The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-22
Walking Delegates, and Others.

themselves to be exploited, at their own
expense, for the aggrandizement OF the
sharp-witted rogues who have gained
the ascendancy in their management.
1t is not in human nature to stand IL; and
there is as much human nature in labor
organizations as there is in any other
coalitions of men for common end.
When men quit work because they
consider their wages to be insufficient or
because they think they can, by doing so,
get higher wages, they are well within
their rights. When they quit work o.
tensibly for either of these reasons, but
really only because their leader or walk
ing delegate has not received thousand
dollars which he demanded as the price
of their remaining at work, they are fools,
They remain idle; the employer weakens
and gives in; the walking delegate gets
his thousand dollars; they return to work
and the cause of organized labor ID vindi-
Gated. They never question the pretext
upon which they have been ordered to
quit work; when the unfortunate en-
ployer tells them that the object of the
strike has been to blackmail him they do
not believe him. their faith in the walking
delegate is unshakable.
1t has been discovered that there is
money, and q great deal of money in the
faculty of ordering strikes. The power
of the labor leader is absolute and des
potic and he has found how to turn it to
account. And it is not only his power to
stop work that is profitable. There are
many other things that he can do to OPP
press and injure an employer, and he
makes it pay him to refrain from doing
those things Employers have learned
that they can enjoy great deal Of lati-
tude in the conduct of their business IL
they pay the walking delegate. They
can employ non-union hands; they can
use non-union material; they can dis
pense with the trades-union label; they
can do an infinitude of things that union
ism prohibits, but they must first pay the
walking delegate.
Does an employer desire to injure
rival employer, or to take away from him
an advantage he enjoys, or otherwise to
defeat him in the successful prosecution
of his business, he can do so by paying
the walking delegate. A strike will be
ordered and the men will go out The
walking delegate will pocket the cash and
the men will go without their wages, or,
in times of great business activity, be
sent 10 work elsewhere until the man they
have left sees the light OF reason and In
turn pays the walking delegate to have
them sent back to him.
Does the owner of patent labor
saving device of extensive use in the
trades fear an attempt to introduce a
rival device, he calls to his aid the walk
ing delegate of the trade and forthwith
insuperable difficulties attend the intro
duction and sale of that rival device.
Formerly, ignorant workmen, finding
themselves displaced by labor-saving
machinery, visited the workshop and
smashed the machines. Nowadays, the
walking delegate attends to all that The
men are displaced just the same, but
there s no destruction of property and
it is much cheaper to pay the walking
delegate. As the trustee of the interests
of labor he has something to sell, and if
the employer is not sharp enough to see
that it is to his interest to buy he will
speedily have his lesson taught him.
In seasons Of intense competition in
the building trade, or in lines Of parallel
enterprise, the contractor who can COM
plete his contract on time is at great
advantage. 1t counts for great deal to
be known as clever man who has no
trouble with his labor SO, conversely,
the stigma OF one who is always having
difficulties with his workingmen In the
soulless letting of contracts these and
like considerations are most weighty.
The walking delegate will not only hold
the wise and liberal contractor seattle less
of strikes on his own work but he will see
to it that a rival contractor has strikes
a-plenty and delays interminable. Then
again when labor, skilled labor, is scarce
and there is not enough Of it to go around
the wise contractor has strike called
on enough of his rivals work to give him
all the hands he wants.
Out of all this organized labor gets
nothing but disrepute and loss of wages
The union has to bear the odium and the
expense--not the contractor g expense,
but the loss, and 1t is often very great, of
the money that would have come in
from steady work. The contractor
loss is as great, or greater, but that
need concern no one. He is only a
capitalist,
1t has come about, however, that men
on strike, men idle because their labor
leader has ordered them to quit work
are beginning to think of all these things
and to scrutinize the reason alleged for
ordering them out. They are getting
suspicious. They see their walking
delegates getting rich, for not all the
walking delegates are shrewd and pru-
dent enough to conceal the evidence of af-
huence, and the men are becoming I'm"
easy. They will presently be in revolt. The
vast rank and file Of organized labor
is honest, Ia self respecting and must
inevitably react against imposition. 1t
will rcbel on principle, because ind-