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ONE OF THE GREATES ORATORY SPEACH
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THE BURNING QUESTION
OF TRADES UNIONISM
by
Daniel DeLeon
An address delivered at
the New Auditorium Hall, Newark, N.J.,
April 21, 1904
Workingmen and Workingwomen of
Newark:
That the Trades Union Question is a burning
one is obvious from the space it fills in the
public mind, the acrimony of the discussion and
the wide divergence of opinion on the subject.
Obvious also is the conclusion that a subject
that can draw upon itself so much attention, that
can produce so much acrimony, and on which
opinion takes so many shades”running from
extreme and unqualified support through all
manner of gradations across the gamut, to
extreme and unqualified opposition”cannot
choose but be a vital one, and certainly must
have a latent something about it that will not
down.
Finally, it is obvious that such a question
deserves attention -- close, serious and
sober”and that the solution be grappled with and
found. Nor is the task impossible. Despite the
widely conflicting views, the solution is not
only possible but easy”but possible and easy
only by either rising high enough above, or
penetrating deep enough below the squabble to
enable the inquirer to detect the fact that, despite
their being seemingly irreconcilable, the
conflicting views have important points of
contact. In other words, the solution of the
problem depends upon the perception of the fact
that there is no real conflict; that what there is is
a failure to harmonize views that are
supplemental to one another; and that the failure
proceeds from the blindness of each side to
perceive the element of soundness in the
others”a perception without which none can
understand the bearings of his own position, and
consequently stands stock-fast, impotent --
except for suicide.
Before entering upon the analysis of the
subject, there is one thing I must request of my
audience. It is this: To drop, for the present, all
recollections of the corruption and dishonesty in
the Trades Union Movement that surely will
obtrude themselves upon your minds. Need I
say that dishonesty plays an important role in
the issue? It does. I shall come to that. But for
the present I shall eliminate that factor. It can
only confuse if taken up now. Leave it out for
the present. The actual and important lines of
the question being first established, the
corruption element will then fall of itself into
natural grooves and help to elucidate the
principles. Taken now it can only becloud them.
Never forget this”dishonesty in argument is
like a creeping plant that needs support; it would
collapse and lie prone but for some solid truth
around which to wind its tendrils for support.
Let’s first ascertain the truth.
Nothing so well illustrates the general
situation on the fierce discussion that is going
on on Trades Unionism as a certain choice poem
of our genial New York poet, the late lamented
John Godfrey Saxe. Many of you may have
heard it, perhaps even learned it by heart on the
school benches. All of you can hear it with
profit once more.
THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
The Second feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me `tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“`Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny that fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Why? Why were they all in the wrong?
Simply because none could see where the others
were right, and, consequently, was unable to
understand even himself.
Leaving general illustrations and stepping into
the concrete, let us take two or three instances
on the question itself.
Take this instance”President Eliot of Harvard
says: “The scab is a hero!” President Gompers
of the A. F. of L. says: “The scab is a scamp!” It
may need a superhuman effort, but, I pray you
exercise it. Repress the thoughts of dishonesty
that the mention of these two names must
inevitably conjure up to your minds. Let us
examine the two utterances, regardless of who
made them. They are made. That is enough for
our purpose. They seem wholly irreconcilable.
Are they, in fact? Let us see:
Here is a shop. What with fines, the intensity
of the work demanded, and other impositions,
the wages are inhumanly low. On top of that, a
further reduction is inflicted upon the men, and
they rebel. A strike is on. Presently men who are
not starving, but who either occupy other
positions in the employer’s service and wish to
ingratiate themselves with their masters, or who
despise labor, step into the shop and help him
out. Such instances occurred in the telegraphers’
strike and a shoemakers’ strike in New York,
and recently when Yale students took the places
of striking car drivers in New Haven. Who will
deny that the man who does such a thing is a
scab and a scamp?
But now, look at this other picture. A number
of breweries in this neighborhood and New
York had a contract with their employees; the
contract expired and the breweries wanted a new
contract less favorable to the men. In order to
accomplish that they needed the help of the
officers of the union. They obtained it. A
contract, that tied the men’s hands and left them
at the employers’ mercy, is drawn up and
jammed through the union partly under false
pretenses and partly by brute force. Members of
the rank and file rebel, and their spokesman,
Valentine Wagner, demands an explanation
from the officers. He is fined for
“insubordination,” and fine is laid upon fine
until the amount has risen to $80; as he still
remains “insubordinate,” and as the officers are
in league with the brewery bosses, the man is
expelled, thrown out of work as “not being a
member of the union,” and left to starve. These
facts have all been made public and proved.
Thereupon, to the threat that if he dared work in
any brewery lie would be called a “scab,"
Valentine Wagner announced that not only
would he dare, but that he would deem it an
honor to be called a “scab"! Who would deny
that Valentine Wagner is a hero?
Are the two utterances, “The scab is a scamp,”
and “The scab is a hero,” utterly irreconcilable?
Evidently not. Evidently they harmonize
perfectly. And in perceiving the common
ground for both, we are enlightened on what the
“scab” is. The “scab” is he who by his voluntary
conduct helps to lower the standard of the
worker. He who for the pleasure of it, or out of
currishness to the master, will help to break a
strike for better conditions is a “scab” and
“scamp,” and a “scamp” and “scab” is the union
officer who conspires with the master against
the interests of the men. They are both scabs
because, by helping to down the worker, they
sap the nation and introduce disease, death and
the pestilence of a degraded people. That is the
test of the “scab.” The scab may wear the union
label as well as not.
Take this other instance”one set of people
says: “The union must be a good thing because
the capitalists hate it"; another set says: “The
union is a bad thing because the capitalists love
it.” These two utterances seem wholly
irreconcilable. Are they, in fact? Let us see:
Look at what is going on in Colorado. The
right of habeas corpus, the dignity of the courts,
the right of free assemblage and free speech -- in
short, all the great civic conquests of the
past”are trampled on by the capitalist class in
power in that state, and all for the purpose of
smashing the Western Federation of Miners. If
ever there was an instance of hatred this is one.
The capitalists hate that union to the point of
endangering even the privileges that their own
class still stands in need of.
But now look at this other picture. Charles
Corregan, a member of the Syracuse, N.Y., local
of the International Typographical Union,
speaking on the public stump for the Socialist
Labor Party, gave facts and figures concerning
an important factor in the labor movement, to
wit, the manner in which the pure and simple
trades union is run by its officers, and he
illustrated the points with the officers of his own
union. He is thereupon tried by these officers,
convicted and fined in his absence without
charges being presented to him; and as he
refused to pay a fine imposed under such
conditions, a strike was ordered in the shop
against him and he was thrown out of work. The
very fact that a strike could be called against
him, that the employer virtually lined up with
the officers, points to the point I am reaching.
Corregan sued the union for reinstatement and
damages, the court threw the case out and, mark
you, the capitalist press, particularly that of New
York, announced the decision with flaming and
jubilating headlines as a union victory.
Are the two utterances, “The capitalists hate
the union” and “The capitalists love the union,”
as irreconcilable as they looked at first?
What is it that discloses their reconcilability?
Why, the facts, which, taken together, point to
the common ground of the utterances, and
thereby clarify both. That common ground tells
us that capitalism justly sees in Socialism, in the
Socialist Labor Party, its unquestioned foe,
while with equal accuracy it perceives in the
union an organism of various possibilities”a
possibility of injury to the capitalist class, and
also a possibility of safety and protection; where
the possibility of injury takes shape, as in
Colorado, hatred is developed for the union;
where the possibility of safety and protection
takes shape, as in Corregan’s case, love is
developed for the union.
We are making progress out of the woods.
But, before proceeding further in our march, let
us establish a collateral point hinted at by these
facts.
The country has in recent years been twice
convulsed by two economic-political issues that
may be called great when we consider the
millions of votes that they shared among them.
And both these issues may yet spring up again.
The one is the tariff, the other the silver issue.
When the tariff was the issue, the Democratic
free trader declared that protection was robbery;
on the other hand, the Republican protectionist
pronounced free trade unpatriotic. The free
trader argued that the tariff was like an artificial
mountain raised at the gates of the nation and,
thereby, increasing the cost of goods. “Tear
down these mountains,” said he, “and prices will
decline.” That is all true, but we Socialists know
that if the artificial mountains of the tariff are
removed, prices will go down true enough, but
seeing labor is a merchandise under the
capitalist system of production, its own price,
wages, must go down along with that of all
other merchandise. The advantage, accordingly,
of lower prices is lost to the working class.
The Republican protectionist argued that it
was the duty of government to promote by
protecting and protect by promoting the interests
of the people. “A tariff,” said the Republicans,
“protects the country inasmuch as it enables it to
differentiate its industries, unchecked by foreign
competition.” This also is all true, but we
Socialists know that if government is to be at all
justified it is upon the ground of the protection it
affords to the people; and we also know that,
under the capitalist system, the “people” who
count are not the workers, but the capitalist
shirkers, and, consequently, that the advantage
to be derived from the theory of protection does
not extend to the workers, to the majority of the
people. They are left out in the cold. The tariffs
protect the capitalists against foreign
competition, but not the workers. The largest
infloods of foreign labor have been instigated
and taken place under Republican “protection”
administrations.
Accordingly, while both “free trade” and
protection have an element of truth in them, that
element is in both cases lost to the people under
capitalist rule. It takes Socialism, the Socialist
Republic, to harmonize the two opposites.
Under the dome of the Socialist Republic the
discord between the two principles vanishes,
and only the truth remains. Under Socialism the
“mountains” of tariffs may be safely removed:
the decline in prices will not then drag down
labor’s earnings because labor will have ceased
to be merchandise and become a human
factor”what it now is only in the speeches of
capitalist politicians at election time, and in the
sermons of the political parsons between
election and election. Likewise with regard to
protection. The principle of organized mutual
protection through government becomes truthful
and effective only under Socialism where, there
being only one class, the working class,
government is truly of, by, and for the people.
It is similarly with the silver question. The
free coinagists denounced the gold standard men
as robbers; the gold standard men denounced the
free coinagists as bandits”and each was right
and both were wrong. As to the free coinagists:
their theory was that money is a good thing and
that the more there is of a good thing the larger
is the per capita thereof for the people. We know
that right as the premises are, under capitalism
the conclusions become wrong.
There are infinitely more hats, shoes, coats
and other good things today than thirty years
ago in the land; but everybody knows that the
workingman’s per capita of these good things
has not increased. He has remained where he
was, if not even below, while the increase has
gone to the Anna Goulds, the Consuelo
Vanderbilts, the international capitalists in short.
And we understand the reason why.
Under capitalism, the workingman being a
merchandise, his price (wages) does not depend
upon the quantity of good things in existence,
but upon the quantity of him in the labor market.
The same as, regardless of the quantity of
money there may be in the money market, pork
chops will fetch a smaller price if the pork chop
market is overstocked, so will the merchandise
labor fetch a smaller price, however much
money there may be, if the labor market is
overstocked. And capitalism does that very
thing. Privately-owned improved machinery,
and concentration of plants, ruthlessly displace
labor and overstock the labor market.
Thus, capitalism renders absurd the premises
above mentioned of free coinagism. On the
other hand, the gold standard men proceeded
from the principle that money is a merchandise
and must have value, from which they
concluded that the workingman would be
robbed unless he was paid with what they call a
l00-cent dollar. Here again, right as the premises
are, capitalism renders the conclusion false. As
shown above, labor being a merchandise, it
matters nothing what the counter is in which it is
paid. Its price depends upon its market value;
and it is all one to it whether it gets paid with
one 100-cent gold dollar for its day’s toil, or
with two fifty-cent silver dollars.
Accordingly, while both the free coinage and
the gold standard principle have an element of
truth in them, under capitalism the truth is lost
to the workers. It takes Socialism to harmonize
the two. Under Socialism, labor no longer being
a merchandise, the more good things it
produces, the more it has, and the 100-cent
dollar ceases to be its merchandise badge and,
thereby, a fraud upon it.
These two sets of illustrations will suffice.
They throw light upon what otherwise is
puzzling in modern society, to wit, that correct
principles work evil. Free trade and protection
are both accompanied with increasing masses of
pauperism; gold standard and silver standard
leave nothing to choose between them for the
masses. The sense in each is turned into
nonsense by capitalist rule; it is Socialism that
alone can redeem them.
And as the Socialist key alone can unlock the
secret of this conflict of thought, it is the
Socialist key alone that can unlock the secret of
the conflict of thought with regard to the
burning question of trades unionism. Equipped
with this key, we shall be able to acquire a full
grasp of the question at hand, and see the
elephant in full with all his members coordinate,
and not as a jumble of “rope,” “spear," “snake,”
“wall,” “tree” and what other things the blind
men of the story took the animal to be.
PRO- AND ANTI-UNIONIST ARGUMENTS
Let us take two types on the question”both
honest”but one holding that the trades union
pure and simple is all-sufficient and useful,
while the other holds that the trades union is
worthless; in other words, one holding the trunk
of the elephant and claiming he is a snake, the
other holding his tail and claiming he is a rope;
bring the two together, and, both being honest,
this dialogue will take place between them:
Anti-unionist”“Drop your union, it is no good.
Smash it!”
Pro-unionist”“What! my union no good? I am
a member of the Housesmiths’ and Bridgemen’s
Union. I know what I am talking about. Before
we had a union we could barely make two
dollars a day. Now that we have a union I make
four and sometimes five dollars. Don’t tell me
the union is no good.”
Anti-unionist”“You are hasty in your
judgment. You are judging all the unions by
one, and your own union by only one epoch of
its existence. I grant that through your union you
are now getting two dollars more. But that is
only a temporary affair. Exceptional
circumstances aided Sam Parks in bringing up
your wages. But how long will that last? Look at
the other unions, take the census of the men.
Without exception, earnings are lower. The
census itself admits that wages are now lower
than they were ten years ago. What happened to
the older unions will happen to yours. They
were not able to raise earnings of the working
class. Already the day is at hand when your
union will be in the same fix. No, it is not true
that the union can raise wages, speaking of the
union in general.”
Pro-unionist”“Well, that’s so. Speaking with
union men of other trades, they all say how hard
it is for them to get along. Yes, the union cannot
raise earnings. But it is a good thing all the
same; it can keep wages from declining.”
Anti-unionist”“You are mistaken again. Look
over the field. Look below the surface. You will
find that, despite the union, earnings go down as
a whole. Look at the savage reductions inflicted
upon the steel and iron workers. A numerically
strong union. Despite the union, a savage
reduction was made.”
Pro-unionist”“Well, I can’t deny that (after a
pause), but you must admit that if we had no
union the decline would be swifter. Will you
deny that the union acts as a brake upon the
decline? Would we not be down to the coolie
stage today if it were not for the union?”
Anti-unionist”“You have admitted that the
union cannot raise wages; you have admitted
that it cannot keep wages where they are; and
you have admitted that it cannot prevent their
reduction. Your last ditch is that it keeps wages
from going down as fast as they would
otherwise go. I’ll now drive you out of that
ditch. If your theory means anything it means
that the union will last, at least, as a brake. Now
you know that periodically men are laid off by
the thousands, and hundreds of thousands.
These laid-off men want to live; they will offer
themselves for a lower price. If your union
strikes it goes to smash, if it does not strike it
melts to smash, so that, even as a brake, the day
is at hand when your unions will exist no more.
Pro-unionist”“You have hit me hard. Perhaps
you think you have knocked me out. But you
have not. As sure as a man will raise his hand by
mere instinct, to shield himself against a blow,
so surely will workingmen, instinctively,
periodically gather into unions. The union is the
arm that labor instinctively throws up to screen
its head.”
Unquestionably both the pure and simple pro-
unionist and the anti-unionist are knocked out.
They have knocked out each other.
The pro-unionist’s last statement is a
knockout blow to the man who imagines that the
union is a smashable thing.
On the other hand, the anti-unionist’s
argumentation, whereby he brings out the fact
that the union’s claims of potential triumph are
false, and that, driven from defeat to defeat, the
union can gather for the next defeat only,
knocks out the pro-unionist. That is to say, the
pure and simple pro-unionist.
In their mutual trituration the materials are
gathered with which Socialism can build the
four-jointed truth. Let us now take the “tail" and
“trunk” and “legs” and “ears” and “body” of the
elephant as furnished us by these two typical
disputants, and construct the animal. The
disputants’ positions will be found to be, not
inherently irreconcilable, but fully reconcilable.
Starting from the principle, an undeniable
one, that the spirit of union formation is an
instinctive one, the question immediately
presents itself: Is there no way by which the
instinctive motion of self-defense can be
rendered effective? Does it follow that because
the man who raises his hand to protect his head
from the threatened blow with a crowbar, has
both his arm and his skull crushed, that therefore
the instinctive motion of self-defense might as
well be given up? The question suggests the
immediate answer. The answer is no, it does not
follow. And the question, furthermore, indicates
what does follow. It follows that the arm which
periodically is thrown up in self-defense, must
arm itself with a weapon strong enough to
resist”at least to break the blow.
Naval warfare did not end when guns of
stronger power were contrived. What followed
was that stronger armor plate was contrived for
the battleships; nor did naval warfare end there;
when battleships became so impregnable,
contact mines were invented which sink these as
if by magic. And so it can be done here.
Pro-unionists always talk about the union
being a “natural condition." But they forget that
so are hair and nails. No sensible man will pull
hairs and nails out by the root; but neither would
any sensible man say that because hair and nails
are natural they must be allowed to grow
untrimmed and untended. Pro-unionists always
talk about the condition under which the union
was born. So are babes born under puny
condition. No sensible man would kill the babe
because so born; but neither will any sensible
man propose to keep the babe forever in the
condition under which it was born. That it is a
natural growth is an important fact to recognize,
but how to improve it is equally important, and
that can be done by bringing the above pro- and
anti-unionist arguments together.
The last anti-unionist argument condenses in
itself all the previous ones. It correctly points
out that the large displacements of labor render
the union futile. It implies unionism in general,
but that is a mistake. It is true if applied to
unionism as it is today, that is to say, in the babe
form under which it was born.
My point will be made clear if we suggest to
both the pro-unionist and the anti-unionist that
all the members of a trade be enlisted in the
union”those at work, those temporarily
displaced, and those that may be considered
permanently displaced. At the bare thought of
such a proposition both the pro-unionist and the
anti-unionist will throw up their hands; and both
their gestures of hand and face indicate that
neither of the two has of the union any but a
babe condition notion.
Why will the pro-unionist look dismayed at
the proposition? He will because he knows that
his union is there to give jobs to its members;
that none join it but for jobs; and, consequently,
that if the applicants exceed the jobs the union
would immediately go to pieces, if they are all
inside. The notion of the anti-unionist is the
exact reverse of the pro-unionist’s notion. And
both are right from their standpoint, but their
standpoint is wrong; it is as wrong as that of the
blind men at the several limbs of the elephant.
The thought suggested by the pro-unionist’s last
argument, that the union is like the instinctive
motion of the man who raises his arm to protect
his head when assailed, gives us in hand the
method to proceed by.
Instructed upon the nature of the weapon of
assault, man will strengthen the arm that he
throws up in defense of his head. But the
effectiveness of that strengthening depends
entirely upon the correctness of his idea on the
nature of the instrument of assault.
In the babe condition under which the union is
born naturally, it has no conception of the nature
of the weapon that it instinctively raises up its
arm in self-defense against.
In that natural and original babe condition the
union does not realize that its members are
merchandise in the present state of society; it
does not realize the law that governs the value
and price of merchandise; consequently, it does
not realize the law that underlies its own value
and price, that is, its wages; it does not realize
the cause of its degraded merchandise status; it
does not realize that its lack of the natural (land)
and social (capital) opportunities keep it down;
accordingly, it does not realize there is no
improvement, let alone salvation, for it so long
as it labors under the status of merchandise;
finally, and most important of all, and as a result
of all, it does not understand that it cannot
improve faster than the rest of the working class.
In other words, it does not understand the
import of the “solidarity of labor.”
It matters not what phrases the pure and
simple trades union may use, the fact that none
of them would like today to see all the members
of the trade in the union, the fact that the trades
not directly concerned, aye, even those directly
concerned, do not rise in indignation when such
other trades as the railroaders are found willing
to transport militias from one end of the country
to the other in order to break a strike”these facts
demonstrate that the meaning of the word
solidarity is a closed book to the pro-unionist.
On the other hand, the anti-unionist is utterly
mistaken when he proceeds from the theory that
this closed book is to remain closed; in other
words that the union can never rise above its
babe state of natural birth; in other words, that
the union is useless.
Leaving for later on the feature of the remoter
utility of the union, in fact, its real revolutionary
and historic mission, let us be first clear upon
the fundamental error that, odd enough to say,
both the pure and simple pro-unionist and the
anti-unionist stand.
The honest pro-unionist frankly admits that
the best he can expect of his union is to act as a
brake on the decline. In other words, he admits
that the union only serves as a rear guard to a
retreating army. Obviously, from that standpoint
the anti-unionist’s position is impregnable when
he holds that the rear guard of a retreating army,
which can do nothing but retreat, is a futile
thing. But equally obvious is the fact that the
whole strength of the anti-unionist position lies
in the babe original condition that the union has
remained in.
The point need but be made and it will be
accepted by every thinking man that all the
reasons which the anti-unionist advances why
the union is bound to go to smash through the
displacement of labor will fall flat the moment
the union gets out of its natural, original babe
condition, realizes that it not only endangers the
future but that it also loses the present by
turning itself into a jobs-providing machine.
Even if the union cannot grasp its great historic
and revolutionary mission, it certainly must, for
the sake of the immediate present, be supposed
to be willing to adapt its methods, not to the
babe, but the adult conditions of capitalism.
Capitalism displaces labor; capitalism needs a
large army of idle and reserve labor for the
periods of industrial expansion.
By constituting itself a jobs-furnishing
institution, the union turns itself into a pint
measure into which it is impossible for the
gallon measure of labor to be received. And thus
it is not only the capitalist, from in front, but
labor, from behind, that triturates the union. In
order to be able to contain the gallon measure of
labor the union must expand to gallon size; in
order to expand to gallon size it must drop its
idle aspirations as a jobs”furnishing monopoly.
And this can be done only if it rises to the
elevation of its political mission. Then will it
understand the solidarity of its class generally
and of the members of its trade in particular.
Even if as many 50,000 out of a trade of
100,000 members cannot be provided for with
jobs, the union could do better by taking them
all in. But this sounds like a purely chimerical
idea under the general babe condition notions
that exist. The chimera, however, becomes
possible if the members are all tutored to
understand that the best the union can do for
them today is to check the decline and prevent it
from going as fast as it otherwise would.
Not only in the long run, but all along, would
such a union fare at least as well as it fares
today, besides being in a condition to actually
fulfill its great revolutionary historic mission
that I have all along been alluding to.
What is that great historic revolutionary
mission?
It must be admitted that however philosophic,
possibly even Socialist, the anti-unionist may
pronounce himself, he is on this subject not a bit
more enlightened than the pro-unionist.
It is to me surprising to find men who call
themselves Socialists, and who reason
socialistically up to a certain point, suddenly go
to pieces when they touch the union question.
They take certain facts into consideration, these
facts correctly point to the eventual destruction
of the union, and from these they conclude that
the union might as well be smashed now as
later. They fail to consider all the facts in the
case. They are the real utopians of today who
imagine the Socialist Commonwealth can be
established like spring establishes itself through
its balmy atmosphere, and without effort melts
away the winter snows. These anti-union
utopians only see the political feature of the
labor movement. According to them, all that a
lance would need is its iron head.
On the other hand, the pro-unionists have
their noses so close to—the ground that they fail
to see the political aspect of the trades union
movement, and can only see what they call its
industrial aspect. In other words, they virtually
hold that all that a lance would need is its shaft.
It goes without saying that neither he who thinks
a lance is all iron head, nor he who thinks that it
is all shaft has a correct idea of what a lance is,
or what its uses are.
Each may have a technical, theoretic, more or
less practical knowledge of each particular part
of a lance, but a lance neither of them will have,
nor can wield.
I shall show you that unless the political
aspect of the labor movement is grasped,
Socialism will never triumph; and that unless its
trades union aspect is grasped the day of its
triumph will be the day of its defeat.
Who of you has not heard some workingman
when told that some fellow workingman of his
was nominated for Mayor, or for Governor, or
for Congress, sneeringly say: “What’s he? What
could he do in Congress? What does he know
about law? Why, he wouldn’t know how to
move!” The matter is serious; it is no laughing
matter. The workingman who utters himself in
that way is right and he is wrong. He is
absolutely right when he considers that the
workingman is not a fit man to handle the laws
of the land; but he is wrong when he considers
that that is a disqualification. In other words, he
is wrong in supposing that the political mission
of labor is to dabble with or tinker upon
capitalist laws.
And mark you, his blunder proceeds direct,
both from the pro-unionist industrial mental
attitude and from the anti-unionist’s political
mental attitude. In this respect is realized into
what errors the political anti-unionist drops in
his own domain of politics, and into what error
the industrial pro-unionist drops in his own
industrial domain”due to the circumstance that
both fail to realize that their various domains
dovetail into each other.
Open any law book, whatever the subject
be”contract, real estate, aye, even marital
relations, husband and wife, father and son,
guardian and ward”you will find that the picture
they throw upon the mind’s canvas is that of
everyone’s hands at everyone’s throat. Capitalist
law reflects the material substructure of
capitalism. The theory of that substructure is
war, conflict, struggle. It can be no otherwise.
Given the private ownership of natural and
social opportunities, society is turned into a
jungle of wild beasts, in which the “fittest” wild
beast terrorizes the less “fit,” and these in turn
imitate among themselves the “fit” qualities of
the biggest brute. No nuptial veils of lace or silk
can conceal this state of things on the
matrimonial field; no rhetoric can hide it on any
other field. The rawboned struggle is there. It is
inevitable. It is a shadow cast by the angles of
fact of the capitalist system.
Now, then, is it the mission of the labor or
Socialist movement to continue or to uproot the
material conditions that cast the shadow? Its
mission is to uproot it. Consequently its mission
cannot be to tinker at the laws that capitalism
finds it necessary to enact. As well say that a
housekeeper is unfit to clean a neglected house
because she has no technical knowledge of the
construction of the vermin that has been rioting
in it, as to say that, because labor has no
knowledge of the technique of the vermin of
capitalist laws, it is unfit to take the broom
handle and sweep the vermin into the ash barrel
of oblivion.
Accordingly, the political aspect of the labor
movement spells revolution. It points out
exactly the duty of the Socialist or
classconscious workingmen elected to office”no
tinkering, no compromise, unqualified
overthrow of existing laws. That means the
dethronement of the capitalist class.
And what does that, in turn, mean with regard
to the subject in hand?
Did you notice, and did you realize, all that
there was in the capitalist threat of closing down
the shops and stopping production if Bryan was
elected in 1896? We know that Bryan was a
reactionary capitalist; nevertheless, the fact was
brought out in his campaign by that upper-
capitalist threat that the ruling capitalists have it
in their power to create a panic any time the
government slips from their hands. What places
that power in their hands? Now watch close,
think close”What places that power in their
hands is the pure and simple trades union: it is
the fact that the working class is not organized.
And I have shown you that the pure and simple
trades union is unable to organize the working
class; that it keeps the working class hopelessly
divided.
The majority of the voters are workingmen.
But even if this majority were to sweep the
political field on a classconscious, that is, a bona
fide labor or Socialist ticket, they would find the
capitalist able to throw the country into the
chaos of a panic and to famine unless they, the
workingmen, were so well organized in the
shops that they could laugh at all shut-down
orders, and carry on production.
Such a complete organization is impossible
under pure and simple trades union methods;
being impossible on the industrial field, the
seeming unity that swept the political field
would be a flash in the pan.
Political organization must necessarily
partake today of capitalist conditions;
accordingly, the votes cast for a Congressman,
for instance, are not the votes of any one trade,
but of a mixture of scores of trades.
Civilized society will know no such ridiculous
thing as geographic constituencies. It will only
know industrial constituencies. The parliament
of civilization in America will consist, not of
Congressmen from geographic districts, but of
representatives of trades throughout the land,
and their legislative work will not be the
complicated one which a society of conflicting
interests, such as capitalism, requires but the
easy one which can be summed up in the
statistics of the wealth needed, the wealth
producible, and the work required”and that any
average set of workingmen’s representatives are
fully able to ascertain, infinitely better than our
modern rhetoricians in Congress.
But we are not there yet, nor will we be there
the day we shall have swept the political field.
We shall not be there for the simple reason that
in order to get there through that first political
victory we shall have been compelled to travel
along the lines of capitalist political
demarcations; and these I have shown you are
essentially non-unionist; that is to say, they
ignore industrial bonds and recognize only
geographic ones.
It follows that, today, the very best of political
organization is wholly exclusive of industrial
organization, and will have to continue so until
the political victory has been won, and the
trades organizations have been able to continue
production in the teeth of capitalist revolt; until
the nation shall have had time to reconstruct
itself upon the labor”that is, the Socialist basis.
Thus we see that the head of the lance of the
Socialist movement is worthless without the
shaft. We see that they are not even parallel, but
closely connected affairs; we see that the one
needs the other, that while the head, the political
movement, is essential in its way, the shaft of
the lance, the industrial movement, is requisite
to give it steadiness. The labor movement that
has not a well-pointed political lance-head can
never rise above the babe condition in which the
union is originally born; on the other hand,
unhappy the political movement of labor that
has not the shaft of the trades union organization
to steady it. It will inevitably become a freak
affair. The head of the lance may “get there,”
but unless it drags in its wake the strong shaft of
the trades union it will have “got there” to no
purpose.
Accordingly, the trades union question is
indeed a burning one. On it is pivoted the
success of the Socialist movement. And for the
reason I have indicated, the confusion on the
subject is inevitable.
Seeing that a thing called a union may act as a
drag upon the Socialist movement, the
temptation is strong upon the part of anti-
unionists to drop it. I have shown you how fatal
such dropping would be. The political and the
industrial movement are one; he who separates
them dislocates the Socialist movement.
I should not close without some concreter
advice. Should we join unions? Should we not
join them? It seems to me these concrete
questions stand answered by what I have said
before. Nevertheless, he in whose mind such a
question still arises is led thereto by the thought
of the corrupt practices that exist in unions. I
shall take up that point summarily. It now can
be handled without giving it undue proportions.
It now may even be handled to advantage and
help to clinch previous points.
There is no difference between what is called
the corruption in the unions and what is noticed
in shipwrecks when men become cannibals. I
cannot now think of any of the numerous
corrupt labor leaders, whom we all know of,
who did not start honest enough. But coupled to
his honesty was ignorance. He knew not the
kind of a weapon that labor instinctively raises
its arm to ward off when it shapes itself into
unions. He failed, of course. He then imputed
the failure to inevitableness. The capitalist
helped him along. He lost all hope in the
working class. He then decided to feather his
own nest. Friendly relations between him and
capitalist thought followed inevitably, and he
became what Mark Hanna so well called
him”the labor lieutenant of the capitalist class.
In that capacity we have seen him engineer
strikes in favor of one competing capitalist’
against another. In that capacity we have seen
him act as an agent of the stock exchange,
starting strikes to lower stock, or keeping up
strikes to favor competing concerns.
Of course, he could not do this if the rank and
file of the union were enlightened. For this
reason it was in his interest, and in the interest
of the class whose lieutenant he is, to keep
enlightenment from the masses.
Frequently, also, his position enables him to
compel the workingmen of his trade to accept
his yoke before they can get work.
He who says remedy this evil by any one
means holds silly language. The evil must be
attacked by as many means as seem available.
Shall we then “join unions"? The Socialist
Labor Party has answered the question by
endorsing the Socialist Trade and Labor
Alliance, and by waging unflagging war against
the Gompers pack; and the answer that the party
gave is justified by the light of the analysis that I
have submitted to you.
That analysis shows you that trades
organizations are essential; they are essential to
break the force of the onslaught of the capitalist,
but this advantage is fruitful of good only in the
measure that the organization prepares itself for
the day of final victory.
Accordingly, it must be every Socialist’s
endeavor to organize his trade. If there is an
organization of his trade in existence that is not
in the hand of a labor lieutenant of capital, he
should join it and wheel it into line with the
Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance.
If, however, the organization is entirely in the
hands of such a labor lieutenant of capital; if its
membership is grown so fast to him and he to
them, that the one cannot be shaken from the
other; if, accordingly, the organization, obedient
to the spirit of capitalism, insists upon dividing
the working class by barriers more or less high
and chicanery against the admission of all the
members of the trade who apply for admission;
if his grip of mental corruption upon it is such as
to cause a majority of its members to applaud
and second his endeavors to keep that majority
at work at the sacrifice of the minority within
and of the large majority of the trade without”in
that and in all such cases, such an organization
is not a limb of the labor movement, it is a limb
of capitalism; it is a guild; it is a degeneration
back to the old starting point of the bourgeois or
capitalist class; and though it decks itself with
the name of “labor” it is but a caricature,
because a belated reproduction, of the old guild
system.
Such a bizarre resuscitation of pristine
bourgeois organizations may mask itself all it
likes with the mask of “labor,” but it does so
only to the injury of the working class, of the
proletariat, and it deserves no quarter at the
Socialist’s hands.
Such an organization is no more a labor
organization than is the army of the czar of
Russia, which, though composed wholly of
workingmen, is officered by the exploiting
class. In such a case the Socialist must endeavor
to set up a bona fide labor trades union and to do
what he can to smash the fraud. The labor
cannon that one day will surely decimate the
czar’s army, and defeat it, will bring redemption
even to the workingmen in that army, although
many of them may be killed by it.
Let me sum up, starting with where I closed.
In the first place, the trades union has a
supreme mission. That mission is nothing short
of organizing by uniting, and uniting by
organizing, the whole working class
industrially”not merely those for whom there
are jobs, accordingly, not only those who can
pay dues. This unification or organization is
essential in order to save the eventual and
possible victory from bankruptcy, by enabling
the working class to assume and conduct
production the moment the guns of the public
powers fall into its hands”or before, if need be,
if capitalist political chicanery pollutes the
ballot box. The mission is important also in that
the industrial organization forecasts the future
constituencies of the parliaments of the Socialist
Republic.
In the second place, the trades union has an
immediate mission. The supreme mission of
trades unionism is ultimate. That day is not yet.
The road thither may be long or short, but it is
arduous. At any rate, we are not yet there.
Steps in the right direction, so-called
“immediate demands,” are among the most
precarious. They are precarious because they are
subject and prone to the lure of the “sop” or the
“palliative” that the foes of labor’s redemption
are ever ready to dangle before the eyes of the
working class, and at which, aided by the labor
lieutenants of the capitalist class, the unwary are
apt to snap”and be hooked.
But there is a test by which the bait can be
distinguished from the sound step, by which the
trap can be detected and avoided, and yet the
right step forward taken. That test is this: Does
the contemplated step square with the ultimate
aim? If it does, then the step is sound and safe;
if it does not, then the step is a trap and
disastrous.
The “immediate step” that acts like a brake on
the decline of wages belongs to the former
category, provided only the nature of the brake
is not such that it inevitably invites a future
decline, that requires a further brake and which
brake only invites some later decline, and so on,
towards a catastrophe or towards final
cooliedom.
We have seen that the pure and simple trades
union belongs to the latter category, the
category of “traps,” and we have seen the reason
why”it is merely a jobs-securing machine;
consequently, it inevitably rends the working
class in twain and, on the whole, has the love
and affection of the capitalist exploiter.
In the third place, and finally, the union
formation, with its possibility for good, being a
natural, an instinctive move, is bound to appear,
and reappear, and keep on reappearing, forever
offering to the intelligent, serious and honest
men in the labor or Socialist movement the
opportunity to utilize that instinctive move by
equipping it with the proper knowledge, the
proper weapon, that shall save it from switching
off into the pure and simple quagmire so
beloved, and develop into the new trades union
so hated of capitalism.
This is the theoretical part of the burning
question of trades unionism. Its practical part
implies struggle, dauntless struggle against, and
war to the knife with that combination of
ignoramuses, ripened into reprobates”the labor
faker who seeks to coin the helplessness of the
proletariat into cash for himself, and the
“intellectual” (God save the mark!) who has so
superficial a knowledge of things that the
mission of unionism is a closed book to him;
who believes the union will “fritter out of
existence"; who, consequently, is actually
against the union, all his pretenses of love for it
notwithstanding; and who meantime imagines
he can promote Socialism by howling with pure
and simple wolves that keep the working class
divided and, consequently, bar the path for the
triumph of Socialism, or, as the capitalist Wall
Street Journal well expressed it, “constitute the
bulwark of modern society against Socialism.”
The trades union question is, accordingly, not
only a burning one, it presents the most trying
aspect of the Socialist movement. It brings
home to us the fact that not theory only is
needed but manly fortitude -- that fortitude
which the Socialist Labor Party gathers, builds
and tests, and without which the Socialist or
labor movement becomes ridiculous or
infamous.
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