Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1926-04-02
Growing Domination of
Worker By Machine
Danger to Freedom
BY WILLIAM COLLINS
Organizer, American Federation of
Labor


Labor.
(From an address before State FEEDER
alton of Labor, Jackson, Mich.)
The history of man in his daily
work, tells us that the worker per-
formed the greatest and most beau
tiful work when he was a freeman.
1t also tells us that mankind rids it
self of one tyrant to simply take on
another. The most beautiful build
ingst in the world, the architects tell
us, are the cathedrals of the 18th
century. The building tradesmen and
the other tradesmen's and mechanics
guilds, like the goldsmiths and the
metal workers, built the most beau
tiful parts of those cathedrals free,
as an offering to the faith of their
Father in Heaven. Princes with all
their wealth could erect no better
part than these free workers pro-
tected by their guilds.
The Woolworth building in New
York City, considered one of the fin
est in North America is the product
of free union labor. There is no place
on a beam of 81 stories from the
sidewalk for a slave except as a choice
of death. The reason for my taking
up the time Of the delegates to this
| convention, in deyiating for a momen,
from my organization talk, is so that
you can take back to your organiza.
tons the need for earnest and consci-
| entlous work to prevent our Ameri-
can worker from becoming a slave t.
| this machine-dominate industrial age
Here in the crucible Of your great in.
dustrial plants u psychological battle
is being fought between machine
and mankind The inventive genius
of our machine age is given full scope
10 produce from its scientific magic
the medium Of transportation to cove,
the earth and scan the sky.
Whom we see the genius for stand
ardi2ation and organization so per
| tected IN our manufacturing plants
that the busy ant and bee would be
jealous of it, it should be at least civ.
en- some consideration, as to what will
| be the cumulative effect upon the
| human family of this machine -domin.
ated age, with its monotonous rou-
tine, destructive of any initiative that
the worker might have.
| This mass production, this standard
ization, this continuous speeding NJ
can only result in one ending, and thai
is that the only free worker who viii
be left in our land will be the mar
| who owns his own tools and can ust
| them.
| am not calamity bowler, | an
not one who can not see what u won
derful change the intelligent machin,
has brought into the life of the house
mold drudge and the toiler in labor
ious work. But my belief is, thai
the tendency of the present ownership
of large industrial plants is TO pas
| into the hands of speculative bankers
and investment companies, who vii
create new form of absentee owner
ship, that brings with it all the evil.
Of the bondsmen and slavery in tn,
feudal days, except these will be in
| duStrial barons, and their serfs ma
chine-dominated workers.
| The handwriting is already on tn,
wall. We have seen in the last few
weeks two great plants pass from
ownership by a single family to con
troll by Wall street bankers. Their
these bankers, determined to keeI
this new industrial kingdom for theii
own exploiting, retain 81 percent o.
the stock issue, and sell the remain
der on the stock exchange, as non
voting stock, that sewers the stocl
owners fro many responsibility as I,
how the industry is managed or tn,
dividends earned.