War of the Classes | Page 7

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