Principles of Sound Organization

We now have a sufficient survey of the field to enable us to answer the question, How shall we organize so as not to fight the same old hopeless battle?

Proceeding from the knowledge that labor alone produces all wealth; that less and less of this, wealth comes to the working class. and more and more of it is plundered by the idle class or capitalist; that this is the result of the working class being stripped of the tool, machine, without which it cannot earn a living; and, finally, that the machine or tool has reached such a state of development that it can no longer be operated by the individual but needs the collective effort of many; proceeding from this knowledge, it is clear that the aim of all intelligent classconscious workingmen must be the overthrow of the system of private ownership in the tools of production because that system keeps them in wage slavery.

Proceeding from the further knowledge of the use made of the government by the capitalist class, and of the necessity that class is under to own the government, so as to enable it to uphold and prop up the capitalist system; proceeding from that knowledge, it is clear that the aim of all intelligent, classconscious workingmen must be to bring the government under the control of their own class, by joining and electing the American wing of the international Socialist party—the Socialist Labor Party of America, and thus establishing the Socialist Cooperative Republic.

But in the meantime, while moving toward that ideal, though necessary, goal, what to do? The thing cannot be accomplished in a day, nor does election come around every twenty-four hours. Is there nothing that we can do for ourselves between election and election? Yes”plenty.

When crowded, in argument, to the wall by us New Trade Unionists, by us of the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, your present, or old and “pure and simple” organizations, yield the point of ultimate aims; they grant the ultimate necessity of establishing Socialism; but they claim “the times are not yet ripe” for that; and, not yet being ripe, they lay emphasis upon the claim that the “pure and simple” union does the workers some good NOW by getting something NOW from the employers and from the capitalist parties. We are not “practical” they tell us; they are.

Let us test this theory on the spot. Here in New Bedford there is not yet a single New Trade Unionist organization in existence. The “pure and simple” trade union has had the field all to itself. All of you, whose wages are now HIGHER than they were five years ago, kindly raise a hand. All of you whose wages are now LOWER than five years ago, please raise a hand. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Not only does “pure and simpledom” shut off your hope of emancipation by affecting to think such a state of things is unreachable now, but in the meantime and RIGHT NOW, the “good” it does to you, the “something" it secures for you “from the employers and from the politicians” is lower wages.

That is what their “practicalness” amounts to in point of fact. Presently I shall show you that they prove “practical” only to the labor fakers who run them, and whom they put up with. No, no; years ago, before capitalism had reached its present development, a trade organization of labor could and did afford protection to the workers, even if, as the “pure and simple” union, it was wholly in the dark on the issue. That time is no more.

The New Trade Unionist knows that no one or two, or even half a dozen elections will place in the hands of the working class the government of the land; and New Trade Unionism, not only wishes to do something now for the workers, but it knows that the thing can be done, and how to do it.

“Pure and simple” or British trade unionism has done a double mischief to the workers. Besides leaving them in their present pitiable plight, it has caused many to fly off the handle and lose all trust in the power of trade organization. The best of these, those who have not become pessimistic and have not been wholly demoralized, see nothing to be done but voting right on election day—casting their vote straight for the SLP. This is a serious error. By thus giving over all participation in the industrial movement, they wholly disconnect themselves from the class struggle that is going on every day; and by putting off their whole activity to a single day in the year, election day, they become floaters in the air. I know several such. Without exception they are dreamy and flightly and unbalanced in their methods.

The utter impotence of “pure and simple” unionism today is born of causes that may be divided under two main heads.

One is the contempt in which the capitalist and ruling class holds the working people. In 1886, when instinct was, unconsciously to myself, leading me to look into the social problem, when as yet it was to me a confused and blurred interrogation mark, I associated wholly with capitalists. Expressions of contempt for the workers were common. One day I asked a set of then why they treated their men so hard, and had so poor an opinion of them. “They are ignorant, stupid and corrupt," was the answer, almost in chorus.

“What makes you think so?” I asked. “Have you met them all?”

“No,” was the reply, “we have not met them all individually, but we have had to deal with their leaders, and they are ignorant, stupid and corrupt. Surely these leaders must be the best among them, or they would not choose them.”

Now, let me illustrate. I understand that two days ago, in this city, Mr. Gompers went off at a tangent and shot off his mouth about me. What he said was too ridiculous for me to answer. You will have noticed that he simply gave what he wishes you to consider as his opinion; he furnished you no facts from which he drew it, so that you could judge for yourselves. He expected you to take him on faith. I shall not insult you by treating you likewise. Here are the facts on which my conclusion is based:

In the State of New York we have a labor law forbidding the working of railroad men more than 10 hours. The railroad companies disregarded the law. In Buffalo, the switchmen struck in 1892 to enforce the law; thereupon the Democratic governor, Mr. Flower, who had himself signed the law, sent the whole militia of the state into Buffalo to help the railroad capitalists break the law, incidentally to commit assault and battery with intent to kill, as they acflially did, upon the workingmen. Among our state Senators is one Jacob Cantor. This gentleman hastened to applaud Gov. Flower’s brutal violation of his oath of office to uphold the Constitution and the laws. Cantor applauded the act as a patriotic one in the defense of “law and order.”

At a subsequent campaign, this Cantor being a candidate for reelection, the New York Daily News, a capitalist paper of Cantor’s political complexion, published an autograph letter addressed to him and intended to be an endorsement of him by labor. This letter contained this passage among others: “If any one says you are not a friend of labor, he says what is not true.”

By whom was this letter written and by whom signed ?”by Mr. Samuel Gompers, “President of the American Federation of Labor.”

Whom are you hissing, Gompers or me?

Do you imagine that the consideration for that letter was merely the “love and affection” of Senator Cantor?

Again: The Republican party, likewise the Democratic, is a parry of the capitalist class; every mam who is posted knows that; the conduct of its presidents, governors, judges, congresses and legislatures can leave no doubt upon the subject. Likewise the free coinage of silver, or Populist party, was, while it lived, well known to be a party of capital; the conduct of its runners, the silver mine barons, who skin and then shoot down their miners, leaves no doubt upon that subject. But the two were deadly opposed: one wanted gold, the other silver. Notwithstanding these facts, a “labor leader” in New York City appeared at a recent campaign standing, not upon the Republican capitalist party platform only, not upon the Free-Silver capitalist party platform only, but on both; he performed the acrobatic feat of being simultaneously for gold and against silver, for silver against gold.

Who was that “labor leader” ? Mr. Samuel Gompers, “President of the American Federation of Labor.”

Again: In Washington there is a son of a certain labor leader with a government job. He is truly “non- partisan.”’ Democrats may go and Republicans may come, Republicans may go and Democrats may come, but he goeth not; the Democratic and the Republican capitalists may fight like cats and dogs, but on one thing they fraternize like cooing doves, to wit, to keep that son of a labor leader in office.

Who is the father of that son ? Mr. Samuel Gompers, “President of the A.F. of L.”

Again: You have here a “labor leader,” named Ross.

[Applause]

Unhappy men! Unhappy men! As well might you applaud the name of your executioner.

When I was here about three years ago I met him. He was all aglow with the project of a bill that he was going to see through your legislature, of which he was and is now a member. It was the anti-fines bill; that, thought he, was going to put an end to an infamous practice of the mill owners. I argued with him that it does not matter what the law is; the all important thing was, which is the class charged with enforcing it? So long as the capitalist class held the government, all such labor laws as he was straining for, were a snare and a delusion. What I said seemed to be Greek to him. He went ahead and the bill passed. And what happened? You continued to be fined after, as before; and when one of you sought to enforce the law, was he not arrested and imprisoned? And when another brought the lawbreaking mill owner, who continued to fine him, into court, did not the capitalist court decide in favor of the capitalist, and thus virtually annulled the law? And where was Mr. Ross all this time? In the Massachusetts Legislature. Do you imagine that his ignorance of what a capitalist government means, and of what its “labor laws” amount to, did not throw its shadow upon and color you in the capitalist’s estimation? Do you, furthermore, imagine that his sitting there in that legislature, a member of the majority party at that, and never once demanding the prompt impeachment of the court that rendered null that very law that he had worked to pass, do you imagine that while he plays such a complaisant role he is a credit to the working class?

No need of further illustrations. The ignorance, stupidity and corruption of the “pure and simple” labor leaders is such that the capitalist class despises you. The first prerequisite for success in a struggle is the respect of the enemy.

The other main cause of the present impotence of “pure and simple" unionism is that, through its ignoring the existing class distinctions, and its ignoring the close connection there is between wages and politics, it splits up at the ballot box among the parties of capital, and thus unites in upholding the system of capitalist exploitation.

Look at the recent miners’ strike; the men were shot down and the strike was lost; this happened in the very midst of a political campaign; and these miners, who could at any election capture the government, or at least, by polling a big vote against capitalism, announce their advance toward freedom, are seen to turn right around and vote back into power the very class that had just trampled upon them.

What prospect is there, in sight of such conduct, of the capitalists becoming gentler? Or of the union gaining for the men anything NOW except more wage reductions, enforced by bullets? None! The prospect of the miners and other workers doing the same thing over again, a prospect that is made all the surer if they allow themselves to be further led by the labor fakers whom the capitalists keep in pay, renders sure that capitalist outrages will be repeated, and further capitalist encroachments will follow.

Otherwise were it if the union, identifying politics and wages, voted against capitalism; if it struck at the ballot box against the wage system with the same solidarity that it demands for the strike in the shop.

Protected once a year by the guns of an increasing classconscious party of labor, the union could be a valuable fortification behind which to conduct the daily class struggle in the shops.

The increasing Socialist Labor Party vote alone would not quite give that temporary protection in the shop that such an increasing vote would afford if, in the shop also, the workers were intelligently organized, and honestly, because intelligently, led.

Without organization in the shop, the capitalist could outrage at least individuals.

Shop organization alone, unbacked by that political force that threatens the capitalist class with extinction, the working class, being the overwhelming majority, leaves the workers wholly unprotecteced.

But the shop organization that combines in its warfare the annually recurring cIassconscious ballot can stem capitalist encroachment from day to day.

The trade organization is impotent if built and conducted upon the impotent lines of ignorance and corruption. The trade organization is NOT impotent if built and conducted upon the lines of knowledge and honesty; if it understands the issue and steps into the arena fully equipped, not with the shield of the trade union only, but also with the sword of the Socialist ballot.

The essential principles of sound organization are, accordingly, these:

1st”A trade organization must be clear upon the fact that, not until it has overthrown the capitalist system of private ownership in the machinery of production, and made this the joint property of the people, thereby compelling everyone to work if he wants to live, is it at all possible for the workers to be safe.

2nd”A labor organization must be perfectly clear upon the fact that it cannot reach safety until it has wrenched the government from the clutches of the capitalist class; and that it cannot do that unless it votes, not for men but for principles, unless it votes into power its own class platform and program: the abolition of the wages system of slavery.

3rd”A labor organization must be perfectly clear upon the fact that politics are not, like religion, a private concern, any more than the wages and the hours of a workingman are his private concern. For the same reason that his wages and hours are the concern of his class, so is his politics. Politics is not separable from wages. For the same reason that the organization of labor dictates wages, hours, etc:, in the interest of the working class, for that same reason must it dictate politics also; and for the same reason that it execrates the scab in the shop, it must execrate the scab at the hustings.