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 TRADE UNIONISM IN 
 THE UNITED STATES
 
 TRADE UNIONISM IN THE 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT FRANKLIN HOXIE, Ph.D. 
 
 ONE TIME ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMT, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 ADTBOB OF "SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND LABOR*' 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 E. H. DOWNEY, Ph.D. 
 
 BPKCIAL DEPUTY OF THE INSURANCE COMMISSION OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 IN CHARGE OF WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION INSURANCE, 
 
 LATE CHIEF STATISTICIAN OF THE INDUSTRIAL 
 
 COMMISSION OF WISCONSIN 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YOBK LONDON 
 
 1921
 
 COPTRIQHT, 1917, By 
 
 1\ APPLETON AND COMPANY: 
 
 Printed in the UnitecJ States of America
 
 Itet. lndu& 
 
 HD 
 
 
 The main reason for teaching, to me, is to open the 
 students' minds to the possibility of questioning the 
 fundamentals of current thinking. I want to turn out 
 men who cannot be led naively by current judgments 
 but who will subject these judgments to tests based on 
 the validity of their underlying assumptions — in short, 
 socially sophisticated, thinking men. 
 
 R. F. H. 
 
 60279G 
 
 mST. INDUS. REL.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The book here presented is the result of an effort to 
 reproduce as faithfully as possible the notes and lectures 
 on Trade Unionism used by Robert F. Hoxie during his 
 last year of teaching in the University of Chicago, and to 
 combine them with some of his chapters previously pub- 
 lished. 
 
 This material had been prepared by him without thought 
 of publication in this form. Only lack of time prevented the 
 reorganization of it and much rewriting before it was 
 again used in the classroom when in the fall of 191 5 he 
 resumed teaching after a year of study and investigation of 
 the relations of labor and scientific management. In view 
 of these facts it was a question whether the notes could be 
 published without injustice to one in whom the love of 
 thoroughness and perfection was a ruling passion. But 
 doubt on this point was set at rest by those to whom a first 
 copy of the manuscript was submitted, who were unani- 
 mously of the opinion that notwithstanding its incomplete- 
 ness and the fact that its author would have made great 
 changes before embodying any portion of it in the book 
 on Trade Unionism, to which he looked forward as the 
 main work of coming years, there was in the notes value 
 which altogether justified their publication. 
 
 Largely owing to the method of study and teaching which 
 Mr. Downey, in the Introduction, has described and to the 
 nature of the social laboratory which Trade Unionism 
 offers, it has not been possible to use all the notes, nor to 
 present without gaps the systematic treatment of the sub- 
 ject and its whole foundation of evidence which the class 
 received and which a reader of the completed text would 
 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 have had. Nevertheless, no attempt has been made to fill 
 in the gaps by introducing material worked out by another 
 hand. 
 
 The work of preparing the manuscript for the printer 
 has consisted mainly in bringing the material together into 
 chapters, using for this purpose the author's course outline 
 and titles. There were many pages in the form of speaker's 
 notes. Where these were full enough t^ be used they were 
 drawn together by a word, or, rarely, a sentence for the 
 sake of clearness and form. The major portion of the 
 book, however, is a word for word transcription. 
 
 Certain omissions were necessary. It was found im- 
 possible to use in Chapter IV some of the historical notes 
 which had been gathered for the verification of the hypothe- 
 sis of functional types in Chapter III. Some notes con- 
 cerning men and situations in the union movement it was 
 necessary to omit as of a nature too intimate or personal 
 for publication ; also those on the discussion of the current 
 events of unionism, of little importance in themselves. As 
 far as possible, repetitions due to pedagogical requirements 
 have been left out, but in several cases, such as in the 
 reconsideration of the functional group theory in "Social 
 Control" after its statement in the "Problem," or the state- 
 ment of the classical economic theory of society- first in 
 "Employers' Associations," and again in "Social Control," 
 the restatement has been too closely interwoven with the 
 fabric of the chapter to be dispensed with. 
 
 On the other hand there have been some additions to the 
 material of the Trade Union course proper. Preceding the 
 work on Trade Unions in 191 5, Mr. Hoxie gave a course 
 on Labor Conditions and Problems, which served as an 
 introduction for the trade union work. From the notes on 
 this course have been included the discussion of social 
 theories found in the chapter on "Social Control." A course 
 on Scientific Management and Labor Welfare in the spring 
 of 1916 carried forward the consideration of the theory
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 of unionism and the attitude of organized labor into the 
 field of "the latest phase of capitalistic industrial develop- 
 ment," and showed the program of unionism in action. For 
 this purpose the lecture on the "Economic Program" was 
 written. The ground of the remaining notes on this course 
 was covered by Mr. Hoxie's last articles, "Scientific Man- 
 agement and Labor Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, 
 vol. XXIV, pp. 833-854, and "Why Organized Labor Op- 
 poses Scientific Management," Quarterly Journal of Eco- 
 nomics, vol. XXXII, pp. 62-85. These have been used as 
 Chapters XII and XIII. 
 
 In Chapter VI, for the notes on the Industrial Workers 
 of the World and Syndicalism, have been substituted "The 
 Truth About the I. W. W.," Journal of Political Economy, 
 vol. XXI, pp. 785-797, and a portion of a discussion of 
 Mr. J. G. Brooks' paper on Syndicalism before the American 
 Economic Association, American Economic Review Supple- 
 ment, IV, no. I, 136-144. The last part of this chapter, 
 the discussion of revolutionary unionism, is one of three 
 lectures delivered in the spring of 1914 at the University of 
 Michigan. Chapters II and III, "General Character and 
 Types," and "The Essence of Unionism and the Interpreta- 
 tion of Union Types," are from the Journal of Political 
 Economy, vol. XXII. pp. 201-217, 464-487, and were the 
 first articles of the projected series on "Trade Unionism in 
 the United States," begun in 1914. Finally, there have been 
 added "Notes on Method." The first of these, "Historical 
 Method vs. Historical Narrative," Journal of Political Econ- 
 omy, vol. XIV., pp. 568-572, was uniformly used in the con- 
 sideration of the method to be followed in the study of 
 unionism. Mr. Hoxie's own writing was a "practical ap- 
 plication of the methods outlined in it," and he evidently re- 
 garded it, Professor Hamilton thinks {Journal of Political 
 Economy, vol. XXIV, p. 878), "as the first article of his 
 trade union series." 
 
 While the body of the trade union notes is a growth of
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 several years, the larger part of the book is the product 
 of the last two or three. Chapters XI to XIV inclusive are 
 the work of 1915-1916. Chapters II, III, IV, and part of 
 Chapter VI were written in 1914. The notes themselves 
 were reorganized and partly rewritten in 1913. 
 
 In the preparation of these notes and lectures for publi- 
 cation many have borne a part. For encouragement and 
 for varied assistance most cordial thanks are due to several 
 of the author's friends, to officers of the University, to his 
 colleagues in the department of Economics and his students. 
 Professors Henry W. Stuart, Walton H. Hamilton, Harry 
 A. Millis and Mr. E. H. Downey have given the manuscript 
 careful reading and offered valuable advice ; Professor 
 Addison W. Moore has given helpful suggestions on the 
 chapter on "Employers' Associations," and Mr. John P. 
 Frey on "Present Union Groups," and "Leaders and the 
 Rank and File;" Miss Leona M. Powell, Mr. Dwight San- 
 derson, Miss Frieda Miller, and Miss Mollie Ray Carroll, 
 former students, have been consulted on some points. 
 Miss Powell's class notes have been used for reference 
 throughout the work and Miss Carroll has cooperated in 
 the preparation of "The Trade Union Program." 
 
 Especial and grateful acknowledgment must be made of 
 the generous assistance and helpful advice in the work of 
 editing given by Professor John R. Commons, who has also 
 read the manuscript in its final form, and by Professor 
 Alvin S. Johnson, who has assisted in the revision of the 
 proof. 
 
 Permission to use material already in print has been kindly 
 granted by the editors of the Journal of Political Economy, 
 of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and of the American 
 Economic Review, 
 
 Lucy B. Hoxie. 
 Nathan Fine.
 
 INTRODUCTION^ 
 
 Like all social movements which excite the hopes and 
 fears of men, trade unionism has more often been the object 
 of passionate denunciation or defense than of scientific in- 
 quiry. It is not simply that unionism counts some three 
 million adherents in the United States alone and directly 
 affects the wages and working conditions of perhaps an 
 equal number who stand outside its official membership; 
 nor simply that it interferes with the profits of employers 
 and with their assumed right to manage business enterprises 
 in their own way ; it touches intimately the life and work 
 of millions of families; it is able to create profound dis- 
 turbances in that intricate web of economic relationships 
 wherein the tissue of business life consists, amounting upon 
 occasion to a dramatic interruption in the flow of goods 
 and services without which no modern community can sub- 
 sist; more than all else, it calls in question some of the 
 most fundamental presuppositions of present day law and 
 order. For ours is, in great part, a business man's govern- 
 ment, and our codes of law embody the business man's 
 rules of the game. The business man's right to employ or 
 discharge whom he will, to fix the rate and mode of pay- 
 ment and the hours and conditions of work at his own dis- 
 cretion, to set industry in motion or break off the produc- 
 tive process whenever he sees his own advantage in so do- 
 ing, and without responsibility for the livelihood of the in- 
 dustrial population — these rights are involved in the legal 
 
 ^ The extent of the writer's indebtedness to Professors Hoxie 
 and Veblen, in respect to general standpoint and even phrase- 
 ology, will be obvious to all. 
 
 xi
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 conceptions of private property and free enterprise; they 
 are recognized by the common law and the co^^stitution; in 
 support of them the business man can appeal to the courts, 
 the police and even the military arm of the state. A chal- 
 lenge to these prerogatives of business enterprise is in 
 some sort a challenge to the existing social organization ; by 
 traversing them unionism moves the passionate opposition, 
 not alone of those whose pecuniary interests are directly at 
 stake, but of social groups who are only remotely affected 
 and whose attachment to the capitalistic system derives 
 mainly from tradition. Disinterestedness in such a question 
 is not the same thing as the absence of bias ; the received 
 institutions of any society are so charged with emotional 
 content that an impartial view of them can only be attained 
 by those who are acquainted with institutional history. 
 Hence we see, not alone the thoughtless multitude, but law- 
 yers and clergymen, economists and social workers, take 
 sides for or against unionism accordingly as their training 
 and associations have given them more of the wage earn- 
 er's or of the business man's point of view. ^ 
 
 Even those who are able to dissociate themselves from 
 class prejudices and from the fundamental assumptions 
 of the existing social order find it no easy matter to as- 
 certain so much as the objective facts of unionism. The 
 American labor movement has a history of above one hun- 
 dred years. It is diffused through thousands of local units 
 and presents a bewildering variety of structure, policies, 
 aims and ideals. The original sources of information, per- 
 sonal and documentary, union and anti-union, are fragmen- 
 tal, contradictory, widely scattered, often difficult of access, 
 nearly always strongly partisan, sometimes even willfully 
 misleading. Much of the record — and that by no means 
 the least important part — was never committed to paper; 
 most of what has been preserved consists of ephemeral 
 
 1 For illustrations see the various pamphlets of the National 
 Manufacturers' Association.
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 pamphlets and news items, commonly of a propagandist 
 character. To sift out the significant facts from this mass 
 of ex parte evidence, to distinguish the typical from the ex- 
 ceptional, and to arrange the whole in just order and pro- 
 portion, is a task which the combined labor of many scho- 
 lars has not sufficed to accomplish. Least of all has the 
 obscurity been cleared away from that elusive mass of be- 
 liefs, sentiments, ideals and aspirations touching economic 
 relationships which go to make up the social philosophy 
 of unionism and which account for much of its significance 
 to unionists themselves and to society at large. 
 
 Yet it is not enough to obtain a dispassionate view or 
 even to ascertain the objective facts. Fruitful understand- 
 ing of any social movement depends not alone upon know- 
 ledge of the features peculiar to it, but upon the ability to 
 relate those features to social phenomena of a more general 
 character, to disentangle the relevant circumstances out of 
 which the particular movement arose, to set forth the effi- 
 cient causes which shaped its growth and to show what it is 
 becoming under the influence of forces which are currently 
 at work within it or which impinge upon it. For group 
 action is conditioned by group thought and group thought 
 depends in turn upon group experience, so that any useful 
 study of a social movement, more particularly of a class 
 movement, necessarily becomes a genetic inquiry into group 
 psychology. Such an inquiry, however, is at once confront- 
 ed by all those obstacles which derive from the present rudi- 
 m„entary state of social science. The student of unionism, 
 of political parties or of business enterprise, must make 
 use of many generalizations which have yet to be estab- 
 lished — among them the origin and functioning of social 
 classes, the role of class conflict in the life of communities 
 and the relative weight of heredity and choice, of tradition 
 and personal experience, and of economics and general so- 
 cial environment in determining institutional growth and 
 decay. Where so little can be taken as securely given, the
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 labor of research is n^ultipHed many fold, for the investi- 
 gator of each special field must needs formulate even the 
 general social theories in terms of which the phenomena 
 under his immediate observation are to be interpreted. 
 
 For all these reasons the making of many books has 
 afforded comparatively little insight into the nature and 
 causes of American trade unionism. Those v^ho know most 
 about the subject can scarcely be expected to furnish a de- 
 tached view or to interpret the concrete facts in terms of 
 social science at large. Of those who have surveyed the move- 
 ment from without, many have been disqualified by want 
 of knowledge or trammeled by narrowing preconceptions. 
 Some have poured forth a flood of pious sentiment, often 
 effective as homiletics but not particularly illuminating; 
 some have given a purely economic interpretation and been 
 thereby constrained to ignore important elements of their 
 problem ; others have thought it sufficient to show that cer- 
 tain trade union activities do not jump with orthodox econ- 
 omic theory or with received notions of property and free 
 contract. Others, still, have thought to achieve a purely 
 objective treatment by eschewing all interpretation. The 
 result of this last endeavor is a mass of narrative and 
 descriptive literature, useful enough as the raw material 
 of scientific inquiry, but, in its present form, valueless as 
 a basis for social action. Few, out of patient research, have 
 brought forth even a partial interpretation in causal terms. 
 Among this elect number Professor Hoxie will hold a high 
 and secure place. 
 
 To the baffling subject with which his best work is so 
 closely identified. Professor Hoxie brought a very excep- 
 tional equipment. Trained originally in the straitest sect of 
 cloister economics, he had the good fortune to escape its in- 
 fluence before his teachers had succeeded in dulling his 
 appetite for reality. In the net result, indeed, he profited 
 even from the metaphysicians, for they did but sharpen a 
 keenly analytic mind upon the subtleties of marginal utili-
 
 INTRODUCTiON xv 
 
 tarianism. Falling next under the potent spell of Thorstein 
 Veblen, he acquired the genetic standpoint, a wide acquain- 
 tance with cultural history and an abiding interest in insti- 
 tutional development. After this varied apprenticeship he 
 devoted himself for the space of more than ten years to an 
 intensive study of American trade unionism. The litera- 
 ture of the subject, propagandist and scientific, union and 
 anti-union, he made his own ; but it was the living move- 
 ment that chiefly held his interest. By painstaking analy- 
 sis of documentary sources, by persistent attendance at 
 union and employers' meetings, by personal interviews with 
 scores of union and employers' leaders, above all by long 
 continued and intimate contact with unionists of many types, 
 he strove to ascertain the objective facts of unionism, to ex- 
 plain the causes which have shaped the movement and 
 ■uch are progressively changing it, to determine its drift, 
 
 d to define its meaning for the community life of which 
 . is a part. In the course of this study he was led into 
 many fields of inquiry — wage theory, socialism, pragmatic 
 philosophy, social psychology, employers' associations and 
 scientific management. But unionism remained always his 
 central problem; to it he returned with fresh zest after each 
 excursus, and upon it all his other studies were made to 
 bear. 
 
 To expound Professor Hoxie's trade union views at 
 length, or attempt a detailed appraisal, would far overpass 
 the reasonable limits of an introduction. It may be worth 
 while, however, to indicate his outlook and the main results 
 to which it led him. It has already been said that he ap- 
 proached his subject from the genetic standpoint, by which 
 is meant that he aimed at a reasoned explanation of trade 
 unionism in terms of the efficient causes which have made 
 the movement what it is, and is becoming. Seen from this 
 point of view a union is not so much an outward organi- 
 zation as a like-minded group. The effectual bond which 
 unites a body of wageworkers is not a constitution and
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 by-laws, a set of officers and a treasury, but a conscious- 
 ness of common needs and aims, a common outlook on life, 
 and a common program for the betterment of their lot. To 
 employ Professor Hoxie's terminology, the essence of 
 unionism is a social philosophy — an interpretation of the so- 
 cial facts and relationships which impinge upon the group 
 in question, and a solution of the practical problems which 
 these present. The interpretation miay be wide or narrow, 
 explicitly formulated or implicit and ill defined; the pro- 
 gram may concern itself solely with conditions of employ- 
 ment or it may look to the economic and political regenera- 
 tion of society. Some social philosophy, however, more or 
 less consistent and far-reaching, and some generally ac- 
 cepted scheme of policies and methods, are the sine qua non 
 of common action. 
 
 This method of approach led Professor Hoxie to a . e 
 ception of unionism which differs in important resp r<. 
 from the views current in the schools. Others have cop. 
 ously illustrated the structural details and the narrative his- 
 tory of union organizations, have set forth the environ- 
 nxental, more especially the economic, factors which have 
 contributed to union growth and decay, and have told us 
 much of the social creeds which unions impose upon their 
 members, but they have had little to say of the human 
 materials out of which unions are formed or of the mani- 
 fold influences which go to shape trade union beliefs, ideals 
 and aspirations. Professor Hoxie early focused his at- 
 tention upon union functioning and the habits of thought 
 which determine union action. Viewed in this way, he 
 found unionism to be not a single social movement, but an 
 imperfect fusion of several, no one of which can be ade- 
 quately accounted for in purely economic terms. Shortly 
 expressed, his analysis of unionism is characterized by 
 emphasis upon function, the distinction of fundamental 
 types and a pluralistic causal interpretation. 
 
 From a functional standpoint, Professor Hoxie distin-
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 g^ishes five types of unionism (not to mention sub-vari- 
 ants) which differ among themselves in aims, methods, and 
 attitude toward existing institutions. Business unionism, 
 accepting the wage system as it is, seeks the best obtain- 
 able terms of employment for its own membership. Its 
 method is collective bargaining supplemented by mutual in- 
 surance and occasional resort to strikes ; its outlook is that 
 of the craft or trade, its aims are somewhat narrowly 
 economic. The railway brotherhoods furnish the stock il- 
 lustration, though the type is dominant in the American 
 Federation of Labor as well. Uplift unionism accepts, 
 along with the wage system, the whole existing social 
 order. Its mission is the diffusion of leisure-class culture 
 and bourgeois virtues among the workers. Mutual insur- 
 ance is its main function and homiletics its preoccupation. 
 There is no representative of the pure type — unless the 
 Woman's Trade Union league be accepted as such — but 
 there is a strong infusion of upHft idealism in most unions 
 that are dominated by the business animus. Revolutionary 
 unionism avowedly aims at the overthrow of the extant 
 socio-economic order by and for the working class. Its 
 two variants — socialistic and quasi-anarchistic — are suffi- 
 ciently represented by the Detroit and Chicago organiza- 
 tions of the I. W. W.^ Predatory unionism practices se- 
 cret, rather than open, violence. It is lawless, and in so far 
 anarchistic, but it professes no far-reaching philosophy, nor 
 does it aim at anything beyond the immediate economic ad- 
 vantage of its own membership. When this ruthless policy 
 is a counsel of despair, the continuation of a bitter struggle 
 which has gone against the union and the practical answer 
 to a policy of extermination on the part of employers, 
 
 * Professor Hoxie cites the Western Federation of Miners as 
 a socialistic union. But though the official program of this 
 union is a synopsis of the Communist Manifesto, its actual 
 methods in later years are more nearly of the ordinary business 
 type.
 
 3cvm INTRODUCTION 
 
 Professor Hoxie terms the resultant subspecies guerrilla 
 unionism. The dynamiting career of the Structural Iron 
 Workers is a familiar example. When, on the other hand, 
 predation is deliberately adopted for the aggrandizement 
 of a narrow ring, he applies the more opprobrious epithet 
 of hold-up unionism. The term is not altogether happy. 
 Cunning characterizes the type still more than force ; its 
 most brilliant successes have been gained by illicit alliance 
 with monopoly-seeking employers. "Skinny" Madden and 
 "Sam" Parks are the beaux ideal of the type. It is fair to 
 add that predatory unionism, in both its forms, is more 
 picturesque than significant. Dependent unionism appears 
 in two forms : that which relies upon the support of union- 
 ists outside the group concerned and that which is created 
 by employers for ends of their own. Some "label" unions 
 are at least partially dependent in the former sense ; all 
 "yellow" unions are wholly dependent in the latter sense. 
 
 Manifestly we have here to do with something more than 
 variants from a single norm. These are so many distinct 
 and conflicting social philosophies in terms of the special 
 needs and problems of wageworkers. Each offers an in- 
 terpretation of existing law and order and a plan of united 
 action for the attainment of more tolerable conditions of 
 life ; each is held by large numbers of wageworkers who 
 carry on an active propaganda for the conversion of their 
 fellows, and each aspires to possess the field. ^ These func- 
 tional varieties, then, are true union types, as distinct as the 
 industrial and craft forms of organization and far more 
 significant. 
 
 No functional type, it must be owned, is precisely rep- 
 resented by any concrete union, past or present; which 
 comes to saying that no union is altogether homogeneous 
 in respect to aims, policies, and attitude. Rival types coex- 
 
 ^ This statement needs some qualification. The predatory 
 type has shown little tendency to proselytize, and the propa- 
 ganda of "yellow" unionism is carried on by the employers.
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 1st and struggle for the mastery within the same organiza- 
 tion. As already mentioned, the American Federation of 
 Labor is dominantly of the business type ; nevertheless, a 
 strong and active socialist minority exists in the federation 
 itself and in most of the constituent unions. The conflict 
 of business and revolutionary unionism is waged in the 
 official publications, in local meetings and general conven- 
 tions, and in elections and referenda. Even the ultra-rev- 
 olutionary I. W. W. has been torn by internecine strife 
 between anarchist and socialist groups. 
 
 This want of identity between functional and structural 
 lines of cleavage has obscured the existence of the former. 
 The organization has an outward and visible identity. It 
 adopts constitutions and by-laws, holds conventions, enters 
 into trade agreements, and conducts strikes; above all, it 
 bears a proper name as the attestation of its corporeality. 
 The like-minded group which constitutes a functional type 
 has not these hall-marks of tangibility. It is probable that 
 no functional type has ever been able to possess itself ab- 
 solutely of any important organization or to get itself em- 
 bodied without admixture in any considerable number of 
 union programs. None the less, these types do exist and 
 have persisted for decades. Business and uplift unionism 
 date from the eighteenth century. Revolutionary unionism 
 has been present in the American Federation of Labor from 
 its beginning and was present also in its predecessors. The 
 struggle of these three types for the mastery (the other 
 two being of minor consequence) has shaped the internal 
 history of the labor movement. The functional character 
 of the leading unions has shifted from period to period as 
 one or another type has gained a position of dominance, but 
 no major type has ever wholly disappeared or lost its dis- 
 tinctive character. 
 
 The emergence and the persistence of these union types 
 cannot be explained by work-day environment alone, for 
 radical divergencies of group viewpoint and attitude are
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 found among the members of the same trade employed in 
 the same establishment and such divergencies have endured 
 for half a century even within a single craft organization— 
 e. g., the Cigar Makers' International Union. Nor is econ- 
 omic circumstance, however broadly conceived, adequate 
 to account for the phenomena. On the one hand, the most 
 diverse types coexist under similar industrial and market 
 conditions ; on the other hand, the same types have survived 
 the most startling economic transformations. 
 
 The social philosophy of unionism relates to the practi- 
 cal (mainly economic) problems which confront wage- 
 workers as such, and it turns upon conditions of work and 
 livelihood and upon the politico-economic institutions which 
 govern these conditions. But this philosophy is shaped by 
 the whole mass of influences — personal and cultural — which 
 bear upon the workers involved. For man is, after all, a 
 single person. The several aspects of his life cannot be iso- 
 lated one from another; the habits of thought which he 
 has acquired as a citizen, a churchman, or a pleasure-seeker 
 guide him also in his work-day pursuits. Rejecting, there- 
 fore, every attempt to give a monistic explanation, Pro- 
 fessor Hoxie has sought to analyze the efficient causes ac- 
 tually observable in the evolution of unionism. These 
 causes may be grouped under five heads :^ 
 
 1. The work-day environment proper, which operates in 
 manifold ways to produce solidarity among the workmen of 
 a given trade or industry, Tliis is the most obvious factor 
 in the case, the one which is best understood and which has 
 received the most attention from students of the subject. 
 
 2, Union tradition, itself in great part the spiritual dis- 
 tillate of experience and consequently differing from union 
 to union, but within each organization acting as a consoli- 
 dating force. 
 
 * The analysis here given is more detailed than that con- 
 tained in Professor Iloxic's third chapter, but seems to the 
 writer fully consonant therewith.
 
 INTRODUCTION ;cxi 
 
 3. The immediate social milieu, comprising those eco- 
 nomic, juridical, ethical, aesthetic, religious, and other insti- 
 tutional standards, convictions, and relationships which make 
 up the prevalent civilization. A large part of this cultural 
 complex impinges with a fair degree of uniformity upon 
 the members of the same occupational group at a given 
 time and place, and so favors a group interpretation and 
 program. Another part, however — e. g., aesthetic and re- 
 ligious influences — diversely affects workers of the same 
 occupation, even in the same community, and so makes for 
 the formation of subgroups. The like divergence is, of 
 course, more pronounced as between widely separated locali- 
 ties within the same large cultural situation. 
 
 4. What may be loosely termed national characteristics. 
 Workers of the same craft in the United States are gathered 
 from many nations, and, what is more to the point, from 
 widely different cultural situations. They bring to their 
 work and to their unions the most diverse convictions and 
 ideals with respect both to economic and political institu- 
 tions in general, and to the immediate problems which con- 
 front them in their capacity of wageworkers. To mold 
 these diverse elements into a homogeneous group — homo- 
 geneous as respects even the immediate problems of work 
 and pay — is a labor of time. It is also in good part a labor 
 of Sisyphus, in that it continually requires to be done anew 
 for fresh comers. 
 
 5. Congenital variation of those propensities and apti- 
 tudes which form the underlying traits of human nature. 
 Such variations may be of an individual character or they 
 may connote the presence of distinct ethnic types in our 
 mixed population. They cover a wide range and are inde- 
 pendent of recent cultural antecedents. Just what part is 
 played by these differences of native endowment, as over 
 against environment, may be a moot point, but few would 
 deny to this factor a very considerable role in shaping the 
 lives of men. Whatever its importance, it makes for di-
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 versity of the raw material and finished product of union- 
 ism. 
 
 From the varied combinations of these relatively per- 
 manent forces unionism receives its form and substance. 
 "Workers similarly situated economically and socially, 
 closely associated and not too divergent in temperament 
 (congenital endowment) and training, will tend to develop a 
 common interpretation of the social situation, and a common 
 solution of the problem of living" ^ — that is, will tend to 
 form a functional type. Obviously there will be as many 
 such types as there are groups of workers with vitally 
 different viewpoints and plans of action.^ The functional 
 character of any given union is, then, a question of the 
 psychological groups of which it is composed, and this re- 
 solves itself into a question of the personal traits and cultural 
 heritage of its members and of the environmental discipline 
 to which they have been subjected. The differentiation of 
 unions, whereby one comes to be dominantly business and 
 another dominantly socialistic in animus, is doubtless a mat- 
 ter partly of selection and partly of progressive adaptation 
 to environment. Men of certain characteristics, native and 
 acquired, choose, and are chosen for, the pursuit of locomo- 
 tive engineers; thereafter the influences of their daily life 
 and work mold their habits of thought, in many particulars, 
 to a common pattern. The members of the I. W. W. come 
 from a very different social stratum, of other natural en- 
 dowments and other cultural antecedents, and their training 
 as "hobos" enforces a very different outlook on life. These 
 forces of selection and adaptation which, on the one hand, 
 have produced the arch-type of respectable laborism, and, 
 on the other hand, have made the I. W. W. a hissing and 
 a byword among the devotees of "law and order" — these 
 forces are relatively permanent and they work out their 
 cumulative effects in permanently different combinations. 
 
 » Chap. Ill, p. 58. 
 
 *Chap. Ill, p. 61.
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 Hence the resultant union types have hitherto shown no 
 tendency to merge into one common unionism. 
 
 This view of unionism, whether as interpretation or as 
 genetic account, wants definitive verification. Neverthe- 
 less, there is sufficient warrant for the acceptance of Pro- 
 fessor Hoxie's theory as a working hypothesis. It seems to 
 accord with the known facts, it explains much in unionism 
 that is unintelligible on any other view, and it is supported 
 by the latest results of social psychology. Judicious in- 
 quirers have long perceived that a purely economic interpre- 
 tation of history does not suffice to explain even economic 
 institutions. It may well be that the extant material civiliza- 
 tion exercises a selective surveillance over other elements of 
 the cultural complex ; it may even be granted that the 
 exigencies of material life furnish the chief, if not the sole, 
 stimulus to that process of adjustment whereby all growth 
 and change of civilization are brought to pass.^ Since, how- 
 ever, this process of growth is cumulative ; since, therefore, 
 the whole cultural situation at any given moment forms the 
 starting-point for the next move, all institutions — juridical, 
 aesthetic, and religious, as well as economic — become in 
 their turn causes as well as effects. In the study of a par- 
 ticular social movement, such as labor unionism, the question 
 is not how these institutions arose, but how they have 
 affected, and have been affected by, the movement con- 
 cerned. The underlying forces, whether temperamental 
 or institutional, may be taken as data, in the sense that 
 they do not themselves require to be explained for the 
 purpose in hand ; but to abstract the economic from other 
 influences in such a case is to study the motions of a 
 puppet. 
 
 To sum up : Many have given a structural ana narrative 
 account of American labor unionism; Professor Hoxie's 
 analysis is functional and genetic. Seen from the stand- 
 
 * For a very able statement of this view, see Veblen, "The 
 Theory of the Leisure Class," Chap. VIII.
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 point of aims, ideals, methods, and theories, there is no 
 normal type to which all union variants approximate, no 
 single labor movement which has progressively adapted it- 
 self to progressive change of circumstances, no one set of 
 postulates which can be spoken of as the philosophy of 
 unionism. Rather there are competing, relatively stable 
 union types, functional and structural, the outcome of per- 
 manent differences in the temperament and situation of dif- 
 ferent groups of wageworkers. 
 
 If this pluralistic interpretation of the union movement 
 meets general acceptance, it will have important conse- 
 quences for social appraisal and action. It means that 
 unionism cannot be judged and treated as a whole, that what 
 is true of one type of union polity is not true of others, that, 
 consequently, union history points no single moral to the 
 publicist, and that no panacea, whether it be profit-shar-ing, 
 "welfare work," industrial education, minimum wage, or 
 social insurance, will meet the wishes or allay the discon- 
 tent of all important groups of wageworkers. It means, 
 further, that the errors and perversities of trade unions — 
 as seen from the middle-class standpoint — are not to be 
 corrected by much preaching. The several types of union- 
 ism are the outcome of positive conditions. Unionists are 
 what they are by reason of congenital endowment and the 
 circumstances under which they live and work. There is 
 small likelihood, therefore, that union conviction and atti- 
 tude will be much affected by any action which does not 
 change the ethnic character of the population nor alter the 
 fundamental conditions of life and work. 
 
 To the professed student of social science the special 
 significance of these studies will lie in their viewpoint and 
 method of approach. Economics, above all in the United 
 States, has heretofore stood strangely outside the current 
 of modern scientific development; its postulates are of a 
 preevolutionary order, its method is highly abstract and, a 
 priori, its interest centers in classification quite after the
 
 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 fashion of Linnaean botany.^ In Europe, though pre-Dar- 
 winism still holds the field, the evolutionary standpoint has 
 been accepted by many economists of note,^ but in this 
 country the few exponents of genetic theory have been as 
 voices crying in the wilderness. The present book will give 
 comfort, therefore, to those whose hope it is that economics 
 also may become an evolutionary science. 
 
 Like all genetic studies, this of trade unionism transcends 
 the arbitrary limits of traditional economics. Professor 
 Hoxie, in fact, essayed an inquiry into group psychology. 
 The inquiry is economic, not in the sense of isolating the 
 economic life of the groups in question from the cultural 
 situation in which that life is involved, but in virtue of the 
 fact that the convictions, aims, and aspirations inquired into 
 are such as converge upon the ways and means of liveli- 
 hood. On the other hand, the study is none the less a con- 
 tribution to social psychology because it has to do with eco- 
 nomic groups. Indeed, it is only through such detailed 
 studies of particular groups that a secure basis can be laid 
 for general sociology. For the community is not aggre- 
 gated of individuals merely ; individuals are associated in all 
 manner of groups, occupational, local, political, religious, 
 and what not, each more or less selective in point of mem- 
 bership, each imposing more or less peculiar canons of con- 
 duct, each more or less differently affected by those exigen- 
 cies making for cultural growth and decay. Useful analysis 
 of social organization and functioning, therefore, must deal 
 with these groups of which the larger society is composed. 
 
 Important, however, as are Professor Hoxie's contribu- 
 tions to trade union theory and to sociological method, it is 
 
 ^ Cf. Veblen, 'The Preconceptions of Economic Science," 
 Quarterly Journal of Economics, XIII, 121, 396; XIV, 240; 
 "The Limitations of Marginal Utility," Journal of Political 
 Economy, XVII, 620. 
 
 2 Gustav Schmoller, Werner Sombart, Tugan-Baranowsky, 
 and Paul Vinogradoff will serve to illustrate the point.
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 as a teacher that he will be most remembered by those who 
 had the good fortune to be his pupils. Year after year he 
 gave himself unreservedly to his classes, in term time and 
 vacation, devoting to the arrangement of courses, the elab- 
 oration of notes, the selection of materials and the perfec- 
 tion of pedagogic methods, that infinite care which is too 
 rarely expended even upon formal writing. He was never 
 satisfied ; after a course which any other teacher would have 
 considered brilliantly successful, he sat down to analyze the 
 causes of his "failure." He never relied upon stereotyped 
 materials. Courses which he had repeated time and again 
 were worked over afresh each term to incorporate current 
 developments and the latest results of his own reflections. 
 What with this constant revision of class notes, the daily 
 preparation that he never failed to make, and the time that 
 he gave in unstinted measure to the individual direction of 
 student research, he found scant leisure for formal writing 
 — all the less because he was a frequent sufferer from ill 
 health. But he reaped his reward, if reward it be, in widen- 
 ing the intellectual horizon and quickening the social per- 
 ception of hundreds of men and women. 
 
 Professor Hoxie was wont to lay much stress upon the 
 orientation of his classes because experience had taught him 
 that all phenomena, and more especially social phenomena, 
 are distorted by the preconceptions which adults and adoles- 
 cents bring to their consideration. Above all, in a subject 
 so beset with passionate interests as trade unionism, he 
 found it indispensable to preface his inquiry by an historical 
 and critical analysis of conventional views which served to 
 open the minds of his hearers to other conceptions of eco- 
 nomic relationships. For it lies in the social character of 
 man that the institutions and modes of thought to which 
 we have been accustomed shall seem intrinsically good and 
 beautiful. It is only as we become aware that these insti- 
 tutions themselves are not the immutable order of nature, 
 but the outcome of positive historical processes, that we
 
 INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 are able to appreciate other ideals of right and good, not as 
 mere perversities, but as objective institutional facts. Such 
 orientation would be a mere digression in a course con- 
 cerned primarily with external phenomena; it was funda- 
 mental to a course which aimed to interpret the trade union 
 point of view. The orientation was not simply preliminary ; 
 the genetic standpoint — explanation of what is in terms 
 of how it came to be — was maintained throughout so that 
 the exposition of contrasting preconceptions became a vital 
 feature of the course. In thus examining the fundamental 
 assumptions both of capitalism and of trade unionism, 
 Professor Hoxie was consciously teleological, for he appre- 
 ciated that knowledge looks to action and that the end of 
 social knowledge is social control. Only he did not forget, 
 as unconscious teleologists so often do, that effective action 
 is conditioned upon knowledge formulated in causal, genetic 
 terms. He impressed upon his students that the purpose 
 and outcome of their study should be to inform their own 
 action and attitude toward unionism, but that, before this 
 result could be attained, they must first of all understand 
 unionism, what it is and how it came to be, why unionists 
 think and act as they do and how union policies are being 
 modified by current socio-economic changes. Upon this ob- 
 jective, causal understanding of the labor movement his 
 whole attention was focused. Looking always to social 
 control of labor relationships, he yet never formulated a 
 social program, much less sought to persuade others of its 
 validity. Program making he willingly left to others, both 
 because he had not sufficiently mastered the complex facts 
 in the case and because he did not deem himself competent 
 to define the social ends toward which a comprehensive 
 labor program should be directed. His was the more modest, 
 and for the present perhaps more useful, role of causal 
 explanation. 
 
 This explicit recognition of ultimate teleological interest 
 and this insistence upon rigorous causal analysis combined
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 to give the course in trade unionism a quite peculiar objec- 
 tivity. Professor Hoxie escaped, on the one hand, the 
 sterility of those social scientists who deny all interest in 
 social values — to whom the evolution of a sleeve button 
 has the same importance as the genesis of private property 
 — and, on the other hand, avoided the pitfalls of those 
 who allow meliorative programs to predetermine their con- 
 clusions in matters of fact. His consciousness that social 
 science should contribute to human weal helped him to 
 distinguish that which is vital from that which is merely 
 curious or picturesque, while his freedom from all prop- 
 agandist bent kept him open-minded to every new fact or 
 impression. Having no program of his own to advocate, 
 he could view dispassionately the proposals of anarchists, 
 socialists or uplifters, syndicalists or anti-union employers, 
 and bring them all alike to the test of consonance with those 
 causal relationships which these several meliorists seek to 
 modify. 
 
 Pedagogically, Professor Hoxie employed the problem 
 method. His, however, was not the caricature of that 
 method which has been popularized by quiz books, outlines 
 and formal exercises. He set before his classes real prob- 
 lems of interpretation, of what, how and zvhy, which arose 
 spontaneously out of their reading and class discussion. 
 Most of these problems had to do with current aspects of 
 the labor movement, for Professor Hoxie cared little for 
 labor history as ordinarily conceived. He was interested 
 in the past, indeed, but only in so far as it served to 
 explain the present. What he sought was genetic, as 
 opposed to narrative, history.^ His concern was with the 
 present and the future of unionism, because his interest 
 was pragmatic, and it is the present and the future alone 
 that are amenable to social control. From the manifold 
 phenomena of the existing movement he raised innumerable 
 
 * See Appendix I, "Historical Method versus Historical Nar- 
 rative," p. 377. / t , ,
 
 INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 questions and he followed these questions whithersoever 
 they led ; into social psychology, it might be, or the opposed 
 institutional influence of machine discipline and religious 
 tradition, or the early history of the cordwainers* union. 
 He led his students by the same paths, sending them to 
 history only for the answers to concrete questions. The 
 genetic method, as he conceived it, was thus the pedagogic 
 also, carrying the student from existing interests to new 
 problems and giving definite direction and purpose to his 
 reading. 
 
 The problems so set increased in complexity with the 
 student's advancement ; at first merely the meaning and 
 purpose of particular clauses in trade agreements, of speci- 
 fic working rules or of certain restrictions upon local 
 autonomy, progressing thence by gradual steps to the for- 
 mulation of the trade union program and philosophy and to 
 such recondite questions as the validity of Webb's doctrine 
 of uniformity, Veblen's view of the relationship of machine 
 technology to class conflict or Hoxie's own theory of func- 
 tional union types. The sources drawn upon, aside from 
 standard works of reference, comprised original docu- 
 ments of every sort, more especially the trade agreements 
 and working rules which, not being designed for public 
 consumption, are exceptionally free from affectation, and, 
 above all, first-hand contact with union and anti-union 
 leaders of many types, for which the vast field laboratory 
 of Chicago afforded so great facilities. Before the trade 
 union class within a single term appeared the militant 
 chiefs of the National Manufacturers' Association and the 
 Metal Trades' Council, the walking delegates of the build- 
 ing trades, the head of the American Federation of Labor, 
 spokesmen of the building contractors and the railway 
 brotherhoods, the distinguished editor of the Iron Mold- 
 ers' Journal and the secretary of the I. W. W. Conversely, 
 teacher and pupils attended the Sunday meetings of the 
 Chicago Federation of Labor and meetings of local unions.
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 followed current labor news in the daily press and inter- 
 viewed many individuals in the lower ranks of leadership. 
 Nor were these mere aimless excursions or diverting breaks 
 in the class routine. Speakers before that class did not 
 escape with a set apologia ; they were called upon to answer 
 a running fire of questions from both ends of the room — 
 questions suggested as much by previous reading and dis- 
 cussion as by the speaker's own statements. Every visit 
 to a labor meeting was followed by a lively discussion of 
 its significant occurrences ; every interview was designed to 
 throw light upon some definite question. In the same 
 spirit were conceived the assigned readings, the class re- 
 ports and the term papers. Each student was expected to 
 become specially familiar with some particular union in 
 its several ways and works, to report before the class on 
 questions which he had investigated in the library or the 
 field, and to embody his own findings upon some limited 
 problem in a final theme. Problem discussion was thus the 
 life of the course; the formal lectures served merely to 
 give orientation and a connected view. As Professor 
 Hoxie sometimes said, ''the class taught itself" ; indeed, he 
 was frequently in the back row rather than behind the 
 desk. 
 
 These methods were carried furthest in the research 
 course for graduate students wherein teacher and class 
 engaged in a joint examination of fundamental theories. 
 The results obtained by the research class also led to 
 important modifications of Professor Hoxie's own views, 
 particularly as respects class conflict and the relations there- 
 to of machine technology. But, indeed. Professor Hoxie's 
 teaching, whether of graduates or undergraduates, always 
 partook of the character of a joint enterprise in the dis- 
 covery of truth. No man was ever more open to sug- 
 gestions from whatever source or more thorough in follow- 
 ing out each suggestion until he had ascertained its final 
 value and incorporated it into the general body of
 
 INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 his theory. His maturest conclusions were never more than 
 provisional. Hence his views underwent, not only con- 
 tinuous growth, but continuous change as well. This char- 
 acteristic is nowhere better seen than in his treatment of 
 class conflict. Professor Veblen's persuasive and brilliant 
 theory was at one time taught by him, not, indeed, as final, 
 but as sufficient for the purpose in hand. Gradually, how- 
 ever, he came to see that class lines in the concrete are 
 less sharp than the contrasting disciplines of business enter- 
 prise and machine industry would apparently produce if 
 acting alone, and that, correlatively, political, religious and 
 educational influences are more important than he had at 
 first supposed. He thus found himself more and more 
 in sympathy with Professor Commons' conceptions of 
 social control. 
 
 This singular open-mindedness found constant expres- 
 sion in the classroom. No teacher was ever less dogmatic 
 or less given to ex cathedra moralizing. As he was always 
 modifying his own views in the light of fuller knowledge, 
 so he led his students to formulate their conclusions, not 
 from ipse dixit, but from the evidence before them. The 
 same quality of mind made him signally devoid of partisan- 
 ship. Conventional moral judgments found no place in his 
 spoken or written words, because he was concerned with 
 the explanation of institutions, not with their justification. 
 For that very reason his influence upon his students was 
 profound and lasting. The teacher who attacks or defends 
 the existing social order will better please the groundlings 
 and will attract the larger immediate following, for he 
 appeals directly to the passionate enthusiasm of youth, 
 but he who raises heart-searching questions, awakens in- 
 tellectual interests, and lays the foundation for future 
 thought and inquiry, will contribute more to "the increase 
 and diffusion of knowledge — and of character — among 
 men." 
 
 E. H. Downey.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAO< 
 
 I. THE PROBLEM 
 
 Difficulties of the study. — Need of a definitely formu- 
 lated problem. — Social interests touched by unionism. 
 — The social psychological view of unionism. — The 
 ultimate problem one of control. — We must know 
 what unionism is. — Illustrations: Is unionism op- 
 posed to efficiency? — Does unionism aim to reduce 
 the workers to a dead level of mediocrity? — Union 
 opposition to piece work. — The use of violence. — 
 Unionism a historical product. — Genetic and causal 
 study necessary. — The scientific spirit defined. — Spe- 
 cial reason for scientific attitude in union study. — 
 Cautions to students. — Necessity for first hand study. 
 — Summary. 
 
 II. GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES . . 31 
 
 Popular interpretations and solutions of unionism. — 
 Unionism not a unified entity. — Existence of distinct 
 union types. — Structural types. — Functional types. 
 
 HL THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM AND THE IN- 
 TERPRETATION OF UNION TYPES ... 53 
 
 Tests of distinct union types. — Unionism a functional 
 group manifestation. — Arises out of the common 
 needs and problems of the wageworkers. — Conflict- 
 ing functional variants in unionism. — Orthodox 
 causal and historical interpretations of unionism. — 
 Real tests of types; concurrent existence as rival 
 forms ; relative permanence or stability. — Correlation 
 between structural and functional types. — Recapitula- 
 tion.
 
 xxxiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBB TAGS 
 
 IV. A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW ... 78 
 
 Causes of first appearance of trade unions. — Their 
 functions. — A principle of union development. — Pe- 
 riods of unionism in the United States. — Summary 
 of character and causes of development. — Structure 
 of the K|iights of Labor. — Its functions. — Causes of 
 failure. — Conclusions. 
 
 V. PRESENT UNION GROUPS 103 
 
 Tendencies in American unionism. — Railway broth- 
 erhoods. — Causes of their success. — Structure of 
 the American Federation of Labor. — The national or 
 international union. — The local. — The local and dis- 
 trict council. — The department. — The city central and 
 state federation. — The general federal body, the 
 American Federation of Labor. — Causes of its suc- 
 cess and failufe. 
 
 VI. THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE 
 WORLD AND REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM . 139 
 
 Numerical weakness of the I. W. W. in effective 
 membership, — Internal conflict — centralizers and de- 
 centralizers. — Lack of financial resources. — Charac- 
 ter of membership. — Leadership. — Syndicalism versus 
 industrial unionism. — Conclusion on the I. W. W. — 
 Alleged syndicalistic manifestations. — Do we face a 
 serious syndicalist problem? — Revolutionary union- 
 ism not to be distinguished by violence nor sabotage. 
 — Its essence and forms. — Its assumptions. — Aims of 
 the socialist unionists. — Goal of the quasi anarchistic 
 unionists. — Theories, policies and methods, — Strength 
 of revolutionary unionism. — Outlook for revolution- 
 ary unionism. 
 
 VII. THE LEADERS AND THE RANK AND FILE 177 
 Democracy in unionism. — Two classes of unionists. — 
 Causes of friction between the leaders and the rank 
 
 and file. — Character of the leaders, — The walking 
 delegate. — Relations to the body of members. — Craft
 
 CONTENTS XXXV 
 
 CHAPTER PAOB 
 
 and class consciousness of business unionists. — Con- 
 test between business and socialist unionists. 
 
 VIII. EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS . . . .188 
 Knowledge of employers' organizations needed for a 
 complete understanding of unionism. — Structural 
 
 and functional types. — Associations formed after the 
 anthracite strike. — Methods employed. — Assumptions 
 and theories. — Critical considerations. — Mediatory 
 and militant organizations. — A blow at individualism. 
 — Need of developing social consciousness. 
 
 IX. THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR . ,211 
 Purposes and method of study. — Absolutistic and 
 evolutionary concepts of society. — The concept re- 
 flected by the law. — Essential characteristics of the 
 law. — Relative bargaining power of employer and 
 employee. — Summary of the legal status of labor and 
 
 the employer. — Legal status of associations of labor. 
 — Reasons for the weak legal status of unions and 
 the resulting attitude of unionists. — How the law 
 has worked in the past. — Rise of the modern wage 
 earner. — The law an eighteenth century product. — 
 Specific constructive needs. 
 
 X. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AND THE TRADE 
 UNION PROGRAM 254 
 
 First strand of the theory of collective bargaining, 
 a theory of standardization. — Second strand, need for 
 specification of conditions of employment. — Third 
 strand, benefits to employer. — Fourth strand, double- 
 sided monopoly. — Standard of living theory. — Fixed 
 group demand theory. — Conciliation, mediation and 
 arbitration. — Essential parts of a trade agreement. — 
 Types of agreement according to scope. — Three steps 
 in the process of collective bargaining. — Necessary 
 conditions for collective bargaining. — Negotiating 
 bodies. — Illustrations, — Enforcement of agreements. 
 — Conclusions,
 
 xxxvi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XL THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM OF TRADE 
 UNIONISM 279 
 
 Mode of formulating the program. — A social philos- 
 ophy and plan of action. — Classification used. — The 
 union viewpoint is a group viewpoint. — Its principal 
 economic aims. — Fundamental assumptions and the- 
 ories. — Policies and methods of carrying its program 
 into effect. 
 
 XII. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND LABOR 
 WELFARE 296 
 
 Definition and significance of scientific management. 
 — Character and scope. — Two conceptions of time 
 and motion study. — Mechanical and human elements 
 of the industrial process. — Variable human factors. — 
 Scientific management in practice. — Generalizations 
 and conclusions. 
 
 XIII. WHY ORGANIZED LABOR OPPOSES SCI- 
 ENTIFIC MANAGEMENT . o o , . . 326 
 
 Essential character and claims made for scientific 
 management. — Opposition of labor leaders. — Causes 
 to which the opposition is ascribed. — Examination of 
 the alleged causes. — Fundamental cause. — Craft 
 unions of the dominant type are essentially business 
 organizations. — Attitude toward output and effi- 
 ciency. — Scientific management looks to constant 
 change; unionism to fixity and uniformity. — Conse- 
 quently different of attitude toward time and motion 
 study. — Fundamental principles incompatible. 
 
 XIV. SOCIAL CONTROL 350 
 
 Mechanical and psychological tests of social classes. 
 — Application for this study. — Society a series of 
 functional social groups. — Labor a complex of 
 groups. — Nature of functional groups. — Classi- 
 cal economic social theory. — Relation to an- 
 archism. — Critical consideration of its assvimp-
 
 CONTENTS xxxvii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 tions. — Socialist theory of society. — Relation to the 
 classical economic theory. — Theory of Professor 
 Veblen. — Criticism. — Progressive-uplift theory. — 
 Criticism. — Possibility of minima and maxima as the 
 way out. — Theory and action. — Specific evils and 
 remedies. 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. NOTES ON METHOD 376 
 
 II. STUDENTS' REPORT ON TRADE UNION PRO- 
 GRAM 391 
 
 INDEX 411
 
 TRADE UNIONISM IN THE 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 The field of American trade unionism is practically 
 virgin soil for the serious student of social affairs. No 
 one knows much about it except, perhaps, trade union- 
 ists themselves and employers of organized labor, and 
 their knowledge is admittedly special, narrow, scrappy 
 and altogether biased. A great deal, indeed, has been 
 written about it but this is either fragmentary or hope- 
 lessly superficial or hopelessly partisan. Academically, 
 little attempt has been made at a serious, general and 
 scientific study of it. 
 
 The study has never been standardized, therefore. 
 There are no adequate textbooks or syllabi available as 
 guides. We cannot get references that cover concisely 
 and adequately even special topics. In short, as students 
 of unionism we are left to fight our way through an 
 intricate jungle of diffused and apparently contradictory 
 facts, misguided at every step by the passion and par- 
 tisanship of interested parties and prejudiced observers. 
 Besides, unionism is in essence one of the most complex, 
 diffuse and protean of modern social phenomena. There 
 is not one local union, but probably 30,000; there is not
 
 2 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 one national union, but about 130, each with its own 
 problems to solve and its own aims, policies, attitudes and 
 methods. These unions do not amalgamate into a single 
 general organization and movement but there are many 
 independent unions and several groups and general asso- 
 ciations with vitally different viewpoints, fundamental 
 purposes, and ways of attaining them. What is true of 
 one union or group may not be true at all of another. 
 No judgments may be rendered nor generalizations made 
 in regard to unionism as such from the study of any 
 union or any small number of unions or any group. And, 
 moreover, in the realm of unionism everything is in a 
 state of flux, of constant change and development. Posi- 
 tive conclusions, therefore, are almost impossible to se- 
 cure, and tentative generalizations can be made only as 
 the result of the most broad and painstaking examination 
 of the facts and an ability to get beneath appearances, 
 to discount deliberately false and prejudiced statements, 
 for almost all sources are partisan, meant to mislead the 
 unwary. We can form even such generalizations only if 
 we can free ourselves from passion and prejudice. 
 
 It is generally conceded that, not only in the study of 
 trade unionism but in the study of any subject, we need 
 — if the results are to be worth while — a definitely for- 
 mulated problem or series of problems for solution, and 
 if we are to accomplish something worth while we must 
 get at the outset a clear conception of the nature of the 
 problem, the attitude of mind necessary to the success- 
 ful interpretation of the material and the proper method 
 of attack upon it. A mere indiscriminate study of facts, 
 a mere accumulation of information without definite 
 purpose, is not justifiable as a piece of university work 
 \xx a time when individual group competition is so keeij
 
 THE PROBLEM 3 
 
 and there is such a crying need for the development of 
 social resources and the betterment of the opportunities 
 for decent living and development for a great portion of 
 our people. The knowledge of facts is only worth while 
 when it has a use value, when it can serve a vital social 
 or human purpose. But facts can have no definite use 
 values when they are not carefully selected and for this 
 selection it is necessary to have a definite problem in 
 view which concerns vital social interests, and whose so- 
 lution is capable of throwing light on some vital human 
 or social end or ends. 
 
 From this point of view why should we study trade 
 unionism? What must we get out of the study of it if 
 it is to justify itself? What is the vital problem which 
 it presents to us as individuals and which we must strive 
 to solve through its study? We can perhaps get at this 
 matter best by asking : What vital human and social in- 
 terests does unionism touch and affect through its aims, 
 principles, policies, demands, methods and attitudes? 
 One way of doing this and at the same time of getting 
 some concrete conception of the thing, unionism, itself, 
 is through a review of the functions which unionism has 
 assumed. From a study of the list of aims, principles, 
 policies, demands, methods and attitudes, it would appear 
 that unionism affects : 
 
 ( I ) Production in almost an immeasurable number of 
 ways, through limitation of hours, overtime, Sunday and 
 holiday time; character of machinery, tools and mate- 
 rials ; new machinery and processes ; speed of work ; bar- 
 gaining ; hiring and discharging ; closed shop ; promotion ; 
 amount of work ; who shall work — whether carpenters or 
 sheet metal workers in a jurisdictional strike or dispute; 
 etc.
 
 4 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 (2) Established rights, through interferences at every 
 point with the right of the employer to run his business 
 to suit himself; with the assured right of the individual 
 worker to work where, when, for whom, and for what he 
 pleases. 
 
 (3) Distribution and capital, at the point of wages and 
 profits, by nonrecognition of profit rates and by de- 
 mands for more, more, more, now. 
 
 (4) Law and order in the matters of legal theory; nat- 
 ural order, free competition, joint combinations, injunc- 
 tions, contempts, etc. 
 
 (5) Ethical standards, through the building up by 
 trade unions of standards in conflict with those com- 
 monly held ; class loyalty as against individualism ; mini- 
 mizing property rights; setting up life as against prop- 
 erty ; the theory that might makes right ; ^ the right to 
 work; opposition to vested interests: use of physical 
 violence; use of ostracism; etc. 
 
 (6) General power over social welfare; power over 
 fuel and transportation; ability to paralyze social action 
 at any time through a strategical hold; "hunting to- 
 gether" in the building trades. 
 
 In short, it would appear that unionism has its finger 
 in practically every social pie that is baking. It con- 
 cerns itself in innumerable ways with the processes of 
 production and distribution and with the welfare of the 
 consumer. Where it is strategically located it can, if it 
 will, paralyze our whole economic activity as such. It 
 is a force affecting definitely the number, training and 
 general efficiency of our productive laborers, the organi- 
 zation of the labor market, the shop, the problems of 
 
 * An extreme illustration is furnished by the Industrial Work- 
 ers of the World,
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 living, discipline, promotion and discharge, the ho 
 labor, the employment of women and children, ' 
 ganization of industrial enterprise and the gene 
 specific methods of production, the use or ne 
 new industrial machinery and processes, the 
 and quality of the productive output, the modes v 
 ment which may be employed, the cost of production 
 commodities and the prices which we must pay for them, 
 the problems of industrial accident, disease and death, 
 and the method and extent of compensation which so- 
 ciety shall pay therefor, the certainty and continuity 
 of employment, the community problems of housing, 
 cleanliness, health, and recreation, the character of our 
 educational system, the standards of political honesty 
 and efficiency, the character of our legislation, not only 
 on industrial but on all social matters, the enforcement 
 and legal interpretation of our laws, the extent of drunk- 
 enness and vice, the general ethical and religious stand- 
 ards of the community, and hundreds of other matters 
 with which the community and every individual in it is 
 vitally concerned. 
 
 In fact, unionism is one of those group forces whose 
 influence is effective in a greater or less degree in de- 
 termining every feature and standard in our industrial, 
 political, social, ethical and religious life. The business 
 man, even though he may employ nonunion men, must 
 understand it, if he is not to become involved in har- 
 assing and ruinous difficulty, for unionism has ways of 
 making its force felt far beyond the realm of its mem- 
 bership. The consumer is never free from its influence 
 and effect; the politician must seek its support or find a 
 way to escape from its influence ; the lawyer must know 
 its purpose, contentions and force, if he is to serve his
 
 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 J, effectively; the social worker cannot proceed, 
 Ij'rom consideration of its aims and attitudes; the 
 .. I* must consider it in working out his plans and 
 [. ies if he is to be more than a mere exhorter; 
 fi teacher finds himself forced to work with or 
 iSt it. There is apparently no occupation into which 
 .ly individual may enter where unionism may not ap- 
 pear as a factor that must be taken account of. In 
 view of this we are moved to ask : Is there a single 
 social interest which is not thus affected? Is there a 
 single individual or social right which unionism may not 
 challenge or affect? Is there anything in politics, morals, 
 ethics, or religion upon which it does not have its in- 
 fluence? Apparently then, if we are to study unionism, 
 we shall study, not a narrow slice of reality, but society 
 as a whole from one particular aspect or with some 
 particular problem or series of problems in mind. 
 
 This is one view of unionism and the problem which 
 it presents. There is another statement of the matter 
 equally and perhaps more suggestive. This is the con- 
 tribution of social psychology. The social psychological 
 view of unionism and its relation to society may be 
 stated somewhat as follows: Modern realistic social 
 science has pretty definitely reached the conclusion that 
 society is made up of a great complex of interacting and 
 interlocking social groups. Each of these groups is com- 
 posed of individuals holding a common viewpoint in re- 
 gard to some vital social matter or series of such matters. 
 For example, there is something in the nature of a gen- 
 eral group of employers and a general group of laborers, 
 but both the laboring and employing groups are again 
 split into an indefinite number of smaller groups, each 
 with its peculiar viewpoint opposed to that of any other
 
 THE PROBLEM 7 
 
 group. In general, each occupation and profession is 
 likely to constitute, for certain purposes, a distinct group 
 with a definite point of view. There are religious groups, 
 ethical groups, political groups, and social groups in the 
 narrower sense of the term, such as, for example, the 
 leisure class, the criminal class, etc. As has been said, 
 however, each of these groups is to be distinguished by 
 the fact that it is composed of individuals holding a com- 
 mon viewpoint in regard to some vital social matter or 
 series of such matters. The possession of this common 
 viewpoint welds the individual members of such a group 
 into a more or less permanent social force. 
 
 Each of these groups has its own peculiar aims, social 
 motives and attitudes, social principles, theories and pro- 
 gram of action more or less clearly formulated, which it 
 is struggling consciously and unconsciously to realize 
 and put into effect in society. Or, to put it in another 
 way, each group has its standards of right, justice, rights 
 and welfare, with respect to the matters with which it 
 is most vitally concerned, and each is attempting to 
 have these standards recognized and established in and 
 by society. The social will and social action in regard 
 to any matter — as, for example, wage rates, hours of 
 labor, woman and child labor, the system of education, 
 religious freedom, the character of the law and the func- 
 tions of the state — are at any moment the outcome of 
 the struggle between these groups, each attempting to 
 realize its own ideals and ends, subject always, of 
 course, to the great underlying conditioning factors of 
 physical nature and long established social institutions 
 and conditions which themselves constitute determinants 
 of group viewpoints and social will, and set the limits 
 to what society can do.
 
 8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 To make this matter clearer, let us state it in a little 
 different way. Social ideals are formed and social ac- 
 tion takes place at any time within a definite and rela- 
 tively permanent physical and institutional framework or 
 environment, the product partly of physical laws and 
 partly of historical development. This environment very 
 largely molds human nature and desires, sets limits to 
 social accomplishment, and at any time determines what 
 can be done by society and how the fundamental environ- 
 ing forces must be dealt with in order to accomplish the 
 socially possible. Within this fundamental environment 
 and subject to its molding and limiting influence, the so- 
 cial will in regard to any matter is determined by the 
 interaction of a complex of social groups, each with its 
 particular viewpoint and ends, and each struggling for 
 their attainment. 
 
 If the position thus taken by modern realistic social 
 science be accepted, it is evident that social conditions in 
 general, and labor conditions in particular, cannot be 
 understood without a thorough study and comprehen- 
 sion of at least the most effective social groups of which 
 society is composed, and that a thorough understanding 
 of these groups is necessary also if we are to know what 
 ought to and can be done toward the betterment of social 
 conditions generally, and of labor conditions in particu- 
 lar. In short, these important social groups must be 
 intimately known in all their varied aspects if we are 
 to take any decided steps toward the effective solution 
 of the multitude of harassing social and labor problems 
 which confront us. 
 
 Organizations of labor — trade unions, using the term 
 in its common and most extensive sense — constitute one 
 or rather one great series of these interacting groups of
 
 THE PROBLEM 9 
 
 which society is composed. As such, they are an im- 
 portant determining factor, not only of the living condi- 
 tions and problems that confront the workers, but also of 
 those which confront society as a whole in its struggle 
 for stability and betterment. As such, they affect vitally 
 every active individual in his effort to work toward the 
 accomplishment of his own particular end in life. 
 
 The ultimate problem which the student of unionism 
 is fitting himself to solve is evidently that of control — 
 what ought to and can be done to control unionism in 
 the interest of social welfare and of the purposes and 
 welfare of each individual. He must arrive at judg- 
 ments of it as good or bad and decide whether it should 
 be destroyed, suffered, strengthened, or modified, and 
 how. But none of these things is what should engage 
 him directly in this study of unionism. The trouble is 
 the fog of partisanship and insufficient knowledge. The 
 need is to dispel the fog, for before any judgment can be 
 passed upon unionism, before any intelligent formula- 
 tions can be made for its control, a purely scientific, un- 
 biased study of what unionism is, and why it is what it 
 is, is necessary. To prove this, to show why this is the 
 case, and farther, what knowledge must be had and how 
 to go about it in order to solve the purely scientific 
 problem, is the object of this preliminary discussion. 
 The first question in this connection is: What must be 
 known in advance to make it possible to say what ought 
 to and can be done to control this thing unionism? 
 What kind of information must be possessed before, 
 with any show of reason or hope of practical success, 
 rules can be laid down or plans formulated for the 
 treatment of unionism? Is it principles of political econ-
 
 10 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 omy? Is it social theory in general? Will mere study 
 of facts help much ? 
 
 To approach the matter in a little different way, con- 
 sider what steps the solution of the problem involves and 
 then the knowledge necessary to take each step. What 
 then is involved in the problem of union control, in terms 
 of the interests which we have seen to be involved? 
 First, the solution involves, obviously, a judgment of 
 unionism. Before it can be said that anything ought or 
 ought not to be done, it must be possible to say whether 
 unionism in its aims, demands, policies, methods, and 
 effects is good or bad, right or wrong. Secondly, the 
 solution involves the formulation of practicable modes 
 and plans of union control, i. e., modes and plans that 
 will work. 
 
 Let us consider these questions separately. First, then, 
 what must be known in order to say that unionism as a 
 whole, or in its specific aspects or acts, is right or wrong, 
 good or bad? One part of the answer to this question 
 is that nothing can be judged until it is known what 
 the thing to be judged really is. Applied to unionism 
 this means that before unionism can be judged right or 
 wrong, good or bad, there must be a thorough knowl- 
 edge of its real aims, demands, policies, methods, atti- 
 tudes and results or effects. 
 
 The question then arises : Can unionism be known 
 by reference merely to its objective aims, demands, poli- 
 cies, methods, attitudes and effects — by the mere objec- 
 tive facts of unionism? For example, unionism inter- 
 feres with the effectiveness of production, but can it be 
 said, on the basis of this fact alone, that unionism is 
 opposed to efficiency? Not only what the union rules 
 and acts are. must be determined, but why the unionists
 
 THE PROBLEM it 
 
 lay down these rules and do these acts. Unions quite 
 generally attempt to standardize or limit the amount of 
 daily or weekly accompHshment of the individual worker 
 by prohibitions of "rushing," or too rapid work, and by 
 limitation directly of the amount of work per worker. 
 On the basis of these prohibitions and limitations, the 
 statement has often been made dogmatically that union- 
 ism is opposed to efficiency of labor; that the unions be- 
 lieve that wages can be raised by decreasing its effi- 
 ciency. Now these charges may be true. This question 
 will not be settled here. The point is, that, until the 
 objective facts, i.e., these prohibitions and limitations, 
 have been interpreted causally in terms of the peculiar 
 problem and conditions which determine their enact- 
 ment, it is not possible to say whether or not they bear 
 out the charge that unionism is opposed to efficiency in 
 production. Let us attempt this briefly and note the 
 bearing of the outcome. 
 
 The fact is, that the wages of the union workmen are 
 not determined automatically by demand and supply but 
 by a process of bargaining. In determining the outcome 
 of this process of bargaining, the two most important 
 factors are the normal or standard day's work and the 
 standard of living of the workers. These are the stand- 
 ards, practically, of right and justice considered. If 
 the employer can make it appear that under existing 
 conditions the workers are not working or producing up 
 to the standard day's work, he has a strong case to show 
 that wages ought to be lowered or that more work 
 ought to be done for the same pay, which amounts 
 virtually to lowering the wage. If the employer fur- 
 ther can make it appear that at the given wage rate, on 
 the basis of the standard day's work, the workers can
 
 12 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 secure a standard of living higher than that customary 
 in their class, he has a strong case to show that the wage 
 rate should be lowered, or at least that it should not be 
 increased. In a contest under these circumstances the 
 employer is fairly sure of the support of public opinion, 
 arbitrators, police and courts. Now, the workers have 
 learned by long and bitter experience that if individuals 
 among them work faster and accomplish more than the 
 others while receiving the same wage rate, the employers 
 tend to take the accomplishment of these workers as the 
 standard day's work and to compare their earnings with 
 the standard of living of the class, when negotiations 
 are on to determine wages. Thus, in the case of day 
 work, the accomplishment of the strongest and the swift- 
 est is the goal which is set for all, if wages are not to be 
 lowered, while in piece work the wage rate tends to be 
 lowered because the exceptionally rapid worker at the 
 given rate can be shown to make more than is necessary 
 to maintain the customary standard of living. Under 
 these circumstances the increased efficiency and output 
 of the few tend to mean less wages for all or more work 
 for less pay. All this has taught the unionists that if 
 they wish to prevent wage reductions they must all try to 
 work at the same pace. Hence, one of the fundamental 
 principles of their program has come to be uniformity 
 or standardization. Their specific rule limiting speed 
 and output is therefore seen to be primarily to establish 
 and maintain this principle of uniform accomplishment 
 for a given rate of wages. There is nothing about the 
 rule thus explained to indicate that the unions would be 
 unwilling to respond to increased wages for all by in- 
 creased speed and output by all within normal physio- 
 logical and social limits, i.e., there is nothing about these
 
 THE PROBLEM 13 
 
 objective facts when causally interpreted to indicate that 
 unionism is opposed to efficiency in general; there is no 
 basis therefore, in this case, for the common judgments 
 rendered. 
 
 To take a related case, the charge is made that the 
 unions seek to reduce all the workers of a trade to a 
 dead level of mediocrity because they insist on a uniform 
 wage rate and bring pressure to bear upon the worker 
 who outstrips his fellows or who does more work for 
 the same pay. Again, if we examine the conditions, we 
 find that facts do not necessarily bear out the charge. 
 The workers have found by experience that unregulated 
 competition on their part tends to a progressive lower- 
 ing of the wage rate. The process is simple. B out of 
 work bids for A's place. A out of work and a weak 
 bargainer bids for C's, C for D's, etc. That is, by this 
 process, the competitive strength of the labor group in 
 fixing wages tends to become the strength of the weak- 
 est member and the wage for all tends to sink to what 
 the weakest member could competitively demand. To 
 remedy this evil, unions have found it necessary to 
 make the strength of the weakest member equal the 
 strength of the group by barring out competitive bid- 
 ding on the part of the workers. Merely establishing a 
 uniform wage rate — so much per hour — does not bar out 
 competitive bidding on the part of the workers. The 
 rate may be lowered as surely by extra exertion, the re- 
 sults of which we have just seen, as by direct underbid- 
 ding of the rate itself. Hence, the unions strive to make 
 uniform the exertions of the workers as well as to estab- 
 lish a uniform rate of pay. But, having examined eveit 
 very superficially the underlying conditions and motives, 
 it is seen that to base on this action the charge that the
 
 14 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 unions seek to reduce all workers to a dead level of 
 mediocrity is absurd. 
 
 Or, to take a closely allied example, it is a fact as 
 stated that some unions prohibit piece work, and on this 
 fact also the charge is based that unions are opposed to 
 efficiency. It is true that when unions oppose piece 
 work it is where piece work stimulates to greater effort 
 and longer hours of work, but when we come to ex- 
 amine the circumstances we see that the opposition comes, 
 not because the unions are opposed to greater efficiency 
 as such, but because greater efficiency secured by this 
 means results in a lower rate of pay. The prohibition 
 is primarily to protect the wage rate, rather than to pre- 
 vent increased efficiency. Let us see. The unions have 
 found by experience — and all union notions have a basis 
 in experience — that in determining the wage rate by col- 
 lective bargaining the standard of living is the most im- 
 portant factor. If it can be made apparent, or shown 
 to arbitrators, that the existing wage rate will furnish 
 a daily or weekly wage above the customary standard 
 of living of the trade, as stated above, the strongest argu- 
 ment is made that wages are too high. But, if it can be 
 shown that the wages will not allow living at this stand- 
 ard, a rise in rates can almost always be forced or secured 
 by arbitration. Now, when a rate is established, the 
 stronger men are stimulated to work harder in order to 
 secure a higher wage than the customary one, and, in 
 some cases, the employers by bonuses, secret agreements 
 or threats, attempt to drive the stronger and more ac- 
 tive workers to this extra exertion. As soon as this is 
 successfully accomplished, and these workers are earn- 
 ing a wage above the customary standard, the cry is 
 raised that the piece rate is too high, and the wages of
 
 THE PROBLEM 15 
 
 these men are held up as proof. In bargaining and 
 arbitration much is made of the fact that at the old rate 
 an active man can make more than is customary in the 
 trade. This is the strongest sort of argument for lower- 
 ing the rate and often prevails. The result is a progres- 
 sive tendency to lower the wage rate. All have to work 
 harder and longer for the old wage, and while the 
 stronger succeed in maintaining the old standard, the 
 weaker are worn out and cast aside.^ 
 
 The opposition to the piece rates, then, in a case of 
 this kind, is seen to be an effort to protect the wage and 
 not any direct objection to efficiency as such. On this 
 evidence it would be absurd to sustain the indictment 
 against unionism and to say that it should be deprived 
 of the right to resist piece work. If the union attitude 
 and action are socially bad, and we wish to change them, 
 we must go behind the act of the union and to its causes. 
 We must change the motives and the conditions which 
 link up piece work with the lowering of the wage rate. 
 But only by a careful study of the underlying conditions 
 can we arrive at this knowledge and conclusion. 
 
 Or to take one more illustration — a dangerous one — 
 imionists are condemned as being immoral and antiso- 
 cial because they sometimes enforce their will by vio- 
 lence ; they "slug" the "scab," for example. This shocks 
 all right-minded people, and if every one judged only by 
 effects all would have to join in the condemnation. But 
 consider what effect a little careful analysis will have 
 on our judgment. The unions are trying to raise the 
 
 ' One of the investigators of the Bureau of Labor remarked 
 to the superintendent of a factory that his workers seemed to be 
 tremendously active. "Yes," he replied, "the piece rate is placed 
 so low that the poor devils will have to hustle to make a living."
 
 16 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 standard of living and working conditions of the group. 
 It is a most vital matter to them. It means all the dif- 
 ference to them between hardship and comfort, strain 
 and comparative ease, ignorance and leisure for informa- 
 tion and education for themselves and for their chil- 
 dren. To accomplish this end they find it necessary to 
 establish certain definite rules of the industrial game and 
 to enforce them. To maintain these rules they spend 
 time and money and sacrifice the possibility of individual 
 gain. Now comes the "scab." He has not sacrificed to 
 establish the rules and he now violates them for his own 
 selfish advantage and undoes the painfully established re- 
 sults for which the unionists have sacrificed in the in- 
 terest of the common good. He is necessarily, from 
 their point of view — the group viewpoint — antisocial, 
 and must be restrained just as the thief is restrained by 
 society. But how restrain him ? There is no law to which 
 the organized workers can appeal for the upholding 
 of their working rule against underbidding. They can- 
 not try to fine or imprison the "scab." Moreover, moral 
 suasion will not ordinarily suffice to restrain his un- 
 derbidding, since he is either driven to it by dire neces- 
 sity or the struggle for life has made him callous to 
 social considerations — to the welfare of the group. The 
 only effective appeal, then, is to force. In some cases 
 the blow is the only argument that the "scab" can un- 
 derstand. The "slugging" is deplorable, but under sim- 
 ilar circumstances it would be resorted to by most men. 
 How would college students, for example, treat one of 
 their number who revealed the signals to the opposing 
 school before an important football contest? The charge 
 of special union immorality is hard to sustain under 
 these circumstances, and again we see how impossible
 
 THE PROBLEM 17 
 
 it is to arrive at any conclusion from mere effects with- 
 out a careful examination of the underlying motives 
 and circumstances. 
 
 In order, then, to judge of unionism — whether it is 
 right or wrong, good or bad — to say what ought to be 
 done about it, it is necessary to know, first, just what 
 unionism is and why it is, generally and in each specific 
 case. This means that we must know who the unionists 
 are, what they really want, their ideas and ideals, mo- 
 tives, purposes and aims, what are the forces that mold 
 their ideals and drive them to action, their standards 
 and modes of living, their wages and conditions of em- 
 ployment, what problems they have to meet, what meth- 
 ods are allowed them by custom and law to meet and 
 solve these problems, how adequate these methods are, 
 what alternatives are open to them for action, what op- 
 portunities they have for training and advancement, 
 and what their philosophy of life is. In short, before 
 we can judge unionism, and say what ought to be done 
 about it, we must know just what unionism is, and why 
 it is what it is. 
 
 There still remains the other half of the question, 
 What can be done, i.e., what must we know in order 
 to formulate methods and plans for union control that 
 will ivork? The point is, when we have judged union- 
 ism as good or bad, right or wrong, and decided on the 
 basis of this judgment what ought to be done about it, 
 can what ought to be done, always he done? And if not, 
 what must be known in order to say what can be done? 
 To get at the matter directly, if unionism is a private 
 group manifestation, can the employers or any other 
 group in society, aside from the unionists, formulate any 
 remedial scheme in relation to unionism that it finds
 
 'I8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 good, and make it work ? In other words, society being 
 what it is, can any class do whatever it pleases, regard- 
 less of the character and causes of unionism? Can we 
 coerce a social group out of existence while conditions 
 are as they are? If not, why not? For example, look- 
 ing at unionism as a social group manifestation, would it 
 be possible, just offhand, to destroy unionism, to com- 
 mand unionists to bargain with employers as individuals, 
 or to forbid unionists to strike or quit work? Or, to 
 make a stronger case, can unionists be made to think like 
 employers or uplifters? 
 
 The assumption that any remedial action which any 
 group in society may formulate in relation to unionism 
 can be made to work, regardless of the character and 
 causes of unionism, would be valid only in so far as 
 unionism is an arbitrary thing, quite unrelated causally 
 to fundamental economic, legal, and social conditions, 
 a product of the selfish and evil cunning of a few lead- 
 ers or of some unfounded esoteric theory of social rela- 
 tions. In so far, however, as unionism is indeed a his- 
 toric development, the outgrowth of living and working 
 conditions or ideals and motives created by these condi- 
 tions, in so far, in short, as it represents the effort of 
 a social group to meet and solve the everyday problems 
 of living, forced upon it by our system of industry and 
 our legal, moral, and social codes, it is folly to assume 
 that the character and actions of unionism can be changed 
 or controlled merely by the waving of a legal or a moral 
 wand; that anything which, in the view of society, ought 
 to be done, can be done. For, in so far as unionism is 
 of this character, it is the inevitable outgrowth and 
 corollary of our fundamental social and economic in- 
 stitutions ^nd ideals. As long as these institutions and
 
 THE PROBLEM 19 
 
 ideals exist, unionism must exist whether we like it or 
 not. It will change only with the change in these, in 
 spite of all our efforts. To attempt to destroy or change 
 it, leaving them what they are, would only mean to have 
 it take the new form necessary to meet the old ends un- 
 der the new conditions socially created. But no one is 
 now so Utopian as to believe that, at will and offhand, 
 we can displace or essentially alter our fundamental 
 institutions. Hence, in so far as unionism is a natural 
 and historical growth, it cannot be arbitrarily affected by 
 social decree. 
 
 How then may we, having determined what ought to 
 be done, know what can be done in the control of union- 
 ism as it touches upon vital social and economic inter- 
 ests ? From all that has been said, the answer should be 
 clear. In so far as unionism is a historical product, it 
 can be changed and controlled only by changing and con- 
 trolling the conditions that have made it what it is. To 
 know whether this is possible or not, and how to do it, 
 we must know these conditions and their causes. They 
 can be determined only by a genetic study of unionism, 
 only by an understanding of how it came to be what it 
 is.' 
 
 To the question of what ought to or can be done by 
 society about unionism, no valid answer can be given 
 apart from a most searching causal inquiry. It would 
 be necessary to consider not only the peculiar problem 
 which the union has to solve and the reason why it solves 
 it as it does, but why the problem exists in this form, 
 and why the unionists adopt the particular solution of 
 it. For example, we should have to determine why em- 
 ployers meet increased efficiency and output of individual 
 
 ^ See p. 2)7^> Historical Method vs. Historical Narrative,
 
 20 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 workers with an attempt to lower the wage rate ; why the 
 customary standard of living is taken by men and mast- 
 ers as the standard of right and justice in determining 
 wages; why the workers are not satisfied to accept a 
 lower immediate wage — the result of increased efficiency 
 — in the hope of increased prospective wages, the result 
 of increased demand for labor due to increased output, 
 as the orthodox economist would have them do. Only 
 in answering questions of this character could we put 
 ourselves in a position to say what ought to or could 
 be done to alter or better the situation, for it must never 
 be forgotten that men's ideals and actions are the out- 
 come of the circumstances under which they Hve and 
 act. Society should not and cannot order a man not to 
 do what he must, nor to do what he cannot. If it wishes 
 to change a man's ideals and actions under such circum- 
 stances, it must change the conditions which determine 
 his ideals and actions. Hence the necessity, in cases of 
 this kind, of studying the why of the conditions. But 
 this means that, in order to determine what ought to and 
 can be done, in a case of the kind we are considering, 
 we should have to determine not only what the situation 
 institutionally and psychologically is, but how it came 
 to be what it is. For it must never be forgotten that the 
 present is a product of the past, and in a sense is the 
 past; that our ideals, standards and institutions are 
 largely inheritances, undergoing slow modification by 
 present forces ; that as individuals and groups we are 
 largely hereditary products — bundles of instincts, habits, 
 propensities, tendencies, preconceptions, prejudices — the 
 product of past struggles with environment. In short, 
 to solve the ultimate problems of unionism, to determine 
 what ought to and can be done about it as it touches
 
 THE PROBLEM 21 
 
 and affects our economic, legal, ethical, and general so- 
 cial interests, we must first study what unionism is and 
 why it is what it is, in terms not only of the immediate 
 but of genetic causation. This is the first great task In 
 our study. 
 
 With the problem clearly defined, the final question in 
 this orientation confronts us : How shall we go about the 
 study of unionism; what is it necessary for us to do in 
 order to discover the real character of unionism and the 
 conditions and forces which have made it what it is? In 
 this connection I want to emphasize, first, the matter of 
 attitude or spirit. If we hope to get at the truth in re- 
 gard to unionism it is absolutely necessary that we should 
 approach the subject in a scientific spirit — that we should 
 preserve throughout our study the scientific attitude. 
 
 What then is the meaning of the scientific attitude or 
 spirit? It is putting aside as far as possible all passion 
 and prejudice, all preconceived notions in regard to the 
 object of study, all beliefs and feelings; seeking only for 
 the truth and being willing to follow it to whatever 
 conclusions it may lead. Why is this scientific attitude 
 necessary in order to arrive at the truth in general ? Be- 
 cause the truth as we apprehend it is not an objective 
 thing. It is a reflex of this thing upon our conscious- 
 ness; and, therefore, to our apprehension is determined 
 largely by the quality of our mental furniture. Every 
 impression upon the mind is referred to the existent men- 
 tal furnishings for identification, classification and inter- 
 pretation. On the quality, therefore, of the existing be- 
 liefs, feelings, prejudices, presuppositions, depends the 
 judgment as to the facts. As soon as prejudice enters 
 in, we will slight, or overemphasize, or be unable to see 
 things. Take as illustration the diverse interpretations
 
 22 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 of natural phenomena by primitive and modern men. 
 Primitive man peopled the world of nature with spirits. 
 Every stick and stone was endowed with consciousness 
 and volition. To him every movement of stick and stone 
 was purposeful, endowed with benevolent or malevolent 
 intent. When the conception of a single God arose, all 
 natural phenomena were expressions of his will — his 
 wrath or his complaisance — and were referred for their 
 causes to the moral quality of man's thoughts or actions. 
 Later, as the scientific conception gained ground, all these 
 natural phenomena have come more and more to be re- 
 ferred to the outworking of blind, impersonal, opaque 
 cause and effect. Applied to the subject of unionism it 
 means that any one who enters upon the study of union- 
 ism with any prepossession for or against unionism, with 
 any class bias, is bound to have all his judgments colored 
 and distorted, and to fail to see the truth. 
 
 Is there, however, any special reason for emphasizing 
 this matter in connection with the study of unionism? 
 Are we specially prone to prejudice, preconception and 
 partisanship when unionism is in question? Yes. Be- 
 cause unionism is a storm center of the most universal 
 and vital controversy in existence — the struggle for a liv- 
 ing. Because, therefore, it not only touches the individ- 
 ual personally in his most vital concerns, but especially 
 arouses group prejudices — the most bitter and the hard- 
 est to eradicate, because they are not the result of the 
 thought of the individual, but are inherited and bred in 
 the bone, and are therefore largely unconscious. We 
 are all full of these group prejudices, and for most men 
 they are in the nature of absolute canons of judgment. 
 It is characteristic of almost every man, especially the 
 uneducated, to look upon rules of his group in regard to
 
 THE PROBLEM 23 
 
 right and justice, morality and rights, as something fixed, 
 God-given, sacred. There is ordinarily no conception, 
 for example, on the part of the business man — the type 
 of the bourgeois middle class — or the unionist for that 
 matter, that conditions may alter rules of conduct. To 
 him there is only one world — ^his world — which was, is, 
 and shall be without end. His judgments, therefore, are 
 absolute judgments. He cannot conceive that any one 
 who violates the rules of thought and conduct of his 
 group is not a knave or a fool. Now, unionism does vio- 
 late many of the canons of right, rights, and justice of 
 the business world and the middle class. It opposes free- 
 dom of the individual and free contract, upon which our 
 whole legal structure rests. It has little regard for the 
 sacredness of contract or ordinary property rights. It 
 has little respect for our special code of morality; it 
 sneers at and defies our courts; it stands face to face 
 with a great association of employers engaged in a ti- 
 tanic struggle for supremacy. As the result, the whole 
 atmosphere of union discussion is charged with the most 
 virulent animus; on the one hand unionism is held up 
 as the perfect, the only, social good, in which there is no 
 flaw or stain. Says one of its leaders : 
 
 There is not a wrong against which we fail to protest 
 or seek to remedy; there is not a right to which any of 
 our fellows are entitled which it is not our duty, mis- 
 sion, work and struggle to maintain. So long as there 
 shall remain a wrong unrighted or a right denied there 
 will be ample work for the labor movement to do.* 
 
 The aim of our unions is to improve the standard of 
 life; to foster education, and instill character, manhood, and 
 
 * President Gompers' Report, Twenty-ninth Annual Conven- 
 tion, American Federation of Labor (1909), p. i.
 
 24 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 an independent spirit among our people; to bring about 
 a recognition of the interdependence of man upon his fellow 
 man. We aim to establish a normal workday, to take the 
 children from the factory and workshop; to give them the 
 opportunity of the home, the school and the playground. 
 In a word, our unions strive to lighten toil, educate the 
 workers, make their homes more cheerful and in every 
 way contribute the earnest effort to make their life better 
 worth living." 
 
 The trade union movement, true to its history, its tradi- 
 tions and its aspirations, has done, is doing, and will un- 
 doubtedly do more in the interests of mankind to humanize 
 the human family than all other agencies combined." 
 
 On the other hand, unionism is denounced as the child 
 of the devil and the emanation of the pit. . 
 
 My denunciation [says the President of the National 
 Association of Manufacturers] was and is of a defiant labor 
 trust machine representing less than 5 per cent of the wage 
 earners of the country, every page of whose history is 
 black with the foulest deeds of inhumanity and injustice, 
 from dynamiting and murder to throwing egg shells filled 
 with acids at dumb beasts because their drivers were not 
 cogs in the wicked labor machine — a machine whose leaders 
 have indorsed its crimes because its demands could be 
 enforced through the perpetration of such crimes; a 
 machine whose leaders have for years striven, and are 
 today striving to so cripple our courts that no in junctional 
 interference can prevail in cases of labor disputes to pro- 
 tect peaceful and law-abiding workmen in their God-given 
 right to labor and enjoy the right to life, liberty and the 
 purusit of happiness, and who are doing their utmost to 
 
 ^ President Gompers' Report, Twenty-eighth Annual Conven- 
 tion, American Federation of Labor (1908), p. 16. 
 P flfid., p. 27.
 
 THE PROBLEM 25 
 
 secure release from responsibility to the Sherman Law under 
 which some of them have been tried and found guilty.'^ 
 
 Every time an employer of labor permits himself to be 
 intimidated or coerced into closing his shop, or other place 
 where labor is performed, to all but those who are members 
 of this organization or that . . . and every time he volun- 
 tarily does so, he commits a crime against the Constitution 
 of the United States and a sin against humanity. When he 
 willingly refuses a boy an opportunity to learn a trade be- 
 cause a labor union says the boy shall not have it, that 
 moment he compounds a felony. When he refuses to deal 
 in wares because a labor union has placed its brand of 
 disapproval upon them he brands himself a coward and 
 becomes unworthy of the patronage of decent citizens, 
 and all such citizens should resent his action. To tem- 
 porize with or yield one jot or one tittle to the demands 
 of organized labor which in any manner helps to increase 
 its power to deprive any man, woman or child of the free 
 untrammeled right to earn their daily bread in such lawful 
 manner as may seem best to them, is to share in the respon- 
 sibility for the criminal conspiracies in which such organ- 
 izations are engaged. Conciliating and compromising with 
 crime, and juggling with the principles upon which Chris- 
 tian civilization and justice are based, will never solve the 
 labor question.^ 
 
 This question of belligerent unionism is not one of senti- 
 ment. It is not a question to be trifled with or treated 
 with apathy or indifference. . . . The thing in the eye 
 of God is wrong and to attempt to clothe it in the livery 
 of heaven only adds to its wickedness.® 
 
 But further, even academic and scholarly sources can- 
 
 ' John Kirby, Jr.: "Where Do You Stand?" p. 18. 
 
 ^ Ibid.j pp. 8, 9. 
 
 » John Kirby, Jr. : "Disadvantages of Unionism," p. 37.
 
 26 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 not always be relied upon for calm and unemotional state- 
 ments of the truth. They too are prejudiced and the 
 group which might be supposed to furnish adequate 
 guidance in the search for the truth about unionism is 
 not always trustworthy. 
 
 Therefore, it is because of what unionism is in its 
 viewpoint, the interests which it touches, and the nature 
 of its acts which challenge our habitual way of looking 
 at things, and because the literature of the subject is 
 soaked with hidden and open partisanship, that the em- 
 phasis put upon the scientific spirit is necessary. We 
 must consciously attempt to expose our prejudices and 
 keep in abeyance our inherited and habitual preconcep- 
 tions and presumptions. 
 
 No doubt many may think they have no prejudices on 
 this subject, conscious or unconscious. Experience has 
 shown, however, that all have prejudices and those most 
 sure they have none, have most. Take sabotage, as an 
 illustration. It is destructive action of the workers ap- 
 plied to the processes of industry, affecting the quantity 
 and distribution of the product. What is the general 
 attitude toward it? x^bsolute condemnation. Ought 
 there to be the same attitude toward the employer if he 
 practices sabotage? Is there? The employer practices 
 sabotage on the consumer through "fake" goods, through 
 adulterations, patent medicines, etc. How is it regarded ? 
 We say, caveat emptor. The employer is right if he 
 can "get away with it." We are just now waking up to 
 a different view. We condemn labor for limiting out- 
 put. It is a matter of course that the manufacturers 
 should limit output. If it is not immoral for the em- 
 ployer to limit output, to safeguard profits, is it immoral 
 for the wage earner to limit output, not to reduce profits,
 
 THE PROBLEM 27 
 
 but to prevent a cut in wages that will reduce the stand- 
 ard of living? This shows, however, that we are full 
 of unconscious tolerance for things to which we are 
 accustomed. We make the distinction between the nat- 
 ural and right as opposed to the artificial and wrong. 
 Anything is artificial and wrong which interferes with 
 personal liberty, property rights, and free competition 
 (although free competition never existed), or which 
 raises wages by combination. Unionism looked upon as 
 artificial and unnatural is therefore bad. 
 
 Most students will have to guard against the tendency 
 to feel that a thing is good because it is the established, 
 legal, ethical or social thing. Some will have to guard 
 against the tendency to feel that a thing is good because 
 it is revolutionary or iconoclastic. Every one must school 
 himself to the view that nothing is absolutely right or 
 sacred; that rights are merely the crystallized will of the 
 group or groups dominant at a particular time, about 
 which there is nothing absolute or sacred ; that every- 
 thing is open to examination and is to be judged solely 
 by its effects. That is, it is for each one to put aside in^ 
 herited and group prejudices as far as possible, and, im- 
 bued solely by the scientific spirit, to search patiently 
 for the truth. 
 
 As a final word, and especially to guard against errors 
 into which students might easily fall and which might 
 vitiate the whole study, it is well to specify and make 
 clear some of these errors. They are: (i) Assuming 
 that unionism in some way is easily understood, is defi- 
 nite, fixed, narrow, a consistent thing, everywhere the 
 same and always the same, and can be judged on the 
 basis of economic principles, or of slight or narrow con- 
 tact. (2) Assuming that it is possible to tell what ought
 
 28 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 to be done with unionism without the broadest and most 
 intimate first-hand knowledge of the what and why of 
 unionism — an intensive study 'of unionism as a matter 
 of group psychology and its causes. (3) Assuming that, 
 having decided what ought to be done, it is possible to 
 proceed to action without this study. (4) Assuming a 
 social will and social standards, which we have not, be- 
 cause society is a complex of groups molded by necessity 
 and tradition, differing in standards with, as yet, no 
 social will. (5) Assuming that this study of unionism 
 can amount to anything without combining with it the 
 study of other group psychologies. (6) Mistaking indi- 
 vidual standards of good and bad, right and wrong, or 
 the standards of a particular group, for absolute stand- 
 ards on the basis of which unionism can easily be judged. 
 (7) Allowing, therefore, conscious and especially un- 
 conscious prejudices to color the facts and warp the 
 judgment. 
 
 It is also well to emphasize the necessity of getting into 
 close, first-hand contact with the reality in order to know 
 what unionism is and why it is, and, finally, what ought 
 to and can be done to control it. As has been said, very 
 little that has been written about American unionism is 
 of a scientific and systematic nature. But there is a 
 reason beyond this. Only by coming into direct contact 
 with the unionists themselves, studying their character, 
 realizing their conditions of working and living in de- 
 tail, studying their problems, their hopes and fears and 
 aspirations, the working of their minds in their efforts to 
 overcome difficulties; only by studying the reports of 
 their conventions, their constitutions and working rules, 
 their pamphlets and journals, only by watching them 
 closely in their formulation of plans and in their actual
 
 THE PROBLEM 29 
 
 contests; only by getting them off guard or getting to 
 know them well enough to break down their secrecy and 
 reserve of hostiHty or to discount or interpret what they 
 say; only, in short, by putting ourselves as nearly as 
 possible into their places can we hope to get at the real 
 character and causes of unionism. 
 
 To sum up briefly the main points of this orientation : 
 
 1. Trade unionism itself — using the term in its com- 
 monly accepted broad sense — is one of the most complex, 
 contradictory, and protean of social problems. 
 
 2. The study of unionism is, moreover, beset with 
 peculiar difficulties, in that the subject has never been 
 adequately studied in this country, and consequently there 
 are no adequate texts and guides in the form of syllabi, 
 and not even agreed objects or purposes of study. The 
 materials for the study are inadequate, diffuse and 
 mainly in the raw, obliging us to go for our study chiefly 
 to the original sources. And, finally, the whole subject 
 is involved in the utmost prejudice and partisanship, 
 making it impossible for us to accept what we find at its 
 face value, but requiring, on our part, the exercise of a 
 high degree of keenness and judgment to untangle the 
 true from the false, the real from the seeming. 
 
 3. All this means that if we are to avoid confusion, 
 to enter upon and maintain a clear line of endeavor, 
 and to attain results at once valid and significant, three 
 things are necessary: a definite practical problem, a 
 clearly understood method of work, and an attitude of 
 mind which shall guard us as far as possible against the 
 pitfalls of prejudice and partisanship which we shall en- 
 counter at every step in our progress. 
 
 4. The ultimate problem of unionism, as of the practi- 
 cal study of any other group phenomenon, is control.
 
 30 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 This means control not only in the interests of social 
 welfare, but control in the interest of each individual's 
 life problems, for we have seen that unionism, in its 
 aims, principles, policies, demands, methods and atti- 
 tudes, comes into vital conflict in many ways with effi- 
 ciency of production, by its various rules hampering the 
 introduction of new machinery and processes, interfer- 
 ing with the selection of men on the basis of efficiency 
 and fitness for the task, preventing the speeding of men 
 and machinery, and in a hundred ways limiting or tend- 
 ing to limit the productive output. It interferes vitally 
 with current distributive methods and results ; it combats 
 at every point the employers' claims of rights in the man- 
 agement of industry; it conflicts with the legal theory 
 upon which our social and industrial system is based 
 and with the established law and order; in many ways 
 it opposes our conventional ethical standards and notions 
 of right and justice. But we saw that before this prob- 
 lem of control can be touched, before it is possible to tell 
 what ought to and can be done about it, we must be able 
 to judge unionism, and above all, to understand it as a 
 social group manifestation. Finally, the hope of solving 
 this problem lies in undertaking the study in a scientific 
 spirit and applying to it the scientific method, which 
 means rooting out of our minds all prejudice and par- 
 tisanship, being willing to follow the truth wherever it 
 leads, and getting into the closest possible touch with the 
 facts as they exist, i.e., getting out into the field and 
 studying at first hand, finding out who the unionists are, 
 their ideas and ideals, the conditions they have to face, 
 the problems they have to solve, their actual aims, the- 
 ories, policies, methods, demands and attitudes, and the 
 underlying motives and purposes and reasons for them.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 
 
 From the popular viewpoint, trade unionism is a sim- 
 ple, definite phenomenon upon which it is easy and safe 
 to pass positive and sweeping judgments. Almost every 
 one, in fact, wlio is at all interested in economic or social 
 affairs is inclined to assume that he knows just about 
 what unionism is, and just what ought to be done about 
 it. The man in the street, the lawyer, the economist, the 
 social worker, the teacher, the preacher, each has his 
 positive concept and his positive scheme for union con- 
 trol or regeneration. 
 
 Thus the student honestly seeking the truth about 
 unionism is faced at the outset with a mass of confident 
 but contradictory interpretations. He is told that union- 
 ism is a narrow group organization designed to benefit 
 certain favored workmen at the expense of all others; 
 that it is an artificial monopoly of labor, an impossible at- 
 tempt to raise wages by unnatural and therefore socially 
 inimical means; that it is the creation of selfish and un- 
 scrupulous leaders primarily for their personal gain and 
 aggrandizement, a thing foisted upon unwilling workers 
 and designed to disrupt the natural harmony of interests 
 between employers and employees ; that it is a mere busi- 
 ness device for regulating wages and conditions of em- 
 ployment, by means of collective bargaining; that it is 
 a great revolutionary movement, auning ultimately to 
 
 31
 
 32 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 overthrow capitalism and our whole legal and moral code ; 
 that it is a universal expression of working class idealism 
 whose purpose is to bring to all the toilers hope, dignity, 
 enlightenment, and a reasonable standard of living; that 
 it is, in short, selfish and altruistic, monopolistic and in- 
 clusive, artificial and natural, autocratic and democratic, 
 violent and law-abiding, revolutionary and conservative, 
 narrowly economic and broadly social. 
 
 And with each of these positive interpretations, a stu- 
 dent is commanded to subscribe to an equally positive and 
 final solution of the union problem. He is informed that 
 unionism will cease to be dangerous when it is boldly 
 proceeded against as a trust; that the problem will be 
 solved when once we have guaranties of industrial peace 
 in the shape of universal arbitration schemes, voluntary 
 or compulsory; that unionism is in any form a menace 
 to social welfare and must, therefore, be destroyed by 
 legal enactment and counter-organization ; that the trou- 
 ble with unionism is moral, and the obvious remedy lies, 
 therefore, in moral suasion and the preaching of social 
 obligation; that unionism is the expression of crass 
 ignorance, and hence is to be quietly disregarded while 
 schemes are formulated and put into operation for the 
 welfare of society as a whole; that the real problem is 
 one of encouragement and support since unionism stands 
 for all that is best in human conditions and relationships. 
 
 The mutual contradictoriness of these popular inter- 
 pretations and remedies is sufficient evidence to warrant 
 the rejection of any and all of them, pending the most 
 unbiased and thoroughly scientific investigation of the 
 facts. It must stamp them either as pure fabrications of 
 the imagination or at best as partial truths, the outcome 
 of narrow observation distorted by conscious or uncon-
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND JYPES 33 
 
 scious preconceptions derived from tradition, interest, 
 or special environment. To accept them as final truths, 
 therefore, is to block the way to a real comprehension of 
 unionism and the union problem. For such acceptance 
 must mean the coloring of the facts and the warping 
 of the judgment, however sincere and painstaking the 
 student may be. The first step, therefore, toward a 
 scientific understanding of trade unionism and the prob- 
 lems which it presents to us is to rid ourselves of the 
 popular attitude toward it, and to root out of our minds 
 as far as possible these popular conceptions of it. We 
 must start by wiping the slate clean. 
 
 The very existence of these numerous contradictory 
 interpretations, nevertheless, carries with it a pregnant 
 suggestion for the student, namely, that trade unionism 
 may be after all, not a simple, consistent entity, but a 
 complex of the utmost diversity, both structurally and 
 functionally. And, indeed, the most obvious facts of 
 union status and history seem to warrant this conclu- 
 sion, at least as a working hypothesis. 
 
 There are in the United States today hundreds of 
 union organizations, each practically independent or 
 sovereign, and each with its own and often peculiar aims, 
 policies, demands, methods, attitudes and internal regula- 
 tions. Nor is there any visible or tangible bond, how- 
 ever tenuous, that unites these organizations into a single 
 whole. Groups there are indeed with overstructures and 
 declared common aims and methods. But group combats 
 group with the bitterness that can arise only out of the 
 widest diversity of ideals and methods. 
 
 A slight acquaintance with the history of organized 
 labor shows that this situation is not unique, and at the 
 same time furnishes the apparent clews to its explana-
 
 34 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 tion. It reveals the fact that unionism has not a single 
 genesis, but that it has made its appearance time after 
 time, independently, wherever in the modern industrial 
 era a group of workers, large or small, has developed a 
 strong internal consciousness of common interests. It 
 shows, moreover, that each union and each union group 
 has undergone a constant process of change or develop- 
 ment, functionally and structurally, responding appar- 
 ently to the group psycholog}^ and therefore to the chang- 
 ing conditions, needs, and problems of its membership. 
 In short, it reveals trade unionism as above all else essen- 
 tially an opportunistic phenomenon. 
 
 For, if the history of unionism seems to admit of any 
 positive generalizations, they are that unionists have been 
 prone to act first and to formulate theories afterward, 
 and that they have acted habitually to meet the problems 
 thrust upon them by immediate circumstances. Every- 
 where they have done the thing which under the par- 
 ticular circumstances has seemed most likely to produce 
 results immediately desired. Modes of action which have 
 failed, when measured by this standard, have been re- 
 jected and other means sought. Methods that have 
 worked have been preserved and extended, the standards 
 of judgment being always most largely the needs and 
 experiences of the group concerned. So that, prevailingly, 
 whatever theory unionists have possessed has been in 
 the nature of group generalization, slowly developed on 
 Ihe basis of concrete experience.^ 
 
 In making these statements, it is not intended to imply 
 that general economic, political, and social theories have 
 not played a part in the genesis of unions, or in the mold- 
 
 1 In all this, unionism is not unique, but has obeyed the gen- 
 eral law of psychological (levelapment.
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 3.5 
 
 ing of their function and structure. Nor is it intended to 
 deny that some unions have been formed and dominated 
 by individuals and small groups of leaders. Idealism 
 has frequently been a genetic and formative force in 
 union history and the autocrat has played an important 
 role in union affairs. But apparently history warrants 
 the general statements that unions, and especially unions 
 that have lived and worked, have arisen mainly in direct 
 response to the immediate needs and problems of specific 
 working groups, and that they have developed charac- 
 teristically by the trial and error method. 
 
 Thus the scope and character of union ideals and 
 methods have been as broad and diverse as the con- 
 scious common needs and conditions of the groups of 
 workers entering into organization. Some unions have 
 confined themselves to attempts to deal directly with their 
 immediate employers and their immediate conditions of 
 work and pay; others have emphasized mutual aid and 
 education; still others have enlarged their field of thought 
 and action to include all employers and all conditions — 
 economic, legal, and social. In other words, the union 
 program, taking it with all its mutations and contradic- 
 tions, comprehends nothing less than all the various 
 economic, political, ethical and social viewpoints and 
 modes of action of a vast and heterogeneous complex of 
 working class groups, molded by diverse environments 
 and actuated by diverse motives; it expresses nothing 
 less than the ideals, aspirations, hopes, and fears, modes 
 of thinking and action of all these working groups. In 
 short, if we can think of unionism as such, it must be 
 as one of the most complex, heterogeneous and protean 
 of modern social phenomena. 
 
 But c?_n we thus think of it? If all that has been said
 
 36 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 be true, are we not forced to this pregnant conclusion as 
 the basic hypothesis of our study — namely : that there is 
 no such thing as unionism, either in the sense of an 
 abstract unity, or of a concrete, organic, and consistent 
 whole, which can be crowded within the confines of a 
 narrow definition or judged sweepingly as good or bad, 
 right or wrong, socially helpful or harmful? If, then, 
 we dispense with narrow preconceptions and face things 
 as they actually are, and are becoming, it is impossible 
 to say that unionism as such is artificial or natural, revo- 
 lutionary or conservative, violent or law-abiding, mo- 
 nopolistic or inclusive, boss-ridden or democratic, op- 
 posed to industrial progress or favorable to efficiency, the 
 spontaneous outgrowth of legitimate needs or the prod- 
 uct and tool of selfish and designing individuals. In 
 short, there is unionism and unionism. But looking at 
 matters concretely and realistically, there is no single 
 thing that can be taken as unionism per se. 
 
 It follows as a corollary that the union problem is 
 neither simple nor unitary. It is not a mere question of 
 wages and hours, of shop conditions, and of narrow 
 economic rights of employer and employee, and it can- 
 not be solved by a mere resort to economic theory. On 
 the contrary, it is a complex of economic, legal, ethical, 
 and social problems, which can be understood and met 
 only by knowing the facts and the genesis of the view- 
 point of organized labor in all its reach, diversity, con- 
 tradictoriness, and shifting character, and by considering 
 this viewpoint in relation to developing social conditions 
 and social standards. 
 
 The study of unionism, therefore, if it is to be fruitful, 
 that is, if it is to assist in the solution of our economic 
 and social problems, must Jdc realistic and scientific.
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 37 
 
 Unionism is what it is and not what any advocate or op- 
 ponent would have it to be. It is a matter of fact in the 
 same sense that institutions, animal and plant species, or 
 any other organic manifestations are matters of fact. 
 There is no normal or abnormal unionism ; no unionism 
 that is artificial as distinguished from that which is nat- 
 ural. In short, there is no fixed union norm by which 
 any concrete case is to be tested; for all unionism is, and 
 is becoming, by virtue of sufficient causation. The prob- 
 lems which it raises, therefore, like all other problems of 
 a scientific nature, are to be solved, if at all, not through 
 passion and prejudice, and formulations of what ought to 
 be, but through an intimate knowledge of the facts as 
 they exist and a study of causes. It is for the student, 
 then, to put aside his preconceptions and feelings, to get 
 close to the realities, and to be willing to follow the truth 
 to whatever conclusions it may lead. Calmly and dis- 
 passionately we must seek to know unionism as it actu- 
 ally appears in all its phases and to search for its imder- 
 lying causes. Only after we have studied it and its prob- 
 lems thus in the spirit of the biologist or of the student 
 of social psychology and social institutions, shall we be 
 in a position to say positively what unionism really is 
 and what, if anything, should and can be done about it. 
 It is in this spirit that the following tentative analysis is 
 presented. 
 
 The master key to the real character of unionism and 
 union problems is to be found apparently in the existence 
 of distinct, union types. Though unionism itself is so 
 pragmatic and therefore so protean as to warrant the 
 rejection of all attempts to characterize and judge it as 
 a whole, it has seemingly developed along certain fairly 
 distinct general lines, giving rise thus to types sufficiently
 
 38 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 definite to allow of legitimate generalization in regard to 
 them. It appears possible to distinguish such types, both 
 as to function and structure. Structural types have, in- 
 deed, been recognized quite generally by students. Ex- 
 amination of the history and present status of unionism 
 in the United States appears to reveal four such types, 
 each objectified in a variety of concrete units; while, 
 somewhat akin to these distinct types, rnay be distin- 
 guished other forms which may perhaps be regarded as 
 modes of transition from one to the other. 
 
 Naming the structural types in what hypothetically 
 may perhaps be considered their natural sequence of de- 
 velopment, we find, first, what is ordinarily called the 
 craft union. ^ This is an organization of wageworkers 
 engaged in a single occupation, as, for example, in glass 
 bottle blowing, horseshoeing, locomotive engineering. 
 The occupation may be limited strictly to one simple task, 
 or may include a number of closely allied tasks or crafts. 
 The strict test of a craft union seems to be that each 
 member of the organization performs or may perform all 
 the tasks included in the occupation. Usually a craft 
 union covers but a fraction of the work of a given in- 
 dustry. The craft organization has developed two prin- 
 cipal units, or appears in two main forms ; the local craft 
 union, which usually unites the members of the craft or 
 occupation working in a particular locality — a town, a 
 city, or a section of a city; the national or international 
 craft union, which unites into one organization the local 
 
 * The terms "craft union" and "trade union" are often used 
 interchangeably. The writer prefers to make "trade union" the 
 general inclusive term covering all types of unionism, structural 
 and functional. This is the popular usage. •
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 39 
 
 units of a single craft or occupation throughout the coun- 
 try or neighboring countries.^ 
 
 Secondly, there appears what may be termed the crafts 
 or trades union. This organization is a federation of 
 unions in different crafts or industries. It has developed 
 three principal forms or units : the local trades union, or 
 city federation; the state federation; and the national or 
 international federation,'^ which unite through delegate 
 organizations, respectively, the unions of a locality, a 
 state, or a larger territorial area.^ Examples are the 
 
 ^ Examination of union constitutions reveals a surprising 
 amount of diversity and much individual variation in the matter 
 of structural units. Some organizations, for example, have sub- 
 locals, as in the case of the shop club of the printers, and the 
 pit committee of the miners. There may be also units inter- 
 mediate between the local and the international, such as district 
 councils, state divisions, etc. There are, moreover, such things 
 as auxiliary organizations. It is not intended here to deal with 
 this matter in detail, but simply to name the most usual and 
 perhaps the most generally important units connected with the 
 different structural types. 
 
 * These trades unions appear under many different titles. For 
 example, the city federations are known in different localities as 
 trades councils, trades assemblies, trades and labor councils, 
 trades and labor assemblies, trades and labor unions, central 
 trades councils, central labor unions, central labor councils, cen- 
 tral federated unions, central trades and labor assemblies, central 
 trades and labor councils, central associated trades councils, 
 labor councils, joint labor councils, united trades and labor 
 assemblies, united trades and labor councils, federations of labor, 
 central federations of labor, etc. The state federations also go 
 locally under different titles, and in the United States and Can- 
 ada there is more than one national trades union, for example, 
 the Women's Trade Union League, and the Canadian Trades 
 and Labor Assembly. 
 
 ' Trades unions of the same order are not always strictly or 
 exclusively federations of organic units, and unions of the same
 
 40 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Chicago Federation of Labor, The Illinois Federation of 
 Labor, and the American Federation of Labor. The es- 
 sential characteristic of the trades union is that the con- 
 stituent organizations retain their individual independence 
 or sovereignty. 
 
 Thirdly, we may distinguish the industrial union. This 
 type, as the name implies, is organized on the basis of the 
 industry rather than the craft. That is to say, it at- 
 tempts to unite into one homogeneous organic group all 
 the workers, skilled and unskilled, engaged in turning out 
 and putting on the market a given finished product or se- 
 ries of closely related products. For example, this type 
 of union would unite all the craftsmen in the direct em- 
 ploy of brewing concerns, including not only actual brew- 
 ers, maltsters, bottlers, and packers, but the engineers, 
 firemen, teamsters, watchmen, etc. ; or, again, it would 
 organize into one union all the workmen in and about a 
 coal mine, including actual miners, miners' helpers, shot 
 firers, drivers, spraggers, trappers, trackmen, timbermen, 
 hoisting engineers, check-weighmen, dumpers, etc. The 
 actual connotation of this type of unionism varies in 
 different productive lines and with the integration of 
 productive enterprise, but the essential test of industrial 
 unionism seems to be that the industrial scope or area of 
 the workers' organization shall be coterminous with that 
 of the capitalistic enterprise or series of closely related 
 enterprises. The main forms or units of this type of un- 
 ionism thus far are : the local industrial union, a com- 
 
 order may vary considerably in structural character. For ex- 
 ample, some trades unions admit individual members and there 
 is great variety in the degree of centralization of authority. 
 Nowhere is the pragmatic character of unionism better illus- 
 trated than in such structural variations.
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 4t 
 
 bination of all the employees of a single local industrial 
 plant or of all the industrial enterprises of a like character 
 in a given locality; the national or international indus- 
 trial union, a combination of all the workers in a given 
 industry throughout the nation or the international eco- 
 nomic unit ; the district industrial union, an organization 
 covering an area within which productive and market 
 conditions are essentially similar. Thus, for example, 
 the coal mine workers are organized into local unions at 
 the mines, into an international union including workers 
 in the mines of the United States and Canada, and into 
 district organizations covering adjacent bituminous or 
 anthracite mines or fields.^ 
 
 Fourthly, there exists what is technically known as 
 the labor union. This type of unionism proposes the 
 organization of all workers regardless of craft or indus- 
 trial division into homogeneous groups by localities, by 
 districts, and throughout the nation or largest possible 
 international area. At present the local labor union is 
 the only existing unit of importance in the United States 
 which realizes this ideal of organization, though attempts 
 have been made, notably in the case of the Knights of 
 Labor, to establish and maintain labor unionism in all 
 its ideal forms, local, district, and national. 
 
 Besides these four structural types of unionism, there 
 exist in this country at least two varieties which can 
 hardly be designated as distinct types, but which, strictly 
 
 *The coal-mine workers have also subdistrict organizations. 
 The subdistrict seems to be based on a uniformity of industrial 
 conditions, e. g., thickness of vein, character of roof and floor, 
 etc., while the district represents an area within which market 
 conditions are similar. That is to say, unions may have both 
 territorial and industrial divisions or units.
 
 42 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 speaking, are apparently neither craft, trades, Industrial, 
 nor labor unions. The first of these varieties may be 
 called the compound craft or crafts union. It is a cen- 
 tralized, homogeneous organization of the workers in a 
 number of related crafts. It differs from the craft union 
 in that it includes workers who do not engage in the same 
 tasks or occupations. But it is not an industrial union, 
 since it may be one of several labor organizations whose 
 workers are engaged in turning out a given finished prod- 
 uct, or are In the employ of a single capitalistic enter- 
 prise. On the other hand. It may overlap industrial 
 divisions. It may be the outcome of a formal consolida- 
 tion of two or more crafts or compound craft unions, in 
 which case it is usually known as an amalgamated craft 
 or crafts union. Examples of this variety of unionism 
 are to be found in the Amalgamated Association of Iron, 
 Tin, and Steel Workers of North America, the Amalga- 
 mated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North 
 America, the International Association of Machinists, 
 and the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electri- 
 cal Employees of America.''' In fact, a large proportion 
 
 ^ The multicraft character of this variety of unionism may be 
 illustrated by the following constitutional quotations : 
 
 "The Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alli- 
 ance claims jurisdiction over the following work: all metal 
 roofing, the manufacturing, erection, and finishing of metal cor- 
 nices, metal skylights, metal furniture, metal lockers, hollow 
 metal doors and trim, metal sash and frames, metal ceilings and 
 sidings (both exterior and interior), all sheet metal work in 
 connection with heating and ventilating, furnace and range 
 work, metal jobbing, assortment work, copper smithing, and all 
 sheet metal work made of No. lo gauge and lighter; providing, 
 however, this gauge restriction shall not apply to coppersmiths 
 in the working of copper who shall have jurisdiction over cop-
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 43 
 
 of the unions, local and national, in the United States 
 are today compound or amalgamated craft unions, 
 whether or not so designated by title. As this variety of 
 union has special representatives in all the intermediate 
 structural stages between strict craft unionism and in- 
 dustrial unionism, it would perhaps be not unreasonable 
 to regard it, provisionally at least, as a mode of transi- 
 tion between these two distinct types. Later considera- 
 tions, however, must determine the truth of this assump- 
 tion and, if true, the general direction of the develop- 
 mental tendency. 
 
 The second structural variety of unionism which is 
 difficult to classify may, in the absence of any generally 
 accepted designation, be termed the quasi industrial fed- 
 eration. It is generally a federation of industrially re- 
 lated craft and compound craft unions, appearing in 
 local, district or state, and national units. Examples of it 
 are to be seen in local printing trades, and local building 
 trades councils, in state building trades councils and 
 system federations of railway employees, and in the 
 building trades, metal trades and railroad employees' de- 
 
 per of any and all gauges." (Constitution [191 1]> Art. VI, § 2.) 
 "The Amalgamated Association (Amalgamated Glass Work- 
 ers' International Association of America) shall consist of an 
 unlimited number of local unions composed of trustworthy and 
 industrious glass workers, consisting of the following branches : 
 glass cutters, lead glazers, metal sash glazers, prism glazers, bev- 
 elers, silverers, scratch polishers, embossers, engravers, design- 
 ers, glass painters, draftsmen, sandblast workers, glass shippers, 
 glass mosaic workers, setters, putty glazers, cementers, benders, 
 flat glass or wheel cutters, glass signmakers, glass packers, plate 
 glass workers, and all wageworkers engaged in the production 
 and handling of glass not already affiliated with a national or 
 international union of glass workers." (Constitution [1905], 
 §3.)
 
 44 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 partments of the American Federation of Labor.^ This 
 variety of unionism is one in which the constituent craft 
 or amalgamated craft unions retain their individual sov- 
 ereignty, yet appear and act as a single organization with 
 respect to designated affairs of common interests. It 
 resembles both the trades union and the industrial union 
 types, but differs from each essentially. It is a narrower 
 and closer association than the trades union and is vitally 
 unlike it in the scope and character of its activities. On 
 the other hand, it lacks the organic homogeneity and 
 centralization of the industrial union. As it is in every 
 case, roughly speaking, an organization within a particu- 
 lar industry, and as its aims and activities approximate — 
 as far as they go — those of the industrial union type, it 
 may perhaps be regarded also as an intermediate phase — 
 a mode of transition between the craft and the industrial 
 union. Whether it represents thus a continuous evolu- 
 tionary process, and, if so, what the nature of the process 
 is, will appear from later considerations. 
 
 As we have said, the existence of distinct structural 
 types and varieties of unionism has quite generally been 
 recognized, and it has been noted further that union 
 function tends to vary somewhat with the variation in 
 structure. It seems possible, however, to go much 
 further than this in the general functional analysis of 
 unionism. A penetrating study of the union situation, 
 past and present, seems, in fact, to warrant the recogni- 
 tion of functional types quite as distinct in their essential 
 characteristics as the diverse structural manifestations. 
 
 ^ This variety shades into the real industrial federation, an 
 example of which is found in the mining department of the 
 American Federation of Labor.
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 45 
 
 It is true that these functional types do not in practice 
 represent exactly and exckisively the ideas and activities 
 of any particular union organization or group. That is 
 to say, no union organization functions strictly and con- 
 sistently according to type. Yet as representing as fairly 
 distinct alternative programs of union action, and as 
 guides to the essential character and significance of the 
 diverse organizations and groups included in the hetero- 
 geneous union complex, these functional types apparently 
 do exist, and are of the most vital concern to the student 
 of unionism. There are seemingly four of these distinct 
 types, two of w^hich present dual variations. 
 
 The first and perhaps most clearly recognizable func- 
 tional type may be termed business tinionisin. Business 
 unionism appears most characteristically in the programs 
 of local and national craft and compound craft organi- 
 zations. It is essentially trade-conscious, rather than 
 class-conscious. That is to say, it expresses the view- 
 point and interests of the workers in a craft or industry 
 rather than those of the working class as a whole. It aims 
 chiefly at more, here and now, for the organized workers 
 of the craft or industry, in terms mainly of higher wages, 
 shorter hours, and better working conditions, regardless 
 for the most part of the welfare of the workers out- 
 side the particular organic group, and regardless in gen- 
 eral of political and social considerations, except in so far 
 as these bear directly upon its own economic ends. It is 
 conservative in the sense that it professes belief in natural 
 rights, and accepts as inevitable, if not as just, the ex- 
 isting capitalistic organization and the wage system, as 
 well as existing property rights and the binding force of 
 contract. It regards unionism mainly as a bargaining 
 institution and seeks its ends chiefly through collective
 
 46 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 bargaining, supported by such methods as experience 
 from time to time indicates to be effective in sustaining 
 and increasing its bargaining power. Thus it is likely to 
 be exclusive, that is, to limit its membership, by means 
 of the apprenticeship system and high initiation fees 
 and dues, to the more skilled workers in the craft or in- 
 dustry, or even to a portion of these; though it may, 
 where immediate circumstances dictate, favor a broadly 
 inclusive policy — when, for example, the unregulated 
 competition of the unorganized and the unskilled seriously 
 threatens to sweep aside the trade barriers and break 
 down the standards of wages, hours and shop conditions 
 it has erected. Under these circumstances it tends to 
 develop a broad altruism and to seek the organization of 
 all the workers in the craft or industry. In harmony with 
 its business character it tends to emphasize discipline 
 within the organization, and is prone to develop strong 
 leadership and to become somewhat autocratic in govern- 
 ment, though government and leaders are ordinarily held 
 pretty strictly accountable to the pragmatic test. When 
 they fail to "deliver the goods" both are likely to be swept 
 aside by a democratic uprising of the rank and file. In 
 method, business unionism is prevailingly temperate and 
 economic. It favors voluntary arbitration, deprecates 
 strikes, and avoids political action, but it will refuse ar- 
 bitration, and will resort to strikes and politics when such 
 action seems best calculated to support its bargaining 
 efforts and increase its bargaining power. This type of 
 unionism is perhaps best represented in the program of 
 the railroad brotherhoods, though these organizations, as 
 we shall see later, present some characteristics of a vitally 
 different nature. 
 
 The second union functional type seems best designated
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 47 
 
 by the terms, friendly or uplift unionism. Uplift union- 
 ism, as its name indicates, is characteristically idealistic in 
 its viewpoint. It may be trade-conscious, or broadly 
 class-conscious, and at times even claims to think and 
 act in the interest of society as a whole. Essentially it 
 is conservative and law-abiding. It aspires chiefly to ele- 
 vate the moral, intellectual, and social life of the worker, 
 to improve the conditions under which he works, to 
 raise his material standards of living, give him a sense 
 of personal worth and dignity, secure for him the leisure 
 for culture, and insure him and his family against the 
 loss of a decent livelihood by reason of unemployment, 
 accident, disease, or old age. Uplift unionism varies 
 greatly in degree of inclusiveness, and in form of gov-- 
 ernment. But the tendency seems to be toward the greats 
 est practicable degree of mutuality and democracy. In 
 method, this type of unionism employs collective bar- 
 gaining, but stresses mutual insurance, and drifts easily 
 into political action and the advocacy of cooperative en- 
 terprises, profit-sharing, and other idealistic plans for 
 social regeneration. The nearest approach in practice to 
 uplift unionism is perhaps to be found in the program 
 of the Knights of Labor, though that organization has 
 varied in many respects from the strict type.® 
 
 As a third distinct functional type, we have what most 
 
 * It has been strongly urged by a friendly critic, who is most 
 intimately acquainted with the organized labor movement in the 
 United States, that business and uplift unionism are not in real- 
 ity distinct and independent types, but rather two varieties of 
 one type more comprehensive than either. The argument put 
 forward is that no business union can be found which has not 
 also the uplift in mind, and an idealistic viewpoint. It is sug- 
 gested that this inclusive type might be called bargaining union- 
 ism or constructive business unionism.
 
 48 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 appropriately may be called revolutionary tmionism. 
 Revolutionary unionism, as the term implies, is extremely 
 radical both in viewpoint and in action. It is distinctly 
 class-conscious rather than trade-conscious. That is to 
 say, it asserts the complete harmony of interests of all 
 wageworkers as against the representatives of the em- 
 ploying class, and seeks to unite the former, skilled and 
 unskilled together, into one homogeneous fighting organi- 
 zation. It repudiates, or tends to repudiate, the existing 
 institutional order and especially individual ownership 
 of productive means, and the wage system. It looks 
 upon the prevailing modes of right and rights, moral and 
 legal, as, in general, fabrications of the employing class, 
 designed to secure the subjection and to further the ex- 
 ploitation of the workers. In government it aspires to 
 be democratic, striving to make literal application of the 
 phrase vox populi, vox Dei. In method, it looks askance 
 at collective bargaining and mutual insurance as making 
 for conservatism and hampering the free and united ac- 
 tion of the workers. 
 
 Of this revolutionary type of unionism there are ap- 
 parently two distinct varieties. The first finds its ulti- 
 mate ideal in the socialistic state and its ultimate means 
 in invoking class political action. For the present it does 
 not entirely repudiate collective bargaining or the bind- 
 ing force of contract, but it regards these as temporary 
 expedients. It would not now amalgamate unionist and 
 socialist organizations, but would have them practically 
 identical in membership and entirely harmonious in ac- 
 tion. In short, it looks upon unionism and socialism as 
 the two wings of the working class movement. The sec- 
 ond variety of revolutionary unionism repudiates alto- 
 gether socialism, political action, collective bargaining,
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 49 
 
 and contract. Socialism is to it but another form of op- 
 pression, political action a practical delusion, collective 
 bargaining and contract schemes of the oppressor for 
 preventing the united and immediate action of the work- 
 ers. It looks forward to a society based upon free in- 
 dustrial association, and finds its legitimate means in 
 agitation, rather than in methods which look to immedi- 
 ate betterment. Direct action and sabotage are its ac- 
 credited weapons, and violence its habitual resort. These 
 varieties of the revolutionary type may be termed re- 
 spectively socialistic and quasi anarchistic unionism.^^ 
 The former is perhaps most clearly represented in the 
 United States by the Western Federation of Miners,^^ 
 the latter by the Industrial Workers of the World. ^^ 
 
 Finally, in the union complex, it seems possible to dis- 
 tinguish a mode of action sufficiently definite in its char- 
 
 ^° By many it would seem more appropriate to designate the 
 second variety as syndicalist unionism. The name quasi anar- 
 chistic has been chosen, however, because there appears to be 
 as yet little real syndicalism in the United States, and, further, 
 because quasi anarchistic is the more inclusive term. It leaves 
 open the opportunity for further subclassification should the 
 conditions warrant. 
 
 ^'^ The present methods of this organization, now known as 
 the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, 
 are, in general, those of business unionism. [Eds.] 
 
 ^2 In strict justice it must be stated that there are two general 
 organizations in this country claiming to be known as the Indus- 
 trial Workers of the World. The first, the parent body, has its 
 headquarters in Chicago; the second, an oflfshoot, is officially 
 located in Detroit. The latter is a representative of the first 
 revolutionary variant. That is, it advocates political action and 
 supports one of the Socialist parties. In ordinary usage, the 
 term I. W. W. applies to the Chicago organization, and when 
 unmodified is to be so understood in these pages.
 
 50 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 acter and genesis to warrant the designation, predatory 
 unionism. This type, if it be truly such, cannot be set 
 apart on the basis of any ultimate social ideals or theory. 
 It may be essentially conservative or radical, trade-con- 
 scious or class-conscious. It appears to aim solely at im- 
 mediate ends and its methods are wholly pragmatic. In 
 short, its distinguishing characteristic is the ruthless pur- 
 suit of the thing in hand by whatever means seem most 
 appropriate at the time, regardless of ethical and legal 
 codes or effect upon those outside its own membership. 
 It may employ business, friendly, or revolutionary meth- 
 ods. Generally, its operations are secret, and apparently 
 it sticks at nothing. 
 
 Of this assumed union type also there appear to be two 
 varieties. The first may be termed hold-up uniotiism. 
 This variety is usually to be found in large industrial 
 centers, masquerading as business unionism. In out- 
 ward appearance it is conservative ; it professes a belief 
 in harmony of interests between employer and employee; 
 it claims to respect the force of contract; it operates 
 openly through collective bargaining, and professes re- 
 gard for law and order. In reality it has no abiding 
 principles, and no real concern for the rights or welfare 
 of outsiders. Prevailingly it is exclusive and monopolis- 
 tic. Generally it is boss-ridden and corrupt, the member- 
 ship for the most part being content to follow blindly the 
 instructions of the leaders so long as they "deliver the 
 goods." Frequently it enters with the employers of the 
 group into a double-sided monopoly intended to eliminate 
 both capitalistic and labor competition, and to squeeze 
 the consuming public. With the favored employers, it 
 bargains not only for the sale of its labor, but for the 
 destruction of the business of rival employers and the
 
 GENERAL CHARACTER AND TYPES 51 
 
 exclusion of rival workmen from the craft or industry. 
 On the whole its methods are a mixture of open bargain- 
 ing coupled with secret bribery and violence. This vari- 
 ety of unionism has been exemplified most frequently 
 among the building trades organizations under the leader- 
 ship of men like the late notorious "Skinney" Madden. 
 The second variety of predatory labor organization 
 may be called, for want of a better name, guerilla union- 
 ism. This variety resembles the first in the absence of 
 fixed principles and in the ruthless pursuit of immediate 
 ends by means of secret and violent methods. It is to 
 be distinguished from hold-up unionism, however, by the 
 fact that it operates always directly against its employers, 
 never in combination with them, and that it cannot be 
 bought off. It is secret, violent, and ruthless, seemingly 
 because it despairs of attaining what it considers to be 
 legitimate ends by business, uplift, or revolutionary 
 methods. This union variant has been illustrated recently 
 in the campaign of destruction carried on by the Bridge 
 and Structural Iron Workers.^^ 
 
 ^^ It has been suggested that there is still another functional 
 union type which might be called dependent unionism. It is well 
 known that there are unions whose existence is dependent wholly 
 or in large part upon other unions or upon the employers. Some 
 unions, for example, could not exist except for their labels, 
 which secure a special market among other unionists or union 
 sympathizers for the goods which they turn out. Such unions 
 are sometimes demanded or initiated by the employers, who see 
 in the label a good commercial asset. Again, there are unions 
 instigated and practically dominated by employers, organized 
 and conducted on especially conservative lines with the purpose 
 of combating or displacing independent unionism. We may 
 then, perhaps, be justified in recognizing here a fifth functional 
 type with twp subordinate varieties.
 
 52 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The writer is aware that, apparently, strong objections 
 may be urged against the assumption that these diverse 
 expressions of union viewpoint and action represent true 
 functional types. ^* It has been admitted that probably 
 the ideals and modes of action of no particular union 
 organization correspond exactly to any one of these so- 
 called types. It is a fact, moreover, that the programs 
 of most unions are undergoing a pretty constant process 
 of change and sometimes shift rapidly. It is true further 
 that the membership of any union may include represen- 
 tatives of all kinds of unionism — business, uplift, revolu- 
 tionary, and predatory. It might then be argued that 
 what have here been called types are mere individual 
 attitudes, or, at most, aspects or tendencies of one and 
 the same union species. It will be the purpose of succeed- 
 ing chapters, therefore, to test the reality of these as- 
 sumed types and varieties, and to interpret them causally 
 by means of a brief study of the genesis and development 
 of organized labor in the United States. Incidentally 
 this study should reveal also the general laws of union 
 development. 
 
 ^4 The writer is also fully alive to the fact that no first at- 
 tempt at functional analysis of unionism can be regarded as 
 final, and will welcome any and all criticism and cooperation 
 that may lead to greater accuracy in this respect.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM AND THE INTERPRE- 
 TATION OF UNION TYPES 
 
 In the preceding chapter, on the general character and 
 types of trade unionism, two leading propositions were 
 advanced as working hypotheses for the interpretation of 
 the facts : first, that unionism is not a unified, consistent 
 entity; secondly, that what is called unionism is in reality 
 the manifold expression of a series of distinct and essen- 
 tially contradictory types and varieties. Such types and 
 varieties were distinguished tentatively with respect to 
 both structure and function, and the leading representa- 
 tives in each division were briefly characterized as they 
 appear to exist in the United States today. Thus, struc- 
 turally, the union complex was analyzed into six main 
 forms of organization, each represented by a series of 
 territorial and sometimes industrial units; viz., the craft 
 union, the trades union, the compound craft union, the 
 quasi industrial union, the industrial union, and the labor 
 union. Functionally, the attempt was made to distinguish 
 four main types and four subordinate varieties; viz., 
 business unionism, uplift unionism, revolutionary union- 
 ism, and predatory unionism as types ; ^ socialistic and 
 quasi anarchistic unionism as varieties of the revolution- 
 
 ^ A possible fifth type was also suggested, viz., dependent 
 unionism. 
 
 53
 
 54 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ary t^pe, hold-up and guerrilla unionism as variants of 
 the predatory type. 
 
 This discussion of the general character and types of 
 unionism was professedly tentative and suggestive. At 
 its close the writer admitted that apparently strong ob- 
 jections might be urged against the hypotheses advanced. 
 Therefore, in view of their supreme importance in con- 
 nection with the whole interpretation of unionism, our 
 judgments of it, and any practical proposals with regard 
 to it, the promise was made to subject their validity at 
 once to the inductive or historical test. Specifically 
 stated, this requires us, if our hypotheses are to be main- 
 tained, to prove by reference to undisputed facts, past 
 and present, that these union types do exist as described, 
 and that their nature and relationships are such as to 
 allow of no escape from the conclusion that unionism is 
 essentially a series of independent group manifestations 
 which from the practical standpoint cannot be interpreted, 
 evaluated, and judged as a simple consistent whole, or as 
 a succession of more or less accidental and temporary 
 variations from a single normal type. 
 
 At first blush the process of proof here required ap- 
 pears to be very simple. It would seem necessary merely 
 to furnish undisputed evidence of the existence, past and 
 present, of unions or union groups possessing the char- 
 acteristics of these assumed types. A moment's thought, 
 however, makes it clear that something other than this is 
 required to prove that unionism is in reality nonunitary 
 in character. For it is evident that the mere successive 
 existence of such variations in the past might in itself in- 
 dicate only adaptations of one and the same unionism to 
 a changing environment, while their present existence 
 alone might be evidence either of survivals of past
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 55 
 
 adaptations destined shortly to disappear or of merely 
 temporary aberrations from the normal. In either case, 
 if nothing more were adduced it would be possible still 
 to regard unionism as a single definite entity, since suc- 
 cessive adaptations of a species to alterations in environ- 
 ment do not necessarily destroy its identity, nor do con- 
 current variations, unless these become permanently es- 
 tablished as conflicting or rival forms. 
 
 What, then, are the real tests or criteria of distinct 
 union types, and what is the process of proof necessary 
 to establish their existence? It is evident that to answer 
 this question with assurance, and therefore to remove 
 all doubt in regard to the mode of procedure here de- 
 manded, a more thorough understanding is required of 
 the nature and interdependence of these union variants 
 which we have described. This involves a positive in- 
 terpretation of unionism in terms of its general func- 
 tional and structural character and relationships. Let 
 us then attempt to indicate clearly the essential quality 
 and conditions of existence of this combination of func- 
 tion and structure called unionism. 
 
 Students in general have approached unionism on the 
 structural side, and have treated it as though the union 
 were essentially an organic unit with certain functional 
 attributes ; and hitherto we have spoken of the functional 
 and structural forms as though they were independent 
 and coordinate expressions of unionism. Both of these 
 attitudes are untenable. From the standpoint of motives 
 and ends, as well as from that of its character and signifi- 
 cance as a social problem, the real unionism — its primary 
 and essential expression — is functional. The structural 
 form is altogether secondary and dependent. This will
 
 56 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 be made evident by a brief analysis of the motives which 
 actuate prospective unionists and the manner and pur- 
 poses for which the union is brought into being. 
 
 What concerns men primarily in their social relation- 
 ships as ends to be striven for is not forms of organiza- 
 tions but standards of living — using this phrase to cover 
 not merely the narrow economic aspect of life but social 
 standards generally, including moral and judicial as well 
 as material conditions, rights, and privileges. As social 
 beings we are all concerned primarily with the problem 
 of living as presented by these conditions and standards ; 
 and our attention is focused on the solution of this prob- 
 lem in terms of our particular needs and the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances which we have to face and overcome. In 
 our efforts to comprehend and solve this problem each of 
 us develops more or less completely and systematically an 
 interpretation of life — an explanation of things as they 
 are in terms of the conditions and relationships of which 
 we are conscious and the forces which determine these. 
 And along with this interpretation there tends to grow 
 up in the mind of each some plan or scheme for the modi- 
 fication or complete alteration of the situation in the 
 furtherance of his special ideals or interests. 
 
 The wageworker is no exception in respect to all this. 
 His hopes and fears center primarily about such matters 
 as employment, wages and hours, conditions of work, 
 modes of remuneration — in short, the most vital con- 
 cerns which immediately touch his present and future 
 well-being — and the economic, ethical, and juridical con- 
 ditions, standards, and forces that practically determine 
 these matters; and his mind focuses on the problem of 
 living as presented in these terms. In his attempt to 
 comprehend and solve this problem he also develops some
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM s; 
 
 sort of social viewpoint — an interpretation of the social 
 situation as viewed from the standpoint of his peculiar 
 experiences and needs — and a set of beliefs concerning 
 what should and can be done to better the situation, 
 especially as it bears upon the conditions of living which 
 he faces.^ 
 
 The scope and character of this viewpoint and the 
 mode of its development in the mind of the worker 
 vary with the individual. If he is by nature and train- 
 ing thoughtful and independent, he may work out his own 
 conclusions, subject of course to the unconscious influence 
 of the general body of opinion about him, and his inter- 
 pretation and solution may cover the widest range, in- 
 cluding not only the immediate economic conditions and 
 relationships which confront him, but the ethical and 
 legal foundations upon which these rest. One indeed f re- 
 
 *The statement in the text does not of course attempt to 
 carry the analysis back to its ultimate basis. To quote a com- 
 ment by Professor George H. Mead: "This process is funda- 
 mentally a process of the coming to a new self-consciousness 
 on the part of the laborer in the changing industrial conditions 
 in which he finds himself. It is a great mistake to identify this 
 fundamental impulse with the occasions which give it expression. 
 The individual laborer can become conscious of himself only 
 in so far as he realizes himself in the common attitude of the 
 group over against the employing class or another group of 
 workers, and the whole history of the development of society 
 has shown that this negative attitude must precede any con- 
 sciousness of common interests which bind this group to others 
 in society. The trade union is then one step in the process of 
 socializing the laborers brought about under the modern process 
 of industry, and goes through the same stages through which 
 the community itself has passed in advancing from hostile 
 groups into a conscious organization of diverse but interacting 
 elements of society."
 
 58 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 queiitly encounters workmen who have thus possessed 
 themselves of a complete and often esoteric social philos- 
 ophy. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the individual worker is intel- 
 lectually untrained and sluggish, his view is likely to be 
 relatively narrow, concerned mainly with his own im- 
 mediate conditions and relationships, and taken over 
 bodily from the current opinion of his associates. In 
 such cases he is likely to reflect merely the opinions of 
 some stronger or more expansive personality who has 
 constituted himself a leader. But whatever its range or 
 quality, and however it may have been acquired, each 
 worker possesses and is guided by some sort of social 
 philosophy rooted in his peculiar temperament and in his 
 immediate experiences and relationships. 
 
 It is evident that under these circumstances workers 
 similarly situated economically and socially, closely as- 
 sociated and not too divergent in temperament and train- 
 ing, will tend to develop a common interpretation of the 
 social situation and a common solution of the problem 
 of living. This may come about gradually and spon- 
 taneously, or it may be the apparently sudden outcome of 
 some crisis in the lives of the men concerned. It may, 
 for example, result immediately from some alteration for 
 the worse in the conditions of living, or an interference 
 with what are considered established rights and modes of 
 action, of which cases in point would be wholesale dis- 
 charges from employment or the discharge of favorite 
 individuals, a lowering of the wage rate, the requirement 
 of more onerous or more dangerous conditions of work, 
 a sudden rise in the prices of necessities, some police 
 action or legal decision which touches the workers on the 
 raw with respect to modes of action or their assumed dig
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 59 
 
 nity and rights as men. Or this crystallization of senti- 
 ment may come about as the result of the appearance from 
 without or the rise from within the group of a purpose- 
 ful agitator and leader — a man whose personality or 
 position commands attention, who is capable of putting 
 into general form the discontents of the individuals and 
 offering a positive solution of their difficulties. But 
 whatever the immediate cause, the result is the same. A 
 social group is thus constituted, marked off by a more 
 or less unified and well-developed but effective viewpoint 
 or group psychology. 
 
 As soon as this state of affairs has been reached group 
 action is a natural consequence. Those whose interpre- 
 tations of the situation and solutions of the problem are 
 sufficiently alike to make cooperation apparently possible, 
 spontaneously or under purposeful leadership band them- 
 selves together for common effort and mutual assistance. 
 They come together thus, not primarily to establish and 
 vindicate a form of organization — the organization is 
 merely means to end — but to establish and maintain cer- 
 tain conditions of living — to pvit through a remedial pro- 
 gram based on their common interpretation of the social 
 situation viewed from the standpoint of their immediate 
 conditions and needs. 
 
 Thus the union comes into existence.^ It goes back in 
 
 ^ Unionism then is not a thing which exists only among wage- 
 workers. In its broadest sense it may be as pervasive as social 
 grouping. It may exist wherever in society there is a group of 
 men with consciousness of common needs and interests apart 
 from the rest of society. What distinguishes trade unionism 
 from other forms is that it expresses the viewpoint and inter- 
 pretation of groups of wageworkers. As a matter of fact we 
 have no lack of unions of employers, unions of merchants, 
 unions of farmers, and unions of professional men. The cu-
 
 6o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 its genesis ultimately to the common needs and problems 
 of the wageworkers ; it arises immediately out of the con- 
 sciousness of the common or group character of those 
 needs and problems ; it exists for common action looking 
 to the betterment of the living conditions; it appears 
 primarily as a group interpretation of the social situa- 
 tion in which the workers find themselves, and a reme- 
 dial program in the form of aims, policies, and methods; 
 the organization and the specific form or structure which 
 it takes are merely the instruments which the group 
 adopts for propagating its viewpoint and putting its pro- 
 gram into effect. In short, looking at it from the stand- 
 point of motives and ends, as well as from that of its 
 character as a social problem, the heart and core of the 
 thing — its essential aspect or expression — is functional. 
 Its structural or organic expression is secondary and de- 
 pendent.* 
 
 rious thing is that men who themselves are members of one 
 sort of union, in so many cases cannot be made to believe that 
 unions of another sort are anything but unnatural and vicious 
 products. 
 
 * In practice and specifically, the genesis of unions is, of 
 course, a matter of much variation, and the actual order of events 
 is not always as stated in the text. Spasmodic action often pre- 
 cedes organization, and organization frequently antedates any 
 general or rationalized formulation of viewpoint, interpretation, 
 and program. Frequently blind and spasmodic revolt against 
 some particular grievance or condition is the first objective step 
 in the formation of a union. This revolt may be brought about 
 by the personal influence of one or a few men, and the crowd 
 may act more as the result of imitation or emotion than from 
 clear consciousness of a common viewpoint and problem; after 
 which a paid organizer appears and attempts to teach the work- 
 ers or a select number the union viewpoint and program, and to 
 effect a permanent organization. But even in such cases some
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 6i 
 
 If, then, functional and structural types of trade union- 
 ism exist, we have here the most definite indications of 
 what must be their nature and relationships. Assuming 
 their existence, the functional type is simply a specific 
 case of group psychology. It is a social interpretation 
 and remedial program held by a group of wage workers. 
 Obviously there may be as many of these functional 
 types as there are groups of workers with vitally different 
 social viewpoints and plans of action. The structural 
 type, on the other hand, is simply one of the organic 
 methods by means of which the functional types seek to 
 maintain discipline among their members and to put into 
 effect their programs of action. Evidently there may be 
 as many structural types as there are distinct organic 
 modes of combination effective for these purposes. The 
 
 consciousness of common needs and problems has preceded ac- 
 tion and organization, and unless the conditions are present for 
 the development of a common viewpoint, interpretation, and 
 program, and, further, unless the organization is adapted to 
 make these effective, it will not work. Unless these elements 
 are present some organization may indeed be created, but it will 
 soon disintegrate. This accounts, indeed, for the great propor- 
 tion of unions that prove altogether ephemeral. They are based 
 on the temporary existence of special and exceptional circum- 
 stances, or are the work of one or two men whose special influ- 
 ence has for the time created the semblance of a group psychol- 
 ogy among a body of men incapable of continuous common 
 thought and action. Under these circumstances, as soon as the 
 special exigency is past, or the special leadership withdrawn, the 
 group is bound to break up. In other words, the native con- 
 sciousness in the group membership of actually existing common 
 needs and problems is primal. Without it and without adapta- 
 tion to it no organization can long exist and function. In the 
 most vital sense, then, the statement in the text represents the 
 true genesis of the union and the true relation of its functional 
 and structural expressions.
 
 62 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 functional type is unionism of a certain species. The 
 structural type is one organic form in which it may 
 clothe itself. In other words, the structural type is re- 
 lated to the functional type somewhat as government is 
 related to the nation. It is altogether a subordinate and 
 dependent manifestation. 
 
 But do such types exist? So far as concerns struc- 
 tural types, this has been generally conceded. What can 
 we say, then, in regard to the functional aspect of the 
 case? Let us carry the analysis a step farther. It is 
 evident that, once the viewpoint stated above is com- 
 prehended and accepted, we should look for distinct and 
 conflicting varieties of unionism, functionally speaking. 
 We should expect these to appear wherever and when- 
 ever there exist groups of workers with well-defined and 
 conflicting social viewpoints. Moreover, we should ex- 
 pect to find them existing not only in succession but con- 
 currently, and not only in different industries but among 
 the workers in the same industry and even in the same 
 craft. For as soon as we concede that the union is in 
 essence an expression of group psychology we realize that 
 it will get its specific character not merely from environ- 
 mental conditions but from these in conjunction with the 
 temperamental characteristics of the workers concerned, 
 and that consequently union variants are likely to appear 
 with a variation in either of these factors. In short, we 
 should expect to find concurrent functional variation and 
 conflict to be among the chief features of contemporary 
 unionism in a country like our own, with its diversity of 
 environmental conditions and its richness of racial and 
 temperamental contrasts. 
 
 And the facts amply confirm the deduction : not only 
 does the student of American unionism encounter differ-
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 63 
 
 ent union groups in different industries with widely vary- 
 ing viewpoints and interpretations, but different unions 
 with varying aims, policies, and methods contending for 
 the domination of the same industry. And nothing is 
 more characteristic of the situation than the descent of 
 this form of conflict into the particular union where rival 
 groups or factions struggle for the control of the or- 
 ganization in the interests of conflicting interpretations 
 and programs. The bitterness of these contests and their 
 continuance over long periods and under different sets 
 of leaders leave no doubt that they spring, in part at 
 least, from the existence of irreconcilable viewpoints.'* 
 
 5 As illustrations of the statement in the text the following 
 specific cases of union conflict based mainly on differences of 
 viewpoint and program may be cited : In the eighties and early 
 nineties the American Federation of Labor, claiming to repre- 
 sent in general what we have called business unionism, was en- 
 gaged in a struggle for supremacy with the Knights of Labor, 
 the assumed proponent of idealistic uplift unionism, and since 
 1905 the American Federation has had to encounter the bitter 
 opposition of the quasi anarchistic Industrial Workers of the 
 World. During the most of this time the control of the Fed- 
 eration has been more or less seriously threatened by the social- 
 istic unionists working within the organization. The L W. W. 
 has been in a chronic state of internal conflict since its estab- 
 lishment in 1905. In 1908 it split into two irreconcilable fac- 
 tions resulting in the formation of a socialistic I. W. W. (the 
 Detroit I. W. W.) which has since maintained a separate exist- 
 ence. At the present moment the older organization is in most 
 serious straits due to internal dissensions. Serious contests oyer 
 general policy are not infrequent in state and city central units 
 of the American Federation of Labor. A notable example is 
 the case of the Chicago Federation of Labor, the control of 
 which some years since was threatened by the violent efforts 
 and the drastic measures of a predatory group ruled by "Skinny" 
 Madden, and which has been almost constantly harassed by the
 
 64 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Conflicting functional variants then certainly do exist 
 in the union complex. But are these variants union types 
 in the sense that they preclude the assumption of a single 
 consistent unionism at bottom ? This is the question for 
 practical proof. In order to clear the ground for direct 
 consideration of this question, one more point in the 
 general interpretation of unionism demands considera- 
 tion. 
 
 If the validity of the preceding analysis be conceded, 
 it is evident that the orthodox causal and historical in- 
 terpretation of unionism must be abandoned or thor- 
 oughly revised. It has been the habit of students to 
 look upon trade unionism as fundamentally an econom- 
 ic manifestation and to interpret it almost exclusively, 
 or at least primarily, in terms of industrial or economic 
 factors. Thus one school would explain unionism in 
 terms of the development of the process of production 
 in its narrow sense, making of it a succession of organic 
 adaptations to the conditions and needs of the workers 
 produced immediately by the successive types or units 
 of capitalistic enterprise, e.g., the small craft unit, the 
 industrial unit, and the enlarged industrial unit or trust. 
 
 efforts of the socialistic unionists to force upon it their view- 
 point and policies. Contests within national and local unions 
 between rival factions representing conflicting union varieties 
 find well-known recent examples in the cases of the United Mine 
 Workers, the Electrical Workers, the Association of Machinists, 
 the Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers, the Bakery and 
 Confectionery Workers, the Carpenters and Joiners — to name 
 only a few of many. Contests between national unions for con- 
 trol of the trade or industry find current examples in the strug- 
 gle between the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the 
 Switchmen's Union of North America, and between the two 
 unions in the boot and shoemaking industry.
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM '65 
 
 Unionism tlius appears ultimately as the organic corol- 
 lary of the form of the tool or machine. Another school 
 insists that unionism is to be explained primarily in 
 terms of the development of markets and the character 
 and scope of market competition, endeavoring to show 
 that the different forms of unionism correspond natur- 
 ally to the conditions existing in conjunction with the 
 customs market, the retail competitive market, and the 
 wholesale market. Here transportation is perhaps the 
 most potent underlying determinant. It is not denied 
 that other factors have a formative influence, especially, 
 for example, the presence or absence of free land, the 
 political ideals and situation, and the state of public edu- 
 cation. But these factors are looked upon as modifiers. 
 Environment is practically the sole, and economic en- 
 vironment the chief, formative force, and unionism is 
 again regarded as a series of successive adaptations of 
 one and the same thing to the changing environmental 
 conditions. 
 
 These attempts at explanation simply or mainly in 
 industrial or economic terms result largely from the 
 habit of regarding unionism primarily as an organic 
 phenomenon and thus centering the attention on struc- 
 tural forms and changes, and are the chief cause for fail- 
 ure to recognize the possible nonunitary character of 
 unionism. For as soon as we discard the older mode of 
 approach and look at unionism as primarily functional 
 in character, the appearance of orderly succession van- 
 ishes, and the simple modes of interpretation described 
 above are seen to be altogether inadequate to account for 
 the facts. We have then to explain chiefly the existence 
 of contradictory group interpretations and programs 
 which succeed each other apparently in no or^er acpount-
 
 66 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 able for by changes in the economic situation, and which 
 appear, as we have pointed out, not only consecutively 
 in conjunction with different systems of production and 
 marketing, but concurrently, and not merely in the same 
 general industrial and social milieu, but among workers 
 in the same trade and even in the same union. 
 
 Evidently functional variations thus existing and per- 
 sisting cannot be explained in economic or even in en- 
 vironmental terms alone. They can be accounted for 
 only on the supposition that primary forces besides the 
 industrial and environmental are vitally responsible for 
 their genesis and being. In short, an interpretation of 
 unionism, not in monistic, but in dualistic or pluralistic 
 terms is required. ' 
 
 What then conceivably are these relatively permanent, 
 non-industrial factors which enter into the determina- 
 tion of the primary or functional character of unionism? 
 Since these diverse viewpoints and interpretations which 
 make up unionism are obviously specific cases of group or 
 social psychology, we have merely to inquire what are the 
 determining factors of the psychology of social groups. 
 This query the social psychologist stands ready to answer 
 with considerable assurance. He assures us that one of 
 these factors is environment — not economic environment 
 merely, but political, social, and traditional as well, in the 
 sense of the whole body of transmitted sentiments, ideas, 
 and precepts — moral, religious, and customary. But he 
 assures us also that over against environment as thus 
 broadly interpreted is another factor, perhaps equally 
 potent and certainly more permanent. This is the sub- 
 jective factor. It includes temperament and aptitudes, 
 both personal and racial, which show themselves as be- 
 tween different races and individuals in relatively per-
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM ^t 
 
 manent and conflicting feelings, ideals, and attitudes. It 
 is these temperamental differences plus environmental in- 
 fluences that at any moment cause individuals to differ in 
 respect to what is good and bad, right and wrong, just 
 and unjust; which mold and color their social interpre- 
 tations, and thus, through the primal forces of associa- 
 tion, bring about psychological groups with diverse and 
 conflicting viewpoints and programs of action.® We 
 may then reasonably conclude that the existence of con- 
 current and conflicting functional variants is to be ex- 
 plained as .the outcome of different combinations of all 
 these relatively permanent forces that affect the psy- 
 chology of group membership, both environmental and 
 subjective or temperamental, and since the functional 
 aspect of unionism is its primary and essential expres- 
 sion it also is to be explained causally and historically in 
 the same terms.'^ 
 
 With this general interpretation of unionism in hand 
 we are now in a position to comprehend the nature of 
 the problem involved in the assumption that unionism is 
 at bottom nonunitary, and to state clearly and specifically 
 the character and methods of proof which are required 
 to validate this assumption. The problem is one which 
 evidently concerns primarily the existence, and character 
 of functional union types. We shall therefore consider 
 
 ^ See C. H. Cooley, Social Organization; W. G. Sumner, Folk- 
 ways; W. I. Thomas, "Race Psychology," American Journal of 
 Sociology, XVII, 72S-77S ', G- Tarde, The Laws of Imitation. 
 
 ^ This insistence on a dualistic interpretation of unionism is 
 not necessarily out of harmony with a belief in philosophical 
 monism or even with adherence to the "economic interpretation 
 of history." It implies nothing in regard to the ultimate deter- 
 minants of racial and temperamental differences. It takes them 
 simply as fixed data for the present and recent situation.
 
 68 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 this aspect of the matter first, postponing for the present 
 the discussion of structural types and their relation to 
 the main issue. 
 
 We have seen that functional union variants do exist. 
 What then must be proved with respect to them in order 
 to establish the main contention? It would follow from 
 all that has been said that the real tests of the validity of 
 these variants as types are concurrent existence as rival 
 forms of unionism and relative permanence or stability 
 as such. Only in so far as they stand these tests can we 
 be sure that they are more than successive adaptations 
 of one and the same unionism to changing environment, 
 or more than temporary and accidental variations from 
 a single union norm; and only in so far can we assert 
 that unionism is not after all an essentially consistent 
 though developing whole. 
 
 But the question at once arises : Just what is implied 
 specifically in the terms "rival forms or expressions" and 
 "relative permanence or stability"? In order to con- 
 stitute a type must there be a perfectly defined and com- 
 pletely isolated union variant, exactly objectified in a for- 
 mal organization which has existed from the initial gene- 
 sis of unionism, or will less rigid requirements suffice? 
 
 Certainly it must be shown that these functional vari- 
 ants exist at the same time among the wageworkers as 
 consciously formulated and essentially conflicting social 
 interpretations with special regard to the needs and prob- 
 lems of the workers and the best methods of arriving at 
 their solution; and that these conflicting interpretations, 
 once established, persist and, so far as we can see, do 
 not tend to revert or to develop into some one of the in- 
 terpretations or into a single common interpretation. 
 
 On the other hand, at least three apparent qualifications
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 69 
 
 of these conditions are possible without destroying the 
 practical reality and significance of distinct functional 
 types. In the first place, no specific degree of scope and 
 generality with respect to the group interpretation and 
 program is essential. These may be exceedingly narrow, 
 concerned merely with the immediate economic condi- 
 tions, relationships, and standards of living of the work- 
 ers involved ; that is, they may comprehend simply a set 
 of more or less coordinated assumptions in regard to the 
 rights of the men with respect to wages, hours, and con- 
 ditions of employment, the mode of determining these, 
 and the methods to be used in securing reasonable terms 
 with the employer and enforcing them. Or the group 
 interpretation may constitute a complete, definite, and 
 rationalized social philosophy, and the program may cover 
 the whole field of economic, political, ethical, juridical, 
 and social conditions and relationships of the workers. 
 The only essential point is that the viewpoint and pro- 
 gram, whatever their scope and character, shall command 
 the adherence of the membership of the group so as to 
 constitute an effective motive and guide to group action. 
 If this condition is met the type exists. The interpreta- 
 tion may be what it will ; the question is : Does it work as 
 a unifying and dynamic group force? 
 
 It is equally true, secondly and thirdly, that these func- 
 tional types can exist, and can in so far show the essential 
 diversity and manifold character of unionism indepen- 
 dent of any structural qualifications whatever and apart 
 from the existence of actual union programs conforming 
 exactly to them. For the functional type, it must not 
 be forgotten, is a group viewpoint or interpretation and, 
 provided it exists, persists, and its adherents strive to 
 secure for it practical effectiveness and the structural
 
 70 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 means appropriate thereto, it is a union type, regardless 
 of the structural form through which or with which it 
 may be obliged to work, and regardless of the ability of 
 its advocates to secure its exclusive objectification in the 
 programs of any particular organizations.^ It is not 
 necessary, even, that different functional types should 
 always find expression in different and conflicting union 
 organizations. On the contrary, it is possible, and in- 
 deed it often happens, that the conflict between the func- 
 tional types goes on within one and the same union or- 
 ganization, taking the form of a struggle for control 
 between two or more factions holding to vitally different 
 social viewpoints and interpretations. As a matter of 
 fact this internal conflict is a characteristic feature of 
 unions, and at any moment there is almost always some 
 factional compromise and some practical admixture of 
 functional type programs. Official union programs, 
 therefore, rarely exist perfectly true to type. This is one 
 reason why the multiple-type character of unionism has 
 been generally overlooked. But this admixture in prac- 
 tice no more negates the fact and significance of union 
 types than does the practical absence of pure democracy, 
 unmixed oligarchy, or absolute despotism negate the 
 varied type and character of government, nor does the 
 fact that most capitalistic incomes are mixed negate or 
 
 *A good illustration of this statement is furnished by the 
 American Syndicalist League. No one prepared to admit the 
 existence of functional types at all would deny a place among 
 them to revolutionary syndicalism. Yet it is not the primary 
 aim of the Syndicalist League to form separate union organiza- 
 tions with correct syndicalist programs, but gradually to trans- 
 form American unionism by the process of spiritual penetration. 
 It advises all syndicalists to join the unions of their trade and 
 to agitate within the organization.
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 71 
 
 destroy the significance of the truth that social income, 
 aside from that which goes to wages, is divided into the 
 essentially diverse income types — profits, interest, and 
 rent — and that actual distribution is to be so far inter- 
 preted in terms of these types and their fundamental 
 determinants.^ 
 
 If there is any doubt in regard to the aptness of these 
 analogies, let us put the case in the worst possible light 
 for our contention, and then deal with it on its own 
 merits. We have from the first insisted that unionism 
 is what it is, and must be interpreted as we find it. But 
 if there is no exact correlation between functional and 
 structural types, and if actual union programs rarely 
 occur type pure, how then can these functional types be 
 the effective guides to union action or true clues to the 
 interpretation of actual unionism? The answer is to be 
 
 » Neither is the' existence and significance of union types 
 negated by the fact that in times of serious crises unionists and 
 unions of one type are likely to rally temporarily to the support 
 of those of another, nor by the further fact that within unions 
 bodies of men are found who act now with one and now with 
 another faction. The first case finds its analogy in war between 
 nations, when for the time being partisans of all types of gov- 
 ernment unite against foreign aggression. The second case 
 illustrates the force of personality and imitation in the deter- 
 mination of social grouping. In the unions there are a few 
 men of strong personality and decided opinions. There are more 
 of an imitative disposition who get their opinions from others- 
 The former in their positive interpretations and programs repre- 
 sent and maintain the distinct and conflicting union types. The 
 latter are followers who sometimes shift in their allegiance from 
 leader to leader and thus from type to type, with changes in 
 associations and conditions. This fact does not negate the 
 existence of the types, but throws light rather on the conditions 
 which determine the outcome of contests between factions repre- 
 senting types.
 
 y2 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 found in the pragmatic and dynamic character of union^ 
 ism. It is not a made-to-order and finished product, but 
 is in a constant state of flux and development. For the 
 most part it changes, not by the process of creations 
 de novo, but by the slow transformation of existing pro- 
 grams and structure. Unionism as it is, then, is not a set 
 of fixed forms and programs, but is a developing process, 
 and it is just this process of change and transition that 
 the student must chiefly consider if he is to understand 
 and interpret the phenomenon. 
 
 But w^hat is the real nature of this process of change? 
 No one M^ho has made a careful study of unionism can 
 doubt that it is a matter of practical adaptation to the 
 existing relative strength or of continuous readjustment 
 to the shifting of balance of power between contending 
 groups and factions. New conditions arise, creating new 
 problems which must be faced and solved. Each group 
 has its solution based on its own general viewpoint and 
 interpretation. The actual resultant in terms of the 
 union program and structure will reflect the relative 
 power of the groups. Or new members are admitted, 
 and, the personnel having changed, a new balance of 
 power between factions is established. Soon this new 
 balance will be reflected in the official policies, methods, 
 attitudes, and perhaps structural features, of the union. 
 Thus, while the types persist, the actual union program 
 and methods change and develop. It is then evidently in 
 terms of the interpretations and programs of these con- 
 flicting groups, i.e., in terms of the types and their causes, 
 that we are to find the clues to the interpretation of 
 unionism as it actually exists and is becoming. 
 
 And just because unionists are in the main pragmatic 
 in their outlook we should not expect, except rarely, to
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 73 
 
 find actual union programs and union structures existing 
 type pure. Nor should we ordinarily expect any definite 
 correlation in practice between functional and structural 
 types. Doubtless such a correlation naturally exists to a 
 considerable extent, certain structural arrangements be- 
 ing naturally adapted to the carrying out of certain group 
 programs. But ordinarily while there is hope of a grad- 
 ual transformation toward the desired type its adherents 
 will remain in the union. It is only when one faction 
 gives up hope of working its will from within that it 
 will withdraw and set up a new organization, and it is 
 only, therefore, under such circumstances that we ordi- 
 narily find an exact correspondence between the actual 
 union programs and structures and the pure types. We 
 may safely conclude, then, that the absence of exact cor- 
 relation between structural and functional types in prac- 
 tice, and between the latter and actual union programs, 
 does not militate against the reality of distinct and per- 
 sisting functional types and their practical significance. 
 
 Turning now to the matter of structural types, it is 
 evident that the problem before us assumes a very differ- 
 ent and much less important aspect. Distinct structural 
 types do exist, as is generally admitted, but neither are 
 they always rival forms nor is there always absence 
 among them of developmental mutability. It does seem 
 to be rather characteristic of the existence of these types 
 that their several advocates should be in actual conflict 
 in the endeavor to displace one by another; but, on the 
 other hand, they are often found in quite harmonious and 
 supplemental relationship In the same organic group, 
 each appearing to meet a different practical need. A 
 well-recognized case in point is the existence and rela- 
 tionship within the general organization of the American
 
 74 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Federation of Labor of craft and trades unions. Nor do 
 these distinct structural types always appear to be quite 
 independent in their genesis. This happens in some cases, 
 but there seem to be clear cases of developmental transi- 
 tion. Thus the compound craft union is sometimes a* 
 transformation of the craft union by the simple process 
 of combination, and the industrial imion seems often to 
 be the outcome of a simple enlargement of the elements 
 in the compound craft union. 
 
 If, then, structural types stood in the same relation- 
 ship to our problem as functional types, and if, there- 
 fore, in order to establish the manifold character of 
 unionism it were necessary to apply the same criteria to 
 them with the same degree of stringency, there is no 
 doubt that the case could not be maintained. Here we 
 doubtless find the chief explanation for the fact that 
 students have yielded so long and so generally to the 
 popular assumption that unionism is at bottom one and 
 the same thing, that union variants are but adaptations 
 of a single norm to changing environment, or at most 
 temporary and accidental aberrations from it.^° This is 
 the conviction with which the student of unionism would 
 naturally, and indeed almost inevitably, be impressed if 
 he entered upon the study primarily from the structural 
 standpoint, and placed his emphasis upon structural 
 forms and relationships. He would then see unionism be- 
 ginning in the local craft organization as a response to 
 the conditions created by the primitive type of capitalistic 
 enterprise or to its corresponding market structure, and 
 developing by a gradual transformation through larger 
 
 *° The popular assumption seems to be in itself partly a mat- 
 ter of blind partisanship, partly a matter of tactical advantage, 
 and partly a belief in things hoped for.
 
 THE ESSENCE OF UNIONISM 75 
 
 units to more complex structural arrangements to meet 
 conditions imposed primarily by economic evolution. 
 And so long as he looked at the union primarily as a 
 structural entity, and thought of aims, policies, and activi- 
 ties as functions or means of the organic thing, he could 
 adopt no other than the unitary or normalistic assump- 
 tion. 
 
 If, however, the primary and essential union expres- 
 sion is functional, and if it is further true that functional 
 variations may exist regardless of any structural quali- 
 fications whatever — the same functional variant making 
 use of different structural forms without losing its iden- 
 tity or permanency, and, contrariwise, distinct and con- 
 tradictory functional variants working through the same 
 structural arrangements — it is evident that this appear- 
 ance of things would be far from conclusive of the real 
 character of unionism. Doubtless entire absence of dis- 
 tinct structural types would render impossible positive 
 proof of the nonunitary character of unionism, but it is 
 evident that the tests which need be applied to prove their 
 existence in harmony with this hypothesis are not the 
 same as in the case of the functional types. Absolute 
 rivalry is not essential. It is sufficient if the modes of 
 organization be vitally different in principle. In short, 
 the tests of distinct structural types demanded by our 
 hypothesis seem to be merely the contemporary and his- 
 torical presence in the union complex of distinct and 
 alternative forms of organization. 
 
 To recapitulate, then, briefly in regard to the nature of 
 the problem involved in the assumption that unionism is 
 nonunitary in character : It has been seen that this as- 
 sumption is one which rests almost exclusively on the 
 existence and persistence of functional union types.
 
 'je TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 In order to prove the truth of the assump- 
 tion beyond reasonable doubt, it must be shown that 
 these functional types exist concurrently as conflicting 
 or rival social interpretations and remedial programs, 
 held and advocated by different groups of wageworkers ; 
 it must be shown that, once established, these rival view- 
 points persist and exhibit no tendency as such to revert 
 to a single or common viewpoint ; but it is not necessary 
 that they should be shown to attain any specific degree 
 of scope or generality beyond what is necessary to com- 
 mand group adherence and effectively to guide group 
 action, that they should be necessarily associated with 
 any particular organic forms or structural types, that 
 each should find practical expression exclusively in a dif- 
 ferent organization, or, finally, that the program of any 
 particular organization or group of organizations should 
 at any moment conform exactly to any one of them. In 
 the matter of structure it is necessary to show merely the 
 existence of distinct and alternative forms of organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Such being the problem, what is the process of proof 
 required ? Evidently we have here a matter which must 
 be dealt with historically. We must first determine which 
 of these distinct union variants have had more than an 
 ephemeral existence. So far as structural forms are con- 
 cerned, this should be sufficient. In regard to those 
 functional variants that have persisted, it must be proved 
 that they have had their genesis in different combinations 
 of relatively permanent factors both environmental and 
 temperamental. 
 
 To be exhaustive, the proof doubtless should be both 
 positive and negative. Negatively it should be estab-
 
 THE ESSENCE OE UNIONISM yy 
 
 lished that where no concurrent and conflicting functional 
 variants exist the environment of the workers entering 
 into combination is essentially uniform and that the work- 
 ers themselves, racially, temperamentally, and tradition- 
 ally, are essentially homogeneous. Positively it should 
 be proved that existing and historically concurrent con- 
 flicting variants owe their origin and persistence to vitally 
 diverse combinations of environmental and subjective 
 factors operating in connection with the groups con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Perfectly complete and satisfactory proof of our fun- 
 damental hypothesis respecting the general character of 
 unionism and union types in the United States would 
 then demand the most searching study of our union his- 
 tory with special reference to the economic, political, 
 traditional, and temperamental factors involved. It is 
 not possible to secure complete proof in this wise, owing 
 to the paucity of well-authenticated historical material. 
 We shall, however, attempt to assemble enough evidence 
 of this character for the practical testing of our thesis 
 and for significant generalizations in regard to the gen- 
 eral character of union development in the United States.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW^ 
 
 Unionism first appeared in this country about the 
 close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth centuries,^ in the form of local craft unions, 
 mainly among the printers, cordwainers, bakers, ship- 
 wrights and carpenters. These unions did not appear 
 earlier in this country because not until about this time 
 was there any well-defined separation of the employing 
 and laboring functions, and therefore, only then were 
 there the beginnings of distinct groups of employers and 
 
 1 The historical study of unionism is valuable just in propor- 
 tion as it gives insight into the real character and causes of 
 unionism. The facts as facts mean nothing, and the knowing 
 of them means nothing except as they help toward knowing what 
 unionism is and why it is. Throughout the discussion, therefore, 
 this should be kept constantly in mind. As a general hint in 
 this connection, we should consider carefully the guestion: Is 
 there any such thing as unionism, i. e., unionism as a whole, 
 unionism as such? On the answer to this question will depend 
 not only the nature of one's generalizations but one's whole atti- 
 tude toward union phenomena and the union problem. (See 
 Notes on Method, p. 376.) 
 
 2 There had been labor organizations in America before this, 
 as far back as the seventeenth century. These organizations, 
 however, were not trade unions, but craft guilds of workmen 
 who combined in themselves the functions of laborer, master 
 and merchant. They were organized to license, or otherwise 
 limit the number of legal craftsmen, to regulate the quality of 
 work, and to maintain customary prices. 
 
 78
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 79 
 
 wa.^4 earners. Nor did they appear as the result of any 
 theory of unionism or of any social theory. Indeed, the 
 prevalent political and social theory of the time — the 
 eighteenth century theory of natural order and natural 
 law — which held the notions of individual equality, 
 harmony of interest, and free competition for absolute 
 truths, was directly opposed to labor combination. The 
 prime cause of the appearance of these unions seems to 
 have been that as soon as a distinct differentiation be- 
 tween employers and workers began to appear, the em- 
 ployers took advantage of the breaking down of the old 
 customary and legal trade and labor regulations, espe- 
 cially of apprenticeship regulations, to utilize the compe- 
 tition of "illegal" men in attempts to lower wages and 
 increase the hours of labor. In short, at the earliest ap- 
 pearance of the employing group and relatively free com- 
 petition, there began a struggle between the employers and 
 the wageworkers which forced the latter to combine. 
 
 The functions of these unions were not definitely 
 formulated in advance, but grew naturally out of the 
 conditions and problems which they had to face. Since 
 the efforts of the employers were directed to lowering 
 wages and increasing hours, the workers attempted the 
 regulation of these through a union or a combined group. 
 Since the employers were successful, however, because 
 of the breakdown of apprenticeship and the influx of 
 "illegal" men, the unions attempted the defense of ap- 
 prenticeship and the exclusion of those who had not 
 passed through it, i.e., the closed shop. They attempted 
 to enforce their demand by strikes. Moreover, since the 
 employers proceeded against them for conspiring, and 
 since under the competitive regime they were thrown 
 upon their own resources, they were obliged to add -o^^
 
 8o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 their functions legal defense and mutual insurance, sick 
 and funeral. 
 
 Why did the first unions take the craft form, the local 
 organization of a particular craft? It was because of 
 the nature of the principal problem which confronted 
 the workers, the nature of the functions they were there- 
 fore called on to perform, and the form of the business 
 unit and extent of the market. That is, the problem was 
 to prevent the employers from lowering wages and in- 
 creasing hours by taking advantage of the labor competi- 
 tion of "illegal" men. Thus the principal function of 
 the union was to guard the competitive area. This area, 
 on account of the trade character of the business unit 
 and the local character of competition, was the craft in 
 the local community. Hence the union was a local craft 
 union. 
 
 Here appears what may be taken as a hypothetical 
 general principle of unionism, if there is such a thing. 
 The union organization tends to parallel the capitalistic 
 or employers' organization. It attempts to cover the in- 
 dustrial field within which there is labor competition 
 with respect to work, wages, and conditions of employ- 
 ment. If this principle be true, it will explain many of 
 the most significant things about unionism. Let us fol- 
 low this as one clue and attempt to unravel the history 
 of unionism in this country. 
 
 First, by way of hypothesis then, in testing results, 
 consider to what extent, if at all, this principle really ex- 
 plains the history of unionism and what other working 
 factors must be brought in for this. If this principle 
 were true would unionism probably be a relatively fixed 
 or highly protean or changing thing? How w^ould it be 
 likely to develop to meet the situation, where, apprentice-
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 8i 
 
 ship being broken down, the competitive area of workers 
 or the workers' market becomes intertrade, i.e., where 
 competition of workers in several skilled trades in a 
 given locality exists? Trades unions and city centrals 
 would develop. Suppose that transportation improves 
 so that this competitive market of skilled workers be- 
 comes intercity or national? What then? National 
 trades unions would arise. Suppose that a craft or sev- 
 eral crafts should succeed in building up apprenticeship 
 again or enforcing a closed shop, but transportation has 
 developed so that the craft members compete directly, 
 not only locally but generally throughout the nation? 
 National craft or trade unions would spring up. Now 
 suppose that, as the result of the introduction of machin- 
 ery in production, the task becomes similar in different 
 skilled crafts and that unskilled workers can compete 
 with skilled craftsmen? Labor unions, first local and 
 then national, would come into existence. Finally, sup- 
 pose that the capitalistic or employing unit enlarges to 
 cover and control the whole industry? Then would come 
 into being the industrial union. 
 
 Now, did the actual development of unionism follow 
 the line laid down hypothetically ? To test this we must 
 consider the periods of the history of unionism in the 
 United States and examine each. The basis for periodi- 
 zation is the development of predominant types. The 
 response of unions both structurally and functionally, 
 especially to economic influences, will be somewhat de- 
 layed on the principle of retardation. 
 
 I. Beginnings in the local craft union, 1798-1827. 
 
 The economic causes at work were the differentiation of 
 the employing and working functions, a small business unit,
 
 Si TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and local markets. The causes of the first appearance of 
 trade or labor unions were the development of a master- 
 workman-retailer and especially of the jobber and merchant 
 middleman, a development made possible by the introduction 
 of machinery, accumulation of capital, increase of popula- 
 tion, and improvement of transportation with consequent 
 widening of market — dividing the ranks of the craftsmen 
 into two classes, masters and journeymen, i.e., establishing 
 the wages system. Then came labor unions. They were 
 organized because of the coming of capitalistic conditions, 
 an employing class, general market, labor competition, stra- 
 tegic advantage of the masters with a tendency to lower 
 wages, to bring in inferior workmen,^ the lengthening of 
 hours, and also because the association of a large number 
 of journeymen workers in each craft made organization 
 natural and possible. 
 
 The first local craft unions to arise were the Philadel- 
 phia Carpenters, 1791, the Philadelphia Federal Society 
 of Journeymen Cordwainers, 1794, the Typographical Soci- 
 ety of New York, 1794, the Baltimore Tailors, 1795, and 
 the Baltimore Typographical Society, 1803. There were no 
 national organizations, though local unions of the same craft 
 occasionally corresponded on matters of common interest. 
 Industry had not yet been organized beyond the craft, a 
 building was put up by an employing mason, employing 
 carpenter, etc. Markets were not yet national, for trans- 
 portation would not admit of wide markets, and intercity 
 competition was little felt. The main problems which these 
 early unions had to face were : The securing of better 
 
 ^ Under the domestic and handicraft systems the interest or 
 duty of employers is to teach beginners the whole trade. Under 
 the new system there is no such interest or duty. The purpose 
 is simply to get the work done cheaply. So boys are hired and 
 kept at one task, thus nibbling off the skilled work of journey- 
 men and creating two opposed classes of workers,
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 83 
 
 wages, hours and conditions of work, in the face of local 
 competition of inferior and "illegal" workmen, and prose- 
 cution for conspiracy, and the care of unfortunate mem- 
 bers. The main resultant functions of these first unions 
 were accordingly : Mutual insurance, sick and funeral bene- 
 fits, collective bargaining, regulation of apprenticeship, regu- 
 lation of wages, hours and conditions of work, exclusion 
 of "illegal" men, defense against prosecution (conspiracy 
 cases) and strikes. 
 
 II. Predominance of trades unions, 1827-1837.* 
 
 City associations of craft unions and the beginnings of 
 national trade unions appear. The causes are economic 
 and. social. The economic cause is the broadening of mar- 
 kets and competitive areas ; the social cause is manhood 
 suffrage, which stimulates to the correction of social and 
 political evils, mainly inflated money and the high cost 
 of living, educational and assumed political inequalities. 
 This period may be divided into three phases. 
 
 First phase, 1827. The Philadelphia Mechanics' Union of 
 Trade Associations, 1827-1832, as a type, developed into 
 the Workingmen's Party of Philadelphia. It stood for 
 
 * The first unions are confined to one particular group of 
 wagcworkers. Within this group conditions such as we have 
 assumed would produce only one functional type of union — the 
 business union. The structure is determined by this viewpoint 
 and program and takes the craft form. After an expansion, 
 there is a dying out into mutual insurance groups. Then the 
 unionism which revives in the thirties as contrasted with the 
 old unionism supplies the historical test of functional types. 
 Was it the renewal and adaptation of the old unionism in a new 
 and distinct functional type ? Was it made up of the same men 
 or same class of workers? Did the business union movement 
 run parallel to it? If so, were the two movements actual rivals? 
 Is the new movement hitched genetically on to the old? Wliat
 
 84 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 shorter hours, free schools, the abolition of imprisonment 
 for debt, the reform of the militia system, mechanics' lien 
 law, equal taxation, cheapened legal procedure, no reli- 
 gious legislation, direct election of public officials, and op- 
 position to banks and other monopolies. 
 
 Second phase, 1832- 1837. There are national trades 
 unions and local trades unions. This was a period of 
 reaction against political methods. But the political issues 
 of the previous period were continued. Demands were 
 made in regard to hours, wages, money, public employ- 
 ment, factory legislation, competition of women and 
 prison labor, freedom of public lands, and cooperation. 
 
 Third phase, 1835-1837. At least five national trade un- 
 ions were organized ; cordwainers, comb makers, carpenters, 
 hand-loom weavers, and printers. The causes may be found 
 in the increased competition in the craft, broadening with 
 transportation and markets. The period ends with the crisis 
 of 1837, and an interregnum follows. 
 
 III. Predominance of Utopian, socialistic and social up- 
 lift unionism, 1844-1853. 
 
 The Workingmen's Protective Union was organized in 
 1847, the New England Workingmen's Association, and 
 the Land Reform Movement in 1844-1845. Industrial 
 Councils and Working Class Congresses were held. 
 
 Their aims were the establishment of cooperation, com- 
 munities, land reform, and the ten-hour day. Great waves 
 of utopianism swept over the country, resulting in Brook 
 Farm, etc. There was a general disposition to try com- 
 munistic and cooperative schemes, all of which resulted in 
 practical failure. A general humanitarian and democratic 
 agitation resulted in attempts to form parties. The ten- 
 were the racial, temperamental, and class contrasts between the 
 membership of the two movements?
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 85 
 
 hour movement was started but was unsuccessful. The 
 woman and child labor and free land agitation was partly 
 successful. The free school movement succeeded. Nu- 
 merous political reforms furthered democracy. After 1852, 
 the slavery agitation absorbed attention and the panic of 
 1857 killed the movement. 
 
 IV. Reorganization of local unions and beginnings of 
 national trade unions, 1853-1860. 
 
 The causes were increase in cost of living and the na- 
 tional markets, bringing about national competition which 
 led skilled craftsmen in a few trades to seek to cover the 
 competitive area. 
 
 V. The revival of trades unions, 1860-1866. 
 
 The beginning of the new movement is due largely to 
 the high cost of living resulting from currency inflation. 
 Machinery was breaking down trade exclusiveness, markets 
 were becoming national, and the business unit was enlarg- 
 ing. Thirty city trade assemblies sprang up before 1865. 
 Objects were boycotts and aid to strikes. In 1864 the 
 first National Industrial Assembly of North America dealt 
 with primary boycotts, strikes, the truck system, coopera- 
 tion, prison labor, competition, and woman's work. 
 
 VI. Attempted amalgamation of national craft unions, 
 1 866- 1 874. 
 
 The causes were those given under V above, the high 
 cost of living, and the increase of competition due to the 
 return of soldiers and to immigration. Two phases char- 
 acterized this period. The first was that of the National 
 Labor Union, organized in 1866 at Baltimore. It was a 
 federation formed by trade unionists but all labor organ- 
 izations were represented. A general union did not appeal, 
 however, to a majority. They were craft unions, but 
 with political functions largely. In 1866 the federation
 
 86 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 stood for the eight-hour day, cooperation, publicity, tene- 
 ment house reform, and public lands only for settlers. It 
 recommended trade organization and the association of 
 those workers who had no trade with labor unions, the rigid 
 enforcement of the apprenticeship system, workingmen's 
 lyceums and reading rooms. It opposed strikes except as 
 a last resort and was in favor of arbitration. In 1867 it 
 dealt with the money question, and opposed the national 
 banking system. It now also stood for an optional form 
 of organization, aid to women workers, cooperative stores 
 and workshops, and mechanics' institutes. It was opposed 
 to marketed convict-labor goods. In 1869 began its de- 
 cline and in 1872 it died. The second phase was that of 
 the Industrial Brotherhood. A call was issued in 1872 by 
 the national trade unions and the first convention was held 
 in 1873. A preamble or declaration of principles was 
 adopted, which was later taken over by the Knights of 
 Labor, except that the Industrial Brotherhood called for 
 monthly payment of wages by corporations, public markets, 
 cheap transportation, apprenticeship laws and the exclusion 
 of the Chinese. It contemplated organization by trade. Its 
 failure, says Mr. Powderly, was due to the dislike of trade 
 unionists for the idea of unity with men outside their own 
 trade, and in particular with common laborers. There was 
 a labor reform party from 1869 to 1872. 
 
 The general tendencies which characterized the develop- 
 ment of American unionism after the Civil War were the 
 beginnings of working class consciousness, socialist effort 
 to control the unions, increased political and militant ac- 
 tivity, and universal centralized organization. 
 
 VII. Predominance of the universal labor union, the 
 Knights of Labor, 1879-1890. 
 
 Craft exclusiveness was being broken down by machinery 
 and trusts, and employers' associations were being formed,
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 87 
 
 and the competition of the unskilled was being felt. The 
 aims of the Knights were idealistic, humanitarian, and 
 political. 
 
 VIII. Predominance of federation of national craft 
 unions, 1890 to the present. The American Federation of 
 Labor, and National Employers' Associations. 
 
 IX. Beginnings of industrial unionism. 
 
 Industrial plants, employers' associations and real class 
 consciousness developing. 
 
 To summarize brielly the character and causes of the 
 development of unionism in the United States, we may 
 say that its genesis was in economic and political causes, 
 in the separation of functions and the rise of classes, and 
 the breakdown of customary and legal rules. The situa- 
 tion created a need for combination of the workers to 
 protest against the reduction of wages, etc. These and 
 the character of the employing unit and market deter- 
 mined the form, the local craft union, and its functional 
 type, business unionism. The widening of the market 
 and increased competition demanded enlargement of the 
 union unit; manhood suffrage turned attention to legis- 
 lation and political means. Hence we find trades unions, 
 local and national, with a legislative program added to 
 the economic, and a tendency to political party activity. 
 The failure of poHtical methods caused a reaction to 
 economic means as the best instrument under the circum- 
 stances. There are national trade unions which are ex- 
 amples of business unionism. The hard times wipe out 
 the movement. The Utopian and philosophical spirit and 
 theories create political and uplift unionism again. The 
 drawing off of idealistic elements w^ith the Civil War
 
 88 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 causes a renewal of national trade unions and business 
 unionism. A struggle between business and idealistic, 
 political, uplift unionism results in the triumph of busi- 
 ness unionism, the American Federation of Labor, the 
 national craft federation. An enlargement of the busi- 
 ness unit in industry and theorizing result in the indus- 
 trial union, which is revolutionary. The failure of craft 
 unionism added to the experience of business unionism 
 turns business-craft unionism into predatory unionism. 
 
 Craft unions tend to be businesslike, selfish, nonideal- 
 istic, nonpolitical, nondemocratic ; trades unions tend to 
 be group-conscious and political ; labor unions tend to 
 be idealistic, moralistic, theoretical, political, but non- 
 democratic; industrial unions tend to be class-conscious, 
 socialistic, and theoretical. But while there is some sort 
 of correlation here between structural and functional 
 types, would it be possible to explain the functional type 
 on the basis of the single principle involved? Does not 
 causation seem to run from function to structure, more 
 than the other way? Conditions and problems produce 
 aims, attitudes, and theories; these produce policies and 
 demands and methods. In the actual history of union- 
 ism do we not find structural and functional types corre- 
 lated in different ways? For example, at one period all 
 the unions of different structural types seem to be closely 
 alike functionally. 
 
 The structural and functional types sometimes stand 
 in cooperative and interpenetrating relationship, some- 
 times in a state of rivalry; sometimes they are rival 
 or alternating modes of organization and action, 
 springing up independently. Sometimes one is the prod- 
 uct of the other. And in other cases there are purely dis- 
 tinct types representing different conceptions or interre-
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 89 
 
 lations of a situation or a different situation. We start 
 with the business type. Where this fails the tendency is 
 to degenerate into friendly societies. We have then busi- 
 ness unionism as a minor aspect, uplift as the major 
 aspect. Finally, business unionism goes on, uplift un- 
 ionism is a settled thing, and the revolutionary type be- 
 gins to come to the front. The history of unionism thus 
 shows two opposite tendencies, toward the harmoniza- 
 tion and unification of structural types, and the fanning 
 out, separation, and distinction of functional types. 
 
 At the present time the Knights of Labor number less 
 than ten thousand. Of what significance are they to this 
 study and why should we consider them? In the effort 
 to solve the trade union problem of control we must know 
 what type of organization can and what type cannot be 
 maintained under present day conditions. The Knights 
 of Labor had elements of temporary success but on the 
 whole it was found unfit. It is essential to know why. 
 
 The general governing body of the Knights of Labor 
 is the General Assembly. This is a delegate body from 
 organizations directly subordinate. Its base is a local 
 assembly. Some locals are attached directly to the gen- 
 eral assembly but most of them are organized into dis- 
 trict and state assemblies. The district assembly is made 
 up of delegates from five or more locals. It may be 
 subordinate to a state assembly, to a national trade as- 
 sembly or to the general assembly. The membership 
 basis may be craft or mixed. The state assembly has 
 jurisdiction over all the territory not organized into 
 mixed district assemblies. The national trade assembly 
 has jurisdiction over local trade assemblies. 
 
 The centralization of the Knights of Labor is perhaps
 
 90 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 best shown by the fact that all the organizations have 
 their character and rules defined by and are governed 
 by one constitution. To understand completely the 
 structure and function of the Knights of Labor it is 
 necessary to read but one constitution. To understand 
 fully the functions and structure of the American Fed- 
 eration of Labor, over a hundred constitutions must be 
 read. The Knights of Labor is a sovereignty, the 
 American Federation of Labor is a federation of sov- 
 ereignties. The centralization is also shown in the regu- 
 lations in regard to strikes. Local assemblies choose 
 executive boards to which are referred any grievances 
 between employer and employed ; should they fail to ad- 
 just the matter reference is made to the national or dis- 
 trict executive boards; should these fail, it is referred 
 then to the general executive board. No strikes are 
 permitted to be declared or entered upon without sanc- 
 tion of the national, district, or general executive board. 
 Finally, centralization is also shown in the matter of 
 discipline. 
 
 The essential functions of the organization are re- 
 vealed by the following quotation : 
 
 The Knights of Labor Assembly is not a mere trade union 
 and beneficial society. ... It aims to assist members to 
 better their condition morally, socially and financially. . . . 
 Among the higher duties that should be taught in every local 
 assembly are man's inalienable inheritance of and right to 
 share, for use, the soil; that the right to life carries 
 with it the right to the means of living and all statutes that 
 obstruct or deny these rights are wrong, unjust and must 
 give way. Every member who has the right to vote is a 
 part of the government . . . and has a duty to perform. 
 - - . In short, any action that will advance the cause
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 91 
 
 of humanity, lighten the burden of toil or elevate the 
 moral or social condition of mankind ... is the proper 
 scope and field of operation of a local assembly. (Consti- 
 tution [1908], pp. 40-41.) 
 
 The Knights of Labor is not a revolutionary organi- 
 zation. It does not reject and seek to overthrow the 
 present social and industrial order, although the consti- 
 tution says that its purpose is to secure to the workers 
 the full enjoyment of the wealth they create ... to 
 enable them to share in the gains and honors of advanc- 
 ing civilization (Constitution, p. 3, II) ; and that strikes 
 at best afford only temporary relief and members should 
 be educated to depend upon thorough organization and 
 political action and through these the abolition of the 
 present system, (Constitution, p. 40.) Its program 
 rather is progressive, with some revolutionary items. 
 It includes direct legislation, the initiative, referendum, 
 the imperative mandate and proportional representation ; 
 labor bureaus, to promote the educational, moral and 
 financial knowledge of the laboring masses; a demand 
 for occupancy and use as the sole title to land, the un- 
 earned increment to go to society; dealing in options to 
 be made a felony; abrogation of unequal laws, of de- 
 lays, discriminations, and unjust technicalities; health 
 and safety laws in industry; accident insurance; the in- 
 corporation of labor organizations; weekly payments 
 in money; mechanics' lien law; abolition of the contract 
 system on public works; opposition to strikes and boy- 
 cotts; support of laws compelling arbitration; prohibi- 
 tion of child labor under fifteen years; compulsory edu- 
 cation and free textbooks; cooperation "such as will 
 tend to supersede the wage system"; graduated income
 
 ^i Trade unionism 
 
 tax ; direct issue of legal tender ; no private banking cor- 
 porations, nor interest-bearing government bills of credit ; 
 postal saving banks ; government ownership of the tele- 
 graph, telephone and railroads; prohibition of convict 
 labor; and prohibition of hired out and contract immi- 
 gration. 
 
 The Knights of Labor is not a class organization. In 
 it are crystallized sentiments and measures for the bene- 
 fit of the whole people. (Constitution, preamble.) It 
 calls upon all those who believe in the greatest good 
 for the greatest number (Ibid), and it approves any 
 action that would advance the cause of humanity, lighten 
 the burden of toil, or elevate the moral and social con- 
 dition of mankind (Constitution, p. 41). It demands 
 the abrogation of all laws which do not bear equally 
 upon capitalists and laborers (Constitution, preamble, 
 p. 4) in order that the bond of sympathy between them 
 (employers and employees) may be strengthened (Con- 
 stitution, p. 5). It deprecates attacks upon the consti- 
 tuted authorities such as the judiciary. At least three- 
 fourths of the general assembly must be farmers or 
 wageworkers. (Constitution, p. 43.) The purpose of 
 its organization is the organizing, educating and direct- 
 ing of the powers of the industrial masses (Constitu- 
 tion, preamble, p. 3) while it gathers into one fold all 
 branches of honorable toil (Constitution, p. 40). It de- 
 clares that the alarming development and aggressiveness 
 of the power of money and corporations under the pres- 
 ent industrial and political systems . . . lead to hope- 
 less degradation. (Constitution, premable, p. 3.) 
 
 Mr. Powderly attributes the enormous growth of the 
 Order between the latter part of 1885 and the early part 
 of 1886 to two circumstances, for which the Order it-
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 93 
 
 self is not responsible. One was the movement for the 
 establishment of the eight-hour day, the other was the 
 spread of an extravagant idea of the strength of the 
 Order. The public believed that a strike had been or- 
 dered by the Knights to take place May i, 1886, for the 
 purpose of shortening the hours of labor. Because of 
 this belief an exaggerated popular opinion of the power 
 of the Knights spread. Hundreds of thousands who 
 hoped to get profit from it, without any desire to give 
 as well as to get, joined the Order, Its membership 
 was reported to be 104,335 in 1885, and jumped to 702,- 
 924 in 1886. Mr. Powderly claims, however, that the 
 actual number was not over 90,000 in 1885 and 600,000 
 in 1886. The membership reported in 1888 was 259,- 
 
 518.^ 
 
 The fundamental underlying causes of the failure of 
 the Knights of Labor consist in the fact that it was con- 
 trary to the reality created by modern industrial forces. 
 Machinery was forcing a materialistic contest. This con- 
 test is not between the "money power" and the people, 
 but between the employers and the workers. Any at- 
 tempt to hide this under the cloak of a concept of "so- 
 ciety as a whole" is bound to fail. Likewise, attempts to 
 bridge it over by cooperation and idealism must fail. 
 The contest is opposed to industrial peace and good-fel- 
 lowship ideas; the age of utopianism is past, and the 
 idealistic attitude is not fitted to cope with the workers' 
 problem. Hence the Knights succumbed in the contest 
 with the American Federation of Labor, which stood 
 more nearly for the ideals and demands of the workers. 
 
 The Knights of Labor proceeded upon two false as- 
 sumptions, and as a consequence attempted to do two 
 
 » Report of the Industrial Commission (1901), vol XVII, p. 8,
 
 94 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 impossible things. First, it assumed no fundamental 
 disharmony of viewpoint and interest between wage- 
 workers and employers as such. It therefore tried to 
 unite workers and the middle class against the "money 
 power." Secondly, it assumed that the viewpoint and 
 interest of all wageworkers are identical. It therefore 
 tried to unite the workers of all degrees of skill and of 
 all crafts and industries into one organization and under 
 one central authority which should direct the actions of 
 each group in the interests of all. 
 
 The first assumption was false and the effort to or- 
 ganize and act upon it a failure, for reasons we have 
 already discussed. Under the capitalistic wage system, 
 the product of industry is divided into two parts, each 
 part going to a distinct class, the one, exclusive owners 
 of the material means of production, the other, the ex- 
 clusive owners of labor. The immediate interests of the 
 two classes must thus center in the division of the prod- 
 uct and be opposed, and it is the immediate interests of 
 men, especially of the workers, who must depend upon 
 immediate incomes in order to live, that determine the 
 possibilities of organic union and cooperation among 
 them. Hence, these two classes are bound to be opposed 
 unless they can get together to "do" some one else. 
 
 Under the system of machine industry, the division of 
 function throws the workers and employers into such 
 diverse material and social environments that inevitably 
 diverse viewpoints develop and create a belief in diversity 
 of interest even when this diversity does not exist — a be- 
 lief that must exist as long as machine industry with its 
 functional and environmental corollaries exists. The 
 Knights of Labor was thus built upon a permanently 
 false foundation, and its failure goes far to show that
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 95 
 
 the union problem cannot be solved by any attempt to 
 bring together into one organization the employing and 
 working elements. Successful unionism must be an or- 
 ganization of wageworkers, and unionism as a social 
 problem must be accepted as an organization of wage- 
 workers seeking their own interests as such. 
 
 The second assumption, that the viewpoint and interest 
 of all workers are identical, was equally false for the 
 time, and apparently for the present and the discernible 
 future. So long as there exist among the wageworkers 
 practically what the economists call noncompetitive 
 groups, that is, so long as there exist distinct crafts in 
 industry whose members do not compete, and so long as 
 machinery has not broken down the practically non- 
 competitive barriers between skilled and unskilled work- 
 ers, no general organic union of all the workers, each 
 acting in the interest of all, can be secured. Under these 
 circumstances each craft and group of workers must 
 have its own conditions and problems to face and to 
 solve. No one else can understand its peculiar conditions 
 and problems well enough to formulate rules applicable 
 to its ends. Its problems can be solved only by rules 
 applying particularly to its conditions, without reference 
 to any more general situation. Each craft and industry, 
 then, can best serve its own economic ends by acting 
 alone, unhampered by outside restrictions, and regardless 
 of outside interests and purposes. Under these circum- 
 stances, again, the immediate economic interests of the 
 different groups are not identical or harmonious. It is 
 not true, as the Knights of Labor supposed, that an in- 
 jury to one is an injury to all. This is perfectly evi- 
 dent if we take a practical common sense view of the 
 matter. Let us take the case of wages. Just so far as
 
 96 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 general competition exists, the interests of one craft may 
 be definitely opposed to the interests of others. When 
 one stands to gain, the others may stand to lose, and 
 vice versa. This is equally true between craft and craft, 
 and between skilled and unskilled workers. To show 
 this, take the case of craft A which is struggling for an 
 increase of wages. If it succeeds, the increase of wages 
 may be an increased cost of production of the goods, 
 and may be an increase of the price of the goods. This 
 would be a lowering of the real wages of other crafts 
 whose members consume the goods.® Every increase of 
 the wages of skilled workers under these circumstances 
 is a lowering of the standard of living of the unskilled, 
 and vice versa. Looking at it in another way, one of 
 the means of securing a rise of wages in a single craft 
 is through a limitation of numbers. What does this 
 mean? It means turning men into other crafts or into 
 the unskilled mass to increase the numbers and the com- 
 petition of workers with the result of lowering wages 
 there. In a very real way then, the workers are them- 
 selves divided into numerous groups with opposed eco- 
 nomic interests. 
 
 It is only on the one hand, as the employing unit 
 enlarges and employers unite so that a single craft finds 
 itself face to face with a superior force, capable of play- 
 ing ofiP craft against craft, that the craft unions are 
 brought to see their common economic interests and the 
 necessity of common organization and common action. 
 
 * Only as we look at the matter statically need the effect of 
 one group's advance on other groups be considered. If we view 
 the matter dynamically, labor's demands will force employers 
 to make improvements, increase efficiency in spite of labor's 
 hampering influence, and thus secure more for all.
 
 A BRIEF liiSTORlCAL REVIEW 97 
 
 It is only, on the other hand, as machinery gradually 
 breaks up industry into little tasks that can be performed 
 by unskilled workers, thus destroying the apprenticeship 
 system, and so letting in the competition of the unskilled 
 on the skilled, that the real interests of the two groups 
 seem to be common. These are the economic reasons for 
 the development of industrial unionism, and the growth 
 of working-class solidarity. The skilled workers in gen- 
 eral have no love for the unskilled, the successful for the 
 unsuccessful. There is every economic reason why they 
 should not have. They worry about the unskilled when 
 they are in danger of losing their advantages and places, 
 due to the unstinted competition of the unskilled, and 
 they then develop a ''labor as a whole" attitude. So 
 long as the craft organization can keep up a successful 
 fight of its own it is not going to forego its advantages 
 for outside labor, and, equally, the crafts cannot be made 
 to combine together, except as loose federations mainly 
 for legislative activity and mutual aid. Immediate eco- 
 nomic interests, wages, hours, and conditions of employ- 
 ment are still the predominant matters in the minds of 
 the rank and file of the workers, rather than general 
 political and social interests. In these matters group 
 consciousness of the workers is still in the craft stage 
 rather than in the class stage. Differences in craft in- 
 terest still mean more than unity of class interest. Con- 
 ditions, needs and problems of workers are different in 
 different industries and different places, and hard and 
 fast attitudes, policies, and methods applicable to all are 
 bound to fail. Therefore, members of the different crafts 
 could not be forged by the Knights of Labor into ef- 
 fective weapons of attack and defense. Members of 
 ^acl^ craft tended to cling together to get what they
 
 98 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 needed without regard for, or even at the expense of, 
 other crafts. They were jealous of other crafts and of 
 the unskilled. Furthermore, common rules necessary for 
 the prevention of undercutting were not possible for a 
 group of crafts. 
 
 At the time of the Knights of Labor, economic factors 
 tending to emphasize the common economic interests of 
 all the workers had only just begun to develop. Even 
 yet they are not powerful enough to offset the real dif- 
 ferences of interest. The Knights of Labor, then, was 
 inevitably doomed to failure, regardless of its political 
 policies and its disastrous strikes. It was far ahead of its 
 time, altogether Utopian. Its main result was to produce 
 a strong reaction to the craft union ideal and basis. It 
 proved that unionism cannot succeed unless it keeps close, 
 in the character of its organization and policy, to the 
 economic realities, and that successful unionism above 
 all must be opportunistic, that unionism is bound to de- 
 velop according to the real conditions and needs of the 
 workers, and that so long as the economic conditions 
 create among the workers group interests and group an- 
 tagonisms, unionism is bound to be, in the main, a selfish, 
 craft entity. 
 
 Unionism arose in America when conditions first ap- 
 peared of such a nature as to induce the formation of 
 wageworkers' group psychologies, interpretations and 
 programs. This has been true throughout the history 
 of unionism in the United States. In so far as unionism 
 has always been in the main the wageworkers' inter- 
 pretations and programs under the system of capitalistic 
 production, with the definite separation of employer and 
 employee, these groups and group psychologies are found
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW 99 
 
 in opposition to the employer. "Hold-up" unionism and 
 dependent unionism, both parasitic and "yellow," are the 
 exceptions. The aims, policies, and methods of trade 
 unions are the result of the peculiar problems which the 
 unionists have to face and of the conditions accompany- 
 ing these problems. The character of the aims, policies 
 and methods determines the structure or organic char- 
 acter of the union. In other words, problems and con- 
 ditions determine function, function determines struc- 
 ture. Unionism develops by the trial method — is a proc- 
 ess of adaptation to a developing environment. Pres- 
 ent unionism is an outcome of a process of trial and 
 elimination. The union organic structure shows a ten- 
 dency to parallel the capitalistic, a union unit to meet 
 each capitalistic unit. Union history shows a constant 
 struggle between the forces of centralization and decen- 
 tralization, autocracy and democracy, social idealism and 
 enlightened self-interest, narrow trade autonomy and 
 industrialism, economic and political method. The fail- 
 ures of unionism in the past have been largely the result 
 of centralization, democracy, social idealism, industrial- 
 ism, and political method. Unionism today, notwith- 
 standing, seems to show a constant tendency toward 
 higher integration, centralization, autocracy, social ideal- 
 ism, industrialism and political method. What then is 
 unionism ? 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems (1908), pp. 215- 
 
 228. 
 Barnett, Geo. E. "The Printers," American Economic 
 
 'Association Quarterly, Third Series, vol. X, No. 3 
 
 (1909). 
 Bliss, W. D. P. Encyclopedia of Social Reform,
 
 loo TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 BoGART, E. L. The Economic History of the United States 
 
 ■(I9I3)- 
 
 Burke, W. M. The History and Functions of Central La- 
 bor Unions, chap. I. Studies in History, Economics and 
 Public Law, edited by the Faculty of Political Science of 
 Columbia University, vol. XII, No. i (1899). 
 
 Carlton, F. T. The History and Problems of Organised 
 Labor (1911), chaps. II, III, IV, V. 
 
 . "The Workingmen's Party of New York City" 
 
 (1829-183 1 ) ; Political Scienic Quarterly, 22:401 (1907). 
 
 Commons, John R. "Labor Organization and Labor Poli- 
 tics" (1827-1837), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 
 21:323 (1906-1907). 
 
 . "American Shoe Makers" (1648-1895), Quarterly 
 
 Journal of Economics, 24:39 (1909-1910). 
 
 Deibler, F. S. "The Amalgamated Wood Workers' Inter- 
 national Union of America" (1912), Bulletin of the 
 University of Wisconsin, No. 511, Economic and Political 
 Science Series, vol. VII, No. 3. 
 
 Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vols. 
 Ill to X. 
 
 Ely, Richard T. The Labor Movement in America 
 (1905), chap. III. 
 
 Herron, Belva M. "The Progress of Labor Organization 
 among Women," Bulletin of the University of Illinois 
 
 (1905). 
 
 Hillquit, Morris. History of Socialism in the United 
 States (1903). 
 
 . Recent Progress of the Socialist and Labor Move- 
 ments in the United States (1907). 
 
 Kirk, William. National Labor Federations in the United 
 States, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical 
 and Political Science, Series XXIV, No. 9-10 (1906). 
 
 McNeill, Geo. E. (Ed.). The Labor Movement (1887), 
 chap. IV, pp. 67-123,
 
 A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW loi 
 
 Mitchell, John. Organized Labor (1903), chaps. Ill, 
 
 IV, VII, VIII, IX. 
 Pope, Jesse E. The Clothing Industry in New York, 
 
 University of Missouri Studies, Social Science Series, vol. 
 
 I (1905). 
 Powderly, T. V. Thirty Years of Labor (1899). 
 Report of the United States Industrial Commission, vol. 
 
 XVII, pt. II (1901). 
 SwiNTON, John. Striking for Life (1894). 
 Woollen, Evans. "Labor Troubles Between 1834 and 
 
 1837," Yale Review, 1:87 (1892-1893). 
 Wright, Carroll D. Industrial Evolution of the United 
 
 States (1907), chaps. XVIII, XIX, XX. 
 
 The Knights of Labor 
 Constitution. 
 
 Addresses of General Master Workman. 
 Official Journal. 
 
 Preamble and Declaration of Principles. 
 Requisites of Knighthood. 
 Charges. 
 Instructions to Organizers. 
 
 Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems, pp. 219-221, 225- 
 
 228. 
 Bliss, W. D. P, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, "Knights 
 
 of Labor." 
 Carlton, F. T. The History and Problems of Organized 
 
 Labor, pp. 71-74. 
 Casson, Herbert Newton. Organized Self -Help (1901). 
 Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. 
 
 X, pp. 19-35. 
 
 HiLLQUiT, Morris, History of Socialism in the United 
 
 States, pp. 289-294. 
 Hollander and Barnett. Studies in American Trade 
 
 Unionism {1012), chap. XII (Wm. Kirk), pp. 353-380.
 
 I02 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Levasseur, E. The American Workman (1900), pp. 196- 
 
 203. 
 Martin, C. R. OMcial Historical Handbook of the Knights 
 
 of Labor. 
 McNeill, Geo. E. (Ed.). The Labor Movement, chap. 
 
 XV, pp. 397-428 ; chap. XIX, pp. 483-496. 
 Wright, Carroll D. The Industrial Evolution of the 
 
 United States, pp. 246-252. 
 . "The Knights of Labor," Quarterly Journai of 
 
 Economics, 1:137 (i^7)'
 
 CHAPTER V 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 
 
 With the passing of the Knights of Labor as the cen- 
 tral figure in the American labor world, we touch the 
 borders of the contemporary situation. As we shall be 
 treating it in some detail in this chapter, we need, in 
 continuation of our history of development, only such 
 bare outline as will make the broad features of the 
 present situation clear. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the idealistic labor union 
 movement of the Knights of Labor, there was a develop- 
 ing, vigorous, and independent trade union movement, 
 represented by national trade unions, each with subor- 
 dinate locals. These trade unions tended toward general 
 aggregation also. But, as pure trade unionism is in 
 general practical, businesslike, selfish, and nonidealistic, 
 each trade union had its own special interests and pur- 
 poses, not always in harmony with and not rarely antag- 
 onistic to the purposes and interests of other trade un- 
 ions. Trade unionism showed itself, therefore, incom- 
 patible with strong, universal, centralized organization. 
 It tended toward loose federation. A contest for su- 
 premacy between the form of organization represented 
 by the Knights of Labor and that represented by the 
 Federation, compatible with trade union organization, 
 was inevitable. This contest became a reality in 1881, 
 when the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor 
 
 103
 
 I04 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Unions of th^ United States and Canada was formed, 
 committed to the principles of trade autonomy, and in- 
 dustrial, as opposed to political and socialistic, ideals and 
 activity. In 1886 the convention of this organization 
 amalgamated with the convention of the Independent 
 trade unions to form the American Federation of Labor, 
 which, strengthening gradually, has ever since occupied 
 the central position In the American organized labor 
 world. 
 
 In the success of the American Federation of Labor 
 and the failure of the Knights of Labor have triumphed 
 the principles of weak federative organization versus 
 strong centralized organization, autonomous trade un- 
 ionism versus labor unionism and Industrial unionism, 
 selfish trade interests versus altruistic labor brotherhood, 
 and hard-headed business unionism versus Idealistic radi- 
 calism. Yet it is to be noted that within the American 
 Federation of Labor there have been developing steadily 
 the principles of industrialism and idealistic radicalism, 
 as evidenced by : ( i ) the admission of industrial unions, 
 such as the International Union of the LTnited Brewery 
 Workmen and the United Mine Workers of America; 
 
 (2) the creation of subfederatlve units, the departments; 
 
 (3) the development of a broad social program; (4) 
 reentrance Into politics; and (5) the growth of a consid- 
 erable socialistic membership. Indeed, the American 
 Federation of Labor, in taking the place of the Knights 
 of Labor, has occupied a sort of middle ground be- 
 tween the adherents of the extreme trade union and the 
 extreme Industrial and labor union principles. It has 
 satisfied neither. In fact, the last generation of the 
 labor movement has been characterized by a three-fold 
 development. On one side of the American Federation
 
 PRiiSENT UNION GROUPS iO^ 
 
 of Labor there has gone on a steady development of the 
 independent, national trade union movement; on the 
 other, a fitful and as yet unsuccessful movement toward 
 a universal, centralized union of labor organizations to 
 take the place of the moribund Knights of Labor,^ and, 
 finally, an independent trade union movement repre- 
 sented by a fluctuating body of some twenty national 
 unions,^ with perhaps a membership of 500,000, or about 
 one-fourth of the American Federation of Labor. 
 
 In a descriptive account of American unionism, the 
 Railway Brotherhoods deserve separate consideration, 
 because railway unionism has been the stronghold of the 
 idea and practice of independent, unaffiliated trade or 
 craft unionism, and pure trade unionism has among 
 these unions had its greatest success and clearest exem- 
 plification. Here we can see most clearly what trade 
 
 ^ The fitful movement toward centralized industrial organiza- 
 tion, idealistic and radical in temperament, has not been kept 
 alive by the Knights of Labor, which has dragged out to a 
 useless old age. The torch was first carried forward by railroad 
 workers. In 1893 the American Railway Union was organized 
 and aimed to be the universal, centralized, industrial organiza- 
 tion of railway workers. In 1894 it called a strike in sympathy 
 with the Pullman workers, with Debs leading. This wrecked the 
 union, although in 1895 i^ still claimed a membership of 150,000. 
 (Bliss, EncyclopecPia of Social Reform.) The movement was 
 then carried on for a time by the Western Federation of Miners 
 (recently renamed the International Union of Mine, Mill and 
 Smelter Workers), an industrial organization of miners, mainly 
 metal workers in the Rocky Mountains, organized about 1893 
 and with a strength of perhaps 40,000. The Western Labor 
 Union was formed about 1898. Shortly after came the Amer- 
 ican Labor Union, which claimed at one time 135,000 members. 
 The Industrial Workers of the World was organized in* 1905. 
 
 2 For a partial list of these unions see Reports of the New 
 York Department of Labor, published annually since 1901,
 
 io6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 unionism means in spirit and results. By this it is not 
 meant that industrial unionism has not appeared in 
 the railway field, nor that the railway unions have all 
 remained aloof from the general labor federations, nor 
 that they have consistently spurned federative relations 
 with one another. On the contrary, several unions in 
 the railway field are now affiliated with the American 
 Federation of Labor, and the past shows notable attempts 
 at industrial railway organization, such as Debs' Ameri- 
 can Railway Union of 1893- 1894, and such attempts at 
 federation as the United Order of Railway Employees 
 in 1899, the Federation of American Railway Employees 
 of 1898 and 1900, and the Cedar Rapids Agreement. 
 But, in spite of all this, the group has deserved the char- 
 acterization given above, for, in the main, the oldest, 
 strongest, most successful of the railway unions, those 
 commonly spoken of as the Brotherhoods, have main- 
 tained and still maintain their strict trade character and 
 independence and their trade union ideals and methods. 
 As representing the unalloyed trade union type, a brief 
 general account of them in contrast with the American 
 Federation of Labor is most enlightening to anyone who 
 is trying to discover just what unionism is and signifies 
 in contemporary society. 
 
 There are perhaps a score of unions whose work is 
 exclusively or mainly concerned with railroading. In 
 common usage, however, the term "railway unions" or- 
 dinarily covers only those engaged in moving freight and 
 passengers or maintaining the roadway for this move- 
 ment. Using the term thus, the principal unions of this 
 group are the Grand International Brotherhood of Loco- 
 motive Engineers, the Order of Railway Conductors, 
 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Brother-
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 107 
 
 hood of Railway Trainmen, the Order of Railway Teleg- 
 raphers, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, the 
 Brotherhood of Railway Trackmen, the Switchmen's 
 Union of North America, and the Brotherhood of Rail- 
 way Bridgemen. As the term Railway Brotherhoods is 
 ordinarily used, however, it refers especially to the en- 
 gineers, conductors, firemen and trainmen. Sometimes 
 the telegraphers are included, but rarely the carmen, 
 maintenance of way employees, or bridgemen. What is 
 said further in this connection is to be taken as referring 
 to the Brotherhoods in the narrower sense of the term. 
 
 The organization of the Engineers is typical of the 
 characteristic features of the Brotherhoods. The units 
 of the international are the Grand International Division, 
 which includes a bargaining and an insurance organiza- 
 tion, and subordinate units — the Executive Committee, 
 Merged General Standing Committee of Adjustment, 
 Standing General Committee of Adjustment, Standing 
 Local Committee of Adjustment, Subdivision or Lodge, 
 and Legislative Board. Supreme authority rests with 
 the Grand International Division, "which shall have ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction over all subjects pertaining to the 
 Brotherhood, and its enactments and decisions upon all 
 questions are the supreme law of the Brotherhood, and 
 all Divisions and members of the Order shall render true 
 obedience thereto." ^ *Tt shall also have full power to 
 order the expulsion of any member of any Division and 
 in the event of such Division failing to comply with such 
 order, the Grand Chief Engineer shall recall its char- 
 ter." * Delegates to the Grand International Division 
 
 8 Constitution of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 
 (I9i2),p. 5, §3. 
 */tid., p. 6, §3.
 
 io8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 shall continue as such until their successors are elected 
 and shall be subject to the call of the Grand Chief En- 
 gineer to assemble at any time during their term of of- 
 fice." ^ The regular meetings of the Grand International 
 Division are triennial. The Grand Chief Engineer 
 "shall decide all controversies which may be appealed 
 from the Divisions . . . and such decisions shall be final 
 and conclusive until the . . . triennial meeting.^ . . . 
 Factional disputes or individual injustices are settled by 
 the Grand Chief Engineer. His decision is final until the 
 next Grand International Division convention.*^ Any 
 subdivision willfully violating any rule or regulation of 
 the Grand International Division of the Brotherhood of 
 Locomotive Engineers may have its charter suspended 
 by the Grand Chief Engineer until the next meeting of 
 the Grand International Division.^ The Grand Chief En- 
 gineer shall have full power to inflict such suspension on 
 his judgment of violation.^ 
 
 The standing General Committee of Adjustments ex- 
 ists on railway systems where two or more divisions are 
 organized; the local Committee of Adjustments where 
 there is only one. Members of the committee are elected 
 triennially, one representative with one vote for each 
 division.^'^ General Committees of Adjustments may be 
 merged on any system of roads into a Merged General 
 Committee of Adjustments on two-thirds vote of mem- 
 
 ^ Constitution of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 
 (1912), p. 13, §23; p. 25, §3. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 7, §8. 
 ' Ibid., p. 50, §§ 86, 87. 
 « Ibid., p. 43, § 66. 
 ^Ibid., p. 77, §38. 
 ^Ubid.,p. 63, §§i, 2.
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 109 
 
 bers affected.** Where there are two or more roads or 
 systems an Executive Committee of two members for 
 each road is elected by the General Committees of Ad- 
 justments from their members.*^ The Executive Com- 
 mittee's duty is to adjust all matters referred to it 
 with the officers of the road or syndicate after the Grand 
 Chief Engineer has exhausted all means. *^ 
 
 The mode of adjustment is as follows : ( i ) the griev- 
 ance goes to the local or merged committee of adjust- 
 ments which, with the local officials of the road or sys- 
 tem, exhausts all efforts at settlement.** (2) The chair- 
 man of the general committee of adjustment may then 
 be called upon to act with the local. *^ (3) The general 
 committee of adjustments may next take it up and after 
 exhausting every means for settlement with officials of 
 the road may call on the grand chief engineer who must 
 drop everything else and try all honorable means to settle 
 the dispute.*^ Or (4) the executive committee may act, 
 and failing to come to agreement with the officials of 
 the system, may call on the grand chief engineer.*^ Ac- 
 tion by the grand chief engineer stands as law until re- 
 pealed by the committee or a two-thirds vote of the 
 membership involved or by the grand international divi- 
 sion. 
 
 Divisions in each state or territory by two-thirds vote 
 may form a legislative board to convene at the capitol. 
 This board shall have power to take action on all busi- 
 
 »/ft< p. 65, §4. 
 " Ibid., p. 66, § 6. 
 "/Hci., p. 67, §7. 
 " Ibid., p. 70, § 13. 
 15 Ibid., p. 70, § 14. 
 " Ibid., p. 71, § 16. 
 'Ubid.^p. 67, §7.
 
 no TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ness of a political nature wherein the interests of the 
 Brotherhood of Lx)comotive Engineers are involved.^* 
 Such legislative boards may elect representatives to act 
 with representatives of other organizations in forming 
 joint legislative boards with the purpose of securing leg- 
 islation in the interest of labor. ^^ The Locomotive Engi- 
 neers' Mutual Life and Accident Insurance Association 
 is a separate organization of elected delegates. 
 
 The functional type of the Brotherhood ^^ is indicated 
 by the follawing: "The interests of the employer and 
 employee being coordinate, the aim of the organization 
 \vill be cooperation and the cultivation of amicable rela- 
 tions with the employer and to submit questions of dif- 
 ference to arbitration when an agreement cannot other- 
 wise.be reached, and to guarantee the fulfillment of every 
 contract made in its name by the use of every power 
 vested in it. . . . The purpose of this organization shall 
 be to combine the interests of Locomotive Engineers, ele- 
 vate their social, moral and intellectual standing; to 
 guard their financial interests, and promote their .general 
 welfare." ^i 
 
 The Brotherhoods rest on the 'trade or craft basis, but 
 structurally they tend to be more complicated than the 
 ordinary union. Their discipline is stricter and their 
 government more centralized. In general, it may be said 
 of them that their membership is made up of relatively 
 
 ^^ Constitution of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 
 (1912), p. 84, §1. 
 
 ^Ubid., p. 85, §7. 
 
 2° Compare with the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers and 
 the I. W. W. Can these three be lumped together? Can there 
 be unionism as such, considering these differences? 
 
 2^ Preamble of the Constitution of the Brotherhood of Loco- 
 motive Engineers.
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS in 
 
 skilled, specialized, and highly paid workers; that they 
 are highly exclusive; that they are highly conservative 
 in their attitude and method; that they refuse to join 
 with other unions in coercing employers ; that they stand 
 for business methods, that is, collective bargaining with 
 most elaborate machinery, trade agreements mutually 
 helpful to employers and employees, sacredness of con- 
 tract, and no strikes if it is possible to avoid them; that 
 they have strong treasuries which make them powerful 
 in dealing with employers; that they stand for a rela- 
 tively high development of union insurance. As applied 
 to the craft group but not to the class, their ideals are 
 largely those of the Knights of Labor. Within the craft 
 group they are highly altruistic and idealistic. In short, 
 they exhibit no consciousness of a working class and 
 working-class interest. They are middle-class in their 
 viewpoint, exclusive, conservative, businesslike and self- 
 reliant. They thus represent the essential characteristics 
 of trade unionism as against industrial and labor un- 
 ionism. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the Railroad Brother- 
 hoods have succeeded in large measure. The causes of 
 their success are : ( i ) the confining of the scope of 
 the organization and activities of economic interest to 
 the craft, where conditions, needs, and problems are com- 
 mon to all and common rules are possible ; avoiding dis- 
 ruptive social, political, and religious considerations; (2) 
 having as the basis of their membership a picked class of 
 workers unusually intelligent and skilled; (3) the stress- 
 ing of organization, and being able to organize the craft 
 so thoroughly that there is no need to bother about un- 
 dercutting or the establishment of the closed shop, in 
 order that their rules may be standardized for the entire
 
 112 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 group; (4) having the membership under thorough con- 
 trol by highly centralized authority and by stressing in- 
 surance; (5) being moderate, conservative in their at- 
 titude and demands, businesslike in their action (re- 
 spect for contract), backing all this up Mrith a reserve 
 fund that allows them to wait; and (6) being in an espe- 
 cially strong strategic position where they can paralyze 
 the whole industrial process if their demands are not 
 conceded. 
 
 Granting then the extreme success of the Brother- 
 hoods, and admitting that they have practically solved 
 the union problem in their field, can we assume that this 
 type of union would work over the whole field of in- 
 dustry and solve the whole union problem ? Does it fur- 
 nish a way of getting the benefits of unionism for the 
 workers most in need of them, and of doing away with 
 the economic and social evils of unionism, in matters 
 of efficiency, unhampered industrial development, uni- 
 versal opportunities to the workers, social order, and in- 
 dustrial peace? 
 
 The essential structural character of the American 
 Federation of Labor is that of a loose federation of 
 national and international unions, which under stress 
 of circumstances has developed a great variety of struc- 
 tural units and relationships; in fact, everything found 
 in the history of American unionism. It was organized 
 on the principle of craft autonomy ^^ with loose federa- 
 tion for the administration of intercraft union affairs, 
 in the belief that the ends or functions of unionism could 
 
 " Constitution of the American Federation of Labor, art. II, 
 §2.
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 113 
 
 best be furthered by having a union for each craft ^^ act- 
 ing independently in its relations with employers, but co- 
 operating with other craft unions in matters of more 
 general concern. As I have said, the tendency has been 
 to develop away from the strictly craft character of un- 
 ions. Several industrial unions are now members. There 
 has also been a tendency for the development of fed- 
 erative forms and activities. The primitive structure 
 consisted of locals, internationals, and the Federation. 
 The two other lines of development are (i) the allied 
 trade union federation (i.e., the departments and sub- 
 ordinate councils) concerned with working conditions 
 mainly; and (2) trades unions and trades union federa- 
 tions (i.e., the territorial units, city centrals and state 
 federations) largely political and uplift in their activities. 
 As at present constituted, the American Federation of 
 Labor consists of the general organization and, roughly 
 speaking, seven general types of subordinate organiza- 
 tion, namely, the national or international, the local, the 
 district council, the local council, the city central, the 
 state federation, and the department. 
 
 The national or international union is a trade or indus- 
 trial organization bringing under one jurisdiction the 
 local unions connected with one craft or industry in the 
 United States and Canada and, in some cases, in Mexico ; 
 e.g., the International Union of United Brewery Work- 
 men and the Glass Bottle Blowers' Association of the 
 United States and Canada. In the American Federa- 
 tion system the national or international is as yet the 
 really strong and authoritative body. It is in no sense 
 a federation of locals but on the contrary creates its 
 local bodies. It exercises a really effective control over 
 
 23 Ihid., art. IX, § 2,
 
 114 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 them through the influence of officers and organizers, 
 charter revocation and financial assistance, and, on the 
 other hand, it is practically independent of higher fed- 
 eral authority. The American Federation of Labor, so 
 far as its relation to the national and international is 
 concerned, is still what it was in its inception — a fed- 
 eration of independent unions. Each national union is 
 free to withdraw from the Federation, and it possesses 
 all the machinery for an independent existence. In 
 spite of the centralizing tendencies that have been going 
 on in the Federation, the autonomy of trade unions is 
 carefully safeguarded and every move in the direction 
 of centralization is made with the reservation that the 
 independence of the national union is in no way infringed 
 upon. 
 
 In general, the organic structure of the internationals 
 varies considerably. The simplest form is the national 
 or international craft or trade union with subordinate 
 locals. There is a tendency to develop, between the 
 local and the national,^* local, district and state councils, 
 which are combinations of locals, and state legislative 
 boards, and executive committees. The industrial na- 
 tionals, such as the United Mine Workers, tend to be 
 more complex. Subordinate to the national union is the 
 district council, an interstate body corresponding to the 
 competitive field, composed of representatives of the 
 locals of the district. It is responsible to the national 
 and concerns itself mainly with trade agreements and 
 working conditions. The subdistrict council is com- 
 posed of delegates from the locals and is responsible to 
 the district council. The railway unions also tend to 
 develop a complicated system of legislative boards and 
 
 2* Cf. the Carpenters and Joiners,
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 115 
 
 committees standing between the national or international 
 union and the locals or lodges and divisions. These 
 boards and committees are sometimes territorial in their 
 organization and supervision. More generally, however, 
 they are coterminous with railway systems and divisions. 
 A clue to their character is found in the attempt to have 
 a union body governing the affairs of men working under 
 similar conditions and with common interests to protect, 
 where common rules as to wages and conditions of em- 
 ployment can be enforced. Here the union organization 
 is coterminous with each competitive area. That is to 
 say, whenever there is a capitalistic organization or unit, 
 there is the attempt to parallel it with a labor organiza- 
 tion or unit, the significance of which will appear in the 
 study of collective bargaining. This means that the 
 union organization is constantly developing to fit needs. 
 The tendency would be, when trusts enter the field, to 
 parallel the complicated trust organization with union 
 organization — the trial method again. 
 
 The general functions of the national or international 
 union are varied. Through its officers, organizers and 
 charters, it creates locals and intermediate subordinate 
 organizations. Through charters and constitutional pro- 
 visions it determines membership, and membership con- 
 ditions and privileges ; the functional character of locals ; 
 their officers and duties ; discipline of members and gen- 
 eral conduct of the affairs of the local. Through the 
 constitution it determines the general economic policy 
 and methods of the local — formulates the general work- 
 ing rules; sanctions or rejects local demands upon em- 
 ployers; determines the rule for negotiating agreements 
 and for the calling and conduct of strikes. Through the 
 constitution and officers it controls and administers the
 
 ii6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 general finance:^ and insurance funds of the union. It 
 publishes the trade organ and is the general source of 
 the trade propaganda material and publicity. In short, 
 it is the economic unit of unionism par excellence. It 
 must be borne in mind that in all this each national is 
 practically a law to itself and great variation occurs. 
 
 The local union might be called the organic cell of 
 unionism as represented by the American Federation of 
 Labor. It is to be noted, though, that it no longer repre- 
 sents the genetic and vital force of unionism. As the 
 organic basis of unionism, there are three general types 
 of the local. First, there is the trade local composed of 
 men all of the same trade or craft. It is the organic 
 basis of trade or craft unionism. It is usually a small 
 body — seven being most generally fixed as a minimum 
 membership — but it may include all the men of a pros- 
 perous craft in a large city, when its membership may 
 run into the hundreds or even thousands. Such are the 
 Cigarmakers of Chicago and Typographical Union, No. 
 1 6, of Chicago. The majority of the locals in the Ameri- 
 can Federation of Labor are of this type. It appears in 
 the Federation in two distinct organic relationships to 
 the whole. In most cases it is the local representative of 
 a national or international union. When no national or 
 international of the trade exists, however, it is the policy 
 of the American Federation of Labor to organize trade 
 locals and affiliate them directly with itself. For ex- 
 ample, in Chicago are the tgg inspectors', hair spinners', 
 flat janitors', and suspender workers' unions. Such un- 
 ions are the federal trade locals. They are the nursery 
 for national unions. When there is a sufficient num- 
 ber of them in any trade throughout the country, it is 
 the policy of the Federation to issue a charter for ap
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 117 
 
 international of the trade to which all these will hence- 
 forth be responsible. Secondly, there is the industrial 
 local, the organic basis of industrial unionism. This 
 local includes all the local workers in the crafts of a 
 given industry, as, for example, all the workers in a given 
 locality engaged in the brewery industry, including not 
 only the men engaged in the technical process of beer 
 brewing, but the engineers, firemen, teamsters, etc., em- 
 ployed in and about a brewery. This type of local unit 
 is naturally larger than the trade or craft local, depend- 
 ing on the number, size, and pay roll of the particular 
 local firm in the industry. 
 
 The antagonistic character of these two types of locals 
 can readily be seen. Where they exist side by side in 
 the same town they are bound to run afoul of each 
 other, for the industrial union claims the membership 
 and authority over some of the men in several definite 
 and organized crafts and also jurisdiction over some of 
 the work done by several different organized crafts. 
 This not only weakens the craft unions numerically and 
 financially, but it lessens the demand for their members, 
 the amount of work they can control, and their financial 
 strength, and prevents a great show of force and united 
 action on the part of all the members of a craft in time 
 of struggle with the employers. The craft unions, there- 
 fore, have resolutely fought the industrial union in the 
 American Federation of Labor, but in the long run to 
 no purpose. The American Federation of Labor has 
 threatened, suspended, expelled, but in the end has found 
 it necessary to compromise with the industrial principle. 
 As a contest between business group unionism and the 
 broader class principle, it is of significance in the inter- 
 pretation of unionism. The industrial unions in the
 
 ii8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 American Federation of Labor are in the minority, but 
 the tendency seems toward this basis of organization, 
 not so much perhaps through abandonment of the trade 
 or craft as the lowest organic local basis as through the 
 tendency of the craft units to amalgamate for certain 
 purposes into what are practically industrial local units, 
 like the councils in the building trades. 
 
 Thirdly, there is the labor local. This is an indiscrim- 
 inate union of men of all trades and industries in a 
 given locality. It is the typical organic basis of the 
 Knights of Labor. A little consideration will show that 
 such a union is bound in general to be ineffective. The 
 men of different trades will inevitably differ on matters 
 of ideals and practical policy. A consistent policy vigor- 
 ously supported is, therefore, almost impossible to get 
 and to maintain. Hence, very largely, the impractical 
 idealism and practical failure of the Knights of Labor. 
 Such unions tend to degenerate into debating societies. 
 So much was this the case under the old regime that 
 many local unions now have rules definitely forbidding 
 the discussion in meetings of certain topics, such as 
 politics or religion. The labor local is tolerated in the 
 American Federation of Labor only where no other 
 kind of organization is possible. In small places, where 
 there are not enough workmen in crafts to organize on 
 the craft basis, labor locals are formed and attached 
 directly to the American Federation of Labor as "fed- 
 eral labor unions." It is the pohcy, however, to organ- 
 ize craft unions in such places as rapidly as a sufficient 
 nucleus is available. 
 
 These, the trade or craft, industrial and labor, are 
 the distinct general types of the local. There are, how- 
 ever, possible variations from these. In transportation
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 119 
 
 where the industry cannot be said to have a local habi- 
 tation, the tendency is to make the smallest union unit 
 coterminous with the smallest division of the transpor- 
 tation system. These "locals" are usually called lodges."^ 
 In some trades the local is not the smallest unit of trade 
 organization, though it is the smallest unit specifically 
 legislated for. Genetically, the union was a shop club; 
 that is to say, a meeting of the workers in a shop or 
 factory to consider the wages and conditions of employ- 
 ment in the particular shop, and in some unions shop 
 clubs are still a recognized part of the union machinery. 
 In the printers' trade it is known as the chapel. 
 
 Functionally, the local is the financial wellspring of 
 unionism. It is practically the working tool of the na- 
 tional or international in matters of local import, mainly 
 economic and social in character, excepting publicity and 
 education for which the national takes care. It sees 
 to it that the national union rules in regard to wages, 
 hours and conditions of employment are observed; un- 
 der constitutional regulations it grants working cards 
 and regulates apprenticeship, and it may call and conduct 
 local strikes ; its officers and committees see as far as pos- 
 sible that the members are kept employed; in certain 
 cases it negotiates agreements with employers; it sees 
 that union label goods are patronized and unfair houses 
 discouraged, that the union spirit is kept alive through 
 the display of buttons and insignia.^® Its officers are 
 
 2® The Machinists' Union and some other organizations call 
 their local unions "lodges." 
 
 ^* See Constitution, Chicago Photo Engravers, No. 5, art. 
 II; Book of Laws of International Typographical Union, pp. 
 48, 51. 55» 79; Constitution of Machinists, pp. 26, 27, 30, 35, 
 36, 38, 39, 40, 41.
 
 I20 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 supposed to exert an educative and salutary influence 
 over its members. 
 
 The local, looked at as the fundamental and essential 
 trade union unit, is the spontaneous outcome of the 
 problems that face the rank and file of the workers and 
 the conditions under which they work. Historically it 
 is thus the source of ideals and policies and of authority, 
 that is, genetically and theoretically speaking, unionism 
 is a spontaneous and democratic creation. Practically, 
 at the present time, this is not altogether true. While, 
 historically speaking, the local is the parent body and 
 the union fabric or organization is the result of integra- 
 tion, currently the growth of unionism is for the most 
 part just the other way — from above downward. The 
 internationals, in general, and the American Federation 
 of Labor have each their paid organizers whose business 
 is to go about the country among unorganized workers, 
 preach to them the advantages of unionism, get them to 
 apply for a charter, organize them and teach them to run 
 their union local. The local thus organized is a product 
 of the international or national, chartered by it, largely 
 directed by it, bound to obey it in matters of policy and 
 method or suflFer revocation of charter, loss of counsel 
 and financial support in time of trouble — all of which or- 
 dinarily means speedy dissolution. In spite of this sys- 
 tematic development of unionism, there is still a good 
 deal of spontaneous genesis. Strikes among the unor- 
 ganized furnish a prime occasion for this formation. 
 When strikes occur and a temporary organization has 
 been spontaneously efifected, organizers, local or general, 
 hasten to the place and endeavor to make the organiza- 
 tion efifective and permanent. Nevertheless, a very large 
 proportion of unions thus generated and affiliated die
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 1^1 
 
 when the immediate occasion has passed. Men have not 
 yet acquired the spirit of prolonged self-sacrifice and 
 cooperation, and effective local leaders are not always 
 found. 
 
 Locally and economically, organization on distinct 
 craft or trade lines is found by experience to have two 
 great defects or weaknesses. First, the separate craft 
 unions of a single industry or of closely allied industries 
 come constantly into conflict over jurisdiction and mem- 
 bership. The result is jurisdictional disputes in which 
 one union may tie up the whole job, throwing out of 
 employment all others, with injustice to employers and 
 in some cases the playing off of union against union by 
 employers. Second, the separate craft union, dealing 
 separately with the employer of all, is relatively weak. 
 The consequence is the tendency of local craft unions 
 in the same or allied industries to form organizations to 
 govern interrelations and deal for all with employers. 
 These are the local or district councils such as are found 
 in the building, printing, and metal trades. Such coun- 
 cils are delegate bodies from the locals, the delegates 
 being ordinarily local officers. Their functions are to 
 determine local jurisdiction and to discipline local un- 
 ions for violations; to act for the locals in making local 
 agreements as to wages and conditions of work with 
 employers; to act together in disciplining employers by 
 strike or otherwise ; to assist employers in securing and 
 maintaining monopoly of the field. 
 
 Effective machinery for the purpose of the building 
 
 trades' council exists in the board of business agents, 
 
 who keep watch for each other of violations of union 
 
 rules, formulate and present demands, etc. 
 
 ^ Such local councils have tended to amalgamate intcv
 
 122 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 state and national councils to deal with the interests of 
 allied trades country-wide. There is a distinct need for 
 them, since employers thus organize, and if unionism is 
 to maintain its power and to combat employers success- 
 fully, organization must meet organization. For this rea- 
 son and the even more important purpose of prevention 
 and settlement of jurisdictional disputes, the American 
 Federation of Labor entered upon the logical and system- 
 atic organization of federal units of allied trades^ — the 
 Departments ^"^ — thus taking a tentative step toward in- 
 dustrial organization. The Departments chartered by 
 the Federation of Labor are federations of allied na- 
 tionals and internationals and serve as a sort of clearing 
 house for difficulties arising between them. Membership 
 in the department is shifting and overlapping — that is to 
 say, a national union may be affiliated with more than 
 one department, as In the case of the machinists, boiler 
 makers, etc., who are affiliated with the Metal Trades 
 Department, and also with the Railroad Employees' De- 
 partment. The plan of organization varies; each De- 
 partment, however, organizes federated trades locals. 
 The annual conventions of the Departments are bodies 
 of delegates from the internationals. 
 
 The Building Trades Department -^ includes nationals 
 or internationals of the asbestos workers, bridge and 
 structural iron workers, carpenters,-^ cement workers,^" 
 
 -^Constitution, American Federation of Labor, art. XV; and 
 Report of Proceedings, 30th Annual Convention, American 
 Federation of Labor, pp. 54, 57. 
 
 " Constitution, Building Trades Department, pp. J* 4. 9-iO; 
 12-13, 20. 
 
 ^® Report of the Proceedings, American Federation of Labor 
 (1915), PP- 122, 125, 167. 
 '- «<^ Ibid., p. 166. .
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 123 
 
 electrical workers, elevator constructors, steam engineers, 
 granite cutters, hodcarriers, lathers, machinists, marble 
 workers, sheet metal workers, metal workers, painters, 
 decorators and paper hangers, plasterers, plumbers, roof- 
 ers, stone cutters, etc. From nationals and internationals 
 one delegate for each 4,000 members is sent to the con- 
 vention. 
 
 The Department's functions are in the main the for- 
 mation of local organizations; the conferring of such 
 power and authority upon the locals as may advance the 
 interest and welfare of the building industry; the adjust- 
 ment of trade disputes and the creation of harmonious 
 feeling between employers and employees; and securing 
 recognition of trade jurisdiction. The Department aims 
 to guarantee to the various branches of the building in- 
 dustry control of such work as rightfully belongs to 
 them and to which they are justly entitled. The struc- 
 ture of the Department includes the nationals, local 
 trades councils, and state trades councils organized in 
 states where three or more locals exist. 
 
 The Railway Employees Department includes the na- 
 tionals or internationals of the blacksmiths, railway 
 clerks, switchmen, maintenance of way employees, steam- 
 fitters, railway telegraphers, boilermakers, iron ship- 
 builders and helpers, freight handlers, etc. "The object 
 of this department shall be to enhance the welfare of 
 the railroad employees, to aid in more closely organizing 
 all such employees, to encourage such organizations to 
 affiliate with the American Federation of Labor, to fur- 
 ther the interests of employees by legislation and to take 
 such action as may be mutually agreed upon to protect 
 .^the interests of all concerned, and to recognize the jus-
 
 144 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 tice and necessity of well-defined jurisdiction. It shall 
 be the aim to use its good offices in assisting affiliated 
 national and international organizations in adjusting any 
 dispute arising over a question of jurisdiction." The de- 
 partment issues charters to system federations, respon- 
 sible to the Department, composed of one delegate from 
 each trade or calling in the system affiliated with the 
 American Federation of Labor. Each system federa- 
 tion may organize at each division point on the system 
 local boards, responsible to the system federation, com- 
 posed of one member for each organization at that 
 point. ^^ "Each organization shall be entitled to one dele- 
 gate from each system federation" to represent it in the 
 convention.^^ 
 
 The Metal Trades Department membership includes 
 the nationals or internationals of the sheet metal work- 
 ers, blacksmiths, boilermakers, iron ship builders, elec- 
 trical workers, steam engineers, foundry workers, ma- 
 chinists, molders, metal polishers, pattern makers, stove 
 molders, etc. The nationals or internationals are en- 
 titled to one delegate for each 4,000 members in the De- 
 partment convention. Each local council Is also entitled 
 to one. The functions of the Department are the forma- 
 tion of local councils and the conferring of such power 
 upon them as will advance the interests and welfare of 
 the industry; the adjustment of trade disputes, the es- 
 tablishment of more harmonious relations with employers 
 and the adjustment of jurisdictional disputes. 
 
 The Mining Department includes the United Mine 
 
 ^^ Department Leaflet, D. W. Roderick, Secretary-Treasurer. 
 ^2 Constitution, Railway Employees Department, American 
 • Federation of Labor (1912), § 5,
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 125 
 
 Workers, the Western Federation of Miners,^^ the 
 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Work- 
 ers, the International Association of Machinists and the 
 International Brotherhood of Steam Shovel and Dredge- 
 men. The delegates to the annual convention are the 
 delegates representing their respective organizations in 
 the American Federation of Labor convention. Each 
 delegate has one vote, but a majority vote of each dele- 
 gation Is required to carry any proposition. The object 
 of the department Is the greater unity of all Its workers 
 and the furtherance of the principle that "an Injury to 
 one is the concern of all." ^^ 
 
 The Union Label Trades Department includes all na- 
 tional and international unions using labels, cards, or 
 buttons upon the product. Its functions are to promote 
 the demand for label products and union labor; to in- 
 vestigate, devise and recommend the advertisement of 
 label products ; to educate unions and the public upon the 
 economic, social and moral uplift furthered by the trade 
 union movement; to further the general welfare of affili- 
 ated organizations and to aid in the work of organiza- 
 tion. It organizes local departments. 
 
 In spite of all its selfishness of purpose and narrow 
 exclusiveness, trade or craft unionism inevitably develops 
 a very broadening spirit of mutuality among the work- 
 ers. The unionists come to feel their economic oneness 
 and Interdependence as a class. With the dawning of 
 this consciousness of class character and class Interest 
 comes the knowledge that there are many things which 
 
 ^3 The Western Federation of Miners is now known as the 
 "International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers." 
 ^* Constitution of th? Mining Department, §§ 2, 4.
 
 126 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 the workers as a whole need that cannot be attaineid by 
 union for deahng merely with the employer. Common 
 needs which can be satisfied only through universal union 
 for social and political and economic betterment are 
 recognized. The recognition of these needs has bred in 
 the American Federation of Labor general federative 
 units of a functional character. These are, leaving aside 
 the Federation itself, the city central and the state federa- 
 tion.'^ The functions of these organizations are mainly 
 political, legislative and social — active political effort, 
 securing laws in favor of the workers, furthering the 
 use of the label, carrying out the boycott, mediation be- 
 tween unions and between unions and employers, carry- 
 ing aid and sympathy, organizing and working for social 
 uplift. 
 
 The city central labor union is a body composed of 
 delegates, one for each hundred members, from the 
 locals of the American Federation of Labor in a given 
 city.*® 
 
 ^^ See Report of the Proceedings of the Thirty-fifth Annual 
 Convention of the American Federation of Labor (1915), pp- 
 61-62. 
 
 ^^See chap. 11, p 39, note 4. 
 
 Some idea of the multiplicity of interests of a city cen- 
 tral may be gained from the following topics which among 
 other things obtruded themselves into the discussion at one 
 of the ordinary meetings of the Chicago Federation of Labor: 
 the function and control of public opinion; the character of 
 financiers; the inequality of justice as between employers and 
 workers (this apropos of the indictment of about forty labor 
 leaders for extortion, wrecking of property and slugging) ; en- 
 forcement of emploj'ment of union men ; fire protection — the 
 two-platoon system; policy of national preparedness; public 
 ownership of utilities; protection against abuses by public
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 12.7 
 
 The state federation is an organization of the American 
 Federation of Labor union bodies or units of a given 
 state. It is made up of delegates from locals, city cen- 
 trals and various councils. The constitution of the Illi- 
 nois State Federation reads : "The object of this federa- 
 tion shall be the securing of legislation in the interests of 
 organized labor, to promote the use of the union label and 
 the purchase of union label goods, to make more effective 
 legally declared boycotts and, in general, to promote the 
 work of labor organizations."^^ It investigates strikes 
 and lockouts and gives information about them and issues 
 
 utility corporations; the economic and social desirability of 
 blocking the proposed sale of the Automatic Telephone Com- 
 pany to the Bell Company; unemployment; vice; corruption of 
 city politics; use of charitable contributions by corporations 
 to prevent opposition to jobbery by women's organizations ; 
 government subsidized military training in schools; public 
 licenses for operators of moving picture machines; enforce- 
 ment of purchase of union-made goods; the right of labor 
 organizations; the recall of state officials; the duty of mak- 
 ing charitable contributions at home instead of for the war 
 sufferers in Europe; financial assistance to workers in various 
 sections of the country; government ownership of mines in 
 Arizona; the initiative and referendum; vested rights; the case 
 of Scott Nearing and the pernicious economic influence of uni- 
 versities; the Chicago school situation; the desirability of 
 a city ordinance to allow anyone arrested for petty crimes to 
 be released on his own recognizance vmtil the day of trial; in- 
 equality of law in this connection, i.e., the poor man goes to 
 jail; the municipal court act; the political power of unionism; 
 picketing — the unfairness of the law ; boycotts and unfair lists ; 
 legal theory — human versus property rights — the concept of 
 labor as a commodity, contempt of court; the antitrust laws 
 and their interpretation; methods of securing local, state, and 
 national labor legislation. 
 
 2" Constitution of Illinois State Federation of Labor, art. 2.
 
 128 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 appeals.^^ Every organization of one hundred or less 
 shall be entitled to one delegate and one additional for 
 every one hundred members or major fraction thereof. 
 All central bodies may send five.^^ 
 
 Crowning and uniting this complexity of organic units, 
 industrial and territorial, is the American Federation of 
 Labor itself, the universal industrial and territorial unit. 
 Its founders declared themselves "in favor of the forma- 
 tion of a thorough federation, embracing every trade and 
 labor organization in America, organized under the trade 
 union system." ^^^ Its organic character in this narrower 
 sense of the word is quite simple. It consists of a dele- 
 gate Jegislative body — the convention — which meets an- 
 nually for a two weeks' session, and the officers of this 
 body, who hold over between conventions, and who in 
 their several capacities, organized as an executive 
 committee or cabinet, carry on the executive and legisla- 
 tive work of the Federation. In addition, the conven- 
 tion usually appoints a number of special committees, 
 which act between sessions in the capacity of commission- 
 ers of inquiry and as judicial bodies. 
 
 Sovereignty in the American Federation of Labor re- 
 sides finally in the convention, to which national unions, 
 city centrals, state federations, federal labor unions and 
 local federal unions send delegates as follows : From 
 national and international unions for less than 4,000 
 members, i delegate; 4,000 or more, 2 delegates; 8,000 
 or more, 3 delegates; 16,000 or more, 4 delegates; 32,000 
 or more, 5 delegates, and so on ; from central bodies, 
 
 ^^ Constitution of Illinois State Federation of Labor, art. 2, 
 p. II. ^^ Ibid., p. 3. 
 
 *" Preamble of the Constitution of the American Federation 
 of Labor.
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 129 
 
 state federations, federal labor unions and local unions 
 having no national or international union, one delegate. ^^ 
 In addition, the following fraternal bodies are now rep- 
 resented: The British Trades Union Congress, The 
 Canadian Trades and Labor Congress, The Woman's 
 International Union Label League, the National 
 Woman's Trade Union League of America, the Federal 
 Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the 
 Farmers' National Congress. All are entitled to one 
 delegate with the exception of the British Trades Union 
 Congress and the Federal Council of the Churches of 
 Christ, which send two.^^ 
 
 The number of delegates sent by the national and in- 
 ternational unions ranges from one to eight. The num- 
 ber of delegates actually sent by these organizations is 
 not in strict proportion to the membership, but legally 
 each delegation is entitled to cast a number of votes in 
 this proportion. The United Mine Workers, sending 8 
 delegates in 191 5, were entitled to 3,116 votes; the 
 United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, sending 
 7, to 1,956; the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators 
 and Paperhangers, sending 6, to 753 votes; each dele- 
 gate voting his proportional number. This gives the con- 
 trol of the convention and its policies absolutely into the 
 hands of the nationals and internationals and to the few 
 big organizations, at that, no federal body having more 
 than one vote. On practically all ordinary questions, 
 however, voting is by a show of hands — a compromise 
 which satisfies the smaller and federal organizations, as 
 
 *^ Constitution of the American Federation of Labor, art. 
 IV, § I. 
 
 *^ Report of the Proceedings of the Thirty-fifth Annual Con- 
 vention of the American Federation of Labor, p. xv.
 
 Simplified and Artificially Abstract Schematic Rep- 
 resentation OF the Organization of the 
 American Federation of Labor. 
 
 This simplified schematic representation of the organiza- 
 tion of the American Federation of Labor is artificially 
 abstract to make it possible to grasp the main outlines of 
 tlie scheme. There are many relations not clearly shown 
 even by the constitutions, and many variations as between 
 national or international unions because of growth by the 
 trial method, all impossible to indicate here. There are, 
 however, to be found on the chart : 
 
 1. The fundamental structure of craft local, national and 
 Federation. Superimposed on this is (i), a trades union, 
 and (2), an allied trade development. 
 
 2. Local industrial unions united into national industrial 
 unions. 
 
 3. The territorial units — city federations united into 
 state federations. 
 
 4. Locals directly affiliated with the Federation not suf- 
 ficient in number to form nationals. 
 
 5. Federal locals, i.e., labor unions in small places where 
 there are too few workers to form craft locals. 
 
 Locals of the following unions are represented thus : 
 
 X United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters of 
 
 the United States and Canada. 
 O United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of 
 
 America. 
 □ International Hodcarriers, Building and Common 
 
 □ Laborers' Union of America. 
 
 International Brotherhood of Blacksmith*. 
 ^^ International Typographical Union. 
 CZ3 Switchmen's Union of North America. 
 ^V Suspender Workers' Local Trade Union. 
 ^^ United Mine Workers of America. 
 /^ Federal Labor Union. 
 
 130
 
 SIMPLIFIED REPRESENTATI( 
 THE AMERICAN EEC 
 
 British Trades Union^ 
 
 Congress 
 Canadian Trades andg^ 
 
 Labor Congress 
 Women's International/g) 
 Union Label League. ^ 
 
 Inter- 
 State 
 Organ 
 izaiions 
 
 State 
 Organ- 
 izations 
 
 Local 
 Bodies 
 
 CHICAGO I SPRINGFIELD 
 
 ILLINOIS
 
 ©' 
 
 N OF THE ORGANIZATION OF 
 fRATION OF LABOR 
 
 National Women's Trade 
 
 Union League 
 Federal Council of 
 hurches of Christ 
 mericon Federation 
 Catholic Societies 
 Departments 
 
 National and 
 International 
 Unions. 
 
 BUFFALO PODUNK NEW YORK 
 NEW YORK 
 
 System Fed- 
 erations 
 
 Districts 
 
 State Fed- 
 erations 
 
 Sub-Districts 
 
 State. 
 Councils 
 
 City 
 Centrals 
 
 Local Boards 
 Local Councils 
 District Councils 
 
 Local Unions 
 Shop Clubs
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 131 
 
 the equal vote of states in the Senate satisfies the smaller 
 states of the Union. The Convention is, in the main, a 
 body of officers of the unions and subordinate federa- 
 tions — a body, in other words, of professional unionists. 
 Its composition, at least as to leaders, does not vary 
 much from year to year. 
 
 The objects of the general federal unit are: organi- 
 zation and federation; settlement of jurisdictional dis- 
 putes; maintenance of peace and harmony among the 
 unions; enforcement of unitary organization; mainte- 
 nance of craft autonomy; encouragement of the labor 
 press and the union label; securing labor's rights by 
 legislative and political action; education and publicity, 
 and giving financial and moral assistance in strikes. The 
 president, eight vice-presidents, a treasurer and a secre- 
 tary constitute the executive council. This council, 
 which is practically continuous, is the really powerful 
 initiatory and authoritative body of the Federation. 
 Its duties are to watch and initiate legislation, organize 
 unions, report boycotts for indorsement, unify organiza- 
 tions, send out speakers, help settle jurisdictional dis- 
 putes, assist federal unions, and grant and revoke char- 
 ters when ordered by the convention.*^ 
 
 The actual strength of the American Federation of 
 Labor stated in terms of its units and individual mem- 
 bership is about as follows :** national and international 
 unions, iii ; local unions, 21,711 ; local trade and federal 
 labor unions, 705; city central bodies, 717; state federa- 
 
 *3 Constitution of the American Federation of Labor, art. 
 IX, §§ i-io. 
 
 ** Report of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of 
 the American Federation of Labor for 191 6, p. 47.
 
 132 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 tions, 45 ; departments, 5 ; local department councils, 417; 
 total membership for 19 16, 2,072,702. 
 
 The American Federation of Labor has both succeeded 
 and failed. The causes of its success may be explained 
 largely by its supremely adaptable and catholic character, 
 made possible by its nontheoretical, opportunistic, trial 
 method and ideals, and its loose organization. It is thus 
 sufficiently broad and elastic to have a place within it- 
 self for every form and type of organization — structur- 
 ally and functionally — that has arisen and proved itself 
 effective in the history of American unionism. It has 
 found a place and function within itself for the trade 
 union, the trades union (city central and state federa- 
 tion), the labor union, the industrial union, and the 
 various transitional forms; for business unionism, up- 
 lift unionism, radical or revolutionary unionism and 
 predatory unionism. It is loosely enough organized to 
 allow of every variation of centralization and discipline 
 which the particular needs and conditions warrant. For 
 example, there is centralization and strong discipline of 
 national unions where conditions demand them and de- 
 centralization and weak discipline of federal forms 
 where needs and jealousies exist. It is theoretically and 
 organically elastic enough to allow scope to the principle 
 of change and growth, and thus to the adoption and crea- 
 tion of new forms and the assumption of new functions 
 as developing conditions demand them, such as system 
 federations, departments, and its political program. It 
 thus reflects in a remarkable way the changing conditions, 
 needs, problems, and methods of the workers within the 
 field of its operation. Within this field it reflects pretty 
 accurately — subject of course to the law of retardation 
 '^th? character of capitalistic organizatiop, that is, th^
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 133 
 
 degree of craft-wise and industrial-wise business organi- 
 zation and the idealism and materialism, the radicalism 
 and conservatism, the mutuality and selfishness, of the 
 workers. In short, it pretty accurately reflects within 
 the field of its operation the degree of unity, and of 
 community of spirit, the extent of common problems, 
 ideals and conditions of the workers. It has always 
 made everything else secondary to the supreme need of 
 the workers in terms of immediate results, or, as Mr. 
 Gompers says, "more, more, more, now," in the form 
 of higher wages, shorter hours, better working condi- 
 tions here and now. In other words, its prime aim is 
 "to deliver the goods." And finally, it has had extraor- 
 dinary fortune in the continuity and character of its 
 leadership. Mr. Gompers has been at the helm since 
 1886, except for one year, 1894; it has had, therefore, a 
 continuous policy and has been delivered from the strug- 
 gle for leadership. In short, the American Federation 
 of Labor is an organization structurally and function- 
 ally of such a character that, while guaranteeing to each 
 craft autonomy in trade affairs, it can unite them on 
 economic grounds, smooth out their differences, and 
 gradually educate them to closer relationship. 
 
 But has the American Federation of Labor succeeded? 
 ( I ) Though it claims to represent the working class and 
 aims at universal organization, yet in more than thirty 
 years it has succeeded in organizing less than ten 
 per cent of the workers. (2) It lacks the adherence of 
 some of the strongest and most successful unions, such 
 as the Railway Brotherhoods. (3) It has found itself 
 unable to make headway or maintain its position in great 
 trust-controlled industries. (4) It has proved unequal to 
 its adversary in its struggle against strong employers'
 
 134 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 associations. (5) It has failed generally to organize and 
 help the unskilled workers. (6) It has not been able 
 to prevent altogether predatory combinations between 
 employers and unions to the detriment of other organ- 
 ized workers. (7) It has failed thus far to solve the 
 problem of jurisdictional disputes involving destruction 
 alike of the welfare of the workers, the employers, and 
 the public. (8) It has failed to secure unanimity and 
 general support of its broad welfare policies, for example, 
 the use of union labeled goods. (9) It seems impotent 
 against scientific management and advanced management 
 with its progressive specialization and destruction of the 
 very essence of the craft foundation of unionism. 
 
 After having considered the general character of the 
 American Federation of Labor and reviewed its successes 
 and failures, can we say that it presents the key to the 
 solution of the union problem? Does it furnish a means 
 of getting the benefits of unionism for the workers most 
 in need of them, and of solving the problems of effi- 
 ciency, unhampered industrial development, universal 
 opportunity to the workers, social order and industrial 
 peace? In so far as it has failed in this connection, 
 what are the prime causes of its failure? There appear 
 to be two which stand out clearly: First, under the 
 present system of capitalistic enterprise based on machine 
 industry, no common standards of right, rights, and 
 justice exist which can be appealed to for securing work- 
 ing class betterment. Therefore, the general betterment 
 of the workers' condition through unionism requires a 
 general organization of the workers superior in power 
 to the employers. Second, no working class power su- 
 perior to the employers can be developed in pursuit of
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 135 
 
 the ideal of immediate results secured by bargaining, 
 because under the capitalistic system immediate better- 
 ment can be secured by the workers through bargaining 
 only by control and manipulation of the labor supply. 
 This means that the pursuit of the ideal must immediately 
 develop the selfish and monopolistic group feeling. This 
 effectually bars out the attainment of working class 
 solidarity and power, for it causes the stronger unions 
 to hold aloof, pits the organized against the unorganized, 
 and causes a constant desertion of the brains of the 
 movement to the employers. In short, if the failure of 
 the American Federation of Labor could be simmered 
 down to a single phrase, it would be "lack of practical 
 idealism." It is another question whether this idealism 
 — the unselfish class spirit — can be developed under 
 present conditions where the mass of the workers are 
 barred out from taking a broad and long-time view of 
 life's affairs by the cold fact that, as things are, their 
 immediate conditions of life do depend upon the labor 
 supply and they can have absolutely no guarantee of the 
 future. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Constitution, Statutes and Agreements: Brotherhood 
 of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive 
 Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railway Conduc- 
 tors, and the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. 
 
 Journals: Locomotive Engineers' Journal, Locomotive Fire- 
 men and Enginemen's Magazine, The Railway Conduc- 
 tor, and the Railway Trainman. 
 
 Bliss. Encyclopedia of Social Reform, "Railway Brother- 
 hoods."
 
 136 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, No. 98 (1912): 
 "Mediation and Arbitration of Railway Labor Disputes 
 in the United States," by C. P. Neill, pp. 1-63. 
 
 Cease, D. L, "Organization of Railway Employees," Out- 
 look, 86:503 (1907). 
 
 Cunningham, E. J. "Two Views of the Railroad Ques- 
 tion: Brotherhoods and Efficiency," Atlantic Monthly, 
 104:289-302 (1909). 
 
 Frick, F. L. The Life of Railway Men. 
 
 Hollander and Barnett, Studies in American Trade 
 Unionism, chap. XI, "The Beneficiary Features of the 
 Railway Unions," (J. B. Kennedy), 
 
 McNeill, Geo, E. The Labor Movement, chap, XII, 
 "The Rise of Railroad Organization," (P, M, Arthur), 
 
 Report of the Board of Arbitration — in re — Eastern Rail- 
 roads and the Locomotive Engineers, 19 12, 
 
 Report of the U. S. Industrial Commission, vol. XVII, pp, 
 821-838, 847, 852-857 (1901). 
 
 Constitutions: The American Federation of Labor, Depart- 
 ments, State Federations of Labor, City Centrals, Na- 
 tional and International unions. Local and District coun- 
 cils, etc.. National Woman's Trade Union League, 
 Woman's International Union Label League and Trades 
 Union Auxiliary, Etc. 
 
 Convention Proceedings: Reports of Proceedings of An- 
 nual Conventions of the American Federation of Labor, 
 Departments, Nationals and Internationals, State Fed- 
 erations, and affiliated bodies. 
 
 Journals: The American Federationist, Weekly News Let- 
 ter, the journals of the Nationals and Internationals. 
 
 Official Directories. 
 
 General Propaganda Leaflets: 
 The A. F. of L., A Few of Its Declarations. 
 The A. F. of L., Aims and Objects.
 
 PRESENT UNION GROUPS 137 
 
 The A. F. of L. Endeavors to Unite All Classes of Wage- 
 workers. 
 
 The American Labor Movement, Its Make-up, Achieve- 
 ments and Aspirations. Gompers, Samuel. 
 
 The Eight-hour Workday. Gompers, Samuel. 
 
 The Economic and Social Importance of the Eight-hour 
 Movement. Gunton, Geo., Eight-hour Series, No. 2. 
 
 The Eight-hour Primer, The Fact, Theory and the Argu- 
 ment. McNeill, Geo. E., Eight-hour Series, No. i 
 (1899). 
 
 Hail to Labor. 
 
 Has the Nonunionist a Right to Work How, When, and 
 Where He Pleases? Foster, Frank K. (1904). 
 
 History and Philosophy of the Eight-hour Movement. 
 Danryid, Lemuel, Eight-hour Series, No. 3. 
 
 How to Form a Trade Union or Federal Labor Union. 
 
 Industrial Unionism in Its Relation to Trade Unionism, 
 Rochester Convention (1912). 
 
 Legal Rights of Workingmen, Argument Before the Ju- 
 diciary Committee of the House of Representatives, 
 59th Cong. (1906). Spelling, Thos. C. 
 
 Men of Labor, Lovers of Human Liberty. 
 
 Open Shop Editorials. Gompers, Samuel. 
 
 Organized Labor, Its Struggles, Its Enemies, and Its 
 Fool Friends. 
 
 Philosophy of Trade Unions. Lum. Dyer, D. (1892). 
 
 The Safety of the Future Lies in Organized Labor. 
 Lloyd, Henry D. (1893). 
 
 St. Louis Exposition, Exhibit of the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor (1904). 
 
 Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion. 
 
 Textbook of Labor's Political Demands, The Executive 
 Council of the A, F. of L. (1906). 
 
 The Union Label, Its History and Aims, Prize Essays. 
 
 Wageworkers of America Unite. 
 
 The Executive Council and Gompers, Samuel.
 
 138 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Why Central Labor Unions Should Be a Part of the A. 
 F. of L. 
 
 Why We Unite. 
 
 Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems, pp. 219-223. 
 
 Aldrich, Morton A. "The American Federation of La- 
 bor," American Economic Association, Economic Studies, 
 vol. 3, pp. 213-266 (1898). 
 
 Bliss. Encyclopedia of Social Reform, "The American 
 Federation of Labor." 
 
 Burke, W. M. The History and Functions of Central La- 
 bor Unions. 
 
 Carlton, F. T. The History and Problems of Organised 
 Labor, pp. 74-82. 
 
 "Gompers, the Man Between the Two Millstones," Cur- 
 rent Literature, 48:23 (1910). 
 
 Hollander and Barnett. Studies in American Trade 
 Unionism, chap. XII. The Knights of Labor and the 
 American Federation of Labor, Wm. Kirk. 
 
 Kirk, Wm. National Labor Federations in the United 
 States. 
 
 Mitchell, John. Organised Labor, chap. X, "The Consti- 
 tution of the American Trade Union," and XLVI, "La- 
 bor Federation in the United States." 
 
 WoLMAN, Leo. "Extent of Labor Organization in the 
 United States," Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXX, 
 p. 486 (1916). 
 
 Weyl, W. E. "Samuel Gompers, Representative of Ameri- 
 can Labor," Review of Reviews, 31 '.44-47 (1905).
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD AND 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 
 
 The American public has been frightened by the im- 
 pressionist school of reporters and magazine writers into 
 vital misconception and tremendous overestimate of the 
 power and significance of the Industrial Workers of the 
 World. This is the one outstanding fact revealed by 
 the eighth annual convention of that organization held 
 in Chicago late in September, 191 3. 
 
 The first significant fact revealed by this convention, 
 and by the whole history of the I. W. W. as well, is that 
 this body, which claims as its mission the organization 
 of the whole working class for the overthrow of capi- 
 talism, is pathetically weak in effective membership and 
 has failed utterly in its efforts to attach to itself perma- 
 nently a considerable body of men representative of any 
 section of American workers. 
 
 In spite of eight years of organizing effort and un- 
 paralleled advertisement, the official roll of the conven- 
 tion indicated that its present paid-up membership^ en- 
 titled to representation does not much exceed 14,000 men, 
 while the actual constitutional representation on the con- 
 vention floor was probably less than half that number. 
 Nor was there anything to make it appear that this was 
 regarded by the leaders or members as an exceptional 
 or disappointing showing. The fact is, impossible as it 
 
 ^ November, 1913. 
 
 139
 
 I40 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 may seem to those who have read the recent outpouring 
 of alarmist literature on the subject, that this number 
 probably comes near to representing the maximum, per- 
 manent, dues-paying membership at any time connected 
 with the organization. For notwithstanding extravagant 
 statements made in the past and a present claim of an 
 enrollment approximating 100,000,^ it is admitted by the 
 highest official of the Industrial Workers that up to the 
 time of the Lawrence strike the membership never 
 reached 10,000, the highest yearly average being but 
 6,000; and the convention debates indicated clearly that 
 the great bulk of those enrolled during that strike and 
 in the succeeding period of unusual agitation and ac- 
 tivity have retained no lasting connection with the organi- 
 zation. It was shown that the effective force of the 
 union at Lawrence is already spent. ^ The representa- 
 
 2 The actual membership of the I. W. W. is unknown even 
 to the officials. The records of the general office show an 
 average paid-up membership for the year of 14,310. It is es- 
 timated that local and national bodies have an additional dues- 
 paying membership of 25,000 on which no per capita tax has 
 been paid to the general organization, and that there is, be- 
 sides, a nominal non-dues-paying enrollment of from 50,000 to 
 60,000. The truth seems to be that 100,000 or more men have 
 had I. W. W. dues cards in their possession during the past 
 five years. How much of this outlying membership fringe 
 is now bona fide it is impossible to estimate. Some part of it 
 represents members out of work or on strike and therefore 
 temporarily unable to pay dues. Even this portion, however, is 
 organically ineffective and is constantly dropping out. We 
 seem justified, therefore, in taking the actual paid-up member- 
 ship as the nearest approximation to the permanent effective 
 strength of the organization. 
 
 ^The membership now claimed at Lawrence is 700. After 
 the strike it was said to be 14,000.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 141 
 
 tives of the whole textile industry, indeed, cast but 31 
 votes in the convention, developing the fact that the total 
 paid-up membership in this line of work probably does 
 not now exceed 1,600,^ and a communication was re- 
 ceived from one of the local unions still remaining at 
 Lawrence complaining of the methods of the organiza- 
 tion and threatening adhesion to the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor. At Akron, again, where during the rub- 
 ber strike early this year apparently more than 6,000 
 were added to the roll, the convention vote cast indicated 
 a present membership of 150 or thereabouts, and state- 
 ments on the floor revealed the fact that most of those 
 who joined at the time of the strike did not retain official 
 connection with the union long enough to pay the second 
 assessment of dues.^ 
 
 Evidence to the same general effect might be multi- 
 plied almost Indefinitely. Everywhere the history of the 
 organization has shown this same inability to maintain 
 a stable and growing membership. There are without 
 doubt reasons for this fact apart from the special char- 
 acter and methods of the I. W. W., but these are beside 
 the point. The point is that by reason of lack of suffi- 
 cient membership this body is and seems destined to be 
 utterly inadequate to the tasks which it has set itself to 
 accomplish. It aims to educate and organize the work- 
 ing class and claims to have discovered the effective ideals 
 and organic basis to this end, but during eight years of 
 strenuous effort it has succeeded In reaching and hold- 
 
 •* By constitutional provision one vote is allowed in the con- 
 vention for every 50 members or major fraction thereof. 
 
 5 At the time of the strike the local purchased 11,000 dues 
 stamps from the general office. A membership of 2,000 is 
 claimed at present.
 
 142 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ing less than one in 2,000 of the workers of this coun- 
 try alone. Its first great organic tasks, if it is to attain 
 this end, are the displacement of the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor, the railway brotherhoods, and the Socialist 
 party, but it has not been able to organize effectively for 
 these purposes a body of men equal to one per cent of 
 the membership of the American Federation alone, or to 
 one-sixtieth of those who act with the Socialist party; 
 it proposes a united and successful direct industrial as- 
 sault upon capitalism, but it has not thus far drawn to 
 itself on this basis a permanent enrollment equal in num- 
 ber to the employees of many a single capitalist enter- 
 prise. Plainly no further proof is needed that those 
 who are attached to the present order have nothing now 
 to fear from I. W. W.-ism judged from the standpoint 
 of mere numbers and power of appeal to the great body 
 of the working class. 
 
 But numerical weakness is not after all the chief handi- 
 cap of the I. W. W. in its struggle for positive achieve- 
 ment. This convention secondly brought into clearest 
 relief the fact that this feeble body is in a state of or- 
 ganic chaos as the result of apparently irreconcilable in- 
 ternal conflict, and the history of the organization makes 
 it appear that this state of affairs is chronic and in- 
 evitable. The conflict, the keynote of I. W. W. history, 
 was waged in the present convention under the guise of 
 centralization versus decentralization. It is at present, 
 objectively, a contest virtually between the East and the 
 West. The so-called decentralizers, mainly westerners, 
 sought in the convention by every conceivable means to 
 cut down the power and authority of the central govern- 
 ing body. This central authority already had been re- 
 duced almost to a shadow. As the result of previous
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 143 
 
 phases of the contest the office of general president had 
 been aboHshed ; the executive board had been placed un- 
 der control of the general referendum which could be 
 initiated at any time and on all subjects by ten local 
 unions in three different industries, while its efficiency 
 had been minimized by inadequate financial support ; and 
 the locals had become to all intents and purposes auton- 
 omous bodies. But all this has brought no permanent 
 satisfaction to the decentralizing faction. Its ultimate 
 ideal apparently is, and has been from the beginning, not 
 "one big union" but a loosely federated body of com- 
 pletely autonomous units, each free to act in time and in 
 manner as Its fancy dictates, subject to no central or 
 constitutional guidance or restraint — in short, a body 
 of local units with purely voluntary relationships gov- 
 erned in time, character, and extent of cooperation by 
 sentiment only. 
 
 Actuated by this ideal, the decentralizers conducted in 
 the recent convention a twelve days' assault upon what 
 remained of central power. They attempted to abolish 
 the general executive board; to paralyze the general or- 
 ganization by minimizing Its financial support ; to abolish 
 the convention and provide for legislation by means of 
 the general referendum only; to place the official organ- 
 izers under the direct control of the rank and file; to re- 
 duce the general officers to the position of mere clerks, 
 functioning only as corresponding intermediaries between 
 the local organizations; and by other means to give to 
 each of these local bodies complete autonomy in matters 
 of organization, policy, action, and financial control. It 
 matters little that at this particular convention the cen- 
 tralizing faction, mainly by virtue of superior parlla- 
 Tnentary tactics, succeeded in staving off the attacks of
 
 144 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 its opponents and in saving, at least until the matter goes 
 to referendum, the present form of the organization. 
 The significant facts are that the same factional strife 
 has existed from the moment when the I. W. W. was 
 launched ; and that it apparently is bound to exist as long 
 as the organization lasts; that the decentralizing forces, 
 though often defeated formally, have in practice suc- 
 ceeded and seem bound to continue to succeed in work- 
 ing their will inside the organization, with the inevitable 
 result of disintegration and organic chaos. Evidence 
 of this is everywhere apparent. During the past year 
 ninety-nine locals, ignored and uncared for, went out of 
 existence entirely; in New York the relatively strong 
 local assembly is working at cross-purposes with the cen- 
 tral organization and successfully defying its power; in 
 the West, locals are being formed and managed on extra- 
 constitutional lines; throughout this part of the country 
 members are being expelled by one local and straight- 
 way admitted by another; so diverse are the local Ideals 
 and so uncertain the means of intercommunication that 
 in practice it has been found generally impossible to get 
 ten locals into the requisite harmony to Initiate a referen- 
 dum; sabotage is being openly practiced by the local 
 membership against the organization itself and has re- 
 cently resulted in the suspension of one of its two official 
 organs, the Industrial Worker; in fact, it is freely ad- 
 mitted and apparently is looked upon with satisfaction 
 by the decentralizing faction, that there are at present 
 fifty-seven varieties of Industrial Workers of the World. 
 The net result is that the I. W. W., instead of being 
 the grim, brooding power which it is pictured in popular 
 imagination. Is a body utterly Incapable of strong, effi- 
 cient, united action and the attainment of results of a
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 145 
 
 permanent character; a body capable of local and spas- 
 modic effort only. True, it has a constitution which 
 provides in a most logical manner for the welding of 
 the workers into a great, effective, organic body. But 
 this constitution is a mere mechanical structure in the 
 interstices of which organic accretions have here and 
 there settled. The little organic bodies are sovereign, 
 each of their members is a sovereign, and to 
 both member and organic unit the constitution is 
 a thing subject to their will. The fact is that the I. W. 
 W. is not an organization but a loosely bound group of 
 uncontrolled fighters. It is a symptom if you will, and 
 in that alone, if anywhere, lies its present social signifi- 
 cance. But decentralized as it is to the extent of organic 
 dissipation, atomistic and rent by bitter factional strife, 
 it has no present power of general persistent or construc- 
 tive action. 
 
 The I. W. W., however, is not only weak in member- 
 ship and organic unity ; it possesses, further, no financial 
 resources even in a slight degree adequate to advance and 
 maintain its proposed organization of the working class 
 or to carry forward any consistent assault on capitalism ; 
 and, moreover, it has shown itself incapable of control- 
 ling for its main purposes even the financial resources 
 which it does possess. Advocates of the movement, it 
 is true, minimize the importance of mere money in the 
 kind of warfare which they propose to conduct. This 
 is supposed to be one of the pregnant ideas of the direct 
 actionists. They do not propose, it is said, like the 
 Socialists, to support a horde of parasitic labor poli- 
 ticians, nor, like the trade unions, to out-wait the capi- 
 talist. They will force the capitalists to abdicate by the 
 simple process of making it unprofitable for them to con-
 
 146 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 duct industry. And this can be done practically without 
 funds — where it will suffice — simply by keeping the 
 worker's hands in his pockets; where this will not pro- 
 duce the desired result, by striking on the job. I do 
 not purpose in this connection to enter into any discus- 
 sion of the theory of direct action. All that I wish to do 
 is to point out the fact that much of the present weak- 
 ness of the I. W. VV. is due to financial want and a con- 
 stitutional inability to control the actual financial re- 
 sources at hand. Time after time the I. W. W. has 
 been obliged to let slip favorable opportunities for or- 
 ganization and has lost local bodies because it could not 
 furnish the carfare and meal tickets necessary to send the 
 gospel to the workers groping in darkness. Time after 
 time it has seen promising demonstrations collapse and 
 the workers drift away from the point of contest and 
 from its control because it could not finance organizers 
 and supply food and lodging to tide over the period of 
 temporary hardship. The whole experience of the or- 
 ganization has, in fact, proved that, short of a condition 
 of general and desperate distress, progressive and per- 
 manent working-class organization requires ready and 
 continuous financial support. And here lies the most 
 vital error in the practical theory and calculations of the 
 I. W. W. The American workmen as a body are not, 
 and are not likely to be, in a condition of general and 
 desperate distress. It is, therefore, to the unskilled and 
 casual laborers alone that the I. W. W. can bring home 
 its appeal and to these only that it can look for the funds 
 to put through its organizing projects. It is this chronic 
 financial distress that more than anything else has caused 
 the dissipation of its membership after each of its bril- 
 liant but spasmodic efforts,
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 147 
 
 The case is made more hopeless by the inability of the 
 organization to control the little financial power it can 
 command. This lack of financial control is another out- 
 come of the decentralizing mania which grips the mem- 
 bership. The average local has not developed the ability 
 to conserve its own resources. Rather than support the 
 central authority and submit to its financial management, 
 the local suffers its funds to be dissipated by incompetent 
 members or stolen by dishonest officials. Nothing was 
 more striking in the recent convention than the stories 
 of local financial losses. *'A11 down through the line," 
 said one delegate, "we have had experience with secre- 
 taries who absconded with funds." "No less than three 
 have done the same thing [in our local]," was the testi- 
 mony of another. This has happened three times to one 
 local in one year according to a third statement. In- 
 deed, so loose is the local financial control and the gen- 
 eral interrelationship of organic units, especially in the 
 western country, that there appears to exist a body of 
 circulating professional agitators who make it their busi- 
 ness to go from locality to locality for the sole purpose 
 of getting themselves elected to the treasurer's office and 
 absconding with the funds. The local unions do not 
 seem to be in sufficiently close touch to ferret out the 
 malefactors and check the practice, nor will they heed the 
 warnings of the general office. Indeed, in some locals 
 the feeling seems to prevail that the local secretary is 
 entitled to what he can make away with. Such are the 
 financial conditions in the organization which claims to 
 have the only means of opposing to the capitalist class 
 a solid and effective organization of the workers, and 
 asserts that it is training the workers for the task of re- 
 organizing and managing the industries of the country.
 
 148 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 From what has already been said it might readily be 
 inferred that the I. W. W. would be incapable of success- 
 ful general assault on the present social and industrial 
 organization or of any effective reconstructive effort, 
 even though it should succeed in greatly enlarging its 
 membership, reconciling its factions, and overcoming its 
 financial difficulties. Such a conclusion in fact seems am- 
 ply warranted. It rests on a threefold basis of fact: 
 First, the membership of the I. W. W. is and is bound to 
 be of such a character that united, sustained, constructive 
 action is practically impossible for it without a consistent 
 body of ideals and a relatively permanent leadership of 
 the highest organizing and directive quality. 
 
 As already intimated, the I. W. W. must depend for 
 the bulk of its membership on the least capable, least 
 developed, lowest trained, and poorest paid of American 
 workmen. To these may be added an element made up 
 of irresponsible atomists who are so constituted that to 
 them all authority is an ever-present challenge. No 
 American workman of constructive mind will perma- 
 nently affiliate himself with a revolutionary industrial 
 organization which abhors half -measures and political 
 action, so long as he can see ahead the hope of imme- 
 diate betterment through the gradual development and 
 enforcement of an improved system of working rules and 
 conditions. This does not mean that the I. W. W. is 
 composed of the so-called "bum" element, as is so often 
 asserted. Far from it. But it does mean that it is the 
 desperate elements of the working class, the men who 
 have not developed and cannot develop, under the exist- 
 ing system, organic discipline and constructive ability, 
 to whom the I. W. W. appeals — in the East the *'Hunk- 
 ies" and underpaid mill hands, for the most part tinas-
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 149 
 
 similated Europeans; in the West the "blanket stiffs," 
 the "timber wolves," "the dock wallopers," and the pa- 
 drone-recruited construction gangs; and everywhere the 
 man who because of temperament or oppression has be- 
 come a self-directing enemy of whatever stands for au- 
 thority or things as they are. One had but to observe 
 the recent convention to recognize these types and these 
 characteristics as predominant even in this picked as- 
 sembly. Undernourishment and underdevelopment were 
 prominent physical characteristics of the group. The 
 broad-headed, square-jawed, forceful, and constructive 
 type, so marked in trade-union assemblies, was conspicu- 
 ous by its absence. B}'- many of those present organic 
 strength and action were evidently regarded as correla- 
 tives of oppression. To some these ideas seemed so for- 
 eign that the general character of the organization ap- 
 peared to be unknown to them. The rule of the ma- 
 jority, except in so far as it applied to the local group, 
 was repudiated many times during the course of the 
 debates. Add to all this the presence in the assembly of 
 members of secret committees whose actions are beyond 
 even the knowledge and control of the local groups — 
 and we have a fair conception of the difficulty here pre- 
 sented of united and controlled action. Obviously only a 
 body of leaders strong in intelligence and personality, 
 bound to a consistent body of ideals, harmonious in ac- 
 tion, and long in the saddle, could hope to weld such 
 elements into an effective, organic whole. 
 
 But, secondly, the I. W. W. has failed to develop and 
 sustain such a stable body of leaders and shows no capac- 
 ity to do so. Of the original group of men who organ- 
 ized and outlined the policies of this new venture in 
 unionism, only one was seated in the convention and
 
 150 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 only one or two besides are prominently connected with 
 the organization at present. Moyer, Debs, Mother Jones, 
 Pinkerton, and others, signers of the original manifesto, 
 effective leaders of the past, many of them yet effective 
 leaders in other labor organizations, have all disappeared 
 from the councils of the I. W. W. — nagged out, kicked 
 out, or driven out by despair or disgust. This result has 
 been in part the inevitable outcome of the hatred of au- 
 thority which expresses itself in the decentralizing move- 
 ment. Partly, as will be shown later, it is the outcome of 
 an incongruity and shifting of ideals within the organi- 
 zation; but, to no small extent, it is the product of a 
 strong force of romantic idealism which, strange as it 
 may seem, exists in the minds and hearts of the down- 
 trodden constituency of the I. W. W. In spite of the 
 fact that these men will have none of the regularly con- 
 stituted authority when it makes for strength, they are 
 hero-worshipers and are easily led for the moment by 
 the "heroes of labor." These heroes are the momentary 
 leaders of strikes and of battles with the police and 
 militia, those especially who have gone on trial and suf- 
 fered imprisonment for violence or the disturbance of 
 the public peace. They are, in general, men who them- 
 selves have not involuntarily suffered at the hands of 
 society but have provoked its vengeance. They are 
 largely well nourished, quick, and intelligent, but, with 
 exceptions, they are men who have deliberately dis- 
 carded all constructive ideals, deliberately thrown off 
 social restraint, and, in the spirit of the medieval knight 
 or the revolutionist of the well-to-do classes in Russia, 
 have constituted themselves the personal avengers of the 
 wrongs of the working class. Such men grip the imagi- 
 nation of the rank and file and make of what would
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 151 
 
 otherwise be an ultra-democratic organization, relatively 
 unfitted for constructive effort, a positively destructive 
 force in spirit and action. They are the inventors of 
 new forms of sabotage, the guerilla leaders, the mem- 
 bers of "secret committees," the provocateurs in the 
 free-speech fights ; the men who create the sentiment that 
 the only existing standard of right is might, that oppo- 
 sition to authority is a virtue, that imprisonment is an 
 honor. It is these labor heroes, rising from time to 
 time before the admiring vision of the undisciplined 
 membership of the I. W. W., who have displaced the 
 men already in power and, to a large extent, have made 
 impossible the development of a stable body of leaders 
 capable of welding the membership by patient effort into 
 an organic whole. 
 
 Underneath all this, however, making consistent ac- 
 tion and therefore permanent development impossible for 
 the I. W. W., there exists and has existed, thirdly, a 
 fundamental conflict of ideals. Much has been made of 
 the sabotage and other modes of direct action current 
 among the members of the I. W. W. Because of the 
 prevalence of these methods, the conclusion has been 
 accepted uncritically that I. W. W.-ism is another name 
 for syndicalism. This, however, is but a half-truth and 
 even as such it needs qualification. The truth is that 
 the I. W. W. is a compound entity whose elements are 
 not entirely harmonious. It was launched in 1905 as a 
 protest against craft unionism and the conservative atti- 
 tude and policies of the American Federation of Labor. 
 It was originally composed prevailingly of a body of men 
 socialistically inclined who believed that betterment of 
 the condition of the workers as a whole and permanently 
 could be attained only by organizing all of them by in-
 
 152 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 dustries into one big union with the ultimate object of 
 the overthrow of the capitalist system. In order to at- 
 tain this end they outlined an organization which should 
 bring the skilled and unskilled workers into one struc- 
 tural body with highly centralized authority, so that the 
 whole power of the organization — especially its financial 
 power — could be quickly concentrated at any one point 
 where contest existed between the employers and the 
 workmen, and which should cooperate with the Socialist 
 party on the political field. The slogans of the organi- 
 zation were : "Labor produces all wealth" ; "might makes 
 right"; "an injury to one an injury to all" ; "no contracts 
 and no compromise" ; "industrial organization" ; "one big 
 union"; "workers of the world, unite." The I. W. W. 
 showed at this time no essential characteristics of what: 
 has since become familiar as revolutionary syndicalism. 
 
 No sooner, however, had the organization been 
 launched than a conflict of ideals appeared. The first 
 year saw a fatal blow struck at the idea of one big union 
 with strong, centralized authority — in a disruption which 
 resulted in the abolition of the office of general president 
 of the organization. In 1908 a second split occurred 
 which banished the Socialistic element from power. Po- 
 litical action was stricken from the preamble to the con- 
 stitution and direct action as a revolutionary slogan arose 
 alongside the notion of one big, centralized, industrial 
 union. From this time forward the internal history of 
 the I. W. W. has been a history of the con- 
 flict of these two ideals — the one, industrial union- 
 ism, standing for permanent organization of the work- 
 ers and immediate benefits, requiring a strong central 
 authority well financed; the other, revolutionary syndi- 
 palisrn, standing for uncontrolled agitation and guerilla
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 153 
 
 warfare, whose adherents chafe against central authority 
 and its financial support. 
 
 Out of this conflict of ideals the contest between cen- 
 tralization and decentralization arose. The decentrali- 
 zers, mainly westerners, imbued with the revolutionary 
 ideal because they were for the most part casual workers 
 with no big industries to organize, whose main recourse 
 was to stir up trouble, argued that since this was the 
 purpose of the organization all central authority was to 
 be reckoned as irksome restraint. The local membership 
 could best judge when the time had come to act. A cen- 
 tral treasury was not needed since one or a few indi- 
 viduals acting on their own responsibility could wreck 
 machinery, destroy materials, and precipitate a contest 
 with political authority. Therefore they raised the ban- 
 ner of decentralization and direct revolution. Thus was 
 syndicaHsm born and nourished in the I. W. W, But 
 it was mainly an instinctive syndicalism, a blind, destruc- 
 tive force, lacking in general the vision and well-rounded 
 doctrine of the European syndicalists. Even yet it is 
 safe to say that few among the rank and file who call 
 themselves syndicalists could state the theory of the Eu- 
 ropean movement. Meanwhile in the East the rela- 
 tively permanent character of the unskilled workers, and 
 the necessity of wrenching from great industrial organi- 
 zations immediate and permanent gains, still emphasized 
 the need of regularity, authority, and permanent power 
 — in short, industrial unionism in its original connota- 
 tion. Hence syndicalism and industrial unionism have 
 remained as conflicting ideals within the organization, 
 preventing the development of that leadership which 
 alone can give to the I. W. W. consistent action, per- 
 manent growth, and effective power. So long as the
 
 tS4 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 conflict holds, the organization must remain weak, spas- 
 modic in action, and destructive in results. 
 
 But it is doubtful if the final triumph of either of these 
 ideals would suffice to make of the I. W. W. a real power 
 in this country. In this connection two points need em- 
 phasis : first, in so far as the I. W. W. aspires to repre- 
 sent syndicalism pure and simple the conditions are not 
 here for its growth. Syndicalism as it has developed in 
 this country is a doctrine of despair. However much its 
 proponents may attempt to stress its ultimate ideal — the 
 rebuilding of industrial society — it is essentially a de- 
 structive philosophy. As stated above, it will not be 
 adopted, except temporarily and under special stress, by 
 any body of workmen who see hope ahead in gradual 
 betterment through constructive industrial and political 
 action. Such a body is the organizing element of the 
 American working class as evidenced by the two and one- 
 half million trade unionists, and the growth of the Social- 
 ist party since it has taken an opportunist position. 
 
 Secondly, in so far as the I. W. W. aspires to represent 
 the movement toward industrial unionism, the field of 
 action is already occupied. The American Federation of 
 Labor through its local councils, its central organizations, 
 its system federations, its departments, and its amalga- 
 mated craft unions, is creating the machinery for the 
 practical expression of the industrial union ideal as 
 rapidly as the circumstances of the worker's life and 
 needs allow of its development. The process is perhaps 
 slow but it is sure and effective. It is proceeding by the 
 trial-and-error method which alone has proved adequate 
 to the permanent advancement of the interests of the 
 workers. And when it is considered further that within 
 the American Federation one industrial union alone out-
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 155 
 
 numbers in membership the whole effective force of the I. 
 W. W. in the proportion of twenty to one, the prospect 
 that the latter will be able to oust its rival from the field 
 becomes too small for consideration. 
 
 The fact is that the I. W. W. faces a perpetual dilem- 
 ma. The bulk of the American workmen want more 
 here and now for themselves and their immediate asso- 
 ciates and care little for the remote future or the revolu- 
 tionary ideal. These will have none of the I. W. W. 
 The others have not, and under the existing conditions 
 cannot develop the capacity for sustained organic effort. 
 Whichever way the organization turns, then, it seems 
 doomed to failure. 
 
 Viewing the situation in any reasonable light, there- 
 fore, we find It difficult to escape the conclusion that the 
 Industrial Workers of the World as a positive social 
 factor is more an object of pathetic interest than of 
 fear. It has succeeded in impressing itself upon the popu- 
 lar imagination as a mysterious, incalculable force likely 
 to appear and work destruction at any time and place. 
 It has terrified the public because its small body of ir- 
 responsible and foot-loose agitators scent trouble from 
 afar and flock to the point where social rupture seems to 
 be for the moment imminent. They are like Morgan's 
 raiders. By rapidity of movement and sheer audacity 
 they have created the impression of a great organized 
 force. But in reality they are incapable of anything but 
 spasmodic and disconnected action. As a means for call* 
 ing attention to the fact that machinery is breaking down 
 the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor and 
 is thus rendering craft organization ineffective ; as an in- 
 strument for rousing the public to a consciousness of 
 the suffering and needs of the unskilled and transient
 
 156 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 workers and of the existence here of a compelling social 
 problem ; as a spur to the activity of the more conserva- 
 tive and exclusive labor organizations, the I. W. W. may 
 have a useful social function. As a directly effective 
 social force, however, It has no considerable significance. 
 
 The conclusion, so far as it concerns the problem of 
 syndicalism in the United States, would seem to be obvi- 
 ous. But I am well aware that those who feel a vital, 
 constitutional need for visualizing and magnifying such 
 a problem will not abandon their beliefs merely on this 
 showing of evidence. They will doubtless point to the 
 undeniable growth of industrial unionism within the 
 American Federation of Labor, and to the many sporadic 
 outbreaks of violent and predatory action with which the 
 history of our labor movement has been checkered, as 
 indicating the development of syndicalism in spirit and 
 action within the American labor movement quite apart 
 from any formal organization or teaching — a great 
 ground swell, they will say, carrying the whole move- 
 ment onward toward the syndicalist bourne. But let us 
 see whether these are really syndicalistic manifestations. 
 I doubt it, and for these two reasons : 
 
 First, I venture to affirm that there is no nx)re neces- 
 sary connection between industrial unionism and syndi- 
 calism than between capitalism and monarchy. Indus- 
 trial unionism on the face of it is merely an attempt to 
 parallel capitalist organization. It is perfectly com- 
 patible with collective bargaining and with what we might 
 call business unionism, as is illustrated by the case of 
 the United Mine Workers. It is the ideal type of union- 
 ism advocated by the socialists. On the other hand, it 
 may grow up along with nonsocialist political action, as
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 157 
 
 in the American Federation of Labor, where a strong 
 tendency toward industrial organization has gone hand 
 in hand with a robust development of legislative and 
 political activity. Evidently, then, it indicates a hope- 
 less confusion of ideas to identify syndicalism with in- 
 dustrial unionism, and it is a misuse of reason to predicate 
 the one as necessarily the result of the other. 
 
 How then about union violence and predation? Do 
 they show any necessary affinity between unionism and 
 syndicalism ? In order to answer this question correctly 
 let us look for a moment at the most usual occasion for 
 deliberate violence and predation on the part of old-line 
 unionists. It is a fact that almost any body of union 
 men, whatever their principles and ordinary methods, and 
 for that matter almost any body of workers, will tend 
 to resort to violence and perhaps predation if they are 
 face to face with systematic and long-continued aggres- 
 sion, or are brought up against a blank wall of resistance 
 to demands for the absolute essentials of a safe and de- 
 cent existence, provided there is no relief in sight through 
 law or public opinion. But the same is true of any body 
 of men with red blood in their veins or of women, for 
 that matter. Shall we then dissipate our concept of 
 syndicalism by making it cover the action of the Boston 
 Tea Party, the Ku-Klux Klan, the Mexican revolutionists 
 and the militant suffragettes ? Surely we must not con- 
 fuse spasmodic outbreaks against specific oppression with 
 direct action as the corollary of a fixed and general aver- 
 sion to peaceful opportunist effort and political action. 
 Only, then, when union violence and predation have been 
 the outgrowth of a permanent aversion of this kind, or 
 when such aversion has grown up with the violence and
 
 158 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 has become a fixed creed of a union can we rightfully 
 speak of them as syndicalistic in character. 
 
 But shall we nowhere find this permanent attitude out- 
 side of the Industrial Workers of the World? The 
 American Railway Union was not adverse to political 
 action; the Western Federation of Miners has again 
 joined forces with the American Federation of Labor; 
 the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers show no signs 
 apparently of going over to the syndicalist camp. 
 
 Must we not then conclude that, in drawing the In- 
 dustrial Workers of the World into the picture in its 
 proper character and proportion, we have pretty thor- 
 oughly disposed of syndicalism as a serious American 
 problem ? 
 
 So far so good; but have we any assurance that we 
 shall not soon have to face a serious syndicalist problem 
 in America ? To satisfy ourselves on this point we should 
 have to discuss our third question, namely: What are 
 the causes of syndicalism, and what are the prospects of 
 its future development ? I shall not attempt to discuss this 
 question fully, but shall be content to make one or two 
 suggestive statements indicating why syndicalism has not 
 developed and is not likely to develop on American soil, 
 and the conditions which would be necessary for its de- 
 velopment here. 
 
 Successful trade unionism as it exists in America today 
 is not a made-to-order affair; it is not imitative of any- 
 thing to be found abroad, nor is it the objectification of 
 any general social theory. It is a means, slowly forged 
 by experience, of meeting the immediate needs, and of 
 solving the immediate problems of the American work- 
 ers. It has been developed by the trial-and-error method ; 
 it is experimental, opportunistic, and pragmatic. And, if
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 159 
 
 you will look back over the last century and a quarter you 
 will find that this is the only kind of labor organization 
 that has survived and worked in this country. Even 
 socialism, before it could make any successful appeal to 
 American workmen, had to cut loose from the ultra- 
 revolutionists, thrust its theories into the background, 
 and develop a program for meeting immediate needs and 
 problems. ' 
 
 The immediate reason for all this lies in the character 
 of the organizing element of American workmen. The 
 great mass of organized American workmen are not 
 conscious revolutionists, but optimistic opportunists. 
 They want more here and now. Their attention is 
 fixed on meeting immediate needs and solving immediate 
 problems. They see hope ahead in a gradual improve- 
 ment of existing conditions. They have little capacity 
 for or patience with speculative theorizing. They are 
 unwilling to leave the path which has been marked out 
 by experience with its slow but sure advance, to plunge 
 into theoretically assumed short cuts charted only by the 
 imagination. This is the general attitude of that portion 
 of the American working class which has alone proved it- 
 self capable of sustained organic effort. 
 
 This attitude is the outcome partly of the racial char- 
 acter of American workmen, and partly of American 
 economic and social conditions. The hard-headed, tra- 
 dition-bound, empirical element predominates in our labor 
 movement just as it does in our business affairs, in law 
 and politics and in our social ideals and affairs generally, 
 and this characteristic, perhaps racial, has been reenforced 
 by the fact that the economic and social conditions have 
 for generations been such that the workers could see 
 hope ahead in gradual betterment through constructive
 
 i6o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 industrial and political action. The labor movement thus 
 given /Character has assimilated and Americanized for- 
 eign accretions, just as in general we have assimilated 
 and Americanized the immigrant, socially and politically. 
 
 It is true in the one case as in the other that assimila- 
 tion and transmutation have not been complete, but if 
 our labor history has proved anything, as indicated es- 
 pecially by the career of the Industrial Workers of the 
 World, it is that those elements which have not been 
 assimilated are incapable of consistent, and effective or- 
 ganic union and action, and that the spasmodic organic 
 efforts of such a body as the Industrial Workers of the 
 World fail to check the growth and do not essentially 
 modify the ideals and methods of the American and 
 Americanized labor movement. 
 
 On account of all this there is no syndicalist problem 
 of consequence in this country. We shall have none of 
 consequence, I believe, unless and until the great organic 
 American labor movement finds its way barred to em- 
 pirical advance. It is now feeling its way toward the 
 organizing of the unskilled, and will doubtless organize 
 them as fast as the psychology of the situation will per- 
 mit ; it is advancing experimentally toward the industrial 
 form of organization, as anyone must concede who is at 
 all familiar with the organic history and the declarations 
 of the American Federation of Labor; it is at the same 
 time forging ahead on the line of political action as fast 
 as tradition will safely allow ; it is gradually overcoming 
 the employers' claims of autocratic rights, and estab- 
 lishing the principles and working rules of industrial 
 democracy. Whenever it comes face to face with a blank 
 wall of resistance in law and administration, whenever 
 it encounters trusts and employers' associations bent upon
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM i6i 
 
 its extermination, it is apt to adopt secret, violent, and 
 predatory methods. But when the temporary occasion 
 is past it quickly returns to its ordinary ideals and tactics. 
 And if I read the character and spirit of the American 
 labor movement aright, it would take a deal of useless 
 battering against an impenetrable wall of legal and in- 
 dustrial resistance to create in the American labor move- 
 ment the general psychology compatible with a real and 
 robust development of syndicalism. 
 
 The Industrial Workers of the World is one aspect 
 of revolutionary unionism. To understand it, there- 
 fore, we must have some understanding of the larger 
 thing of which it is a part. In the popular conception 
 of things revolutionary unionism is generally distin- 
 guished by violence and sabotage. The tendency, how- 
 ever, to make violence the hall-mark of revolutionary 
 unionism is a great mistake. The bulk of revolutionary 
 unionists embraces the most peaceful citizens we have, 
 and on principle. Most violence in labor troubles is 
 committed by conservative unionists or by the unorgan- 
 ized.® In Chicago violence has become inseparably as- 
 sociated in the public mind with organizations in the 
 building trades. "Slugging" raids and shooting affairs 
 have come to be taken as a matter of course and excite 
 little interest. A few years ago these union tactics at- 
 tained their highest development under the leadership 
 of "Skinny" Madden, then in control of the central 
 building trades organization. But Madden and his men 
 were not looking to any overthrow of existing condi- 
 tions. His were the methods of predatory hold-up union- 
 
 «That is to say, the violence which is due to the labor 
 unions.
 
 i62 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ism. Nor was the recent dynamiting campaign of the 
 Bridge and Structural Iron Workers the product of revo- 
 lutionary unionism. Here, rather, was a case of a con- 
 servative union fighting with its back to the wall against 
 a campaign of annihilation by an employers' combina- 
 tion. In the last ditch, it turned, not to revolution, but 
 to guerilla warfare and guerilla unionism. And this also 
 to a large degree characterizes the recent violent acts of 
 the miners in Colorado. In short, violence in labor 
 troubles is a unique characteristic of no kind of union- 
 ism, but is a general and apparently inevitable incident 
 of the rise of the working class to consciousness and 
 power in capitalistic society. 
 
 Secondly, revolutionary unionism is not to be marked 
 off from other kinds of unionism by its employment of 
 sabotage as an offensive and defensive weapon. It is 
 true that sabotage is a weapon whose use is highly char- 
 acteristic of revolutionary unionism, but the notion that 
 its use is confined to revolutionary unionists fades out 
 the moment its true character and varied forms are 
 known.''' It is moreover distinctly repudiated by many 
 
 '' Sabotage is an elusive phenomenon and is difficult of ac- 
 curate definition. Briefly described it is called "striking on 
 the job." J. A. Estey, in his "Revolutionary Unionism," does 
 well when he says: "In Syndicalist practice it [sabotage] is a 
 comprehensive term, covering every process by which the 
 laborer, while remaining at work, tries to damage the in- 
 terests of his employer, whether by simple malingering, or 
 by bad quality of work, or by doing actual damage to tools 
 and machinery" (p. 96). This definition puts admirably the 
 essential, underlying characteristics of sabotage, but in practice 
 it ranges even beyond such limits. There are almost an 
 indefinite number of ways of "putting the boots to the em- 
 ployer" which have come properly to be included under the 
 general designation, and some of them have been employed by
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 163 
 
 revolutionary unionists, is not confined to revolutionary 
 unions, and, it might be added, is not confined to the 
 workers alone. *^ It is clear then that revolutionary 
 unionism cannot, by this practice, be marked off and made 
 a definite and clearly recognizable thing. 
 
 What, then, is revolutionary unionism, and how are 
 we to distinguish and recognize it? Revolutionary union- 
 ism is in essence a spiritual something, a group viewpoint, 
 a theory and interpretation of society and social relation- 
 ships held by groups of militant wageworkers, and an 
 attempt to realize this theory and interpretation by means 
 of a program of action. A distinct organization com- 
 mitted to this program and viewpoint is a thing always 
 striven for, but is not an essential feature nor at present 
 a general characteristic of revolutionary unionism in the 
 United States. That is to say, while there are distinct 
 revolutionary organizations in this country, such as the 
 Industrial Workers of the World, and lately the Syndi- 
 calist League, most revolutionary unionists- are* found 
 
 conservative unionists time out of mind. Ca' Canny or soldier- 
 ing is one of them, which was a practice long before revolu- 
 tionary unionism was known to the mass of the workers. In 
 essence it is practiced by every union that sets a limitation 
 on output. Living strictly up to impossible safety rules enacted 
 by the employers for their own protection is another method. 
 Wasting materials, turning out goods of inferior quality or 
 damaging them in the process, misdirecting shipments, telling 
 the truth about the quality of products, changing price cards, 
 sanding the bearings, salting the soup and the sheets, "throw- 
 ing the monkey wrench into the machinery" — all are methods 
 of practicing sabotage that have become familiar. 
 
 ^ As the unionists point out, essentially the same thing is 
 practiced by employers and dealers who adulterate goods, make 
 shoddy, conceal defects of products, and sell |[oods for what 
 they are not.
 
 'i64 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 within conservative trade unions, with no separate or- 
 ganic expression of their own. To distinguish revolu- 
 tionary unionism, therefore, and to get an accurate un- 
 derstanding of the matter in hand we must distinguish 
 its varieties before going further. The first, socmlistic 
 unionism, is represented organically by the Detroit In- 
 dustrial Workers of the World and by a small number 
 of national unions in the American Federation of Labor. 
 The larger number of socialist unionists, however, have 
 no separate union organization. They are to be found 
 in the supposedly conservative business and uplift unions 
 of the American Federation of Labor and the Railway 
 Brotherhoods. The mine workers, the painters, the bak- 
 ers, for example, are largely socialist unionists. The 
 second variety of revolutionary unionism found in this 
 country is anarchistic, or more accurately, quasi anarchis- 
 tic. It is best represented by the Chicago Industrial 
 Workers of the World. But, again, there are quasi 
 anarchistic unionists scattered through the conservative 
 and socialistic unions. 
 
 Revolutionary unionism, in both its forms, starts with 
 the assumption that society is divided into two warring 
 classes, between which there are no common interests 
 and no possibility of compromise. The workers produce 
 all wealth; the employers systematically rob them. The 
 workers cannot secure and enjoy what they produce until 
 they rule society.^ In this fight, the revolutionary union- 
 
 ^See Constitution, Industrial Workers of the World, Pre- 
 amble §§ I, 2; also Industrial Unionism vs. Anarchy and Re- 
 form, p. 4, Detroit Industrial Workers of the World. But 
 see also Declaration of Principles of Bakery and Confectionery 
 Workers, a compound craft union in the American Federa- 
 tion of Labor,
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 165 
 
 ists refuse to recognize the validity of the standards of 
 right and justice, the laws and the rules of the game 
 current in society. There is no such thing as society as 
 a whole. Established notions of right, established rights 
 and the institutions in their support are the devices of 
 the employing class designed to keep labor down and 
 exploit the workers. Therefore, the workers are not 
 bound by these things. For the workers — just as well 
 as for the employers — whatever is for their interests as 
 a class, whatever furthers their ends. Is right. In short, 
 in the last analysis, there is no standard of right and 
 rights but might. This doctrine Is held without reserve 
 by quasi anarchistic unionists. It justifies to them vio- 
 lence, destruction of property and even killing. It would 
 be unfair, however, to say this of the socialistic union- 
 ists. While they declare that actual rights are based on 
 might, they refuse to admit that might ought to make 
 right, and, therefore, stop short of justifying violence 
 and killing. 
 
 It Is the primary aim of all revolutionary unionists 
 to overthrow the existing Institutional order ; to do away 
 with individual ownership of the means of production 
 and the profit system; to put social and Industrial con- 
 trol Into the hands of the workers. To accomplish this, 
 they propose to unite the workers not by crafts, as is 
 the case generally of conservative unionism, but by in- 
 dustries, and, finally, Into one great working class or- 
 ganization, so that In a fight workers cannot be used 
 against workers, but the whole power of the class can 
 be brought to bear against the employers at any point. 
 But beyond this, the socialist unionists and the quasi 
 anarchistic unionists dififer vitally and widely. They
 
 i66 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 differ as to ultimate aims, as to program, and as to 
 methods. 
 
 The socialist unionists look forward to a state of 
 society which, except for common ownership and con- 
 trol of industry and strong centralized government in 
 the hands of the working class, does not differ essen- 
 tially from our own. They would in general attain this 
 end by peaceful means, both industrial and political. In- 
 dustrially, they would organize the w^orkers into larger 
 and larger units, and by the usual trade union methods 
 secure for them better and better conditions and a 
 greater and greater voice and place in the control and 
 management of industry. Politically, they would unite 
 the same workers into a great party designed to educate 
 them and others in civil affairs, to push for legislation 
 in the social and industrial interests of the workers, and 
 ultimately to secure control of the legislative, administra- 
 tive, and judicial powers of the government. Ulti- 
 mately, the industrial employer would be eliminated by 
 the w^orking class state. 
 
 The quasi anarchistic unionists have a different ulti- 
 mate aim. They look forward to the complete abolition 
 of the state and of existing governmental machinery. 
 They visualize, not a political, but an industrial society, 
 where the unions would be the government. All politi- 
 cal action is abhorrent to them, partly because the state 
 is outside their scheme of things and political action is 
 a recognition of a compromise with it, but largely be- 
 cause they believe that experience has proved it to be 
 not only useless as a working-class weapon but posi- 
 tively harmful to working-class interests. They have 
 noted that political associations and political gains make 
 the workers soft, conservative, and nonrevolutionary.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 167 
 
 Revolution degenerates into mere reform, and political 
 preferment makes traitors of working-class leaders. The 
 middle-class tendencies of the Socialist Parties in Ger- 
 many, France and the United States, and the action of 
 such men as Briand and John Burns have brought them 
 to this view. Direct action, therefore, has become their 
 slogan, that is, the making and enforcing of demands 
 upon the enemy directly by the workers, through demon- 
 strations, strikes, sabotage and violence. At this point, 
 however, the quasi anarchistic revolutionary unionists 
 themselves split into two camps, centralizers and decen- 
 tralizers. 
 
 The centralizers believe that the actual building up 
 of the industrial organization will train and educate the 
 workers in the conduct, not only of industry, but of all 
 social affairs, so that when the organization has become 
 universalized it can perform all the necessary func- 
 tions of social control now exercised by the state in its 
 legislative, executive and judicial capacities. This uni- 
 versal organization of the workers will then displace 
 the state, government and politics in the present sense; 
 private ownership, privilege and exploitation will be for- 
 ever abolished. The one big union will have become the 
 state, the government, the supreme organic and func- 
 tional expression of society; its rules and decisions will 
 be the law. 
 
 The decentralizers look forward to what they call a 
 free industrial society. Each local group of workers is 
 to be a law to itself. They are to organize as they please. 
 The present industrial and social arrangements are to 
 be overthrown simply by making it unprofitable for the 
 employing class to own and operate industries. Future 
 society is to consist of independent groups of workers
 
 i68 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 freely exchanging their products. The proper propor- 
 tions of investment and production, the ratio of exchange 
 of goods, etc., will automatically be determined, just as 
 they are under competitive industry, only then the com- 
 petition will be between groups of workers, instead of 
 between individuals. Universal knowledge and a su- 
 perior morality, which will spring up as soon as capi- 
 talist society is abolished, will take the place of our 
 present complicated system of social control and do 
 away with the necessity of government in the present 
 sense. 
 
 Beyond this, the characteristic theories, policies and 
 methods of the two varieties of quasi anarchistic union- 
 ists, in general, agree. The central purpose of all their 
 efforts, as we have seen, is the overthrow of the capi- 
 talist system, and the establishment of working-class 
 social control. But this cannot be accomplished by a 
 gradual process of immediate gains in the form of bet- 
 ter wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, etc. 
 The end is retarded rather than advanced by such im- 
 mediate concessions and advantages because these tend 
 to make the workers conservative, satisfied with the pres- 
 ent system, and those who gain most become selfish and 
 detached in interest from the whole working class. The 
 main immediate object of all their efforts is not ma- 
 terial results, but agitation, education, a rousing of the 
 workers and employers to mutual hatred and bitterness. 
 Hence they count everything in the way of a fight, 
 whether won or lost, as a gain. To them, no strike can 
 be lost, since the very failure, in the common way of 
 looking at it, is the surest way to secure the psychological 
 results they are after. Therefore, they are always alert 
 to take every opportunity for fighting, whatever the odds
 
 Revolutionary unionism 169 
 
 against them. Their motto is anything to stir up trouble 
 between the workers and the ruling class. A contest with 
 the police over free speech or with the church is as 
 good an opportunity as a strike. And they count all 
 things as good that may irritate the employers or au- 
 thorities to action against them. Trouble is what they 
 thrive on. 
 
 The revolution, then, must be the work of the un- 
 skilled — the true proletariat. They must be roused and 
 united and educated — the whole object of the agitation 
 is this. But is this possible when we consider the char- 
 acter and conditions of these unskilled workers? The 
 great mass of them are untrained, unintelligent, cowed, 
 subservient, satisfied with things as they are because they 
 know nothing better. Get them together and there is 
 no unanimity of ideas ; poll them and the sodden ma- 
 jority would overwhelmingly outvote the alert, revolu- 
 tionary minority. How, then, can the unskilled prole- 
 tariat create the revolution ? The quasi anarchistic union- 
 ists answer with what is perhaps their most distinctive 
 and pregnant idea, the theory of the militant minority. 
 They are no levelers; they do not propose to poll 
 the proletariat; they do not really believe in democracy. 
 Throughout the history of the world, they will tell you, 
 everything has been achieved, every advance has been 
 pushed through, by the intelligent minority. Every 
 revolution has thus been accomplished. The mass of 
 men in all grades of society are unintelligent, but they 
 are imitators. . Given a sufficiently intelligent and active 
 minority which understands this and does not allow it- 
 self to be swamped by democratic ideals and arrange- 
 ments, and the mass can be roused to action and be made 
 to work its will. The quasi anarchistic unionists are the
 
 170 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 intelligent minority of the workers. The proletariat is 
 their instrument. Their task is to tune it up to the 
 revolutionary pitch, and use it as a revolutionary force. 
 But how? Obviously the way is to stimulate a constant 
 and ever-growing f ht bet een the pro-^tariat and their 
 enemies. This cai be ^ le partly by general agita- 
 tion, but the fight must De conducted also on the in- 
 dustrial field. And how best conduct this industrial 
 fight? 
 
 Here the quasi anarchistic unionists are moved partly 
 by theory and partly by the necessities of the situation 
 On the basis of theory alone, the thing is not to work pri- 
 marily for material gains. Such gains, we have seen, put 
 the instrument out of tune, relax the strings. Hence 
 the old-fashioned strike is not appropriate. And, beyond 
 this, necessity makes it an impossible weapon. The old- 
 fashioned strike is essentially a trial of financial strength 
 between the employers and the workers. Its success also 
 requires sustained cooperative effort on the part fl<" 
 mass. But the proletariat has no financial streng^' I 
 
 cannot be held to its task for long periods. The 
 nary strike then is out of the question as a revolutionary 
 weapon. If it succeeds it weakens the revolutionary 
 spirit of the workers; if it fails it strengthens the em- 
 ployers. A weapon, then, must be devised which shall 
 keep alive the revolutionary spirit, be inexpensive to the 
 workers, require no sustained cooperation, and weaken 
 the employers. Here, finally, we reach the raison d'etre 
 of the great industrial weapons of the quasi anarchistic 
 unionists — the Intermittenr strike and sabotage. They 
 keep the workers and employers constantly embroiled in 
 a way to arouse mutual bitterness and hatred. They 
 are inexpensive to the workers; the intermittent strike
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 171 
 
 does not demand continuous cooperation over long pe- 
 riods, while sabotage need not require cooperation at all ; 
 it can be carried on by the individual alone. They hit 
 the employer at his most vulnerable point by making it 
 unprofitable foi.him to op 'te. " 'ence the great in- 
 dustrial slogan is, "Strike c.j the jA" But all these 
 methods we have mentioned arc not the ultimate means 
 of the quasi anarchistic unionists. They are but the 
 means to the means for the final end. Agitation of all 
 sorts, the intermittent strike, sabotage and violence,^'* 
 nave the primary purpose of developing solidarity among 
 the proletariat which will make possible ultimately the 
 general strike that shall finally overthrow capitalism, and 
 of educating the workers to a capacity for the conduct of 
 social aflfairs. 
 
 There is no way of arriving at even a moderately ac- 
 
 ^curate estimate of the strength of revolutionary union- 
 
 ',:>j 1 Jn America. As has been seen, most socialist union- 
 
 . j^are scattered through nonrevolutionary organiza- 
 
 J This is true to a lesser extent of quasi anarchis- 
 
 ,tjc unionists. Unions keep no records of character of 
 membership. They would not give it out if they did, 
 and the records would not be worth anything if given 
 out. The national officers of the socialist party refuse 
 to estimate. In the 19 12 convention of the American 
 Federation of Labor, the socialist candidate for presi- 
 dent polled 5,073 out of a total of 17,047 votes cast. 
 Estimating the American Federation of Labor member- 
 ship at 2,000,000, the socialistic membership, if this vote 
 
 ^'^ But note that this is said only of the quasi anarchistic, 
 revolutionary unionists. The socialistic revolutionary union- 
 ists, who are by far the majority in this country, altogether 
 repudiate violence, sabotage, etc.
 
 \^2 TRAJDE UNIONISM 
 
 were indicative, would number 846,000, or forty-two per 
 cent. 
 
 But a vote of unions one way or another is no indi- 
 cation of the strength of internal factions. The socialist 
 party vote is somewhere near thirty per cent as large as 
 the estimated number of trade unionists, but it is to a 
 considerable extent a nonunionist vote. The best we can 
 say is that socialist unionists are a fairly large and ap- 
 parently growing minority. The quasi anarchistic union- 
 ists are probably mostly in separate organizations, but no 
 accurate figures can be obtained of these. The Industrial 
 Workers of the World claim to have issued cards to 
 something over 200,000 since its establishment. The 
 Syndicalist League is only a handful, if it exists. It is 
 possible that all revolutionary unionists combined in this 
 country number perhaps one-third of the organized work- 
 ers, or in the neighborhood of 800,000. Lacking statis- 
 tics of its growth, the only way we can discuss the 
 prospects of revolutionary unionism is in the terms of 
 its causes and the character of its adherents. 
 
 In attempting to account for revolutionary unionism, 
 stress has ordinarily been laid almost entirely on indus- 
 trial conditions and forces. It has been pointed out that, 
 with the development of modern industry under the 
 stimulus of machinery and the machine process, the re- 
 lationships between employers and workers are becom- 
 ing remote and impersonal, and each class is coming to 
 be subjected to a different environment and is thus de- 
 veloping different sets of ideals and interests. To those 
 who accept this theory, class conflict and the growth of 
 class conflict alike are inevitable. Revolutionary union- 
 ism is one aspect of this conflict based on industrial con- 
 ditions. It is bound to exist and bound to develop
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 173 
 
 rapidly in this country now that our free land is ex- 
 hausted, and that in other respects the opportunities for 
 escape from the working class are being cut off. There 
 is a strong element of truth in this explanation and pre- 
 diction, especially as applied to socialistic unionism. On 
 the other hand, economic conditions alone cannot ac- 
 count for revolutionary unionism. This is evidenced by 
 the fact that in the same trades and industries, and 
 notably in the same unions, we find both conservative 
 business and revolutionary unionists. I am inclined to 
 think that revolutionary unionism, especially as regards 
 the quasi anarchistic variety, is largely a matter of in- 
 dividual and racial temperament. 
 
 To judge of the outlook for revolutionary unionism 
 in this country, we must consider both our temperamental 
 and environmental situation and tendencies. A large 
 proportion of our organized workers are probably tem- 
 peramentally conservative and would never become revo- 
 lutionary unionists no matter what the industrial de- 
 velopment. A growing portion of the workers — largely 
 as the result of our recent Immigration — are tempera- 
 mentally radical. In so far as they become unionists at 
 all they are bound to be revolutionaries. Between these 
 extremes are the floaters, the negative mass, perhaps the 
 largest proportion of the workers. They will be swayed 
 by their associates and by Industrial and political condi- 
 tions. As skilled workers they are likely to be conserva- 
 tive; as unskilled, revolutionary. In times of prosperity 
 they will become satisfied and temperate; in times of 
 stress, radical. Political disability and casual work, such 
 as the migratory worker suffers, will draw them into the 
 revolutionary camp. Reforms — workmen's compensa- 
 tion, health and safety legislation, old-age pensions — •
 
 174 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 will tend to make them supporters of the existing sys- 
 tem. Militant action by employers' associations and 
 trusts, and imfavorable legislative action and court de- 
 cisions will make militants of them. Speaking, then, of 
 revolutionary unionism as a whole, and not of syndical- 
 ism or the Industrial Workers of the World, we shall 
 see more rather than less of it. It is bound to develop 
 with unregulated immigration and the lack of a com- 
 prehensive and thoroughgoing program of reform. It 
 is one of the big problems of our time. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Constitutuyns: Atnerican Labor Union, Industrial Workers 
 of the World, and the Socialist Labor Party. 
 
 Convention Proceedings: Proceedings of the Conventions 
 of the Industrial Workers of the World; Report of the 
 General Sec'y.-Treas. to the Second Convention. 
 
 Journals and Newspapers: The International Socialist Re- 
 view, Industrial Worker, Solidarity, Voice of the Peo- 
 ple, and newspapers in Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Jew- 
 ish, Finnish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Slavonian, 
 Polish, Etc. 
 Manifesto of the Industrial Workers of the World 
 
 (1905). 
 Propaganda Pamphlets: 
 
 Analysis of the Preamble of the I. W. W. 
 
 Anarchist Morality. 
 
 Appeal to Wageworkers. 
 
 The Burning Question of Trades-unionism. 
 
 The Class Union for All Workers. 
 
 Qass Unionism. Debs, Eugene V. 
 
 Craft Unionism. Debs, Eugene V. 
 
 The Eight-hour Work Day. 
 
 Eleven Blind Leaders.
 
 REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM 175 
 
 Ettor-Giovanitti Speeches. 
 
 Farm Workers and Industrial Unionism. 
 
 Flashes of the Amsterdam Congress. 
 
 Getting Recognition. 
 
 The General Strike. 
 
 How to Overcome the High Cost of Living. 
 
 Industrial Unionism. Debs, Eugene V. 
 
 Industrial Unionism. St. John, Vincent. 
 
 Industrial Unionism — I. W. W. 
 
 Industrial Unionism — The Road to Freedom. 
 
 Industrial Unionism versus Anarchy and Reform. 
 
 Industrial Union Methods. 
 
 The I. W. W. Woehlke. 
 
 The I. W. W.— Its History, Structure and Methods. St. 
 
 John, Vincent. 
 Is the I. W. W. Antipolitical ? 
 Judicial Murder. 
 
 One Big Union. • 
 
 On the Firing Line. 
 Packing House Workers. 
 Patriotism and the Worker. 
 Political Parties and I. W. W. 
 Preamble of the I. W. W. De Leon, Daniel. 
 Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois. 
 Reform or Revolution. 
 
 The Revolutionary I. W. W. Perry, G. H. 
 Revolutionary Unionism. Debs, Eugene V. 
 Sabotage. Flynn, E. G. 
 Social Democracy. 
 
 The Socialist Labor Party and the War. 
 Song Books. 
 
 Story of a New Labor Union. 
 Trades-unionism in the United States. 
 Two Kinds of Unionism. 
 The Two I. W. W.'s. 
 Union Scabs and Others.
 
 *i76 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 War and the Workers. 
 
 What Every PoHceman Ought to Know. 
 
 What Means This Strike? De Leon, Daniel. 
 
 Why Save Men's Souls? 
 
 Why Strikes are Lost. 
 
 Working-class Revolution. 
 
 Boyle, J. "Syndicalism, The Latest Manifestation of 
 Labor's Unrest," Forum, 48:223-233 (1912). 
 
 Brissenden, Paul F. The Launching of the I. W. W., 
 University of Calif. Pub. in Economics, vol. 4, No. i. 
 
 Brooks, John Graham. American Syndicalism, The I. 
 W. W. (1913). 
 
 Deland, L. F. "The Lawrence Strike," Atlantic Month- 
 ly, 109:694-705 (1912). 
 
 Dimnet, E. "Syndicalism and Its Philosophy," Atlan- 
 tic Monthly, in: 17-30 (1913). 
 
 Estey, James A. Rez'olutionary Syndicalism (1913). 
 
 GoMPERS, Samuel. "Industrial Unionism," American Fed- 
 erationist, (May, 191 2). 
 
 . "Syndicalism, Partyism and Unionism," American 
 
 Federationist. (May, 1912). 
 
 Kirk. National Labor Federations in the United States, 
 Part I, "The American Labor Union," and Part III, "In- 
 dustrial Unions." 
 
 Levine, Louis. The Labor Movement in France (1912), 
 chap. V, "The Doctrine of Revolutionary Syndicalism." 
 
 . "Direct Action: The Philosophy of the Labor Strug- 
 gles of Today," Forum, 47:577-88 (1912). 
 
 Walling, W. E. "Industrialism or Revolutionary Un- 
 ionism," The New Reviezv (Jan. 11, 1913).
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE LEADERS AND THE RANK AND FILE 
 
 While unionism in its ultimate effect on industrial 
 organization and conduct of industry is democratic, in 
 the sense of its effort to take from the hands of em- 
 ployers autocratic feudalistic control and put a share 
 of the control and conduct into the hands of the work- 
 ers — tending to democratic industrial revolution — union- 
 ism in its own organization and conduct is hardly to be 
 called democratic. At least this is true of the business 
 union type and successful unionism. Power in both 
 cases centers in the hands of officers and leaders. They 
 determine immediate policies and tactics to a very large 
 extent. And this seems to be the natural and neces- 
 sary outcome of the situation. While unionism as a 
 whole is the spontaneous outcome of the conditions, 
 needs and problems of the workers, the rank and file in 
 general are not in a condition to formulate methods for 
 meeting needs or solving problems, and, apart from the 
 direction of competent leaders, have not the intelligence 
 to combat employers successfully. Therefore, union- 
 ism, as a fact, in its constructive aspects is taught to the 
 rank and file by the leaders. Only when the union is 
 weak and the leaders unsuccessful do the rank and file 
 take control. 
 
 In general there are two classes among the rank and 
 fi,l^. The bread and butter unionists are ordinary work- 
 
 177
 
 178 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ers chained to the wheel, the bench, or the counter, good 
 men, but without leisure or education or experience for 
 much thought or union action. They are apt to regard 
 the union — when all is going well — as a matter of course, 
 or an instrument for food and shelter. While meetings 
 are held regularly and members are free to go and de- 
 termine the conduct of affairs, as a matter of fact, in 
 time of peace, they are lax about attendance. They are 
 content to leave the running of affairs and the thinking 
 to the officers. They are, by virtue of character and cir- 
 cumstance, pretty much clay, although at times very 
 stubborn clay, in the hands of the officers in the ordinary 
 administration of affairs. It really cannot be otherwise ; 
 the workers, untrained and exhausted by daily toil, can- 
 not keep track of affairs. The officers are specialists — 
 good talkers — and the rank and file must trust them. 
 What they demand of leaders is that they "deliver the 
 goods," in terms of high wages, short hours, and good 
 conditions. So long as they do this they do not care to 
 interfere. They are not surprised if occasionally a 
 leader is crooked, or gets his "rake off." When he fails 
 to "deliver the goods," they turn on him with every con- 
 ceivable denunciation and rend him. Then indeed they 
 are likely to run amuck, overbear the authority of the 
 officers, and commit all sorts of acts in violation of con- 
 stitutional authority. The second class are the radical 
 unionists, always suspicious and at constant war with 
 the officials. 
 
 There is a real contest between the leaders and the rank 
 and file, especially in the case of business unionism. So 
 long as the union is small and the officers work at the 
 bench, there is no friction, but when the union grows and 
 the officers give up work and become paid officials and de-
 
 LEADERS AND RANK AND FILE 179 
 
 vote their whole time to official duties, then friction be- 
 tween the leaders and the rank and file almost inevitably 
 arises. The farther up we go in officialdom the less sym- 
 pathy and mutual understanding we find. The leaders for 
 the most part reciprocate the feeling of the rank and file. 
 Their attitude is likely to be one of contempt mixed 
 with fear. One trade union leader says that the rank 
 and file are ignorant, have to be wheedled, and, when that 
 fails, driven by physical force if necessary. Even lead- 
 ers who pride themselves on keeping close to the man at 
 the bench speak contemptuously of the crowd. "The 
 successful leader," one of them says, "must be a leader 
 both intellectually and physically. He must be able to 
 face a crowd that suspects him and be able to convince 
 either by argument or force. He must be able to out- 
 force any opposition from the 'dee, dis, dat' rank and 
 file." 
 
 The causes of the contest between the leaders and the 
 rank and file are partly inherent in the situation. The 
 rank and file are ignorant and impulsive; they do not 
 know anything about business and market conditions and 
 trade. They think all business is making enormous prof- 
 its, and that there is no limit to the amount they can 
 squeeze out for themselves if strong enough. Some- 
 times they suffer until beyond endurance or are aroused 
 by leaders and then break out, wildly demanding the im- 
 possible. Their environment tends to make them radi- 
 cal; they have nothing to lose — no responsibility. All 
 the conditions, on the other hand, tend to make the lead- 
 ers conservative. Responsibility sobers them. As soon 
 as they engage in negotiations they realize the power of 
 the employers, and the limitations in the ability of em- 
 ployers to meet demands. Moreover, when the leaders
 
 i8o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 get away from the bench, their environment becomes 
 more of the character of the employer's than of the 
 worker's. They no longer deal with the physical, but 
 with the spiritual, in negotiations and in the handling of 
 men. Almost inevitably they develop something of the 
 employers' viewpoint and feeling, and thus become un- 
 able to see things from the workers' angle and to feel 
 with and for the workers as before. The worker is 
 something to be manipulated. But partly, also, the con- 
 test is due to the character of the men who get into 
 power in the unions. Very generally it is not the good 
 worker, but the big, jolly, hail fellows well met, natural 
 born politicians, possessed of considerable administra- 
 tive ability, men with the latent instinct of the boss and 
 employer, men who love power for its own sake. More- 
 over, the leader who rises from the rank and file at once 
 encounters temptations hard to withstand. Many go 
 wrong because they cannot stand prosperity. The sud- 
 den release from the bench, from the machine process, 
 unsteadies them; they become dissipated and dishonest; 
 they may fall victims to the "mahogany table," and to 
 what is on it. There is, too, a constant drain of leaders 
 by corruption, and by politics. Here is a great weak- 
 ness of unionism — it dies at the top. 
 
 How is it that the leaders get and retain their power? 
 In the first place, the rank and file have learned by ex- 
 perience that if they want "more now" they must sub- 
 mit to leadership. They have somewhat learned the 
 lesson of democracy and its inefficiency. As one union 
 leader put it, "The successful officer tends to stay in of- 
 fice indefinitely, and grows more competent and more 
 powerful with service. As a democracy no union would 
 last six minutes." Secondly, it is somewhat like shak-
 
 LEADERS AND RANK AND FILE i8l 
 
 ing a dish of beans, the largest come to the top. The 
 natural leaders tend to get the offices; they are in gen- 
 eral the husky, strong-armed fellows. One keen trade 
 union observer says that the workers trust big men 
 because they have come to think in physical terms, but 
 they must have brains too. Either they are like the 
 cunning politician or, lacking the latter's qualities, they 
 have superior intelligence and moral courage. Thirdly, 
 once well fixed in office, the leader has every advantage 
 over the rank and file and can make them practically de- 
 pendent upon him. The worker in a negotiation can- 
 not present his case; he is no match for the employer; 
 he is dependent absolutely upon the labor leader for this. 
 Moreover, the longer the leader is in office, the more 
 proficient he becomes in the performance of his peculiar 
 and, to the worker, absolutely necessary functions. He 
 becomes more and more the possessor of specialized 
 knowledge and power. Sometimes, too, leadership is re- 
 tained by force. Everything thus conspires to support 
 the leaders against the rank and file, as long as conditions 
 are good, as long as they can "deliver the goods." All 
 this goes far to explain the indifference of the rank and 
 file and the strong antisocial aims and actions of some 
 unions. Here many forces tend to raise to leadership 
 those of the unidealistic type who are forced to "make 
 good," with conditions tending to make them take the 
 easiest methods. These remarks bring out one of the 
 hardest problems of unionism, that of democracy versus 
 efficiency.^ 
 
 ^ The use of the referendum in the American Federation 
 of Labor has shown that there frequently result delay, fac- 
 tionalism, and indifference on the part of the rank and file; 
 and it is exceedingly expensive. The English unions found
 
 i82 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 We are all familiar with the tales of the walking 
 delegate, which picture him as an autocrat who goes 
 about browbeating employers and ordering out cringing 
 workmen at his own sweet will and for his own profit. 
 Contradictory as are the statements of unionists and 
 business men concerning the business agent or the walk- 
 ing delegate, the available evidence seems to indicate 
 that there is much truth on both sides of the controversy. 
 Ordinarily and normally the unionists are right in de- 
 scribing the walking delegate as merely a useful and 
 harmless local executive officer. Under constitutional 
 conditions, the creation, powers, and duties of the walk- 
 ing delegate may be summarized thus : He is simply a 
 local officer elected by popular vote, for a term ranging 
 from three months to a year, usually holding office for 
 six months. He is the general executive officer of the 
 local. His customary duties are to act as the rep- 
 resentative of the union in dealing with the employer ; as 
 such to see that union rules are not violated by employers, 
 to present grievances to the employer, and generally to 
 act as go-between for men and masters ; to maintain dis- 
 cipline and to look after the financial affairs and general 
 interests of the union; to see that members attend the 
 meetings, pay their dues, and keep in general the union 
 rules; to find employment for union men; and to solicit 
 
 that they had no time or money for anything else when they 
 used it. The causes for this situation seem to be that the 
 rank and file do not understand intelligently important ques- 
 tions which come up; that they act as a result of emotion 
 rather than judgment. Radical leaders can stir them up to 
 act unwisely. As a matter of fact the rank and file are al- 
 ways in favor of economy, and the attempt to have pure 
 democracy has often resulted in greater control by leaders than 
 under representative government.
 
 LEADERS AND RANK AND FILE 183 
 
 men to join the union. In performing these duties the 
 walking delegate is constitutionally under the absolute 
 control of the local or district council; all his powers are 
 delegated to him by popular vote, and all his acts must 
 be reported to the union for popular sanction. He is 
 legally the general servant of the union, and legally can 
 do no act for it on his own responsibility. The neces- 
 sity or desirability of such a local union officer, especially 
 in his capacity of go-between for men and masters, is 
 apparent when we consider that working members of the 
 union are fully occupied in their manual tasks and that 
 no employee can go to his employer. This gives a clear 
 and undoubtedly true idea of what the business agent 
 normally is, by whom he is controlled, what he can do, 
 and what he cannot do under constitutional circum- 
 stances. But evidence also shows that the walking dele- 
 gate is likely to become an extra-constitutional boss. 
 This is shown equally by positive testimony of what he 
 sometimes becomes and what he has actually done. 
 
 Theoretically, then, the walking delegate is what the 
 unionists picture him, a harmless and useful executive 
 officer. Practically, he may become what the employer 
 pictures him, a supreme and irresponsible ruler, and the 
 irresponsible ruler is the result of a simple process of 
 evolution from the useful servant. Is the result acci- 
 dent or does it represent an inherent tendency ? It seems 
 that under certain conditions it represents an inherent 
 tendency, that it is the natural outcome of the peculiar 
 duties of the walking delegate and the peculiar situation 
 of the rank and file. 
 
 The peculiar duties of the walking delegate are such 
 as to give him easy ascendency over the rank and file. 
 He looks out for employment for them; his duties lead
 
 i84 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 him over the whole local field of labor, he knows where 
 jobs are and how to get them, he can keep a man at 
 employment, or he can keep him from it; he looks after 
 the finances of the union, he sees that the members pay 
 their dues, or he can make it easy for them ; he presents 
 grievances to the employer and can argue the case, for 
 he is not dependent on the "boss" and does not fear him ; 
 he can help one to agreeable conditions of work or he 
 can leave him unassisted and unprotected. Clearly he 
 is a man to keep on the right side of, and to keep "in" 
 with. He is therefore bound to become powerful if he 
 has ordinary judgment and finesse. To be sure, his term 
 of power is brief and the union can turn him out if it 
 wants to, constitutionally. Practically it cannot and will 
 not, once he begins to consolidate his power. When the 
 union thinks of choosing his successor, there is no one 
 in the union who can do his work half so well as he. 
 He is acquainted with the whole field of operations, and 
 he has an accumulation of knowledge that the ordinary 
 worker, held to his bench or to his machine for nine 
 or ten hours a day, cannot have acquired. These or- 
 dinary workers naturally come more and more to rely 
 on his judgment. Moreover, he has learned how to deal 
 with men in general and how to deal with employers in 
 particular; he has learned how to talk and to persuade. 
 In short, he is related to the ordinary workers in the 
 trade as the ward boss is to the average voter. He is 
 a specialist in labor politics, with favors to give and to 
 withhold. 
 
 He is in a position, then, naturally to become a local 
 labor boss, if he so desires, unless he is checked by 
 some outside authority. The local is, however, jealous 
 of its autonomy. Its officers are its officers, and not the
 
 LEADERS AND RANK AND FILE 1^5 
 
 officers of the national organization. To be sure, there 
 are elaborate regulations that define its relations to the 
 central body, but, after all, they represent loose federa- 
 tive bonds. The essential thing is that the walking dele- 
 gate does not have to take his orders from or report to 
 the national officers. He is responsible not to his su- 
 perior officers but to his inferiors — the rank and file who 
 elect him. This means that, if he is so disposed, he need 
 not be responsible to anyone. If he is a self-seeking 
 demagogue, he naturally evolves into the labor boss. 
 And the conditions are also favorable to bringing for- 
 ward this kind of man. It is the man who does not love 
 his work, who is astute and smooth, who will naturally 
 work into this office in a group made up for the most 
 part of hard workers and slow thinkers. The making of 
 the demagogic tyrant who orders strikes against the in- 
 terests of employers and men, then, is a simple and nat- 
 ural process. A good talker gets his friends to vote him 
 into office, he learns the "ropes," he gathers about him 
 a clique of radical henchmen, an inner ring; they vote 
 him unlimited power, there is no superior authority, he 
 cuts loose, and you have a little example of the old 
 Greek tyranny that rose on the ruins of the democracy. 
 The two parallel very well. Of course this evolution of 
 the business agent from the harmless to the harmful 
 type does not always, nor perhaps usually, take place. 
 The most we can say is that it is apt to take place and 
 we have tried to show the reasons. 
 
 The ordinary conservative business unionist carries 
 about with him two very distinct and perhaps contradic- 
 tory conceptions of unionism and attitudes toward so- 
 ciety. When he Is dealing with trade matters, he is or- 
 dinarily a bread and butter unionist, a fairly sober, mat-
 
 i86 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ter of fact, unemotional, hard-headed fellow who ac- 
 cepts the present system on the whole but means to get 
 the most he can out of it in the way of higher wages, 
 shorter hours and better conditions. As such, his craft 
 interest stands first; it is the welfare of his craft which 
 he is looking out for. He is conscious of little or no 
 class interest or feeling. But when a matter comes up 
 which is free from particular craft interest and concerns 
 what he conceives to be employing class oppression and 
 interference with his rights and business, such as the 
 use of the injunction, damage suits against unions, the 
 use of strikebreakers, or the calling out of the police or 
 militia to prevent picketing or violence, then this hard- 
 headed, conservative, business-unionist is apt to be sud- 
 denly transformed into a wildly emotional fighter, full 
 of class interest and class hatred. This lasts until either 
 a bread and butter proposition comes up again or until 
 someone calls his attention to the fact that he is social- 
 istic, when he as quickly changes to the hard-headed 
 business unionist again. This is characteristic of the 
 leaders also. I have seen the transformation many times 
 in labor meetings. It is most significant because it means 
 that a general attempt to coerce unionism means turn- 
 ing it into a class-conscious revolutionary movement. 
 
 In the unions there have gone on constant struggles 
 for control between the business union element and the 
 socialist or revolutionary element. This contest used to 
 be open; it is now more or less subtle, but it exists just 
 the same. Generally, the good business craft unionist is 
 intolerant of socialism. The reason he gives is that he 
 wants something now, and this is not to be secured by 
 academic discussions of a mythical cooperative common- 
 wealth in the future. This is not, however, the whole
 
 LEADERS AND RANK AND FILE 187 
 
 reason. The socialists have from the beginning stood 
 for industrial unionism, and they have made it their mis- 
 sion to preach this in season and out of season to the 
 craft unionists. They have joined the unions, got them- 
 selves elected delegates to central bodies and conventions 
 and have used the discussion of every union problem, 
 every difference between unions, every union failure or 
 disaster, to point out with contempt the weakness of 
 craft organization and to preach industrial unionism 
 and party socialism. This has made most craft union- 
 ists, however revolutionary at heart, violent haters of 
 socialism in its objective party form. Recently, the 
 cooler headed socialists have seen that the American Fed- 
 eration of Labor is normally tending toward industrial- 
 ism and that it was their fiery efforts more than any- 
 thing else that held things back. They have therefore 
 become very quiet and conciliatory. But the socialists 
 are there in the unions and the sentiment is growing fast 
 even among business unionists.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 The social problem of unionism cannot be understood 
 through a study of unions alone. The unions are but 
 one factor in a great struggle going on which involves 
 the fundamental questions of social rights and social 
 welfare. The other factor is the employer, especially 
 employers organized into associations to resist the efforts 
 of unionism. Over against the complex organizations 
 of the workers are the equally complex and perhaps more 
 extensive and more powerful organizations of employ- 
 ers. To grasp the problem fully, therefore, to get the 
 other side and to comprehend the situation as a whole we 
 need a knowledge of the employers' organizations cre- 
 ated for dealing with, and especially of the militant 
 associations organized for combating, unions — their 
 structure, aims, principles, policies, demands, methods, 
 and attitudes ; and the conditions and events which grow 
 out of the existence of these two great organic forces. 
 The contest between unionism and employers' associa- 
 tions has been largely one concerned with the rights of 
 employers and of workers as embodied in law. As a 
 basis for understanding it, therefore, as well as the 
 general social problem of unionism, we need to get some 
 idea of the legal status of unionism and the legal striv- 
 ings of both sets of organizations. This aspect of the 
 subject will follow in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 1S8
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 189 
 
 Structurally and functionally the employers' associa- 
 tions offer a striking parallelism to the trade union or- 
 ganizations. In point of structure there is, paralleling 
 the local craft or compound craft and national union of 
 the workers, the local craft or compound craft and na- 
 tional employers' association. The Chicago Team Own- 
 ers' Association and the National Stove Founders' De- 
 fense Association are illustrations. As a counterpart to 
 similar trade unions, there are local, state and national 
 federations of employers, as, for example, the Chicago 
 Employers' Association, the Illinois Manufacturers' As- 
 sociation, and the National Association of Manufactur- 
 ers. Where the unions have developed an industrial 
 type of organization, the employers have their local, dis- 
 trict or national industrial associations. The local News- 
 paper Publishers' Association, the Illinois Coal Opera- 
 tors, and the Interstate Coal Operators are in point. Fi- 
 nally, as a counter-organization to the general labor un- 
 ion, there are general alliances and citizens' associations. 
 
 Similarly, from the standpoint of function, business 
 unionism is paralleled by a type of employers' associa- 
 tion, represented by the Stove Founders' Defense Asso- 
 ciation above referred to, which aims at collective bar- 
 gaining and the stability of conditions obtained through 
 it. The National Civic Federation, although not strictly 
 an employers' association but generally regarded as such, 
 is a counterpart to uplift unionism. Militant employers' 
 associations, extremely conservative and bitterly opposed 
 to unionism, are the "revolutionary" type among em- 
 ployers. The Metal Trades' Association is one of this 
 group. And, lastly, there are predatory employers' as- 
 sociations, as there are predatory unions to be found in 
 the building trades.
 
 190 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Following upon the great anthracite coal strike of 
 1902, which suddenly brought out the power of unionism 
 to paralyze social activity, and the fact that unionism 
 had grown stronger than the employers, the latter awoke 
 to the need of better defensive organization and a great 
 growth of radical or militant employers' associations 
 took place. The immediate aims and policies of the em- 
 ployers' associations were accordingly directed to secur- 
 ing mutual aid in the industrial field, rigid enforcement 
 of laws on unions through the courts whenever possible, 
 and new legislation curbing the unions. Injunctions 
 were increasingly sought and suits instituted against un- 
 ion workmen. As a later phase, special employers' asso- 
 ciations were formed, such as the Anti-Boycott League. 
 The purpose of this organization was to get the courts 
 to decide that, although unions were voluntary organi- 
 zations, they could be sued for damages under the Sher- 
 man Anti-Trust law as combinations in restraint of 
 trade. Success along this line was calculated to cripple 
 business unionism, for business unionism succeeds in col- 
 lective bargaining only because it can threaten to strike 
 and it can strike successfully only when there is money 
 laid up to support members on strike. It all goes back 
 to financial resources in the end. Unions have under- 
 stood all this and for this reason they have stood out 
 against incorporation because they want to do things in 
 their struggles which would subject them to suit and loss 
 of strike funds if they were incorporated. 
 
 At the present time the methods of the employers* 
 associations, more especially of the militant, may be 
 summed up as follows: 
 
 I. Effective counter organization; employers parallel 
 the union structure, trade against trade (local, district
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 191 
 
 and national), city against city, state against state, na- 
 tional against national, and federation against federa- 
 tion. 
 
 2. Uncompromising war on the closed shop by assert- 
 ing the right to hire and fire, to pay what the individual 
 can be made to work for, and therefore to destroy uni- 
 formity and control hours, speed, and the conditions of 
 employment generally; by continuous propaganda, con- 
 ventions, meetings, literature and personal solicitations, 
 showing the tyranny of the unions under closed shop 
 rule, and the loss and waste in the closed shop from in- 
 efficient workers forced by the union upon employers, 
 from loafing on the job, restrictions on output, and on 
 apprenticeship; showing that the union label is a detri- 
 ment rather than an advantage to the employer using 
 it; urging employers not to use goods bearing the union 
 label, nor to patronize any concern which does; and op- 
 posing the union label on publications of any branch of 
 government. 
 
 3. The expulsion of members who sign closed shop 
 agreements, with forfeit of contributions to the reserve 
 fund. 
 
 4. Giving finaijcial aid to employers in trouble because 
 of attempts to withstand closed shop demands or to estab- 
 lish the open shop, by inducing banks to refund interest 
 on loans during strikes, and getting owners not to enforce 
 penalties on failure to live up to building contracts. 
 The National Metal Trades Association, for instance, 
 advocates a plan for the cooperation of bankers' asso- 
 ciations to extend aid on a wide scale. 
 
 5. Mutual aid in time of trial and trouble with union- 
 ism; taking orders of a struck shop and returning profit; 
 furnishing men from shops of other members and of
 
 192 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 outsiders; paying members out of the reserve fund for 
 holding out against unions — a kind of strike benefit ; and 
 endeavoring to secure special patronage for employers 
 in trouble from members and outsiders. 
 
 6. Refusal of aid to any enterprise operating under 
 the closed shop. 
 
 7. Advertisements in some nev^^spapers and the v^^ith- 
 drawal of advertisements from others friendly to un- 
 ionism. 
 
 8. Detachment of union leaders by promotion or brib- 
 ery, honorary positions and social advancement, thus 
 constantly depriving unions of the directive force of 
 their strongest men. 
 
 9. Discrediting union leaders and unions by exploit- 
 ing their mistakes in strikes, or mismanagement of 
 funds ; appealing to the public by the prosecution of lead- 
 ers; exposing records of fearful examples as types, e.g., 
 Parks, O'Shea, and Madden, and by inciting to violence. 
 
 10. Weeding out agitators and plain union men by 
 blacklists, card catalogs, lists of employees, and by iden- 
 tification systems, for example, the Metal Trades' card 
 catalog, and the Seaman's employment book. Employ- 
 ment agencies for employers' associations require lists 
 of all former employees, examine their records and re- 
 quire certificates of membership. 
 
 11. Detaching workers from the union and the un- 
 ion's control by requiring an individual contract with 
 penalties, i.e., the loss of unsettled wages called deposit 
 in case of strike; by welfare plans, insurance and pen- 
 sions to the workers which depend upon long, continu- 
 ous service and are forfeited in case of strike; selling 
 stock cheap, giving the feeling to the workers that they 
 have a stake in the game, and also by bonus and pre-
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 193 
 
 mium systems ; and by "going the unions one better," i.e., 
 paying above the union scale, giving special advantage to 
 superior workers, requiring good working conditions by 
 the members of the association, establishing accident 
 prevention bureaus, safety inspection, and giving care 
 to the housing of employees. 
 
 12. Conducting trade schools and agitating for con- 
 tinuation schools and vocational training; conducting 
 trade schools themselves or helping to support them; 
 having cities conduct continuation schools as in Cincin- 
 nati and Hartford. The National Metal Trades' Asso- 
 ciation cooperates with the University of Cincinnati in 
 engineering courses there; providing "instructors" to 
 teach the unskilled as does the National Founders' Asso- 
 ciation; advocating trade schools supported at public ex- 
 pense generally, and separate vocational schools ; attack- 
 ing the present system of academic education ; donating 
 sums to certain societies for promoting industrial educa- 
 tion, e.g., the National Metal Trades Association has 
 donated money to the National Association for the Pro- 
 motion of Industrial Education. 
 
 13. Securing foreknowledge of union plans by the 
 spy system, use of detective agencies, spies in the union, 
 the shadowing of leaders, gaining their confidence or 
 using the dictagraph. 
 
 14. Systematic organization and use of strike break- 
 ers and counter-sluggers. ■ 
 
 15. Organization of counter-unions. 
 
 16. Use of the police and militia. The unions, not 
 having been able to enact the rules of the game into 
 law, cannot gain their ends by the assertion of their 
 rights. With the law on the side of property, indorsing 
 individual liberty, to gain their ends they resort to force.
 
 194 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 17. Systematic appeal to the courts, the use of the in- 
 junction, systematic prosecution for violence, the em- 
 ployment of a large corps of legal talent, the bringing 
 into play of law and order leagues, suits for damages 
 in case of strikes, and systematic attacks on the consti- 
 tutionality of labor laws. 
 
 18. Opposition to labor legislation by organizing lob- 
 bies to appear before both state and national bodies; 
 by a system of calling upon members of the association 
 to send in letters and telegrams in great numbers; by 
 having employers who will be most affected but who 
 have good labor conditions appear before legislative com- 
 mittees to oppose labor legislation ; and by having ad- 
 vertisements in many newspapers denouncing labor bills 
 and calling upon citizens to write to legislators not to 
 support them. 
 
 19. Political agitation and action such as urging em- 
 ployers to neglect party lines and to vote for safe and 
 sane men only; supporting antilabor statesmen and op- 
 posing labor politicians and demagogues, by sending 
 funds, men, and literature into the districts of candi- 
 dates ; exposing the weaknesses of the labor vote and the 
 failure of labor to defeat men the association supports ; 
 preventing the adoption of anti-injunction planks or 
 other class legislation, or allowing only meaningless ones 
 in party platforms; denouncing the initiative, referen- 
 dum, and recall, especially the recall of judges and ju- 
 dicial decisions; and defending the courts and the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 20. Appealing to the public by the use of the press, 
 publishing bulletins, and condemning papers which are 
 unfriendly; systematically attacking unions and exploit- 
 ing their violence; preventing the publication of seditious
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 195 
 
 articles like those in the Los Angeles papers; giving 
 statements to the press during strikes, pointing out that 
 the strike is for recognition and for the closed shop and 
 not for better wages and conditions ; pointing out, in case 
 the strike is merely a matter of wages, that the trade 
 can stand no more but is now paying higher than else- 
 where, also that should wages be advanced prices would 
 be higher, and the consumer would have to pay more in 
 the face of the increased cost of living, and exploiting 
 the losses of the workers in strikes, thus showing the 
 folly of strikes; sending out circulars to educators and 
 clergy; sending publications to the workers; for example, 
 the National Founders' Association and the National 
 Metal Trades' Association send their review to molders 
 and machinists free; attacking Socialism and socialists 
 and lauding ministers, educators, judges, and economists 
 who show the fallacies of unionism and set forth the 
 eternal verities. 
 
 The underlying assumptions, theories, and attitudes of 
 employers' associations, more particularly those of the 
 militant type, are : that a natural harmony of interests 
 prevails in society and therefore the unions are to be 
 restrained when they use coercive methods ; that the em- 
 ployers' interests are always identical with the interests 
 of society and therefore unionism is to be condemned 
 whenever it interferes with their interests ; that the in- 
 terests of the worker and employer are harmonious, and 
 therefore when the unions oppose the employer they are 
 misled by unscrupulous leaders and are to be condemned ; 
 that the employer gives work to the laborers and there- 
 fore they are ungrateful and immoral and to be con- 
 demned when they combine to oppose him ; that the em- 
 ployer has an absolute right to manage his own business
 
 •196 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 to suit himself as against his workers, and therefore the 
 unions are to be condemned when they interfere in any 
 way with that right ; that the business is his, an absolute 
 property right, and to compel him to bargain with the 
 men collectively, instead of as individuals, is to compel 
 him to deal with men not in his employ, Math an irre- 
 sponsible committee, and to assert a voice in the matters 
 of hiring and discharge, the conditions of employment, 
 and a right to the job and the trade; that the employer 
 has an absolute right to manage his own business as 
 against workers not in his employ and therefore outside 
 workers are to be condemned when the}' act in sympa- 
 thy with his workers ; that every worker has an absolute 
 right to work when, where, and for whom he pleases and 
 therefore the unions are to be condemned when they 
 restrict this right and freedom; that free competition 
 of the workers is always in the interest of society and 
 therefore that any interference by the unions in this is 
 to be condemned ; that the greatest possible production 
 is always in the interest of society and therefore the 
 union is to be condemned whenever it interferes with 
 this; that the law, the courts, and the police represent 
 absolute and impartial rights and justice, and therefore 
 the unions are to be condemned whenever they violate 
 the law or oppose the police. 
 
 The fundamental questions of the source of social 
 rights and the meaning of social welfare lie at the core 
 of a critical consideration of the employers' associations, 
 their theories and viewpoint. What is going to be done 
 with this social philosophy of God-given, inalienable and 
 absolute rights? If this be rejected, what is to be sub- 
 stituted? Shall we say, general social welfare? What 
 is that? Take the case of the introduction of machinery.
 
 EMPLOYERS* ASSOCIATIONS 197 
 
 Is it right and just to make the workers pay for social 
 progress? Shall we say, the upholding of established 
 rights — of whatever is law ? Where did these rights and 
 laws come from ? Or shall we say, substitute that which 
 is natural? But what is natural? Is competition nat- 
 ural? Consider the historical effects of free competi- 
 tion. Then what shall be the basis? 
 
 Is there any more basis for the employers' claim of 
 rights and condemnation of attacks of unions upon them, 
 than for the counterclaims of the unions? Is it true that 
 employers give work to laborers any more than that 
 laborers give profits to employers? That the employer 
 has a right to compel men to bargain individually any 
 more than laborers have a right to compel employers to 
 bargain with men collectively ? Is it true that employers 
 or workingmen have nothing to arbitrate? Is the em- 
 ployer any more justified in refusing to deal with men 
 not in his employ than a group of workmen would be 
 when in conflict with their employer in opposing the 
 assistance of outside employers? Has every man a 
 right to work where and when and for whom he pleases, 
 regardless of the effects on his fellow workers? Is 
 he not interfering widi their business? 
 
 If it is wrong for the workers who have no grievances 
 against their particular employer to help other workers 
 who have, then why is it not wrong for employers who 
 have no grievances against their particular workmen to 
 help other employers who have? If the workers injure 
 an innocent employer, employers injure innocent work- 
 ers. If workers mix in the business of other employers, 
 the employers mix in the business of other workers. 
 The only difference is in method. Each side uses the 
 best ones at hand for its purposes. If we feel that there
 
 198 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 is a difference, that it is somehow morally worse for the 
 workers to strike in aid of those with whom their em- 
 ployer has no concern, than for employers to aid other 
 employers with whom they have no concern, it means 
 that we have been consciously or unconsciously holding 
 to assumptions underlying the militant employers' inter- 
 pretation of unionism : which is to say that there is no 
 natural or normal cooperative relationship between work- 
 ers as such; harmony of interests is between employers 
 and workers, and the normal relationship between work- 
 ers is competitive; therefore the supreme duty of the 
 workers is to their own employer; that every employer 
 has a right to manage his own affairs, especially as to 
 his relationships with his workers, without any outside 
 interference. 
 
 But why should we not assume a harmony of inter- 
 ests between workers, that they owe a supreme duty to 
 one another? Why is this not the normal? We admit 
 it readily enough for the employer. We do not feel 
 shocked when the association comes to the relief of a 
 struck employer. Is there any more reason for assuming 
 harmony of interest between individual employer and his 
 worker plus harmony between employer and employer, 
 than for assuming disharmony of interest between indi- 
 vidual employer and workers plus harmony of interests 
 between workers? And if every employer has a nat- 
 ural right to manage his own business, free from inter- 
 ference from outside workers, why has not every group 
 of workers of an individual business the right to man- 
 age its own affairs without interference from outside 
 employers? 
 
 If we cannot feel this, it is because we have been 
 corrupted by assumptions of normal and natural rights.
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 199 
 
 We have come to assume with employers that whatever 
 has been is normal and right, while whatever is becom- 
 ing is abnormal and wrong: that is, because employers 
 have been able to act so and so, therefore, it is natural, 
 God-given, normal, right, but because workers are only 
 just beginning to be able or are striving to be able to 
 act so and so, therefore, it is unnatural, abnormal and 
 v^rong. This is at bottom the old error of the absolute. 
 It means that evolution is a form of words, not a reality. 
 
 The absurdity becomes apparent the moment we real- 
 ize the notion of evolution and examine the nature and 
 source of social right. Social rights exist only as con- 
 firmed by society. Their historical basis is in the power 
 of the individual or the class. On this basis unions have 
 the right to interfere with the employers' business when 
 they can. If we seek a rational basis it lies in ex- 
 pediency. Society can curtail it whenever it sees fit, and 
 in allowing workers to do so and so, it gives a right. 
 The employers' plea is therefore false and its high moral 
 basis is gone. 
 
 The militant employers' point of view finds no sanc- 
 tion in modern social scientific thought or in the spirit 
 of the age. It Is a relic of the preevolutionary age, of 
 dead and gone absolutistic philosophy, government, and 
 economics. The only basis of social rights acceptable to 
 modern thinking is social welfare and social will. The 
 employers' claim of rights finds no practical sanction in 
 social welfare because it is usually impossible to deter- 
 mine what is social welfare. For society is so consti- 
 tuted that what is good for one group or class may be 
 bad for another, and there is no standard for determin- 
 ing the relative social importance of different classes. 
 But we do not know enough about the nature of so-
 
 200 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ciety and the laws of developmental ends to determine 
 what is ultimately for the best. We are thrown back, 
 therefore, for the sources and sanction of rights to the 
 social will. Society alone can give social rights; society 
 alone can take them away. What society allows are 
 rights. Practically, social rights are the rules of the 
 game of the dominant class, but social rights thus granted 
 have no necessary moral sanction. Every group or class 
 can have its rights in proportion to the power to enforce 
 its claim. Hence, this insistence upon "rights" by em- 
 ployers and unionists is pretty much in the air ; it means 
 practically an attempt to "bluff" society into helping 
 each group to uphold what it wants for its own good. 
 The most we can say of the employers' claim of rights 
 is that, so far as we can see, there is no more basis in 
 morals or social welfare for it, than for the unionists' 
 counterclaim, but that many of these rights are based 
 on outworn philosophy and false assumption of fact. 
 
 In conclusion: (a) The only rational basis of rights 
 is social will, (b) Actual rights are pragmatic in the 
 sense that they are historical products which have 
 "worked" to the benefit of somebody, (c) But many of 
 these rights are group or class standards masquerading 
 as social standards. They have been foisted upon so- 
 ciety by a group or class falsely identifying itself with 
 society, (d) And there is a law of retardation here in 
 that standards and rights are maintained by supersti- 
 tion, faith, custom, law, and force long after they have 
 ceased to give useful social service, (e) "Established 
 rights," therefore, do not represent anything sacred or 
 necessarily right or good, (f) In matters where group 
 environments are sharply opposed, it is Impossible to get 
 a consensus of opinion and to set up, therefore, real
 
 EMPLOYERS* ASSOCIATIONS 201 
 
 social rights, (g) Where group interests are opposed it 
 is not possible to determine positively what is for the 
 social good, and, therefore, to set up social standards of 
 judgment, (h) In practice every man must decide for 
 himself what seems to him conducive to social welfare 
 and, therefore, good and right, and the best each can 
 do is to act strongly in cooperation with those who see 
 things as he docs, (i) However, each must realize that 
 his decision is the outcome of inherited tendencies, teach- 
 ing and environment, a matter of feeling more than of 
 sound judgment, and that, therefore, he has no right to 
 be dogmatic, (j) But it will be generally true to say 
 that things are not necessarily right because they are 
 established in law or custom, since in the last analysis 
 "rights" generally represent — at least in this field — 
 group power. 
 
 The employers' association movement was in the be- 
 ginning primarily defensive. Just as the unions arose 
 earlier in defense of the economic status and the as- 
 sumed rights of craftsmen when in the development of 
 modern industry the individual employer became too 
 strong for the individual worker, so the employers' asso- 
 ciations arose later in defense of the economic status 
 and assumed rights of the employer of labor when un- 
 ionism had so developed that it was stronger than the 
 individual employer. This occurred roughly between 
 the time of the formation of the American Federation 
 of Labor and the demonstration of its great strength 
 about 1902. 
 
 The problem of the employers' association was, they 
 supposed, a comparatively easy one. They need simply 
 refuse to countenance or deal with trade union organiza- 
 tions. They soon found, however, that they had made
 
 204 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 a big mistake. Unionism would not down, it evidently 
 had roots in the soil of reality and its overthrow was 
 going to be costly. As a result, employers divided into 
 two groups of associations, those who took the narrow, 
 selfish, immediate economic point of view, and were 
 willing to purchase peace and prosperity by a compro- 
 mise with unionism, and taking it out of the consumers, 
 that is, mediatory or conciliatory associations, and those 
 who retained the original purpose, but saw that the fight 
 must be long, intense, and broadly educational. They 
 were the militant associations. 
 
 Most of the mediatory or conciliatory associations de- 
 veloped along narrow, economic lines mainly. They at- 
 tempted to strengthen themselves defensively against the 
 particular unions with which they had to deal, and to 
 develop with the unions a strong position as against 
 society — a double-sided monopoly. The militant asso- 
 ciations buckled down to their task of weakening or 
 eliminating the tmion organizations. But in the course 
 of this they encountered influences which greatly modi- 
 fied their character and viewpoint. They found that if 
 they were to combat the unions successfully their own 
 members had to submit to control. Thus, although they 
 were seeking individualistic ends, they had to curtail the 
 liberty of their individual members, just as the individ- 
 ual worker, in the words of Mr. Frey, editor of the 
 Molder's Journal, "to gain and maintain his freedom 
 has to submit to group control — to develop the spirit of 
 cooperation within the group." This was a tremendous 
 blow at the old laissez faire, individualistic ideal which 
 they were seeking to defend. A strong, centralized au- 
 thority had to be set up over the individual. The em- 
 ployers had to be made one as the unions had made the
 
 :eMPLOYERS^ ASSOCIATIONS 20^ 
 
 workers one. They found also that if they were to com- 
 bat the unions successfully, they had to meet the unions 
 on every field, not alone on the economic. This forced 
 them to enter politics and to study every phase of eco- 
 nomic and social welfare; to consider the evil effects of 
 existing conditions inside and outside the shop that de- 
 veloped unions and contributed to union strength, and 
 to devise remedies. This drove them into welfare work 
 of all sorts, the study of safety and sanitation, work- 
 men's compensation, the unemployment problem, and 
 industrial education. The result was a strong tendency 
 to educate and socialize these individualists, to force them 
 to consider constructive measures, to broaden their so- 
 cial outlook, to modify their militancy. They began to 
 see that if they were to eliminate or weaken unionism 
 they must give the workers what the unions sought to 
 give them. They found, finally, that if they were to suc- 
 ceed they must develop all sorts of spiritual and federa- 
 tive relationships to offset the union form and strength. 
 Out of this has seemed to be growing a class conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 The survey of the militant associations, then, seems 
 to indicate that the employers as a class must organize 
 society and ameliorate social conditions. Unions had a 
 reason for existence because of the employers' failure to 
 meet the needs of the situation. The negative appeal to 
 individualism, natural order, and natural rights, the wild 
 denunciation of the unions as unnatural and corrupt or- 
 ganizations, is giving place to talk of fair conditions, 
 education of both employers and workers, and construc- 
 tive measures as the way out. Thus the militant asso- 
 ciations tend to turn uplift. And with the development 
 of this spirit has come a new form of organization typi-
 
 204 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 fied by the National Civic Federation to include employ- 
 ers, workers and the public with the purposes of investi- 
 gation, the consideration and trial of cooperation, profit- 
 sharing, and general betterment schemes. 
 
 The methods by which the employers' associations and 
 trusts have beaten down the union strength are indica- 
 tive not only of the character and possible outcome of 
 the struggle, but also throw light on the employers' atti- 
 tude and have caused and perhaps justified many union 
 points of view and methods. It almost seems that the 
 employers' association is stronger potentially than any 
 union movement can be, that the unions, having organ- 
 ized the individual workers of the group against the indi- 
 vidual employer, have done their utmost, so long as tliey 
 lack the solidarity for a class movement; and that they 
 can at present find no offset for the strength of the 
 employers' association movement. On the other hand 
 the employers' association movement in its fight on un- 
 ionism is becoming modified so that it is not likely to 
 push its advantage to the utmost. It holds out promise 
 of a social betterment movement far removed from the 
 old classical, individualistic, laissca faire position. 
 
 We have found unionism invading the consciousness 
 of the individual. So far so good. But does it tend to 
 develop social consciousness and valid social standards? 
 One of the hopeful things about employers' associations 
 seems to be that they are doing this. The great need of 
 the present time is to develop social consciousness and 
 to discover social standards. It seems as if the history 
 of modern industrial society shows us a succession of 
 swings through what might be called a typical cycle of 
 development. These cycles are marked by three stages : 
 the individual consciousness of the seventeenth and
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 205 
 
 eighteenth centuries; the group consciousness of the nine- 
 teenth; and the social consciousness of the twentieth. In 
 the first stage, individuahsm is rampant. The indi- 
 vidual seeks only or mainly his own well-being, uncon- 
 scious of a larger whole. The contest is between indi- 
 vidual and individual. Then, gradually, groups with 
 common interests develop. The consciousness of the 
 individual is enlarged. He sees his interests in the 
 interests of the group. Group standards arise. The in- 
 dividual is subjected to them. Then comes contest be- 
 tween groups. Finally social consciousness emerges. 
 The individual identifies his good with the good of the 
 whole; social standards and social control arise. Social 
 well-being is consciously sought and to an extent at- 
 tained. But all the while, conditions, needs, relation- 
 ships, problems, terms of welfare, are changing. The 
 standards of social welfare set up gradually cease to fit 
 needs; the system of social control, becoming invalid, 
 hampers progress. There is a revolt. Old standards 
 and systems of control are broken down. Individualism 
 is again idealized and becomes rampant. Then the proc- 
 ess of socialization begins again. 
 
 A period of individualistic revolt took place in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and swept aside all 
 social control. There developed a philosophy of natural 
 order, natural law and laisscs faire. Social welfare, it 
 was declared, came through industrial competition. We 
 are now in the second stage, group consciousness, group 
 standards and group fighting. We are struggling to- 
 ward a third stage, the development of social conscious- 
 ness and soci-al standards. From individual conscious- 
 ness and interest we progress through group conscious- 
 ness and interest to social consciousness and interest.
 
 '2o6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 We are studying groups to try to understand the forces 
 with which we have to deal in this struggle forward, to 
 see if we can find clues to social standards valid for our 
 developing situation and a basis for social control. 
 Standards have broken down in the past because they 
 were absolute. Our great task now is to try, this time, 
 to get standards that may be elastic and develop with 
 developing situations and needs. We must take into 
 consideration evolution. This means not only a study 
 of present conditions and social expectation, but a study 
 of the genesis and process of social development, a view 
 not only of the factors of the present but of the whole 
 developing process. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Constitutions: American Anti-Boycott Association, Na- 
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 Journals: 
 
 American Industries. 
 
 Manufacturers' News Report (^Illinois State Employers' 
 
 Association). 
 The National Civic Federation Reviezv. 
 The Review (National Metal Founders' and Metal 
 
 Trades' Association). 
 The Square Deal.
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 207 
 
 Pamphlets^: 
 
 The American Anti-Boycott Association : 
 
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 Daniel. 
 
 Bulletins 
 
 The Closed Shop. 
 
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 Labor Legislation. Merritt, W. G. (1914). 
 
 Million Against One (Tyranny and Abuse of D. E. 
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 Recommendations Submitted to the U. S. Commission 
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 Report of Legal Activities (1916). 
 
 Some Phases of the Federal Industrial Relations Com- 
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 Hearings (1912). 
 The Citizens' Industrial Association : 
 
 Bulletin No. i (1903), History — Organization. 
 
 Citizens' Industrial Association. 
 
 The Citizens' Industrial Association from the Stand- 
 point of the Manufacturers. American Industries 
 (Dec. 15, 1906). Van Cleave, J. W. 
 
 Platform and Principles. 
 
 Work Accomplished to Preserve Property Rights. 
 The National Association of Manufacturers: 
 
 Address, J. W, Bryce, Pres. of National Trades and 
 Workers' Assn. (1912), 
 
 Industrial Betterment Activities of the N. A. M. 
 The National Civic Federation : 
 
 Survey of Social and Industrial Conditions.
 
 ^og TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Pamphlets — Cont. 
 
 The National Erectors' Association: 
 
 Booklet (Nov., 1907). 
 
 Circular Letters. 
 The National Founders' Association : 
 
 Apprenticeship in the Metal Industries. Alexander, M. 
 W. The Review. 
 
 The Labor Secretary and Labor Questions (1913). 
 
 A Policy of Law^lessness (1908). 
 The National Metal Trades Association : 
 
 Basic Principles of Industrial Organization. Kimball, 
 D. S. 
 
 Certificate of Recommendation. 
 
 Conference Boards and Their Value in Industrial Co- 
 operation. Alexander, M. W. 
 
 The Employment Bureau. 
 
 Industrial Betterment Activities. 
 
 A Lesson in Industrial Economy. 
 
 N. M. T. A. Safety Bulletin. 
 
 A Plea for Profit-Sharing. Barnett, M. 
 
 A Proposed Bill to Regulate the Manufacture of Ex- 
 plosives. 
 
 Report of Apprenticeship Committee. 
 
 Report of Committee on Industrial Education. 
 
 Report of W. H. D'oolittle, Safety Inspector, N. M. T. 
 A. (1914). 
 
 Safety Appliances. 
 State Employers' Associations: 
 
 Annual Meeting. 
 
 Associated Employers of Illinois — Bulletins. 
 
 The Minimum Wage — Its Fallacies. 
 
 Service Rendered to Members. 
 
 To the Manufacturers of Illinois. 
 The United Typothetae: 
 
 Bulletin.
 
 EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS 209 
 
 United Typothetae of America, What It Is, and What 
 
 Ii Stands For. 
 The Value of Organization. 
 
 What Is the United Typothetae of America? Why It 
 Was Organized. 
 Propaganda Leaflets: 
 
 Do{n't Weep at the Ice House. Post, C. W. 
 
 Free Riot Latvs. 
 
 Let Organized Labor Purge Itself. American Industries 
 (Feb., 1913), pp. 7-11. 
 
 Moh Spirit in Organized Labor. Parry, D. M. 
 
 Progress and Industrial Freedom. Post, C. W. 
 
 A Tale of Tzvo Cities. Job, F. W., Sec. Employers' Assn. 
 of Chicago (1904). 
 
 They're After You. Post, C. W. 
 
 The Union Label a Detriment to Business. Starrett, 
 L. T. 
 
 Educational Literature (Published by the National As- 
 sociation of Manufacturers, 30 Church St., New York 
 City). 
 
 Maintenance of a Lobby to Influence Legislation — Hear- 
 ing Before a Sub-Committee of the Committee on the 
 Judiciary, U. S. Sen., 63d Cong., ist Session (1913). 
 
 Materials of the Buck's Stove and Range Case. 
 
 Mulhall Expose of the National Association of Manufac- 
 turers. 
 The United States Commission on Industrial Relations: 
 
 Report on the Colorado Strike (1915). West, G. P. 
 
 Report on the National Erectors' Association and the 
 International Association of Bridge and Structural 
 Iron Workers (1915). Grant, Luke. 
 
 Adams and Sumner. Labor Problems, pp. 279-285. 
 Baker, R. S. "Organized Capital Challenges Organized 
 Labor," McC lures, 23:279 (1904).
 
 no TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Baker, R. S. "Capital and Labor Hunt Together," Mc- 
 
 Clures, 21:451 (1903). 
 Carlton. History and Problems of Organised Labor, pp. 
 
 85-93. 
 
 Eliot, C. W. "Employers' Policies in the Industrial 
 Strife," Harper's Magazine, 110:528-33 (1905). 
 
 Hollander and Barnett. Studies in American Trade 
 Unionism, chap. \^II, "Employers Associations in the 
 United States." (Hilbert, F. W.) 
 
 JusTi, Herman. The Organization of the Employing 
 Class (1901). 
 
 . Sundry Papers and Addresses on Labor Problems 
 
 (1906). 
 
 Marcosson, I. F. "Labor Met By Its Own Methods," 
 World's Work, 7:4309 (1904). 
 
 Mitchell. Organized Labor, chap. XXII, "Organized 
 Labor and Organized Capital." 
 
 Stecker, Margaret. "The National Founders' Associa- 
 tion." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2^ •.^^2 (1916). 
 
 Van Cleave, J. W. "The Work of Employers' Associa- 
 tions in the Settlement of Labor Disputes," Annals of 
 the American Academy, 36:373-80 (1910). 
 
 WiLLouGHBY, W. F. Employers' Associations, Quar- 
 terly Journal of Economics, 20:110-50 (1905).
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 
 
 The specific dangers which we encounter in taking up 
 a study of the legal aspects of labor are clear. We may 
 lose our way in the esoteric technicalities of the law and 
 go wrong in the facts; we may go much more deeply or 
 much less deeply into the subject than is warranted by 
 our purpose, needs and circumstances; and we i^iay be 
 led into discussions off the main track and of no par- 
 ticular value to us here. Therefore, there is a special 
 need to begin with a clear-headed attempt to determine 
 just what is the purpose in the study and what ought to 
 be the method. What is the special significance of the 
 iegal status of labor and the employers in this connec- 
 tion; what is its special bearing on our problem? 
 
 Among the main fundamental forces and conditions 
 that determine what ought to and can be done in the 
 solution of labor problems, we find that the present legal 
 status determines most largely the actual conditions and 
 problems of labor, and that most labor problems must 
 be solved in terms of rights and law by invoking present 
 and changing rights and law. What should be the pur- 
 pose then in studying the rights and legal status of labor 
 and the employers? It should be to find out what are in 
 essentials the law's chief characteristics; whether as it 
 stands it puts the employer and the workers on an equal 
 footing, and gives equal opportunity to them in working 
 
 2U
 
 212 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 out their problems for themselves; whether as it stands 
 it gives opportunity for constructive social effort in this 
 connection, and whether it furnishes a sufficient basis 
 for a constructive social program for betterment. If 
 not, what ought to be done about it? How ought it to 
 be changed in its general fundamental characteristics and 
 in its general character? Can such changes be made, 
 and if so, how? 
 
 The law rests on two fundamental and contradictory 
 concepts of society, of social relationships and social 
 rights, of justice, welfare and control, the absolutistic 
 and the evolutionary concepts. The absolutistic concept 
 assumes a fixed social constitution, fixed social relation- 
 ships and positive standards of right and justice, resting 
 upon a natural order in which exist the natural and in- 
 alienable rights of private property, individual liberty, 
 free contract and free competition. It assumes that so- 
 cial right, justice and welfare consist in preserving these 
 natural rights, since, when they are preserved, equality 
 of opportunity is secured for all individuals and social 
 harmony prevails; that, therefore, the law should aim 
 solely to secure and preserve these rights; and that this 
 is best done by giving power to the courts to test all 
 legislation on the basis of those fixed and fundamental 
 principles of natural right and to declare unconstitutional 
 and void any laws which appear to violate them. The 
 evolutionary concept assumes a developing social con- 
 stitution and changing social relations and relative stand- 
 ards of right and justice, resting on a denial of any fixed 
 natural order or natural and inalienable rights in regard 
 to private property, liberty of the individual, freedom 
 of contract, and free competition. It, therefore, assumes 
 that social right, justice and welfare consist in changing
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 213 
 
 or adapting rights and law to meet the particular needs 
 and circumstances of developing social conditions and 
 relationships, and that this is best secured when the peo- 
 ple are allowed through their legislators to make the 
 laws with regard to present and developing needs, re- 
 lationships and standards. 
 
 As yet the law as it stands, in its fundamental as- 
 sumptions, in its method and in its specific character, 
 especially as it concerns the relations between employ- 
 ers and workers, is predominantly representative of the 
 first of these conflicting concepts. The second shows its 
 influence mainly in laws where it can be made to appear 
 that the persons primarily affected are not complete in- 
 dividuals, e.g., women, minors, children, dependents, de- 
 fectives and delinquents ; or where it can be made to ap- 
 pear that the public is more concerned than the employers 
 and workers, e.g., in cases relating to public health and 
 safety, sanitation, nuisances, housing, accident and death, 
 industrial disease, and compensation for these things. 
 So far, then, as the labor field is concerned, with the ex- 
 ception of laws relating to women's work, child labor, 
 charities and corrections, sanitation and safety, working- 
 men's insurance, etc., where there is a struggle on be- 
 tween the two principles, with the latter rapidly gaining, 
 the law in principle, method and specific character still 
 reflects the absolutistic principle.^ 
 
 ^ Lest some assume that I am dogmatic and partisan in 
 this treatment, a word may be necessary. What are we 
 studying this for? Mainly, because the law is the chief tool 
 that we have to use in solving our labor problems. There- 
 fore, if it is unfitted for this in spirit, character and method 
 of procedure, then the big labor problem is how to change it. 
 We must know what it is in these respects and zvhy it is what 
 it is. Why do I state its spirit, character and method of pro-
 
 214 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The characteristics of the law may be summarized as 
 follows : 
 
 cedure in terms of the absolutistic concept which underlies 
 it? Because that concept still dominates the spirit, character 
 and method of procedure of the law, especially with regard 
 to labor matters. Am I trying in this way to make capital for 
 the evolutionary concept which is just beginning to affect the 
 law? No. I don't know what the character and method of the 
 law would be under the influence of this concept. I have not 
 had a chance to see. It might conceivably be worse. I simply 
 know that the law as it is is not in harmony with the spirit 
 of the age. Am I partisan then in my analysis? No. I am 
 simply stating the facts and trying to find out why they exist. 
 Am I dogmatic about it? No, because as far as possible, 
 as far as the facts exist, I am trying to set forth all view- 
 points and all sides. If anyone concludes from this that one 
 side or the other is right or wrong, that is his affair. The 
 dogmatic man is one who presents one viewpoint only, and 
 keeps hammering away on that, but does not present it as 
 a viewpoint, because he never clearly formulates it and never 
 intimates that there is any other. Lawyers and judges do not 
 claim that the law assumes to represent absolute justice, but 
 only that they are approaching or approximating justice, and 
 hence the law is not based on the absolutistic theory. On 
 the contrary, it is based on the evolutionary theory evolving 
 toward justice. In a certain sense, it may be said that the 
 lawyers and judges are evolutionary, but the legal attitude 
 comes to an absolutistic position in the end. To make this 
 clear, we have to distinguish between two kinds of evolution, 
 modern scientific evolution, which is relativistic, and teleological 
 evolution, which is as old as history and is but one variation 
 of the eighteenth century idea, and at bottom thoroughly ab- 
 solutistic. Modern, scientific evolution knows no beginning and 
 no end; it postulates simply change. It knows no absolute or 
 final right or justice, but only right and justice relative to 
 particular conditions, circumstances and ends. What was 
 right a hundred years ago may be wrong now and vice versa. 
 And this always has been and always will be so. Everything
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 215 
 
 I. As such, the law is archaic and antiquated in view- 
 point and method. It accepts a social theory conceived 
 
 always has been, is, and always will be in flux. There is 
 no assignable beginning and no assignable end to the process 
 in which a fixed constitution of things will exist, and there- 
 fore, fixed standards of right and justice. Teleological evolu- 
 tion, on the other hand, assumes a fixed, ideal constitution of 
 things, in which absolute standards of right and justice do 
 exist, from which we have departed and to which we are try- 
 ing to get back or toward which we are headed, and which we 
 are trying to reach. While it admits, then, that our present 
 standards of right and justice are only relative, it considers the 
 situation, in a way, temporary and abnormal. It has always in 
 view that absolute ideal, that fixed constitution of things, from 
 which we have departed and to which we are trying to get 
 back, or to which we are headed and toward which we are 
 striving. Its ideal, therefore, is an absolute situation in which 
 absolute standards of right and justice hold, and in its actual 
 rules it is always trying to approximate these absolute standards. 
 Its search then is always for absolute standards of right and 
 justice that will hold for all time, and, at bottom, it is not 
 evolutionary and relativistic in the modern, scientific sense but 
 thoroughly absolutistic. 
 
 Hence, its decisions are always based on an assumed 
 fixed situation, with fixed relationships, and fixed standards 
 of right and justice, existing either at the beginning or at 
 the end of things, rather than on the actual relationships and 
 relative standards of rights and justice at the present. There- 
 fore, it can proceed only on the basis of precedents based on 
 an assumed fixed past situation or an assumed future perfect 
 state of things. In either case it is quite out of harmony with 
 modern evolutionary relativistic thought, and finds great dif- 
 ficulty in adapting itself to the existing situation — in reflecting 
 and meeting existing needs and conditions. It is but a varia- 
 tion of the absolutistic theory deriving its inspiration and 
 method from the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall 
 of man, or from the Utopian ideal of a perfect state. In the 
 one case it postulates the divine architect who in the beginning
 
 2i6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 more than a century ago and almost universally rejected 
 today. It therefore tends to assume that social ideals, 
 conditions and relations that existed more than a cen- 
 tury ago exist now. It tends to base its judgments of 
 right, rights and relationships on the conditions and rela- 
 tions that existed more than a century ago. Its method of 
 procedure is that of precedent, i.e., it proceeds on the 
 basis of fixed, absolute rules of judgment, formulated in 
 the past, instead of on the basis of changing and de- 
 veloping standards based on present and developing con- 
 ditions and relationships, standards and ideals of justice 
 and welfare. It thus tends to be a system based on 
 logic rather than on life. If the specific decisions in re- 
 gard to the relations between employers and the labor 
 groups are examined, it will be seen that all through 
 they tend to be logical deductions from the original 
 premises. An injunction is a civil writ issued for the 
 protection of property from damage, the remedy for 
 which cannot be had by criminal procedure but by civil 
 suit for damages. This is the legal theory. Therefore, 
 logically, when a man violates an injunction he cannot 
 logically ask for a jury trial. Therefore, logically, his 
 punishment must be by act of court alone. Hence, 
 though present conditions and justice demand a jury 
 trial, the law is not able to grant it to him. Its logical 
 principle will not allow this adaptation to present needs. 
 2. As such, our law is individualistic rather than so- 
 cialized. It postulates the individual as the center of the 
 universe and does not recognize fully the existence of 
 social groups and group relationships. It therefore does 
 lot know how to deal with social groups and group re- 
 created all things well; in the other, the natural order which 
 is the normal situation.
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 217 
 
 lationships except to deny their normal existence. It 
 knows no society apart from an aggregation of individ- 
 uals and no social welfare apart from individual wel- 
 fare. It is concerned, therefore, primarily in upholding 
 individual rights, or in acting as the arbitrator in con- 
 tests between individuals over their rights. In short, it 
 is thoroughly atomistic. 
 
 3. As such, our law tends to place private property 
 rights above personal and social rights. It places pri- 
 vate property very close to the center of its social phi- 
 losophy and therefore tends everywhere to emphasize 
 private property rights at the expense of all other rights 
 of the individual, and to overlook the rights of society. 
 
 4. Hence, the law, being absolutistic, individualistic, 
 and concerned with property rights, is stiff, inflexible, in- 
 elastic, and ill-adapted to meet the conditions of a chang- 
 ing socialized situation. Its decisions are based on a sys- 
 tem of fixed assumptions and rules. These assumptions 
 and rules do not reflect existing conditions, and the law 
 does not know how to create new assumptions and rules, 
 since from its standpoint no such new assumptions and 
 rules can have any valid existence, and even if it should 
 admit this, its eye being ever fixed on the past, it is not 
 sufficiently acquainted with and cannot understand the 
 existing developing situation. In the eye of the law, the 
 relation between workers and employers is fundamen- 
 tally what it was when the law's assumptions and rules 
 were established. If the relation has changed it is abnor- 
 mal and artificial. It is the duty of the law to restore 
 the normal or natural relationship. Hence, the lawyers 
 and the courts have not felt obliged to acquaint them- 
 selves thoroughly with the existing economic situation 
 and relationship, or, if they have, they have found great
 
 21^ TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 difficulty in understanding them and fully acknowledg- 
 ing them as they are. 
 
 5. The law is ultraconservative and acts too slowly 
 to meet the needs of changing conditions — the law's 
 delays. 
 
 6. Nevertheless, the law is uncertain. Examine care- 
 fully the law relating to the status of labor associations, 
 i.e., relations between the employing and labor groups, 
 and you will see that it is vague, shadowy and contradic- 
 tory in many respects. This results from several causes: 
 
 (a) from the conflict between the two contradictory 
 concepts at work in determining the character of the 
 law; now the one, now the other holds the advantage; 
 
 (b) from the fact that the interpretation of the federal 
 and state law is in the hands of different sets of judges; 
 
 (c) from the fact that each court, federal or state, is a 
 different source of interpretation; (d) from the fact that 
 each court in each state is a distinct authority; (e) from 
 the fact that each judge to an extent is a different source 
 of interpretation; (f) from the fact that the judges 
 themselves are more or less under the domination of 
 the contradictory principles at the foundation of the 
 law. Hence, by picking your judges and your court, you 
 can get varying interpretations of the law as between 
 the United States and the states, as between the states, 
 as between the courts, and as between the judges. It 
 is true that there is an attempt at coordination through 
 a series of judicial hierarchies with a system of appeals. 
 But at the outset no one knows what the law is or means, 
 and to follow up the process to the highest court takes 
 much time and money. Only the employer individually 
 can afford to do this, and in the meantime the outcome
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 219 
 
 is uncertain. And even the highest court may reverse 
 itself. 
 
 7. The law is undemocratic. The people may think 
 they know what they want and what is for social wel- 
 fare; the employers and workers may agree on an ad- 
 justment of their relationships and on the basis of their 
 decisions, laws may be enacted, but until the court has 
 spoken this may not be law. Whatever the excellence 
 of the statute, or its fitness to meet the needs of the de- 
 veloping situation, if, in the eye of the law and the mind 
 of the courts, it violates the fundamental and unchange- 
 able assumptions and rules of justice conceived in the 
 past and relating to a past situation, and if somehow 
 or other by legal fiction it cannot be made to appear to 
 be in harmony with these assumptions and rules, the 
 courts can and will declare it no law. 
 
 This brings us to the question again: Does the law 
 as it stands put the employing and the working group 
 upon an equal footing, giving equal opportunity to the 
 two groups in the working out of their own problems, 
 relationships and welfare, and if not, why not? To an- 
 swer this question, we need first to get some standard of 
 judgment by considering the relative footing or bargain- 
 ing power of the individual employer and the individual 
 workman under modern economic conditions; next, to 
 examine the law as it stands in the light of this standard 
 of judgment; and finally, to look at it historically, to 
 examine it as it has worked. Let us then, first, consider 
 the relative footing or bargaining power of the employer 
 and worker under modern economic conditions. 
 
 Leaving the law aside, and looking only at the modem 
 economic situation, are the individual employer and the 
 individual worker on an equal footing or bargaining
 
 5id tRADE UNIONISM 
 
 power and if not, why not? First, we may say that this 
 may have been true in the period of handicraft industry, 
 before the development of machine industry and modern 
 capitalism. It may have been true when hand tools were 
 mainly used, when these hand tools represented the main 
 item in industrial capital, industry being carried on 
 mainly in the home, when the capital necessary for inde- 
 pendent enterprise was very small, when each workman 
 knew the whole process and could practice the whole 
 trade, and when any workman, therefore, who was not 
 satisfied to work for an employer could easily accumu- 
 late or acquire capital for an independent enterprise and 
 have the knowledge to conduct it. 
 
 But it must be noted that since the handicraft period 
 the essential conditions of industry have enormously 
 changed. With the progressive invention of machinery 
 the amount of capital necessary to run an economic enter- 
 prise has progressively increased, until now no workman 
 can ordinarily acquire it. Instead of a few tools, a cot- 
 tage, and a small fund to be invested in materials, costly 
 machines are required which must be housed in costly 
 factories and a great capital fund must be had for mate- 
 rials and other exigencies. The capital now required 
 for a successful enterprise must ordinarily be reckoned 
 not in hundreds of dollars but in tens and hundreds of 
 thousands. Thus, the modern worker who is not satis- 
 fied has little chance to set up for himself. 
 
 Moreover, the workman no longer knows his trade as 
 he did under the handicraft system. Modern capitalistic 
 and machine industry has progressively specialized him, 
 and with this specialization has progressively abolished 
 the system of apprenticeship by which formerly he ac- 
 quired knowledge of a whole trade or craft, till now the
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 221 
 
 average workman knows only one or a few minute proc- 
 esses connected with any enterprise and has no means 
 of broadening his knowledge. Therefore, the modern 
 workman, even if he had the capital, would no longer be 
 in a position to use it independently. Under these cir- 
 cumstances the modern worker, typically, is practically 
 compelled to remain a workman and finds himself thus 
 as an individual compelled to bargain with an employer 
 who owns and controls large amounts of capital and 
 machinery, and who is the employer of a large body of 
 workmen. The question then is, leaving the law aside 
 and considering only the economic situation : Is the in- 
 dividual workman under these modern conditions on an 
 equal footing or on equal bargaining terms with the 
 employer, and if not, why not? We can, perhaps, best 
 get at this question by asking why they should be put 
 on an equal footing. The law assumes it, therefore we 
 ask it. Experience proves that when they are not, one 
 side takes the grossest advantage of the other, and there 
 is bound to be on the whole discord of interests, and 
 mutual misunderstanding. It is the same everywhere 
 in Hfe. 
 
 Under existing conditions the bargaining strength of 
 the individual employer is greater than that of the indi- 
 vidual worker because ( i ) the employer has superior 
 knowledge of market conditions, better bargaining skill, 
 and waiting power ; the workers are confined to. the bench ; 
 they have no experience in buying and selling, or in 
 market prices; no knowledge of price movements nor 
 foresight as to them 1(2) the lesser thing is at stake with 
 the employer — profits as against life; (3) there is 
 always an actual or a potential over supply of labor; 
 there is always unemployment — a general over-supply
 
 222 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and, since trades are minutely specialized, the next 
 lower worker is always in competition for the next 
 higher job; (4) the weakest employers industrially 
 and pecuniarily are the strongest wage bargain- 
 ers — in distress they must take it out of the workers 
 or go to the wall; (5) the competitive strength of the 
 labor group under individual bargaining is equal only, or 
 tends to be equal only, to the competitive strength of its 
 weakest member; (6) the full bargaining strength 
 of the employer usually is bound to be exerted 
 against the worker, under competitive conditions, be- 
 cause of the pressure of the consuming public for cheap 
 goods, and because the most unscrupulous employer sets 
 the pace; under monopolistic conditions, impersonality 
 produces the same results. Therefore, under modern 
 conditions, the worker is not on an equal footing with 
 the employer unless he is allowed to combine or act col- 
 lectively without doubt or hampering. 
 
 With this economic situation in view let us now turn 
 to the law and examine this question of equal footing. 
 Has the law taken into account these facts and been so 
 developed as t6 redress the disadvantages of the worker? 
 Or, does it still proceed as if the employers and 
 workmen were essentially in the same relative economic 
 situation as in the handicraft stage when the individual 
 workman and the individual employer were apparently 
 on an equal footing, and by so doing does it place the 
 modern worker at a great disadvantage relative- to the 
 modern employer? 
 
 The first step toward a specific understanding of the 
 present law regarding the rights or legal status of .labor 
 and the employer, with a view to testing it in the man- 
 ner suggested above, is to get before us a general outline
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 223 
 
 of the present situation. In general the following would 
 appear to be a summary of its main features : ^ 
 
 1. In the typical cases, under the present economic or 
 legal organization, the employer furnishes, owns and 
 controls the material and pecuniary means of produc- 
 tion — the capital, land, buildings, machinery, tools and 
 the raw materials. Subject to general restrictions on 
 illegal acts and to the police power of the state, he is a 
 free agent in the disposition of the means of production. 
 He cannot be compelled to put or to keep them in produc- 
 tive use; he is free to hire or to refuse to hire whomever 
 it may please him as workmen, and to discharge work- 
 ers at will subject to the terms of his contracts with 
 them.^ 
 
 2. The worker has no legal right to work, being wholly 
 dependent upon his ability to find some employer who is 
 able and willing to give him employment. 
 
 3. The individual laborer, subject to general restric- 
 tions on illegal acts, so long as he does not interfere 
 with the rights and freedom of action of others, is a 
 free agent with respect to the disposition of his labor 
 power. He cannot legally be compelled to labor, and is 
 free, subject to the above restrictions, to apply his labor 
 
 * Any attempt on the part of a layman to present the legal 
 situation may be assumed offhand to be faulty. Students must, 
 therefore, take what follows to be a tentative statement, and 
 they should subject it as far as possible to legal criticism. Only 
 a few typical cases are cited, and the student should consult 
 Clark, The Law of the Employment of Labor; Cooke, The 
 Law of Combinations, Monopolies and Labor Unions; and 
 Commons and Andrews, Principles of Laibor Legislation. 
 
 ^ To the following general statements there are certain 
 specific modifications which it should be the purpose of our 
 study to disclose and account for.
 
 224 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 power where and on what terms it may please him, or as 
 circumstances may compel him ; to work under what cir- 
 cumstances, for what wage he pleases and to quit at 
 will, subject to the terms of his contract. 
 
 4. The above statements are subject to exception un- 
 der the state's right of eminent domain and its police 
 power. The state has the right to take and use property 
 for public purposes, to suppress seditious acts and to 
 abate nuisances; to enforce the maintenance of con- 
 tracts; to regulate dangerous insanitary conditions, etc. 
 The state may also interfere in many ways where it can 
 be shown that the contracting parties are not full indi- 
 viduals, acting without coercion or restraint, and where 
 the laborers are women or minors. 
 
 5. The relations between the employer and the laborer 
 are, in general, those of free contracting parties. The 
 employer contracts to provide the laborer with a certain 
 kind of employment for a specified period at a specified 
 wage ; the claim of the worker is liquidated by the wage, 
 except in special cases, and under special conditions, com- 
 ing under the employer's liability for accident and death. 
 The ownership and disposal of the product and the good- 
 will of the business rest entirely with the employer, sub- 
 ject to a lien of the worker in case of bankruptcy. 
 
 6. The employer and the individual workers are thus, 
 in the eye of the law, and by commonplace assumption, 
 on a plane of strict economic equality. 
 
 7. The wage contract, including hours and conditions 
 of employment, is generally assumed by the law to be be- 
 tween the individual employer and the individual work- 
 man. Originally, only individual bargaining was legal. 
 Any combination of employers or workers which inter- 
 fered with or modified such individual bargaining was
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 225 
 
 conspiracy In restraint of trade, and, as such, illegal and 
 punishable. Latterly, combinations to affect the wage 
 bargain in certain ways have been ruled lawful by the 
 courts or authorized by statute.^ 
 
 8. In general, there is no limit set by law upon the 
 wage which any laborer may contract for and receive. 
 The worker is free to force the wage as high, the em- 
 ployer to force it as low, as free individual bargaining 
 will permit. This rule is sometimes subject to modifica- 
 tion in the case of women and minors. 
 
 9. There is no limit set by law upon the hours per 
 day or week for which the laborer may contract to work. 
 The worker is free to force the hours to as small a num- 
 ber, the employer to force them to as great a number as 
 free bargaining will permit. This rule is subject to ex- 
 ceptions: the government, national, state or municipal, 
 may set limits for itself, as employer, by statute or 
 ordinance and may limit in this respect contracting em- 
 ployers doing work for it. This rule has also been modi- 
 fied in certain specific industries and for certain classes 
 of workers, but, as applied to adult male labor, holds 
 generally. 
 
 10. The method of remuneration, the mode, time, and 
 material character of wages payment, are, for the most 
 part, matters of free contract, though statutory restric- 
 tions have, to a considerable extent, modified this rule. 
 
 11. The freedom of contract between the employer 
 and the worker has been greatly restricted with refer- 
 ence to the welfare of the worker and society at large. 
 The worker cannot contract with the employer for the 
 doing of illegal acts, or be forced to perform such acts. 
 By common law, the employer is bound to furnish rea- 
 
 * See cases cited below.
 
 226 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 sonably safe conditions of work for his employees. A 
 great mass of statutory law has been enacted, varying 
 with the different states, designed to protect the health 
 and secure the safety and comfort of the workers in 
 factories, mines, workshops and other places of employ- 
 ment. 
 
 12. Under the common law, the employer is liable to 
 the worker for injury and death caused by accident in 
 the regular performance of his duties, but only where 
 it can be shown that the employer has not exercised rea- 
 sonable care, and he may set up the defenses of contribu- 
 tory negligence, the neglect or disobedience of a fellow 
 servant, contracting out, and assumption of risk on the 
 part of the worker. The actual liability of the employer, 
 under the common law, is generally determined by suit 
 and jury trial, but the judge determines all points of 
 law. 
 
 Recently, many states have enacted statutes dealing 
 with the subject of workingmen's compensation, which 
 generally greatly restrict the employer's defenses and fix 
 definite payments to be made for accident or death di- 
 rectly by the employer or through state insurance. These 
 laws also are designed to secure greater safety for the 
 workers. 
 
 13. Aside, however, from what is contained in the 
 various employers' liability and workingmen's compen- 
 sation acts, there is no legal provision for the worker in 
 the case of sickness, superannuation or death. 
 
 14. As stated above, the laborer has no guaranteed 
 right to work. No statutory provision is made in this 
 country covering unemployment, except through the pro- 
 visions gf free state and city employment bureaus.
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 227 
 
 With respect to combined action on the part of labor- 
 ers, the present situation is, in general, as follows : ^ 
 
 ^ Suppose that some workers in a craft organize into a local 
 and then into a national union. In what relation to the law 
 are the unionists or the union in each case, and how does 
 the law affect the union in each case? Is it fair in each case 
 as between the unions and employers? 
 
 (a) Their purpose is to better conditions of employment, 
 hours, wages, etc. 
 
 (b) They attempt to force all the workers in the craft to 
 join. 
 
 (c) They attempt to force their own recalcitrant members 
 to live up to union rules by ostracism, expulsion and endeavor- 
 ing to secure discharge. 
 
 (d) They demand that employers discharge those who do 
 not live up to rules. 
 
 (e) They make demands upon a local employer for higher 
 wages and union officers threaten him with a strike. 
 
 (f) Strike is called in one locality to enforce demands 
 for recognition of the union and the closed shop. 
 
 (g) The union establishes pickets. 
 
 (h) Union pickets follow those who continue to work and 
 try to persuade them to quit. 
 
 (i) Later they threaten them. 
 
 (j) Finally they "beat" one of them up. 
 
 (k) They try to prevent the employers from bringing in 
 new workers and importing strike breakers. 
 
 (1) They hold street meetings and denounce the employer. 
 
 (m) They threaten to do damage to the property of the 
 employer but do not. 
 
 (n) They do, however, affect his production, sales and profit. 
 
 (0) An injunction is issued forbidding them to congregate 
 near his plant, but they still picket. 
 
 (p) Failing to move the employer, and because he is being 
 supported by the members of the employers' association, they 
 call out in strike the workers in other shops owned by these 
 employers. 
 
 (q) They refuse to buy the products of the struck shop.
 
 228 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Combinations of workers in trade unions for the purpose 
 of affecting the wage rate and conditions of employment, 
 are, as stick, lawful. Unions in themselves are lawful 
 so long as they do no unlawful acts, i.e., the combination 
 for lawful purposes is not unlawful. But no man can 
 lawfully surrender his rights, and the unions are lawful 
 only so long as they do not infringe on the rights of their 
 members, other laborers, employers, or society. This im- 
 plies that they do not interfere with the right of any 
 worker to refuse union membership, to violate union 
 rules, to work where, when, for whom, for what, and 
 under what conditions, if lawful, he pleases; or, with the 
 right of the employers to hire whom they will, refuse 
 to hire union men exclusively, discharge at will, trade 
 with whom they will; that they do not appear to the 
 courts to restrain trade in any way; that their intent is 
 not to do any of these things, and that they do not at- 
 
 (r) They refuse to trade with dealers who sell the products 
 of the struck shop. 
 
 (s) They call upon other unionists to refuse thus to trade 
 by publishing the names of employers and dealers unfair to 
 union labor. 
 
 (t) Finally, they win the strike and enter into a collective 
 agreement with the employer on the basis of recognition of the 
 union and the closed shop. 
 
 (u) The employer blacklists active members of the union. 
 
 (v) The employer refuses to live up to the terms of the 
 collective agreement and the union tries to force him to 
 arbitrate. 
 
 (w) They arbitrate, but the employer refuses to accept the 
 terms of the award. 
 
 (x) The union tries to enforce the collective agreement as 
 a contract at law. 
 
 (y) The employer tries to sue for damages received during 
 th^ strike, damage to business and to tangible property.
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 229 
 
 tempt to enforce any of these things by any act that may 
 be interpreted by the courts as constituting intimidation, 
 coercion, or violence or threats thereof. But unions, 
 being restraining combinations, may, with the greatest 
 facihty, become in their actions combinations in illegal 
 restraint of trade. As our law fundamentally was con- 
 ceived for an individualistic society, in an era when the 
 competitive ideal was uppermost, and among its main 
 purposes are therefore the protection of freedom of in- 
 dividual contract, freedom of trade, free industrial ac- 
 tion of individuals and property right, and as the aim of 
 the unions is to protect their members against the ef- 
 fects of these things, and their main policies are directed 
 against them, the legality of unions tends to mean little 
 in fact. As such, they are legal, but as soon as they 
 function they easily become lawless.® 
 
 The innocent and lawful act of combining for mutual 
 benefit passes into conspiracy when threats or intimida- 
 tion and violence are adopted as means of enforcing the 
 demands of the associations on employers or third per- 
 sons. Any conspiracy in restraint of trade is unlawful, 
 under the common law, and sometimes by statute, and 
 there seems to be no certain rule what the courts will 
 hold to be conspiracy in restraint of trade. Many state 
 statutes have been enacted tending to exempt unions 
 from the application of the rule of combination in re- 
 straint of trade, and to exempt labor agreements from 
 the category of conspiracies. Organized labor, for twen- 
 ty-four years, after the enactment of the Sherman Anti- 
 trust Law, made strenuous efforts to secure the exemp- 
 tion of labor combinations from its application. On 
 
 « Mitchell et al. v. Hetchman Coal & Coke Co., 214 Fed. 685 
 (1914) ; Curran v. Galen, 183 N. Y. 207 (1905).
 
 ^3d TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 October 15, 191 4, it succeeded in securing the enact- 
 ment of the Clayton Law. Section 6 of this law reads : 
 
 That the labor of a human being is not a commodity or 
 article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust 
 laws shall be construed to forbid the existence or operation 
 of labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, insti- 
 tuted for the purpose of mutual help, and not having a capi- 
 tal stock, or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain in- 
 dividual members of such organizations from lawfully carry- 
 ing out the legitimate objects thereof ; nor shall such organ- 
 izations, or members thereof, be construed to be illegal com- 
 binations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under the 
 antitrust laws. 
 
 It is to be understood that both the Sherman and the 
 Clayton Acts and the decisions of the courts with respect 
 to the former hold only within Federal jurisdiction. 
 They do not affect the action of state legislatures or 
 state courts within the jurisdiction of the states. More- 
 over, the constitutionality of the Clayton Act has not 
 yet been tested. A similar law in Massachusetts was 
 declared unconstitutional by the state court in May, 
 1916.^ 
 
 When incorporated, the unions are subject to general 
 rules, applying to corporations, with statutory excep- 
 tions, often discriminating in favor of the unions. When 
 unincorporated the unions, in the strict application of the 
 common law, cannot sue or be sued, nor, if incapacity 
 be pleaded, be enjoined, and no judgment will lie against 
 them. Individual members are liable for contracts. But, 
 in practice, of late, there seems to be a tendency for the 
 courts to create the doctrine that the union can be sued, 
 
 ^ Bogui V. Perotti, 112 N. E. 853 (1916).
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 231 
 
 that judgments will lie against its property, first, and 
 then against the property of its members. This tendency 
 seems to rest upon a growing fiction that, though not 
 an organization for holding property or doing business, 
 the union is a partnership. Damage suits will lie against 
 unions or union members for injurious interference with 
 employment or business in connection with labor dis- 
 putes.^ 
 
 The union may call and conduct strikes legally, of 
 course, even though such strikes interfere with the free 
 conduct of the employer's business, and may cause the 
 discharge and prevent the free employment of individual 
 workers if the main purpose of the strike is the benefit of 
 the members of the union. The strike is not lawful, 
 however, if it has for its main purpose the injury of the 
 employer or of other workers, or if it is conducted in an 
 illegal manner, the court, of course, to determine upon 
 these matters. But a strike to secure employment of 
 none but members of the union is lawful if the motive 
 is apparently the benefit of the membership and not an 
 attack on others wantonly or maliciously to deprive them 
 of employment. The assumption that workers would 
 strike wantonly and maliciously to deprive others of em- 
 ployment shows how, by taking cognizance of motive, 
 under the doctrine of conspiracy, the workers are at the 
 mercy of the arbitrary discretion of the court. If the 
 court does not understand the union viewpoint, such as 
 the significance of the demand for recognition or for 
 the standard rate, or for the control of the working per- 
 sonnel, it must judge motives by what it considers re- 
 sults, and thus may decide that no sufficient motive of 
 self -benefit exists and so the strike must be for mali- 
 
 'Lawlor v. Loewe, 235 U, S. 522 (1915). Danbury hatters.
 
 232 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 cious injury, when as a matter of fact, the strike is, in 
 the view of the union, solely for the benefit of its mem- 
 bership. 
 
 Sympathetic strikes against employers where no direct 
 grievance exists to force other employers to make con- 
 cessions to workmen, such as a strike to prevent the use 
 of materials produced by a struck firm, are illegal as 
 interference wdth freedom of trade. The law limxits the 
 right of organized workers to use the strike solely as a 
 means of influencing persons with whom the trade dis- 
 pute actually exists, without involving disinterested 
 parties, the court to decide. Thus the law, built on the 
 individualistic basis, refuses to recognize that one group 
 of workers in a union is vitally affected by or interested 
 in the conditions of another group even in the same un- 
 ion, and in this it fails to recognize the interrelationship 
 of the modern evolving industrial situation. It cannot 
 do so, while it is based on the absolutistic assumptions 
 of individual freedom and free competition. On the 
 basis of these assumptions, it has little capacity for deal- 
 ing with developed and developing machine industry.® 
 
 The striking workmen may peacefully persuade other 
 workers to leave the employ of the master or not to en- 
 gage to work for him, but may not make use of vio- 
 lence or of any force or intimidation. What constitutes 
 violence, force or intimidation is determined first by the 
 police, and finally by the courts. All destruction of the 
 property or direct interference with the conduct of the 
 business of the employer is forbidden. Where picketing 
 is in aid of an unlawful strike, or is accompanied by vio- 
 lence or by such a display of force or numbers as to 
 Intimidate workmen or the public, or to obstruct the 
 
 •De Minico v. Craig, 207 Mass. 593 (1911).
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 233 
 
 highways, or approaches of business or employment, it 
 is unlawful. If it appears that the purpose is to inter- 
 fere with those passing into or out of the works, or those 
 wishing to pass into the works, by other than persua- 
 sive means, it is illegal. If the design is to see who can 
 be the subject of persuasive inducements, it is legal. 
 Obtrusion upon others to impose upon them arguments 
 or persuasion to which they are unwilling to listen is 
 unlawful; since strike breakers, by the very nature of 
 the case, must, or are determined, to seek employment, 
 the courts may declare any effort to prevent them from 
 doing so unlawful. In general, the courts have the power 
 in such matters to hold the balance of power between the 
 workers and the employers. They can make or mar 
 any efforts of the organized workers to better their rela- 
 tions with unwilling employers. They hold the practi- 
 cal destinies of militant unionism in their hands. If, 
 as judges, they are closely identified in viewpoint with 
 the employers, they can destroy any practical equality 
 of legal relationship between the two forces. ^"^ 
 
 The employer may hire strike breakers at will, and in 
 case of fear of irreparable injury to property may secure 
 an injunction from the court restraining the workers 
 from interfering in any way with his business. An in- 
 junction is an order issuing from a court of equity for 
 the purpose of preventing injury or of preserving the 
 status quo until the final determination of rights. It is 
 classed as an extraordinary remedy, usually for the pro- 
 tection of property or property rights and is to be re- 
 sorted to only when the remedy at law is inadequate, 
 as where the injury done or threatened is of such a na- 
 ture that, when accomplished, the property cannot be re- 
 
 " Atchison. T. & S. F. Ry. v. Gee, 139 Fed. 582 (1905).
 
 234 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 stored to its original condition or cannot be replaced by 
 means of compensation in money, or where full compen- 
 sation for the entire wrong cannot be obtained without 
 resort to a number of suits. 
 
 In the practical application of the injunction, the 
 courts appear inclined to consider almost anything as a 
 property right and almost any act of strikers a possible 
 irreparable violation of property right. Thus, while in- 
 junctions will not issue to restrain libel or slander they 
 will restrain the use of unfair lists, boycott notices, and 
 the like, considered as intimidating or coercive. In prac- 
 tice, injunctions may issue to cover almost any human 
 act which the court may deem productive of irreparable 
 injury to property. For instance, in the Buck's Stove 
 and Range case, the injunction prohibited the officers of 
 the American Federation of Labor, officers and mem- 
 bers of affiliated unions, agents, friends, sympathizers, 
 counsel, conspirators and co-conspirators from making 
 any reference whatever to the fact that the Buck's Com- 
 pany had ever been in any dispute with labor, or to the 
 fact that the Company had ever been regarded as un- 
 fair, had ever been on any unfair list, or on a "we don't 
 patronize" Hst of the American Federation of Labor or 
 of any other organization, and also prohibited any per- 
 son from either directly or indirectly referring to any 
 such controversy by printed, written or spoken word. 
 
 Injunctions may be specific, i.e., directed against a 
 particular individual, or they may be blanket or "John 
 Doe" injunctions directed against any person or persons 
 whatever. Their violation is contempt of court. The 
 fact of violation is determined by the judge issuing the 
 injunction and the punishment is meted out by him. 
 There is no trial by jury. Injunctions cannot be made
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 235 
 
 permanent except after hearing the defendant. The in- 
 junction may paralyze the action of the union during 
 the run of the preHminary or interlocutory decree even 
 though this, on hearing, may be found to be altogether 
 invalid. As the hearing may not take place for some 
 weeks, the cause of the union may be absolutely lost 
 meantime, for unionists stand in great fear of injunc- 
 tions. Violation, even of the preliminary decree, which 
 may be invalid, means contempt of court, and fine or im- 
 prisonment at the discretion of the judge issuing the 
 injunction, with no right of trial by jury.*^ Unionists 
 generally claim that injunctions should not issue in labor 
 disputes, but that cases involving injuries to property 
 during such disputes should take the regular course of 
 adjudication afterward, and that contempt cases should 
 also be settled by jury trial. The Federal law in rela- 
 tion to this matter of injunctions has been modified con- 
 siderably in the direction of the union viewpoint by the 
 Clayton Anti-Trust Act (§§ 20-25). 
 
 The legal status of the closed shop is somewhat am- 
 biguous. The general rule seems to be that the closed 
 shop will be considered legal, if the primary purpose is 
 to benefit the members of the union rather than to in- 
 jure nonmembers, if the agreement does not cover a 
 field so broad that it practically makes membership in 
 the union necessary for employment at the trade, or if 
 the agreement is strictly voluntary and enforced by no 
 coercion or intimidation. Otherwise the closed shop will 
 be considered illegal. This means that the legality or 
 illegality of the closed shop depends practically upon the 
 viewpoint of the court, for usually courts can be found 
 to hold against practically any closed shop agreement In 
 
 " In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 (1895).
 
 i2lo TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 any of the above situations. We see here also how the 
 legal status of the union may depend upon what the 
 -courts deem to be motive and effect, though practically 
 the courts know little usually in regard to union pur- 
 poses, i.e., why things really are done by the unions.^^ 
 
 Under the common law, the union label is not given the 
 protection of the trade-mark. No injunction can re- 
 strain its unauthorized use. Quite commonly, however, 
 it is protected by statute law. 
 
 Collective agreements are not unlawful when they do 
 not violate the law through their terms. Injunctions 
 may prevent union officers from counseling violation of 
 agreements. But the law considers the real contract to 
 be between the individuals concerned, hence, collective 
 agreements do not prevent termination of individual con- 
 tracts at will, on the ground that the contract did not call 
 for the employment of particular individuals, but only 
 of individuals of a certain class. Therefore, specific pro- 
 visions of individual contracts, not in harmony with the 
 collective agreement, cannot be prevented. The union 
 itself, unincorporated, cannot be sued for a violation of 
 the agreement. ^^ 
 
 The combination of workmen may boycott their em- 
 ployer, that is, refuse to purchase his products, and un- 
 less their acts are construed by the courts as in restraint 
 of trade, may persuade others to do so. But the sec- 
 ondary boycott, the boycott of the merchant who sells 
 the goods of the employer, is unlawful. ^^ 
 
 The blacklist is virtually legal where, as is usually the 
 
 *2Curran v. Galen, 152 N. Y. (1897) ; Jacobs v. Cohen, 183 
 N. Y. 207 (1905). 
 ^5 Hudson V. Cincinnati, etc., R. R. Co., 152 Ky. 711 (1913)- 
 "Loewe v. Lavvlor, 208 U. S. 274 (1908).
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 237 
 
 case, it amounts to mere exchange of information, leav- 
 ing the employer free to act on his own judgment. This, 
 in practice, takes the form of concerted information, or 
 lists kept by associations of employers giving informa- 
 tion in regard to v^orkmen on the basis of which they are 
 given or refused employment. The Metal Trades Asso- 
 ciation had some years ago a card catalogue of this 
 kind which, it was claimed, contained 60,000 names. The 
 object is sometimes secured by a white list, or by an 
 employment or clearance card or book which must be 
 presented to secure employment and surrendered while in 
 employ. Statutes attempting to prevent employers from 
 coercing men into withdrawing from unions by threaten- 
 ing them with discharge are held unconstitutional.^^ 
 
 A careful reading of the foregoing will show that the 
 law, as interpreted by the courts, is in effect a series of 
 logical deductions from a set of basic premises or prin- 
 ciples. When it fails to satisfy the demands of justice 
 it is not usually because the court is biased but because 
 logical deductions from a set of fixed absolutistic prin- 
 ciples cannot meet the needs of developing social ideals 
 and relationships. In general, the courts through their 
 unchallenged right to interpret the meaning and consti- 
 tutionality of law which is based, as we have seen, first, 
 on the assumption of a natural order and absolute natural 
 rights, as expressed in the common law, which is itself a 
 creation of the courts, and as confirmed by written con- 
 stitutions, have much more actual power in determining 
 the rights and legal status of labor and the employers 
 than the legislatures and the people. 
 
 ^^ Adair v. U. S., 208 U. S. 161 (1908) ; Coppage v. Kansas, 
 35 Super. Ct. 240 (1915)-
 
 238 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The law, in so far as it assumes to represent the es- 
 sence of positive justice but reflects the relations of handi- 
 craft industry, has no comprehension of modern indus- 
 trial conditions, nor of their inevitable consequences, and 
 no modes of dealing with them except by prohibition. It 
 has no comprehension of a machinery for dealing out jus- 
 tice in a state of society changed and changing from that 
 in which it was conceived. Being actually unable to out- 
 law combination, for industrial forces are more com- 
 pelling than legal restraint, not being wholly uncognizant 
 of the injustice worked by its arbitrary decrees, but un- 
 able to give up its preevolutionary standpoint, it is 
 obliged to seek actual justice by shuffling, halting, round- 
 about methods and disingenuous distinctions which vary 
 with the intelligence and bias of the particular courts. 
 As the law in spirit is individualistic, as it makes the 
 freedom and sacredness of individual contract the touch- 
 stone of absolute justice, and as the unions are formed 
 to escape the evils of individualism and individual com- 
 petition and contract, and all the union acts in positive 
 support of these purposes do involve coercion, the law 
 cannot help being in spirit inimical to unionism. Union- 
 ism is in its very essence a lawless thing, in its very 
 purpose and spirit a challenge to the law. Hence, even 
 where the judges are understanding and intend to 
 be sympathetic to unionism, if they are true to the law 
 they must tend to be unfair to unionism. 
 
 The English and American law in its fundamental 
 concepts of free contract, individual liberty, and prop- 
 erty rights, was the crystallization of the social philoso- 
 phy of the rising bourgeois or employing class, and still, 
 in general, expresses the viewpoint of that class. Law- 
 yers are trained in it and soaked with this philosophy.
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 239 
 
 Judges, therefore, inevitably tend to look at unions and 
 labor controversies with the eye of the employer. And 
 judges help make the law. 
 
 These are some of the reasons that account for the 
 ambiguous and weak legal status of unionism and for 
 the general attitude of the unionists toward the law. 
 
 With the purpose of determining whether the law as it 
 stands puts the employing and working groups on an 
 equal footing, giving equal opportunity to the two groups 
 in working out their problems, relationships and w^elfare, 
 and whether it furnishes an adequate basis for construc- 
 tive social effort in the interest of labor and social wel- 
 fare, we have examined its fundamental basis and gen- 
 eral characteristics and the present legal status of em- 
 ployer and employee. It remains in this connection to 
 inquire how the law has worked in the past with special 
 reference to its effect upon labor and labor welfare. 
 Here we are obliged to turn to England, since there we 
 find the clearest record of the attempt to apply the fun- 
 damental viewpoint and asstunptions underlying our law 
 — the absolutistic viewpoint and the assumptions of 
 natural right, individualism and free individual contract 
 — and the clearest test of the results of the common law 
 as administered by the courts on the basis of precedent. 
 
 This attempt was made in the latter part of the eight- 
 eenth and the early part of the nineteenth century. In 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century England in her 
 law accepted the absolutistic viewpoint and the theory 
 of natural order and natural rights as we have attempted 
 to state them, and the corollaries tliat the state has no 
 right to interfere with individual freedom and free com- 
 petition, its sole business being to guarantee these rights, 
 and that when this is done, individual employers and
 
 240 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 individual workmen will be on a basis of competitive 
 equality and the welfare of all will be subserved. 
 
 Hence, the England of this time practically adopted 
 the rule of laisses faire, laissez passer, and proceeded to 
 sweep away the restrictive legislation that had hampered 
 the free activity and competition of individual employers 
 and individual workmen. Combinations were forbidden 
 by law and a fair field was guaranteed to all, subject to 
 the interpretations of the courts based on the common 
 law. The experiment began about the time when the 
 industrial revolution in England was rapidly breaking 
 up the old handicraft system of industry and developing 
 in its place the modern system of machine industry and 
 factory production, and paralleled this development. The 
 results, it must be admitted, were affected by the Na- 
 poleonic wars, and especially by the sudden increase of 
 the workers at the close of these wars. Nevertheless, 
 the outcome gives us the best historical test that we have 
 of the practical working of the dominant theory that 
 underlies our law. 
 
 The results were not at all what the theory presumed 
 or what the English anticipated. Instead of putting the 
 employers and the workers on a plane of equality and 
 subserving the best interests of all, the competitive 
 strength and interest of the employer were found to be 
 progressively advanced, while the competitive strength 
 and welfare of the workers were relatively if not abso- 
 lutely weakened. The result was an era of almost un- 
 believable suffering and degradation for the latter. In 
 the midst of a period of great increase of wealth and 
 "national prosperity," and with the courts carefully 
 guarding the natural rights of all, as interpreted by the 
 common law, all the modern labor conditions and prob-
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 241 
 
 lems from which we suffer and of which we complain 
 arose and flourished hke rank weeds; unemployment, 
 child labor, women's work, long hours, low wages, insani- 
 tary and unsafe conditions of work, industrial disease, 
 accident and death, lack of proper compensation for these, 
 brutality in shop discipline, degraded home conditions 
 and surroundings, poverty, misery and vice among the 
 working people, all these came quickly to characterize 
 the English situation. So that hardly had the hisses 
 faire policy been launched before the British were again 
 forced to allow labor combinations and to attempt again 
 to build up a body of restrictive legislation in protection 
 of the working people from the effects of free individual 
 competition under these circumstances. The evils of the 
 situation are proved and illustrated by contemporary 
 writings and by the later work of investigators. 
 
 The question might be asked : Why or how did it come 
 about that when social restraint was removed in Eng- 
 land these results followed, contrary to theory? To ac- 
 count for the result, we must take into consideration that 
 there was a conjunction of removal of social restraint 
 with entirely new economic and social conditions to which 
 old standards of thought and action did not apply. It 
 takes time to build up a social and moral code applying to 
 new conditions and problems. At a time when a new 
 code had to be built up, England destroyed her old and 
 left the immediate outcome to be determined by the un- 
 guarded struggle of man against man. Raw human na- 
 ture had its innings. The successive steps by which this 
 was accomplished in manufacture may be summarized 
 as follows: 
 
 I. The new machinery which was the mechanical 
 basis of the industrial revolution in manufacture, the
 
 242 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 spinning jenny, the water frame, the mule, the power 
 loom, the steam engine, was too expensive for the small 
 independent worker, and thus he lost, very naturally, 
 the ownership of the mechanical means of production — 
 the tools. 
 
 2. The new machinery was too heavy to be installed 
 in the house of the workman and the new power, steam, 
 could not be economically applied to isolated machines ; 
 therefore the merchant gathered his machinery and his 
 workers increasingly into factories or mills of his own, 
 and thus the worker lost the ownership and control of 
 the workshop. Thus deprived of his tools and his work- 
 shop, the worker ceased necessarily to be an independent 
 producer; he could no longer purchase raw materials and 
 contract to work it up into the finished product. Of 
 necessity, therefore, he became a wage worker. 
 
 3. The new machinery altered the mode of produc- 
 tion, splitting it up into many small processes which could 
 be performed with little skill and training, and the doing 
 of which led to no knowledge of the trade as a whole. 
 Hence the worker lost his trade education, his skill and 
 his control of the trade and trade conditions. 
 
 4. The new machinery had to be operated where power 
 was to be had and power could be furnished economi- 
 cally only at certain times and when all the machines 
 were running; hence the worker lost control of his hours 
 of work. He had to go to the factory at a certain fixed 
 time determined by the capitalist machine owner and re- 
 main at work while the power was supplied to the ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 5. The new power made possible control by the capi- 
 talist over the location of the factory. Before the ad- 
 vent of the steam engine such factories as there were
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 243 
 
 had to be scattered about wherever water power was to 
 be secured. Now they could be brought together at the 
 most advantageous points, considering sources of mate- 
 rial, the labor supply, and the market. The factories 
 were therefore concentrated and as a result there de- 
 veloped great manufacturing cities. The worker thus 
 became a city dweller, and since he could not afford the 
 ownership of city property, he thus lost the ownership or 
 life-lease of his home and became the tenant at will of the 
 employer or landlord. 
 
 6. The cutting up of the manufacturing process by 
 the machinery into small and simple tasks, i.e., the minute 
 division of labor, made possible the employment of weak 
 and unskilled workers, and hence brought into compe- 
 tition with the old workmen not only unskilled men but 
 women and children. These weak and unskilled work- 
 ers therefore flocked to the new manufacturing centers 
 or were brought or sent there and entered into competi- 
 tion with the former skilled workmen. The results were 
 the lowering of the wage, and the throwing out of em- 
 ployment of the strong and skilled, because the unskilled 
 women and children could be forced to work cheaper. 
 
 7. The manufacturing centers thus became fright- 
 fully congested. Old modes and regulations of life be- 
 came inoperative. Housing and sanitary conditions were 
 horrible, almost past belief. Morality degenerated to the 
 lowest possible depths. Poverty, drunkenness and vice 
 held undisputed sway. 
 
 Thus, within a generation, was the industrial worker 
 of England, from an independent, skilled, tool-owning 
 producer of goods for sale, or a worker in process of 
 becoming such, a country or small town dweller, com- 
 fortably housed, fed and clothed, living a life governed
 
 244 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 by definite customs, based on definite religious, ethical 
 and social concepts, protected by an intricate legal code, 
 reduced to an unskilled wageworker dependent upon a 
 master to whom he was merely a part in the process of 
 production, ill-paid, ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed, de- 
 prived of the ordinary conditions and standards of life — 
 the basis of a new and distinct class in society. The proc- 
 ess of transformation thus outlined applied in this form 
 only to the industrial and manufacturing trades, but the 
 industrial revolution in one form or another was general. 
 The transformation of mining industry went on hand in 
 hand with manufacture and sooner or later production 
 generally, except in agriculture, was transformed by ma- 
 chinery into capitalistic industry with its distinctly dif- 
 ferentiated wage working class dependent upon the own- 
 ers of the means and materials of production. 
 
 We have said that the law is based on the primary 
 assumption that there is a fixed natural social order in 
 which there exist certain immutable rights which per- 
 sist under all circumstances, and that if the state will only 
 let things alone, simply guaranteeing these individual 
 rights through the courts, proceeding always on the basis 
 of precedent, equality of opportunity will exist for all 
 individuals and the well-being of all will prevail through 
 the general pursuit of self-interest. The question now is, 
 How did this come to be the theory of the law? What 
 forces and conditions produced it ? Do these forces and 
 conditions exist now — so that we can hardly hope to 
 change the law fundamentally? Or have they generally 
 passed out, their places being taken by a new set tend- 
 ing to a new legal conception and mode of procedure, 
 more in harmony with existing needs, so that we need 
 not despair of the transformation of the law into a real
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 245 
 
 basis for constructive activity? We must answer these 
 questions before we can know what can be done in this 
 connection. Doubtless the lawyer has a definite answer 
 to these questions, which is technically unassailable, but 
 which, nevertheless, differs greatly from that given by 
 the student of general social science. But however this 
 may be, the answer given by the latter is somewhat as 
 follows : 
 
 The fundamental assumptions and framework of our 
 present law are an eighteenth century product. They 
 developed partly as a reaction against a previous restric- 
 tive legal system which had outlived its workability and 
 partly in response to a nev/ social philosophy which 
 attained definite form and acceptance during the eight- 
 eenth century. They were pragmatically true for the 
 time of their development, i.e., they harmonized with the 
 general thought of the period and they fitted the condi- 
 tions and needs of the economic situation. Hardly had 
 they been established, however, when the industrial revo- 
 lution created a new economic situation which made them 
 pragmatically false in their application, i.e., unjust and 
 socially vicious. Somewhat later a new social philoso- 
 phy developed with which they are entirely out of har- 
 mony. They persist, therefore, mainly by force of social 
 tradition. The new economic condition and the new 
 social philosophy are bound gradually to displace them 
 and create a new legal basis and framework adapted to 
 the new situation. To make the matter clear, we need 
 to go back and trace the process somewhat in detail. 
 
 In the early modem era the chief need of western 
 European society appeared to be not the greatest produc- 
 tion of wealth but the establishment of stable political 
 authority. When the ecclesiastical and feudal authority
 
 246 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 broke up, the old industrial standards and modes of 
 social control gave way. Europe was split up into strug- 
 gling and fighting local groups ; social anarchy impended. 
 The hope for a new and stable authority seemed to lie in 
 the establishment of national states, and in subordinating 
 everything else to the development of national power. 
 This was sought largely through the regulation of indus- 
 try. Suffice it to say that by the beginning of the eight- 
 eenth century there had been built up in each of the 
 important countries In western Europe a vast, intricate 
 system of restrictions on industry and trade called the 
 Mercantile System, intended mainly to strengthen the 
 nation as against its neighbors, and the central govern- 
 ing authority as against local authority. By the most 
 minute and universal regulations each government sought 
 to encourage manufactures, augment the population, and 
 Increase the quantity of money In the country, in order 
 to attain industrial efficiency, and equip and maintain 
 larger armies and navies. When this regp-ilatory code 
 was complete there was practically no free industrial 
 enterprise or activity. The quantity of goods, the qual- 
 ity, the conditions and methods of production, the wages 
 paid, the prices charged, were regulated by law. What 
 could be produced, in some cases even what could be 
 worn and eaten, was specified. Special privileges were 
 conferred, special restrictions were imposed, and prohibi- 
 tions enforced In a general effort to secure national 
 power and what was deemed essential to it — the well- 
 being of each Individual and the prosperity of each es- 
 sential Industry in the state. 
 
 In short, under the Mercantile System, almost nothing 
 industrially was left to individual initiative, or to the 
 outcome of natural economic forces. Industry and the
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 247^ 
 
 individual were wards of the state. Until the new na- 
 tional authorities had been firmly established in Europe 
 this system appeared on the whole to work well and was 
 generally supported, but by the beginning of the eight- 
 eenth century a great tide of reaction had risen against 
 it. This reaction was the result partly of the positive 
 economic evils which the system produced, partly of the 
 chafing against the old and unfit restrictions of a new 
 economic life which was developing, and partly of the 
 advance of science. Out of all these things, as the 
 spiritual background of the reaction against mercantilism 
 and the guide to new action, arose a new social and 
 economic philosophy. This new philosophy was based 
 on the concepts of natural order and natural law. Science 
 was demonstrating that the physical universe constituted 
 an orderly and harmonious whole, expressive of the ac- 
 tion of universal and immutable law. It dawned upon 
 social and economic thinkers that this might be true also 
 of society. The analogy was eagerly adopted and worked 
 out. The resulting social philosophy was in briefest out- 
 line as follows : there is a fixed ideal natural social type 
 or order of society governed by a code of natural law 
 existing in human nature and antecedent to all human 
 institutions. Left free to pursue his own interest, the 
 individual as a rational being will obey this code. Obedi- 
 ence to this natural code results in entire harmony of 
 interest and relations in society and in the highest social 
 welfare of all. The evils of existing society are due to 
 the interference with natural law and the perversion of 
 the natural order by governmental restrictions. The 
 remedy for these evils is the restoration of the natural 
 order by the removal of restrictions, leaving the indi- 
 vidual to follow his own interest in his own way. As
 
 24S TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Adam Smith said in a famous passage in the "Wealth of 
 Nations," book IV, chapter II, "He [the individual] 
 generally neither intends to promote the public interest, 
 nor knows how much he is promoting it. . . . He in- 
 tends only his own security; and by directing that in- 
 dustry in such a manner that its produce may be of the 
 greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is 
 in this as in many other cases led by an invisible hand 
 to promote an end which was no part of his intention." 
 
 The slogans of this new philosophy were natural 
 rights, economic freedom, free competition, laisscz faire 
 and laissez passer. A curious and significant feature 
 about this new thought, especially as it developed in Eng- 
 land, was that its followers considered the fundamental 
 institutions in their own country to be a part of the 
 natural order. Thus the freedom that was demanded 
 never contemplated the abolition of private property nor 
 the violation of property rights. It was assumed that 
 political equality and the abolition of restraints in free 
 contract and free trade meant economic equality and 
 complete economic freedom. All through the eighteenth 
 century this philosophy gained ground and, as applied to 
 economic affairs, largely through the interpretation of 
 Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," it gained complete 
 ascendancy toward the close of the century. 
 
 Under the influence of this philosophy the old legal 
 regulations intended to protect the worker against op- 
 pressive working conditions and thus to secure for him 
 work and a decent standard of living were swept aside. 
 Combinations of the workers themselves in the interest 
 of higher wages and better conditions were legally con- 
 demned as conspiracies in restraint of trade. Freedom 
 of individual contract was made the keystone of public
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 249 
 
 policy. The right of the individual employer to hire 
 and discharge the individual worker at will, to pay the 
 lowest wage that would secure workers, obliged to bar- 
 gain individually and in competition with one another, 
 to work them as long hours as he could force upon them 
 as individual bargainers, to work them under as insani- 
 tary and dangerous conditions as he could impose, and 
 the right of the individual laborer to work where, when, 
 for whom, for what wages and hours and under what 
 conditions he pleased, regardless of the effect upon him- 
 self and his fellow workers — these rights were made in 
 England the foundation of the working-class legal status. 
 While the industrial revolution was thus creating con- 
 ditions capable of bringing all these evils upon the work- 
 ing class, the eighteenth century philosophy of laissez 
 fairc removed from the new industrial authority, the 
 modern employer, the sense and duty of responsibility 
 which rested on the old privileged orders. 
 
 The eighteenth century philosophy of Europe was 
 taken over by America and crystallized in written con- 
 stitutions. The Constitution of the United States is 
 based definitely on the notions of natural order and 
 natural rights. The natural rights which it especially 
 guarantees are the right to property and the equal pro- 
 tection of the laws. The notion that government should 
 keep hands ofif industrial affairs and relations, and that 
 free contract is the touchstone of social and individual 
 well-being, was adopted without question by the Ameri- 
 can courts. These rights of the individual employer and 
 worker, intrenched by constitutional private property 
 guarantees, thus became in America the basis of indus- 
 trial law. 
 
 Now this social philosophy and its crystallization in
 
 250 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 law were undoubtedly right and good relative to the con- 
 ditions existing during the time of its development. It 
 was a period of handicraft industry where capitalistic 
 enterprise was slight, where the relations between mas- 
 ter and man were, in general, close and sympathetic — 
 master and apprentice were almost like the members of 
 a family — where the dissatisfied workman could easily 
 acquire the means of successful enterprise and set up for 
 himself. Under such circumstances free competition 
 did, to a very great extent, put employer and worker on 
 an equal competitive basis, and free enterprise did mean 
 in general the serving of the public good. But hardly 
 had the laissez faire philosophy been established in prac- 
 tice when a new set of conditions arose which destroyed 
 the equality of individual employer and worker and made 
 it entirely unfit to meet the new conditions and needs. 
 This was the industrial revolution whoSe effect on the 
 relation of employers and workers we have already con- 
 sidered. And further, there soon arose a new social 
 philosophy quite out of harmony with that which had 
 given birth to the laissea faire theory and practice — the 
 evolutionary concept of society. 
 
 The law then became out of harmony both with social 
 theory and social needs and conditions. But such is the 
 force of social habit and tradition that it is only now, 
 after a century and more, that the fact is coming to be 
 clearly apprehended. But just as the earlier restrictive 
 system passed out as the result of the development of 
 the natural rights philosophy and the rise of the indus- 
 trial buyer class and free labor, so the laisses faire policy 
 based on these things is bound to pass out as the result 
 of the development of the evolutionary doctrine and mod- 
 em capitalism, which contradicts the old assumptions.
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 251 
 
 The only question is, shall it pass quickly and give place 
 to something based on knowledge and wise prevision, or 
 shall we drift, the blind sport of circumstance, and per- 
 haps get results from unintelligent democratic control 
 that will be infinitely worse than what we now have? 
 
 I should like to ask regarding this characterization, 
 therefore : is it true as far as it goes, is there not another 
 side to the matter which should be stated? As things 
 now are, should we be any better off if the law repre- 
 sented the evolutionary, progressive or democratic con- 
 cept of society? How would the law proceed on the 
 basis of that principle? What must we have before the 
 law can safely be based and proceed on that principle? 
 Undoubtedly there is danger of leaving the law com- 
 pletely in the hands of the democracy with the lack of 
 any definite standards of justice or methods of procedure 
 of an evolutionary character that might be substituted 
 for those at present in use. What we need is machinery 
 for securing reliable information in the field of labor 
 problems, for creating standards, maxima and minima, 
 rules of the game in this field that will reflect present 
 conditions and will grow and change with developing 
 conditions and relationships, and for educating an in- 
 telligent public in relation to these matters. All this 
 seems necessary before we can hope for anything better 
 from an evolutionary transformation and enlarged demo- 
 cratic control of the law. More especially we need: (i) 
 To take out of the control of the common law, out of the 
 field of contentious litigation, out of the hands of the 
 court and out of the realm of court procedure much that 
 concerns labor disputes and the administration of the 
 law, where flexibility and judgment on a basis of exist- 
 ing conditions are especially needed and the present tech-
 
 252 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 nical legal procedure is slow, inelastic, and obstructive ;^* 
 (2) to adopt a method of securing up-to-date informa- 
 tion; (3) to develop standards and rules of the game, 
 jtist for the present, and flexible enough to meet chang- 
 ing conditions; and (4) to educate an intelligent public 
 in regard to these matters, i.e., progressively to do away 
 with the dangers of democracy. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Annual Review of Labor Legislation, American Labor 
 
 Legislation Reviezv. 
 Clark, Lindley D. The Law of the Employment of La- 
 bor (1911). 
 Commons and Andrews. Principles of Labor Legislon 
 
 Hon (1916). 
 Cooke, F. H. The Law of Combinatio{ns, Monopolies 
 
 and Labor Unions, 2d ed. (1909). 
 Decisions of Courts Affecting Labor, U. S. Bureau of 
 
 Labor Statistics, annual report. 
 Groat, G. G. Attitude of American Courts in Labor 
 
 Cases (1911). 
 Hamilton, W. H. Current Economic Problems (1915), 
 
 pt. XII, "Social Reform and Legal Institutions," pp. 
 
 647-689. 
 Laidler, H. W. Boycotts and the Labor Struggle 
 
 (1913)- 
 
 Pound, Roscoe. "Do We Need a Philosophy of Law?" 
 Columbia Law Review, vol. 5, pp. 341-353 (1905). 
 
 Stimson, F. J. Handbook of the Labor Law of the 
 United States (1896). 
 
 Cooke-Taylor, Richard Wiiately. The Modern Fac- 
 tory System (1891). 
 '" New York State Industrial Commission Bulletin, I, p. 9 
 
 O915).
 
 THE LAW IN RELATION TO LABOR 253 
 
 Cunningham, William. Grozcih of English Industry 
 and Commerce in Modern Times, vol. 3, Laissc:j-Fairc 
 
 (1903). 
 
 Downey, E. H. History of Work Accident Indemnity in 
 Iowa (1912), chaps. II, III, IV. 
 
 Engels, P'rederick. The Condition of the Working- 
 Class in England in 1844 (1892). 
 
 Gaskell, p. The Manufacturing Population of England 
 
 (1833). 
 
 GiBBiNS, Henry de Beltgens. Industry in England 
 (1906), chaps. XX-XXV. 
 
 Hamilton, W. H. Current Economic Problems, "The 
 Industrial Revolution," pp. 36-70. 
 
 Kydd, Samuel (Alfred, pseud.) The History of the 
 Factory Movement (1857). 
 
 Report of the Minutes of Evidence taken before the 
 Select Committee on the State of the Children em- 
 ployed in Manufactories of the United Kingdom, House 
 of Commons (1816). 
 
 Report of Select Committee on Factory Children's La- 
 bor (known as ''Sadler's Committee"), House of Com- 
 mons (1831). 
 
 First Report of Commissioners on the Employment of 
 Children in Factories, House of Commons (1834). 
 
 Reports from the Select Committee of the House of Lords 
 on the Sweating System (1888). 
 
 Toynbee, Arnold. The Industrial Revolution (1890), 
 chaps. VI, VII, VIII, IX.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AND THE TRADE 
 UNION PROGRAM 
 
 By interpretation of the trade union program* is meant 
 the explanation of the union aims, principles and theo- 
 ries in terms of the conditions which the workers have to 
 face, the problems they have to solve, and the funda- 
 mental assumptions which they hold as a consequence. 
 It is also the explanation of union policies, demands, 
 methods and attitudes in terms of these aims, principles, 
 theories and assumptions, and an attempted rough evalu- 
 ation of the items of the union program in terms of 
 social welfare.^ In "Industrial Democracy" ^ we have 
 found the only worth while systematic attempt at the 
 general interpretation of unionism. To this store of fun- 
 damentals I propose to add a little through a brief con- 
 sideration of collective bargaining and a statement of 
 two or three significant bits of union reasoning which 
 
 ^ See Appendix II, p. 391. 
 
 - In proceeding to an interpretation of the trade union pro- 
 gram the plan is to take up and show the character and deriva- 
 tion of the few fundamental economic policies, principles and 
 theories of unionism that have not already been incidentally 
 explained, and then to go through the specific items of the pro- 
 gram and see how far they can be interpreted in terms of these. 
 This at once shows how far trade unionism as such is econom- 
 ically and socially valid. 
 
 * Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Industrial Democracy. 
 
 254
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 255 
 
 have not been brought out in our study. At this point 
 a word of caution against two things is needed; first, 
 against expecting entire consistency between the differ- 
 ent strands of union theory. Union theory is not a well 
 knit and consistent whole — any more than is union ac- 
 tion. As has been said many times, unionism is, above 
 all, pragmatic and opportunistic; when a certain line of 
 action seems to be demanded by the circumstances, union- 
 ists are inclined to seize upon the interpretation which 
 seems to justify it, regardless of whether it is consistent 
 with other general statements of their position. Sec- 
 ondly, the tendency which generally comes with the first 
 part of the study to revert to a narrow economic con- 
 ception of unionism as a device merely for raising wages 
 and shortening hours must be avoided. It should be kept 
 in mind always that unionism is much more than this, 
 and that whatever the study seems to show as to its in- 
 ability to raise wages and shorten hours generally, and 
 its narrow group and antisocial character, it has vast in- 
 fluence outside this narrow field where its group interests 
 and effects do not necessarily come into conflict with 
 social interests generally. This outside field includes the 
 education of its members, the reform of the law, pro- 
 tecting men and especially women workers from all sorts 
 of indignities and arbitrary oppression from their su- 
 periors, establishing systematic constitutional govern- 
 ment in industry in place of anarchic, or arbitrary ab- 
 solutistic power, and thus creating among its own mem- 
 bers a spirit of dignity and hopefulness and stimulating 
 a spirit of striving among those outside its ranks. With 
 these explanatory statements and cautions let us turn to 
 the theory of collective bargaining. 
 
 There are four main strands to the theory of collec-
 
 256 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 tive bargaining. The first is a theory of standardization. 
 Wages and the conditions of employment are determined 
 by the relative bargaining strength of the workers and 
 employers of the industrial group. Under competitive 
 conditions the bargaining strength of the employer is 
 greater than that of the individual worker because ( i ) 
 of the superior knowledge, bargaining skill and waiting 
 power of the employer; (2) of the lesser thing at stake 
 with the employer, profits as against life; (3) there is 
 always an actual or potential oversupply of labor; (4) 
 the weakest employers industrially and financially are the 
 strongest labor bargainers; (5) the competitive strength 
 of the labor group under individual bargaining Is equal 
 only (ultimately) or tends to be equal only to the com- 
 petitive strength of its weakest member, as is illustrated 
 by the case of ten places and eleven men; and (6) the 
 full bargaining strength of the employer is bound to be 
 exercised against the workers under competitive con- 
 ditions because of the pressure of the consuming public 
 for cheap goods transmitted through retailer and whole- 
 saler; and because the most unscrupulous employer sets 
 the pace, and under capitalistic monopoly conditions im- 
 personality produces the same results. Therefore, in- 
 dividual or competitive bargaining on the part of the 
 workers means progressive deterioration of wages and 
 conditions of employment. The tendency is for wages 
 and conditions to sink to the level which could be secured 
 through the competitive strength of the weakest worker 
 of the group. The only way to prevent this deterioration 
 is to rule out all competition between the individual 
 workers of the group, both in the making of the bargain 
 with the employer, and in the subsequent interpretation 
 of it and work under it.
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 257^ 
 
 This can be done only by the establishment and 
 maintenance of two principles : the principle of uniform- 
 ity in regard to all the conditions of work and pay where 
 competition direct or indirect can take place between in- 
 dividual workers, and the principle of standardization, 
 or restrictive regulation, by the group, of all changes in 
 conditions of work and pay during the term of the wage 
 contract. These principles can be established and main- 
 tained only through collective bargaining, and this is 
 its principal function. 
 
 The second strand of the theory underlying collective 
 bargaining is also a theory of standardization but of a 
 slightly different nature, for it relates to definite, clearly 
 cognizable standards of work and pay. It may be stated 
 thus: The employer is constantly endeavoring to rein- 
 troduce individual bargaining and to force down the wage 
 rate and Increase the exertion and output for a given 
 wage by indirect and specific encroachments on the exist- 
 ing status, for instance, by slight changes in method and 
 process, by creating conditions which require slightly 
 greater exertion or irregular home work and overtime; 
 by division of processes and redistribution of work, by 
 changes in tools, by changes In mode of payment, and 
 by arbitrary fines and exactions. These changes for the 
 most part have the effect of increasing work or reducing 
 pay. In the absence of clearly defined standards they are 
 easy to introduce and are often Introduced so as to 
 result in reductions without knowledge of this effect by 
 the workers, and the individual worker alone is usually 
 too weak, even if he does recognize their effect, to re- 
 sist them. It is a method of forcing workers co com- 
 pete against one another without their knowledge or con- 
 sent. These encroachments mean, therefore, undercut-
 
 258 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ting and a progressive reduction of wage rates and con- 
 ditions of employment. 
 
 The only way to prevent this is to have all the incidents 
 of work and pay most minutely and clearly specified and 
 this specification rigorously maintained. This can be 
 done only through collective bargaining. Many minute 
 and harassing specifications are laid down, especially in 
 regard to kinds of work that may be done by each 
 worker, modes of doing the work, times and modes of 
 payment, deductions and exactions, times of be'ginning 
 and ending of work, machinery, materials, objectionable 
 work, etc. Such restrictive regulations are reasonable 
 if the employer is constantly trying to make encroach- 
 ments. This he is doing, say the workers, for the em- 
 ployer's motive is profit, and these encroachments are in 
 great part the little improvements in method and savings 
 that, under fierce competition, mean the difference be- 
 tween reasonable profits or very low or no profits. He 
 is forced to make them though he is naturally humane, 
 but under competition the least humane rules, and, even 
 under monopoly conditions, these are among the vaunted 
 gains, or the savings, of competition. 
 
 The third strand of the theory of collective bargain- 
 ing concerns its benefits to employers. Among the ad- 
 vantages to the employer arising out of unionism and 
 the union shop, as claimed by the unionists, are these : 
 (i) The unions claim to supply the employer with a suf- 
 ficient amount 0* high-grade labor, intelligent, self-re- 
 specting, well trained and restrained. (2) The unions 
 claim to exercise a disciplinary control over this labor, to 
 see that the individuals give to the employer a fair day's 
 work for a fair day's wage, to see that the workers as 
 individuals or as a shop group do not violate their agree-
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 259 
 
 ments with the employer, and to replace workers who 
 cannot be depended upon in this way by those who can. 
 (3) The unions claim to relieve the employer from the 
 danger of sudden and ill-considered strikes to which the 
 employer is apt to be subjected from unorganized and 
 undisciplined workers. (4) The unions claim that they 
 protect the employer from waste of materials, misuse of 
 tools and machinery, sabotage, and other individualistic 
 and revolutionary methods of unorganized workers. (5) 
 The unions claim that agreement with them insures 
 the employer the stability of industrial outlook which is 
 essential to successful conduct of business. They do this 
 by entering into an agreement with the individual em- 
 ployer which guarantees that he shall have for a certain 
 period an adequate labor supply, turning out a definite 
 output, at a definite labor cost, and, where these agree- 
 ments are made by the union with the employers cover- 
 ing the whole industry or the market area, that the em- 
 ployer is protected for the term of the agreement from 
 the cutthroat competition of his rivals. (6) The unions 
 claim that their membership is capable of turning out 
 a superior quality of product and that this lessens the 
 necessary amount of expense of inspection; that their 
 members effect savings of tools, materials and machin- 
 ery, and prevent loss by minimizing the product that 
 must be scrapped or reworked because of failure to come 
 up to standard requirements, and that the union men re- 
 quire less supervision and instruction. (7) The unions 
 claim that their members are capable of performing many 
 auxiliary operations which unskilled or specialist work- 
 men cannot, as, for example, the adjusting of the ma- 
 chinery, the making of minor repairs, the laying out and 
 setting up of work, the overcoming of special difficulties,
 
 26o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 etc., thus effecting further savings for the employer. (8) 
 The unions claim that they put all the employers in the 
 trade within the competing area on an equal competitive 
 footing, that is, they rule out the special exigencies of 
 the particular employers and they protect fair and hon- 
 orable employers from the cutthroat competition of un- 
 fair employers ; they even up the natural conditions, such 
 as those of different mines and districts, which are given 
 differentials in regard to wages, etc., that tend to put all 
 into the market on a fairly equal footing. 
 
 The fourth strand concerns the double-sided monopoly 
 possibilities and benefits of collective bargaining. Given 
 a strong employers' association and a strong group of 
 unions working together as, for instance, ordinarily in 
 the building trades, collective bargaining may be a most 
 effective means of creating monopoly conditions in the 
 trade and reaping benefits in higher prices and profits on 
 the one hand and higher wages on the other. Employ- 
 ers agree to the closed shop and the unions to harass 
 rival employers. 
 
 Back of these strands that constitute the theory of 
 collective bargaining are certain more basic theories that 
 serve in part to interpret them. The first may be desig- 
 nated the standard of living theory and the second the 
 group demand theory. 
 
 The standard of living theory runs as follows: Wages 
 and conditions of employment are determined by the 
 relative bargaining strength of the workers and em- 
 ployers of the industrial group. The bargaining strength 
 of the workers is in direct proportion to the standard of 
 living of the group and of the class. In bargaining for 
 wages and conditions of employment the prevailing 
 standard of living of the group tends to be taken as the
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 261 
 
 standard of justice; therefore, a high standard in the 
 group and class tends to strengthen the workers in their 
 attempts to secure and maintain high wages and good 
 conditions ; hence high wages tend to breed high wages, 
 and vice versa. In bargaining, the workers on a high 
 standard of Hving are more capable of waiting, therefore 
 their bargaining power is stronger; hence no wage re- 
 ductions. 
 
 The standard of living of the group tends to be taken 
 as the standard of justice in determining the wage rate. 
 Therefore anything that indicates that the existing wage 
 rate will yield more than the customary standard of liv- 
 ing tends to decrease the bargaining strength of the work- 
 ers and the wage rate and vice versa. Therefore the in- 
 dividual who works faster and turns out more product 
 than the normal tends to lower the wage rate ; hence the 
 necessity of limitations on the day, rate of work, piece 
 system, bonus system, etc. 
 
 We have seen that a large part of the trade union 
 program is wholly or partially explained by the theory 
 of uniformity or standardization. Another large part, 
 especially limitation of output and limitation of num- 
 bers, is explained partly by what is called the fixed 
 group demand theory. There is much scorn of unionists 
 by economists and employers because of this lump of 
 labor theory with its corollaries. This scorn is based on 
 the classical supply and demand theory and its variants. 
 Supply is demand. Increased efficiency in production 
 means an increase of social dividend and increased shares, 
 which in turn increase production and saving. There- 
 fore, the workers cut off their own noses when they 
 limit output or limit numbers. The classical position is 
 undoubtedly valid when applied to society as a whole, if
 
 262 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 there is any such thing, and in the long run. But the 
 trouble is that, so far as the workers are concerned, 
 there is no society as a whole, and no long run, but im- 
 mediate need and rival social groups. 
 
 The fixed group demand theory is as follows : The 
 demand for the labor of the group is determined by the 
 demand for the commodity output of the group. The 
 community — wealth and distribution remaining the 
 same — has a fairly fixed money demand for the com- 
 modities of a group. It will devote about a given pro- 
 portion of its purchasing power to these commodities, 
 that is, if the prices of the group commodity are higher, 
 it will buy less units and vice versa, but expend about the 
 same purchasing power. Therefore, the demand for the 
 labor of the group, profits remaining the same, is prac- 
 tically fixed, and increasing the group commodity out- 
 put means simply conferring a benefit on the members 
 of other groups as consumers without gain to the group 
 itself. Therefore, to increase the efiiciency and the 
 output of the group will not increase the group labor de- 
 mand and group wages. Decreasing the efficiency and 
 output of the group will not decrease the group labor 
 demand and the group wage. 
 
 Increasing the number of workers tends to decrease 
 their bargaining strength relatively and to lower the 
 total wage and the wage rate. Increasing the efficiency 
 and the output of the workers is equivalent to increas- 
 ing the group labor supply, and so tends to lower the 
 group wage and the wage rate. Decreasing the number 
 of workers tends to increase their bargaining strength 
 relatively and so to increase the group wage and the wage 
 rate. Decreasing the efficiency and output of the work- 
 ers tends to increase their bargaining strength relatively
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 263 
 
 and so to increase the group wage and the wage rate. 
 The introduction of labor saving devices is equivalent to 
 increasing the labor supply and so lowering the wage 
 rate. Limitation of output through shorter hours, etc., 
 i.e., decreasing the supply of labor, increases bargaining 
 strength and tends to increase the wage. Strikes and 
 trade union insurance funds are means of temporarily 
 withdrawing labor supply and so of increasing bargain- 
 ing strength and increasing wages. In practice the group 
 demand theory is simply the application by the unions 
 of the principle of monopoly, admittedly vahd. But 
 this theory only in part explains union efforts to limit 
 both individual and group efficiency and output and to 
 limit numbers. These policies in part rest on other 
 theories and considerations.* 
 
 Collective bargaining is a mode of fixing the terms of 
 employment by means of bargaining between an organ- 
 ized body of employees and an employer, or association 
 of employers, usually acting through duly authorized 
 agents. But does collective bargaining have the effect 
 of increasing or decreasing real bargaining in the deter- 
 mination of the terms of employment? The essential 
 thing is that collective bargaining really puts the work- 
 ers on a footing of equality with employers in regard to 
 
 * Cf. "The Trade Union Program," Appendix, p. 391, and note 
 what policies and demands are intended to limit, or have the 
 effect of limiting, output and so are to be at least partially ex- 
 plained by the group demand theory. A portion of the argument 
 for restriction on output centers about the question — a central 
 point in the opposition of the union against the employer — 
 whether cheapness or men are more important, that is, to what 
 extent it is justifiable to make society sacrifice greatest possible 
 production in order that the worker may have a decent life.
 
 264 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 terms of employment. It is a method of securing that 
 equality which is presumed, under the free contract as- 
 sumption of our law, to give to each party what he is 
 entitled to and what is to the best interests of all. The 
 essence of collective bargaining is a bargain between in- 
 terested parties and not a decree from outside parties. 
 But arbitration is often provided for in collective bar- 
 gaining under certain contingencies and for certain pur- 
 poses, especially when the parties cannot reach agree- 
 ment, and in the interpretation of an agreement. 
 
 Conciliation is a term often applied to the act of col- 
 lective bargaining, a term also often applied to the action 
 of public boards which attempt to induce collective bar- 
 gaining. 
 
 Mediation is intervention, usually uninvited, of some 
 outside person or body with a view of getting concilia- 
 tion or to force a settlement. Compulsory arbitration is 
 extreme mediation. All these things are aids or supple- 
 ments to collective bargaining where it breaks down. 
 They represent the intervention of outside parties. 
 
 The trade agreement is an explicit statement of the 
 terms of the collective bargain; it makes a formal com- 
 pact. The essential parts of a trade agreement are : 
 
 ( 1 ) A preamble, defining the parties to the agreement, 
 its scope or field, its duration, and its general purpose. 
 
 (2) A legislative code, giving the working rules, etc. 
 The points covered by the legislative part of the agree- 
 ment range from wages and hours to the most minute 
 regulation of all the technical conditions or incidents of 
 work and pay. (3) A judicial code defining the mode of 
 interpretation. (4) An executive part, providing a 
 mode of enforcement. Not all trade agreements have 
 all these distinct and essential parts. They range from
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 26$ 
 
 the rudimentary ones, including the preamble and legisla- 
 tive code, to those which are most formal and elaborate, 
 containing all parts. 
 
 Types of agreement according to scope: 
 
 1. Local: shop, craft and industry. 
 
 2. Intermediate or district : craft, allied craft. 
 
 3. System and industry. 
 
 4. National: craft and industry. 
 Parties to the agreement : 
 
 1. Local: (a) single employer and shop; (b) local em- 
 ployers or employers' association and local craft union. 
 
 2. Intermediate: (a) local employers' association and 
 local council of allied crafts; (b) system officers, allied 
 crafts of system; (c) system officers and craft organization 
 of system; (d) employers of district and district union 
 organization. 
 
 3. National: (a) national employers' association and the 
 national union, craft or industrial. 
 
 The scope is determined by: 
 
 1. The degree of uniformity of conditions. 
 
 2. The extent and character of the organization on both 
 sides. 
 
 3. The area of competition. 
 
 Theoretically or ideally, corresponding to the three 
 essential parts of the trade agreement, the legislative, the 
 judicial and the executive, there are three distinct steps 
 in the process of collective bargaining : ( i ) the creation 
 of a trade agreement, (2) the interpretation of the agree- 
 ment, and (3) the enforcement of the agreement. Each 
 of these steps has its peculiar character and aim, and 
 therefore each requires a special kind of intellectual and 
 moral activity and machinery. 
 
 The creation of the agreement is a process of finding
 
 266 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and making specific applications, in the trade, of com- 
 mon standards of judgment as to right, rights and feasi- 
 bility, or of compromising differences of opinion, interest 
 and point of view on the part of the opposing parties 
 concerned. It is, in essence, a legislative process. Its 
 machinery should provide above all things for a con- 
 tact of the parties most concerned, for the purpose of 
 deliberation and discussion. To succeed in this process, 
 there is required on both sides general and specific trade 
 knowledge and the ordinary qualities of successful bar- 
 gaining. In general, effective bargaining requires that 
 the bargaining body should be small ; that the negotiators 
 should have full power, and that the personnel should be 
 made up of veterans who possess (a) bargaining ability 
 (shrewdness, know^ledge of men, judgment, self-control, 
 nerve, persistence, tact, unscrupulousness, etc.), (b) 
 technical knowledge (more especially where piece rates 
 are paid), ability to estimate effects of changes, new 
 processes, machinery, etc., and (c) information as to the 
 state of the trade. 
 
 The interpretation of the agreement, its application 
 to actual cases which arise, the determination of the par- 
 ticular class to which a piece of work belongs and the 
 rates and conditions which apply — such as a change in 
 patterns, a variation in seams of coal, the introduction 
 of new machinery — are, on the other hand, in general, 
 matters of the application of law to fact. There are 
 three classes of cases: (i) construction (interpretation) 
 of rules; (2) questions of fact to which rules are to be 
 applied; and (3) cases not provided for in the agree- 
 ment.® 
 
 " For illustrations, see decisions of the Joint Board of Miners 
 and Operators ; rulings on railway agreements (printed along
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 267 
 
 This is a judicial process and as the facts to be deter- 
 mined and the rules applied are apt to be, as we have seen, 
 very technical and complex, success in interpretation of 
 an agreement requires chiefly expert technical knowl- 
 edge. As the process is merely one of the application of 
 fixed rules, the machinery need not, and, according to 
 some authorities, should not provide for contact between 
 interested parties and deliberation. It should be simple 
 and its operation free from possible partisanship and 
 bias, the work of a small body of experts. The ideal is 
 some form of machinery that will be automatic, rapid, 
 inexpensive, exact and matter-of-fact. 
 
 Finally, the enforcement of the agreement is a mere 
 matter of authority, an executive process, and requires 
 a series of executive or police working tools backed up 
 by effective force. 
 
 In practice, especially in the United States as com- 
 pared with England, these three essential parts of an 
 agreement are not always or perhaps ordinarily dis- 
 tinctly recognized. Many of the agreements in fact con- 
 sist merely of a statement of the agreement and a few 
 specific working rules. Others, indeed, contain a multi- 
 tude of working rules and provisions, and elaborate state- 
 ments covering the settlement of disputes and the en- 
 forcement of the agreement, but the distinct character of 
 the legislative and judicial functions is not very clearly 
 appreciated. Consequently, distinct machinery is not al- 
 ways provided for the performance of these functions, 
 and the machinery which is provided, especially for the 
 
 with such agreements) ; decisions of national arbitration boards 
 of the International Typographical Union and the Newspaper 
 Publishers' Association; decisions of Standing Committee of the 
 Potters' Association and the Brotherhood of Operative Potters.
 
 268 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 judicial function, is not generally appropriate. Like 
 everything else connected with American unionism the 
 methods and machinery of collective bargaining are in a 
 state of flux. They are being built up by the trial 
 method. There is immense variation, and to a large 
 extent they are in a rudimentary or crude state. 
 
 Let us examine a little more specifically the machinery 
 and methods in the creation of agreements. Here we 
 find, in the simplest situation in the case, that of a shop 
 agreement, what might be called a town meeting type. 
 The employer or foreman meets his workers and negotia- 
 tions are direct, but this direct form of legislation is 
 impossible as soon as the agreement broadens out be- 
 yond the single shop. Then representative government, 
 at least on the side of the workers, becomes necessary 
 because the workers cannot stop work in order to nego- 
 tiate ; the body becomes unwieldy ; agreement among the 
 workers becomes extremely difficult; and requisite skill 
 for bargaining is not possessed by many workers, espe- 
 cially by men confined in work to single processes and 
 uneducated, nor by employers specialized in large cor- 
 porations. The negotiations then fall into the hands of 
 representatives, officers, committees, delegates, or boards 
 who may be given full power to negotiate and to deter- 
 mine, or who, more often, must report results back to 
 the body of workers for consideration and a referendum 
 vote. 
 
 On the side of the union, ordinary types of negotiating 
 bodies are: 
 
 ( I ) A temporary or special committee as in the buildings 
 trades unions, street railway employees, etc. The tempo- 
 rary committee is regularly composed of salaried (profes- 
 sional) union officers.
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 269 
 
 (2) A standing or permanent committee — as in the case 
 of the railway unions, printing trades, and operative 
 potters. 
 
 (3) A convention of delegates, as with the United Mine 
 Workers of America, the Longshoremen, and the Amal- 
 gamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. (The convention 
 of the last merely adopts a scale which is submitted to the 
 several mills.) 
 
 On the side of the employer the negotiations are carried 
 on by: 
 
 (i) His manager, etc., in effecting a shop agreement. 
 
 (2) Officers of the employing corporation, as in the case 
 of a steam railway, street railway. Amalgamated Copper or 
 the American Locomotive Company. 
 
 (3) Committees of employers' associations, i.e., salaried 
 officers or important members, as with the Stove Founders' 
 National Defense Association, Newspaper Publishers' Asso- 
 ciation, the United States Potters' Association, Lake Car- 
 riers' Association, Chicago Warehouse Men's Association, 
 etc. 
 
 (4) A convention of employers (coal mine operators). 
 
 The existing agreement or working conditions, in the 
 absence of agreement, is the basis of negotiations. The 
 new agreement is reached by modifying the old. De- 
 mands on each side are formulated before actual nego- 
 tiations begin, in meetings or conventions of employers 
 and employees separately. The negotiators on each side 
 are not absolutely bound by instructions but are left free 
 to get as much as possible ; and negotiation proceeds by 
 a series of demands and offers, usually ending in a com- 
 promise. 
 
 It is plain, from what precedes, that a responsible union 
 and, where more than one employer is a party to the 
 bargaining, a responsible employers' organization or as-
 
 270 JRADE UNIONISM 
 
 sociation, authorized to act for the individuals concerned 
 and capable of enforcing the bargaining contract in all 
 its incidents, are main conditions for successful collective 
 bargaining. The necessity for this is evident, for neither 
 side can afford to bargain where it cannot depend upon 
 the enforcement of the contract; hence the necessity for 
 the union to be strongly officered, and the impossibility 
 of successful collective bargaining where membership is 
 too radical and too socialistic to respect contracts. In- 
 deed, enforcement of contract might be put down as the 
 indispensable condition for collective bargaining. Where 
 it fails, collective bargaining must fail. 
 
 Recognition of the union by the employers is obvi- 
 ously another essential condition of collective bargain- 
 ing. There is no other medium through which the work- 
 ers can be dealt with collectively. Before collective bar- 
 gaining can begin the union must be actually or tacitly 
 recognized. When the unions strike for recognition as 
 they frequently do, recognition is not then, as usually 
 supposed, an arbitrary demand but it is demanded in 
 the interest of collective bargaining, and when the em- 
 ployer refuses to recognize the union he does so usually 
 because he refuses to recognize collective bargaining as 
 a mode of settling wage rates and working conditions, 
 i.e., he refuses to admit that he has not a right to manage 
 his business to suit himself, an admission which is in- 
 volved in collective bargaining. Hence the frequent 
 struggles over the demand for recognition. 
 
 As has been said, what is needed for the interpretation 
 of agreements is machinery that will work automatically 
 and rapidly, and be inexpensive, exact, and matter-of- 
 fact, and these needs are best met by a small body of 
 experts without interest in the outcome, and therefore
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 271 
 
 without bias. In practice, in the United States, this has 
 not been generally followed. The idea seems to have 
 prevailed that the interpretation of agreements in the 
 settlement of disputes is a matter of negotiation between 
 interested parties, experts with presumably unbiased judg- 
 ment being brought in only as a last resort. The ma- 
 chinery generally provided is a series of tribunals with 
 appeals from one to another. The machinery differs 
 with the union. 
 
 Important illustrations are: 
 
 1. In coal mining: (a) the primary tribunal to which is 
 referred for adjustment a dispute between an individual 
 workman and a mine foreman (or subordinate boss) is 
 the pit committee and the mine foreman. On their failure 
 to agree, the dispute is taken to (b) the local officers and 
 superintendent of the mine (or to the mine owner). Upon 
 their failure to agree, the dispute, if a question of discharge, 
 is referred either to (c) an arbitrator whose decision is 
 final, or, if any other dispute, to the president of the dis- 
 trict of the United Mine Workers of America and the Com- 
 missioner of the operators. Upon their failure to agree, 
 the appeal lies with (d) the Joint Board, consisting of the 
 executive board of the district of the United Mine Workers 
 of America and the Executive Committee of the Operators' 
 Association. Their decision is final. 
 
 2. In the building trades: (a) an individual dispute is 
 taken up by the steward or business agent with the fore- 
 man; (b) an appeal then may be made to the business 
 agent and to the contractor; (c) when still unsettled, appeal 
 is next made to the joint board of the union and the contrac- 
 tors' association; and (d) upon their failure to agree an 
 umpire may be called in and the majority vote of the board 
 with the umpire is final. 
 
 3. On railway lines: (a) an individual or general divi-
 
 272 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 sion dispute is first considered by the division committee 
 and appropriate division officer of the railway, v^^ho may 
 be division superintendent, passenger agent, mechanical 
 superintendent, master mechanic, superintendent of motor 
 power, etc.; (b) upon failure of the division committee the 
 dispute is taken up by the joint protective board or the 
 general committee of the system (a chairman and from 
 four to six members, the chairman of each division), ap- 
 pointed by the men, and appropriate officers of the railway 
 system, such as general superintendent or general manager, 
 and by that committee carried from successive officials of 
 the railway hierarchy to the highest appropriate official for 
 final adjustment, 
 
 4. In the printing trades the successive tribunals are: 
 (a) chairman of the chapel and the foreman; (b) local 
 joint board of the union and the employers' association ; 
 (c) local allied printing trades council and officers of pub- 
 lishers' association, and (d) national joint arbitration board. 
 
 It cannot be said that any generally accepted definite or 
 adequate machinery has been developed in the United 
 States for the enforcement of agreements. In some 
 cases there is joint control. Joint boards^ or standing 
 committees are often empowered to fine, suspend, or 
 expel individual employees, local unions or employers. 
 But in the majority of cases, probably, enforcement de- 
 pends merely on the inclination or authority possessed 
 by each party to the agreement to discipline its own sub- 
 
 * Such boards are the Joint Board of Miners and Operators, 
 the National Arbitration Board of Newspaper Publishers and 
 the International Typographical Union, the Standing Committee 
 of the Potters' Association and Operative Potters, and the Joint 
 Arbitration Board of Carpenters' and Builders' Association and 
 the District Council of Carpenters (Chicago).
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 273 
 
 ordinate bodies or individual members, or, in case of the 
 employers, the legal power to discharge employees. 
 
 In general, this enforcement consists, on the side of 
 the workers, in the power of the unions to discipline their 
 members. The local officers have such authority; the 
 international officers have authority to discipline indi- 
 vidual members or locals ; and district officers often have 
 intermediate authority over locals and individual mem- 
 bers. On the part of the employer, enforcement lies in 
 his power to discharge individual employees or to dis- 
 cipline subordinate officers, foremen, superintendents, 
 division officers, etc., and in the authority which em- 
 ployers' associations have to discipline employers. 
 
 Machinery for the enforcement of agreements on the 
 part of the union is found in the steward, or the com- 
 mittee or other representative at the working place ; and 
 in inspection by the business agent or other executive 
 officer. On the part of the employers the power rests 
 with the foreman, superintendent or other representative 
 at the working place; or through inspection by the ex- 
 ecutive officer of the association. 
 
 Penalties for violations are not usually provided for 
 in the agreement or if so are not enforceable at law. For 
 individual employees discipline may consist in discharge 
 or lay-off by the employer, fine by the union, employer, 
 or joint board, suspension from the union, or expulsion 
 from the union. Local unions may suffer a fine by the 
 district, or national, suspension or forfeiture of charter. 
 The employer may be punished by a fine imposed by the 
 union, or by the employers' association, or he may be 
 suspended or expelled from the association.'^ 
 
 ^ The essence of the protocol consists of machinery for the 
 settlement of difficulties as they arise, and so for building up a
 
 274 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Inviolability of contracts is preached and largely 
 practiced by the Railway Brotherhoods, the United Mine 
 Workers of America, the United Textile Workers of 
 America, the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, the Na- 
 tional Brotherhood of Operative Potters, the Glass Bottle 
 Blowers' Association, and the International Seamen's 
 Union of America, etc. Cases are not infrequent among 
 business unions where the keeping of contracts is en- 
 forced on a local.^ 
 
 Agreement on general principles of right and justice is 
 not the sticking point. Collective bargaining is rather a 
 compromise. But we know that there are no standards 
 which both sides recognize, and therefore the compromise 
 is an unstable affair. Neither side is really satisfied. It 
 is an inconclusive peace. Accordingly, the obligation of 
 the contract tends to be taken lightly by both sides. 
 This is one of the great weaknesses of collective bar- 
 gaining, even as a settlement of group difficulties. 
 
 Collective bargaining and arbitration, however, are 
 steps toward full labor control. They are an entering 
 
 body of law for the shop. To make it work there is needed a 
 new attitude on the part of the employer and a new type of 
 union leader. The general type of the trade union leadership 
 for it does not exist. Trade unionism, as we have seen it, would 
 have to be greatly changed to make the protocol work. There 
 is nothing about it that touches or tends to solve the intergroup 
 problem — the broad social problem that we have visualized. 
 
 * Mr. Keefe of the Longshoremen, when a local union asked 
 higher pay than the scale agreed upon, telegraphed the ship- 
 master to pay what was demanded. He then fined the local and 
 suspended it until the fine was paid, and from the union funds 
 repaid the excess to the shipmaster. The Locomotive Engineers 
 have frequently expelled members for violating agreements. In 
 fact, all the railway brotherhoods will furnish men in place of 
 members who strike in violation of agreement.
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 275 
 
 wedge toward industrial democracy and abolition of the 
 profits system. Recognition of the union is the first 
 step, since individual bargaining gives the workers no 
 voice. This, then, is the important thing — not the lack 
 of a principle of justice. Collective bargaining is not 
 an instrument of peace primarily. It is a step in the 
 process of control. Indeed, the significant thing about 
 unionism is the development of a process of control. 
 This is the larger aspect of unionism and in this sense 
 collective bargaining is a solution of the labor problem. 
 
 Bibliography 
 Trade 'Agreements: 
 
 Printing Trades, Building Trades, Coal Miners, Railroad 
 Brotherhoods, etc. 
 
 Texts of Agreements: 
 Bulletins of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, 44:132-135; 
 47:903-909; 48:1045-1063; 49:1312-1340; 50:132-147; 
 51:415-435; 52:638-650; 53:933-936; 55:1623-1635; 
 56:244-257. 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, No. 98 (1912) : 
 
 "Attitude of Employing Interests Toward Conciliation 
 and Arbitration in Great Britain," by A. Maurice Low, 
 pp. 161-178. 
 
 "Attitude of Labor Toward Conciliation and Arbitration 
 in Great Britain," by A. E. Holder, pp. 179-202. 
 
 "The Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act of 
 1907," pp. 64-81. 
 
 "Conciliation and Arbitration in Great Britain," pp. 123- 
 160. 
 
 "Conciliation and Arbitration of Railway Labor Dis- 
 putes in Great Britain," pp. 82-122. 
 
 "Conciliation, Arbitration and Sanitation in the Cloak,
 
 276 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Suit and Skirt Industry in New York City," by C. H. 
 Winslow, pp. 203-272. 
 "Mediation and Arbitration of Railway Labor Disputes 
 in the United States," by C. P. Neill, pp. 1-63. 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, vol. XII, No. 62 
 (1906). 
 
 "Conciliation in the Stove Industry," by J. P. Frey and 
 J. R. Commons. 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, vol. LX, No. 51 
 (1904). 
 
 "The Union Movement Among Coal Miners," by F. J. 
 Warne. 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Department of Labor, No. 42 (1902) : 
 Report to the President of the Anthracite Strike Com- 
 mission on the Coal Strike of 1902. 
 
 Ashley, W. J. The Adjustment of Wages (1903). 
 
 Barnett, G. E. "National and District Systems of Col- 
 lective Bargaining in the United States," Quarterly Jour- 
 nal of Economics, 26:425-443 (1912). 
 
 Commons, John R. Trade Unionism and Labor Problems 
 (1905), chap. I, "Trade Agreements." 
 
 Commons and Andrews. Principles of Labor Legislation 
 (1916), chap. III. 
 
 Donnelly, S. B. "The Trade Agreement in the Building 
 Trades," Annals of the American Academy, 27:510-516 
 (1906). 
 
 Oilman, N. P. Methods of Industrial Peace (1904), chap. 
 IV, "Collective Bargaining." 
 
 Hollander and Barnett. Studies in American Trade 
 Unio\nism, chap. VI. "Collective Bargaining in the Typo- 
 graphical Union," by G. E. Barnett; chap. VIII, "Trade- 
 Union Agreements in the Iron Molders' Union," by F. 
 W. Hilbert. 
 
 Mitchell, John. Organized Labor, chap. I, "The Philos-
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 277 
 
 ophy of Trade Unionism"; chap. XXXIX, "The Strike 
 versus the Trade Agreement." 
 Price, L. L. Industrial Peace: Its Advantages, Methods 
 
 and Difficulties ( 1887). 
 Report of the United States Industrial Commission (1901) : 
 Vol. VIII, pp. Ixii-lxv, "Agreements Between Unions 
 
 and Contractors and Violations of Them." 
 Vol. XVII, pt. I, chap. 2, "Collective Bargaining, Con- 
 ciliation and Arbitration." 
 Vol. XVII, pt. Ill, chap. I, "National and General Trade 
 
 Systems in the United States." 
 Vol. XVII, pt. Ill, chap. 2, "Local Collective Bargaining." 
 Vol. XIX, pp. 833-862, "Collective Bargaining, Concilia- 
 tion and Arbitration." 
 Stewart, E. "Trade Agreements," Annals of the Amer. 
 
 Acad., 36:340-348 (1910). 
 SuFFERN, Arthur E. Conciliation and Arbitration in the 
 
 Coal Industry of America (1915). 
 Taylor, B. "The Labor Treaty in the British Shipbuild- 
 ing Industry," The Engineers' Magazine, 41 :238-245 
 (1911). 
 Warne, F. J. "The Trade Agreement in the Coal Indus- 
 try," Antnals of the Amer. Acad., 36:340-348 (1910). 
 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. Industrial Democracy 
 (1902). 
 Pt. II. chap. 2, "The Method of Collective Bargaining." 
 Pt. II, chap. 5, "The Standard Rate." 
 Pt. II, chap. 6, "The Normal Day." 
 Pt. Ill, chap. 2, "The Higgling of the ^larket." 
 Pt. Ill, chap. 3, § (b), "The Device of the Common 
 Rule." 
 
 The Protocol 
 
 Annual Report of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in 
 the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Industry of Greater New York. 
 Bulletin.
 
 278 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Labor, No. 145 (1914) : 
 "Conciliation, Arbitration and Sanitation in the Dress 
 and Waist Industry of New York," by Chas. H. Wins- 
 low. 
 
 Cohen, J. H. Law and Order in Industry (1916). 
 
 Experience of Hart, Schaffner and Marx with Collective 
 Bargaining. 
 
 Howard, E. D. "The Development of Government in In- 
 dustry," Illinois Lazv Review, March, 1916. 
 
 Marcosson, I. F. "A Truce in the Trades," Munsey's 
 
 Mag., 49:517 (1913). 
 
 Protocol of Peace in the Dress and Waist Industry (1913). 
 
 Report of Board of Arbitration : Cloak and Suit Mfrs.' 
 Assn., Northwest Cloak and Suit Mfrs.' Assn., and 
 Ladies' International Garment Workers' Union.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM OF TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The union viewpoint and program is not solely eco- 
 nomic. It is perhaps primarily so. But some of the 
 union aims, principles and theories, and many of the 
 union policies, demands, methods and attitudes are legal, 
 political, ethical and broadly social. For this reason a 
 study of the trade union program is difficult. The unions 
 give no systematic statement of their aims, principles, 
 policies, demands and methods. Not only do they not 
 relate these things systematically — they do not even state 
 them truly and clearly. The unionists do not usually in- 
 dependently understand the theory of their own demands 
 or of their constructive program. They feel. But as 
 always in working class movements the rationale of the 
 demands and the movement has had to be worked out 
 for them by middle class minds, ^ To a large extent 
 aims, principles and policies must be inferred from de- 
 mands and methods. What one must do is to study con- 
 stitutions, working rules, rules for discipline, and above 
 all agreements with employers which lay down the rules 
 minutely covering incidents of work and pay, in order 
 to discover demands and methods, and then with the 
 help of declarations In constitutions and literature to try 
 
 * See, in confirmation, Webb, History of Trade Unionism, p. 
 229. 
 
 279
 
 28o TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 to build up policies, principles and aims — putting the 
 whole thing finally into systematic shape. 
 
 The trade union program, or rather the trade union 
 programs, for each trade union has a program of its 
 own, is not the handful of unrelated economic demands 
 and methods which it is usually conceived to be, but is 
 a closely integrated social philosophy and plan of action. 
 In the case of most union types, the program centers, 
 indeed, about economic demands and methods, but it 
 rests on the broad foundation of conceptions of right, 
 of rights, and of general theory peculiar to the workers, 
 and it fans out to include or reflect all the economic, 
 ethical, juridical and social hopes and fears, aims, aspira- 
 tions and attitudes of the group. It expresses the work- 
 ers' social theory and the rules of the game to which they 
 are committed, not only in industry but in social affairs 
 generally. It is the organized workers' conceptual 
 world. 
 
 The union program may be classified conveniently 
 under six heads : ( i ) There are what may be called 
 general or ultimate aims. (2) There are the union prin- 
 ciples and theories. These principles and theories seem 
 to be the natural and probably inevitable outcome of 
 the peculiar conditions under which the laborers live and 
 work, and the peculiar problems which they have to face 
 and sclve. They cannot be judged as right or wrong 
 individually, or before the most careful study has been 
 made of the conditions and circumstances which give 
 rise to them. And they must be judged relatively to these 
 conditions and circumstances. (3) There are the gen- 
 eral policies. Here we have the general means by which 
 the unionists, imbued with the principles and theories 
 jnentioned above, seek to control the concrete situation
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 281 
 
 in the interest of their ultimate aims. (4) There are the 
 demands. These represent the specific means by which 
 the unionists try to put into effect their general poHcies. 
 
 (5) There are the methods. These represent the specific 
 modes which are employed to enforce the demands. 
 
 (6) Finally, there are the attitudes. These concern 
 mainly the broader economic and social ideas and ideals 
 of the organized workers. 
 
 The program of each union type is an organic whole 
 within which the specific items are closely related and 
 mutually dependent. To understand fully the signifi- 
 cance and causes of any one, the program must be com- 
 prehended as a whole. For example, suppose that it is 
 a certain method which is in question. This is put in 
 force in direct obedience to certain general union atti- 
 tudes, and to enforce demands. One cannot understand 
 the why of it, cannot interpret it fairly, until one under- 
 stands the attitudes and demands which bring about its 
 use. But the demands which lie back of the methods are 
 made, not merely for their own sake, but to enforce cer- 
 tain general policies, and, therefore, to understand the 
 why of the demands one must grasp the general policies 
 which lie back of them. But we cannot stop there. Back 
 of the general policies are the theories and principles, 
 without a knowledge of which we are almost sure to go 
 astray in any attempt to judge their significance. And, 
 finally, the theories and principles have no sure signifi- 
 cance apart from the general aims which they are in- 
 tended to subserve. 
 
 No attempt will be made here to formulate separately 
 the programs of the different types of unionism. Only a 
 general compilation of the aims, principles and theories, 
 general policies, demands, methods and attitudes of
 
 282 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 unions of all types is submitted.^ It, therefore, contains 
 many contradictory items and it reflects the diverse and 
 contradictory character of the different union types. It 
 exhibits the scope and character of union strivings and 
 furnishes a basis for discussion. As the types have to a 
 large extent different and sometimes contradictory aims, 
 principles, theories, policies, demands, methods and atti- 
 tudes, the program as a whole is incapable of clear-cut 
 interpretation and causal explanation. What wt need 
 now is to try to separate this general mixed program into 
 separate type programs, and attempt to get an interpre- 
 tation and causal explanation of each one. What we 
 need is a study of each type separately to try to find out 
 what it stands for and the peculiar problems, conditions 
 and forces that have determined its program. We need, 
 for example, a special study of guerilla unionism as it 
 developed in the case of the Bridge and Structural Iron 
 Workers; of hold-up unionism as developed in the 
 Chicago building trades, etc. This will be a starting 
 point for further study of these groups, and a guide to 
 the study of other groups and to social action which we 
 may be called upon to take. 
 
 But while the trade union program as a whole and 
 as differentiated for each type of unionism is mixed and 
 incomplete, the economic program has for all unions a 
 single, definite, outstanding viewpoint. The economic 
 viewpoint of unionism is primarily a group viewpoint, 
 and its program a group program. The aim of the 
 union is primarily to benefit the group of workers con- 
 cerned, rather than the workers as a whole or society 
 as a whole; its theories which attempt to explain the 
 
 * See Appendix II, Student's Report on Trade Union Pro- 
 gram,
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 283 
 
 determination of wages, hours, conditions of employ- 
 ment, etc., are not general but primarily group theories 
 They are attempts to explain how the wages, hours and 
 conditions of employment are determined for a group 
 of workers. The principles of action which it lays down 
 are primarily group principles and its economic policies, 
 demands and methods are primarily intended to protect 
 and benefit the group of workers concerned. 
 
 It is necessary to emphasize all this because most of 
 the fallacies which the economists claim to find in union 
 theories, principles, policies, demands and methods result 
 from the attempt to interpret these as applying to society 
 as a whole, whereas they are intended to apply only to a 
 particular group of workers. Much of the misunder- 
 standing and controversy between scientific management 
 and unionism, for example, results from the fact that 
 scientific management argues in terms of the welfare of 
 the individual worker or of society as a whole, while 
 the unions argue primarily in terms of group welfare. 
 The economists declare rightly that unions by their meth- 
 ods cannot raise wages — meaning v/ages as a whole — 
 and assume wrongly that this indicates a fallacy in the 
 union theories and methods. The scientific managers 
 declare rightly that limitation of output must lower 
 wages — meaning wages as a whole — and assume 
 wrongly that this also indicates a fallacy in the union 
 policies and methods. They make both statements be- 
 cause they do not understand that the unions are not 
 primarily concerned with wages as a whole, but with 
 the wages and standards of living of particular groups. 
 To understand and to judge the union aims, theories 
 and program, then, we must always bear in mind that, 
 so far as they are economic, they are not general in
 
 2^4 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 their scope but are applied primarily to the situation and 
 welfare of the particular group of workers. 
 
 The principal economic aims of the union are to pre- 
 vent the lowering and, if possible, to raise the wages of 
 all the members of the group; to shorten the hours of 
 work of the group ; to increase the security and conti- 
 nuity of employment of the members of the groups and, 
 if possible, to secure steady and assured work for all 
 in it; to prevent the deterioration and, if possible, to 
 better the general conditions of employment of all the 
 members of the group — especially to better the condi- 
 tions of safety and sanitation in the shop and to prevent 
 arbitrary discipline, demotion and discharge of workers, 
 and arbitrary fining and docking of wages. 
 
 The fundamental assumptions and theories upon 
 which the unionists base their principles and program of 
 action in support of these aims, we have already con- 
 sidered. In brief, they are these: 
 
 I. The interests of the employers and workers of the 
 group are generally opposed; the employer is seeking 
 the greatest possible output at the least possible cost; 
 he is, therefore, constantly seeking to lower the wage 
 rate, to lengthen the hours of work, to speed up the 
 workers, to lower the wages by fining and docking, to 
 weed out the least efficient workers, to maintain the 
 poorest and least costly conditions of safety and sani- 
 tation compatible with the efficiency of the workers in 
 the shop from day to day (regardless of the long-time 
 effects upon the workers or their efficiency, since, if they 
 are injured or made ill, there are plenty more outside 
 to take their places) ; to lay off and discharge workers 
 whenever it is temporarily economical ; to degrade highly 
 skilled and high-priced workers, or to displace these by
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 285 
 
 less skilled and lower-priced workers, and to lessen the 
 number of workers employed to do a given amount of 
 work wherever possible by the introduction of new ma- 
 chinery and new processes, etc. The union which repre- 
 sents the working group is seeking the continuous em- 
 ployment of all its members at the highest possible wage 
 rates and under the best possible conditions as respects 
 hours, security and continuity of work, safety, comfort 
 and sanitation, etc. All the efforts of the employer just 
 stated, in the interest of greatest possible output at least 
 possible cost, are thus seen to be directly opposed to the 
 interest and welfare of the working group. 
 
 2. The wage dividend of the group of workers is 
 determined by bargaining between the employer and the 
 workers over the division of the group product. The 
 relative bargaining strength of the employer and the 
 workers being determined, the workers stand frequently 
 to lose in wage rates or in the amount of wages through 
 increased effort and output of the group, since the in- 
 creased output of the group means generally lower prices 
 for the unit of the product, rarely or never an increase 
 of the value of group products proportional to the in- 
 creased effort and output and may mean simply increased 
 effort and output for the same or even less value 
 of product. Under these circumstances, increased effort 
 and output of the group never mean a proportionate 
 increase of wages for the group, but always a lowering 
 of the wage rate, in the sense of the wages for a given 
 amount of work and output, and they may mean more 
 work for the same or even less pay. Thus the group 
 which increases output generally benefits other groups 
 at its own expense in wage rates or wages. Moreover, 
 .this increase of output of the group where the demand
 
 286 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 for the goods is not extremely elastic, tends to weaken 
 the bargaining strength of the workers and so still fur- 
 ther to lower wage rates, since where it is the result of 
 increased effort of the workers it means increased supply 
 of labor without a correspondingly increased demand for 
 it, and where it is the result of new machinery and new 
 processes it means lessened demand for the labor without 
 any lessened supply of it, speaking always in group 
 terms. In the one case it especially exposes the workers 
 to lower wage rates, in the other to unemployment. 
 
 3. The group dividend being determined, the wages 
 and conditions of employment of the workers in the 
 group depend upon the relative bargaining strength of 
 the employers and the workers. 
 
 4. The bargaining strength of the employer is always 
 greater than that of the individual worker, owing to 
 circumstances which we have already discussed. 
 
 5. The full bargaining strength of the employer will 
 always be exerted against the individual worker because 
 of the opposition of interest and other circumstances 
 already discussed. 
 
 6. Therefore, individual bargaining between the 
 employer and the worker, that is, competition between 
 the individual workers in the group for work and wages, 
 will tend to result in lowering wages and conditions of 
 employment and keeping them down to what can be 
 demanded and secured by the weakest bargainers of the 
 labor group. 
 
 7. This tendency applies not only to the case of the 
 original bargain but tends to result whenever, after the 
 workers of the group are employed, they allow the em- 
 ployer to pit them one against the other. This occurs 
 whenever in the course of the work they enter into indi-
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 287 
 
 vidual bargaining, or whenever, as in the case already 
 considered, individual workers of the group are forced 
 or allow themselves to be tempted by bonuses or pre- 
 miums to speed up, and thus to compete with one an- 
 other. 
 
 The result of these assumptions, which are the work- 
 ers' interpretation of group experience, is the positive 
 economic program of unionism, the broad outline of 
 which may be put into two propositions: (i) If the 
 wages and conditions of the group are not to sink to 
 what can be commanded by its weakest labor bargainer, 
 they must make the strength of the weakest bargainer 
 equal to the strength of the group. (2) If the wages 
 of the group are to be kept from falling or to be in- 
 creased, and the conditions of employment maintained 
 or bettered, they must constantly attempt to increase the 
 bargaining strength of the group as against the employ- 
 ers of the group and as against other groups. 
 
 How% then, can the unions carry this program into 
 effect? First, how can they make the strength of the 
 weakest bargainer of the group equal to the bargaining 
 strength of the group? If we accept the position of 
 the workers as so far tenable, it is evident that this can 
 be done only by removing the possibility of all compe- 
 tition between the individual workers of the group. The 
 general method devised by the unions for accomplishing 
 this is to substitute collective bargaining for individual 
 bargaining between the employers and the workers. 
 This, however, tells us little. In order to understand 
 what it means, we must ask, what are the principles 
 which the unionists seek to estabUsh by collective bar- 
 gaining, and what are the policies, demands and methods
 
 288 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 which they find it necessary to adopt in order to main- 
 tain these principles? 
 
 The unionists say that it can be done only by the estab- 
 lishment and maintenance of two principles: (i) the 
 principle of uniformity in regard to all conditions of 
 work and pay where competition between the workers 
 can take place; and (2) the principle of standardization 
 or restriction on changes in the conditions of work and 
 pay over considerable periods of time. That is, w^her- 
 ever the workers are doing the same kinds of work, the 
 conditions governing their w^ork and pay must be uni- 
 form for all, and wherever changes In the conditions 
 might threaten conditions of uniformity of work and 
 pay of all such workers, these changes must be made only 
 on such terms as the union shall agree to. To get at 
 the main union policies, then, we have only to ask, where 
 might lack of uniformity in conditions of work and pay, 
 or unrestricted changes in these, result in individual com- 
 petition between the workers? And to get the rest of 
 their program in this connection we have only to ask, 
 what demands and methods are necessary to prevent 
 competition and the violation of these principles, where 
 all the assumptions of the unions are considered to hold? 
 
 It is evident, then, that competition can easily take 
 place between worker and worker in regard to the wage 
 rate. Therefore, in order to uphold the principle of 
 uniformity, a standard rate of imges must be established 
 for each subgroup of workers, at least as a minimum. 
 Even with a standard wage rate, competition can take 
 place with respect to the amount of work and output 
 that shall be done. Hence, to uphold the principles in 
 question, a standard holt's or day's ivork must be estab- 
 lished for each subgroup — at least as a maximum — and
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 289 
 
 all speeders must be eliminated. Competition can also 
 take place in regard to the number of hours worked per 
 day or week. Hence, if the principle is to be upheld, 
 the necessity of a standard day or week. But it is evi- 
 dent that if these standards are established we have 
 practically a standard zvage as a niaxiimini. It is evi- 
 dent, also, that nothing conduces so much to speeding by 
 individuals and the violation of the standards previously 
 mentioned as secret bonuses and premiums or any form 
 of "efficiency payments." This is one reason why the 
 unions look askance at piece work where they are not in 
 a position to control its operation, and why they abhor 
 premium and bonus systems of all kinds. 
 
 But competition or underbidding is possible not only 
 in regard to wage rates, hours, and the exertion and 
 output, but also in regard to the safety and sanitation 
 of the shop, the comfort and convenience of working 
 conditions, the men one is willing to work with, the 
 times of beginning and ending work, the convenience of 
 shifts, the time, place, mode and character of payment, 
 the materials and tools used, and all the minor details 
 and conditions of work and pay. Hence, to secure uni- 
 formity, the necessity from the union's standpoint of 
 minute specification of standards in regard to all the 
 incidents of work and pay, from which no deviation can 
 be allowed. This explains the multitude of petty and 
 harassing restrictions of which employers complain. 
 
 It is evident that these standards cannot persist if 
 they are violated with impunity; yet successful enter- 
 prise demands some degree of flexibility. Hence a long 
 list of irregularities and violations which the unions are 
 forced to allow but which they seek to punish so that 
 they may not become habitual and so break down the
 
 290 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 principle of uniformity. This is accomplished by charg- 
 ing enough extra so as not to allow of underbidding or 
 of extra profit to the employer, such as extra pay 
 (time and a half or rate and a half) for overtime, for 
 doing extraordinary kinds of work, for work in irregular 
 ways, at irregular times (Sundays and holidays) or 
 under irregular circumstances. 
 
 It is evident that these standards cannot be maintained 
 effectively so far as all the workers are concerned if the 
 employer is allowed to adopt at will changes in methods 
 and processes of work. Such changes make it possible 
 for the employer to create new tasks and jobs for which 
 no standards or uniformities have been established, to 
 lop off parts of the work from the old standardized 
 classes, along with laying off the workman himself, and 
 in both ways to create new classes of workers with new 
 conditions of work and perhaps lower rates of pay. 
 Hence, if the workers are to maintain their old standards 
 of work and pay for all the members of the group, to 
 prevent the degradation of skilled workers and the' 
 introduction into their midst of subgroups in which com- 
 petition exists, they must prevent the introduction of 
 such new conditions of work — the creation of new tasks 
 and jobs and new classification of workers — except un- 
 der their control and under conditions that will secure 
 on the new jobs conditions of work and pay uniform 
 with the old. Generally this means that they cannot 
 allow these changes except when a new collective bargain 
 is made, unless they can foresee and provide for them. 
 They must restrict the change of conditions of work and 
 pay over considerable periods of time if the principle 
 of standardization or uniformity is to be upheld. This 
 means that th^y intist carefully delimit the field of work
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 291 
 
 of the group and keep it the same. Hence, in part, the 
 union tendency to resist new trades, new machinery, new 
 methods and processes, and hence a part of their opposi- 
 tion to time study. 
 
 But under all these circumstances, with the constant 
 menace of industrial change, the constant effort of the 
 employer to induce individual workers to compete with 
 their fellows for their own advantage by pressure, or 
 by 'the holding out of immediate advantages in work 
 and pay, competition cannot be kept out and these prin- 
 ciples upheld unless there is a high degree of solidarity 
 of the working group. The union must control the 
 working personnel of the group, and all the members 
 in the group must feel that their interests are common 
 rather than individual and must be willing to sacrifice 
 individual advantages to the common good. Hence, to 
 maintain these principles, the union must determine who 
 shall be members of the group and must be able espe- 
 cially to determine who shall come into the shop. This 
 is the real basis of the demand for the closed shop and 
 the abhorrence of scab or nonunion workers. 
 
 Furthermore, they must be able to exercise constant 
 oversight in respect to the conditions of work and the 
 workers in the shop. Hence one reason for the demand 
 of union representatives on the job, stewards and busi- 
 ness agents, and for the coming into the situation at any 
 time of other union officials to pass upon conditions, to 
 present complaints, to discipline workers, and to settle 
 disputes. They have learned from experience that non- 
 union men in the shop will not ordinarily live up to the 
 rules of the union, and even union men who are de- 
 pendent upon the employer dare not make full complaints 
 and resist the demands of the employer. They require
 
 292 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 to be backed by the official representatives and to com- 
 plain and negotiate through them. 
 
 But, further, the unionists have found that even in a 
 closed shop where all the workers are unionists the soli- 
 darity of the group cannot be maintained where the work- 
 ers are too highly specialized and lack a considerable 
 degree of craft training. Under such circumstances it 
 is easy for the employer to pit worker against worker, 
 arouse jealousies, and induce individual competition. 
 Hence, in part, the union abhorrence of specialisation 
 and their demand for the apprenticeship system. 
 
 So much for uniformity and standardization in order 
 to make the strength of the weakest member of the 
 group equal to the bargaining strength of the group as a 
 whole. The methods by which they try to enforce these 
 policies are in general anything that works, strikes, boy- 
 cotts, legislation where necessary, violence, etc. It is to 
 be noticed that these policies, while intended primarily 
 to uphold the principles claimed, do generally result in 
 the restriction of output and industrial progress. They 
 are not so intended consciously but they do have these 
 effects. All this also implies the necessity of a large 
 control of all the conditions of industry, work and pay 
 in the shop by the organized workers. This is what 
 they call industrial democracy, displacing the complete 
 authority of the employer in matters of hiring, dis- 
 charge, discipline, promotion, demotion, and so on. 
 
 I pointed out that the broad outline of the program 
 may be put into two propositions : ( i ) If the wages and 
 conditions of the group are not to sink to what can be 
 commanded by its weakest bargainer, the workers must 
 make the strength of the weakest equal to the strength 
 of the group. (2) If the wages of the group are not t<>
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 293 
 
 fall and are to be increased and the conditions of em- 
 ployment bettered, the workers must constantly endeavor 
 to increase the bargaining strength of the group as 
 against the employers of the group and as against other 
 groups. In general, the principles, policies and methods 
 used to make the bargaining strength of the weakest 
 equal to the bargaining strength of the group also have 
 the effect of strengthening the bargaining pov/er of the 
 group as against the employer. In general, therefore, 
 the program for the first purpose is also employed in 
 the attempt to force the employers to advance wages and 
 to improve conditions of employment, that is, to force a 
 larger share of the output to be devoted to bettering 
 wages and conditions. 
 
 These methods, however, so employed, are not so 
 much in the interest of uniformity as in opposition to 
 industrial changes which allow the substitution of less 
 skilled for more skilled workers, of specialized 
 workers for trained craftsmen, of machinery for hand 
 labor, and, so, the elimination of workers in the group. 
 It can readily be seen that, if these changes were al- 
 lowed, wages and conditions of employment could hardly 
 be advanced, and unemployment within the group, with 
 greater competition and lower wages, might result even 
 were the group dividend increased and the closed shop 
 maintained, provided the union assumptions be main- 
 tained that wages and conditions are determined by bar- 
 gaining under conditions which make the interests of 
 the employer and the worker opposed. For these 
 changes would constantly create what is virtually an 
 increasing supply of labor in the group and would enable 
 the employer more readily to substitute less skilled and 
 low-priced labor for more skilled and high-priced labor.
 
 294 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The open shop would obviously aggravate these adverse 
 conditions. Degradation of skilled workers, increased 
 competition among the workers in the group, and greater 
 uncertainty and discontinuity of employment Inevitably 
 result from unregulated changes in industrial conditions. 
 The bargaining strength of the group against the em- 
 ployer cannot be increased or even maintained if they 
 are allowed. In the attempt to increase this bargaining 
 strength the tmion recognizes the advantage of a monop- 
 olistic control of the labor supply. Hence another rea- 
 son for apprenticeship demands and the closed shop. 
 
 Moreover, the bargaining strength of the group Is 
 almost always bound to be weak compared with that of 
 the employer. Inimical changes cannot be prevented, the 
 closed shop cannot be maintained, advantage cannot be 
 taken of favorable opportunities for advances, and losses 
 in wages and conditions cannot be staved off under unfa- 
 vorable conditions, granting the union assumptions, if 
 the group is not recognised as the bargaining entity, and 
 If It is not at least as acute a bargainer as the employer. 
 This requires that the bargaining for the unions be car- 
 ried on by skilled specialists — men who know all the 
 conditions of the trade and the market. But the men in 
 actual employ cannot have this knowledge and skill. 
 Hence the union demand that the employer bargain with 
 the group through representatives of the workers not In 
 his employ. Thus Vv^e have representative bargaining. 
 But the union still is not so strong a bargaining entity as 
 the employer if it cannot enforce the terms of the bar- 
 gain on the employer and its own members. Hence the 
 necessity of a strong union with strong disciplinary pow- 
 ers, and hence, again, the necessity for group solidarity 
 and the closed shop and apprenticeship.
 
 THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 295 
 
 The other part of the program which aims to 
 strengthen the group against other groups is closely re- 
 lated to the group wage theory which we have discussed. 
 Believing that wages and conditions of employment of 
 the particular group depend on strengthening its eco- 
 nomic position or bargaining power in the sale of its 
 products as against other groups, the unionists naturally 
 seek directly to limit the output of the group and directly 
 to limit the labor supply of the group through appren- 
 ticeship regulations and the closed shop, on the basis of 
 the same reasoning employed by capitalistic monopolies. 
 From all this it can readily be seen why unionists object 
 so strenuously to working with nonunionists or scabs, 
 and to handling any work that has been done by scabs.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND LABOR WELFARE 
 
 Scientific management, so-called, is one aspect of the 
 general efficiency philosophy and movement which of 
 late have gripped the imagination of the business world, 
 and which may be said to constitute the latest phase of 
 capitalistic industrial development. 
 
 The term "scientific management" is of quite recent 
 origin. In its genesis, it had reference specifically to 
 the "Taylor system," first developed and applied by Mr. 
 Taylor, the well-known author of "Shop Management," 
 and joint inventor of the Taylor-White process of the 
 manufacture of high-speed tool steel. 
 
 By custom, the term scientific management has been 
 gradually extended to include several modifications and 
 imitations of the Taylor system and some systems for 
 which independence of development is claimed. Thus, 
 at the present time, it is generally applied in common 
 usage indiscriminately to the systems of Mr. Taylor, 
 Mr. H. L. Gantt and Mr. Harrington Emerson, and 
 frequently to the principles and methods of several other 
 "efficiency experts." 
 
 How extensively these systems are in actual opera- 
 tion, it is impossible to say. Both employers and sys- 
 tematizers seem loath to give information, except in 
 cases of successful application. Probably there are not 
 more than a couple of hundred shops, scattered through 
 
 296
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ^, 
 
 the various industries and in various sections of the 
 country, which would be sponsored by the scientific man- 
 agement group, and relatively few of these would be 
 regarded as valid examples of scientific management by 
 the followers of Mr. Taylor. But the significance of 
 the movement is not to be thus measured. The ideals, 
 principles and methods of scientific management are 
 permeating the whole business world, and the movement 
 bids fair to affect in large measure industry and indus- 
 trial relations generally. It touches, therefore, the wel- 
 fare, not only of employers and workers, but of all indi- 
 viduals and groups in society, and warrants the keenest 
 universal interest. 
 
 In its original conception the Taylor system of scien- 
 tific management seems to have been literally a system 
 of shop management concerned primarily with the prob- 
 lem of efficient manufacture or productive efficiency in 
 the shop. The problem was to secure the most effective 
 character and use of machinery, tools, and materials, 
 the most effective material and organic arrangements in 
 the shop, and the full cooperative activity of the workers. 
 Mr. Taylor, in his paper, "A Piece-Rate System," pre- 
 sented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 
 in 1895, confirmed this idea of the scope and character 
 of the new system by contrasting the care with which 
 managers often "go most minutely into every detail of 
 the buying and selling and financiering, and arrange 
 every element of these branches in the most systematic 
 manner," ^ with the comparative lack of restrictions as 
 to the principles and methods which the superintendent 
 or foreman is to pursue, either in the management of his 
 men or in the care of the company's plant, and by point- 
 
 1 "A Piece-Rate System," § 3 f .
 
 298 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ing to the differential piece-rate system of payment as 
 "the means which the writer [Mr. Taylor] has found to 
 be by far the most effective in obtaining the maximum 
 output of a shop, and which, so far as he can see, satisfies 
 the legitimate requirements of the men and the manage- 
 ment." 2 
 
 As time passed, however, the character, scope, and 
 significance of scientific management seem to have stead- 
 ily enlarged in the minds of Mr. Taylor, his immediate 
 followers, and his imitators, so that when the term 
 "scientific management" was definitely adopted by ad- 
 herents of Mr. Taylor as descriptive of his system, the 
 intent, apparently, was to emphasize claims for it much 
 broader and more fundamental than those originally 
 made — claims which seem to warrant the following sum- 
 marization : 
 
 1. Efficiency, not only in the mechanical aspects and 
 as it depends on organic arrangements and human effort 
 in the shop, but with respect to the functions of a going 
 industrial establishment, is governed by fundamental 
 natural laws, not made by man, and unalterable by man. 
 And not only this, but the direct relation between pro- 
 ductive effort and human welfare, as well as the distri- 
 bution of the products of industry, is likewise governed 
 by such natural and unalterable laws, i.e., the specific 
 character and amount of work which any laborer can 
 and ought to do, and the proportions of the product 
 which ought to go to management and men and to 
 each individual workman, are thus governed. 
 
 2. Scientific management has discovered the means 
 by which the facts underlying these natural laws, which 
 govern production in the larger sense — productive wel- 
 
 » "A Piece-Rate System," § 50.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 299 
 
 fare and distribution — can be determined and established 
 as objective, matter-of-fact data, quite apart and di- 
 vorced from human judgment, opinion, or will; i.e., the 
 means by which all productive arrangements and proc- 
 esses, and all the relations between managers or em- 
 ployers and workmen can be reduced to an exact scien- 
 tific basis of objective fact and law — a means, in other 
 words, in the application of which, human will, judg- 
 ment, and cunning cannot enter so as to affect the result, 
 and which, therefore, w^ll necessarily reveal the truth in 
 regard to the most efficient arrangement and method, the 
 kind and amount of work which any man can and ought 
 to do, and the share of the product which every factor 
 and every individual ought justly to receive. 
 
 It is true that these sweeping claims have never been 
 explicitly stated by authoritative members of the scien- 
 tific management group in exactly this form, but they 
 seem to be amply warranted by many spoken and pub- 
 lished statements emanating from Mr. Taylor and those 
 claiming to be his adherents.^ Nor have the members of 
 
 ^ The following quotations are taken from the "Labor Claims 
 of .Scientific Management," authenticated by Mr. Frederick W. 
 Taylor at the outset of the writer's investigation of scientific 
 management and labor, made for the United States Commission 
 on Industrial Relations. {Scientific Management and Labor, pp. 
 140-149. The italics are mine.) 
 
 "Scientific management is a system devised by industrial en- 
 gineers for the purpose of subserving the common interests of 
 employers, workmen, and society at large through . . . the just 
 and scientific distribution of the product." 
 
 "Scientific management is based upon the fundamental as- 
 sumptions of harmony of interests between employers and 
 workers. . . ." 
 
 "It substitutes exact knowledge for guesswork and seeks to
 
 300 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 the scientific management cult pointed out fully the 
 means by which these claims are to be made good. 
 
 establish a code of natural lazvs equally binding upon employers 
 and workmen." 
 
 "Scientific management thus seeks to substitute in the shop 
 discipline natural law in place of a code of discipline based upon 
 caprice and the arbitrary power of man." 
 
 "Every protest of every workman must be handled . . . and 
 the right or wrong of the complaint must be settled , . . by the 
 great code of lazifs zvhich has been developed and which must 
 satisfy both sides." 
 
 "Scientific management guards the workers against over- 
 speeding and exhaustion nervously and physically: (a) by sub- 
 stituting exact knowledge for guesswork in the setting of the 
 task; (b) by careful studies of fatigue and the setting of the 
 task on the basis of a large number of performances by men of 
 different capacities and with due and scientific allowance for the 
 human factor and legitimate delays." 
 
 "The speed of the men is determined by psychological and 
 physical tests and is always set with reference to long-time 
 results." 
 
 "Scientific management insures just treatment of individual 
 workers: (a) by substituting the nde of lazu for arbitrary de- 
 cisions of foremen, employers, and unions; (b) by giving the 
 workers in the end equal voice with the employer. Both can 
 refer only to the arbitrament of science and fact." 
 
 "Scientific management increases the skill, efficiency, and pro- 
 ductivity of the workers: (o) by the scientific selection of 
 workmen so that each man is set to the highest task for which 
 his physical and intellectual capacity fits him." 
 
 "Scientific management . . . gives a voice to both parties, 
 and substitutes joint obedience of employers and workers to fact 
 and law for obedience to personal authority." 
 
 "Time and motion study is the accurate scientific method by 
 which the great mass of lazi^s governing the best and easiest and 
 most productive movements of men are investigated. These 
 laws constitute a great code which, for the first time in industry, 
 completely controls the acts of the management as well as those 
 
 I
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 301 
 
 There is strong evidence, however, that both ]\Ir. Taylor 
 and many of his follow^ers have beheved that the prin- 
 
 of the workmen. . . . They substitute exact knowledge for 
 prejudiced opinion and force in determining all the conditions 
 of work and pay. 
 
 "They thus make possible . . . the adaptation of the task to 
 the intellectual and physical capacity of the workers; the pay- 
 ment of the workers in exact proportion to their efficiency; the 
 most efficient methods of performing the task . . . exact cost 
 accounting . . . the elimination of ignorant and cutthroat com- 
 petition." 
 
 "The modes of payment employed by scientific management 
 insure pay according to efficiency . . . secure justice for each 
 worker." 
 
 The following is taken from the record of an interview which 
 the writer had with Mr. Taylor on November 11, 1914: "Tay- 
 lor, in general, approved my statement of the labor claims of 
 scientific management. He wants more emphasis placed upon 
 the idea of government by law and democracy. He says that 
 people, in general, have not a broad enough idea of scientific 
 management, . . . Taylor emphasizes the notion that scientific 
 management is working out laws in the place of opinion. These 
 laws are not subject to collective bargaining, any more than 
 the tensile strength of steel. ... In going over my statement 
 of the labor claims* of scientific management, Taylor asked to 
 have two changes made: under A-4, 'Scientific management 
 seeks thus to substitute in the shop discipline . . . natural law in 
 the place of . . .' he would add, 'No such democracy has ever 
 existed in industry before. Every protest of every workman 
 must be handled ... by those on the management side, and 
 the right and wrong of the complaint must be settled, not by 
 the owner, the management, or the workman, but by the great 
 code of laws which has been developed, and which must give 
 satisfaction to both sides.' " 
 
 Under C-i-a: "Taylor objects to my consideration of time 
 and motion study simply from the standpoint of efficiency and 
 justice to the workers and the improvement of their conditions. 
 He would say : 'Time and motion study is the accurate scientific
 
 302 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 cipal, if not the inclusive, means necessary to the dis- 
 covery and estabHshment of the unalterable facts and 
 laws of efficient production and just industrial relation- 
 ships has been found in the special instrument which 
 has particularly characterized all phases of scientific 
 management, viz., time and motion study. 
 
 "Scientific management," declared Mr. Taylor, "at- 
 tempts to substitute in the relations between employers 
 and workers the government of fact and law for the 
 rule of force and opinion. It substitutes exact knowl- 
 edge for guesswork and seeks to establish a code of 
 natural law equally binding upon employers and work- 
 men." ^ In time and motion study it has discovered and 
 developed an "accurate scientific method by which the 
 great mass of laws governing the easiest and most pro- 
 ductive movements of men are investigated. These 
 laws constitute a great code which, for the first time in 
 industry, completely controls the acts of the manage- 
 ment as well as those of the workmen." ^ 
 
 Thus, time and motion study, according to Mr. Taylor, 
 
 method by which the great mass of laws governing the best 
 and easiest and most productive movements of men are investi- 
 gated. These laws constitute a great code which, for the first 
 time in industry, completely controls the acts of the manage- 
 ment as well as those of the workmen, etc' 
 
 "Although I thought that I had taken particular pains in my 
 statement of the labor claims of scientific management to bring 
 out clearly and to emphasize the idea of the government of law 
 in the place of force and opinion, as constituting the essentials 
 of the scientific management spirit, Taylor continuously harped 
 on this and upon my failure to grasp this idea, and, therefore, 
 insisted that these changes should be made, in order to give 
 proper emphasis to the idea." 
 
 ^Scientific Management and Labor, p. 140. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 147.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 303 
 
 rules out, not only force and opinion from industrial 
 affairs, but bargaining as well. There can be no legiti- 
 mate bargaining, individual or collective, where the facts 
 have been thus established. "As reasonably," said Mr. 
 Taylor, "might we insist on bargaining about the time 
 and place of the rising and setting of the sun." ° 
 
 But, apparently, according to Mr. Taylor, time and 
 motion study not only makes possible the ruling out of 
 force and opinion from industrial affairs, a relatively 
 just distribution of the product and the protection of 
 the worker's welfare at all points, but, coupled with the 
 fundamental natural laws which govern all industrial 
 affairs and relations, it actualizes this possibility. 
 
 It makes possible the assignment of each worker to the 
 task for which he is best fitted, and the safeguarding of 
 him against over- fatigue and over-exhaustion; and be- 
 cause of this same harmony of Interests it turns the pos- 
 sibility into reality. 
 
 It not only makes possible the removal of the higgling 
 for advantage and the rough and arbitrary discipline of 
 foremen and employers, but it actually eliminates these 
 things. 
 
 "Scientific management," declared Mr. Taylor, "de- 
 mocratizes industry. It gives a voice to both parties, and 
 substitutes the joint obedience of employers and workers 
 to fact and law for obedience to personal authority." 
 "No such democracy has ever existed in industry before. 
 Every protest of every workman must be handled by 
 those on the management side, and the right or wrong 
 of the complaint must be settled, not by the opinion of 
 the management or the workman, but by the great code 
 of laws which has been developed, and which must sat- 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 40.
 
 304 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 isfy both sides." It gives "to the worker in the end 
 equal voice with the employer. Both can refer only to 
 the arbitrament of science and fact." ^ 
 
 All this and much more is the result of this instrument 
 for the determination of the facts and laws of industry 
 which scientific management claims to have discovered. 
 
 There can be little doubt, then, that Mr. Taylor looked 
 upon scientific management as truly scientific in the sense 
 that its productive and distributive policies and methods 
 are based upon unalterable laws of nature and upon facts 
 discoverable, but unalterable, by the management or 
 workmen concerned. In this his followers appear to 
 have been well in accord with him. Moreover, it is 
 evident that time and motion study is the principal means 
 upon which they rely for the discovery of this scientific 
 foundation of scientific management. Time and motion 
 study, tJiereforc, must he regarded as the chief corner- 
 stone of scientific management, its main distinguishing 
 feature, and the point of departure for any understand- 
 ing and judgment of its claims, especially with reference 
 to its scientific character and labor zuelfare. Let us then 
 examine the nature and uses and effect of this thing. 
 
 There seem to be at least two very diverse conceptions 
 of time and motion study. The first is a very narrow 
 one with respect both to its character and to Its uses, held 
 in its most typical form by labor generally, adherence to 
 which, according to advocates of scientific management, 
 leads to much misinterpretation of its real character and 
 uses. The second Is a far broader conception, not always 
 recognized by scientific managers themselves, but clearly 
 implicated in the later claims of Mr. Taylor, and in the 
 statements and methods of the more advanced scientific 
 
 ^ Scientific Management and Labor, pp. 140-141, 145, 147.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 305 
 
 managers, which has apparently developed along with 
 the enlarged and enlarging view of the scope and char- 
 acter of scientific management previously noted. 
 
 In its narrower conception, and as understood by labor, 
 generally, time and motion study is looked upon simply 
 and solely as an instrument for task setting and eflficiency 
 rating, used thus, In the main, to determine how much 
 can be done by a workman engaged in a given operation, 
 within a given time, and, therefore, to set the maximum 
 task accomplishable by him and the group of laborers to 
 which he belongs. Labor thus pictures a cowering work- 
 man over whomi stands a labor driver. In one hand he 
 holds a split-second watch. In the other he has a sheet 
 of paper on which are set down the elementary motions 
 of which the job is made up, with spaces opposite each 
 in which may be recorded the time taken by the work- 
 man to make each motion. The watch is started. The 
 workman jumps to his task. The time taken for each 
 motion involved in the doing of the job is recorded. The 
 operation is then repeated enough times to satisfy the 
 observer that he has discovered the shortest time required 
 by the worker to make each motion. These shortest times 
 are then summed up as the necessary time, and this, 
 with some allowance for human necessities, breakdowns, 
 and delays, is set as the task time. 
 
 This, I say, is labor's habitual conception of time and 
 motion study. It Is supposed to be employed only or 
 mainly for the purpose of task setting, and It is assumed 
 to be used to set the minimum time or the maximum task 
 to which the laborers can be forced. 
 
 This view of time and motion study, however, accords 
 ill with the later and enlarged conception held, appar- 
 ently, by Mr. Taylor and by many, if not all, of the
 
 3o6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 present members of the scientific management group. 
 Judged by this standard, it is erroneous in two very es- 
 sential respects. 
 
 In the first place, time and motion study, according 
 to this later conception, when used for task-setting pur- 
 poses, is not designed to discover and set the minimum 
 time or the maximum task, but the scientific time or task, 
 i.e., the reasonable or just task, considering^ the technical 
 conditions, the character and training of the workmen, 
 tlie element of fatigue, etc. 
 
 In the second place, time and motion study, in its larger 
 conception, is not merely or perhaps mainly a method 
 used for task setting and efficiency rating. On the con- 
 trary, in the light of the recent claims based upon its 
 use, made by Mr. Taylor, and of the problems to the 
 solution of which it is apparently being applied by pro- 
 gressive scientific managers, time and motion study must 
 he conceived as little less than a universal method of at- 
 tempted accurate industrial analysis, usable with or with- 
 out the stop-watch, to discover, at almost every step of 
 the productive and distributive process, not only the most 
 effective material, organic, and human arrangements, 
 adaptations, and combinations, but the reasonable de- 
 mands which can be made upon the intelligence and en- 
 ergy of the management as well as the men, and the just 
 apportionment of the product to all the factors and in- 
 dividuals concerned. 
 
 To show that this larger conception of time and mo- 
 tion study is not a mere deduction from the claims made 
 by Mr. Taylor, we have only to consider the attitude 
 of some of the advanced scientific managers in regard to 
 its possible uses. 
 
 According to statements made by scientific managers,
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 307 
 
 this process of analysis or time and motion study, in 
 the larger sense, should, where possible, begin with the 
 determination of a site for manufacture. The really 
 scientific manager, starting out de novo, will consider all 
 available sites with reference to the time and motion 
 expenditure, determined by actual experiment, necessary 
 in securing an adequate supply of proper materials, in 
 the going to and from the shop of the numbers of the 
 different classes of workmen needed or likely to be 
 needed in the shipment and marketing of the product, 
 etc. Having in mind the character of the productive 
 process, and the most efficient productive arrangements 
 possible, he will then, with regard to the greatest pos- 
 sible saving of waste time and motion, work out, with 
 the utmost care, and with reference to future expansion, 
 the plans for the construction of his plant. This will in- 
 volve a most careful study of all the general internal 
 arrangements and processes, the most efficient methods of 
 planning the work to be done and of routing it through 
 the shop so that there may be no delay in transmitting 
 orders, no waste carriage of materials and partly finished 
 products, no lost time in the assembly room waiting for 
 dela3'ed parts. With the same ends in view, and in the 
 same manner, he will also determine the most effective 
 placement of machinery, the storage of tools and ma- 
 terials, and the location of the various elements of the 
 office force. 
 
 The shop constructed and the machinery installed, he 
 will apply time and motion study in an endless series 
 of experimental tests to determine what possible improve- 
 ments can be made in machinery and its operation, and 
 in the tools, fixtures, materials, and specific processes of 
 work. The best feed and speed for each machine, with
 
 3o8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 reference to the different grades of materials, will then 
 be established. The different jobs or processes will be 
 analyzed and reanalyzed, and their elements experimen- 
 tally combined and recombined, the tools and fixtures 
 changed and rearranged, and all these variations timed 
 and retimed in an effort to discover the most efficient 
 productive combinations and methods. 
 
 This time and motion study analysis will extend, it 
 is thus claimed, to every feature and all organic rela- 
 tionships of the mechanical process of production. But 
 it will not stop there. It will be extended to cover the 
 managerial functions and the office work. The duties of 
 the managers, superintendents, and especially of the shop 
 foremen will be analytically studied and reorganized. 
 As a result, the work of the old managerial functionaries 
 will be split up, and new departments with new depart- 
 ment heads established. In place of the single old-line 
 foreman, for example, charged with hiring, discipline, 
 discharge, apportionment of w'ork, the setting up of jobs, 
 the determination of speed and feed of machinery, repair 
 of machinery and belting, inspection of the product, etc., 
 there will be a separate head charged with the selection, 
 hiring, adaptation, and discharge of workmen, and a 
 series of functional foremen, each responsible for a par- 
 ticular duty, e.g., a gang boss, a speed boss, a repair boss, 
 an inspector of work, an instructor, a route clerk, a time 
 and cost clerk, and a disciplinarian.^ The methods of 
 storage and delivery of tools and materials, the dispatch- 
 ing of orders from the office to the shop, the purchasing 
 of materials, the marketing of products, and all the meth- 
 
 ® It is not intended, of course, to imply that no other factors 
 or considerations enter into the determination of such matters, 
 asid? from time and motion study.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 309' 
 
 ods of accounting will likewise be subjected to time and 
 motion study, in this larger sense, with a view to discover- 
 ing the most efficient means and methods. All this and 
 much more is time and motion study in the larger con- 
 ception of the term, which seems to be sanctioned by pro- 
 gressive scientific managers. And not until, through this 
 broader time and motion study, a large degree of im- 
 provement and standardization of the general productive 
 process has been well advanced, should the scientific 
 manager, according to these experts, enter upon time and 
 motion study in the narrower sense, i.e., putting the time- 
 study men, with stop-watches, over the workmen engaged 
 in a particular job for the express purpose of setting tasks 
 and rates of wage payment. 
 
 Nor, under the direction of this really scientific man- 
 ager, we are told, will this part of the time and motion 
 study correspond to the conception of it held by labor. 
 On the contrary, it will be done in the same spirit and 
 with the same care that we have noted above. It will 
 endeavor to discover by repeated analysis and experi- 
 mental timing the best character, combination, and ar- 
 rangement of tools, materials, machinery, and workmen, 
 the most efficient and convenient lighting, heating, and 
 seating arrangements for the workmen, the proper period 
 for continuous operation by them, considering the ele- 
 ment of fatigue, the rest periods needed, their most effi- 
 cient character, combination, and sequence of motions, 
 etc. Moreover, these particular job experiments will not 
 be confined to one man, or to a few of those who are to 
 accomplish the task. Many men will be timed with the 
 idea of discovering, not the fastest speed of the fastest 
 man, but the normal speed which the group can con- 
 tinuously maintain. If necessary, hundreds and perhaps
 
 310 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 thousands of time and motion studies will be made to 
 determine this, before the task is set and the rate estab- 
 lished. And whenever a new or better method or com- 
 bination has been discovered by the time and motion 
 analysis, which is supposed to continue even after the 
 task is set, the whole process of careful and extended 
 timing for task setting will be repeated, and new tasks 
 and rates established reasonably conformable to the new 
 conditions. 
 
 Finally, as an Integral part of this broader time and 
 motion study, all the results secured by it will be con- 
 tinuously and systematically filed as a permanent asset 
 and guide to future action. 
 
 Thus conceived, time and motion study appears to be 
 considered a method of analysis applicable to practically 
 every feature of the productive and distributive process, 
 considered apart from its purely financial aspects, a proc- 
 ess of analysis applied continuously throughout the life 
 of the establishment. And the scientific management 
 based upon it is conceived to be a perpetual attempt to 
 discover and put into operation the new and continuously 
 developing technical, organic, and human arrangements, 
 methods, and relationships constantly revealed by it to be 
 more efficient and more equitable. That this broader 
 conception of time and motion study as the essential basis 
 of scientific managements exists, not as a mere dream, 
 but as a practical ideal striven for with the confident hope 
 of realization, the writer can attest from his experiences 
 in the best class of scientific management shops. 
 
 So much for the conception of scientific management 
 and of the essential means or methods upon which are 
 based the claims put forward by Mr. Taylor and his ad- 
 herents and imitators relative to its character and its
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 311 
 
 effect upon the welfare of labor. Let us now consider 
 its possible and actual effects upon labor, granting the 
 reality of this broad conception of time and motion 
 study. 
 
 It is evident that the major claims of scientific man- 
 agement relative to labor are closely bound up with the 
 assumption that it is truly scientific in its dealings with 
 labor. It is evident also that this assumption cannot be 
 evaluated and judged on the basis of the fundamental 
 postulates of scientific management, viz., that produc- 
 tive efficiency and just distribution of the product are 
 governed by natural laws, not made by man, and unalter- 
 able by man, and that a fundamental harmony of in- 
 terests exists between employers and workmen. These 
 assumptions might be true, and still scientific manage- 
 ment would not be scientific in practice until it had dis- 
 covered and based itself on the objective facts and laws 
 upon which these assumptions rest. The practical ques- 
 tion, then, whether scientific management is actually 
 scientific becomes, to all intents and purposes, the ques- 
 tion whether it has, in fact, discovered a means by which 
 all productive arrangements and processes and all rela- 
 tions between employers and workers can be reduced to 
 a basis of exact objective fact and law, a means, in other 
 words, in the application of which human will, judgment, 
 and cunning cannot and will not enter so as to affect the 
 results, and which, therefore, will necessarily reveal the 
 truth in regard to the most effective productive arrange- 
 ments and methods, the kind and amount of work which 
 any man can and ought to do, the share of the product 
 individuals ought justly to receive relatively to each other, 
 the savings effected, and prevailing wages. Time and 
 motion study, as we have seen, is supposed to be the
 
 312 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 most effective means to these ends. Let us then dis- 
 cuss it briefly from this standpoint. 
 
 In considering this question, we must carefully distin- 
 guish between two factors or elements which enter into 
 the industrial process, the mechanical or material, and 
 the human. 
 
 With respect to the first of these elements, the claim 
 of scientific management seems to be fairly justified. 
 Through time and motion study in its broader concep- 
 tion, it appears to be possible to discover and to estab- 
 lish in practice the objective facts and laws which under- 
 lie the most efficient mechanical arrangements, processes, 
 and methods of production in the shop. 
 
 The moment, however, that the conception is broadened 
 and the human factor enters into the situation, and the 
 problem becomes one of setting each man to the work for 
 which he is best fitted, determining how much work any 
 man ought to do, the claims of scientific management 
 with respect to time and motion study, and, therefore, 
 with respect to the character and effects of scientific man- 
 agement, do not seem capable of practical realization. 
 
 Not only does it appear that the fundamental basis 
 for these claims is lacking in the absence of discovered 
 laws applying to such matters, but careful consideration 
 shows that time and motion study, applied to the deter- 
 mination of the facts in this connection, is not capable 
 of yielding objective results, uninfluenced or uninfluence- 
 able by human will and judgment. On the contrary, the 
 methods and results of time study used for task setting 
 and rate making are, in fact, the special sport of indi- 
 vidual judgment and opinion, subject to all the possi- 
 bilities of diversity, inaccuracy, and injustice that arise 
 from human ignorance and prejudice. 

 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 313 
 
 Fundamentally, the task set themselves by the scien- 
 tific managers where the human element is concerned 
 seems impossible of attainment, at least in the present 
 or °n the near future. Psychologists have, perhaps, de- 
 veloped a technique to determine which of two men is 
 better able at a given time to perform a new task, but 
 they have no technique as yet for determining which of 
 two men would finally become the better worker at the 
 task, or for determining in what task any man would 
 reach his greatest development. Moreover, no definite 
 laws have been discovered which, in the case of the in- 
 dividual worker, can be applied to solve the problems 
 of fatigue and efficiency, much less any which reveal the 
 long-time effects of any amount of work upon the 
 worker. 
 
 The problem of relative productiveness and just dis- 
 tribution is still farther from scientific solution. It is 
 possible, by time and motion study, to determine the rela- 
 tive productiveness of two workers engaged in the same 
 task, provided all the conditions are identical, but it Is 
 not possible thus to determine the relative productiveness 
 of two workers engaged in different lines of work in- 
 volving different productive elements. Here qualitative 
 factors enter into the problem. And this alone makes 
 evident the Impossibility of determining, by means of 
 time and motion study, the relative productivity of the 
 capital, the managerial factor, and the labor, which to- 
 gether turn out a given product ; the impossibility, there- 
 fore, of determining, by time and motion study, the law 
 or laws of the just distribution of the product among 
 these factors. Here the qualitative element Is supreme, 
 and the problem has thus far baffled human ingenuity. 
 
 But even in the effort to disclose the simple objective
 
 314 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 facts of human productiveness, uninfluenced by human 
 will and judgment, and to use these facts as a basis for 
 fair task setting, the method of time and motion study 
 proves on careful analysis to be altogether inadequate. 
 Such analysis shows that at a score of points in this 
 process the judgment of the employer, the time-study 
 man, or the workers may be and is exercised so as to 
 produce variations that will affect and alter the task it- 
 self. In other words, the time-study process includes 
 a score of factors variable with the judgment and will 
 of those concerned, variation in any or all of which acts 
 as a determinant of the factual results, thus belying the 
 claim that time and motion study is a method by which 
 the objective scientific facts concerning the amount of 
 work or the extent of the task which any man or any 
 group of men can and ought to perform may be scien- 
 tifically demonstrated, if by this is meant that the results 
 thus obtained are objective scientific data unaffected by 
 human will and judgment. 
 
 Analysis shows that among the factors that may vary, 
 subject to human will, and that thus do affect the results 
 of time and motion study used for task setting, are: 
 
 1. The general attitude, ideals, and purposes of the 
 management, and the consequent general instructions 
 given to the time-study man. 
 
 2. The intelligence, training, and ideals of the time- 
 study man. 
 
 3. The degree to which the job to be timed and all 
 its appurtenances have been studied and standardized, 
 looking to uniform conditions in its performance for all 
 the workers. 
 
 4. The amount of change thus made from old methods 
 and conditions of performance, e.g., the order of per-
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 315 
 
 formance, the motions eliminated, and the degree of 
 habituation of the workers to the old and the new situa- 
 tion when the task is set. 
 
 5. The mode of selection of the workers to be timed, 
 and their speed and skill relatively to the other members 
 of the group. 
 
 6. The relative number of workers timed, and the 
 number of readings considered sufficient to secure the re- 
 sults desired. 
 
 7. The atmospheric conditions, the time of day, the 
 time of year, the mental and physical conditions of the 
 workers when timed, and the judgment exercised in 
 reducing these matters to the "normal." 
 
 8. The character and amount of special instruction 
 and special training given the selected workers before 
 timing them. 
 
 9. The instructions given to them by the time-study 
 man as to the care, speed, etc., to be maintained during 
 the timing process. 
 
 10. The attitude of the time-study man toward the 
 workers being timed, and the secret motives and aims of 
 the workers themselves. 
 
 11. The judgment of the time-study man as to the 
 pace maintained under timing relatively to the "proper," 
 "normal," or maximum speed which should be demanded. 
 
 12. The checks on the actual results used by the time- 
 study man in this connection. 
 
 13. The method and mechanism used for observing 
 and recording times, and the degree of accuracy with 
 which actual results are caught and put down. 
 
 14. The judgment exercised by the time-study man in 
 respect to the retention or elimination of possible inac- 
 curate or "abnormally" high or low readings.
 
 3i6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 15. The method used In summing up the elementary 
 readings to get the "necessary" elementary time. 
 
 16. The method employed in determining how much 
 should be added to the "necessary time" as a human al- 
 lowance. 
 
 17. The method of determining the "machine allow- 
 ance." 
 
 That the factors thus enumerated are not constant in 
 practice, and that the tasks thus set by time and motion 
 study have no necessary scientific relation to what the 
 members of a working group can or ought to accomplish, 
 but are dependent chiefly upon the judgment of the time- 
 study man, I can positively affirm as the result of many 
 careful observations of time studies for task setting made 
 In scientific management shops, and much analysis and 
 discussion of results with scientific managers and time- 
 study men. Especially is this true of the mode of se- 
 lecting the workers to be timed, and their speed and skill 
 relatively to the workers of a group, and of the methods 
 of summing up the elementary readings to get the neces- 
 sary elementary time. In these vital matters there are 
 no generally observed rules, but each shop is likely to 
 be a law unto itself. Nor does consistency prevail In 
 the same shop, the result being that the task set may, and 
 sometimes does, mean anything from the output of the 
 "swift" to a "fat job" even for the plodder. 
 
 Such being the facts, however scientific scientific man- 
 agement may be in its technical and mechanical aspects, 
 it is little less than absurd to speak of It as scientific out- 
 side of these spheres. It is not, and apparently cannot 
 be, scientific in task setting. Indeed, under the general 
 circumstances which prevail In industry, the very con- 
 ception of a single task set for a whole group of work-
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 317 
 
 ers or of an invariable task for an individual to be ac- 
 complished from hour to hour and day to day is unscien- 
 tific, looked at from the standpoint of adapting the work 
 to the individual capacities of the workers, or from that 
 of strict justice. Nor, if our analysis has been correct, 
 can scientific management be scientific in the matter of 
 rate making, the distribution of the product, or, in fact, 
 in any of its dealings with the human element. Its 
 claims, therefore, relative to the discovery of objective 
 scientific facts where working relations are concerned, 
 which are not proper subjects for bargaining, and rela- 
 tive to the discovery and establishment of natural laws 
 governing all the dealings of employers and workers, 
 which cannot be violated or which insure justice in effort 
 demanded and in wage payment, seem to have no legiti- 
 mate foundation. 
 
 As the result of the lack of a scientific basis for scien- 
 tific management and of anything in the system itself ca- 
 pable of preventing violation of its own standards, in 
 matters which concern human conditions and relations, 
 we find that in actual practice the relations of scientific 
 management to the workers are, in the main, as else- 
 where in industry, determined by the ideals and intel- 
 ligence of the particular management, the exigencies of 
 the particular shop, and the general industrial situation. 
 No safe generalizations can, therefore, be made in re- 
 gard to most of its dealings with the workers. Some of 
 the managers are high-minded and intelligent, and their 
 immediate relations to their workers are marked by liber- 
 ality and fair dealing. Others are just ordinary, morally 
 and intellectually, with the results that might thus be 
 expected. It is not impossible to find men calling them- 
 selves scientific managers, and assuming to put into oper-
 
 3i8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 ation the Taylor, Gantt, or Emerson systems, whose 
 sole or main intent seems to be to use scientific manage- 
 ment methods to get as much as possible from, and to 
 give as little as possible to, the workers. The move- 
 ment is still in its infancy, and, in some respects, is, at 
 best, still crude and inadequate in its dealings with the 
 men. There is no doubt that adherence to Mr. Taylor's 
 ideal of the strict maintenance of standard conditions of 
 work and pay, as long as the efficiency conditions are 
 not altered, marks a distinct advance in the interests of 
 labor over the ideals which have been wont to govern 
 the relations of employers to unorganized labor. On 
 the other hand, it is an unfortunate fact that scientific 
 management at the present time is desperately fake-rid- 
 den, and where the fakirs — experts or managers — are in 
 the saddle, the results justify every charge that the work- 
 ers hurl against the movement. Thus, in actual practice, 
 scientific management varies from good, fair, and liberal 
 through every gradation to bad and positively oppressive, 
 in its methods and results, with respect to the selection 
 and hiring of workmen, the adaptation, instruction, and 
 training of workers, time study and task setting, rate 
 making, modes of payment and maintenance of rates, 
 protection of workers from overspeeding and exhaus- 
 tion, opportunities offered for advancement and promo- 
 tion, modes of discipline, methods of discharge, length 
 of service, etc. 
 
 There are, however, at least three matters of vital 
 general concern to the workers and society with respect 
 to which safe generalizations with regard to scientific 
 management seem to be possible. 
 
 First, scientific management has in it possibilities of 
 enormous increase of productive efficiency. In time and
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 319 
 
 motion study, broadly conceived, it has apparently dis- 
 covered a means such as we have never before had for 
 the systematic, continuous, and indefinite improvement of 
 productive processes and methods. Moreover, if prop- 
 erly guarded and guided, this method may be used very 
 effectively without entailing any evil results to the work- 
 ers in the way of overspeeding and exhaustion. Scien- 
 tific management, therefore, not only holds out possi- 
 bilities of substantial benefits to labor, but it points the 
 way toward raising the standard of living of all classes 
 of labor and of society at large. No one who has grasped 
 the import of the analysis which I have tried to give of 
 time and motion study in its broader conception can, for 
 a moment, doubt this statement. 
 
 Secondly, scientific management, as it actually exists, 
 is, in spirit and results, undemocratic in so far as we asso- 
 ciate industrial democracy with labor organization and 
 collective bargaining. It generally tends to weaken the 
 competitive power of the individual worker, thwarts the 
 formation of shop groups, and weakens the solidarity of 
 those which exist. It is generally lacking in the arrange- 
 ments and machinery, which, considering the workers' 
 experience and psychology, seem to be necessary for the 
 actual voicing of their complaints, and for the considera- 
 tion and adjustment of their grievances, except as in- 
 dividuals. Collective bargaining has ordinarily no place 
 in the determination of matters considered by organized 
 labor to be vital, and the attitude toward collective bar- 
 gaining is usually tolerant only when it is not under- 
 stood. Unionism, where it means a vigorous attempt to 
 enforce the viewpoint and claims of the workers, is gen- 
 erally looked upon with abhorrence. A few of the ad- 
 herents of scientific management are democratic in spirit
 
 320 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and purpose. Some think themselves democratic, but 
 analysis of their ideals and attitudes shows them to be 
 in reality adherents of a benevolent industrial despotism. 
 More are definitely committed to an autocratic attitude. 
 But, whatever the spirit of the management, scientific 
 management, in practice, by virtue of its most essential 
 and characteristic feature, time and motion study, tends, 
 apparently inevitably, to the elimination of what are 
 considered by the organized workers as democratic ar- 
 rangements and possibilities. The cogent reasons for 
 this conclusion will appear immediately. 
 
 Finally, scientific management, in its essential nature 
 and unsupplemented, seems to be a force tending to re- 
 duce the great body of workers to a little-skilled, prac- 
 tically interchangeable and unorganized mass, with all 
 this implies with respect to possible insecurity and dis- 
 continuity of employment, wage leveling, and the mental 
 and moral quality of the workers.^ 
 
 Scientific management, at its best, furthers the mod- 
 ern tendency toward the specialization of the workers. 
 Its most characteristic features — functional foremanship, 
 time and motion study, task setting, and efficiency pay- 
 ments — all have this inherent effect. 
 
 Functional foremanship means that the worker is to 
 have taken from him much that he formerly had to per- 
 form in connection with the particular task. It projects 
 the managerial activity down into every phase of shop- 
 work. As Mr. Taylor says, it effects a more equal divi- 
 sion of the work between the management and the 
 
 ® I cannot indicate this more clearly than by reproducing in 
 condensed form the discussion of this subject embodied in the 
 report on scientific management and labor made to the United 
 States Commission of Industrial Relations.
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 321 
 
 men by taking from the latter much of the work which 
 they were formerly obliged to perform. Under scien- 
 tific management, as fully developed, the machine hand 
 is intended to be, and is, in fact, a machine feeder and a 
 machine feeder only, with the possibility of auxiliary 
 operations clearly cut off; and what applies to the ma- 
 chine feeder applies with more or less thoroughness to 
 machine and hand operatives generally. 
 
 But it is not merely in sweeping from the job its 
 auxiliary operations that scientific management tends to 
 specialize the work and the workers. Time and motion 
 study, the chief cornerstone of all systems of scientific 
 management, tends inherently to the narrowing of the 
 job or task itself. The chief function of time and mo- 
 tion study, as we have seen, is the analysis of work, the 
 reduction of operations to their elementary motions and 
 units, and the recombination of these elements into oper- 
 ations more quickly and easily performed. Its preponder- 
 ating tendency is to split up the work into smaller and 
 simpler operations or tasks, and to further the invention 
 of new machinery of a more automatic type, and of 
 machinery for the performance of former hand opera- 
 tions. 
 
 With functional foremanship lopping off from the job 
 the auxiliary operations, and time and motion study tend- 
 ing to the narrowing of the task itself, task setting and 
 efficiency methods of payment come into play as forces 
 tending to confine the worker to a single task or narrow 
 range of operations. The worker is put upon the special 
 task for which he seems best adapted, and he is stimu- 
 lated by the methods of payment employed to make 
 himself as proficient as possible at it. When he suc- 
 ceeds in this, to shift him to another task ordinarily in-
 
 2,22 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 volves an immediate and distinct loss to the employer 
 and to the workman himself. 
 
 This inherent tendency to specialize is buttressed, 
 broadened in its scope, and perpetuated by the progressive 
 gathering up and systematizing, in the hands of the em- 
 ployers, of all the traditional craft knowledge in the 
 possession of the workers. With this information in 
 hand, and functional foremanship to direct its use, scien- 
 tific management claims to have no need of craftsmen 
 in the old sense of the term, and, therefore, no need for 
 an apprenticeship system, except for the training of 
 functional foremen. It therefore tends to neglect ap- 
 prenticeship except for the training of the few. 
 
 But scientific management is not only inherently spe- 
 cializing, it also tends to break down existing standards 
 and uniformities set up by the workmen, and to prevent 
 the establishment of stable conditions of work and pay. 
 Time and motion study means constant and endless 
 change in the methods of operation. No sooner is a 
 new and better method discovered and established, and 
 the conditions of work and pay adapted to it, than an 
 improvement is discovered, involving, perhaps, new ma- 
 chinery, new tools and materials, a new way of doing 
 things, and a consequent alteration of the conditions of 
 work and pay, with perhaps a complete reclassification of 
 the workers. Change and more change is the special 
 purpose and mission of this essential instrument and 
 central, feature of scientific management. 
 
 Certain conclusions inevitably follow. Scientific man- 
 agement, fully and properly applied, tends to the constant 
 breakdown of the established crafts and craftsmanship, 
 and the constant elimination of skill in the sense of nar- 
 rowing craft knowledge and workmanship, except pos-
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 323 
 
 sibly for some members of the managerial staff and 
 the lower orders of workmen. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the progressive degenera- 
 tion of craftsmanship and the progressive degradation of 
 skilled craftsmen, under scientific management, would 
 seem inevitable, unless some means can be found for 
 their preservation and development outside the shop. 
 
 What this means in increased competition of workman 
 with workman can be imagined. Were the scientific man- 
 agement ideal, as at present formulated, fully realized, 
 any man who walks the street might be a practical com- 
 petitor for almost any workman's job. Such a situa- 
 tion would inevitably break down the basis of present- 
 day unionism in its dominant form, and render collective 
 bargaining, as now practiced, impossible in any effective 
 sense in regard to the matters considered by the unions 
 as most essential. 
 
 Granting the correctness of this interpretation, the 
 more ultimate effects of scientific management, should it 
 become universal, upon wages and employment are mat- 
 ters of pure speculation. It is apparent, however, that the 
 highly trained workers cannot hope to maintain their 
 wage advantage over the semi-skilled and less skilled 
 workers. The tendency will be toward a realignment of 
 wage rates. Whether this leveling will be up or down, 
 it is impossible to say. At present, the writer believes 
 that scientific management is making the relatively un- 
 skilled more efficient than ever before, and that they are 
 generally receiving under it greater earnings than ever 
 before. It is evident, however, that the native efficiency 
 of the working class must suffer from the neglect of 
 apprenticeship if no other means of industrial educa- 
 tion is forthcoming.
 
 324 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 If generally increased efficiency is the result of scien- 
 tific management, uneniployment would, in the end, seem 
 to become less of a menace. But during the period of 
 transition we should expect its increase. Moreover, the 
 whole scheme of scientific management, especially the 
 gathering up and systematizing of the knowledge, which 
 was formerly the possession of the workers, tends enor- 
 mously to add to the strength of capitalism. This fact, 
 together with the greater ease of replacement, must make 
 the security and continuity of employment inherently 
 more uncertain. 
 
 Scientific management, then, like the progressive in- 
 vention of machinery, seems to be a force urging us for- 
 ward toward an era of specialized workmanship and gen- 
 erally semi-skilled or less skilled workmen. Here we 
 glimpse the great problem with which its spread and de- 
 velopment confront labor and society. What, then, is 
 the solution of the problem thus presented? 
 
 I cannot believe that it lies in repressive measures. 
 We surely cannot afiford to give up the vast possibilities 
 of increased productiveness which scientific management 
 holds out. On the contrary, "our industries should 
 adopt," and should be encouraged to adopt, "all methods 
 which replace inaccuracy by accurate knowledge, and 
 which systematically operate to improve productive 
 methods and eliminate economic waste." The remedy, 
 then, is not repression, but supplementation. 
 
 The need is a method by which the intellectual and 
 moral content which the worker is losing through the 
 destruction of his craft training and the loss of his craft 
 knowledge can be restored to him. How can we secure 
 this? It will not do, I take it, to demand this of scien- 
 tific management. To attempt to limit specialization
 
 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 325 
 
 and restore the old apprenticeship system in the shop 
 would mean to prevent to a large degree the productive 
 effectiveness and the productive improvements which 
 we cannot afford to forego. Moreover, to require that 
 scientific managers themselves maintain training schools 
 for all their workers, effective in a social sense, would 
 severely penalize and handicap, if it did not eliminate, 
 the system. 
 
 Nor do we wish the training of the workers to be cen- 
 tered In the hands and under the control solely of the 
 employers. It seems that what we really need, as a 
 supplement to scientific management — so that we may 
 avail ourselves of its beneficial possibilities and eliminate 
 or minimize its possible evil effects — is an adequate sys- 
 tem of industrial education, socially launched and socially 
 controlled — an Integral part of our public school sys- 
 tem. With such a system in vogue, we might hope, I 
 believe, that what the workers lose intellectually and 
 morally in the shop, under modem specialized work- 
 manship, they would gain In the school, and that through 
 this moral and Intellectual gain they might become uni- 
 versally organizable and organized, and might develop 
 policies and methods which, while not Interfering with 
 productive efficiency, would secure for them as a class 
 improved conditions and a reasonable share in the in- 
 creased social dividend which the development and 
 spread of scientific management promise.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHY ORGANIZED LABOR OPPOSES SCIENTIFIC 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 The various systems commonly included under the 
 general term "scientific management" differ specifically 
 in many respects, but they all have in common certain 
 purposes and methods which constitute the basis of or- 
 ganized labor's opposition. 
 
 Theoretically, scientific management is an attempt 
 through accurate industrial analysis to discover and 
 put into operation the objective facts and laws which 
 underlie true ef^ciency in production. In its broadest 
 and best application it attempts through this process of 
 analysis to determine the best location and structure of 
 the shop for the particular manufacture designed; the 
 most efficient processes and methods of production in 
 general and in detail ; the material, organic and human 
 arrangements and relationships best suited to further the 
 productive process ; the most effective character, arrange- 
 ment and uses of the machinery, tools and materials em- 
 ployed; the methods of selection and training of the 
 workmen and managerial force most conducive to effi- 
 ciency; the character and amount of work which can 
 and ought to be performed by each member of the labor 
 and managerial force; the payment to be accorded each 
 individual in the interests of efficiency and justice; and 
 
 326
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT :^^7 
 
 in general it aims to discover all the material, organic 
 and human qualities, arrangements and relationships 
 which will result in greatest output and lowest cost. 
 
 The principal and distinctive device by which scientific 
 management attempts thus to discover and put into oper- 
 ation the objective facts and laws of industrial efficiency 
 is time and motion study. 
 
 It is the use of time and motion study, not only for 
 task setting but for the improvement and standardiza- 
 tion of all the mechanical and organic features and ar- 
 rangements of the productive concern, that chiefly dis- 
 tinguishes scientific management from all previous sys- 
 tems of production. Through the use of time and 
 motion study and the modes of payment which it has 
 devised, it has been claimed that scientific management 
 not only increases efficiency and lowers costs, but does 
 larger and more difficult things. We are told that it 
 substitutes in the shop the government of fact and law 
 for the rule of force and opinion, i, e., substitutes the 
 democracy of science for the autocratic rule of employ- 
 ers or workmen, and removes the rough, arbitrary and 
 often unjust discipline of foremen and superintendents; 
 assigns to each worker the task for which he is best 
 fitted ; trains the workers in the best and easiest methods 
 of work; protects them from over-exertion and exhaus- 
 tion; safeguards them against arbitrary discharge, and 
 lengthens their term of service ; raises wages ; eliminates 
 arbitrary rate-cutting, and affords increased opportuni- 
 ties for advancement and promotion ; and, finally, renders 
 unnecessary trade unionism and collective bargaining as 
 a means of protection to the workmen. 
 
 Such in briefest outline is the essential character of 
 scientific management and such are the essential claims
 
 328 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 made for it. Why then does organized labor stand in 
 definite and uncompromising opposition to it? 
 
 There are more than a hundred specific reasons al- 
 leged by the representatives of organized labor to account 
 for their determined opposition to scientific management, 
 and, doubtless, there are many other points of opposi- 
 tion which are not openly proclaimed. In my study last 
 year,^ I attempted to gather up these scattered allega- 
 tions and reduce them to some sort of system. Thus 
 classified and generalized to the nth degree, they com- 
 prehend the following main points : 
 
 Scientific management, say the union representatives, 
 is a device employed for the purpose of increasing pro- 
 duction and profits, which concerns itself almost wholly 
 with the problem of production, disregarding in general 
 *^ the vital problem of distribution. As such it is a rever- 
 sion to industrial autocracy which forces the workers to 
 depend upon the employers' conception of fairness and 
 limits the democratic safeguards of the workers. It is 
 unscientific and unfair in the setting of the task and in 
 the fixing of wage rates; in spirit and essence it is a 
 cunningly devised speeding-up and sweating system ; it 
 intensifies the modern tendency toward specialization of 
 the work and the task; it condemns the worker to a 
 monotonous routine and tends to deprive him of thought, 
 initiative and joy in his work and to destroy his indi- 
 viduality and inventive genius; it lessens the continuity 
 and certainty of employment, and leads to over-produc- 
 tion and unemployment; it is incompatible with, and 
 destructive of, collective bargaining and trade unionism. 
 
 Belief in these charges, in whole or in part, which I 
 found on further investigation was general among or- 
 
 ^ See Hoxie, Scientific Management and Labor (1915).
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 329 
 
 ganized laborers, is sufficient to account superficially and 
 immediately for the determined opposition of unions and 
 union men to the introduction and operation of scientific 
 management. Yet the statement of these objections 
 does not furnish any very real or significant answer 
 to the question, why organized labor opposes scientific 
 management. It gives answer in terms of belief only. 
 It gives no clue to the causes of this belief, and, there- 
 fore, none to the real nature of the opposition — to the 
 forces which have created the opposition, and hence its 
 strength and significance. In short, this statement of 
 belief does not go to the root of the matter and en- 
 lighten us in regard to the fundamental question. In 
 order to do this, we must dig below the surface and find 
 the basic or ultimate reasons for these expressed beliefs. 
 During my work of investigation last year several sug- 
 gestions were brought forward both by opponents and 
 advocates of scientific management to account in general 
 and causal terms for the attitude and belief of organized 
 labor which I have tried to summarize above. It was 
 suggested that the opposition was ascribable to various 
 causes, (i) To general ignorance on the part of the 
 union workers of the true nature, methods, and results 
 of scientific management. (2) To general and funda- 
 mental distrust, which the workers have acquired from 
 bitter experience, of anything new or different in indus- 
 trial organization and methods. (3) To a propaganda 
 of opposition among the rank and file of union men, 
 conducted by the leaders, who fear that if a better under- 
 standing is allowed to grow up between the real work- 
 ers and the employers, their prestige and emoluments 
 will be decreased, and even perhaps their positions abol- 
 ished and they be reduced again to the ranks. (4) To
 
 33d TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 the crudities of scientific management, still in its begin- 
 nings, and to the many abuses of it in practice by char- 
 latans and by ignorant and unscrupulous employers, who 
 trade upon the name without understanding the intricate 
 and delicate nature of the thing, the time and patience 
 necessary for its development, or who deliberately violate 
 its spirit and methods for labor driving purposes. (5) 
 To present dominant ideals of trade unionism which are 
 incompatible with those of scientific management as con- 
 ceived by Mr. Taylor, a suggestion made by Mr. Taylor 
 himself, who said : "Scientific management rests upon 
 the fundamental assumption that a harmony of interests 
 exists between employers and workmen. It is therefore 
 organized for peace, while trade unionism is organized 
 for war. . . . Scientific management rests upon the as- 
 sumption that the welfare of all demands ever increased 
 efficiency and output : trade unionism is committed to the 
 limitation of output." 
 
 Doubtless each of these suggestions has some validity, 
 but none of them nor all of them together seem sufficient 
 to account for the general and determined opposition of 
 the unions. Moreover, some of them, while perhaps not 
 jx)sitive misstatements, are 3^et misleading in their impli- 
 cations. Let us then consider each of them briefly on its 
 merits and through this try to. arrive at the essential 
 meaning of the union attitude toward scientific manage- 
 ment. 
 
 ( I ) It is true that there has been and is now a great 
 lack of adequate knowledge of the true nature, methods 
 and results of scientific management as a whole on the 
 part of the great mass of organized workers, both the 
 leaders and the rank and file. But it is equally true that 
 increase of knowledge, which is going forward steadily,
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENt 33! 
 
 does not result in any abatement of union opposition. 
 Here and there, individual members of unions or small 
 groups of union workers who are brought into actual 
 contact with efficiency methods in the shop do become 
 reconciled to scientific management and are sometimes 
 even enthusiastic advocates of it. But the significant 
 thing to note here is that these same men generally cease 
 to be "good unionists" in spirit, even if they do not 
 drop their union affiliation altogether and become its op- 
 ponents. The increased knowledge which leading union- 
 ists have recently gained of scientific management, in 
 theory and in practice, has intensified rather than les- 
 sened their opposition and that of the union movement 
 in general. 
 
 (2) There is no doubt that general and almost in- 
 stinctive distrust of the new, strange and different has 
 played a part in rousing union opposition and to a cer- 
 tain extent is effective in continuing it. It has been 
 ground into the consciousness of laborers by long and 
 bitter experience that industrial change through inven- 
 tion and the application of new machinery and processes, 
 however beneficial it is to society as a whole and even to 
 labor in the long run, usually results in taking toll im- 
 mediately from the individual worker or the working 
 group concerned. It leads to displacement or lessened 
 security of employment, often in lower wage rates and 
 long hours, through the increased competition of lower 
 grades of workmen and the lower cost and prices of the 
 products affected. The history of industrial develop- 
 ment is full of incidents of this kind, and no better ex- 
 ample can be found than the case of the English weavers 
 and spinners which Mr. Taylor was so fond of citing. 
 For more than a generation after the application of the ,
 
 33^ TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 great inventions which revolutionized the cotton manu- 
 facturing industry in England, the competition of women 
 and children operated to displace the men, to lower 
 wages, and to lengthen hours, to such an extent that this 
 industry as it then existed has become the classical exam- 
 ple of modern labor oppression and degradation. The 
 world, and even labor, ultimately gained ; but meanwhile 
 the workman concerned, the head of the family, sat at 
 home, swept the house, cooked and darned, while his 
 wife and children, down even to the age of five years, 
 worked in the factory from four and five o'clock in the 
 morning till seven and eight o'clock at night, under the 
 most insanitary and unsafe conditions, often treated with 
 unheard-of brutality, and for an aggregate wage that 
 scarcely sufficed for the food, clothing and shelter neces- 
 sary to keep body and soul together. And what was 
 true of the English cotton industry has tended to be true 
 in a lesser degree of industrial changes generally. The 
 workmen immediately concerned have tended to be pe- 
 nalized that society might reap the advantages of indus- 
 trial progress. What wonder then that they have come 
 instinctively to dread change of any kind that immedi- 
 ately affects their work and to oppose such change unless 
 it is accompanied by positive guarantees that they shall 
 immediately share in the social gains, or, at least, suffer 
 no loss of employment and no derogation of their stand- 
 ards of work and wages as the result of the improve- 
 ments? And surely we can hardly expect the workman 
 with a dependent family and no savings ahead to wel- 
 come innovations that threaten to render less valuable his 
 acquired skill, to throw him even temporarily out of em- 
 ployment, or to transfer him to employment which com- 
 mands a lower wage rate, simply because these changes
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 333 
 
 will redound ultimately to the benefit of society, to labor 
 as a whole, or even in the long run to his own advantage, 
 when a month of unemployment, two weeks even, may 
 bring him and his to the verge of want, while a few 
 months or years of employment at a lower wage level 
 may mean the wrecking of all his hopes for a home, for 
 the education of his children, for provision against sick- 
 ness and old age, or may mean even the break-up and 
 scattering of his family. 
 
 (3) That trade union officers and leaders have of late 
 carried on a persistent and ever increasing propaganda 
 against scientific management cannot be gainsaid. Stray 
 sentences from Mr. Taylor's works which could be in- 
 terpreted as inimical to the workers and their welfare, 
 and particular instances of abuses and perversions of 
 scientific management, have been dramatically presented 
 to the rank and file of unionism as indicative of the gen- 
 eral character and results of the system, much in the 
 same spirit as texts from the Bible were formerly used 
 by the clergy to warn the unconverted of the dangers of 
 hell fire. The motives which underlie this propa- 
 gandistic work I need not attempt to interpret. What- 
 ever the motive, the effect has undoubtedly been to rouse 
 the latent distrust and quicken the opposition of the rank 
 and file of organized laborers. But here again we find 
 no force potent enough to account for the general oppo- 
 sition of the union laity ; for it is a well established fact 
 that the rank and file of unionism are quick to distrust 
 their leaders when these leaders take a position which 
 seems to run counter to their own preconceptions and 
 beliefs drawn from immediate experience or tradition. 
 Let the union leader endeavor to enforce on the rank 
 and file something which is fundamentally opposed to
 
 334 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 their standards and beliefs, and he soon finds that his 
 leadership is of the quality represented by that of the 
 man at the head of the charging crowd. If he is to 
 lead he must run fast to keep them off his heels, and he 
 must run where the mind of the crowd wills. 
 
 (4) The crudities of scientific management in prac- 
 tice, and its many abuses by charlatans or by ignorant 
 and unscrupulous employers — conditions and abuses the 
 prevalence of which the scientific management group 
 would be the last to deny or to attempt to minimize — 
 furnish the union propagandists with an inexhaustible 
 arsenal of facts and inferences with which to illustrate 
 their texts and reen force the multitude of charges which 
 they hurl against the new movement. But the very em- 
 ployment of these abuses to create opposition against 
 scientific management per se, and the persistent refusal 
 to attempt or even to admit any distinction between sci- 
 entific management as exemplified in the better class of 
 shops where its ideals and principles are being patiently 
 worked out and its mushroom counterfeits where these 
 ideals and methods are consciously perverted, point to 
 grounds of opposition aside from and beyond its abuses, 
 and grounds which evidently have not yet been disclosed. 
 
 (j;) Finally, then, we come to Mr. Taylor's own ex- 
 planation of union opposition in the incompatibility of 
 the ideals of scientific management and unionism, in that 
 the one is organized for peace and harmonious action 
 between employers and workmen, the other for war; 
 that the one demands an ever Increased efficiency, while 
 the other is committed to limitation of output. 
 
 Do we come here to the real and ultimate answer to 
 the question, why does organized labor oppose scientific 
 management? In a certain sense I believe that we do.
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 335 
 
 I believe that the persistent and growing opposition of 
 unionism to scientific management does rest finally upon 
 a fundamental opposition of the ideals essentially char- 
 acteristic of the two things. But I cannot subscribe to 
 Mr, Taylor's analysis of this proposition — his explicit 
 statement of the opposed ideals of scientific management 
 and organized labor — because I believe that he has here 
 misinterpreted the really fundamental ideals of trade 
 unionism. He has mistaken action for motive — the 
 objective facts of union policy imposed by circumstances 
 for the underlying purposes of unionism which have been 
 forced to find expression in facts which belie their real 
 nature. In so doing, I believe that he committed an error 
 similar to that of the unionists in judging the ideals of 
 scientific management by its crudities and abuses. 
 
 In this connection it is misleading to speak of union- 
 ism as a whole. In fact there is no such thing as union- 
 ism in the sense of a consistent organic or functional 
 unity. On the contrary, "there are in the United States 
 today hundreds of union organizations each practically 
 independent or sovereign, and each with its own and 
 often peculiar structural arrangements, aims, policies, de- 
 mands, methods, attitudes and internal regulations. Nor 
 is there any visible or tangible bond that unites all these 
 organizations into a single whole, however tenuous. 
 Groups there are, indeed, with overstructures and de- 
 clared common aims and methods. But group combats 
 group with the bitterness that can arise only out of the 
 widest diversity of ideals and methods." In short, trade 
 unionism is everywhere very much of an opportunistic 
 phenomenon. Unionists have been prone to act first and 
 to formulate theories afterward ; and they have habitu- 
 ally acted to meet the problems thrust upon them by im-
 
 336- TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 mediate circumstances. Modes of action which have 
 failed when measured by this standard have been rejected 
 and other means sought. Methods that have worked 
 have been preserved and extended, but always the stand- 
 ards of judgment have been most largely determined by 
 the needs and experiences of the particular group con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the generalization that we 
 can most legitimately use is to speak of a dominant type 
 of unionism, and we may perhaps say that this dominant 
 type is represented functionally by the ideals and methods 
 advocated by the leaders of the American Federation of 
 Labor. 
 
 It is with respect to this dominant type of unionism 
 that I believe Mr. Taylor has mistaken the objective 
 facts of policy imposed by circumstances for underlying 
 purposes. In the case of this dominant union type the 
 reality seems to be this: it is not organized for war, 
 though it does engage in warfare ; it recognizes the cry- 
 ing need for increased efficiency and productiveness, 
 though it does, as a matter of fact, under certain circum- 
 stances and for reasons which we shall see later, limit 
 the output. In both cases it has been forced to modify 
 its general ideals in practice by the conditions and cir- 
 cumstances which it has found itself obliged to face. 
 
 The truth is that the outlook and ideals of this domi- 
 nant type of unionism are those very largely of a busi- 
 ness organization. Its successful leaders are essentially 
 business men and its unions are organized primarily to 
 do business with employers — to bargain for the sale of 
 the product which it controls. It has found, however, 
 by long and general experience that if it is to do business 
 with the average employer or with associations of em-
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 337 
 
 ployers it must be prepared to fight. But throughout 
 its history this fighting has been predominantly con- 
 ducted with the purpose of forcing employers to recog- 
 nize it as a business or bargaining entity. Its position 
 and experience have been very much like that of a new 
 and rising business concern attempting to force its 
 way into a field already occupied by old established 
 organizations in control of the market. Like the new 
 business concern, it has had to fight to obtain a foothold. 
 But to argue from this that it is organized for war is 
 a complete non seqicittir. 
 
 A somewhat similar situation has existed in regard 
 to the matter of output. Business unionism has recog- 
 nized, in general, the evils of restriction and has been 
 willing to allow and even to encourage the introduction 
 of new machinery and improved processes and methods, 
 and to sanction increased effort and productiveness on 
 the part of its members up to reasonable physiological 
 limits, provided it could be guaranteed that the improved 
 methods and the increased exertion and output should 
 not be made the means of lessening the share of the 
 workers in the product or forcing upon them lower wage 
 rates and inferior conditions of employment. But here 
 again it has found the average employer or employers' 
 association standing in the way. It has been taught by 
 long and bitter experience that employers could and 
 would make use of improvements and increased output 
 by the workers not only to seize all of the gains but even 
 to reduce the actual rates and returns to the workers. 
 
 The fact is that despite all theorizing to the contrary, 
 the wages of workmen under the unscientific conditions 
 that have prevailed in industry are not determined auto- 
 matically by specific output or by supply and demand,
 
 338 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 but immediately by a process of bargaining. The two 
 most important factors in determining the outcome of 
 this bargaining process have been the customary nor- 
 mal or standard day's work and the customary stand- 
 ard of living of the workers concerned. These have 
 been the practical standards of right, justice and expedi- 
 ency most generally considered. In bargaining between 
 employer and workmen, as it has generally taken place in 
 the past, if the employer could make it appear that, under 
 the existing conditions, the workers were not producing 
 up to the standard day's work, he had a strong case to 
 show that wages ought to be lowered or that more work 
 ought to be done for the same pay, which amounts vir- 
 tually to lowering the wage. If, further, the employer 
 could make it appear that, at the given wage rate, or on 
 the basis of the standard day's work, the workers could 
 secure a standard of living higher than that customary 
 with them, he had a strong case to show that the wage 
 rate ought to be lowered", or, at least, that it should not 
 be increased. In a contest of this kind the employer has 
 been fairly sure of the support of public opinion, arbi- 
 trators, the police and the courts. 
 
 Now the workers have been taught by long experience 
 that the average employer is constantly seeking to take 
 advantage of these facts to secure an increase of the out- 
 put and at the same time to lessen the share and the 
 amount of the product going to the workers. Thus, 
 when new machinery and methods are introduced, he 
 points to the fact that, at the old wage rates and under 
 the old conditions of work, the laborers are able to secure 
 earnings more than sufficient to maintain their custom- 
 ary standard of living, and makes this a basis for lower- 
 ing of rates or at least for a refusal to increase wages
 
 y 
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 339 
 
 and improve conditions of work. Where competition is 
 keen, he has usually been able to carry this off by adding 
 to the arguments stated above that profits have not risen 
 or that they have positively declined as the result of the 
 improved methods. Where competition has been absent, 
 i. e., where a combination has controlled the goods mar- 
 ket, the employer has usually been strong enough to 
 carry his point regardless of facts and arguments. Thus, 
 new machinery and methods have generally not improved 
 the wages and conditions of the workers immediately 
 concerned and, as a matter of fact, have not infrequently 
 lowered them, especially where these improvements have 
 created conditions of increased competition among the 
 workers, as they very generally have done. 
 
 Turning now to the other aspect of the matter — in- 
 creased effort and productiveness on the part of work- 
 men where no improvement in methods has taken place 
 — the experience of the workers has been that the old 
 line employer has been constantly endeavoring to speed 
 them up and overreach them by the creation of "swifts" 
 and "bell-horses," through the introduction of "company 
 men," by threatening and coercing individuals whose 
 native resisting power was weak or whose circumstances 
 were precarious, and by offering secret premiums or 
 bonuses. When through these methods some man or 
 group of men has been induced to speed up, their accom- 
 plishment has been taken as the standard for all to attain. 
 Thus, in the case of day work, the accomplishment of 
 the strongest and swiftest was the goal set up for all, 
 if wages were not to be lowered, while in the case of 
 piece work the rate of wages tended to be lowered by 
 these exceptionally rapid workers, because at the given 
 rate it could be shown that they could make more than
 
 340 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 was necessary to maintain their customary standard of 
 living. Under these circumstances the workers found 
 that increased efficiency and output by members of their 
 immediate group tended to mean, not a corresponding 
 increase of pay, but less wages for all, or more work for 
 the same pay ; and the only way they could see to prevent 
 overspeeding and the lowering of rates was to set a limit 
 on what any individual was allowed to do, in short, to 
 limit individual and group output until the employer 
 could be forced to guarantee increased wages for in- 
 creased effort and output. 
 
 These are facts which, I believe, cannot be contro- 
 verted. No one recognized this more clearly than Mr. 
 Taylor himself, whose denunciation of the blindness and 
 unfairness of the average employer on account of them 
 has not been exceeded in strength and bitterness by the 
 labor leaders, and who declared publicly that were he 
 a worker up against such conditions he would feel as 
 they have felt and do as they have done in the matter of 
 limitation of output. 
 
 In view of the facts of the case, then, as truly stated 
 by Mr. Taylor, the circumstance that they do make war 
 and that they do limit output gives so far no positive 
 grounds for Mr. Taylor's generalization that unionism 
 is organized for war, that unionism is committed to 
 limitation of output, that the present dominant ideals of 
 unionism are incompatible with those of scientific man- 
 agement, and that it is from this source that the opposi- 
 tion of unionism comes. 
 
 But if these conclusions hold, why, then, you will at 
 once ask, does not unionism make an exception in the 
 case of scientific management, which is itself supposed to 
 be engaged in a struggle to eliminate those very coercive
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 341 
 
 and oppressive tactics of the old line employers that have 
 forced unionism to limit output and engage in industrial 
 warfare? Why, in the case of scientific management, 
 which is supposed to be committed to the strict main- 
 tenance of rates, to the elimination of speeders and to 
 the increase of earnings with improved methods and in- 
 creased output by the workers, does it not cease its war- 
 fare and raise its embargo on increased output ? Doubt- 
 less the various causes of union opposition which we 
 have discussed are a partial explanation. Ignorance of 
 the true nature, methods and results of scientific man- 
 agement, distrust of the new and the different acquired 
 by bitter experience, the propagandist influence of lead- 
 ers, the crudities and abuses of scientific management in 
 practice — all undoubtedly tend to create and maintain 
 union, opposition. 
 
 But these things are not sufficient to account for it 
 fully. The fact is, I believe, that behind and beneath 
 all this there is an essential incompatibility between the 
 basic ideals of scientific management and those of the 
 dominant type of trade unionism. Not an incompati- 
 bility of the character Mr. Taylor believed to exist, but 
 one still more fundamental. It is, I believe, this. Sci- 
 entific management can function successfully only on 
 the basis of constant and indefinite change of industrial 
 condition — the constant adoption of new and better 
 processes and methods of production and the unre- 
 strained ability to adapt the mechanical, organic and hu- 
 man factors at its disposal to meet the demands of these 
 new productive processes and methods. On the other 
 hand, trade unionism of the dominant type can function 
 successfidly only through the maintenance of a fixed in- 
 dustrial situation and conditions^ extending over a defi-
 
 342 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 nite period of time, or through the definite predetermined 
 regulation and adjustment of industrial change — the 
 establishment of definite rules and restraints governing 
 the adoption of new processes and methods of produc- 
 tion and the resulting mechanical, organic and human 
 adaptations which the employer shall be allowed to make. 
 Scientific management is essentially dynamic in its con- 
 ception and methods. To impose static conditions, or to 
 restrain it from taking full and immediate advantage 
 of dynamic possibilities, robs it at once of its special pur- 
 pose and effectiveness. Trade unionism of the dominant 
 type is effective only where it can secure the strict main- 
 tenance of the industrial status quo, or can make its 
 influence count effectively in all matters affecting its 
 membership during the term of a contract. The condi- 
 tions necessary to the effectiveness of the one are, there- 
 fore, incompatible with the effectiveness of the other. 
 
 To show the truth of these statements we have only to 
 examine briefly the character and results of the central 
 methods or means through which these contrasted enti- 
 ties, scientific management and the dominant type of 
 unionism, function. 
 
 As I have stated previously, the central and essential 
 instrument or method of scientific management, the fun- 
 damental means through which it secures knowledge of 
 the industrial situation and which guides it in action 
 toward the attainment of its ends, is time and motion 
 study, applied not alone to the setting of tasks and the 
 making of rates, but to the discovery and inauguration 
 of improvements in the material, organic and human 
 conditions and arrangements of the productive process. 
 Thus used, time and motion study means constant and 
 endless change in the methods of operation. No sooner
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 343 
 
 is a new and better method found and established than 
 an improvement upon it is discovered, involving perhaps 
 new machinery, new tools and materials, and a new way 
 of doing things. Change, change and still more change 
 is the special purpose and mission of this essential instru- 
 ment and central feature of scientific management. In 
 short, time and motion study in its broader conception 
 appears to be a method of analysis applied to almost 
 every feature of the productive concern and process. 
 And it is something which is not done once and for all, 
 but is applied continuously throughout the life of the 
 establishment. The scientific management based upon it 
 is a perpetual attempt to put into operation the new and 
 constantly developing arrangements continuously re- 
 vealed by it to be more efficient. Not the least of these 
 are the discovery and adoption of new and more effective 
 operations and tasks, the reclassification of the working 
 force to meet the needs of these new conditions, the 
 shifting of the individual worker from class to class and 
 task to task in order to discover the work for which he 
 is best adapted, the handling of the individual laborer's 
 work and pay with reference to his particular quality and 
 temperament so as to bring into play his best productive 
 possibilities. To deprive scientific management of the 
 immediate use of the results of time and motion study, 
 especially to restrain it from taking advantage of the 
 better classification of workers and the better adaptation 
 of the particular worker to the particular task which 
 time study reveals, would be to deprive it of its chief 
 characteristic — its constant striving toward the end of 
 maximum possible efficiency, the thing that essentially 
 marks it off from ordinary systems of management and 
 gives it productive superiority to them. In short, such
 
 344 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 deprivation would prevent it from functioning normally. 
 Turning now to unionism of the dominant type, we 
 find that the great body of its essential policies, demands 
 and methods center about and are in the interest of one 
 great principle — the principle of uniformity, as regards 
 all the conditions of work and pay affecting the group 
 of workers which it represents. The principle of uni- 
 formity, fully developed and applied, requires that all 
 men doing the same work should be supplied with the 
 same tools and conveniences, work normally the same 
 length of time and at the same maximum speed, turn 
 out the same maximum quantity and quality of goods, 
 and receive the same rate of wages. It is in the interest 
 of this principle of uniformity that the unionists demand 
 the establishment of a standard rate of wages as a fixed 
 minimum, a normal day or week as a maximum, a stand- 
 ard rate of work or a standard day's or week's work, 
 which, in connection with a standard rate of wages, 
 tends to make this standard rate a practical maximum. 
 It is largely to penalize the violation of these standards, 
 so that there may be no inducement to break down the 
 principle of uniformity, that unions demand pay at an 
 extra rate for overtime and for doing work in irregular 
 ways or under irregular circumstances. It is to prevent 
 the violation of these standards of work and pay, and so 
 to protect the principle of uniformity, that they demand 
 control over the working personnel through the closed 
 shop, control over the output of the individual, the aban- 
 donment of bonuses and premium payments, and, finally, 
 collective bargaining — a contract made with the whole 
 group of workers, extending over a definite period and 
 covering all the conditions of work and pay for all the 
 men during th? contract period.
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 345 
 
 The reasons for the insistence upon this principle of 
 uniformity have been indicated earher in this paper. It 
 is not that the unions desire the limitation of output and 
 are definitely committed to it, but that long experience 
 with the average employer has ground into their souls 
 the belief that employers as a class are constantly seek- 
 ing to lov/er the wage rate, and at the same time to 
 increase the speed and exertion of the workers of the 
 group through driving or bribing individuals of the 
 group to greater speed and longer hours; and then are 
 setting up the work and pay of these men as evidence 
 to prove that the others are soldiering on the job and 
 must increase their exertions or suffer a reduction of 
 wage rates or a lengthening of hours of work. The 
 only effective way that the unions have found for pre- 
 venting this underbidding on the part of individual work- 
 ers and the consequences indicated, is to cut out all work- 
 ing competition between the members of the group, by 
 insisting on the definite establishment of uniform stand- 
 ards to be observed by all and to cover all the conditions 
 of work and pay — i. e., by the establishment and main- 
 tenance of the general principle of uniformity, applied 
 to all the members of each particular working group. 
 
 And it is evident, say the vmionists, that the principle 
 of uniformity thus conceived cannot be established and 
 maintained against the employer who wishes to violate 
 it unless all the conditions and methods of work and pay 
 are Hxed for the term of a contract — that is, unless all 
 change is either barred, or is predetermined and regu- 
 lated through the establishment of definite rules and 
 restraints governing the adoption of new processes and 
 methods, and the resulting mechanical, organic and hu-- 
 man adaptations and changes in payment which the eia
 
 34^ TRADE UNiONtSM 
 
 ployer shall be allowed to make during the contract pe- 
 riod. Any change in machinery, processes, tools, ma- 
 terials, products, not predetermined or regulated, opens 
 the way for new classifications of work and workers not 
 covered by the contract and thus opens the way by which 
 the employer may seek to overreach the men, to degrade 
 workers, establish new and lower rates of pay and less 
 advantageous conditions of work ; in other words, to 
 reintroduce competition of workman with workman and 
 consequent underbidding among them, and thus demolish 
 entirely the structure of uniformity which the unions 
 have reared. 
 
 Nor is this all. Looking at the matter in the long 
 run and assuming, as the unions habitually do, that the 
 employer is on the outlook to profit at the expense of 
 the workers, not even the predetermination and regula- 
 tion of changes by means of periodical contracts between 
 the employers and unions can save the principle of uni- 
 formity from ultimate destruction where time and mo- 
 tion study is tolerated. For time and motion study 
 means a constant tendency toward the break-up of old 
 established crafts and the substitution of specialist work- 
 men for the all-round craftsmen. Further, through it 
 there is a constant discovery, gathering up and classifica- 
 tion by the management of the knowledge of the best 
 ways of performing work, on the basis of which definite 
 instruction cards can be issued. With these and the 
 guidance of functional foremen, relatively unskilled 
 workers can be taught in a short time to do efficiently a 
 very great part of the work which only skilled crafts- 
 men could be trusted with formerly. And still further, 
 the possession of this definite information enables the 
 employer to measure more accurately the work and capa-
 
 LABOR AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 347 
 
 bilities of each man, and to determine more accurately 
 what wage payments would induce each worker to do his 
 best. Where time and motion study is allowed, then, 
 even under regulation, the employer at the end of each 
 contract period would be less and less dependent on the 
 union and more and more inclined to substitute specialist 
 workmen for craftsmen, and efficiency methods of pay- 
 ment for the uniform day wage. But it is a notorious 
 fact that relatively unskilled specialist workmen do not 
 make good unionists, and that efficiency methods of pay- 
 ment tend to center the attention and interest of each 
 workman on his own affairs and thus to lessen the feel- 
 ing of mutual interest and common dependence among 
 the workers. Under these circumstances the union 
 could not long maintain the conditions which it considers 
 essential to industrial democracy in the shop and enforce 
 the principle of uniformity against the will of the em- 
 ployer. 
 
 There appears to be no getting round the fact, there- 
 fore, that constant indefinite change of industrial condi- 
 tions, such as is essential to the functioning of scientific 
 management, is in clear contradiction to the principle of 
 uniformity which is the central and fundamental princi- 
 ple of trade union policy and is absolutely essential, from 
 the point of view of the dominant type of unionism, to 
 its successful functioning. Instinctively, therefore, the 
 dominant typye of unionism fights against change and 
 against time and motion study, the mother of change. 
 
 But, you will again say, granting the incompatibility 
 of these fundamental principles, why does not unionism 
 make an exception of scientific management and scien- 
 tific management employers who are not trying to over- 
 reach the workers but on the contrary are definitely com-
 
 548 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 mitted to maintenance of rates and to a leveling up of 
 earnings with every increase of efficiency? The answer 
 of the unionists is, that these may be the ideals of scien- 
 tific management but they have not worked out in prac- 
 tice. Scientific management may maintain rates and 
 level up the earnings of the workers at any given task; 
 but what good does that do the skilled craftsmen, the 
 bulk of the old line unionists, when, through the constant 
 and unending change which scientific management is in- 
 augurating, it destroys the very crafts to which the rates 
 for which they stand apply, and forces them to join the 
 crowd of specialized workmen whose earnings may be 
 raised by scientific management but nevertheless will still 
 be lower than the old craftsman's pay? In scientific 
 management at its very best unionism of the dominant ' 
 type sees its worst enemy, in that scientific management 
 means the abolishment of the very craft conditions and 
 the very psychology of industrial democracy upon which 
 the unions have painfully erected their superstructure of 
 uniformity, and upon whose continuation their identity 
 and continued functioning depend. 
 
 Specialize the old line craftsman, destroy his craft, 
 and however high your ideals and kindly your motives, 
 you are destroying the foundations upon which the dom- 
 inant type of unionism is reared. Every union leader 
 feels this instinctively ; every one who has come into con- 
 tact with scientific management and who has an under- 
 standing of unionism knows that this is what it is doing. 
 Here, I believe, we have the final answer to the question 
 "why organized labor opposes scientific management." 
 Scientific management, properly applied, normally func- 
 tioning, should it become universal, would spell the doom 
 of effective unionism as it exists today.
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 351 
 
 sympathies and habits of thought, regardless of their 
 source of income. Thus, from the psychological stand- 
 point, all those, whatever the source of their income, who 
 feel that their interests are identical with those of the 
 employers, whose motives, beliefs, habits of thought, so- 
 cial attitudes and sympathies are in harmony with the 
 mass of employers, belong tO' the employing class, while 
 those who feel that their interests are with the wage- 
 workers, or whose motives, beliefs, habits of thought, 
 social attitudes and sympathies are in harmony with the 
 mass of the workers, belong to the laboring class. i 
 
 But now there are those who say that this is a distinc- 
 tion without a difference; that at bottom these two stand- 
 points are identical, since one's view of his own interests 
 or one's motives, beliefs, habits of thought, social atti- 
 tudes and sympathies are determined by his economic in- 
 terests or his objective environment. One who gets his 
 income from interest or profits, or who works as a 
 profit taker and lives among profit takers, will of neces- 
 sity view his interests as in harmony with the employing 
 class, and will have the motives, beliefs, social attitudes 
 and sympathies of the mass of the employers, and those 
 who get their income as wageworkers will of necessity 
 be in harmony with the viewpoint of the mass of the 
 workers. 
 
 There are, however, two reasons for the failure of 
 coincidence of the objective or mechanical and the 
 psychological social groups. It is not a part of the en- 
 vironment of the individual, the economic part, that 
 makes him what he is spiritually, but the total social en- 
 vironment, his mode and conditions of getting a living 
 plus his social relations, his educational, moral and reli- 
 gious influences, his political environment, and so on.
 
 352 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Secondly, men are not wholly determined in their atti- 
 tudes, habits of thought and sympathies, by the immedi- 
 ate environment, but also by personal and social heredity 
 and tradition. They are bundles of inherited and tradi- 
 tional sentiments and impulses. Like father like son. 
 Men carry with them into a new environment the tradi- 
 tions of the old. 
 
 There is, then, a real distinction between these stand- 
 points or tests for judging of the existence or nonexist- 
 ence of social classes, and it will make a difference which 
 of these tests or standpoints we adopt, for the existence 
 of classes is apparently much more easily proved from 
 the objective or mechanical standpoint than from the 
 subjective or psychological standpoint. 
 
 Which of these tests shall we then apply? The an- 
 swer seems clear. The important test for us is the sub- 
 jective or the psychological, because we are making a 
 study of labor conditions and problems not merely to 
 discover what conditions and problems exist, but primar- 
 ily to determine what can and ought to be done to better 
 conditions and to solve problems. While the determina- 
 tion that society is or is not composed of classes, looking 
 at it from the objective or mechanical standpoint, might 
 help us in determining what, in view of our individual 
 standards, ought to be done, it would not help us at all 
 in determining what can be done. To guide and help us 
 here, we need to know whether society is a harmonious 
 whole, viewed from the standpoint of motives and as- 
 sumed interests, or whether from this standpoint it is 
 composed of warring classes. In the latter case we need 
 to know what causes these classes to exist, how they 
 stand related to one another in interest and motive, and 
 what their quality, organization and strength are. Only
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 353 
 
 thus can we determine which of the things that ought to 
 be are possible, and how to go about the task of making 
 them so. 
 
 If, from this standpoint, we find that society is at bot- 
 tom a harmonious whole, we can and in general ought 
 to let things alone, assured that they will work out ulti- 
 mately for the best interest of all, and that social tinker- 
 ing will only delay the process. If, on the other hand, 
 we find that society is composed of classes with opposed 
 interests and opposed viewpoints, we can be assured, 
 when we find apparent evils, that something ought to 
 be done, and the character of the classes which we find, 
 and their motives, solidarity, and strength will give us 
 the clue to the remedy it is possible to apply, and how. 
 If we want action, we can get it only through under- 
 standing men, not mechanical arrangements and rela- 
 tionships. 
 
 Social ethics is a matter neither altogether of the con- 
 flicting ideals of a mere aggregation of individuals nor 
 of the ethical consensus of an undifferentiated social 
 whole, but it is largely a net resultant at any time of the 
 conflict and compromise growing out of the existence and 
 struggle for recognition of social group standards. In 
 other words, it is a recognition of the fact that society 
 as it exists today is made up of a great series of func- 
 tional social groups which, though perhaps holding in 
 common a general fund of ethical concepts characteris- 
 tic of the age, still has each its special ethical code pecu- 
 liar in content or in the relative emphasis placed upon its 
 elements, for which the group is struggling to secure uni- 
 versal acceptance. In so far as this is true, it is evident 
 that ethical progress in a democratic society like ours de- 
 pends upon our knowledge of these special ethical codes
 
 354 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and the conditions that create them, and of the effective 
 forces with which they are backed. If we are to guard 
 and guide the ethical standards of the nation we must 
 understand in what terms and for what ends appeal can 
 be made to its constituent elements — in short, we must 
 know the springs of action of the functional groups 
 which compose it. 
 
 Labor, using the term in the generally accepted sense 
 as including all those who work for hire, is not a true, 
 functional-, social group possessing a single, distinctive 
 and consistent moral code, but is a group of groups rep- 
 resenting, ethically speaking, common humanity in all 
 its heights and depths, manifold diversity and contradic- 
 toriness. In other words, those who work for hire con- 
 stitute a single and distinctive social group only in a 
 mechanical or statistical sense of the term. 
 
 Functionally and ethically — that is, from the stand- 
 point of aims, standards of right, rights and justice, 
 social policies, demands, methods and attitudes — this 
 mechanical or statistical group called labor is a great 
 complex of groups, diverse and often vitally opposed in 
 viewpoint. Its members are frequently component ele- 
 ments of functional social groups, made up not only of 
 those who work for hire, but of representatives of the 
 professions, the trades, the farmers, manufacturers, and 
 even of the so-called leisure class. The truth of this 
 statement is a matter of common observation once we 
 free ourselves from inborn preconceptions, indoctrinated 
 prejudices, traditions or theories, or the insulation of 
 social exclusiveness. That it is bound to be true in a 
 community democratic in character and made up of di- 
 verse racial and temperamental elements is evident from 
 a little analysis of functional social groups and of the 
 
 II
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 355 
 
 causes which create and maintain them. A functional 
 social group may be defined as a body of individuals 
 holding a common viewpoint in regard to one or a num- 
 ber of vital social matters and in this respect at variance 
 with the viewpoints of other members of society. It is 
 this common viewpoint and interest and the common pur- 
 pose which results that make the group socially effective. 
 It tends to act with respect to this common center of 
 attention and toward all that most vitally relates to it 
 as a unit with whatever strength of numbers, character, 
 wealth, position and influence it may possess or can com- 
 mand, and thus to force society in this respect to adopt 
 its standards and to modify social actions and institu- 
 tions accordingly. 
 
 The common interest and viewpoint of a functional 
 social group may be narrow and specific, its members 
 united in sympathy or for common effort only on some 
 one or a small number of social aims and purposes, with 
 a correspondingly limited program of action. Or the 
 members of a social group may have a common interest 
 and hold to a common viewpoint with respect to a wide 
 range of social matters, its outlook on life approximating 
 a social philosophy and its program of action a compre- 
 hensive social policy. In a community relatively isolated 
 from world contact and little affected by inventions, 
 characterized therefore by status, the tendency is to the 
 formation and relative permanency of these larger func- 
 tional social groups. Society, then, tends to be divided 
 into castes or classes, based on occupation, mutually ex- 
 clusive in membership, each with a distinct social and 
 ethical code and standards ; but in a society like our own, 
 democratically organized, characterized therefore by 
 much and varied contact betw^n tb^ individuals pf the
 
 356 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 different mechanical groups, exposed by intercourse to 
 the ideas and ideals of every nation, changing in its com- 
 position by the influx of every race and order of men, 
 applying new ideas and inventions to the rapid alteration 
 of its methods of production, exchange and modes of 
 communication, enlarging and shifting its wants, con- 
 stantly developing new social problems and new social 
 issues, there is little opportunity for the development of 
 caste or class. Only those permanently isolated from 
 the complex and shifting influences of a rapidly develop- 
 ing democratic society, by the leisure and exclusiveness 
 conferred by the assured possession of wealth, or through 
 hopeless submergence into the ranks of unskilled, unedu- 
 cated and poverty-stricken labor, present the conditions 
 favorable to the development of permanent functional 
 groups, united by a common philosophy of life and a 
 general program of action. Between these upper and 
 nether strata the functional groups in modem, demo- 
 cratic, progressive society are for the most part of the 
 relatively narrow and the specific sort whose members 
 are united in viewpoint and action only on some one or 
 a relatively small number of social aims and purposes. 
 The chief characteristic of such functional groups is 
 that membership is not necessarily permanent and in- 
 volves no necessary unity of viewpoint and action out- 
 side of and beyond its specific aims and purposes. The 
 individuals who compose one group may at the same time 
 be members of many other social groups, and in this 
 manifold social grouping the individual may find himself 
 now associated with and now opposed to his fellows of 
 a particular group. Thus, of two members of a single 
 business organization, for example, formed to secure effi- 
 ciency of production or extension of the market, or for
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 357 
 
 aggression or defense against organized labor, one may 
 be a Christian, the other an atheist; one may be a sub- 
 scriber to the doctrines, ethical and social, of the Catholic 
 faith, the other an adherent of some Protestant church; 
 one may be an ardent republican, the other an equally 
 ardent democrat ; one may stand for the enlargement of 
 government functions, the other for the sacredness of 
 natural individual rights; one may be an ardent sup- 
 porter of social uplift, the other a firm believer in the 
 "survival of the fittest"; one may be an advocate of the 
 prohibition of the liquor traffic, the other, of "personal 
 liberty"; in short, these two members of the employing 
 group, united in a single organization, created for cer- 
 tain specific purposes, that is to say, in a specific func- 
 tional group, may be found in opposing camps with re- 
 spect to all other matters of ethical and social import, 
 and each associated thus in turn with representatives of 
 every so-called social class. 
 
 That this is bound to be true, not only of employers 
 but of those who work for wages, becomes evident when 
 we look to the causes which underlie and determine the 
 formation of social groups. These groups are the out- 
 come, in the first analysis, of the attractive force of like- 
 mindedness and the repulsion of unlike-mindedness. 
 Whatever operates to make individuals like-minded tends 
 to draw them together into a group, narrow or compre- 
 hensive in its outlook according to the breadth of sym- 
 pathy involved. Whatever emphasizes or creates differ- 
 ence of character, belief or interest tends to repel indi- 
 viduals and to force them into diverse and opposing 
 groups. These groups, therefore, are the outcome of the 
 attractive and repellent interaction of all the characteris- 
 tics of individuals, relatively permanent and relatively
 
 35B TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 temporary and shifting, in all the infinity of their specific 
 manifestations and combinations, and ultimately of all 
 the forces, physical and social, which play upon, create 
 and change the character and immediate interest, atti- 
 tudes, and beliefs of particular men. They are the re- 
 sult thus, in part, of similarities and diversities of tem- 
 perament and propensities, of interests permanent and 
 temporary, of race and physical characteristics, of sex, 
 and of environment.^ But the interest which prompts to 
 the formation and diversification of functional groups is 
 not economic interest alone. The environment which 
 creates sympathy and antipathy is the whole social envi- 
 ronment, including social traditions of every sort, the 
 educational influences and effects of the family, the 
 school, the church, the party, the infinite variety of social 
 organizations, the varied associations and contacts, for- 
 mal and informal, involved in all the activities, the com- 
 ings and goings of life, as well as the diverse conditions, 
 
 ^ Unionism, using the term in its broadest sense, is the re- 
 sult of a universal social tendency — the tendency of men of 
 similar temperament and similar environment and interest to 
 get together for common action. Unionism is, therefore, not 
 confined to wageworkers ; it is one of the most fundamental and 
 pervasive of social phenomena, and is prevalent in every social 
 class. But while unionism is generically the same in all classes, 
 there are in every class different and in many respects rival 
 and contradictory species and varieties of unionism. This ap- 
 plies with special force to trade unionism, the unionism of the 
 wageworkers — where we have several rival forms of unionism 
 which represent the rival viewpoints and programs of different 
 working groups. Trade unionism is distinguished from other 
 forms of unionism simply by the fact that it is the unionism of 
 the wageworkers, but it does not differ essentially in funda- 
 mental purpose and method from the unionism of other social 
 classes and groups.
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 359 
 
 standards of living, and relations involved in, and the 
 outcome of, the industrial organization and activities of 
 society. The purely economic activities, conditions and 
 relations of the individual and the associations growing 
 directly out of these do indeed play a prominent role in 
 the formation of character and ideals, and in the de- 
 termination of interest, and do thus determine to a very 
 great extent the formation of social functional groups, 
 but that they are predominant as against all other social 
 forces, even with respect to the membership of the com- 
 plex labor group, is a matter which admits at least of 
 reasonable doubt. Not only do the individuals who com- 
 pose this great labor group present all the characteristics, 
 and not only are they played upon by all the formative 
 forces which make for diversity of functional groups, 
 but the groups to which they are found actually allied are 
 extremely diverse, often in opposition, and often derive 
 their membership partly or even largely from those who 
 do not work for hire. The wageworking group includes 
 every variety of temperament — the artistic, religious, 
 constructive, destructive, conservative, radical, revolu- 
 tionary. 
 
 Let us now take up the most important social theories 
 and try to test them from the psychological standpoint. 
 First, the classical economic and business man's theory. 
 
 The classical economic or business man's social theory 
 postulates the rational individual as the unit of society. 
 Each individual, according to this theory, is possessed of 
 certain natural and inalienable rights. Fundamental 
 among these natural and inalienable rights are private 
 property, free competition and freedom of individual 
 contract, noninterference with the natural law of supply 
 and demand in the fixing of prices and wage rates, the
 
 360 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 right of the employer to manage his business to suit him- 
 self, and the right of the worker to work when, where 
 and for whom he pleases. 
 
 It is considered to be the sole province of government 
 and law to uphold these and correlative rights, thus al- 
 lowing to the individual the greatest initiative and free- 
 dom in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," so 
 long as he does not interfere with the natural rights of 
 others. But any combination of individuals which inter- 
 feres with these natural rights, and especially with free 
 contract and competition, is looked upon as artificial and 
 against the laws of nature. Hence the doctrine of lais- 
 ses faire. 
 
 When these rights are recognized and upheld, and the 
 individual, so long as he does not violate the natural 
 rights of others, is allowed to seek his own interest freely, 
 equality of opportunity is realized, each individual nat- 
 urally tends to subserve the interest of his fellows, har- 
 mony of interests prevails in society, and the social and 
 economic position to which any individual may rise by 
 the exercise of industry and thrift is limited only by his 
 abilities. It is the disregard of these rights which pro- 
 duces the absence of natural social harmony and the ap- 
 pearance of classes and class conflict. Such classes and 
 conflict are, however, unnatural, artificial, and, in the 
 long run, cannot endure. 
 
 It will be seen that the fundamental assumptions un- 
 derlying this theory are a natural social order, resting on 
 unchanging natural law and natural rights, existing prior 
 and superior to social organization and will, a fixed social 
 constitution and relationships, sacredness of property, 
 the rationality of human nature, and the competitive 
 equality of individuals aside from personal differences 
 
 i
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 361 
 
 which tend initially to be slight. It is generally assumed 
 by those who hold to this doctrine that the common law 
 is the expression of immutable natural law, and that the 
 decisions of the courts are normally the expression of 
 natural justice. When the fundamental law and the 
 court decisions are allowed full force, the inalienable nat- 
 ural rights are preserved, the true interests of all the 
 individuals are subserved, and social harmony prevails. 
 
 While this classical economic and business man's social 
 theory is the most conservative and respectable thing in 
 the world, and held by the most conservative and respec- 
 table people, it is in very close harmony, in its funda- 
 mental character, with the theory of anarchism. The 
 reactionary conservatives and the philosophical anar- 
 chists build on the same foundation and are very closely 
 allied. Most of the postulates of the classical viewpoint 
 are anarchistic postulates : rationality, individual liberty, 
 natural law and natural order (as opposed to social order 
 and law), natural and inalienable rights, likeness in hu- 
 man nature, laisse::; faire, and fundamental harmony of 
 interest. The main difference between the classical eco- 
 nomic and business man's social theory and the anarchis- 
 tic social theory is that the latter is more thorough. The 
 classical stops, in its laissez faire policy and in its de- 
 mands for the freedom of the individual, before the 
 sacred institution of private property ; here it has not the 
 courage of its logic. The anarchistic viewpoint carries 
 the thing through logically. Here is the main difference. 
 Drop the classical economist's and business man's awe of 
 private property, let it be the free sport of the rational 
 individual and your classical theory becomes practically 
 the anarchistic theory. 
 
 What of the validity or invalidity of the assumption of
 
 362 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 human rationality? Two points need to be considered. 
 First, are we not rational beings when we decide things 
 and act for the best interests of others as well as when 
 we decide and act purely with our own interests in view ? 
 The answer in the abstract is yes. But the answer from 
 the standpoint of this classical theory and its concep- 
 tion of rationality is no. This theory distinctly as- 
 sumes self-interest as the motive of rationality and ra- 
 tional action. Hear Adam Smith : "I have never known 
 much good done by those who affected to trade for the 
 public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very com- 
 mon among merchants and very few words need be em- 
 ployed in dissuading tliem from it."^ 
 
 Secondly, the perfectly rational man, preceding action, 
 always weighs and balances utilities against disutilities, 
 and always acts in the direction of the greatest net sur- 
 plus of utility. This implies deliberate calculation before 
 action, an entire absence of emotion, or else a complete 
 disregard of emotion or feeling. If emotion is ever pres- 
 ent in the rational human being it is never allowed to 
 enter as a disturbing factor into his calculation or to 
 influence his subsequent action. The rational man is 
 never moved directly by fear, hate, anger, revenge, love 
 of wife, home, country, love of approbation, desire for 
 power or prestige. These things move him, if at all, 
 only after being translated into terms of utilities and dis- 
 utilities. He is never moved by any of these things to 
 act impulsively or thoughtlessly. If you strike him, he 
 always calculates the consequences before he strikes back. 
 
 This assumption of deliberate action also implies an 
 entire absence of habit and habitual action. The rational 
 
 "Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Routledge & Sons (1892), 
 )t)k. 4. chap. 2, p. 345.
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 363 
 
 man always weighs and balances before he buttons his 
 coat, or eats, or drinks, or smokes, or works, or plays. 
 It also denies the presence, as determinants of action, of 
 inherited tendencies and propensities, of individual pre- 
 conceptions and prejudices, of passion of any sort. 
 Given a certain situation and two men similarly situated, 
 and, as rational beings, they will always act in the same 
 way. Is this true? Of course it rules out all instinctive 
 action or reaction. A fly hits a man in the eye. He 
 weighs and calculates utilities against disutilities before 
 he closes his eyelid. 
 
 Now, I do not intend to deny that men do weigh and 
 balance before acting, or to maintain that they are not 
 at all rational. What I mean to say is that they are not 
 altogether rational, that they are moved by love and hate, 
 fear and prejudices, habits and propensity, apart from 
 and often in opposition to the dictates of rationality. 
 And this is not only in line with common observation but 
 with modern psychology, which tells us that we are bun- 
 dles of propensities, preconceptions, impulses, and habits 
 — some of them inherited from a remote past. We are 
 guided in our action both by feeling and habit, by intel- 
 lect, and perhaps more by the first than by the last. But 
 if it is denied that man is moved solely by rational self- 
 interest, this whole classical economic structure with its 
 assumption of harmony of interest in society topples 
 down. The direct bearing of all this on our immediate 
 problem is that we cannot get labor reforms through by 
 demonstrating their rationality. We shall have so to 
 move as to appeal to men's emotions and, in short, to 
 take into account their habits, thoughts, etc This is 
 being practical, not academic. 
 
 Now this brings us to the second social theory, the
 
 364 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 socialist. Let us take here a brief general view of the 
 Communist Manifesto :^ Society, since the dissolution 
 of the primitive tribal community, has been composed of 
 warring classes. The fundamental basis of these classes 
 is opposition of economic interest, the outcome of private 
 ownership. In the development of society these warring 
 classes have been reduced practically to two, the bour- 
 geoisie, owners of the means of production, profit takers, 
 exploiters, and the proletariat, practically propertyless, 
 wageworkers, and exploited. This situation cannot, 
 however, last, for it produces a series of destructive con- 
 tradictions : over-production with under-consumption, 
 commercial crises; increased repulsiveness of work and 
 decreased remuneration, increased plenty with progres- 
 sive degeneration of the working class, cheapness with 
 want; concentration of production and capital, with free 
 competition. Or, as Engels states it, the situation is 
 characterized by socialization of the means of production 
 with individual appropriation ; or socialized production 
 and capitalistic appropriation ; organization of produc- 
 tion in the individual workshop with anarchy of produc- 
 tion in society generally. Increase in numbers and or- 
 ganization of the working class is contradictory to the 
 bourgeoisie rule. The inevitable outcome must be the 
 destruction of the bourgeoisie, the triumph of the work- 
 ing class, the abolition of private property in the means 
 of production and the final abolition of classes and class 
 rule, when harmony of interests will prevail in the coop-j 
 crative commonwealth. 
 
 Does this socialist theory rest on any of the funda- 
 mental assumptions of the classical economic theory?! 
 
 "Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1848), The Manifesto o/j 
 the Cummunist Party.
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 365' 
 
 On natural order and natural law? Yes, but it is a dif- 
 ferent order and law, not fixed, but developing and evo- 
 lutionary. On natural rights? Yes, and the full prod- 
 uct of toil, for example. Harmony of interest? Again 
 yes, but it is an ultimate outcome. What assumptions 
 of the classical economic viewpoint does this contradict? 
 The rational individual as the unit of society? Not al- 
 together, because each man is supposed to know his own 
 interest. It contradicts the assumptions of human equal- 
 ity, of fixed social relationships, although ultimately not 
 so, of sacredness of property and laisses fairc. What 
 other assumptions are there? Economic determinism. 
 Man and social structures are molded entirely by the en- 
 vironment and by the economic environment and forces. 
 Social evolution. Not the modern conception of evolu- 
 tion, of indefinite change, but of change according to a 
 fixed program with a determinate end — God or Nature 
 predetermining it — that is, teleological evolution. In- 
 evitable determinism. No social effort can control or 
 change the course of what is economically determined.* 
 The theory of Professor Veblen is generally fairly 
 closely allied with that of the socialist. Like that, it 
 sees society as made up of warring classes, mainly the 
 employing and working class ; like that, it is evolutionary 
 — it sees these classes as the result of a process of evolu- 
 tion ; like that, it lays immense stress upon the economic 
 factor as a determinant of classes and class conflict. 
 These classes are the product of modem machine indus- 
 
 *The Syndicalist theory is like the socialist, only different in 
 its methods. It is opposed to political action and favors a 
 physical revolution by the workers, and working class rule in 
 society made up of self-contained industrial groups.
 
 366 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 try, by it cut ofif from contact with one another, each with 
 a separate molding" environment and mental discipHne. 
 
 This theory differs, however, from the sociahstic the- 
 ory in some very important respects. These classes exist 
 apart and are at odds not so much because of a real fun- 
 damental opposition of interests, as because of an inabil- 
 ity to see things alike, due to a difference in the economic 
 functions and economic environment. This theory is evo- 
 lutionary but evolutionary in a different way from the 
 socialistic theory. There is constant change but in no 
 assignable direction, and with no determination. There 
 is not teleology in it. The difference in environment with 
 ts classes and class conflict is, therefore, likely to go on 
 ndefinitely — to be a permanent state of affairs. An- 
 other important implication is that there is no third or 
 ntermediary or mediating class possible; therefore, no 
 compromise or higher social control. Veblen's theory 
 jKDstulates blind, opaque, physical force and causation as 
 the chief social determinants. Man is not rational, there 
 are no natural rights, no social norm, no natural harmony 
 of interests, no final social time when harmony of inter- 
 ests will rule. Classes and class struggles are the in- 
 evitable social situation. There are no general social 
 standards of right and wrong, good and bad, to which 
 we can refer things for solution. All is in the grip of 
 fate, of physical and economic causation. At present, 
 then, we have two classes and the inevitable two-class 
 struggle. 
 
 What is the matter with this theory? Does it work 
 out in practice? Existing facts in this connection as to 
 class solidarity confute it. Instead of one labor view- 
 point we have business, uplift, revolutionary unionism 
 and the Industrial Workers of the World. But is it
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 367 
 
 true theoretically? It is in line with modern science as 
 to nonteleological evolution. It is in line with modern 
 psychology as to the nonrationality of man, who is a 
 bundle of inheritances, propensities, prejudices and in- 
 stincts. It is in line with modern sociology — no natural 
 rights, no natural order, no natural law as distinct from 
 social order and social law, nonharmony of interests, no 
 absolute right and wrong. On the other hand, it places 
 too much stress ujhdu the economic environment as a 
 formative force. Man is the outcome of his total social 
 environment. The individual, according to Veblen, can- 
 not react on this environment ; he is not a center of force. 
 But cannot we do something to change this environment 
 by education, shop arrangements, etc.? Again, there are 
 no such rigid economic environments and disciplines. 
 There is much more social interaction than is supposed. 
 
 The progressive-uplift theory postulates a fundamental 
 and ultimate harmony of interests in society. It recog- 
 nizes the present existence of social classes and class con- 
 flict but regards these as the temporary outcome of lack 
 of sufficient social interaction, knowledge and under- 
 standing. Science and democracy, however, are gradu- 
 ally overcoming these deficiencies. As science increases 
 the knowledge of social facts, forces and relationships, 
 as democracy, especially through universal education, de- 
 velops, and particularly as the practices of industrial 
 democracy, especially through collective bargaining, 
 spread, there evolves a common social viewpoint, and a 
 real social will of the people destined to do away with 
 classes and class conflict, and to substitute in their place 
 social justice and social harmony in the pursuit of gen- 
 eral well-being. 
 
 According to this theory, present social conflict is due
 
 368 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 mainly to the existence and mutual opposition of an em- 
 ploying and a working class. But already there is devel- 
 oping a strong third party — sometimes called "the peo- 
 ple," sometimes "the consumers" — unbiased in its view- 
 point, standing for social justice, and representing the 
 true social will, a party already capable in ordinary cases 
 of acting as mediator and arbiter between the warring 
 classes. With the growth of knowledge of social affairs 
 and the increase of social interaction fostered by democ- 
 racy, this third party will gradually control the warring 
 classes and ultimately absorb them. The social will will 
 then be supreme, and social harmony will prevail. The 
 attainment of this end involves a constant extension of 
 social control in the form of legislation and public opin- 
 ion in the support of the weaker warring class — the 
 workers. 
 
 The progressive-uplift theory rests mainly on the fol- 
 lowing fundamental assumptions : ( i ) That man is not 
 rational but is capable of a high degree of rationality. 
 (2) That man is a product of his total social environ- 
 ment and inheritance. (3) That increased knowledge 
 and increased association of individuals and classes will 
 produce increased understanding, sympathy and har- 
 mony of viewpoint. (4) That a strong social group is 
 capable of freeing itself from class interest and bias, of 
 knowing what right, justice and welfare are for all in 
 society, and of thus standing as an impartial arbiter be- 
 tween warring classes. (5) That social will is an ex- 
 pression of natural law. In the crasser statements of 
 this theory social will is regarded as superior to natural 
 law in social affairs. 
 
 Here various questions naturally arise. How do we 
 'know that there is a fundamental and ultimate harmony 
 
 (
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 369 
 
 of interests in society — how prove it? What does the 
 assumption go back to? What about the facts? Is it 
 true in regard to some issues but not in regard to others? 
 Even if we can get a third-party decision on each ques- 
 tion, how are we going to know that it is right? Is lack 
 of social interaction, i. e., lack of understanding, being un- 
 able to see the other person's point of view, the only basis 
 of classes and class conflict? When there is a real fun- 
 damental difference of interest, can there be any real 
 social will or any social justice, any social standards of 
 right or wrong? Where would they come from, and 
 what sanctions would they have? Is there any such 
 class as consumers, the public, the people? Are not all 
 consumers producers with producers' interests, allying 
 them to one or the other group? Is not the interest of 
 the public different, with different class inclinations on 
 different subjects? Is the public always wiser than the 
 class in the industry concerned as to what should be 
 done? Has public control so far proved wise and effi- 
 cient ? 
 
 It is urged in criticism of this theory that there is a 
 group of questions on which the interests of different 
 social classes are opposed. But in respect to any specific 
 issue, such as wages or hours in a particular industry, are 
 the classes solidly lined up, and are those which are lined 
 up usually a social majority? ^ Must we have agreement 
 on standards of right and justice to get people to act 
 together to better conditions, to get a real social will? 
 Is there nothing for the public to do but helplessly to 
 view the struggle between antisocial factions, or, at most, 
 to play the subordinate and equivocally useful part of 
 
 ' See C. H. Cooley, Social Organization, as to the multitude of 
 overlapping groups different for each question,
 
 370 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 "make-weight" between them? Must our final conclu- 
 sion be thus negative and pessimistic? Personally I do 
 not believe it. The apparent impossibility of a social 
 will and a constructive social program comes from look- 
 ing at the situation as a whole with a hidden assumption 
 of class viewpoint unconnected with specific questions, 
 and from assuming that standards of right and justice 
 must be absolute. There is a door to constructive social 
 opportunity and here, I believe, is the key with, which it 
 can be unlocked. 
 
 While in matters in which the interests of the warring 
 classes are really opposed there appears to be no possibil- 
 ity of a third party altogether without any economic class 
 interest and bias, or of setting up general and absolute or 
 exact standards of social right or justice to which all or a 
 majority can be depended upon to adhere, there is a 
 possibility of discovering in connection with every such 
 specific problem minima and maxima which represent a 
 nearer approach than at present exists to social right and 
 justice. These are the limits within which right and justice 
 lie in the particular case, and to which it is often possible 
 to get the adherence of the warring groups and almost 
 always the adherence of those, whatever their general 
 economic interest and bias, who are not directly con- 
 cerned. Such, for example, are minimum wage rates, 
 maximum hours, and maximum conditions of sanitation 
 and safety in the different industries. On the basis of 
 these specific minima and maxima, we can formulate a 
 genera! constructive program of social betterment, and, 
 I believe, develop a real third party in its support. It is 
 true that between the limits thus set we shall apparently 
 have to allow the warring groups to fight out the contest, 
 but we can also establish maxima and minima in the form
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 371 
 
 of socially tolerable rules of the game, in accordance with 
 which the contest must be fought. The great thing ir. 
 to get more social interactions. The solution, therefore 
 lies logically outside the field of labor in education.^ 
 
 It is possible that some might advocate doing nothing 
 until we had a complete constructive program worked 
 out and all of the machinery necessary for putting it into 
 operation, for securing the facts, establishing maxima 
 and minima of every kind in every occupation, establish- 
 ing socially tolerable rules of the game in industrial 
 contests, educating the public for perfect legislative 
 action, and for fair adjudication, wise administration and 
 enforcement of the law. This, however, would mean to 
 leave everything for an indefinite period to be settled by 
 raw partisan contests and the wiles of the politician, to 
 be settled by the principle of might and cunning, with no 
 approach, in the majority of cases, to justice and social 
 welfare. Those who have had a vision of social justice 
 and welfare should most decidedly get into the game and 
 act up to their best lights on every occasion. That is the 
 only way to keep things from going to rack and ruin 
 while better standards and concepts are taking form. If 
 action were never taken until all problems and all meth- 
 ods were perfectly worked out, there would be no prog- 
 ress at all. That is not the method of social progress. 
 We progress socially mainly by the trial and error 
 method ; we learn by action that is partly right and partly 
 wrong. But action should be foresighted and intelligent. 
 We should not shut our eyes to the need of social stand- 
 ards, of a constructive program and of the machinery to 
 
 •In this connection read carefully the Commons' plan, Final 
 Report, United States Commission on Industrial Relations, pp. 
 307-401,
 
 372 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 put it into force. We should not despair and be content 
 simply to throw our might as partisans to one or the 
 other contending parties, blindly accepting all the errors. 
 Instead, while we are acting we should have always in 
 mind the larger and better thing, the long time outlook, 
 and try to make our experiences throw light upon it. In 
 between periods of action there should be an effort to 
 advance in the formulation of standards and construc- 
 tive action in the interest of all — to make action a school 
 for the development of social understanding and con- 
 structive ends. 
 
 The fault of reformers is not that they act, but that 
 they act blindly and act only, that they do not see the 
 whole of the social situation back of the particular inci- 
 dent, that they do not try to grasp this whole in the inter- 
 vals or try to formulate principles of action from it. 
 Being simply spasmodic and particularistic, regarding 
 each struggle as a case by itself, they do not make any 
 general advance. The trouble with most people who 
 make proposals in the labor field is that they do not un- 
 derstand the broad features and forces with which they 
 have to deal. They do not know, therefore, what ought 
 to be done, and if they find anything that apparently 
 ought to be done, they naively assume that because it 
 ought to be done, it can be done. If men in society were 
 mere pawns to be moved about the board and if their only 
 good was their immediate material betterment and if re- 
 formers were omniscient and had the power of God, this 
 would be all right. But none of these things are true. 
 Men have their own ideas as to what is good for them 
 and how to secure it. And in a democracy you cannot 
 give men what is for their good except by their consent 
 and b^ moving them to go out and get it. Trade union-
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 373 
 
 ism is a self-help institution. The trade unionist wants, 
 not charity, not patronage, but justice. He prefers to 
 get that by his own efforts. He does not want patron- 
 age, however good its objective results. He has no sym- 
 pathy with the people or forces which would reach down 
 to help him from above. To know what ought to be 
 done for the workers, we must know the men themselves, 
 their ideas, ideals, purposes and ways of looking at 
 things; the relationships that actually exist among them 
 and how they view these relationships and why. 
 
 The public should undoubtedly take a hand in such 
 matters. This is an absolute necessity if these contests 
 are ever to be settled in the interest of social welfare. 
 Mere fighting between employers and workers will never 
 attain this end. But the so-called public has no machinery 
 of action, or constructive program, and no means of get- 
 ting into the game before the struggle is on. It is prac- 
 tically inefficient, merely groping. After the struggle is 
 on, it finds itself obliged simply to line up with one side 
 as a partisan, usually for the workers. A strike starts 
 as a little group contest, but the public, having no infor- 
 mation or standards of judgment or means of indepen- 
 dent action, must stay out or go in as partisan of one 
 side or the other. Some do go in, enlarging the issues. 
 That forces others in, and gradually many are forced in. 
 The result is a gradual enlargement of the line-up, of 
 broadening points of opposition ; temporary class lines 
 appear; a class struggle begins to emerge. All this is 
 due to the lack of means of informing the public before- 
 hand and settling the difficulty upon grounds of social 
 welfare, or of enforcing the public will. 
 
 Our labor laws are built up haphazard, due to emo- 
 tionalism after some disaster or revelation; they are a
 
 374 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 heterogeneous and frequently contradictory mass. Mi- 
 nutely specific and therefore inelastic and inadaptable, 
 they are therefore often unenforceable, and often, if en- 
 forced, unjust to employers and harmful to the workers; 
 they show no prevision, no program, no consistency in 
 the same state or as between states. 
 
 The administration of the law is in the hands of dif- 
 ferent bureaus with ill-defined relationships, jealousies 
 and cross-purposes. In Illinois there are the Industrial 
 Board with powers undefined, a Board of Commissioners 
 of Labor, the Department of Factory Inspection, an 
 Employers' Liability Commission, a Bureau of Labor 
 Statistics, a State Mining Board and Inspectors (five 
 commissioners), a State Employment Office, and a Board 
 of Arbitration. Political appointees hold offices; no 
 confidence exists ; there are lax administration, inefficient 
 inspection, a lack of knowledge of facts, and appeals to 
 courts because laws are unintelligent and unintelligently 
 enforced. 
 
 In labor contests no foreknowledge exists ; there is no 
 machinery for getting it, no enlightened public opinion; 
 there is arbitrary disregard of public rights (street car 
 strikes), false claims and a helpless public. The work- 
 ers want arbitration when weak but refuse it when 
 strong. Arbitration is conducted on no principles ; rather 
 is it always a compromise against the employer. There 
 are no real settlements. 
 
 We must have means for developing a body of exact 
 and truthful information, developing common standards 
 of right and justice (maxima and minima or rules of the 
 game), developing a real public opinion back of them, 
 developing a constructive social program, getting cen- 
 tralized, strong, able, elastic administration and enforce-
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL 375 
 
 ment of laws, with a view to the whole situation; getting 
 and applying knowledge and standards to control, and in 
 the settlement of contests, creating to this end social in- 
 teractions. This understanding and knowledge can be 
 secured only by the closest first-hand study in the field. 
 It is all a matter of doing the work in a calm, orderly, 
 large-minded and farsighted, constructive and scientific 
 manner. 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Address of Theodore Roosevelt on the Principles and Poli- 
 cies of the Progressive Party, before the convention of 
 the National Progressive Party (1912). 
 
 Bulletin of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission. 
 
 Bulletin of the New York Industrial Commission. 
 
 CooLEY, C. H. Social Organisation (1909). 
 
 HoxiE, R. F. "The Trade Union Point of View," Journal 
 of Political Economy, vol. XV, 345-363 (1907). 
 
 "Is Class Conflict in America Growing and Is It 
 
 Inevitable?" American Journal of Sociology, vol. 
 XIII, 776-781 (1908). 
 
 Laughlin, J. L. "Business and Democracy," Atlantic 
 Monthly, 116:89 (1915). 
 
 Marx and Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 
 
 The Progressive Party Platform (1912). 
 
 United States Commission on Industrial Relations, Final 
 Report (1915), Report of Commissioners John R. Com- 
 mons and Florence J. Harriman, pp. 307-404. Supple- 
 mentary Statement of Chairman Frank P. Walsh, p. 297. 
 
 Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of Business Enterprise 
 (1904).
 
 APPENDIX I 
 NOTES ON METHOD 
 
 Historical Method vs. Historical Narrative 
 
 It is almost an axiom nowadays that "the present can be 
 understood only with reference to the past." The general 
 acceptance of this phrase is supposed to mark the triumph 
 of the historical spirit and correlatively of the historical 
 method. If this were true it would mean undoubtedly a 
 great scientific advance. But to what extent is it true? Is 
 there ground for the belief that the historical spirit and 
 method, scientifically speaking, are comprehended by any 
 large proportion of contemporary scholars and teachers? 
 Are not the most evident results of the apparent dominance 
 of the new ideal, at least in economics and closely allied 
 disciplines, a great deal of misdirected and barren historical 
 reading, and much indiscriminate indulgence in mere his- 
 torical narrative? 
 
 As things go now, if a general theory of economics is to 
 be exploited, it must be preceded by chapters on the de- 
 velopment of English industry from the middle ages ; if 
 the discussion is one concerning capital and its uses, it 
 must begin with an erudite consideration of the etymological 
 development of terms; if a class is to be set to study con- 
 temporary municipal problems, it must first be made to drag 
 slowly through the history of European municipalities ; if a 
 student undertakes to treat critically or constructively a 
 bit of current theory he is likely to be regarded as un- 
 scientific and unscholarly if he fails first to read and sum- 
 
 376
 
 APPENDIX 1 3jr^ 
 
 tnarize in a '''historical part" all that has been written on 
 the subject before. In fact, historical narrative, masquer- 
 ading as historical method, has become a fad. The truly 
 scientific historical method is exemplified only here and 
 there in the work of a few thoughtful scholars and teachers, 
 and counts for little because its real character and signifi- 
 cance are rarely comprehended. 
 
 It is difficult to realize just what the authors and ad- 
 vocates of this sort of preliminary historical narrative and 
 study expect it to accomplish. The well-meaning but vague 
 phrases with which they introduce it certainly do not en- 
 lighten us. Apparently they think and act in obedience, 
 more or less conscious, to the modern scientific imperative 
 which demands that things, as they are found, be explained 
 in terms of genesis and process. But, when one faces the 
 question, how can these narratives contribute to any such 
 explanation in any specific case? The historical narrative 
 is "introductory" ; it precedes the statement of any situation 
 to be explained ; its facts are neither selected nor arranged 
 with reference to any specific problem. Apparently there 
 is a vague idea that the "historical setting" is in some way 
 endowed with the power both to evoke and to solve prob- 
 lems still unstated ; and certainly no other supposition, in 
 these days of multiplied interests, would justify the attempt 
 to get at the meaning of any definite problem by first filling 
 the mind with a mass of information, relevant and irrele- 
 vant, indistinguishably intermixed. The fact is that there 
 is a vast difference between the historical method of science 
 and this common, indiscriminate, historical narrative and 
 study which is a travesty of it. 
 
 To understand the historical method and to make use of 
 it in scientific work or in teaching we must first realize just 
 what is the end of scientific investigation and how it is that 
 an appeal to history can aid us in attaining this end. We 
 are prone to think of scientific knowledge as an end in 
 itself — to speak of the scientific spirit as simply a desire
 
 378 TRADE UNIONISM IN UNITED STATES 
 
 to know — to understand the existing situation — ^but is it 
 not true that in reality all scientific investigation is under- 
 taken in furtherance of some definite, vital, human inter- 
 est ? We wish to control the forces at hand so as better to 
 realize some human purpose, therefore we seek to com- 
 prehend the existing situation from the standpoint of the 
 purpose or interest in question. The scientific interest is 
 therefore not merely academic but is in a sense practical — 
 practical in the sense that it is an interest in understanding 
 for the sake of the life of society or the individual. It 
 follows that all scientific investigation is bound to be highly 
 selective. We do not seek to understand the existing situa- 
 tion as a whole — that would be impossible — but we seek to 
 understand the present in its relation to the interest at 
 stake, the problem in hand. With this end in view we go 
 as scientists to the past — to history — not to endeavor to 
 "reconstruct the past," but for light on the practical prob- 
 lem before us. We go to the past in our scientific social 
 studies because we recognize the fact that just as living 
 individuals are not altogether what we see them to be in 
 immediate thought and action, but are also bundles of sup- 
 pressed and latent motives, propensities, and potentialities 
 inherited, some of them, from a remote past, so social insti- 
 tutions are not merely what they can be shown to be by 
 study of their present structure and functioning, but are 
 also what they are actually or potentially in process of be- 
 coming as the result of the operation of forces past as well 
 as present. Hence it is, in a sense, true, that the present 
 can be understood only with reference to its past. 
 
 The elements of the historical method, as applied to so- 
 cial science, ought to follow as a series of simple corollaries 
 from what has been said. The purpose of this method is 
 evidently to further the solution of a definite problem 
 through helping to explain a present situation — either the 
 actual or some definite past institutional situation which is 
 assumed for the purposes of study to be present. The
 
 APPENDIX 1 379 
 
 problem presented is therefore specific, immediate, prac- 
 tical. The immediate historical question is : how did this 
 situation come to be what it is? The data through which 
 this question is to be answered are specific and selected; 
 they are derived from its past as distinguished from the 
 past of other institutions, or from the facts of general 
 institutional history. 
 
 Clearly then the historical method in this connection pre- 
 supposes a well-defined institutional situation — a descrip- 
 tive account of what is or has been at some definite time — 
 and the facts which it marshals out of the past in explana- 
 tion of this situation are not general, but refer specifically to 
 this situation ; they aim to show definitely its genesis and 
 the process through which it came to be what it is. In 
 other words, the historical method of science, as applied to 
 economics and kindred subjects, requires that the problem 
 first be raised, that the situation as seen in the present first 
 be stated, and that then, and not till then, solution of the 
 question zvhy be attempted by a careful study of the past 
 out of which the situation given is supposed to have 
 emerged. 
 
 With the simple exceptions of the character and source 
 of its data, therefore, the historical method does not differ 
 from the ordinary method of scientific investigation. The 
 fact that we have to go to history for the data — to become 
 in a sense historians — does not alter the scientific end and 
 does not relieve us from the utmost exercise of our mental 
 powers in hypothesis, analysis, discriminating selection, 
 synthesis, and clear and logical statement. In other words, 
 historical data are scientifically important only when they 
 explain some matter of fact of vital interest to us. There 
 is nothing sacerdotal about them. They have no impor- 
 tance merely because they refer to the past. Their impor- 
 tance is to be determined in any given case by exactly the 
 same tests to which ordinary data are subjected. 
 
 To bring out more clearly the contrast between the hi»-
 
 380 TRADE UiSilONiSM 
 
 torical method as thus characterized, and mere historical 
 narrative misapplied, let us take an example or two. Sup- 
 pose the matter under discussion to be the comprehension 
 of the present capitalistic organization. The pseudo-his- 
 torical schoolman starts out with a sketch of the industrial 
 history of England and then, having done supposed hom- 
 age to the scientific spirit of the age, he proceeds to a close 
 taxonomic treatment of the present situation, interwoven 
 with good old-fashioned explanation of it in terms of the 
 mechanical equilibrium of present forces — human motives 
 and physical forces. Just what has the historical intro- 
 duction signified here ? The true exemplar of the historical 
 method, on the other hand, starts from an analysis and 
 description of the capitalistic system as an actual complex 
 institutional structure upheld, for the moment if you please, 
 by the mechanical equilibrium of present forces. Looking 
 thus at the thing as it now appears, he asks the question 
 why, in his attempt to better understand the situation from 
 the standpoint of his peculiar interest, and then proceeds to 
 answer the query by specific historical investigation. The 
 whole difference in this case between the two methods is 
 that we have, on the one hand, the mechanical juxtapo- 
 sition of historical narrative and analysis of present phenom- 
 ena and, on the other hand, the scientific solution of a 
 definitely stated problem by means of appropriately mar- 
 shaled data. 
 
 Or suppose we are endeavoring to make an earnest study 
 of the present trade-union movement. If we were to fol- 
 low the example and spirit of those who preface economic 
 texts with historical chapters, we should feel it necessary, 
 before getting acquainted with the ideas and methods of . 
 Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and Cornelius P. Shea, 
 to plod laboriously up through the history of labor condi- 
 tions and organizations from the dawn of the era of free 
 labor at least. Actuated by the historical spirit, we should 
 iirst try to get at the present situation — the ideas, ideals.
 
 APPENDIX I 381 
 
 aims, and methods of the present unionists. Then we 
 should call in the aid of past experience to help us determine 
 the sources and the life history of these present notions 
 and methods of labor, and, therefore, what as social and 
 industrial institutions trade unions really are and are be- 
 coming, what their real relation is to the complex institu- 
 tional situation of the present, and therefore, as a corollary, 
 how they are to be looked upon and dealt with for the 
 best interests of society. 
 
 It must be admitted of course that the present is no 
 more capable of being completely realized than the past is 
 of being completely reconstructed. Attempts both to realize 
 and to reconstruct are bound to be selective. Unless the 
 interest in the realization of the present is superior to the 
 interest that prompts to the attempt to reconstruct the 
 past there is no ground for preferring the one attempt over 
 the other. But the "historical narrative" interest is mainly 
 academic, while that interest in the realization of the pres- 
 ent which makes use of the historical method in harmony 
 with modern scientific insight, is, as we have pointed out, 
 in a sense practical — practical in the sense that it is an 
 interest in understanding for the sake of or in the interest 
 of the life of the society or the individual. The historical 
 spirit in harmony with the modern scientific spirit or at- 
 titude is simply the going to the past to gratify the same 
 interest that prompts to the attempt to realize the present. 
 The main trouble with those who indulge in historical nar- 
 rative is that they seem to think that academic reconstruc- 
 tion of the past can contribute to the ends of the prac- 
 tical interest of the present. In this they are for the most 
 part mistaken. From the standpoint of the practical in- 
 terest involved the academic reconstruction is a hopeless 
 tangle of relevancy and irrelevancy, altogether without defi- 
 nite teaching. 
 
 In conclusion it may not be out of place to note that 
 while the prefacing of the discussion of economic principles
 
 382 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 and conditions by long-drawn-out historical narratives 
 violates the most vital rules of pedagogy, the historical 
 method lends itself admirably to pedagogical needs if 
 rightly understood. It gives the student something definite, 
 something with which he is ordinarily, through experience 
 or reading, in some degree familiar; it rouses his interest 
 by asking: what, in terms of some vital human interest, 
 does this situation mean ? And then it invites him to search 
 for the answer to this question. This harmonious rela- 
 tionship between the scientific and the pedagogical method, 
 however, should not too much prejudice the new race of 
 university investigators who afifect to deprecate the peda- 
 gogical point of view as unworthy the consideration of the 
 scientist. 
 
 Problem and Method 
 
 The real problem method consists in taking some one 
 vital social thing and in working it out as a problem, draw- 
 ing into it and giving substance and practical application 
 to the whole body of knowledge that you possess mechani- 
 cally and absolutely. You thus locate and find use for 
 what you have acquired without life connections elsewhere. 
 Make all the work you are doing in the university and 
 all your outside daily experience count. If you try thus 
 to link this work up with daily life and not let it be merely 
 an academic -matter, you will be surprised where and how 
 much suggestive material you will get. Everything that 
 happens will contribute to throw some light on your prob- 
 lem. This is the direct corollary of pragmatism, its direct 
 teaching and application. 
 
 All this means that no one should come into the course 
 who is not vitally interested, who cannot see that the sub- 
 ject touches some life-purpose of his, and who is not pre- 
 pared to work hard and at times to go far beyond the 
 schedule of hours which university courses on the average 
 presume to require. There are no carefully prepared lee- 
 
 I
 
 APPENDIX I 383 
 
 tures to ease over the places where materials are diffuse, 
 ill-adapted and hard to get at. The whole thing is a 
 problem to me as well as to you. We shall succeed, there- 
 fore, only if each one is vitally interested and contributes 
 all that he can to the result. 
 
 In this course we have to formulate our own problems, 
 determine our own method, plow our way through great 
 masses of ill-adapted secondary materials for small sig- 
 nificant results, and, for the most part, seek our materials 
 in the raw. We shall have to attend union meetings ; meet 
 and study union officials ; read and digest union constitu- 
 tions and working rules, trade agreements, and convention 
 reports ; study union periodicals ; follow in the newspaper 
 union controversies ; work up special topics ; read court 
 decisions; and, if strikes or lockouts occur in the city, get 
 out and study them at first-hand, and watch the methods 
 employed. 
 
 One of our first contacts with unionism will be attend- 
 ing a meeting of the Chicago Federation of Labor. This 
 is a city central, one of the organic units of the American 
 Federation of Labor. It is composed of delegates from 
 local unions, mostly craft locals which are again members 
 of national trade unions. Its members are officers of local 
 unions or selected as representatives of them, and are not 
 altogether typical of the rank and file. This will be an 
 opportunity for you to determine what sort of people the 
 unionists are. Note : 
 
 1. Their intelligence, force, sincerity, outlook on 
 life and society, ideals, standards of morality, rights 
 and justice. 
 
 2. Their viewpoint. Is it craft, class, social, or group? 
 What kind of group concepts have they? 
 
 3. Are they conservative, radical, revolutionary, ideal- 
 istic or materialistic, altruistic or selfish, highly emotional 
 or rational ? 
 
 4. Gather evidence of what they want and how they
 
 384 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 propose to get it ; their problems, aims, demands, methods 
 and attitudes. 
 Note also: 
 
 1. The nature of Unionism and general characteristics 
 of the movement. Is it narrowly economic, or broadly 
 political, ethical, social, etc. ? 
 
 2. What is its viewpoint and spirit? Narrow group, 
 class or social? Evidence? Is it characterized by unity 
 and solidarity or by narrow factionalism? Evidence? 
 Is it altruistic or selfish, forceful or futile; characterized 
 by intense prejudice and moved by emotionalism, or open- 
 minded and rationalistic? Democratic or the reverse? 
 Revolutionary or conservative? Two bases on which 
 democratic or antidemocratic character must be judged? 
 
 3. What are its educational and informational quali- 
 ties? Compare the information of unionists and univer- 
 sity students on current affairs. The meeting is the 
 means of great dissemination of information, for the 
 delegates carry back what they hear to 100,000 members. 
 
 4. What functional types are represented? 
 
 5. What is unionism anyhow? 
 
 These various meetings will help us gradually to build 
 up our conception of what unionism is. Different students 
 will get different evidence and also get the same evidence 
 from different angles. By analyzing this evidence under 
 the heads of the nature of the union group, the nature of 
 the union personnel, and the nature of the union program, 
 we shall get our zirJiat of unionism. Then it will be for 
 us to attempt to interpret this, especially the program, which 
 will give us our zvhy of unionism. I think you will agree 
 before we get through that this is the only way, but like 
 all things worth while it is the hard way. 
 
 Meetings like this are valuable to put us in touch with 
 the actual union movement. They give us a feeling of 
 reality of the subject of study. The possibilities of these 
 meetings are uncertain. There is likely to be little discus-
 
 APPENDIX I 385 
 
 sion, hence little chance to estimate or judge different types 
 of men or conflicts of ideals and interests within the group. 
 Possibly there may be a false appearance of unity and en- 
 thusiasm. However, there may be speeches voicing the 
 concrete longings, troubles and strivings of unionists, and, 
 therefore, putting us in touch with current things. Talk 
 to the men and officers if the opportunity offers itself. 
 Considerable time and experience are required to judge 
 them, but get acquainted and begin to judge. 
 
 One most important thing in connection with the work we 
 are trying to do which we have not emphasized thus far 
 is that nothing worth while can come out of work of this 
 character apart from the determination on the part of each 
 one of you to put the very best of himself into it in the way 
 of good, hard, persistent, consistent, independent thinking. 
 This work will amount to nothing unless you make of this 
 thing, unionism, a serious personal problem and determine 
 to think yourself through to a series of vital conclusions. 
 These facts which you get from the field work and the read- 
 ings are absolutely worthless unless you get down seriously 
 and dig the significance out of them. The facts as mere 
 facts will not do you any good. They will soon be forgotten. 
 It is what they mean in terms of the character of unionism 
 and social welfare that is important. This meaning you 
 cannot get by merely listening to what I say of them, or 
 repeating them to me ; nor if you regard the facts as in- 
 trinsic bits of information to be stored away, or the work 
 as mere task work to be done well enough to satisfy me. 
 
 Only if you yourself get a clear understanding of their 
 meaning by your own hard effort will they be of any last- 
 ing value to you. You must yourselves get at them and 
 squeeze the last essence of significance out of them. And 
 do not have it in mind that you must agree with me. I 
 do not care what your conclusions are. What I want is 
 evidence that you have put your soul into the work, that 
 you h^ve not been passive, that you have been intensely;
 
 386 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 active, that these things have meant something serious to 
 you, that you have brought all your faculties and all your 
 experience to bear upon them in the effort to analyze, or- 
 ganize, and interpret them. If you have not the time to 
 do all the reading and thinking I ask, do the thinking. In 
 my opinion, an hour of good hard thinking is worth more 
 than twenty hours of reading just to get over the ground. 
 I would rather have a paper that showed one flash of real 
 insight than the most elaborate and finished piece of copy- 
 ing or mere stringing together of information. The trained 
 man, the educated man, is the one who has learned to grasp 
 a problem in the complexity of facts, and see the relation 
 of the facts to the problem, to separate the significant 
 from the merely incidental, to probe for hidden meanings, 
 to marshal evidence for a definite conclusion. He is the 
 man who is going to do things in life. I want the work 
 to be training to this end. I want you to throw yourselves 
 into the work in this spirit. Think out the meaning of 
 things. Never mind the outcome. 
 
 Research Methods 
 
 Success in research is preeminently an individual mat- 
 ter. No definite rule or method can be laid down that will 
 insure success. Each person must work out his own pe- 
 culiar method. Every different research problem requires 
 a different method of attack and system of work. The 
 reason for generally poor results of public research is that 
 one stilted method is used. Research students work me- 
 chanically. The great essentials are personal qualities, 
 the ability to formulate a problem, to grasp a situation as 
 a whole, an analytic and synthetic ability, insight and sug- 
 gestive alertness, selective ability or ability to distinguish 
 between the significant and the insignificant, ability to weigh 
 the evidence, to distinguish between the true and the false, 
 a sense of proportion, infinite patience in the handling of de-
 
 APPENDIX I 387 
 
 tall, resourcefulness and flexibility in overcoming obstacles 
 and creating means to ends, staying power, ability to draw 
 together the scattered threads and to construct a clear-cut, 
 pointed and logical outline or medium for presentation of 
 results, ability to put results into good, crisp, forceful Eng- 
 lish, with plenty of lights and shadows and emphatic sum- 
 maries. 
 
 Anyone who possesses these qualities actually or poten- 
 tially will work out his peculiar and successful method of 
 research. The most that anyone can do for such a person 
 is to give him a few hints that may save him from getting 
 into blind alleys and from wasting his time and energy. 
 These hints concern mainly the choice of a subject, the 
 preparation for investigation and note taking, the taking 
 and filing of notes, the weighing of evidence, and the out- 
 lining of the thesis and the report. 
 
 A great proportion of failures in research results from 
 the improper choice of a subject. The student takes a sub- 
 ject because the teacher sees something in it. This is all 
 wrong. No one can do anything worth while with a sub- 
 ject unless he sees in it something definite, vivid, worth 
 while, a vital problem, a vital thing to prove or disprove. 
 He must have a warm, drawing feeling for the thing, must 
 feel that there is something great in it. Without this the 
 work will be pointless, the student v/ill simply flounder. 
 The teacher should not, therefore, choose for the student, 
 but set the student first to make a choice, subject to the 
 teacher's approval. The student should never take a sub- 
 ject in which he does not see a definite nut to crack. There- 
 fore, a man should feel spontaneously attracted to the sub- 
 ject and consider it carefully for the vital object of interest. 
 This is the first essential step for successful research. 
 
 Every piece of research, to be successful, requires that 
 it have in view a definite problem for solution and a definite 
 method of attack upon that problem. And every definite 
 problem requires its peculiar method of attack or research.
 
 388 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 The determination of the definite problem and the definite 
 method of attack must precede the actual systematic inves- 
 tigation of the facts and note taking, except notes on the 
 nature of the problem, its essential aspects and ways of 
 treating it. For not all facts are of the same importance or 
 value. Many have no value at all for any particular end 
 until the problem and method have been worked out pretty 
 clearly. The student up to this time has no basis for the 
 collection of facts, for distinguishing between what is im- 
 portant and unimportant. Note taking before this, there- 
 fore, will mean an immense waste of time and eflfort in 
 accumulating unimportant information, and will often re- 
 sult in the student getting swamped in detail and utterly 
 lost — never getting out. Therefore, the first thing to do 
 after the choice of subject is settled is to go definitely and 
 singly to work on the particular nature of the problem 
 involved and the methods of research to solve it. This 
 means, unless the student is already familiar with the field, 
 two things : ( I ) Soaking in the general literature and the 
 objective facts in the field ; soaking full of the problem 
 and thinking it out, not to a conclusion, but as a game to 
 be played, with the sole object to find the nut to crack 
 and the way to hold it and hit it, i.e., finding the definite 
 problem and working out the definite method of attack. (2) 
 Doing a ton of thinking; here is where the main part of 
 your intellectual eflfort comes in, where you have to do 
 your straining. If you get clearly oriented in these things 
 the rest is comparatively easy ; you will know what you are 
 after, how to select, how to organize. It will be simply fol- 
 lowing out a plan. But while you are doing this soaking 
 and thinking, you do not want to take notes except on a 
 question of problem and method — no fact notes; you have 
 not your basis for selection — and if you do you will waste 
 an immense amount of time and effort. 
 
 When you have soaked and thought your way through 
 jjo a. definite understanding of your problem and methoci
 
 APPENDIX I 389 
 
 then make out your outline for research, your questiosnnaire 
 or whatever you call it, to direct your specific investigation 
 and to classify your notes. Then, not till then, are you 
 ready for the actual systematic research and note taking 
 or filing. This preliminary soaking has another vital pur- 
 pose that will come out later. 
 
 All this soaking and thinking before the actual investiga- 
 tion is entered upon may seem at first sight something 
 you have no time to do, but if rightly done it will save an 
 immense amount of time and effort in the end. It not only 
 guards against taking worthless notes, but guards against 
 being swamped in undigested details at the end; insures 
 that all through the work you know exactly where you are, 
 and that everything you do is definitely pointed to a definite 
 end. Your knowledge is systematized all the while, you 
 are proceeding systematically toward definite conclusions, 
 and when your research is over, you have simply to draw 
 your threads together into an orderly whole, present the 
 evidence in an orderly way, and draw your conclusions. 
 
 The prime object is to have each note so that one can 
 refer to it instantly and can keep the whole situation fresh 
 in mind. Mechanical matters generally mean: (i) a filing 
 outline; (2) a filing case, guide cards; (3) small sheets to 
 discourage too much volume — many notes are best simply 
 as page references; (4) only one point on a sheet; (5) 
 careful reference at bottom; (6) key at top; (7) kept filed 
 as far as possible. The dangers are too much mechanism, 
 dilettantism, and being swamped in complexity; the sim- 
 plest form for the purpose is best. 
 
 Of course, all this will not get you anywhere if you do 
 not know how to judge and weigh evidence. My experience 
 is that almost all evidence is partisan. From fifty to ninety- 
 five per cent of what you get as facts in books and in the 
 field are attempts to mislead, or pure misinformation; in 
 any case, false. Moreover, the facts are of great inequality 
 in importance. Students thus must know, first, how to
 
 390 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 separate the false from the true, second, how to give facts 
 relative importance. The only guide here is the knowledge 
 one possesses, along with his experience in the judgment of 
 men. You have almost got to know before you can suc- 
 cessfully find out. Here again comes in the supreme value 
 of preliminary soaking and thought. You must know enough 
 about the whole situation and the men in it before you go in 
 to gather facts so that you can exercise sound judgment, dis- 
 tinguish the important from the unimportant, and know 
 which men are misleading. The best success then requires 
 a background of broad general information, knowledge of 
 men and motives, maturity and experience, and the soaking 
 for the particular work. 
 
 The final step before writing up is the formulation of the 
 outline of treatment. One should never try to write with- 
 out a general outline, but there is danger in trying to out- 
 line minutely beforehand. Get the general sweep of the 
 subject and outline ahead each day. Of course, I need not 
 speak of proportion, emphasis and style.
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 STUDENTS' REPORT ON TRADE UNION 
 PROGRAM 
 
 To get a concrete notion and tangible evidence of the 
 trade union program or set of programs the classes read 
 all the trade union literature available, with the idea of 
 gathering up all the items and formulating them into some- 
 thing like a consistent whole. From the beginning of the 
 course on trade unionism every member of the class turned 
 in a written report of every labor meeting attended by 
 the class, every talk on labor made to the class by an 
 outsider, and every interview he held with a labor leader. 
 In addition separate committees made special studies of the 
 American Federation of Labor, the Railroad Brotherhoods, 
 the Knights of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the 
 World. All the papers were then reviewed by a com- 
 mittee whose duty was to cull out the aims, principles and 
 theories, policies, etc., and to organize them into a sys- 
 tematic whole. This work was done by a number of classes, 
 each using and building on the results of its predecessors. 
 
 The following is a preliminary report of the committee 
 of the class on the Aims, Principles and Theories, Policies, 
 Demands, Methods, and Attitudes of Trade Unionism. 
 
 I. Aims 
 
 Expression of the self — personality, temperament, group 
 
 philosophy. 
 Higher intelligence and capacity for enjoyment. 
 
 391
 
 392 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Looking to improved conditions — more now. 
 
 Improvement of working conditions, in the matter of: 
 
 Wages 
 
 Hours 
 
 Safety 
 
 Health 
 
 Security 
 
 Continuity 
 
 Exertion 
 
 Independence and personal dignity 
 
 Supervision and control. 
 Improvement of living conditions and standard of living : 
 
 More just distribution of wealth 
 
 Community of wealth and industry 
 
 Industrial democracy 
 
 Uplift of the working class 
 
 Uplift of the community as a whole 
 
 Obtaining rights as citizens 
 
 Extension of democracy 
 
 Self-help. 
 
 II. Principles and Theories 
 
 Essence of social maladjustment is the wage system. 
 Low wages cause of most human ills. 
 Unemployment is the result of social conditions. 
 Wealth is for the benefit of all, not for a special class. 
 Everyone has a right to what he physically produces. 
 Profits are robbery; whole returns of industry should 
 
 go to labor, which alone creates. 
 Not opposed to past unjust accumulations but want 
 
 better future adjustment. 
 Profits of capital belong to labor. 
 
 Common ownership of means of production by work- 
 ers is inevitable and not far off. 
 Profits from improvements should go to labor.
 
 APPENDIX 11 3^3 
 
 Need for Unionism based on the present wage system. 
 
 To maintain wages all must unionize. 
 Belief in the wage fund theory (or lump of labor theory) 
 causes opposition to : 
 Industrial schools 
 Immigration. 
 Disbelief in the wage fund theory : 
 
 Immigration creates a demand equal to the productive 
 
 power which it adds. 
 Raising wages will simply increase the productive effi- 
 ciency of employees. 
 Labor-Cost Theory — Labor alone the creator of wealth. 
 All workers are of the same benefit to society, whether 
 skilled or unskilled, and all should therefore receive 
 the same wages. 
 Higher wages do not raise the price of the product. 
 Price depends ultimately on effective demand. 
 Higher wages mean increased demand for goods. 
 Labor not a commodity : Unions not a monopoly. 
 Principles of standardization and uniformity. 
 Identity of interests of labor and capital. 
 Cooperation with employer whenever possible — the goal. 
 Certain classic "rights" of employers denied : 
 
 Employer's right to run his business as he wishes. 
 Employer's right to hire and discharge whomever and 
 whenever he pleases. 
 Antagonism of labor and capital. 
 Competition causes perpetual and progressive increase of 
 
 poverty. 
 Competition between man and man is healthy ; between man 
 
 and machine it is injurious to man. 
 Competition unrestricted makes unions necessary. 
 Fixed, absolute, unchanging system of things. 
 Society's obligation to the worker to help maintain his 
 - inalienable rights, including: 
 
 Right to work — right to a job, a trade.
 
 304 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Right to organize. 
 Right to leisure. 
 Right to an education. 
 Right to free action vs. employer. 
 Good of all more important than good of a few. 
 Organization is essential to freedom from oppression. 
 Unionism does not take away the laborer's freedom. 
 Solidarity of the working classes. 
 Injury to one the concern of all. 
 
 Harmony of interests of all laborers. 
 No single trade organization capable of coping with 
 
 employers as all combined are. 
 Interests of labor class are more fundamental than 
 those of the craft group. 
 Cheap workingmen's hotels, minimum wage, etc., simply 
 retard the one right way of bettering things — or- 
 ganization. 
 A working class organization should include farmers, 
 
 business men, etc., all but large capitalists. 
 Only workingmen should be enrolled in labor organiza- 
 tions. 
 Interests of own group paramount — whether: 
 The trade or craft group, or 
 The industrial group, or 
 The federated trades group, or 
 Workers of the world. 
 Political action. 
 Might is right (when Unionists win). 
 
 Right and justice are the rules of the game of the 
 
 ruling class. 
 Unions justified for the good they do, no matter how 
 great the corresponding damage. 
 Ends justify the means. 
 
 Courts and law not so bad — only are under the influence 
 of wealthy and powerful classes.
 
 APPENDIX 11 395 
 
 III. Geneil\l Policies 
 
 As to Organization : 
 
 To organize to facilitate common action as an economic 
 group. 
 
 To parallel the capitalistic group in the matter of or- 
 ganization. 
 
 To include all laborers. 
 
 Maintain mixed local assemblies to develop class 
 
 consciousness. 
 Opportunistic organization to meet needs of all labor 
 as may be necessary. 
 
 To organize the unskilled. 
 
 To organize the particularly skilled worker. 
 
 Limit the number of members by high dues and fees. 
 Limit the number of members to those who are most 
 efficient. 
 
 To organize the workers in a craft to subserve craft 
 interests. 
 
 To amalgamate craft organizations where jurisdictional 
 conflicts and joint interests demand. 
 
 To organize the workers of allied trades to subserve 
 kindred interests. 
 
 To organize the workers on the basis of industries. 
 
 To maintain a national and district organization to con 
 trol labor conditions in all localities or localities hav- 
 ing similar problems. 
 
 To maintain a single organization. 
 
 To maintain a highly centralized organization to fur- 
 ther efficient functioning. 
 
 To maintain an autocratic organization (successful 
 unions). 
 
 To maintain a national organization to protect crafts 
 from rivals and seceders. 
 
 To retain sovereignty in local organization. 
 
 To maintain local independence.
 
 396 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 To maintain a democratic form of organization — use of 
 
 referendum, etc. 
 To maintain machinery for reducing internal friction. 
 To remain irresponsible, not incorporated. 
 To maintain a responsible organization. 
 To maintain legislative committees. 
 To maintain committees to further candidacies of trade 
 
 unionists and sympathizers. 
 To affiliate with labor parties. 
 
 To affiliate opportunistically with major political parties. 
 To maintain an organization for mutual insurance. 
 No affiliation with welfare plans of other groups. 
 
 As to Activities: 
 
 To work with the present order. 
 
 To work against the present order. 
 
 To check the accumulation and power of wealth. 
 
 To adhere to the Common Rule — collective bargaining. 
 
 To control workers and conditions : 
 
 Machinery, tools, processes and improvements 
 
 All incidents and conditions of work and pay 
 
 Supply of labor 
 
 Output, product, materials 
 
 The closed shop. 
 To use only union made goods. 
 To act pragmatically and opportunistically, making use of : 
 
 Self-help only 
 
 Monopoly and strategic position 
 
 Strong treasury 
 
 Strikes 
 
 Boycott 
 
 Violence if necessary 
 
 Methods "within the law" 
 
 Mediation, arbitration and conciliation. $;, 
 
 To cultivate business relations with the employer. 
 To develop a good reputation for business-like methods.
 
 APPENDIX II 397 
 
 To comply strictly with all contract provisions. 
 To maintain efficiency and high moral character. 
 To encourage industrial education. 
 To develop and use public opinion. 
 To abolish the present wage system. 
 To establish industrial democracy. 
 To use direct action : 
 Sabotage 
 General Strike 
 Violence. 
 No respect for contracts. 
 
 State socialism and any measure pointing that way. 
 To discountenance violence. 
 To exploit labor or social groups. 
 To use any method in a pinch. 
 To abstain from partisan political action. 
 To use the ballot independently. 
 To control administration of government for trade union 
 
 purposes. 
 To use legal rights and processes. 
 To use a definite political program. 
 To use no political action. 
 To educate and uplift the union personnel. 
 To subordinate class, race and creed differences to eco- 
 nomic unity. 
 
 IV. Demands 
 From the Employer: 
 
 Recognition of the union. 
 
 Standard rate of wages. 
 
 Higher wages. 
 
 No reduction of wages. 
 
 Extra pay for holidays and Sundays. 
 
 Extra pay for overtime. 
 
 Extra pay for extraordinary work. 
 
 Extra pay for objectionable work. 
 
 Extra pay for night work.
 
 39S TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Extra pay for split shifts. 
 
 Pay for idle time on duty. 
 
 Pay for walking time. 
 
 Equal pay for men and women. 
 
 No bonus or premium system. 
 
 No profit sharing. 
 
 Abolition of sliding scale. 
 
 Definite place of payment. 
 
 Payment of special expenses when engaged in spe- 
 cial work. 
 
 Abolition of truck system. 
 
 Abolition of payment by check. 
 
 Free tools and necessary work-clothing. 
 
 Free power. 
 
 Definite price for working materials furnished by 
 worker. 
 
 Weekly payment. 
 
 The normal day. 
 
 The eight-hour day, with no wage reduction. 
 
 Definite noon and rest hours. 
 
 Definite beginning and ending hours. 
 
 Half holiday on Saturday. 
 
 One day's rest in seven. 
 
 Observance of Labor Day. 
 
 No overtime. 
 
 No split shifts. 
 
 Time work. 
 
 No piece work. 
 
 Abolition of "rushers" and "speeders." 
 
 Union shop. 
 
 Closed shop. 
 
 Preferential shop. 
 
 No use of nonunion materials or machinery. 
 
 Abolition of foot power. 
 
 No scientific management. 
 
 No changes in classification.
 
 APPENDIX II ^99 
 
 No unregulated change in: 
 
 Character or quality of work 
 
 Machinery or processes 
 
 Grouping of workers. 
 Participation in the increased profit from new ma- 
 chinery. 
 Limitation of machinery to be tended. 
 No subcontract. 
 No sweatshop work. 
 Protection against occupational diseases. 
 Sanitary shops, in respect to: 
 
 Ventilation 
 
 Lighting 
 
 Humidity 
 
 Heat 
 
 Water supply 
 
 Cloak rooms 
 
 Rest rooms 
 
 Toilet rooms. 
 Safety devices and appliances. 
 Efficient fire protection. 
 Abolition of company home. 
 Abolition of child labor and night labor. 
 Prohibition of certain work. 
 Recognition of jurisdictional claims. 
 Representation on the job. 
 
 Prohibition of casual work for regular workmen. 
 Regulation of : 
 
 Hiring and discharging 
 
 Fining and docking 
 
 Promotion 
 
 Mode of doing work 
 
 Enforcement of agreements 
 
 Settlement of disputes 
 
 Tools and Machinery 
 
 Materials
 
 400 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Processes 
 
 Apprentices 
 
 Number of helpers, boy laborers and women 
 
 workers. 
 Legislative demands : 
 
 Restriction of immigration. 
 
 Abolition of Asiatic immigration. 
 
 Abolition of convict contract labor. 
 
 Abolition of all forms of involuntary servitude. 
 
 Prohibition of immigration of contract labor. 
 
 Abolition of sweatshop. 
 
 Abolition of child labor. 
 
 Abolition of truck payments. 
 
 Compulsory school attendance until sixteen years of 
 
 age. 
 Minimum wage laws for women. 
 Restriction of women's work. 
 Eight-hour law for women. 
 One day's rest in seven. 
 Efficient factory inspection. 
 Prevention of stop-watch, high-speed schemes. 
 Employers' liability. 
 Workmen's compensation. 
 Old age pensions. 
 
 Abrogation of common-law defenses for employers. 
 Removal of unjust technicalities and law's delays. 
 Equality of capital and labor before the law. 
 Election of all judges. 
 Limitation of power of judges. 
 Regulation of contempt proceedings. 
 Abolition of use of injunction in labor disputes. 
 Prohibition of use of Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 
 
 labor disputes. 
 Abolition of private detective agencies. 
 Prevention of the use of police and militia in labor 
 
 disputes.
 
 APPENDIX ir 401 
 
 No nonresidents to act as deputy-sheriffs or police 
 
 in labor disputes. 
 No compulsory arbitration or investigation. 
 Voluntary arbitration. 
 Conference with employers. 
 Initiative and referendum. 
 Imperative mandate and recall. 
 Public as against private welfare plans. 
 Public as against private industrial education. 
 Federal appropriations for trade schools. 
 Free and uniform textbooks. 
 Abolition of private employment bureaus. 
 Woman suffrage. 
 
 Free speech and freedom of the press. 
 Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
 Bureaus of labor safety. 
 Museum of safety. 
 Federal bureau of health. 
 Public baths. 
 Public playgrounds. 
 Workingmen's lyceums and libraries. 
 Municipal ownership. 
 Public ownership of railroads, telephones, telegraphs 
 
 and natural monopolies. 
 Right of petition for government employees. 
 Citizenship for Porto Ricans. 
 Marine Laws. 
 Graduated income tax. 
 Inheritance tax. 
 Land held for speculative purposes to be taxed to 
 
 its full value. 
 
 V. Methods 
 
 Organization and use of organizers. 
 Collective bargaining.
 
 402 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Legislation. 
 
 Arbitration. 
 
 Increased membership. 
 
 High moral requirements for membership. 
 
 High apprenticeship requirements. 
 
 Limitation of number of apprentices. 
 
 Salaried officers. 
 
 Control of union by small group. 
 
 Prohibition of needless dual organization. 
 
 Cooperation with allied unions. 
 
 Fight competing unions. 
 
 Cooperation in demands. 
 
 Coterminous contracts for allied crafts. 
 
 War chest. 
 
 Strikes. 
 
 General strike. 
 
 Intermittent strike. 
 
 Sympathetic strike. 
 
 Boycott. 
 
 Picketing. 
 
 Violence. 
 
 Intimidation of employers. 
 
 Intimidation of scabs. 
 
 Sabotage. 
 
 Merciless punishment of those who fall out of line 
 with machine in power. 
 
 Buttons and insignia. 
 
 "We don't patronize" and unfair lists. 
 
 Use of union label. 
 
 Strike defense fund. 
 
 Closed shop. 
 
 Union shop. 
 
 Preferential shop. 
 
 Political action — watch and publish records of leg- 
 islators. 
 
 Publicity through ;
 
 APPENDIX II 403 
 
 Observance of Labor Day 
 
 Official publications 
 
 Lectures 
 
 Sending children away from strike districts 
 
 Opening reading rooms where their literature may 
 be obtained. 
 Educational work through : 
 
 Union trade schools 
 
 University extension 
 
 Night schools 
 
 Vocational education 
 
 Apprenticeship system and control of apprentices 
 
 Emotional appeals to public 
 
 Education of the public 
 
 Inconvenience of the public 
 
 Labor press. 
 Social Ostracism. 
 Special aid to employers. 
 Friendly conferences with employers. 
 Union employment agencies. 
 Discipline of members. 
 Discipline of employers. 
 Low initiation fees and dues. 
 High initiation fees and dues. 
 Clearance cards. 
 
 Increasing financial centralization. 
 Democratic procedure. 
 Mutual aid and insurance : 
 
 Sick benefits 
 
 Death benefits 
 
 Tool insurance 
 
 Old-age pensions 
 
 Homes for aged 
 
 Out of work benefits 
 
 Strike benefits 
 
 Victimization benefits.
 
 404 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Cooperative enterprises. 
 Lobbying and corrupt politics. 
 Injunctions and legal aid. 
 Commissions and investigating committees. 
 Grievance Boards. 
 Regular union meetings. 
 Moral suasion. 
 
 Control through superior competence and efficiency 
 of union labor. 
 
 VI. Attitudes * 
 
 A. Questioning fundamental, accepted social standards. 
 
 "Moral and industrial worth, not wealth, the stand- 
 ard of human greatness." 
 
 Philosophical rights are incomprehensible. 
 
 "Property rights are not rights but privileges." 
 
 Loyalty to the group more fundamental than prop- 
 erty rights. 
 
 Labor is right and just always. All opposed to labor 
 is wrong and unjust. 
 
 "Physical power the motive force of everything; 
 might is right." 
 
 B. Questioning the present organization of society. 
 
 I. Economic: , 
 
 "The capitalist performs no useful work." 
 "The capitalist is on your back; he furnishes the 
 mouth, you the hands; he consumes, you pro- 
 duce. That is why he runs largely to the stom- 
 ach and you to hands." 
 "In capitalistic society the working man is not a man 
 at all ; he is bought in the open market the same 
 as hair, hides, and other forms of merchandise." 
 *A large number of these are direct quotations from union 
 leaders, meetings, or books. Others are a summary of attitudes 
 ^s seen by members of the class.
 
 APPENDIX II 405 
 
 "Increasing specialization of industry wrong, for tiie 
 benefit of the capitalists only." 
 
 "United States capitalism the rottenest in the world." 
 !. Political : 
 
 "The government does not represent the people faith- 
 fully." 
 
 "Majorities do not make governments : the financial 
 plutocrats of this country are a minority more 
 powerful than all its voters, because of their 
 economic power. They are its real voters." 
 
 "Labor has no protection — the weakest are devoured 
 by the strong. All wealth and all power center in 
 the hands of the few, and the many are their 
 victims." 
 
 "Labor has no reason to be patriotic; the capitalists 
 own the country." 
 
 "Courts and law are not so bad — only they are under 
 the influence of the capitalist class." 
 
 Justice and law are not the same for all. 
 
 "To hell with the courts" (hatred and suspicion of 
 them). 
 
 Capital punishment is brutal and ineffective in pre- 
 venting crime. 
 Social (criticism of other social groups and movements) : 
 
 "The Church and the State — the great pillars of the 
 capitalists and of capitalistic society." 
 
 "Religious publishing houses — the worst enemy to 
 organized labor." 
 
 "The ministers do not give a damn for labor." 
 
 "Militarism is the tool of the wealth interests." 
 
 "Immigration is more dangerous than an invading 
 army." 
 
 "Newspapers are at the beck and call of the capi- 
 talists. The public press — the tool of capital." 
 
 "Bankers, lawyers and gamblers are parasites on so- 
 ciety."
 
 4o6 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 Large fortunes are all wrong. 
 C. Labor Welfare : 
 
 *'There is no silver lining to the clouds of darkness 
 and despair settling down on the world of 
 labor." 
 
 Nonunion labor is under-paid and over-worked. 
 
 "Workers are wage-slaves." 
 
 "Labor power is not a product ; it is flesh and blood, 
 brain and brawn ; it is the human power to 
 produce." 
 
 "Self-denial and saving are not virtues for the work- 
 ers but should be condemned." 
 
 "The contented workman is a pitiable object. Think 
 of a smile in chains !" 
 
 The employer's gift to charity or "welfare" is a con- 
 fession of unearned interest or profits ; increase 
 the wage. 
 
 "There can be no peace so long as hunger and want 
 are found among millions of working people." 
 
 "The labor movement is the hope of the world." 
 
 "Unionists are not theorists; unionism is an emi- 
 nently practical thing." 
 
 The trade union comprises the most intelligent sec- 
 tion of the working class. 
 
 "We have everything to gain and nothing but our 
 chains to lose." 
 
 "We don't need capitalists as guardians of capital — 
 we can do that ourselves." 
 
 "All that is not for labor is against it." 
 
 "Those who 'kick' without reason are better than 
 those who do not 'kick' at all." 
 
 "No strike of wealth-producers, whatever the cir- 
 cumstances, is unjustified, is without motive 
 cause, so long as such a strike is aimed at the 
 citadels of the employing class and their out- 
 posts "
 
 APPENDIX II 407 
 
 *'Can't blame a man for not working if he can't get 
 
 a decent living out of it." 
 Lists used by unions all right; those used against 
 
 them all wrong. 
 "The workers are damn fools if they don't take what 
 
 they want when they can't get it any other 
 
 way." 
 "Public opinion of slight weight in aiding workers' 
 \ struggles." 
 
 "What the hell do we care about facts? We will 
 
 win if we have the power and not because of 
 
 the facts." 
 "Grab the world." 
 
 D. The Laborer and the Employer : 
 
 "Not every employer is a horned monster." 
 
 Employers can meet with workers on a basis of jus- 
 tice to both. 
 
 "Contracts with the employer should be lived up to." 
 
 "Employers are hard-hearted ; won't arbitrate. This 
 proves that the employer is not as good as the 
 unionist." 
 
 Employers are parasites. 
 
 Employers are always wrong. 
 
 "Contracts with the employers are not sacred." 
 
 No attempt to get the employer's point of view. 
 
 "Every welfare plan has a joker in it." 
 
 "No undue advantage can be taken of any of our 
 employers, because they have no rights that the 
 workers are bound to respect." 
 
 Strike is war, not a relation between employer and 
 employees. 
 
 The employer is feared as well as hated. 
 
 Spirit of lockout is un-American. 
 
 E. The Laborer and his Fellow Laborer: 
 I. In the same group: 
 
 "Union workmen are the best men."
 
 4o8 TRADE UNIONISM 
 
 "Competition for others not for us. Rival organi- 
 zations are futile and a detriment." 
 
 "The unionist is a traitor to unionism if he fails to 
 stand in with fellow unionists in all policies." 
 
 "We have fought a good fight — therefore we deserve 
 assistance." 
 
 Lack of sympathy — inability to cooperate — showing 
 itself in jurisdictional disputes. 
 
 Unity on economic questions immediately affecting 
 the group. Lack of it on broad social questions, 
 even in the same group. 
 
 Conflict between materialistic majority — "bread and 
 butter unionists," and the idealistic members. 
 
 Class loyalty and brotherhood, mainly one of catch- 
 words ; internal suspicion and desire on the part 
 of each to gain his own ends. 
 2. In different, opposed, or comj>eting groups : 
 
 Lack of broad class consciousness ; instead there is 
 small group consciousness. (How many union- 
 ists use only union-label goods ?) 
 
 "Trade unionism — the bulwark of capitalism." 
 
 "The A. F. of L. is not a labor organization ; it is 
 simply a combination of job trusts." 
 
 "Trade unionism is helpless, impotent, worn-out, cor- 
 rupt." 
 
 "When a man gets too wild for the A. F. of L. he 
 goes to the I. W. W. ; so the I. W. W. is a good 
 thing." 
 
 "In case of foreigners of a low type organization 
 is impossible ; they are not intelligent enough to 
 see the benefits of unionism, are afraid of losing 
 their jobs; the general quality of such groups 
 does not improve." 
 
 "Socialists — yellow dogs." 
 
 "A man is a scab when he gets in the way of your 
 job, no matter how badly he needs the money."
 
 APPENDIX II 409 
 
 *'The scab is a traitor," 
 
 "Rival unionists are scabs. One set of union men 
 was characterized by the leader of another union 
 group whose jobs the former were taking when 
 the latter were striking, as, 'The vilest creatures 
 that disgrace the earth upon which they crawl.' " 
 3. The rank and file and the leaders : 
 
 "Union leaders are competent and are doing their 
 best for us." 
 
 "Union leaders are czars, self-seeking, and danger- 
 ous." 
 
 The rank and file hesitated to pay a dollar to "them 
 guys." 
 
 "You can't trust a business agent when he gets his 
 feet under the mahogany table with the em- 
 ployers." 
 
 **When I pick up a capitalist newspaper and read a 
 eulogy to some labor leader, I know that that 
 leader has at least two afflictions : the one is 
 mental weakness, and the other is moral coward- 
 ice — and the two go together." 
 
 "Men's unions have bosses ; women's do not."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Absolutistic concept of soci- 
 ety, 212 
 effect of, on legal status of 
 labor group, 232 
 
 Amalgamated Association of 
 Iron, Tin, and Steel 
 Workers of North Amer- 
 ica, 42 
 
 Amalgamated Association of 
 Street and Electrical Em- 
 ployees of America, 42 
 
 Amalgamated craft union, 42 
 
 Amalgamated Glass Workers' 
 International Association 
 of America Membership, 
 
 43 
 Amalgamated Meat Cutters 
 and Butchers Workmen 
 of North America, 42 
 Amalgamated Sheet Metal 
 Workers' International 
 Alliance, jurisdiction of, 
 42 
 American Federation of La- 
 bor, 87, 88, 90, 93, 105, 
 116, 117, 118, 120. 
 a business organization, 336 
 causes of success, 132 
 comparison with K. of L., 
 
 103 
 contests in, 117, 63 
 convention, 128 
 
 American Federation of La- 
 bor, councils, 121 
 delegates, 129 
 departments, 122 
 direction of the develop- 
 ment of, the, 160 
 executive council, 131 
 failures, 133 
 fraternal bodies, 129 
 functional federative units, 
 
 126 
 industrial unionism in, 1 04, 1 54 
 injunction and, 234 
 internal development, 104 
 the international, 113 
 the local, 116 
 objects of, 131 
 organic character, 128 
 quasi industrial federation 
 
 in, 43 
 referendum in, 181 
 Socialism in, 164, 171 
 sovereignty in, 90, 128 
 strength, 131, 201 
 structure, 112 
 American labor movement, 
 
 104, 160 
 American Labor Union, 105 
 American Railvi^ay Union, 105, 
 
 158 
 American Society of Engi- 
 neers, 297 
 
 411
 
 412 
 
 INDEX 
 
 American Syndicalist League, 
 
 70, 163, 172 
 American workmen, 146, 148, 
 
 155, 159, 173 
 Anarchism, social theory, 361 
 Anarchistic unionism, 49 
 aims and methods, 166 
 theory of militant minority, 
 169 
 Anarchistic unionists, 164 
 Anti-Boycott League, 190 
 Apprenticeship, 79, 83 
 neglect of, 322 
 reasons for, 292, 294 
 restoration, 325 
 Apprenticeship and machin- 
 ery, 220 
 Arbitration, 264, 374 
 Assumptions, classical eco- 
 nomic, 360 
 of Employers' Associations, 
 
 195 
 of Knights of Labor, 93 
 progressive-uplift, 368 
 of Revolutionary unionism, 
 
 164 
 of scientific management, 
 
 311, 330 
 of Socialist theory, 364 
 underlying the law, 212, 245 
 of unionists, 284 
 
 Baltimore Tailors, 82 
 
 Baltimore Typographical So- 
 ciety, 82 
 
 Blacklist, legality of, 236 
 
 Boot and Shoe Workers' 
 Union, 274 
 
 Boycott, legality of, 236 
 
 Briand, Aristide, 167 
 
 Bridge and Structural Iron 
 Workers, 51, 158, 162 
 
 British Trades Union Con- 
 gress, 129 
 
 Brotherhood of Locomotive 
 Firemen, 106 
 
 Brotherhood of Painters, Dec- 
 orators and Paperhangers, 
 129 
 
 Brotherhood of Railway 
 Bridgemen, 107 
 
 Brotherhood of Railway Car- 
 men, 107 
 
 Brotherhood of Railway 
 Trackmen, 107 
 
 Brotherhood of Railway 
 Trainmen, 107 
 
 Buck's Stove and Range case, 
 injunction in, 234 
 
 Building Trades Department,. 
 122 
 
 Building trades, interpretation 
 of agreements, 271 
 
 Burns, John, 167 
 
 Business agent, 182 
 reason for, 291 
 
 Business agents, board of, 121, 
 122 
 
 Business unions, contracts, 
 274 
 
 Business unionism, 45, 336 
 means to success in bargain- 
 ing, 190 
 
 Business unionist, 185 
 
 Canadian Trades and Labor 
 
 Congress, 129 
 Cedar Rapids Agreement, 106 
 
 f
 
 INDEX 
 
 413 
 
 Centralizers, in revolutionary 
 
 unionism, 167 
 Chapel, 119 
 
 Chicago Employers' Associa- 
 tion, 189 
 Chicago Federation of Labor, 
 40 
 contest in, 63 
 meeting of, 383 
 Chicago Industrial Workers of 
 
 the World, 49, 164 
 Chicago Team Owners' Asso- 
 ciation, 189 
 Cigarmakers' Union of Chi- 
 cago, 116 
 City Central labor union, 126 
 City federation, 39 
 Class conflict, 172, 369 
 Classes, modes of definition, 
 
 350 
 Classical economic theory of 
 
 society, 359 
 Clayton Act, 230, 235 
 Closed shop, 79 
 legal status, 235 
 reason for, 291, 294, 344 
 war on, 191 
 Collective agreements, legal- 
 ity, 236 
 Collective bargaining, benefits 
 
 to employers, 258 
 , double-sided monopoly, 260 
 effects of, 263 
 prerequisites of, 269 
 and scientific management, 
 
 303, 319 
 standards of work and pay, 
 
 257 
 step toward control, 274 
 
 Collective bargaining, theory, 
 
 255 
 wages, 256 
 work and pay, 257 
 Communist manifesto, 364 
 Competition, between workers, 
 286, 288 
 control of, 288ff 
 effect on workers, 256 
 effects in England, 243, 332 
 under scientific manage- 
 ment, 323 
 union remedy, 13 
 of unskilled, 97, 346 
 Compound craft union, 42 
 Compulsory arbitration, 264 
 Concepts of i8th century phi- 
 losophy, 247 
 Concepts of society, 212 
 
 revolutionary, 250 
 Conciliation, 264 
 Concurrent variations of type, 
 55, 62 
 explained by, 67 
 Conspiracy, 229, 248 
 Constitution of the United 
 
 States, 249 
 Consumers, the, 368 
 Contests, A. F. of L. and K. 
 of L., 103 
 business unionists and so- 
 cialists, 186 
 craft and industrial unions, 
 
 117 
 in I. W .W., 142, 153 
 needs for settlement, 374 
 rank and file leaders, 178, 
 
 179 
 in unions, source, 63
 
 414 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Contract, legality, 225 
 individual legality, 236 
 .mviolability practiced, 274 
 liability for, 230 
 
 Control, lack of, in I. W. W., 
 
 147 
 problem of unionism, 30 
 of convention of A. F. of 
 
 L., 129 
 of unionism, 19 
 Councils, local and district, 121 
 Courts, power of, to make law, 
 
 237 
 effect of failure to under- 
 stand workers, 231 
 interpreters, 218, 235 
 power over workers, 233, 
 236 
 Craft knowledge, loss of, 321, 
 322, 346 
 remedy for loss of, 324 
 Craft union, defined, 38 
 Craft unions, characteristics, 
 88 
 common interests, 96 
 history, 82 
 Crafts or trades union, 39 
 Craftsmen, skilled, 348 
 
 Debs' American Railway Un- 
 ion, 106 
 Decentralizers, 142 
 
 social theories, 167 
 Delegates, A. F. of L., 128, 129 
 
 engineers, 107 
 Democracy in unions, 169, 181 
 Departments, 122 
 
 industrial federations, 43 
 Dependent unionism, 51 
 
 Detroft I. W. W., 49, 164 
 Direct action, 167 
 Direct actionists, 145 
 District assembly, K. of L., 89 
 District industrial union, 41 
 Division of labor, effects on 
 work«rs, 243 
 
 Economic aims of unions, 284 
 
 methods, 288 
 
 outline, 287 
 
 of unionism, 282 
 Education, industrial, 193, 325 
 Efficiency payment, 289 
 Efficiency methods of pay- 
 ment, 321, 344, 347 
 Eighteenth century philoso- 
 phy, 247 
 
 in America, 79, 249 
 Emerson, Harrington, 296 
 Employers' associations, 188 
 
 aims and policies, 190 
 
 assumptions, 195 
 
 conciliatory, 202 
 
 methods, 190 
 
 militant development, 202 
 
 paralleling union organiza- 
 tion, 189 
 
 tendencies, 204 
 
 their problem, 201 
 
 and unionism, 204 
 Employers, claim of rights of, 
 200 
 
 greater bargaining strength, 
 cause of, 221, 256 
 
 liability of, 226 
 
 militant, point of view, 199 
 
 restrictions on, 258, 289 
 
 rights of, 24Q
 
 INDEX 
 
 415 
 
 Employers, union estimate of, 
 
 258, 284, 337, 345 
 Employer and worker, causes 
 of inequality, 221 
 economic situation, 221 
 interests of, 79, 94, 198, 284 
 legal relations, 217, 224 
 relative bargaining power, 
 
 219 
 relative right, 297 
 relations in England, 240, 250 
 Environment, 8, 65, 66, 358, 
 
 368 
 Errors of students, 27 
 Estey, J. A., 162 
 Ethical standards, 4 
 
 of the group, 7 
 Evolution, scientific and tele- 
 
 ological, 214 
 Evolutionary concept of so- 
 ciety, 212 
 Executive boards, K. of L., 90 
 Executive committee, of A. F. 
 of L., 128, 131 
 of engineers, 107, 109 
 
 Federal Council of the Church- 
 es of Christ, 129 
 
 Federal Labor unions, 118 
 
 Federal trade local, 116 
 
 Federation of American Rail- 
 way Employees, 106 
 
 Federation of Organized 
 Trades and Labor Unions 
 of U. S. and Canada, 103 
 
 Fixed group demand theory, 
 261, 262 
 
 Fraternal bodies in A. F. of 
 L., 129 
 
 Free competition, 250 
 Freedom of contract, 225 
 Frey, J. P., 202 
 Functions of early unions, 79 
 Functions of unionism, 3 
 Functional foremanship, 320, 
 
 321 
 Functional groups, formation 
 
 of, 357 
 Functional social groups, 353 
 
 chief characteristic, 356 
 
 definition, 355 
 Functional type, defined, 69 
 Functional types, 44, 61 
 
 conflicts, 70 
 
 definition, 61 
 
 essential aspect of unionism, 
 
 55 
 variations, 66 
 Functional variants, existence 
 explained, 67 
 tests of validity, as types, 68 
 
 Gantt, H. L., 296 
 
 General Assembly, K, of L., 89 
 
 Glass Bottle Blowers' Associ- 
 ation of the U. S. and 
 Canada, 113, 274 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, 23, 133 
 
 Grand Chief Engineer, 107, 
 108, 109 
 
 Grand International Brother- 
 hood of Locomotive Engi- 
 neers, 106 
 functions, no 
 mode of adjustment, 109 
 structure, 107 
 
 Grand International Division 
 Engineers, 107, 108, 109
 
 4i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Group, action, 59 
 bargaining strength, 294 
 competitive strength, 291 
 demand theory, 260, 262 
 psychological factors, 66 
 standard of living, 261 
 theories of economic pro- 
 gram, 282 
 See also Social groups 
 
 Groups, 6, 96, 351 
 cause of, 357 
 in the law, 216, 232 
 purpose of study, 206 
 
 Guerilla unionism, 51, 162 
 study of program, 282 
 
 Harmony of interests, 48, 50, 
 95. 195. 198, 247, 330 
 classical economic theory, 
 360 
 
 History of unionism in U. S., 
 periods, 81 
 
 Hold-up unionism, 50 
 
 Hours of work, 225 
 
 Illinois Coal Operators, 189 
 
 Illinois Manufacturers' Asso- 
 ciation, 189 
 
 Illinois State Federation of 
 Labor, 40, 127 
 
 Incorporation, 190 
 
 Increased efficiency, effect of, 
 on workers, 262, 339 
 effect of, on wages, 337, 339, 
 340 
 
 Individual bargaining, 257, 
 286, 287 
 
 Industry, change in conditions 
 of, 220 
 
 Industrial Brotherhood, 86 
 Industrial changes, effects on 
 workers, 331 
 effort to control, 288, 290, 
 
 345 
 implied in time and motion 
 
 study, 342 
 producing competition, 257 
 reason for opposition to, 
 
 293» 294, 331. 338 
 under scientific manage- 
 ment, 322 
 
 "Industrial Democrac y," 
 Webb, 254 
 
 Industrial democracy, 275, 292, 
 347, 348 
 under scientific manage- 
 ment, 303, 320 
 
 Industrial education, 193, 
 
 325 
 
 Industrial law, basis in Amer- 
 ica, 249 
 
 Industrial local, 117 
 
 Industrial nationals, 114 
 
 Industrial organization, I05n. 
 
 Industrial organization — ef- 
 fect, 167 
 
 Industrial Railway organiza- 
 tion, 106 
 
 Industrial Revolution, 245, 249 
 steps in, 241 
 
 Industrial society, history of, 
 204 
 
 Industrial union, 40, 42, 44 
 
 Industrial unions, in A. F. of 
 L., 117 
 
 Industrial unionism, in the A. 
 F. of L., 154 
 in the I. W. W., 153
 
 INDEX 
 
 417 
 
 Industrial unionism, economic 
 reasons for development, 
 
 97 
 Industrial Workers of the 
 World, 49, 105, 139 
 
 as a social factor, 145, 155 
 
 causes of ineffectiveness, 
 148 
 
 character of, 148 
 
 conflict of ideals, 151, 152 
 
 constitution, 144, 145 
 
 financial control, 147 
 
 financial resources, 145 
 
 internal conflict, 142 
 
 leaders, 149 
 
 membership, 139, 172 
 
 origin, 151 
 
 split in, 63 
 
 syndicalism in, 153 
 Injunction, 216, 233, 234, 236 
 Intermittent strike, 170 
 International Association of 
 
 Machinists, 42 
 International craft union, 38 
 International federation, 39 
 International industrial union, 
 
 41 
 
 International Seamens' Union 
 of America, 274 
 
 International trade union, 113 
 
 International Typographical 
 Union, interpretation of 
 agreements, 272 
 
 International Union of Mine, 
 Mill and Smelter Work- 
 ers, 105 
 
 International Union of the 
 United Brewery Work- 
 men, 104, 113 
 
 Interpretation of the law, 218 
 Interpretation of unionism, 55 
 Interpretations of unionism, 
 
 31, 64 
 clues to, 72 
 Interstate coal operators, 189 
 
 Job, affected by t. and m. 
 study, 321 
 
 analysis, 308 
 Jurisdictional disputes, I2i 
 
 adjustment of, 122, 124 
 
 Kirby, John, Jr., 24 
 Knights of Labor, causes of 
 failure, 93, 118 
 
 centralization in, 90 
 
 compared with A. F. of L., 
 104 
 
 constitution, 86 
 
 ideal forms, 41 
 
 program, 47, 91 
 
 structure, 89 
 
 struggle with A. F. of L.. 
 
 63. 104 
 uplift unionism, 47 
 
 Labor class, constitution of, 
 
 354 
 
 Labor contests, needs for set- 
 tlements, 374 
 
 Labor group, 96, 354, 359 
 
 Labor laws, 373 
 
 Labor legislation and employ- 
 ers' associations, 194 
 
 Labor local, 118 
 
 Labor movement, 104, 160 
 
 Labor reforms, 363 
 
 Labor union, the, 41
 
 4i8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Laisseg fcdre, 202, 205, 248, 
 250, 360, 361 
 
 in England, 240 
 Land Reform movement, 84 
 Law in relation to labor, 211 
 
 assumptions, 212, 213, 216, 
 
 245 
 causes of uncertainty, 218 
 characteristics, 215 
 a crystallization, 238, 249 
 effect, on labor welfare in 
 
 England, 239 
 
 on employers and work- 
 ers, 223 
 failure in modern industrial 
 
 situation, 2^2 
 its limitations, 238 
 needed changes, 251 
 series of logical deductions, 
 
 237 
 on strikes, 231 
 summary of main features, 
 
 223 
 on unions, 228 
 underlying concepts, 212 
 Law, natural, in scientific 
 
 management, 298, 299 note 
 
 3 
 
 Leaders, and the rank and file, 
 
 46, 177 
 attitude toward workers, 179 
 in L W. W., 149 
 and scientific management, 
 
 329, 333 
 source of power, 180 
 Legislative boards, 109, no, 
 
 114 
 Limitation of numbers, effect, 
 
 96 
 
 Limitation of output, 26, 261, 
 263, 292, 345 
 of group, 295 
 Local, the, n6 
 functions, 119 
 genesis and development, 
 
 120 
 variations in, 118 
 Local assembly, K. of L., 89 
 Local craft union, 38, 80, 81, 
 
 82 
 Local industrial union, 40 
 Local labor union, 41 
 Locomotive Engineers' Mutual 
 Life and Accident Associ- 
 ation, no 
 Lodge, the, 107, 119 
 Lump of labor theory, 261 
 
 Machinery, 196 
 
 effect on industry, 220 
 effects on workers, 97, 286, 
 
 331. 338, 339 
 in industrial revolution, 241 
 Machine hand, 321 
 Machine industry, 94 
 Madden, "Skinny," 51, 161 
 Markets, factor in union for- 
 mation, 8off 
 Maxima and minima, 251, 370 
 Mead, Prof. George H., 57 
 Mediation, 264 
 Mercantile system, 246 
 Merged General Standing 
 Committee of Adjustment, 
 107, 108, 109 
 Metal Trades Association, 
 
 card catalogue, 237 
 Metal Trades Department, 124
 
 INDEX 
 
 419 
 
 Method, in research, 386 
 note taking, 388 
 the problem, 387 
 weighing evidence, 389 
 Method of study, 2ff, 376 
 
 personal contact, 28, 383 
 Militant Employers' Associa- 
 tions, 189 
 Mining Department, 124 
 Mixed district assembly, K. of 
 
 L., 89 
 Modern Workman, develop- 
 ment, 220, 221, 243 
 
 National Association of Man- 
 ufacturers, 189 
 
 National Brotherhood of Op- 
 erative Potters, 274 
 
 National Civic Federation, 
 189, 204 
 
 National craft union, 38, 85 
 
 National Founders' Associa- 
 tion, 193, 195 
 
 National industrial union, 41 
 
 National or international fed- 
 eration, 39 
 
 National or international 
 union, 113 
 
 National Labor Union, the, 85 
 
 National Metal Trades Asso- 
 ciation, 191, 192, 193, 195 
 
 National Stove Founders' De- 
 fense Association, 189 
 
 National trade assembly, K. of 
 L., 89 
 
 National trade unions, 84 
 history, 83 
 independent movement, 103 
 
 National trades unions, 84 
 
 National Woman's Trade 
 Union League of Amer- 
 ica, 129 
 
 New England Workingmen's 
 Association, 84 
 
 Newspaper Publishers' Asso- 
 ciation, 189 
 
 Nonunion men, 291 
 
 "One big union," 143, 167 
 
 Order of Railway Conductors, 
 106 
 
 Order of Railway Telegraph- 
 ers, 107 
 
 Organizers, 120 
 
 Orthodox interpretations of 
 unionism, 64 
 
 Penalization of employers, 
 reasons for, 344 
 
 Philadelphia Carpenters, 82 
 
 Philadelphia Federal Society 
 of Journeyman Cordwain- 
 ers, 82 
 
 Philadelphia Mechanic s' 
 Union of Trade Associa- 
 tions, 83 
 
 Picketing, 232 
 
 Piece work, opposition to, 14, 
 289 
 
 Pit committee, 39 
 
 Political action, 166 
 
 Powderly, T. V., 86, 92 
 
 Predatory unionism, 49, 161 
 
 Prejudice, 26 
 
 Private property, 248 
 and the law, 217 
 protection of, 234 
 states' right in, 224
 
 420 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Problem of unionism, 2, 9, 36 
 essentials to solution of, 20 
 popular solutions, 32 
 steps toward solution, 10 
 solution, 30 
 
 Problem and method, 382 
 
 Progressive-uplift social the- 
 ory, 367 
 
 Proletariat, the, i6g 
 
 Property rights, in eye of 
 court, 234 
 
 Protocol, 273, note 7 
 
 Public, the, 368, 373 
 education by Employer As- 
 sociations, 194 
 
 Quasi anarchistic unionism, 49, 
 164 
 aim, 166 
 
 theory of militant minority, 
 169 
 Quasi industrial federation, 43 
 
 Railway agreements, interpre- 
 tation, 271 
 
 Railway Brotherhoods, 105,274 
 characteristics, no 
 organization typified by en- 
 gineers, 107 
 reasons for success, in 
 
 Railway Employees' Depart- 
 ment, 123 
 
 Rank and file, 46, 177 
 
 Rationality, 362 
 
 Recognition of union, 270, 294 
 
 Referendum, 181 
 
 Reformers, fault of, 372 
 
 Representative bargaining, 294 
 
 Representative government in 
 industry, 268 
 
 Representatives on the job — 
 
 reasons for, 291 
 Research method, 383 
 Restriction of output, 292 
 
 evils recognized, 337 
 
 See also Limitation of out- 
 put 
 Restrictions on employers, 258, 
 
 289 
 Revolutionary unionism, 48, 
 161 
 
 aims, methods, 165 
 
 assumptions, 164 
 
 causes of, 172 
 
 definition, 163 
 
 outlook for, 174 
 
 strength of, 171 
 Right, 165 
 
 Right of eminent domain, 224 
 Right, to use strike, 232 
 
 to work, 223, 226 
 Rights, absolutistic concept, 
 212 
 
 defined, 27 
 
 of employers, 195, 249 
 
 industrial standards, 338 
 
 natural, 359 
 
 social, 196 
 source, 199 
 
 summary, 200 
 
 of workers, 249 
 
 Sabotage, 26 
 
 defined, 162 
 
 in I. W. W., 144 
 
 raison d'etre, 170 
 Scab, the, 16 
 
 reasons for opposition to, 
 291, 295
 
 INDEX 
 
 421 
 
 Scientific management, 296, 
 326 
 assumptions, 311 
 causes of workers' objec- 
 tions, 329, 341 
 claims for, 298 
 effect on unionism, 322 
 effect on workers, 320 
 human factor, 312 
 industrial democracy, 302 
 its problem, 297, 313 
 and the job, 308, 321 
 labor claims, 299ff, 299 
 means change, 342ff 
 objections of workers, 328 
 and productive efficiency, 
 
 318 
 purposes, 326 
 relation to workers, 317 
 scientific foundation, 304 
 solution of problem, 324 
 and specialization, 322 
 and task setting, 316, 321 
 time and motion study, 302 
 ultimate effects, 2,22 
 undemocratic, 319 
 unemployment, 324 
 variations, 318 
 Scientific management and 
 unionism, causes of con- 
 troversy, 283, 329 
 incompatible ideals, 334, 
 
 341 
 Scientific managers, 306, 309, 
 
 317 
 Scientific spirit, 21, 30 
 
 necessity for, 22 
 Seaman's employment book, 
 192 
 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Law, 190, 
 
 229 
 Shop club, 39, 119 
 Smith, Adam, 248, 362 
 Social betterment, means for, 
 
 8, 370 
 Social consciousness, develop- 
 ment, 204 
 Social control of unionism, 
 
 19 
 
 by collective bargaining, 274 
 
 steps toward, 30 
 Social ethics, 353 
 Social function of I. W. W., 
 
 155 
 Social groups, 6, 351 
 
 causes of, 357 
 
 functional, 353 
 
 in the law, 216, 232 
 
 psychology of, 66 
 
 See also Groups 
 Social philosophy, in law, 238, 
 
 249 
 Social progress, method of, 
 
 375 
 
 Social psychological view of 
 unionism, 6 
 
 Social right, 212 
 
 Social rights, 200 
 
 Social standards, 206 
 
 Social theories, 359 
 
 Social welfare, 199, 205 
 
 Social will, 200, 367, 370 
 determined by, 7 
 
 Socialism and American work- 
 men, 159 
 
 Socialism in American Feder- 
 ation of Labor, 171, 187 
 
 Socialist social theory, 364
 
 422 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Socialist theory, assumptions, 
 
 365 
 Socialistic unionism, 49, 84, 
 164 
 aims and methods, 166 
 Socialists in unions, 164, 171, 
 
 187 
 Society, concepts of, 212 
 divisions in, .355 
 its constitution, 353 
 Specialization, in industrial 
 revolution, 243 
 cause of opposition to, 291 
 limitation of, 324 
 and machine industry, 220 
 under scientific manage- 
 ment, 320, 322, 324 
 Speeding up, 289, 328, 345 
 Standard day's work, 11 
 Standard of living, factor in 
 
 bargaining, 11 
 Standard of living theory, 260 
 StandardizativOn, enforcement, 
 
 344 
 reasons for, 12 
 theory of, 256, 257 
 use in economic program, 
 
 288ff 
 Standing General Committee 
 
 of Adjustment, Engineers, 
 
 107, 109 
 Standing Local Committee of 
 
 Adjustment, Engineers, 
 
 107, 109 
 State assembly, K. of L., 89 
 State councils, 122 
 State federation, 39 
 State federation of labor, 
 
 J 27 
 
 Stove Founders' Defense As- 
 sociation, 189 
 Strikes, a cause of organiza- 
 tion, 120 
 Akron, 141 
 
 A. F. of L., 46, 115, 121 
 employers' associations, 190, 
 
 191, 192 
 engineers, iii 
 K. of L., 90, 91, 93 
 Lawrence, 140 
 legality, 231, 232 
 theory of, 170 
 use, 263 
 Strikebreakers, 193, 233 
 Structural type, defined, 61, 
 62 
 secondary, 55 
 Structural types, 38 
 
 tests for, 75 
 Structural and functional 
 tvDCS, relationship, 61, 75, 
 88 
 Subdistrict, miners, 41 
 Subdivision, engineers, 107, 
 
 108, 109 
 Sublocals, 39 
 Switchmen's Union of North 
 
 America, 107 
 Sympathetic strikes, illegality, 
 
 232 
 Syndicalism, 49 
 causes, 158 
 and industrial unionism, 
 
 156 
 in L W. W., 153 
 in the United States, 154 
 Syndicalist League, 70, 163, 
 172
 
 INDEX 
 
 4^3 
 
 Syndicalist social theory, 36511. 
 System federation, 124 
 
 Taylor, F. W., 2g6{i 
 explanation of imion opposi- 
 tion, 330, 334 
 generalization on unionism, 
 340 
 
 Tests for types, 55 
 
 Tests of variants as types, 68 
 
 Textile industry, 141 
 
 Theories of society, 359 
 
 Temperament, 66, 173 
 
 Time and motion study, 302, 
 321, 322, 327 
 and change in industry, 322 
 chief function, 321 
 diverse conceptions of, 304 
 effect on the job, 321 
 effects on labor, 311 
 extent of use, 308 
 of the human factor, 309 
 involves change, 342 
 and managerial function, 308 
 in the mechanical process, 
 
 307 
 
 a method of analysis, 306, 
 310 
 
 relation to scientific man- 
 agement, 304, 327 
 
 tendency to break up crafts, 
 346 
 
 uses, 327 
 
 varying factors in analysis, 
 
 314 
 
 Time-study man, 314, 315, 316 
 
 Trade Agreement, 264 
 creation, 265, 268 
 enforcement, 258, 272 
 
 Trade agreement, interpreta- 
 tion, 266 
 
 legality, 236 
 
 machinery for interpreta- 
 tion, 270 
 
 machinery and methods, 267 
 
 negotiating bodies, 268 
 
 parts, 264 
 
 penalties for violation, 273 
 
 scope, 265 
 Trade local, 116 
 Trade union, 38 
 
 defects, 121 
 Trade union objections to sci- 
 entific management, 328 
 Trade union aims, 284, 391 
 Trade union attitudes, 404 
 Trade union demands, 397 
 Trade union general policies, 
 
 395 
 Trade union principles and 
 
 theories, 288, 392 
 Trade union program, classi- 
 fied, 280 
 causes, 329 
 economic, 282 
 formulation, 391 
 interpretation, 254, 261 
 need for further analysis, 
 
 282 
 not type pure, 73 
 scope and character, 35 
 a social philosophy, 280 
 systematization, 279 
 Trade union problem, 36 
 Trade union theory, 34, 255 
 Trade unions, definition, 8 
 economic aims, 284 
 legality^ 228
 
 424 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Trade unions, legal status, 
 236 
 liability, 230, 236 
 a socializing force, 57 
 See also Unions 
 Trade unionism, a social ten- 
 dency, 59, 358 
 dominant ideals, 330 
 essentials for successful 
 
 functioning, 341 
 popular interpretations and 
 
 remedies, 31 
 recent development, 103 
 study of, iff 
 successful character, 158 
 See also Unionism 
 Trade unionists, conception of 
 time and motion study, 305 
 first-hand study of, 383 
 wants of, 373 
 See also Unionists 
 Trades councils, 43, 123, 124 
 Trades union, 39 
 Trades unions, history, 83 
 Types of Employers' Associa- 
 tions, 189 
 Types of unionism, correla- 
 tion, 88 
 functional, 44 
 predominant, 81 ff 
 process of proof, 55, y6 
 structural, 38 
 structural varieties, 41 
 summary, 53 
 transitions in, 43, 44 
 Typographical Society of N, 
 
 Y., 82 
 Typographical Union, No. 16, 
 Chicago, 116 
 
 Underbidding, prevention, 345 
 
 Uniformity, principle of, 257, 
 288, 344 
 
 Union, source of specific char- 
 acter, 62 
 
 Union aims, 284, 391 
 
 Union attitudes, 404 
 
 Union demands, 397 
 
 Union label, 191, 236 
 
 Union formation, 60 
 
 Union Label Trades Depart- 
 ment, 125 
 
 Union leaders, and employers' 
 associations, 192 
 and scientific management, 
 
 333 
 Union methods, 292, 293, 401 
 Union policies, 395 
 Union principles, 288, 392 
 Union problem, 36 
 popular solutions, 32 
 solution, 95 
 Union program, the scope and 
 character, 35 
 economic, 282 
 formulation, 391 
 Union theory, criticism by eco- 
 nomists, 261, 283 
 group theory, 282 
 inconsistent, 255 
 Unions, genesis of, 60 
 legality, 228 
 source of functions, 79 
 See also Trade Unions 
 Unionism, affected by scien- 
 tific management, 322 
 cause of, 358n. 
 charges against examined, 
 II
 
 INDEX 
 
 4^5 
 
 Unionism, clews to interpreta- 
 tion, 72 
 concurrent functional varia- 
 tions, 55, 62, e-j 
 conditions for remedial ac- 
 tion, 18 
 conflicting views of, 23 
 contests in, 103, 117, 178, 186 
 control of, 19 
 democracy in, 181, 169 
 development, summary, 87 
 difficulties in study of, 29 
 dominant type, 336, 344 
 dynamic character, 72 
 economic program, 282 
 essential aspect, 55 
 essentials to solution of 
 
 problem, 20 
 factors determining func- 
 tion, 66 
 field of influence, 255 
 first-hand study, 28 
 functions, assumed, 3 
 functional types, 44 
 genesis, 34, 60, 87 
 a group force, 5 
 hypothesis of structural 
 
 form, 80 
 hypothesis of study, 36, 54 
 influence on workers, 125 
 interpretations of, 64 
 judgment of, 10, 17 
 leaders in, 179 
 method of study, 2, 2t, 30, 
 
 36 
 nature of, 37 
 not democratic, 177 
 opposition to change, 347 
 periods of history, 81 
 
 Unionism, prevalence of, 5 
 principle of development, 
 
 80 
 principle of uniformity, 344 
 process of development, 98 
 in relation to the law, 238 
 social-psychological view, 6 
 source of success, 98 
 a storm center, 22 
 types, 37 
 
 proof of, 54 . 
 ultimate problem, 9, 30 
 Unionism and syndicalism, 156 
 Unionist, business, 185 
 Unionists, anarchistic, 164 
 assumptions and theories of, 
 
 284 
 claims of benefits to em- 
 ployers of, 258 
 classes of, 177 
 estimate of, of employers, 
 
 258, 345 
 not systematic theorists, 34, 
 
 255, 279 
 revolutionary, 163 
 socialistic, 164 
 theory of, on injunctions, 
 
 235 
 See also Trade Unionists 
 
 United Brotherhood of Car- 
 penters and Joiners, 129 
 
 United Mine Workers of 
 America, 104, 129 
 trade agreement interpreta- 
 tion, 271, 274 
 
 United Order of Railway Em- 
 ployees, 106 
 
 United Textile Workers of 
 America, 274
 
 426 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Unskilled workers, 96, 97, 243, 
 
 346 
 
 Uplift unionism, 47, 84 
 
 Violence, legal definition, 232 
 
 interpretation of, 15 
 
 not mark of revolutionary 
 unionism, 161 
 
 when resorted to, 157 
 Veblen, Thorstein, social the- 
 ory, 365 
 
 Wage contract, 224 
 Wage payment, in law, 225 
 Wage rates, tendency under 
 scientific management, 
 322, 323 
 Wages, criticism of union the- 
 ory of, 283 
 determination of, 11, 256, 
 
 260, 337 
 effect of increase, 96 
 standarization, 257 
 standard rate, 288, 289 
 union theory of, 285 
 
 maintenance and increase, 
 293 
 
 Walking delegate, 182 
 Welfare work, of employers* 
 
 association, 203 
 Western Federation of Min- 
 ers, 49, 105, 158 
 Western Labor Union, 105 
 Woman's International Union 
 
 Label League, 129 
 Work, standardization, 257 
 Worker, legal rights, 223 
 bargaining strength of, 260 
 common interpretation of 
 
 social situation of, 58 
 interests of, opposed, 95 
 share of, in products, 94, 
 
 338 
 social viewpoint of, 56 
 unskilled, 96, 97, 243, 346 
 Working conditions, law, 
 225 
 standardization of, 257, 289 
 Workingmen's compensation, 
 
 226 
 Workingmen's Party of Phila- 
 delphia, 83 
 Workingmen's Protective 
 Union, 84 
 
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