The Screws Begin to Turn

To return to No. 1. He goes and sees the machine; finds it to be as represented; buys it; puts it up in his shop; picks out of his 10 men the five least active in the late strike; sets them to work at $2 a day as before; and full of bows and smirks, addresses the other five thus: “I am sorry I have no places for you; I believe in union principles and am paying the union scale to the five men I need; I don’t need you now; good bye. I hope I’ll see you again.” And he means this last as you will presently perceive.

What is the situation now? No. 1 pays, as before, $2 a day, but to only five men; these, with the aid of the machine, now produce twice as much as the 10 did before; their product is now $80 worth of wealth; as only $10 of this goes in wages, the capitalist has a profit of $70 a day, or 250 per cent more. He is moving fast toward his prince, duke or count son-in-law.

Now watch the men whom his machine displaced; their career throws quite some light on the whole question. Are they not “American citizens"? Is not this a “Republic with a Constitution"? Is anything else wanted to get a living? Watch them!

They go to No. 2 for a job; before they quite reach the place, the doors open and five of that concern are likewise thrown out upon the street. What happened there? The “individuality” of No. 2 yielded to the pressure of capitalist development. The purchase of the machine by No. 1 enabled him to produce so much more plentifully and cheaply; if No. 2 did not do likewise, he would be crowded out of the market by No. 1. No. 2, accordingly, also invested in a machine, with the result that five of his men are also thrown out.

These 10 unemployed proceed to No. 3, hoping for better luck there. But what sight is that that meets their astonished eyes? Not five men, as walked out of Nos. 1 and 2, but all No. 3’s 10 have landed on the street; and, what is more surprising yet to them, No. 3 himself is on the street, now reduced to the condition of a workingman along with his former employees. What is it that happened there? In this instance the “individuality” of No. 3 was crushed by capitalist development. The same reason that drove No. 2 to procure the machine rendered the machine indispensable to No. 3. But having, differently from his competitors Nos. 1 and 2, spent all his stealings from the workingmen, instead of saving up some, he is now unable to make the purchase; is, consequently, unable to produce as cheaply as they; is, consequently, driven into bankruptcy, and lands in the class of the proletariat, whose ranks are thus increased.

The now 21 unemployed proceed in their hunt for work, and make the round of the other mills. The previous experiences are repeated. Not only are there no jobs to be had, but everywhere workers are thrown out, if the employer got the machine; and if he did not, workers with their former employers, now ruined, join the army of the unemployed.

What happened in that industry happened in all others. Thus the ranks of the capitalist class are thinned out, and the class is made more powerful, while the ranks of the working class are swelled, and the class is made weaker. This is the process that explains how, on the one hand, your New Bedford mills become the property of ever fewer men; how, according to the census, their aggregate capital runs up to over $14,000,000; how, despite “bad times,” their profits run up to upwards of $1,300,000; how, on the other hand, your position becomes steadily more precarious.

No. 1’s men return to where they started from. Scab they will not. Uninformed upon the mechanism of capitalism, they know not what struck them; and they expect “better times,” just as so many equally uninformed workingmen are expecting today; in the meantime, thinking thereby to hasten the advent of the good times, No. 1’s men turn out the Republican’ party and turn in the Democratic, turn out the Democratic and turn in the Republican, just as our misled workingmen are now doing, not understanding that, whether they put in or out Republicans, Democrats, Protectionists or Free Traders, Goldbugs or Silverbugs, they are every time putting in the capitalist platform, upholding the social principle that throws them out of work or reduces their wages.

But endurance has its limits. The superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad for the Indiana Division, speaking, of course, from the capitalist standpoint, recently said: “Many solutions are being offered for the labor question; but there is just one and no more. It is this: Lay a silver dollar on the shelf, and at the end of a year you have a silver dollar left; lay a workingman on the shelf, and at the end of a month you have a skeleton left.”

“This,” said he, “is the solution of the labor problem.” In short, starve out the workers.

No. 1’s men finally reach that point. Finally that happens that few if any can resist. A man may stand starvation and resist the sight of starving wife and children; but if he has nor wherewith to buy medicine to save the life of a sick wife or clild, he loses all control. On the heels of starvation, sickness follow, and No. 1’s men throw to the wind all union principles. They are now ready to do anything to save their dear ones. Cap in hand, they appear before No. 1, the starch taken clean out of them during the period they “lay on the shelf.” They ask for work. They themselves offer to work for $1 a day.

And No. 1, the brother of labor, who but recently expressed devotion to the union, what of him? His eyes sparkle at “seeing again” the men he had thrown out, at their offer to work for less than the men now employed. His chest expands, and, grabbing them by the hand in a delirium of patriotic ecstasy, he says: “Welcome, my noble American citizens. I am proud to see you ready to work and earn an honest penny for your dear wives and darling children. I am delighted to notice that you are not, like so many others, too lazy to work. Let the American eagle screech in honor of your emancipation from the slavery of a rascally union. Let the American eagle wag his tail an extra wag in honor of your freedom from a dictatorial walking delegate. You are my long lost brothers. Go in, my $1-a-day brothers!””and he throws his former $2-a-day brothers heels over head upon the sidewalk.

When the late $2-a-day men have recovered from their surprise, they determine on war. But what sort of war? Watch them closely, and you may detect many a feature of your own in that mirror. “Have we not struck,” argue they, “and beaten this employer once before? If we strike again, we shall again beat him.” But the conditions have wholly changed.

In the first place, there were no unemployed skilled workers during that first strike; now there are; plenty of them, dumped upon the country, not out of the steerage of vessels from Europe, but by the native-born machine.

In the second place, that very machine has to such an extent eliminated skill that, while formerly only the unemployed in a certain trade could endanger the jobs of those at work in that trade, now the unemployed of all trades, virtually the whole army of the unemployed, bear down upon the employed in each. We know of quondam shoemakers taking the jobs of hatters, quondam hatters tailing the jobs of weavers, quondam weavers taking the jobs of cigarmakers, quondam cigarmakers taking the jobs of machinists, quondam farmhands taking the jobs of factory hands, etc., etc., so easy has it become to learn what now needs to be known of a trade.

In the third place, telegraph and railroad have made all of the unemployed easily accessible to the employer.

Finally, different from former days, the competitors have to a great extent consolidated. Here in New Bedford, for instance, the false appearance of competition between the mill owners is punctured by the fact that to a great extent seemingly “independent” mills are owned by one family, as is the case with the Pierce family.

Not, as at the first strike, with their flanks protected, but now wholly exposed through the existence of a vast army of hungry unemployed; not, as before, facing a divided enemy, but now faced by a consolidated mass of capitalist concerns, how different is now the situation of the strikers! The changed conditions brought about changed results; instead of victory, there is defeat; and we have had a long series of them. Either hunger drove the men back to work; or the unemployed took their places; or, if the capitalist was in a hurry, he fetched in the help of the strong arm of the government, now his government.