CHAPTER IX ORGANIZED LABOR AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS One of the most important, significant and characteristic economic and industrial phenomena of recent times is the development of labor unionism. The rapid growth of labor organizations in numbers and in influence during the last two or three decades has given to this movement a place of great importance. Modern industrial and social conditions have prepared and fertilized the soil from which the present army of organized workers has sprung. The labor movement is part of a great social adjustment which is raising an important class in the community up to a higher economic and social plane of life. It is like modern educational advance, distinctly and positively a democratic movement. Labor's place in history is definitely marked by the institutions of slavery and serfdom. Only in recent generations, after repeated multiplications of the world's productive capabilities, has labor been given a place of theoretical equality with military service and professional practice; the labor union aims to uphold the honor and dignity of labor with the hands, to give practical value to ethical ideals as to manual labor. Precedent and dominant class interests are strong forces acting in direct and unceasing opposition to the aims and ideals of the labor movement. Precedent assigns labor to a lower social and political plane, while progress with the wand of industrial efficiency ever points upward and onward toward release from ceaseless toil and social degradation. In uneducated primitive communities precedent becomes a fetish, or is crystallized into hard and fast law. Approximately as the rate of national progress or change increases does the authority of precedent decrease and its glamour fade away. Precedent-the past-has its lessons for all times, but it ought not to be applied unmodified to present conditions. Precedent represents the balance struck between opposing classes and interests in times and circumstances now forever behind us. Its unmodified application to to-day's problems is a blind attempt to substitute a former equilibrium of social forces for that of to-day. Education should look into the past in order to show, as far as possible, the conditions formerly extant. It should point out the forces which make for progress, and should assist in assigning precedent to its rightful place in the social order of to-day. The present is continually, unceasingly passing into the past, and the future is ever on the threshold of the present. Action to-day is precedent to-morrow. The dominant issue to-day is industrial freedom and equality, the striking down of precedents which shackle the limbs of the awakening labor movement-the spirit of true democracy; and two great interwoven factors. in the struggle are universal education adapted to the needs of all, and the institution of organized labor. The concept of universal education as a powerful economic and social engine did not rise. to a prominent place in the social consciousness until organized labor became a powerful factor in our industrial life. The labor union has been characterized as a great Americanizing agent. Naturally it ought to be and is an efficient aid and complement to our educational institutions. "Trade unionism is the assertion of the principle that men have common interests, not only in their particular trades, but also through every department of life, and that it is their duty to help each other in difficulty, and to defend each other when in danger, in short, that individual advancement is good when it does not hurt the general welfare." The school should, and actually does, emphasize personal efficiency, usefulness as a producer, and economy in consumption. It seems that the school must necessarily lay stress upon the individual's characteristics. The union, on the other hand, stands for solidarity, for brotherhood; if not as yet for all men, at least for a considerable portion of mankind. The union emphasizes mutual interdependence and the subordination of individual advantage for the good of the whole. In its ideal form it stands for the betterment of society and for the growth of altruism. The ethics of organized labor and the ethics of cutthroat competition are radically different. The labor union did not become a great power until 1 Dyer, Evolution of Industry, p. 99. competition reached an advanced stage in its development, until combination in many fields began to replace competition and the alternatives offered the laborer were few, until the latter came face to face with the difficulties in obtaining a job which are at present so familiar. Economic interest makes for combination and integration. This phenomenon is also visible in the world of capital, but the latter is impersonal; many units can be held by one man as well as by more than one. Labor, on the other hand, is personal, and the unit is the labor power of an individual. Each man is the seller of his own individual labor power. One man cannot take unto himself the labor strength of many individuals. Notwithstanding this vital difference, units of labor are forced into a compact union just as many units of capital gravitate into one company or combination of companies. The union man is in some respects like a share in a corporation; injure one man or injure one share and you injure the whole. Competition leads, in many cases at least, to combination, and combination brings forth a new ethic, a new and high code of morality in regard to those within the combination, and perhaps finally in the dim and shadowy future, let us hope, in regard to all mankind. The great growth in numbers and considerable increase in strength which has come to the labor union movement in recent years is due in a large measure to an increase in class consciousness. An important class-conscious wage-earning class was not possible at a period when nearly every worker expected to pass sooner or later from the position of employee to that of employer. In the America of many small competing industries and of free land a class-conscious body of wage-earners was practically, but not entirely, non-existent. Trade unionism and class consciousness could not attain a strong foothold until the frontier disappeared, and until centralization and the systematic exploitation of natural resources and of special privileges were the rule. But to-day, with no frontier, with centralized industries, with a large decrease of employers and managers relative to the number of employees, with the growth of social rigidity, the aspect is totally changed. Trade unionism, socialism, exploitation, class conflict, now become familiar terms. Federation and coöperation for mutual benefit only become possible when the workers have time and opportunity to receive and assimilate the benefits of culture and education. National and international unions signify a higher grade of intelligence, and a more socialized view of life, than the older forms of organizations with their individualism and lack of mutual coöperation and aid. History teaches that nations wax strong and powerful only when they band together in compact, coöperating states. Isolated and mutually distrustful tribes, lacking strength and coherence, are pushed to the wall by the strong arm of the organized tribe or nation. Primitive tribes frittered away their strength fighting each other until a stronger, because more closely united, people came and |