Denver labor bulletin., 1916-06-24
The Brotherhood a Trade Union
8,
President Brotherhood Ensnemen

This Brotherhood may be compared to
IA state in republic of railway unions,
maintaining almost complete autonomy
in its own affairs yet uniting with other
railway brotherhoods in matters of mu-
tual concern and in common defense. 1t
is true that these railway brotherhoods
carry the principle OF home rule to great
lengths and have acknowledged no com
mon head. and by this have invited criti-
cism from those who believe, or pretend
to believe, that only in one big union"
can railway employees hope for improved
working conditions.
Thus, we find a political problem as
old as the human race raclling the minds
of working people today, and as far from
solution as when craftsmen first erected
the temple OF King Solomon. We find in
liberty loving America a republican form
OF government in nearly all organizu-
tons OF labor, and these labor republics
bitterly attacked from without and with
in by those who see no efficiency short
OF an absolute labor monarchy-onc
great union of forces subservient to one
dictator be that man noted for his wis
dom or be he recognized n fool.
The efficiency OF democracics has al
ways been in question when the task is
the conduct of war. Discipline in the
ranks is almost unknown under true
home rule. Expense of maintaining re-
publican forms of government is always
great because of the multiplicity of
officials
And yet. are we prepared to say that
the more than half a hundred state leg
isIatures and provincial parliaments of
America are now to be closed in answer
to the minority's demand that only one
central law making body shall exist
Shall we acknowledge home rule a fail
ure? Shall we now save the salaries OF
an army of governors and other state
officials and crown some man king?
There are those, both in this organiza'
ton and out of it, who will shout an
affirmative answer to each of these
questions, but the great mass of MEM
bers who think. will say "No!"-and
say it in a manner that no one can
doubt its meaning.
While many locomotive firemen know
but little of the past. there are those
who realize that but for organization OF
locomotive firemen, devoting its every
energy to the uplift of locomotive fire
men for period of thirty years, condi-
tions now would be vastly different.
Had there been but one big union" Of
railway employees during these same
thirty years. in all probability the i'm
portance of locomotive firemen among
their fellow workers would now rank
with the apprentice or the laborer, sub
ordinates socially and industrially, for,
to paraphrase, "Worltman's inhumanity
to workman makes countless thousands
mourn"
That in union there is strength, no
one will deny, but in any confederation
pf hn n
individual rights for this collective
power. There is a point in the combin-
ing of working people in labor unions
where the loss OF individual rights is not
compensated by the increased power Of
the masses of workers.
Those who know the history of labor
realize that in the mind of each and
every man there is an exaggerated con-
sideration for his own interests; a con-
sideration not given by others, and only
when he is content to ignore those