, 1922-11-14
Labor and It's Struggle.

THE ANDIN together for mutual protection,
Il offensive and defensive, is one of the first les
sons primitive man learned. With the crude weap-
one then at hand human life was rendered pre-
carious in contact with the beasts of the field and
Jungle. With the coming of tribes, clans, peoples
and nations, of the same blood and with more or
less common purposes and ideals, the lesson was
enlarged and emphasized and continued TO en-.
large as civilization spread over the earth and
the science of government was established and
anne to be recognized for the wellbeing OF the
human race.
ming a necessity for the preservation of human
life has expanded in the centuries and through the
changing attitude of the periods, to mean and in
clude much more.
Take labor as an example illustrating accom-
plishment by association. Through all the ages
labor has been the most important, the most neces-
sary of all human efforts. There would be no pres
emit day world without it and what it has done in
the past. Yet, until association and cooperation
came to invest 1t with its inherent nobility and
win for It its high place in the economic scheme
of human life, its state was but slightly removed
from serfdom- 1t has come a long way since that
day.
Organized labor, as we have come to regard
trade unions in this day, is not as many erroneous
ly believe to be, the lineal descendant of the an
cient trade guilds. They had as their aim the
procurement of conditions advantageous to the
separate industries they represented not the pro
motion of the interests of a distinct class Of wage
earners. The guilds had as their members the
masters as well as the journeymen of the crafts.
Early in the Eighteenth century and continuing
through the period known as the industrial revo-
AhhAOIs - NoBAdaAAEA ~ Aiah IAlllh
featuring on a large scale. With the advent of this
method there necessarily grew up a correlative
class of wage eaIners - persons who were direct
ly dependent upon the manufacturers for employ
ment, and very few ever became anything else but
wage workers. These wage workers working to.
gether in factories and mills, many under the same
employer, began to combine for the purpose of
protecting their common interests. This was the
beginning of trade unionism into which it has de.
veloped as organized labor of today.
in the beginning trade unions were regarded as
detrimental to the general interests of society,
in that they ~conspired to raise wages, and were
therefore amenable to the common law of coIi-
spiracy. 1t was not until 1924 that the British
parliament realized the injustice of legally pro
hibiting trades unions and repealed the most
oppressive Of the combination laws. Since that
date trades unions have been given a free hand to
unite for all purposes of mutual protection and
promotion of common interests.
In the United States trades unions we're natur-
ally much later than their establishment in Great
Britain; and the middle of the Nineteenth century
had passed before wo~rkingmcn's organizations ac-
quired sufficient Importance to attract attention.
The wide expanse of territory, differing greatly
in economic and Industrial characteristics covered
by their jurisdictions, as we'll as the difference in
the race and character of their membership, made
systematic organization exceedingly difficult and
seriously retarded the progress of trade union
ism on the American continent.
Obscurity clouds the early history of local unions
III the United States, but the Typographical So
ciety of New York is believed TO be the first In 1905
1t is now the International Typographical Union,