Labor's Function in War Time
The human side must be considered in every question in which our people and our country are affected.
At the Convention of the National Lecturers' Association, Washington, D. C, April 11th, 1918.
I THINK that epitomizes the whole subject, and whatever frills or furbelows may be woven to surround it are not going to make the matter at all clearer. The question as it appeals to me suggests the thought that there is in the minds of some—the suspicion that Labor is not functioning in the war, and therefore it is necessary that some one should say something as to whether it does or not.
With us there have been no false notions from the beginning of the European war. Those who were abreast of the times and had something like an understanding of events national and international, those who had undertaken to learn, either at first hand or otherwise, the philosophy, if I may so dignify it, underlying the German mind and the German activity, knew then that the aim of German thought was to dominate the world.
Now, no one could find fault with the effort of the German people in endeavoring to control by intellectual force, by the power of brain, science and understanding in all the arts, in industry, in commerce; and it was to the great credit of the people of at least our own country, that we were appreciative of the great intellectual development of the people of Germany. But somehow or other, there were a few of us among the men of Labor, who understood that Germans and Germany were not only exercising this great power and influence over all the world, but that there was being created by them a philosophy of economics and sociology that undertook to blunt the minds of the people of the whole world.
Whether designedly or not no one can now say, but truth requires it to be stated that the philosophy of the Marxian Socialism was nothing more or less than the attempt of German autocratic power from above to control the individuality of the people. It was and is in economics and sociology the reflex of the imperial form of government of Germany, presumably based upon the people, not, however, with the initiative of the people controlling the government, but with the government controlling the people.
For years and years a propaganda was carried on in every country on the face of the globe. Among the last to be impregnated with that virus were England and the United States. There was not an avenue through which the expression of the labor movement of America could percolate into the minds of the German people or the people of the other continental countries.
The Socialist parties of Germany did not create the Socialist parties of these other European countries and of the United States; the German Socialists' propaganda established German branches in these other countries and in the United States! They published their newspapers, particularly in the German language; when they attempted to establish an English paper, for years and years they never succeeded, and one or two of those papers now existing subsist upon the subsidies and support of the German Socialist press.
The labor movement of America was interpreted and written about to the European countries, particularly through Germany, by the agents of the German Socialists. The efforts made by the American labor movement to secure improvement in the condition of the workers were belittled and perverted in the reports to the Socialist press, and so communicated to the readers of the Socialist press in Germany and other European countries. Our movement was decried, our achievements belittled, our aims ridiculed, and our men abused, insulted and misrepresented. Indeed, so far did this propaganda go that, consciously or unconsciously, the great trusts in the United States were playing into the hands of that game! First, the shipping companies and the trusts were combined to keep a channel wide open between several of the southern European countries and the ports of the United States. The condition of those people thus brought here, lured here, was but little better, if as good, as it had been in their own countries. They had less freedom here, for they were under the dominating eye of the superintendent, foreman, sub-foreman, or some sub-stratum officer! They had industrial serfdom here, when they had perhaps just a little bit of a farm with the free air and the sunshine in their own countries; they were paid miserably and treated worse; they had to pay tribute in advance to some petty foreman in order to get a job, and it was to the foreman's financial advantage to see that the turn-over was greater than necessary in order that he might get his tribute.
But quite in addition to this, newspapers, daily or weekly, were encouraged to be issued and printed in the language or the languages of the respective countries of a large number of the employees; and then in those newspapers, subsidized by the shipping companies and by the trusts, could be preached all the radicalism, so called, that they pleased. They could advocate socialism, anarchism, or any other speculative philosophy so long as they roundly lambasted the American labor movement and its officers. For these corporations knew that so long as they could arouse bitterness and antagonism and prejudice against the representatives of the American labor movement, so long as they could call into question our motives and our honesty, they had the men under their own power. They would encourage these newspapers to preach the gospel of the "sweet by-and-by" if they could only prevent the workers from realizing that they were living in the bitter "now-and-now"; and hence the great difficulty which we experienced in trying to reach the minds and to obtain the confidence of these workers, the confidence and the respect to which we were justly entitled.
I And this Socialist press in German and other foreign languages was the means to propagate this philosophy of misery, to propagate the dream of internationalism, based upon the idea that German power, German militarism, would be maintained for the purpose of preventing international war, while, at the same time that same Socialist press was preaching to the peoples of the other countries of the world the doctrine that they need not fear Germany or German military power. "What you and your countries should do is to preach the gospel of internationalism, anti-militarism and anti-patriotism; we will see that the peace of the world shall be maintained," declared German Socialists and Socialist philosophers and the people of the countries of the world outside of Germany believed in them. That propaganda had gone on for more than forty years. We believed it; we were all of us lulled into a fancied security. Then they undertook to preach the gospel of the immediate recognition of the universality of the brotherhood of man, and so our peoples and our countries were comparatively easy prey, at least supposedly so, in the minds of German efficiency and German militarism and German imperialism. We were unprepared; we did not dare to dream that such a conflagration as this would set the world afire; but it has come.
There is one thing upon which Germany did not count. She believed that, after all, there is only one efficient method for the conduct of any of the affairs of life, and that that method is autocracy,—power from the top to direct, and all others obediently to perform. There is one thing that this philosophy holds out of the accounting,—that once the conscience and the hearts of a free democratic people are touched, there arises a unity of spirit and action, which autocratic domination and efficiency cannot withstand, and before which it must quail. And that is what has come.
It is the common understanding of all who know, that it is the American Federation of Labor that for more than thirty-five years has given its wholehearted effort to support the principles of freedom and democracy as against socialism, slavery and despotism. It is the American Federation of Labor which, from the beginning of this international war, had the perception, as well as the courage, to declare its position in unmistakable terms, and now, in the crisis into which we have flung ourselves, or rather, more truly speaking, into which we have been dragged, the American labor movement is true to its history. It is true to the traditions of Labor, true to the long struggle of the masses, groping in the beginning, groping, struggling and sacrificing in order that some of the burdens placed upon the backs of the toilers shall be relieved, until in our time the whole conception of the laborer has changed. The worker is no longer regarded, nor would he permit himself to be regarded, as typified by the "Man with the Hoe"; he stands, not with bent back or receding forehead,—no, not with bent back and receding forehead, but in the full stature of manhood, equal with all people of our country.
Quite apart from our loyalty to our Republic and the great cause in which it is engaged, this very difference of concept is to be fought out. It must be settled whether the workers shall be driven back into the centuries of darkness and misery and almost despair, with back bent under the lash and perhaps the receding forehead returning with generations, or whether the toilers of the world shall be, in addition to producers, men, with living hopes, living aspirations for a higher and a better day.
We have from the beginning of the war performed our duty whole-heartedly, without causing any reflections or making any insinuations against those in other walks of life. I think if these had had less care for private profiteering and more care for our country and our people and our cause, there would be less inconsistency. Only a few weeks ago, or rather about two months ago, there were about twenty-five hundred men who had struck work. It was regrettable. The difficulty was quickly adjusted, and the officers of the organization exerted all the influence and power that they could, in order that the men would return to work. The men did resume work, but the press of the country lambasted the workers of America as though they had all been slackers and cowards and traitors, when, as a matter of fact, there were then more than five millions of American workers engaged in war work, and there was not a word of commendation as to their service.
Through the instrumentality of our movement, the American Federation of Labor, we have pressed home upon the government of the United States, as we have in the affairs of industry and commerce and transportation, this concept,—that there is not anything in all the activities of our country, local, state, national, or international, into which the human element does not enter, that the human side must be considered in every question in which our people and our country are affected, and that hence it is necessary to have representation of the workers in every agency of government and of industry. We have had larger representation and recognition of this character within this past year,—beginning four years ago, but within the last year—than at any time in the history of our country, or perhaps of the whole world. The Council of National Defense, the Advisory Commission, the War Industries Board, the Shipping Board, the Wage Adjustment Board, in all of them, are representatives of labor to help determine the conditions and the terms, wages, and hours of labor.
The Committee on Labor of the Council of National Defense, with its various sub-committees, has concerned itself with the question of labor standards—hours of labor and wages, sanitary conditions and housing. It was our committee which first brought last year to the attention of the Council of National Defense, and of the country, the terrific condition in which we were all placed by reason of the fact that the workers had no place where they could rest, where they could sleep, where they could go after their hard day's work was completed, and that if they did not have a place to sleep, they would be unfit and unwilling to work, in fact, would not and could not work.
The agreements entered into between the representatives of the Government of the United States, in its various departments, and the organizations of the workers, have been made public generally. There was a committee of five representing the employers, appointed by the employers' associations; a committee of five of workmen appointed by the president of the American Federation of Labor. Each of these two groups selected a representative of the general public as their legal adviser. The employers' group selected Mr. William H. Taft, and the workers' group selected Mr. Frank P. Walsh. An agreement has been reached between these two bodies based on the fundamental principles of employment and the relationship between employer and employee. A permanent board of arbitration has been appointed by the President of the United States. That great leader of thought, and speech, and democracy has issued a proclamation putting the agreement into effect as a war measure to endure during the period of the war.
I have learned since my entrance into this hall that an effort is being made by means of a bill now before Congress to make it unlawful, and stigmatizing it as criminal, punishable with high fines and long terms of imprisonment, for any workman to engage in a strike. May I say this—I think that I have indicated clearly, and can show more fully and conclusively, that the aim and effort of American workers are to continue work without interruption except as rest and recuperation may be necessary. But I say this to all whom it may concern—that nothing will do more to create resentment than to make it unlawful for men to stop work. Thus far we have done wonderfully well. Thus far there has been no serious interruption of industry or commerce or transportation. Thus far the good influences of the representative men and women in the labor movement of our country have been effective, but once take away the voluntary influence which we may be able to exert, and say that we have no power, no influence of a voluntary character, and you have' taken away every instrument which we have been enabled to employ in order to gain the good will and the voluntary, continued service of the workers of America.
Let me add this: No one has done more than the representatives of the American labor movement to prevent the propaganda of Germanism from succeeding in interrupting the industries of our country. In some instances the men have been urged, where a cessation of work would have been justifiable under ordinary circumstances, to be patient and again be patient, even to straining a point, in order that production may not be interrupted. I say this, as I have on previous occasions declared, that it is possible that you may make a stoppage of work, a strike, unlawful, but you are not going to stop men from striking; you will make men law-breakers in addition to strikers! Why is it necessary for the enactment of such a law? If all the voluntary agencies had proven a failure; if there were no prospect of even greater continued production by reason of the last agreement which has been reached and to which I have just referred, why then there might be even some excuse. But to-day there is absolutely none, and I give the warning of a patriotic American citizen to our Congress not to commit the folly of enacting such a law!
I want to say something now wholly out of the order of reasoning and of sequence, but I cannot help bringing this to your attention. We have seen what has transpired in Russia within these past few months. No lover of liberty, no lover of mankind, can look upon that scene, even in the far distance, in his imagination or in his reading, without a feeling of great regret and compassion. Whether the people of Russia come back in this war or not, one thing is assured; out of a spirit of humanitarianism, we must help the people as best we can. And we will try to do it. If there had been in Russia a labor movement such as we have in the United States of America, that Bolshevist movement would never have landed into power; if we had not a labor movement in America, with all the elements making up America and all the propaganda that has been going on, I have not the slightest hesitancy in saying that my best judgment is that we would have had the Bolsheviki right in the United States. I do not know that we are quite so free from them now.
There is another point that I want to make. As one of the evidences of this tremendous progress that has been made by the American labor movement, I desire to call your attention to the years of agitation and the educational campaigns conducted in what was popularly known as "the abolition of government by injunction." Neither you nor I have time to enter into a discussion of this subject. Those who are sufficiently interested to have the detailed information can get whatever the American Federation of Labor can help to give. But as the result of this agitation and these campaigns of education and the sacrifice of men who were willing to suffer for the right, we have had enacted upon the statute books of the United States a law, commonly known as the Clayton Anti-Trust Law. A sentence in that law reads as follows: "That the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." That declaration in Itself is the most far reaching of any ever made by any authoritative government of any country of the whole world.
The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce! If that declaration had been in existence prior to our Civil War, slavery would have been abolished without that war, for the slave's labor was the labor of a human being and was regarded as a commodity and an article of commerce. That declaration, now the law of our land, takes the human being, the men, the women, the children, out of the class which characterizes them and their labor power as commodities, inanimate, such as this glass, this table, the chandelier, or a side of beef, or a pound of pork. It constitutes a recognition of the human side of the masses of our people, the workers, before the law,—the physical, legal, industrial, political and social qualities of all the citizens of America.
We are giving service to our country; we propose to give service. We shall not permit ourselves during this war, or at any time thereafter, to be lulled into any false paradise. The propaganda of offensiveness, the propaganda of subtlety, the propaganda to divert us from our humane, natural, patriotic and logical course, the effort to divert us from this course will fail, no matter by whom undertaken. We are going to stand by the fundamental principles of our Republic. We are glad to declare that we are behind the government, the country, our Republic, our President, and our Allies, to fight this fight to the finish, until democracy and freedom and justice shall be enthroned throughout the world.