The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-07-26
LAB0R And CAPITAL
SAMUEL GOMPERs ON PRINCIPLES
OF UNIONISM.
Between Capitalists and Labor.
Says There Is No Conflicts Be-
tween "LabOr and Capital'' for
the Reason That the Two Are
Practically Identical.

There is no necessity to worry about
how labor and capital can be reconciled,
for they are one and the same. How
the laborers and the capitalists can be
reconciled is entirely within the scope
of proper inquiry. and to which the at
tention of both and Of all students of
economics and devotees to the social well
fare may we'll give their best thought
and attention. And it may lead to the
conclusion. despite the camor which we
occur, that there is a constant trend to-
ward agreement between the laborers
and capitalists. employed and employer,
for the uninterrupted production of
wealth, and, too, with ethical consider
alton for the common interests Of all the
people.
No body of men deplores strikes more
than do the organized workers, and one
of their chief aims is to endeavor to
reduce the number, if not to entirely
obliterate strikes: but thinking men have
no sympathy with the unqualified con-
demnation with which the dilettante in
society, the professionals, the open and
covert enemies Of the workers, denounce
them.
A strike or lockout is a disagreement
between the buyer and seller Of labor
power in order to arrive at what each
or both may determine to be a more
rational and equitable condition upon
which production and distribution shall
proceed. There has never yet been full
harmony between the buyers and sellers
Of anything in this world. When a
strike or lockout occurs, wages and pro-
duction are not destroyed; they are de-
ferred.
Since the era of modern industry there
have always been periods or seasons Of
great activity in industry, followed. by
periods Of seasons of stagnation and idle
ness.
Strikes simply defer the production
from one season to another.
Production in the aggregate Of an en-
tire year has never yet been diminished
by a strike
Organized workers seek to reduce
strikes by being the better prepared for
them.
Strikes Of unorganized or newly Or
ganized workers always arouse the great
est bitterness on both sides.
The employer who has been master of
all he surveys looks upon his employees
as servile servants, from whom the
slightest request or protest is taken to
be an attack upon his prerogative and
privilege. TO him it is dictation, which
he resents in the most autocratic fashion.
workers have always looked upon them
selves as entirely impotent, and there
fore unable to secure redress for any
wrongs which may have been inflicted
upon them. Their comparatively low
condition and sufferings have made them
desperate land when in their unity
new found power dawns upon them, the
situation is completely changed and they
regard their employers as powerless to
resist any demand land themselves as
almighty.
After the first contest both have
learned a lesson; and if the workers
maintain their organiza ton, they find
neither side possesses all the power nor
all the responsibility. They have mutu,
al respect for each other, and enter into
mutual agreements.
The best organized workers, those
who are better prepared to enter into
strikes or to resist lockouts, are those
who have least occasion to engage in
them, and yet are the greater benefici-
aries from modern civilization in the
form of higher wages, shorter hours Of
daily labor, and Sunday rest. They at
tain higher plane Of morality, econ
omic, political and social independence.
Thousands of agreements reached.
many more thousands of strikes aver
ted through organization, are lost sight
of by the sophists and superficial OBJ
servers. and strikes regarded as the
sum total, the Alhpa and Omega of the
labor movement, when, as a matter of
TACT, as already indicated, strikes are
few of the failures to agree on terms