The labor world., 1902-08-16
TRADES UNIOlNlSM

ORGANIZATION IS. NECESSARY TO
PROTECT THE WORkINGMAN.
AS Beneficial to Labor After Be-
fore Or During Strikc-Self
Seekers the Only Really Danger
Gus E1ement-Unions Are Organ
ized for 'sthe Greatest Good to
the Greatest Number.''
Following is an extract from an ad-
dress on Trades Unionism'' delivered
by Rev. Father Peter G.. Yorke Of San
Francisco
It is true that under certain condi-
tlons labor can produce everything it
Wants-that is to say, that it true in an
agricultural community. But in COM
munity such as that of today the COM
ing together of capital and labor is alb
solutely necessary for production, or,
it that be putting it too strong, it is
the common and ordinary way by
which production is accomplished. How
does a man get work today? He goes
to some man who has capital, who
can pay his wages and take the prod
uct of his labor. If you want work,
you have to go to the shops, to the
yards, to the business houses or to the
railroads. All those things represent
capital or combinations .sof labor, and
they, in conjunction with the working
man, are able either to produce that
which the consumer demands or to
carry it to his door.
Now, what are the relations. be-
tween labor and capital? That is the
great question that disturbs the in
dustrial world today. will lay it down
as fact, and a fact which you must
hold to and cling to above all other
facts, that there is some necessary
relation between labor and capital.
Just as there is a just price for a piece
of goods there must be just price
for labor. There must be a fair wage.
Unions are necessary from the fact
that wherever you have the sweet you
must always have some element Of
bitterness. suppose we had fair
share of the last named element in the
last fight that we had here between
labor and capital. There were some
people in vinegar at that time. The
trouble of it is that that bitterness re-
mains after the fight is over. There
fore there is a tendency, when the
working people have put their griev-
ance before the capitalist and espe-
cially when they have compelled the
capitalist to do the fair thing by them,
that a certain amount Of revenge, a
certain amount Of retaliation, of perse-
cution of those who have been leaders
in the industrial fight, will result If
| men are disorganized, if each man is
looking out for himself, if it is each
man save himself and the devil take
the hindmost,' you know that when
the fight is over and people go back
to work the isolated units, the men
| who are not protected by the shield Of
brotherhood, who do not belong to the
unions and who have not over them
the aegis of the union, can be fol-
! lowed up and prosecuted and run out
of town. So, if, unionism is necessary
before the battle and during the battle,
tits doubly necessary after the battle.
Above all things, the greatest in
jury, the greatest bane, the greatest
danger that threatens the future of
unionism in this country is self-seek-
ing. The union is estab blished for a Ger
tain definite purpose. 1t is established
for the common good. It is not orr
ganized for the benefit of the president
or of the secretary Of the union or of
this member or that member; it is or
ganized for the common good, for "the:
greatest good of, the greatest number, >
and the greatest number in this case
| means every member Of the union.
Therefore, if the union is used for the
benefit of any one man or of any
clique Of men, that union cannot last
| long. In the first place, it loses it's
efficiency; in the second place, it dis
appears from the surface of the earth.
And let me say that one of those
purposes for which the unions were
never created is politics. The work
| ingman has the right to belong to any
political club he pleases; he has the
! right to belong to any party or to start
a new party, but one thing he should
bear in mind and one thing the unions
| should always keep before them is that
| the union as a union shall not have a
political purpose. Let the union throw
it's weight this way or that in times
| but in the ordinary work Of the union
| and for the carrying on of it's work
politics should be entirely escheWed.
Those unions which by their constitu-
! tions keep out political discussion and
questions and keep political activity
without their ranks are the unions that
will last the longest and that will do
i! the most good.
Education is very slow process, and
| it is not rendered at all more rapid by
| some Of the other enemies which labor
has-namely, certain newspapers which
make it their business to act as lying
beacons toward the ships that pass in
the night. You remember the story
of the old wreckers, in the time when
lighthouses were few and when the
night was dark and stormy and the
ship was making her way to port
i guided by a light here and, a light
there at great distances apart. there
were certain people who made their
living from the spoils of the sea who
! would kindle beacons and plant them
! on the headlands in order that the