The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1901-06-22
FUTURE OF LABOR.

On the whole the month of May
passed without any serious differences
between labor and employers. Business
continuing fairly good the conditions
were not such as to produce those bitter
struggles which punctuate the process
of industrial evolution. While the great
manufacturing industries and the rail-
ways are steadily consolidating and cen
tralizing, labor is pursuing the same
course by means of organization into
unions, and should another period Of
depression and conflict arrive, the issues
will be fought on a scale unknown in
the past. With certain noteworthy ex-
ceptions, however, it is seen that the
sections of labor which are best organ
lied are those trades which deal with
the public as individuals rather than
those which earn a wage in the manu-
featuring industries. In the works Of
some of the powerful trusts there is
little or no tract of labor organization,
and there the stress of hard times will
first strike the worker.
There are other new and tremendous
problems shaping themselves in this
country besides those involved in the
Interpretation Of the constitution as ap-
piled to 1.-The colonies" Sweeping wage
reductions ordered by hundred million
or characterization dollar trusts, or By
railway systems extending from ocean
to ocean, will meet with the opposition
OF labor organizations, larger, stronger,
more cohesive and better generated
than ever before existed. The test Of
strength will be titanic.
Averaging the world over the wage
level has been rising for many years.
The tendency of the employing trust IN
country of high wages, is to import
labor from country of low wages, and
the tendency Of the imported laborer is
to increase his demands as soon as he
adapts himself to his new conditions
finds that he is working for less than
the wage received by those about him.
and discerns the benefit Of the union.
The big trusts which control the bulk
OF American manufactured goods are
not going to rest content with this con-
tinent, nor are American-made goods
going to wipe out the manufacturers
Of other countries. The foreign manu-
AssSS~ASAs 0pu44Cu w AHlCIlCdl1 COIQpNL1.
ton, will improve his wares and lower
his prices by adopting machinery and
methods modelled on American machin-
cry and methods. Then will follow the
birth of the international trust, en-
bracing the civilized world in it's scope,
and confronted by labor unions also
world wide in their scope. The inter-
national union may not be so we'll or
ganized as the International trust, nor
may 1t have so fat a treasury. The un-
lon, composed of workers.. contains
more units than the trust composed Of
employers, and is more likely to be
weakened by distrust, jealousy and the
smaller individual interest Of the men,
; bers in standing together.
But the union Is and must remain, in
an increasing ratio, the hope Of labor.
The trusts are increasing In size and
are likely to continue to increase until
at least some of them will, as we have
said, become international in character,
and the union, whatever its defects, in
that day alone will stand between the
worker and condition of servitude.
A realization of these facts and just
fear that the union will not be able to
cope with the trust is the inspiring
cause Of those movements for a radI-
cal change In the social organization
which may yet turn the course Of evo-
luton into new channels before the
conditions outlined above have come
to pass. For the immediate future,
however, the opposing forces in the
world arena are the Industrial trust
and the labor union.-Colorado Springs
Gazette.