The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1906-03-06
LABOR COMBINATION
A CONCRETE HISTORY OF TRADES
UNlONlSM.

Movement Was horn with the EstaIl-
Ifshment OF the Factory system.
Great Work OF Francis Place, an
English Tailor.
Carleton II. Parker Of the University
Of California in recent address In
San Francisco on Trades Unionism'
said in substance:
The earliest movement toward union
among workers came when these hand
laborers were deprived OF any hope of
class advancement and OF passing up
into tho sphere Of the small capitalist.
The fact became impressed upon the
early tuIlors and wooden workers when
their tools, the cloth OF their trade
and the furs for court garments. had
become too expensive to make owner
ship Of them possible to craftsmen.
This fact Of limitation turned mems
thoughts to contemplation OF how they
could improve this new "laborers'
sphere to which they saw themselves
forever bound
The early degradation Of labor did
not turn men to combination. The
movement in its full strength was born
when the factory system, with fits
many men in one mill. using a common
power and under a common director OF
employer, displaced the old domestic
system, when each wooden or shoe
worker lived In his own cottage and
used his own tools. Unionism came
FIRST from a prosperous, well paid skill
ed labor and during period Of great
Industrial prosperity, but this farsee-
ing class realized that they were a
class and that their happiness was
bound up in the prosperity Of this
class.
A curious demand from the employ
ers Of that period was for the entire
aud respectful submission Of the work.
ers. The laws relating 10 their mutual
Interests were styled masters and
servants acts and the wording was
Characteristic of their attitude. A
workers welfare was well guarded.
maintained by the kind interest of the
king and the dominant class" His
right to organize, let alone be heard Of
felt, was beyond their imagination. So
when the early tailors and cotton and
wool workers uniouized and objected
to the hideous, degraded state Of labor
in the factory classes the employers
hurried a bill through parliament which
made Il criminal for workmen TO meet
together, act together or subscribe to-
gether This was the "anticombination
law OF 1909. It was followed by the
infamous six acts" under which q
workman's house could be searched
without warrant and ordinary social
public gatherings were voted criminal.
A more concrete illustration of the
entire lack OF sympathy, regard or jus
tice Of one class for another under
democratic institutions does not exist
The result OF these laws was oppres-
sion. unjust arrests and brutal punish.
ment, which but for written records
would be Impossible Of belief. The
spirit and material existence of unions
were maintained under this bitter hos
tIllty only through the devotion and
courage OF certain highly skilled trades
unions In London.
Fortunately at this dark hour ap-
peared the man for the work OF re
demptIon. and In Francis Place, a.
small master tailor Of London. the
worknen found a savior and the self
ish. commercial mad middle class Of
England an opponent not baked by in
justice, though 1t be backed by parlia-
ment and the crown.
Through a generation the quiet. mas.
terful mind in the tailor agltated,
schemed, educated and wire pulled
With Joseph Hume In parliament and
John McCulloch, with his powerful pa
per. the Scotsman. the people Of Eng.
land were prepared, and in 1924, by
use Of packed and convinced com
mittee and their report Place railroad
ed through the houses a bill repeating
the differentiation laws and enamel
pating labor. Then unionism, free and
legal, swept England from the channel
to the Clyde.
The repeal marks the coming OF the
laborer into his own, and now his
needs and reforms, neglected for centu.
rles by the classes claiming beneyo-
lence and national Interest for their
watcllword, were at last intrusted to
the one power who knows their char
acter and is interested 10 their fulfill
ment-the laborer himself.-Labor I'm
ion.