Evening star., 1920-01-13

the immense wage-earning class in
America that is rot in any union and
is thus wholly unprotected In snort,
the masses of the unskilled, the for
eignerS, the negroes, help pay Tor the
good fortune. the high wages and the
short hours OF the .,iSaly skilled Or
ganiZed workers.
This aristocratic unionlsnl-as they
see it-this selfish attention to their
own interests. this neglect of the
masses of labor, furnishes the chief
ammunition of the socialists and the
radicals of the I. w. w. type in their
attacks upon Gompers and the Amer
lean Federation of Labor. 1t has
also given powerful impetus to those
in labor's ranks (ma1y of them social
ists) who want what they call real
labor movement and therefore recon-
mend a national labor party in Ameri-
ca. They say that the american FEEDER
alton of Labor has no genuine recon-
structive program like the British
labor movement an that 1t is con-
trolled by q kind of political ma
chine headed by Gompers. which is
mDerviouS TO new iCeaS or new meth
DDS; that it is old. rich, conserva tive
and no longer responds to the real
tSpi~a ions OF labor.
Now several recent tendencies have
served to throw more power into the
hands of the radicals. In the first
place there has been the lons-evident
drift in American industry toward the
employment of a greater proportion
Of unskilled men. Employers have
introduced machinery and divided the
tasks of labor so that each wor kman
haS so far as possible. only one simple
manipulation to learn. Modern in
dustry has stolen away the skill Of
III. craftsman. Any foreigner, no
How i"rn- ant: any negro can
quickly learn to do much Of the work
fls 81
.itstr4es. Tbs tends 10 defeat the
whole idea of the old unionism based
lpon craft skill especially as it ap-
plies to the great basic industries.
influence cs Foreign IDEAS.
Other more immediate tendencies have
developed out of the war. Since 1914
a Americans have been more inter
ested than ever before in Europe and i'll
European movements; and especially
the workers Among foreigners the
Russian revolution has had d profound
influence; among the more moderate
and thoughtful groups the program OF
the British labor party. | have found
in talking with labor men of all kinds
recently an astonishing knowledge of
these foreign movements.
Another vital influence may be noted.
This is the awakening self-consciousness
of labor to its own power, dignity, in
dispensability, which came with the war.
Labor was courted as never before,
taken into government councils as never
before, made to feel that in the future
it would enjoy greater privileges than
ever before. 1t came out of the war
feeling that it had served well, done all
that was expected of it, and was now
entitled to the promised rewards.
New and enthusiastic campaigns for
the organization of hitherto more or
less untouched industries like the pack
ing houses and the steel mills, were
begun Whole new groups of workers
began to come into the ranks of or
ganized labor-actorS. school teachers,
newspaper reporters. architects, nurses
and the wave even swept in many
groups of government or public service
employes-policemen. postmen, clerks
and the like. The most powerful and
ably led unions in the country-the rail
road brotherhoods- forward with
an ambitious plan, the Plumb plan, for
the future control OF the railroads. A
strong movement was launched for the
organization of new labor party to
carry the whole struggle into the polti-
cal field-which l shall consider in an
other article-and finally a sudden but
enthusiastic interest sprung up in de-
veiopirg wholesale and retail co-opera-
tive stores on the English system in
order to meet some of the problems of
the high cost of living
This sudden burst of new self-con-
sclousness on the part of labor, new
enthusiasm, new organization, has
been met by cold douche both from
employers and from the government
They taught us to be lions whelps
during the war" as one leader said
"and now they want US to subside
quietly into beasts of burden. We
shall never do it,
Now. the progressive and radical
groups i'll the labor movement assert
that Gompers and the \. F. of L. are