THE PRICE OF TRADE UNION PROGRESS
THE PRICE OF TRADE UNION PROGRESS Qompers Enunciated a Policy of Continuous Struggle For New Gains; Wotll's Views in Contrast By The Editor Tm new Leader bee completed Its (cries of articles...
...The psychology of the American toiier which militates against this class-consciousness is sure to undergo a chance...
...That soul quality ef our movement has had as much to do with it as anything else...
...Labor and Democracy Another consideration that moved us to begin this discussion Is of vital importance not only to labor organisations in this country but to the future of democracy itself...
...Even if conditions here were exactly similar to those of European countries, we would have to appeal to the Idealism of workers to join our party...
...It will stop...
...He did not...
...This view holds good of countries like Germany...
...It was at the turn of the present century that the late Samuel Gompers recognized that the workers of this country faced a new order and that the statesmanship of the trade unions would be tested as never before...
...Our vote has slumped because our orranisatton end activity have slumped, not tocause there is anything fundamentally, rrong with our appeal...
...He moved into a fine house in the upper end of the ward...
...Hi* views appear to be in marked contrast with those of Mr...
...But, discussion which avoids these vices, it appears to us, is in order no matter whether the critical note applies, to a leader or to members...
...Gompers often disagreed with us and we with him, but fundamentally he recognized that the trade unions had a universal aim that does not differ from the aim of the labor movement of the world...
...Catering Te The Common Man...
...The man who has known what it means to be poor and has never forgotten that lesson nOr lost his feeling for the underdog...
...taon campaign in order to explain tot tsM Socialist program...
...The man who had to earn his own living from the time he was ten...
...To-day be is the Minister of Finance in the Mueller cabinet and voices precisely the same views as those that used to bear the names of non-Marxians or "revisionists" like Jaures, MacDonald or Eduard Bernstein...
...I cannot afford to miss even one istm of the paper...
...We have confined this dhvusetoe to principle* and trend* and method*, as these atone are important however conspicuous any labor man may be in relation to them...
...and that the desire will, In the coming years, be to tone tram as the right* aaw acaasrea, sr...
...As for his constructive platform all he can tell you about It with anything like definiteness is that it advocates the nationalisation of industry and the means of transportation...
...But this is only one of the short comings of our method...
...This, as a basic principle and a general formula, is as far as the Socialist movement of to-day will venture to propose or to predict...
...Accordingly for Socialists to repudiate everv* effort tending to better the condition of working people unless it came from themselves was a grave error of policy a* well as of theory...
...He thought It a mistake, therefore, for Socialists to consider their party as on organization utterly segregated from the rest of the nation...
...We must make it plain that a man can "rise" under Socialism, that is he can get a higher technical or administration job and even higher pay just as he does now...
...Did he ever give another glance or another thought to the friends of his hardworking old Father or the associates of his poverty-stricken youth...
...In our age the expansion of democracy depends upon the organisation of the workers in rural and urban industries...
...at least, to stay the progress toward that rendition of society to which as 'tlasats' will exs...
...To come nearer home, the Democrats in this state are continually appealing to the voters to vote against the big-wigs of Back Bay (the aristocratic residential section of Boston i who are born with silver spoons in their mouths...
...And so it h, at this moment...
...There is plenty of class consciousness atnong the Americans, only it is uninformed and unintelligent elass consciousness and we do not yet know exactly how to appeal to it...
...Also, Jaures emphasized the fact that each distinctive stage of social evolution contains some surviving forms of life under the preceding order of things, forms which could not and should not be wiped out...
...The present riot of prosperity is accompanied by a growing feeling of resentment and venomous discontent among those multitudes to whom the "Land of Opportunity" is a land of defeated ambitions, hopeless drudgery and black despair...
...Continuous gathering of workers in such groups outside of plant control is Itself suspicious to the masters of Industry...
...In European countries It is the soul ol organized Labor, a point, by the way, which is heartily accepted by Marxian and non-Marxian alike ("Great credit is due to Karl Marx," as Jaures so admirably put it, "for Introducing Socialism into the labor movement and the labor movement into Socialism...
...We have to hammer out by experience a way of appealing to the American voters' class consciousness by appealing to bis prejudice against the man born with a silver spoon in his mouth...
...The following...
...Then be would take off his coat to show that he wore suspenders like the rest of them and had the muscles that came from pitching hay and wheat sheaves...
...He is the little butcher's boy from South Boston...
...a thinker who sees in the present order of things an arrangement legalizing and -promoting, by the gigantic forces at the command of the State, every crime which the law courts seek to combat...
...of the Communist adventure and its tointegrating action both politically and B the unions, to the sole advantage of ar> reactionaries.' Financial Policy Attacked...
...We realise that the contest wiB be bitter, relentless, and varied, and that its eeteome may be ttamstfeen, anhae we shall prove capable ef a greater solidarity, mutual forbearance, and readiness for sacrifice, than ap te the present we have been able to show.*' Eleven years later the same fighting spirit was displayed when the same man said: "We would abolish all privilege, would establish a pure democracy, and would turn the tide of a^l vojume of the products of labor into the hands of labor...
...In like manner a Socialist community would in all likelihood retain some features of the social order under which we live to-day...
...He worked for his money, didn't he...
...hatred and fear of SochBaj, moving towards Fascism...
...In other words, we Socialists don't let any voter's children be high-hatted by some one who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth...
...In this country of course both the absence of any prospect of immediate gain and the danger of victimization are greater...
...The comparison shows the Intimate relationship between the political and economic movements even in the one nation where they have not reached the stage of mutual understanding and cooperation...
...He is discharged a* an "agitator.'' The same penalty is incurred \tf the worker who is discovered trying to organize his fellows into a trade union...
...Poullet's Government...
...Where large industrial centers are dominated by this policy of the owners of industry it is almost impossible for the workers to strike...
...Is deprecated...
...the Brussels 'Pengs puhMshes the program of the hesgsa Labor Party for the 1929 election...
...But he claimed he had sense enough to yell yes when the bankers and railroad owners, and grain elevator owners yelled no...
...But they have a strong class consciousness prejudice against the fellow who was born rich...
...This is a sound basis lor aemocrsuc leadership and discussion and so long as any organisation observes it in practice it nourishes every element essential to growth, expansion and progress...
...When Henry dies Edsel gets $200,000,000 and never had to do a stroke of work for it...
...Yet that is capitalism...
...One may agree with this view if tt is intended to exclude malice and that hysteria that has too often accompanied discussions in the labor movement...
...Then, too, it should always be borne in mind that a large portion of the British Labor Party's vote come* from people other than workingmen...
...The late Samuel Gompers occasionally considered this matter of leadership and democracy in the labor movement...
...The American voters are chock full of class consciousness of a sort, and the best proof is that Democrats and Republicans appear to it Those voters, it is true, feel instinctively that the man who was born poor and had to work for his money, no matter how rich he may have become, is a worker, i! one of themselves, as long as he doesnl "high hat" them...
...When Magnus Johnson was running lor Senate on the Farmer-Labor ticket In Minnesota, he went up and down the state telling his audiences that he was only a farmer and he didn't know as much as hi* opponent, he admitted it...
...Again and again I am heckled on th< street corner by some one who says, "Yen...
...Oir movement Is the great movement of the workers recognising the sovereignty ef each te obtain the largest asaoant ef saeeom wtta the Meat possible government...
...When it comes to native members of a trade union our approach is based on an erroneous conception of our listener's psychology...
...With the tarn of the present century there was a continuous increase tn-membership, influence sad power, which was only temporarily arrested In a few years for the twenty years beginning with the year 1900...
...It rffi show how this campaign dealt a bio* which might easily have been fatal to Belgian credit abroad, how ft led to th failure of the Janssen plan and in consequence to the Treasury-bonds panic snU the catastrophic fall of the franc "The Labor Party, convinced that th» future of democracy will depend on Ur economic, moral and intellectual development of the workers, will publicly proclaim its participation in all efforts pursued in the general interest with s vfeV to reconstruction...
...At the end of this period, 1930, there has been a steady decline In membership except for a small gain made last year...
...says J. Borensou of liiodklyn...
...This mastery of working class life also extends to the civil rights of the workers, including their political rights...
...but tt need not be for any length of time...
...Surely there could be no crasser appeal to class consciousness than that...
...The worker will be permitted to shout his head off in support of either of the two leading parties but the moment he urges political organization' and action independent of the two capitalistic parties be becomes a marked man...
...the franc at the rate of 107 to the pouafl sterling...
...This form of debate is out of place whether it concerns leaders or members...
...T. L. Preston, Syracuse...
...When Ma Ferguson first ran for governor in Texas she Invited the reporters into her home, cooked and served them a good meal and then told them to come around when she was elected and she would do the same thing, she wouldn't let success spoil her...
...Matthew WoU In relation to trade MdanJaM and the welfare of the working class in general...
...So, when one considers it all, the conclusion Is unavoidable that much of the blame for the failure of our propaganda, so far as American labor Is concerned, is due...
...Instead he put on the tall silk hat...
...In the matter of political action, for example, if there Is a growing trade anion movement in a given city It can protect Its members against discharge and the blacklist if they are threatened with these penalties because of their poUUoal convictions...
...Socialism, as it is formulated by Ramsay Mac Donald and crystaliaed in the platform-of the British Labor Party, if the Socialism of the Second International that is, of the whole world...
...We have specialized on immigrant worklngmen...
...Patience, sharing in common struggles, and education will finally bring this consummation...
...Even if I tell him that he too had worked as hard as Henry he is not oonvinced...
...Wotll's Views in Contrast By The Editor Tm new Leader bee completed Its (cries of articles on the policies end views ef Mr...
...Where, as In New York, our organisation and activity have been kept up our vote has gone Belgian Labor Opens Election Campaign Brussels,—With a view to opening as election raaipasrn...
...To-day, however, his ideas, which nave always been the Ideas of Ramsay Mac Donald and Philip Snowden, are being carried out by Socialists in Germany or Belgium no less than by the Labor Party of England...
...I'll tell you...
...Capitalist espionage and domination of the thought and action of the working class will not tolerate even independent political opinions...
...Is that fair...
...Class Conscious America Abraham Cahan's Thesis Is Disputed By Alfred Baker Lewis T^aTO one can quarr/l with the general theme of Comrade Cahan's recent article, that we must make more of an* appeal to Idealism...
...Thus the Socialist (Social Democratic) party of Germany was quite a power some years before the same could have been said of the trade unions of that country...
...Uon, disarmament and social leghlatint, "It will continue its fight for democrat) against all attempts at dictatorship, whither Fascist or Bolshevik...
...As for ourselves, we shall continue to fight for every measure of relief possible for the workers and support every struggle of the trade unions in their effort to wrest more concessions from the employing class, and this we shall do regardless of whether they see eye to eye with us regarding more effective organization and use of their political power...
...Mr...
...how the reactionary elements in the boargeoisie whether clerical or liberal, tit, through...
...The truth is that we do not need very greatly to recast our philosophy, our tactics, or our appeal...
...The first form of enlightened organized action by worklrigmen and women in all modern countries appears in the trade unions...
...This, as we have seen in a previous article of the present series, Is intimately connected with the fact that the European worklngmen Is class-conscious...
...The Old Order Within The New...
...It Is inconceivable that the native American labor movement should be doomed fen**** to be a body without a spirit...
...We vilify and antagonize the American labor movement instead of winning its heart and ear...
...In the last analysis, that spiritual affinity which has always existed between us, although not officially recognized, will eventually be realized even in this country...
...3 The Introduction to the progress ts* plains the general principle* on wife* electioneering Is to be conducted: •% Belgian Labor Party will utilise the ski...
...The conception in the trade anion movement of leadership implies followers* and they who follow a leader most obey him implicitly...
...It is not exclusively his class-consciousness that makes the European worker turn to Socialism...
...I used to favor the opponent of the man for whom I am to-night appealing...
...Had Jaures lived to hear of Soviet Russia eliminating from library circulation and otherwise suppressing (or literally burning up) as "bourgeois" and "counterrevolutionary" the works of Kant, Spinoza Schopenauer and some of the best specimens of Russian literature, he would have declared it a shocking application of the vicious circle point of view...
...For there is no immediate gain in joining even so powerful a group as the British Labor Party and there is always the fact that a good and active member must spend time and energy, to say nothing of money, and run the danger of victimization a* well...
...When Coolidge had his picture taken pitching, hay on his farm in Vermont, or when Hoover's managers published the picture of some weather beaten shack as the place where be was born, that is surely a direct appeal to the class consciousness of those who are poor and have to work hard for their living...
...The Socialist Approach To Labor Cahan Finds Attitude Toward Unions Lacking in Sympathetic Tone By Abraham Cahan 4^ Socialist is first of ail a person who condemns capitalism, regarding it as an ethical and practical monstrosity...
...It is assumed by a few sincere friends that a critical consideration of the views and policies represented by any person high in the councils of the labor movement is out ol place...
...the Socialist Party revealed a continuous Increase In membership and votes for twenty years and the end of this period, 1930, Is also the beginning of Its reverses...
...Any form of private initiative that tends to vitalize personal liberty and to minimize the evils of officialdom and of machine-politics without interfering, with one's security from being fleeced and enslaved is viewed a* a safeguard of, rather than a menace to the cooperative commonwealth...
...Not only theory, but facts as well show that the fate of social, economic, cultural and political democracy depends fundamentally upon powerful organizations of labor In Industry...
...Woll and we find it Impossible to reconcile one with the other...
...Now the history of Independent political action has run precisely the same course In this country...
...The present situation, so far as our propaganda is concerned, is due partly to specific conditions and partly to our own mistakes...
...Relics of the feudal period will assert themselves to-day...
...of concrete achievement and ol steady growth...
...And she got elected although later In a Klan and anti-Klan fight, she went out...
...American Labor And Socialism...
...And Fitzgerald has a tremendous following...
...Thousands of workers may be ready for such organization and yet because of despotic control through company unions and similar devices by the employing ehaa they cannot organize...
...Organized In 1901...
...If the unions are strong...
...And that a man under Socialism can leave his childen a good training, a good example, a good education, but not accumulated wealth...
...but look at Henry Ford...
...XI* program consists of three sections, testae, respectively with political, soaocsah tat social questions...
...When Jean Jaures laid stress upon the continuity of human progress he did so, chiefly, in order to remind the orthodox Marxists of his day that the history of liberal thought was not a chain of detached links but a long series of achievements all working for humanity as a whole...
...It will denounce to the workers the disastrous consequence...
...England, Austria, Belgium and others where the economic and political organizations of the working class cooperate on two fronts...
...But when Comrade Cahan asserts the lack of class consciousness among Americans I must disagree...
...But this capitalist domination of working class life also extends to other field...
...I worked for and helped to elect him...
...This is their chief political stock in trade...
...as something surrounded by a vicious circle which guards it from contamination by contact with other parties even in cases where the interest* of the working people demand such association, in the form of a coalition cabinet, for instance...
...THE NEW LEADER IS WORTH AKV SACRIFICE THAT ONE CAN MAKE 1* ORDER TO KEEP ON THE SUB LIST IT'S A RAY OF HOPE FOR THE NEW DAY...
...The sUeh Are Disused...
...Moreover, one no longer conceives of a given social order as something clear-cut and utterly free from admixtures that are traceable to some other form of social adjustment There is no such thing as simon pure capitalism, for example...
...Or here is Theodore (Teddy) Glynn, one of the best loved of Democratic leaders of Boston . 1 heard him get off the following on the street corners the night before the primaries last year while I was waiting for my turn to speak: "Men and women of this ward...
...the average American is at heart, as much of a dreamer and an idealist, and consequently as susceptible of our appeal, as the average European...
...I have given up trying to convince that street comer heckler against Henry's gigantic deserts...
...In 1900 he declared that "It is our purpose to warn the workers that the antagonisms and struggle for power, of the upper classes, are now practically at an end...
...If It is rather uncomfortable for a soul to be without a home...
...And this has come to be the attitude of all those Socialists who voted him down as "unrevolutionary" at the congress above mentioned...
...WsO and Gem pen...
...When Fitzgerald, one of the big Democratic politicians of Boston, makes a campaign speech it runs like this: "Who is Fitzgerald...
...Those at the top of the social pyramid are always satisfied with things as they are and further progress depends upon the masses at the bottom...
...Its propaganda aw, be carried out In the name -of pesos, tag It will assert its intention of cupporam and extending the action of the weaken within and without the League ef gy tions and the International Labor OlJe, in common agreement with the other sections of the Socialist International, altfc view to the general acceptance of arbftr...
...In any city where the open shop policy of chambers of commerce and boards of trade has become the dominant policy In the industries worklngmen and women cannot think of venturing- on a policy of independent political action...
...Rudolph Hilferding, one of the leading theoreticians of the German movement seceded from the Party and founded a more "radical" (that is, a more Marxian) organization and a daily paper in 1919...
...There are a dozen or more such cities in this count-f today where, because of the triumph of the open shop policy, a Labor Party or sn effective local Socialist organization is impossible...
...Certainly that was an appeal to class consciousness, not a Marxian intelligent class consciousness but a strong and instinctive prejudice of class...
...In presenting this series we have encountered a view held by a few which we consider worthy of attention as it appears to us destructive of that democratic discussion which is essential to the progress of any organization...
...But when he got elected did we ever see him any more in this end of the ward...
...Including some of those that have come down to us from the days of Pericles or Caesar...
...provided he works for it...
...One can well imagine a cooperative community leaving some room for private initiative in cases where it is a desirable source of incentive without forming an opening for the poison gas of capitalism...
...Petttles aad Freedom It is therefor* obvious that democracy in all phases of modern life is rooted deep in effective organisation of the workers In industry...
...This will occur even if there is no official relation between the unions and the local party...
...It also holds good In this country where this stage of cooperation has not been realized...
...It takes a better man than I am to convince the average voter that Henry isn't entitled to his money...
...no matter whether bis title be president or esar...
...Labor parties of all sorts made no marked Impression on politics till the beginning of the present century...
...It will remind the victims of those who wrecked the franc of the criminal campaign by which a coalition ol financiers, speculators and reacttonsrr politicians, assisted by an anti-patrtatt: press...
...The workman, skilled or unskilled, who does not respond to the need cf organization in trade unions is, not ready for any other form of action by his class...
...It H the establishment of a new master ever men: It a the rreatien of a tyrant against which the history, the struggles and trend of the trade union movement revolt...
...while the system immediately preceding capitalism was interspersed with remnants of an earlier state of society...
...We forget that molasses will catch more files than vinegar...
...Let me cite the evidence in support of that claim...
...We have to appeal along that line...
...But his American cousin Is not— not yet, at least...
...The Party will In particular show tte financial consequences of the policy far which the clerical-liberal Government iff 1921, and the majority which supported it in Parliament, made themselves responsible, when In order to avoid vothg for indispensable taxation, they Increased the floating debt to more than 8 milliard francs...
...If the unions are weak and declining, or if there is a tendency to abandon the will to struggle, political Independence of workers is imperiled, and democracy retreats before the advance of the dark forces of autocracy and reaction...
...It will compare with the behavior of that Government the courageo* attitude of the democratic Government formed after the 1926 elections, which set out to' balance the budget and subm...
...That makes some impression...
...statement made by him in 1897 will be accepted by all who accept the fundamentals of democracy: It seemed to me that it was both unsafe and dangeroos to the eaose which we have the boner and responsibility to represent, for your President to, per-, haps, conceive a notion, a theory, or a plan not previously approved by you, and with that assume what the world eafls 'leadership...
...This is a law of history that applies to human society since the beginning of social organisation...
...We are getting a larger vote to-day In proportion to the circulation of our papers, in proportion to (he number of leaflets we distribute, and in proportion to the number of meetings that we hold than we did in the hey-day of our party before war time per¦ecution and Communist sunder broke lis up...
...that the whets are wiser than any one...
...Thus in industry, politics and cultural life it is seen that effective organization of the working people to trade anion* li the fundamental bash of further extension of the principal of democracy...
...Increasing in membership, and inspired with the will to struggle for more and more concessions from the owners of Industry, political conviction* are protected and democracy emerges more and more victorious...
...New extensions of democracy have always come not from the upper classes but from the lower...
...And the people elected him at least once and only defeated him recently by a narrow majority...
...The history of the labor movement In all nations verifies this view of the evolution of democracy...
...He went around with the Back Bay aristocrats and acquired a Harvard accent.*—And so I am for a true representative of the people Instead" The voters followed Glynn...
...When Jaures, acting as a delegate to an International Socialist Congress, proposed a resolution growing out of these views of his, it was overwhelmingly defeated by the votes of orthodox Marxians...
...partly at least to our method...
...So I tell him, "Yes, but loo!t at Edsel Ford...
...As s consequence, the Socialist movement in the United states ha* so far practically been confined to Immigrant section of our labor population and to representatives of the lower middle class, with immigration from Europe severely restricted tt would seem as if our movement here, so far as present conditions would Indicate, were doomed to the status of a soul without a body...
...Then we are talking Socialism and class consciousness and In the voter's language too...
...That too was an appeal to class consciousness, an attempt to show that she was unable to do her own housework and that she wasn't going to become one even if she got elected...
...We had both Esther Friedman and Frank Crosswaith in Boston that night, and I can tell you that Esther's elegant diction and the rounded periods of Frank's oratory could not possibly appeal to or arouse class consciousness more than Teddy Glynn's condemnation of the acquired Harvard accent, or the self laudatory oratory of the South Boston butcher boy...
...Its parliamentary activities in the next Legislative will be carried on in this spirit...
...It is the Socialism which is based on the highest ideals of humanity coupled with common sense...
...Woll on trade union principles are of vital concern to all who hope and work for the complete democratization of Industry and American institutions in general...
...Altogether, Socialists are growing fond of visioning the realization of their ideal in a way that will temper it with as much Individualism as will serve the best interests of the community and the Individual citizen at once...
...For these reasons we believe that the dubious, sometimes vague and uncertain and even dangerous views of Mr...
...Such workers cannot organise into study groups for cultural Improvement without being penalized...
...This is one reason why many of our capitalist Caesars go in for "welfare" work under the control of their plant agents...
...Upon a whole It seems reasonable to expect that American labor is bound sooner or later to follow in the footsteps of its European counterpart...
...A brief survey of the development of the American trade unions and the Socialist Party shows that both have advanced and declined together although there has been no official cooperative relations between them The American trade unions did not show any marked increase in membership tin the dawn of the present century...
...attempted 'to discredit and stampede Mr...
...An absolute elimination of individual effort, so far from being Insisted upon...
...If in following this ideal some assertions made in discussion are not correct, or are only in part true, or are due to a misunderstanding, or are based on incomplete knowledge of all the facts, what is true and what is not true will be brought out If discussion is unhampered It is in this spirit that we have approached this task of considering the views of one man high in the councils of American labor...
...The idealistic and purely spiritual element of our movement plays a far more important part in it than your dry-asdust dogmatist is inclined to admit...
...Nor is this all...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 7
