Unfortunately or otherwise,
people are prone to believe in the reality of the things they think
ought to be so. This comes of the cheery optimism which is innate
with life itself; and, while it may sometimes be deplored, it must
never be censured, for, as a rule, it is productive of more good
than harm, and of about all the achievement there is in the world.
There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as with
the people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or
with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently
expected the Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their
children's children, but never themselves. But there is small
likelihood that the case of perverse optimism here to be considered
will end in such disaster, while there is every reason to believe
that the great change now manifesting itself in society will be as
peaceful and orderly in its culmination as it is in its present
development.
Out of their constitutional optimism, and because a class
struggle is an abhorred and dangerous thing, the great American
people are unanimous in asserting that there is no class struggle.
And by "American people" is meant the recognized and authoritative
mouth-pieces of the American people, which are the press, the
pulpit, and the university. The journalists, the preachers, and the
professors are practically of one voice in declaring that there is
no such thing as a class struggle now going on, much less that a
class struggle will ever go on, in the United States. And this
declaration they continually make in the face of a multitude of
facts which impeach, not so much their sincerity, as affirm,
rather, their optimism.
There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class
struggle. The existence of this struggle can be shown
theoretically, and it can be shown actually. For a class struggle
to exist in society there must be, first, a class inequality, a
superior class and an inferior class (as measured by power); and,
second, the outlets must be closed whereby the strength and ferment
of the inferior class have been permitted to escape.
That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously
denied by many; but it is incontrovertible, when a group of
individuals is formed, wherein the members are bound together by
common interests which are peculiarly their interests and not the
interests of individuals outside the group, that such a group is a
class. The owners of capital, with their dependents, form a class
of this nature in the United States; the working people form a
similar class. The interest of the capitalist class, say, in the
matter of income tax, is quite contrary to the interest of the
laboring class; and,
vice versa, in the matter of poll-tax.
If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict
of interest, all the factors are present which make a class
struggle; but this struggle will lie dormant if the strong and
capable members of the inferior class be permitted to leave that
class and join the ranks of the superior class. The capitalist
class and the working class have existed side by side and for a
long time in the United States; but hitherto all the strong,
energetic members of the working class have been able to rise out
of their class and become owners of capital. They were enabled to
do this because an undeveloped country with an expanding frontier
gave equality of opportunity to all. In the almost lottery-like
scramble for the ownership of vast unowned natural resources, and
in the exploitation of which there was little or no competition of
capital, (the capital itself rising out of the exploitation), the
capable, intelligent member of the working class found a field in
which to use his brains to his own advancement. Instead of being
discontented in direct ratio with his intelligence and ambitions,
and of radiating amongst his fellows a spirit of revolt as capable
as he was capable, he left them to their fate and carved his own
way to a place in the superior class.
But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble
for the ownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of
new industries, is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an
immense volume of surplus capital roams for investment and nips in
the bud the patient efforts of the embryo capitalist to rise
through slow increment from small beginnings. The gateway of
opportunity after opportunity has been closed, and closed for all
time. Rockefeller has shut the door on oil, the American Tobacco
Company on tobacco, and Carnegie on steel. After Carnegie came
Morgan, who triple-locked the door. These doors will not open
again, and before them pause thousands of ambitious young men to
read the placard: NO THOROUGH-FARE.
And day by day more doors are shut, while the ambitious young
men continue to be born. It is they, denied the opportunity to rise
from the working class, who preach revolt to the working class. Had
he been born fifty years later, Andrew Carnegie, the poor Scotch
boy, might have risen to be president of his union, or of a
federation of unions; but that he would never have become the
builder of Homestead and the founder of multitudinous libraries, is
as certain as it is certain that some other man would have
developed the steel industry had Andrew Carnegie never been
born.
Theoretically, then, there exist in the United States all the
factors which go to make a class struggle. There are the
capitalists and working classes, the interests of which conflict,
while the working class is no longer being emasculated to the
extent it was in the past by having drawn off from it its best
blood and brains. Its more capable members are no longer able to
rise out of it and leave the great mass leaderless and helpless.
They remain to be its leaders.
But the optimistic mouthpieces of the great American people, who
are themselves deft theoreticians, are not to be convinced by mere
theoretics. So it remains to demonstrate the existence of the class
struggle by a marshalling of the facts.
When nearly two millions of men, finding themselves knit
together by certain interests peculiarly their own, band together
in a strong organization for the aggressive pursuit of those
interests, it is evident that society has within it a hostile and
warring class. But when the interests which this class aggressively
pursues conflict sharply and vitally with the interests of another
class, class antagonism arises and a class struggle is the
inevitable result. One great organization of labor alone has a
membership of 1,700,000 in the United States. This is the American
Federation of Labor, and outside of it are many other large
organizations. All these men are banded together for the frank
purpose of bettering their condition, regardless of the harm worked
thereby upon all other classes. They are in open antagonism with
the capitalist class, while the manifestos of their leaders state
that the struggle is one which can never end until the capitalist
class is exterminated.
Their leaders will largely deny this last statement, but an
examination of their utterances, their actions, and the situation
will forestall such denial. In the first place, the conflict
between labor and capital is over the division of the join product.
Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material and make it into
a finished product. The difference between the value of the raw
material and the value of the finished product is the value they
have added to it by their joint effort. This added value is,
therefore, their joint product, and it is over the division of this
joint product that the struggle between labor and capital takes
place. Labor takes its share in wages; capital takes its share in
profits. It is patent, if capital took in profits the whole joint
product, that labor would perish. And it is equally patent, if
labor took in wages the whole joint product, that capital would
perish. Yet this last is the very thing labor aspires to do, and
that it will never be content with anything less than the whole
joint product is evidenced by the words of its leaders.
Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of
Labor, has said: "The workers want more wages; more of the comforts
of life; more leisure; more chance for self-improvement as men, as
trade-unionists, as citizens.
These were the wants of yesterday;
they are the wants of today;
they will be the wants of tomorrow,
and of tomorrow's morrow. The struggle may assume new
forms, but the issue is the immemorial one,--an effort of the
producers to obtain an increasing measure of the wealth that flows
from their production."
Mr. Henry White, secretary of the United Garment Workers of
America and a member of the Industrial Committee of the National
Civic Federation, speaking of the National Civic Federation soon
after its inception, said: "To fall into one another's arms, to
avow friendship, to express regret at the injury which has been
done, would not alter the facts of the situation. Workingmen will
continue to demand more pay, and the employer will naturally oppose
them. The readiness and ability of the workmen to fight will, as
usual, largely determine the amount of their wages or their share
in the product. . . But when it comes to dividing the proceeds,
there is the rub. We can also agree that the larger the product
through the employment of labor-saving methods the better, as there
will be more to be divided, but again the question of the division.
. . . A Conciliation Committee, having the confidence of the
community, and composed of men possessing practical knowledge of
industrial affairs, can therefore aid in mitigating this
antagonism, in preventing avoidable conflicts, in bringing about a
truce; I use the word 'truce' because understandings can
only be temporary."
Here is a man who might have owned cattle on a thousand hills,
been a lumber baron or a railroad king, had he been born a few
years sooner. As it is, he remains in his class, is secretary of
the United Garment Workers of America, and is so thoroughly
saturated with the class struggle that he speaks of the dispute
between capital and labor in terms of war,--workmen
fight with employers; it is possible to avoid some
conflicts; in certain cases
truces may be, for the time being, effected.
Man being man and a great deal short of the angels, the quarrel
over the division of the joint product is irreconcilable. For the
last twenty years in the United States, there has been an average
of over a thousand strikes per year; and year by year these strikes
increase in magnitude, and the front of the labor army grows more
imposing. And it is a class struggle, pure and simple. Labor as a
class is fighting with capital as a class.
Workingmen will continue to demand more pay, and employers will
continue to oppose them. This is the key-note to
laissez faire,--everybody for himself and devil take the
hindmost. It is upon this that the rampant individualist bases his
individualism. It is the let-alone policy, the struggle for
existence, which strengthens the strong, destroys the weak, and
makes a finer and more capable breed of men. But the individual has
passed away and the group has come, for better or worse, and the
struggle has become, not a struggle between individuals, but a
struggle between groups. So the query rises: Has the individualist
never speculated upon the labor group becoming strong enough to
destroy the capitalist group, and take to itself and run for itself
the machinery of industry? And, further, has the individualist
never speculated upon this being still a triumphant expression of
individualism,--of group individualism,--if the confusion of terms
may be permitted?
But the facts of the class struggle are deeper and more
significant than have so far been presented. A million or so of
workmen may organize for the pursuit of interests which engender
class antagonism and strife, and at the same time be unconscious of
what is engendered. But when a million or so of workmen show
unmistakable signs of being conscious of their class,--of being, in
short, class conscious,--then the situation grows serious. The
uncompromising and terrible hatred of the trade-unionist for a scab
is the hatred of a class for a traitor to that class,--while the
hatred of a trade-unionist for the militia is the hatred of a class
for a weapon wielded by the class with which it is fighting. No
workman can be true to his class and at the same time be a member
of the militia: this is the dictum of the labor leaders.
In the town of the writer, the good citizens, when they get up a
Fourth of July parade and invite the labor unions to participate,
are informed by the unions that they will not march in the parade
if the militia marches. Article 8 of the constitution of the
Painters' and Decorators' Union of Schenectady provides that a
member must not be a "militiaman, special police officer, or deputy
marshal in the employ of corporations or individuals during
strikes, lockouts, or other labor difficulties, and any member
occupying any of the above positions will be debarred from
membership." Mr. William Potter was a member of this union and a
member of the National Guard. As a result, because he obeyed the
order of the Governor when his company was ordered out to suppress
rioting, he was expelled from his union. Also his union demanded
his employers, Shafer & Barry, to discharge him from their
service. This they complied with, rather than face the threatened
strike.
Mr. Robert L. Walker, first lieutenant of the Light Guards, a
New Haven militia company, recently resigned. His reason was, that
he was a member of the Car Builders' Union, and that the two
organizations were antagonistic to each other. During a New Orleans
street-car strike not long ago, a whole company of militia, called
out to protect non-union men, resigned in a body. Mr. John
Mulholland, president of the International Association of Allied
Metal Mechanics, has stated that he does not want the members to
join the militia. The Local Trades' Assembly of Syracuse, New York,
has passed a resolution, by unanimous vote, requiring union men who
are members of the National Guard to resign, under pain of
expulsion, from the unions. The Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers'
Association has incorporated in its constitution an amendment
excluding from membership in its organization "any person a member
of the regular army, or of the State militia or naval reserve." The
Illinois State Federation of Labor, at a recent convention, passed
without a dissenting vote a resolution declaring that membership in
military organizations is a violation of labor union obligations,
and requesting all union men to withdraw from the militia. The
president of the Federation, Mr. Albert Young, declared that the
militia was a menace not only to unions, but to all workers
throughout the country.
These instances may be multiplied a thousand fold. The union
workmen are becoming conscious of their class, and of the struggle
their class is waging with the capitalist class. To be a member of
the militia is to be a traitor to the union, for the militia is a
weapon wielded by the employers to crush the workers in the
struggle between the warring groups.
Another interesting, and even more pregnant, phase of the class
struggle is the political aspect of it as displayed by the
socialists. Five men, standing together, may perform prodigies; 500
men, marching as marched the historic Five Hundred of Marseilles,
may sack a palace and destroy a king; while 500,000 men,
passionately preaching the propaganda of a class struggle, waging a
class struggle along political lines, and backed by the moral and
intellectual support of 10,000,000 more men of like convictions
throughout the world, may come pretty close to realizing a class
struggle in these United States of ours.
In 1900 these men cast 150,000 votes; two years later, in 1902,
they cast 300,000 votes; and in 1904 they cast 450,000. They have
behind them a most imposing philosophic and scientific literature;
they own illustrated magazines and reviews, high in quality,
dignity, and restraint; they possess countless daily and weekly
papers which circulate throughout the land, and single papers which
have subscribers by the hundreds of thousands; and they literally
swamp the working classes in a vast sea of tracts and pamphlets. No
political party in the United States, no church organization nor
mission effort, has as indefatigable workers as has the socialist
party. They multiply themselves, know of no effort nor sacrifice
too great to make for the Cause; and "Cause," with them, is spelled
out in capitals. They work for it with a religious zeal, and would
die for it with a willingness similar to that of the Christian
martyrs.
These men are preaching an uncompromising and deadly class
struggle. In fact, they are organized upon the basis of a class
struggle. "The history of society," they say, "is a history of
class struggles. Patrician struggled with plebeian in early Rome;
the king and the burghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages;
later on, the king and the nobles with the bourgeoisie; and today
the struggle is on between the triumphant bourgeoisie and the
rising proletariat. By 'proletariat' is meant the class of people
without capital which sells its labor for a living.
"That the proletariat shall conquer," (mark the note of
fatalism), "is as certain as the rising sun. Just as the
bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century wanted democracy applied to
politics, so the proletariat of the twentieth century wants
democracy applied to industry. As the bourgeoisie complained
against the government being run by and for the nobles, so the
proletariat complains against the government and industry being run
by and for the bourgeoisie; and so, following in the footsteps of
its predecessor, the proletariat will possess itself of the
government, apply democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are
merely legalized robbery, and run the business of the country in
its own interest."
"Their aim," they say, "is to organize the working class, and
those in sympathy with it, into a political party, with the object
of conquering the powers of government and of using them for the
purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of
the means of production and distribution into collective ownership
by the entire people."
Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who
call themselves "socialists." And, in the face of the existence of
such an aggressive group of men, a class struggle cannot very well
be denied by the optimistic Americans who say: "A class struggle is
monstrous. Sir, there is no class struggle." The class struggle is
here, and the optimistic American had better gird himself for the
fray and put a stop to it, rather than sit idly declaiming that
what ought not to be is not, and never will be.
But the socialists, fanatics and dreamers though they may well
be, betray a foresight and insight, and a genius for organization,
which put to shame the class with which they are openly at war.
Failing of rapid success in waging a sheer political propaganda,
and finding that they were alienating the most intelligent and most
easily organized portion of the voters, the socialists lessoned
from the experience and turned their energies upon the trade-union
movement. To win the trade unions was well-nigh to win the war, and
recent events show that they have done far more winning in this
direction than have the capitalists.
Instead of antagonizing the unions, which had been their
previous policy, the socialists proceeded to conciliate the unions.
"Let every good socialist join the union of his trade," the edict
went forth. "Bore from within and capture the trade-union
movement." And this policy, only several years old, has reaped
fruits far beyond their fondest expectations. Today the great labor
unions are honeycombed with socialists, "boring from within," as
they picturesquely term their undermining labor. At work and at
play, at business meeting and council, their insidious propaganda
goes on. At the shoulder of the trade-unionist is the socialist,
sympathizing with him, aiding him with head and hand,
suggesting--perpetually suggesting--the necessity for political
action. As the
Journal, of Lansing, Michigan, a republican paper, has
remarked: "The socialists in the labor unions are tireless workers.
They are sincere, energetic, and self-sacrificing. . . . They stick
to the union and work all the while, thus making a showing which,
reckoned by ordinary standards, is out of all proportion to their
numbers. Their cause is growing among union laborers, and their
long fight, intended to turn the Federation into a political
organization, is likely to win."
They miss no opportunity of driving home the necessity for
political action, the necessity for capturing the political
machinery of society whereby they may master society. As an
instance of this is the avidity with which the American socialists
seized upon the famous Taft-Vale Decision in England, which was to
the effect that an unincorporated union could be sued and its
treasury rifled by process of law. Throughout the United States,
the socialists pointed the moral in similar fashion to the way it
was pointed by the Social-Democratic Herald, which advised the
trade-unionists, in view of the decision, to stop trying to fight
capital with money, which they lacked, and to begin fighting with
the ballot, which was their strongest weapon.
Night and day, tireless and unrelenting, they labor at their
self-imposed task of undermining society. Mr. M. G. Cunniff, who
lately made an intimate study of trade-unionism, says: "All through
the unions socialism filters. Almost every other man is a
socialist, preaching that unionism is but a makeshift." "Malthus be
damned," they told him, "for the good time was coming when every
man should be able to rear his family in comfort." In one union,
with two thousand members, Mr. Cunniff found every man a socialist,
and from his experiences Mr. Cunniff was forced to confess, "I
lived in a world that showed our industrial life a-tremble from
beneath with a never-ceasing ferment."
The socialists have already captured the Western Federation of
Miners, the Western Hotel and Restaurant Employees' Union, and the
Patternmakers' National Association. The Western Federation of
Miners, at a recent convention, declared: "The strike has failed to
secure to the working classes their liberty; we therefore call upon
the workers to strike as one man for their liberties at the ballot
box. . . . We put ourselves on record as committed to the programme
of independent political action. . . . We indorse the platform of
the socialist party, and accept it as the declaration of principles
of our organization. We call upon our members as individuals to
commence immediately the organization of the socialist movement in
their respective towns and states, and to cooperate in every way
for the furtherance of the principles of socialism and of the
socialist party. In states where the socialist party has not
perfected its organization, we advise that every assistance be
given by our members to that end. . . . We therefore call for
organizers, capable and well-versed in the whole programme of the
labor movement, to be sent into each state to preach the necessity
of organization on the political as well as on the economic
field."
The capitalist class has a glimmering consciousness of the class
struggle which is shaping itself in the midst of society; but the
capitalists, as a class, seem to lack the ability for organizing,
for coming together, such as is possessed by the working class. No
American capitalist ever aids an English capitalist in the common
fight, while workmen have formed international unions, the
socialists a world-wide international organization, and on all
sides space and race are bridged in the effort to achieve
solidarity. Resolutions of sympathy, and, fully as important,
donations of money, pass back and forth across the sea to wherever
labor is fighting its pitched battles.
For divers reasons, the capitalist class lacks this cohesion or
solidarity, chief among which is the optimism bred of past success.
And, again, the capitalist class is divided; it has within itself a
class struggle of no mean proportions, which tends to irritate and
harass it and to confuse the situation. The small capitalist and
the large capitalist are grappled with each other, struggling over
what Achille Loria calls the "bi-partition of the revenues." Such a
struggle, though not precisely analogous, was waged between the
landlords and manufacturers of England when the one brought about
the passage of the Factory Acts and the other the abolition of the
Corn Laws.
Here and there, however, certain members of the capitalist class
see clearly the cleavage in society along which the struggle is
beginning to show itself, while the press and magazines are
beginning to raise an occasional and troubled voice. Two leagues of
class-conscious capitalists have been formed for the purpose of
carrying on their side of the struggle. Like the socialists, they
do not mince matters, but state boldly and plainly that they are
fighting to subjugate the opposing class. It is the barons against
the commons. One of these leagues, the National Association of
Manufacturers, is stopping short of nothing in what it conceives to
be a life-and-death struggle. Mr. D. M. Parry, who is the president
of the league, as well as president of the National Metal Trades'
Association, is leaving no stone unturned in what he feels to be a
desperate effort to organize his class. He has issued the call to
arms in terms everything but ambiguous: "
There is still time in the United Stales to head off the
socialistic programme,
which,
unrestrained,
is sure to wreck our country."
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