration of 
 power, that does the mischief. 
 
 [265]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 j 
 
 It is the vast concatenation of organization that 
 supplies millions of possible votes, and millions of 
 dollars wherewith to pay an hundred thousand 
 manufacturers of labor unrest and gatherers-in of 
 yet more and more deluded voters and their good 
 dollars. It is that endless -propagation of labor in- 
 fection against which no employer can quarantine 
 entirely that makes the disease endemic. And it is 
 the perfectly useless blunder, though perhaps inevit- 
 able so long as the carriers of the germs are uncon- 
 trolled, of government meddling with employers 
 and strikers, at haphazard here and there, that 
 spreads tine contagion from industry into politics; 
 to our eternal political undoing, if we do not mend 
 our ways. 
 
 Think of it, gentlemen; a few days ago Mr. Gom- 
 pers opened his debate with Governor Allen at Car- 
 negie Hall by announcing, with a flourish of trum- 
 pets, that the " longshore " strikers in New York 
 Harbor were ready to accept arbitration of govern- 
 ment in that disastrous dispute. A day or two later 
 the papers contained a telegram from Captain 
 Maher, the longshore labor leader, announcing that 
 the Attorney General (Palmer) had decided that 
 the Adamson Law should apply to railroad tugs and 
 car-floats at New York; that this would end the 
 strike, and that freedom of commerce would soon 
 prevail at that great port whereat great rejoicing! 
 
 You will recall that the Erie Railroad had sold 
 some of its surplus tugs to a private non-union tow- 
 ing company; which worked its fleet more than the 
 eight-hour day called for by the Adamson Law, but 
 apparently continued to do some towing for the Erie 
 Railroad; and that in consequence a strike was de- 
 clared in order to discipline this outsider of all the 
 marine workers around New York Harbor, some 
 
 [266]
 
 PARTY AND LABOR CONVENTIONS 
 
 70,000 I think, tying up a large part of the com- 
 merce of all the railroads and steamship lines of the 
 greatest port of the United States; which has cost, 
 according to an estimate recently published, a loss 
 of 85 million dollars; and which, called by one par- 
 ticular member of the Gompers concatenation, at 
 one time threatened, so said Mr. Maher, to involve 
 all the Eastern railroads in a general strike. 
 
 Think of it once more, gentlemen! It is absurd 
 to the point of grotesqueness, that a single railroad 
 terminating at New York cannot employ a tugman 
 who chooses to work longer than eight hours a day 
 (as both he and the railroad should have unques- 
 tioned constitutional right to do) and itself alone 
 stand the consequences of any disagreement with its 
 own men resulting; but its perfectly lawful action 
 must involve every road, every shipper in that ex- 
 traordinary harbor, perfectly unoffending though it 
 or he may be, in helpless paralysis; must cause con- 
 gestion of railway traffic, shortage of food and milk 
 supply, and interruption of ocean commerce, extend- 
 ing to every port on the Atlantic Coast and abroad 
 all for the most local and limited of petty dis- 
 putes I Nothing under heaven is blamable for such 
 vast and unpardonable wrong but the Gompers con- 
 catenation, and the bought-and-sold Adamson Law. 
 
 Of course, in the face of such a blow at modern 
 life and commercial freedom, under the very eyes 
 of the statue of Miss Liberty, there in New York 
 Harbor, government had to interfere, or be held 
 to severe account by the people; but think a little 
 further, gentlemen, of the utter absurdity of the 
 necessity of a pilgrimage to Washington, for such a 
 puny cause, of a host of representatives not only of 
 the labor trust and the railroads, but of suffering 
 shippers, the city, the Chamber of Commerce, 
 
 [267]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 perhaps they were not all there this time, but they 
 have been in other cases, taking up the over- 
 crowded time of the Attorney General of the United 
 States with a purely private and insignificant dis- 
 pute; while meantime the commerce of that great 
 metropolis and the whole seaboard was throttled in 
 a " head-lock " such as Evan Lewis, the Strangler, 
 uses to bend a Zbyszko to the mat! Is not the whole 
 situation too unthinkable? Is free America never 
 to be quarantined against the typhus of discontent, 
 the sleeping sickness of sloth? Is the tumor never 
 to be cut out? Are the tentacles of the Octopus 
 never to be severed? (Choose whichever of these 
 metaphors most appeals to your imagination or 
 wrath, gentlemen; for I would not incautiously mix 
 them.) 
 
 Let me sing once more the song of DECENTRAL- 
 IZATION. It has done labor no good to centralize ; 
 but the contrary, for forty years. It has gravely in- 
 jured commerce, politics, and the silent suffering 
 public. CUT IT OUT! Leave men free to organize 
 or not as they choose, to deal direct with their own 
 employer or strike, as they will. But leave the rest 
 of us free to go our busy way. THAT MUST BE JUS- 
 TICE, LIBERTY, AND COMMON SENSE. To change 
 Lord Dufferin's remark, quoted elsewhere, a little 
 we Americans are a practical people. Why 
 don't we back up the Declaration of Independence 
 and the Rights of Man; andgovern these labor trusts? 
 
 Gentlemen of the press, study well the results of 
 purely workingman's government in Russia, Aus- 
 tralia, and New Zealand. Study the creeping pa- 
 ralysis with which Labor in politics is crippling 
 England at home and abroad today. Then, see 
 to it that here in our beloved America no man shall 
 successfully organize CLASS against COUNTRY! 
 
 [268]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Nov. n, 1918. 
 
 MR. SAMUEL GOMPERS, 
 
 President American Federation of Labor, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Dear Sir : When I commenced this letter, a month ago 
 today, you were in historic Rome, the recipient there of the 
 same distinguished honors that had just been paid you in the 
 great capitals of London and Paris perhaps the greatest 
 ever paid to one calling himself a workingman. There can 
 be no mistaking the reason for these honors to yourself and to 
 American Organized Labor, which you represented. They 
 were due to belief in your patriotism, and that of Organized 
 Labor, in giving largest service to your country and the world. 
 At the moment of the supremest opportunity to hold up indus- 
 try for selfish advantage that is ever likely to present itself, 
 American Organized Labor, under your leadership, detesting 
 with all its free heart German autocracy, militarism, greed, 
 and cruelty, has stood to its tools, to use your own words, in 
 " continuous full-power production," for Liberty and Law 
 and the Welfare of Mankind. 
 
 Today the war is won. You are back in your own country 
 telling your constituents with pride of your and their share 
 in the victory. Will you, at this significant moment, permit 
 an inconspicuous, disinterested, retired ex-employer of labor 
 to direct your busy thought, not too far in advance, he hopes, 
 to the continuing and perhaps in the long run equally great 
 opportunity for patriotism that confronts labor, now that the 
 war is over an opportunity which no man can do more to 
 avail of than yourself that of establishing for all time, as 
 a dominating working principle, complete and hearty coopera- 
 
 [269]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 tion between Organized Labor and Capital for that same 
 " continuous full-power production " ? Believe me, sir, it is 
 and must always be, in peace as well as in war time, the prin- 
 ciple of patriotism, of greatest service to all ; to labor itself, 
 before all. 
 
 We Americans are busy people; working for our daily 
 bread, and slow to comprehend the evil that moral poison 
 can work in the hearts of men and nations. It is only in the 
 last year or two that Organized Labor, like most of us, came 
 to realize the German menace impending on the world, and to 
 make up its mind, again to use your words, " that Prussian 
 autocracy, militarism, and irresponsible diplomacy must per- 
 ish." Has it not of late occurred to you, sir, that all au- 
 tocracy, militarism, and irresponsibility, your own for instance, 
 ought also to perish, and probably will, at the appointed time ? 
 Have you ever stopped to think how frankly Prussian are the 
 principles and methods of Organized Labor, as witnessed by its 
 long record ; even by your own Annual Report for the current 
 year, side by side with its burning denunciation of the Hun ? 
 
 Let me, without rancor, set down in plain words the par- 
 allel, so that he who runs may read. 
 
 Autocracy. " Labor Omnia Vincit," are the first words 
 printed on the outside cover of the Annual Report of the 
 A. F. L. apparently its " slogan." You stand first of all 
 for the autocracy of the Union, for its domination of the 
 union man, its monopoly of the right to work ; for the " closed 
 shop." You say to the free workingman, join the Union ; to 
 the employer, " recognize " the Union. To both, that if they 
 obey, the Union will protect them; if not, no mere rights 
 asserted by Courts will be respected. The non-union man 
 and employer have no rights, no liberties. Organized Labor 
 omnia vincit. 
 
 Just so, Germany's creed was DEUTSCHLAND UEBER 
 ALLES ; the domination of the German State, world 
 domination, tyranny no self-determination of weaker peo- 
 ples. She said to the Alsatian, the Pole, and the Belgian, 
 forget your race and liberty; be good Germans, and Ger- 
 many will govern you better than you can govern yourselves. 
 Otherwise, take the consequences. 
 
 Propaganda. Your Constitution opens with the following 
 [270]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 words: "Whereas, a struggle is going on in all the nations 
 of the civilized world between the oppressors and the op- 
 pressed of all countries; a struggle between the capitalist 
 and the laborer, which will work disastrous results to the 
 toiling millions, if not combined for mutual protection," etc. 
 That is to say, if I save my money, build a factory or railroad, 
 and offer you a job of work, I am an oppressor. If after 
 shopping around among other jobs you like mine the best, 
 you are oppressed. The process of shopping around is a strug- 
 gle, which will result in the disaster of employment and earn- 
 ing your living, unless you join a union to prevent. 
 
 Now, nobody knows better than the astute President of the 
 American Federation of Labor that, as a matter of fact, the 
 more and bigger employers there are to offer a laboring man 
 his choice of jobs, the better for the man. Indeed, the more 
 the oppressors, the merrier the oppressed, and the greater the 
 disaster, or wages. In Darkest Africa, where there are no 
 capitalists, factories, or railroads in short, no oppressors; 
 in India and China, where they are few, wages do not exist 
 or are pitifully small, poverty is beyond belief, and famine 
 and pestilence constantly impend. Standards of living are 
 so low that your Federation vigorously fights the " yellow 
 peril " of Oriental immigration to prevent their introduction 
 here. 
 
 Of course, this lurid rhetoric of " oppressor " and " op- 
 pressed " is mere camouflage; union propaganda for the un- 
 thinking; intended to stir up r/ajs-consciousness, to create a 
 spirit of c/flw-hostility ; here in this free country where we 
 have no " classes," or rather where we boast that any man 
 can rise to any class his powers permit. 
 
 Just so the Kaiser and the Krupps for fifty years faked a 
 bogey of invasion from France, from Russia, even from un- 
 preparing England ; faked a menace to the very life of the 
 German state; chanted the Hymn of Hate to arm the Ger- 
 man people against the world ; preached the gospel of attack 
 as the best defense; all, as we have learned to our sorrow, 
 for th 3 benefit of the fakers only. 
 
 Militarism. For its deliberately provoked " industrial 
 warfare " your Federation has built up a highly centralized 
 and powerful striking machine (see Report), skillfuly dis- 
 
 [271]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 posed to work at the desired moment a strangle-hold on indus- 
 try, local, state, or national as the exigency requires; for the 
 coercion of capital, pure and simple, yet always as a measure 
 of defense, against " oppression." 
 
 Even so, Germany built up for " defense " the most colos- 
 sally aggressive military establishment of all time, basing on 
 it the Mittel-Europa and Pan-German imperial designs. 
 
 Predatory Purpose. Your intent is frankly predatory: to 
 take from capital by force of organization more pay for the 
 same or less work than is obtainable under ordinary condi- 
 tions of free supply and demand in the labor market. One 
 hundred and ninety-nine Unions proudly claim in your Report 
 to have accomplished this. Your method is to introduce or- 
 ganizers among a force of workmen, "secretly of course" 
 (see Report, page 87), accomplish organization, call a strike 
 if necessary, throw around a picket line, " peacefully per- 
 suade " applicants for work to stay away, call them " scab " 
 or perhaps slug them if they will not obey; sometimes a 
 " wrecking crew " spoils work or dynamites a plant. 
 
 So Germany, with frankly predatory intent to take by force 
 from France, Belgium, Russia, Serbia, especially from " rob- 
 ber" England, territory, indemnities, mines, colonies, a 
 " place in the sun," as Bismarck said, " not by speeches and 
 treaties, but by blood and iron," set to work its spy-system 
 and propaganda all over the world, created its casus belli, 
 mobilized its huge armies, drew its U-boat lines around the 
 open seas, " peacefully persuaded neutral nations not to cross 
 those lines, sunk their ships if they did, violated law and 
 treaties, stopped at no outrage to coerce and loot the world. 
 
 I am well aware that Germany pleaded " military neces- 
 sity " for violating Belgium ; and that Organized Labor 
 pleads similar necessity of the picket line that is, the 
 actual physical presence of an organized force to prevent by 
 words or maybe blows the free and natural action of supply 
 and demand in determining the flow and fixing the wage of 
 labor in order to win most strikes, and force wages above 
 their natural commercial level. Like von Herding you say, 
 " It is regrettable, but this is industrial war; and all is fair 
 in war." Your constant effort to modify the law, so as to 
 legalize the picket line; your open political hostility to judge 
 
 [272]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 after judge who has ruled against it, establishes your Organ- 
 ized Labor's willful breach of law better than any word of 
 mine can. A generation ago Allan Pinkerton testified in the 
 Mollie Maguire trials that " Organized Labor is organized 
 violence," and you yourself were credited by a New York 
 paper a few years ago with the remark "A strike without 
 violence is a joke." Of course, you deny acts of violence; 
 but you put up the cash, as in the Los Angeles Times dyna- 
 miting case, to defend union men caught and indicted for 
 such acts. 
 
 Doubtless such methods are necessary to win ; but do you 
 think that the great free, fair-minded, non-unionized 90 per 
 cent of the American people, when they put their mind on 
 the subject, will stand for Prussianism at home any more 
 than in Belgium? 
 
 Irresponsibility. Of minor importance, but characteristi- 
 cally Prussian, is your irresponsibility. Union contracts are 
 never backed by Union funds; and the latter are as far as 
 possible kept out of reach of court process by the expedient of 
 non-incorporation of the Unions. For years your Federation 
 has worked, lately with some success, for the enactment of 
 laws upsetting the old established rule that human labor is 
 property for which the laborer may contract, the right in 
 which may be protected by ;he Courts. Your object in the 
 new legislation, already held unconstitutional in several in- 
 stances, seems to be greater irresponsibility, as nearly as I can 
 understand it ; to protect yourselves from damage suits by rea- 
 son of Union acts in breaking up trained and balanced work- 
 ing forces, in creating which employers have spent much 
 time and money ; and in which they have an actually valuable 
 working asset, similar to the " good will " of an established 
 trade. Union men have always repudiated Union agreements 
 when they felt like it; the leaders simply saying they could 
 not hold the men which was true, and an end of the agree- 
 ments. 
 
 Just so German treaties were mere scraps of paper. Today 
 her signature must be guaranteed. 
 
 Sloth. Another minor matter, but quite without any Ger- 
 man parallel, I think: 
 
 I do not refer to the 8-hour movement, or to the "five 
 
 [273]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 days, five hours, five dollars " talk one hears occasionally; but 
 to your hostility to Taylor-Emerson and like systems for 
 speeding up production, the essence of which is the determina- 
 tion by careful experiment of the reasonable maximum produc- 
 tion that can be required of a man on any given job, without 
 overworking him which last is held by the authors of 
 the system to be fatal to quantity and quality alike. You 
 have succeeded in getting the Government, always an " easy 
 mark " as an employer, spending the taxpayers' money with 
 an eye to votes rather than production, to shut out any speed- 
 ing up upon government work. You consistently fight full 
 production in all collective bargaining. Apparently your idea 
 is that so there will be more union men needed to do the 
 same amount of work in every plant ; to the ultimate advan- 
 tage of union labor. For the same reason you fight piece- 
 work, and bonus plans to induce fast men to work fast by 
 earning more. 
 
 Mischief-Making. Can you see, sir, the family likeness 
 between the dirty work of the German spy-system in stirring 
 up trouble for the United States with Mexico, Japan, Nica- 
 ragua, and other nations at peace with us and each other ; and 
 Organized Labor's tortuous trickery in calling the boycott, 
 the sympathetic strike, perhaps the general strike involv- 
 ing innocent third parties, even the entire public, in unde- 
 served suffering for Labor's own selfish advantage ? It seems 
 to me the American people will see it, when they stop to 
 think of it. 
 
 Class Legislation. Your constitution sets forth this among 
 other objects: "to secure legislation in the interest of the 
 working classes." Your Report threatens legislators and 
 judges with the labor vote; with loss of office unless they 
 make and interpret laws to suit you. The same threat has 
 often been made, and sometimes been effective. The passage 
 of the Adamson Law just before the last presidential election, 
 in trade for or under threat of the labor vote, combined with 
 threat of a general railway strike, is a conspicuous instance 
 which called forth widespread and indignant comment at the 
 time. Your Report indicates your procurement of the pro- 
 visions of the Clayton Act, and the Hughes Amendment to 
 the Judicial Appropriation Act, exempting Organized Labor 
 
 [274]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 from the operation of the Sherman Law against combination 
 in restraint of trade. It censures the U. S. Supreme Court 
 for protecting Hitchman against emissaries of the United 
 Mine Workers, who sought to induce his non-union contract 
 workmen secretely to organize and break their contracts by a 
 strike ; it scores the District Court for insisting in the Coro- 
 nada Coal case that the jury should find a verdict on the facts 
 (they did award $200,000 damages against the Union for 
 conspiring with union mine-owners to block production and 
 sale on non-union coal) ; that the jury should " do the right 
 thing as you see it," and not put all parties to the delay and ex- 
 pense of a new trial by dodging a verdict. Your Report says 
 in commenting on these cases that " the relief from such de- 
 cisions lies not only in legislation, but in educating public 
 opinion and changing the personnel of the Judiciary so as to 
 secure judges who understand economic problems and forces." 
 
 You probably meant judges who understand political prob- 
 lems and forces; but do you seriously think that, when the 
 issue of the People vs. the Unions is made up and thrashed 
 out you can educate American voters to reject lawmakers 
 and judges because they will not stand for clan legislation? 
 No German parallel here either. Germany did not worry 
 much about public opinion in class questions. 
 
 Let me turn now to the achievements of your organiza- 
 tion as shown in your Report. 
 
 Growth. Your Federation claims 2,726,478 members. 
 With the railway unions, I. W. W., Knights, and other or- 
 ganizations, there may be a total of 3,500,000 union men and 
 women. This is a very considerable number ; yet it is but say 
 a thirtieth part of our population, and say a tenth part of 
 our wage-working people, actually a small minority, though, 
 in present circumstances, enough to turn an election, if its solid 
 vote could be delivered. However, nine tenths of our com- 
 mercial, common, farm, and domestic labor are entirely 
 unorganized, and are likely to remain so by reason of the in- 
 herent difficulty of tying together so many scattered and 
 incoherent individuals in so wide a country. Moreover, even 
 in the cities a very large body of independent workers prefer 
 liberty of action to union control. This body is likely to in- 
 crease as workers grow wiser. 
 
 [275]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Wage Benefits. The detailed reports of some 199 Unions 
 embodied in your Report claim by virtue of organization 
 wage increases, difficult to analyze and tabulate because in 
 different form; but which appear to average not over one 
 hundred per cent (doubled, that is) in the last 30 years. 
 There is no doubt that union wages have so doubled ; but so 
 also, as it happens, have all other wages, in the same period. 
 If mere organization has raised the wages of union men, 
 what has raised those of ten times as many totally unorgan- 
 ized laborers; especially of common laborers, which have ad- 
 vanced proportionately most of all? And how is it that 
 union wages differ for the same trades in different localities 
 (a fact provided for by your Federation's laws), if union 
 scales determine wages? Is a union printer more deserving 
 in New York than in San Francisco? 
 
 " The tail can't wag the dog," says the old proverb. As a 
 matter of fact, wage levels are determined by a very different 
 factor ; namely, national productivity of wealth. Every nation 
 uses every year substantially what it produces, or exchanges its 
 product for ; and conversely under the inexorable law of sup- 
 ply and demand it produces only what it can use. In practice 
 people do not go on making stuff they cannot use or- sell. 
 Therefore what we use (in other words our standard of liv- 
 ing, expressed in wages and cost of living, whether high or 
 low) goes up and down with current annual production. 
 In capitalistic countries, where machinery and organization 
 of industry are highly developed, production and standards 
 of living are high ; higher in this fortunate country than any- 
 where else in the world. 
 
 For instance, the Census Reports show that our use of 
 motive power in manufacture rose from 0.87 H. P. per 
 man employed in 1880 to 2.43 H. P. in 1910. Meantime 
 the value of manufactured product, including raw material, 
 rose from $1065 P e r annum per man to $2692. Our total 
 production of wealth from farms, mines, and factories, rose 
 in the same years from $151 per capita of population to $303. 
 That is, it substantially doubled for every man, woman, and 
 child in the land. 
 
 So also wages and cost of living substantially doubled. In- 
 deed they could do nothing else, under the unchanging laws 
 
 [276]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 of trade. When production increases there is more to go 
 around; more to buy, and more to pay with. One way or 
 another the increase is sure to be pretty fairly distributed 
 among the producers and distributors, each in proportion to 
 his contribution to the whole gigantic work; like the rising 
 tide, that seeks always the same level, but flows more freely 
 to the broader channel. The old legend says that King 
 Canute set his throne at the water's edge, and forbade the 
 tide to rise past it. But the tide rose all the same, and the 
 King had to move back, or get his feet wet. Just exactly as 
 ineffectual are the mandates of Organized Labor to control 
 wage levels. 
 
 The real cause of high wages is not labor organization, but 
 labor shortage. Their real limitation is not the greed of em- 
 ployers, but buyers' prices current; at which a cold-hearted 
 and unsympathetic public can be depended on to take the 
 goods. Employers are always between the devil and the deep 
 sea; they must pay wages enough to man their shops, or shut 
 down. They must keep costs within selling prices, or " go 
 broke." 
 
 The futility of labor organization in fixing wages is shown 
 conclusively in quite another way. The Department of Com- 
 merce and Labor tabulated the results of Strikes and Lockouts 
 for 1880 to 1905, inclusive unfortunately not since then 
 covering 36,757 strikes, nine tenths of them by unions, and 
 one tenth by unorganized labor. The total of days' labor lost 
 in them all came to two thirds of I per cent of the full time 
 which would have been made had there been no strikes. 
 The unions won or partly won in 65 per cent of their strikes ; 
 and the unorganized strikers won or partly won in 44 per 
 cent of theirs. The efficiency of union over non-union men 
 to win a strike may therefore be figured at the difference 
 between 65 and 44 per cent, or 21 per cent. But as the 
 disputes came to the striking point but two thirds of I per 
 cent of the time, the net value of your huge labor organiza- 
 tion in its own chosen field, winning strikes, as compared with 
 non-organization, was actually 21 per cent of two thirds of 
 i per cent, or 14 one-hundredths of one per cent, of the total 
 wage involved. That minute fraction of each man's earn- 
 ings would come to less than half a cent a day, against union 
 
 [277]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 dues of 2 cents a day; and about 2 cents a day lost in 
 striking. 
 
 Sickness and Death Benefits. Your Report shows a con- 
 siderable sum paid back by the unions to members in Benefits, 
 apparently for last year some $2,767,751. This looks well 
 offhand; the Report does not, however, tell what the mem- 
 bers paid in for the same year. As your Laws fix a mini- 
 mum monthly due, apparently, of 60 cents per man, your 
 2,726,478 members must have paid in at least $19,631,000. 
 It looks to an outsider as though the difference of some 
 $16,863,000 must have gone for running expenses; not a 
 very good showing, when one considers that all this expendi- 
 ture had practically no effect whatever on wages. The vast 
 majority of our American labor, un-organized, got their ad- 
 vance just the same, without paying out a cent; while if the 
 union members had put their $19,631,000 into almost any 
 good industrial insurance company's policies, the benefits re- 
 turned would have been far greater. 
 
 Short Hours and Improved Conditions. I incline to think 
 that your agitation for shorter hours has done better for 
 your members than your pressure for wage increases ; though 
 here again the real enabling factor is increased productivity 
 due to increased use of power and machinery. The constant 
 effort of the modern manufacturer is to increase output of his 
 plant and reduce cost and prices to his customer, for the 
 purely selfish reason that lower prices mean larger sales, and 
 greater profits. His temptation is therefore to run full time, 
 and overtime too, if his trade will take his output. But, in 
 general, hours run must conform to the necessary conditions 
 of each industry. The blast furnace must run 24 hours a 
 day; the morning paper must be printed at night; the farm 
 must work daylight hours at certain seasons. Probably your 
 wife's housemaid works more than 8 hours a day; though 
 I trust that you are consistent, and work two shifts at home. 
 
 But if in any industry a man or plant can turn out as 
 much work in 8 hours as in 10, why work 10? The laborers' 
 wish for shorter hours is human, and sympathetic to every 
 one ; though not so easy to arrange as a raise of wages. The 
 employer's true interest is to ascertain the number of hours 
 per shift that best suits the industry; the rate at which each
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 machine can best be driven without overworking the man 
 and thus breaking down his productive power; and the fair 
 full output which should be required of him; and then 
 adjust conditions and wages so as to attract and hold a suffi- 
 cient supply of labor. Surely the workers' interest is exactly 
 the same. 
 
 As to working conditions Organized Labor has never 
 much concerned itself, but has left them to the philanthropists 
 and reformers. The Government Strike and Lockout Report 
 above mentioned, out of 36,757 strikes records not one for 
 better conditions; while the 199 union reports embodied in 
 your annual Report for this year seldom mention or dwell on 
 working conditions. 
 
 Productivity. Unionizing undoubtedly reduces produc- 
 tivity, and to that extent has been an injury to the community, 
 labor itself included. As more machinery and better methods 
 overcome this handicap to some degree, reliable comparisons 
 between old and present results are hard to make. Most 
 closed-shop employers with whom I have talked think that 
 free labor is one third more efficient than union labor; and 
 that output could be increased 15 to 25 per cent by use of 
 the Taylor efficiency system, would the unions permit it, 
 with corresponding lowering of prices to the public. 
 
 Economic Effect. As I have shown above, Organization of 
 Labor has no power to raise wages. When my own little shop 
 in Chicago in 1903 fought an eleven weeks' strike to a finish, 
 and came out permanently non-union, and when I found in 
 that union-ridden town an abundant supply of determinedly 
 non-union labor, I came to regard your great Federation as 
 an annoyance rather than a life-and-death menace to my busi- 
 ness. Several of my neighbors felt the same way. More 
 recently the largest American employer, the Steel Corpora- 
 tion, has come to disregard the unions, having devised a plan 
 of its own more interesting to its men than union benefits. 
 Any prosperous employer can do the same ; and most of them 
 probably will in course of time. The world no longer fears 
 German militarism, and trade is not afraid as it once was of 
 " labor war." Many a workingman has found it to his inter- 
 est, as mine found it in 1903, to stick to a job factory rather 
 than a strike factory, so to speak. Your whole elaborate ma- 
 
 [279]
 
 LABOR IN POLITICS, 
 
 chinery for coercion seems to me as obsolete as the German 
 " goose-step." It can do nothing for labor. 
 
 Neither can your propaganda of hatred; your elaborate 
 irresponsibility ; your cult of sloth. Hatred will come home 
 to roost, and responsibility will follow it, as today in Berlin. 
 Sloth punishes itself from day to day. America need not 
 worry over them. 
 
 Political Effect. But I confess, sir, that I worry somewhat 
 over your political Kultur ; your effort to mould our laws in 
 favor of that strictly limited class, Organized Labor; your 
 talk of driving from the bench judges that cannot be scared 
 into depriving free men of their old and equal rights. For 
 your success would involve our political deterioration ; would 
 seep a German poison into the open wells of our democracy. 
 
 Instance the Adamson Law and its consequences. Even 
 before the Government took over, as a war measure, our 
 railroads, telegraph, telephone, commercial marine, and say 
 half our industries, the political temptation to buy and pay 
 for the labor vote with special legislation was too great for 
 our politicians to resist. They writhed and squirmed and 
 called themselves names, but took their medicine and passed 
 the law. Today, having taken them over, Government can 
 no longer pay the extra cost imposed by the law by " frying 
 the fat out of the stockholders ; " so, with perfect consistency, 
 it proceeds to fry it out of the shippers, that is, the public. 
 Either way, the game is to camouflage a substantial cash 
 subsidy to a few hundred thousand voters. 
 
 The question naturally arises, " After the railroad men, 
 what class comes up to the captain's office next; and how 
 is he going to settle? " It is not so much a matter of high or 
 low wages for labor ; it is whether a particular group of voters 
 by promise or threat of the ballot, or the general strike, or by 
 any other compulsion whatever, shall coerce Government for 
 its peculiar benefit. 
 
 Organized Labor has not been the only group that would 
 manipulate democracy for selfish purposes; but your Federa- 
 tion, sir, is at present the most conspicuous one. You maintain 
 a great legislative agency, your Washington Headquarters, 
 there where employers are few but politicians are many, that 
 compels attention as indeed you doubtless mean that it 
 
 [280]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 shall and invites imitation. Already in 1912-13 several 
 groups of lovers of their country had commenced to form, 
 east and west, with intent to establish at Washington a like 
 conspicuous agency, representing two or three million non- 
 partisan voters, as a counterbalance to your labor vote, which 
 so cows our politicians. Their purpose was like our entry 
 into the war against Germany, unselfish, disinterested, not 
 for the benefit of any class or party, but to make the country 
 safe for democracy. The war for the time submerged this 
 movement, but it is now due to revive and become powerful. 
 It can hardly fail to line up against Prussianism, wherever 
 found, against Union Autocracy, against Government Bureau- 
 cracy, and especially against partnership between the two. 
 
 Who Benefits by Labor Organizations? As far as an 
 outsider like me can judge from the available evidence, the 
 laborers of your Federation are spending nearly seventeen 
 million dollars a year, from which they derive no benefit 
 worth mentioning. The real beneficiaries of this vast outlay 
 by these poor men are a few hundred Labor Leaders and 
 Organizers, who are maintained in comfortable, conspicuous, 
 and influential positions; of whom you, sir, are the chief. 
 You are said to be sincere in your devotion to the betterment 
 of Labor; not rich yourself, though your ability might easily 
 make you so ; but preferring the power and prestige of leader- 
 ship to mere cash. Why not then so direct your activities 
 as really to accomplish something of value in return for so 
 much money and trust; why not do some real good to those 
 who have made you great? Let me courteously suggest 
 
 Education and Cooperation. Why not cut out your 
 Kultur of class hatred, coercion, irresponsibility, and sloth; 
 your plan to hold up Capital, which will only hold back 
 industry? Why not dismantle your huge useless striking 
 machine ; and spend some of the millions it costs in creating 
 a great bureau of expert investigation, to make you and your 
 constituents as well aware of the actualities and possibilities 
 in each line of industry as are now the captains and capitalists 
 thereof ? 
 
 If you did so, perhaps the first thing you would learn is 
 that even if you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, labor 
 cannot get anything worth mentioning out of Vanderbilt and 
 
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 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Rockefeller. Your experts would take the Census Bulletin 
 of 1917, and show you that all the wealth of the United 
 States came to 187,739 millions of dollars; that there were 
 say 42 millions of wageworkers; that if Government owned 
 it all, and Rockefeller et al. owned nothing; and if under 
 Government management it paid 5 per cent per annum as 
 under Rockefeller which is begging a very large ques- 
 tion then each wageworker would draw say $220 per 
 annum more than present wages, Rockefeller getting nothing. 
 That comes to 73 cents extra for each wageworker, no more, 
 per diem. 
 
 How far could that small sum go to satisfy the vague as- 
 pirations of Labor commonly called Social Unrest ? Not very 
 far, alas. It would be forgotten in a month, if received ; but 
 probably would never be realized at all under government 
 management. 
 
 The next thing your experts would show you is that in 
 all history it has never paid any country, least of all its poor 
 folk, to plunder its capitalists as indeed unhappy Russia 
 is showing the world today or to establish government 
 monopoly of industry. Also, that in all history government 
 has lived off the people, and not the people off the government ; 
 and until human nature changes, this will always be so. 
 
 Finally, your experts would make clear to you that, 
 whether Government owns and operates everything, or 
 Rockefeller et al. own it all either way you and I would 
 fare just the same we Americans can divide up amongst 
 ourselves from year to year no more than we produce, or 
 exchange our produce for. We cannot, even with the aid 
 of the Federation of Labor, share what does not exist. There 
 is only one way for us to be better off next year than this; 
 and that is to produce more. 
 
 What laboring men ought to know, and what you labor 
 leaders, with your greater ability, your organization and 
 prestige among them, are morally responsible for teaching 
 them, is the great economic fact that only greater production 
 can make a community more prosperous; that the man who 
 finds work for a thousand men and sells their output to ten 
 thousand others is worth to the community say a hundred 
 times as much as any one of his workers, and justly receives 
 
 [282]
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 an hundredfold reward; and finally, that the best thing a 
 laborer can do for himself is to team up and pull with his 
 employer, in hearty good fellowship. 
 
 You yourself put it better than I can, in your annual Re- 
 port so often quoted : to win the war, you say, there must be 
 " continuous full-power production," which " depends on the 
 morale of the workers," which in turn derives from " efficient 
 cooperation " between " creative labor power and controllers 
 of capital." 
 
 Constructive Suggestions. But why stop full-power 
 production with the end of the war ? In peace as in war every 
 man's duty is greatest service to the greatest number ; and in 
 performing it lies his chance of greatest reward. Equality 
 of opportunity is his democratic and inalienable right; in- 
 equality of reward his democratic and inevitable justice, 
 "social justice;" the more useful the man the greater the 
 reward. You, sir, have always been clear-headed enough to 
 fight State Socialism probably you perceive that it would 
 be the death of Trades-Unionism and you recognize as 
 above the value of the capitalists. Why not then go on vigor- 
 ously, in this difficult time of after-war readjustment, with 
 that hearty cooperation between Labor and Capital which 
 has paid you so well as a war measure? 
 
 These are times of high, unselfish purpose. Why not, as 
 a constructive program, drop your creed of monopoly and 
 coercion ; drop class hatred and the odious word " scab ; " 
 incorporate, become responsible, back union contracts with 
 union funds, so that they shall no longer be mere scraps of 
 paper; drop sloth, and guarantee the work of union men; 
 ordain that union committees shall regularly cooperate with 
 employers to determine wages, hours, pace, and conditions for 
 continuous full-power production, paying each man according 
 to work done ; unionize locally by shops instead of nationally 
 by trades, so as to limit each laborer's and employer's troubles 
 to his own job, instead of tangling him uselessly in those of a 
 thousand others; let every shop be "open," and depend on 
 the union contract and standards of work and guarantee to 
 secure preference for the union man ? 
 
 I think, sir, that employers would welcome such coopera- 
 tion as this with open arms and pocketbooks; that not only 
 
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 LABOR IN POLITICS 
 
 Labor but the entire community would fare better than ever 
 before ; and that the Labor Leaders whose breadth and honesty 
 of purpose should culminate in such businesslike fashion 
 would deserve and enjoy such standing, and esteem among all 
 their fellow citizens as they can never hope for while they 
 profess and practice Prussianism. 
 
 Conclusion. On the other hand let me warn you against 
 the dangers of the political course you seem to be pursuing. 
 As Lincoln said, " You cannot fool all the people all the 
 time." In our democracy the ballot is every man's legitimate 
 and peaceful weapon against class privilege of every nature; 
 it is not his club for coercion of government, legislature, or 
 judiciary, into creation of class-privilege. Should Organized 
 Labor rouse the ballot against itself should the issue ever 
 be made up and fought squarely, American fashion do you 
 not think that the People against Organized Labor, the U. S. 
 against the Unions, say nine to one, will be intelligent enough, 
 and just enough, to protect the nine against the one? Why 
 not take heed, sir, to the disasters that befell Kaiserism on the 
 one hand, and Bolshevism on the other? 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 CHAS. NORMAN FAY. 
 P. S. Nov. i^th. 
 
 Since the foregoing was penned comes your Laredo speech 
 of yesterday, which rather discourages my appeal to broad 
 labor-leadership. You say that Organized Labor made " sac- 
 rifices," and gained " advantages " not to be taken away; that 
 it will resist all attempt to force down wages and lengthen 
 hours. 
 
 Now, the sacrifices consisted in working for the shortest 
 hours and longest wages ever known; paid not out of value 
 produced, but out of Liberty Loans and colossal taxation. 
 No very great sacrifice, that! Yet you serve notice that ad- 
 vantage, and not patriotism, was what you backed your coun- 
 try for ; and that Labor intends to wring out of trade in peace 
 what it wrung out of taxes in war! 
 
 Well, to use two caustic old farm phrases, organized Labor 
 must " skin its own polecats," and learn to its sorrow, 
 some time, that it " cannot milk a dry cow." 
 
 [284] 
 
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