The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1901-09-07
CAPITALISM RERUKED.

~ x
EiaE IS -.--..fst
Schwab, the kind they used to keep
the; delicate machinery Of the billion
ming smoothly, stopped drawing his
enormous salary long enough recently
to appear before tho United States in-s
dustrial commission, where he said a
few things. ....... -. ..2
II he had simply talked about the In.
side workings OF the trust and Incl
deptaly told how some day 1t will skin
the dear public-the innocent stock
holders-he would have appeared to
better advantage. But this was not
what Mr.. Schwab appeared before the.
commission for. The trust and its
representatives do not talk in public
about the trust or it's workings. How
ever. Schwab, being a noted parsonage
and as much in the public eye as the
trusts hands are in the pockets Of the
people. was supposed to say something,
and while he tried his best to talk and
say nothing he finally wandered into
discussion of trade unions and prompt
ly said they were bad things for the
working classes.
Schwab is a. huge believer in the or
ganization OF capital in the shape of
trusts, for the benefit of the few, but
thinks. or at least said under oath,
that he did not believe in the combin-
alton OF the worker in trade unions
for the purpose of protecting and ad-
vancing the best interests of the work.
ers. And the reasons-such reasons
advanced for this non-belief in unions
should make a schoolboy blush. Mr..
Schwab. the beneficiary of the capital
lists combination or trust, says he does
not believe in unions of the hired man
because they keep the workers from
raising up to the president of the
trust" Just think of it; the old
Sunday school story that they tell to
little children: that If they will be
good little boys some day they will
grow up and be president of the
United States. Once every four years
We elect president. but several good
little boys are born every minute, and
as they grow up and find that the pres
idency won't go around they learn that
the deacon was telling them fairy
tales.
Schwab was talking to grown peo-
pie and his reasons for not believing
In trade unions were the silliest rot
ever advanced by man, and he dilib-
erately, lied when he stated them.
Schwab knows better. Schwab knows,
and so do the workers, that only one
union or no union-can be president,
and that only a few can raise to posi-
ton of responsibility, and that the man
of brains and push will get there, union
or no union, and that the vast majority
must do the work-the real hard, labor
1ous work. Under Mr.. Schwabs pre-
tended way of thinking we would all
be presidents and superintendent Of
D1lllOn-dOllar trusts and mules and dogs
would do the work. Schwab really did
not mean it. He, however, occasionally
talks to Sunday school children, and
perhaps he was mixed in his dates.
Possibly he deliberately said that which
he knew was untrue. Trade unions
enable the masses who do the work to
get better wages, shorten the hours of
labor, and in many other ways better
and improve their condition. They may
not be: the best thing for the greedy
trust, but they are unsurpassed by any
other agency as means to improve the
conditions of the workers. If this is not
true Mr.. Schwab would not have said
word against them. Schwab employs
labor on large scale. He thinks it
1t to his interest to have them unor-
ganized, subservient, unprotected and
completely at his mercy. He knows
that trade unions protect and advance
the best interests of the workers; that
they advance wages and make the
workers Independent, and places them
in a. position to assert and maintain
their rights, What better evidence
does anybody want to show that trade
unions are all that friends have ever
claimed for them?
The more that Schwab and such great
employers of men as he say against
trade unions the greater is the moral
certainty that they are the proper thing
and the more urgent is the necessity for
the workers to organized. We feel
grateful to Mr.. Schwab for the boost
he has given the labor movement.-By
President Perkins of the Cigarmakers'
International Union.