[This is the last of a series of articles on this subject.]

We Are Not Surprised

The problems which arise in this country differ basically from those which European countries have to solve. The reasons for this can be found in the dissimilarity in the development of the[American]people, the abundance of natural resources, the gullibility of the masses, and their careless way of living. But laxity and license can be curbed by legislation; unbounded energy can be measured. If we should do this present-day phenomena would 2not surprise us.

The things that have taken place at the Industrial Conference in Washington do not surprise the well-informed observer. The adamant attitude of Samuel Gompers and his fourteen hand-picked representatives of the "Labor Group" needs no explanation to those who have closely studied the preceding articles on this subject. The corresponding inflexible attitude of Judge Elbert H. Gary--refusal to negotiate with any labor representatives not employed by the United States Steel Corporation--is the only logical point of view that he could assume, since a section of the public, of which Gary is also a member, had agreed on a resolution which would be acceptable also to the great majority of workers--if they had any voice in the matter. This resolution would even have been preferred to the official statement submitted by the union representatives. But Gompers and his associates could never accept a compromise of that sort. That would be tantamount to a death warrant for all business agents and their own powerful machines!

On the other hand, Judge Gary and his henchmen do not play the game above board either. Through their many informants who keep their ears to the ground all over the country they are well aware of an increasing antagonism toward the Gompers-inspired union movement. This animosity cannot be traced to the propaganda of the so-called "Reds," because with the exception of those organized in the International Industrial Association of Workers (not to be confused with the I. W.W.), all "Reds" make the best promoters of the Gompers system. Judge Gary and other captains of industry know that only too well and have referred to it in public.

In reality, the steadily increasing antagonism toward the trade unions is based on materialistic reasons. If American labor could decide for itself whether it would gain justice and economic security through co-operation and collective bargaining, ninety per cent would certainly choose what is called the German system. Otherwise--if a vote could be taken in the factories, especially in the giant concerns, for trade unions and their business 4agents, or for a direct factory system of representation--all workers not organized in the American Federation of Labor, and at least fifty per cent of the Federation's compulsory members, would choose the Workers' Industrial Council [direct representation].

But Samuel Gompers and his henchmen stand in holy terror of such a result. Therefore, they cannot afford to sponsor a resolution at the Industrial Conference granting the workers self-representation in their negotiations with employers. The hostile attitude toward the trade unions patterned after the English system manifested by the masses who strive for union and co-operation merits a closer examination.

The following formula taken from the textbook on national economy may serve as a guide in our investigation:

The collectively manufactured product, if--in theory--evenly distributed 5among the producers, determines the cumulative production potential of the entirety. One has to take the productive power of the whole country into account in order to evaluate its economic wealth. This fundamental yardstick has been applied in appraising Germany's productive capacity for the purpose of fixing war indemnity payments, Neither machines, tools, nor raw materials determine the wealth of a nation; it is determined by the human capacity to convert this intrinsically dead material into something of value.

If we now make a comparison between total wages paid and total surplus value created [total productive capacity], it becomes clear at once that with a relative increase or decrease in wages the amount of profit of the owners of industrial enterprises must rise or fall in proportion. If labor could manage, by organization--not by violence or sabotage--to secure economic advantages for itself, it then follows that the total[collective]value of these achievements must be measured in terms of the total productive 6capacity of the country, or, if the matter is one of local character, of just one branch of industry.

If in a large factory located in a city of, let as say, a population of fifty thousand, ten thousand of whom are employed at the plant (as in the General Electric Company of Schenectady), the wages of all employees are increased twenty per cent, and the company, because of market conditions or for competitive reasons, cannot raise the price of its manufactured product, the same increase is undoubtedly an economic improvement for all inhabitants of that city. But if commodity prices are not affected by the laws of competition, the owners of industry can add the total wage increase to the price of the finished product, and the workers do not derive any advantage from their boosted wage and any even lose by this transaction.

But many employers realize how intensely people dislike an interruption of their orderly, quiet, and balanced daily routine. We all know how patiently people bear up under adverse conditions, and how they even suffer injustices 7because the turmoil of a struggle between capital and labor seems harder to bear than quiet submission to an injustice.

The English system of representation by business agents was mostly to blame for the following situation. Every Chicagoan remembers how nerve-racking the strike of the milk drivers was, and how at the end the milk consumers had to pay for the campaign and keep their mouths shut. The strike had enough elements of surprise. Business Agent Sumner uttered the following words during a public meeting on the first day of the strike: "Smash every bottle of milk which is sold through the dairy stores! And if all of you have to go to jail for it, we have influence and money enough to spring all of you loose again."

If a Haywood had advocated such violent measures, he certainly would have gotten ten years in the penitentiary, and justly so. The settlement of the strike by a Government representative, in the manner in which it was concluded, did not surprise us at all.

The results of this type of strike have always been the same: For every half-cent wage increase which was granted the milk drivers, the consumer had to fork over a two-cent tribute to the dairy company which supplied him. From a social point of view, the results of such settlements constitute a decline of the economic standard of labor, which to compensate--if that is at all possible--calls for increased efforts on another field.

The same holds true for the strikes of the streetcar and elevated employees and the many other manifestations of "social unrest" which are due to orders of the unscrupulous business agents and the just as unscrupulous companies. Not only in Chicago, but in every large city, the same game in played. The huge masses of industrial workers, the millions who work for union and cooperation, are filled with disgust at such practices, for in industry, where tactics like that are not possible, where a wage increase is always connected with sacrifices, the workers themselves have to bear the costs of these criminal conspiracies.

Judge Gary and his henchmen know that; they are only too well informed about the mood of the masses and can therefore make a pact with Mr. Gompers and his associates without fear of the consequences.

After experiencing things like that, we should not be surprised if the strike of the coal miners starts on November 1, according to schedule. For about a month the newspapers will be full of reports and explanations. Finally, when the coal shortage has become acute, when winter with its privations has arrived, a conference will settle the controversy. Eighty per cent of all the Government representatives of the United States Department of Labor are tools of the machine made up by the Gompers unions. One or more of them will function as mediators. Result: forty-two cents more a ton for the coal miner, three dollars more a ton for the consumer; the discontentment is increased; the factory workers, unable to reestablish equilibrium in the household budget by starting the strike all over again, become truculent and rebellious and an easy prey for agitators who, waving the red flag in 10front of the enraged bull, attract them with the possibility of a change of conditions by violence--a change which often enough has spelled the end of the deluded ones.

Are the workers alone to blame for the unrest?

It will be necessary to go to work courageously, honestly, and conscientiously. Only by a thorough purge can this cesspool of strife and unrest be flushed away.