The most advanced trade unionists are those men and women who recognize the limitations of industrial organization, but who value it for its flexibility3, for the ease with which it can be transformed into a training-school, a workers' university, while all the while it is providing a fortified4 stronghold from behind whose shelter the industrial struggle can be successfully carried on, and carried forward into other fields.
If we believe, as all, even non-socialists5, must to some extent admit, that economic environment is one of the elemental forces moulding character and deciding conduct, then surely the coming together of those who earn their bread in the same occupation is one of the most natural methods of grouping that human beings can adopt.
There are still in the movement in all countries those of such a conservative type that they look to trade organization as we know it today as practically the sole factor in solving the industrial problem.
In order to fulfill6 its important functions of protecting the workers, giving to them adequate control over their working conditions, and the power of bargaining for the disposal of their labor power through recognized representatives, trade-union organization must be world-wide. Organizations of capital are so, or are becoming so, and in order that the workers may bargain upon an equal footing, they must be in an equally strong position. Now is the first time in the history of the world that such a plan could be even dreamt of. Rapid means of communication and easy methods of transport have made it possible for machine-controlled industry to attract workers from all over the world to particular centers, and in especial to the United States, and this has taken place without any regard as to where there was the best opening for workers of different occupations or as to what might be the effects upon the standards of living of the workers of artificially fostered migrations7, and haphazard8 distribution of the newcomers.
It is sadly true of the labor movement, as of all other movements for social advance, that it lags behind the movements organized for material success and private profit. It lags behind because it lacks money, money which would keep more trained workers in the field, which would procure9 needed information, which would prevent that bitterest of defeats, losing a strike because the strikers could no longer hold out against starvation. The labor movement lacks money, partly because money is so scarce among the workers; they have no surplus from which to build up the treasury10 as capital does so readily, and partly because so many of them do not as yet understand that alone they are lost, in organization they have strength. While they need the labor movement, just as much does the labor movement need them.
More and more, however, are the workers acknowledging their own weakness, at the same time that they remember their own strength. As they do so, more and more will they adopt capital's own magnificent methods of organization to overcome capital's despotism, and be able to stand out on a footing of equality, as man before man.
One tendency, long too much in evidence in the labor movement generally, and one which has still to be guarded against, is to take overmuch satisfaction in the unionizing of certain skilled trades or sections of trades, and to neglect the vast bulk of those already handicapped by want of special skill or training, by sex or by race. I have heard discussions among labor men which illustrate11 this. The platform of the Federation12 of Labor is explicit13, speaking out on this point in no doubtful tone, but there are plenty of labor men, and labor women who make their own particular exceptions to a rule that should know of none.
I have heard men in the well-paid, highly skilled, splendidly organized trades speak even contemptuously of the prospect14 of organizing the nomad15 laborers16 of the land, recognizing no moral claim laid upon themselves by the very advantages enjoyed by themselves in their own trade, advantages in which they took so much pride. That is discouraging enough, but more discouraging still was it to gather one day from the speech of one who urged convincingly that while both for self-defense and for righteousness' sake, the skilled organized workers must take up and make their own the cause of the unskilled and exploited wanderers, that he too drew his line, and that he drew it at the organization of the Chinese.[A]
[Footnote A: I am not here discussing the unrestricted admission of Orientals under present economic conditions. I merely use the illustration to press the point, that organized labor should include in its ranks all workers already in the United States. A number of the miners in British Columbia are advocates of the organization of the Chinese miners in that province.]
Others again, while they do not openly assert that they disapprove18 of the bringing of women into the trade unions, not only give no active assistance towards that end, but in their blindness even advocate the exclusion19 of women from the trades, and especially from their own particular trade. The arguments which they put forward are mostly of these types: "Girls oughtn't to be in our trade, it isn't fit for girls"; or, "Married women oughtn't to work"; or, "Women folks should stay at home," and if the speaker is a humane20 and kindly21 disposed man, he will add, "and that's where they'll all be one of these days, when we've got things straightened out again." As instances of this attitude on the part of trade-union men who ought to know better, and its results, the pressmen in the printing shops of our great cities are well organized, and the girls who feed the presses, and stand beside the men and work with them, are mostly outside the protection of the union. Some of the glass-blowers are seriously arguing against the suggestion of organizing the girls who are coming into the trade in numbers. "Organization won't settle it. That's no sort of a solution," say the men; "they're nice girls and would be much better off in some other trade." Just as if girls went into hard and trying occupations from mere17 contrariness! It is too late in the day, again, to shut the door on the women who are going in as core-makers in the iron industry, but the men in the foundries think they can do it. Men who act and talk like this have yet much to learn of the true meaning and purposes of labor organization.
Wherever, then, we find this spirit of exclusion manifested, whether actively22 as in some of the instances I have cited, or passively in apathetic23 indifference24 to the welfare of the down-trodden worker, man or woman, American or foreign, white or colored, there is no true spirit of working-class solidarity25, only a self-seeking acceptance of a limited and antiquated26 form of labor organization, quite out of keeping with twentieth-century conditions and needs. This does not make for advance ultimately in any branch of labor, but is one of the worst retarding27 influences to the whole movement. In former ages the principles of democracy could only extend within one class after another. The democracy of our day is feeling after a larger solution; the democracy of the future cannot know limits or it will be no democracy at all.
It has been pointed28 out many times that the rich are rich, not so much in virtue29 of what they possess, but in virtue of what others do not possess. The ratio of the difference between the full pocket and many empty pockets represents the degree in which the one rich man or woman is able to command the services of many poor men and women. We all recognize these crude differences and regret the results to society. But after all is the case so very much bettered when for rich and poor, we read skilled and unskilled, when we have on the one hand a trade whose members have attained30 their high standing31 through the benefits of years of training, a strong union, high initiation32 fees, perhaps limitation of apprentices33? I am neither praising nor criticizing any methods of trade protection. All of them are probably highly beneficial to those within the charmed circle of the highly organized trades. But if, in the very midst of the general state of industrial anarchy34 and oppression which the unskilled workers have to accept, it is possible to find trades in which organization has been so successful in maintaining good conditions, this is partly because the number of such artisans, so skilled and so protected, has always been limited. And let us ask ourselves what are the effects of these limitations upon those outside the circle, whether those excluded from the trade or from the organization because of the demands exacted, or those debarred by poverty or other circumstances from learning any skilled trade at all. Unquestionably the advantages of the highly protected ones are not won solely35 from the employers. Some part of their industrial wealth is contributed by the despised and ignored outsiders. Some proportion of their high wages is snatched from the poor recompense of the unskilled. Women are doubly sufferers, underpaid both as women and as unskilled workers. It is not necessary to subscribe36 to the old discredited37 wage-fund theory, in order to agree with this.
Just here lies the chief danger of the craft form of organization as a final objective. If the trade-union movement is ever to be wholly effective and adequate to fulfill its lofty aims, it must cease to look upon craft organization as a final aim. The present forms of craft organization are useful, only so long as they are thought of as a step to something higher, only in so far as the craft is regarded as a part of the whole. Were this end ever borne in mind, we should hear less of jurisdictional38 fights, and there would be more of sincere endeavor and more of active effort among the better organized workers to share the benefits of organization with all of the laboring39 world. The more helpless and exploited the group, the keener would be the campaign, the more unsparing the effort on the part of the more fortunate sons of toil40.
Against such a narrow conservatism, however, there are other forces at work, both within and without the regularly organized labor movement, one of them aiming at such reorganization of the present unions as shall gradually merge42 the many craft unions into fewer and larger bodies.[A] This process is evolutionary43, and constructive44, but slow, and meanwhile the exploited workers cry in their many tongues, "O Lord, how long!" or else submit in voiceless despair.
[Footnote A: The United Mine Workers are essentially45 on an industrial basis; they take in all men and boys working in and about the mine.]
Is it any wonder that under these conditions of industrial anarchy and imperfect organization of labor power a new voice is heard in the land, a voice which will not be stilled, revolutionary, imperious, aiming frankly46 at the speedy abolition47 of organized governments, and of the present industrial system? This is the movement known in Europe as syndicalism, and on this continent represented by the Industrial Workers of the World, usually termed the I.W.W.
Their program stands for the one big union of all the workers, the general strike and the gaining possession and the conducting of the industries by the workers engaged in them. They deprecate the making of agreements with employers, and acknowledge no duty in the keeping of agreements.
The year 1911 will be remembered among word-historians as the year when the word "syndicalism" became an everyday English word. It had its origin in the French word "syndicalisme," which is French for trade unionism, just as French and Belgian trade unions are "syndicats." But because for reasons that cannot be gone into here so many of the French trade unionists profess48 this peculiarly revolutionary philosophy, there has grown up out of and around the word "syndicalisme" a whole literature with writers like George Sorel and Gustave Hervé as the prophets and exponents50 of the new movement. So the word "syndicalism," thus anglicized, has come to signify this latest form of trade-union organization and action.
Although sabotage51, interfering52 with output, clogging53 machinery54, blocking transportation and so forth55 have been advocated and practiced by extreme syndicalists, such do not seem to me to form an essential and lasting56 element in syndicalist activity, any more than we find the wholesale57 destruction of machinery as carried on by displaced workmen a hundred years ago, has remained an accepted method of trade-union action, although such acts may easily form incidents in the progress of the industrial warfare58 to which syndicalists are pledged. Neither at Lawrence, Massachusetts, nor later at Paterson, New Jersey59, did the Industrial Workers of the World, or the large bodies of strikers whom they led set any of these destructive practices in operation.
Syndicalism is the latest despairing cry of the industrially vanquished60 and down-trodden, and is not to be suppressed by force of argument, whether the argument comes from the side of the employer or the fellow-workman. Only with the removal of the causes can we expect this philosophy of despair to vanish, for it is the courage of despair that we witness in its converts. The spirit they display lies outside the field of blame from those who have never known what it means to lose wife and children in the slow starvation of the strike or husband and sons in the death-pit of a mine, and themselves to be cheated life-long of the joys that ought to fall to the lot of the normal, happiness-seeking human being, from birth to death.
The syndicalists will have done their work if they rouse the rest of us to a keener sense of our responsibilities. When the day comes that every worker receives the full product of his toil, the reasons for existence of this form of revolutionary activity will have passed away.
Of one thing the present writer is convinced. That this newest form of the industrial struggle, however crude it may appear, however blind and futile61 in some of its manifestations62, is destined63 to affect profoundly the course of the more orthodox trade-union movement. The daring assumptions that labor is the supreme64 force, that loyalty65 to the working world is the supreme virtue, and failure in that loyalty the one unpardonable sin, has stirred to the very depths organized labor of the conservative type, has roused to self-questioning many and many a self-satisfied orthodox trade unionist, inspiring him with loftier and more exacting66 ideals. He has been thrilled, as he had never been thrilled before with a realization67 of the dire68 need of the submerged and unorganized millions, and of the claims that they have upon him. Verily, in the face of such revelations, satisfaction in the fine organization of his own particular trade receives a check. The good of his own union as his highest aim sinks into insignificance69, though regarding it as a means to an end, he may well go back to his workshop and his union card, intending to do for his fellow-craftsmen in his shop and in his trade more than ever before.
The very activities of the I.W.W. during the last two or three years, side by side with the representatives of the American Federation of Labor on the same strike fields, and often carrying out opposition70 tactics, have for the first time in their lives given many furiously to think out policies and plans of campaign. From such shocks and stimuli71 are born thinkers and original tacticians, especially among the younger men and women.
Wherever syndicalists have actively taken part in labor struggles, there has been the bitterest antagonism72 between them and the regular labor bodies. The latter ever bear in mind the risks of a divided front, and they have just reason to dread73 the "dual41" organization as the most completely disruptive influence that can weaken labor's forces, and play into the employers' hands. Of this experience there have been too many instances in the United States.
Syndicalists condemn74 agreements as a device of the enemy. It is true that agreements may be so managed as to prove a very weak reed for the workers to depend on in time of trouble. We have had many instances within the last few years of the disintegrating75 effect on the labor movement of agreements made between the employers and sections of their employés, which while protecting these particular sections leave other employés of the same firms out in the cold, either because the latter have no agreement at all, or because it is worded differently, or, most common defect of all, because it terminates upon a different date, three months, say, or a year later. It was on this rock that the printing pressmen struck during the huge newspaper fight in Chicago which lasted the whole summer of 1912, ending in a defeat costly76 to the conqueror77, as well as to the conquered and whose echoes are still to be heard in discussions between representatives of the organizations and the sub-organizations involved. Though the fight was lost by the pressmen, the dispute between the unions involved is not settled yet, and the two principles at stake, loyalty to the interest of their fellow-workers and the duty of keeping a pledge made to employers, are as far as ever from being reconciled. The solution ahead is surely the strengthening of organizations so that failing a common agreement one branch or one craft will be in a position to refuse to sign one of these non-concurrent agreements, or any sort of agreement, which will leave other workers at a palpable disadvantage.
The demand for the speedy taking over of the direct control of industries by the workers appears to me to ignore alike human limitations and what we know of the evolution of society. But great hope is to be placed in the co?perative movement, with the gradual establishment of factories and stores by organizations of the workers themselves.
The condemnation78 of political activity, too, is, as I see it, out of line with the tendencies of social evolution, which demands organization and specialized79 skill in managing the affairs of the largest community as of the smallest factory.
The strength and value of syndicalism is rather in criticism than in constructive results. In almost every paragraph in the platform we can detect a criticism of some weak point in the labor movement, in political socialism, or in the existing social framework we are consenting to accept and live under.
So far in every country where it has risen into notice syndicalism has been more of a free-lance body than a regular army, and it may be that that is what syndicalists will remain. Up to the present they have shown no particular constructive ability. But they may develop great leaders, and with development work out plans to meet the new problems that will crowd upon them. Even if they should not, and should pass away as similar revolutionary groups have passed before, they will have hastened tremendously the closer knitting together of all groups of trade unionists. On the one hand they have already stirred up socialists to a better understanding and more candid80 admission of their own shortcomings in the political field, and on the other, they have already made labor more fearless and aggressive, and therefore more venturesome in the claims it makes, and more ready and resourceful in its adaptation of new methods to solve modern difficulties.
Before leaving the syndicalists, I would call attention to a change that is coming over the spirit of some of their leaders, as regards immediate81 plans of action. From a recent number of La Guerre Sociale, edited by Gustave Hervé, the Labour Leader (England), quotes an article attributed to Hervé himself, in which the writer says:
"Because it would be a mistake to expect to achieve everything by means of the ballot-box, it does not follow that we can achieve nothing thereby82."
Another syndicalist of influence has been advocating the establishment of training-schools for the workers, in preparation for the day when they are to take over the industries. Vocational instruction this upon the great scale!
Ramsay McDonald, by no means an indulgent critic of syndicalism, does not believe that Sorel really anticipates the general strike as the inauguration83 of the new order, but as a myth, which will lead the people on to the fulfillment of the ideal that lies beyond and on the other side of all anticipated revolutionary action.
It is time now to consider the tendencies towards growth and adaptation to modern needs that have been, and are at work, within the American Federation of Labor, and among those large outside organizations on the outer edge of the Federation, as it were, such as the brotherhoods84 of railroad trainmen. These tendencies, are, speaking generally, towards such reorganization as will convert many small unions into fewer, larger, and therefore stronger bodies, and towards the long-delayed but inevitable85 organization of the workers on the political field. Such reorganization is not always smooth sailing, but the process is an education in itself.
The combination or the federation of existing organizations is but the natural response of the workers to the ever-growing complexity86 of modern industrial life. Ever closer organization on the part of the employers, the welding together of twenty businesses into one corporation, of five corporations into one trust, of all the trusts in the country into one combine, have to be balanced by correspondingly complete organization on the part of the workers. There is this difference of structure, however, between the organization of employers and that of the employed. The first is comparatively simple, and is ever making for greater simplicity87. Without going into the disputed question of how far the concentration of business can be carried, and of whether or not the small business man is to be finally pushed out of existence, it is beyond question that every huge business, for example, each one of our gigantic department stores, includes and represents an army of small concerns, which it has replaced, which have either been bought up or driven to the wall. In either case the same amount of trade, which it once took hundreds of separate small shopkeepers to handle, is now handled by the one firm, under the one management. Such welding together makes for the economy in running expenses which is its first aim. But it also makes for simplicity in organization. It is evidently far easier for the heads of a few immense businesses to come together than it was for the proprietors88 of the vast agglomeration89 of tiny factories, stores and offices which once covered the same trade area, or to be quite accurate, a much smaller trade area, to do so.
But if, at the one end of the modern process of production and distribution, we find this tendency towards a magnificent simplicity, at the other, the workers' end, we have the very same aim of economy of effort and the cheapening of production resulting in an enormously increased complexity. The actual work performed by each worker is simplified. But the variety of processes and the consequent allotting90 of the workers into unrelated groups make for social complexity; render it not easier, but much harder for the workers to come together and to see and make others see through and in spite of all this apparent unlikeness of occupation, common interests and a common need for co?perative action.
Again, take a factory, such as a cotton mill. The one firm, before marketing91 its product, will have employed in its preparation and final disposal till it reaches the consumer, groups engaged in very different occupations, spinners, weavers92, porters, stenographers, salesmen, and so on. The industry which furnished employment to one, or at most, to two groups, has been cut up into a hundred subdivisions, but the workers have still many interests in common, and they need to cling together or suffer from all the disadvantages of unorganized or semi-organized occupations.
The first unions were naturally craft unions. The men working in the same shop, and at the same processes got together, and said: "We who do this work must get to know the fellows in the other shops; we must just stick together, make common demands and support one another."
As industry became more highly specialized, there slipped in, especially during the last fifty years or so, a disintegrating tendency. The workers in what had been one occupation, found themselves now practicing but a small fraction of what had been their trade. They were performing new processes, handling novel tools and machinery unheard of before. The organizations became divided up into what were nominally93 craft unions, in reality only process unions. Or if a new organization was formed, it was but a mere clipping off the whole body of operatives. And these unions, too, would probably have their international organization, to which they could turn to come in touch with brother workers, similarly qualified94 and employed. There is necessarily involved an element of weakness in any organization, however extensive, built up upon so limited a foundation, unless the membership has other local and occupational affiliations95 as well. So, to meet this defect, there have been formed all sorts of loose aggregations96 of unions, and almost every day sees fresh combinations formed to meet new needs as these arise. Within the wide bounds of the American Federation itself exist the state federations97, also city federations, which may include the unions in adjoining cities, even though these are in different states, such as the Tri-City Federation, covering Davenport, Iowa, and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. The district councils, again, are formed from representatives of allied98 trades or from widely different branches of the same trade, such as the councils of the building trades, and the allied printing trades. There are the international unions (more properly styled continental) covering the United States and the Dominion99 of Canada. With these are affiliated100 the local unions of a trade or of a whole industry, sometimes, from all over the continent of North America. Among these the most catholic in membership are such broadly organized occupations as the united mine-workers, the garment-workers, the ladies' garment-workers, the iron, steel and tin-plate workers. An international union composed of separate unions of the one trade, or a state or a city federation of local unions of many trades, bears the same relation to the component101 single unions as does the union itself to the individual workers; so we find that all these various and often changing expressions of the trade-union principle are accepted and approved of today.
Even more significant are other groupings which may be observed forming among the rank and file of the union men and women themselves.
Sometimes these groups combine with the full approval of the union leaders, local and international. Sometimes they are more in the nature of an insurgent102 body, either desiring greater liberty of self-government for themselves, or questioning the methods of the organization's leaders, and desiring to introduce freer, more democratic and more modern methods into the management of the parent organization. This may take the form of a district council, and in at least one noteworthy instance, the employés of one large corporation send their representatives to a joint103 board, for purposes of collective bargaining.
The railway unions within the American Federation of Labor, one of the largest and most powerful bodies of union men in the United States feel the need of some method of grouping which shall link together the men's locals and the internationals into which the locals are combined. This is seen in the demand made by the men for the acknowledgment by the railways of the "system federation." The reason some of the more radical104 men were not found supporting the proposal was not that they objected to a broader form of organization, but because they considered the particular plan outlined as too complicated to be effective.
There is one problem pressing for decisive solution before very long, and it concerns equally organized labor, governments and public bodies and the community as a whole. That is, the relations that are to exist between governing bodies in their function as employer, and the workers employed by them. So far all parties to this momentous105 bargain are content to drift, instead of thinking out the principles upon which a peaceful and permanent solution can be found for a condition of affairs, new with this generation, and planning in concert such arrangements as shall insure even-handed justice to all three parties.
It is true that governments have always been employers of servants, ever since the days when they ceased to be masters of slaves, but till now only on a limited scale. But even on this limited scale no entirely106 satisfactory scheme of civil-service administration has anywhere been worked out. Of late years more and more have the autocratic powers of public bodies as employers been considerably107 clipped, but on the other hand, the ironclad rules which make change of occupation, whether for promotion108 or otherwise, necessary discipline and even deserved dismissal, so difficult to bring about, have prejudiced the outside community whom they serve against the just claims of an industrious109 and faithful body of men and women. And the very last of these just claims, which either governing bodies or communities are willing to grant, is liberty to give collective expression to their common desires.
The question cannot be burked much longer. Every year sees public bodies, in the United States as everywhere else, entering upon new fields of activity. In this country, municipal bodies, state governments, and even the Federal Government, are in this way perpetually increasing the number of those directly in their employ. The establishment of the parcel post alone must have added considerably to the total of the employés in the Postal110 Department. It cannot be very many years before some of the leading monopolies, such as the telegraph and the telephone, will pass over to national management, with again an enormous increase in the number of employés. Schools are already under public control, and one city after another is taking up, if not manufacture or production, at least distribution as in the case of water, lighting111, ice, milk or coal.
This is no theoretical question as to whether governmental bodies, large and small, local and national, should or should not take over these additional functions of supplying community demands. The fact is before us now. They are doing it, and in the main, doing it successfully. But what they are not doing, what these very employés are not doing, what organized labor is not doing, what the community is not doing, is to plan intelligently some proper method of representation, by which the claims, the wishes and the suggestions of employés may receive consideration, and through which, on the other hand, the governing body as board of management, and the public, as in the long last the real employer, shall also have their respective fights defined and upheld.
The present position is exactly as if a sovereign power had conquered a territory, and proposed to govern it, not temporarily, but permanently112, as a subject province. We know that this is not the modern ideal in politics, and it ought not to be assumed as the right ideal when the territory acquired is not a geographical113 district, but a new function. In this connection, moreover, the criticisms of our candid friends the syndicalists are not to be slighted. Their solution of the problem, that the workers should come into actual, literal possession and management of the industries, whether publicly or privately114 owned, may appear to us hopelessly foolish and impractical115, but their misgivings116 regarding an ever-increasing bureaucratic117 control over a large proportion of the workers, who are thus made economically dependent upon an employer, because that employer chances also to hold the reins118 of government, have already ample justification119. The people have the vote, you will say? At least the men have. Proposals to deprive public employés of the vote have been innumerable, and in not a few instances have been enacted120 into law. There are whole bodies of public employés in many countries today who have no vote.
The late Colonel Waring was far-sighted beyond his day and generation. When he took over the Street Cleaning Department of New York, which was in an utterly121 demoralized condition, he saw that reasonable self-government among his army of employés was going to help and not to hinder his great plans, and it was not only with his full consent, but at his suggestion and under his direction, that an organization was formed among them, which gave to the dissatisfied a channel of expression, and to the constructive minds opportunity to improve the work of the department, as well as continually to raise the status of the employé.
All such organizations to be successful permanently and to be placed on a solid basis must join their fortunes with the labor movement, and this is the last pill that either a conservative governing body or the public themselves are willing to swallow. They use exactly the same argument that private employers used universally at one time, but which we hear less of today—the right of the employer to run his own business in his own way.
Very many people, who see nothing wicked in a strike against a private employer, consider that no despotic conduct on the part of superiors, no unfairness, no possible combination of circumstances, can ever justify122 a strike of workers who are paid out of the public purse. Much also is made of the fact that most of such functions which governments have hitherto undertaken are directly associated with pressing needs, such as street-car and railroad service, water and lighting supplies, and the same line of reasoning will apply, perhaps in even a higher degree, to future publicly owned and controlled enterprises. This helps yet further to strengthen the idea that rebellion, however sorely provoked, is on the part of public employés a sort of high treason, the reasons for which neither deserve nor admit of discussion. The greatest confusion of thought prevails, and no distinction is drawn123 between the government as the expression and embodiment of the forces of law, order and protection to all, as truly the voice of the people, and the government, through its departments, whether legislative124, judicial125 or administrative126, as just a plain common employer, needing checks and control like all other employers.
The problem of the public ownership of industries in relation to employés might well be regarded in a far different light. It holds indeed a proud and honorable position in social evolution. It is the latest and most complex development of industry, and as such the heads of such enterprises should be eager to study the development of the earlier and simpler forms of industry in relation to the labor problem, and to study them just as conscientiously127 and gladly as they study and adopt scientific and mechanical improvements in their various departments.
But no. We are all of us just drifting. Every now and then the question comes before us, unfortunately rarely as a matter for cool and sane128 discussion, but usually arising out of some dispute. Both sides are then in an embittered129 mood. There may be a strike on. The employés may be in the wrong, but any points on which they may yield are merely concessions130 wrung131 from them by force of superior strength, for the employing body unfailingly assumes rights and privileges beyond those of the ordinary employer. In particular, discontented employés are invariably charged with disloyalty, and lectured upon their duty to the public. As if the public owed nothing to them!
More democratic methods of expressing the popular will, giving us legislation, and in consequence administration more in harmony with the interests of the workers as a whole, and therefore in the end reacting for the advantage of the community at large, will assuredly do much to remove some of these difficulties. This is one reason why direct legislation and such "effective voting" as proportional representation should be earnestly advocated and supported by organized labor on all possible occasions. But that we may make full and wise use of such additional powers of democratic expression in placing public employment upon a sounder footing, it is necessary that we should give the subject the closest attention and consideration both in its general principles, and in details as they present themselves. If not, satisfaction in the growth of publicly controlled industry may be marred132 through the sense that the public are being served at an unfair cost to an important section of the workers.
All of these problems touch women as well as men; and if they are to be solved on a just as well as a broad basis women must do their share towards the solving. Needless to say, women in industry suffer as much or more than their brothers from whatever makes for reaction in the labor movement. It is therefore fortunate for the increasing numbers of wage-earning women that progressive forces are at work, too. From one angle, the very activity of Women's Trade union Leagues in the cities where they are established is to be regarded as one expression of the widespread and growing tendency towards such complete organization of the workers as shall correspond to modern industrial conditions.
Mrs. Gilman is never tired of reiterating133 that we live in a man-made world, and that the feminine side in either man or woman will never have a chance for development until this is a human-made world. And before this can come about woman must be free from the economic handicap that shackles134 her today.
The organization of labor is one of the most important means to achieve this result. It is not only in facing the world outside, and in relation to the employer and the consumer that woman organized is stronger and in every way more effective than woman unorganized. The relation in which she stands to her brother worker is very different, when she has behind her the protection and with her the united strength of her union, and the better a union man he is himself the more readily and cheerfully will he appreciate this, even if he has occasionally to make sacrifices to maintain unbroken a bargain in which both are gainers.
But at first, in the same way as the average workingman is apt to have an uncomfortable feeling about the woman entering his trade, even apart from the most important reason of all, that she is wont135 to be a wage-cutter, the average trade-union man retains a somewhat uneasy apprehension136 when he finds women entering the union. As they become active, women introduce a new element. They may not say very much, but it is gradually discovered that they do not enjoy meeting over saloons, at the head of two or three flights of grimy backstairs, or where the street has earned a bad name.
Woman makes demands. Leaders that even the decenter sort of men would passively accept, because they are put forward, since they are such smart fellows, or have pull in trade-union politics, she will have none of, and will quietly work against them. The women leaders have an uncomfortable knack137 of reminding the union that women are on the map, as it were.
It is at a psychological moment that she is making herself felt in the councils of organized labor. Just as the labor movement is itself being reorganized, with the modern development of the union and of union activity; just as woman herself is coming into her own; just as we are passing through the transition period from one form of society to another; and just as we catch a glimpse of a distant future in which the world will become, for the first time, one.
From the very fact that they are women, women trade unionists have their own distinct contribution to make to the movement. The feminine, and especially the maternal138 qualities that man appreciates so in the home, he is learning (some men have learnt already) to appreciate in the larger home of the union.
In speaking thus, I freely, if regretfully, admit that the rartk and file of both sexes are far indeed from playing their full part. We have still to depend more largely than is quite fitting or democratic upon the leaders as standard-bearers. It is also true that there are women who are willing to accept low ideals in unionism as in everything else. Their influence is bound to pass. If women are to make their own peculiar49 contribution to the labor movement, it will be by working in glad co?peration with the higher idealism of the men leaders.
And when the day comes (may its coming be hastened!) that women are even only as extensively organized as men are today, the organization of men will indeed proceed by leaps and bounds. It will not be by arithmetical, but by geometrical progression, that the union will count their increases, for it is the masses of unskilled, unorganized, ill-paid women and girl workers today, who in so many trades today increase the difficulties of the men tenfold. That dead weight removed, they could make better terms for themselves and enroll139 far more men into their ranks. What increase of power, what new and untried forces women may bring with them into the common store, just what these may be, and the manner of their working out, it is too early to say.
But the future was never so full of hope as today, not because conditions are not cruelly hard, and problems not baffling, but, because, over against these conditions, and helping-to solve these problems, are ranged the great forces of evolution, ever on the side of the workers, slowly building up the democracy of the future.
The End
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1
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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6
fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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migrations
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| n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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nomad
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| n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民 | |
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laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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retarding
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| 使减速( retard的现在分词 )； 妨碍； 阻止； 推迟 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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34
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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subscribe
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| vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助 | |
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discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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38
jurisdictional
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| adj. 司法权的，裁决权的，管辖权的 | |
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laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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40
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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42
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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43
evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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44
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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45
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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46
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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47
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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48
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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49
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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50
exponents
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| n.倡导者( exponent的名词复数 )；说明者；指数；能手 | |
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51
sabotage
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| n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏 | |
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52
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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53
clogging
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| 堵塞，闭合 | |
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54
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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55
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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56
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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57
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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58
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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59
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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60
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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61
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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62
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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63
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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64
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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65
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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66
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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67
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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68
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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69
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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70
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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71
stimuli
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| n.刺激（物） | |
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72
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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73
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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74
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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76
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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77
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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78
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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79
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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80
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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81
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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82
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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83
inauguration
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| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
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84
brotherhoods
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| 兄弟关系( brotherhood的名词复数 )； （总称）同行； （宗教性的）兄弟会； 同业公会 | |
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85
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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86
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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87
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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88
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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agglomeration
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| n.结聚，一堆 | |
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90
allotting
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的现在分词 ) | |
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marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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92
weavers
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| 织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 ) | |
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93
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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94
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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95
affiliations
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| n.联系( affiliation的名词复数 )；附属机构；亲和性；接纳 | |
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96
aggregations
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| n.聚集( aggregation的名词复数 )；集成；集结；聚集体 | |
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97
federations
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| n.联邦( federation的名词复数 )；同盟；联盟；联合会 | |
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98
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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100
affiliated
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| adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
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component
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| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
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insurgent
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| adj.叛乱的，起事的；n.叛乱分子 | |
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103
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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104
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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106
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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107
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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postal
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| adj.邮政的，邮局的 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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113
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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114
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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115
impractical
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| adj.不现实的，不实用的，不切实际的 | |
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116
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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117
bureaucratic
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| adj.官僚的，繁文缛节的 | |
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118
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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119
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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120
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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123
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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124
legislative
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| n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的 | |
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125
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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126
administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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127
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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128
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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129
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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130
concessions
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| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
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131
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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132
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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133
reiterating
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的现在分词 ) | |
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134
shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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135
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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136
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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137
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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138
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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139
enroll
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| v.招收；登记；入学；参军；成为会员（英)enrol | |
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