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ORGANISED LABOUR IN THE UNITED STATES

THE Monograph on "The American Federation of Labour," by M. A. Aldrich, Ph.D., recently published for the American Economic Association, brings out clearly and with much fairness the more hopeful aspects of the Trade Union Movement in the United States. Enough of the earlier history is given to enable the reader to see in the Federation the last groping along centralised lines which labour organisation has reached. Unions in a common trade had taken steps toward National Associations even before the Civil War, although no important result was reached. Less ambitious, but far more telling in practical results, was the organisation as a next step of separate trades within a single city. These Central Labour Unions have come to be a power of very considerable influence. The Federation is composed of local, national, and central Labour Unions, together with State Federations that have sprung up in a few States for purposes of securing State legislation. Much energy has been expended by the Federation to induce the various trades to create powerful national unions like the Typographers, Carpenters, Shoe Makers and Cigar Makers. These National Unions have developed admirable insurance benefits. These benefits (sick, funeral, and disability funds) are encouraged by the Federation because of the stability which such funds secure. The recent defeat of the textile workers in Face River and New Bedford is the subject just now under discussion at the Annual Session in Kansas City. President Gompers says, Dec. 12th, 1898 :-" No better argument was ever presented for the necessity for national unions than the object lesson in the textile workers' strike. The reduction offered was to be general. The operatives of each locality acted independently of the others, and not always in the most fraternal or helpful spirit, and certainly did not contribute financially as they should have and would have done had they been organised in a thorough, compact, and intelligent national union."

If this national organisation can be extended many of the most obvious trade union perils can be avoided. The new and rapid growth of cotton mills in Southern States was made the reason by employers in Massachusetts, where a legal ten hour law obtains, for a reduction of wages which brought on the late serious troubles. It is felt that a National Union could have done much in the South to prevent the restoration there of the long hours and low wages which were found more than a generation ago in the North. Child labour has also been exploited to an extreme extent in Southern States. This competition was thought to be so grave that it was boldly proposed to make an effort to repeal the ten hour law in Massachusetts. It was soon seen that this would raise such a storm that no real attempt has been made in this direction. On the other hand a trade union agitation was

1 Macmillan & Co., New York; Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., London. August, 1898. Price 50 cents.

started among the Southern Mills. The purpose of the Federation as just expressed takes the following form: "It seems the part of wisdom that this convention should authorise the appointment of organisers to the full extent of its financial ability to bring about the organisation of the textile workers of the South, so that they may reap larger advantages of their labour, which is their due, and thus prevent their isolated condition from becoming a constant menace to the textile workers of the rest of the country, and, incidentally, to all labour."

There is the same general analogy between the relation of the Federation to State and local unions as exists between general and local government, and the strength of the Federation thus far has been in its uniform and intelligent recognition of local interests. The failure of such recognition was the rock on which the Knights of Labour went to pieces. They not only organised different trades into the same groups, (only lawyers, saloon keepers, and bankers were excluded), but there was the general assumption of identity of interests among all sorts of labour as against the so-called capitalistic interests. This is the more extraordinary as already before 1869 (the year in which the Knights of Labour were founded) there was ample evidence of direct and sharp conflict of interests among the workers themselves.

Wherever the more highly and delicately developed machinery had to be used in common by different Trade Unions, the fight had already begun which has now taken on such sinister proportions, that arbitration is nowhere more constantly necessary than among the different Unions.

The Knights rode upon the high tide of a quite splendid sentiment of common brotherhood until these inter-group interests began to clash. About as fast and as far as the consciousness of such conflict became clear, the Knights of Labour fell to pieces. With great skill the Federation has thus far avoided this sturdy fact of the situation. It has shown good strategy in selecting the most practical reforms as opposition to the Truck System, the adoption of the Trade Union Label and the eight-hour day. It has not attempted a general eight-hour campaign, but has concentrated upon a single trade, like the carpenters. It has learned that machinery is to be accepted, and wisely aims at a shorter day as compensation. It has done even more perhaps in preventing legislation that was thought to be harmful to labour interests. It has taken a strong stand for civil service reform, and is now vigorously opposing the policy of "expansion." An appeal has just been sent out in the following words by President Gompers :

"Desirous of avoiding in this report a lengthy argument, I propose stating as succinctly as possible the grounds of our opposition to the so called policy of imperialism and expansion.

"We cannot annex the Philippines without a large increase in our standing army. A large standing army is repugnant to republican institutions and a menace to the liberty of our own people. If we annex the Philippines, we shall have to conquer the Filipinos by the force of

arms, and thereby deny to them what we claim for ourselves-the right of self-government.

"We shall surrender the present safe and independent position by which we are guaranteed the tranquillity and the fruits of peace, and force ourselves into European and Asiatic entanglements, implying war and the preparation for war. We shall become a militant instead of a peace-loving nation. We shall seek to conquer by the force of arms instead of by our own industry, commerce and superior mentality, and civilisation.

"We shall be compelled to open the gates and admit the Chinese, Malays and slave labourers who may come from our new possessions,' since the constitution of the United States forbids the interdiction of the free entry of men and their products between our States and our territories.

"Our constitution requires the judges of our federal courts to make their decisions general and applicable to all the States and territories; and the contracts for the specific enforcement of labour and the performance of personal service will necessarily have to be interpreted in the light of these laws, and may become generally applicable to the workers of the United States. The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Robertson v. Baldwin, rendered last year, paves the way for a broader decision on these lines and increases the peril.

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The demand for expansion of trade abroad is based upon the idea that we manufacture to a larger extent than we can consume, when there are so many of our people who are workless, ahungered and ragged. Expansion of trade abroad has for its basis the contraction of the stomachs of men, women and children at home.

"The policy of imperialism is a declaration that self-government has failed, and that the people cannot be trusted; that the dollar is of more consequence than man, and plutocracy and militarism nobler than humanity."

There is far more fear than is expressed in these passages that a larger army would put a greater and more effective weapon at the disposal of employers in times of labour outbreaks. Though their number are probably under 700,000, the influence exerted is such as to be taken into account by politicians.

Dr. Aldrich gives an admirable statement of the relation between the Federation and Socialism. Nothing shows so forcibly how practical and conservative a body the Federation has become, as the attitude now taken toward the type of Socialism with which it (the Federation) has to deal.

In the report just issued, it is of the Socialists that President Gompers speaks in the following words: "Persons presuming to speak as friends of labour, carrying with them a halo which they don at convenient periods in order to give themselves the appearance of sanctity, wisdom and honesty, the representatives of the Socialist-Labour party, went to New Bedford on repeated occasions, and, in fact, kept one of its

representatives at New Bedford during a long period of the strike, held daily meetings with but one particular, avowed purpose in mind, the spread of dissatisfaction and discouragement among the strikers, exultingly predicting defeat, hoping and working to accomplish that end, throwing every obstacle in the way of those who were endeavouring to make the best struggle possible."

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For seven or eight years the struggle with the socialist contingent has been severe and persistent. Wherever the unions are "smashed" by employers a tendency at once shows itself to appeal to the State. In towns where competitive industry has been carried to an extreme (as in Massachusetts shoe industries) the long friction is resulting in a steady increase of the socialist vote. At the present moment a strike rages in Marlborough, Massachusetts. It concerns the very existence of trade union organisation. The agitation has passed to politics, with the result that a working man is elected Mayor. The long struggles and defeats in Havenhill have produced a socialist Mayor and three out of seven aldermen. It has been the common explanation that the United States had no Socialism that was not of purely foreign origin. Until 1890, this accounted roughly for the facts. Close observation shows that this no longer explains the situation. The conditions out of which Socialism grows are working with increasing activity in our midst, and they do not conveniently select those only who speak a foreign tongue, or were bred among the tyrannies of the old world." This is only a beginning of what seems likely to reach in the United States far greater proportions. The socialist vote is steadily and rather rapidly growing in Boston and in manufacturing centres. If the Federation is strong enough to create powerful benefit funds, as among the cigar makers; if it is strong enough to secure important favourable legislation, it may hold in check the socialist influences. There is less hope for this, from the reason that the whole attitude of the Federation toward eight hours (its chief aim) is so questionable in method. It is boldly maintained that less work will be done in eight hours and that less ought to be done. It is as confidently held that wages will naturally rise with the lessened time. The danger of this position is greater because of the plausible evidence which success in certain favoured trades may lend the theory. It may appear to work among State or city employers; among railway labourers and even among carpenters in large towns. There has been no hint as yet of adequate discussion upon the real issues by which this theory must be tested. If it appear at length that the Federation has blundered in selecting its most important positions, a reaction in favour of socialist claims is probable.

Thus far this association has dominated the situation and proved itself a conservative force in the best sense. Its entire organisation is a training school for citizenship. Its Sessions show a discipline and intelligence in dealing with the subject matter in hand that compares not unfavourably with the average Congressional sitting.

JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS

PROFESSOR COHN AND STATE RAILWAY OWNERSHIP IN ENGLAND

To the issue of the Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen for November— December, 1898, Professor Gustav Cohn of Göttingen contributes a long and interesting article on "The Prospects of State Railway Ownership in England." He takes as his text, or more accurately as a straw showing the direction of the wind-for Professor Cohn knows too much about railways in general and the history of English railways in particular to regard the arguments therein put forward as either important or novel-Mr. Clement Edwards' recent book on "Railway Nationalisation;" and frankly confesses that Mr. Edwards' description of his own work as an attempt to find a plank for a new party platform is not calculated to inspire any great confidence in the strength of an agitation so launched.

Professor Cohn starts by summarising the history of railway nationalisation in Switzerland. He points out that the democratic bent towards extension of the functions of the community was for many years held in check in that country by the even stronger bias in favour of the traditional cantonal independence, which was bound to be impaired by the added weight that the control of the entire railway system would give to the central government. In the end "demagogy" triumphed, and nationalisation was carried through by the force "of enmity first against great accumulations of capital, and, secondly, against the foreigners who possessed that capital."

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Professor Cohn then turns to look what analogous new force is likely to be brought into play in England, and declares that he cannot find it. Things change slowly in England. . . The democracy itself in England is conservative because it is English." He thinks, however, that, if England, which has already once or twice coquetted with Protection, were definitely to abandon Free Trade-a course which, however, he regards as "beyond the bounds of calculation, perhaps even of probability"-the knell of private ownership of railways might also sound, as only by actual ownership could the State obtain such a control. of railway rates as would then be necessary. Apart from the "strong prejudice "—a mere prejudice, and one which will some day be overcome, the Professor thinks-of the nation against a system of State working with many hundred thousands of servants in State uniform," Professor Cohn apparently finds the main obstacle to nationalisation in the "phalanx of railway directors 2" which " now, as

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1 In the September number of the Journal, the writer of this note ventured to suggest that the force which Professor Cohn looks for might, ere long, be found in the belief of the half-million railway employées (almost all voters) that they would obtain better conditions of service and higher wages from the State than from their present employers.

2 In the interest of accuracy it is perhaps worth while investigating the numbers of the railway phalanx in the House of Commons. The Railway Year Book for 1898 gives the names of sixty-seven M.P.'s who are directors of railways in the

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