# The Intellectual and the Labor Movement/The Intellectual and the Labor Movement

THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
By George Soule
IT IS a pity there is not some other word than intellectual with which to describe the type of person about whom this pamphlet is written. "Brain-worker”" will not do; it is an ugly and meaningless term which implies that a college graduate has a better mind and employs it more than a manual laborer,. although the contrary is often the case. "Educated person" is an unwarranted assumption; not many really are educated in the true sense. "Technician" would be more accurate for some; yet, alas, how few intellectuals have technical skill of any sort!
The word is made necessary by the fact that there are some trades, largely consisting of those whose hand-tools are not heavier than a pencil or more difficult to operate than a typewriter or an adding machine, which are not yet well organized in trade-unions. The usual apprenticeship for these trades is long and expensive. This is so, however, largely through social custom rather than because such a long training is necessary to produce the average level of ability of the journeyman in question. These trades are largely recruited from the children of Mr. Babbitt and his friends. They include writers of fiction, of poetry, of criticism, of political and social articles—though not the humdrum newspaper man. They include many social workers, researchers, and officials and employees of philanthropic and liberal societies. They include some professors and teachers, And, a much larger class, they include many who do not have even so definite a trade as these, but feel vague aspirations to be of service some day in one or more of them. One trait all these persons have in common. They believe that the whole world and its problems are their province; they are not satisfied to be intellectually limited to one round of duties or to one enterprise, such as a grocery store or a family. Exhibited with proper modesty, this trait is a good one.
WHY INTELLECTUALS ARE ATTRACTED TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Now a person of this sort is likely to be discontented with the human scene as it is, ready of imagination and sympathy, experimental, and somewhat contemptuous of the standards immediately about him. He feels the need of a vital and refreshing force in the world which may upset it more or less, which may lead it into regenerative paths. He likes dramatic conflicts and great events. Looking abroad, he searches for an historic current which seems important enough for him to throw himself into. And soon the labor movement, as reflected in strikes, in manifestoes and prophecies, fills his eye. Here are a multitude of people who also feel discontent, who have a worthy cause, whose onward march is massive and continued enough to bear a sort of grandeur, especially in distant perspective which obscures details and confuses colors. For him the immensely complex British Labor Movement becomes the famous and inspiring Nottingham program of the Labor Party. The early speeches of Trotsky or Lenin stand for the gargantuan upheaval in Russia. He is fired with the spirit of words like "comrade" and "brother," and in moments of dramatic imagination pictures himself sacrificing his share of this world's. goods, and perhaps, if need be, life or liberty as well, in the cause of humanity.
FINDING THE REALITY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Such an attitude is not only creditable, it is also enjoyable and, to a certain extent, useful. Many of the leaders of the trade unions themselves have it at times, and it is one with which everyone may be touched in a crisis such as a war or a strike. But it is not anyone's habitual attitude; assumed too consistently and too long it may become a posture which is cramping and even inhuman. At any rate, the intellectual who has a romantic picture of the labor movement should remember that the rank and file of those who compose it approach it from a different ground and with a somewhat different purpose. To a manual wage-earner the movement may be a spectacle, a drama, but it is also something more immediate and intimate. It is likely to be presently embodied in a trade-union. This union may have won his allegiance on the plea of high aims and brotherly principles, ​but it may also have kept his membership because it has proved itself capable of raising his wages twenty-five cents a day or shortening his working week from fifty-two to forty-eight hours. He may have joined it just as many business men join a prosperous church—because it contains most of the prominent workmen of his trade and is able to lead him to a job. It may mean to him the sort of vested interest represented to many others by an insurance company. The officials of the union may be idealists, but they may be practical men as well, who think not merely about the ultimate interests of the rank and file who elect them, but also about the amount and regularity of their salaries, and hence about the conservative type of policy which will insure a continual flow of "per capita" into the union treasuries.
To a common or carnal mind such motives and details appear proper and reasonable, the essential texture of any large fabric, but to a man looking for a marching army of sacrifice, which is on its way to create a new heaven and a new earth, they often seem so petty as to be nearly criminal. The intellectual who actually works with the labor movement is a bit inclined to scoff at the unions' emphasis on more wages and hours. He may oppose insurance funds and similar projects on the very ground that they are likely to lead to conservative policies. He may think every great strike is "the" revolution, and may be bitterly disappointed when it is compromised on the basis of half the gains which he thinks it might have won. He watches the indomitable expression of resolution in the speeches, followed by a weakening of the rank and file and the temporary satisfaction with small victories. He may discover scattered instances of graft and other dishonesty. He sees what looks like ingratitude on the part of the crowd, their susceptibility to meaningless factional struggles, their supineness in the face of intolerable outrages, their unwillingness or inability to think, their ​failure to support causes which might help them. And in the end he is likely to become as discouraged as in the beginning he was ardorous. Disillusionment and bitterness set in; he cannot find a way to be useful, the labor movement is slow and tortuous and he will have none of it. At the same time he may find himself incapable of making even the sacrifice involved in living from year to year on the same income as the average skilled wage-earner, to say nothing of losing his liberty and life in the Cause.
WHAT LABOR SOMETIMES EXPECTS OF THE INTELLECTUAL.
Naive members and officers of the unions sometimes have as exaggerated expectations of the intellectual as he has of them. Here is an educated man come to help them. He has been to college and hence knows everything. He knows what is the matter with the world. Give him power and he can do away in a jiffy with poverty and oppression. He has written for a newspaper, and so he can see that the newspapers at last print the workers' side of the case in full. His influential friends can bring pressure to bear on the employer and make him reasonable. They can contribute enormous sums of money for relief funds and benefits.
No intellectual can do these things, most intellectuals cannot do any part of one of them. Here is disillusionment also. ​Through long and bitter experience many trade unionists have sworn off from "brain-workers." Three-quarters of the people who come from other economic classes to help them have their own axes to grind. The other quarter are ineffectual fools. They lead the rank and file off on impractical wild-goose chases. They spoil union discipline and create dissension. Their attitude is intolerably patronizing. They find comfortable berths for themselves and then from their security preach to the wage-earner with a wife and family on the necessity of sacrificing all in warfare against the established order. Labor can fight its own battles without these college upstarts.
When one considers the situation, it is easy to understand the rift which often appears between the intellectuals and the labor movement.
Numerous intellectuals who have read this pamphlet complain that the preceding sections underestimate the role of the intellectual and his high purpose, and are likely to dampen the fine enthusiasm of youth concerning the labor movement, which is the most vital and significant current in the modern world. One suggests that I should use Barbusse's definition of the intellectual—one who deals in ideas. Another says that I should string through the matter a red thread of hope and courage.
It is significant to me that no trade unionist who has read the pamphlet expresses such an opinion. The tone of this introduction has been deliberately unflattering, since one of its objects is to discourage an inflated and surface enthusiasm which usually wreaks as much harm as it does good. Unless the inner spirit of a man is robust enough to bear such a matter-of-fact analysis, his courage and enthusiasm certainly will not endure through an experience of the reality. I am confident that a deep fire of conviction can and must be capable of a straight look at the facts and will be willing to prove itself in the unromantic drudgery necessary to accomplishment. There is no discouragement for those who have such a spirit in what I have tried to say.
WHAT THE INTELLECTUAL MAY EXPECT OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT
It is not true that the high mutual expectations of the intellectual and labor are entirely unfounded. The picture which the enthusiast forms of the onward march of labor ​is not false, it is only immensely fore-shortened and romanticized. If he will but remember that workmen are people, very much like other people, and that their organizations and collective habits are institutions, very much like other institutions, he will save himself much needless chagrin. Most people are interested in petty things, most of them prefer roundabout alleys and sideshows to straight progress along the main highroad. Heroic moods are not stable. The labor movement moves, but sometimes more like a glacier than like a race-horse, sometimes more like an eddy than like a cataract. It is historic, not in the sense of a carefully directed pageant, but in the sense of a highly varied and slow migration. Its institutions are just as liable to encrusted bureaucracy, to cautious protection of their vested interests, as are other institutions. They have, to be sure, merits of their own, but they are not the type of an ideal world. The fact that unions are concerned about wages and hours, about political factions, that they progress haltingly and clumsily, does not mean that the high-sounding manifestoes and programs are nothing but so much political bunkum. It means merely that like all words of man, they are too small and clipped to encompass more than the general direction and the finer spirit of the reality.
There is one aspect of the labor movement, moreover, which is likely to take by surprise the intellectual who is unfamiliar with it. He will probably be unprepared for the intricacy and difficulty of its daily functions, or for the technical skill demanded of its practical leaders. Seen closely, it is not chiefly an affair of meetings, strikes and speeches. A successful trade union is a complex organization with a highly developed government of its own, dealing with the life of industry in a hundred details. Its officials have an accumulated experience in organizing methods, in negotiating with employers, in the conduct of industrial warfare when that is necessary, in the administration of the affairs of large bodies of men; which places them on a level of practical intelligence at least as high as that of the average business man. The officialdom of the labor movement may, like most other officialdoms, be unduly conservative. It may for a time follow policies which prove mistaken in the long run. It may have much to learn about the conduct of its own business. All these faults are characteristic of almost any group of ​executives. Yet a person who is unfamilar with the concrete machinery of trade-unionism, who has not wrestled with its problems at close range, and who has not understood the heavy responsibilities which rest upon the shoulders of a trade-union leader, is as venturesome in attempting to advise unionists about matters of policy as a raw college graduate would be in criticizing the technical aspects of management in a great industrial enterprise. No one who has not received a thorough education in the labor movement is fitted to assume any of the functions of technical trade union leadership. Any "intellectual" who attempts to do so is likely to meet with a warranted rebuff. If his talent for speaking or writing should gain him support in a section of the movement which is not itself experienced and has not developed its own leaders, he is likely soon to succumb to disaster, together with those who have followed him.
The intellectual, then, may expect of the labor movement a real significance in spite of all disappointments, and he may also expect of it, as of all significant institutions rooted in history, a tough fabric of custom and behavior to which the only fruitful approach is one of inquiring respect.
WHAT THE LABOR MOVEMENT OUGHT TO EXPECT OF THE INTELLECTUAL
The trade union movement may help the sympathetic intellectual to fulfill his true function by abandoning a wholly negative attitude toward him. It ought to cease holding exaggerated expectation of his ability. It may be compelled to discourage his ill considered attempts at interference. But it ought also positively to make clear that in certain respects the intellectual may be of distinct assistance.
When a unionist wants plumbing or carpentry done, he goes to a plumber or carpenter, not to an official of his own union. He recognizes that the man who has a trade, whose skill is dependent on an apprenticeship in his craft, is the ​man to be employed on a job in that trade or craft. To a limited extent he follows the same policy with regard to professional men. He visits a doctor when he is sick; he does not argue that the art of doctoring is the perquisite of a manual worker. When unions become involved in litigation, they naturally employ lawyers. But only recently has it occurred to union officials that when they are faced by difficult economic or industrial problems—as they are constantly, owing to the very nature of a union's activity—, when they have controversies with employers in arbitration proceedings or in the open arena, they might go to an economist or an engineer for technical counsel or representation.
The fact that they have not done so before is not the fault of the unions, but of the social scientists and technicians. Economics in the past has not been so much a science derived inductively from observed facts, developing principles on which an art of effective action may be based, as it has been a body of dogmatic doctrine serving the prejudices of one group or another in society. Engineers have usually been merely the instruments of employers in getting more work for less wages out of their employees. But unions have an opportunity to demand a useful science of economics, and a socially-minded and serviceable group of engineers. There are numerous other professions, the members of which are now chiefly employed by corporation and business executives, but which might be equally useful to labor. There are, of course, the newspaper and magazine writers and editors. There are the accountants, who can audit union books and set union records straight to much better effect than volunteer committees. There are the experts in preventive medicine and industrial hygiene, the architects, town planners who might design cooperative housing developments, the psychologists and the students of social and political science who might, if they had explored their own subjects sufficiently, give much aid in the development of social and political strategy. In fact, there is hardly a branch of science or technology which might not in the long run be made useful to any movement of such inclusive nature and large aims as the labor movement.
In the fields of trained technical assistance labor ought to expect much of the intellectual, and by expecting much it will help the sympathetic intellectual to educate himself ​properly to render a genuine professional service. The intellectual can better aid the union by doing his own job well for the union than by trying to do the union’s job for it.
THE INTELLECTUAL AND THE RANK AND FILE
Here again I must record dissent on the part of a number of intellectuals. The best way to understand the labor movement and to help it, they say, is first to become a manual worker and to join a union as a member of the rank and file.
A small number of intellectuals have done this with great profit to themselves and have subsequently been able to interpret labor's attitude with much more sympathy than they could otherwise have done. Manual labor is salutary for anybody, whether he is to work with the labor movement or not; and any intellectual worker will derive benefit from an occasional vacation from his desk and typewriter. As a preparation for professional service this course has much to recommend it.
​I am doubtful, however, whether any but the most exceptional individual should aspire to officialdom and leadership in the labor movement itself by this route. After all is said and done, a man with a totally different background and training cannot easily make himself over into a true representative of the rank and file by a few years in a shop or mine. He is more likely to be the college man posing as the labor leader than the authentic spokesman.
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
In a large sense and in the long run all professions and sciences benefit the community as a whole, and whatever benefits the community benefits labor, which forms such a large part of the community. In this sense there is an almost unlimited scope for service in the professions by those who are sympathetic with the labor movement. Certainly nobody is fitted to undertake important work in any social service unless he does understand the labor movement, and unless he participates to a high degree in its aspirations.
Nevertheless, the opportunity for direct professional connection with labor organizations themselves is not at present wide. Trade unions are still, and necessarily, organizations which must use collective economic power or the threat of it frequently in order to protect their elementary rights and interests, since they are not yet recognized as essential parts of the body politic either by public officials in general or by certain large groups of bankers and employers. The funds of-some labor organizations are ample, but the number of strong unions is small indeed compared with the number of successful business firms. Technicians and professional men have not yet gone far in adapting their knowledge to the use of unions under these conditions. Promising beginnings have been made, and both sides are rapidly learning how to make such contacts fruitful, but the total number of labor technicians is still small, and a comparatively few persons can do not the work which should be done, but the work which it is now practicable to undertake. These persons must be peculiarly suited to their calling in order to be happy and successful in it. While there are intensely interesting and useful positions open for such exceptional individuals, the great majority of those interested in the labor movement will have to be content with some secondary connection. Among the present professional opportunities to cooperate with the ​labor movement, including those which demand merely part-time work, may be listed the following:
Economic and engineering research and counsel,
Publicity and editorial work,
Accountancy,
Labor law and bill drafting,
Labor banking,
Work in the cooperative movement,
Teaching in labor classes and schools,
Labor health work.
Work like economic research, law and accountancy can only be done through professional connection with unions; some of the other occupations, such as teaching or lecturing may be done through extra-official agencies for labor education which have sprung up in various important centers.
In any such work, the intellectual will do well to adhere to certain practical maxims of action, He must, of course, have a broad understanding of the movement and a large amount of sympathy with its aims. But he should not for a moment make the mistake of assuming, as a professional man, any of the duties or responsibilities of labor leadership. The ​political functions belong with the elected officials. They are the ones to assume responsibility for policies, they are the ones to take action. The technician's business is to arrange and interpret facts, to give advice, to practice his own profession. He can, in doing so, accept as much, but no more responsibility than a professional man would. accept in working for a corporation. So far as his science is concerned, his duty is complete scientific detachment.
Another desirable aspect of the relationship between labor and the technician is that the latter should be adequately paid for his services. There is nothing labor dislikes more than philanthropy. There is nobody whom the union official despises more in his heart than the "parlor socialist" who is so anxious to help that he will do so for nothing, and whose help is so valueless that it is not worth paying for. Fair professional fees symbolize a sound relationship between the union and the technician—they establish the fact that the technician is there to serve, not to patronize, the union, and thus have a salutary effect on both parties. This does not mean, of course, that unions can or should pay the large salaries and fees that may be earned by professional men from private businesses. Technicians who work with the labor movement must often do so at a considerable financial sacrifice. But it does mean that the technical and professional functions of the labor movement can operate in health, and can grow as they should, only if labor pays the technicians wages commensurate with their skill and training.
In the beginning the value of technical services has often been demonstrated by free service, and due recognition should ​be given to the pioneers who have given their energies in this way.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR VOLUNTEER WORK
But what is an intellectual to do if he is not one of those fortunate individuals who are fitted to serve the labor movement professionally and who find opportunities to do so?
If he is a teacher, an actor, or a journalist, he may join the union of his own trade and work through that; if there is no local in his town, he may organize one. This is a heroic and thankless enough task for anyone. Doubtless there are few of the professions which might not have organizations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, if their rank and file were sufficiently active and intelligent. Here is a thoroughfare waiting to be built by volunteers and pioneers, through which the intellectuals may join the labor movement en masse. The subject, however, is such a large one that it cannot be adequately discussed outside a special pamphlet.
In politics, too, there is ample room for unpaid activity. Even the established and business-like Republican and ​Democratic Parties keep large numbers of volunteer workers busy. If one is a Socialist or a Farmer-Laborite, or a Non-Partisan Leaguer, he may find this work in abundance in many sections of the country, and as labor becomes more active in politics such opportunities will increase. There is great need, in labor politics, for newspaper and publicity men, for organizers, for canvassers, for lawyers, speakers, and general utility men and women who can be generous with their time. Here again, however, the intellectual should be careful not to lead away from labor, as embodied either in the official or the rank and file. Ultimately, when a better common ground, and more understanding and trust have been built between the intellectual and the labor movement, there is a possibility here for leadership as well. It is noteworthy that in every country where labor has assumed a substantial political power, many of the political leaders are professional men. Such leaders are found in no one wing of the movement. They extend all the way from Lenin in Russia, through Longuet in France and Ramsay MacDonald in England, to such a conservative Socialist as Sidney Webb. In politics the intellectual has a peculiar opportunity to cooperate with the labor movement and even to lead. We in America must remember, however, that no number of intellectuals can form a labor political movement or even lead it by themselves. Labor itself must first go into politics.
EDUCATION FOR THE INTELLECTUAL
Whether one is to work actively for the labor movement, or is merely to be connected with it in sympathy and by indirect contact, a sound educational basis is indispensable. Those still in college who are interested in the matter have an enviable opportunity to prepare themselves for assisting the new world to come into being, or for understanding the process.
It is, first of all, necessary to understand the method of experimental science. One of the greatest tasks of the next few generations is to give to the human sciences something of the same certainty, something of the same possibility of accumulating tested knowledge, that has marked the natural sciences since their new start made, let us say, by Francis Bacon's "Novum Organum." On this account a knowledge of the methods of the natural sciences, preferably biology, ​is useful. Geology, economic geography and anthropology will add perspective to the scientific outlook.
History, taught not as a succession of dynasties and dates, but as a development of social and economic forces and institutions, would be of extraordinary help.
Next, a knowledge of psychology, and especially of social psychology, is essential to a solution of many of the most vexed economic problems. Sound experimental psychology is still in its early stages, but a survey of this field should be profitable.
With such a background it will be safe to approach economics. Academic economics, as it has been taught in the past and is still taught in many colleges, is little but an aggregation of dogmas and unsubstantial hypotheses, based upon prejudice, interest, or the experience of a vanished economic order. But a background of experimental science and psychology will enable the student to apply the proper criticism to this old economic mythology, and to welcome the new method of modern economists, who refuse to draw conclusions as to unalterable "economic law" without adequate quantitative measurement of phenomena.
Combined with such correctives, the study of "sociology" or the "science of society" is not likely to prove harmful, though it is yet in an extremely primitive stage, and should not for the most part be accepted as established truth. Taught by an able and open-minded man, it will be stimulating.
Mathematics is essential to.an understanding of anything beyond elementary statistics which is an indispensable tool in any scientific inquiry.
Such a basis as the preceding is desirable on which to build concrete professional training, whether in engineering, journalism, accountancy, law, or applied economics, especially if the profession is to be practiced in the interests of labor. It is not meant to be inclusive, or to underestimate.the value of such subjects as literature or philosophy.
The history and present status of the labor movement may be studied in some colleges, that part of it which can be ​absorbed from books may easily be acquired by reading in or out of college.
FINALLY
In conclusion it may be remembered that from any point of view the task of the intellectual—in the sense here defined—is mainly to discover truth and spread its understanding and application to human affairs. There are few problems more important to the modern community than those associated with industry and labor. Whether the intellectual has any close contacts with the labor movement or not, the opportunity always is before him to understand it as well as possible, and to spread that understanding in whatever society he happens to move. A scientific and broad approach to the struggles of labor, if it can be made to permeate those classes of the community who are usually fed with calculated misinformation and actuated by heated prejudice in the presence of strikes and other labor troubles, will do much to make possible intelligent progress toward a solution of the gravest of modern problems. As an outpost of intelligence, of good will, of enlightenment, the intellectual can render an invisible but a difficult and highly useful service. It is here, perhaps, that the majority of intellectuals with an interest in the labor movement will find their true function.
Those who do have an opportunity to work directly in the movement, will find it, in spite of all possible discouragement and disillusionment, at least as interesting and satisfactory as the usual professional or business career. It does not offer so large material rewards to the exceptionally successful, but the average worker is able to make a living init. He will gain besides an immense comfort from the knowledge that his work has a significance beyond the next meal and the next night's lodging.
* ↑ Miss Fannia M. Cohn, one of the vice-presidents of the International Ladies Garment Workers, and secretary of its Educational Department, emphasizes this contention of the author's, "Even those members of a union who are idealistically inclined will drop out if they do not see results. Although, to my mind, a trade union has a great and idealistic mission to perform, it must on the journey towards its ultimate aim solve many of the workers' problems. These though seemingly small, are very important for the preservation, solidarity and success of the labor movement. Workers will fight the most bitter and important strikes with great enthusiasm and sacrifice. But if the strike is lost and they have no longer any hope of getting improvements through their collective efforts, they drop out of the union."
* ↑ Commenting on the manner in which many intellectuals approach the labor movement. Cedric Long, graduate of Union Theological Seminary, a former organizer for the Amalgamated Textile Workers says: "Many young men and women have thrown themselves directly into the labor movement. Some of these have been animated chiefly by the scientific spirit; they have hoboed through the harvest fields and mining districts, worked in the ranks of unskilled labor in factory and mill,—trying to get the 'feel' of life and toil and union activities as the workers at the bottom find them. Others more emotionally sensitive to the injustices in our industrial order, repelled by the callousness and unconscious cruelty of the classes with which they are habitually associated, find themselves driven to cut loose and throw in their lot with the oppressed classes in society. A third group, mere adventurers, join the labor forces in search of new sensations or personal power. "No man or woman should lightly make such a leap as this. Young people easily interpret a love of romance as 'social passion' or the 'scientific spirit'. The labor movement has nothing to give such people, nor can they give anything to the labor movement. However, many genuine leaders in various social and economic movements have first 'found themselves' by making such a plunge as this. Other men and women will get their start in a life of genuine service in the same manner. "There are a few 'No Trespass' signs that such people must rigidly observe. Don't take another man's job, either in time of strike or when there are more men than jobs on the market; and do not accept wages that are below the standard wage for that particular class of work. Don't aspire to leadership in a union. When the toil among the rank and file of workers begins to grow monotonous and you feel you are 'fitted for greater spheres of usefulness', it is time to move on to another job or get back into the ranks of the intellectuals. Don't harbor the conviction that you are of great service to the labor movement. You are probably more of a drag than a help; you are merely getting the education which an impossible educational system denied you."
* ↑ "I believe," declares Bruno Lasker of The Survey, commenting on this passage, "that Mr. Soule's statement might, with advantage, be much more emphatic, The time has passed when the American labor movement could hope to make rapid strides on a narrow class basis. Without having ever been near any trade union local or a labor meeting, a socialist intellectual can contribute immensely to public education on labor problems and issues. He can sow the seeds of dissatisfaction with the present anti-social organization or lack of organization of the nation's economic processes and thereby prepare a more tolerant hearing for the representatives of labor and their constructive programs. He can set people of his natural environment thinking open-mindedly and constructively and, in so doing, he perhaps is just as useful to the labor movement as he would be in propagating definite doctrines."
* ↑ In dealing with possibilities along these lines, Powers Hapgood, a Harvard graduate, who has spent the last few years as a miner in Pennsylvania and other states, and who more recently has done effective work as an organizer for the miners in Somerset County, has the following to say: "I believe that the most important way for intellectuals to be of service to the labor movement is for them to become part of the group which they wish to help, to start life as manual workers, to take part in the affairs of their local unions, and to take their chances on being elected or appointed to administrative offices in their unions. This way, of course, applies largely to men and women who are not many years out of college and who have normal health and strength. "It is true that men and women who have not risen from the ranks are in most unions neither eligible to handle nor capable of handling such important affairs of the unions as the formation of new policies, the making of contracts with employers, the managing of strikes, or the extension of the jurisdiction of the unions to unorganized fields. This does not mean, however, that college graduates are incapable of managing the basic functions of trade unionism if they go through the same training—though of less duration—as do all union officials. When once they rise to a position of leadership, they can be far more effective in the administration of their unions than if they performed professional services alone. Investigations, the preparation of briefs and statistics for arbitration cases, publicity and other services which intellectuals now render to the labor movement are important and necessary. Those trained along these lines can, however, function far more effectively as union officials, or at least as members of the rank and file of the labor movement, than if they did specific pieces of work as outsiders. They would also be more influential than the isolated intellectual in his advocacy of nationalization, consolidating the power of the A. F. of L., etc. "A few years spent as a manual laborer in a mine, mill or factory is in no way wasted, In the first place, the experience of earning a living in industry. and the opportunity which life like this gives for the understanding of human beings is the best kind of a post-graduate course. In the second place, and more important, it is from the rank and file of labor that progressive union policy most often comes. One or two active members of the rank and file of a local union, expressing their opinions at meetings or as delegates debating on the floor of district or national conventions, can do an immense amount of good, unappreciated it is true, but still worth while. And who can be more influential in arousing interest in workers' education, cooperative stores, labor papers, than active men working at their trades? The opportunity is there. Any man or woman with normal health can find a job after a little searching in mine, mill or factory and can serve the labor movement from the inside in many ways. Let him do his job, not worrying about 'leadership' and he will find plenty of things worth while doing."
* ↑ "The technique of administration has been worked out to a high degree by some of our corporations and in the British civil service, for example. I am deeply impressed not only by the need of union officials acquiring some of this technique, but also by the possibility of expert service being rendered them along this line. Some day the Labor Bureau will have such technicians as well as accountants on its staff."—A. J. Muste.
* ↑ Referring to the spirit with which the intellectual should enter the field of workers' education, Dr. H. W. L. Dana, one of the founders of the Boston Trade Union College, writes: "The college graduate who wants to enter that field must go not in the spirit of a 'condescending saviour', but of one who puts himself at the service of the movement saying 'Here am I, use me'. He must not expect to direct the policies of the labor college where he is teaching. The officers and the majority of the board of control, I feel, should be appointed by the trade unions, though teachers should be represented on the board and the educational suggestions which they have to make should carry weight through their power to convince the other members of the board."
* ↑ For a fuller description of these opportunities, see Appendix. Bruno Lasker states that "Perhaps one of the most valuable gifts the young intellectual might bring to the labor movement is friendship between individuals, fellowship among students and workers in which neither assumes a patronizing or a particularly self-abasing attitude."
* ↑ James H. Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, thus reinforces the author's point of view: "The intellectuals are not only welcome but needed. There are many things that they are better equipped to do than even the great majority of labor officials. Educators for our labor schools, research work, newspaper work, cooperative work, labor banking, credit unions, law, accounting, etc. When once they find their proper niche, the labor movement is bound to go forward not only more swiftly, but stronger and smoother. In the past, the great handicap of many has been that, because of their special training as college men and women, they aspired to leadership, instead of taking their places with the rank and file and leaving their worth to the movement to determine their rank." Mr. Lasker feels that the warning against the assumption of political leadership by the intellectual requires a slight modificaion, "Often the local leadership of an educated man who perhaps belongs to the trade union membership of the city or town as the representative of an insignificant little union of intellectuals," writes Mr. Lasker, "may be very valuable indeed. Thus officers of the teachers' union or (in England) of the clerks and shop assistants or of newspaper employees have assumed, or rather have been given through the recognition of their gifts by the organized workers, a leadership to which the importance of their union in itself would not entitle them. In other cases, the legal representatives of a union have, rightly, become the interpreters of the union’s policies beyound their professional duties."
* ↑ "I am in hearty agreement with the author about leaving the 'political' work of the unions to union officials (the determination of policies, etc.)," writes Mr. Muste, who, leaving the ministry, became secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Textile Workers. "My experience and observation lead me to think, however, that some intellectuals can find places for themselves as union organizers. I know a number who have done good work in this line. It is a terrifically hard, straining job. As a rule, one who wants to try to make a place for himself or herself in this field should actually work in some industrial establishment and serve as a plain member of a union for some time."
* ↑ Robert W. Brure of. the Bureau of Industrial Research, while agreeing fundamentally and in the "long run" with the author's contention that the healthy relationship between the trade unions and the technicians is that the latter should be adequately paid, seems to give a somewhat larger place than does Mr. Soule to the pioneers in various lines who have contributed their services to labor without charge. He says: "The growing interest and faith in the technicians among the workers, as among the rank and file of the common people, is, to a considerable extent, due to the social workers,—including doctors, nurses, housing experts, etc.—who were able, during the pioneer period, to serve without pay. The unpaid services of technicians in public departments—teachers, factory inspectors, compensation experts, doctors, nurses, accountants—as well as the employees of privately supported social agencies, etc., come within this category, "An intellectual who has no bottom of his own to stand on, even in relation to the labor movement, except the professional fee, is likely to acquire at best the status of the paid attorney rather than that of the competent physician, to say nothing of the ‘detached’ scientist. To what extent is the present strength of the British Labor Movement, e. g., due to the Fabian's respect for their own independent status in the labor movement? Isn't excessive humility a kind of introverted romanticism?" "Whole areas of the necessary work to be done by intellectuals for and with labor," writes Heber Blankenhorn, "are nowhere near being recognize by labor as worth paying for or by intellectuals as worth doing. Does labor pay for all the civil liberties defenders, writers, researchers, etc., whose work mainly benefits labor, where that work is at all worth while?"
* ↑ For a partial list of such unions, see Appendix. Mr. Muste deals with the possible value of a public school teacher as follows: "Emphasis might be placed on the fact that teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools should be able, as labor gains in importance and recognition to render increasing service, negatively, by not communicating an anti-labor attitude to growing children, as is now often done; positively, by presenting accurately some of the facts about the workers and their movement, even though extreme care may need to be taken not to seem to create a pro-labor attitude. Moreover, there are bound to come into existence an increasing number of towns or districts where the industrial worker comes to control the school administration, and where teachers who comprehend him and his needs, can be of considerable service to his children."
* ↑ Dr. Harry Dana believes that another help to the student would be the study of literature "taught not as the culture of the leisure classes, but as the expression of social ideals. The workers are not merely economic factors but also imaginative beings, and the intellectual who would help them should know the development of the ideas that stir them as they have been voiced in literature."
* ↑ H. S. Raushenbush, Amherst graduate, investigator in anthracite mining district, supplements Mr. Soule's statement as follows: "The author omits what seems to me to be essential. I think the intricate job a labor leader has should lead to the conclusion that the intellectual should go through the same process, i.e., work in the industry for a year or two—preferably immediately after college—not only to get the common touch and to strengthen his decision about staying in that kind of work, but mainly to give him self-assurance and the necessary technical knowledge."