Omaha daily bee., 1920-02-17
By RAY STANNARD BAKER
ARTICLE XIV.

.
hensive experiment at present un-
| der way in America, in the intro
| duction of anew cooperative and
democratic relationship in indus
try.
1t has demonstrated its success in
certain factories over longer Pc
riod than any other. 1t has oper-
ated in what was for years the most
turbulent of industries, the mems
clothing trades. Here competition
among employers was bitterest and
most unscrupulous; here labor con-
ditions were the worst; here in the
ghettos and the tenement districts
of New York and Chicago extreme
radicalsm found its toughest root
age. And yet out of this condition
Of industrial anarchy has developed
reign of law, founded upon a
genuine spirit of cooperation.
No Strike in Nine Years.
In the shops of Hart Schafner &
Marx of Chicago, with 1000 work
men, since the nine-year testing out
of the new idea, lasting through the
strain of the war and through epi-
denies of labor disturbances in
neighboring clothing factories, there
has not been strike. On the other
hand, an immense improvement has
taken place, not only in the living
conditions, but in the spirit of re-
sponsible independence. in the
morale, the manhood, of the work
ers; production per man Tin that
market at 1east) has been rising,
and, finally, the employers have
been steadily prosperous. As to the
effect of the new system upon the
consuming public | shall speak later.
Passed Through Three Stages.
A plan, a system, a spirit, which
will accomplish all these results in
a time of industrial unrest is assur-
edly worth careful examination.
In order to make the present sit
uation perfectly clear, let us recall
for a moment the three stages
through which the clothing indus
try, in common with others, has
passed during recent years.
l. The period of unrestricted
competition among both employ
ers and workers. I remember well,
many years ago, studying conditions
in the garment trades. Clothing was
then made in dark holes in tene-
ments-veritable Sweat shops"-by
miserable and helpless foreigners
who were driven to long hours OF
work at Starvation wages by the un-
regulated operation of the law OF
supply and demand. The whole in
dustry had become a blind and
greedy struggle for jobs among
thousands of unskilled men. EN-
ployers were practically as helpless
as the workers; they were equally
bound upon the wheel of cut throat
competition. Any one of them who
tried to improve conditions was
speedily forced to the wall by ruth
less competitors.
Gary an Autocrat.
2. The second great stage rep
resented the effort to escape from
this hopeless condition of competi-
tive anarchy by organization. Both
sides in all branches>o American
industry began to combine, the en-
ployers in corporations, trusts, as
sociations; the workers in labor un-
ions. Where large capital was in
vested and extensive machinery was
necessary-as in the steel industry
anarchy often gave place to an
attocracy of capital, with law and
order imposed from above by a
Strong man. Judge Gary today is
such an autocrat, and the United
States Steel corporation is an ~ex-
ample of this state of development.
1t has succeeded by organizing cap
ital. and keeping the workers more
or less disorganized.
Long and Bitter Warfare.
But this development was, not
possible in the clothing industry, be-
cause an employer could get into it
with almost no capital at all. All
that was needed was a loft, few
sewing machines Cor not anyD and
an ability to attract, dominate or
browbeat labor.
But if the employers in the cloth
ing industry could not combine, the
workers could and did. There en-
sued a long and bitter warfare OF
strikes and lockouts. Unions were
broken and defeated, only to rise
and fight again. The whole indus
try was kept in a condition of chaos.
The United Garment Workers a,
one time became very powerful, but
not powerful enough to impose upon
the industry an autocracy of labor
equivalent to the autocracy of cap
ital in the steel industry. For floods
of new immigrants kept coming into
the country, bringing new labor
competition and requiring Her
culean efforts on the part Of the
unions to educate them to the need
of organization. And one of the
fundamental ideas upon which
unionism then rested-and it re.
mains today an essential weakness
of the American Federation oi
Labor-was craft organization, at q
time when craft skill and craft lines
were of steadily decreasing import
ance in many branches of industry.
In the years from about 1908 un.
til the outbreak of the Great Wal
Git was worst of all in New York
better, after 1911, in Chicago) the
conditions in the clothing industry
were all but intolerable. There were
repeated and costly strikes and lock.
outs, a constant tendency on botf
sides to avoid living up to agree.
ments, a steady decrease in produc'
ton and efficiency. Neither side wa.
strong enough to impose law ant
order in the industry. This is the
unfortunate stage in which many
great Industries in America now fine
themselves. The coal mining indus