10 Conservative *
1A1IOK UNIONS AS TKUSTS.
[ Reprinted from The Chicago Evening Post ,
June 21,189 ! ' . ]
Pardon mo ; but to this subject of
trusts do wo labor union men couio with
entirely clean hands ? Are not wo the
first and most uncompromising of com
binations ? Are there any trusts so
secure , so rigid in organization , so arbi
trary in government ? Does the glucose
or the mill steel or the oil or the sugar
or the woolen or the leather trust de
mand obedience so implicit ? Can one
of them visit punishment as condign or
take such reprisals ? And , really , after
all , have we any right to inveigh against
them when wo have set the example ?
Even if the trusts are bad things , does
it lie in our mouths to say so ?
For instance : There was a strike of
carpenters at Oak Park. Nonunion
craftsmen had taken the place of nonworking -
working union men in the completion of
a church. The church authorities had
bought certain doors at a factory , and
the nonunion carpenters were ready and
waiting to fasten the hinges and adjust
the locks. The mill men dared not de
liver the sold doors not because they
feared a failure of payment , which
should have been the only consideration ,
but because if their union-made doors
were contaminated with the touch of
nonunion hands the mill would stop.
And when the church authorities took
their doors under a writ of replevin
which the mill-owner dared not disre
gard the union men in the mill did shut
dowu the establishment. And there was
no power on earth strong enough to start
it again until they said the word.
It was not their mill. They did not
claim the remotest suggestion of interest
in it. They had no ghost of an equity
in it , no reversionary title , no shadow of
ownership. The doors did not belong
to them. The church on which those
doors were to bo fastened did not belong
to them. They had no thought of claim
ing vested rights in any of the property
affected. And yet they could stop that
factory , end its earning power , put a
period to the wages of every workman
employed and lay a ban on the churcli
itself.
That is rather more power than the
most arrogant and wealthy and far
reaching of the trusts would attempt to
exercise. That was done openly , boldly.
Its purpose was avowed , and was ac
complished precisely as had been in
tended. Furthermore , it was not a new
thing. It was in accordance with a very
well-established custom. It was one of
an innumerable multitude of suoh cases.
It finds its counterpart in scores of inci
dents every season in every city of every
state * in the union. It was the least
violent and law-defying of many strikes.
If one may complain that it illegally
interfered with an owner's right to con
trol his property ; that without warrant
it forbade workingmen to further prac
tice industry ; that it interfered with the
performance of contracts and lessened
the value of property even then the re
sponse might bo that it induced no
bloodshed ; that it involved no assaults ,
and was unaccompanied , either at the
moment or later , with riot , arson or
armed attack.
The walking delegate or committee of
the union which ordered and effected
the strike may have exercised a power
beyond that permitted to a sheriff or a
governor , or oven the general of the
army ; but he quite disarms criticism
when he points out that the usual
auxiliaries of violence were absent in
this case.
He may have done what the president
of the United States would not dare at
tempt ; what the Queen of England dare
not do ; what the Emperor of Germany
would hardly venture ; what even the
Czar of Russia would hesitate to per
form. But we must do him justice. No
red murder followed his command to
"knock off ! " No white corpse of a
nonunion man , offending with his offer
of labor to sell ; no smoking ruins of fac
tory or home ; no desolute widow and
fatherless child bear witness to the
amazing exercise of power. It was as
mild a mannered strike as ever was re
corded. Yet it stopped business and
suspended labor and lessoned incomes
and curtailed liberty.
If the president of a trust should go
to a factory not associated with him in
the combine , not affiliated with him in
any way ; one in which he had not a
penny of interest , and for the losses of
which ho could in no possible way be
held responsible if he should go to such
a factory and should command the
management to shut down , should order
out the men , should forbid labor on the
factory's output by other workmen out
side ; should compel a suspension of in
dustry on those works involving the use
of this factory's product ; if he should
do these things , enforcing his commands
with threat of violence , and presenting
power to execute the threat , he would
be called an outlaw. He would be
cursed as a tyrant. He would be
punished as a traitor to the public peace ,
and maybe mobbed as an enemy of
every American.
His known friends would be defeated
in every election. The infamy of his
authority would damn every employee.
The public servant who failed to speak
ill of him would be under suspicion.
The daring advocate defending him
would earn unending anathema. The
court that acquitted him would become
a hissing and a by-word. And the vic
tims of his disposition would bo martyr
types forevermore.
How about this ? Is the case unfairly
presented ? Labor unions do not own
the factories in which their members
work. They have no proprietary inter
est in the buildings upon which they
labor , or the materials with which they
toil. If they compel a proprietor to
close his shop , they offer him no com
pensation. If they command a man to
cease working they do not continue his
salary. If their edict results im empty
ing the larder , in depriving the children
of clothing or the wife of medicine , or
the husband of bread they give nothing
to replace it. They do not pretend to.
If the proprietor fails in business which
an operating factory would make profit
able they do not assume his obligations
nor satisfy his creditors.
I remember one building in this town
from which , while it was in the course
of construction , the workmen were
called. Its owners had leased floor after
floor of it , guaranteeing possession on a
certain day amply far in the future at
the time the lease was made. It stood
unfinished for mouths , and dragged to a
condition tolerably fit for occupancy j
weeks after the period named. The '
owners lost many tenants and thousands \
of dollars. They were sued by disappointed - j
pointed leaseholders and lost thousands
more in judgments ; for not even the
walking delegate would contend the
strike could be called "an act of God , "
which alone would have been a suffi
cient defense. It is but a type of many.
As I think of it I do not know a combi
nation so strong , so effective , so hedged
about with a record of successes albeit
often stained with mad violence as is |
the labor union. I do not know a power j
so irresponsible in all the economy of '
the age. I do not know another set of
men who can command so arbitrary , j
and are burdened with so light a responsibility - >
sibility , as are the labor union leaders. '
And I cannot help wondering if we
have not sot an example for the trusts ,
for the combines and for the magnates.
It will bo a long day before they dare |
what we have dared daily for many j
years ; but have not they in some meas
ure taken warrant from our assumption
of power ? Is it a good thing , after all ,
for one man to dictate to another in
whom he is wholly uninterested , to
whom he is totally irresponsible ? And
have not we , in conjuring up this gem
of extra-legal authority , developed a
power which shall most grievously grind
us ? And is it quite fair for the unions
to have done this , seeing that as always
they evaded the punishment the action
invites ? They provoke the blow , then
see it fall most heavily , without ward
ing or defense , on the heads of those
who did neb initiate the trouble and
could not prevent it.
I am of opinion that the breadwinners
ners , the wage-earners , the industrial
armies in general , have suffered far more
from the unions than they are likely to
suffer from the trust.
A PHILOSOPHER.