The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-28
The Feeling Of Class.
D. JOHN d. BARRY.

~ JOHN D. BARRY.
More than year ago labor agitator made
remark that struck me highly suggestive. I'VE
are trying to train workmen out OF their SER
Witty" he said. ave want them to raspect them
selves. We have endured the contempt of the
rich long enough. We are going to teach the
rich that the people who sustain them must be
treated with respect
In my acquaintance there is an Englishman who
takes an entirely different point of view. He is
la man Of fine ability and excellent character; but
he has been brought up in the social traditions
of the old world. He frankly says that serv-
ant ought to be trained TO docile submission In
the face of arrogance from his employer he must
be impcrturbable. The servant who cannot main
tain this attitude ought not to be servant.
You see, this Englishman goes pretty far. He
thinks that servant should be as submissive
soldier.
There is famous American labor leader who,
in recent years, has fallen into disfavor, among
the laborng people. But by those who are not
laboring people and who take or less pat
ronizing interest in labor, he is still regarded
"a great fighter.
they grow bitter. The reason is very simple. His
success as labor leader has caused him to be
sought after by the other successful people of the
world Being human he has enjoyed being sue
cessful He has apparently forgotten, however,
that his strength was originally given him by his
fellow laborers. He has even forgotten that he
is laborer. He has stopped dressing like la
lober. He lives and he dresses some people
say "like a gentleman" That is, he dresses like
the other gentlemen he associates with and in
dulges in their expensive habits. He has lost his
interest in laboring people as class.
In other words, this labor leader has grown
out of his class. He believes that he has become
broader But the people he used to represent, the
very people he has grown away from, take aanother
view. They believe that he has grown narrower.
At any rate, they have turned from him. In the
DRY he is still labor leader, but he is labor
leader without any followers among the laborers.
The laborers say that he has been corrupted by
capital, that he has been lured away from them,
as so many other labor leaders have been, so
many other labor leaders are destined to be.
| used to wonder why laboring people allowed
themselves, as | believed, to be prejudiced by lit
tie things. Often they would even go so far as to
express impotence with certain kinds of speech,
accepted by the cultivated people as good speech
Now / think | understand In all such things
lies in holding together, in maintaining all the
bonds that keep them together, in opposing the
slightest loosening OF these bonds.
1t a result of this feeling that ker
Hardy when he went to Parliament, insisted on
wearing the clothes of workingman. He believed
that slight change OF dress might be insidu-
ously corruptIng.
Just now there are those who bitterly accuse
some of the more earnest friends OF labor OF EAR
raging class against class" They forget that the
work long ago began among the very people who
made distinctions between the classes" and 'the
masses" who applied TO the people such terms of
disrespect as "the Populace," "the mob, the COM
mon people" and the proletariat" Long before
the distinctions formulated and emphasized
as they are now by the radicals they well
established by those who considered themselves
superior. That they should be eagerly accepted by
could hardly have been anticipated, save by those
who knew that the only hope OF the disinherited
lay in their own power and in their using It
through the cooperative effect OF class-conscous-
still hears people either openly Boosting adrot
ly intimating that they aristocrats, one hears
the friends OF labor proudly declaring that they be-
long to the proletariat.
have lately heard laboring people express re-
greet when one of their number accepted public
Office At first ] wondered why. | thought that
the securing of public office by laboring man
meant much in the way Of advantage for labor. But
aboring people know that such advantage is slight
They know, too, that the danger OF corruption
through the holding of office is great.
The power tends to draw the labor leader away
from his class into the class OF the success
full of those in possession OF the great resources.
And involved in social relations with the pos
it is hard for any labor leader to keep his
consciousness that he belongs to the dispossessed.
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